I lagged behind when we reached that ruined cemetery on the outskirts of Exermont village. Machine-gun bullets were kicking up all around us and shells were dropping, cutting off a retreat. I don't know when the notion struck me that we were walking toward sudden and certain death, but I was sure that nothing—;not even a blade of grass—;could escape that heavy rain of lead. Taking advantage of the fact that it was dark and there was a lot of confusion, I ducked into a convenient shell-hole and allowed what was left of my company to go on without me.
The last thing I can remember before I came to my senses in the little French hospital was the ever-increasing whine of some great shell. A five-point-nine. I could identify it by its sound. As it came down upon me, making my ears vibrate, I tried to press my body into the wet earth. My fingers frantically dug into the ground; my eyes filled with mud; my teeth clenched until they hurt; and my bowels opened....
Every soldier falls in love with his nurse. I, not much of a military man anyway, did not. The war had not caused me to forget Anita and, despite her very infrequent letters, my thoughts were ever full of her. Yet, somehow, the picture was blurred, pleasurably blurred if you wish, the imperfections blotted out. Moments dwelt on in memory, moments very often of the flesh; memories of moments only to be whispered when we were alone together. Desire is an insidious parasite gnawing at one's body. And so, paradoxically enough, although it was Anita who kept me away from women who could be had for the taking, women like the pockmarked roads of France over which an army marched, it was also Anita who made me glaringly conscious of a need for women. Celibacy is the pathway to depraved thoughts, even as war is the pathway to power of depraved minds. The very fact that Anita wrote so seldom made me want her more. Man usually kills the thing he loves, and cherishes that which ultimately destroys him. In the trenches, with death ever near like a white bird flying, it was not so hard to hold one's emotions in check. So frantically were we endeavoring to cling to life, we wooed and clung to her as though she were our mistress. Then, too, we could always look forward to being relieved, new troops to supplant us in this war that was merely a prelude to all other wars, and then —;a few days in Paris. Actually, the fact that few of us ever got to Paris was of little importance. Paris was a symbol. It represented any woman's arms.
Lest you suspect otherwise and visualize my nurse as some homely harridan, I would like to make it clear that Mademoiselle Monet was a very attractive person, one with whom many a man might fall in love. And pray do not think that I was viewing her with the astigmatic eyes of war which distorted everything. My nurse was truly beautiful.
Furthermore, Gilberte Monet was in love with me.
How this happened, I cannot explain. There have been many jokes made about French girls. There is the story that they considered it a patriotic duty to sleep with each and every one of the Allied troops from the brigadier generals right on down the line. Gilberte was not one of those and her love for me in no way hinged upon my uniform. Well, whatever her reason for loving me, I only know that when I eventually became aware that I was in a long, white ward, a friendly-looking dark-eyed girl in nurse's garb was bending over the bed and whispering some strange, incomprehensible syllables which she later told me meant: “So you are awake at last, my darling.”
Her voice was gentle, soothing like the voice of a mother speaking softly to her frightened little boy who lay hurt and shivering on his bed, shrinking from imagined horrors. And I was that boy—;but the horrors were ghastly realities. No war has ever been won, not even by the conquerors; and how can one describe that gray, terror-splashed tumult that rages in the frontiers of the mind; that frontier where reason locks with reality? Beyond the trenches lies a region like unto the world in the beginning, without form and void. This I know, for I have been there.
Yes, Gilberte Monet loved me and it was good to be loved; especially good while I lay broken mentally and physically, afraid to die, yet more afraid to live in a world gone mad.
You may laugh if you like. I wouldn't blame you at all. It does seem ludicrous that I, a timid, small-town druggist could so play havoc with a woman's heart. I am certainly no Don Juan.
I was the only American in the hospital and I must have been there quite a long time because none of the other patients were there when I was brought in. The first thing I learned was that the Armistice had been signed and that the war was at an end. You may be sure I rejoiced. But the news that my entire company had been wiped out at Exermont greatly disheartened me.
Although I was out of danger of death, my mind was periodically unsound and my memory as well. Sometimes for hours I would forget who I was, in which ward I belonged and the name of my nurse. During those periods I would suffer indescribable mental anguish until Nurse Monet came to claim me. I would always recognize her and in a minute everything would become clear again. I took to wheeling my chair after her wherever she went. She did not seem to mind.
Many evenings the nurse and I would be in the hospital garden. It was very lovely there with the green lawn and the cultivated flower beds and the stone fountain which played incessantly. She would sit beside my wheel-chair and coax me to sing to her. My nasal interpretations of “K-K-K-Katy” and “Over There” sent her into fits of laughter and she never seemed to tire of them. I would laugh with her until my shrapnel wounds began to hurt. To this day, whenever I undress for bed and notice the scars on my left leg and thigh, I think of the evenings in the garden with Gilberte Monet.
One evening in particular would be much better forgotten; and I would not mention it all were it not for my firm resolution to be frank. It happened so naturally and so sweetly that I can scarcely believe it was an adultery. Yet.... It will be hard to describe. I can only tell you what we did—;and that may sound very ordinary—;but what we did and what that night did to me is the important issue. That half-hour has since served as a standard by which I weigh love to ascertain its value. Gilberte's love was real, not feigned. It could, and did, weather anything —;even her realization that I could not reciprocate.
Yes, she gave herself to me. And what is more, no one cared. Who cared what anyone did during those topsy-turvy years—;like roulette with the play for human chips? The hospital staff was too preoccupied with a macabre puzzle to be disturbed over absurdities connected with a normal human function. They were attempting to put wrecks of men together again and, far too frequently, important pieces were missing.
And the important missing part in my own case was Anita. Gilberte helped me to fill that gap, for which I shall be eternally grateful. My only regret is the night I am trying to describe. There, and there only, did we overstep the boundaries beyond which we should never have passed. If I had loved Gilberte and not been in love with another woman it would have been quite all right. But I never loved her and, since she loved me, it must have hurt her no end to discover that she was merely receiving the crumbs from Anita's table.
However, it is too late to think about such things now. Even if we had known, I doubt if we could have prevented what happened. Before either of us realized quite what was happening, we found ourselves stretched full-length on a secluded strip of lawn, protected by the enveloping darkness. Gilberte's uniform was unfastened at the breast and my cheek rested on her satiny flesh. I became suffused with a warm glow and the intoxicating belief that nothing mattered but this one very human moment. I kissed her on the mouth—;the first time I had ever done so. She responded by tightening her grip and literally melting to me. I removed one arm from under her and in a few seconds nothing—;not a shred of clothing—;separated us.
“I love you, Gilberte,” I moaned again and again.
But, even at that time, while I held a woman in my arms for the first time in almost two years, I knew I was lying. But, somehow, that seemed the only proper thing to say.
The greater portion of the A.E.F. sailed for home on the Leviathan and other ships late in March of 1919; but I was still in no condition to make such a long trip. I'd sit in my w
heelchair, staring off into space, and think about Anita—;how she was, what she was doing, and wondering why she didn't answer my letters.
It was my custom to write her each week. Gilberte provided me with paper and pen and ink; and later she would take the letters to post when she went off duty. I remember the first time I handed her a finished letter she glanced curiously at the name and the address.
“Your mothair?” she asked in her broken English.
“No,” I replied, not realizing I was being cruel, “my wife.” And not satisfied with that, I pulled out the picture of Anita I always carried in my breast pocket. “How do you like her, Gilberte? Isn't she lovely?”
She took the picture from my hand and studied it intently. There was a look in her eyes like some hurt animal and instantly I was ashamed of myself. Knowing how the girl felt about me, I should have known better.
“Vairy nize,” she murmured and returned it. I saw a tell-tale sparkle under her lowered lids.
Now please don't think for a minute that I am manufacturing this story out of whole cloth.
I can find no explanation for her misguided affections. I certainly did nothing to inspire them. The only observation I might truthfully make is that love is mighty strange and ofttimes somewhat silly. But to prove that Mademoiselle Monet was a real person and not a figment of a distorted imagination, you have only to look up the transcript of my trial in Tompkins County. One of the prosecution's major exhibits was a letter in the French language, addressed to me and signed by her. I never found out what the letter contained until I heard it translated in open court. Yes, it was a love letter. I ought to know, because it helped to convict me.
Gilberte showed her love for me in a way to which I could not possibly object. She did not try to kiss me, caress me or hug me; and pray do not imagine nightly assignations after the other patients in the ward were asleep; she was just over-kind and ever willing to go out of her way to please me. When she spoke of her love at all, it was quietly and in her own language, which I could not understand. Of course, there was no mistaking the meaning of her words. Behind them whispered something else—;an international esperanto which no one could fail to have recognized.
And if, while she administered my sponge-baths, she lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary, what was so wrong in that? She liked to fuss over me like some mother with a child. In the garden on some of the nights when we were alone, she'd lean her head on my shoulder or carry one of my hands to her breast. It was done so sweetly and so lacking in the frenzied sex quality that endowed many of the other women nurses in the hospital, that I was deeply moved. I daresay had I not already lost my heart to Anita... but that's the way it was.
Have I made myself clear? Except for that night during the early spring, there was nothing between us. And it was not Gilberte's fault that there happened even that. If anyone was the aggressor—;it was I. Do not, please, get the impression that she egged me on. Her love was on a higher plane and sex was not paramount. I still have the feeling that I soiled something, strode ruthlessly across a priceless tapestry with muddy shoes.
Now, I often regret that I didn't find out more about Nurse Monet; but at the time, you can understand, my mind was flooded with thoughts of my wife and her picture blotted out everything else or threw them out of perspective. As it was, I merely tolerated Gilberte. She was merely an audience attending a nightly eulogy of Anita. Knowing where I stand now, I am sorry that I paid her so little attention. I must have been exceedingly cruel; especially do I regret taking her. If, by some chance, she ever comes across this book, I hope that she will believe me when I say that I will always hold her memory very dear. I get a little comfort by telling myself that, although she was a few years older than myself, she was still a young woman and I, probably, was merely a fleeting fancy.
But to continue, it was not for several months that I found out Gilberte was not mailing my letters to Anita. This made me very angry because, you remember, my company had been recorded as wiped out and Anita had no way of knowing that I was still alive. I found out one afternoon when Gilberte was shifting her quarters. The other nurses were lending her a hand with the heavier paraphernalia. I would have liked to have helped her myself, because I was very fond of Gilberte, but I was permitted only to sit in my wheel-chair out in the corridor and watch the proceedings.
The lid of her trunk was open as they staggered out into the hall with it. The letters were in the tray—;all of them—;tied neatly into a packet. At first I only stared at them in astonishment. There could be no mistaking my peculiar style of penmanship. And as the trunk passed my chair, I got a chance to inspect them at closer range. None of them had been opened.
I am thankful that I had both the control and the good taste to wait until the moving was over and the other nurses had gone before confronting Gilberte with my discovery. At first she denied it vigorously; but when I rolled myself into her new room and took the packet from the trunk to wave it in front of her nose, she began to cry.
“Why did you do it?” I demanded furiously. “Answer me, you little sneak!”
I am sure she didn't understand what I was saying and this made me angrier than ever. My temper completely got the better of me and I did something I had never dreamed of doing to a woman before: I struck, her across the mouth with the back of my hand.
Poor woman, if only I could erase the mark of that blow! If only there was something, some sort of antidote for the deeds we do in this world without thinking! What she had done she had only done because she loved me. Probably I would have done the same, had I been in her position. But it was several hours before I cooled off and realized this.
That very night I wrote to Anita again. This time I posted the letter myself. The staff raised a frightful rumpus when they discovered I had wheeled myself all the way into the village to the postmaster, and, I must admit, not without just cause. I returned to the hospital totally spent and for the following two weeks I had to be confined to my bed. Throughout this brief relapse, Nurse Monet continued to care for me. I don't think that she bore me any grudge for my having struck her. Nevertheless, I found out later that she had put in an application for a change of ward and been refused.
Before I was finally discharged from the hospital I wrote some ten or twelve letters to Anita and received two in reply. I am still in possession of them. The paper on which they are written is yellowed with the years and the ink has faded until the writing is almost illegible. Intrinsically they are worth nothing; however, I think that if I copy them here, they might explain themselves and also how I felt when I first read them. In this way I might possibly be able to transfer to you the intangible mental unrest I suffered because of them.
The first was a short note, written in a great hurry on a piece of Ithaca Hotel stationery. It ran:
June 3, 1919
Dear Peter,
I am so glad to hear that you are alive and getting along nicely. Of course, I am sorry to hear that you've been wounded but I think you are very lucky to have gotten away so easily, don't you? You know that the newspapers listed you in the casualties and getting a word from you was like receiving a communication from a ghost. As a matter of fact, I have been wearing mourning clothes for over two months. And oh, Peter, I've been so dreadfully lonesome here in Ithaca since the Armistice. I haven't been outside this house in almost three weeks... except to do my shopping. Please write to me and let me know your plans. By all means do not leave the hospital until you have been pronounced completely well. If it is advisable that you remain another month or two, don't disregard the doctors. I can wait. And don't, for heaven's sake, try anything juvenile like surprising me.
Your wife,
Anita.
There were two things that immediately struck me as being strange about the letter. The first was the curious absence of the word “love.”
She had not even said, “Your loving wife.” The second was that while the stationery bore the insignia of the familiar Ith
aca Hotel, the envelope was stamped with the incongruous postmark of New York City. If she had not been out of the house, how then could this letter have been mailed more than two hundred and fifty miles away? This worried me considerably.
Her next and last letter I received just as I was preparing to leave the hospital, bound for Paris. I thrust it into my pocket unopened, deciding to read it after I had said my goodbyes. I had made arrangements with the driver of a produce lorry to take me in with him on one of his semi-weekly trips to the capital and he was parked before the main gate, impatiently punching the rubber bulb of his horn.
Hurriedly, I bade farewell to everyone—;doctors, nurses, orderlies—;but Gilberte I could not find. At the risk of having the lorry proceed without me, I raced through the entire hospital, thrusting my neck into every room much to the annoyance of staff and patients. Just as I was about to give up hope, I spotted her sitting alone at the far end of the garden. I could see by her posture that there was something wrong. Her shoulders sagged disconsolately.
“Gilberte!” I called as I hurried over to her. “I'm leaving now. Didn't you know? I've been searching all over for you. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving without saying goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” she said apathetically.
I looked at her in astonishment. We had long since made up after our quarrel about the letters and this passive attitude on her part puzzled me. I raised her chin with one finger but she steadfastly refused to meet my eyes.
“What's wrong, Gilberte?” I asked. “Aren't you sorry to see me go? We've been such good friends and all that. I'm going to miss you, you know.”
“That is nize,” she replied dully.
It was then that I noticed her hands. They were clenched tightly in her lap. The knuckles were white and the skin covering them was stretched taut, almost to the point of being transparent. Her eyes she kept fixed on the ground. Though her cheeks were pale and her lips quivered at the corners, I knew that she had not been crying. I was glad of that, at least.
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