A Life Eternal

by Richard Ayre

  I had been in Paris for over a year but was still no further forward in my quest to find out about the Medic and what, if anything, he had done to me during the war.

  I had travelled to the hospital in Amiens where I had spent time after leaving the church all those years ago and, after a few days of filling out forms and waiting around, I was granted access to my records. They told a bizarre story indeed.

  My recovery from the machine gun wounds had been nothing if not miraculous. They had healed within days of arriving at the hospital and my muscles and ribs were undamaged. It was as if I hadn't been shot at all, apart from the scars on my chest and back. But however interesting my records were, they showed me nothing of the man who would come to mean so much to me.

  I found the church of Saint Theresa’s. It was near Abbeville and, on a warm spring morning, I took the train there.

  I didn’t recognise the area. That didn’t surprise me, as most of my time in France had been in the front line, and I had been unconscious until I woke in the church with the Medic staring down at me. I entered the quiet church and located the area where my bed had been. It was now just a space occupied by pews and I sat quietly, thinking of the night I now believed had changed my life. And of the man who changed it.

  I spoke to the priest there, mostly in sign language and broken French, and showed him the name of Doctor Artigue, but he couldn’t help me. He hadn’t heard of either Sister Clara or Sister Agnetha.

  I wandered into Abbeville.

  I knew it had never fallen to the Germans during the war, so it was not as knocked about as other places near the front line. I asked about Artigue around the cafes and bars, and eventually an old woman pointed me in the direction of the local cemetery. I searched for hours, and finally came across his grave. He had died in 1925. So no help there, then.

  There was another, newer cemetery in Abbeville for the fallen of the Great War, and I wandered around it aimlessly for a while, thinking of men I had known who had never made it home. Thinking that they were so different from me. Finally, as the sun set, I caught the train back to Paris, empty-handed.

  I had rented a small, top floor apartment in Montmartre and, on that February evening as I made my way home, I watched young lovers strolling hand-in-hand, smiling into each other’s eyes. Marriages would be proposed that night, futures stitched together. Lives would be planned.

  I now knew that I was different from them. The Medic had made me different; I was sure of it. I was a man apart. Those young people around me would marry, have children, and grow old. They would all one day die, that was for sure, and I wondered how that would happen to me. How could a person who seemed to be immune from death die? Would I just keep going, clinging on to life? Would I grow older and older and simply continue to exist, becoming a wizened, dried-up, mummified horror show?

  It was a sobering thought, and the chill that swept through me as I reached for my key was not entirely because of the cold Parisian wind that whistled down the darkening street. I needed to find the Medic. I needed to know what I was but, for a year now, he had eluded me.

  That year in Paris was not entirely useless, however. I learned enough French to get me by and, on that February night in 1928, I finally got some indication that the Medic had survived the war and of where he may have gone.

  There was a letter waiting for me on the floor when I opened the apartment door. It was written in a precise hand and it came from a Doctor Ducos, who worked at the hospital I had been asking questions at months before.

  In the letter, Ducos said that he had heard about my inquires and he believed the man I had been looking for was named Francois Valin, someone he had met briefly during the war.

  Apparently, Ducos had been a medic at that time, and Valin had worked at a field hospital alongside him. He had only been there for a few days but my description of him, his swarthy face and the scar on his cheek, struck a chord with Ducos. He said that if I wanted to meet up to discuss more about this, he would be in Paris the following week, visiting family. He would be pleased to meet me then.

  He had left a return address and with shaking hands I replied, saying I would be most grateful if we could indeed meet and suggested a café bar I knew, near the cathedral of Notre Dame.

  I couldn’t sleep at all that night and I spent the days in between our appointment in a frenzy of thought. Was I finally to come face-to-face with the man I had dreamed about constantly for years?

  Eventually, the day of our meeting arrived and I took a taxi to the café, ordering a bottle of Beaujolais to keep me company until Ducos arrived. I recognised him as soon as I saw him.

  He was the blonde man who had knelt by my stretcher at the field hospital when I had been wounded in 1916. The man who seemed surprised to find me still alive. The man who had sent me to the church of St Theresa Marie to die.

  He looked older, obviously: it had been twelve years. As I stood to greet him he didn’t seem to recognise me, though, which made perfect sense. This man had seen thousands of torn and mutilated soldiers, both dead and near death. Why would he have remembered one out of so many?

  We introduced ourselves and I offered him a glass of wine. I took out my cigarettes and we smoked in silence for a time, until I prompted him to tell me about Francois Valin.

  ‘I was a medic, as I said in the letter,’ he began. ‘It was a British Field Hospital, but mostly staffed by French medics. Valin worked there for only a few days but I remembered him from your description to the other doctors at the hospital. The broken nose, the scar on his cheek, but most of all his eyes. The term you used in your description was “black”. I remember those black eyes.’

  He seemed pensive for a second or two and sipped his wine before continuing.

  ‘There was something not quite right with that man. I have seen what war can do to people. I’ve seen shellshock. I even worked in a mental asylum for a few years. I have seen all the different manifestations madness can take. The screaming, the hallucinations, the usual things one connects with poor mental health. But I’ve also seen quiet madness, a creeping darkness that can be seen on certain individuals as they sit and think their twisted thoughts.’

  Again, he became quiet, thinking back to the past.

  ‘There is no doubt in my mind that Francois Valin was mad. A quiet mad. In the few days he was posted at the field hospital, I saw it on occasions. I saw him smiling as he watched men die in the most awful agony. He enjoyed it. No, that’s not right. He…’ He paused, searching for the right words. ‘He required it.’

  I felt a shiver run through me at these words.

  ‘Do you know where he went?’ I asked him. ‘After his time at the field hospital with you?’

  I already knew part of this answer, of course. He had gone to St Theresa’s. He had crouched by my bed and he had touched me. I believed he had healed me somehow. Changed me. But where had he gone after that?

  Ducos delved into his pocket and brought out a crumpled telegram

  ‘I found this the day after he disappeared,’ he muttered, handing me the telegram. I read it quickly.

  ‘URGENT: FROM: MAJOR GENERAL I.E.J HAWDON STOP TO: LIEUTENANT COLONEL R.T. FOREST, ACTING COMMANDER, FIELD HOSPITAL 422, ABBEVILLE STOP CC MAJOR F. VALIN STOP MAJOR VALIN TO BE APPREHENDED AT ONCE STOP HE IS TO BE TAKEN UNDER GUARD TO ARMY HQ AMIENS STOP THIS IS AN URGENT REPEAT URGENT ORDER STOP IF MAJOR VALIN RESISTS YOU ARE AUTHORISED TO USE DEADLY REPEAT DEADLY FORCE STOP’

  I frowned and looked up at Ducos.

  ‘Turn it over,’ he said.

  I did as he asked and saw a hand-written address, along with the date of ‘July 1, 1916’. The day I was shot. My frowned deepened.

  ‘I found that in Colonel Forest’s room,’ he said. ‘We had to evacuate the day after it was sent and I stuffed this and other papers in my pack as we were de-camping. Forest never got to read it, though. He was killed before he could do so.’

  ‘The hospital was attacked?’

  Ducos shook h
is head, grimly.

  ‘No. He had his throat cut. I believe Valin did it and I believe that’s Valin’s handwriting on the telegram.’

  I looked at the address.

  ‘This is in Berlin,’ I said.

  Ducos nodded again.

  ‘Valin was a German spy. It’s the only thing I can think of. That’s why we were to apprehend him. He must have found out about the telegram first, murdered Forest, and disappeared into the night. I sent a telegram to HQ letting them know what had happened once we were back in operation, but I never got anything back from them. The war rumbled on and the telegram lay forgotten with the rest of my things. I’d forgotten all about it myself until I heard you were looking for him.’

  I stared at the address again, taking in the neat, flowery handwriting. The Medic had cut a man’s throat to stop him finding out about him and had then written a forwarding address on the incriminating evidence and left it to be found. Then he calmly came to the church where I lay dying and had healed me. Changed me. Maybe.

  It made no sense at all.

  ‘This address is almost twelve years old,’ I said. ‘Chances are he doesn’t live there anymore, if it’s even his real address.’

  Ducos nodded and finished his wine, standing and putting on his hat.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘But I thought you would like to know about it. What you do with the information is up to you.’

  I stood too and he told me to keep the telegram.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ he said. ‘It was a bad time. A very bad time.’

  I stuck the telegram in my pocket and shook his hand.

  ‘Thank you for giving me this. I believe I need to meet this Major Valin.’

  Ducos seemed to scrutinise me for a second.

  ‘You have the same look in your eyes as he did,’ he said, finally. ‘So I would be very careful, and very sure that you do want to meet him. I believe you would be better off burning that telegram now and forgetting all about him.’

  He hesitated, as if to see whether or not I would do that. When I didn’t, he seemed to shrug to himself.

  ‘I believe he may be the death of you,’ he said. He then gave me a nod and walked out of the brasserie, disappearing into the crowds.

  I should have heeded his warning, but of course I didn’t. Instead of burning the telegram, I burned with impatience. Berlin! The Medic had gone to Berlin after he had knelt by my side in that church.

  I drained my glass, paid the bill, and walked out into the streets.

  The address was old so he perhaps wouldn’t be there now, but someone might know where he was. And I had to find him. I had to know what he had done to me.

  I needed to go to Berlin.

  X

  I arrived in the German capital a few days later, after an overnight train journey from Paris.

  The address Ducos had given me was on a street just off Friedrichstraße, still a wealthy area in those days. It turned out to be an apartment block.

  It was an old, formidable-looking building made of stone. The address was one of the apartments above a large restaurant that covered the ground floor. I entered the foyer and went upstairs to the door.

  There was an ornate bell on the wall, but I hesitated before using it. What would happen if the door opened and that swarthy, sardonic face appeared? What would I say to him? It seemed ridiculous now, standing at the door, that he had done anything to me at all in 1916. I had just been lucky, that was all.

  I once met a soldier in the war, like myself from Northumberland, who told me he had been in a line of men hit by shrapnel from a shell. All around him, his mates had been eviscerated, but the chunk of metal that flung itself at him had instead slammed into the Lee Enfield rifle he had been holding in front of him. The rifle had snapped completely in half, but it had saved him from any injury. He had been totally unmarked. I believe he made it to the end of the conflict. Luck. That was all it was. Luck.

  But then Mickey Donovan’s enraged face came back to me as he stabbed me again and again, and then finding myself a few hours later alive and well. Those marks from his knife were almost totally invisible now.

  How was it even possible? How could I have recovered so quickly and so completely, both from the stabbing as well as the massive wounds from the machine gun, the catalyst for my quest?

  I had no answers and I desperately craved some so, eventually and with a quivering finger, I pressed the doorbell.

  I heard it echo inside what sounded like an empty room. The building was completely quiet. I pressed it again. Nothing. Nobody in.

  I sighed. I would have to come back later. I turned to leave, perhaps to grab a coffee from the restaurant downstairs, when a door opposite me opened. An old, elegant-looking lady stuck her head out and smiled at me, asking me something in German.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Sprechen Sie Englisch?’

  The old woman’s smile faded a little and she shook her head.

  ‘Franzosich?’

  She brightened. ‘Yes, a little,’ she replied in French.

  I indicated to the door. ‘Do you know the man who lives here? Is it a man? With a broken nose and a scar on his face?’

  She seemed to recoil at the barrage of words, trying to work out what I was saying. She shook her head.

  ‘No one lives there,’ she said, eventually. ‘The apartment is empty. For a year now.’

  I slumped against the wall. Although it had always been a long shot, I hadn’t realised how much I had pinned my hopes on finding the Medic still here. I nodded at her.

  ‘There was a young family,’ she went on, helpfully, ‘but they moved out in twenty-three when all the money disappeared. Then Frau Weber took over, but she left last year.’

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked her.

  ‘Ja. Since 1909.’

  ‘You were here in 1916?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Do you remember a man who lived here then? As I’ve described. Dark hair, scar on his right cheek?’

  The old woman thought for a long time before shaking her head.

  ‘I do not know anyone who fits that description.’

  ‘Who was here in 1916?’

  ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

  ‘I’m just looking for someone I met in 1916. I was hoping he could help me with something.’

  ‘1916?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are English?’

  I knew what she was getting at, but I simply nodded again.

  ‘This man was a German?’ she insisted.

  ‘I don’t know. Possibly, but he may have been French.’

  She stared at me for a long time.

  ‘My grandson was killed in the war. Fighting the English. Were you in the war?’

  My silence told her all she needed to know, and her lips tightened. She started to close the door.

  ‘Wait,’ I called. ‘Look. The war was terrible for everyone on both sides. God knows I wish I hadn’t been involved in it; but I was, just like your grandson. He died for no reason at all. But I survived, and the man I’m trying to find may have had something to do with that. Are you sure you don’t recognise his description?’

  The woman stared at me from the doorway, a grimace of old pain on her face. She shook her head and closed the door softly.

  I eventually turned away, leaving her with the memories of her dead grandson. I by-passed the restaurant and instead found a beer hall. I used the rest of the day to try and drink the memory of the Medic from my mind.

  *

  I decided to stay in Berlin. I had no idea for how long, so I kept the apartment in Paris but rented a small house near the apartment block on Friedrichstraße where I could keep an eye on the comings and goings from that building. I spent my days spying on it, hoping for a glimpse of a dark, scarred face, and my nights tasting the wild and exotic club scene of the ‘Golden Years’ of post-war Germany.

  Following its defeat in the war, Germany had been a disaster zo
ne: its people starving and its economy wrecked. The swingeing orders of the Treaty of Versailles had created nothing but failed revolutions and political catastrophe.

  The French invasion of the Ruhr Valley, after Germany’s failure to pay the huge reparations foisted upon it by the Allies, had led to an incredible period of hyperinflation. This was what the old woman had meant when she said all the money had disappeared. Millions were unemployed, money was worthless, and it looked as though Germany would never recover.

  However, Stresemann, the new Chancellor and now Foreign Secretary, had seemed to have saved the country—to a degree. Because of various treaties he had organised, Germany was no longer seen as a pariah state on the world stage and had been rescued with American money under the Dawes Plan. Stresemann had invested this money into industry and Germany had not only recovered but, by 1928, was revelling in its new-found prosperity.

  This revelling went a lot further than the economy.

  My apartment in Montmartre had been close enough to iconic clubs such as the Moulin Rouge, where the can-can girls and easily available prostitutes who prowled the brightly lit streets had been something to behold. But they were as nothing compared to the nightlife in Berlin. I saw all sorts of things. I visited clubs where women dressed like men and men dressed like women. I watched people dancing as naked as the day they were born, accompanied on some nights by patrons who thought it might be nice to join in. Sodom and Gomorrah could not hold a candle to some of the things I witnessed. I viewed vice and hedonism on a scale I would not have believed possible only a few years before, and I wryly mused that I had come a long way from the innocent farm hand who had first set off to war fourteen years earlier.

  But it all meant less than nothing to me. I was fixated only on finding the Medic and I searched incessantly, picking up clues and leads here and there which all turned out to be false.

  I only watched the debauchery. I was immune to the charms of the prostitutes, both male and female, and I gazed forlornly at the sex shows from the back of the rooms. I drank alone and lived alone.