The question echoed, hung in the still air a moment. Water dripped deep within the cave. “If I hadn’t, it would be like pretending it never happened.” He hitched his haversack further up his shoulder. “It would be wearing a mask to forget the scars beneath.”
“I made that mask.” I straightened. “I meant it to help.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“You’re not wearing it.”
“Clare, all those days you spent sketching me, shaping the mask, painting it, all those days matter.” Shadows caught in the scars on his face. “You believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
“And do you now?” I wrapped my arms around my chest.
He touched his face, craggy without his mask. “I’m starting to.” He reached into his haversack and took out a slim parcel, wrapped in paper. He seemed almost nervous, turning the package back and forth in his hands. “I should have given this to you ages ago…” he said.
He peeled back the wrapping and held it out. It was a bundle of soft Conté pencils, bunched tight.
It was an odd gift, for someone who was once an art student, for someone who worked in a studio. “For me?”
He must have seen the question on my face, even in the dim of the cave mouth. He twisted the paper. “You don’t know this, but once before I bought you pencils. It was the summer you were at Mille Mots.”
“I remember you brought your father pencils.”
“They were meant for you.”
I stood silent for a moment. “Why?”
“Because I believed in you. I knew I’d see your drawings someday in a gallery.” He took a step closer. “Even then, you knew what you loved.”
You, I wanted to say.
“Did I?” I asked instead.
“You did. You do. Your Something Important.”
“Something,” I repeated. “It’s a singular word, isn’t it?”
“Clare,” he said, holding out the pencils, so much more on offer. “You’re not your mother.”
Though I never thought I’d make a promise, I said, “I won’t leave.” And I meant it.
“If you do, take me with you?” In the dimness, I swore he held his breath.
I smiled. “I always have.”
From his bag he took a stub of a candle and lit it. The flame jumped. “So did I.” He held out his hand. “Let me show you something.”
I took it.
We walked into the dark, his hand warm and safe around mine. I closed my eyes and let him lead me. Softly, under his breath, he counted. Steps in from the entrance, steps to where he’d eaten, rested, prayed, dreaded, hoped. “Where did it happen?” I asked.
He slowed and his hand tightened. “Outside, up by where the old farmhouse was. There was a cellar near the line of trees.”
“Did you…”
“It looks different in the daylight,” he said. “I buried the past.”
“I’m glad.”
He drew me closer. He didn’t say a word.
“Remember that summer when we’d walk here?” I said, as though he would have forgotten. “It’s silly, but when I would come back here into the caves, I used to scratch our initials on the wall with my fingernail. A little deeper, each time, so that it didn’t fade.”
He handed me the candle. “It didn’t.”
Right there, on the soot-streaked walls, was scratched a pale C.R. and L.C.
“So many years.” I reached out with a finger to trace the initials. “I wonder what the soldiers here thought of it.”
He put his hand over mine, the one that held the candle. “I can’t speak for all the soldiers, but those four letters helped one soldier get through it all.” He moved my hand and the candle along the wall. “So much that he carved right beside them.”
It was me. My face, charcoaled and half carved into the limestone. Me, wild-haired, with eyes wide. Through sudden tears, the candle blurred.
“It’s how I first saw you, in the front hallway, and how I’ve always remembered you. Fascinating and frustrating, determined and impulsive, fragile and strong as stone.” He lowered the candle. “A face I couldn’t forget, even in the middle of war.”
In his face, I could see the boy I’d lost and the man I’d found again. I loved them both.
Tangier, Morocco
