Mercy Road

by Ann Howard Creel

“Is there a private place at the château?”

  “No Juliet’s balcony, I’m sorry to say. And we probably shouldn’t meet near the hospital anyway. Luzancy is a small place.” Then it hit me. How oblivious I’d been until that moment. I could do exactly what Cass had done ever since our arrival in Neufmoutiers.

  I stepped back so I could read Jimmy’s reaction. “I know. I’ll slip out after everyone is asleep. Someone has done it and gotten away with it for a long time.” I continued: “There’s a wood near the hospital. You can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there at midnight.”

  First he appeared pleased, but his expression soon changed to hesitancy. “Are you sure?”

  “No one will see me, I promise. The château is huge, and people sleep deeply. Well, at least most of them do.”

  I reached up and, barely touching him, brushed away strands of hair from his forehead, then I placed my hand on his cheek again. He grasped it and held it there, as he’d done before, but this time his hand trembled. Jimmy seemed nervous, afraid of something. Was it simply fear of the unknown, of plunging in and baring one’s soul, the same fear as mine? Or was there more?

  I relived those moments as I took silent steps away from the hospital and remembered Jimmy’s last words to me that morning: Don’t get caught.

  The air felt as soft as a foal’s breath; no wind blew, and the night waited for us, silently and calmly waited for us. The tart taste of autumn had arrived—the season of bounty and one in which we all hoped the war would finally come to an end. The leaves on the trees and ground made a moonlit canvas of color.

  I spotted an army ambulance parked across the road from the woods, backed into what looked like an old cart trail surrounded by shade trees to hide it, at least partially.

  Jimmy was already here.

  I found him standing in a small clearing in a pool of moonlight. A beautiful man bathed in hazy, silvery light, holding still, waiting for me. His stance anticipatory, his hands at his sides, and his face a mixture of passion and fear, he watched me come toward him. I understood the fear, but I had no choice but to rush into his arms. And then into the brilliant perfection of it, kissing as though we had been starving, never enough of this, and it would never last long enough.

  Jimmy respectfully pulled back and took my hand. He’d brought a tarp and some blankets, which he spread on the dewy grass, and he’d also come with bread—the yellow-brown loaves from Château-Thierry, the best to be had in those days—and a bottle of vin blanc. Under the luminous light of the nearly full moon, we sat on the tarp, me very close and facing him with my feet tucked beneath me, Jimmy sitting on the ground the way men do—one leg levered up and his elbow propped on his knee, his hand dangling loosely in front of him. He looked down into his wine glass. “Not a bug in sight.”

  We drank a bit but couldn’t eat. I had a hard time doing anything other than believing I was sitting there with Jimmy and the moment was real, all of it really happening. I was the girl who had never looked for love, a daddy’s girl forever, and now I knew how much I might have missed.

  Any memory of my father brought on a spasm in the back of my throat. How I wished he could see me now. He would’ve approved; he’d wanted only my happiness.

  “What is it?” Jimmy whispered as his eyes roved over me.

  I shook my head. “Thinking of my father . . .” At that moment I felt the inscription of him in my every cell. He was half of me and always would be. He had led me to this moment; his spirit had shown me the way.

  “Dearest,” Jimmy said and took my hand. Then he half laughed as he glanced down. “He probably would’ve killed me. He would’ve wanted better for you.”

  “You’re wrong about that. My father never ranked people. Maman did, although she didn’t mean any harm. It’s just the way of her generation . . .”

  “No, Arlene,” he said as he searched my face. “There’s truth to the way your mother feels. I know I’m out of my league. You’re a Thoroughbred, and I’m a workhorse.”

  Of course class separations still existed. How miserable that it should still affect any of us . . . after all that had happened in the world. “Now who’s the person who believes in ranking people?”

  He smiled. “Maybe it comes from following orders every day.”

  “Yes, we’ve all taken our share of orders.”

  He nodded. “I do what I’m told, and it has kept me alive so far.”

  “And yet you’re here.”

  Half laughing again, he said, “Do you think I could’ve kept a clear head and turned you away again? I did it once, for your benefit. But not a second time. Nothing could’ve kept me away after what happened today.” He stared and seemed to work up to saying, “Everything’s changed. This war . . .” Then he looked off wistfully, painfully.

  My voice came out sounding weak, although those old ways made no sense now. “Like France, all of us have changed. One can’t see such suffering as we have and not come away with a different manner of looking at our lives. Our minds have changed. Our vision has changed. Now we can more clearly see what’s most important.”

  Studying me, he appeared enthralled. Listening raptly to what I was saying, really hearing me. My words were important and heartfelt and came from the core of me, and they told the truth. Jimmy had to see. For him, for us.

  “All that matters now . . . is finding what happiness we can in this world, because we have no idea, not really, of what’s around the corner. I found that out when my father died, and I’ve learned it doubly and triply here.”

  His eyes full of admiration, he whispered, “I could never have said it so well. When did you become so wise?”

  While we kissed, time did not exist, the night around us barely existed, and all losses and sorrows drifted away as though they’d never existed, either. A wave-swell of longing over a decade old swept away any words, and Jimmy, also too moved to talk, spoke with his hands, touching my face and neck, holding me as though he’d never let me go.

  But time did exist, and ours was running out.

  Before I said goodbye, Jimmy took hold of my arm. “Don’t do anything about Brohammer,” he said. “Forget about it. My only concern now is you and me.”

  We hadn’t spoken of Brohammer all night, and it surprised me that Jimmy had brought him up. “But we—or someone—has to catch him.”

  “That would serve justice, I know. But it has nothing to do with you any longer. Please put it out of your mind. I don’t want you caught up in this.”

  “Caught up? Jimmy, you don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  A sick feeling always entered the pit of my stomach when I thought of Felix Brohammer. “I’m already caught up. I’ve seen the suffering our soldiers have had to endure, and you have, too. I have to expose him; he deserves punishment. I’m not fighting in the military—I can’t—but maybe I can rectify a serious wrong.”

  “I don’t want you to. Don’t even try. He could be dangerous.”

  We couldn’t disagree about it any longer, however, because our time had come to an end. Jimmy said he’d send a letter as soon as he received notice of his next leave. Then we would figure out a place to meet again.

  Although thrilled that Jimmy and I would see each other another time, I couldn’t escape thoughts of Brohammer. I clung to Jimmy as I became almost nauseous, and my vision dimmed for a moment as if a fog had rolled in.

  He tilted my head up and stared into my eyes. “Arlene, pray tell: What is it?”

  “He’ll come see me again,” I said, as I perused Jimmy’s face and let out a pathetic breath. “I know it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  At long last, I received letters from home. The AWH mail had made the rounds of places we’d left and finally come in bulk. In my stack I found letters from Luc, Maman, and even my friend Olive.

  The news in the US apparently full of reports that the war would end very soon, Luc wrote about our plans upon my return. He’d made enough money fro
m the stud service to take care of our remaining horses and keep the stables in tip-top shape. But Chicory was getting old; he needed to retire. Our mare, Mary Blue, had foaled a colt, which he had sold for a more than fair price, and another of our mares was in foal and due next spring. He also wrote long descriptions of three stallions for sale in the area that could be excellent for stud service, but he didn’t have enough money to purchase one, and he wanted me to help make the decision anyway.

  Clearly Luc believed I’d come home with enough money to set Favier Farm’s stud service back on track. And of course, I hoped to do just that. His faith in me made my faith in myself grow. The cease-fire should come soon, I would earn my bonus, I’d go home shortly after that, and now I had Jimmy, too. I dared to imagine a future that excited me.

  I considered writing to Maman and Luc about Jimmy and me, to share my happiness, but I thought better of it. When Jimmy and I arrived back home, we’d have plenty of time to let everyone know, and Maman would probably take it better in person. After all the things that had changed our lives—we were no longer wealthy, after all—I found it difficult to imagine her unhappy with any man I loved. But I wanted her to hear about it from me, face-to-face.

  Olive wrote about news and gossip in our corner of Kentucky and also informed me that she was pregnant, due in three months. She planned to hold off on the baby shower until I could be there to attend.

  Maman’s letters spoke in a mostly positive and forward-looking way. She expressed how much she missed me and living on our land and stopped just short of saying she hoped she wouldn’t have to live with her friend much longer. In closing she sent stern warnings of caution that I should never find myself in the line of fire—obviously she didn’t know anything about what I’d lived through—and she expressed frustration that the German chief of the general staff had contacted President Wilson to begin surrender negotiations, and yet the war raged on. If the end had been determined, why, she wanted to know, was any soldier on either side still risking his life?

  As if I knew. Her little rant made me smile, however, as it showed that my mother had not lost her verve.

  On the other hand, it fueled my anxiety over Jimmy and his safety. When we parted, he’d told me his unit had to head to the front again, and he had no idea when he’d get leave. All reports indicated that the Germans had run out of supplies and knew they had lost, and yet they fought just as fiercely, even as they fell farther and farther back.

  In the meantime, children continued to get ill and die; mothers wept at their bedsides; fathers who’d miraculously survived the front succumbed to influenza, leaving families even more destitute; and the life drained from young women waiting for sweethearts to come home. Orphans spent time playing around the hospital, but we had to send them away for fear of exposure to a contagious disease; and one of our nurses, after a long illness, had finally passed away in a Paris hospital.

  How easy it was to dwell on the awful. I had to think of something else. The sunlight pouring in through the windows in the morning and bathing the walls in a golden glow. The dew gleaming like little pearls on the grass. The butterfly that had landed on the hood of my ambulance, sunlight glinting on its wings.

  Since Jimmy had left, time seemed to drag.

  Once while driving back to the château, I passed by a bombed-out and abandoned farmhouse and spotted what looked like a flourishing kitchen garden. That evening after we stopped working, Cass and I drove back to see what we might harvest. In the long shafts of late-afternoon light with the warmth on our backs, breathing in pollen and life instead of dust and dirt, we picked some pumpkins and squash and then took them to the people who lived in the closest village.

  Cass’s recovery from her melancholia continued. Even after our difficult days handling the sick and dying, she maintained a regular schedule of going out at night. Each day, her spirit grew stronger. She had once again assumed leadership of the ambulance corps, and in addition to driving, she now trained the new recruits.

  On the way back to the hospital after our harvesting jaunt, I said to her, “Cass, it seems you’re faring so much better now. At one time I was so worried . . .”

  Concentrating on her driving, she kept her eyes ahead. “Of course I’m better. The war is almost over. But thanks for worrying about me anyway.”

  “How did you do it? How did you recover so swiftly?”

  “I gave myself a lecture.”

  Was that a joke, or maybe not?

  “Seriously,” she said. “I had little choice.”

  “I shouldn’t have suggested leaving before our duty ended. I’m sorry.”

  She looked puzzled. It took her a second or so to say “I’d already forgotten about that.”

  For a moment I considered asking her about her nighttime expeditions, but then thought better of it. The day felt like a breakthrough, and I didn’t want to ruin it.

  At the end of October, every day brought rain. Dense clouds dropping cold downpours seemed never to dissipate, and everywhere we went, we had to step around ice-slushy puddles and avoid slick mud. On All Souls’ Day, we led a procession to the graves of twelve American soldiers who’d died in the hospital during the battle for Belleau Wood, and there we placed the last of autumn’s flowers.

  My wish to stop worrying about Jimmy fell on my own deaf ears. The army engineers rebuilding the old stone bridge in Château-Thierry wouldn’t leave my mind, either. Brohammer had worked in this area before; he’d been near enough to search me out in Meaux, so he could be in Château-Thierry now. And if he was, perhaps I might still make up for my mistake, this time grabbing some physical evidence to prove his criminal acts. Perhaps by taking only a fifteen-mile drive.

  On the day we learned that the American doughboys had cleared the Argonne of all remaining German forces, it felt like time for a celebration, but the Germans still fought as they retreated. The rain stopped, and the sun peeked out from between clouds, as if inviting us to go outside and cheer anyway. Surely the end was in sight now.

  We completed our village rounds early, and I had a few hours to myself before the sun went down. My fuel tank low, I took off for Château-Thierry in search of gasoline.

  When I reached the city, the lowering sun was gold-washing the old stone walls of the city, the light so clear and clean and full of warmth, one could almost ignore the bullet holes. Nothing could mar the charms of that town in my mind; here Jimmy had opened his heart. I procured gasoline without having to barter for it, and then I parked and walked to the quay. Reaching the café Jimmy and I had visited, I had to stop.

  I took the chair where Jimmy had sat, which afforded me a view of the river and the construction under way. Although a few engineers were gathering up tools and such, it appeared as if the work had ended for the day. I didn’t know if the men worked for Brohammer, but perhaps by waiting and observing I would somehow find out.

  I ordered a glass of wine from a different waiter who looked so much like the one Jimmy and I had run out on that I concluded they had to be brothers.

  My plan was to watch where the engineers headed when they left the quay. If I could find out where they billeted, perhaps I could learn if they worked in Brohammer’s unit and, if so, find his car. But the engineers stood around and chatted, making no moves to leave.

  The waiter brought the wine. I sipped it and closed my eyes, face turned up toward the setting sun. This taste would always be Jimmy; it would always be ours. A little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, but also dry, which left the palate hungry and wanting more.

  My back straightened when the men I watched began to move. Leaving the bridge, they turned up the very street where I sat. Maybe they would come to the same café. A tiny surge of panic. But why? His engineers didn’t know me, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know my purpose here.

  Something big blocked my view and slipped into the chair facing me, cutting off the light.

  My first thought: Brohammer. But instead I looked into the face of his driver. Un
like Brohammer’s other men, he did know who I was; he’d seen me before, back in Meaux.

  My hunches had paid off; I’d found Brohammer’s unit. But where had the driver come from? It seemed as if he’d materialized from the air.

  “Hello to ya, Arlene.”

  His words had the effect of dropping a loop of rope around me. Not tightening, but definitely there. His long face, off-center nose, and thin lips made him a plain man—not handsome but not ugly, either. One of those men you might never notice unless you knew him. He was slim and had a large Adam’s apple, and his eyes were so black I couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris.

  I tried to smile. “I didn’t realize you knew my name.”

  He shook his head as if surprised. “Don’t take me for no fool, Miss Arlene. I been hearing your name ever since my captain met you back in Paris. I don’t know what you done to him, but he ain’t been the same for a good while now.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, and so I took another sip of wine and reminded myself that whatever this meeting was, it would soon end. The taste of Jimmy spread on my tongue. I relished it, as the driver’s uniform was so dusty it forced me to inhale a musty odor.

  “Whatcha doing here, Arlene?”

  His eyes grew more sinister, and a tiny chill ran up my spine. “I came here for gasoline, for the ambulance . . .” He wore the insignia of a corporal. I leaned a notch closer and painted a pleasant question on my face. “Corporal . . . ?”

  “Corporal Needles. Grady Needles.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  He shifted his weight. “As you was saying, you come here for gasoline?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like you did a week or so ago?”

  Now the rope around me did tighten. Being with Jimmy in this place on that glorious day must have made me oblivious to all others. “I didn’t see you the last time I was here.”

  “Well, I seen you.”

  I shrugged.

  “And I’m not the only one who seen you.”

  I wrapped my hands around the wine glass to keep them from trembling. “Oh, do tell me.”