by Justin Go
Jeffries stops his singing long enough to grab the bottle back. It is already half-empty.
—For the Lord’s sake, Jeffries says, leave the poor spymaster alone. The last thing he needs is your counsel.
—Keep singing, Ismay said. We’re only discussing Marlowe’s Faustus. Spymaster’s a literary chap, like myself.
Jeffries walks on ahead with Bennett. Ismay turns back to Ashley, his breath thick with wine and brandy.
—Now hear me out. I was in the same spot as you. Of course, you’re thinking it’s never the same. But I was engaged to a lovely girl. Known her since we were children. Wrote nearly every day for four months. Then I got a letter while I was at Loos, telling me she’d gone off with some worthless character. I did as you did, but not so well. Night patrols, as many as they’d let me. I didn’t take any trenches, but I was out of my mind and I suppose I wanted to get myself killed. And for what? Let me have a gasper.
Ashley takes his silver case from his pocket, removing a cigarette for both of them.
—If I’d kept that up, Ismay continues, I’d be rotting in Delville Wood for a girl who wouldn’t have come to my funeral, nor hardly thought of me again. When did you come to France?
—August.
—And you’ve been in some ghastly shows, haven’t you? But you’ve survived. Surely there’s a reason for that. You can’t have made it through all that only to be ended by some girl. Remember, Walsingham, whoever she is, she’s only some girl. Remember that.
—I’ll try.
—You ought to go back to that estaminet and see that brunette. I saw how you looked at her.
Ashley shakes his head and draws from his cigarette.
—Perhaps I’m only tired of looking at you fellows.
—Perhaps. Look here, I’m only trying to be decent. You’ll do as you like. But if I’d had my way, I’d be dead on account of someone I wouldn’t cross the road to see today. That’s the last I’ll say of it.
Ismay takes his arm from Ashley’s shoulder.
—Walsingham, what did you do before the war?
—I was at Cambridge.
—Naturally you were. But what did you really do? I’d like to know what counts for a fellow like the spymaster.
—You mean what used to count—
—And will again one day. Foxhunting, perhaps? Snooker? Are you one of those fellows who goes round the world looking at geese through field glasses—
—I liked to climb mountains.
—For sport?
—There’s no other reason.
Ismay shakes his head.
—Climbing mountains for sport, he repeats. Sounds dangerous.
—Not compared to France.
—No, Ismay agrees, nothing quite compares to France. But how does it work? You rope on to another fellow and go up something tall and icy?
—More or less.
—And if he falls?
—He’d better not fall.
—But if he does?
—Really, I’d prefer he didn’t.
Ismay grins. —Walsingham, you may be a damned strange fellow, but I admire you. You’re cut from your own cloth, no one else’s. You certainly know how to suffer fools gladly.
—It was a fine speech.
Ismay nods appreciatively.
—Tell me something, he says. When you took that Hun trench. What’s it like, being the first man to step in there? I’ve imagined it so many times—
Ashley tosses his cigarette into the darkness, but he says nothing.
Ismay grins. —You ought to go and see that brunette.
The others have stopped singing. Jeffries stands in the rutted road, waiting for Ashley and Ismay to catch up. He regards Ashley with a queer expression.
—Where’s your hat?
Ashley runs his hand over the empty air above his head.
—Bollocks. Left it there. I’d better go back.
—Forget it, Jeffries says. There’s a spare around, I’m sure. You can send someone in the morning for it.
—Or he can go there himself, Ismay says.
—Or he can go there himself. Now where the deuce is Bennett?
Guessing that Bennett has gone ahead, the officers stagger along toward La Calotterie, calling out for him. Bennett never appears. Ismay is particularly irritated, for Bennett had been holding the Armagnac.
When they reach the edge of La Calotterie, Ismay can barely stand. Ashley and Jeffries drag him on their shoulders toward Ismay’s billet, a second-story bedroom in a farmhouse whose timbered walls seem to meet at grotesque angles. They dump Ismay onto the yard before the house. He lies in the frosted dirt, squirming and ranting.
—I’ve only one question for you fellows. Have you an able-bodied groom, chauffeur, gardener or gamekeeper serving you who should be serving your king and country?
—Enough, Jeffries says.
—Have you a man digging your garden who should be digging trenches?
—Hush—
Ismay rises from the mud. He squints theatrically at them.
—I ask you gentlemen, have you a man preserving your game who should be helping to preserve your country?
Ashley takes Ismay by the shoulder.
—I’ll see him up. We needn’t both run the gauntlet.
The old woman of the house holds a candle as Ashley pulls Ismay up the stairs, his tall boots shedding clumps of black ice onto the carpet. The woman begins her usual tirade against the English, but she has a thick Picardie accent and Ashley understands few of the insults. Ismay bellows back at the woman.
—Madame, I can only reply with my own query. Have you a man serving at your table who should be serving a gun?
The old woman’s eyes narrow in contempt. She pulls the bedroom door open and Ashley drops Ismay on his bed. The woman lights an oil lamp and manages a few words of complaint, gesturing at the sheets now coated with frozen dirt. Ashley promises to have the sheets cleaned himself, but this fails to placate her and she stomps off to her bedroom cursing. Ashley tugs Ismay’s boots off and pulls the sheets over him, his greatcoat still on.
—Spymaster, Ismay mutters. Dear old spymaster—
Ashley sinks into a chair, taking a moment to consider things. The room swims with vertigoed motion. If only he could think. This is a puzzle he can solve. But what exactly is the problem? Ashley notices Ismay fanning his hand wildly, motioning for Ashley to come closer, muttering something indecipherable. Ashley goes to the bed.
—We’ll come out in the end, Ismay slurs, won’t we?
—Pardon?
—We’ll beat them. Even you must admit it.
Ashley shakes his head. —I don’t know, Ismay.
—My name is Edward.
—I don’t know, Edward.
Ismay rises from the bed. He grips Ashley’s arm forcefully.
—I shan’t go back. I’m not so stupid as to go back, do you hear? Nothing could make me go. Let them shoot me.
—Calm yourself—
—You think I’m afraid to die? You think I can’t die so well as any man?
—Quiet, Edward. Easy now.
—I shan’t go back. Do you hear?
Ismay tosses the sheets back and gasps. Ashley worries that Ismay may vomit, so he brings the basin over to the bed, holding it at his waist. Someone bangs on the floor below them, appealing for silence. Ashley curses and drops the basin on the floor.
—We’ll beat them all right, he promises.
—We’ll beat them, Ismay repeats. But first they’ll fucking ruin us—
Ismay pushes his face into the pillow, then rises feverishly toward Ashley, his eyes huge.
—You think we’ll come out of this?
—Certainly.
—You bloody liar.
THE MESSAGE
Mireille and I stop at an Internet café a few miles from the house. We check our e-mail at a pair of aging computers beside a humming refrigerator stocked with soft drinks. The keyboards are sticky with grime.
—What does it mean?
—They found the telegrams.
I explain that in 1924 the Mount Everest Committee kept copies of all telegrams sent through the expedition to its members. I’d requested them in London, but it had taken weeks for the archive to pull them from storage and scan them. I click through images of old telegraph forms, yellow and pink slips with cryptic messages in purple type, transcribed and carbon-copied, marked by pencils and rubber stamps. I stop at one of the messages.
2 AP 24
IMOGEN SOAMES ANDERSSON HOTTINGUER ET CIE 38 RUE DE PROVENCE PARIS
PLEASE CABLE ADDRESS HAVE WRITTEN POSTE RESTANTE BERLIN GPO RETURN ENGLAND AUGUST YOURS EVER ASHLEY
Mireille shakes her head in disbelief.
—They were in contact. But what does it mean?
—Hold on—
I run a search for “Hottinguer et Cie” and learn that Banque Hottinguer was a private bank established in Paris in 1786. Then I log on to an online encyclopedia and check the entry for poste restante.
Poste Restante (French, trans. “post which remains”) is a service where the post office holds mail until the recipient calls for it. It is a common destination for mail for people who are visiting a particular location and have no need, or no way, of having mail delivered directly to their place of residence at that time.
Mireille looks at me.
—So she wasn’t in Paris?
—I don’t think so. That’s just where her bank was. It seems like she was in Berlin—
—But how did she get the telegram if she wasn’t in Paris?
—It must have gotten forwarded by her bank. Lots of people used to do it when they traveled, I’ve seen it in archives. People could just wire your bank and you’d let the bank know which hotel you were staying at.
—I don’t understand. The message doesn’t tell you anything—
—It does. I just have to think about it.
We stare at the telegram on the screen. I think of Ashley in 1924, sending the message from a hill station in India or the remote Tibetan plateau. I think of Imogen in Berlin the same year, and I wonder why she would be there and why Ashley would be writing to her. I turn to Mireille.
—He was on an expedition. He was on the other side of the world and he wanted to send her a letter.
Mireille shakes her head. I touch her shoulder.
—Just listen. He didn’t have her address, but he knew what her bank was, and I guess he knew she was in Berlin. So he wrote her poste restante to the Berlin general post office, then sent her this telegram telling her to collect the letter.
I make a printout of the scan. Mireille goes to the cash register and pays the clerk.
—Let’s go outside, she says.
We stand outside the café, at the crossroads of this deserted hamlet where no cars drive by and most of the businesses are shuttered. Mireille draws tobacco from a paper pouch and taps it into a neat line on a leaf of rolling paper. She looks at me.
—Tu veux aller à Berlin?
—I think I have to go.
—But this telegram, Mireille insists, has nothing to do with your grandmother’s birth. Chasing it won’t get you any closer to the money. You have no idea how long she was in Berlin—
Mireille tucks the cigarette into her pocket.
—Or if she was there at all, she adds. Maybe he was guessing. Maybe she never even got the telegram.
We walk past a boulangerie, its rusted steel shutters drawn shut. A stiff wind blows along the street and Mireille zips her coat up to the neck.
—You wouldn’t even have an address to look for there.
—No.
—But you’ll go anyway.
—I know it seems crazy. But every time I’ve tried to be logical and look at records or archives, it hasn’t worked. And when I just go after something, like when I went to Leksand, or when I came up here with you, I’ve found things. It’s just like Prichard told me, there isn’t anything in normal records, so the only thing that works—
Mireille walks on past our car, shaking her head.
—Works, she repeats. You’ve learned a few things. But you haven’t found anything that will get you the money. Do you think you’re better off than before all this began? You’re nervous all the time, worrying about something you can’t control, something that already happened. You’re spending all your savings on this crazy search, and now you want to go to Berlin. Where would you even look there?
—I don’t know. The post office.
Mireille lifts her hand in the air.
—I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what you’re after. You say you don’t care about the money, but you’ll go anywhere to chase this story. Why not Amsterdam while you’re at it, why not Bruxelles or Genève? You’re just guessing, you can’t keep this up forever. How much money do you have left?
—Enough to get there.
—Et après? What do you think you’re going to find over there? A hundred million Swiss francs? Even you aren’t that crazy. You think this is going to have an answer at the end—
—There has to be some ending.
—There doesn’t. Même si—
Mireille breaks off in frustration, shaking her head. She looks down the empty street.
—Even if there’s an ending to all this, maybe it’s lost. Maybe there’s a reason it ought to stay lost. And even if you’re lucky enough to find an ending, it might not be the ending you wish for.
—I’ve been lucky. I found the letters. I found you.
—And I’m asking you not to go to Berlin. Stay here and we can go back to Paris next week.
I stand in the street, not knowing what to say. Mireille stops before the window of a small mercerie, her back to me as she stares at the bundles of black and cream-colored lace.
—Just give me a month, I say. Then it’ll all be over.
She shakes her head and walks on ahead of me. I follow after her.
—It’s not because I care so much about you, she says. You’re no one. You don’t understand what’s going on around you, or what any of it means. But what bothers me is that every amazing thing that happens to you, you’ll just get on a train and go somewhere else, where you expect another amazing thing to happen.
—I don’t expect that.
—You expect that, she continues, but that’s not life. C’est un conte. A fairy tale. Forget about the lawyers and the money. They’re never going to give you anything. And forget about these dead people and their story, it’s probably not even true. What about our story? What were the chances that we would meet, that you would choose that bar in Paris, for no reason at all, and that I would take the seat beside you? Isn’t that enough? Or are you only going to care about it in ten years or a hundred years, when I’m gone and you can’t do anything about it?
—I didn’t know you felt that way—
I reach for her shoulder, but she walks on a step ahead.
—I don’t feel that way, she counters. But even if I did, you’d still go to Berlin.
—I’ll be back. I’ll come right back here when I’m done.
Mireille stops in the street and turns to me. Her face is streaked black with running mascara. She wipes her face with her sleeve, her chin raised high.
—No, she says. I’m sure you won’t.
30 December 1916
Lake Ejen
Dalarna, Sweden
Eleanor always woke first. Dawn came late here, a dim haze of white in a world already carpeted in deep snow. And Eleanor rose instinctively at the first inching of day, as if her body were trained to extract the maximum of light from the grim Nordic winter.
The problem was not that Imogen slept late. It was that she s
tayed in bed. The days were short and bleak, and when her sister did not rise until noon it left her less than three hours’ paltry daylight. Such gloom would sap anyone’s spirit. So in the morning Eleanor would cross the hallway to find Imogen lying with her eyes already open in a vacant stare, her face turned toward the slim gray band of light slipping between the baize curtains. Eleanor would part the curtains; Imogen would continue looking where she had been looking, her gaze now passing through the squares of leaded windowpanes.
—Darling, Eleanor would say. You ought to just open the curtains yourself.
Then Eleanor would lean over her sister and kiss her lightly upon the forehead.
It was not only Leksand that was wholly alien to Imogen. It was her own life. It seemed a sentence levied for some private crime: an entire winter in a rough cabin at the northern extremity of civilization, quarantined from all society save her sister and an elderly Swedish housekeeper. Not that Imogen was bothered by the house, the snow, the isolation. She had often dreamed of such a life. What troubled her was how she had come to it.
No matter how often Imogen retraced the course of events that brought her here, she could never detect the aberration she sought, the mistake that had condemned her to this calamity—an existence that was ghastly chiefly because it could not be redirected. She could not go back. But if only she knew her error, she might find the thread that had been pulled to unravel her; perhaps then she could use that knowledge to repair everything. Imogen recalled an article she had read about the ingenious antivenin of Brazilian physicians, proof against the bites of pit vipers or adders: cures deposited in corked vials in a laboratory, crafted arcanely from poisonous venom. Where was the vial for her own condition, the cure that would swoop her back to six weeks ago, offer her a chance to replay the scene where a few missteps had derailed everything?
Still the unreality of Leksand bloomed on for Imogen, thriving as she refused the coming of each new day, lengthening as the icicles draped off the shingled roof. This was her life now, and yet she would not have it—the low sloping pineboard ceiling; Eleanor donning overboots and mackintosh downstairs to light the fire in the barn, as Mrs. Hasslo filled the kettle from a great pitcher; the bilious drifts of snow gathering and gathering around the house, obscuring the lush grass that was all Imogen remembered from the summer visits of her youth.