Mat and I sat for another hour, passing letters and diaries between us. He was right: putting them alongside the SOE documents started to paint a complete picture of Caro’s activities, her lies, and her sacrifices.
It struck me again and again, how each sister claimed to tell the other everything yet held back so much. How much did they know of each other? How much do we know of the people we love? Is complete truth with another, complete knowing of another, even possible?
I began to think it wasn’t and, while one part of me wanted to hang my head and give up—on everything—another part recognized this was what I needed to understand.
I didn’t know everything, and I never could. My grandfather’s pain. My grandmother’s sorrow. My father’s childhood. His complete retreat after Amelia’s death. I saw it as abandonment, but how did he see it? What did he feel?
Endless questions filled my mind, but they all had one answer—honesty. Perhaps understanding could never be complete, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth the effort. If these sisters had been more honest, from Margaret’s illness on, so much pain could have been spared. And if I chose that path now, perhaps our present—and our futures—could be something new.
Mat’s gaze caught mine. There were questions there too. He was angry with me, hurt somehow—I sensed it. Yet he’d stayed up late to locate Martine because I’d been upset yesterday, certain that whatever happened to Caro had harmed her. I wasn’t sure if Caro had created another victim or had just been unable to save her. Yesterday I had handed Mat a file with the glum proclamation, “If Caro was a traitor, her friend will have ended up dead. That’s more devastating than anything that’s happened in our family.”
At the time, he’d dismissed my concerns and told me to read on. Then all through the night, he’d sought the answers to bring me a gift—the truth. There was so much I wanted to say. I dropped my attention to the page, ready to share, but still unsure how to begin.
London House
6 August 1941
Dear Margo,
Did you hear the BBC Broadcast Talk tonight? It was that writer I told you about, C. S. Lewis. He’s giving a series of talks on the BBC and tonight’s was “Common Decency.” I’m sure you heard it. It felt as if all Britain listened.
Everything stopped at work as we sat mesmerized by the radio, trying to find understanding, meaning, and perhaps motivation.
Lewis’s words rolled off a few coworkers, but I found them reassuring and thought-provoking. He talked about right and wrong, and that it exists outside of us. It is an absolute, not a perspective.
I have felt that lately. The issues we deal with now carry greater consequences than the world of our childhood and, in pondering them, I have come to realize that my “right” is subjective and must be in line with something higher, absolute, and fully formed. Otherwise I can twist and turn, perhaps through no fault of my own, into a horror. I used to think it was all mine, that my view carried weight, importance, even a stamp of absolute truth, but events lately have proven me wrong.
Yet looking around, it seems that subjective knowing still prevails. Everyone seems to cling to their own idea of right and wrong, and perception forms reality. But if that was true—objectively true—this war would make no sense. We would only fight together because, by happenstance, we agree that the Nazis are committing evil. Yet that opens another question . . . Would we also happen to agree on what is or is not evil?
But if these truths exist outside us and we do not determine them—nothing is dependent on our whims or happenstance. The truths are fixed, immutable, and eternal. We are the ones who will come and go, not truth.
Isn’t that reassuring? I find such comfort, as the world falls apart, that some things will last—even if they are only ideals.
Only? What a silly thing to write. Sometimes ideals are the most solid, truest, and best things we can strive for. And we should strive for them. It’s when we stop trying to find and chase true right that we stumble and degrade ourselves.
I was at the grocer’s yesterday and one woman’s ration of meat was a better cut, I gather. It certainly couldn’t have been larger, as everything is so scrupulously weighed. But another woman called out that it wasn’t right, that she was as important as everyone else in the shop, and she deserved her “fair share.” She yelled on, starting a row, until the police arrived. I left as three officers hauled the butcher and five women into the street.
You see, just as Lewis said, the woman knew there was a “right,” a standard of behavior, even in that shop—a standard she expected everyone to understand and follow. Otherwise she might have just been yelling nonsense for all the good it would do her.
But the standard does exist—everyone in that shop was shocked, alerted, then nervous that something had been violated. Her idea of “fair” clearly had a true objective reality, even if her chase for it ended in a row rather than a calm resolution.
I needed Lewis’s words last night. I’m so tired of everything tipping on edge and pressing to the point of destruction. I needed that call to action, that assurance that some truths are so inviolable that they are worth striving for, fighting for, and even dying for.
There are so many things I want to say to you, Margo. No, that’s not quite right. I think I’d rather just be in your company than burden you with all these questions and concerns. Besides, even if I have not been able to articulate everything well over the years, you know my heart.
I am missing you tonight. I am also missing Mother and Father. You are my bridge to them, Margo. It’s a lot to ask, but could you fortify it? When they think the worst of me, could you remind them of the best? I have been working so hard these last months to bring that best out. I only hope I haven’t overstepped.
Isn’t it odd how things have turned out? Could you have ever guessed? When we were young, I hated our roles. I was put on a sugary pink pedestal, idealized as all that was delicate, feminine, and obedient. Your pedestal was much lower, if you had one at all. But you had all the fun. Somehow, being out of their spotlight left you free—free to climb, fish, run, dig, and create.
I’m outside that bright light now and my pedestal is ground to dust. Yet I don’t embrace my freedom like you did. Perhaps I am not strong enough. I chafe and strike out, guilt becoming anger. As much as I try to convince myself I am protecting them, I am honest enough tonight to recognize I strive to punish them as they punished me.