Lovely War(64)

She studied the map. When she looked up, he presented her with a bouquet of pink roses.

“What’s this?” she cried. Behind him, a flower cart with signs reminded les hommes not to forget la Saint-Valentin. A stout, aproned vendor was grinning at her.

“Will you be my valentine, Miss Hazel Windicott?”

She inhaled the perfume of the roses. “Well,” she said, “only because no one else appears willing to take the post.”

This girl. James wanted to laugh out loud. He’d been so worried, that somehow the easiness he’d felt with her in London couldn’t survive their time apart. He couldn’t get enough of her.

Would she feel the same, when she knew his deeds of war?

At least, he thought, he could enjoy these moments now.

The sun had set by the time they headed northwest on Boulevard de Magenta. James carried his duffel bag and the sack of rolls. Hazel cradled her roses like a kitten in her arms.

They turned onto Rue la Fayette and soon came to a square containing a grand church. It dwarfed the buildings around it. Situated on a rise of ground, the gray stone basilica was flanked by two grand clock towers. Carved saints, beggars, and angels looked down upon them. In terraced gardens, the stalks of last year’s weeds shivered in the wind. The war. Everything nonessential was neglected.

Hazel watched James thoughtfully. “You need to come back to Paris,” she said, “and spend a year looking at buildings, don’t you?”

The thought of becoming an architect seemed buried in the trenches with the war dead.

“That’d be brilliant,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be any fun if you weren’t there too.”

That caught my notice. When Forever Talk enters into the conversation, I’m all ears. Or even Long-Term Talk. Things were moving along swimmingly.

Two blushing young people climbed the steps up to l’église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.

“Colette says,” said Hazel, feeling a change in subject might be needed, “this church is well worth seeing. Some fine artwork inside, and a splendid organ.”

“Will you play the organ?”

She gave him a look. “You don’t just waltz in and play the organ anytime you please.”

They passed through the portico and entered the sanctuary.

“Oh my,” whispered Hazel.

By the soft light of hanging lamps, they beheld the grandeur of l’église de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.

Two rows of grand columns ran on either side of the length of the vast sanctuary, and a second level of columns from an upper gallery extended to the beautifully carved ceiling. Gorgeous paintings adorned the walls and the domed apse. The paintings, heavily gilded, gleamed in the lamplight, suffusing the space with a somber glow.

They strolled along the corridor that led behind the nave to a secluded chapel. Chapelle de la Vierge. The Virgin Mary’s chapel. A private place one might go to pray.

James dropped his duffel bag and sat. He watched Hazel curiously examine the sculptures and stained glass, and smiled. Then she realized he’d sat down and returned to sit beside him.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Magnificent.”

She watched his face earnestly. “I thought, maybe, after your time at the Front, in all that dirt and smoke, that something very beautiful might be just what you needed to see.”

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “You were right.”

“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment,” she said indignantly.

“You’ll have to take it, all the same.”

“Hmph.”

The windows darkened as night settled over Paris. It made the lamplight both brighter and smaller, as the upper echelon of the sanctuary slid into darkness.

“It’s good to see something that was lovingly and carefully made,” he said at length. “The war makes it feel as though all humans have ever done is destroy.”

She leaned against his shoulder. “Is it quite terrible?”

All he wanted to think about was her. Not the trenches.

“It is,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ve seen the worst of it yet.”

She turned to look him in the eye. “I hope you have.”

“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s you not go back to Saint-Nazaire, and me not go back to the Front. Let’s just stay here, looking at things. All right? Let’s not let this end.”

She smiled. “All right.”

He laughed. “You only say that because you know I don’t mean it.”

“You can’t mean it,” she said. “But you would if you could.”

She understood him so quickly, so completely, so naturally. It almost frightened him. If she understood all that he felt for her, would it frighten her?

“Do you know,” he said, his words tumbling out, “I was afraid to come see you.”

She watched him with eyes brimming with concern.

“I didn’t know how it would be,” he said quickly. “I didn’t know if what we felt—what you felt—what I hoped you had—could survive. If it had even been real, or if I’d imagined it.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“But here you are. It’s as if we’ve been together every day.”