Claude waved his hand. “The courier will take you to the cottage for a good night’s sleep. He is a man, not a mule. He is tired from today’s drive—as you should be. Gather the clothes and take a little food from the hospital. Richard will escort you to the cottage.”
“I can walk from here.”
“No,” Claude said emphatically. “Richard will escort you. No woman should walk alone in the dark. It isn’t right.”
Emma sighed. “I’ve been so self-absorbed. I didn’t even ask him his name.”
“No matter,” Claude said. “He has a medical condition that keeps him from the army—but not from his jeune femme.” The doctor clicked his tongue.
After she had collected her clothes and food, Emma found Richard. He dropped her off at the cottage after a short drive. He held her clothing in his left hand and made a turning motion with his right when they arrived at the door—he hesitated to open it himself.
She turned the brass knob and the door creaked open.
“You were right,” she said, knowing he might not understand her English. “Why would the door be locked? Why would there be theft in a fortified city guarded by troops?”
The courier placed the clothes and her bag on a chair and nodded. “Bonsoir, Madame. À demain.”
“Merci, Richard. Demain.”
Through the small window, she watched as the truck sputtered down the lane until it was out of sight. She took off her coat and cleared a space on the cluttered kitchen table for her supper. The cottage felt familiar; yet, she considered herself a stranger. Little had changed since her time with Tom in August. The table held a jumble of papers and medical books, the bedsheets and blankets were wadded into a ball at its foot. Tom had left in a hurry.
What a change. My tidy Boston husband continues his slovenly ways. She shook her head in wonder, but a prickle of fear raced over her as she thought of any number of calamities that might have befallen him on the battle line.
What does he want to tell me that is so important? I can’t carry on about this, or I’ll drive myself mad.
She shivered and rubbed her arms to ward off the cold. Needing to start a fire, she opened the door and stood on the walk next to the small garden in front of the cottage. Driven by a chilly northwest wind that pushed against her, gray plumes of clouds soared between her and the stars. The nearby oaks stood black and bare in the autumn night while, in the garden, a few yellow and purple pansies bloomed on long, green stalks. Scattered leaves created a brown patchwork against the sprigs of grass yet untouched by frost. Someone, perhaps Tom, had collected wood and stacked it in an iron rick, which leaned against the stone wall.
Emma carried a few logs inside and positioned them on the fireplace grate. Returning to the garden, she collected dead leaves and dry bark and placed them underneath the logs. A tin match safe rested on the rough wooden mantel above the fireplace. The room soon was filled with a warm, crackling light.
She ate her hastily made supper at a space she’d cleared on the table. At Claude’s urging, a nurse had put together a meal—reluctantly, because she had more important duties than to wait upon a doctor’s wife—of a few hard biscuits and dried beef tucked into a cloth napkin. Beggars could not be choosers. A sharp pang struck her stomach because it had been hours since breakfast. Her supper, with a glass of wine from a newly opened bottle, tasted good in spite of its simplicity.
Her gaze shifted to the letters on the table. The wind knocked against the window and a draft flowed down the chimney, a few embers sparking from the logs to the wooden floor. She jumped out of the chair to stamp them out, and a scrap of paper, neatly tucked between the mattress and the underlying metal springs, caught her eye as she passed the bed. If not for Tom’s messy bed making, she would never have noticed the small white triangle. She reached for it, but then stopped, unsure whether she should violate her husband’s privacy in his cottage.
I’m his wife. Surely he has nothing to hide.
Linton Bower appeared in a vivid flash before her—the strength of his arms, the muscular curves of his naked back, the fresh, forbidden taste of his lips. A red-hot flush of shame rose to her face, far removed from the effects of the crackling fire.
She lifted the mattress and withdrew the paper: a letter, dated late July 1917, written on finely woven white stationery and folded in half. She opened it:
My dear Tom,
I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I know tongues will wag, and sooner or later the truth will come rushing toward you. Better to hear it from me than one of those silly Boston women who do nothing but gossip and slander others for their own benefit.
From the beginning, our friendship has been based on truth, which we both hold in the highest regard. I treasure your respect for your marriage vows, for your honor and commitment. I suppose that’s why you are where you are today, serving unselfishly in a war far from home. But as you serve, others are lax in their duties. Therefore, I feel it my place—nay, my duty—to inform you of occurrences here—so unpleasant and distasteful I hope you will not loathe me for bringing these matters to your attention. But the truth will come out.
Your wife has been seen in the company of a Boston artist, Linton Bower, and unfortunately the pair appears to be more than just companions. I wouldn’t tell you this if I hadn’t seen this behavior with my own eyes. I’m sure this is distressing to you, Tom, but you must hear out these words. I hope you can understand the pain this letter causes me as well. Writing it was not an easy task.
I believe their first encounter was at the Fountain Gallery. The relationship progressed from there....
The letter ended with a jagged tear across the bottom.
Emma dropped to the bed, shock coursing through her body, the room deathly cold, the fire near yet so small and distant. She clutched her chest and a reservoir of memories rushed toward her.
No, no, no.
Tom’s aloofness upon their reunion, his reluctance to make love, his brief September visit to Paris, the urgency of his message to the courier, all of these “actions” suddenly made sense. Emma looked in disbelief at the letter in her hands. She wanted to tear it apart and fling it into the fire, knowing she was fighting a foe that had already made its presence known. And, from the handwriting, she knew her adversary was Louisa Markham.
* * *
During the night, the wind stopped its rage against the cottage. Emma pulled the blankets close to her chin and stared at the dying embers. Maybe once an hour, frequently enough to wake her, shells exploded at the Front, sending the troubling rumble into her ears like thunder from a distant storm. She tried to sleep, to brush away the demons prodding her dreams: Linton rushing toward her; Louisa laughing maniacally as Linton stumbles and falls on the steps; the smiling boy she loved in Vermont; and the faceless baby taunting her.
* * *
Richard arrived early the next morning, the truck awakening her from a fitful sleep just before dawn. Emma, feeling as if she had fallen asleep only a few minutes before, wrapped herself in a blanket and answered the door, thinking only of the journey ahead. Richard, cheeks shining, smiled and offered her fruit and cold oatmeal.
“Merci,” she repeated several times as she began eating. He bowed slightly each time she thanked him. After Emma pointed to an extra chair, Richard pulled it to the table and munched on an apple as she finished her meal.
After breakfast, while Richard smoked outside, she made the bed and discretely returned the letter to its place under the mattress. The soldier’s uniform lay on the floor.
“A moment,” Emma called out, and picked up the clothes. From his smile, she knew Richard could tell what was coming, perhaps having been informed of her plan by Claude. She walked to the tiny washroom, closed the door, and smacked her elbow against the wall as she struggled to get dressed. If not for the seriousness of the situation, she would have laughed as she viewed herself in the small shaving mirror over the sink. The loose-fitting jacket and pants minimized her breasts and hips. Her hair, pile
d high upon her head, fit comfortably under the somewhat oversized helmet. She tucked in a few loose strands and pronounced herself ready.
Richard, sitting at the table, laughed when she stepped out of the room, amused by her disguise and predicament.
“Chut,” Emma said, but her admonition fell on a broad smile and continued laughter.
“Non, non,” Richard repeated as Emma wrapped the leggings around her trousers and then pulled on boots. When he had composed himself, he rose from his chair. “Nous partons pour le Front.”
Emma understood and asked, “Do I need anything? Passport? Identification papers?” As soon as the words passed her lips, she realized the ridiculousness of her question. She was attempting to sneak onto a battlefield disguised as a man, her success dependent upon Richard, his guidance, and his knowledge of the Front, not upon documents that showed her to be a woman.
The slight young man shook his head and pointed to the truck, which was parked in the lane. The morning sun shone brightly on the olive green metal.
“It’s a splendid day to go to war,” Emma said. “Allons-y.”
Before closing up the cottage, Emma looked around the room. The tidy bed and the orderly table gave her a momentary sense of serenity. That peace, however, was broken by distant explosions, the first she had heard in hours. After the blasts subsided, Emma listened. The wind pushed through the trees and shook the dead leaves still clinging to the branches, but no birds sang, no animals scurried in the lane. The land was dead, blighted by a war that was close at hand—the morning serving up only the promise of death.
Richard cranked the truck and they drove down the lane, past the hospital, and through the city. The courier waved to the French soldiers as they passed by the gates. “Poilu,” Richard said, as the soldiers returned his gesture.
The truck swept eastward, past thickly wooded hills that lined the rutted road. The Front lay more than thirty kilometers ahead. Richard honked at a convoy of ambulances and fuel trucks headed toward Toul. She turned her head as the vehicles passed. Under the tarpaulins and the makeshift metal covers, wounded men lay on gurneys, their arms and legs bouncing limply as the ambulances rumbled over the bumps.
As they neared the Front, they motored past a column of American soldiers. Three gun carriages, hauling artillery and shells, and pulled by horses, lagged behind the lethargically marching troops. Emma thought the men, without helmets, wearing whatever hats they could on their heads, a ragtag bunch. She recalled the woman in Saint-Nazaire who had told her the Americans would not be able to win the war.
“Les Américains,” Richard said, with a slight edge to his voice. “Ridicule.”
“Why?” Emma asked.
“Parce que—”
“My French is not very good, as you found out yesterday.”
“I speak a little English,” he replied, as if quoting from a language textbook.
“Then, tell me, why do you think the Americans are ridiculous?”
“Nouveau,” he said.
Emma looked past him as he gripped the wheel, wondering if the courier could be right. The American officers on the ship were fresh and inexperienced, but more than prepared to give up their lives. Lt. Andrew Stoneman had assured her of their dedication to the war. She wondered where he was and if he still carried the portrait she had drawn of him.
“Americans are prepared to die for your country,” she said.
“Nos chasseurs. Magnifique.”
Emma looked at him blankly.
“Bleu,” he said. “Le chapeau des Alpes.”
Emma remembered a group of French soldiers near the Paris studio. They were strikingly attired in dark blue tunics and Alpine hats of the same color. Richard seemed correct in his assumption—the chasseurs appeared, at first glance, to be better and more efficient fighters than the ill-equipped Americans.
“Time will tell,” she said. “In war, all men face the same dangers. Bravery and morale count for something.”
Richard nodded as if he agreed, but Emma suspected he understood little of what she said, and even less of what she implied.
The truck rolled closer to the Front. Richard pointed to a hill on the horizon. Behind it, columns of smoke flowed into the sky.
“Shells,” he said. “Here . . . calm.”
“Calm?” Emma asked in astonishment.
“Oui.” He thought about his words for a moment before speaking. “The war is quiet here.”
“It appears active enough for me.”
Abandoned farmhouses, some boarded up, others with sagging roofs and broken timbers, stood like sad apparitions on both sides of the road. A few skinny cows, unattended by man and unrestrained by broken fences, wandered in brown fields. As the truck rolled toward the battle, Emma realized she had no idea what the Front would be like. Her slim knowledge of the war had come from Tom’s censored letters and the civilized reporting of Boston newspapers.
Richard suddenly put a finger to his lips. He turned left onto a side road that was nothing more than ruts in a field. The truck bounced through the dead grasses and sparse woods and then slowed in a shallow clearing. About fifty meters east of the clearing a barbed-wire fence stretched in both directions as far as Emma could see. Mounds of dirt, like black earthen temples, rose at various points along the line. Toward the bleak horizon, less than a kilometer past the first row of wire, another elongated length of coiled barbs and dark mounds stretched in a parallel direction. Beyond that, a vast landscape of blasted trees and cratered earth opened like a pox upon the land. Smoke drifted like an unearthly fog over the terrain while the sharp report of machine guns popped in Emma’s ears.
“My God,” Emma said, as Richard brought the truck to a stop near a group of French soldiers. Concealed by an isolated thicket, they stood chatting and smoking cigarettes.
“Oui,” Richard said. “C’est l’enfer.”
Emma stared at the all-encompassing devastation and concurred, “Yes . . . hell.”
* * *
The soldiers ignored her. Penetrating the Front was easier than she had anticipated. Part of that ease might have been due to the other activities on the minds of the Poilu—cigarettes, cheap wine, and laughter, even as artillery fire and shells shrieked nearby. From what she could judge, these men were ordinary infantry wearing mud-spattered uniforms of light blue—the equivalent of American privates—not an officer among them. The soldiers seemed unconcerned about the fighting around them, instead leaning on their rifles, savoring their cigarettes, drinking their pinard, laughing with Richard, and staring at Emma.
Richard asked the soldiers where the American doctor, Thomas Swan, was working. Emma understood at least that much. She also heard the words “woman” and “costume” in French, which solicited more laughter from the soldiers.
“What’s going on?” Emma asked him. “You told them I was a woman, didn’t you?” She glared at him, irritated by his cavalier attitude toward her situation.
The courier shook his head and pointed to one of the soldiers, a short man with a round belly and a full black beard.
The soldier stepped forward. “I speak English. I studied it in school. I will take you to your husband.”
Emma took off her helmet, allowing her hair to fall free. The men stopped their conversation and glanced at her admiringly, causing her to stare at her uniform jacket and trousers, turned a grayish-brown from the ground-in dirt.
“Oui,” Emma said. “Je suis une femme.”
“Officers or police stop women,” the soldier said. “We are not officers. Put on your helmet. You’ll need it in the trenches.”
Emma did as he asked. “Please take me to my husband. It’s important I see him.”
“Yes, but follow me carefully and watch your head. Let me talk if we are stopped.”
“Wait for me,” Emma ordered Richard.
“Two hours,” he said. “Then I must return to the hospital.”
The soldier anticipated Emma’s question. “Your husband is at a
dressing station in the first trench about a half-kilometer from here.”
“Bonne chance,” Richard said.
“Au nord,” the soldier said, and led the way along a rutted trail. Emma followed as the soldier picked up his pace, his rifle thrust forward in his hands. A short distance away, a wooden ladder protruded from the top of a mound in the sodden earth. The soldier hitched his rifle, stepped onto the ladder, and descended it like a spider spinning its web. He looked up, urging her to follow. She cringed at the sloppy trench floor, but screwed up her courage, and swung her legs onto the ladder. At the bottom, her boots sank in the muck. The air smelled like stinking, unwashed flesh.
Wires snaked along the dirt ceiling. The soldier led her north to a hole illuminated by hanging lights.
Men slept or sat on crude benches carved into the earthen walls. The soldiers, including an officer, cast stony glances at them but said nothing as they hurried past. They continued through the seemingly endless trench until the soldier turned left into a connecting tunnel.
“We’re almost there,” he said and pointed to an area obscured in the gloom, leading to another ladder that jutted out of the fetid slime. He climbed up first and Emma followed.
The sunlight, though muted by a small stand of trees, stung Emma’s eyes. As her vision adjusted, another clearing appeared. Operating and equipment tables stood under a green tarpaulin covering the dressing station. Soldiers carried or dragged in the wounded as doctors in white aprons worked on the casualties.
Emma spotted Tom hunched over one of the tables. He poked mechanically at a soldier’s wound, swabbing with gauze, and prodding the flesh with his forceps. As she approached, he pulled a bullet from the soldier’s arm. Tom studied the metal captured in the bloodied forceps for a moment and then dropped it into a tin cup.
Emma tapped his shoulder.
He cast a quick glance behind and said gruffly, “Not now. I’m busy.”
“Tom,” Emma whispered.
He spun, shock spreading across his face. “Good God, Emma. What are you doing here? How did you get . . . ?”
The Sculptress Page 23
