while Wilfred converses easily in German with Johann and the girls, in between mouthfuls of ham sandwich. The children are fascinated, of course, while the two adults, Wilfred and Elfriede, hardly look at each other. Elfriede concentrates her attention on Gertrud, on keeping the sand from the little cups of lemonade she’s poured from the jug, but inwardly she marvels at the gentle, effortless way Wilfred extracts everything there is to know about the children. What they like to eat and do and wear, how often they bathe, Hund the shaggy mongrel who stops by the kitchen door from time to time, accepts a scrap or two with grave courtesy, and has a particular interest in the flavor of Nurse’s hand. Wilfred asks about Nurse, and Elfriede wakes from her stupor of shock and calls an end to the picnic.
“When did you join the army?” she asks him, as they walk back to the house, a mile away.
“About a month after I left the sanatorium,” he answers. “As soon as I could pass the physical examination. Pulled a string or two and got commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Highlands Cavalry.”
“I never imagined.”
“It was something of an impulse. The thought of Vienna made me sick. I returned home instead and was all set to enter chambers when the news about Kitchener reached London. I thought, here’s a fine way to get yourself killed.”
“Don’t say that!”
He laughs. “Well, maybe I didn’t want to die out there. But I didn’t really care one way or the other, at the time, and it all sounded like a great deal more adventure than studying to be a barrister over the course of a few bitter London winters.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Of course—”
But Johann’s tugging at his shirt again. “Mr. Thorpe! Mr. Thorpe! Why aren’t you wearing your uniform? Sir.”
“Why, because I’m on leave, you know, and besides we’re in America.”
“Did you bring it with you? Can I see it?”
Elfriede falls back a pace or two and allows Johann to pelt his questions. Anyway her emotions are rising too high at the thought of Wilfred in South Africa, Wilfred riding horseback across the veldt under a blazing sun, ambushed by Boers, flies buzzing over bullet wounds. That dusty courtyard, the flower, the sunbird, all this under mortal danger! While Elfriede read his letters from a slipper chair in her bedroom, imagining him as safe as she was! She stares at his damp white shirt, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. Gertrud straddles his shoulders once more, gripping his hair; he holds her steady with one hand and carries the picnic basket with the other. Inside the basket are his jacket and his straw hat. Wilfred! Actually Wilfred! He exists. His shoulders, his back, his arm, his hand clasping the picnic basket, his legs encompassing the ground before hers. It’s like walking in a dream. Elfriede holds Frederica’s hand as a link to reality. Ursula trots ahead, blazing a trail. They reach the house and Wilfred turns, eyebrows raised, and Elfriede panics. My God, what will she do with him? What’s to be done? Then she remembers she’s a widow and everything is now possible. Wilfred is now possible.
True, there’s the problem of a houseful of children. How is Wilfred possible when a moment of private conversation is not? She excuses herself and puts the younger children in bed for their naps, while Johann and Wilfred chatter over cake in the kitchen. Charlotte’s gone, headache or no headache—in town, says the housekeeper, shrugging her shoulders. Probably buying more bottles of that Kentucky bourbon she’s discovered. Elfriede waits until the children have all dropped off. She walks straight past the clamor in the kitchen and out into the garden, thundering heart, where she collapses in the grass under an orange tree. Maybe she falls asleep, God knows how when her nerves are teeming. At any rate, she startles at the sound of Wilfred’s voice.
“There you are. Do you mind if I join you?”
Mind? She shakes her head.
He sinks to the grass nearby and lights a cigarette. “I’m sorry about all that. I didn’t mean to shock you.”
“You would have shocked me anyway. Better that than to simply knock on the door and present yourself.”
“Listen to you, you’re shaking.” He reaches out and clasps her knee. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“If I’ve made you uneasy . . .”
“Not at all. Not uneasy. Just shocked.” She tries to laugh. “It is you, isn’t it?