“Is that real sugar on top?” I asked as I put the teakettle on.
“Marie puts them aside for me.”
“Marie?”
“I’ve mentioned her.” He wiped lemon cream off the books in the briefcase. “Owns the bakery next to Café Aleppo?”
There always seemed to be generous widows and sweets despite food shortages. I didn’t remember this one. “Of course.”
“You’ve been distracted,” he said, stacking the cleaned books on the kitchen table. “I’ve noticed.”
This, coming from a man who had, on more than one occasion, worn his pajama shirt beneath his jacket. “It’s nothing.” I measured tea leaves. “I’ve been thoughtful at work.”
“It is difficult, I’m sure, to work with these men.” He folded up the towel. “But you’ve never been distracted before over them. Last night it sounded like you didn’t sleep a wink.”
All I’d wanted to do was help the men who came into the studio. When each soldier was brought in, that first time they looked us in the eye and realized that we weren’t going to glance away, in that moment it became personal.
But that wasn’t what he meant. That wasn’t what kept me sleepless last night. It was those blushing dreams I hadn’t had in years, the ones where I woke with my arms wrapped tight around my pillow.
“A soldier came in yesterday,” I finally said. I weighed how much to tell him. “But he left before I could finish my sketch.” I inhaled. “I don’t know if he’ll return.”
Grandfather sat and pulled a pastry from the bag. “Is that all? You’ve had mutilés leave before. Some aren’t ready for masks, you said.”
“It’s true.” I brought the pot to the table. “Some haven’t yet accepted the face they wear already. They aren’t prepared to accept a new one.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure this soldier is no different. He’ll return when he’s ready.”
Without telling him, I didn’t know how to explain. I knew Luc, knew how stubborn he was. I knew he might risk much to avoid me. “Not this one.” If he stayed away, it would be my fault. “I can’t let him go.” I poured out his tea and missed the glass. I swore in Arabic.
“I was going to ask what made this soldier different from the rest, but you’ve answered that.” Grandfather handed me the towel he’d used to wipe his books. “When I last saw you this furiously impatient, you were in the Laghouat post office, waiting to see if that Crépet boy had written you.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Grandfather knew. Though he often lost track of time, he never lost track of me.
He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table, eyes bright. “You found him again, didn’t you?”
I bit my lip, then nodded. “I almost didn’t recognize him.” I pushed away the wet glass and sank into the seat across the table.
The last time I’d seen Luc’s face, the face that appeared under my fingertips on the sketch pad, was the day Grandfather came to Mille Mots and told me that he was taking me away. I’d fled to my room and sat on my bed, ignoring the knocking on my door and the pleas to just come out. The window was pushed open and it was Luc. He came over to the bed and said, “You’re strong enough for this,” and I finally let myself cry. I’d left Paris and Stefan Bauer for the safety of Mille Mots, only to find a grandfather I hardly knew, ready to take me away from that safety. The ground beneath me kept shifting, but this boy came to find me, to hold me up, and to tell me I was strong enough to do it on my own. He didn’t shush my tears or murmur “It will be okay,” because it wouldn’t. He held me until I stopped crying, until my shoulders stopped shaking, until I was as drained as a raisin, and he lay me down on the bed.
I fell asleep, but I knew he was still there. Through my hot, flushed sleep, I heard him talking with his mother at the door and I heard him moving around the room, packing up my trunk for me. He fumbled with my wardrobe, dropping boots and rattling drawers, though I’d never seen him anything less than completely sure about everything. When I woke, in a velvety black night, he was curled up on the floor next to my bed.
The door opened and Madame came in to take me down. Grandfather was waiting; he wanted to leave before dawn if we were to catch the boat at Le Havre. From the light coming in the open doorway, Luc stirred. “Luc, she’s leaving,” Madame said, then stepped from the room. He sat up on his knees, suddenly alert, his eyes on me. The light from the hall cast one half of his face orange, the other left in angles and shadows.
I’d wanted then to tell him thank-you. I’d wanted to tell him that, yes, sometimes I wasn’t as strong as I thought. I’d wanted, with some small part of me, to cling to him and never leave. At Mille Mots, the rest of the world could be forgotten.
But I didn’t. I nodded, only once, hoping I could put all of that into my eyes.
Luc, I think he understood. He reached out, took my hand and kissed it. “Always at your service,” he whispered. Then he was out through the bedroom window, across the roof. I went to the window and watched him disappear into the dark. Overhead, Perseus and Andromeda shone. It was the last time I saw him.
Sitting across from Grandfather over a table of pastries and spilled tea, I shook my head. “If nothing else, I owe him my help.”
Back then, all of those years ago, he’d been at my service. Now it was my turn. I could help him get his face back. I could help him reclaim himself.
The casualties of war I saw every day were the men who came into the studio. But they weren’t the only ones. As I sped from Paris, I saw from the train window the ruin that the war had spread across the countryside. The colors of that first trip to France, those brilliant greens and yellows and oranges and reds, they faded to memory. All I saw around me now were fields burnt brown, blackened stumps of trees, gray piles of rubble.
I got off at Railleuse, my handbag held tight. The station was deserted but still standing. It had been hastily shored up with new lengths of wood at some point, crooked planks that smelled of sap. I called up a mental map and stepped onto the road to Mille Mots.
The dirt was dusted with new snow. Deep tracks cut through the mud, old tracks. I wondered if they were from armies advancing or armies retreating. Maybe both. Littered along the sides of the road were discarded wheels, torn shoes, scraps of cloth fluttering colorlessly against the rocks. I hurried on. Up ahead was Enété—the little cluster of white houses on the road to Mille Mots, the village where Luc and I had stopped on the way home from Paris.
Enété was no more.
Low piles of white stone marked where the buildings had been. The high street was a slick of churned mud. Here, that outline marked the shop where he’d bought me a cool drink. There, those were the walls of the smithy. I could still see the outlines of the blacksmith’s anvil, though the rest of the tools were gone. And, here, the charred remains of the bench where I’d sat while the accordion played. Enété had no music anymore. Holding my handbag tight against my chest, I walked from one end of the village to the other. The skeletons of houses and stores and stables, the crumbled mounds of stone, all were still.
The war had been closer than I thought. It had reached across the river to touch the village, to hurl shells and reduce my memories to rubble. The war had ended, but what was left?
I walked on, faster and faster. I passed more scarred landscape, more fields twisted brown and barren, more empty orchards, more ruins of houses and barns, more scraps of lives discarded. This, this here, was what Luc brought home with him, worn across his cheek. The wreckage of the life he used to know. This landscape of loss. Even the poplar tree was nothing but a splintered stump. I walked quickly past so I wouldn’t cry. After four years of war, I wouldn’t cry anymore.
Night was painting the sky violet around the edges when I turned down the long road between the trees. I held my breath until I passed the last tree. Château de Mille Mots still stood.
But it was dark, so dark inside. No light, not even candlelight, shone behind the windows lining the front. Maybe all of this was a fool’s errand. The long train ride, the even longer hike. I should have written first. I should have just sent a telegram.
I set my handbag on the porch step and slipped from my shoes. Stretching my toes, I leaned against the door, to summon up an ounce of energy. The wind sang through the few dry leaves left on the trees, and, below, the Aisne burbled. With my eyes closed, I caught the scent of roses on the air. February, and yet I swore I could smell them. Despite myself, I smiled. Even here, even in the middle of all this, it was summer.
I straightened and rang the bell.
I counted out a minute, then counted out a minute more, before I tried the bell again. Please oh please. It echoed in an empty hallway. I waited. Then I slumped against the door.
