The Painting (29 page)

I haven’t slept all night, says the woman, her eyes wide and anxious. I’m so frightened.

Natalia leans over and smoothes the woman’s matted red hair.

I heard the Prussian soldiers have splendid amounts of food. When they wake, the Prussian soldiers rise and shout, Nach Paris!

Natalia has heard the same thing.

And what do we have? Did you know that Bazaine has never commanded more than twenty-five thousand? That’s what one of the soldiers told me. The woman rolls onto her side and clutches her stomach. I’m so hungry.

Natalia feels the cramped cold in her finger joints. We’ll be all right, she says, hearing the profound doubt in her voice.

The woman moans louder and rolls away from Natalia.

For the past three nights, Natalia served on night patrol in the pouring rain. Last night she delivered a message to the second in command that she saw enemy movement in the nearby woods. When pressed for more information, she said it could have been French soldiers; it was dark and she could barely keep her eyes open. Her three hours of dreams were filled with nothing, only misty shadows and the utter blankness that comes from exhaustion.

A soldier pokes his head into the tent. Get up! We’re moving again.

As Natalia packs her gear, her mind blurry and numb, she hears the buzz of excitement in the camp. Finally, something is happening. Perhaps they will get to fight, says a soldier. Natalia wets down her dark stubbly hair, clamps on her red and blue serge kepi, her tunic, and dark blue greatcoat, a clean pair of socks, scoops up her cowhide pack, tucking in her allotment of bread, her mess tins, and poles and pegs of the tent. She feels as though she is moving in a trance. The air is wet and cold. She sits down in front of the small fire outside the tent to warm her chapped hands.

You, says a soldier, pointing to Natalia. Reconnoitering expedition. Now.

With five others, Natalia is sent to scout the outlying area. Low on ammunition, they run from tree to tree to conserve bullets. A hard rain falls and the valleys quickly become lakes. Natalia’s worn boots fill with mud. The roads break up and the gutters weep with water.

About an hour later, someone hisses, Get down! Movement to the east.

Belly down in mud, she lies still for an hour before someone finally spots the source of movement. A red fox.

The soldier next to her in the gully sighs, raises himself up on his knees, and looks around. I heard a French unit shot a Prussian colonel who was waving a white handkerchief, says the soldier.

Nothing surprises her anymore. She reaches down to unlace her boots. Her feet are swollen.

The young soldier comes from Lyon and he’s taken to Natalia in a brotherly way. He has big brown eyes, and because of shortsightedness, should have been dismissed from the army, but he memorized the eye chart, wanting nothing more than to be a soldier.

Where’s the general? she asks. She is so tired she can barely keep her eyes open.

Most likely retired to some restaurant to smoke and drink wine, he says. He stands up to stretch, his long arms high above his head, his front side drenched with mud, his knees cracking, and as he turns to hand her a flask of wine, a bullet plunges into his chest. He collapses next to her, falling on his front, the red of blood spilling everywhere, turning the water red. She
can’t move, stunned now by the bright blood seeping underneath her, staining her uniform, her hands. She smells its metallic odor, feels it stick to her hands.

She lies there all day, watching the red turn to darker red, then brown and black. Watches his face turn ashen, then gray and slightly green. His fingers look like marble claws. She lies there paralyzed until one of the women comes looking for her, pulls her back into the night air.

She tells Natalia that two more women have died. Natalia drapes her arm over the woman’s shoulder. The rain changes to snow and the two women trudge through the night to find the others. Snow blankets her kepi, shoulders, and eyelashes, and when the flakes melt and run down her cheeks, the woman holding her up wipes them off with the back of her glove.

In the morning, they arrive at the new campsite. Natalia is handed a small chunk of old bread, and now she can’t get rid of the taste of mold. She is ravenous. Later, when they march by a pile of dead bodies, she rushes over and scavenges from a dead soldier’s coat pocket. She hears someone snicker. In it, she finds a bit of pâté de foie gras. She shoves it into her mouth.

When they arrive outside of Metz, they are told to hide in the tall grass and wait for signs of Prussian soldiers. Pulling at the hay grass, she sucks the sweetness from the roots. An hour later, she wakes to watch the sun drop below the low-lying mountains. For a moment, a hint of her former self appears as she marvels at the orange and red glow of the dying sun.

J
ORGEN SETS THE LETTER
down, picks it up, and reads it again.

Damn, he says, smiling. She’s alive and brave and heroic. She is perfectly fine.

He sees her scrambling up a bank, the rifle—it was the right gift after all—strapped across her back, then her thrill at raising the gun and peering down the long shaft. From this distance, from this small room in Paris, everything on the battlefield seems grander and more compelling than it was when he frantically ran from tree to tree and found the dying embers of a campfire, nervously fingered the remains of Prussian soldiers’ dinner, canned beans and bread, and quickly devoured it before his fellow soldiers found him.

He picks up the letter again.

Svensk walks in the front door, and Jorgen waves the letter at him.

She’s fine, he says.

Who?

Natalia. Natalia is fine.

Jorgen reads the letter to him.

She’s probably one of the best shooters out there, says Jorgen.

She’s doing better than we are, that’s for sure, says Svensk. Paris is miserable.

She’s got the right temperament for it.

It’s become so depressing here, says Svensk. Everyone is starving. You can’t find a decent meal, even if you have money. The women? They are complaining and whining about everything.

Jorgen looks longingly toward the front door; he wants to leave right now. To the battlefield. To the 160th battalion. He’ll send her the money; Pierre will never do it.

Have you fed them? asks Svensk.

For the first time this morning, Jorgen hears the pigeons calling loudly. Jorgen rushes toward the back door. They are squawking and flinging themselves against the cages. As he prepares the seed, Jorgen folds the letter and slides it into his pants pocket. He hears in the distance the gunfire ring out and feels a wave of exhaustion. He has not slept well in days, and as he reaches his hand into the feed bag, he remembers how tired he was on the battlefield, the edges a foggy blur, his thoughts smeared. But he pushes those memories away, stuffing them into the stack of things he’d rather not recall—the burning hunger, weakness in places he’d never felt, an elbow, the back of his knees.

He stands beside Svensk, leaning his heavy weight into the crutch. The birds are calm again, and the smell of gunpowder wafts in the chilly morning air.

N
ATALIA SEES A
P
RUSSIAN
soldier. He is walking within her range, dressed almost as she is, with a dark blue coat and a red and blue cap, though
he wears gray trousers. The French soldier beside her has fallen asleep, snoring lightly, drunk on wine to ease the pain of an inflamed cut on his upper arm. If she wakes him, he might make too much noise and the Prussian will shoot. The Prussian is now unscrewing the cap from his canteen, tipping his head back to drink. White lines crisscross his dirty neck. She watches his Adam’s apple dance. She raises her gun. I am preparing to kill someone, she thinks. I am going to end someone’s life. Against God’s commandments. Outside of God’s rules. How did she ever think she could do this? Every other time she has aimed and fired her rifle, she has been too far away to see whom she hit, if anyone at all. Now the Prussian looks straight at her. She exhales, pulls the trigger. He crumples, a loose collection of limbs. She stares at the spot where he stood. Empty space. The soldier lying next to her rouses from his sleep, looks at her blackened hands, the man folded on the ground, and congratulates her. She presses her dirty hands to her face.

The soldier pats her on the shoulder. You did a good job, he says.

She begins to cry.

Oh, now, don’t do that. That was your first one, wasn’t it? It’ll get easier. A hell of a lot easier.

She hears the wind in the tree branches and underneath that, stillness. Who is she? She has stepped outside of herself; her reference points have vanished. Not long ago, she thought life was precious, and now she has killed a man. The dead man is lying on his back, his face turned up to the sky, as if in desperate prayer. The French soldier hands her a bottle of wine, and she gulps it down. She’s no better than this drunk soldier who is belching and wiping his dirty palm against his beard.

I’ve got some chocolate, he says.

How long has it been since she’s eaten? She can’t remember. Her mouth waters and she tightens her lips.

Do you want some?

She reaches out her hand.

What do you got in return? he asks.

For the first time she looks at him. He’s a large man, his bowl-shaped face yellow pale. His eyes are dark and flashing. She withdraws her hand.

What do you mean? she asks, her voice barely audible.

Got any money?

She feels a sudden spasmodic shudder run through her. How can she feel hungry after killing a man. A young man. But she is no longer herself, and her mind seizes on the sweet, as if it’s an answer to an unknown but pressing question. The chocolate, she must have it. But she has no money. Where could she get money?

You don’t, do you? Don’t got any money, he says, smiling harshly, his face hardening, and his eyes, coy and cool. But I know you want some.

She doesn’t move, just stares at the soldier’s front pocket where she thinks she spots the sweet.

I haven’t been with a woman for a while. How about a trade? How about it?

He pulls out the chocolate from his breast pocket. A royal blue wrapper conceals the long, flat bar; a shiny thin foil lies underneath. She smells the rich sweet fragrance of mocha—how long has it been—and now the saliva pools at the back of her throat. She closes her eyes and breathes it in. He unpeels part of the wrapper and breaks off a square, slowly puts it into his mouth, lets it melt there, never taking his eyes off of her.

I guess you don’t want any, he says, grinning at her. He reaches over and pushes his fingers into her cheek.

She looks over at the dead Prussian. What does this life matter, anyway? She has killed a man, and she feels nothing. Even with his dirty hand on her cheek, she doesn’t jerk away, doesn’t slap it away, or even flinch. The only thing she feels is a pressure in her chest. He reaches over and undoes her top button. His breath smells of chocolate. When she doesn’t stop him, he keeps going, until her shirt is open, the cold air raising goosebumps on her skin. He clamps a hand on her back and pulls her to him, undoing her bra. His mouth finds her breast while his other hand undoes her trousers. She closes her eyes, and when she doesn’t push him away, he climbs on top of her. When he is done, he rolls off of her and hands her the chocolate bar.

I’ll let you know when my brother sends more, he says, narrowing his eyes and laughing heartily.

She buttons her trousers and her shirt, rips off the wrapper, shoves the bar of chocolate into her mouth.

Dear Natalia
,

I’m glad you are doing so well
.

Jorgen balls up the paper and begins again.

Dear Natalia
,

I received your letter. A good rifle is crucial
.

He throws this one away too. What he wants to say is tangled up inside, not ready to be boxed into words. And if he could unravel the mess? What would the stream of words say? He puts his pen down, rises, and pulls open the top drawer, where he keeps his money. Sitting down again, he stares at the blank paper. He would like to say he feels responsible for her; he taught her how to shoot, gave her confidence and enough prowess that the French army snatched her up. What else? That he cares for her, yes, he does, though he is not sure how that happened, and he wishes he could be there to protect her, to shield her from the danger that is certainly all around her. How could a month of training be enough?

He pulls out her letter again. She is fine, he thinks. She writes that she is fine, even though he feels the pull of doubt.

Dear Natalia
,

Here is some money. Hopefully this helps. From the tone of your letter, you sound well. Soon I will have enough money for a new leg and I will join you
.

Jorgen

This, too, is pathetic, he thinks, but she needs the money and he doesn’t want to dally any longer, for there is this sense—why can’t he dismiss it—that not everything is right. He gives the envelope to one of Pierre’s clerks to deliver to army headquarters. Upstairs in his room, he pulls out the doctor’s
business card. Dr. Whitbread, he says, turning the card over and over. Dr. Whitbread.

O
H, YOU ARE A
godsend. Come in! Come in!

Daniel opens the door wide for Jorgen. Stubbed cigarette butts mark the front porch landing, and the small plant in the flowerpot has withered and died.

Jorgen steps into the entranceway. The air smells musty and stale.

Oh, you’re wonderful. You’re Hermes bearing good news.

Jorgen lugs along a big bag strapped on his back and hauls a second one, pressed against his chest. They stand in the darkened hallway. Daniel tells him he ran out of his last bottle of good wine two days ago, he’s down to his last block of cheese, and he’s dying for a good steak.

Your friend Svensk is not with you?

No, too busy, says Jorgen, though he didn’t tell Svensk he was planning this trip. He can’t afford to give Svensk any proceeds from this sale. This must be the last one. He must be on his way.