Tell

by Frances Itani

  The doctor tells me the sounds from my lungs are improving. Some of the men have been coughing blood. I’m free of that now, though others haven’t been so lucky. I was plenty scared when I brought up blood last year, and I thought I was done for. It’s an awful feeling, as if the inside of the body is about to drown, or smother. But as I said, I am luckier than most. Some who are in worse shape than I am don’t get out of their beds at all. Quite a few have had the collapse therapy—a lung collapsed as part of their treatment. And sandbags—think of it! sandbags!—are leaned against their chests while they lie in bed. If the hospital runs short, there’d be a surplus of sandbags, you’d think, from overseas. Shiploads.

  Many of the boys here complain of boredom, but I try not to fill my hours with gloom. I manage to keep some of the others in good spirits, but to tell the truth none of us has any energy to spare.

  How about you, Old Stuff? I don’t know what your injuries amounted to, but I was told that you’d taken shrapnel to the face and one side of your body. One of the boys said your leg, another said your arm. You’re the one who’ll have to give it to me straight. However you were hit, I hope you have the least amount of damage, and that you’re up and around and faring well. I look forward to a letter from you, and when I get out of here and I’m free of the plague, I have every intention of travelling to Ontario to find you. You’ll be forced to introduce me to your wife—you went on and on about her so much, I feel as if I know her. Here, except for nursing sisters, I see only other men.

  Yours, having survived hell and expecting you to have done the same. Keep your head down, mate.

  Hugh

  P.S. Do you remember when this photo was taken? Not long after, that’s when Bill caught it. There was a terrible barrage. We were all in it together. I wasn’t more than thirty feet away from the two of you, but there was so much confusion in the dark, I lost contact. I never understood how Bill just disappeared. His body was never found, and of course we had to leave the area immediately. More unfinished business. He might as well have been shot from one of our big guns over to Fritz on the other side. Remember what a fast talker he was? He always said he was going to track down the Great Farini after the war because he wanted to be shot out of a cannon.

  Kenan examined the photo again. Stared into it with his one eye. Stared at himself, or rather, the person disguised as his former self. There he was in sepia tones inside a younger, whole body. Two hands to move, two arms to stretch, two ears that listened, two eyes that could see. He looked at Hugh in the photo and wondered if his friend would be recognizable now. By the time Kenan had been taken out of the war, not one of the boys in his unit looked like his earlier self, wounded or not.

  In the photo, he and Bill and Hugh were standing side by side. They were holding half-filled mess tins—meat in one, mounded-up potatoes plopped into the other. The tins were dented and battered, as if they’d been flung about when empty. Thrown up into their packs, thrown down onto the ground. Bread, a third of a loaf being his ration, was visible and spilling out of one of his tunic pockets.

  Kenan remembered exactly where and when the photo was taken. He could have drawn the scene in detail with pencil and paper. They were behind the lines at the edge of a French village of low hills, with a black stream running through. A few spindly trees remained near the stream, though most had been chopped for firewood. A mess tent had been erected on a flat stretch of ground. He and Bill and Hugh had been ordered to dig pits for burying tin cans. The photo was taken when they stopped to eat.

  Kenan had shoved his cap back crookedly, and here was the proof. One ear appeared to be larger than the other because it was pressed forward by the crooked cap. His head had been itchy. Like everyone else, he was full of bites. He was wearing a change of underwear and new socks, neither of which showed in the picture. Like his two friends, he was grinning at the camera as if war did not exist. Except for the uniforms, war might not have been part of the photo at all. He and Hugh and Bill had been marched out of the front lines one day earlier, Bill swearing all the way. All of them knew that the way to benefit from their time behind the lines was to push war away until they had to face it again when they were marched back up. Why not grin at the camera? They were alive in that moment, weren’t they?

  “Don’t let the war smother you, Old Stuff,” Hugh used to tell him. “I plan to survive this madness and come out laughing, and you will too. Even if it’s the laughter of madmen.”

  Hugh had survived, and now Kenan had a letter to prove it. Bill had not survived.

  In the moment captured by the photo, the expressions on the three faces said nothing more than: Fill our tins with food and let us wash our socks. Hand over a few cigarettes and we won’t think of what we’ve just been through or what we’re heading into when we’re sent back up. Let us get rid of the lice and wash and be clean for a few days, let us find a quiet corner where we can read our mail. Mail is what we want. And please don’t ask us to think or talk of war.

  They were kept busy. No time to think when they were out of the line. They’d finished their assigned duty; they’d buried hundreds of empty cans. They’d been hosed off with cold water; they’d immersed their bodies in a vat in the bathhouse. After mail call, there’d been training, more training, route marches, gas drill, weapons training, stops for tea or hot Oxo. And occasional sports, if they were lucky. One memorable day, a day of warmth and sunshine, they got to watch a ball game. There was a pitcher named Herb, a wiry man, a youngster from Ontario, but a wonder on the mound. Everyone knew about him. A captain from the YMCA, a giant of a man, a full head taller than anyone on either team, took on the role of umpire. The players removed their tunics and stripped down to their shirt sleeves, braces hitching up their trousers. They all wore puttees, and changed from boots to canvas shoes. More than a few bases were stolen that day because some of the players could run like the wind. Hundreds of men on the sidelines around the makeshift diamond showed their appreciation with whistles and cheers.

  Kenan heard Tress coming in through the front door. He took a last look and slid the photo into its envelope, along with Hugh’s letter. His hand was shaking.

  Bill, he said to himself. Bill. And he saw a man’s face, unrecognizable, the man’s lips shaping the words: Help me.

  Tress called out while she was removing her boots, and he answered from the veranda. He shoved the envelope deep into his pocket, knowing he’d pull it out later. He’d tell Tress about it soon enough. But until he had a chance to read it over a few times, he wasn’t ready to share.

  Chapter Nine

  BREATHE. BREATHE. WE BREATHE TO SING.”

  Maggie took a breath and let it out slowly. She listened to Luc’s voice as if it were meant for her alone. Did every other singer do the same? She looked around and thought, Probably.

  Back to the music. They continued on and on, facing him from a double arc of chairs, though they stood to sing. Maggie watched the familiar movement as Luc’s hand pivoted at the wrist, created a circle, flicked upward. Every voice responded to the signal, stopped in unison.

  Luc was looking around the room, taking in the faces of forty men and women. “Find the expression here. The phrase begins too slowly. Give it new life. Remember, this is a celebration. The audience will be spilling out into the street, ready to face the new year as they leave the theatre. Sing together, sing joyously.”

  They were working on music for the second half of the concert. Maggie, Zel, Andrew and Corby were to sing solo parts in Elgar’s “Peace, Gentle Peace,” which immediately preceded the finale, “Land of Hope and Glory.” Before intermission, the entire group would be singing two pieces: Henry Leslie’s “Annabelle Lee,” adapted from the poem by Poe. Andrew, as tenor, would sing solo for that. The other piece was the last of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, based on the poetry of George Herbert. Everyone loved singing that one.

  As expected, “Auld Lang Syne” was added at the end of the second half. The audience wou
ld join in for that, as well as for the closing, “God Save the King.”

  Luc resumed. “From where we left off. Shape the vowel correctly here. Every one of you has to shape the vowel in the same way. Please.”

  They sang another few minutes and he stopped them again.

  “Approach the last note from above. Try again? Good, good. No, that’s not quite what I’m looking for. Make a single statement, stay in tempo. Emphasis on the third beat, yes, yes. We must be together at this point or not at all.”

  Two hours of this, and everyone was fatiguing. But Luc was not giving up. Not yet. “We need more emphasis on the strong syllables, not all syllables. Throw that note away, please. Throw it away completely so I won’t have to hear it again.”

  A ripple of laughter. He thanked everyone, allowed a smile. Told them they’d done well and that was enough for the evening.

  After rehearsal, Maggie walked the short distance home. It was past ten o’clock. She and Zel had stayed behind again to tidy up while Andrew stacked chairs at one side of the stage. Luc had asked Maggie to go through one of her solos again. Not only was she to sing Beethoven’s arrangement of “A Wand’ring Gypsy,” she would also be performing “The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze” from The Mikado. The latter was technically more difficult, but Luc had assured her she could do both. He would work with her later on the Gilbert and Sullivan. This evening, Zel had accompanied her on piano for “A Wand’ring Gypsy” while Luc listened.

  “Forget that you’re singing Beethoven,” Luc told her. “The song has a pleasing natural melody. It is completely in your range. Your challenge is to make it meaningful, give to it your emotion, vary the verses so that each is different from the last. Do not overthink the piece, Magreet. This is a folksong.”

  Maggie was doing her best to sing with spirit. To stay focused. But it was neither Beethoven’s arrangement nor the gypsy song that disturbed her. It was the text from “Peace, Gentle Peace.” She was certain she’d sung one of the lines backwards during the earlier part of rehearsal. Mixed up the words. The father to the children’s arms? The children to the father’s? Had she? No one had said anything. No one seemed to have heard. Her voice must have blended with the voices of the others.

  Later, when she and Zel parted in the street, Zel raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” Maggie said. “Why are you giving me that look?”

  Zel reached out, put her hand on Maggie’s arm. “I think you know. I’ll see you tomorrow, Maggie. I’ll try to stop in at the library for a quick visit.”

  Maggie climbed the stairs to the apartment, all the while thinking about what her friend had said. There was an air of drama about Zel, a sense of urgency. Perhaps I’m drawn to her because of that, Maggie thought. When things happen in Zel’s world, no matter what’s going on, she’s certain to maximize the drama.

  This evening, for instance, she had worn a hackle-feather ruff to rehearsal. A trailing black ruff her late mother had worn around her neck thirty years earlier. The ruff stretched down past Zel’s hips. She didn’t give a whit for what people in town said about her sense of style. She set her own standards. Sometimes she walked hatless along Main Street, with pink and black ribbons woven through her greying hair. That was enough to keep people talking. And she created her own fashions. A cape when a cape wasn’t exactly called for; nonetheless, it was thrown over her shoulders with drama. A bright bow added to a shoe … well, who could predict what Zel would wear next? But despite her eccentricities, she was likeable and attractive. Nor could anyone deny her kindness.

  Maggie knew that Zel was a strong woman. She had to be to survive on her own. She was capable of making half-turns away from situations that might otherwise contrive to pull her down. She was capable of helping others turn away from hardship and sorrow. She had a head for business. She’d set up a rooming house by herself. She had much to give, so much life to live. It seemed unfair that she was alone in her early fifties. She had married late, and she had loved her husband as she’d loved no one before or since. She told Maggie as much one day when Maggie was visiting.

  “I felt responsible,” Zel had said. “Responsible for his death, even though my rational self knew that it wasn’t my fault. He died of consumption. I kept thinking that if I’d had access to different remedies, or special foods, or more advanced knowledge, I’d have been able to keep him alive. At one time, he was so close to death, I hauled out the sad-irons and ironed my black dress for the funeral. He didn’t die until five weeks later, and I felt guilty because I’d ironed my dress too soon. Well, at least it was ready the day he was taken around the farm on the hay wagon. In his coffin.”

  Maggie understood. The wake for her own father had been held in the parlour of her parents’ farmhouse, the single window at the end of the room wide open, the sheer curtains sucked out gently while the breeze wafted in. After the wake, her father was given the last tour of his land in the same manner Zel had described. Every farmer in the area received his final salute this way. A salute from the hard, rocky soil he’d worked throughout his lifetime. Maggie was present when the team was hitched up that October day. Her father’s body, in its coffin, was hoisted up to the very wagon upon which he had fastened Maggie to the crossboards with the reins when she’d been a skinny teenager, so she wouldn’t be yanked off by the horses.

  She and Nola were already married when their father died. The two of them, along with their mother and their husbands, were joined by relatives and friends from neighbouring farms as they walked behind the wagon in October sun. The quiet, deliberate procession made its way around the boundaries of the fields, the horses staying close to the fenceline. The slow and solemn walk was still vivid in Maggie’s memory.

  When they reached the field farthest from the house, Maggie’s mother began to sing. She sang alone, her gaze never leaving her husband’s coffin, her voice rising like a bold banner unfurling. She sang “The Bantry Girls’ Lament,” a song passed down to her from her own family, who had come from County Cork. Maggie had never heard her mother sing so purely, or with so much heartbreak.

  Who will plow the field now, and who will sow the corn?

  Who will wash the sheep now, and keep them neatly shorn?

  The procession passed cairns of stones Maggie’s father had heaped at the ends of the fields every spring. Picking stone had not been his favourite work. “The stones,” he always told his daughters, “multiply under the earth when we’re not looking. They wait until winter, when they’re under the snow and have nothing better to do.”

  Maggie’s father had long ago dug the grave for his own father and mother, a grim task. And now, both he and Maggie’s mother were buried in the same country cemetery, in a plot beside the one he had dug for his parents.

  Maggie had never sung the Irish lament. She vowed she never would. On the day she heard the lament, after her father had been buried and after everyone had gone home, her mother said to her and Nola, the three of them bowed by grief: “I wish eight children had been born to me instead of two, so that when sadness falls we could spread the pain more thinly among us.”

  Zel had come up out of her own silence after talking about her husband’s death. “Isn’t it amazing,” she said, “how you think you can’t survive without someone in your life, and then you find out—you’re forced to find out—that you can, after all. Though a part of you goes on loving that person forever.”

  Maggie had not replied. It was a rare private admission from Zel, who turned away after speaking, and refused to allow Maggie to see her face.

  But Zel could also laugh. Loved to laugh her deep, dusky laugh. Laughter was an invitation, as if her life’s mission was to engage others in lightheartedness. Maggie could not imagine her own life without her friend’s laughter, though she and Zel had known each other only a few years.

  MAGGIE OPENED THE DOOR TO THE APARTMENT AND KNEW instantly that Am was out. Even so, she went to the parlour and looked up the ladder. The hatch was open but she’d have sense
d his presence whether it was open or closed.

  One evening when she’d come home after rehearsal and found the hatch closed, she had quietly pulled back the door of the mahogany cupboard in the parlour. She’d ignored the pendulum cables that hung over the sand, and God forgive her, she had stood there and eavesdropped. Am had been up there with young Kenan, who had ably, it appeared, climbed the ladder. She’d imagined him making his way up to the tower. There was nothing wrong with his legs or feet; one of his arms was perfectly healthy.

  The two men were talking and she had spied on them. She had spied, she now told herself, because she was concerned that Am was letting out the old sorrow. Breaking the pact of silence. A surge of anger flared as she thought of this.

  It was Kenan’s voice she’d heard when she’d first opened the mahogany door. He was saying the word egg. And then he cursed. She had recoiled, listening. Kenan never swore in her presence.

  “Why did Uncle Oak never give me a goddamn egg to eat? He raised hens—we raised hens. I did as much work as he did when I was a boy. One egg a year, that’s what I was allowed.”

  “Don’t be harsh on Oak,” said Am. “He did his best by you.”

  “He rarely comes to the house anymore. Well, actually, he does visit, but I never know when to expect him. Weeks go by before he’ll stop in.”

  “He doesn’t know what to do. He brought you up, a healthy and spirited boy. When you came home from the war, he didn’t—still doesn’t—know what he should say. If he did, he’d try to make you better.”

  There was a long silence and then Am added, “The hurting. He’d want to make the hurting better.”

  “I shouldn’t have lashed out just then,” Kenan said. “I eat all the eggs I want now.”

  “Do you remember how many letters you sent to Oak from overseas?” That was Am.