Lecoat, Jenny - The Girl from the Channel Islands by Lecoat Jenny

Author:Lecoat, Jenny [Lecoat, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2020-11-13T18:25:26+00:00

SEVEN

It was a spring tide. The ocean had been dragged so far out of Belcroute bay that the shingle gave way to gleaming, rarely exposed sand at the water’s edge. Blurred, shadowy outlines of rocks could now be seen beneath the calm turquoise water. Like sharks, Hedy thought, lying in wait beneath the surface. The morning was hot and clear, but she shivered anyway. As if reading her mind, Kurt extended his arm and pulled her into his body a little tighter. With a sigh, she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.

It was the kind of day that summer tourists would have embraced just a few years ago. Then, there would have been women in swimsuits lounging on the magnolia sands around the corner in St. Brelade’s bay, and children splashing each other in the shallows. There would have been ice creams and blankets, and the air would have been pierced by excited shouts. Now, it was hard to find any sliver of coast free from mines and barbed wire. And these days, Hedy found it hard to look at such fortifications.

Since the night of Kurt’s revelations, she found many sights painful. High stone walls, bars on windows, the small train that ran along the front of St. Aubin’s bay to transport building materials. Children crying, people coughing. The hiss of a gas heater. Everything she saw and touched projected her into the horror. She saw the tiny square of sky through the vent in the boxcars used to transport them. She reeled back as the doors opened and the limp bodies were disgorged, smelled the shit on the floors and heard the clank of the door as the bolts sealed her inside. And she would think of her mama and papa, the same people who had cuddled and sung to her, washed her hands at the kitchen tap while she stood on a stool, and she couldn’t put the two halves together. How was it possible that this had happened to them? To anyone?

She had faked an illness for a week to stay home from work, knowing she couldn’t trust herself around the Germans. Kurt had waited for Doctor Maine outside the hospital and acquired a sick note for Hedy to give to the compound authorities, as well as a prescription for a small bottle of brandy. For six days she had lain on her bed, watching the sun appear and disappear in the skylight above, wondering if she, too, would die, not much caring either way. But on the sixth day she felt hungry, ate a little vegetable soup, and poured a bowl of water to wash herself all over, grateful for the sensation of the sponge against her skin. If she was the only one of her family left, she considered, she carried a responsibility now. She needed to stand up straight again, get a grip on herself. She forced herself to do some dishes, buy her rations—and even, the next week, return to work.

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