* * *4The train was slowing down.Orville considered the green countryside and then, as the train crept along, the streets and houses of Ermenonville, appreciating the simplicity of the village, a few blocks square, scaled to the past, a park, a lake, a swan or two, a rambling château, and rain-wet cobbles.Rain streaked the train windows ... rain, so, let it rain ... rain has meaning here. It's home again, home, if there is such a place. He was seeing the familiar, outwardly unchanged by war: seeing the old brick/wood house, the mangy Chateaubriand books in the attic, Dad's poilu hat, the grand piano: certain hours would come alive in certain rooms.It was after two p.m. and the train was late ... wasn't that Jean standing there by the depot, a bunch of farmers around her?A grey freight car on the siding cut him off, car by car, from the station. The locomotive whistle cemented rain drops together: his face close to the window he waited, counting the passing freight cars, aware too of his compartment: it seemed to rise up around him, threaten: the shabby seat, the shabby suitcase on the shabby carpeting: everything attained a linear dimension: for seconds more, as the engine braked and the cars ground to a stop, he reviewed his trip across Germany, the dangerous jeep ride to Offenburg, a strafing of the German train, the endless check-points, ID problems, the mockingly tedious truck trip into Paris. How could there be so many, many fields and police and hedges strung together? So many, many stops at villages, on sidings?Opening his compartment door, he glared at the platform people, dozens of rain-splattered faces, those blank faces, beseeching faces. Jeannette was standing under the depot eaves, near the entry door, wearing her uniform, bareheaded, a cape about her shoulders.He waved and hollered.Stepping down, agendarmebumped him, and then her arms were around him, her face against his."Orville ... Orv, oh, darling!"Claude was there to shake hands in his old way, something brotherly. He was ready to carry the suitcase.She squeezed Orville hard, breathing hard, her face upturned, smiling. Thinking of his filthy mufti, he wanted to break away from her: her cleanliness was difficult to accept: he thought her uniform's immaculateness might make him dangerously conspicuous. No one noticed. Everyone was busy coming and going.He asked about Lena.Jeannette shook her head."No tears," he said.At that she gave him a special smile: her girlishness struck him, made him shiver, made him wonder how long it could last. To hide his consternation he said:"Are you coming along with me?""Of course I am.""Our car's parked at the rear of the depot," Claude said. "How are you?" The question came with a genuine sense of concern.Orville simply nodded.The bearded face seemed unchanged.Sitting in the car, Jeannette kissed Orville consolingly, understanding his fatigue, ruling out his greasy mechanic's uniform, his unshaven face, peasant cap: as they drove the short distance to the Ronde's, he said very little, but he did admit it had been "a rotten trip ... I tried phoning you from Paris, but I couldn't get through" ... it was easier to sit and stare at the village, at things he knew; Jean guessed the state of his mind.He asked about Lena again."She's very ill.""Is she in the hospital?""She's at home--there's no room at the hospital.""What really happened to her? The radiograms didn't help me much.""Overwork ... no, not that ... she took crazy chances ... on a parachute drop she ... well, it was exposure ... those Maquis ventures ... then she contracted pneumonia."Orville realized from her jerky phrases that she was disturbed."Aunt Therèse ... how's she?""Not so well.""Her telegram said...""You're safe ... you're here ... a few days ... we have you for a few days ... you and I." She kissed his hand. "There will be time for you ... to rest. Let's be glad we have each other."He held her against him.Rain and windshield wipers and thoughts mixed.Going to Lena's room, glad of the family house, he felt dirtier than ever, perhaps he could have changed, somehow, somewhere: it was Claude who urged him to see Lena at once--no, don't wait to change. Orville respected Colonel Ronde for manipulating this brief leave: would he be arriving in E soon? Walking through the living room, Orville was comforted by the rose grey of the carpet, the oval mirror, the bust of Chopin, the piano. Ascending the staircase he heard the downpour hit the roof.Home ... yes ...A priest confronted him at Lena's door and shook hands, saying nothing. Orville went in: her room smelled of medicines; her oxygen tank reared up alongside her bed; its red plastic handle grinned; her plasma bottle hung on its chromium hook--and nodded.Lena's face was deep in the pillow."She's dead," the priest said in an unemotional voice. "She died about a half hour ago ... she was unconscious, then the end."Then the end, Orville repeated to himself.If my train had been on time? he asked himself.He stared at the priest accusingly, rudely: had he done anything to help Lena? His fat bearded face was noncommittal. The man's eyes were as dead Lena's: such apathy.Orville stepped back, stepped aside in disgust.He was amazed at the beauty of Lena's yellow hair, flung about the pillow, amazed too by the athletic face, her open mouth suggestive of pain. He opened his mouth and shut it again and wet his lips with his tongue, blaming the war for her death. She had a lace handkerchief clenched in her hand ... maybe Amélie had died that way ... maybe Lena had been watching the rain trickle down her bedroom window. Her face was harsh: shadows added to the harshness. Hand on her bedpost, Orville wished he had slept with her: how could it have mattered?Jeannette had come down the stairs as he descended. Hand sliding down the railing, he saw Lena as a kid, no, the two of them, screaming down the steps, to get outdoors, to play ball. He found Jean in the living room: he did not wish to talk: he wanted to feel that Lena was still alive: as he sat down and faced Jeannette she thought how it must be coming home to death, death in his home, death after the deaths of war: coming home was perplexing at best. Slipping her fingers into his, she tugged at him as they sat together on the sofa.Claude was standing nearby."She's dead," Orville said to him.Bichain heard Orville. The old man stiffened, and rubbed his beard: he became unaware of Jean and Orville: with bowed head he walked off, seeing the girl he had helped to raise, a woman of tantrums, woman of courage, love and beauty. Mumbling a little, he went to his own room, shut the door, and lay down, an arm flung across his eyes."Where's Aunt Therèse?" Orville asked Jean."I don't know," she said.They continued to sit there saying nothing, one lamp lit, no fires burning in the fireplaces, the room quite cold, the wind fumbling at the French doors. Slowly, as they sat together, he became aware of his stench: nobody wanted him: he had nothing for anyone: he clenched his stained hands, eyes toward the floor: this was no way to be, sitting beside her."They should have been able to save her," he said."They tried ... they tried.""Who?""The doctors, several doctors were in and out. Yes, Orv, they tried.""What were they, hacks?""Our best.""Did they use antibiotics?""Yes ... injections ... they tried ... you saw the oxygen tank ... I came over often ... I know what went on in that room."Orville covered his face with his hand and hid from Jeannette.Jean bit her lips: death on the battlefield, death at home: these things were driving him farther and farther inside himself: they were taking him farther away. Unable to think of anything more to say about Lena, she thought of her own problems at the hospital, daily chores, the endless rounds--patients who required special care."Get Bichain to start a fire in the fireplaces," he said after a while. "I have to wash ... have to change ... must go now."As he got up, he saw his aunt approaching him slowly, her heels tapping the parquet and then soundless on the carpet.There was new puffiness about her face and she seemed to have lost weight; had neglected to re-dye her hair and grey and white strands hung about her ears and over her forehead. Wearing a blue ensemble, she carried a black overcoat and an umbrella--carrying it by its metallic ring."Orville," she said, and kissed him. "Have you just come? Oh, to have you here? I found a driver to bring Dr. Raoul to see Lena; he's gone upstairs to examine her. Just let me sit down for a minute ... Jean, dear, how is Lena? Were you upstairs?"Jeannette was afraid to tell her of Lena's death: she waited beside Mme. Ronde's chair, glancing at her, glancing at Orville."I need a cigarette ... I'll have one before I see her," Mme. Ronde said. "Bring me one, from the box on the table over there by you--like a good boy ... Orville, have you seen Lena?" She was speaking unevenly, scolding herself for being lukewarm.Orville reasoned: she'll soon know: it doesn't matter whether I let her go upstairs: maybe it will be easier to find out from the priest.Jeannette drew a chair close to Mme. Ronde's chair, leaning toward her, she said: "We went upstairs to see her ... she's dead ... she died before we returned from the depot."For an instant Mme. Ronde doubted Jean; she folded and unfolded her hands, asking herself why she would lie?"I must go upstairs ... I'll see ... I..."She got up, sat down, folded her raincoat across the back of her chair, and with slow motion movement got up again."I'll go upstairs..."It was Christmas and Lena was racing down the stairs, waving a candy cane, shouting "Joyeux nöel, joyeux nöel!"Standing motionless Mme. Ronde wept softly, handkerchief to her face, hating the thought of finding her dead, wanting to hope.Jeannette glanced at Orville who was watching his aunt. She put her arm around Mme. Ronde's waist but she was not willing to accept assistance."No ... no..."Facing Orville, she asked:"Why did she have to die while I was away?""The priest was with her.""The priest was with her!" she scoffed. "Who wants to die alone with a strange priest?"She sat down.Did the priest communicate with her: did she speak to him: was there consolation? He was in the room--to prevent people from talking: Bichain had called him in. Precepts: what had they done, had they stopped the war, had they defied Hitler? ... nothing ... nothing, there's nothing, no god ... wars ... cuckolds ... war ...She wiped her face with a handkerchief, a man's handkerchief, her husband's, snatched from an overcoat. Mopping her face reddened it: it was more tragic, the red and the putty surface wrinkling, the eyes sinking in on themselves.Her face shocked Jeannette as they waited, motionless. For Orville there was the distorted tie-in with Rousseau's world."Orville, help me, take my arm ... I'm going upstairs, best to go, not wait..."She said nothing as they climbed the steps; Orville wanted to say a few words; he tried to re-see something he and Lena had done, so he could mention it to his aunt; it was almost as if he had never known Lena. Instead of visualizing or evoking her he recalled his last military involvement, the stress of the trip to visit Ermenonville; as they reached the top step, Orville said:"I heard from Mother, a while ago.""Ah," his aunt responded."She's all right," he said.Words were automatic--out of the past.Mme. Ronde wondered what it was Orville had said.Lena's door was open: the doctor was talking to the young priest whose cropped head seemed more skull than anything alive. Mme. Ronde found her way to Lena's bed ... Orville found his way downstairs, rejoining Jeannette, saying over and over, I must go, I must remember to take a bath and scrub ... I must say ... I must tell Jean ... I must ... must say ...She kissed him and said quietly:"I'm going to the hospital.""Yes?""I'm on duty, worried about a fellow there. Meet me early at the hospital, in the entry, say about eight o'clock? ... Okay? but if things don't work out call me ... no, no, you can't, the phone's out of order.""The hospital ... at eight? I'll be there ... now, I have to take ... but how are you getting back? Let Claude drive you there.""I have my raincoat and umbrella. It's not far, you know.""Not in this rain!""Then I'll ask Claude."He helped her into her raincoat; Claude came; at the door her red head disappeared under his black umbrella; then Orville let the window drapes fall into place.Have to go upstairs ... rest ... sit on my bed ... take off these clothes ... rest ...In his room he closed the door, sensing that the latch slid into place.He was alone!!Sitting on his bed he noticed the guns in their oak rack, the tackle, the reel, the bass above his bed; he thought he had seen them for the last time. Dragging off his shoes, he attempted to figure out what day it was: Wednesday? Friday? It didn't matter.His socks on the floor, he thought of stretching out as he was: his head was mumbling about fishing gear: his eyes returned to the poles: beads of light twinkled on ferrules and reels. The transparent cover had fallen off one of the reels.In the bathroom he kicked his clothes into a corner and listened to the water rushing into the tub, amazed by the jet: water, ordinary, hot water, wonderful water, swishing water. He tossed a washcloth over the side of the tub and watched it float before it became waterlogged. So, the heater was okay.In the clear warmth he found rest: marvelous: marvelous to lie there: and the cake of soap, spinning! He had planned to scrub his hair and then dress but he knew he had to sleep: with the hot washcloth over his face he breathed deeply: he sopped it over his eyelids: reluctantly, he climbed out and half dried himself, stopping to finger the colorful towel, hold it out, count the blue and white stripes.From his bed he turned out the lamp, and let himself go: it was like that, just couldn't be helped: a sort of a toboggan: the room stopped existing, the sheets gathered about his belly, legs, and shoulders: they felt warm: then, there was silence, and then--though he wasn't sure--someone was knocking, knocking insistently on the door, someone was speaking:Lena? Claude? Jean?" ... Supper's on the table ... It's getting late. Are you coming down? Jeannette's come back from the hospital...""Ah ... ah, I'm coming, let me get dressed ... I, yes ... let me get dressed."He had not eaten in Paris: of course there was nothing available on the train; he swung his feet to the floor: yes, he was hungry: he listened: it was still raining: he heard the rain-quiet on the big house. In another moment, he laid clothes on his bed, old clothes from the wardrobe, and heard that other sound, the quietude of death.Everyone's.Switching on a second lamp, one on his chest-of-drawers, he fiddled with things in the top drawer. He unrolled a belt for his slacks. There was a tie that Uncle Victor had given him. The cufflinks were from his mother. He could still wear the old, brown alligator shoes: they went on comfortably. The sweater had been a favorite: he shook it out, slipped it on slowly, buttoned it, felt in the pockets.When he came downstairs, Jean was in the dining room, arranging roses on the dining table, white roses in a crystal bowl, full blown roses, their petals shattering as she arranged them."Hi, Orville. Aren't you hungry? Did you get some sleep?"He hugged her."Sure ... sure!" He exclaimed and kissed her, her face magical, the fragrance of roses also there: when had she appeared more beautiful!"You look rested," she said."But I haven't shaved." He scrubbed a hand over his beard. "These old clothes of mine ... sure great to have them...""Sit down, my dear."She had put on a blue serge, lace at the throat, the lace in a broad, open pattern of fully open poppies, very provincial, the ensemble nineteenth century."Is Aunt Therèse having supper?""It's late ... she's gone to bed ... she didn't want any supper.""Has she sent for Uncle Victor?""I don't know. I hope he can come ... she needs him. I hope I can help her ... I want to do all I can."Somehow her calm came as a surprise: or was it simplicity and her concern that surprised! He sat at the table, thinking of the new way she combed her hair, curling it on her neck and over her ears and temples. Tiny costume jewels clipped each ear."How has it been at the hospital?"She sat across from him, saying:"We work in shifts ... I'm in on some of the surgical cases ... they come in fast ... POW's ... civilians ... officers ... it's the Nazis we resent..."All the magic had gone from her face; her sentences were staccato; she leaned on the table, apprehensive--troubled by gigantism of the war: thoughts of Lena confused her: she wished to reach a clearer understanding of Orville and his future.Annette served, greeting Orville in a hushed voice: obviously, she had been crying: her face seemed a gnome's face from some cathedral altar or reredos. Nervous, she acted more like a newcomer than one who had been with the Ronde household for years.As he ate, Orville felt out of place: the familiar napkins, fork, knife, plates and goblets became unfamiliar: so were Jean in her serge and the surrounding silence: his mind screwed about, circled, picked at itself, fled somewhere, wanting assurances."Was it bad out there, bad most of the time?" she wanted to know, troubled by the silence and his grim expression, hoping to break through.He was afraid to remain silent, afraid to reply: the immediate world seemed to be beyond the windows, kept there by a mere sheet of glass: the past was unreal, thin, another sheet of glass: the wrong word might shatter both: and yet he talked, talked about the Corps, and as he talked he attempted to conceal his hate and his killings."Tell me more about yourself," he urged her.She shook her head.It should not be this way, he told himself.He thought of her hands, how they hovered over her coffee cup and silver, fragile fingers--not for any Corps. They were meant to help, help the wounded, help children. His own fingers--he glared at them, seeing the grime under the nails. They could not help. Concealing them under his napkins, he shoved them between his legs: tomorrow I have to clean out the grease. Shave. Wash my hair."They have such good things to eat here, at the Rondes'," Jean said. "While Lena was ill I was here almost every day."Squab ... peas ... soufflé ... chicken ... omelette ... ham ..."Umm!" he exclaimed.The rain was moving about.He stared at Jean's hair--the auburn, the copper.As she turned her head the colors changed: hers was a dignified head, heavy eyebrows, smooth forehead, thin nose, good head, loving ... her lashes were darker than her eyebrows."Don't look at me like that," she objected earnestly, misunderstanding him."I'm sorry," he said."Men glare at me in the hospital," she said."It's nothing," he said, frowning, laying down his knife and fork. Have I been staring at her in some crazy way? He forced himself to continue eating; he had not eaten much but he was ready to leave the table. Again he questioned love, how long did it last? A man's love for a woman, a woman's for a man, a child's love for his parents? Life was not much at cherishing love: it had lost that gift if it ever had that gift for any length of time. Now, for love to endure very long it had to mount a machine gun.A switch clicked in his brain: a small gate opened: a Sherman tank roared through the opening: a farm was burning.After dessert and coffee, they sat in the living room where Claude had fires blazing, lamps and candles lit. Lena's angora, curled on a floor cushion, was fast asleep. Orville stroked him and he rolled over and yawned and stretched: upstairs a door slammed. The mantel clock chimed delicately: rain was making slow sounds.Orville sat close to Jeannette on the sofa and the warmth of her body, the warmth of her hands and the fires made him shut his eyes: nothing was wrong; then she asked her disturbing question, that old question, as though in great pain."Why do we have to die?"She was remembering remembrances of London and Wisconsin, remembering her father who had often said that death was not enough."... Hardly a question ... doesn't it evolve out of the medieval ages, Jean? I guess they were asking that during the Crusades. During the Inquisition. Sir Walter must have asked it. Joan. Maybe Christ?"An important question ... but for some of us there's an answer: we die to escape hell. I've been wanting to escape it. Our inquisition ... can't we call it that? ... it's not something we cherish ... death is a way out. You know that...""I shouldn't have asked ... I know better ... sometimes it seems there ought to be a way to live without tragedy ... I want to make life worthwhile for you, Orv. Back home. Together. I want it to be like that."He smiled a smile of thanks and love."I still think about Rousseau because I was brought up thinking about him. Ermenonville's his shadow ... I grew up in that shadow. You want to make life worthwhile for us ... he wanted to make life worthwhile for the world. He was a brave guy--a fighter. You know ... he said civilization is a disease. As the war hounds us, we see he was right. He was a man of reveries ... I've wanted to be a man of reveries."It seemed to Orville that Rousseau's philosophy was symbolized by the white tomb on the island of poplars, by the swans on the Petit Lac. Men paid their respect by pausing there, confronting the empty tomb.Jean snuggled closer to Orv."Rousseau says we're slaves to our laws and thinks we can free ourselves by respecting nature, making life simpler. Mom and I thought that too; that's why we moved to the States ... we thought we wouldn't have to kowtow to state or church or..."Orville tasted his own slavery as he talked."Men still want to get rid of Rousseau ... too dangerous ... when you read hisConfessionsyou see how he feels ... Me ... I like hisReveries... maybe because he finished them in Ermenonville..."Lapsing into silence they listened to the house and rain sounds.Having read Rousseau's first chapters recently, she thumbed through thoughts as they listened together. Firelight washed the ceiling, polished the side of the grand piano. Someone was going up the staircase--thoughtful steps. Servant voices sounded, then faded. A log sent up brilliant sparks and then flared into saw teeth of orange and red.The cat rubbed against Orville's leg."I started out living pretty sanely ... at Cornell ... then I fell into the war trap...""It will end, Orville dear. We'll be free soon.""I wish I thought that.""We must think that.""Can luck begin once more? And why should you and I be lucky? Tell me that. Don't tell me that somebody always is ... a lot of somebodies are not ... I won't buy that guff."Deep in his thinking he was convinced that he would not survive: the conviction slapped him across the face: there it was, in the wood and sparks and smoke. Getting up abruptly, he lit a cigarette, offering Jean one.Now he knew why the Chopin bust expressed mystery: its mystery was death, death for those who have any kindness in them. Poor Chopin, so long an exile, always dying, starved for love, always composing ... Part of an étude rattled through Orville as he walked the floor: his mother was sitting at the piano there, playing. He squinted at the marble and the hooded eyes squinted back at him and he walked the length of the room.Jean sat with her chin on her hand, wanting to enjoy a movie in Senlis--something sophisticated or humorous. She missed Chuck: he would be glad to take her: they had been ardent movie buffs. She felt that he would not have killed himself if she had been around to care for him, read to him, help him go for walks. She felt she should have remained in the States ... then, again, she saw the injured in Europe.Of course Orville and I could attend a movie in Senlis, away from death. Tomorrow? Tomorrow they will carry Lena out of this house.As Claude drove Jean to the hospital, he told her what Lena had meant to him, saying it well, saying tomorrow will be a rough day.In the morning he and Orville carried Lena down the staircase to a pickup truck: the undertaker, a sickly man of fifty, with a grey beard, braided straw hat, and shabby clothes, was apologetic:"... Pardon, Monsieur, the hearse wouldn't start ... I think, a little later, for the funeral, I can get it started, yes ... I had to borrow this truck. So little gas ... I wasn't sure I could come..."As Orville covered Lena on the truck floor he heard what was being said: he was not interested: drawing aside the blanket he had a final look, a long look, seeing Lena when kindness was kindness, when responsibilities were nil: fun, that was Lena: they felt they were more than cousins: slowly folding the blanket over her he was keenly aware that he was folding it over many things.In his room he buzzed a reel on one of his Swiss rods: it seemed alive, waiting for a bluebottle fly. He opened his creel, thumped it, unhooked a couple of tempting flies and dropped them into the basket. Raising the lid of his aluminum fly box he grinned:Jesus ... all those beauties! Peacock quills ... cock's hackle ... crow wing feathers ... spring, summer, and autumn Nonettes ...Strewing flies on his bed he checked them one by one: no rust: such colors!With a pair of rods, a hatband of flies and his creel, he stole down the rear stair and out of the house: there was not much wind ... it was cold but not too damn cold for Jean: she would be there, at Rousseau's statue, in the village.She was to meet him at eleven--a change in time.Eleven ... eleven-twenty ... eleven-thirty!Saying good morning to several villagers, he half recognized a few of them.He eyed bird droppings on thecitoyen'sbronze shoulders: purple droppings, blue ones, yellow ones. What was the name of that opera he had composed? But there, there she was, bustling, a rush basket on her arm, her red hair blowing.She had gotten out of her hospital uniform and was wearing corduroy and sweater."Hi, Orv!""Hi, kid! You're late, according to my sundial," he said, smiling, wanting to josh her."Oh, our cook was slow fixing our lunch ... he got into some kind of dither. You know how cooks are! ... Just wait till you see what I've got here in the basket!"They kissed, crooked their arms together, and strolled out of the village, along the Nonette, the sun breaking through onto the stream: they did not walk far: he knew a fishing spot by an old ruin: among the willows were regal chestnut and poplar and pine: brown leaves cluttered the path, most of them soggy; it was as if nobody had walked there since the days of Napoleon.They cast from grassy embankments, from muddy flats, and from tiny sandy beaches. She was as clever with her casting as he: it was Wisconsin casting upstream versus New York casting downstream: what marvelous, marvelous flies, she exclaimed."I didn't know you're a pro at tieing."Her face in the leafy sunlight was half-shadow.Sunlight fell on the huge ruined castle as they fished below it, from blocks of masonry, thick, limestone slabs, some of them mossy and intricately carved. Orville's stone--the one he was casting from--bore a hooded falcon with Latin letters chiselled under its claws. They cast into a pool overhung by a three-story chunk of masonry, a dark green pool, free of snags or leaves, pool and castle merging. She dropped a fly inside a water window: with each flick of the fly the window disappeared, to reappear almost immediately. They didn't talk as they fished. A dove talked. A raven settled in a pine, intrigued by the fishermen. Downstream cattle waded, sucking softly, up to their knees in the water."Good boy," Jean exclaimed, as he got a strike. "Bring him in easy ... easy does it."Releasing some line, he played his trout: the reel's spinning thrilled him: the line sliced across the water, forming a ragged oval: he was in New York again.Jeannette longed to sign out, her job forsaken: she longed to keep him forever."Not very big," he said, landing his catch. "A pound or so, I guess." But he was very pleased."He's great ... he's great!"She loved his face.Plopping his catch into his creel, he said:"There used to be some big ones in here ... years ago Prince Radziwill stocked the Nonette. I've heard some tall stories.""I've heard that the Radziwills still take care of Ermenonville," she said, casting again. "I've never met any of the family ... they help the hospital financially.""They may convert their country house into a hospital," he said."I've heard that too."While they fished the sun ducked behind the castle. Clouds. The kind that seem to be sheared off a sheep appeared along the horizon, above the trees; they seemed headed for the Nonette and E.As Jean hopped from one block of masonry to another, she slipped into the stream, soaking herself to the knees: for a while she kidded about it but as the wind increased she complained of the cold."I've got to quit," she said, but at that moment, as she moved toward the embankment for shelter from the wind, she got a strike. Too cold and uncomfortable to play her fish she landed the trout quickly, saying:"Okay ... okay ... I have to quit ... my sweater's not enough to keep me warm ... let's go to the hospital...""Well we've each landed one. That's pretty darn good," he said.Her rod against a tree, she fussed with her sweater collar and trousers, appreciating Orville's graceful cast--the dimple of his fly as it settled.When will he have another chance?"Stay on, Orville ... meet at the hospital ... go on ... you'll land another one."His thoughts, as he played his line, cameraed across time, clicked, stopped: there he was with Lena in her boat on the Nonette: she was trolling, the wind warm, cattails along the banks ..."I'm coming, Jean ... Just a second."As he wound the line, speeding his reel, he watched swallows dip, fly close to the water, rise, ride the wind, turn."Let's have our lunch at the hospital," she suggested, as they walked together. She carried Orville's creel and he carried the lunch basket and poles. The sky's greyness worked lower into surrounding trees and fields. Jean shivered as they followed a willow path: she was glad to hump along briskly."Her funeral will be tomorrow," he said."Yes, I know," she said."Will you be able to come?""I think so.""You and I have seen a lot of death.""Yes, we have.""Life's not supposed to be like that."They detoured to the hospital kitchen. Opening a half-door, placing their basket on a plank table, Jean told the cook what a mess she was in."Can we eat here?""Change your clothes, then have your picnic here, where it's warm. I'll give you all the hot soup you can eat. You'll be all right in no time, Mlle. Jean."He was an obese fellow of seventy or so, his arms swirled with golden hairs, his moustache white like his crop of hair. He thought Jeannette very amusing, her accent reminding him of the French he had heard as a lad in Canada.While Jean changed, Orville enjoyed soup at the deal table, thinking of Uncle Victor, Lena, the war: it was possible that Victor would be unable to attend the burial. If he came, what would they say to each other? Casual stuff about the war? A string of dull comments about the U.S.? Something banal about Lena? He was concerned about Aunt Therèse ...That sadness of hers: those hollow eyes!Through the half-door, Orville could watch the street: villagers in raincoats, in thick sweaters, some under umbrellas, people and pigeons, rain, wind, Nazis. Suddenly, nurses flooded the kitchen, entering through an inside door, some with trays of dishes. Annoying the cook, they swooped around his stove. Suddenly, they were gone, carrying their trays and chatter into an adjoining room.Jeannette and Orville ate at the table, the talkative chef hovering about, yarning about old times in E. They ate hungrily and then dropped into a tobacco shop for cigarettes, and Orville bought a copy ofLe Senlis.The proprietor was opinionated about the drab future of France: he ranted about the Occupation, about local corruption, a big man with a big mouth. Orville lit a cigarette and slammed the door on him--the fellow still griping. Jean rolled the newspaper and tucked it under her arm. Orville held the umbrella. Wind and rain took over as they walked toward the hospital.... The sneers of life: so you had a cousin but didn't dare sleep with her because of your puritanism ... emergency leave ... emergency thoughts ... you ... you went fishing and gave your catch to the cook ... you have a girl named Jean ... you bought a newspaper ...Was that Victor's car up ahead?Is that our military hero, our 1918 professional?Claude is shutting the car doors.Well, here we are at the hospital, shall we go in out of the rain?It was almost fishing in the rain, when fish really bite. A fishing funeral: is that on tomorrow's agenda? Yes, tomorrow she is to be buried ... Yes, a cup of coffee, Claude ... Yes, miserable weather. Yes, Jean's returned: she's on duty.Orville and Victor sat in the living room: Orville's fishing rods were leaning against a wall."So, you went fishing in the rain?""No, Uncle Victor ... it wasn't raining...""Any luck? ... I used to have good luck.""I caught one.""Ah!"Flipping open a cigar box, Victor offered cigars.During seven years the man had become another man: his silky white hair was brushed over a bald spot; his moustache had become a gentle weed; there was no color in his cheeks; his chin was porcelain white: what had happened to his eyes? And his voice? Words came painfully.A long rectangular coffee table stood between them: on it lay several current magazines and paperbacks. Colonel Ronde called Bichain and asked for coffee and a fire in one of the fireplaces."Turn on some lamps, Claude.""It's been years, many years, since we've talked ... did we talk very much when you were here ... ah, these wars!" His eyelids lifted and the pupils bored into Orville. "You resemble your dad ... a man I always liked ... it seems only yesterday he was here." He tugged at a lapel of his blue serge and then screwed a finger in his ear."Bob believed that there never would be another war, he felt that nations couldn't afford one ... he was thinking of money, the waste of money ... he was clever with money ... he would not have been able to understand the billions poured into this crusade." Ronde cracked the band of his cigar, letting it drop onto the rug.He described his Marseilles-Paris freight services: he was the line's supervisor (five years): he sketched in his military duties, carried out on the side:"You know I was flown here in a biplane ... to a deserted farm. Active ... ah, active duty, you see."The problems of the protracted German occupation worried him: problems that involved the desperate underground. He said that Lena had been with the Maquis ...All bravery and foolhardiness ..."I've tried to keep away from the Maquis for the sake of my family and business. I'm afraid of reprisals in Marseille and here in little Ermenonville, after the war. Lena was often entrusted with important documents ... I suspect that the Maquis were using her ... I think you get what I infer.""She had never opened up with me," Orville said."I reject her kind of game. It always gets sticky. Your friends become suspect; your peace of mind is shattered ... it's, umm, ah, bad." He smoked thoughtfully. "War is preferable to that kind of deceit. I don't want to blackmail my brain..."For Orville the relationship was becoming meaningful; he wanted to continue talking, and as they talked he began to confide:" ... You understand how our draft works ... you see, I was drafted ... I tried to make myself believe in personal sacrifice ... sure, sure, we would accomplish great things--world progress. I hardly knew what Nazism was. Okay. Invasion. Rescue Europe. To hell with Rommel. Ike and de Gaulle! I thought of you and Lena and Aunt Therèse ... my Ermenonville. I knew that France was having it rough ..."At Cornell I got the architecture bug ... sure, a job ... a life doing churches, houses, barns, silos. That was my idea of freedom. If you ask me what freedom is I don't know anymore. Right now ... now I'm shackled ... this killing business has me!"Orville attempted to analyze his uncle's face: was he betraying himself, hurting Ronde?Bombers roared over the house, but when it was quiet he continued:"I have visited Dad's grave. I've been re-thinking ... why is he dead and why am I living?"The colonel shook his head, and puffed his cigar."You've something to live for," he said. "You have your Jean. It's a matter of weeks, Orville, because Nazi Germany is collapsing ... only a matter of weeks. You must manage to stay alive. Look, you are fighting criminals, not soldiers. There's a prison named Auschwitz where the Nazis are murdering thousands of Jews, innocents, women, kids. German factories employ slave labor..."The clock on the mantel chimed three: Claude was laying a fire in a fireplace and glanced at the clock and then at the men: he had placed liqueurs on the table but they were unaware.Momentarily, Ronde thought of Lena and Orville playing together as kids: they had meant much to each other: their relationship had pleased almost everyone who knew them: when he radio-phoned General Meade to grant a leave to Orville it was this relationship Ronde was remembering. Meade had met both Lena and Orville when a guest at Ermenonville, in '38."Jeannette wants to marry," Orville went on. "I'm not sure how, on faith ... my Jean. Can I tell you that there are no real compensations? It's illusion, self-delusion, or nothing!"Aunt Therèse came in and embraced them: pale, very sad, she took a rocker beside her husband, a shawl about her shoulders."I'm glad you've found each other," she said with childish abruptness. It was comforting to her to have the men together, it eased her loss for the moment; it brought to mind a summer six years ago when there had been a family reunion for her birthday, people from Marseilles, Paris, St. Cloud, Senlis. She saw in Victor's face that reunion: why, they were growing old in Ermenonville!"It wasn't so long ago that I was religious, I was a girl who secreted her crucifix under her pillow, who loved her rosary. It wasn't fear or superstition. I thought of Christ as my friend: I counted on him ..."You men count on guns. God's never been real to you; we all know that those who go to war are disregarding thou shall not. I had Christ as my friend in those days..."Claude had left the room. They were silent. The logs were crackling."Lena turned her back on Christ," she added. "There was no god to help her through bad times. She felt that there is no eternal life. The war was her life.""Youth ... the hunger of youth," said Victor, as though talking to himself. "Her country, the struggle for world freedom ... wasn't it something like that?""Perhaps so ... but I know that each of us is poorer for losing faith ... and losing her ... our Lena." She rocked in her rocker, hands clenched on the arms of the chair.Next morning they sat together in the village church, skinny blue glass windows on each side of the room, the altar small and primitively carved, its gold leaf badly scaled. An 18th century reliquary of gilt wood--a miniature of gem-like quality--adorned a side table. Its scarf was tattered, many of the metallic threads tarnished and broken, their story the story of the crucifixion.Orville sat between his aunt and uncle, Jeannette beside Victor: he noticed Annette, Claude, Celeste, Thomassont, neighbors, strangers: was one of them Charles Chabrun, her lover from Paris? Had Claude informed him of Lena's death? As everyone knelt on the kneeling pads Orville looked at Jeannette, considering things she had said indicative of her faith: it seemed to be a nurse's faith, if there was such a faith.Candles burned on the altar and alongside Lena's coffin; somebody was playing a Bach chorale on the organ: the room was cold: icy cold: chill seeped from the tiled floor and from behind the organ where there seemed to be a smashed window or open door.How kind to fuss over the dead like this; it meant so much more than death on the battlefield.As Orville knelt, he started a letter to his mother in the back of his mind, writing it in French, the language she loved most:Dear Mom:When I arrived in E I found that Lena was dead of pneumonia. I know you will be saddened by this news. You two got along so well together. It is rough these days, but you already know this. I am glad that you are not in Europe. Your Europe exists no longer.I know I have not written to you for a long time. I simply can not write. There is nothing new to tell you. Our Corps is engaged in battle after battle; you would not want me to recount that kind of stuff. The war, as I see it, seems far from ending: resistance is bitter and strong. I am told that the war may end shortly. I don't believe it ...Orville glanced about the church, at the windows, at the ceiling, at the grains in the pew in front of him, syrup-colored grains.Mom ... our enemy is collective insanity. It is everyone's enemy. I feel it, here in Ermenonville (even in church) ... I feel impelled to revolt against all things. I hate myself for I am to blame for many of the things that have happened to me, tragic things.In Africa, as we fought against Rommel's tank corps, we had hopes of one kind and another. Those hopes have vanished one by one ... some of us are at the bottom rung.If I get home I will not attend church with you, or go with anyone: my brain won't stomach it: if I fail to grasp theological preachment it is due to man's insensate cruelty and nothing I can see ahead cancels those experiences. My Jesus has been a trigger Jesus. My chapter and verse have been pain and explosives.I am an old guy from Ithaca: "giver of pain."Orville realized that his aunt was sobbing but he could not put his hand on hers. She must endure alone.Alone.Here I am alone, with no brother or neighbor, or friend or society but myself: isn't that the gist of the first part of Rousseau'sReveries!My personal discoveries would startle you because they are un-French, un-American. They are discoveries that must have been made a hundred or five hundred thousand years ago: survival!Yesterday, Jeannette and I fished in the Nonette, each of us catching one. We fished by the old castle--a cold, cold day. I remember your portfolio of watercolors of the ruin--charming scenes. I never could do as well. Are you still sketching, Mom? There are so many pleasant places around Ithaca.The funeral service was almost over.Are you still dating Chris Wilson? He is a nice guy. How's his medical practice doing? Improving? Is he getting rich?I guess things are about as usual in Ithaca--minus the fellows who are off to war. I suppose you attend plays at Willard Straight. Have you seen some good ones? I hope so. And your French classes--how is teaching these days?Jean is okay--Aunt and Uncle okay, though very depressed. Lena's death will take a hell of a lot out of them.Keep well ...Orville felt his aunt's hand on his own; confused he glanced around.Her face expressed a kind of final somberness.The priest's face was professionally blank.Orville did not want to see Victor's face, or Jeannette's.In the cemetery he was impressed once more by life's clever deceptions: he had never really known Lena-the-Maquise; he did not know Therèse or Victor, he did not know Jeannette: in a nearby plot lay someone else he had never known--Robert St. Denis.Orville's thoughts reached out to what was taking place.They were lowering Lena's coffin--ropes going down: a couple of grave men were watching the pair who were doing the job; one of the watchers lit a cigarette as the ropes jerked and the coffin hesitated."Walk back with me," Jeannette said."Yes," he said."Let's go ... now ... take my arm.""Yes."They walked arm in arm, the cemetery road straight, narrow, an uncut weed strip down the middle, its double row of pines beaded with rain, needles sagging, a sparrow chattering in a small tree.She wanted to restore their relationship: wanted to help him: what was his mood?"Are you warm?" she asked."Yes ... no ... I'm cold ... the church was cold ... are you cold?""I've got a sweater on underneath my coat. I can't take a chance, and catch a cold.""We were plenty wacky to try to have a picnic at this season of the year," he admitted."They say it snowed in Paris yesterday," she said."Really?""I'd rather have snow than so much rain.""Sure."The empty hearse passed, grinding in low, bobbing and shaking on antique springs, a vintage Mercedes. The driver swung wide for an intersecting road and brushed against branches, scraping the hood and top. A truck, towing a disabled car, crept toward Senlis, tailing fumes.I'm crazy ... I didn't have to attend her funeral ... death in a fox hole ... death at ten miles an hour ... cremation ... pneumonia ... you have your choice ... step right up, it's death.Who am I to want to make love? Have a wife! Have more kids to make more killers! More wars! She ought to walk alone, she and her hypodermics and anesthesias and bed pans! We ought to drink an aperitif, shake hands and call it quits!"Darling," she said, making an effort."What?" he asked bluntly, unable to so much as glance at her.He hated himself because she was normal, able to communicate, eager to help, able to see ahead."You're a dreamer," he exclaimed, resentment increasing."I suppose I am. Is that bad?""Wouldn't it be better if you weren't?""What do you mean?""Just that.""But I try to do my job; I work hard. I don't understand you.""It would be better to let the wounded die. They were damn fools to get themselves wounded in the first place.""Orville ... Orville!"She was troubled and frightened: such a voice."I put them to death, and you sew them together ... we call that life.""The funeral upset you.""Death's better on the battlefield, without a big, mediocre fuss."Then he remembered Al, who had died in his arms, the gaping hole in his skull. He remembered Chuck and his suicide ... He shuddered in his skull. He remembered Maitland ... his jaw clamped."I'll shut up," he said. "I'll be okay soon ... just let me shut up ... just let me be."The outdoors and the sky and her silent companionship helped but he could not talk, would not talk: impotence--he knew the meaning and the implications. Yanking off a splinter of wood at the hospital gate, he said:"I'll phone you ... I'll see you."And he walked away.Jeannette welcomed the solitude of her small room and the tangled, dying vines over the lace-curtained windows: curtains, a single chair, a night table, and her bed. She gave way to tears, bewildered by Orville, saddened by the funeral, resenting the hospital and its wounded, resenting Dr. Mercier, Dr. Marcuse, Louis ... what a lackluster lot of minor medics: they would never mean anything to her: each day was impersonal: I must get to a movie in Senlis, perhaps a luncheon date: the men craved sex (she did not blame them, so often wanting it herself). She was able to concentrate on duty and remain faithful to Orville and sexual fantasies.On Ermenonville's main street, war had slung together a shabby eating place, between a candy shop and a milliner's. Walking through the village, Orville opened the door onto charcoal smoke and a row of empty tables spread with checkered cloths. A fellow, wearing an apron, appeared from behind an unpainted wooden screen and asked Orville what he wanted, speaking rudely, obviously ill, his voice strained, the face fat, both obese and pocked: something was hurting his lungs: such coughing!Orville ordered wine and asked for a pack of cigarettes and sat down--arms elbowed on the red and white squares. As he sipped wine he tried to evolve a tomorrow:Yeah, Germany was on fire. He was due back. He wanted none of it. He wanted time, time to be himself, for a week or a month, doing something useful: it would be exciting to plan a house, and he scrawled the outlines of a residence on the table cover with the handle of a spoon: a plan: when can I have a chance to plan?For now, he had had enough of Jeannette: what help was she? Nobody was gifted at helping: the world was not geared to helping: sleep might help: it was possible to drown in sleep, under illusion and disillusion, head pillowed on hate, saying to hell with khaki, away with GI slop, the stink of another man's piss.When the waiter tried to talk, Orville shook him off."Sorry," he said, and gulped his wine and stalked out.Over there is where I attended school, that one-story building where famed New York architect learned about King Francis, Napoleon, read Victor Hugo and Villon, hated classes: see bronze tablet above the entry: what numbing sensations in that box-shaped building topped by four chimney pots.Across the street, by those poplar trees, is her hospital: notice the calloused grey paint: some of the doors have scaled: some of the windows are blacked out. Nurses are huddled on the front porch, wrapped in coats, jackets, sweaters, scarves, relating the latest.Out in the country I could walk for years, bumping myself against the cage of introversion. Trees are bare. Not a person is working in the fields ... maybe the fields have been deserted for years.The walls of a bygone abbey were waiting for someone or something, a scream, a leaf. Across hedgeless fields, willows were also waiting. No machine guns.His shoes scuffed gravel; mud took the place of gravel; he walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The one friendly thing was his pocket knife, given by his mother, small, agate-covered knife. Somehow, he had been able to keep it.Something rustled alongside the road, a field mouse in a heap of leaves. Was that its home?Home?Shall I return to the Rondes?No.No, Jeannette ... no ...Keep walking.Thirsty, hungry ... keep walking. If it rains, keep walking. If you get tired, keep walking.When it was dark he was still walking. Somewhere in the night he heard a man's voice. He could not identify the speaker at first."Is it worthwhile?" the voice asked."What?""The mess you're in.""No.""Does she still play Debussy?""Who?""Your mother.""Now and then.""Chopin?""Some.""Why don't you go AWOL?""Shall I?""What's she doing in Ithaca?""Teaching French.""And you're going back to her?""To war.""I saw you at my grave. Join me! You still have your rifle in your room."Did he sound like that? Orville asked himself.Pausing, standing in the dark road, he saw the Renault cross a field, its turret gun lowered, the treads silent, the motor noiseless ... inside the tank, a blond face, a face with blood smeared on it ... a silent shell exploded.The Renault slumped behind a hedge.Smoke rose.Orville approached an inn and opened the partly open door: the room was friendly, like a rustic pub, with a stone fireplace at the far end and a bar jutting out at an angle, cutting off part of the room. A fire roared and the firelight labelled liquor bottles and a collection of miniatures on a series of shelves. A police dog barked at Orville but a young woman shooed him away with a broom, laughing. She invited Orville to sit down, and at the same moment farmers tramped in and gathered around a table, talking loudly, their shoes and clothes smelling of manure. One of them demanded a deck of cards and began removing his black leather jacket.An odor of lamb mixed with garlic attacked the smell of manure: Orville was amused as he sat alone, watching. He hoped he might get some country fare and thought of remaining overnight, if they had a room that was clean enough. Clean ... of course it must be clean, he ridiculed himself, remembering the tanks, the war.The young girl was drying her hands on a towel, as she stood by the farmers. The men stared at Orville, eyes and gestures showing their antagonism. The big fire in the fireplace interested Orville more than the farmers: its bigness was a welcome; the heat too was welcome. He was eyeing the fire when the girl asked him if he wanted some wine."Some wine ... something to eat?""What are you serving? Do you have Chablis ... I want something to eat ... wine with my meal."She thought him well dressed: what's he doing here? Where's he from? No jeep or car.
* * *
4
The train was slowing down.
Orville considered the green countryside and then, as the train crept along, the streets and houses of Ermenonville, appreciating the simplicity of the village, a few blocks square, scaled to the past, a park, a lake, a swan or two, a rambling château, and rain-wet cobbles.
Rain streaked the train windows ... rain, so, let it rain ... rain has meaning here. It's home again, home, if there is such a place. He was seeing the familiar, outwardly unchanged by war: seeing the old brick/wood house, the mangy Chateaubriand books in the attic, Dad's poilu hat, the grand piano: certain hours would come alive in certain rooms.
It was after two p.m. and the train was late ... wasn't that Jean standing there by the depot, a bunch of farmers around her?
A grey freight car on the siding cut him off, car by car, from the station. The locomotive whistle cemented rain drops together: his face close to the window he waited, counting the passing freight cars, aware too of his compartment: it seemed to rise up around him, threaten: the shabby seat, the shabby suitcase on the shabby carpeting: everything attained a linear dimension: for seconds more, as the engine braked and the cars ground to a stop, he reviewed his trip across Germany, the dangerous jeep ride to Offenburg, a strafing of the German train, the endless check-points, ID problems, the mockingly tedious truck trip into Paris. How could there be so many, many fields and police and hedges strung together? So many, many stops at villages, on sidings?
Opening his compartment door, he glared at the platform people, dozens of rain-splattered faces, those blank faces, beseeching faces. Jeannette was standing under the depot eaves, near the entry door, wearing her uniform, bareheaded, a cape about her shoulders.
He waved and hollered.
Stepping down, agendarmebumped him, and then her arms were around him, her face against his.
"Orville ... Orv, oh, darling!"
Claude was there to shake hands in his old way, something brotherly. He was ready to carry the suitcase.
She squeezed Orville hard, breathing hard, her face upturned, smiling. Thinking of his filthy mufti, he wanted to break away from her: her cleanliness was difficult to accept: he thought her uniform's immaculateness might make him dangerously conspicuous. No one noticed. Everyone was busy coming and going.
He asked about Lena.
Jeannette shook her head.
"No tears," he said.
At that she gave him a special smile: her girlishness struck him, made him shiver, made him wonder how long it could last. To hide his consternation he said:
"Are you coming along with me?"
"Of course I am."
"Our car's parked at the rear of the depot," Claude said. "How are you?" The question came with a genuine sense of concern.
Orville simply nodded.
The bearded face seemed unchanged.
Sitting in the car, Jeannette kissed Orville consolingly, understanding his fatigue, ruling out his greasy mechanic's uniform, his unshaven face, peasant cap: as they drove the short distance to the Ronde's, he said very little, but he did admit it had been "a rotten trip ... I tried phoning you from Paris, but I couldn't get through" ... it was easier to sit and stare at the village, at things he knew; Jean guessed the state of his mind.
He asked about Lena again.
"She's very ill."
"Is she in the hospital?"
"She's at home--there's no room at the hospital."
"What really happened to her? The radiograms didn't help me much."
"Overwork ... no, not that ... she took crazy chances ... on a parachute drop she ... well, it was exposure ... those Maquis ventures ... then she contracted pneumonia."
Orville realized from her jerky phrases that she was disturbed.
"Aunt Therèse ... how's she?"
"Not so well."
"Her telegram said..."
"You're safe ... you're here ... a few days ... we have you for a few days ... you and I." She kissed his hand. "There will be time for you ... to rest. Let's be glad we have each other."
He held her against him.
Rain and windshield wipers and thoughts mixed.
Going to Lena's room, glad of the family house, he felt dirtier than ever, perhaps he could have changed, somehow, somewhere: it was Claude who urged him to see Lena at once--no, don't wait to change. Orville respected Colonel Ronde for manipulating this brief leave: would he be arriving in E soon? Walking through the living room, Orville was comforted by the rose grey of the carpet, the oval mirror, the bust of Chopin, the piano. Ascending the staircase he heard the downpour hit the roof.
Home ... yes ...
A priest confronted him at Lena's door and shook hands, saying nothing. Orville went in: her room smelled of medicines; her oxygen tank reared up alongside her bed; its red plastic handle grinned; her plasma bottle hung on its chromium hook--and nodded.
Lena's face was deep in the pillow.
"She's dead," the priest said in an unemotional voice. "She died about a half hour ago ... she was unconscious, then the end."
Then the end, Orville repeated to himself.
If my train had been on time? he asked himself.
He stared at the priest accusingly, rudely: had he done anything to help Lena? His fat bearded face was noncommittal. The man's eyes were as dead Lena's: such apathy.
Orville stepped back, stepped aside in disgust.
He was amazed at the beauty of Lena's yellow hair, flung about the pillow, amazed too by the athletic face, her open mouth suggestive of pain. He opened his mouth and shut it again and wet his lips with his tongue, blaming the war for her death. She had a lace handkerchief clenched in her hand ... maybe Amélie had died that way ... maybe Lena had been watching the rain trickle down her bedroom window. Her face was harsh: shadows added to the harshness. Hand on her bedpost, Orville wished he had slept with her: how could it have mattered?
Jeannette had come down the stairs as he descended. Hand sliding down the railing, he saw Lena as a kid, no, the two of them, screaming down the steps, to get outdoors, to play ball. He found Jean in the living room: he did not wish to talk: he wanted to feel that Lena was still alive: as he sat down and faced Jeannette she thought how it must be coming home to death, death in his home, death after the deaths of war: coming home was perplexing at best. Slipping her fingers into his, she tugged at him as they sat together on the sofa.
Claude was standing nearby.
"She's dead," Orville said to him.
Bichain heard Orville. The old man stiffened, and rubbed his beard: he became unaware of Jean and Orville: with bowed head he walked off, seeing the girl he had helped to raise, a woman of tantrums, woman of courage, love and beauty. Mumbling a little, he went to his own room, shut the door, and lay down, an arm flung across his eyes.
"Where's Aunt Therèse?" Orville asked Jean.
"I don't know," she said.
They continued to sit there saying nothing, one lamp lit, no fires burning in the fireplaces, the room quite cold, the wind fumbling at the French doors. Slowly, as they sat together, he became aware of his stench: nobody wanted him: he had nothing for anyone: he clenched his stained hands, eyes toward the floor: this was no way to be, sitting beside her.
"They should have been able to save her," he said.
"They tried ... they tried."
"Who?"
"The doctors, several doctors were in and out. Yes, Orv, they tried."
"What were they, hacks?"
"Our best."
"Did they use antibiotics?"
"Yes ... injections ... they tried ... you saw the oxygen tank ... I came over often ... I know what went on in that room."
Orville covered his face with his hand and hid from Jeannette.
Jean bit her lips: death on the battlefield, death at home: these things were driving him farther and farther inside himself: they were taking him farther away. Unable to think of anything more to say about Lena, she thought of her own problems at the hospital, daily chores, the endless rounds--patients who required special care.
"Get Bichain to start a fire in the fireplaces," he said after a while. "I have to wash ... have to change ... must go now."
As he got up, he saw his aunt approaching him slowly, her heels tapping the parquet and then soundless on the carpet.
There was new puffiness about her face and she seemed to have lost weight; had neglected to re-dye her hair and grey and white strands hung about her ears and over her forehead. Wearing a blue ensemble, she carried a black overcoat and an umbrella--carrying it by its metallic ring.
"Orville," she said, and kissed him. "Have you just come? Oh, to have you here? I found a driver to bring Dr. Raoul to see Lena; he's gone upstairs to examine her. Just let me sit down for a minute ... Jean, dear, how is Lena? Were you upstairs?"
Jeannette was afraid to tell her of Lena's death: she waited beside Mme. Ronde's chair, glancing at her, glancing at Orville.
"I need a cigarette ... I'll have one before I see her," Mme. Ronde said. "Bring me one, from the box on the table over there by you--like a good boy ... Orville, have you seen Lena?" She was speaking unevenly, scolding herself for being lukewarm.
Orville reasoned: she'll soon know: it doesn't matter whether I let her go upstairs: maybe it will be easier to find out from the priest.
Jeannette drew a chair close to Mme. Ronde's chair, leaning toward her, she said: "We went upstairs to see her ... she's dead ... she died before we returned from the depot."
For an instant Mme. Ronde doubted Jean; she folded and unfolded her hands, asking herself why she would lie?
"I must go upstairs ... I'll see ... I..."
She got up, sat down, folded her raincoat across the back of her chair, and with slow motion movement got up again.
"I'll go upstairs..."
It was Christmas and Lena was racing down the stairs, waving a candy cane, shouting "Joyeux nöel, joyeux nöel!"
Standing motionless Mme. Ronde wept softly, handkerchief to her face, hating the thought of finding her dead, wanting to hope.
Jeannette glanced at Orville who was watching his aunt. She put her arm around Mme. Ronde's waist but she was not willing to accept assistance.
"No ... no..."
Facing Orville, she asked:
"Why did she have to die while I was away?"
"The priest was with her."
"The priest was with her!" she scoffed. "Who wants to die alone with a strange priest?"
She sat down.
Did the priest communicate with her: did she speak to him: was there consolation? He was in the room--to prevent people from talking: Bichain had called him in. Precepts: what had they done, had they stopped the war, had they defied Hitler? ... nothing ... nothing, there's nothing, no god ... wars ... cuckolds ... war ...
She wiped her face with a handkerchief, a man's handkerchief, her husband's, snatched from an overcoat. Mopping her face reddened it: it was more tragic, the red and the putty surface wrinkling, the eyes sinking in on themselves.
Her face shocked Jeannette as they waited, motionless. For Orville there was the distorted tie-in with Rousseau's world.
"Orville, help me, take my arm ... I'm going upstairs, best to go, not wait..."
She said nothing as they climbed the steps; Orville wanted to say a few words; he tried to re-see something he and Lena had done, so he could mention it to his aunt; it was almost as if he had never known Lena. Instead of visualizing or evoking her he recalled his last military involvement, the stress of the trip to visit Ermenonville; as they reached the top step, Orville said:
"I heard from Mother, a while ago."
"Ah," his aunt responded.
"She's all right," he said.
Words were automatic--out of the past.
Mme. Ronde wondered what it was Orville had said.
Lena's door was open: the doctor was talking to the young priest whose cropped head seemed more skull than anything alive. Mme. Ronde found her way to Lena's bed ... Orville found his way downstairs, rejoining Jeannette, saying over and over, I must go, I must remember to take a bath and scrub ... I must say ... I must tell Jean ... I must ... must say ...
She kissed him and said quietly:
"I'm going to the hospital."
"Yes?"
"I'm on duty, worried about a fellow there. Meet me early at the hospital, in the entry, say about eight o'clock? ... Okay? but if things don't work out call me ... no, no, you can't, the phone's out of order."
"The hospital ... at eight? I'll be there ... now, I have to take ... but how are you getting back? Let Claude drive you there."
"I have my raincoat and umbrella. It's not far, you know."
"Not in this rain!"
"Then I'll ask Claude."
He helped her into her raincoat; Claude came; at the door her red head disappeared under his black umbrella; then Orville let the window drapes fall into place.
Have to go upstairs ... rest ... sit on my bed ... take off these clothes ... rest ...
In his room he closed the door, sensing that the latch slid into place.
He was alone!!
Sitting on his bed he noticed the guns in their oak rack, the tackle, the reel, the bass above his bed; he thought he had seen them for the last time. Dragging off his shoes, he attempted to figure out what day it was: Wednesday? Friday? It didn't matter.
His socks on the floor, he thought of stretching out as he was: his head was mumbling about fishing gear: his eyes returned to the poles: beads of light twinkled on ferrules and reels. The transparent cover had fallen off one of the reels.
In the bathroom he kicked his clothes into a corner and listened to the water rushing into the tub, amazed by the jet: water, ordinary, hot water, wonderful water, swishing water. He tossed a washcloth over the side of the tub and watched it float before it became waterlogged. So, the heater was okay.
In the clear warmth he found rest: marvelous: marvelous to lie there: and the cake of soap, spinning! He had planned to scrub his hair and then dress but he knew he had to sleep: with the hot washcloth over his face he breathed deeply: he sopped it over his eyelids: reluctantly, he climbed out and half dried himself, stopping to finger the colorful towel, hold it out, count the blue and white stripes.
From his bed he turned out the lamp, and let himself go: it was like that, just couldn't be helped: a sort of a toboggan: the room stopped existing, the sheets gathered about his belly, legs, and shoulders: they felt warm: then, there was silence, and then--though he wasn't sure--someone was knocking, knocking insistently on the door, someone was speaking:
Lena? Claude? Jean?
" ... Supper's on the table ... It's getting late. Are you coming down? Jeannette's come back from the hospital..."
"Ah ... ah, I'm coming, let me get dressed ... I, yes ... let me get dressed."
He had not eaten in Paris: of course there was nothing available on the train; he swung his feet to the floor: yes, he was hungry: he listened: it was still raining: he heard the rain-quiet on the big house. In another moment, he laid clothes on his bed, old clothes from the wardrobe, and heard that other sound, the quietude of death.
Everyone's.
Switching on a second lamp, one on his chest-of-drawers, he fiddled with things in the top drawer. He unrolled a belt for his slacks. There was a tie that Uncle Victor had given him. The cufflinks were from his mother. He could still wear the old, brown alligator shoes: they went on comfortably. The sweater had been a favorite: he shook it out, slipped it on slowly, buttoned it, felt in the pockets.
When he came downstairs, Jean was in the dining room, arranging roses on the dining table, white roses in a crystal bowl, full blown roses, their petals shattering as she arranged them.
"Hi, Orville. Aren't you hungry? Did you get some sleep?"
He hugged her.
"Sure ... sure!" He exclaimed and kissed her, her face magical, the fragrance of roses also there: when had she appeared more beautiful!
"You look rested," she said.
"But I haven't shaved." He scrubbed a hand over his beard. "These old clothes of mine ... sure great to have them..."
"Sit down, my dear."
She had put on a blue serge, lace at the throat, the lace in a broad, open pattern of fully open poppies, very provincial, the ensemble nineteenth century.
"Is Aunt Therèse having supper?"
"It's late ... she's gone to bed ... she didn't want any supper."
"Has she sent for Uncle Victor?"
"I don't know. I hope he can come ... she needs him. I hope I can help her ... I want to do all I can."
Somehow her calm came as a surprise: or was it simplicity and her concern that surprised! He sat at the table, thinking of the new way she combed her hair, curling it on her neck and over her ears and temples. Tiny costume jewels clipped each ear.
"How has it been at the hospital?"
She sat across from him, saying:
"We work in shifts ... I'm in on some of the surgical cases ... they come in fast ... POW's ... civilians ... officers ... it's the Nazis we resent..."
All the magic had gone from her face; her sentences were staccato; she leaned on the table, apprehensive--troubled by gigantism of the war: thoughts of Lena confused her: she wished to reach a clearer understanding of Orville and his future.
Annette served, greeting Orville in a hushed voice: obviously, she had been crying: her face seemed a gnome's face from some cathedral altar or reredos. Nervous, she acted more like a newcomer than one who had been with the Ronde household for years.
As he ate, Orville felt out of place: the familiar napkins, fork, knife, plates and goblets became unfamiliar: so were Jean in her serge and the surrounding silence: his mind screwed about, circled, picked at itself, fled somewhere, wanting assurances.
"Was it bad out there, bad most of the time?" she wanted to know, troubled by the silence and his grim expression, hoping to break through.
He was afraid to remain silent, afraid to reply: the immediate world seemed to be beyond the windows, kept there by a mere sheet of glass: the past was unreal, thin, another sheet of glass: the wrong word might shatter both: and yet he talked, talked about the Corps, and as he talked he attempted to conceal his hate and his killings.
"Tell me more about yourself," he urged her.
She shook her head.
It should not be this way, he told himself.
He thought of her hands, how they hovered over her coffee cup and silver, fragile fingers--not for any Corps. They were meant to help, help the wounded, help children. His own fingers--he glared at them, seeing the grime under the nails. They could not help. Concealing them under his napkins, he shoved them between his legs: tomorrow I have to clean out the grease. Shave. Wash my hair.
"They have such good things to eat here, at the Rondes'," Jean said. "While Lena was ill I was here almost every day."
Squab ... peas ... soufflé ... chicken ... omelette ... ham ...
"Umm!" he exclaimed.
The rain was moving about.
He stared at Jean's hair--the auburn, the copper.
As she turned her head the colors changed: hers was a dignified head, heavy eyebrows, smooth forehead, thin nose, good head, loving ... her lashes were darker than her eyebrows.
"Don't look at me like that," she objected earnestly, misunderstanding him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Men glare at me in the hospital," she said.
"It's nothing," he said, frowning, laying down his knife and fork. Have I been staring at her in some crazy way? He forced himself to continue eating; he had not eaten much but he was ready to leave the table. Again he questioned love, how long did it last? A man's love for a woman, a woman's for a man, a child's love for his parents? Life was not much at cherishing love: it had lost that gift if it ever had that gift for any length of time. Now, for love to endure very long it had to mount a machine gun.
A switch clicked in his brain: a small gate opened: a Sherman tank roared through the opening: a farm was burning.
After dessert and coffee, they sat in the living room where Claude had fires blazing, lamps and candles lit. Lena's angora, curled on a floor cushion, was fast asleep. Orville stroked him and he rolled over and yawned and stretched: upstairs a door slammed. The mantel clock chimed delicately: rain was making slow sounds.
Orville sat close to Jeannette on the sofa and the warmth of her body, the warmth of her hands and the fires made him shut his eyes: nothing was wrong; then she asked her disturbing question, that old question, as though in great pain.
"Why do we have to die?"
She was remembering remembrances of London and Wisconsin, remembering her father who had often said that death was not enough.
"... Hardly a question ... doesn't it evolve out of the medieval ages, Jean? I guess they were asking that during the Crusades. During the Inquisition. Sir Walter must have asked it. Joan. Maybe Christ?
"An important question ... but for some of us there's an answer: we die to escape hell. I've been wanting to escape it. Our inquisition ... can't we call it that? ... it's not something we cherish ... death is a way out. You know that..."
"I shouldn't have asked ... I know better ... sometimes it seems there ought to be a way to live without tragedy ... I want to make life worthwhile for you, Orv. Back home. Together. I want it to be like that."
He smiled a smile of thanks and love.
"I still think about Rousseau because I was brought up thinking about him. Ermenonville's his shadow ... I grew up in that shadow. You want to make life worthwhile for us ... he wanted to make life worthwhile for the world. He was a brave guy--a fighter. You know ... he said civilization is a disease. As the war hounds us, we see he was right. He was a man of reveries ... I've wanted to be a man of reveries."
It seemed to Orville that Rousseau's philosophy was symbolized by the white tomb on the island of poplars, by the swans on the Petit Lac. Men paid their respect by pausing there, confronting the empty tomb.
Jean snuggled closer to Orv.
"Rousseau says we're slaves to our laws and thinks we can free ourselves by respecting nature, making life simpler. Mom and I thought that too; that's why we moved to the States ... we thought we wouldn't have to kowtow to state or church or..."
Orville tasted his own slavery as he talked.
"Men still want to get rid of Rousseau ... too dangerous ... when you read hisConfessionsyou see how he feels ... Me ... I like hisReveries... maybe because he finished them in Ermenonville..."
Lapsing into silence they listened to the house and rain sounds.
Having read Rousseau's first chapters recently, she thumbed through thoughts as they listened together. Firelight washed the ceiling, polished the side of the grand piano. Someone was going up the staircase--thoughtful steps. Servant voices sounded, then faded. A log sent up brilliant sparks and then flared into saw teeth of orange and red.
The cat rubbed against Orville's leg.
"I started out living pretty sanely ... at Cornell ... then I fell into the war trap..."
"It will end, Orville dear. We'll be free soon."
"I wish I thought that."
"We must think that."
"Can luck begin once more? And why should you and I be lucky? Tell me that. Don't tell me that somebody always is ... a lot of somebodies are not ... I won't buy that guff."
Deep in his thinking he was convinced that he would not survive: the conviction slapped him across the face: there it was, in the wood and sparks and smoke. Getting up abruptly, he lit a cigarette, offering Jean one.
Now he knew why the Chopin bust expressed mystery: its mystery was death, death for those who have any kindness in them. Poor Chopin, so long an exile, always dying, starved for love, always composing ... Part of an étude rattled through Orville as he walked the floor: his mother was sitting at the piano there, playing. He squinted at the marble and the hooded eyes squinted back at him and he walked the length of the room.
Jean sat with her chin on her hand, wanting to enjoy a movie in Senlis--something sophisticated or humorous. She missed Chuck: he would be glad to take her: they had been ardent movie buffs. She felt that he would not have killed himself if she had been around to care for him, read to him, help him go for walks. She felt she should have remained in the States ... then, again, she saw the injured in Europe.
Of course Orville and I could attend a movie in Senlis, away from death. Tomorrow? Tomorrow they will carry Lena out of this house.
As Claude drove Jean to the hospital, he told her what Lena had meant to him, saying it well, saying tomorrow will be a rough day.
In the morning he and Orville carried Lena down the staircase to a pickup truck: the undertaker, a sickly man of fifty, with a grey beard, braided straw hat, and shabby clothes, was apologetic:
"... Pardon, Monsieur, the hearse wouldn't start ... I think, a little later, for the funeral, I can get it started, yes ... I had to borrow this truck. So little gas ... I wasn't sure I could come..."
As Orville covered Lena on the truck floor he heard what was being said: he was not interested: drawing aside the blanket he had a final look, a long look, seeing Lena when kindness was kindness, when responsibilities were nil: fun, that was Lena: they felt they were more than cousins: slowly folding the blanket over her he was keenly aware that he was folding it over many things.
In his room he buzzed a reel on one of his Swiss rods: it seemed alive, waiting for a bluebottle fly. He opened his creel, thumped it, unhooked a couple of tempting flies and dropped them into the basket. Raising the lid of his aluminum fly box he grinned:
Jesus ... all those beauties! Peacock quills ... cock's hackle ... crow wing feathers ... spring, summer, and autumn Nonettes ...
Strewing flies on his bed he checked them one by one: no rust: such colors!
With a pair of rods, a hatband of flies and his creel, he stole down the rear stair and out of the house: there was not much wind ... it was cold but not too damn cold for Jean: she would be there, at Rousseau's statue, in the village.
She was to meet him at eleven--a change in time.
Eleven ... eleven-twenty ... eleven-thirty!
Saying good morning to several villagers, he half recognized a few of them.
He eyed bird droppings on thecitoyen'sbronze shoulders: purple droppings, blue ones, yellow ones. What was the name of that opera he had composed? But there, there she was, bustling, a rush basket on her arm, her red hair blowing.
She had gotten out of her hospital uniform and was wearing corduroy and sweater.
"Hi, Orv!"
"Hi, kid! You're late, according to my sundial," he said, smiling, wanting to josh her.
"Oh, our cook was slow fixing our lunch ... he got into some kind of dither. You know how cooks are! ... Just wait till you see what I've got here in the basket!"
They kissed, crooked their arms together, and strolled out of the village, along the Nonette, the sun breaking through onto the stream: they did not walk far: he knew a fishing spot by an old ruin: among the willows were regal chestnut and poplar and pine: brown leaves cluttered the path, most of them soggy; it was as if nobody had walked there since the days of Napoleon.
They cast from grassy embankments, from muddy flats, and from tiny sandy beaches. She was as clever with her casting as he: it was Wisconsin casting upstream versus New York casting downstream: what marvelous, marvelous flies, she exclaimed.
"I didn't know you're a pro at tieing."
Her face in the leafy sunlight was half-shadow.
Sunlight fell on the huge ruined castle as they fished below it, from blocks of masonry, thick, limestone slabs, some of them mossy and intricately carved. Orville's stone--the one he was casting from--bore a hooded falcon with Latin letters chiselled under its claws. They cast into a pool overhung by a three-story chunk of masonry, a dark green pool, free of snags or leaves, pool and castle merging. She dropped a fly inside a water window: with each flick of the fly the window disappeared, to reappear almost immediately. They didn't talk as they fished. A dove talked. A raven settled in a pine, intrigued by the fishermen. Downstream cattle waded, sucking softly, up to their knees in the water.
"Good boy," Jean exclaimed, as he got a strike. "Bring him in easy ... easy does it."
Releasing some line, he played his trout: the reel's spinning thrilled him: the line sliced across the water, forming a ragged oval: he was in New York again.
Jeannette longed to sign out, her job forsaken: she longed to keep him forever.
"Not very big," he said, landing his catch. "A pound or so, I guess." But he was very pleased.
"He's great ... he's great!"
She loved his face.
Plopping his catch into his creel, he said:
"There used to be some big ones in here ... years ago Prince Radziwill stocked the Nonette. I've heard some tall stories."
"I've heard that the Radziwills still take care of Ermenonville," she said, casting again. "I've never met any of the family ... they help the hospital financially."
"They may convert their country house into a hospital," he said.
"I've heard that too."
While they fished the sun ducked behind the castle. Clouds. The kind that seem to be sheared off a sheep appeared along the horizon, above the trees; they seemed headed for the Nonette and E.
As Jean hopped from one block of masonry to another, she slipped into the stream, soaking herself to the knees: for a while she kidded about it but as the wind increased she complained of the cold.
"I've got to quit," she said, but at that moment, as she moved toward the embankment for shelter from the wind, she got a strike. Too cold and uncomfortable to play her fish she landed the trout quickly, saying:
"Okay ... okay ... I have to quit ... my sweater's not enough to keep me warm ... let's go to the hospital..."
"Well we've each landed one. That's pretty darn good," he said.
Her rod against a tree, she fussed with her sweater collar and trousers, appreciating Orville's graceful cast--the dimple of his fly as it settled.
When will he have another chance?
"Stay on, Orville ... meet at the hospital ... go on ... you'll land another one."
His thoughts, as he played his line, cameraed across time, clicked, stopped: there he was with Lena in her boat on the Nonette: she was trolling, the wind warm, cattails along the banks ...
"I'm coming, Jean ... Just a second."
As he wound the line, speeding his reel, he watched swallows dip, fly close to the water, rise, ride the wind, turn.
"Let's have our lunch at the hospital," she suggested, as they walked together. She carried Orville's creel and he carried the lunch basket and poles. The sky's greyness worked lower into surrounding trees and fields. Jean shivered as they followed a willow path: she was glad to hump along briskly.
"Her funeral will be tomorrow," he said.
"Yes, I know," she said.
"Will you be able to come?"
"I think so."
"You and I have seen a lot of death."
"Yes, we have."
"Life's not supposed to be like that."
They detoured to the hospital kitchen. Opening a half-door, placing their basket on a plank table, Jean told the cook what a mess she was in.
"Can we eat here?"
"Change your clothes, then have your picnic here, where it's warm. I'll give you all the hot soup you can eat. You'll be all right in no time, Mlle. Jean."
He was an obese fellow of seventy or so, his arms swirled with golden hairs, his moustache white like his crop of hair. He thought Jeannette very amusing, her accent reminding him of the French he had heard as a lad in Canada.
While Jean changed, Orville enjoyed soup at the deal table, thinking of Uncle Victor, Lena, the war: it was possible that Victor would be unable to attend the burial. If he came, what would they say to each other? Casual stuff about the war? A string of dull comments about the U.S.? Something banal about Lena? He was concerned about Aunt Therèse ...
That sadness of hers: those hollow eyes!
Through the half-door, Orville could watch the street: villagers in raincoats, in thick sweaters, some under umbrellas, people and pigeons, rain, wind, Nazis. Suddenly, nurses flooded the kitchen, entering through an inside door, some with trays of dishes. Annoying the cook, they swooped around his stove. Suddenly, they were gone, carrying their trays and chatter into an adjoining room.
Jeannette and Orville ate at the table, the talkative chef hovering about, yarning about old times in E. They ate hungrily and then dropped into a tobacco shop for cigarettes, and Orville bought a copy ofLe Senlis.
The proprietor was opinionated about the drab future of France: he ranted about the Occupation, about local corruption, a big man with a big mouth. Orville lit a cigarette and slammed the door on him--the fellow still griping. Jean rolled the newspaper and tucked it under her arm. Orville held the umbrella. Wind and rain took over as they walked toward the hospital.
... The sneers of life: so you had a cousin but didn't dare sleep with her because of your puritanism ... emergency leave ... emergency thoughts ... you ... you went fishing and gave your catch to the cook ... you have a girl named Jean ... you bought a newspaper ...
Was that Victor's car up ahead?
Is that our military hero, our 1918 professional?
Claude is shutting the car doors.
Well, here we are at the hospital, shall we go in out of the rain?
It was almost fishing in the rain, when fish really bite. A fishing funeral: is that on tomorrow's agenda? Yes, tomorrow she is to be buried ... Yes, a cup of coffee, Claude ... Yes, miserable weather. Yes, Jean's returned: she's on duty.
Orville and Victor sat in the living room: Orville's fishing rods were leaning against a wall.
"So, you went fishing in the rain?"
"No, Uncle Victor ... it wasn't raining..."
"Any luck? ... I used to have good luck."
"I caught one."
"Ah!"
Flipping open a cigar box, Victor offered cigars.
During seven years the man had become another man: his silky white hair was brushed over a bald spot; his moustache had become a gentle weed; there was no color in his cheeks; his chin was porcelain white: what had happened to his eyes? And his voice? Words came painfully.
A long rectangular coffee table stood between them: on it lay several current magazines and paperbacks. Colonel Ronde called Bichain and asked for coffee and a fire in one of the fireplaces.
"Turn on some lamps, Claude."
"It's been years, many years, since we've talked ... did we talk very much when you were here ... ah, these wars!" His eyelids lifted and the pupils bored into Orville. "You resemble your dad ... a man I always liked ... it seems only yesterday he was here." He tugged at a lapel of his blue serge and then screwed a finger in his ear.
"Bob believed that there never would be another war, he felt that nations couldn't afford one ... he was thinking of money, the waste of money ... he was clever with money ... he would not have been able to understand the billions poured into this crusade." Ronde cracked the band of his cigar, letting it drop onto the rug.
He described his Marseilles-Paris freight services: he was the line's supervisor (five years): he sketched in his military duties, carried out on the side:
"You know I was flown here in a biplane ... to a deserted farm. Active ... ah, active duty, you see."
The problems of the protracted German occupation worried him: problems that involved the desperate underground. He said that Lena had been with the Maquis ...
All bravery and foolhardiness ...
"I've tried to keep away from the Maquis for the sake of my family and business. I'm afraid of reprisals in Marseille and here in little Ermenonville, after the war. Lena was often entrusted with important documents ... I suspect that the Maquis were using her ... I think you get what I infer."
"She had never opened up with me," Orville said.
"I reject her kind of game. It always gets sticky. Your friends become suspect; your peace of mind is shattered ... it's, umm, ah, bad." He smoked thoughtfully. "War is preferable to that kind of deceit. I don't want to blackmail my brain..."
For Orville the relationship was becoming meaningful; he wanted to continue talking, and as they talked he began to confide:
" ... You understand how our draft works ... you see, I was drafted ... I tried to make myself believe in personal sacrifice ... sure, sure, we would accomplish great things--world progress. I hardly knew what Nazism was. Okay. Invasion. Rescue Europe. To hell with Rommel. Ike and de Gaulle! I thought of you and Lena and Aunt Therèse ... my Ermenonville. I knew that France was having it rough ...
"At Cornell I got the architecture bug ... sure, a job ... a life doing churches, houses, barns, silos. That was my idea of freedom. If you ask me what freedom is I don't know anymore. Right now ... now I'm shackled ... this killing business has me!"
Orville attempted to analyze his uncle's face: was he betraying himself, hurting Ronde?
Bombers roared over the house, but when it was quiet he continued:
"I have visited Dad's grave. I've been re-thinking ... why is he dead and why am I living?"
The colonel shook his head, and puffed his cigar.
"You've something to live for," he said. "You have your Jean. It's a matter of weeks, Orville, because Nazi Germany is collapsing ... only a matter of weeks. You must manage to stay alive. Look, you are fighting criminals, not soldiers. There's a prison named Auschwitz where the Nazis are murdering thousands of Jews, innocents, women, kids. German factories employ slave labor..."
The clock on the mantel chimed three: Claude was laying a fire in a fireplace and glanced at the clock and then at the men: he had placed liqueurs on the table but they were unaware.
Momentarily, Ronde thought of Lena and Orville playing together as kids: they had meant much to each other: their relationship had pleased almost everyone who knew them: when he radio-phoned General Meade to grant a leave to Orville it was this relationship Ronde was remembering. Meade had met both Lena and Orville when a guest at Ermenonville, in '38.
"Jeannette wants to marry," Orville went on. "I'm not sure how, on faith ... my Jean. Can I tell you that there are no real compensations? It's illusion, self-delusion, or nothing!"
Aunt Therèse came in and embraced them: pale, very sad, she took a rocker beside her husband, a shawl about her shoulders.
"I'm glad you've found each other," she said with childish abruptness. It was comforting to her to have the men together, it eased her loss for the moment; it brought to mind a summer six years ago when there had been a family reunion for her birthday, people from Marseilles, Paris, St. Cloud, Senlis. She saw in Victor's face that reunion: why, they were growing old in Ermenonville!
"It wasn't so long ago that I was religious, I was a girl who secreted her crucifix under her pillow, who loved her rosary. It wasn't fear or superstition. I thought of Christ as my friend: I counted on him ...
"You men count on guns. God's never been real to you; we all know that those who go to war are disregarding thou shall not. I had Christ as my friend in those days..."
Claude had left the room. They were silent. The logs were crackling.
"Lena turned her back on Christ," she added. "There was no god to help her through bad times. She felt that there is no eternal life. The war was her life."
"Youth ... the hunger of youth," said Victor, as though talking to himself. "Her country, the struggle for world freedom ... wasn't it something like that?"
"Perhaps so ... but I know that each of us is poorer for losing faith ... and losing her ... our Lena." She rocked in her rocker, hands clenched on the arms of the chair.
Next morning they sat together in the village church, skinny blue glass windows on each side of the room, the altar small and primitively carved, its gold leaf badly scaled. An 18th century reliquary of gilt wood--a miniature of gem-like quality--adorned a side table. Its scarf was tattered, many of the metallic threads tarnished and broken, their story the story of the crucifixion.
Orville sat between his aunt and uncle, Jeannette beside Victor: he noticed Annette, Claude, Celeste, Thomassont, neighbors, strangers: was one of them Charles Chabrun, her lover from Paris? Had Claude informed him of Lena's death? As everyone knelt on the kneeling pads Orville looked at Jeannette, considering things she had said indicative of her faith: it seemed to be a nurse's faith, if there was such a faith.
Candles burned on the altar and alongside Lena's coffin; somebody was playing a Bach chorale on the organ: the room was cold: icy cold: chill seeped from the tiled floor and from behind the organ where there seemed to be a smashed window or open door.
How kind to fuss over the dead like this; it meant so much more than death on the battlefield.
As Orville knelt, he started a letter to his mother in the back of his mind, writing it in French, the language she loved most:
Dear Mom:
When I arrived in E I found that Lena was dead of pneumonia. I know you will be saddened by this news. You two got along so well together. It is rough these days, but you already know this. I am glad that you are not in Europe. Your Europe exists no longer.
I know I have not written to you for a long time. I simply can not write. There is nothing new to tell you. Our Corps is engaged in battle after battle; you would not want me to recount that kind of stuff. The war, as I see it, seems far from ending: resistance is bitter and strong. I am told that the war may end shortly. I don't believe it ...
Orville glanced about the church, at the windows, at the ceiling, at the grains in the pew in front of him, syrup-colored grains.
Mom ... our enemy is collective insanity. It is everyone's enemy. I feel it, here in Ermenonville (even in church) ... I feel impelled to revolt against all things. I hate myself for I am to blame for many of the things that have happened to me, tragic things.
In Africa, as we fought against Rommel's tank corps, we had hopes of one kind and another. Those hopes have vanished one by one ... some of us are at the bottom rung.
If I get home I will not attend church with you, or go with anyone: my brain won't stomach it: if I fail to grasp theological preachment it is due to man's insensate cruelty and nothing I can see ahead cancels those experiences. My Jesus has been a trigger Jesus. My chapter and verse have been pain and explosives.
I am an old guy from Ithaca: "giver of pain."
Orville realized that his aunt was sobbing but he could not put his hand on hers. She must endure alone.
Alone.
Here I am alone, with no brother or neighbor, or friend or society but myself: isn't that the gist of the first part of Rousseau'sReveries!
My personal discoveries would startle you because they are un-French, un-American. They are discoveries that must have been made a hundred or five hundred thousand years ago: survival!
Yesterday, Jeannette and I fished in the Nonette, each of us catching one. We fished by the old castle--a cold, cold day. I remember your portfolio of watercolors of the ruin--charming scenes. I never could do as well. Are you still sketching, Mom? There are so many pleasant places around Ithaca.
The funeral service was almost over.
Are you still dating Chris Wilson? He is a nice guy. How's his medical practice doing? Improving? Is he getting rich?
I guess things are about as usual in Ithaca--minus the fellows who are off to war. I suppose you attend plays at Willard Straight. Have you seen some good ones? I hope so. And your French classes--how is teaching these days?
Jean is okay--Aunt and Uncle okay, though very depressed. Lena's death will take a hell of a lot out of them.
Keep well ...
Orville felt his aunt's hand on his own; confused he glanced around.
Her face expressed a kind of final somberness.
The priest's face was professionally blank.
Orville did not want to see Victor's face, or Jeannette's.
In the cemetery he was impressed once more by life's clever deceptions: he had never really known Lena-the-Maquise; he did not know Therèse or Victor, he did not know Jeannette: in a nearby plot lay someone else he had never known--Robert St. Denis.
Orville's thoughts reached out to what was taking place.
They were lowering Lena's coffin--ropes going down: a couple of grave men were watching the pair who were doing the job; one of the watchers lit a cigarette as the ropes jerked and the coffin hesitated.
"Walk back with me," Jeannette said.
"Yes," he said.
"Let's go ... now ... take my arm."
"Yes."
They walked arm in arm, the cemetery road straight, narrow, an uncut weed strip down the middle, its double row of pines beaded with rain, needles sagging, a sparrow chattering in a small tree.
She wanted to restore their relationship: wanted to help him: what was his mood?
"Are you warm?" she asked.
"Yes ... no ... I'm cold ... the church was cold ... are you cold?"
"I've got a sweater on underneath my coat. I can't take a chance, and catch a cold."
"We were plenty wacky to try to have a picnic at this season of the year," he admitted.
"They say it snowed in Paris yesterday," she said.
"Really?"
"I'd rather have snow than so much rain."
"Sure."
The empty hearse passed, grinding in low, bobbing and shaking on antique springs, a vintage Mercedes. The driver swung wide for an intersecting road and brushed against branches, scraping the hood and top. A truck, towing a disabled car, crept toward Senlis, tailing fumes.
I'm crazy ... I didn't have to attend her funeral ... death in a fox hole ... death at ten miles an hour ... cremation ... pneumonia ... you have your choice ... step right up, it's death.
Who am I to want to make love? Have a wife! Have more kids to make more killers! More wars! She ought to walk alone, she and her hypodermics and anesthesias and bed pans! We ought to drink an aperitif, shake hands and call it quits!
"Darling," she said, making an effort.
"What?" he asked bluntly, unable to so much as glance at her.
He hated himself because she was normal, able to communicate, eager to help, able to see ahead.
"You're a dreamer," he exclaimed, resentment increasing.
"I suppose I am. Is that bad?"
"Wouldn't it be better if you weren't?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just that."
"But I try to do my job; I work hard. I don't understand you."
"It would be better to let the wounded die. They were damn fools to get themselves wounded in the first place."
"Orville ... Orville!"
She was troubled and frightened: such a voice.
"I put them to death, and you sew them together ... we call that life."
"The funeral upset you."
"Death's better on the battlefield, without a big, mediocre fuss."
Then he remembered Al, who had died in his arms, the gaping hole in his skull. He remembered Chuck and his suicide ... He shuddered in his skull. He remembered Maitland ... his jaw clamped.
"I'll shut up," he said. "I'll be okay soon ... just let me shut up ... just let me be."
The outdoors and the sky and her silent companionship helped but he could not talk, would not talk: impotence--he knew the meaning and the implications. Yanking off a splinter of wood at the hospital gate, he said:
"I'll phone you ... I'll see you."
And he walked away.
Jeannette welcomed the solitude of her small room and the tangled, dying vines over the lace-curtained windows: curtains, a single chair, a night table, and her bed. She gave way to tears, bewildered by Orville, saddened by the funeral, resenting the hospital and its wounded, resenting Dr. Mercier, Dr. Marcuse, Louis ... what a lackluster lot of minor medics: they would never mean anything to her: each day was impersonal: I must get to a movie in Senlis, perhaps a luncheon date: the men craved sex (she did not blame them, so often wanting it herself). She was able to concentrate on duty and remain faithful to Orville and sexual fantasies.
On Ermenonville's main street, war had slung together a shabby eating place, between a candy shop and a milliner's. Walking through the village, Orville opened the door onto charcoal smoke and a row of empty tables spread with checkered cloths. A fellow, wearing an apron, appeared from behind an unpainted wooden screen and asked Orville what he wanted, speaking rudely, obviously ill, his voice strained, the face fat, both obese and pocked: something was hurting his lungs: such coughing!
Orville ordered wine and asked for a pack of cigarettes and sat down--arms elbowed on the red and white squares. As he sipped wine he tried to evolve a tomorrow:
Yeah, Germany was on fire. He was due back. He wanted none of it. He wanted time, time to be himself, for a week or a month, doing something useful: it would be exciting to plan a house, and he scrawled the outlines of a residence on the table cover with the handle of a spoon: a plan: when can I have a chance to plan?
For now, he had had enough of Jeannette: what help was she? Nobody was gifted at helping: the world was not geared to helping: sleep might help: it was possible to drown in sleep, under illusion and disillusion, head pillowed on hate, saying to hell with khaki, away with GI slop, the stink of another man's piss.
When the waiter tried to talk, Orville shook him off.
"Sorry," he said, and gulped his wine and stalked out.
Over there is where I attended school, that one-story building where famed New York architect learned about King Francis, Napoleon, read Victor Hugo and Villon, hated classes: see bronze tablet above the entry: what numbing sensations in that box-shaped building topped by four chimney pots.
Across the street, by those poplar trees, is her hospital: notice the calloused grey paint: some of the doors have scaled: some of the windows are blacked out. Nurses are huddled on the front porch, wrapped in coats, jackets, sweaters, scarves, relating the latest.
Out in the country I could walk for years, bumping myself against the cage of introversion. Trees are bare. Not a person is working in the fields ... maybe the fields have been deserted for years.
The walls of a bygone abbey were waiting for someone or something, a scream, a leaf. Across hedgeless fields, willows were also waiting. No machine guns.
His shoes scuffed gravel; mud took the place of gravel; he walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The one friendly thing was his pocket knife, given by his mother, small, agate-covered knife. Somehow, he had been able to keep it.
Something rustled alongside the road, a field mouse in a heap of leaves. Was that its home?
Home?
Shall I return to the Rondes?
No.
No, Jeannette ... no ...
Keep walking.
Thirsty, hungry ... keep walking. If it rains, keep walking. If you get tired, keep walking.
When it was dark he was still walking. Somewhere in the night he heard a man's voice. He could not identify the speaker at first.
"Is it worthwhile?" the voice asked.
"What?"
"The mess you're in."
"No."
"Does she still play Debussy?"
"Who?"
"Your mother."
"Now and then."
"Chopin?"
"Some."
"Why don't you go AWOL?"
"Shall I?"
"What's she doing in Ithaca?"
"Teaching French."
"And you're going back to her?"
"To war."
"I saw you at my grave. Join me! You still have your rifle in your room."
Did he sound like that? Orville asked himself.
Pausing, standing in the dark road, he saw the Renault cross a field, its turret gun lowered, the treads silent, the motor noiseless ... inside the tank, a blond face, a face with blood smeared on it ... a silent shell exploded.
The Renault slumped behind a hedge.
Smoke rose.
Orville approached an inn and opened the partly open door: the room was friendly, like a rustic pub, with a stone fireplace at the far end and a bar jutting out at an angle, cutting off part of the room. A fire roared and the firelight labelled liquor bottles and a collection of miniatures on a series of shelves. A police dog barked at Orville but a young woman shooed him away with a broom, laughing. She invited Orville to sit down, and at the same moment farmers tramped in and gathered around a table, talking loudly, their shoes and clothes smelling of manure. One of them demanded a deck of cards and began removing his black leather jacket.
An odor of lamb mixed with garlic attacked the smell of manure: Orville was amused as he sat alone, watching. He hoped he might get some country fare and thought of remaining overnight, if they had a room that was clean enough. Clean ... of course it must be clean, he ridiculed himself, remembering the tanks, the war.
The young girl was drying her hands on a towel, as she stood by the farmers. The men stared at Orville, eyes and gestures showing their antagonism. The big fire in the fireplace interested Orville more than the farmers: its bigness was a welcome; the heat too was welcome. He was eyeing the fire when the girl asked him if he wanted some wine.
"Some wine ... something to eat?"
"What are you serving? Do you have Chablis ... I want something to eat ... wine with my meal."
She thought him well dressed: what's he doing here? Where's he from? No jeep or car.