THE ROAD NO LONGER had the protection of the plane trees. Vulnerable to attack and without shade, it uncoiled across the undulating land in long shallow S shapes. He had wasted precious reserves in unnecessary talk and encounters. Tiredness had made him superficially elated and forthcoming. Now he reduced his progress to the rhythm of his boots—he walked across the land until he came to the sea. Everything that impeded1 him had to be outweighed2, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on. In one pan of the scales, his wound, thirst, the blister3, tiredness, the heat, the aching in his feet and legs, the Stukas, the distance, the Channel; in the other, I’ll wait for you, and the memory of when she had said it, which he had come to treat like a sacred site. Also, the fear of capture. His most sensual memories—their few minutes in the library, the kiss in Whitehall—were bleached4 colorless through overuse. He knew by heart certain passages from her letters, he had revisited their tussle5 with the vase by the fountain, he remembered the warmth from her arm at the dinner when the twins went missing. These memories sustained him, but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them. They lay on the far side of a great divide in time, as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison, before the war, before the sight of a corpse6 became a banality8.
But these heresies9 died when he read her last letter. He touched his breast pocket. It was a kind of genuflection10. Still there. Here was something new on the scales. That he could be cleared had all the simplicity11 of love. Merely tasting the possibility reminded him how much had narrowed and died. His taste for life, no less, all the old ambitions and pleasures. The prospect12 was of a rebirth, a triumphant13 return. He could become again the man who had once crossed a Surrey park at dusk in his best suit, swaggering on the promise of life, who had entered the house and with the clarity of passion made love to Cecilia—no, let him rescue the word from the corporals, they had fucked while others sipped14 their cocktails15 on the terrace. The story could resume, the one that he had been planning on that evening walk. He and Cecilia would no longer be isolated16. Their love would have space and a society to grow in. He would not go about cap in hand to collect apologies from the friends who had shunned17 him. Nor would he sit back, proud and fierce, shunning18 them in return. He knew exactly how he would behave. He would simply resume. With his criminal record struck off, he could apply to medical college when the war was over, or even go for a commission now in the Medical Corps7. If Cecilia made her peace with her family, he would keep his distance without seeming sour. He could never be on close terms with Emily or Jack19. She had pursued his prosecution20 with a strange ferocity, while Jack turned away, vanished into his Ministry21 the moment he was needed.
None of that mattered. From here it looked simple. They were passing more bodies in the road, in the gutters22 and on the pavement, dozens of them, soldiers and civilians23. The stench was cruel, insinuating25 itself into the folds of his clothes. The convoy26 had entered a bombed village, or perhaps the suburb of a small town—the place was rubble27 and it was impossible to tell. Who would care? Who could ever describe this confusion, and come up with the village names and the dates for the history books? And take the reasonable view and begin to assign the blame? No one would ever know what it was like to be here. Without the details there could be no larger picture. The abandoned stores, equipment and vehicles made an avenue of scrap28 that spilled across their path. With this, and the bodies, they were forced to walk in the center of the road. That did not matter because the convoy was no longer moving. Soldiers were climbing out of troop carriers and continuing on foot, stumbling over brick and roof tiles. The wounded were left in the lorries to wait. There was a greater press of bodies in a narrower space, greater irritation29. Turner kept his head down and followed the man in front, protectively folded in his thoughts.
He would be cleared. From the way it looked here, where you could hardly be bothered to lift your feet to step over a dead woman’s arm, he did not think he would be needing apologies or tributes. To be cleared would be a pure state. He dreamed of it like a lover, with a simple longing30. He dreamed of it in the way other soldiers dreamed of their hearths31 or allotments or old civilian24 jobs. If innocence32 seemed elemental here, there was no reason why it should not be so back in England. Let his name be cleared, then let everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work. His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her, and live without shame.
But there was one part in all this that he could not think through, one indistinct shape that the shambles33 twelve miles outside Dunkirk could not reduce to a simple outline. Briony. Here he came against the outer edge of what Cecilia called his generous spirit. And his rationality. If Cecilia were to be reunited with her family, if the sisters were close again, there would be no avoiding her. But could he accept her? Could he be in the same room? Here she was, offering a possibility of absolution. But it was not for him. He had done nothing wrong. It was for herself, for her own crime which her conscience could no longer bear. Was he supposed to feel grateful? And yes, of course, she was a child in 1935. He had told himself, he and Cecilia had told each other, over and again. Yes, she was just a child. But not every child sends a man to prison with a lie. Not every child is so purposeful and malign34, so consistent over time, never wavering, never doubted. A child, but that had not stopped him daydreaming35 in his cell of her humiliation36, of a dozen ways he might find revenge. In France once, in the bitterest week of winter, raging drunk on cognac, he had even conjured37 her onto the end of his bayonet. Briony and Danny Hardman. It was not reasonable or just to hate Briony, but it helped.
How to begin to understand this child’s mind? Only one theory held up. There was a day in June 1932, all the more beautiful for coming suddenly, after a long spell of rain and wind. It was one of those rare mornings which declares itself, with a boastful extravagance of warmth and light and new leaves, as the true beginning, the grand portal to summer, and he was walking through it with Briony, past the Triton pond, down beyond the ha-ha and rhododendrons, through the iron kissing gate and onto the winding38 narrow woodland path. She was excited and talkative. She would have been about ten years old, just starting to write her little stories. Along with everyone else, he had received his own bound and illustrated39 tale of love, adversities overcome, reunion and a wedding. They were on their way down to the river for the swimming lesson he had promised her. As they left the house behind she may have been telling him about a story she had just finished or a book she was reading. She may have been holding his hand. She was a quiet, intense little girl, rather prim40 in her way, and this outpouring was unusual. He was happy to listen. These were exciting times for him too. He was nineteen, exams were almost over and he thought he’d done well. Soon he would cease to be a schoolboy. He had interviewed well at Cambridge and in two weeks he was leaving for France where he was to teach English at a religious school. There was a grandeur41 about the day, about the colossal42, barely stirring beeches43 and oaks, and the light that dropped like jewels through the fresh foliage44 to make pools among last year’s dead leaves. This magnificence, he sensed in his youthful self-importance, reflected the glorious momentum45 of his life.
She prattled46 on, and contentedly47 he half listened. The path emerged from the woods onto the broad grassy48 banks of the river. They walked upstream for half a mile and entered woods again. Here, on a bend in the river, below overhanging trees, was the pool, dug out in Briony’s grandfather’s time. A stone weir49 slowed the current and was a favorite diving and jumping-off place. Otherwise, it was not ideal for beginners. You went from the weir, or you jumped off the bank into nine feet of water. He dived in and trod water, waiting for her. They had started the lessons the year before, in late summer when the river was lower and the current sluggish50. Now, even in the pool there was a steady rotating drift. She paused only for a moment, then jumped from the bank into his arms with a scream. She practiced treading water until the current carried her against the weir, then he towed her across the pool so that she could start again. When she tried out her breaststroke after a winter of neglect, he had to support her, not easy when he was treading water himself. If he removed his hand from under her, she could only manage three or four strokes before sinking. She was amused by the fact that, going against the current, she swam to remain still. But she did not stay still. Instead, she was carried back each time to the weir, where she clung to a rusty51 iron ring, waiting for him, her white face vivid against the lurid52 mossy walls and greenish cement. Swimming uphill, she called it. She wanted to repeat the experience, but the water was cold and after fifteen minutes he’d had enough. He pulled her over to the bank and, ignoring her protests, helped her out.
He took his clothes from the basket and went a little way off into the woods to change. When he returned she was standing53 exactly where he had left her, on the bank, looking into the water, with her towel around her shoulders.
She said, “If I fell in the river, would you save me?”
“Of course.”
He was bending over the basket as he said this and he heard, but did not see, her jump in. Her towel lay on the bank. Apart from the concentric ripples54 moving out across the pool, there was no sign of her. Then she bobbed up, snatched a breath and sank again. Desperate, he thought of running to the weir to fish her out from there, but the water was an opaque55 muddy green. He would only find her below the surface by touch. There was no choice—he stepped into the water, shoes, jacket and all. Almost immediately he found her arm, got his hand under her shoulder and heaved her up. To his surprise she was holding her breath. And then she was laughing joyously56 and clinging to his neck. He pushed her onto the bank and, with great difficulty in his sodden57 clothes, struggled out himself.
“Thank you,” she kept saying. “Thank you, thank you.”
“That was a bloody58 stupid thing to do.”
“I wanted you to save me.”
“Don’t you know how easily you could have drowned?”
“You saved me.”
Distress59 and relief were charging his anger. He was close to shouting. “You stupid girl. You could have killed us both.”
She fell silent. He sat on the grass, emptying the water from his shoes. “You went under the surface, I couldn’t see you. My clothes were weighing me down. We could have drowned, both of us. Is it your idea of a joke? Well, is it?”
There was nothing more to say. She got dressed and they went back along the path, Briony first, and he squelching60 behind her. He wanted to get into the open sunlight of the park. Then he faced a long trudge61 back to the bungalow62 for a change of clothes. He had not yet spent his anger. She was not too young, he thought, to get her mind around an apology. She walked in silence, head lowered, possibly sulking, he could not see. When they came out of the woods and had gone through the kissing gate, she stopped and turned. Her tone was forthright63, even defiant64. Rather than sulk, she was squaring up to him.
“Do you know why I wanted you to save me?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Because I love you.”
She said it bravely, with chin upraised, and she blinked rapidly as she spoke65, dazzled by the momentous66 truth she had revealed.
He restrained an impulse to laugh. He was the object of a schoolgirl crush. “What on earth do you mean by that?”
“I mean what everybody else means when they say it. I love you.”
This time the words were on a pathetic rising note. He realized that he should resist the temptation to mock. But it was difficult. He said, “You love me, so you threw yourself in the river.”
“I wanted to know if you’d save me.”
“And now you know. I’d risk my life for yours. But that doesn’t mean I love you.”
She drew herself up a little. “I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you.”
Lines, surely, from one of her books, one she had read lately, or one she had written.
He said, “That’s all right. But don’t do it again, for me or anyone else. Promise?”
She nodded, and said in parting, “I love you. Now you know.”
She walked away toward the house. Shivering in the sunlight, he watched her until she was out of sight, and then he set off for home. He did not see her on her own before he left for France, and by the time he came back in September, she was away at boarding school. Not long after, he went up to Cambridge, and in December spent Christmas with friends. He didn’t see Briony until the following April, and by then the matter was forgotten.
Or was it?
He’d had plenty of time alone, too much time, to consider. He could remember no other unusual conversation with her, no strange behavior, no meaningful looks or sulks to suggest that her schoolgirlish passion had lasted beyond that day in June. He had been back to Surrey almost every vacation and she had many opportunities to seek him out at the bungalow, or pass him a note. He was busy with his new life then, lost to the novelties of undergraduate life, and also intent at that time on putting a little distance between himself and the Tallis family. But there must have been signs which he had not noticed. For three years she must have nurtured67 a feeling for him, kept it hidden, nourished it with fantasy or embellished68 it in her stories. She was the sort of girl who lived in her thoughts. The drama by the river might have been enough to sustain her all that time.
This theory, or conviction, rested on the memory of a single encounter—the meeting at dusk on the bridge. For years he had dwelled on that walk across the park. She would have known he was invited to dinner. There she was, barefoot, in a dirty white frock. That was strange enough. She would have been waiting for him, perhaps preparing her little speech, even rehearsing it out loud as she sat on the stone parapet. When he finally arrived, she was tongue-tied. That was proof of a sort. Even at the time, he thought it odd that she did not speak to him. He gave her the letter and she ran off. Minutes later, she was opening it. She was shocked, and not only by a word. In her mind he had betrayed her love by favoring her sister. Then, in the library, confirmation69 of the worst, at which point, the whole fantasy crashed. First, disappointment and despair, then a rising bitterness. Finally, an extraordinary opportunity in the dark, during the search for the twins, to avenge70 herself. She named him—and no one but her sister and his mother doubted her. The impulse, the flash of malice71, the infantile destructiveness he could understand. The wonder was the depth of the girl’s rancor72, her persistence73 with a story that saw him all the way to Wandsworth Prison. Now he might be cleared, and that gave him joy. He acknowledged the courage it would require for her to go back to the law and deny the evidence she had given under oath. But he did not think his resentment74 of her could ever be erased75. Yes, she was a child at the time, and he did not forgive her. He would never forgive her. That was the lasting76 damage.
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impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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outweighed
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的过去式和过去分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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blister
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| n.水疱；(油漆等的)气泡；v.(使)起泡 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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banality
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| n.陈腐；平庸；陈词滥调 | |
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heresies
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| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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genuflection
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| n. 曲膝, 屈服 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shunning
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的现在分词 ) | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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convoy
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| vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队 | |
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rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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hearths
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| 壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 ) | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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shambles
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| n.混乱之处；废墟 | |
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malign
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| adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑 | |
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daydreaming
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| v.想入非非，空想( daydream的现在分词 ) | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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prattled
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| v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话( prattle的过去式和过去分词 )；发出连续而无意义的声音；闲扯；东拉西扯 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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squelching
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| v.发吧唧声，发扑哧声( squelch的现在分词 )；制止；压制；遏制 | |
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trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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forthright
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| adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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embellished
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| v.美化( embellish的过去式和过去分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色 | |
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69
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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70
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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71
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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72
rancor
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| n.深仇，积怨 | |
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73
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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74
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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75
erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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76
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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