Howard Norman - What Is Left the Daughter

We stepped up onto the front porch and looked in through the living room window. There were at least twenty women in the living room and dining room. It looked festive. There was a gramophone turned up loud, a female voice singing in French. Some of the women were coupled up and dancing.

Hermione knocked on the door. The woman who answered was clearly Mona d'Ussel, except add all the years to her photograph. But there was no doubt it was her. "Okay, I apologize," Tom said.

"Oh, Hermione — hello!" Mona d'Ussel said cheerfully. She seemed a little tipsy. She had on a beautiful dress. Pearl earrings. "I'm so sorry, Hermione, but I cannot invite you and your friends in. I've even sent my husband off to the movies." Her accent was distinct, and she was more than cordial. "You see, it was my turn to have the meeting of our little club, and everyone's about to sit down for a late dinner. Please forgive me."

We heard someone calling Mona back to her party.

"Mona," Hermione said, "I work with these two fellows. Wyatt and Tom, meet Mona d'Ussel."

"Tom, Wyatt, I can't invite you in," Mona said.

"We just saw your photograph in the art gallery, Mona," Hermione said. "The boys here wanted to meet a famous person."

"That doctor — in the photograph?" Mona spit on the porch. "Not a nice man. And now I'm permanently stuck with him. When I learned the photograph existed, I tried to buy it so I could destroy it, you see. But it wasn't for sale. Now that day in my life — my first day in Canada, the day I met my husband — it's no longer mine alone. I might as well be stuffed in a museum."

"I'm sorry I mentioned it, then," Hermione said. "What kind of club is meeting here, may I ask?"

Mona's face brightened a little, though she still seemed upset. "Oh, all of us are French war brides," she said. "The War Brides of Halifax Club. There was a newspaper article about us."

"I missed it," Hermione said.

"Had you seen it," Mona said, "you would have learned that we've met every month for years now. Some of us are no longer with our war husbands — well, that's what they're called in Britain, anyway. Some of us are still with our husbands but wish we weren't. And some of us are still married and satisfied. We've all become great friends."

"Look, I apologize, Mona," Hermione said. "I feel stupid for just dropping in out of the blue like this."

"Out of the blue in the terrible rain, yes?" Mona d'Ussel said.

"Well, goodbye, then," Hermione said.

"You're not French and not a war bride, Hermione," Mona d'Ussel said, still apologizing. "Otherwise — of course!"

She closed the door, and as we stepped off her porch, Hermione said, "Well, I'd much rather be in there than in Rigolo's Pub with you clowns."

(At that moment I wondered, had my mother and Reese Mac Isaac ever danced to French popular songs? One summer night, through the open kitchen window, I'd heard Reese play some.)

"Rigolo's, then?" Tom said.

We started back down Bliss Street, Hermione in the middle. Rain hats on, collars up. "French war bride or not," she said, "I bet I could've fit right in. I'm a good dancer."

We got to Rigolo's Pub between eight-thirty and nine. We'd just found a table when in walks our foreman, Charles Blakemore. Charles is a big man, about six feet five inches tall, with a handlebar mustache. He's been my foreman for twelve years now. He walked right up to our table and said, "I thought I might find you three here."

"Well, here we are, then," Hermione said. "Sit down and share a mug with us, Charles."

"No time," Charles said.

"What, are you late for a different pub?" Tom said.

"You look on edge," Hermione said.

"Any of you want triple overtime?" Charles asked.

"When?" I said.

"Tonight — now."

"In theory, yes, I'd want overtime," Hermione said. "But it's pretty nasty out. What's the deal, anyway? This time of night."

"What the Navy's telling us," Charles said, "is that a German U-boat's floated to the surface. Off Hartlen Point. It's lolling on its side out there."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Hermione said.

"It's all rusted up inside a length of antisubmarine chain," Charles said. "Remember the sort that was laid in the harbor?"

"For the most part it did the job," Tom said.

"Well, it did the job on this U-boat," Charles said. "Already there's any number of gawkers out there in private boats, and the newspapers got wind of it. There's two tugs on their way. They're going to try and tow it in."

"It's got to be one big coffin, though, right?" Tom said.

"Got to be," Charles said.

"So, what's there for us to do?" Hermione said.

"When the thing gained the surface," Charles said, "a section of it burst apart. I don't know, release of pressure or some such thing."

"Is this some sort of rare phenomenon or something?" Tom asked.

"Off the record, the Navy says this has been happening since the war ended. All over the Atlantic, apparently. Off the coast of France. Off the coast of England and such. U-boats popping up, and the Navy said that just last year one showed up in a Norwegian fjord. Some guy pissing off the rail of his trawler under a full moon got a once-in-a-lifetime surprise, eh?"

"Our U-boat, Charles, was sunk when?" Hermione asked. "Is that for the public?"

"Late 1944. It's sat at the bottom of the harbor since late 1944. Probably it filled with gases and buoyed up. But part of the hull blew open, and we're told there's all sorts of things been jettisoned."

"And that's where we come in," Tom said.

"There's items distributing themselves far and wide, some already washed up to Dartmouth, we're told," Charles said. "And that's why they called us, and that's what the triple overtime's about."

"Look, Charlie, say we volunteer," Hermione said. "Tell us straight out, are there bodies?"

"I wasn't told," Charles said.

"There has to be bodies inside the U-boat," Tom said.

"Doesn't mean they've got out into the water," Charles said.

Finally, all three of us said okay, finished our beers, took handfuls of crackers from the basket at our table for a little sustenance, seeing as we hadn't had supper, and followed our foreman to his car, parked not more than a block from Rigolo's. In twenty minutes we were out in the harbor again.

Good Lord, what a spectacle, Marlais. What a spectacle of history. In 1960, the City of Halifax purchased two new tugboats, equipped with all the latest gadgetry and sporting twice as many running lights as the old tugs. They still had truck tires secured all around just below the railing, to protect the tug from blows — that much hadn't changed. When Hermione, Tom and I motored out a ways, we saw that tugs were on either side of the U-boat and eight crewmen were standing on the thing itself, fixing hooks and ropes. By my quick calculation, there were no fewer than fifteen private boats out there, too, including a small cabin cruiser. Harbor police in a launch were warning them with a bullhorn to keep a safe distance. Cameras flashed, mostly from a boat owned and operated by the Mail. As we got closer, we could see, through binoculars, at the rail of the closest tugboat, two representatives from the coroner's office, with official identification badges hung around their necks. A uniformed RNC officer and a half-dozen sailors were on deck, too.

Closer yet, we could see patches of the U-boat's original black color, but in general the paint had gone to leprosy and rust. The entire hull was covered with barnacles, the conning tower as well. As we watched, one of the tug's crew crowbarred open the hatch. The hatch cover was now upright, and three men shone flashlights and gazed down into the hole. Their mouths were covered with what looked like surgical masks.

Faded but legible on the bow was U–99. The loud, incessant whine of an industrial saw started up as a man in protective gear and wearing goggles attempted to cut the fence. In a few minutes we saw a link break apart and a length of fence fall into the water. When the saw had started up, dozens of gulls scattered, flew off and back, then swirled overhead as if they'd been drawn by a carcass, the likes of which they'd never seen, in Halifax Harbor at least.