16th June, 1946
Dear Sidney,
How comforting it was to hear you say “God damn, oh God damn.” That’s the only honest thing to say, isn’t it? Elizabeth’s death is an abomination and it will never be anything else.
It’s odd, I suppose, to mourn so for someone you’ve never met. But I do. I have felt Elizabeth’s presence all along; she lingers in every room I enter, not just in the cottage, but in Amelia’s library, which she stocked with books, and Isola’s kitchen, where she stirred up potions. Everyone always speaks of her—even now—in the present tense, and I had convinced myself that she would return. I wanted so much to know her.
It’s worse for everyone else. When I saw Eben yesterday, he seemed older than ever before. I’m glad he has Eli by him. Isola has disappeared. Amelia says not to worry; she does that when she’s sick at heart.
Dawsey and Amelia have decided to go to Louviers to try to persuade Mlle. Giraud to come to Guernsey. There was a heartrending moment in her letter—Elizabeth used to help her go to sleep in the camp by planning their future in Guernsey. She said it sounded like Heaven. The poor girl is due for some Heaven; she has already been through Hell.
I am to take care of Kit while they are gone. I am so sad for her—she will never know her mother—except by hearsay. I wonder about her future, too, as she is now—officially—an orphan. Mr. Dilwyn told me there is plenty of time to make a decision. “Let us leave well enough alone at the moment.” He doesn’t sound like any other banker or trustee I’ve ever heard of, bless his heart.
All my love,
17th June, 1946
Dear Mark,
I’m sorry that our conversation ended badly last night. It’s very difficult to convey shades of meaning while roaring into the telephone. It’s true—I don’t want you to come this weekend. But it has nothing whatever to do with you. My friends have just been dealt a terrible blow. Elizabeth was the center of the circle here, and the news of her death has shaken us all. How strange—when I picture you reading that sentence, I see you wondering why this woman’s death has anything to do with me or you or your plans for the weekend. It does. I feel as though I’d lost someone very close to me. I am in mourning.
Do you understand a little better now?
Yours,
21st June, 1946
Miss Juliet Ashton
Grand Manoir, Cottage
La Bouvee
St. Martin’s, Guernsey
Dear Juliet,
We are here in Louviers, though we have not been to see Remy yet. The trip has tired Amelia very much and she wants to rest for a night before we go to the hospice.
It was a direful journey across Normandy. Piles of blasted stone walls and twisted metal line the roads in towns. There are big gaps between buildings, and the ones left look like black, broken-off teeth. Whole fronts of houses are gone and you can see in, to the flowered wallpaper and the tilted bedsteads clinging somehow to the floors. I know now how fortunate Guernsey really was in the war.
Many people are still in the streets, hauling away bricks and stone in wheelbarrows and carts. They’ve made roads of heavy wire netting placed over rubble, and tractors are moving along them. Outside the towns are ruined fields with huge craters and torn-up land and hedges.
It is grievous to see the trees. No big poplars, elms, and chestnuts— what’s left is pitiful, charred black, and stunted—sticks without shade.
Mr. Piaget, the innkeeper here, told us that the German engineers ordered hundreds of soldiers to chop down trees—whole woods and coppices. Then they stripped off the branches, smeared the trunks with creosote, and stuck them upright in holes they had dug in the fields. The trees were called Rommel’s Asparagus and were meant to keep Allied gliders from landing and soldiers from parachuting.
Amelia went to bed right after supper, so I walked through Louviers. The town is pretty in spots, though much of it was bombed and the Germans set fire to it when they retreated. I cannot see how it will become a living town again.
I came back and sat on the terrace till full dark, thinking about tomorrow.
Give Kit a hug from me.
Yours ever,
23rd June, 1946
Dear Juliet,
We met Remy yesterday. I felt unequal somehow to meeting her. But not, thank Heavens, Dawsey. He calmly pulled up lawn chairs, sat us down under a shade tree, and asked a nurse if we could have tea.
I wanted Remy to like us, to feel safe with us. I wanted to learn more about Elizabeth, but I was frightened of Remy’s fragility and Sister Touvier’s admonitions. Remy is very small and is far too thin. Her dark curly hair is cut close to her head, and her eyes are enormous and haunted. You can see that she was a beauty in better times, but now—she is like glass. Her hands tremble a good deal, and she is careful to hold them down in her lap. She welcomed us as much as she was able, but she was very reserved until she asked about Kit—had she gone on to Sir Ambrose in London?
Dawsey told her of Sir Ambrose’s death and how we are raising Kit. He showed her the photograph of you and Kit that he carries. She smiled then and said, “She is Elizabeth’s child. Is she strong?” I couldn’t speak, thinking of our lost Elizabeth, but Dawsey said yes, very strong, and told her about Kit’s passion for ferrets. That made her smile again.
Remy is alone in the world. Her father died long before the war; in 1943, her mother was sent to Drancy for harboring enemies of the government and later died in Auschwitz. Remy’s two brothers are missing; she thought she saw one of them in a German train station as she was on her way to Ravensbruck, but he did not turn when she screamed his name. The other she has not seen since 1941. She believes that they, too, must be dead. I was glad Dawsey had the courage to ask her questions—Remy seemed to find relief in speaking of her family.
I finally broached the subject of Remy coming to stay awhile with me in Guernsey. She grew reserved again and explained that she was going to leave the hospice very soon. The French government is offering pensions to concentration-camp survivors: for time lost in camps, for permanent injuries, and for recognition of suffering. They also give a small stipend to those who wish to resume their education.
In addition to the government stipend, the Association Nationale des Anciennes Deportees et Internees de la Resistance will help Remy pay the rent of a room or share a flat with other survivors, so she has decided to go to Paris and seek an apprenticeship in a bakery.
She was adamant about her plans, so I left the matter there, but I don’t believe Dawsey is willing to do so. He thinks that sheltering Remy is a moral debt we owe to Elizabeth—perhaps he is right, or perhaps it is simply a way to relieve our sense of helplessness. In any case, he has arranged to go back tomorrow and take Remy for a walk along the canal and to visit a certain patisserie he saw in Louviers. Sometimes, I wonder where our old, shy
