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And that is where my notes failed. So many people talked at once, regulars and new members both, that I wanted to cover my ears. There must have been a dozen titles suggested and argued over.
Once Avis settled things down, Ginny, the loudest, suggestedEvil under the Sun, since the library already hadfour copies. Louise approved, saying the title is a quote from the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes.
I don’t think she knows it’s an Agatha Christie mystery. Freddy insisted it was a tale of “moral improvement.” The rest agreed without too much complaint.
Maybe I should have said something? I’m never sure what to do at times like this. But I didn’t, and now the Blackout Book Club will be discussing murder and mayhem.
eighteen
LOUISE
JUNE 17
The mantel clock’s quiet chime sounded like a gong, stirring Louise from a world of bluebloods and blackmail, reasonable alibis and resort guests with entirely too many secrets between them to be realistic.
She counted the notes as they fell, then blinked in disbelief. Ten o’clock already? When had the evening disappeared? Piles of paperwork loomed on her father’s old rolltop desk, awaiting her attention. She ought to be researching the latest news about daycare facilities, or creating the volunteer sign-up for the Red Cross’s Fire Muster booth, or at the very least, working on her Peter Rabbit painting, still half finished, the easel lonely in the corner.
But something about the way Agatha Christie wrote prohibited a person from setting her book down. After all, there was a killer on the loose, and Poirot had just found a box with some sort of powdered drug inside.
Just one more chapter, and she’d retire for the night.
Granted, that was the same resolution she’d made at least an hour ago, but this time she meant it.
A soft knock on the door startled her into setting the book down, and she looked up to see Freddy leaning against the doorway, hands clean but coveralls stained with dirt from ahard day’s work planting and weeding, likely ready to retire to his quarters, part of the room-and-board agreement they’d made as part of his salary.
“I was just turning in and saw the light on. Didn’t expect to see you still up.” Despite her attempt to hide it, his eyes fell on the book on the end table, and he smirked. “So what do you think of it?”
“You mean the ‘tale of moral improvement,’ as I believe you called it?” She aimed her eyebrows to a stern pitch, but Freddy didn’t cower.
“I stand by that description. The modern detective mystery is just a new form of a medieval morality play.”
It was uncanny, the way that young man could make almost anything seem perfectly reasonable—if you ignored the playful twinkle in his eye. “You mean that right always prevails, wrong is punished, and the truth wins out in the end.”
“Exactly.”
Sentimental nonsense, but what could she expect from a young man who sang “Blue Skies” while weeding at seven in the morning? “If only real life mirrored novels more closely.”
A few beats of silence, and when she glanced over, Freddy was staring, not at her but the old Philco in the corner, playing softly in the background. “Don’t worry, Miss Cavendish. It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
Ah, of course. She’d been so involved in her reading that she hadn’t realized the radio programming had shifted from Bach concertos to the evening’s news. From one German man to another, both geniuses in their way, but with very different aims.
“...in the aftermath of the bombing of Benghazi,” the announcer’s voice intoned, “a correspondent from Cairo has indicated that the majority of Rommel’s armored units are moving toward the Ally-defended border. Reports are still unclear....”
Freddy switched off the program with finality, any further news drifting inaudibly in wave form above them. But Louisecould guess what they were saying. The conflict in North Africa would not be ended by one successful bombing of an Axis stronghold. There would be repercussions, retaliations. How many would die on foreign sands far from home?
And where was Anthony stationed now? She felt a tug of guilt, realizing she didn’t know. Only a few short months after his deployment, she’d gotten out of the habit of asking Avis about her former employee.
“We’ll lick ol’ Hitler and his buddies,” Freddy said, nodding to give his words emphasis. “It’s just a matter of time.”
She straightened in the chair. “It is also, I believe, a matter of strategy, economics, global supply chains, control of the Atlantic, and swift access to medical care.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she realized it was an arrogant thing to say to a veteran, and cynical. The patch over the unfortunate boy’s eye spoke well enough to his willingness to put his life at risk for his beliefs, naïvely optimistic as they seemed.
But instead of becoming affronted, Freddy merely shrugged. “There’s all that too, I guess. But the heart of this war is a moral question, just like the novel.”
Louise tilted her head, considering. “I don’t pretend to be an expert on Adolf Hitler, but he seems to be the agent of an evil so great that even Christie’s sleuths would cower.”
“Maybe, but there are plenty of us real, ordinary people who won’t. That’s why I joined up, even before the States officially signed on. I couldn’t go on delivering cargo while that small man spewed dangerous lies. And there are others like me.” He leaned against the mantel, and for a moment, Louise was sure he was miles away from her cozy office, swooping through the skies in the heat of battle. “I have to believe that’ll be enough.”
