Anything you can spare, says Natalia’s comrade.
My wife is dead. Got shot when she went out to the barn to check on the cow. Could have been a Prussian soldier. Might have been French. All the same to me.
A young girl, she can’t be more than ten years old, sneaks from behind her father. She has stringy brown hair and a long pale face; her eyes are protruding brown globes, the luster nearly smudged from them.
We got some milk, says the girl, her voice firm.
The man turns to her. Go inside.
We do.
Louise, get inside.
She stands there, not budging. And as Natalia looks closer, she sees the defiant upper lip, the steeliness behind the glazed eye, a certain stony determinism. Natalia recognizes that look, that fierce will. And now Natalia begins to cry. The other soldier nudges her with her elbow.
We’ll get something from them, she hisses. Hold yourself together. That girl has something. I heard her.
Natalia remembers how she once tried to do the right thing, to be good, the way Louise is standing there, staring down her father, offering milk that shouldn’t be offered. What does she believe in now? What is left? She no longer knows what is good or right, or who she is or what would have become of the Prussian she shot if he had been allowed to live. Or how many more men she will kill, all in the name of France. What is that name? What does it mean? To be French, to kill for France? She touches the cold metal trigger of her gun, as if seeking comfort.
We don’t need anything, says Natalia. Sorry to trouble you.
The other woman grabs Natalia by the arm. Are you crazy? She walks toward the man and the children. She’s so hungry she can’t think straight, she says, pointing to Natalia and laughing harshly. Milk would be wonderful. It’s been so long since we had anything.
Natalia follows her. Leave them alone.
Louise rushes into the house and comes out with a bottle of milk. Her father tries to catch her, but the girl darts from his grasp and runs down the front steps toward Natalia and the woman. The bottle is wet, and there is the milk, the precious milk, as white as the moon.
That’s a nice girl, says the woman, smiling faintly. Good. Good girl.
We can’t take it, says Natalia. She needs it. Her family needs it.
So do we, says the woman. Now shut up or go on your way.
Natalia looks at Louise. The girl is so thin, her arms and legs are wobbly lines. What has she eaten today? thinks Natalia. Yesterday? Louise looks at Natalia with curious cavernous eyes. Louise holds out the bottle of milk to Natalia. It looks like a bouquet of calla lilies.
Take it, says the woman. Take it.
Please mademoiselle, says Louise. You’re hungry.
Natalia no longer feels hunger, only a sinking dread as she reaches for the bottle. If she had any goodness left, she wouldn’t be feeling the cold, wet glass underneath her dirty fingertips, or placing the curve of the bottle lip to her mouth, closing her eyes and gulping the thick sweetness. No, if there were anything redeemable in her, she’d walk away, leave this rich sustenance for Louise, her brothers and sisters, her beaten-down father. But the milk coats her cheeks, her tongue, so rich, and her hunger wakes with a fury; she hears herself greedily gulping; she’s never tasted anything like it; she can’t seem to stop. And the girl smiles gently, all the while watching Natalia, who can’t stop staring at the girl. A vision, thinks Natalia, an angel, this Louise, with brown luminous eyes, still holding so much goodness in her small, dying body.
THIRTY PIGEONS ARE TO be released.
This morning, the government delivered the official messages along with personal correspondences. Another thirty tomorrow. They flash shiny beadlike eyes; their feet dance on the metal wiring. Jorgen stands next to the cages and envies their wings.
Svensk steps out on the porch to help. Jorgen looks right through him before he sees him. When he is around the birds now, humans seem almost obscene. The birds coo and jump around the cage, rubbing their wings against the wire. He would release them all, he thinks, in one gleam of gray; he would do it, if they would teach him the mystery of wings.
Svensk pats him on the back. A balloon made it, he says. It caught a favorable wind and landed at Dreux. They say the man stepped out with a handful of the mail in both hands. He waved the letters in the air, then fell on his knees and wept.
Jorgen lifts the metal clasp out of its hole, opens the door, and reaches into the cage. The birds flit around him. He braces his hands around one of the birds, holding down its wings, and slowly pulls it through the open door.
Svensk opens the envelope and pulls out a thin, white note.
Hold him still, says Svensk.
Wait, says Jorgen.
Jorgen puts the bird back in the cage and takes the note from Svensk.
What are you doing? asks Svensk.
Jorgen opens the message. It is addressed to the British ambassador to France who escaped from Paris and is now in Tours. Bazaine is trapped in Metz. If not assisted by the British, Metz will fall. Then, only a matter of time before France falls to Prussia.
What does it say? asks Svensk.
Jorgen swallows and tries to control his rapid breathing. He reads it out loud. For a moment, they stand in silence.
Is that where Natalia is? In Metz?
Jorgen shakes his head at the image of swarming Prussian soldiers descending on Metz, the shrills of delight as they fire at any moving thing. French soldiers firing haphazardly, desperately, hidden behind bullet-riddled walls.
If France loses Metz, there’s nothing left. The Prussians will come charging to Paris, says Svensk. What other stronghold does France have?
At least she has my rifle.
You gave her your rifle? Geez. Your rifle. You loved that thing. Maybe you should write her and tell her to desert.
She’d never do that. She’s too headstrong. Too noble, he thinks. She’ll be one of the soldiers fighting to the end. You should have seen her patience at the shooting range, he says. She’s a real soldier.
That’s where you’re going, isn’t it? You asked me the other day if I’d take care of the pigeons if you left. You’re going to her, aren’t you? You gave her your rifle. You wouldn’t give it to just anyone. You’re going to find her.
Jorgen doesn’t say anything.
I won’t tell anyone, says Svensk. I don’t know how you’ll get out of here. Open another one.
Jorgen undoes another dispatch. Simon being sent to Bordeaux to begin armistice negotiations.
Svenks stares wide-eyed at Jorgen. France is going to surrender?
Perhaps the armistice will come before Metz falls, he thinks; she could escape unharmed. And the more dispatches they read, the more they understand it is only a matter of time before the Prussians bombard Paris and march down the boulevards in their shiny helmets.
It’s over, says Svensk. It’s almost over.
They stand there a quiet moment, feeling as if the edges of Paris are disintegrating. The prestige, the glamour, the once strong army of France vanquished. Svensk rolls up a note and ties it with waxed thread to the bird’s tail feather. Jorgen tosses the bird into the air and watches the flutter of light gray wings. A good flight, my friend, he thinks. He follows the bird as it flies beyond the roof of the house, up, up, beyond the tree limbs.
Look at it go, says Svensk.
A strong breeze of optimism blows through Jorgen. The war will be over soon, he thinks, and he clutches to the thought she’s coming home soon. She’s fine and she will be fine. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow she’ll be standing at the front door. Jorgen watches until the bird becomes a gray speck against a gray sky. They stand there watching for a long time.
As easily as it blew in, the optimism drifts away. It’s not true, Jorgen thinks. From her last note, she might be shell-shocked, and in some terrible way, she’s given up. Death.… It would be so easy. It would, of course. How many times did he think the same thought? Not only on the battlefield, but here, in the drab office or his
depressing room. A miracle that anything stays alive.
He looks up at the bird again. How he wishes he could fly.
Svensk releases another bird, then another, and another.
And it doesn’t stand up to logic, no, it’s quite irrational, but when he had the painting, Natalia was here. Of course it’s not rational, but nothing makes sense anymore, the war, his ghost leg, nothing. The painting, if he had it—he thinks of the many times his hand has swept underneath his bed searching for it, as many times as he has looked out the window in search of Natalia—if he had the painting, she would return, yes, he feels it. She’d find her way back to Paris.
Boy, that’s a big weight off you, says Svensk, turning to Jorgen.
Yes, it’s a relief, says Jorgen, thinking of course she would return. For now there is something for him to do. He’ll get the painting back, and with that, Natalia will find her way home. The painting, a concentration of such beauty. How could he have let it go? He had it, he once held it in his hands, as he once embraced Natalia. She stood in the cup of his arms. He rubs his hand on his forehead, bewildered and astonished he hadn’t seen the connection before.
That’s it, then, says Svensk.
Yes, says Jorgen. That’s it.
A MAID OPENS THE front door of Daniel’s house.
The master is out, she says. She is a frail, frightened woman, with worry lines traced over her forehead and around her eyes like an intricately drawn map.
When might I see him? asks Jorgen, trying to keep the frantic desperation from his voice. This afternoon? This evening? I must see him.
The sound of a cannon ruptures the morning air, and she jumps, gives a small shriek, and slams shut the door. He pounds on the door for a while then decides to walk around the block and try again.
Winter nips the air, and everyone is bundled up in layers of scarves and hats and heavy coats. Faces are buttoned down and flattened, no one meeting another’s eye, no one wanting to be asked anything, for money, food, lodging, firewood, not wanting to part with anything, too huddled up in a heavy blanket of deprivation. He passes by a bread line. The wind blows and a woman’s purple hat flies up into the air. No one moves to retrieve it. She asks the man behind her if she might keep her place to get it; the man considers for a moment and reluctantly consents.
Shivering, he joins the line. A bit of bread will help, he thinks, not remembering when he last ate. He’s thinking how he could break into Daniel’s house, perhaps climb in through the back window, when he hears something and turns.
What? he asks. What did you say?
Bazaine surrendered at Metz.
Other people wake up from their isolated daze. News is so scarce.
The man says a group of soldiers staggered in last night, emaciated and weary. They walked all the way from Metz. There’s a bunch of soldiers at the plaza.
Jorgen hurries along Avenue de l’Imperatrice; cows graze alongside horses and sheep. He passes by soldiers wearing faded coats and dirty boots and playing galline. Beside them, their pitched tents and open fires. Someone shouts to his right; at his feet, an old woman in rags begs; a soldier rides by on a horse, his arm bandaged and his face weary. It all passes by him, around him, a churning of events that have nothing to do with him.
At the Hôtel de Ville a mob has gathered. Rain begins to fall and umbrellas pop like bomb bursts. Jorgen bumps into a National Guardsman. He quickly apologizes in his best French and asks if he’s spoken to anyone returning from Metz. The guard tells him to try the hospitals.
Jorgen walks rapidly to the first hospital in view and almost tumbles out, the smell of blood and sweat and fear too sickeningly familiar. The room is spilling with a fresh wave of injured soldiers. Rows of cots, soldiers sitting on the floor, lying on the floor, in chairs. By the door, there’s a soldier with a head wound; his bandage is soaked through. It’ll be hours before someone has time to take care of that, thinks Jorgen. Jorgen asks him whether he came from Metz. The man shakes his head mutely and points to another soldier, sitting in a chair, his head in his hands.
Jorgen bends down. Excuse me.
The soldier groans and asks Jorgen for a cup of water. Jorgen finds the man’s canteen resting on the floor. He tips the man’s head back and puts it to his parched lips. The soldier tells Jorgen that Bazaine will be punished for this. He will probably hang.
Did you see women soldiers? asks Jorgen.
The whole thing a mess. A damn mess.
Jorgen asks again.
Women? Several died up there. Can’t remember. We didn’t have time to bury them. Birds and feral dogs picking away at the dead bodies. Stacks of bodies. No one knew what they were doing. Damn Bazaine.
Jorgen describes Natalia. He’s surprised at how many details he remembers. The color of her hair, her face, soft but pensive, as if always thinking or listening intently. Sometimes her face open, like an animal sunning itself. Her eyes, the same eyes, blue and intense.
I don’t know. Maybe.
The injured soldier rubs his face with dirty, blood-stained hands and asks Jorgen if he’s got any food. Jorgen walks around the makeshift hospital and finds a side room. There are bags and coats. Probably the doctors’ and nurses’. He fishes around in one of the bags, grabs an apple and a strawberry scone, and heads back to the soldier. The soldier bites into the apple, closes his eyes, and tries to savor it, but ends up eating it voraciously. Jorgen hands the man the scone. He stuffs it in his mouth.
We ran out of supplies. Days went by without food. Lived on roots, slop for hogs. Sometimes we lay still in our trenches for hours. Didn’t have any energy to move. The bastards let us run out of ammunition. Seventy days. Seventy days of battle and not enough guns, bullets, food, or water. That goddamn Bazaine.
She had a powerful gun, says Jorgen. This woman, Natalia.
The soldier drinks from his canteen. Maybe. No, I remember. There was a woman who had a good, solid rifle. Good shooter.
Jorgen grips the edge of his chair. Is she alive?
Last I saw of her she was.
Did she return to Paris?
I don’t think so. The soldier slumps in his chair and closes his eyes. Jorgen rises to go; the soldier grabs Jorgen’s arm and says he just remembered something. He asks Jorgen to pull out his handkerchief from his knapsack. Jorgen snatches the bag and digs out the blue cloth, tied up in a knot. Open it! says the man. Open it! Inside a last crust of bread. He shoves it in his mouth.
JAPAN
THE MONK STEPS INTO the studio.
She looks up from her painting but is still deeply engrossed in what she is doing. Her eyes widen with alarm and she quickly leans over her painting, concealing it.
He holds up the tray with a teapot and cup. I’m sorry, he says, bowing. The maid was bringing you tea. I thought, he says, then stops. He’ll only stay a minute, he thinks, he shouldn’t have interrupted her; look at the pained expression on her face. How impulsive of him to barge into her private place. I’m so sorry.
He sets the tray on the edge of her desk. When she reaches for the tray, he catches sight of the painting. A man, a young man embracing a woman who looks like Ayoshi. She’s painted a man wearing an elegant blue kimono and the couple is standing under a flowering plum tree. He feels a peculiar fluttering in his chest and doesn’t know what to say. He thought she painted seascapes and mountains, jays and waterfalls. Does she spend these hours in the studio painting this man?
It’s someone I once knew, she says, darting an anxious look.
He grips the edge of her desk, turning crimson. Do you usually paint this subject? he stammers.
She dabs the edge of a cloth, soaking up a puddle of blue paint on the man’s kimono, and slides the painting onto a stack under her desk.
Thank you for the tea, she says, her voice, a whisper. She sits there, her hands folded.
He fidgets with the button on his sleeve and ducks his head to avoid her eyes. I’m sorry I intruded, he says, backing out of the studio.
HE LOOKS OVER AT the studio. She’s still bowed over her painting. She shouldn’t be imagining such things. Such lust-filled images, he thinks. It’s not proper, soaking herself in desire. He recalls what his teacher said: Desire is like a drink of salty water, which only causes thirst to grow more intense. Desire for that man. Not Hayashi; the man in the painting, too young, too strong, and his face, open and filled with unmistakable dignity and poise. It wasn’t a picture of him either.
She is in there. Painting another man.
He begins pounding in the nails for the wooden frame of the roof. He sets the hammer down and feels a sense of deepening despair. What can he do? He glances up to the top of the mountain. What is up there now? Did anything survive? Perhaps a small statue. Maybe a scroll or part of a hut. By now, the path to the mountain monastery is closed.
He walks over to the temple to pray.
IN THE MORNING, THE monk’s tools are coated with dew, and the garden is emptied of sound. He’s finished the roof, everything except the black tiles. She hasn’t seen him all morning. After he saw her painting, he looked so flustered, so ashamed for her. She should have immediately slid it under her desk, as she does with Hayashi. Why hadn’t she done so? She thought, no she hoped, of all people, he would view it without judgment. But he said nothing and looked at her with what? Disdain? Jealousy? She doesn’t know. Didn’t his eyes have a sense of disquiet about them? He should have said something. If he had said something, she would have told him she no longer can paint this man, can’t find him anymore, the memory nearly effaced. She stands again to look for him from the kitchen window. A woman and three children are walking down the pebble path, the tallest boy pushing a wooden cart. Ayoshi steps outside. There’s something, she thinks, a spurt of green grass underfoot and the first quake of the bulbs underground.
Hello, says Ayoshi, smiling faintly.
Please, says the woman, rushing toward Ayoshi, a storm of gray and black. Tears streak her dusty face. Please.
Ayoshi backs away. The woman’s eyes are glassy and flaring. Her age, indistinct, she is so worn down. Dirt smudges her cheeks and forehead. Strands of hair have escaped her bun and shudder around her face. And now she is so close, her knuckles are chapped and red squiggly lines streak the whites of her eyes. She smells of something kept for a long time in a tight box. The woman says she’s traveled from temple to temple all morning, but they are closed. No one will hold a proper Buddhist burial for her husband. She grabs Ayoshi’s wrist; her freezing hand singes Ayoshi’s skin. Ayoshi yanks her arm away and stumbles back. She glances toward the house. Where is Hayashi? He should attend to this hysterical woman.
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