The Hawkman

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

  Until he came upon Miss Williams, who gave him a bed, clothes, regular food, and, most importantly, a solid roof—a barrier between himself and the discordant clutches of the universe. If he walked with Miss Williams; if he remained with her every minute, to remember, to learn the construction of her every move and breath; if he did all that he could, what little it was, to bring back the life she had given to him, he might still not restore himself. There must have always been some aspect of himself meant for vagabonding, the pounding he allowed his hands to undertake, the freedom the rest of his body found in walking. Once he had volunteered to follow Miss Williams home—to read her books and care for her garden—he found that freedom wanting. It was as bereft as his critics had said his playing was, since it served nothing but his own sense of himself. That was how his senses worked, until Miss Williams. And now he had no need of them, except for his need of Miss Williams.

  Eleven

  When Christopher Thorton visited the infirmary, Mr. Sheehan stood so that Christopher might sit. But Mr. Sheehan did not relinquish his position over the bed, its patient, and her visitors. Christopher nodded rather than thank Mr. Sheehan formally, an acknowledgment of more than just the change of seating arrangements, but also of the measure of each man’s importance.

  Christopher began by presenting Miss Williams with gifts, which she struggled to open. Christopher was noticeably upset by the tremor in her hands; only after Mr. Sheehan laid his hands atop Miss Williams’s fingers, guiding them through the boxes, ribbons, and tissues, was she able to reveal them.

  “From my mother,” Christopher said, as if explaining the women’s bedclothes in scented boxes. The first box held a light blue nightgown. The second held a matching robe, made from a plush fabric, as if the function of the robe was to provide a retreat into a seedpod or a shell. Miss Williams promised to wear them, although she admitted she was having trouble keeping track of the days, and wondered, out loud, whether she might just save them for the first day of her autumn classes.

  “You—you should be well enough to return in your regular wardrobe,” Christopher said, although without his father present, he knew his statements sounded more like guesses. He was still wearing a summer suit, but he sensed that he must have looked as though he missed the season altogether. He had become gaunt over the past month and his skin translucent, as if the world could see his embarrassment.

  “Perhaps,” Miss Williams said. When fatigued, as now, each of her breaths sounded like sighs released from a heap of effort. If she spoke more than a few words, she sounded as though she was either full of woe or indecision. It pained Christopher to hear her speak this way—in short, almost curt, answers—as he had once enjoyed the bloom in her voice and language.

  “We—my mother would have come herself, although my father . . . I don’t think he would have allowed it,” Christopher said.

  “No,” Miss Williams said. “I expect he would not.”

  “We—I almost did not come myself.”

  “Yes,” Miss Williams said.

  “But I—I wanted to apologize. I wanted—”

  “There’s no need.”

  “There is,” Christopher asserted, but he let go of the moment, allowed it to drop off and wilt, as if it was supported by a stem that had suddenly grown too hot for him to maintain his grip. “We—I was mistaken in placing my loyalties.”

  “With your father?” Miss Williams asked. “Please. That is to be expected.”

  “No,” Christopher said. “I—I should have placed them in myself, my own judgment. And, I must admit, I was jealous.”

  “Please,” Miss Williams said. “I don’t understand—”

  “He—your Mr. Sheehan,” Christopher said. “He has proven his loyalty.”

  “Yes,” Miss Williams agreed, and when she raised her gaze toward Mr. Sheehan, Christopher was forced to imagine the feeling of her blood, for so long dense and listless, now churning toward its normal pace and temperature. “He has been a godsend,” she said, and Christopher noticed the man’s gaze shift as well, although for reasons and details that he kept well hidden.

  “I had hoped to be that kind of man,” Christopher said, and his own words left him wondering what type of men were still out there—what kind of men were still alive to emulate? The war had deprived the nation of most of the types that he had aspired to be, and even those types whose lives he could never imagine and never desire. The regal, the self-possessed, the clever were picked off or blown to bits along with the derelicts; those who survived only did so in pieces, in portions, and in segments. This was Christopher’s story, with his concave leg, twisted and atrophied. He did not know the precise anatomical damage, but he knew the utility of the instrument had been compromised to the point that surgeons had to remove too much of it to save whatever was worth the effort.

  Christopher looked to Mr. Sheehan, another fragment of a man. In the weeks since he had learned that Mr. Sheehan had been living with Miss Williams, he had tried to fathom what the attraction was, from the baser physical characteristics to the spiritual, should that kind of attraction even exist. He still could not understand it, given that there was something obviously missing from Mr. Sheehan—if not a limb, then something just as essential: air in his chest or grease in his knees and shoulders. He still wore the clothes that Miss Williams had likely scavenged for him out of a charity bin, and his yellow eyes appeared as if they had originally been borne by separate persons. He was a man of discards sewn together, and Christopher wondered how it was that the village, his father, and even himself had managed to stretch such a small, improbable reliquary of self-doubt into a vast, frightening figure of half-man and half-monster.

  They were both small people, Mr. Sheehan and Miss Williams, or so it seemed to Christopher. In physical stature and in impact: they would be forgotten as soon as they departed, the engraving of their names on their tombstones would fill in with dirt. What would become of the gifts to Miss Williams he was now making? Her possessions, like Mr. Sheehan’s, would be scattered without regard to sentiment.

  Christopher had once scoffed at such a fate, especially for himself, before the war. The trenches had changed that. The trenches—a subterranean existence, though not quite the underworld. He had lost weight in the trenches; he even lost his height once he was injured. He lost the ability to walk upright, and the men with whom he spent every minute, asleep or waking, had been similarly worn down by the fighting. Men with whom he had shivered and sweated, whose duty it was to die for him as his duty was to die for them. He had to ravage through their possessions, their very bodies, for rings, necklaces, a letter, or a photograph, so he might be their last witness. Should they be blown to bits, of course, he might write a letter home explaining what happened and why it mattered. And they were sworn to do him the same honor, no matter who they were or what their circumstances.

  Who would be notified when Miss Williams died? Further still, when Mr. Sheehan dropped off the earth? He knew nothing about them; they were virtually anonymous people, as were the men he had served with. Seventy-four men were in the company at disembarkation for France, twenty-four, supposedly, by Armistice. As a captain, he knew each of their names, and he went over them in his head every day, preparing for the time when he would be called to account. Who were their parents, what trades had they apprenticed for, who were their tutors at University, who was headed for the House of Lords, who would make a girl into a widow? The right sloppy business that lost them a shin, then an entire leg, then their life. Historians will want to know how they contributed, if not about his own heroism, which he knew to be sorely lacking. He kept his head down when ordered and ripped the cap off grenades as the company’s numbers had dwindled, but he was mostly smoothing out papers, finding typographical errors.

  Early on in the war, Christopher had sustained a concussion that rattled his jaw and gave his mouth a taste not quite of metal and not quite of vom
it. He still felt as though his upper teeth were wavering in their hold, and his bottom teeth had doubly braced their position in his gums. He was injured again when one of his tunnels collapsed; he had tried to be brave. Above him, the men were tearing through their rations at meals, through their dreams in their sleep, through their clothing as shots and shrapnel seared fabric to skin.

  Captain Christopher Thorton shouted at his men to keep digging, though who could have heard? He was trembling under a mountain of dirt, his throat and lungs the only place for the soil to retreat whenever he opened his mouth. Between his teeth he tasted the bitterness of roots savaged, divorced from their purpose. Soon he would be another dungaree-colored, shut-eyed, grinning rictus, like the men on top of him. He was a British soldier first, and his individuality at that moment was unimportant. It did not matter if his name and education had gotten him a commission. It did not matter if he had a servant in the trenches. He swallowed and decided to keep still; it was best not to disturb what threatened to smother him.

  Minutes later, or hours, or days—he did not know when—he was pulled out by his men. He told them he should have been left there, it would have been faster that way, buried already, but they said they couldn’t lose an officer as good as he was. They got him an ambulance—an ambulance!—that took him to a base. Nothing was done for the small men who were like the pegs used to secure the tunnels; pegs that kept the ground above their heads, stopped the plywood from crumpling down, and held the floor beneath their feet.

  “You still can be that kind of man,” Miss Williams said, and the intake of Mr. Sheehan’s breath turned audible at that instant.

  A sound almost like speech, Christopher thought.

  Miss Williams was trying to sit up. Immediately Christopher reached for her arm, as if to steady her, but Mr. Sheehan had already caught her by an elbow and a shoulder, and was lifting her into position.

  “I need,” she said, and then an edge of hesitation set in her voice, as if she was preparing to say something either very long or very ominous. “I need to sit up, for I must ask a favor from you, and I don’t want to be lying down when I ask it.”

  “Yes, of course,” Christopher said, and he felt as though he should be kneeling at her side, for his presence was more of a burden than any request she could put to him. “Please,” he said. “Anything.”

  “I need to make arrangements for Mr. Sheehan,” Miss Williams said.

  “Arrangements?” Christopher asked, and again he looked to Mr. Sheehan, whether for an explanation or out of an apologetic sense, Christopher could not say. “Do you mean you will be leaving?” Christopher asked her directly. “Surely, that is no longer necessary. I can speak to my father—”

  “No,” Miss Williams said. “I want to set up a trust, an income, a place for him to live, in case—”

  “In which case?” Christopher had to look away at that moment, but in the vast infirmary his eyes could only find the floor. The planks of wood were worn to yellow with black scratches from years of temporarily arranged furniture; the permanence of the infirmary’s routine rubbing against the impermanence of its residents. When he could be sure the shock of what Miss Williams was saying had left his face, he righted himself and confronted the pair. Mr. Sheehan had also averted his eyes, but Miss Williams was sitting up, smiling. Whatever the future held, she was the only one prepared to meet it.

  “I must meet with Lord Thorton, if Mr. Sheehan is to stay here, or anywhere, near Bridgetonne. Could you arrange it?” she asked, to which Christopher automatically nodded.

  “I will go to him, if he cannot come here,” Miss Williams said. She exhaled, then closed her eyes so that Christopher would know the visit had concluded.

  “Of course, of course,” Christopher said, although he realized she was likely no longer listening. “I—I will ask him. Good day, Miss Williams, Mr. Sheehan.” Christopher rose and offered his hand to Mr. Sheehan. Once he left the infirmary, he read the piece of paper Mr. Sheehan had set in his palm.

  Pvt., 5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment

  Christopher secured the paper in a pocket and had to stop himself from repeatedly rubbing his pocket to remind himself it was there. Otherwise all his remembering might erase the contents.

  Twelve

  Christopher had never considered himself to be in love with Miss Williams. To begin with, she was altogether too foreign. She spoke out of turn—not necessarily literally, for she was polite enough, and she often displayed a respectable sense of self-control. But the content of what she said, her tendency to disagree before she would agree, had been off-putting to Christopher, who had grown up amid conversations that always ended with a familiar resolution. And that resolution had been assumed from the beginning: who would win the argument, what the outcome would be, who was in charge, and who was meant to carry out the resulting orders. Miss Williams, naturally, was unaware of these conventions. Her voice, the gestures she used to make her mystical stories tangible and everyday, the tendency of her eyes to dart about as if they were the muscles in nervous, captured birds: all of this intrigued Christopher, but he was not in love with her because she believed too much, or wanted to believe too much, in possibilities that he could not imagine.

  Yet she had to believe in such things, Christopher now realized, given her appearance and how she had been put together—not by a set of parents, but solely by herself. Neither was she traditionally beautiful; her skin, eyes, and hair were unremarkable in color and presentation, and the distribution of her features was off, uneven, as if there was too little space between the eyes and too much between the mouth and the chin.

  In the infirmary, the qualities that had once intrigued him—for his interest was no doubt piqued by her, he could not help but acknowledge—had deserted Miss Williams. There had always been frailty to her voice, but he had been certain that, if he followed it, it would lead to a steely reserve. But in the infirmary, Christopher became convinced that all mettle within Miss Williams had dissolved, and there would be no reconstitution of it. It had been disbursed to bounds she could no longer reach, if any of it had endured. Similarly, she was so still, so motionless, on her cot in the infirmary. None of the protracted frenzy that he had come to expect from her body was in evidence. Before he had been introduced to Miss Williams, he had never thought it possible for someone to appear as if sitting, attentive and focused, and at the same time, be running frenetically through the gauze of one’s own thoughts discovering new ideas, new worlds. But that, too, had been consumed by the illness. The sickness had decreased her.

  But he was reminded of all that she was, and how little she had become, as he now helped her out of the car in front of the house. Christopher had sent the car for her, and half-expected Mr. Sheehan to accompany her. She came alone. It was a strong possibility, though, that Mr. Sheehan had lifted her into the automobile. Christopher found himself wincing and regretful as he envisioned that man carrying Miss Williams as if she was his bride—if only for that one moment. He wondered how that man had reached beneath Miss Williams’s back and legs to raise her up from her chair, and how he must have released her after installing her frame against the car’s upholstery. He knew she had to have been carried, for she required the steadying influence of two men to exit the car: the driver and himself.

  The driver gently pushed her to the edge of the seat before Christopher could lift her for himself. Once out in the open air on the drive, he had to unfold the hinges that had supplanted her once fluid joints. She could not take a step without resting her diminished weight against his arm and shoulder. To walk her to the front door, the atrium, and beyond, Christopher found that he had to use a good deal of his own resolve; she leaned upon him as if he were all that could keep her going. Her legs were antediluvian creatures.

  They did not speak as they walked, as if it was enough that they were sharing the same silent, grim commentary on the task at hand. Not that Christopher
did not wish to speak. There was her garden to ask after, or Mr. Sheehan’s whereabouts, or her departure from the infirmary to be recounted, or even some token pleasantries that could be exchanged about her health. But once he saw how dearly she was concentrating on her steps, on her posture, on every facet of her person—the frailty and slowness of which confirmed her decay—he could not. The long sleeves of her dress against his arm felt far too thin. Although it was summer, she should have been outfitted in a heavier fabric; a cloak, woolens, or a rug should have been thrown about her. She wore a scarf, dark and floral, which had been elaborately arranged like a collar, as if it were meant to secure her neck to her shoulders, and her head to her neck.

  Christopher thought of a story that his nurse may have told him, or perhaps another boy at school, or a girl cousin, or anyone who wanted to assert their authority over him when he was a child. It was a story of a pirate, who, with his riches in his retirement, attracted any number of luscious young girls. He collected them like coins, sovereigns that he could spin and flip and manipulate between his fingers. He rarely held them in his palms. One after the other, he married them, and each one eventually disappeared, sometimes as quickly as the dawn rose after the first night of wedded bliss. Those lucky enough to emerge from the marriage bed at all did so with a slick, red ribbon around their necks. They lasted until some young and meandering man chanced upon them, in the town square or in the market, and asked about the ribbon. The wives knew they must never touch the ribbon, not even to wash it. But those who were tempted did, and their heads collapsed into the laps of their curious and adulterous suitors.