The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  She turned to see The Mayor. The father, ignoring the son, continued, “Why should I pay?”

  Madame Lacaze stood to greet her Mayor. Perfect timing. She smiled gratefully at Dominique. He gestured for her to sit. She did. And as Dominique sat she turned to answer Jean-Louis. “Because,” and she said it so quietly, “without your carefully planned dupery my son would be Mayor.”

  Jean-Louis could say nothing. Dominique thought, ‘Well, that’s true.’

  And now she wondered what, if anything, she truly wanted for Jerome. That he leave her sight? Did she want revenge on him, too? Was she on the point of winning the wrong battle?

  One glance at Jean-Louis’ gnarled greed and she was set on course again.

  “I’d share some of the cost.”

  Jean-Louis exploded. “He’s your son!” Dominique had never seen his father so rattled.

  Tasting it, timing it, he spoke, “Very fair Madame.”

  The look of untrammelled fury his father shot him confirmed all he’d ever doubted about the priorities in his father’s mind. He raised an eyebrow to say, ‘Don’t you agree, father?’

  Madame Lacaze saw the wedge between them and knew now the perfect way to twist it. The fleeting look she shared with the triumphant son was but the first seed of it.

  As her car found its gears and rolled down the lane Jean-Louis lashed his fury on his son.

  “You never do that. Never! Not with my money.”

  Dominique wanted to grin, but asked politely, “Isn’t it our money?”

  “Bad tactics. Bad! Done now. You fool,” Jean-Louis snarled, ignoring Dominique’s ridiculous comment. “But I’ll make the best of it...” he muttered.

  ‘And I father,’ Dominique thought, ‘might do even better.’

  Jean-Louis telephoned Madame Lacaze the next day and they agreed to meet to discuss the detail. The money. When he arrived she had the Godin warm and the cognac served.

  They had both had the night to think. Gather their cards, sort their hand.

  “Of course,” she said, “they may refuse. He surely would.” Especially if he knew I’d paid even half a sous, she thought.

  “Yes, a possibility.” Is she trying to wriggle out of this?

  “And,” Madame Lacaze took the tiny extra breath with which to lie, “I can think of no means to force him to leave.”

  Jean-Louis knew dis-ingenuousness. He could taste it. Here, right here now, in the room. Ah.

  “No,” he agreed. She means beyond shaming him out. So what is she driving to? “No means beyond the physical. Heaven forbid,” he added, beginning to warm to this.

  She sensed his confidence. A beat.

  Two people thinking the same thing, but saying nothing. Sexy. “No legal means, either. Alas...” Jean-Louis sounded at a loss. Madame Lacaze put her glass down on the table and lowered her eyes to it. She placed her hands together, feeling his eyes following her, straightened a minute pleat in her dress and then slowly raised her eyes to meet Jean-Louis Duthileul’s. Yes, she could read him like a book.

  “What are you thinking, Jean-Louis?”

  A pause hung as he gathered the nearest plausible lie. She watched all this.

  “Of some way – some action to – to...”

  “Hurt us all the least?”

  “Voilà. And save our money being w-spent.”

  “Quite.” Shifting her voice towards a tone of sublimation, “And so, how?”

  She pressed one hand into the other to stop any show of the adrenalin flowing through her.

  “I…” he genuinely hesitated, “I don’t know,” he said, finally.

  ‘Liar,’ she thought.

  “I’m not sure I believe you, Jean-Louis,” she said. Jean-Louis Duthileul blushed.

  “Exactly,” she smiled, “We do know.”

  Silence.

  Spring light spread.

  Jean-Louis and Madame Lacaze looked at each other.

  Jean-Louis rolled his glass in his hands and she picked hers up, locked eyes with him, poured the warmest smile down deep into the fissure of his vanity, watched it sink to his ancient walnut privates probably, she thought – and clinked glasses with him.

  She sipped, he drank. They warmed.

  “I came to discuss money,” he said, surprised at himself.

  “We will, Jean-Louis, O we will.” And she smiled.

  Jean-Louis’ antennae rose. She thinks she’s won something. What? What have I missed here?

  “You haven’t missed anything,” she said. Jean-Louis Duthileul gently gasped. “Of course I can read your mind.”

  She offered a reassuringly warm smile. “And if you’d stop trying so hard to guard it you could probably read mine...”

  Jean-Louis’ feet seemed to slip on ice. Out on a frozen lake, with no blades beneath him. Only her. For support.

  “Mm, trust. It’s so hard, isn’t it?”

  “The hardest,” he agreed.

  “Must come slowly— ”

  “Or not at all,” he agreed.

  Their bodies settled a little more into their chairs.

  He knew he’d been out-manoeuvred and that he’d enjoyed it too, and he’d even sensed a glint of the true meaning of Respect; but his mind swirled with the possibilities of the larger hand they were playing. Get back to that.

  “What is it, exactly, that we know, Madame?” She blinked at his directness. He enjoyed that.

  She saw it and said, “We know that you want me.”

  He blinked hard and she enjoyed that.

  “N’est-ce-pas?”

  The game was speeding now – the cards were to be thrown. Fine. What could he lose when she played like this? Nothing.

  “True.”

  She was surprised.

  “You’re surprised,” he nearly gloated.

  “You see, I told you you could read my mind.”

  “We’re not so very different?”

  “I don’t know that. Yet, sir.”

  “Do you hope not?”

  “I hope for the best.”

  Jean-Louis put his nearly empty glass on the table.

  “This – flirting – is delicious, Madame,” he conceded, enjoying again her surprise, “but what else do you think we both know?” Madame Lacaze had prepared her hand and she played it.

  “That the most painless way to rid our commune of the danger of my son and that slattern is to provide them with an escape route, a room – at our expense – and then…” she paused, “to consider some action that would convince him they should take it.”

  “And that, in your opinion, would be..?”

  The air waited.

  “What we both know,” she smiled, “surely?”

  Jean-Louis said, “Won’t you say it?”

  “Won’t you?”

  She watched him falter. He didn’t even trust himself.

  Madame Lacaze raised a hand from her lap to her hair. She lightly touched the brooch at her neck, straightened a button and slowly re-placed her hands together again. Jean-Louis’ eyes followed her movements and rested one second more on her breasts as he heard himself whisper, “That we’d be – one?”

  “Voilà.”

  The air moved.

  Madame Lacaze and Jean-Louis Duthileul looked at each other. He foolishly heard himself think, what do I do now?

  And she read it and thought, ask me my name. This once. Anything might happen if you showed just that glimmer of Grace.

  Silence.

  Jean-Louis could sense it right there, in the room. The something she wanted him to say. So he said it.

  “And do you want me?”

  Poor sap.

  “You know I do,” she said.

  God, lying was easy. And fun. Fun!

  She smiled intimacy at him, nailing him to her chair.

  She stood and gathered their glasses together. The faint ting of crystal.

  “Perhaps we ought to speak with the Mayor?”

  Duthileul surfaced.

  He s
aid, “Of course, of course.”

  “I’ll see him at council tomorrow,” she said.

  “I’ll see him at supper tonight.”

  “No. Say nothing Jean-Louis.”

  She placed a hand, warm and promising, on his. Oh, but she relished this physical power.

  “You know how impetuous he might be...”

  Jean-Louis smiled. She was sharp. She missed nothing.

  “We must speak to him together.”

  “As you wish, Madame.”

  Ask me my name. Now. I’ll make it easier on you. Just ask me my name.

  Jean-Louis’ blurred antennae read something but he couldn’t translate it, and she was leading him to the door.

  Where she said, “And you’ll find a room – somewhere – for them?”

  Jean-Louis had to think who ‘they’ were, so warm was he; then said, “Of course.”

  He looked down into her face, “My dear.”

  “Good. Then – till we speak with your son.”

  She opened the door to distract him from the idea of kissing her and pressing her cheek against his, handed him his hat.

  She waved a tiny gesture as his car drove away, shut the door, walked back to her room, downed the dregs of his cognac and allowed herself one fierce slap of congratulation on the table top. She rose next morning, bathed, sat at her mirror and watched herself comb her hair, apply a little rouge, a hint of powder. It was sharp outside. Madame Lacaze saw for one cold instant her son lying in that gross slut’s arms and still she determined to take a vengeance for him that he would be disgusted by. Good. Two birds with one stone, then. Three. I no longer care.

  Arbel looked up from whittling the bars of the infant’s cot.

  He nodded across to Jacques’ wigwam house. “I’ll be all day, I think,” he said and went for his cap

  “Ask him to come for supper?”

  “He won’t.”

  They looked at each other.

  “I just wanted to tell him...” she gestured at her softly rounding stomach.

  “I’ll ask. And I won’t tell him.”

  “Thank you, husband.”

  The day was sweaty and silent under the first real blast of what would be the summer of Peace. All morning they de-mounted windows. The lintels and their big stones, Jacques chalking and numbering them for the re-building, and humped them on the cart. As the sun rose past dinner they spat on their hands and inched the huge door lintel to the point where it would tumble. They laid three hay-stacks in front of the door and dared push the granite beast on to them. It grunted and fell. They tipped it end on end down the steps; end on end to the cart, then spat again, bent their knees, straightened their backs and found strength and leverage to inch an edge over the lip of his cart, gather two quick snatched breaths, and push the bastard fucking thing to a resting place.

  “You won’t get that back up by yourself,” Arbel grunted.

  Jacques only set back up the stairs for the door’s column stones. Arbel followed.

  By mid-afternoon the cart was loaded and there was only a bed, a table and Arbel’s bench on the floor of his house. Arbel saw the futility of inviting him to eat, shook his hand and went home to soup and a wash.

  Jacques laid his creaking carcass down in the dust and filth that was his bed and cried inside for Arbel’s having forgiven him. No tears fell, but their source, their spring, moved still within the grey man.

  The bache flapped all night against the chimney and his bed. Move the bed down to the caves tomorrow.

  And take down the pointless chimney. No need now of heat. The dog? Sleep with me down there. Need the warmth. Both of us. Eat the gritty bread and ham. Sleep. Work. His back hurt.

  Dominique plugged away at questioning his father, who shared a half bottle of Pernod – so something was definitely up – and gleaned only from his smugness that he and Madame Lacaze had agreed on something that pleased Jean-Louis very well.

  Finally his patience snapped and he demanded a car.

  Jean-Louis grunted. Which meant he’d already thought about it. If and when he grunted again, it would happen.

  As for her – well, he’d ask her.

  “I believe,” she said gently, “we agreed to share the cost of re-housing.” She stalled on Celine’s name.

  “I see.”

  “Your idea...” she reminded him.

  “Yours Madame – I only showed enthusiasm.”

  “You did. You do.”

  She spread him a smile and watched it pick at his hide, his defence – his wounded youth. “It’s the rarest quality.” She sat down. Dominique steepled his thick farmer’s fingers together, rested his chin on the point and his thumbs, looked at her and said, “I don’t like this.”

  A delicious alarm bell rang in her. “Monsieur Le Maire?”

  “Your son.”

  Conscience? Surely not. Not in that blood. “Yes?”

  “I accept there is danger...”

  “Yes?” He’s been thinking.

  “And I endorse the commune’s outrage.”

  “But..?” she prompted.

  Dominique looked up at her. He wanted so to trust her. “The War is nearly done. A matter of weeks. Perhaps days.”

  “So they say...”

  “I suggest a celebration. A public healing.”

  As she nodded she thought – Sweet lamb. I wonder if he’s a virgin? “Go on. Please.” I hope he is.

  “A meal. The meal Mayor Chibret wanted when Arbel Jammes came back. A chance to heal.”

  And invite my son and that thing?

  “It’s a bold idea,” she conceded, waiting for his detail.

  “Yes?” he edged forward. Eager for her support. Especially hers.

  “It’s a noble idea, Monsieur Le Maire,” she said and almost meant it.

  “Thank you, Madame.”

  “But then, are you suggesting...” she gathered the words, “that my son and that woman continue to co-exist. Co-habit?”

  “Madame Lacaze,” he leaned back in his chair, to her surprise. “Why not?”

  The spring air in the office stilled. Severine at the door strained to hear.

  Madame Lacaze pushed back her chair and stood. “His wife?”

  “I understand that marriage could be annulled.”

  Playing at the corner of his mouth was a twitch of triumph. Of some sort.

  Intrigued, Madame Lacaze put a hand on the back of the chair. “It offends everything.”

  He nodded, agreeing.

  “But,” she asked, “it should be accepted?”

  “Or killed. Yes.”

  Madame Lacaze blinked.

  “That seemed to me,” said the Mayor, “what the Curé said.” Madame Lacaze nodded slowly.

  “And it seems to me what our commune must consider.”

  “They were throwing rocks at her last week.”

  He leaned forward.

  “A meal Madame. Together.”

  “And they should come?”

  “If they choose.”

  “It could end in hell...”

  “Let it then.”

  Madame Lacaze blinked hard. He had been thinking. “If that is what we are. So be it. Animals? So be it.”

  “Why are you angry, Monsieur Le Mayor?”

  “Oh, but I’m not. I’m afraid, Madame.” She felt a flash of respect for him. “Will you help me? Dare it?”

  That question relaxed Madame Lacaze. “Yes, of course.”

  “Good.” He stood. “I feel a fool saying such things – but we must prepare for Peace.” She smiled at the sweetness. She felt patronising. But perhaps he would be right. Either way it couldn’t but help her.

  “I agree.”

  Wednesday broke and Jacques hitched the beast, gathered his blinkers and rode through the dawning village to spend another day unloading at Janatou. He didn’t look once at his view, saving that for another, sweeter Time.

  By that Wednesday the last of their liquor supply had run out and Jerome was pre
pared to dress and go and search for more. Celine dressed. The pension book had still not arrived. She gathered their coins.

  “Food,” she said.

  “Drink is food.”

  Celine was prepared for this, the probably penultimate stage of their insane existence. She would not buy alcohol, despite it’s being the conduit that glued their bodies together. She would risk even that – to dry him out. She considered it some sort of duty – that she attempt to save his life rather than be ruled by her compulsion for their sex.

  “No. It isn’t,” she said, firmly.

  The cheese-man was delighted to see them both. He served her cheerfully and could now report, in graphic detail, not only on them but of the comically furious frozen mouths and folded arms of the St.Cirgues women. Their infamy had spread throughout the canton and his customers in the surrounding villages would be eager for news – and a report of an actual sighting of the bald eagle and his lecherous aged barn-owl.

  He worried about the customers here, though; the women who walked away from his wagon.

  No, it was worth it, even if next week they were the only two he served. And they wouldn’t be. This was France – any cheese is stronger than no cheese.

  Janon wiped his outside tables and refused even his version of conversation. When Jerome, undaunted, asked for a bottle of brandy on account there was cold laughter from those reading the endless good news in the papers. She pulled at him and he came, swearing.

  “I need...” he said and headed to Jauliac’s. She followed him, stood there as he was refused in the curtest terms. He swore there, too. “Feyt – he’s a pal...” and he headed that way.

  The old man had only tea and next to no sympathy. “Arbel! He’s never without.”

  He turned towards the church square and the road down past the cemetery to Puech. But word of their appearance in the streets had spread and four men from the bar were outside God’s house. “Get off our streets. Now.”

  It brooked no argument from a sane man.

  “Where were you when we were resisting?” Jerome asked. “Hiding in the hills?”

  Celine yanked at his arm as one of the men moved forward.

  The crack-pot wearing blinkers walked through the evening village leading his dog, Arbel’s cow and his empty cart.