Birdsong (43 page)

“I see.” So strong was the sense of Isabelle evoked by Jeanne that it was almost, Stephen felt, as though she were sitting on the bench between them. Yet clearly something, or perhaps a great deal, was being withheld.

“I want to see her,” he said. The words surprised him. At no moment when he had been encamped in slime and mud had he wished her to be more real to him than the indistinct memory that infrequently visited him; he had not wanted to see her actual skin, flesh, or hair. Something Jeanne had said had altered that indifference. Perhaps it was his anxiety for her well-being that made it important for him to rely on the evidence of what he could see rather than on what he remembered or what was told him by Jeanne.

Jeanne shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. It wouldn’t be wise. Not after all that’s happened.”

“Please.”

Jeanne’s voice became tender in response to Stephen’s. “Think about it. Think of all the disruption and pain that was caused. To go back now, to reopen all those things, would be quite insane.” She rose to go. “Monsieur, I have told you perhaps more than I should, but I felt when I saw you that I could trust you. I also felt that there was some small debt owing to you. When Isabelle left you she gave no explanation, but I think you were honourable in your way. You did not pursue her or make her life more difficult than it was. I think you deserved at least to be told what I have told you. But my loyalty is now with Isabelle and, as you were saying, such things must be complete, they cannot be compromised.”

Stephen stood up next to her. “I understand,” he said. “Thank you for trusting me as much as you have. But let me ask you one thing. Will you at least tell Isabelle that I’m here? Tell her that I would like to see her, merely to wish her well in one short visit. Then she can decide for herself.”

Jeanne pursed her lips in great reluctance and began to shake her head. Stephen cut her off. “That wouldn’t be disloyal. It’s simply allowing her to make up her own mind. It’s still her own life. Isn’t it?”

“All right. It’s against my better judgement, but I’ll tell her we’ve met. Now you must let me go.”

“And how will I know?”

“I’ll meet you in the same bar at nine o’clock tomorrow evening. Now I must get back.”

They shook hands and Stephen watched the tall figure disappear across the square with the bottle of cordial clutched in her hand.

H
e walked across the town toward the boulevard du Cange. He left the cathedral behind him, its cold Gothic shape fortified by the stacked bags full of earth, as though its spiritual truths were not in themselves proof against exploding metal, and descended to the banks of the canal where, in the warm evenings of his first visit to the town, he had watched the shirtsleeved men casting their rods hopefully over the tamed, diverted waters of the Somme.

It had come alive again. What he had thought dead and reduced to no more than fossil memory was beginning to leap and flame inside him. He had never foreseen such a thing, even at the deepest moments of solitude, under the worst bombardments, when he had had to look for his most childlike, fundamental means of reassurance. At no stage had he drawn on the memory of Isabelle or of what had passed between them as a source of hope or meaning, or even as an escape from the pressing reality in which he found himself. Meeting Jeanne, however, had done something extraordinary to him: it had reduced the events of the last three years to something if not comprehensible, then at least contained.

He crossed to the southern end of the boulevard and began walking. He could not believe that the house would be there; it had the same unreliable quality as his memory of dying, when his life had lured him back with uncertain promises, or of his recollection of passages of battle, when time had seemed to collapse.

Then he saw the red ivy that crept up to the stone balcony on the first floor; the formidable front door with its ornate ironwork; the grey slate roof that plunged in various angles over the irregular shape of the rooms and passageways it covered. Its solid, calm façade had an unquestionable solidity.

The taste of those days returned to his mouth. He could smell the polish on the wooden floors applied by the maid whose name was … Marguérite; the wine Azaire habitually served at dinner,
a dry tannic red, not cheap, but thick and dusty; then the sounds of footsteps, their deceptive ring seeming closer or farther than they really were; the smell of pipe tobacco in the sitting room; and the clothes that Isabelle had worn, the hint of rose, their stiff cleanness and the sense she gave of having not merely dressed, but dressed up, as though in a costume that suited not the house but some other world she inhabited in her mind. They came back to him with pressing clarity, as did his own feeling at the time that Isabelle’s withheld, inner life would in some way accord with his own. As he stood in the dark street, looking over at the house, he remembered too the rapturous urgency with which he had found that he was right.

He crossed the street to look more closely. The gates were locked and there were no lights inside. He walked on a little so that he could see the side of the house. A long sheet of tarpaulin was held in place at the back, and there were signs of repair work, with piles of brick waiting to be cleared. From what Stephen could see, it appeared that a large section of the rear of the house had been destroyed. They would have been using heavy guns in any case, and this must have been a direct hit, or possibly two. Stephen calculated that most of the main sitting room was destroyed, and several lesser rooms downstairs. Above them had been the back bedrooms, including the maids’ quarters and the red room.

He sat down at the edge of the road, beneath a tree. He was overcome by the power of his memory. It was all clear again in his mind, as though he was reliving it. The fire laid ready to be lit in the red room, the medieval knight, the clematis against the window … He tried to keep back the flood of complete recollection, yet at the same time he felt revived by it.

He stood up and began to walk away from the house, toward the town and then along the banks of the canal. He briefly wondered if Ellis would be all right on his own. There were plenty of billets in town, and friendly officers to show him where to go. He himself had no desire to sleep. He was close to the river gardens, the fertile enclosures through which he had punted one stifling afternoon with Azaire and his family and Monsieur and Madame Bérard.

Throughout the night he walked, occasionally stopping to rest on a bench in an attempt to clear his mind. When dawn came he was in the Saint Leu quarter, where he heard the first signs of the day’s activity as bakers lit their ovens and metal milk churns were brought clanking down the street on hand-pulled wagons.

At seven o’clock he ate fried eggs and bread in a café, with a bowl of coffee. He washed and shaved in a small room at the back indicated by the owner. He was so used to not sleeping that he felt no ill effects from the night. Perhaps he could find a place where they were showing a film; if not, he would buy a book and read it in the gardens by the cathedral.

He passed the day in fitful expectation. During the afternoon he slept more deeply than he had expected in a room he took in a small hotel. In the evening he changed his clothes and prepared to meet Jeanne. As he walked toward the bar he noticed that his clean shirt, like his old one, had lice in it.

———

Shortly after nine Jeanne came into the bar. Stephen put down his drink and stood up. He pulled out a chair for her. He was barely able to go through the formalities of offering her a drink and asking after her health as his eyes searched her face for some indication of her news.

“And did you speak to Isabelle?”

“Yes, I did.” Jeanne, having declined the drink, sat with her hands folded on the table. “She was surprised to hear that you were in Amiens. Then she was even more surprised to hear that you wanted to see her. She wouldn’t answer until this evening. It’s very difficult for her, Monsieur, for a reason you’ll see. Eventually she agreed. I am to take you to the house tonight.”

Stephen nodded. “All right. There’s no point in delaying.” He felt quite cold, as though this were a routine matter, like a trench inspection.

“All right,” Jeanne stood up. “It’s not far to walk.”

They went down the dark streets together in silence. Stephen felt that Jeanne would not welcome questions from him; she seemed dourly set on her mission, about which she clearly had private doubts.

They came at last to a blue front door with a brass handle. Jeanne looked up at Stephen, her dark eyes glowing in the shade of the scarf wrapped around her head. She said, “You must make of this what you will, Monsieur. Be calm, be strong. Don’t upset Isabelle. Or yourself.”

Stephen was moved by her gentleness. He nodded his agreement. They went into the house.

There was a dim light in the modest hallway, which had a table with a bowl of daisies beneath a gilded mirror. Jeanne went upstairs and Stephen followed. They went along a small landing and came to a closed door at the end.

“Wait here, please,” said Jeanne as she knocked at the door.

Stephen heard a voice answering from inside. Jeanne went in. He heard the sound of chairs being moved and of low voices. He looked around him, at the pictures on either side of the door, at the pale distemper of the walls.

Jeanne reappeared. “All right, Monsieur. You can go in.”

She touched his arm in encouragement as she went past him and vanished down the corridor.

Stephen found his mouth had gone dry. He could not swallow. He put his hand to the door and pushed it open. The room was very dark. There was only one lamp, on a side table, beneath a heavy shade. On the far side of the room was a small round table, of the sort people might play cards on. On the other side he could see Isabelle.

He took a few steps into the room. This is fear, he thought; this is what makes men cower in shellholes or shoot themselves.

“Isabelle.”

“Stephen. It’s good to see you.” Her low voice was the same he had first heard fill the room under Bérard’s boorish prompting; it slid along each nerve of his body.

Stephen went closer so that he could see her properly. There was the strawberry-chestnut hair and wide eyes; there was the skin, if it had been bright enough to see it properly, in whose changing patterns and colors he had seen the rhythm of her inner feelings.

And there was something else. The left side of her face was disfigured by a long indentation that ran from the corner of her
ear, along the jaw, whose natural line seemed broken, then down her neck and disappeared beneath the high collar of her dress. He could see that the flesh had been folded outward. It had healed and dried; the ear had been well repaired. The altered line of the jaw, however, gave an impression of the great impact that must have struck her, and although the wound was closed, the sense of this force made it still seem immediate. The left side of her body was awkwardly held against the chair, as though it lacked independent movement.

Isabelle followed his tracking eyes. “I was injured by a shell. I expect Jeanne told you. First the house in the boulevard was hit, then the place we’d moved to in the rue de Caumartin. It was unlucky.”

Stephen could not speak. Something had closed his throat. He raised his right hand with the palm toward her. It was supposed to indicate that he was glad she was alive, that he had seen much worse, that he felt sympathetic, and many other things, but it conveyed little.

Isabelle seemed to have prepared herself much better. She continued calmly, “I’m happy to see you looking so well. You’ve gone a little grey, haven’t you?” She was smiling. “But it’s good that you’ve survived this awful war.”

Stephen was grinding his teeth. He turned away from her, his fists clenched. He shook his head from side to side, but there was no voice. He had not expected this sensation of physical impotence.

Isabelle went on speaking, though her voice began to falter. “I’m glad you wanted to see me. I feel very pleased that you’ve come. You mustn’t worry about this injury. I know it’s ugly, but it gives me no pain.”

The words went perilously on, addressing Stephen’s back. Slowly he began to assert himself over the feelings that raged inside him. The sound of her voice helped him. He drew on all the strength of mind he had, and gradually assumed control of himself.

It was with relief and some pride that he heard a sound at last issue from his throat as he turned to face her. He was saying, like Isabelle, simple, empty things. “I was fortunate to run into your sister. She’s been very kind.”

He met her eyes and went over to the table, where he sat down opposite her.

“I was lost for words. I’m sorry. It must have seemed rude.”

Isabelle stretched out her right hand across the table. Stephen took it between both of his and held it for a moment. He withdrew his grip, not trusting himself to keep it there.

He said, “Isabelle, would you mind if I had a glass of water?”

She smiled. “My dear Stephen. There is a jug on the table in the corner. Help yourself. Then you must have some English whisky. Jeanne went out specially for it this afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

Stephen crossed to the table. After he had drunk the water he poured some whisky into the glass. His hand barely trembled and he was able to compel a smile as he turned back.

“You’ve kept safe,” she said.

“Yes, I have.” He took a cigarette from a metal case in his tunic. “The war will last another year at least, perhaps more. I can hardly remember a life before it. We don’t think about it, those of us who have survived.”

He told her how he had been wounded twice and how he had recovered on each occasion. Their conversation seemed quite passionless to him, but he was content that it should be.

Isabelle said, “I hope you’re not shocked by the way I look. Really, I was lucky compared to some others.”

Stephen said, “I’m not shocked. You should see what I have seen. I won’t describe it to you.”

He was thinking of a man whose face had been opened up by a bullet, a mere rifle shot. A neat triangle was made, with its apex in the middle of his forehead and the two lower corners on the midpoint of each jawline. Half of one eye remained, but there were no other features left except for some teeth buried at an angle; the rest of the face was flesh turned inside out. The man was conscious and awake; he could hear and follow instructions given to him by the medical officer. Compared to his wound, Isabelle’s was discreet.