Transgression: a novel of love and war by James W. Nichol

Author:James W. Nichol [James W. Nichol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histoire
ISBN: 9780061782312
Published: 2009-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

FRANCE, 1945

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Adele boarded a train heading for Strasbourg. Manfred had told her that when he’d first been sent to France he’d been stationed there. It was on the doorstep to Germany. It seemed the logical place to go.

Through the window, Adele watched the city streets turn into muddy laneways and muddy laneways turn into green countryside. And Manfred was alive. He was alive.

Adele closed her eyes. She listened to the tracks clattering beneath her. Sunlight streamed in through the window, it warmed her face. Manfred was alive.

To Strasbourg, to Dresden, to Ringstrasse. That was Manfred’s street. He’d told her about it and about his family’s drafty apartment in an ancient stone building. The rooms had immensely high ceilings and deep casement windows where he’d curled up on cushions to read and to dream. He’d been happy growing up there, he’d said.

I’ll learn some German phrases, Adele thought to herself, I’ll walk through the streets of Dresden, I’ll find Ringstrasse. And in every shop along the way, I’ll ask, “Do you know where the Halder family lives?”

And what if he isn’t there? What if his German father, his Polish mother open the door with tears in their eyes? “Manfred is dead.”

Adele kept her eyes closed and willed that thought away. Manfred had escaped from Paris, and the war would be over soon. People hardly bothered to watch the lazy lines of bombers that continued to fill the sky. Everyone was feeling safe. She’d find work in Strasbourg. She’d wait the war out.

She concentrated on the sound of the train, the warmth of the sun. She dozed off and on.

“Do you know that we have changed the spelling?” Manfred’s voice was soft and close to her ear. “It is Strassburg now.” He spelled it out and shook his head and laughed, as if to say, Why is the world so mad?

Yes, the world was mad. And where were they? Lying in the long grass close together where no one could see them.

“It is illegal to wear a beret there. Too French. Francs have been outlawed, marks are the legal currency. It is forbidden to speak French in shops and schools and churches in Strassburg. You do not know this?”

“Nien,” Adele said, watching the play of light and shadow on his lovely face.

“We are re-Germanizing it. We have deported two hundred thousand mongrels into Vichy France. Only people with German ancestors, German blood, can stay. You see how clever we are?”

They were so close that Adele could feel his warm breath on her lips. His eyes overwhelmed her.

The train lurched, the wheels began to squeal. Adele woke up.

She was passing a factory that seemed to stretch out forever. All the windows were thrown open and for some inexplicable reason people were leaning out waving at her. She began to hear sustained blasts from factory horns and from shrill steam whistles. The town’s market square slowly appeared. People were running this way and that. They were hugging each other. Children raced toward the slowing train waving tiny flags.

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