The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  And I’m crying. Again.

  We’re helpless here – your family – and more stone for you to carry, Sisyphus – we need you to make an hour a week for us. Can you hear a church bell? Every Sunday morning, yes? We need you to take an hour from work – and write. Anything. For us.

  ‘I’m alive.’ ‘I’m still alive.’ And sign it.

  I feel callous imagining my imaginings are anything like your reality.

  Every night when I tuck him up, every night when I pull the blankets over me – I feel guilt for being warm.

  Once a week.

  Simone.

  16

  Dear Man,

  Here is a painting he did. Well, it’s crayons. They’re made of coloured wax, like candles. So – you can cry over this – I did – and it won’t run. When I asked him who the blob-man was, he said, ‘Pappa.’ Are we growing an artist? What do you think, Pappa? I think it’s the most fantastic painting in The Whole History Of The World. Guard it, Pappa – it’ll be worth a fortune one day.

  If you hear your name on the wind – it’s the teacher calling the register at your son’s nursery.

  That’s a fib – they don’t. But I like the idea – and they will one day.

  Your present for him came. I shan’t change it for dollars – he wouldn’t let me anyway – it’s under his pillow.

  Of course he walks! He ran the other morning, tripped on a flag-stone, fell on his nose and has learned caution. Which he’ll forget.

  His hair is losing your curls and, poor him, straightening like mine. He eats like you, concentrated. Food is Serious Business.

  He hates baths.

  He hates stairs. Carrying him and the groceries up four flights is no fun. And I daren’t leave it and take him and come back for it – because you don’t ever leave anything lying about in New York.

  He loves Susie, his baby-sitter, but he howls every time he sees her because it means I’m leaving. That lasts about a minute. She’s sweet – but she is American.

  What I mean is – she bought him a toy gun to play with. He loves it. The trigger goes Clack! (it’s made from plastic) and Susie rolls over dead and he’s thrilled to his socks. I plan for it to become very lost. She also brings him pink gum – which he also loves. It’s disgusting. Candy, she calls it.

  I’ve found a new nursery – nearer – that will take him in September. (‘Fall’ they call autumn, here – I like that)

  Take him for the whole day.

  I can work more – and I’ll earn more – and he has to grow – but I can’t bear the idea of not seeing him.

  That is Cruel. As thoughtless is.

  Writing to you about my not wanting to miss him!

  I was always selfish Jacques; did you ever notice? I want all of him all of the time; and only some of that is because I know he doesn’t have you.

  Do you talk out loud? Do you talk to the dog? Do you even hear your own voice?

  I see the same stars as you, only six hours later. Sometimes the world seems so huge.

  The ocean that separates us is. Your work.

  I’m glad Sara comes to see you – she always was the best of your friends – but Jerome? Is he dead? I don’t like to ask her.

  Simone.

  17

  Dear You,

  You don’t hear cuckoos in New York. Buses, trams, the subways, cars, police whistles, dogs, people shouting across the tenements at night, radios playing music, radios talking different languages – all the time – I’ve not heard silence since Puech. You see Nature – I see Human Nature – stone and steel and glass towers. If I heard birds they’d be coughing.

  We’re going up the biggest building in the world tomorrow. We’ll see you from there – wave.

  One of my French students – yes, I teach everything now! – a German chemist called Erich, asked me to the cinema with him. Marlene Dietrich, whom he adores, and I wanted to ask your permission (and I do) but there wasn’t time and I went. The film was in German, the cinema was full of Germans – and it was too much, too difficult and I said I was going to the head (the toilet) and went home. I apologized next lesson. When he asked me why I told him. He said the shame of being German would haunt his life and he loved Marlene because she ‘didn’t give a stuff ’ and her pride freed him for an evening.

  So, we talk – about the war. He pays me for the privilege of sharing you with him.

  I worried about your maybe feeling betrayed and I even wondered should I tell you? The idea of deceit didn’t last long.

  I bought Jacques a cheap box of wooden and plastic bricks. So, he and I make houses. Like you. He loves the chimney – putting the chimney on – because then it means you can light a fire. Jacques – write and describe him a real chimney, please.

  I had the strangest feeling yesterday. I didn’t feel French. I was hanging on a strap on the subway – Jacques – these are trains that go under the city! I’ll send you a photo. I use it Tuesdays to teach German to the son of a Jewish woman who fled here in ‘37. He’s 8 and I’m to teach him how to talk with her. ‘Why? It’s dopey...’ he keeps saying to me in English. He chews this eternal gum and drinks fizzy drinks and he’s too fat. Anyway. I was on the subway train and I didn’t feel French – for one whole second. I felt like a grain of sand in this American desert. And remember M.Feyt saying we shouldn’t be German or French or Jewish? That’s what it was – I didn’t feel I was any nationality and no-one else should either.

  We can’t change what we are – but I did want to tell someone and you’re my friend.

  Simone.

  18

  Dearest Jacques,

  Won’t you keep in touch?

  19

  Dear Jacques,

  It’s a month since I wrote and three since you did. This is all we have.

  I get fatalistic. I don’t know you’re alive.

  It’s so slender this thread – when you don’t write he and I are adrift.

  You made me feel once there was somewhere I’d never be forgotten – not for a day.

  I can’t think what to say. Write. Silence is not golden – it’s rust and decay.

  It’s too lonely to write tonight. Being lonely in a city might be worse than your loneliness.

  I have no friends – no-one comes for a chat or a drink or a meal. I have him and my work and you have no-one and your work so I shouldn’t complain and I’m not I’m just talking into the night with a pen. Outside it’s dark and noisy. Inside it’s hot and quiet. I’m saving for a radio. I wish I were rich.

  I have no idea when your birthday is. Write and tell us – we can bake you a cake.

  I’d love a drink but the price of wine here! Men drink whisky or beer and the women something called Martinis. Can’t describe it – haven’t tried one. Don’t like beer. Fizzy drinks are what everyone has. They’re fine if you don’t like your teeth. I dread him going to ‘proper’ school.

  This isn’t a letter – I’m talking to myself. Talk to yourself on paper and send it to us.

  Jacques and Simone Vermande.

  He read her signature again.

  As he had.

  Again and again.

  20

  Dear Jacques,

  I’ve had a letter from Sara. I wonder if I don’t know more than you do – because she’s not sure how much you hear or retain of what she tells you.

  She says you’re strong and I needn’t worry on that account. That’s a blessing. It felt like the only one.

  No wonder Ardelle didn’t write. How vicious Life is. And Jerome lives – if that can be called living.

  But, best of all, Zoe. Sara says she’s learning English at school and is real good at it.

  Vermande – I’m writing to you about your life! Don’t you think that’s mad?

  Three months, Vermande.

  Sometimes it feels like I’m asking, demanding, all the time. Yeah – as they say here. I am.

  Simone.

  21

  Oh, Jacques,

&n
bsp; He was a top dog, as they say here. Get another.

  I’m zizzed. (I will stop saying ‘as they say here!’) I’ve been for a drink. The Italian woman invited me to an Italian café for the evening. Being Italian they expect the children to come. So we went. Chianti – it’s a fruity red wine – and now we’re back and he’s gone bo-bo’s and you wrote saying the dog was dead and I’m writing to say I knew it must have been something bad. And it was. Get another. Man should have a dog. In the country. They’re banned in some buildings here. Brownstones, like ours.

  You need a companion.

  I’m not writing anymore – I’m putting this in an envelope and posting it before I write anything else as crass as that.

  I’m sick of apologizing, too. It’s not your fault and I wish I didn’t think it was mine and I wish there wasn’t fault – it stops us all being together even apart. I can’t read this writing anymore I hope you can.

  Simone.

  22

  Dear Jacques,

  I’m not working. No-one is.

  There’s been forty centimetres of snow in the past week. So the city is finally quiet, because this is too deep even for the snow-shifter wagons.

  He begged to go out and it was higher than him! We waded to the park and people had sculpted snow-men everywhere. My favourite was two men sitting on a bench talking! And there was a snowman sitting on the swings! A silent art-gallery. We made a house. Our house. His face when I lifted him to put the chimney pot on...

  This is his connection with you, Poppa – chimneys. A passion – his first obsession.

  See, most buildings here have flat roofs, so one of his big treats is to go up on the roof, because it has 24 chimneys. One for each apartment. He can count that far in two languages now. And there’s a Puerto Rican boy up there who has a pigeon-cage. He loves that, too. My Spanish isn’t up to much of a conversation – but it will be. And so will his.

  It’ll be Christmas soon. What do you think we should give him?

  I wondered about his own chimney-pot-plant something when Spring comes.I wish I could send you a puppy. But I know what you’d like best.

  Simone.

  23

  Dear Jacques,

  Isn’t he beautiful? Are we not the cleverest parents ever? When I put that picture in the envelope I thought of the loving, the sex that made him. It was one afternoon. Did you know? We were in the garden! Yes – That one!! God, I miss you bad some days.

  The snow is still here but has been cleared so the city can move and work again. It’s cold. I dress him to go to bed! Coats on the beds because I daren’t leave the heater on – it costs. And I don’t trust it.

  My students were sweet to me; cards in three languages. And presents, too. The German man, Erich, gave me perfume, which isn’t very nice (at all) so I only wear it when I go see him – but the tubby German boy – remember? – he gave me a five-cent bag of salted peanuts and I don’t know why but I was so touched. Mad, huh? His mother made soup and the lesson was the three of us eating. She wanted to pay me but – you can’t when people have been generous with what little they’ve got, can you? I couldn’t. You wouldn’t. You always gave.

  One of my French students – David, a man who publishes chemistry text books and calls himself a ‘Francophile’ – he has a Television.

  This is A Very Big Thing Indeed here. It’s the size of a large box, it has two dials on the front (like Feyt’s radio) and an aerial – which I can’t understand how it works – and it’s electric and it’s a house-sized cinema! He turned it on, it hummed a bit and it showed something called The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports! David turned to a different ‘Network’ (there are thirteen) and we watched a newsreel – from all around the world! When Jacques sees it, he’ll want one.

  David talks about the economy here – which makes it tricky to correct his French because I don’t know what he’s talking about. He says industry is at a standstill. Because of the strikes. The last time I talked economics was in Lyon and it felt like another life. Another me.

  Happy New Year. I pray the thaw comes soon and you write to us. He needs you. I heard someone call someone a bastard the other day and I dread that happening to him. He needs a picture of his father – not a photo – but a feeling in his heart that’s real.

  Another year. Can you see Time? Did you know it was New Year?

  Did Sara come?

  24

  Tell us about the house. Have you the foundations done? Starting walls? If I send you some crayons you could draw him a picture – he’d love that.

  I’m searching for what will encourage you to write. Regularly.

  I feel I’m writing into a white void.

  I bought a radio. It’s fantastic, Jacques. There must be a thousand different stations in a hundred different languages. His favourite is Sports commentaries in Hispanic. The game is baseball. ‘Our’ team, The New York Yankees (I don’t know why they’re ‘our’ team – there’s two other teams in New York) are ready for A World Series. I don’t know! It means nothing to me! I’m telling you so you can see your two-and-a-half-year-old son, sitting (looking!) at the radio while a man in another language gabbles a hundred and nineteen to the dozen and he, Jacques, squeals with laughter. It’s called Enchantment, I think. Jacques has no idea (I don’t think!) what’s going on – but he literally fell off his chair laughing the other day. I like that station too, cos when he’s gone to bed they play Spanish music.

  Oh, I’ve decided I am French.

  I buy a French newspaper once a week. You can buy everything in this city.

  I didn’t buy him the chimney pot – I found a big box of paints, four different sizes of brushes, some old jam-jars for mixing and a roll of white wall-paper. So, there’ll be pictures for you.

  David, the man with the television, suggests I apply to become a teacher. It would be regular work and pay.

  It’s 1947 outside the door and I wonder if you know. Or care.

  Jacques, please to tell us where the house is up to. He asks.

  And his biggest question, ‘When will it be ready?’

  This letter’s back where it started.

  I’m putting all our cents (like centimes) in a big saving bottle. Saving for one day...

  S.

  25

  Dear Jacques,

  Americans eat 714 million gallons of ice-cream every year.

  There are strikes all the time now. The government has taken over running the railways. I bought Le Monde and de Gaulle has resigned. I’d ask you why but you don’t give a fig, do you?

  Your son is bi-lingual. When I met his new nursery teacher she’d no idea he was French (she thinks he’s called Jack).

  Sara sent me a sweet card explaining no-one could get to Janatou – or from it.

  I can’t think of anything else. Cold makes you tired but you know that better than I do. How many more winters?

  A man whistled at me today. I blushed. Why? Because I remembered I was attractive. And then I thought – attractive as what? And he whistled again and I looked back and he was whistling at another woman. I didn’t like it and I did like it. Now he’s asleep I’ve come back to that thought and I think of us – paired – like an octopus – eight limbs and one heart – and I missed you and I miss you and I feel alone again, very, and you are alone and I wonder why and I don’t have any answers to any of the questions and I wish I wasn’t thinking because I had you – you – Vermande – inside me and my bed. Now.

  ‘Iffing’. Isn’t that what your mother called it?

  Simone.

  He was always hard after he read that letter.

  26

  Dear Jacques,

  Your son is at a stage I can only call ‘The Why’s’.

  Last night. ‘You can’t listen to any more radio.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s past your bed-time.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because your body needs to sleep.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s tired.’ ‘It’s not.’ ‘It is – your mind isn’t.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because your mind is wide aw
ake with ‘why?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you’re learning and its fun!’ ‘Why?’ ‘O. Because I Say SO!’

  Then his bottom lip comes out and his eyes go darker and I can hear him thinking real bad thoughts. So I said, ‘I know – you hate me – tough – go to bed.’ This morning he was still black eyed and I said, ‘I know. You don’t like I can see what’s inside your head.’ That was a mistake. I need to think.

  The cent bottle’s half-full. How’s the walls?

  Simone.

  27

  A card with a picture of a little steam boat.