Fall of Poppies

by Heather Webb

  “You okay?” a guy asked. Big guy, Fitzhume, I thought his name was.

  “I will be once I get warm,” I tossed back.

  He glanced up at the sky. “I hear it’s colder up there.”

  I shivered involuntarily. “Don’t remind me.”

  He gave me a look and I wished that I hadn’t said anything.

  We arrived in Toul to hear the same old refrain. Not enough planes. A thousand or so built out at Romorantin for the air ser­vice and there still weren’t enough. They had some SPADs and DH-­6s, but we’d never flown alone in either. A few were put aside for us to try out and get hours on, but, until more planes were delivered, we weren’t going into combat. I tried not to look relieved.

  The DH-­6s, though, weren’t anything to be relieved about. They were as slow and ponderous as hippos. The first time they put me in one, I taxied to the far end of the field, easing back on the stick. The Six merrily puttered along without so much as an inclination to go upward. It also wasn’t much inclined to turn, and my first attempt ended with a series of curses and a line of unyielding trees.

  “You’ve got to show the stick who’s boss,” Clarence Fitzhume advised. The bastard got it on the first try, making a graceful circuit of the airfield, before gliding down into a perfect landing. “It doesn’t have an ounce of sensitivity.”

  On my second try, I tried his advice, yanking the stick back all the way to my belly button. The Six jumped to attention, swinging straight up, nose-­first, into the sky. It didn’t go very far before it stalled, but it managed to hang for a moment in midair, suspended from its sputtering propeller. I didn’t know much about flying Sixes, but I did know I wasn’t supposed to be parallel to the trees. As I clung, white-­knuckled, to the feckless stick, the Six slid straight back down.

  But my bruised ego was temporarily forgotten when, the next morning, I got my first letter from Victoire.

  Truth be told, I didn’t think I’d get a single one. Now that I was gone, there was nothing to stop her from disappearing. She had my name, if she wanted it, my ring, and the memory of a likely awful kiss. The rest was such a muddle that I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t think it was worth sorting out. Someday she’d find someone else, maybe in Paris. Some dashing Frenchman with a mustache. Someone who didn’t fly airplanes vertically or make questionable proposals in dark taverns.

  And yet here was a letter in a cheap blue envelope, the “John Wesley Ward” written with dark ink. I opened it, knowing it wasn’t from my mother, but hardly believing that the girl I’d half-­married only days before had actually written to me.

  29 October 1918

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  When I was learning English, I remember reading an old book called The Polite Correspondent: Letters for All Occasions. As thorough as the book was, it didn’t have an example for this particular occasion. I’m not quite sure how one begins a letter to a husband she has known for exactly one day and eleven hours.

  Perhaps I should begin with the business at hand. Our business. I have written a letter to the old priest in my village, the one who watched me grow up, from baptism to confirmation. I wrote to him that very night and sent it off this morning, before the trains were out. If it reaches him this week, the first banns can be read on Sunday.

  If I were being honest, that wasn’t the only reason I wrote to him. Père Benoît, bless his stubborn soul, all but raised me. He taught me to read, taught me to pray, taught me to climb down from the plum tree when I got stuck too high. He’s also the one who taught me English. He was a missionary when he was younger, traveling all over the world with nothing more than a spare pair of socks and a Bible. As his longest mission was tending to the savages of Arizona Territory, he comes by his English proficiency honestly.

  He kept a globe in his office, shelves of books in English, and a Hopi pot filled with barley sugar candies. He never stood for excuses—­his penances could make one weep—­but also never stood for dishonesty in his parishioners. More than anything in the world, I loved Père Benoît.

  So when I wrote to him last night, it was for the banns, but also for his approval, his blessing, or anything else he is willing to give. When the war crept close to Villers-­Saint-­Auguste, he sent me away to keep me safe, but also because he thought I needed to feel my way through the world without him. Well, I’ve made an awful mess of it so far, haven’t I? I always worried that I’d grow up to be a disappointment to him. I hope I haven’t.

  Your wife,

  Victoire Donadieu Ward

  She was right about one thing: she had managed to make an awful mess of things. Pregnant, on the verge of losing her job, and now stuck with a nobody like me. Almost stuck, I reminded myself. At least she had that going for her.

  For a moment, I forgot about her no-­writing rule. I mentally started a response, to reassure her that it wasn’t as bad as all that, that there was still a chance for her to find a mustachioed Frenchman to bring home to her Père, but then Clarence Fitzhume went into a stall and landed upside down between two goats and a hay bale. I folded Victoire’s letter and stuffed it in my pocket. Fitzhume was the best we had in our squadron and he was being dragged out of the cockpit. Once fate had its say, Victoire would have all the out she needed.

  I tried not to think about Fitzhume and his upside-­down Six when my turn came up to try again. Today’s attempt was somewhat more impressive than the last, if only because I got airborne. But, once up there, I couldn’t get the beast to turn, not even a fraction. And so I sailed off across the trees, wondering how far I’d go before I could figure out how to land. It would be a long walk back to the aerodrome.

  30 October 1918

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  You know, marriage is never this complicated in the movies. I think if Charlie Chaplin wanted a marriage in an instant, he would have a priest and two bridesmaids waiting in the wings, with the honeymoon cottage just a set away. No characters in the movies have to run around to secure banns and extraneous paperwork, unless their marriage satisfies the obscure whims of a will, a gambling debt, or an otherwise very necessary plot point. Some things sound easier over a cup of wine, no?

  I’ve been told that you need an état civil, a certificate that proves your age and identity. The registrar very helpfully told me that an American birth certificate would suffice. Of course. He assured me all soldiers have such a thing tucked in their kit bags.

  Could you wire your mother and ask for a copy of your birth certificate? I’m sure she has it on hand, probably framed and hanging next to your brother’s medals. To hear you talk, vacating her womb was probably the last time you impressed her.

  Your wife,

  Victoire Donadieu Ward

  Writing to my mother was always only slightly less painful than having a tooth pulled. I scribbled out six different versions of a telegram explaining that I’d married a pregnant French factory worker the other night, if only for the satisfying mental image of Mother fainting dead away upon reading. In the end I went with NEED BIRTH CERT PRONTO= ARMY STUFF= WES+ I left it to her to wonder at the vagaries of the military and its unquenching demand for paperwork.

  I took up another Six, sweating and arguing with the plane the whole way. I knew airplanes were supposed to go in more than one direction, I told it. I shouted and swore and insulted its airplane parents and progeny. Something must’ve worked, as the beast slowly, reluctantly turned. I realized, though, as I glided back to the airfield, that I’d have to land the thing in full sight of everyone lining outside the hangars. My last landing, in a far-­off field piled with hay, had been furtive and somewhat soft. This one promised to be much more spectacular. The older pilots liked to hang around watching for this very reason.

  I came in too fast, I knew. Men down on the ground were shouting at me, but I wasn’t sure what they were saying. I zoomed past the field and had to turn around again for another try. Each p
ass was just as futile as the last, until I finally remembered to cut my motor, right over the same barnyard Fitzhume had used as landing pad. Those poor goats.

  Envelopes arrived at the same time from both Mother and Victoire. Mother’s was short and dismissive. WHAT KIND OF SON TELEGRAPHS HIS MOTHER= VAL WROTE THE NICEST LETTERS+ with no mention of the requested certificate. Victoire’s was equally as short.

  31 October 1918

  Mr. Ward,

  With my last letter, I intended to show you nothing more than the famous French sarcasm. All apologies if it was read as anything but.

  Victoire Donadieu Ward

  I hadn’t been the least bit offended. By her stating the truth? I wouldn’t be surprised if Mother did have my birth certificate framed. I was sure it had been, in her eyes, my one and only accomplishment.

  More offensive was Clarence Fitzhume, who (thankfully or not) survived his pinwheel into the barnyard with nothing more than a terrific knock on the head, but came out of it a right bully. He cheerfully found an insult for each and every one of us, but was one of the best in a SPAD, so there wasn’t much we could do.

  I’d been sitting in the canteen, starting a reply to Victoire that I knew I wasn’t allowed to send, when Fitzhume came by and swiped the pencil from my hand. “Hey, Jock Itch”—­for that was his new, affectionate nickname for me—­“writing to your boyfriend?”

  “My wife.”

  He sat his oversize rear end on the table, right over top of my paper. “What inmate said yes to the likes of you?”

  I wanted to say, “One nice enough to never say yes to the likes of you.” But looking at him with his pig eyes and hammy forearms, I adjusted it to “One nice enough.”

  He cuffed me in the side of my head. My ears rang, but he seemed to be in a jovial mood. “Well, let’s see a photo of her. I bet she looks like a goat. But does she have big knockers, at least?” He mimed a jostling bosom.

  “Yes. No! I mean, really, Fitzhume. None of your business.” Truth was, I had no idea. Something like that should be the first thing a guy would notice. But it wouldn’t be very manly to admit that I’d been looking at her tears, at her back-­straight stubbornness, at that one little smile she’d let slip. The way she licked the corner of her mouth when eating mussels. The way she unabashedly blew her nose. Fitzhume would’ve missed those little things. Even Val, for all his success with women, probably would’ve missed them. And yet those were the mental snapshots that always floated up when I was falling asleep at night (especially the nose-­blowing, which was nothing short of glorious). Those were some of the things I remembered best about our few hours together.

  With the image of Victoire and her handkerchief in my mind, I said, as politely as I could muster, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my letter now.”

  He lifted the pencil right in front of my face and snapped it in half. “Without a pencil?” Fitzhume leaned closer, until his nose was inches from mine, and said in a completely awful voice, “I guess you’ll have to use your own blood.”

  I left my broken pencil and paper behind and fled the canteen. The airfield was quiet, but I took a Six up to work off nervous energy. Of course, with no one around to watch, I made a somewhat decent flight.

  Later that night, though, I practiced Fitzhume’s glare in my shaving mirror. “I guess you’ll have to use your own blood,” I said, but I didn’t sound chilling at all. A little squeaky, but not at all chilling. And my steely glare looked more cross-­eyed than anything. I sighed and tucked the mirror back in my pocket. Try as I might, I’d never been able to be anyone other than plain old Wes. Poor Victoire.

  1 November 1918

  All Saints’ Day

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  I haven’t been sleeping much lately. I’ve been sick, all day and all night, so sick I can’t lie down. Instead, each night after the lamps are out, I pace a circuit around my bed in the moonlight. Lines of French poetry run through my head until I’m too tired to think, then I just walk quietly until dawn. I’m so exhausted I’m hallucinating. The other night I swear I saw honeysuckle growing up the wallpaper of my bedroom. As I paced I had to keep stepping over the tendrils of stem and leaves that curled across the floor.

  Today is All Saints’ Day. Did you know I was originally named for one? Young St. Germaine, a woman of a thousand sorrows. As you can see, right from birth, I wasn’t destined for great things. One day Père Benoît found me very seriously attempting to cry in the front pew of the church. I explained that I was trying to do St. Germaine justice. He gave me a stick of barley sugar, my first, right there in the church and told me that we weren’t bound by our names. He said Victoire was a better name for me and so I changed it right then and there. Père Benoît has always thought I was bound for a victorious life.

  If you had met me fifteen years ago, you’d have known a girl with dimpled knees who could always wheedle one more story out of the priest. If you’d met me twelve years ago, you’d have known a girl with too many freckles, too many “brothers,” and too many stockings torn from tree climbing. Seven years ago, a girl on the edge of adulthood, still climbing trees to hide, but with novels and crossed-­fingered wishes. Four years ago, a woman watching soldiers march across her country, knowing those wishes were gone. Six weeks ago, a woman blushing from a smile across a Pruniers tavern, on the verge of making either the very best or the very worst decision of her life.

  Which Victoire would you have liked best? The story lover? The tree climber? The reader and dreamer? The taverngoer already tired of war?

  Your wife,

  Victoire Donadieu Ward

  Maybe I was a dope, but I sort of liked all of them. I tried to picture the Victoire I’d met climbing trees or making herself cry over a long-­dead saint. I thought of her unselfconscious nose-­blowing and decided I could see her quite well with freckles and skinned knees. Why had she put “brothers” in quotation marks? Maybe there were so many that she lost track of them or accidentally included spare neighborhood kids in her count. I was certainly never in doubt about the existence of mine.

  I had thought today’s flight was going well. I took off nicely, made a few circuits, slowed, and leveled off as I came back in for my landing. But I didn’t come down far enough. Nice and level, but too many feet in the air, I pancaked straight down onto the ground. The wheels came up right through the lower wings and I was escorted off the field by howling laughter.

  I telegraphed Mother again. YOU FORGET I’M THE DISAPPOINTING SON= STILL NEED BIRTH CERTIFICATE+. She responded so quickly, the paper fairly crackled with anger as I unfolded it. I could just see her holding the delivery boy as she furiously wrote out a response, full rate and extra words be damned. SPEAKING OF DISAPPOINTING ARE YOU FLYING YET= VAL SHOT DOWN ENEMY AIRCRAFT AND STILL FOUND TIME TO WRITE HIS MOTHER ONCE A WEEK+.

  I gave the telegram my best cross-­eyed glare and informed it, “I’ll reply in my own blood.”

  2 November 1918

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  The Romorantin doctor was despicable to begin with, but he suddenly found a streak of newfound morality and reported me and my condition. I’m surprised he waited this long. I’ve been dismissed on grounds of “inappropriate conduct.” As though the other party to my condition was not just as inappropriate in his conduct.

  The landlord (who must be an acquaintance of the good doctor) isn’t much better. He heard tell of my dismissal and offered me an alternate way to “pay” my rent each month. Even though I didn’t have a John Wesley Ward to sweep down the hallway to my rescue this time, I very firmly declined all on my own. I really wanted to kick him in a sensitive spot, by way of thanks for his generous offer. Instead I told him I’d be out of the apartment tomorrow.

  So now, instead of working to send money home to Père Benoît (the roof of the sacristy has fallen in; he celebrates Mass in mittens and a stocking hat), I am left in m
y dismal little apartment, wondering how I’ll even pay the rent on that.

  I diligently searched the area before I found the job at Romorantin. There isn’t any other work. If I want to find employment, I need to range farther afield. I need to use my imagination. Should I pack it all up and walk to Paris? I could dance at the Moulin Rouge, at least until I’m too big to see my toes. Should I find a job in another factory, building airships and submarines? Find my way to the seashore and repair nets torn by mermaids? Facing motherhood, women have few options.

  Your wife,

  Victoire

  I WAS SUITING up for yet another attempt to make it airborne when I heard mail call. Along with Victoire’s letter, I had an official reprimand for “conduct unbecoming.” But she was right, it was just a slap on the wrist. (Along with the reprimand, I was assigned fatigue duty for a week and forbidden from flying. I was delighted.) But Victoire, losing her job, being sent from Romorantin. I’d never lost so much. Even with all my parents’ disdain, I hadn’t (yet) been cut out of the will.

  After I changed, I dashed off another telegram to Mother. BIRTH CERTIFICATE PLEASE= ALSO SOME MONEY WIRED+. Her reply, read after I was off fatigue duty for the day, was just as prompt and lengthy as her last. VAL NEVER ASKED ME FOR MONEY= I SUPPOSE IT IS TO SPEND ON STRONG DRINK AND IMMORAL WOMEN= YOU KNOW HOW I DISAPPROVE OF BOTH+.

  I waited until I’d procured a hearty cup of the hooch that Private Hughely sold out of a tank in the engine shop before replying, WOULD YOU FEEL BETTER IF I SAID IT WAS FOR IMMORAL DRINK AND STRONG WOMEN=.

  She didn’t respond.

  3 November 1918

  Dear Mr. Ward,

  I’ve been sorting through my few things, deciding what to pack up and what to sell. There isn’t much here in my little apartment, you know. I have my coveralls and my one good dress. A hat and coat and pair of not-­so-­old boots. The crucifix that Père Benoît gave me when I left. A battered copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Three plain handkerchiefs plus one with a “JWW” embroidered very elegantly in the corner. They’re all equally important to me, in different ways.