Smuggled Love

By Robert Lee Davies

It is 1943 and Canada is fully involved in the Second World War. When two small town girls find themselves falling deeply in love, they find themselves fighting a war of their own when the townspeople express their contempt. In order to stay together, the two girls must first decide whether they are prepared to lose everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Lee Davies
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005245504

Book preview

Prologue

A half dozen photographs found in an old shoe box.

The first could have been taken anywhere. At first glance, one might assume the location to be a summer day at Coney Island. Yet, it is neither too hot nor too cold of a day in the photograph. The young women do not seem dressed for the heat of summer; nor are they layered against the icy winds of winter. With their long dark hair pulled back into ponytails to simply be kept from blowing into the Mediterranean-like features of their young faces, they seem at ease in dark pants and white pull over tops with embroidered lace. They stand at an angle, side by side, with a boy standing closely behind and between them. He towers over them with his smiling face angled down toward the camera and with one armed draped around one of the girls as though to frame her within the picture.

The second is of a young soldier standing in a field with his right hand gripping the barrel of a Lee Enfield rifle which is paralleling the height of his uniformed leg. The mottled light green Brodie helmet and Serge Battledress with the issued supplies appear as grey, as does the aura of the moment itself. One could assume that this photograph was taken just prior to embarkment. The expression on the man’s face is that of serious importance in front of a gloomy background before a time of unprecedented awfulness.

The third is of a row of stainless steel Silver Dome passenger cars at stand still along a length of platform at a railroad station. A middle aged man is standing on the wooden planks which parallel the tracks. A woman of approximately the same age is standing further back on a section of concrete. The man is looking up at the windows of the train. The woman is looking at the man.

The fourth is of four young women standing out front of a brick and white stucco building with the words Royal Hotel printed in white across the large pane glass window behind them. They all are dressed in starched white uniforms with snow white work shoes. Their hair is neatly tied back from their smiling faces and their arms are proudly draped around one another. Two of the women are from the first photograph.

The fifth is of the same two women perched atop the large front headlamps of a 1939 Plymouth Coupe with a damaged front right fender. They are wearing jeans and their long dark hair is cascading freely over revealing sweater tops. With their denim legs angling down over the front of the grill and their sneakers resting on the dusty bumper, one is smoking of a cigarette while the other is holding a half-empty bottle of alcohol. They look completely at ease in their surroundings and unafraid to be seen as so.

The last is of the two women standing on the cement sidewalk beside the concrete wall of a bank. There is no indication of which bank. The stenciled letters on one of the four windows up above them spell out the words: Safety Deposit Vault. They are both dressed in pleated pants, waste-length jackets and flat bottom shoes. One is holding a large, flat black satchel. The other is holding what appears to be a case large enough to contain a small musical instrument. They are looking into the camera with a shared expression of anticipation – as though about to leave for some place or to enter into some occurrence.

PART ONE

Late Summer - Early Autumn, 1943

One

From the start, she knew it was an unacceptable thing that she was doing. She had convinced herself from the beginning of it that at some point she would stop, would end it, somehow escape it. She understood, once it had evolved, that the bad of it would shadow all of it - the beginning, the now, and the end - and that there would be no resolve through acceptance. In their happier better times, she played out a thousand dreams that something might happen – some percept-altering event. In the darkest of times, she worried that one day she might lose the courage to go any farther with it. Yet she continued, first in the pursuit of it and later in the struggle of keeping it alive, all the while knowing that it would end in desolation. Deep down, she struggled with the concept of how something that felt so natural and right could be deemed as so wrong. From the very first moment, and for the first time in her life, she felt compelled to follow her heart. She accepted that the cost of it would be enormous, possibly immeasurable, in the trade of the future for the now.

With each passing day and experience, she unveiled herself increasingly to the anticipation and excitement of it. Soon, she surrendered herself to the need for it. She chose this furtherance because, for her, the wrath of being disowned by her family and judged and disposed of by society seemed minimal in comparison to losing the one thing that mattered – the one thing that seemed constant and true in her life of disruption and anguish. For her, to return to a world without Genevieve would be an unbearable, meaningless existence of loneliness and misery.

Genevieve’s flesh had been painted from head to toe with tiny beads of ocean that absorbed and reflected the afternoon sunlight. She had been standing there, almost naked in her swimsuit, with her toes dug into the warm sand and her black hair in a wet rope down one side of her freckled face. Her sea green eyes were sleepy with love for the moment – the experience of water and sun.

Nora found her fascinating. She would later find her tempting. Ultimately, she would come to experience her as uncontrollably addictive.

When their eyes first meet, Nora is paralyzed with embarrassment from having been caught watching her. Genevieve lifts one foot out of the earth and Nora watches the sand trail down between hourglass toes.

Try it, Genevieve invites her.

Nora stands and considers the sand. Without a word, she kicks off one sandal and cautiously, as though something might bite her, burrows her foot into the sand - toes first, and then more until she feels that it is deep enough to satisfy the girl. When she withdraws it, the sand stays with the hole.

You gotta’ scoop, says Genevieve. Like this.

Nora stands with her naked foot hoisted like a crane while she watches the demonstration. The girl’s foot burrows deep down into the beach and comes up with a mouthful of trailing sand.

See? Genevieve says. Simple as that! Now your turn.

Nora repeats the process, this time bringing her foot back up with a scoop-like action. A small but evident mountain of sand sits atop her foot.

Bravo! Genevieve cheers, clapping her hands in delight. Now ... try it with both feet.

Nora begins to remove her other sandal but stops in the moment she realizes the absurdity of the suggestion.

The girl laughs and says, You’re Patrick’s little sister. It is a statement rather than a question.

I’m not little, Nora declares. I am almost...."

Not like that, the girl adds. "I meant as in younger."

Nora nods.

I’m Genevieve.

Nora nods. She already knows who the girl is. She has observed her from a distance from her own existence for some time.

I heard he is leaving soon for the war, the girl reminds her. Her tone is not apologetic but matter of fact. Your brother....

Nora nods again.

Goddamn wars, the girl mutters. They take everything.

It won’t take Patrick, Nora whispers to herself.

The Great War took my father, says the girl. He came back home ... but he was dead inside.

Nora looks for sadness in the girl’s eyes but sees only truth – the already having accepted it. I’m sorry, she offers.

Fuck it, the girl says. From what I’ve heard ... he’d always been a little different anyways.

Nora is shocked but her face breaks into an unstoppable grin. She has rarely heard that word and is instantly amused at how it sounds coming from another girl.

What? Genevieve says, looking at her quizzically. You think only boys are supposed to say it?

Nora shrugs her shoulders.

Say it, Genevieve dares.

Nora shakes her head. She feels no need to.

Oh come on. Say it, Genevieve gently persuades her.

I don’t want to, Nora