“Iris,” I say, sounding out the name that still feels foreign on my tongue. It’s been a while since I’ve been Iris and not Angelique or Carmen or Éve. I’m not even sure if I am Iris anymore. In truth, I don’t know who I am…beyond Anna’s mother.
Mark pulls out a newspaper, and my brain goes into agent mode as I automatically catalogue his features: dark-brown hair slicked back, straight nose, lips that are slightly thinner than Johann’s were, an old scar bisecting his right eyebrow.
I stare out the window, my body tense as if expecting the Gestapo or SS to board the train and demand my papers.
I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. The Germans cannot hurt me anymore.
I repeat my new mantra the entire train ride to Bristol as Anna and I watch fields pass us. The war has impacted England with the bombings and rations, but the hope that burns in this country is brighter than the embers that smoulder in France. The English haven’t faced occupation. Their food hasn’t been stolen to feed German troops and the German populace. They haven’t witnessed friends and family dragged away to labour camps or concentration camps or to be executed.
But even so, the death and damage the Luftwaffe has levelled on London and the rest of the country is devastating. My heart breaks for the thousandth time, after returning to this side of the English Channel, at what the war has cost everyone.
An hour into the journey, Anna’s eyelids grow heavy, and she falls asleep in my arms. I tenderly kiss her brow and let my thoughts drift to the war I left behind in France, drift to my memories of Johann. Of when he and Dieter first arrived at Jacques’s farmhouse with the notice that Johann would be billeting there. Of when he told me about his sister. Of all those times he was kind to me. Of Oskar and Margrit and Sonja. Of the first time he and I kissed. Of the first time we made love. I then replay in my head all the other times we made love, which was by far not enough of them. And I replay the memory of the first time he saw and held his daughter.
His memory keeps me company for the remainder of the trip as I continue staring out the window at the fields scarred with signs of the war.
* * *
“Do you live in Bristol?”Mark asks me as the train approaches the city. This is the first time he has spoken to me since the train left Paddington station. He was busy reading his newspaper the entire way.
“My sister and her husband do,” I say as we pass the rows of brick houses near the tracks, and I try not to think about how many homeowners’ lives have been changed since the beginning of the war.
“You and your daughter are here for a visit, then?” Mark’s tone is casual, friendly. It’s nothing like the tone I faced during my debriefing or when Captain Krüger and Christian interrogated me.
I turn my head to catch him gazing at my sleeping daughter. “I’m not sure yet.” It depends if Hazel wants to see me again. “What about you? Do you live in Bristol or are you visiting family?” I don’t really care. I am only asking to be polite.
He looks out of the window, but not before I catch the grief in his expression. “I’m just here to tie up my family’s affairs.”
I nod and pray he doesn’t ask me any more questions. He doesn’t. He also doesn’t enquire over Anna’s father, and for that I am grateful. I am not ready to begin lying yet about Johann.
I never answered that question at the hospital about who her father was. Lieutenant Vera Atkins and Coronel Maurice Buckmaster knew. The captain who debriefed me knew. As for everyone else, even if I hadn’t signed the Official Secrets Act, they haven’t earned the right or my trust to hear the truth.
Maybe when the war is nothing more than a chapter in a schoolbook and the act that I signed is a distant memory, no longer needing to be abided by, I will be more open about who Anna’s father is—as long as it doesn’t hurt her. But until then, it’s a secret I have to bear alone.
The train pulls into the station. Mark tugs my bag down from the luggage compartment above my head and helps me off the train. I thank him.
“Are you taking a taxi somewhere?” he asks. “I can carry your bag to the taxi stand if you would like.”
A polite smile curves my mouth. “Thank you. That’s nice of you to offer.”
He helps me to the taxi stand and into the next available car. I thank him and tell the driver Hazel and Charles’s address.
The driver’s brow creases into a frown. “Are you sure that’s the address you want, ma’am?”
I nod. “Yes, thank you.”
“All right?” The word is drawn out in what sounds more like a question than a note of agreement.
He travels through the city that has changed so much since I was last here. Mounds of rubble replace buildings that were once homes and businesses. An icy chill invades my body the closer we get to Hazel and Charles’s neighbourhood.
We drive down a street to find a row of semi-detached houses in various degrees of wholeness. Some are still standing, others half destroyed. Dread fills my belly.
The taxi steers left onto Hazel’s street, and I gasp.
“Oh, God.” The words might have been whispered. I don’t know. My pulse is pounding loudly in my ears, and I can barely breathe.
He drives around a small crater and parks in front of the address I gave him. The building remains standing, but it has also taken a hit.
“Are you sure you want to get out here?” the taxi driver asks, sounding rather doubtful.
