Double Jeopardy (7 page)

And if, while she administered my sponge-baths, she lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary, what was so wrong in that? She liked to fuss over me like some mother with a child. In the garden on some of the nights when we were alone, she'd lean her head on my shoulder or carry one of my hands to her breast. It was done so sweetly and so lacking in the frenzied sex quality that endowed many of the other women nurses in the hospital, that I was deeply moved. I daresay had I not already lost my heart to Anita... but that's the way it was.

Have I made myself clear? Except for that night during the early spring, there was nothing between us. And it was not Gilberte's fault that there happened even that. If anyone was the aggressor—;it was I. Do not, please, get the impression that she egged me on. Her love was on a higher plane and sex was not paramount. I still have the feeling that I soiled something, strode ruthlessly across a priceless tapestry with muddy shoes.

Now, I often regret that I didn't find out more about Nurse Monet; but at the time, you can understand, my mind was flooded with thoughts of my wife and her picture blotted out everything else or threw them out of perspective. As it was, I merely tolerated Gilberte. She was merely an audience attending a nightly eulogy of Anita. Knowing where I stand now, I am sorry that I paid her so little attention. I must have been exceedingly cruel; especially do I regret taking her. If, by some chance, she ever comes across this book, I hope that she will believe me when I say that I will always hold her memory very dear. I get a little comfort by telling myself that, although she was a few years older than myself, she was still a young woman and I, probably, was merely a fleeting fancy.

But to continue, it was not for several months that I found out Gilberte was not mailing my letters to Anita. This made me very angry because, you remember, my company had been recorded as wiped out and Anita had no way of knowing that I was still alive. I found out one afternoon when Gilberte was shifting her quarters. The other nurses were lending her a hand with the heavier paraphernalia. I would have liked to have helped her myself, because I was very fond of Gilberte, but I was permitted only to sit in my wheel-chair out in the corridor and watch the proceedings.

The lid of her trunk was open as they staggered out into the hall with it. The letters were in the tray—;all of them—;tied neatly into a packet. At first I only stared at them in astonishment. There could be no mistaking my peculiar style of penmanship. And as the trunk passed my chair, I got a chance to inspect them at closer range. None of them had been opened.

I am thankful that I had both the control and the good taste to wait until the moving was over and the other nurses had gone before confronting Gilberte with my discovery. At first she denied it vigorously; but when I rolled myself into her new room and took the packet from the trunk to wave it in front of her nose, she began to cry.

“Why did you do it?” I demanded furiously. “Answer me, you little sneak!”

I am sure she didn't understand what I was saying and this made me angrier than ever. My temper completely got the better of me and I did something I had never dreamed of doing to a woman before: I struck, her across the mouth with the back of my hand.

Poor woman, if only I could erase the mark of that blow! If only there was something, some sort of antidote for the deeds we do in this world without thinking! What she had done she had only done because she loved me. Probably I would have done the same, had I been in her position. But it was several hours before I cooled off and realized this.

That very night I wrote to Anita again. This time I posted the letter myself. The staff raised a frightful rumpus when they discovered I had wheeled myself all the way into the village to the postmaster, and, I must admit, not without just cause. I returned to the hospital totally spent and for the following two weeks I had to be confined to my bed. Throughout this brief relapse, Nurse Monet continued to care for me. I don't think that she bore me any grudge for my having struck her. Nevertheless, I found out later that she had put in an application for a change of ward and been refused.

Before I was finally discharged from the hospital I wrote some ten or twelve letters to Anita and received two in reply. I am still in possession of them. The paper on which they are written is yellowed with the years and the ink has faded until the writing is almost illegible. Intrinsically they are worth nothing; however, I think that if I copy them here, they might explain themselves and also how I felt when I first read them. In this way I might possibly be able to transfer to you the intangible mental unrest I suffered because of them.

The first was a short note, written in a great hurry on a piece of Ithaca Hotel stationery. It ran:

June 3, 1919

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.

July 22, 1919

Dear Peter,

Received your letters and am happy to note that you have recovered from your illness. I have some great news for you which ought to cheer you up. The Great Eastern Drug Company is interested in buying the store! They are offering an incredible sum. You know that that is the chain with drugstores in almost every city and town east of the Mississippi. We can consider ourselves fortunate that they are interested in our place rather than Cavender's. Probably, after they take over, they'll force him out of business. Peter, maybe if we sell the store we can live in New York. What do you think of that? You can open a place there,- you know. We can talk about it some more when I see you. Cable me what boat you'll be on and I'll meet you at the dock.

Anita.

That's all there was. I turned the letter over and over in my hands, searching for something that was not there....

Again no word of love.

I BELIEVE that I have succeeded in giving you a rough resume of the events which preceded my homecoming from France. I have not gone into any great detail; firstly, because it might in some way confuse the main issue; and secondly, because many of the less important incidents have blurred in my mind with the passing of the years.

I have neither invented anything nor colored the events to favor myself. I have not tried to find any excuse for the things I did or the emotions I experienced. You will admit that the portrait I have painted of myself in no way depicts a hero or a martyr. But I do pray that you will credit my out-spoken truthfulness—; which I am essaying at any cost—;by learning the whole story before you turn thumbs down.

I must confess that there was no malicious plot brewed to ruin me and mark-me a murderer; and I do not consider myself a victim of circumstance. My trial on an indictment of First Degree Murder was the essence of fair play; the jury that convicted me was composed of very honest, unprejudiced citizens who, after hearing the preponderance of unfavorable testimony in the case, voted the only plausible verdict. I daresay had I myself been a member of that jury and somebody else been on trial, I would have been quite in accord with that decision.

Really, there is only one person to be blamed: myself. Of course when you have learned of Anita's actions, you may form the opinion that she did a frightful thing—;and you will be quite right. However, if I had not been such a blind idiot, the whole thing might never have happened. And although I blame her for permitting me to marry her, I blame myself more. Certainly, any half-witted child could have detected something mighty peculiar about my marriage from the very first; and there is nothing quite as inexcusable as utter stupidity.

The entire voyage—;from the time the ship left Havre until we sighted the Statue of Liberty—;I spent in trying to disperse the growing doubts and fears which assailed me. If the war had done much to injure me—;and it undoubtedly had—;it also did something to help. By virtue of my long absence from her side, I was able to view Anita more objectively. I was able to pick out motives for this and that which I had never noticed before. The clearer insight, unfortunately, was not very pleasant because not only could I see Anita less obscurely, I also took frank stock of myself. What could she possibly have seen in me?

It may be that I have an inferiority complex; a neurologist who visited the prison during my term told me that I have. The fact that I always have felt self-conscious in a new hat or overcoat seems to bear him out in this contention. But whether it is true or not, when I married Anita the successful outcome of my suit at once inflated my ego and I began to feel that I was
somebody.
How could I have felt subservient to anyone when I had the most sought-after woman in town as my wife? It was not until the war took some of the wind out of my sails and I had read and re-read several of her
friendly
letters that I began to seriously wonder if she really did love me. If she did, I reasoned, it was a very cool sort of love and not at all like the fierce passions of the French.

Much to my dismay, she substantiated this dark thought of mine by the way she greeted me at the dock. Surrounding us on all sides were lovers, families and close friends being reunited, openly kissing and embracing one another. But when I spotted Anita—;looking perfectly beautiful—;and hugged and kissed her, she turned her face away to preclude the possibility of any repetition. Not only that, she murmured in a slightly irritated tone of voice: “Oh, please. Must you do that here?”

I laughed, though not very convincingly. “Darling, I don't care if the whole world knows I love you! I want them to know!”