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's _Reveries_!
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 Therese 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.
"We've mutton stew," she muttered.
"What else?"
"Roast beef."
"So ... soup de jour, beef, potatoes, a vegetable."
"Chablis?"
"Yes."
The farmers settled down noisily to their cards and beer; when Orville
finished his meal he felt locked in himself; the fire was dying down;
the place had lost its welcome; he talked with the girl as she refilled
his glass: he could not return home, he talked about E, about farmers he
had known: the girl was about twenty, twenty-two, plain, blonde, her
hair in a braided loop on top of her head. Two of her front teeth were
missing. But she had a neat span around her waist and nice legs: she
was a woman to sleep with.
"Pastry?" she asked.
"Later," he said, aware of how soon he would be trapped in the war, a
low-flying plane part of that realization.
Later ...
She waited on the farmers; he had pastry and coffee and drowsed by the
sleepy fire; presently, with a scraping of shoes and chairs, the farmers
left; a lone customer remained. A man who had the appearance of a
doctor, ate at a small table, spooning a bowl of soup, the steam fogging
his steel-rimmed glasses; the dog lay beside him as if they were old
friends.
When Orville stopped at the cash register he counted clumsily, thinking
in terms of dollars: he was pleased, as he fumbled with the bills, that
Claude had provided him with so much. The waitress noticed his crammed
billfold, cupped her chin in one hand, and smiled as if the francs had
appreciative eyes.
"Do you have a room?"
"For tonight?"
"Yes, tonight."
"I think so ... just a moment, I'll make sure."
She spoke to someone at the rear, someone in the kitchen, and bounced
back, and grinned a soft, calculating grin.
"There's one," she said. "I'll show you. Come." And she kicked the
dog as she walked away from the register.
Orville followed her through a narrow hall. Walls and doors were
wood--all painted grey.
"It's on the top floor. I guess you don't mind."
"I don't mind," he said.
As she climbed a second flight he admired her legs, no rustic hair,
smooth; her loose shoes sucked at her heels, making a pleasant sound.
They climbed another flight.
"Ssss ... it's quite a way," she said, puffing a little. "Here ...
here's the room."
Jiggling her keys she opened the door: messy luggage cluttered a corner,
the bed was unmade, its sheets and cover scrambled. Pointing to the
luggage, she said:
"The room belongs to a teacher, but he's gone for several days. I'll
make up the bed, fix the room, clean it ... I was supposed to have it
ready. Shall I fix it for you? It's twenty francs."
Rain had stained ceiling and walls. The floor was warped and window
frames were warped. The ceiling seemed to dip toward the two windows.
Someone had soiled the bedside rug.
Orville disliked the room, hated himself.
"Fix it," he ordered.
Perched on a chair, he watched her remove the luggage and change the
sheets. She was silent, quick motioned, angry at this late hour job;
she was scheming how she could latch onto some of his money by sleeping
with him.
She spread fresh sheets ...
"I washed them yesterday ... they're dry," she said.
He said nothing, admiring her as he would admire an animal: bitch
spreading sheets and cover.
"There," she sighed, settling the pillow.
As she straightened up, her arm bumped the crucifix on the wall by the
bed; it rocked back and forth with a dry sound; with a frown she
steadied it, but, as she steadied it, he felt she was waiting for a
proposition.
"I'm with the Maquis," he lied. "I go into Germany tomorrow ...
parachute drop ... How about sleeping with me tonight? I'll pay you two
hundred francs."
"I'll come," she said. "I'll come later on ... I'll sneak you
whiskey..." She had a huge smile: two hundred francs, Jesus, the man
was crazy!
"Okay," he said.
"There's work to do ... some late customers ... I'll be late."
"Okay."
Like a drugged man he sat down, unlaced his shoes, lay down, and peered
at the wall. He did not bother to take off his jacket. He stretched
out on the cover ... and was asleep instantly. Just before he dropped
off he felt the bed sink on one side; he reached for the tank controls
and heard a shell explode in the distance; he was falling ...
The flash of a table lamp woke him and he propped himself on an elbow
and tried to recall where he was.
"What is it?" he managed. "Who is it?"
"It's me ... Suzanne."
"Oh."
She was carrying a hooded teapot, cups, a plate of cheese and bread on a
tray. She set the tray on the bed and Orville blinked at it. The smell
of the cheese helped him wake up. While she was arranging the cups and
teapot, he shed his jacket. As she poured his cup, she explained that
the whiskey was locked up: It's very late ... I don't have the key.
"It's about two o'clock," she said, and couldn't think of anything more
to say she was so tired. Now she worried that he might refuse to pay
her, or pay for the room.
"You work late," he said.
"Yes ... but not every night."
"Hungry?"
"Not much ... you fell asleep."
"Umm ... I did."
"Where are you from? ... You can tell me."
"I was born here."
"In Ermenonville?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
He observed her bloodshot eyes, and remembering that he had been asleep,
he put his hand on his billfold: it was there.
He appraised Suzanne's body as he gulped the tea, needing the warmth to
warm him ...
Jeannette was on duty ... the Rondes were in Senlis ... Lena was buried
... he ate a little cheese and finished the cup and pushed the tray away
and began yanking off his shirt and trousers, troubled by the buttons
and zipper.
"Have more to eat," he said.
"A little cheese," she said, hoping tea and cheese would lessen her
weariness.
Before Suzanne yanked out the lamp plug, she encouraged him to see her
nakedness: she placed the food tray on the wash stand; she combed her
hair before the bureau mirror: she shook her hair over her shoulders.
Her breasts were plump and rosy. She had rose nipples. Her belly was a
working woman's belly: she was strong. Standing with her legs
tantalizingly apart, fluffing her hair, she dabbed cologne on her
shoulders. Not a word.
Darkness, and then a small light, a lamppost outside the inn, revealed
the wash stand and the brass bedposts--making them unreal.
The bed squeaked as Suzanne climbed in, hands and arms ready for him,
mouth ready for him, her fatigue momentarily aside. She had difficulty
arousing him; she wanted him right away; she was too tired for play; she
scolded him and punched him with both knees; she muttered angrily.
"Come on, come on ... wake up ... I want that money ... you think I'm a
slut ... I need money. You..."
She kicked him.
Disgusted with her, disappointed with himself, angry, he straightened
her on the bed, slapped her across the face. Lying on top of her,
weighing her down, he fucked her, she was tight, tough, skilled,
peasant. Her mouth was slippery--big. He slapped it hard. Then again.
As his hate diminished, as he lay there, tired, fighting his sex guilt,
he wished he could infect her. If she did not have syphilis he wanted
to give it to her. It would leave her something to remember the war by.
Then, he realized she could be cured easily, through penicillin. So, it
did not matter. If she infected him ... that did not matter. Nothing
mattered.
All this was worse than masturbation in a stalled tank.
His mind returned to the machines: the tanks were crawling through a
dense mist, one bus behind the other, guided by a GI flashlight, a green
dot, a blinking dot ...
In the morning, roosters woke him and he slipped out of bed before
Suzanne woke; as soon as he was dressed he pulled out his billfold and
left her 220 francs, on the food tray, between cheese and bread ...
Suzanne ... farm girl ...
She would be pleased to find him gone--everything easy. Standing by the
door, he ate a piece of bread: what if she became pregnant, was the
thought and the bread tasted sour: and that girl in the hospital, what
about her, what about her possible pregnancy?
Stealthily, he unlatched and squeezed through the doorway, no one awake:
walking through the hall and descending the stairs was like passing
through a packing box. As he neared Ermenonville, the sun yellowed the
ground. In the Ronde kitchen, Annette was busy, her coffee smelling up
the room.
"Good morning ... You're up early," she said cheerfully. "Did you sleep
well?"
"Good morning ... mind if I have a cup of coffee?"
"I'll be glad to ... coffee and croissant ... in the dining room?"
"In the living room, Annette."
He had made up his mind: he was leaving by bus: Paris: bus to Moire:
then rejoin the Corps. Gulping his coffee he told his future to go to
hell. But there was something in the coffee, in the taste and smell of
it, that tied in with the antiquity of the room, his past, the Chopin
bust that was watching, mistrusting him. A second cup. And the coffee
brought to mind the room where he had been born ... voices ... faces.
It seemed to him he heard his mother. Smoking a cigarette, he wandered
about, annoyed by the fireless fireplaces and their sense of accusation.
A copy of _Combat_ lay on a chair: in a matter of hours life would
become combat: soon life would be a thing of the past, like a newspaper,
like a comic strip. The cat would jump off the sofa and disappear
forever. The skull would revolve round and round inside the tank
helmet.
He was dressing in his greasy mechanic's clothes when Jean appeared.
"Orville," she said, scared. "Orville."
She had never seen his face so tragic.
"What's happened?" she asked.
"I'm leaving ... you know I had to go ... tomorrow anyway."
"Claude phoned me ... he said ... why?..."
"Why," he repeated, without making it an interrogation, and glared at
her.
She perched on the foot of his bed and her raincoat fell away from her
shoulders, pinioning her hands. Her cheeks, flushed by cold and
anxiety, were red.
"Talk to me," she said.
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm wearing these filthy clothes ... I
have my ID ... I'll get to Paris on the bus ... there are fewer checks
by the Moire route ... so..." Leaning against his chest-of-drawers, he
hunted through his pockets for his lighter: no, it was in his jacket.
His fingers touched his jackknife. The feel of it helped. "It's quite
simple," he said. "I can't go on with you. I slept with a girl last
night at an inn. It's back to the Corps. I'm trapped. I haven't guts
enough to desert, so ... at the best ... we had two days..."
Jeannette rubbed her face and rubbed her hand over her eyes; she
remembered crude things Orville had said; her love for him had died
down, then welled up; she held out her lighter as he continued
poking-poking through his pockets.
"Here, Orv..."
As he bent over the flame she said:
"I'm sorry I wasn't enough for you."
"It wasn't that." Or was it?
"What was it then?"
"I ... I have to go ... I..."
"I love you," she said.
"But I can't love you," he protested.
"Are you ill?"
"Perhaps ... another time ... maybe the war will end ... who knows what
is going to happen!" He stifled a desire to say that he had a
premonition of tragedy--that was nothing new in his life.
"You told me you loved me, Orv."
"I wasn't lying."
She wanted to repeat: but what happened? She knew better than repeat
that question; she knew, from those hospitalized victims, from their
bitterness, their profanity, their cruelty, their shrivelled minds and
bodies, something of what it was that was obsessing Orville. She picked
up a shirt, placed it over the back of a chair.
"Let me fold your things ... let me help."
"I'm putting things away ... in my chest-of-drawers ... hanging up
things, as they were."
She was hopeful he might return; she began to sob; life was being ripped
away; her fingers trembled as she laid a folded shirt in a drawer: he
was leaving his home, leaving his birthplace, leaving his Ermenonville;
she tried to include herself in the picture. Throwing her arms around
him she kissed him again and again.
"I'll try to write to you," he said, each word coming out hard.
"Letters," she whispered, "letters ... we're not much good at letters
... how can you reach me ... how can I reach you?"
Was the fishing line on the two reels still damp?
When was it they had gone fishing together--years ago?
Crossing France was going to be difficult, contacting the Corps was
going to be difficult.
His arm around Jeannette, facing the window, he gazed down on the lawn:
Annette was entering the house, carrying Lena's angora, Rene.
A door banged, and Claude's voice echoed.
* * *
*5*
Dennison rejoined his Corps.
Their third offensive started during a heavy fog ... the tanks rolled
forward slowly ...
Something red appeared and then faded almost at once; a rumbling sound
was connected with the color and there was something else, some kind of
motion.
Dennison tried to turn over on his side but pain knocked him out, and
then the red flopped on again, floating, jelly-fishing. He tried to
speak. Something prevented him. What was happening? Then, the red
shaped itself into something, a wedge, a fuzzy glow, then became glass
in a stained glass window.
Now he realized that he was lying in an ambulance; the window was
swaying as the ambulance swayed. He recognized the sound of tires, the
sound of a heavy duty motor.
Presently, the ambulance came to a stop and a man's voice droned, words
confused with other sounds, motors, shouts.
Was this a convoy? Were they caught in a stream of traffic? Were they
in a town? What caused the light through the window? Was it daylight?
He broke into a sweat. How long had he been riding?
Inching to one side, he peered at a tiny light bulb, its filament a
hairpin of orange between litter-bunks. A man just below had his arm
flung out: someone must be fastened to that arm. The ambulance began to
creep forward and the wounded man's fingers began to clench ... then
pain galled Dennison.
He longed for a drink of water more than anything. He was sure that a
drink would check the pain and ease the ride.
God, he worried, where's my dog tag?
Is this a German rig?
Have the goddamn Nazis got me?
When the ambulance stopped, Dennison was able to distinguish a cross in
the window glass: the red cross was pale, old. Did German ambulances
have red crosses? Voices sounded outside: German, French, English? Men
were snoring in the bunks around him. Pushing himself to the side, he
peered down angrily.
"Where are we?" he demanded.
No answer.
A bandaged foot protruded across the feebly lit aisle; the bulbous white
mass shook, as if trying to reply.
"Hey, down there! Whose ambulance is this?" he yelled. He tried
English, French, German.
As though on a crane, the foot lifted, swung onto the litter: a pool of
blood trembled on the floor as the ambulance moved on. Dennison beat
against the wall and then the ceiling. He was soaked with sweat. The
exertion made him shake but he continued beating until his fist stung
and his head and arm ached. As he lay there, breathing hard, breathing
fast, someone asked:
"What can I do for you?"
"Man, talk to me ... where am I?"
The fellow had spoken French: did that mean anything?
Dennison peered at a tousled head, a pair of dirty glasses on a beaked
nose, a stubbled, dirty face. The dirty face grinned pleasantly.
Dennison liked the mottled teeth and purple lips.
"You're okay. Take it easy, huh? Did you think we was Nazis? Nah!
Lie back! Rest. I'll bring you dope ... we'll soon be at the Fournier
Hospital, in Rethel ... soon ... do you hear? It's Catholic. Clean.
Be there soon. Lie down..."
Reassured, Dennison lay back.
"Just some water ... just some water..."
"Okay."
Things blurred.
"Now, here, swallow the dope..."
"Sure ... a little more water ... gotta have water..."
"Okay."
Pain wormed in his arm and shoulder, and he wondered what had occurred.
What had become of the tank? What had happened to Zinc and Landel? The
last thing he remembered ... pain was burning closer, closer, closer ...
Fingering his bandages, he poked at several wooden splints and tried to
gauge the extent of his injury. Thinking to push back his hair, he felt
a skull bandage; a sling was looped around his neck. His fingers traced
the folds of the sling.
What the hell did that mean?
Both head and arm!
So I got hit two ways! God ... dammit!
The ambulance was swaying. Huddled under his blankets, Dennison
recalled a face, a blonde face, a blonde face beside a chest-of-drawers
... that, that was Ermenonville ... that was ... In London, Jeannette
had said ... Zinc had told him that ... and the fog, the heavy river fog
and the heavy shelling ... somebody was ...
With the ambulance door open, he caught a whiff of fresh air, the air
entering like something solid; leaning over, toward the edge of the
bunk, he listened:
A snarling voice was saying something about the railroad: the railroad
had been bombed ... no way to transfer wounded ... trucks were being
used ... ambulances ...
"Have to get them out ... out of the city ... air raids ... no food. Two
men have died in our ambulance. We picked up an American, he speaks
French ... Have to find gasoline. On the train we had food..."
Windows and plasma and click of wheels, windows and plasma, a doctor
bending over, when was this, where? Someone had fed him. The clicking
of wheels bugged him.
The man with the beaked nose and dirty eyeglasses brought Dennison a
glass of pineapple juice--astonishingly good! As the man held the glass
and straw the ambulance motor coughed, the juice spilled, the beaked
nose swayed and almost fell.
"What a lousy road!"
Dennison tried to raise his right arm ... yes, the right arm, the arm in
the sling ... they were moving again.
Pain closed in.
In mid-morning, Dennison bumped out of the ambulance into a windy sun.
Within seconds someone spread additional blankets over him. He was
babied by someone tall and grey eyed. Rubber wheels hissed. The sky
swayed. Other Sisters-of-Charity appeared: the gurney tilted, the sky
tilted: door after door whirled by.
Very soon he realized he was inside a room: its all-around whiteness
assured him: he shut his eyes, longing for a sense of stability.
Morning moved into afternoon.
Afternoon moved into pain.
The probing of the arm began: two doctors, a surgeon, two nurses--a
Sister Blanche attended Orville; his mind screwed up to a pitch and then
blacked out. There were x-rays, painful shiftings of the body: his
brain shut down again and again: then, the radiologist began talking; he
had to have time for his pipe; then Dr. Pierre Phelan, the surgeon,
spoke through his gauze mask. In Dennison's eyes Phelan's eyes were the
eyes of cruelty, eyes inside a mask. Phelan outlined techniques for the
two doctors. Now they were in surgery. Phelan was talking to a British
medic. The Britisher was having a miserable time with his French. Egged
on by pain, Dennison attacked Phelan, accusing him of carelessness, army
bungling, come-easy-victims, goddamn sadism.
"I've been a surgeon for twenty-odd years, my boy. I've a sort of
built-in skill. Not easy to shake that skill. Besides, let's skip
that. You see, Dennison, there is no alternative! You've lost nerve
ends. The brachi- and pronator teres and humerus are badly damaged..."
"I want to see my arm," Dennison objected.
"Lie still."
"Get me a mirror!" He was hollering. He tried to control his voice: he
was being womanish. "Give me a mirror, damn you ... I want to see my
arm."
"If I thought it would help you I'd let you see your arm. My boy, you
can't tell one bone from another, one muscle from another. Even our
radiographs can't help you."
The Britisher, a tall young man, a Londoner, was sympathetic: putting
his hand on Orville's good arm he begged him to trust Phelan:
"Be reasonable ... try to be reasonable. My god, you think we want your
smashed arm? What will we do with it? Can we sell it?" Realizing that
his humor was crude, he added: "Easy, Orville ... we're looking after
you ... believe in us."
"It's not your amputation," snarled Dennison.
Turning to Sister Blanche, Dr. Phelan ordered her to jot down notes:
notations about the skull x-rays, the arm, wrist, and hand radiographs:
he dictated in a Midi-voice, a tired, harsh, old voice.
Dennison attempted to follow the medical terminology, still unconvinced.
"What about my head injury?" he asked.
"You mean, what's wrong?"
"What happened ... nobody has explained."
"It's a combination of severe bruises and a scalp wound ... not serious,
Monsieur. Lucky there. We're certain about those injuries.
Confident." Phelan clicked his pen against the side of the examination
table. "Trust is what you lack ... cover him nurse. Don't you see he's
shivering!"
Dennison felt himself roll with pain.
So the shelling had gotten his arm!
It was lying there beside him, and he was powerless to move it: smashed
bones, shredded flesh, stinking flesh ... that's how it was! Still he
wanted to see his arm and attempted to turn his head, his mind at loose
ends: but he was being wheeled on the gurney; he sank into his pillow,
moaning.
"I can't go through life without an arm," he said to the nurse as he
rolled through a hallway. "I can't..."
Back in his room, he called Sister Blanche to his side.
"Wait a few days ... give me a chance."
"We don't dare wait," she replied.
"Another day..."
"That would double the danger."
"I don't believe it."
"You must believe in us," she said, fixing his covers, adjusting his
bed, understanding and love obvious in her face.
"It's my arm ... mine ... it's mine."
Dr. Phelan appeared.
"We have reviewed the x-rays ... it's conclusive, my boy. It's surgery.
Later, when it's all over, I'll do a detailed drawing for you."
Later, he rechecked the injury, gauze mask over his face: he probed,
hating the stench, examining, re-examining tissue, bone; he checked
potential bleeding, planning his surgery.
Dennison swore, gutter filth, wild, French, English.
The doctor dictated more notes to Blanche--oblivious.
"Now for the injection," he said to her. "We'll take him as soon as the
theater is free."
As Dennison began to go under the strong sedative, he heard Sister
Blanche talking:
"You talk big ... very big ... of course you must talk like that ... it
kills some of the pain ... it helps ... I know ... I had two nephews,
good at swearing. Dr. Phelan's right ... you know ... you see, I've
helped him through the years. Sleep now, my son. Be quiet in your
mind, Orville. God will take care of you. You will be all right..."
Orville was thinking:
I've been longing to be alone ... the war's nearly over ... I'm alone
... for sure ... and what have I got?
Waking, he attempted to disregard the pain: curious, how pain warped his
shoulder and spread lower, with rod-like jerkings. Strange, how hot that
part of his body felt. He wanted to remove the bandages, strip his arm,
let it cool. The nurses had applied the bandages too tight. And there
was that inner gnawing, in the very marrow: it seemed to pour into the
heart valves and scald them. Hand hooked over his face, he tried to
remember something that might free him.
Free ... Jeannette ... she could free me ... a face ... not morphine ...
not ... got to keep myself from cracking up ... Sister Blanche, let me
talk to you ... Paris ... yes, when I recover ... no, I was in Paris as
a boy, yeah ... yeah, I liked Notre Dame ... I like those flying
buttresses ... they're the best part of the church ... you have to
contemplate the church from the rear garden ... apse, by the Seine ...
those bronze figures walking on the roof-line ... notable ...
He complained of more pain and they brought ice packs. He sank into a
sweaty dream, a war nightmare, woke, and found Sister Blanche giving an
injection. When she had finished she bent over Orville and wiped his
face with a linen towel, patting the skin, whispering kindness,
encouragement.
"What?" he murmured. "What is it ... what did you say?"
"This will help you rest," Sister Blanche said, wanting him well, loving
him.
"Ah," he sighed loudly.
Already she had searched his belongings and found his ID: there was
little else to go on, just some letters, crumpled letters, love letters.
Often Sister Blanche wrote or wired or phoned the patient's connections,
knowing what a visit from a loved one or friend could mean. Jeannette's
bloodied letters stumped her although she could read a little English;
with the help of the British doctor they read Jean's scrawl and made out
the address at the hospital. As quickly as possible, Blanche wired
Orville's condition. A card from Colonel Ronde gave his Marseilles
address: she wrote there.
In her room, later on, in a cockroach wing of the hospital, she lay
down, her cap and rosary on her bed table. The telegram did not satisfy
her. As soon as she could she got up and wrote a detailed letter,
writing on a battered leather portfolio that was a treasure of hers.
Would the letter reach Jean?
Since there was no electric current, the amputation had to be postponed:
the emergency generator had no fuel.
Dennison's fever was 105 deg. ... he could not eat or assimilate
liquids.
Blanche's sixty-year-old restlessness forced her into the chapel where
she knelt in her favorite pew. She prayed for his recovery and for
those under her care: she named names: the list seemed to reach across
France: she begged that the war come to an end, that mankind reach a
state of harmony: harmony? Harmony, her subconscious asked. With all
the wounded, the millions dead?
Dennison woke in pain and rang his buzzer.
Perspiration soaked his head: he knew his arm was worse: he must have
help: in his panic he felt he must contact Jeannette, Uncle Victor, Aunt
Therese, his mother: he did not ask what could come of such a contact:
he wanted to hear a familiar voice, wanted to grasp that somebody cared:
somebody might know of some way to help!
A young nurse bent over him and asked him what he needed: her golden
crucifix pointed at the "v" in her throat; her stack of hair was auburn:
he knew he had never seen her before: eyeing her intently, his sight now
clear, now blurred, he said:
"I want you to contact my uncle ... Colonel Victor Ronde ... please
write down his name and address."
She wrote his name but Orville could not remember his Marseilles
address: his mouth was open to tell her the Ermenonville address but he
lost consciousness.
His fever dropped, increased.
Madly, he shuffled through the past, catching at straws: the face of
Lena, his mother's face, his dad's photo, Jeannette ... his brain kept
repeating his home phone number: 964-1904. Friends were rowing on Lake
Cayuga ... it was late afternoon but the crew launched their shell ...
the coxswain was sore as a boil as the crew made the water foam ... a
lone heron winged over the inlet ... he was climbing a waterfall of ice
at Watkins Glen ... it was February ... now it was Easter and he was
playing tennis ... no ... no, I'll never play tennis again ...
Desperately, he tried to move to relieve the pains in his back: the
smell of his own bandages and medication gagged him: he fought to
breathe, to swear at Landel ... he wanted to kill him ...
"It's your fault, damn you! You ordered us to advance across that
bridge ... your fault ... your fault..."
Yes, there had been heavy fog at the bridge, sticky fog, clinging to the
periscope, the visors ... pain ...
Sister Blanche heard him talking, whispering, swearing when she came on
duty. At one a.m. the power came on: they removed his arm: two
surgeons, four nurses--and Blanche.
By seven o'clock that night they had brought him around, through
injections, plasma, medication, renewed dressings, ice packs, kindness.
To encourage him, Sister Blanche told him she had telegraphed Jeannette
... his brain latched onto Jean ... Jean ... Ermenonville ... he knew
that Blanche was on the right track.
To comfort him, Blanche sat by him and told him stories about her
nephews and days in Brittany, days on the beach, days at sea, sailing,
fishing: her voice became a singsong: he hardly listened and yet he
assimilated thoughts, flecks in her life. She watched over Dennison for
eighteen hours without much relief: she supervised transfusions, bed
changes, dressings, medication, dope, liquids: stretched out on a cot by
his bed she caught catnaps.
A gentle rain woke her, just after dawn, the drops signalling at the
window: Blanche called it "our rain:" in her world rain was something
angelic: it had always been that way since childhood, since those
springtimes along the sea: it was forever promising: and this morning,
standing by Dennison's bed, while he slept, it seemed to her that this
shower was also promising.
In an upstairs office, the rain patterned Dr. Phelan's windows as he sat
at his desk, tired, thoughtful: he was hungry and thought of phoning for
coffee and rolls and goat cheese (his favorite): he thought of Orville
and others: he jotted down the day's routine for Dennison and then
picked up a phone.
Jeannette had endeavored to phone Phelan but could not make a
connection. Claude sat at his phone for a long while. Although it was
almost impossible he managed to find gas, fill the tank, adding six
extra liters: avoiding main roads he drove Jean to a southern town, as
far as he could drive. The usual black taxi was waiting. Kissing
Claude, she drove off, until a damp distributor killed the engine.
Boarding a crowded bus she travelled deeper into Provence. Where was
Rethel? Was it a military base: someone said so. Was it under Nazi
domination? Two hours, three hours ... she stopped looking at the time.
The driver of a Rethel taxi had no windshield wipers and kept popping
his head outside. Huddled in the back, in a chilly corner, under a lap
robe, she counted and re-counted her money. Her overnight bag bumped to
the floor as the chauffeur braked for cyclists. Did he know where he
was going? Was he out for an extra fare?
In front of a saloon, they picked up a wounded civilian and his
twelve-year-old son; the wounded man was suffering; his son repeated
over and over, for his dad's benefit: "We're on the way, we're on the
way." Jean was reassured they would soon reach the hospital.
What an ugly Provencal town! A crummy Montmartre! Towns were not tacky
like this in Wisconsin. The war had deteriorated almost every building.
The streets were a series of potholes.
There was the Catholic hospital, fronted by many columnar cypress, a
neat three-story building, presentably white: its barren flagpole in a
small winter garden told its story: the taxi swerved, stopped, and the
chauffeur released the door handle. The twelve-year-old helped his
father out.
Jeannette, grabbing her overnight bag, struggling with her purse, waited
for the fare.
"Mademoiselle, I never ask a nurse to pay ... or the sick ... that man
is one of ours..."
"May I give you something?"
"No, Mademoiselle ... thank you ... and you, lad, help your father up
the stairs; the office is to the right."
The blotched and smiling face drove away.
She flew up the rainy steps, and into the foyer, a nurse on duty in the
office, saying "wait." She shepherded the civilian and his son down a
hall. Returning in several minutes, the sad little face, under stiff
cornet, said:
"You can't see Lieutenant Dennison ... you cannot see him now. I have
been requested to inform anyone who comes."
"Is his condition very grave?"
"Yes ... If you care to wait, there's our little chapel." She pointed
down the hall. "There are magazines on the bench." She pointed again.
"I can't read anything ... I can't ... you see he's..."
The sad little face regarded a sadder face.
Jean left her overnight bag and went outside and stood a while on the
steps, the rain a benison: at a nearby baker she bought rolls and drank
coffee at the only table in the chilly entry. The china cup warmed her
hands: she refused to look ahead: it was something to have arrived at
the town, to be close to Orville: a girl of seven or eight asked Jean
for a roll or piece of bread: the rain had beaten the already beaten
clothes of the child: Jean bought her bread and hot chocolate and they
sat at the table together, silent: back at the hospital, a nurse
admitted Jean into Orville's room: she saw, at once, that his arm had
been amputated. He was unconscious.
Hiding in the little chapel she began to sob, handkerchief stuffed over
her mouth. There was hardly any light in the room. A bouquet of
bedraggled flowers leaned against the base of a plaster statuette of the
Virgin. Alone in the chapel, sitting at the end of a pew, Jean cried
until there were no more tears.
No bomb, exploding during the London blitz, had left her like this:
Orville, without his arm, alone: her love had not been able to sustain
him: what promises could she offer?
She had to wait until mid-afternoon to see him: entering his room
warily, afraid, she noticed that the window curtains were nearly closed:
his face was in a deep shadow, his head deep in his pillow--a stranger's
face. Bearded.
"Darling," she whispered. "Orv ... darling ... I'm here ... darling ...
it's me..."
"Jean," he responded. "Sister Blanche said that you had come ... I was
waiting..." His voice trailed off.
She kissed his cheek, stroked his forehead, puzzled by the head
bandages; she hoped she was going to react sanely.
"I'm going to be sick," he said, in a faint voice.
"I'll help you," she said, and picked up his kidney-shaped pan. "Now,"
she exclaimed professionally. "See, I'm here to take care of you.
See!"
"It was nothing," he said, breathing jerkily. "Nothing ... if nothing
came up, I guess I've cleaned house."
"Of course you have," she said.
"Ah!"
"Is your pain severe?"
"Not now ... not bad."
"Can I stay? ... I won't stay long. Shall I talk a little? You just
lie there and listen, huh? How about that?"
In spite of his pain and uneasiness, in spite of the darkened room, he
was aware of her beauty, beauty of now and Ermenonville: there was
serenity in her voice: he thought: if I could raise my head a bit I
could see her better, all of her. He moved and pain got him; her voice
went out, her face simply wandered off somewhere, leaving a blouse and
skirt, an outstretched hand.
"Jeannette..."
Eyes closed he felt that they had never parted: he knew that
Suzanne--was that the woman's name?--was a lie: war could not take Jean
away now: they would be okay together: maybe they would visit Paris,
maybe they would ...
As Jean sat on a chair by his bed, silent, hands in her lap, tears in
her eyes, he slept, and, for a while, sagging to one side in her chair,
she slept. Sister Blanche woke her, smiling her wrinkled smile, her
eyes alight, her cornet in perfect angle.
"He needs to sleep," she said, bending over both of them.
"Yes," Jean whispered. "Are you his nurse?"
"I'm Sister Blanche."
"You sent me the telegram! Yes, of course, of course. I'm Jeannette
Hitchcock. He's my ... Orville is mine. I guess you know. I guess my
letters told you." She wanted to shed her shyness and hug her.
"I'm so glad you are here. Now, now we'll see. He'll get on his feet
again." What a quaint pronunciation: was Jean Canadian, from Quebec?
It must be so.
Jean was standing, ready to leave.
"Won't you come outside, so we won't disturb him?"
"Yes, we should go out."
In the hall, Sister Blanche grasped Jeannette's hand and then put her
arms around her. Youth, it's such a wondrous thing!
"Is his head injury serious?" Jeannette asked. "I didn't know ... tell
me about him..."
"His head injury isn't serious ... multiple lacerations, bruises ... we
will be removing the bandages in a few days."
"Did gangrene get into his arm?"
"Yes ... gangrene made the amputation more complex. Of course Dr.
Phelan, our head surgeon, tried to save his arm ... all of us tried ...
there wasn't a chance."
"No chance at all," she repeated.
"None at all."
"I'm afraid he'll take it hard."
The hallway of the hospital seemed very cold.
"Of course he'll take it hard, but he has fight in him ... he'll win out
... now he has you, my dear."
"It's not as simple as that."
"Not many things are simple in life. But with rest, with love ... and
now you, you must get some rest. Go to bed. You can't rest sitting in
a chair. You can phone me at any time. Let me give you our number--my
extension. You should stay at the Racine Hotel ... the Nazis have
cleared out of town, I am told. Let me phone the hotel for you ...
come, my dear, I must jot down my number ... come..."
Jeannette thought it was a long way to the hotel: her overnight bag was
light but the blocks added up when she followed Rue Carot by mistake;
she had been told to follow the Rue Carrefour ... in minutes she
registered and unpacked in a second floor room; in minutes she was sound
asleep, to wake in an hour or so, refreshed.
The sun was setting. In front of the hotel a man was polishing his car.
She saw no soldiers on the street. She ate in a cafe and found the food
better than the food at the hospital in Ermenonville. Rethel, old,
walled, citadel shaped, was more interesting without the rain: there
were neat shop windows; in the tiny square there were pigeons, benches
and a fountain with a boy on a stone pedestal, a sheep by his side. In
a corner store, near the Racine, she spotted a dress in the window; with
a few alterations it would fit, orlon, bright, bright daffodil, tightly
belted, the belt-line high. Buying it, she felt encouraged.
It was fun altering it in her room, trying it on, powdering herself,
lolling, street lamps coming on, the sky trying to make something of its
stars.
_Carrefour_--the street sign read under her window: sitting in a rocker
she read the name many times.
In the lobby, she bought a morning paper, hoping for good news. In the
taxi, spreading the sheets, she read: