The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  Jerome took two coffees and two cognacs and thought of Jacques and the lawyer and his mother and Madame Valet and sobriety and this election and sipped at his coffee and wondered if he dared have just the one kiss of cognac.

  “Mayor?”

  “I thought about it. But as you say – you’ve changed.” Bernadie nipped hard at his alcohol. Jerome watched it warm Bernadie’s mouth, watched him savour the taste, the heat, the lift. “Duthileul’ll have a clear run.”

  “Jean-Louis?” Jerome was genuinely astonished.

  “The son, clothhead!” He downed the rest of the cognac. “They’ll be building statues by Easter. Should have topped them when we had the chance. First time he came to a drop.”

  Jerome remembered how he had first feared, then respected and had finally come to love this man. He did his very best to think. “The fight – that war,” he managed, “that was my politics. This kind of politics is institutionalised corruption.”

  Bernadie, the ex-Mayor, leaned pugnaciously forward.

  “You always did talk shit. There are lights on the streets of Senaillac – for the old ones at night. There is mains water to every house in the village that wanted it. The school has books and papers and pencils. Next year there will be sewers. That’s not Politics – that’s being a Mayor. You make things better for your commune. Are you drinking that? Come on Lacaze – why did you fight? Eh? For Dominique fucking Duthileul – that arriviste – to do his father’s will?”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Never mind that – where’s your responsibility gone?”

  “Ask Sara – I’d vote for her.”

  “Ohh. Are you drinking that?”

  Jerome shook his head and his drink vanished.

  “Lacaze – you’re not fit. Forget I mentioned it.” He rose and was gone.

  Jerome sat in the café with Bernadie’s coffee and a whirling head. The beam! He’d forgotten.

  Jacques and Arbel managed the beam. They tied two long lengths of the heaviest rope a half-metre from each end. Then nearly broke their backs lifting and holding one end of seven metres of oak from the groove in the A frame to be resting on the side of the frame and tying it off. Then the other end and hold that weight on the rope and tie it off before it fell. Neither spoke. It was scary. When they had the weight held on the rope they lowered it down the north side of the house and out into the lane. That took two hours. With it finally laying on his cart, and them both wasted, hands ripped with rope-burns, Arbel said, “Was it just the once?”

  “Yes.”

  Arbel nodded.

  “And was it good?” He looked hard at Jacques.

  “It was need, Arbel. Answering a need is good.” Arbel nodded.

  The bache was sagging between the A frames now, snow gathering above his attic floor.

  “You’ll need to prop that.”

  “I know.”

  Arbel nodded and walked to the village, bought two bottles and drank one on the walk home, wondering should he tell her he’d spoken with Jacques. He drank the other at his kitchen table and by the end of it knew he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. He recognised that it saddened and hardened him, and the hardening made him sadder yet. Ardelle sensed only some shift. She’d wait. All change was for the better now, no matter how tortuously silent and slowly it came. Things can’t get worse. And perhaps she’d get pregnant...

  When Jerome arrived Jacques was glad of the guilty help with the A frames. Oak is serious wood. He would have got them down but this was safer. Three hours later the bache rested on the walls. “You’ll need to prop that,” shivered Jerome. Jacques had timber ready. His wigwam roof.

  “Can I light a fire?” Jerome asked.

  They sat and smoked either side of it. “Dominique’s standing for Mayor.”

  “He’ll win.”

  “We’ve got you a lawyer.”

  Jacques looked across the fireplace. “That make you feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  His eyes went back to the flames.

  “Bernadie thought I should stand,” said Jerome. Silence.

  “I haven’t had a drink in four days. This is your fault, I’ll have you know. And Madame Valet.”

  “Make you feel better?”

  “No. Neither.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  “Dominique Duthileul, Jacques...”

  “Irrelevant. Going to bed. Sleep if you want. There’s blankets.”

  Simone posted him a first photograph of his son.

  Jerome walked back to Sara’s. She sat there in her night-gown. Offered wine. It was refused.

  “What is this? Are you thinking at last? Good God.”

  “Maybe. Might be.”

  “Madame Valet wants to see you.”

  “Can you see me standing for Mayor?”

  “You’re sober...” she offered, as though that were both a miracle and a first qualification.

  “Temporarily. While I think.”

  “Oh. Then, no.”

  A quiet.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “What do you care what I think?”

  “A lot.”

  “When did this start, caring what I thought?”

  “Don’t, Sara.”

  “Why’d you leave us?”

  “I don’t – know.”

  “Will you come back now? For the election?”

  “No. I’m weak – but not a total hypocrite, remember?”

  “Will you come back?”

  He looked at her. “I don’t think so. Sara. I am sorry.”

  “You are sober. I am, too. Sorry.”

  “Don’t know what you’ve to be sorry for.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss. I wasn’t apologising.”

  “Neither should you.”

  They shared a little grin. “Friends?”

  “Parents.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Jerome – it’s nine o’clock – she’s in bed.”

  “I think you should stand. I’d vote for you.”

  “I think you should think more.”

  Jerome stood at Madame Valet’s door and couldn’t knock.

  He stood there three cold minutes before Severine Vigne came out of her house, knocked on the door for him and went home.

  His Maternelle teacher opened the door. Again a cardigan over a cotton blouse. Her slippers and warm eyes.

  “Come in, Jerome.”

  He hesitated. She took his elbow. “I’ve changed the furniture.”

  He walked into Gaston Valet’s house. Into that room. She offered him an armchair.

  “If you don’t mind, Madame...” he gestured to the other. She nodded understanding.

  “A drink?”

  “Coffee?”

  Madame Valet raised an eyebrow. “Good, Jerome.”

  “You used to say that over my mathematics.”

  “Don’t make me feel old, please,” she said, moving in the kitchen.

  “You’re not, are you?”

  “Ha! You wait, young man.”

  Jerome sat down by the fire. “I feel old,” he said.

  “Feeling and being are two separate things.”

  He thought about that and called through, “I’m not sure I agree, Madame...”

  She poured two coffees and giving him one, sat opposite, across the fire.

  “Sugar?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  He looked at the coffee, then at her and realised she was waiting. “I have been thinking,” he said. “As you suggested.”

  “And?”

  “When are you going back to teaching?”

  “I—”

  “The school needs you. The children need you.”

  “I have been – considering it.”

  “Good, Madame.”

  They almost smiled.

  “And you?”

  “I don’t want to be Mayor...”

  The sentence was ended but not fin
ished. “But..?”

  “Dominique Duthileul...”

  “That’s not a good enough reason.”

  “No, I know. So I can’t. Won’t.”

  “What would be a good enough reason?” Her fire was grand.

  “I don’t think I care enough about other people to care for them.”

  “That sounds lonely, Jerome.”

  “It is.” A beat.

  “You don’t want a real drink, I take it.”

  “I do, but I won’t. Thank you.”

  “Well...”

  A quiet began.

  Jerome eased his back into the chair, the cushions. Madame Valet uncrossed her legs, kicked her slippers looser.

  He looked up – she was almost smiling.

  “What?” he said.

  The smile vanished as she leaned forward unnecessarily.

  “Nothing – no.”

  “You were…”

  “More coffee?”

  “Smiling...”

  Madame Valet sat back. Conceding the point. “Yes. I was.”

  The warm quiet began again.

  “Well,” she offered, “I’m pleased you’ve thought about it.”

  He nodded. “Me too. Thank you.”

  Warmth and silence and now something else entered the room. When they both smiled again, sensing and accepting this new something, Jerome stretched a little and Madame Valet could openly look at him. His childhood, adolescence, marriage, war, baby, murder.

  Murder here.

  And the truth is I was smiling because Gaston is gone. I’m smiling because he’s not here. I never smiled with him. And now this boy, this pupil, this young man, the murderer, my releaser, is utterly confused, and that makes me smile too.

  Jerome loosened in the blaze from her fire. I don’t think I want to be anything but drunk again. Mayor is ridiculous. I have possibilities but no momentum.

  I’d rather be Jacques – no possibility and all momentum. I’d rather not be Arbel.

  I’d rather be more than I am. What am I meant for?

  To oppose. But I’ve nothing left to oppose. I don’t even oppose my mother!

  Captain Phillipe appeared in his thoughts. He’d order me to stand. Duty. Bullshit. It’s paper-pushing. Committees. Compromise. Street lights!

  I need a drink – I can’t have a drink. He looked up.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she said.

  “I have to stay sober for Vermande’s sake.”

  She nodded. “I see. So, you do care about other people.”

  He shrugged. Leaned forward, put the coffee on the floor by the chair and said, “And a penny for yours?”

  This quiet began very quickly. And into it Madame Valet stood to answer.

  She took his hand, lifted him to his feet and placed his fingers on the top button of her blouse. Jerome froze.

  The first wall. Barn end. Double thickness of bricks and rock separated by an insulation of sand, small stones, lime. Big keying stones laid across. The mortar had dried a century gone and he’d have no need of the hammer or chisel yet. He took the first stones out.

  Jerome and Celine Valet made love four astonished times, slept like babies, ate bacon and sausage for breakfast and went down to the Mairie where Bernadie seconded her nomination of Jerome Lacaze, and she re-registered to teach.

  23

  “Will you vote for me?”

  The stone-man stopped dismantling his wall, turned. “Will it make you feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will.” And turned back.

  “Thanks.”

  Jerome stood a moment longer, watching the automaton, thinking, ‘And does this make you feel better? Or is it that it stops you feeling at all?’

  “Will you vote for me?”

  “As what?”

  “Mayor.”

  “Chibret’s Mayor,” said Ardelle.

  “He resigned.”

  “Why?”

  Jerome looked at Arbel.

  “What?” said Ardelle, turning to him.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Ardelle accepted that. Gratefully.

  “Will you vote for me?”

  “What will you do?”

  Jerome’s jaw sagged a millimetre. “What d’you mean?”

  “As Mayor. What will you do? Why should I vote for you?”

  “I haven’t a clue. What do you want done?”

  Ardelle thought. “Nothing.”

  “No problem, then. I’m your man.”

  Ardelle shifted her stance. “Why are you doing this?”

  Jerome looked at her. Old adversary, old bull-shit sniffer. “I don’t know, Ardelle.”

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  “Of course, of course. But I haven’t time. The vote is next Sunday. We’ll talk politics afterwards, yes? Will you vote for me?”

  “Who else is there?” Arbel said.

  “Dominique Duthileul.”

  They both nodded.

  “Thanks. You can tell her now.”

  He left Puech, that campaign a triumph. Arbel told Ardelle why Chibret had resigned.

  “If he wins you should change your mind,” she said, “have the feast.”

  “I’ll change my mind when I choose.”

  “Yes, husband.”

  Ardelle went to bed and waited.

  Arbel sat and fought with his thoughts.

  Madame Lacaze drove her son round all the outlying farms and Jean Louis and his son did the same.

  Jerome was relieved of postulating the practical or political initiatives an incumbent Mayor might indulge in as he dealt with questions about his broken marriage, his drinking, and his relationship with the swindling Vermande. Since Jerome had next to no concrete ideas beyond his abhorrence of the Duthileul’s he cheerfully encouraged the campaign to descend into murky personal waters instantly and Dominique and his father found themselves answering awkward pointed questions about the length and depth of Dominique’s Maquis adventures and exactly why Jean-Louis was so vindictive, and how that reflected on the family character.

  Bernadie organised a public meeting, Friday, in the Salle de Fetes. As that neared, following Madame Lacaze’s lead and initiative, the two candidates’ war-records became the axis of the argument.

  On Thursday Galtier let it be known that Jacques’ court appearance was set for the following Tuesday. In Cahors, in the self-same court where Lacaze had been honoured to sit in judgement; and had then wilfully walked away from that civic responsibility, as he had his marriage, never forget.

  Galtier delivered the letter to Jacques, who burnt it when evening got so cold even he couldn’t function. He also burnt his lawyer’s letter informing of the hour M. Hubert’s car would arrive to take him to Justice.

  Dominique talked sadly that Thursday, as he toured the village, of the curse of alcoholism. His rival had only been apparently sober perhaps ten days.

  By Thursday Jerome was exhausted. Disgust clogged his will to rise and trade more slander and innuendo. He shaved and looked hard at his face and didn’t much like what he saw. But, even that’s better than a Duthileul, he told himself, again, and dressed.

  “Have you a speech ready for tomorrow?” his mother asked, pouring them strong coffee.

  “No. I shall ask for questions and try, and doubtless fail, to speak my mind.”

  She passed him a cup. “I believe you might win.”

  “I know. Isn’t it ridiculous?”

  A moment passed between them resembling warmth.

  Jerome had the fleeting urge to describe to his mother Celine Valet’s luscious saucer nipples. Instead, surprising himself, he said, “What on earth do we do, if I win?”

  Madame Lacaze was kissed by the sweetness of the word ‘we’ – it ran right through her body. I have something to lose now, she thought. And I don’t want to. “If you win,” now she dared say this, “If you win – you should go back to Sara.”

  They shared a smile, Mother and son. �
��I think she’s got far too much sense.”

  She nodded another smile, then bustled away at the breakfast crockery.

  “He’ll have something, Duthileul, up his sleeve.” she warned, “He’ll have thought this right through.”

  On Thursday night Jacques found a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote, “I, Jacques Vermande, vote for Jerome Lacaze.” and walked the midnight snowy lane to the Mairie where he posted it and walked back.

  All day Friday Bernadie, The Prefect, Chibret, Dominique, his father, Jerome, Sara, Mesdames Valet and Lacaze drummed up for a full appearance at the Salle De Fetes that evening. No problem. Since the cancellation of Chibret’s feast and the toppling of his tree the commune had waited all too eagerly.

  Bernadie and Monsieur The Prefect, flanked by the candidates, sat at a table clothed with the tri-colour as the hall filled.

  There were a surprising number of men. So, some had escaped both the Germans, and, thought both Bernadie and Jerome, any war-effort. Hidden in the woods and survived.

  At 7.30 as Arbel and Ardelle squeezed in to stand, jammed at the back, Bernadie called the meeting to order and asked the candidates for opening remarks.

  Dominique Duthileul, shirt ironed, stood.

  Jacques worked.

  His hands were changing from a man dealing with wood and slate to a man dealing with stone. A layer of lime formed seemingly beneath the skin itself and protected and calloused the hand. After two days he never cut himself on a stone again. You feel the weight. Of the stone and in the stone. They were individual, surprising, personal. His. Theirs. He became confident as he worked towards the corner stones that he could re-build as his grandfather had built. This was possible. He worked.

  “I am concerned for the political state of the commune,” a man near the front said, “when we are meant to be involved in nothing so squalid as a battle between its old and new money.”

  Madame Lacaze and Jean-Louis Duthileul nodded a wry acceptance of that. Shared a glance across the floor of the meeting, even.

  “Your point being?” asked The Prefect.

  No answer.

  “You should have stood then,” someone called.

  Agreement.