Nine

Until that moment when Rebecka told him about the death of their daughter, David had not thought of home.

Unconsciously, he’d decided to suppress such thoughts, as they would have hurt far more than his ankle ever could.

*   *   *

David sits alone at the kitchen table, staring out of the window. Vaguely he notices smoke from a bonfire in the farmyard, then he hears shouting outside.

They are arguing again, but this time Benjamin is involved, too.

Suddenly, Benjamin is back in the kitchen.

“Mr. Thompson,” he says breathlessly, “my father is burning your things.”

David almost jumps from the chair.

“What?” he cries. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know. He won’t make sense.”

“I must stop him. Will you help me?”

Benjamin nods and becomes a crutch on David’s right side. Together, they hobble out of the kitchen and into the farmyard, where Erik has an old oil drum with the end cut off. Gray smoke broils from inside, in thick choking clouds.

David is too late, Erik is poking the last of David’s uniform into the drum with a hefty wooden stick.

Skilla runs around, barking.

David’s heart is pounding.

“What on earth are you doing? What gives you the right to do that? Stop it!”

Without waiting, and heedless of the pain in his ankle, he lunges at the barrel, knocking it flying, and sending smoke and spits of fire across the mud of the yard. He sees what he feared was in there, and grabs his smoldering flying jacket.

Sinking to his knees, he bats at the burning leather, frantically hunting through the pockets.

“Right?” shouts Erik. “It is not a question of right. It is a question of sense. There are soldiers coming. I heard it in the village today. They have been on the other islands, to the south, hunting for men like you.”

David hears him but ignores him, and ignores the burns he’s inflicting on himself, as he turns his jacket inside out, searching for something as if his life depends on it.

Finally, he finds what he is looking for, drops the jacket on the ground, and sits back, speechless.

It had seemed so unreal here, like a dream, in this little idyllic haven, away from the war. But Erik was right after all. The war has come back to find him, to the very doorstep of the island.

Soldiers are coming.

“And if they come here, there must be no trace,” Erik says. “Of you.”

He sets the barrel upright again, and with the stick fishes everything back off the ground and inside.

He pulls matches from his pocket and sets it all alight again, and this time, David makes no effort to stop him. He sits on the ground, clutching something tightly to his chest.

He is trembling.

“What do you have there?” Erik asks roughly. “Everything of yours must be burned.”

David does not answer.

“Do you hear me?” shouts Erik. “Everything!”

He makes to grab at whatever is in David’s hands, but David pulls away and they begin to fight, wrestling on the ground.

“No!” screams Rebecka. “Stop it!”

Benjamin loiters, unsure what to do. Skilla barks.

“No,” cries Rebecka again.

The men do not listen to her, but it is over soon. Erik is stronger than David, and the airman is injured after all.

Erik stands, grimly about to cast the object into the flames when he stops.

He looks at it. It is a wallet, a simple one that folds in half.

Erik opens it, looks for a long time, then slowly closes it again.

He holds it in the air for a moment, his arm outstretched, as if thinking, and then he drops it at David’s feet, and walks away, into the farmhouse.

Rebecka approaches. She sees what her husband saw.

The wallet has flopped open, and inside is a photograph.

She kneels beside David, who picks the wallet up and shows her the photograph.

It’s a portrait, of three people. One of them is David, in his uniform. He has his arm around a pretty woman; his wife. Standing in front of them, her head tilted to one side, and a smile on her face, is their daughter.

Rebecka takes the photograph, and David lets her.

“What is her name?” she asks quietly.

“My daughter?” David asks.

She nods.

“Merle. Her name is Merle.”