The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel (35 page)

—
Bonjour
, Mireille says.
Êtes-vous Monsieur Desmarais?

The old man regards us suspiciously through pale and watery eyes. He admits that he is Monsieur Desmarais. Mireille tells him our names, touching my arm as she explains that my great-grandfather was an English soldier who was billeted near here with a family called Lefèvre during
la Grande Guerre
. Desmarais studies us further. He inches forward and looks at the iron sky above our shoulders, at the dirty Peugeot in the driveway.

—
Bien
, he says. Come inside before you get wet.

Desmarais takes our coats in his beefy hands and sets them on wooden hangers. He hooks the hangers on a curtain rod above the radiator in the living room, then he sits down in an armchair. We sit on a sofa wholly encased in yellowing plastic that adheres to our clothes and makes strange noises as we shift uncomfortably in our seats. Desmarais switches off the television.

—I live alone, he says in French. I don’t go shopping often. So I have nothing to offer you to drink.

Mireille tells him that we are fine as we are. Desmarais asks Mireille where she is from and they talk a little about Picardie. He asks Mireille if I’m English and I tell him I’m American. The old man nods.

—I knew Americans. In ’44. But you have not come to talk about that.

Desmarais glances at Mireille. He looks back at me.

—I was born in 1926. So I never met the Englishman.

—The Englishman?

—He stayed here with my mother’s family. The Lefèvres. My father’s name was Desmarais—

The old man has a strong northern accent and I understand him only with difficulty. He explains that many English soldiers stayed with his mother’s family during the war, but only one officer. His mother was a young girl then and the officer helped her with her lessons.

—The Englishman had been wounded, Desmarais says. Do you know where?

—
La gorge
. And in the leg.

Desmarais touches his throat.

—
Oui, la gorge
. My mother said he spoke very softly. I never heard about the leg.

—It’s incredible, Mireille says, that your family remembered him this long.

Desmarais shakes his head and says that it is only natural that his family remembers the Englishman. He tells us that this whole village hated the English, for to be occupied by them was only one step above having
les Boches
here. He says the English were low people who drank too much and caused trouble.

—They knew they were going to die. And for this piece of land?

The old man gestures toward the bleak landscape outside and says that it must be a hard thing to fight for a country that is not your own. But he says that this Englishman was different, for he was an officer and he spoke French. Desmarais holds the proof of these things. The old man goes into the next room. He is gone for some time, and when he returns he has a box upholstered in burgundy fabric. He opens it on the coffee table.

—Some of my mother’s jewelry.

He looks up at us and grins, revealing a set of crooked yellow teeth.

—Nothing valuable. That was all sold.

Desmarais pulls a small drawer in the jewelry box. He takes out a silver cross and hands it to me. The cross is square, its four arms adorned with the imperial crown, the royal cypher of George V set in the center. The medal doesn’t have its ribbon.

—What is it? Mireille asks.

—A war medal, I say. The Military Cross.

Desmarais says that it is because of this medal that his mother remembered the Englishman. For all her life the cross was hung over the mirror of her dresser. The old man stands abruptly.

—I just remembered, he says. My niece gave me a box of tea. I can make you tea.

Mireille tells him we don’t need a drink, but Desmarais insists and
finally Mireille offers to make tea herself. Desmarais tells her where to find it and Mireille goes into the kitchen. The old man leans toward me with a conspiratorial whisper.

—I suppose you have come to ask about
la malle
.

—
La malle?

Desmarais raises his eyebrows. Was it not for
la malle
that I had come here? I shake my head and explain that I don’t know the meaning of the word. A
malle
is a case for traveling, Desmarais explains, and when he was a child one would take
une malle
on a voyage on an ocean liner. When the English officer left this house he left behind a small
malle
. Later the Englishman wrote and said he would come to collect it. For this reason, Desmarais tells me, the family had kept
la malle
for many years and though the Englishman never came, Desmarais had now kept it too long to dispose of it.

—My niece wants me to get rid of everything in the attic. But one can’t simply throw these things away. When a man grows old he wants to keep what’s left, even if it isn’t useful.

Desmarais winks at me.

—Of course, a young man like you won’t understand. But wait until you get older—

—I believe you now.

The old man smiles with polite disbelief. I ask him what is inside
la malle
, but he only shrugs.

—A bunch of burned papers. You can see for yourself.

I follow Desmarais up a set of carpeted stairs to the second story, the old man gripping the rail as he climbs the steps one at a time. He asks me to fetch a step stool from the bedroom, then instructs me to stand on the stool and push up a square door in the ceiling. I push the panel and it swings open on its hinges. There is a short iron ladder that pulls down.

—
Faites attention
, Desmarais warns. There may be rats up there. I think
la malle
is next to my fishing things, on the side with the window.

I climb the ladder into the attic. The roof drops steeply on each side, the space lit by a single window that projects a shaft of light
across the room, exposing the odd remnants of a long and varied life. Stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of old electronics. A few rusty fans, a rack of old coats. Everything is dusty but arranged in good order. A pair of old bamboo fishing rods is leaned against the sloping ceiling. Beneath a stack of tackle boxes I uncover a small brown trunk, my fingers carving tracks on its dusty surface. The trunk is about two feet wide and a foot deep, perhaps intended to carry boots or hats. It is crafted of leather and fitted with brass hardware. Three initials are stenciled onto the front:
AEW
.

The latch at the center is unlocked. I unbuckle the two brittle leather straps and pull back the lid.

Ash and half-burned paper, the canvas lining blanketed with powdery soot. A few cloth-bound books:
Scrambles in the Alps
,
The Spirit of Man: An Anthology
. The spines creak and snap as I flip their pages. I take a breath.

Beside the books there is a bundle of charred envelopes. Some are blackened on the corners, others all but burned.
2nd Lieut. A.E. Walsingham, 1 Batt. Royal Berkshire Regt., B.E.F., France.
Ashes flake off my fingers as I open the envelope and unfold the sheet inside. The letter is written in a peculiar blue-black script: long and florid capitals, frequent dashes of varying length, elaborate ampersands. It is dated October 17, a few weeks before Ashley was wounded.

Dearest –

Eleanor & I went to the London Library today. I picked a tall stack of volumes, but sitting down to them, found myself asleep before ten pages were read. I dreamt of wondrous things – the stave church at Urnes I told you of, but the famous portals were yet uncarved, so you drew out your knife & we shaped them together – you carving one creature & I the other, their bodies linked fast. You lopped off a piece of the portal as a Souvenir for me, and told me to
guard it well, for we were now as joined as two souls could be. Then the carillon tolled, for it was time for us to enter the church, but when you put your hand on the door – I awoke.

So I bade good-bye to Eleanor & strolled along the Embankment. Surely, I thought, even this most English of rivers flows to the sea & then towards you. On the pavement I watched a tramp draw, in chalk, the most exquisite replica of a Delacroix, only to be washed away by a rain that began to fall. Having no shilling, I gave him a ring from my own finger as recompense. He at first refused it, but I explained the ring had been an unwelcome gift, and I was richer without.

Of your question – of an Engagement – you already hold me by far more tender strings, and they are no less binding. Can you love me so much – Without – for just so long? For ten times so long? We shall not speak of wills, even gold or silver. Without you all should become lead, and would be no gift to me. I would lose more than any widow ever had. They lost husbands – I would lose my morning star, not yet risen.

Of Promises – the greatest I can fathom – I give myself to you, not in the tired rites of civilization, but through my own Design – as if love had never been before, and so I made it just for you.

Imogen

I try to refold the sheet, but my hands are shaky and it breaks at the crease. I put the letters back in the trunk and carry it down the ladder. The old man nods approvingly.

—You should take it.

—But you’ve kept it all this time.

I open the lid to show the contents, but the old man dismisses this with a sweep of his hand. He tells me he has enough old papers of his own without the need for old papers in a foreign language.

—When I’m gone my niece will just throw it out.

Desmarais descends the staircase at a crawl. I swing the attic door shut and bring the trunk downstairs, setting it on the living room carpet. The old man lowers himself into his armchair and switches on the television with a remote control.

—The news will be on soon, he remarks.

Mireille comes in carrying a tray with three mugs of tea.

—It took forever to light the stove—

Mireille looks at the trunk. She looks back at me. Her mouth is open.

—
Tu as trouvé quelque chose?

Desmarais grins. —He did. And now we will drink tea, just like the English.

23 November 1916

SS
Invicta

English Channel

The journey back from France was dreadful. After the quarrel with Ashley, Imogen left the cottage at Laviéville and spent a terrible night confined to a hotel east of Amiens, watching the train of refugees flow past on the muddy road. She had not eaten since breakfast and all the restaurants were closed, so she sent the elderly porter out to search for food. He came back half an hour later dripping wet with only a small round
pain de campagne
gripped under his overcoat. It was wet and flecked with dirt. Imogen tipped the porter and chewed the loaf greedily in bed, listening to the rumble of guns in the darkness.

She spent the second night at a dirty hotel in Boulogne waiting for a ferry the next morning, stir-crazy but also fearful of leaving her room. She drew a bath but the hot water went out halfway through and she sat paralyzed in the lukewarm tub, too weak to move, too cold to stay, wondering if Ashley had been harmed in the bombardment, wondering what reason she had to return to England at all. She put her hand to her stomach under the water and decided the swelling had started after all. But a moment later she changed her mind.

Imogen dunked her head under the bath. She listened to the
humming silence of the water against her eardrums, the soft ping of her bracelet on the enamel tub as she pictured continents they might escape to: sun-bleached fields with horizons twice as wide as they had ever known. She stayed in the bath until her teeth began to chatter.

Imogen boards the ferry in the morning. The sky is gray and blustery, the sea in the Channel very rough, the few passengers on deck searching the choppy waves for signs of U-boats. The only other woman is a stout nurse in the khaki uniform of the nursing yeomanry. She leans against the rail beside a life preserver, scanning the ocean with a set of field glasses. She invites Imogen to have a look. Imogen obliges, but she sees only the same dark water, the same white froth magnified to ten times the size. It makes her dizzy.