Dear Peter,
I am so glad to hear that you are alive and getting along nicely.
Of course, I am sorry to hear that you've been wounded but I think
you are very lucky to have gotten away so easily, don't you? You
know that the newspapers listed you in the casualties and getting
a word from you was like receiving a communication from a ghost.
As a matter of fact, I have been wearing mourning clothes for over
two months. And oh, Peter, I've been so dreadfully lonesome here in
Ithaca since the Armistice. I haven't been outside this house in
almost three weeks ... except to do my shopping. Please write to me
and let me know your plans. By all means do not leave the hospital
until you have been pronounced completely well. If it is advisable
that you remain another month or two, don't disregard the doctors.
I can wait. And don't, for heaven's sake, try anything juvenile
like surprising me.
Your wife,
Anita.
There were two things that immediately struck me as being strange about
the letter. The first was the curious absence of the word "love." She
had not even said, "Your _loving_ wife." The second was that while
the stationery bore the insignia of the familiar Ithaca Hotel, the
envelope was stamped with the incongruous postmark of New York City.
If she had not been out of the house, how then could this letter have
been mailed more than two hundred and fifty miles away? This worried me
considerably.
Her next and last letter I received just as I was preparing to leave
the hospital, bound for Paris. I thrust it into my pocket unopened,
deciding to read it after I had said my goodbyes. I had made
arrangements with the driver of a produce lorry to take me in with him
on one of his semi-weekly trips to the capital and he was parked before
the main gate, impatiently punching the rubber bulb of his horn.
Hurriedly, I bade farewell to everyone--doctors, nurses, orderlies--but
Gilberte I could not find. At the risk of having the lorry proceed
without me, I raced through the entire hospital, thrusting my neck into
every room much to the annoyance of staff and patients. Just as I was
about to give up hope, I spotted her sitting alone at the far end of
the garden. I could see by her posture that there was something wrong.
Her shoulders sagged disconsolately.
"Gilberte!" I called as I hurried over to her. "I'm leaving now. Didn't
you know? I've been searching all over for you. I couldn't bear the
thought of leaving without saying goodbye."
"Goodbye," she said apathetically.
I looked at her in astonishment. We had long since made up after our
quarrel about the letters and this passive attitude on her part puzzled
me. I raised her chin with one finger but she steadfastly refused to
meet my eyes.
"What's wrong, Gilberte?" I asked. "Aren't you sorry to see me go?
We've been such good friends and all that. I'm going to miss you, you
know."
"That is nize," she replied dully.
It was then that I noticed her hands. They were clenched tightly in her
lap. The knuckles were white and the skin covering them was stretched
taut, almost to the point of being transparent. Her eyes she kept fixed
on the ground. Though her cheeks were pale and her lips quivered at
the corners, I knew that she had not been crying. I was glad of that,
at least.
I moved to take her in my arms but she turned her head away. "Please,"
she whispered, "don't kiss me." There was a harsh, but barely audible,
agony in her voice which brought a lump into my throat. At that moment
I knew the full tragedy of war. War injects the virus of sadness
into the veins of all and the innocent suffer along with the guilty.
Sometimes I feel that the dead are the fortunate for they, at least, no
longer have to look upon the wreckage.
The lorry driver began to honk away with renewed vigor. I knew that if
I kept him any longer he was sure to drive off without me. Under my
breath I cursed the restless fellow and, stooping quickly, I kissed
Gilberte's forehead and ran to the road without a backward glance.
Needless to say, I felt very sad. Instinctively, I was aware that I
would never see Nurse Monet again. My heart was cold with misgivings,
as though some strange, dark traveller had passed close by and I
had felt the swish of his cloak. Once beside my heavily-moustached
companion, I turned for a last glimpse of her but the thick foliage
above the low garden wall cut off the view.
As the lorry rattled and banged along the rural roads, quaking in
every inch of its ancient frame, I tore open Anita's letter. This,
too, was short. The handwriting was a scrawl, almost childish in its
carelessness.