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

by George Costigan

  ‘Ask another question, maybe?’

  ‘Are they for cooking something?’

  Jacques said, ‘No.’

  ‘Washing something?’

  ‘Yes..!’

  Zoe blushed at Simone, nodding her head – urging the child on. ‘Him!’

  All three women laughed.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Zoe and everyone laughed.

  ‘Ardelle’s baby?’

  ‘Brain damaged at delivery. Badly.’

  ‘They haven’t tried again?’

  ‘They never forgave each other. Or themselves. You wouldn’t want to see them, Simone. Arbel drinks and she’s gone somewhere burnt inside.’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk, Zoe?’ Jacques offered his hand.

  The child took it. They bathed out into the light and his field.

  ‘It is so – miraculous – to see you. Here.’ Sara said.

  ‘I know. It’s him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He’s – there are no words for him.’

  ‘No.’

  Sara moved an empty plate. ‘Tell me about Jerome.’

  ‘Invalided home from the Eastern war. Something called beri-beri. A blood disease. He lives – elsewhere.’

  ‘Does he see Zoe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Good.’

  They looked at each other. ‘Tell me about little Jacques!’

  ‘I have photos.’

  ‘Show me! What did Jacques say?’

  ‘He hasn’t wanted to look at them. Yet.’ Sara shook her head.

  ‘Him! God…’

  ‘Want to walk in the sun or the shade?’

  ‘Sun, silly.’

  Holding hands they skirted the pine, walking down the edges of his field.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Simone? She’s my – wife.’

  The child nodded, as surprised as he was by the use of the word. ‘But we never married.’

  ‘Then she’s not your wife.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why say she is, then?’

  ‘Because it’s true.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I, Zoe.’

  The ground dipped sharply and their grip tightened a little. ‘Why does she live in America?’

  Jacques took a moment before replying.

  ‘I – sent her there. During the war. Just after you were born.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To be safe.’

  ‘Oh. O.K.’

  He lifted her over some new-green stretching blackthorn. ‘But it makes you sad?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Are you going to cry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So. You’re not that sad?’

  ‘Why do you ask so many questions?’

  ‘My teacher says we should. Always.’

  ‘Not always.’

  Zoe looked at his face. Nodded. ‘Is she staying? Your wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She has to go back to look after our son.’

  ‘To America.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are crying.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shall we not wash you?’

  ‘I think I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘I agree.’

  At the bottom of the field they looked back to the house and their two women now in the garden.

  ‘They’re still talking.’ The child sounded disapproving almost. Petulant. A smile toyed at Jacques’ mouth.

  ‘I like this spot,’ he told her, ‘because – sit down.’

  They sat. The view of the mountains disappeared and only hedgerow and sky filled their vision.

  Zoe looked puzzled. She looked at him. He nodded her sight up the slope. Zoe looked back.

  ‘You can’t see the house.’

  ‘No. We’re secret.’

  They sat.

  Sun and silence. A low buzz of flies.

  ‘But – Jacques – you’re always secret here.’

  ‘I’m what?’

  ‘No-one sees you. Do they? You don’t have to walk right down here to be secret.’

  He looked around him, looked at her. ‘No,’ he confessed, ‘But I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Everyone needs a secret place maybe.’

  ‘Even from themselves?’

  ‘Especially from themselves sometimes.’

  The child nodded and he waited for her ‘Why?’ but it didn’t come.

  ‘Can you be secret from yourself?’

  Jacques almost laughed. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve never tried – but I think I will...’

  Silence moved around them, sitting there.

  The man looked at the child, concentrating. He watched her till he said, ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re right. You can’t be secret...’

  ‘But I like being this secret. Mamma doesn’t know where I am. I’m invisible.’

  ‘O.K. Let’s be properly invisible.’ They lay down on the spring grass.

  ‘Close our eyes?’

  ‘Yes...’

  A beat.

  ‘What can you see? I can see purple bubbles dancing.’

  ‘Mine are green.’

  ‘Show me!’

  The child laughed. ‘You can’t! Jacques! Our pictures are invisible too.’

  ‘What would you like to see?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A beat.

  ‘And can you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t see to America from here.’ Zoe thought.

  ‘Oh… Your son?’

  ‘Yes.’ Then too quickly, to distract both of them he said., ‘Wouldn’t you like to see your poppa?’

  ‘Poppa’s gone,’ she said simply.

  ‘Now what do you see?’

  ‘The bubbles are going yellow. My teacher says when you see white you’re looking at God. Do you believe that?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  Jacques thought. ‘They say when you die you see God. I might believe that.’

  ‘Ohh.’

  ‘But, I don’t want to see God before then.’

  ‘Why?’ The child drew the word out, her curiosity elongating with the vowel.

  ‘Because—’ Zoe felt the man sit up. She was sure he’d opened his eyes, too. When she opened hers hot light flooded in and she moved into the shade his back offered.

  In a moment or two her face re-appeared in the sunlight beside him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I would spit in his eye.’

  Again he waited for a ‘why’ that didn’t come. He offered her his big hand.

  ‘Up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stood but she pulled on his hand to sit him down again. ‘Can we be secret another time?’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘O.K.’

  They stood.

  ‘They’re still talking.’

  ‘We’re not washing him, Mamman.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fine. Then we should leave these people in peace.’

  Simone said more to Sara with her hug than she could ever have said in words.

  She dived into the house, returned and pressed a piece of paper into Zoe’s hands.

  ‘My address – will you write to me, in English, please?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The adults smiled.

  Sara made a step towards Jacques and he, startled, took an involuntary pace back before correcting himself and kissing her three times, then kneeling quickly to Zoe and repeating the gesture.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ He stood. ‘As always, Sara.’

  She looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘I am so happy you’ve been blessed with this, Jacques. You deserved
it.’ Then, quickly, ‘Come on, Mademoiselle.’

  He took her hand.

  The sun said late afternoon.

  Simone dipped a finger in the big pot. Looked up, smirked at him and went inside for the soap.

  When she came back he was nearly naked. ‘Hey. I wanted to do that.’

  Two naked people. One pot, two pans and a bucket of warm water. One bar of soap. A French April Sunday.

  He walked a little of his land with her wrapped around him. Them dripping a little, drying a little, kissing a little, fucking a little. Her ankles joined behind him. Her head on his shoulder.

  Standing, naked and finally married in Paradise.

  Pouring rain. Here for the day, he could tell by his first breath in, before he heard it on the roof.

  Good. Won’t have to share her with even the daylight. This last full day.

  He tried to quiet his thoughts, lest their vibration wake her.

  And stir his dread.

  He opened his eyes and listened to her breathing. He could feel its heat on the hairs of his left arm so she was lying facing him and if he could but turn on his side he could feast his eyes on her face. All this he considered in the nothing of one more breath. Now he concentrated on quieting that breath for an intimate anxiousness had invaded his soul and his chest was moving with that.

  The rain drummed steady and French. The sky would be grey all day. Mountains hidden in the mist – maybe even the whole field. So what? All he wanted to see was a head-turn away.

  He pressed his head backwards into the pillow so his hair couldn’t rustle, and slow as a sloth turned his neck muscles, his chin a centimetre at a time, his straining eyes now rewarded with the shape of her body under their sheet. He stilled another breath. Moved again and her sleeping face was all he could see.

  Don’t let this breath out disturb her. Simone.

  A symphony of rain.

  Bed-warmth and body-warmth. Thirty hours.

  Simone.

  Jacques.

  Another whole breath in and out. My little Jacques.

  Only his needs stop me from killing her gently now and keeping her, burying her here.

  I can’t bear the idea of not being buried with her. Another breath. In and out.

  Selfish nonsense. I can bear anything.

  That’s my tragedy. That I can...

  I’ve lost her once and survived and I’ll lose her again and I’ll survive.

  It would be warmer to kill us both.

  Something moved on her face and he stifled a gasp at the instant magnetism in her skin. How every part of her face needed to be kissed. Not kissed, held. Needed to be in contact with his. Blurred forever.

  Another breath.

  How many more till she leaves?

  May she not wake for an hour. May she age here. May I watch. I’m looking at her like I looked, with her, at our new-born son.

  His mouth leapt into a grin and too late he tried to stop the breath charging from it.

  ‘Mmnnhunh?’

  He held his breath, muscles, mind – he held everything but her. Don’t let her hear that rain yet.

  Let her go back to where there are no questions we cannot answer. Let me look one minute more at her peace.

  A fleet of swans, red as begonias, swept over the mountains of a vast school atlas. A great page was turned and hungry peasants rose out of Africa. Now an elephant climbed out of the page and wrapping his huge trunk beneath her lifted her and the book onto his back. ‘Where?’ it boomed gently.

  ‘Wherever,’ she told him and the great grey beast rose into a great grey sky and dissolved into a wounded bomber aeroplane, burning and falling earthwards. The screams of her crew surrounded her, filling her ears and as the tilt of the plane neared the vertical so men fell past her. David, Jerry, Erich, a bar-full of black faces drinking rum and ball-bearings, now Les, all of them dressed as airmen, all of them spitting dollars as they tried to speak, all falling past her help, the whine of the burning craft accelerating, the chaos of a crash inevitable, death certain, still she hauled on the controls, still she wrestled and strained with all her strength, still she believed this was avertible; and now the Curé in Lyon – that sad gentle face – at the window, knocking – showing her his radio. She could tell he was mouthing something. She hauled the window open, roaring wind mixing with choking smoke and flame; ‘What?’ ‘de Gaulle!’ he triumphed and flew away from her – inviting her to fly with him, soaring and hanging there in the clouds, calling her to come listen to the news – to fly – to be free – to fly. She looked at her feet – at her American shoes. ‘I can’t,’ she called and closed the window, eyes on the screaming descending altimeter, she hauled at the controls, still the craft burned, still the men screamed, still it fell... A drummer somewhere played, an endless roll of the drums, another roll of the drums, just another roll on your drums and the war has begun, still drumming, steady, no music just that drum raining down...

  ‘What were you thinking Vermande – watching me?’

  ‘I told you, I try never to think.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  That loveliest of smiles – the first from the border-lands of sleep. That single smile held every promise he’d ever have imagined. ‘I thought of killing you.’

  The temperature of the space between them changed.

  ‘Both of us.’ He attempted a re-assuring smile that rotted in her gaze.

  Silence.

  Unless her blinking made an actual noise.

  ‘But then I wondered if that’s not what we’re doing to each other anyway. Without the Death.’

  Simone nodded slowly. Very slowly.

  ‘And,’ he calmed his fear by talking, ‘we both have duties to him.’ Again she nodded.

  ‘So,’ he discovered as he said, ‘I wasn’t serious. Only desperate.’

  ‘I see why you try not to think...’

  ‘I used to think I was older than you,’ she said, her fingers combing in the hair on the arm draped around her shoulders.

  She laughed suddenly. ‘I was going to say – when I first came here! When I first came to this house – I thought I was older than you.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Dunno. It is – that’s all.’

  The rain fell.

  Jacques made coffee, brought his cigarettes and they lay quiet. ‘Tell me how tall our son is – show me.’

  ‘I have photos.’

  ‘I’ll look at them and nothing else when you’ve gone. For now I’d rather look at you. How tall is he?’

  ‘I’d like to see your face as you look at the photos.’

  ‘I’m going to cry plenty, Simone. Please.’

  ‘He’s up to my shoulder, nearly.’

  Jacques nodded. ‘And his lung?’

  ‘It’s O.K.’

  A silence.

  ‘We have to say everything now,’ she said.

  ‘What do you want to say?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.’

  In the quiet he said, ‘But that’s not true. We’ve been exactly here before.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you agree with – no...’ She stopped, moved her body position to try again. ‘Can you accept – what must happen?’

  ‘What choice do I have?’

  He stubbed the cigarette into the ashtray and leaned out of the bed to place it on the floor.

  ‘What choices do either of us have, Jacques?’

  ‘But whatever I say or feel it’s a fait accompli, isn’t it?’

  ‘We both have to settle for less than – this.’

  He was very quiet.

  She sat up, looked squarely at him, ‘You don’t want to come to America.’

  ‘I don’t want to be alone. I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I don’t want to be an old man’s prize. Don’t want my child not to know his father. Or to never love you again. Be this easy, this honest. I don’t
deserve those weights.’

  Quiet again.

  Rain.

  Simone said, ‘Do you wish I hadn’t come?’

  Jacques looked at her, his elfin woman. ‘Yes. No.’ He shook his head hard. ‘Do you wish I hadn’t done – this?’

  ‘Yes! No! It doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What,’ she wondered aloud, ‘do we do with what does matter?’

  ‘You raise him.’

  Simone moved to still the sadness tidal-waving inside her. More tears than raindrops on the roof.

  ‘Have you kissed him? David.’

  ‘Ohh, Jacques. I respected what you said about Sara – that has nothing to do with us.’

  ‘You mean – no?’

  ‘I mean it has nothing whatever to do with now.’

  ‘“Now” is dripping away.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t let’s waste it with sad iffing...’

  Dressed and eaten the little either of them needed he sat by the slow fire and watched her at the table with scissors and a pile of paper. The empty picture frame waited.

  She looked up. ‘Have you any flour?’

  ‘A little...’

  He rolled a cigarette while she made a paste of flour and water. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making you a present from him.’ A beat.

  ‘I should make him a present.’

  ‘You could.’

  ‘Oh God. I haven’t thought. What?’

  ‘You’re his father – you decide.’

  ‘I don’t know him. And he’s already got a chimney.’ He lit the cigarette, hauled on it, blew up.

  ‘Shall we get drunk?’ she said. His eyes widened with surprise.

  ‘If you like, yes. Why?’

  ‘It’s you and those damned cigarettes. Makes me wish I did. I won’t – but we can drink.’

  ‘Let’s drink, then...’

  ‘Here’s to our son.’

  The parents clinked glasses.

  ‘Jacques,’ Simone looked up from pasting paper and photographs and pictures onto board, ‘how do we stop us rotting? Away?’

  He rested the glass on his knee. ‘Our lives are up to ourselves, aren’t they?’

  ‘I guess.’

  She turned back to the paper.

  He looked at her steadily, waiting till her eyes rose to see what he wanted to say.

  ‘Do you wish you could leave now?’

  ‘No. I was wishing I could transport him here. I wish I’d brought him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’