Wait For Me by Caroline Leech

Set in Aberlady, East Lothian Scotland Wait For Me is a tender story about forbidden love during the closing days of World War II.

Almost eighteen-year-old Lorna Anderson lives on Craigielaw farm with her father. Her mother died when Lorna was very young. Since then, Mrs. McMurdough (Mrs. Mack) comes daily to cook, clean and care for the Anderson family.  With her brothers, John Jo and Sandy away at war, Lorna and her father are helped on the farm by Nellie who came two years ago from the Women's Land Arm.

In early February of 1945, a truck bearing German POWs from the Gosford Prisoners of War camp pulls into the farm. One of the prisoners, a tall skinny young man is dropped off to work on the Anderson farm. He is introduced to Lorna who is shocked to see that the left side of his face has been badly burned and scarred. "...from his left temple to his chin across his cheek and down the left side of his throat, the pale skin had been burned away, leaving raw red scarring, tight and shiny. The flesh was puckered into the knotted remnants of an earlobe, and his left eye was stretched out of shape, round elongating to oval."

Lorna races to school to write her exam and can't wait to tell her best friend, Iris Robertson. After the exam Lorna's teacher, Mrs. Murray suggests to Lorna that she should consider university but with the war continuing, Lorna feels she cannot leave her father. After school Lorna tries to convince Iris to reconsider her blossoming romance with William Urquhart, who is the son of the parish minister and Aberlady School's head boy but Iris insists that William is clever and "very moral". Iris believes that Lorna's dislike for her beau is a sign of jealousy.  Lorna tells Iris about the badly disfigured young German soldier who is working on their farm. Iris seems to feel the German soldier deserved his injuries which greatly upsets Lorna.

The next day the German POW arrives back at the farm. After slowly and loudly introducing herself, Lorna is surprised to discover that he speaks English. He tells her his name is Paul Vogel and wishes Lorna a good day. Paul explains to Lorna that his aunt was an English lady who taught him English during his holidays on his uncle's farm. When Lorna tells Paul that people are not happy about Germans working on local farms and that there are Nazis at the camp, he brusquely reminds her that not all Germans are Nazis. Later on Mrs. Mack reminds Lorna that Paul, like all young men, was doing what his country asked of him.

As the days pass Lorna begins to experience increasingly conflicting feelings about Paul. Although she's upset at his presence on the farm, she also watches out for him. With the start of lambing season, Lorna helps her father as Nellie is unable to cope with the birthing. Paul stays in the lambing shed to feed those lambs abandoned by their mothers caring tenderly for them. But after her remark about the Nazis, Paul is curt and distant with Lorna, making her feel upset. Needing more help on the farm. Lorna's father is granted permission to have Paul stay overnight on the farm. They arrange a place for Paul to sleep in the hayloft in the barn and Lorna takes his evening meal to him in the barn.

One evening Paul explains to Lorna about his family. She reminds him of his younger sister Lilli who lives in Desden with his mother. Paul describes the beauty of Desden to Lorna, with its churches, art galleries and many parks. He also tells her how his father, a clockmaker, was forced into the Wehrmacht, the German army in late 1939 and was dead by April of 1940. When he turned sixteen, Paul began to apprentice as a clockmaker, but when he turned eighteen, he too was forced into the Wehrmacht.

As Lorna comes to know Paul, she is faced with the reality that he is a nice man and one whom she could be friends with or even more. But is that even possible in a time of war? And what does that mean for herself and her family? For Lorna, falling in love with an enemy soldier may mean losing all that she holds dear.

Discussion

Wait For Me is a beautifully crafted story about love in the time of war. In her debut novel, Leech deftly weaves her story about a young woman's prejudices and assumptions that are gradually conquered when she encounters the humanity of a German prisoner of war. As her view transforms from mistrust to friendship and finally to love, she struggles with her own inner conflicts and the prejudices of those around her.

The story opens in February of 1945, in what would be the closing months of World War II. Like most British, Lorna views all Germans as the enemy; cruel and dangerous.  The nearby base has been made into a prisoner of war camp housing German POW soldiers who are to work on local farms. When she first sees Paul Vogel, she believes he's sneering at her. "Then his gaze fell to her school uniform and woolen stockings, her milk-and-muck-spattered shoes. The right, undamaged side of his face rose in a sneer. Or was it a smile? No, definitely a sneer."

Although she doesn't trust Paul, when Iris suggests that he may have deserved his terrible wound, Lorna is horrified. "Iris! Just because someone's a German doesn't mean he deserves to be hurt so badly."  Iris suggests that Lorna should be pleased that he's been badly hurt, but Lorna is confused about how she should feel. "Well, yes...no...maybe...I mean, yes, but when you've got a real one standing right in front of you and the damage to his face is so terrible, well, it's ...different. Somehow."

The next day, Lorna notices that Paul seems forlorn and she feels "... almost sorry for him." Looking more closely at Paul, she notices, "...the tug at the right side of his mouth was there again. That same sneer. Except, today, it did look more like he was trying to smile. Tentative, perhaps, but still, it lightened his face..." And when she actually speaks to him, she notices even more, "...the smile was back, drawing Lorna's attention away from the burns. Its curve led her from his mouth up to his eyes, which sparkled." Lorna feels guilty; "Surely noticing an enemy's sparkle was tantamount to treason. She was betraying John Jo and Sandy and Gregor..." 

Lorna is concerned about Paul understanding the sergeant's insults but when she returns Paul's wave minutes later she admonishes herself. "Stop! He shouldn't be this friendly. She couldn't be this friendly. He was a German, after all." Paul's friendly actions don't fit with Lorna's view of Germans who are the enemy. Mrs. Mack tries to explain that Paul is simply doing what his country asked of him in a time of war. Lorna decides, "the prisoner had seemed quite nice, and not particularly threatening...Yes, he was quite nice really. For a German."

One day after Paul mentions his sister,  Lorna's questions lead him to tell her how the war affected his family and life.  Lorna identifies with Paul's situation, recognizing that just as she worries about her brothers, he worries about his mother and sister in Dresden. But as Lorna opens up to Paul about her brothers, once again she experiences intense conflict. "What had she been thinking, trusting this stranger, this enemy, with her precious memories.?" Yet she continues to be drawn to Paul both physically and emotionally. Watching him one morning washing at the water pump she wonders, "Would this Greek god still be here by summer, washing at the pump in the warm sun?"

Observing Paul working on the farm creates curiosity in Lorna. "She found herself wanting to know more about him. And it was strange, the more they'd talked the evening before...the less German he became. Or not less German, exactly, but more like any of the normal boys, the Scottish boys she knew at school. Lorna didn't know what to make of that. He was not like she had expected the enemy to be at all. In fact, she was beginning to realize that he might not be so very different from her."

Lorna's inner conflict is realistically portrayed and her gradual change of heart as she comes to view Paul as a person worth loving is touching and very romantic. Her internal struggle is a complicated one. For example, as their friendship grows, Lorna finds herself becoming more concerned with Paul and how he feels. His scarred faced no longer repulses her as she is able to look beyond his wounds to the person beneath. Lorna feels shame over her initial feelings about Paul suffering from the cold when he first arrived on the farm and shame for labelling him a Nazi. Paul's help when she is caught unexpectedly in a rainstorm, leaves her feeling comfort at his presence and recognizing that Paul is a nice person whom she could be friends with. But when they talk about the war and how Paul came to be injured, Lorna remembers that Paul may have killed Allied soldiers. "Suddenly the doubts crept back in. She must not forget that this man was an enemy soldier, she must not forget he was German, that he had been trained to kill men like her brother and his friends."

 Although Lorna is loyal to Britain she can't make herself hate or treat Paul badly simply because he's German. Her close relationship with Paul helps her to recognize that he doesn't represent the Nazi regime and that like her family, he's been caught in a war not of his own making.  But her struggle is ongoing throughout the novel; she is ready to accuse Paul of stealing her father's watch and she viciously blames him for what happens to John Jo.

Ironically, Lorna's only other interaction with a man who is not a family member is a complete contrast to Paul's actions towards her. While everyone is warning her to be watchful of Paul because he might be a spy, to lock her bedroom door when he stays overnight on the farm, it turns out it is the American soldiers she needs to be wary of. Her date for a dance turns out to be an American soldier whose drunken attempt to rape her, leaves Lorna distraught and afraid. His behaviour is in stark contrast to Paul who is labelled an enemy soldier. Even Nellie's experience with the American soldiers is not a positive one; she becomes pregnant by a soldier who then tells her cannot marry her because he has a wife in Tennessee. 

As Lorna's relationship with Paul becomes known within the community both she and Paul face prejudice and Lorna is ostracized by almost everyone.  Here Leech's character shows her mettle; she stands up to her brother and to the prejudice of the villagers. Her bravery is soon supported by her father and by Mrs. Murphy whose son Gregor was killed. As her family rallies around her, Paul begins to find some acceptance when the war ends.

Leech builds tension throughout the novel beginning with the crisis between Lorna and her brother John Jo who is furious that she is friends with a German soldier, to a confrontation between Lorna's family and the parish minister, culminating in the sudden departure of the Germans from Gosford leaving Lorna believing Paul has gone for good. But Leech closes her story on a hopeful note, as suggested by the novel's title.

Wait For Me really captures the atmosphere of living in rural Scotland during the close of World War II. Life on the farms continued as families worried and waited for word of sons and husbands sent off to fight. Lambing season arrives, people fall in love, life goes on. Interactions with American and Allied soldiers were not always positive. And the arrival of German prisoners of war caused much worry among the local people.  Leech offers a balanced perspective with some characters being open and accepting of Paul, while others are not. John Jo's furious reaction to Lorna's relationship with Paul is realistic (it would be expected a soldier would not be happy with his sister falling in love with an enemy soldier) while Mrs. Mack recognizes Paul as a person who needs healing and compassion. Leech also touches briefly on the bombing of Dresden by Allied forces, demonstrating that in war, terrible deeds are done by both sides.

Wait For Me is another excellent addition to the young adult World War II historical fiction genre. Fans of Dan Smith's My Friend The Enemy will enjoy Caroline Leech's debut novel. Look for more from this author in the coming year.

A February 2015 Atlantic article titled, "Remembering Dresden: 70 years after the firebombing" contains many interesting photographs (Please note some are very graphic). Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/02/remembering-dresden-70-years-after-the-firebombing/385445/

Book Details:

Wait For Me by Caroline Leech
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books   2017
361 pp.

An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo

Nine-year-old Karl's mother is a nurse in an old people's home. When she has to work on weekends she often takes Karl with her to the home. Karl would bring a few friends and they would play in the park, climb trees or ride their bicycles. The old folk loved to watch Karl and his friends from the sitting room. One day in February after a heavy snow, his mother finds Karl in one of the resident's room. Lizzie was an elderly woman who often spoke about her elephant. After his mother hustles Karl out of her room, he's angry because Lizzie was going to tell him about her elephant. But his mother tells him, "There isn't any elephant" and that Lizzie imagines things. Karl however is adamant that Lizzie is not lying.

On February 13th Karl is once again at the home and visiting Lizzie. She becomes tearful when she realizes that it is February 13th.  When Karl's mom asks Lizzie if the date has any special meaning for her, Lizzie tells her that it was the day her life changed forever; "On February the thirteenth I am always sad. The wind in the trees, it makes me remember." She remembers the wind, "...a hot wind, a scalding wind... it was like a wind from the fires of hell. I thought we would burn alive, all of us." And Lizzie begins her story:

 Lizzie who was known as Elizabeth was born in Dresden, Germany on February 9, 1929. She lived in a large house with a walled garden at the back, with her Mutti (Mother), Papi (Father), and her little brother Karli who was eight years younger than her. Karli was often carried about because he was born with one leg shorter than the other and he also suffered from asthma. Their house was surrounded by many large trees and agate in the back garden led to a large, public park. Papi worked in the city art gallery where he restored paintings and he also wrote books, mostly about his favourite painter, Rembrandt. Life for Elizabeth and her family was very pleasant: boating and musical picnics in the park and on holidays, trips to Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti's farm. There Karli and Elizabeth often went riding on Uncle Manfred's horse, Tomi, and Elizabeth went bicycling for hours.

As she was growing up, Elizabeth saw the flags, uniforms, and marching bands. She saw the Jews "with their yellow stars sewn onto their coats" and the star of David painted on shop windows. She even saw Jews in the gutter after being beaten. But Elizabeth was more interested in bicycling and boys than in what was happening around her. On summer holidays in 1938, Elizabeth overheard her parents and aunt and uncle arguing about Hitler. While Uncle Manfred believed the government and the Jews were responsible for Germany's defeat in World War I, Mutti, who had many Jewish friends, believed Hitler was a madman who would lead the country into war. The arguments went on long into the night and in the morning her family packed their suitcases and left the farm never to return. A year later, Papi came home in uniform with the news he was being sent to France.

At this time Mutti began to work at the zoo with the elephants. Papi would return home every few months but each time he was more changed: thinner, quieter, and sad. He was sent to Russia and his letters became less frequent. As the war went badly, food was scarce and German cities were bombed. The Red Army was moving in from the east and the Allies from the west. As a result, refugees were flooding Dresden, desperate to escape the Russians. With the war lost, Lizzie and her family hoped the Allies would reach Dresden before the Russians, as they had heard terrible stories about the Red Army. 

Mutti is concerned also about a young elephant she has named Marlene. She was born about five years ago and named by Mutti after her favourite singer, Marlene Dietrich. 

 The people of Dresden worried about the bombing of their beautiful city, which so far had been spared. But the Allies where concerned that Dresden would be used as a headquarters to attack the advancing Russians and so there were rumours that a bombing was coming. Because of this Mutti and the staff of the zoo worried about what they would have to do to the animals should such a thing occur. They knew that all the wild animals would have to be shot. Karli was very distraught over this and Mutti hatched a plan to save Marelene, a young elephant.

One night Elizabeth and her brother, are surprised to see an elephant in the garden. Mutti has brought Marlene to stay with them at night. The young elephant has become increasingly distraught over the death of her mother and Mutti is trying to help the animal cope. On the night of February 13th, Elizabeth, Karli and Mutti decide to take Marlene for a walk in a nearby park. When Marlene is enraged by a barking dog, she takes off after it, leading them away from home and the center of Dresden. Suddenly, they hear the air-raid sirens and soon after the Allied bombers approaching the city. Too late for them to hide, Elizabeth, Karli and Mutti can only watch in horror as waves of Allied bombers fly over the city dropping incendiary bombs. With Dresden burning, they have no choice but to flee to the countryside to escape the flames. 

Eventually they do make it into the countryside traveling with the elephant seeking food and shelter and heading towards the west and safety. As a result of this journey, Elizabeth's family meets up with a downed Canadian airman hiding in a barn. This chance meeting changes Elizabeth's life forever.

Discussion

An Elephant in the Garden is an engaging short novel suitable for children between the ages of 9 to 12. In the novel, two children and their mother who escape from the bombed city of Dresden with a young elephant, in February, 1945. The story is told by an elderly woman, Lizzie, who is a resident of the nursing home where the narrator of the novel works as a nurse. The are lovely ink and wash sketches throughout the book, which aid in bringing the story to life.

The event the novel is based on did not occur in Dresden but in Belfast during World War II  In April and May of 1941, Belfast endured bombing by the Luftwafte in what became known as the Belfast Blitz. The bombing killed almost one thousand people and destroyed thousands of homes. Belfast was an important industrial center for the British with its shipyards, munitions and aircraft factories. During the bombing, the decision was made to euthanize the more dangerous animals of the Belfast Zoo in case they should escape into the city. While thirty-three animals were euthanized. However, zookeeper Denise Weston Austin had formed a close bond with a baby Aisan elephant named Sheila. Denise was so concerned for Sheila that, without permission, she began walking the baby elephant home to her garden in Belfast each night. Denise lived in a house called Loughview House and Sheila slept in the garage at night. Every morning the elephant was walked back to the zoo before it opened and neither staff nor the public knew of her nighttime walk. Eventually the head zookeeper discovered what was happening and he personally padlocked her cage to stop this. However, Denise would visit Sheila during the nighttime air raids to comfort the elephant. The story remained forgotten until the 1980s. Morpurgo has taken this event and set it in Dresden, to create an interesting historical fiction story.

The bombing of Dresden was a real historical event that occurred near the end of World War II.  Dresden is the capital of the German state of Saxony.  Dresden was a beautiful city but it was also a major industrial center for the Nazi war effort. It contained numerous factories that supplied munitions and other material for the Nazi war machine. The city was also an important transportation center that linked routes north-south and east-west routes. 

Dresden was bombed from February 13 to February 15, beginning with bombing by the RAF on the night of February 13th. On that date, there were two waves of bombing, three hours apart in which both explosives and incendiary bombs were dropped. These bombs would break apart the buildings and then cause them to burn. The United States was responsible for bombing Dresden on February 14 and 15th. 

The explosive bombs broke apart building while the incendiary bombs ignited fires. The resulting firestorm caused the deaths of twenty-five thousand people. The fires were so extensive and intense that they burned everything alive. The destruction of Dresden and the deaths of so many civilians has been controversial as it seemed that the bombing was done to create terror in the people rather than to destroy military and industrial targets. It is this event that forms the backdrop for the novel.

In An Elephant In The Garden, Morpurgo decided to combine the elements of these two historical events for his novel. Dresden, like Belfast had a zoo that had also issued the same order to destroy the animals if the city was bombed. He also drew on the account by the grandmother of friend's family who were refugees fleeing the advancing Russians in 1945. The grandmother's husband "...had been one of the officers who had plotted to kill Hitler in 1944, but failed. He had been executed, as they all were."  And Morpurgo added the elephant because he had "...always thought they are the noblest and wises and most sensitive of all creatures."

Morpurgo employs the "story within a story" format sometimes known as a frame narrative. The novel begins with an elderly resident of an old age home, Lizzie who repeatedly mentions her "elephant". Her nurse who is the narrator in the frame, believes there is no elephant, that it is Lizzie's imagination. But it turns out that is not the case. The nurse's son, Karl believes that Lizzie's memory of an elephant is real and together they encourage her to tell them about her memory. The novel then switches to 1945 Germany, when Lizzie, then called Elizabeth, was sixteen-years-old and along with her Mutti and her younger brother, Karli flee a burning Dresden with a young elephant named Marlene. In their journey they encounter a downed RAF pilot, Peter Kamm who is from Canada. 

Morpurgo's story focuses on Elizabeth's family's journey from bombed and burning Dresden to safety with the Allies. There is little character development as the story is event driven and the narrator, Elizabeth is a somewhat flat character. Although her Mutti and Papi are against Hitler, so much so that they are estranged from Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti, Elizabeth is strangely ambivalent, even for a German teenager. As a fifteen-year-old German girl it would have been compulsory for Elizabeth to be involved in the League of German Girls but there is no mention of this.

In the novel it is Mutti who struggles throughout the story. Mutti and Papi do not support Hitler. According the Elizabeth, Mutti tells Manfred "...that Hitler was a madman, that the Nazi regime was the worst thing that had ever happened to Germany, that we had many dear friends who were Jews, and that if Hitler went on the way he was going, he would lead us all into another war..."  This turns out to be exactly what happens. When the bombing of Dresden occurs, Karli wonders why the city is being bombed. Mutti tells him that the Americans and British hate the Germans because they have bombed their cities and that "...we are all responsible for making it happen, for letting it happen."

At Uncle Manfred's abandoned farm, Elizabeth and her family encounter a downed Canadian RAF soldier, Peter Kamm who has a Swiss mother and  a Canadian father. Mutti is enraged when she sees him and threatens to kill him. Peter tells her that he thought the bombing would be like what London experienced during the Luftwaffe blitz. "But last night it looked like the fires of hell. That's what we're doing in this war, all of us, on your side, on our side; we are making a hell on earth, and we do not seem to be able to know how to stop..."  Mutti is determined to sure him in the Abwehr, the police but realizes that she likely cannot prevent Peter from heading west towards the American Army. After Peter saves Karli's life after he falls through the ice on the pond, Mutti returns the favour by saving Peter from discovery by soldiers looking for the missing airman. She comes to realize that they will only survive if they all work together.

It is on their journey west towards the American army that Elizabeth and Peter begin to fall in love, Peter describes life in Canada, living in Toronto where he had worked as an actor. They eventually encounter a woman, "the Countess" whose husband had attempted to assassinate Hitler in an effort to stop the war. The Countess serves to represent those Germans who did what they believed to be right, regardless of nationality or sides in a war. She takes Elizabeth's family in to help Karli heal, then saves their lives when her servant Hans brings the German police to the house. The Countess is able to change Major Klug's mind, reminding him that the war is soon lost and that as her husband wished, a new Germany needs to come forth. The Countess knows that if Peter is arrested, and along with him Mutti, Elizabeth, Karli and the school children, they will be shot by the Germans.

Morpurgo ends his novel on a hopeful and happy note tying up all the lose ends: Peter and Elizabeth reunited after the war, married in Heidelberg and then sailed for Canada, Papi eventually returned from Russia four years after the war, Elizabeth became a nurse, Karli eventually came to Canada and Elizabeth and Peter eventually found Marlene working for a circus in Toronto. An Elephant In The Garden offers young readers a gentle introduction to the realities of war and how seeing the humanity in others, especially those who are "enemies" can create lasting healing and peace.

Historical notes on the events that formed the kernel of the story and a map at the beginning of the novel showing Elizabeth's journey would have helped young readers immensely. The lovely watercolour illustrations were a welcome addition to this novel. Highly recommended.

Book Details:
An Elephant In The Garden by Michael Morpurgo
London: HarperCollins Childrens Books 2010
233 pp.