War Serenade

1. I See You-1

1

I See You

“Every once in a great while, you make eye contact with someone you have never seen before, and it’s as if you see into the other’s soul. The connection between you is so deep and so strong, you blindly accept with all that is true, although it’s beyond all logic and reason, that the person before you is as necessary to your existence as the very air you breathe.”

— Dad, 1960

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

27 July 1943

Her city of Pietermaritzburg was but a speck on the horizon as they bumped along toward the prisoner of war camp in the rugged two-seater jeep.

Iris shivered as she thought of tales of unspeakable horrors that caused the locals to give the square mile of flatlands a wide berth. They feared being haunted by the Boer War atrocities against the women and children who died in the concentration camp thirty-five years ago, before the Geneva Convention. At least now it was referred to as a “Prisoner of War” camp, which had less hideous connotations.

Iris swore the roads had not been tended since and thanked the lord that she sported a well-padded behind. But just this once. She didn’t want him to get carried away and add an inch or two for further comfort. She thought of Lena, her beloved Zulu surrogate mother, whose voluptuous ebony folds had given Iris comfort all her life, and though she wouldn’t change her for the world, she certainly didn’t want to inherit Lena’s large bum by osmosis.

She thought of Lena and her determination to teach Fourfeet, the gardener next door, how to read. The Sunday Times was Lena’s curriculum. She’d insisted he attend her school of one while she cleaned the kitchen. She’d patiently enunciate each word in preparation for Fourfeet’s lesson, and when she didn’t understand, she’d quiz Iris or her mother for explanation and pronunciation. Frankly, it kept them all on their toes and up to date on war news. Iris admired Lena’s inquisitive mind. What better way to learn yourself than to teach another? This morning the lesson read: “Palermo Falls! Allied Invasion of Sicily Inspires Coup d’etat Against Mussolini. RAF Bombs Kiel: Heaviest RAF Raid of War.” It was a hell of a mouthful for a Zulu who only learned English when she was twenty-five, and then just by paying attention.

When Iris reported for duty at the hospital that morning, she was mentally redesigning the dull volunteer uniform she wore—a dab of color here, a simple dart there—when she was cornered by a cheerless nurse who brought no softness to her hard profession.

“Doctor de Kleyn needs help at the POW camp today.”

“Can you ask somebody else?”

“You’re a volunteer, girly. You’ll do what you’re told.” She snorted. Iris was fascinated by the nurse’s thin nostrils flaring. “A real nurse should go, if you ask me,” the nurse grumbled.

Iris jumped at the chance, her eyes never leaving the nurse’s nose. “Good idea. You go.”

“He asked for you. Specifically.” The nostrils were now flapping faster than a Venus flytrap.

“Can’t they come here?” How hard could it be to bring them over, for gosh sakes? Who was in charge of logistics? And while she was making her suggestions, perhaps she’d also mention the simple little changes that would give their uniforms a little va-va-va-voom!

The disgusted look the nurse shot Iris required no verbal response. She whipped around, throwing words over her shoulder: “To nurse’s station so I can educate you. Someone has to.”

Hmm. This is your penance. Suck it up, Iris! Go to the bloody prisoner of war camp. Oh God, imagine if Gregg was in one of those? Then she relaxed. Knowing her brother, no matter where he was, he would be making them all laugh, planning game nights and tennis matches. She fathomed the war regardless of Lena’s headlines. Still, it felt so very far away.

Two hours later, she was in the jeep bound for the camp. Iris stood up, locking her hands around the bar on the dashboard. The doctor beside her was pleasant and easy on the eye, but she’d sworn off men. Since, well ... she didn’t want to see Julian today. Ever again, really.

She lifted her face to the early sun and felt its gentle morning rays warming her wind-brushed cheeks. If she was any smarter, she would have worn a hat to stop her blooming freckles from multiplying, which they were apt to do. She smelled wet grass and the dark, dank tang of thick, seldom trodden foliage. Every now and then she inhaled the pungent whiff of animal droppings. Not unpleasant, just African.

A long, curly, copper tendril slapped wildly at her cheek.

How she hated her hair! She’d painstakingly tamed and pinned the thick waves that hung to her waist to conform to the shoulder-length bob that was so fashionable in the grainy, black and white photographs from abroad.

The Sunday Times’ women’s section was her weekly and only reliable source of fashion information now that the smaller towns were off the fashion grid for runway shows. The pictures confirmed London’s elite were, luckily for Iris, exempt from the ravages of war. They continued to push fashion boundaries, and Iris lapped it up like milk to a rescued kitten. She pored over the cut, flow, patterns and nuances of hem length until her pencil came alive with her own whimsical designs. Grainy pictures transformed magically into a vivid color palette in her mind, then under her sharp pencil, taffeta, chiffon and silk were ruched, gathered and twisted, evolving into her unique and stunning creations.

She smiled as she thought of Lena and her friend Sofie’s disappointment when she began designing clothes for herself. Though she still made them each a dress every month with money she saved, she wore the most daring creations herself.

She caught the doctor smiling back as if her flash of teeth had been for his benefit. Men! They were by far the vainer s*x.

“This bloody hair!” she complained as another thick tendril covered her eyes for a second, but the feeling of fast wheels, wind and freedom outweighed the need to tame her wild tresses for the sake of fashion. Well, just for a moment.

Too soon, the jeep pulled up outside the brick building on her left, the hub for the army staff managing the camp, Iris surmised.

The smell on the opposite side of the road was overwhelming. She felt her face pucker in disgust as mud and feces fought for first place in her delicate nostrils. Two high fences were separated by a walkway, where a pair of soldiers holding dogs on tight leashes patrolled in opposite directions.

She looked from left to right and was jarred by the contrast. Neat, solid, brick normalcy on the left and make-do depravity on the right.

A four-foot coil of razor wire at the base and peak, both sides of each fence, made sure anybody trying to climb over would be cut to pieces after their first three-story hurdle. However, if they escaped that, dismemberment, courtesy of the Dobermans on the walkway, was a dead certainty. And if, by some miracle, they escaped those jaws, the second lethal fence would ensure they bled out before they landed outside the perimeter.

She shivered in the warmth. Her cursed imagination! She always had to take a vague thought to completion, like a design dreamed up, penciled, patterned, cut, sewn and debuted.

And what if they had protective clothing? That was absurd! The few men she saw inside the camp were in rags, and it was the middle of winter. Poor buggers must be freezing.

So, hypothetically, what if they made it out, then wanted to trek the fifty-odd miles to the port in Durban where they could miraculously stow away on a warship for four thousand nautical miles, back to Italy?

Thick foliage between Pietermaritzburg and Durban hid seven deadly South African snakes, killer bees, hungry lions, protective leopards, lethal spiders, charging rhino, angry elephant, crocodiles in excess of twenty feet, and Africa’s biggest killer, the hippopotamus. They all had a stake in the land between, and humans were the enemy. No! Armor couldn’t save the poor buggers. She sighed. So this giant, hellish cage Julian, the-man-in-charge, had constructed for them, might not be so bad after all.

She sniffed. Surely this stink hole, filled with khaki tents surrounded by moats—for the rain, she supposed—was in violation of the newly set Geneva standards? Perhaps there were so few captives, they could make do until the onslaught arrived and more modern latrines could be installed. Maybe the wind was just blowing the wrong way.

Oh, hell, what did she know about such things? Her stomach clenched, and she purposely looked at the “normal” side. Hmm. Pity one could never un-see human depravity.

She swallowed hard. I’ll be strong for you, Gregg. Please God, don’t let my brother be in one of these inhumane waste pits. She saw Gregg’s right eyebrow rise as it did when he was either amused or annoyed with his only sibling. Conjuring up his face was becoming harder, but here he was now, clear as the day he’d left them, and her heart calmed. But not for long. She remembered Lena’s lesson: “RAF Bombs Kiel: Heaviest RAF Raid of War.” Her brother and the likes of these prisoners were trying to kill each other, and her brother’s side was winning. Thank God. The war was closer, all of a sudden.

As the jeep’s engine cut off, she busied herself rearranging untamed hair and straightening her dull blue uniform.

A commotion beyond the razor fence erupted. A gaggle of ragged men emerged from the hundred or so tents. No wonder Venus-Flytrap-Nose thought Iris dumb as a shoe for wanting to bring the mountain to Mohammed. There were literally hundreds of them surging en masse toward her.

Her heart pounded a million miles a minute, and she was about to run away as fast as her legs could carry her, when she realized the charging masses weren’t even looking her way. She felt ever so slightly disappointed. See? She knew the volunteer’s uniform was dull, dull, dull!

She blushed deeply as she saw their deplorable state of neglect, and she was abysmally ashamed of how vain she was, to imagine these deprived ragamuffins would cause a stampede to get a better look at her!

She followed the men’s eyes upward. A shoeless prisoner climbed up the inside wire fence. His feet were bleeding. Not surprising. The deathly-sharp barbs wound around the thick wire and poked out at different angles, like haphazard one-inch nails.

The guy was by no means surefooted, so she guessed this was not a daily occurrence.

The tattered prisoners shouted from the ground. Iris imagined it was some sort of Italian encouragement as the man climbed higher. He seemed oblivious to the goings-on below.

A beefy guard shouted: “Get down now, man. You want us to shoot you?”

Several guards pointed guns at the prisoner, but the guy on the wire was either stupid, brave, blindly determined, or didn’t give a damn. Something important drove him ever upward.

As he reached the top, she wondered why the guards didn’t stop warning and start shooting, and she covered her ears in anticipation of the blasts.

She found she’d inched unwittingly nearer the perimeter and was close enough to see the face of the climber. There were lines on his cheeks where, in happier times, there might have been dimples.

His angular face changed from detachment to tenderness, and the ragged chorus of onlookers cried out.

She was aware the doctor was next to her when he shouted the interpretation in her ear: “Get the bird!” She was too absorbed to be impressed by his linguistic skills.

Then she saw it. A fat pigeon was caught in the barbed wire at the top of the high fence. By the scant frames of the malnourished prisoners, a plump pigeon over a hot fire would not go amiss. But a look of tenderness? The man must be starving!

A city girl through and through, Iris refused to think of the sweet little lamb or the cow with kind eyes, as she enjoyed the sumptuous dinner before her. “It’s just meat” often became her mealtime mantra. She refused to think about the living creatures sacrificed for her palate’s pleasure. Who, then, was she to judge this starving man bringing down a portly pigeon to roast over a fire?