Marvelous Matches

High above the fjord, Don wandered barefoot among the purple lupines, watching the eight free-range milk cows he knew by name. Then as the sun reached its zenith, he hunkered down against the heaving sides of his favorite, Dagros, and unpacked his lunch box. She ground her cud rhythmically while Don devoured the simple brown bread and goat’s cheese. Then cow and boy snuggled for a midday nap. But Don only dozed. His ears must stay alert for the clanging of the lead cow’s bell, his switch always in reach because every cow follows her direction. He knew each of their bovine ways and when they needed fresh pasture or water from a distant mountain stream. In the afternoon, Don trudged with the cows through the sweet-smelling grasses and clover, gazing at the snowcapped mountains beyond, and drinking in the vast open sky. As the sun sank toward the purple mountains, he led the cows home for milking with the call “Salt! Salt!” How it tickled when their rough tongues lapped the salty palm of his small hand.

During those turbulent war years, the whisper of the wind through the towering pines above and the wildflowers below calmed a boy’s heart and filled it with a simple and peaceful happiness.

In winter Don skimmed over the deep drifts to the mountain one-room school house on skis. At early nightfall, he’d return to the villa where the landlady prepared a home-cooked dinner around the great stone fireplace, and there, by gas lamp, the Norwegian story tellers perfected their craft. As the daughter passed the aged urn of wine, hearty laughter would dispel dark and ominous apprehension. And after the heavy door was latched against the star-studded night, fear of the occupiers, the black-booted Nazis, was turned into bawdy jokes and cutting sarcasm. Don’s ten-year-old eyes would widen in the warm firelight; he sat still and silent. If the grownups didn't notice him, he wouldn’t be sent to bed.

Don, his four older brothers, and mother were staying in a guest house in the mountains of Norway, north of Oslo. Don’s father had sent the family from England when the bombers whined above like hornets, the explosions threatening life and livelihood. Talk of war permeated every thread of existence like poison in a well. A Nazi invasion was only a matter of time. Surely Norway would be a haven to send a wife and five sons.

But Don’s father was badly mistaken.

One day while collecting eggs in the hen house, ten-year-old Don reached under the feathers of a sitting hen and felt not the shape of a round, warm egg, but the cold barrel of a hidden shotgun. Breathless he darted inside to show it to his mother. Instantly, her eyes flamed wild. She jerked the kitchen drawer open, and dropped the weapon like a contagion behind the furthest kitchen utensils. Don was never to mention it again.

That night, a cavalcade of black Mercedes screeched into the yard, and goose-stepping Nazis rattled the front door screaming obnoxiously to be let in. Barking orders, the soldiers rousted the tenants from their beds. Panicked and bewildered, the people huddled in the kitchen as the soldiers ransacked the house. One Nazi soldier, rested his hand casually on the drawer handle, inches from the incriminating pistol. When the soldier left the room to follow his commander upstairs, Don’s mother snatched the weapon with shaking hands and heaved it into the back of the large, black baking oven. If it had been found, they would all have been shot.

Another time while playing in the woods, Don found barrels of dynamite, hidden behind the boulders. Resistance. Sabotage. Mysteries grownups smothered like fire whenever questions arose.

But Don was only a child, and while in later years, he remembered these days as strangely idyllic, for his single mother, they were fraught with fear and anxiety.

One summer day Don and his brothers took a hike through the mountains beyond the hostel. The streams roared with glacial meltwater. Waterfalls cascaded over mossy rocks, and rivulets joined to form streams and rivers. These fed the blue fjords glistening below. Don was the youngest of the five, and he struggled to keep pace with his long-legged brothers. They reached a narrow, wooden bridge that teetered over wildly rushing water. Without warning, Don’s brother, Julian, then fourteen years old, slipped. The current grabbed him around the ankles and he plummeted into the torrent, crushed into the jumbled rocks and boulders beneath the coiling flood water. An older brother, Geoffrey, shouted above the roar and plunged into the foam to rescue him. Panic. Desperation. Julian's head bobbed once, then vanished in the icy depths. They were all just kids, and nothing would bring their brother back. He had drowned.

Meanwhile, an older brother, attempting to continue his university studies and unable to return to England, enrolled in the University of Oslo. One day, a mailman brought devastating news to an already devastated mother. Her son had been arrested on campus and placed in a German concentration camp. English students in German-occupied Norway were not to be trusted.

The war ground on, and England, with all its hustle and bustle, seemed a distant dream. At night Don plunged the recesses of his memory for an image of his father. “Will I still know him? And will he recognize me?”

***

Only a week and less than a hundred miles apart from Don, Eve was born, 1937, North England. Eve’s life, similar to Don’s, was blown on a new course with the onset of World War II. As a four-year-old, she peered wide-eyed over the deck rail at the vast Atlantic Ocean. Her parents, German immigrants and no longer welcome in England, boarded the Andalucia Star with their three little ones, and set sail for an unlikely destination: Paraguay.

Eve was vivacious and fun-loving, the oldest and most loved in what would become a big family of siblings. She loved school, taught by talented teachers. These dedicated role models could have been university professors, but like Eve’s family, fled the war, choosing primitive homesteading and poverty over the violence of war.

One day a frail new girl was escorted into the jungle classroom. She could not speak German or English. But Eve was outgoing and soon earned her friendship and trust. The new child was Marianne from wealthy Swiss lineage, not only fleeing war, but also the collapsing and violent marriage of her parents. A string of catastrophes ensued, leaving Marianne an orphan at the age of ten.

There in the jungles of Paraguay, Eve and Marianne, bonded like twins. Marianne had been born on April 20, 1937, Switzerland, but because she shared a birthday with Hitler, her mother had changed the birth date to April 21. Eve’s birthday was May 11 of the same year. They were classmates, sharing all the joys and secrets of young girlhood. They camped and swam the brown jungle river, tamed wild animals for pets, picked oranges and gorged on mangoes, and caught an armadillo. They lassoed horses from the gaucho herd and rode for hours bareback.

Although they grew up poor in material goods, they grew up rich in adventure, life experience, languages, and innovation.

But when they reached the age for further education, they parted ways. The war was over, and Marianne's wealthy, Swiss grandmother located and took custody of her, paying for a kindergarten training in Switzerland. Eve traveled to England to pursue her dream—attending university to become an English teacher.

****

Don, born May 20, 1937, was only weeks apart in age from both the two girls, Eve and Marianne. He returned with his mother from Norway to England after the war, but bonding with his father at the age eleven and adjusting to a new country proved difficult. Julian had drowned, and his father couldn’t understand how that tragedy had been allowed to happen. His mother had undergone a failed knee surgery in Norway and was left unable to walk again. For Don, entering a boys’ English grammar school was a culture shock. Teachers required the “no sir, yes sir” as they strode the halls in mortarboards and dark gowns. Don, fluent in Norwegian, had trouble finding his English tongue again. Often teachers snaked him up in front of the class for a whipping. Although later he proved to be a brilliant man, he was far behind the English standards and had no initiative to please these austere and distant teachers. He hated school with all his heart.

He was the only son still home, and the family home was a clammy, stone mansion where maids and servants catered to their family needs. His father owned an interior decorating and design company in New Castle and started giving his son drawing and music lessons, insisting he practice both for hours. Life was as dreary as the English air.

His mother hosted garden parties. Don, lonely and homesick for Norway, preferred to eat in the kitchen with the maids. At twenty-one he left home, after upsetting his father once again by refusing to take over his art business. He wandered the hills of England, often staying in hostels.

Then he met Eve.

It was love at first sight for Eve. Don was dark and handsome, talented on the clarinet. They met at a youth work camp, and Eve was the first to holler, “There’s another one coming up the drive!” and put on the kettle to make him a cup of tea.

Eve cracked Don’s cold, lonely heart with her fun and laughter. They married in June, the month of roses. Eve was a teacher and managed to rope in Don as a co-worker. Together they started music programs and an award-winning children’s choir. They produced plays and dramas, Don designing the elaborate sets. They took kids on tours and field trips to London. They were a dynamite duo and kids fell in love with their energetic teachers.

Years passed, full of richness and joy. Eve contacted her childhood friend, Marianne, and they reconnected immediately. She, too, had married and had a large, fun family. Marianne even named one of her daughters, Eva, after her bosom friend, Eve.

As time passed and both couples entered their grandparent years, Eve and Marianne visited each other regularly. Don would sigh resignedly, as Eve and Marianne would reminisce about their Paraguay adventures, collapsing into fits of giggles and hilarity as if they were still school girls.

Then came the days of loss. Marianne’s husband was diagnosed with a wicked cancer, that ravaged his body making suffering so difficult to watch. He died, leaving Marianne desperately lonely. Her husband had given her a true home, one she had never had as an orphan.

Arthritis ate away at Eve’s mobility, and she bravely underwent two hip replacements. Now her knees were failing. A doctor convinced her to get both knees replaced at the same time. It was a terrible shock when the doctor called Don, some days after surgery, that Eve had collapsed. Nurses found her that morning, dead from a probable blood clot.

***

“Meet my new sweetheart!” It was Marianne. I was visiting my dad, Don, now seventy years old, and a widower after the death of my mom, Eve. Marianne’s ebullient welcome took me aback. She stood in the doorway, the corners of her mouth upturned with impish humor, her eyes ignited by her re-found spirit of fun and mischief. As I entered the living room, Marianne energetically served the snack, then joined my dad on the couch to snuggle.

My dad had kept their budding love affair a secret from me and my siblings, a surprise-- so right it wasn’t a surprise. Their love, new, yet old, brought healing and comfort to them both. Don and Marianne were married that May. Their bright smiles and tender love radiated like a sunrise. They treasured and cared for each other with a devotion birthed in loss. They read aloud, hosted visitors and guests, tended a garden, fished the lakes and streams, hiked and picnicked. They even traveled the world together, determined to enjoy each day as a gift. Often they gave testimony to their previous spouses, their undisputed link to the world beyond, invisible, yet tangibly real.

I often wonder if my mom is still giggling up there, seeing her best childhood friend so blissfully happy.