Lovely War(97)

APHRODITE


     Mail Delivery—June 29, 1918





“COLETTE,” TANTE SOLANGE called. “Someone here to see you.”

It was early morning. Colette stumbled out of bed. Perhaps Papin, the oily manager at the café, had followed her home, the slime. She’d tell him where he could look for another waitress.

“Un moment,” Colette called to her aunt. She pulled on yesterday’s clothes and shoved a few pins into her hair. She wouldn’t bother to look too polished for Papin. Should she clean her teeth? Non. She’d kept the visitor waiting. If it was Papin, and her breath was foul, bien.

She came into the sitting room.

Leaning against the doorway, filling it up, filling the entire room, drawing to himself all the morning light, was Aubrey.

Really and truly and solidly Aubrey.

Her shriek did, I admit, wake the neighbors. She nearly collapsed for crying. She just about buckled in two. She slid down to the floor and wept.

Joy can do that. It can hurt as much as pain.

Aubrey, who’d spent a train ride fretting over what to say, panicked. This was terrible.

“You monster!” she cried. “I thought you were dead.”

Yep. He was in huge trouble.

There was that rascal smile she remembered.

“The Boche did their best to kill me,” he said, “but I didn’t hold still to let ’em.”

Colette would not let him charm his way out of this. “What do you have to say for yourself?” she demanded, through tears. “How could you do this to me?” He smelled of soap and peppermint. She remembered, to her horror, that she did not.

(That’s not what Aubrey was noticing just then.)

This, he knew, was a moment where he’d better choose his words carefully.

He held out an envelope. “I wrote you a letter,” he said. “I wanted to make sure it got here, so I figured I’d better bring it myself.”

She eyed the letter suspiciously, then edged away. “Let me get cleaned up . . .” she began, but Aubrey held her hand.

“I promise,” he said, “you’re the cleanest thing I’ve seen in months.”

Tears crashed over her once more, and her vision blurred. “Are you really here?”

“I am,” he said, “but don’t tell Colonel Hayward.”

She pulled away. “You’ll be shot for desertion!” she cried. “You must hurry back!”

He laughed. “I worked out a deal with Captain Fish. I’ll go back tonight.”

But to leave Colette Fournier behind, now that he’d found her! The Kaiser’s armies combined couldn’t make him do it.

Poor Colette’s emotions besieged her. “I thought you were dead,” she repeated. “We heard about a murdered soldier, and—Why didn’t you write?” She swallowed. “Those things you said to me. Did you mean none of them?”

“I meant them all.” His throat was a lump. “I still do.” He held out the envelope once more. “It’s all in the letter.”

Colette took the envelope uncertainly. She’d waited long enough for an answer, and yet, somehow, being asked to wait for as long as it would take to read the letter felt like one insult too many. Just tell me!

But he’d come this far. He was trying to apologize. She should be gracious.

She sat on a couch and heard stirrings from Tante Solange’s room.

“Be careful,” she whispered to Aubrey. “My aunt will have her hands all over you.”

He laughed. “I think I can handle an old lady.”

Colette shrugged. “Bonne chance. You are on your own.”



* * *





Ten minutes later, they left the apartment and strolled the streets.

“You weren’t kidding,” he told her, “about your aunt.”

Colette had no time for her aunt’s misbehavior just then. “Aubrey,” she said, “I am sorry about your friend.” She shook her head. “Quelle horreur!”

Aubrey said nothing but squeezed her arm. They walked on. Aubrey’s eyes saw Paris, its charming streets, its elegant shops, without taking in much.

“I understand why you didn’t write,” Colette told him. She poked him in the ribs. “That’s not to say that I forgive you. Yet.”

Aubrey knew he was forgiven and continued.

It was the grin that got her, every time. To think, she realized, she’d never before seen it by morning light. Never even known how this Aubrey of hers glowed in the sunlight.

I wasn’t even doing that, I swear. It was pure Aubrey. Other women they passed on the street noticed it, too.

Colette smiled to herself.

Of course, her smile made Aubrey melt. Just like the first time.

“It doesn’t seem right,” he said at length, “me, here with you, while Joey’s in the ground. When it was me, thinking I’m immortal, that they were coming for.”

Colette listened. She let Aubrey take his time.

“Why me?” he said aloud. “Why do I get to live when so many die? Why do I get to live when so many black folks get killed just for breathing the same air as angry white folks?”