Pim glanced at Laura. For a second she wondered whether Pim was displeased to see her. Her expression went strange. But then she smiled, got up, and hurried over, a hand outstretched. “Laura! I thought you went back to Couthove hours ago, my dear; I am so glad to see you.”
Gage was looking at Pim with an intent expression. Was he in love with her too? But she thought she detected some disquiet there as well. Laura didn’t understand. Young said, “Here’s a surprise for you, Mrs. Shaw. I found your friend coming up the street—such a coincidence—I knew you’d be glad to see her.”
“Indeed I am,” said Pim, smiling.
A glass of wine appeared and Laura sipped gratefully. It was a solid step above the one-franc variety sold in the estaminets.
“I had such a lovely day,” Pim was saying. “We went riding, and then the lieutenant showed me how to use a pistol— Oh, I was so frightened, but it was quite easy, really. And there’s other news—General Gage is going to pay Mary a high compliment.”
Laura wasn’t particularly interested in Gage’s compliment.Did you go try to find Faland’s hotel?Laura could not ask in company.Are you going to?
She couldn’t ask right then, so between sips Laura gathered that the complimentwasa high one: Elizabeth, none other than the queen of Belgium, was hoping to visit a hospital, wearing a nurse’s uniform, accompanied by photographers. Pim had suggested Couthove. Probably, Laura thought cynically, because the fine atmospherics of a ward in a ruined ballroom made an appealing backdrop for photographs. Certainly there was nothing picturesque about the sheds and tents of nearby Mendinghem.
Gage was smiling. He was going to accompany the queen, if he could get away. He would be delighted. Enchanted. He proceeded to pay Pim, and Laura and Couthove, a dazzling run of well-phrased compliments. Why did he look so ill at ease?
Laura did not think the queen’s visit a fine idea. A royal visit would mean the routine of the hospital thrown into disarray. It meant scrubbing and laundry, and tucking men into sheets withouta wrinkle and ordering them not to move, not to groan, and if possible, not to bleed or look ghastly or smell. “I am sure Mary will be delighted,” Laura said. She got her glass refilled. Marywouldbe delighted. She’d invite a pet newspaperman and use the whole event to winkle more donations out of people.
Pim touched Laura’s arm comfortingly, as though she understood.
Dinner was served. It wasn’t luxurious, but there was chicken, there was butter, there were eggs. Laura’s wine quivered with the impact of some distant explosion. She tried not to imagine what was happening further up, while they ate and drank and talked. Tension in Pim’s spine, in her face, in her hand on the glass. But still she charmed both Gage and Young, smiling, listening. The evening was warm; the long front window was open. There was a lull in the conversation. In the brief silence, Laura heard the sounds of men and raucous laughter on the street below.
The melody of a single violin filtered, lonely and insistent, through the night.
Laura almost spilled her wine; without hesitation, Pim pushed back her chair, right in the middle of one of Gage’s well-turned anecdotes. She hurried to the window, leaving him sputtering. Laura collected herself with vague excuses and hastened to follow.
There was no violinist out in the street, but there was a great number of men. More than usual? The music wound between them, a shining thread of sound.
Pim stood perfectly still.
The music shifted. A high terrible sound shot from the strings, and somewhere beyond the reach of the lights, Laura heard glass breaking. Beside her, Pim stood rigid.
A man sprinted across the square as a voice shouted “Halt!”There was another crash of glass. A crowd, shoving, had formed in the square. Laughing, breaking things. Laura thought she saw the shine of tears on one man’s face. Whistles, bellowing, came from those trying to reestablish order, but to no avail. The whole scene had dissolved into chaos. Laura couldn’t hear the violin anymore,but it didn’t matter, somehow the melody echoed still in the sounds of riot. As though the violin had breathed madness into their minds or perhaps simply reminded them that some men ate roast chicken while others died, that the burdens of the war were unequal, and always had been. Someone was trying to lead Laura and Pim away from the window.
And then Laura saw—or thought she saw—a head of ash-colored hair, thin shoulders in a civilian suit, caught in a gleam, then gone in the gloom.
Suddenly Pim was gone from her side, breaking free of the solicitous officers, running down the stairs. Laura was turning to follow, when she faltered. Outside, on the square, stood her eyeless ghost, face turned up, the scarlet pits fastened on Laura.
Laura swore. At herself, or her ghost, or at Pim, she didn’t know. Then she ran. Someone below was calling her name.
It was Young. Laura joined him at the bottom of the stairs. He said, “Miss Iven, you must stay here, I’ll go get her—you must calm yourself.”
Pim had gone outside, then. Laura turned toward the door. Young, behind her, protested, but Madame’s warning was clear in Laura’s mind. She pushed her way out into the chaos. Did Young follow? She didn’t see. Three steps and she knew she’d made a mistake, underestimated the crowd, overestimated her own strength. The mob was like a riptide now, its noise like water on rock. Somewhere in its clamor, still, she seemed to hear the echo of Faland’s music. Laura’s eyes struggled to adjust. Pools of light, violently bright, gave way to thick shadows. A man knocked her sideways, but she hardly felt the jar, her mind alight with adrenaline.
And then her mother’s bleeding ghost was right in front of her.She bit off a scream, afraid for her sanity. Or was she hoping for absolution? There was nothing, again, but that pointing finger. Following the line of it, Laura saw neither Pim nor Faland nor Freddie but a man, a stranger, crouching in a doorway, watching the madness with startlingly blue eyes.
Then her leg betrayed her. It folded, cramping, and Laura fell,and for a second she was pummeled under a hundred heedless boots, rolled in oily dust.
And then a shoulder was there, a body, creating space. An unfamiliar hand reached and seized her, yanked her, gasping, to her feet, hauled her back into the shallow shelter of a doorway. A voice said, “Are you all right?”
Her lip was split and bleeding. Her body was bruised everywhere. The light was behind her savior. “Thank you,” she said, panting, and then stilled. He had a big-boned face, stubbled with beard like sand, hair a shade darker, as though the sand had got wet. He was a big-framed man, wasted thin. His face was stoic, his expression watchful.
The sleeve of his coat was empty.
Kate’s words and Young’s jostled for room in her mind:A German spy, escaped. He brought news of your brother. He didn’t think that Freddie was dead. I believed him. I believed him.
He couldn’t possibly be here, brazenly walking the streets of Poperinghe, with half the British Army running mad through the street. And yet…Laura had not time to think of what that pointing finger had meant. He was saying “Better stay here, miss,” and turning to go. She caught his empty sleeve.
“Are you called Winter?”
