Lovely War(65)



Something, Hazel knew, pressed heavily upon him.

“There hasn’t been a day,” she said, “when I haven’t thought of you.”

His eyes searched her face. The time was now. Please, God, not now, but it was now.

“Hazel,” he said. “I’m a sharpshooter.”

Those wide eyes, with their long, dark lashes, swept open and shut, open and shut.

Concealment was past. He’d ripped a hole in her picture of him. She would leave. She might as well know all the reasons why.

“I’ve killed six Germans,” he said. “That I know of for certain. Shot them in cold blood.”

Now she would recoil in horror.

Might as well hurry her along the path she must unavoidably follow. “Left wives widowed,” he said quickly. “Children orphaned. Parents brokenhearted. Shot them as they mended fences or cooked their dinner.”

Speak. Tell me you never want to see me again. But say it quickly.

This wasn’t how he had intended to tell her. He knew he must, but at least, he could’ve enjoyed a bit more of her company, selfishly and unapologetically, before ruining everything.

And Hazel?

What did she see?

Her beautiful James, more beautiful than ever in the golden light, grief-stricken by what duty demanded of him. What war demanded. Should war or duty have such power? The war, she saw, killed more than those whose families received telegrams.

Six lives taken. Nothing, she knew, that she could do or say to offer comfort would erase that pain. It would never leave him. And he, so young.

She rose and walked slowly back toward the corridor leading toward the church offices, leaving her roses behind.

There she goes. James closed his eyes. Then opened them again, because he would rather hurt than not watch her walk away.

But she didn’t leave, not yet. She stopped near an office door and spoke to a black-robed cleric. She took some coins from her pocketbook and gave one to the cleric. A donation on the way out. But then the cleric gave her something, and she returned to James.

Hope and despair choked him. He didn’t know how to look at her.

She held out her hand. “Come with me.”

He took her hand and followed her. She led him toward a rack of glass votive jars at the front of Mary’s chapel. The glass jars were red, and candles flickered in a few of them. She opened her parcel and a book of matches. From the parcel she took one candle, which she handed to James.

“For the first German.” She gave him the matches. He hesitated, and she nudged him. “Light it.”

With shaking hands he struck the paper match. It took two or three tries before orange flame overtook its woven threads. He carefully lowered the candle into an empty jar and placed it on the rack. As the little flame grew more self-assured, the red glass began to glow.

Hazel handed him another candle. “For the second German.”

He struck another match and lit the candle. Hazel stayed by him. He placed his second candle beside the first, already burning brightly, its filament of smoke rising like a soul to God.

The rack of candles swam before his eyes, a sea of bobbing golden lights in a field of red.

“For the third German.”

He scrubbed the tears off his cheeks with his fingers, and they ruined the next match. He had to try another. He lit the third candle and set it beside its brothers.

He lit the fourth candle, and the fifth. For each, a life. For each, a light. He filled an entire shelf in the candle rack with flickering flame. He saw his hands strike the matches and remembered: these hands pulled the trigger. He knew he was openly weeping now, and that Hazel saw him, but it didn’t matter; nothing mattered; he didn’t matter.

He covered his eyes with his hands.

“There will be more,” he whispered, “before I’m through. How many candles will I need to light, if I ever make it home?”

She took the book of matches from his pocket, struck one, and lit the last candle, then gently peeled his right hand off his face and placed the candle in his palm.

“For the sixth German.”

He placed the candle in a jar, set it on the rack, and watched them all burn. Slow currents of air bent the flames to the left, to the right. Gracefully, like a flock of starlings in flight.





APHRODITE


     Le Bouillon Chartier—February 13, 1918





POOR MORTALS. I feel for them. That evening in Paris couldn’t be described in its full richness, its second-by-split-second splendor, not if they spent decades trying to tell it. And that’s just one of their nights. They rack them up by the thousands, yet they still get up each morning and tie their shoes. You have to admire them. They are so very brave to keep on living.

Take a kiss, for instance—

But wait; I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hazel managed to lead James, with her map, on a long ramble through the city. Eventually they arrived at le Bouillon Chartier, a restaurant Colette’s aunt had recommended. Red tablecloths, warm light, ample food, no royal pedigree required, and generous patience for les anglais. The waiter situated them in a corner booth in the upper deck, took their order, and left them, knowingly, in peace. I rarely need to intervene with French waitstaff. They’re my people.

Hazel scooted over next to James and sat close to him. He was left with no choice but to drape his arm over her shoulder, and of course he didn’t mind.

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