Mark Mills - The Information Officer
“God …,” he said, pathetically.
“What God?” Lilian replied.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? It doesn’t make sense, not Caterina.”
“It’s not meant to make sense.”
There was a short silence before she spoke. “I want to see you.”
“That’s lucky. I want to see you too.”
“Can you come to Mdina?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes—Luftwaffe permitting.”
Ena, the younger of Lilian’s two cousins, answered the door to Max. He could see from her eyes that she’d been crying.
“They’re in the garden,” she said simply, taking him by the hand and leading him there in silence.
They were seated at a tin table in the shade of an orange tree: Lilian, her aunt Teresa, and Ralph. It was a surprise to see Ralph there, and Max experienced a momentary twinge of jealousy.
“I saw Squadron Leader Tindle in the street and told him about Caterina,” Teresa explained. Like Lilian, she was dressed in black.
“I was just leaving,” said Ralph, stubbing out his cigarette and getting to his feet. “My sincere condolences again.” He graced both women with something between a nod and a bow.
“Lilian …,” Teresa prompted.
“No, stay,” said Ralph. “I’m sure Max will see me out.”
The tall glazed doors at the back of the palace were crisscrossed with tape, and as two men entered the building, Ralph said, “Bad blow for them. Caterina was a great girl.”
“You knew her?”
“Only to ogle. She used to come to the Point de Vue every now and then.”
The Point de Vue Hotel stood on the south side of the Saqqajja, the leafy square separating Mdina and Rabat. Like the Xara Palace, the hotel had been requisitioned by the RAF as a billet for pilots stationed at Ta’ Qali. The hotel barman was known for his John Collinses, the bar itself for the local girls who were drawn there come nightfall, like moths to a candle flame. For some reason the pilots called these flirtatious encounters “poodle-faking.” Well, that had all stopped the month before, when the Point de Vue had taken a direct hit during an afternoon raid, killing six.
“That place is cursed. When I think of the times we had there, and those who are gone …”
It wasn’t like Ralph to come over all maudlin—breeziness was his stock-in-trade—and Max wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Thanks for last night” was the best he could come up with.
“Might be a while before we get to do it again. Had a summons from the CO this morning, and the fly-in’s definitely set for the ninth.”
“Three days …”
“Believe me, I’m counting. He passed me fit to fly Spits again.”
“Congratulations.”
“It’s going to be one hell of a scrap. That bastard Kesselring’s going to throw everything he’s got at us.”
“But this time you’re ready. I saw the new blast pens when I passed by Ta’ Qali.”
“What counts is up there,” said Ralph, nodding heavenward. “If the new Spits really do have four cannons and are faster in the climb, we stand a chance. Who knows, we might even bloody their noses. We’d better, or it’s all over.”
“You think?”
“I know. This is it—the last roll of the dice.”
Max paused in the hallway at the front door.
“When we’re old and sitting in a pub somewhere, I’m going to remind you of this conversation.”
Ralph smiled weakly. “Tell me more about the pub.”
“It’s at the end of a long track, and there’s a river, with trout, and a garden running down to the water. It’s summer and the sun is shining, and there’s a weeping willow near the jetty where our grandchildren are playing. They’re naked, jumping off the jetty, flapping around in the river, splashing the people drifting past in punts.”
Ralph gave a sudden loud laugh. “Damn your detractors. Now I know why you got the job.”
“What detractors?”
“Come on, you’re at least ten years too young for the post.”
“I forgot to mention … at the pub, you’re in a wheelchair. You lost both legs when you got shot down over Malta in May 1942.”
Ralph laughed some more as he pulled open the front door. After the cool of the palace and its shaded garden the heat in Bastion Square hit them like a hammer.
“She’s a great girl, Max, war or no war. She’s the real thing.”
“She’s just a friend.”
“Then you’re a bloody fool.”
“If you say so.”
“Hugh says so too.”
“Hugh?”
“And Freddie.”
He knew Freddie was a fan of Lilian’s. The three of them had spent a raucous evening together at Captain Caruana’s bar in Valetta a few weeks back. He struggled to recall when Hugh had ever set eyes on her.
“Now go in there and look after her. She needs it.”
Lilian didn’t appear particularly needy. She sat there silent and grim-faced while he made the right noises, and the moment Teresa withdrew, leaving them alone together, she suggested that they head for Boschetto Gardens. Actually, it was more of a command than a suggestion, and there was something wild and reckless in her eyes when she issued it.
“On the motorcycle?”
Until now, she had always refused to be seen with him on the motorcycle.
“Well, I’m not walking there in this heat.”
It was a short trip, a few miles at most along the ridge toward the coast. He took it slowly, savoring the experience.
Lilian rode sidesaddle because of her skirt, and as Rabat fell away behind them, she shifted closer on the seat, holding him around the waist just that little bit tighter.
She was a good pillion passenger, not fighting the curves in the road, leaning with him.
“You’ve done this before,” he called over his shoulder.
“I’ve never done what I’m about to do.”
“And what’s that?” he asked, turning to look her in the eye.
“I think it’s a goat,” she replied calmly.
They missed the emaciated creature by a matter of inches.
It would have been a pity to kill it, a survivor like that. Most had gone the way of the pot long before now.
Boschetto Gardens offered the only genuine patch of woodland on Malta—a rare glimpse of what the island must have looked like long ago, before it was stripped of trees by early shipbuilders. Max had walked its weaving pathways a handful of times, often with Ralph, who loved to go there to paint. It was a tranquil, sun-dappled world where dark pines towered over groves of lemon, orange, and olive trees. There was an ancient atmosphere about the place, a whiff of dusty fables by classical authors you’d heard of but never read.
“I half expect a unicorn to come trotting round the corner any moment.”
They were making their way along a shaded path lined with ivy-threaded walls.
“Or Pan,” replied Lilian.
“I’ve never liked Pan.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sorry, he’s too creepy.”
“But he’s the god of music and nature and love.”
“Exactly, so why’s he got goat legs?”
He told her about The Wind in the Willows, and the bizarre chapter in the book where Pan helps Rat and Mole locate Otter’s lost son.
She liked the sound of the book, especially Toad, and he promised to send her a copy of it when he got home.
Maybe it was the mention of home, but she grew silent before asking, “It is going to end, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. And one day Germans will come here in peace and walk this path and admire this view.” He spread his hands before him.
“I hate them.”
It was said in a calm, low voice, and was all the more menacing for it.
“They’re only doing their job. It doesn’t mean they enjoy it, or even that they agree with it.”
“How can you be so reasonable? You’ve lost friends too.”
She sounded almost angry with him, and maybe she was, but he also sensed she was searching for answers she hoped he might hold. He didn’t have any to offer her, though. What could he say? Ivor, Wilf, Delia, Dicky … they had all died defending a cause in which they believed, for which they’d been ready to fight. That was his consolation. Caterina, on the other hand, had been obliterated while watching from the sidelines—an innocent bystander caught in the cross fire.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t.” He stopped on the pathway, staring down at his dusty desert boots before looking up into her lambent brown eyes. “But I know that being unreasonable doesn’t help. It doesn’t do justice to those who have died. It doesn’t honor them. They’re the ones who matter, not the man—the boy, most likely—who pulled the lever or pressed the button or did whatever he was ordered to do. I doubt he’s so very different from the rest of us, just happy to be alive and eager for it all to end.”
She weighed his words awhile.
“So who do I blame? I have to blame someone.”
“Try the politicians—the idiots who dragged us into this mess in the first place. I find that works best.”
Not long after, she led him off the path, through the trees, until they found themselves in a small glade. When she sat herself down at the base of a gnarled old olive tree, he followed suit, remembering what she had said on the motorcycle about doing something she’d never done before.
“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.
“You don’t smoke.”
“But I want to try.”
He lit two cigarettes and handed her one, amused by his presumption.
She didn’t cough and she didn’t complain about the taste; she just smoked the cigarette, then stubbed it out in the sandy soil.
“Verdict?”
“Not so special. I feel a bit dizzy.”
She sat back against the trunk and closed her eyes. There was nothing awkward about the silence that now enveloped them. It gave him the opportunity to think about how he was going to broach the subject. It was hardly the time to do it, not while she was still reeling from the death of her friend, but time was a luxury he couldn’t afford right then.
Over the tops of the trees he could make out Verdala Palace, the governor’s summer residence, rising foursquare on the ridge above, lording over the gardens. With its corner towers and crenellations, it resembled a medieval castle, although the pale stonework lent it an exotic and less forbidding air. He could picture the vast barrel-vaulted hall with its frescoes, where he had dined soon after his promotion. Being a Plymouth Brother, Governor Dobbie was a teetotaler, but he had nevertheless kept the wine waiter on his toes that night, ensuring that his guests’ glasses had been properly charged.
“What are you thinking?” Lilian asked. She still had her head resting against the trunk, but her eyes were open now, locked on to him. “It looks serious,” she added lightheartedly.
He placed his hand over hers and gave it a small squeeze. “It is, I’m afraid.”
He told her everything, from the moment when Freddie had first summoned him to the Central Hospital to show him Carmela Cassar’s corpse. First, though, he made her swear on all she held dear that she wouldn’t share a word of what he was about to tell her with any living soul.
She was on her feet before he had finished his account, and only when he was done did she speak.
“The lieutenant governor tried to stop you?”
“He wasn’t present.”
“But he was still in the room.”
“I suppose they must have been acting with his authority.”
“I can’t believe it.”
She was angry now, pacing around.
“It’s true. They threatened us both in no uncertain terms.”
“But they’re doing something about it. They must be.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it. They don’t want to have the drains up at a time like this. It’s like Elliott said—when the Upstanding leaves, the problem goes with her.”
“The problem?” she fired back crisply. “Is that what you call murderers in your country?”
He raised his hands in placatory gesture. “Don’t get angry with me.”
“But I am angry with you. I’m angry with all of you—the way you treat us, the way you think of us, the way you talk about us. ‘The natives are getting restless’—I heard that yesterday in the Union Club. And I saw the looks and the smiles. They all thought it was very funny, until they saw me listening. Then they were embarrassed. Good. I’m glad the little native embarrassed them.”
“Lilian—”
“It’s true. You know it is.”
“Not everyone thinks like that, or talks like that.”
“Oh, you’re innocent, are you? I read what you write, and I see the same thing in your words. What was it last week? ‘Malta Can Take It’? Well, good old Malta.”
“That was a line from a BBC broadcast,” he bleated in his defense.
“Yes, Malta can take it, because Malta has got to take it. But we’re not doing it for you; we’re doing it for us.” She slapped her palm against her chest to make her point. “It’s our island. It’s not yours, and it’s not theirs. It’s ours.”
Technically, the island was a British crown colony, but it probably wasn’t the best moment to point out this detail.
“If it wasn’t for us, you’d be under German occupation by now.”
“Well, at least they wouldn’t be dropping their bombs on us.”
“No, we would be.”
The words popped out of his mouth unbidden, illuminating Malta’s grim and perennial predicament, a toothless lump of limestone prey to the whims of mightier nations.
“Don’t you see? People have always come here because they can. But they always leave. If the Germans invade, one day they will go.” She paused. “And one day you will go too.”
Her republican rant had strayed into dangerous territory with that last comment. They both knew it.
“I’m not the only one to think it,” she said defensively.
“I don’t doubt it. But keep it under your hat unless you fancy a holiday in Uganda.”
“And that says it all, doesn’t it?”
He wasn’t going to argue the point, because at heart he agreed with her about the “pro-Italians” and the other “subversive elements” who had been shipped out to Uganda earlier in the year. They’d had a number of heated discussions on this thorny issue, with Max trotting out the official platitude: “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.” When it came down to it, though, there was something chillingly draconian about the stretch of power that allowed the British to intern and deport Maltese citizens at will, without due process. They came from all walks of life—dockyard workers to priests, pensioners to university professors—and not one of them had ever been formally charged with a crime.
It was an injustice that had touched Lilian on a personal level. A friend of hers, the daughter of the chief justice, had spent two years under house arrest with her family before opting to board the Breconshire and follow her father into exile. Sixteen years of loyal service to the crown had, apparently, not been enough to place the family’s loyalty beyond doubt.
