The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [358]
“Where did you get hit?”
“Passchendaele. I was saved—I think—by prompt medical attention from Dorothy. Griselda was there. They’re in the Women’s Hospital in Endell Street now. So is Hedda. She’s an orderly. She saved my leg, Dorothy did.”
Katharina said he must be hungry. She went away to order beef tea, and soft bread, and a milk pudding. Charles/Karl sat on the sofa and looked at his wife and son. Basil said
“Elsie and Ann—and little Charles—have been such a comfort to us. As you can see. We have looked after them, as you asked.”
Charles/Karl could not say that by “looking after” he had supposed he meant setting Elsie up in a comfortable cottage, with an income. Basil said
“Elsie has been such a support to your mother. She has had a difficult time. Not to be compared, of course,” he added, still appalled by his son’s boniness and bald skin. He said “We must telephone the Women’s Hospital. Griselda is an orderly. She works very long hours, but she may be able to come home. She must, at least, know—”
Charles/Karl stroked his son’s hair with shaking fingers. His son smiled, pleasantly. Charles/Karl did not feel steady enough to take the baby. Elsie leaned over him and kissed his hair and kissed his hand in small Charles’s hair. She said “Your people have been unimaginably good to me. And Ann. Ann, come over and say—welcome back—to—to—”
Ann came over and looked at him, and said
“Have you been in prison?”
“I was. There was no food. The guards had next to no food. Everyone is starving.”
He could not describe the unspeakable. He said he had been burned in an explosion, whilst carrying a German soldier on a stretcher in No Man’s Land. The soldier and Charles/Karl’s companions had been killed. He had been picked up by some German soldiers—Bavarians, who had looked after him because he spoke German. He hesitated. He could not begin to describe the foul journey, the deaths and the dead. He said
“I ended up in Munich. There was no food and men were deserting, a few at a time and then all together. I walked to the Pension Susskind. Joachim and his sister were there. They fed me. They found a doctor. They …”
He was about to weep.
Ann said “It will be better now.”
Charles/Karl looked across at Philip, who looked darkly back. Basil said “We must telephone the Women’s Hospital. We must tell Griselda.”
Griselda was registering the visitors for the medical wards.
“Next please,” she said, to the line of tense, anxious and fearful visitors, mainly women, carrying bunches of flowers and boxes of cakes. Next, this time, was a man, a tall, dark, thin man, in a caped overcoat too heavy for the summer weather, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, pulled down so that his face was in shadow.
“Your name, please. Who have you come to see?”
“You, I think,” said the visitor. He said, in a low voice, “I am a runaway, an escaped patient. I want to see you and Dorothy before they lock me up again.”
Griselda looked into the shadow under the hat. The queue of women was stolid and anxious.
“I am a prisoner in Alexandra Palace. There I had influenza and pleurisy so they sent me to the hospital at Millbank. The war is over, but we may not go home until they finish signing the peace. I have stolen these clothes. Friends—prisoners—had a story of a Valkyrie on the battlefield, asking after Wolfgang Stern …”
Griselda was speechless. Wolfgang said “I can sit and wait for you?”
“You’d better sit. You look unsteady.”
“Oh, I am, I am. I may faint at any moment. Then you would have to admit me, which I should… ” Dorothy came hurrying. “Griselda—a shock—”
“I know. He’s here.”
Dorothy looked rapidly round.
“He isn’t here. He’s in Portman Square.” Griselda nodded in the direction of Wolfgang, hiding in his hat. “There—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your brother is in Portman Square. He’s alive. He was in Munich. He made his way home.” Griselda trembled.
“And your brother is here under that hat. He escaped. He was in the hospital at Millbank—”
Wolfgang stood up, began to shake and sat down again, grinning weakly.
“Find