The Breath of Suspension

by Jablokov, Alexander

  There was something about Pogue that always bothered me. We were all superstitious, of course, and each had his own protective charm or set of ritual habits that he believed kept him from harm. Most of us kept believing in ours until we were blown to bits. I had mine. I have it still. A colored bit of rock shaped like the head of an ax, worn around the neck on a chain. Lisette gave it to me. She had found it, somewhere. Pogue’s beliefs and talismans, however, carried the implication of having a significance beyond that of mere terror of dissolution, of being more religion than superstition. I didn’t know why that disquieted me.

  He looked up and smiled, teeth bright in his muddy face. “Yellow Man take a while to dispose of? I sent Willoughby to help with that sap; he seemed to be wanting something to do.”

  “Spot of bother. Hopkins got himself shot. And Ackerman left a leg in no-man’s-land.”

  He sucked air between his teeth. “Too bad. They should have waited. Ah, well.” He paused. “Have you heard how the end of the War will be signaled, Dick?”

  I knew he didn’t mean by wireless, or runner, or telephone, or anything like that. “I’ve heard the stories.” The image had pursued me in dreams after I first heard about it.

  “The firing of four black or dark blue Very lights.”

  Flares did not come in those colors, of course, and I remembered them, in my dreams, hanging dark and brooding over a nighttime landscape of tattered corpses where none remained alive to note that the War was over. My mouth was full of dirt and I could not laugh. “Why are you bringing this up?”

  He smiled, a secret smile. “I have that Very pistol. I bought it from an old magic woman in Amiens.”

  I groaned. “First Willoughby and his damned Yellow Man, and now you have to go round the bend and start blathering on about old magic women and Very pistols. You’ve been taken, but the crone’s got a line into a supply depot somewhere. You should report her.”

  “Might as well report the moon for being out after curfew. Settle down, Dick. Settle down. Let me tell you a story. A war story.” He sat down in the earth with the air of a man sinking into his favorite armchair at home, in front of a fire.

  “A war story,” I grumbled. “Just the thing to calm my nerves.” But I sat. It was cold and damp.

  “There once was a man, quite a long time ago, a man of the land, who was called to war by his King. He was afraid, afraid of leaving his familiar place, and afraid of death on the field of battle, but he obeyed, and went, leaving his crops, and his land, and his home. He served well in the war. He had a quick wit, and a sense of order, so he became their equivalent of an NCO. When the war finally ended, he found that he did not want to return home. The slap of foreign hills beneath his sandals was a more pleasing feeling than the squish of his own soil between his toes. The work, he found, was easier, and more interesting, his men respected him, and his captains recognized him. He’d found a career for which he was suited.

  “So he went to the capital, and lay a night and a day on the stone floor of the temple of the Goddess, she who made the plants to grow and the rain to fall and to whom all farmers made their prayers, and all soldiers likewise, for men wounded in battle will always call upon their mother. He beat his head against the stones and begged her to free him from his life of toil and allow him to continue at war.

  “Women can be unreasonable, at least as men understand these things, and goddesses are no exception. Angered, for she misinterpreted his manly disinclination to quit what to him was an exciting game as insolence, she bade him to stay with his soldiers, if he wished, for his war was not yet over. So he picked up his spear and his shield and went back to the war, which had started anew. They sacked cities and forded streams; they made long retreats through the mountain passes and attacked again along the river. And he began to grow weary, for it seemed that just as the war was over, another began....”

  The earth was cold. I shifted uncomfortably, confused and irritated by Pogue’s rambling. “What does this fable have to do with Very pistols?”

  He yawned. “Not much, I suppose. Just a way of getting attention, a knock on the door. Let’s just say that some of the soldier’s comrades-in-arms were on somewhat better terms with the Goddess than he, and realized that it sometimes takes a third party to effect a reconciliation.”

  I didn’t understand him at all. “And our friend the soldier?”

  “Marches those hills yet.”

  I looked up at the bean poles standing silver in the moonlight. “Still beats farming.”

  He laughed, a short, sharp sound, almost a sob. “Stubborn, stubborn. Lucky his friends are just as stubborn.”

  I sighed. “How much did the bloody thing cost, anyway?”

  “Twenty head of cabbage, ten kilos potatoes, one kilo peas, two dozen tomatoes. Most of my summer’s production.”

  I don’t know why I played along with his stupid game. “Why do the soldier’s friends keep trying?”

  “Because they know that eventually they will succeed.” And he stood up, slung his mattock over his shoulder, and walked off down the dark passage of the trench.

  ❖

  Harris and I stared off at the enemy lines, trying to see what had been built there during the night. It was just after dawn. A mist covered no-man’s-land, and there was a feeling of rain clouds coming off the North Sea.

  We were standing at the end of the sap dug the previous night. The barbed wire surrounding us gleamed silver, unlike the older thickets guarding the rest of the trench, which had long ago rusted to a soft autumnal orange-brown color, looking more like hedgerows than like something that would tear you to shreds if you fell against it.

  No-man’s-land was a green carpet, vivid in the mist, which quickly swallowed the craters of exploding shells. It rained much in Picardy, and plants did well there, particularly when fertilized. No-man’s-land at the Somme was probably the best fertilized area on the face of the globe.

  The bodies that fell there vanished, but the equipment remained. I could see helmets, rifles, canteens, gas masks, even an occasional medal, once worn with panache in a frontal assault. Examining this detritus, I could trace the history of the War, like an archaeologist winnowing potsherds. There were the remnants of an experimental respirator, used in 78, the grinning remains of a skull inside it. Here lay a rifle with the stock made out of a brittle synthetic, 1931. Everywhere lay helmets. I could see one, German, with a brass spike on it, that must have been from before 1920. Another was gleaming beryl steel, of American manufacture.

  Everywhere were the flowers of Picardy. Red poppies, yellow cabbage flowers, white cornflowers; for them there was no War. One helmet, overturned, served as a flowerpot and was full of a bobbing mass of blue cornflowers.

  Harris peered through his binoculars and scowled. “Can’t see a bloody thing. Could be a machine-gun emplacement. Could be the anchor point for a mechanical sapping operation. Could be a new cookhouse for the frontline boys,” he sniffed, “though I can’t smell any sauerkraut or borscht. Could be a new twelve-hole privy, in which case I vote for an immediate assault so that we can use it before it starts to stink. Let’s go.” He turned, and a rat squealed beneath his feet. He aimed a kick at it, cursing, but it hid behind some duckboards.

  Back in the trench, life had settled into its faded routine. A gang was repairing the trench wall. Others were cleaning their weapons or attempting to write letters. Most were trying to sleep, though, curled up in funk holes dug in the walls.

  I descended into the officers’ dugout. Pogue and Captain Totenham were in the NCO’s dugout, discussing some operation that I didn’t want to hear about, for I suspected I’d be hearing about it soon enough and I wanted to write a letter. Most of my immediate family somehow came to be lost in the years of war, but I had been thinking about a cousin, or perhaps second cousin, who had moved off to Liverpool or Manchester when I had been a child. He’d been mentioned at my house once or twice, though I didn’t remember by whom. I had no one else to write to,
and I thought that if I sent it off to General Delivery at those two cities, he might get the letter. I preferred writing on tables to balancing things on my knees and was hoping that the table in the dugout would be free.

  Lieutenant Wallace was sitting at it, filling out a letter of condolence to the parents of Hopkins. He had a little book, issued to officers, open to the page that contained the approved phrases and adjectives for letters of condolence to the relatives of soldiers killed in action.

  He looked up. “Beeman, I’m stuck here. Which would you say Hopkins was, gallant, brave, or intrepid?”

  I remembered the hole through his forehead. “How, precisely, did he die?”

  “He tried to jump me, and I was forced to shoot him with my pistol. He panicked, wanted to go back. Bloody bother, and my shot brought fire down on us. Tough luck for Ackerman, that.”

  I gave it some thought. “Heroic. Try heroic.”

  He peered at his book. “Hmmm... doesn’t seem to be on the list, Beeman. Funny thing, that. ‘Heroic’ isn’t here. Neither is ‘bloody fool,’ for that matter. ‘Intrepid.’ Good word, intrepid. A public school, rugger sort of word.” He wrote it down, pleased with himself.

  It took me less than five minutes to give up on the letter. I couldn’t think of a thing to write, and I realized that I wasn’t even sure of his name. I decided to try again some other time, and left the dugout.

  Outside, the sky had clouded up and a drizzle looked imminent. I yawned, and realized how long it had been since last I slept. I looked around. Pogue and the captain were still in our dugout, and near me was a two-man funk hole with only one man in it: Willoughby. I pulled out my waterproof sheet and curled up next to him.

  Sleeping, I dreamed. The land was green and fruitful. The corn was high, and date palms hung their heavy loads of fruit over the fresh-running irrigation channels. I ran across the fields, tripping over the uneven soil, hearing the sounds of her hounds close behind me. They dug in the earth, the men of that land, slowly and patiently, their faces shaded from the glaring sun by broad-brimmed felt hats. They did not heed my cries for aid, but continued to dig their earth, grinding the clods up. Some swung sickles, collecting the sheaves of corn. The land was flat, horizon to horizon, but ahead of me rose a steep hill, and atop it stood a tower. I ran up its side. It was covered with brambles, and my shirt tore, and I bled, but I continued to run, for I still heard the hounds, and she was still in pursuit of me. I tore free of the brambles and ran up the steps of the basilica, stopping directly beneath the Virgin. The American guards were gone. She looked down on me with a half smile, even as her hounds closed on me. Pulling a knife from my pocket, I started to lever at one of the bricks. I could hear the sharp crump of the German 88s and the return fire of French mortars. A strange broad-winged monoplane with English markings flew overhead, and as it banked away to the left, the pilot, in his clever enclosed cockpit, waved to me in greeting. The brick finally came loose. Someone tapped my shoulder, and Pogue was close behind me, wearing a wide-brimmed felt hat. He stretched out his hand. Between thumb and forefinger he held a pea. I paused a moment, my heart full of wild rage, but I heard the bay of the hounds ever nearer and at last, with a feeling of surrender, took the pea and thrust it into the opening left by the brick. The entire basilica creaked and groaned. The guns stopped. A pea plant emerged from the hole and crawled its way up the side of the tower. I looked up at the Virgin. Her expression was joyful, radiant. She leaned forward to gather me up into her arms. Then there was a rumble, and at long last she broke free of the tower and began to fall toward me. As she got closer, I saw that she wore Lisette’s face. For a moment I was happy, then felt the sharp fear of being crushed beneath her. I cried out “Mother!” as her face rushed toward me....

  I awoke. Willoughby had huddled against me in his sleep, pushing me into the side of the funk hole. He was murmuring, “Mother... Mother...” under his breath, shivering. With a surge of annoyance, I shoved him over to the other side, where he remained. A light rain was falling from the sky. I let it fall on my face, trying to pretend that the tracks of tears were nothing but raindrops.

  I stood up and looked at the sky. From the light, evening stand-to would be shortly. I heard the whistle of an incoming shell. Instead of diving into a funk hole and cowering against the wall, I looked up. It hit a few traverses down from where I stood. The blast thundered and cast a soldier into the air. He had his arms flung out, as if to embrace the sky. His body landed on the parapet, where it was stitched by machine-gun fire by a German who had no better target. A hand reached out and grabbed the body by an ankle, pulling it back into the trench. The firing stopped.

  Captain Totenham walked up and told me that Pogue and I were leading a patrol that night. I said nothing.

  ❖

  The air in no-man’s-land is thick and cloying, quite unlike the sweat and cordite stink of the trenches. The ground is soft, like dead men’s flesh, which does, in fact, make up part of its composition. Every bump and dip in that terrain was familiar to us, but only familiar as seen at night, through a haze of fear.

  Pogue strode on, past the huge old mine crater full of water. Willoughby hung back with me and looked as unhappy as I felt. We were to chuck a few grenades at the new German forward gun emplacement. It worried Captain Totenham, gave him trouble sleeping. Poor fellow. The wreckage of a German tank bulked to our left, and we angled away from it. It was about forty yards past that point that we ran into the German patrol.

  They were as surprised to see us as we were to see them, I think, but there were six of them to three of us. Willoughby reacted faster than anyone, promptly turning and fleeing. I heard him cry out as the gunfire brought him down.

  I dropped to the ground, reaching for my grenades. Pogue dove forward and rolled past the Germans. I saw a glint of metal as he reached... and fired straight up into the air. The Very pistol. “It can’t go on forever,” he called. “Good luck, Dick!” I raised myself up and tried to throw a grenade, but dropped it when a hot poker plunged through my shoulder. I tried to use my other hand to find the grenade, whose pin I had already pulled, but it was on the wrong side of my body. I rolled on my back to get at it, knowing I was dead. Above me, glowing in the night sky like holes to another universe, were four dark blue, almost black, spots, arranged equidistant from each other. I fought against it, but felt the darkness wash over me like a warm tide.

  ❖

  Bright sunlight pried its way between my eyelids. I turned my head to escape the glare, and felt an explosion in my shoulder. The pain shocked me awake. I was lying on the wet earth where I had fallen. The grenade I dropped had not exploded. What luck. Now I could just lie here until a German gunner decided to pump a few slugs into me to make sure I was dead. I lay there, squinting at the blue sky. The silence was total, preternatural. There was no gunfire, no explosions. Finally, unable to stand it, I raised my head and looked around me.

  Fifty yards away lay the German trenches. Or rather, obviously, where the German trenches had been some decades past. There was no barbed wire, no gun emplacements, no parapet. Only a shallow depression, overgrown and eroded. The British trench, on the other side, was the same. Straining, I managed to stand up. I did a slow turn around, examining the peaceful, leafy country landscape.

  It was then that I saw the corpses. It looked to be the result of a firefight. Five bodies, three in green uniforms, two in gray. I put up a hand to rub my forehead, and froze. The uniform I had been wearing for as long as I could remember had never been this shade of green, and Had been tighter around the wrist. This uniform was just as worn, just as threadbare. But it was not the one I had been wearing last night. It was, in fact, the mate of those worn by three of the five corpses.

  They lay scattered around the wreckage of a lorry, overturned and still smoking. A blackened circle in the grass showed a petrol tank explosion. I walked over and turned one of the bodies over. Its placid, anonymous face told me nothing.

  I heard the grind o
f gears and a laboring engine. Coming from the direction of what had been German lines was another lorry. I braced myself, although I was feeling so weak that there was nothing I could have done in self-defense.

  The lorry had a white star on the door and a black man at the wheel. He looked at me, as if unsure of whether to stop. I was standing in his way, so he finally did. We stared at each other.

  “Could you give me a lift to the nearest dressing station?” I asked, holding my shoulder.

  “There’s a field hospital near Albert,” he said, with an American accent. “Hop in.” I dragged myself into the cab with my good arm, and we started off.

  “Trouble?” he said.

  “Bit of a dust up. Nothing serious.”

  He grunted. “We should all be so lucky. Big battle, I hear, at Boutencourt, on the road to Rouen”—he pronounced it “ruin”—“and it don’t sound good. Damn. Goddam. It’s been a year since I got here, and I want to see Paree, and it don’t look like I’m going to get to soon. Sheeit. Some big deal Invasion this turned out to be. Those that planned it aren’t getting their asses shot off, you can bet on that.”

  “They never do,” I agreed. Invasion? Were we so badly off here that we weren’t even in Paris? Or were we fighting the French?

  Ahead of us was the town of Albert, no longer Bert. It was the way it must have been before the War, full of small ugly houses of red brick. And—I looked hard. The basilica stood, and on top of it, proudly erect, was the Golden Virgin. A flight of monoplanes, which my comrade identified as Spitfires, roared by overhead on their way south. We drove through town, and he dropped me at the dressing station.

  That was two weeks ago. I was treated by a doctor and billeted. No one questioned my right to exist. The War had ended here a long time ago and was called World War I, because World War II was here, and I was part of it, as a member of the invasion force that had crossed the Pas-de-Calais the previous year and now held most of the Artois peninsula, though there was talk of a German counteroffensive before winter. It was early September here too. September, 1947.