Divisadero

by Michael Ondaatje

  How many stories were read between them in which they had discovered the codes of eventual love and said nothing in their shyness. She’d barely been touched by him—his cupped hands once on her shoulders, his hard grip when she pulled the splinter out of his eye, his holding her small hands across a table. It was as if they had both known what all this would be like, these doorways and reflections of each other, this cautious modesty and the secrets of herself she had hidden from others. All that witnessed them was a lamp in the grass. She moved back onto his lap so she could control their movement, slow him into more intimacy, so his hands could hold the quiver in her stomach and there could be an equal pleasure. They heard nothing, not the sterile thunder or the mock of the bird or the million insects carelessly yelling. Just their breath, as if they were dying beside each other.

  Return

  There is little record of Lucien during the final year of the war. He disappeared back within the anonymous fabric of troop movement and field hospitals. In those final months, while he was stationed near Compiègne, one letter of hers got through to him. Who knew how many she might have written? But he assumed this was the first since he had seen her during his furlough. The note was about Roman, how she had recently met him, and how she had been relieved that they had been close, able to talk easily. Roman was still a bear of a man, and she hated the idea of him imprisoned once more within a regiment.

  For some reason Lucien did not write back to her. Perhaps he had already imagined and written every kind of letter in the voice of those other soldiers when he had helped compose their messages to wives and lovers, using so many verbal emotions that honest literary empathy did not exist in him anymore. He no longer trusted words. He wrote a few notes to his wife instead, about the moral state at the front and the dangers that might come with the winding down of the war.

  His own family was living temporarily with his wife’s relatives near Paris. The countryside around Marseillan was rumoured to be unsafe with illnesses, and there were mercenaries now, and deserters breaking into homes and farms. The only order seemed to be within the last official gestures of war. In the towns and villages there were continual incidents of violence caused by poverty and need. Lucien had no idea what his family’s life near Paris consisted of. But in Compiègne he was recording what he saw taking place around him daily, witnessing the deaths and even suicides. Priests forgot the names of those they were giving last rites to. He himself had prayed dutifully over dying strangers, and they had looked up at him with disgust. He had scarcely enough time to think about Marie-Neige. He had lived and relived so much of their life together before that last journey home. Now he had to somehow keep himself alert, keep himself safe, be aware of exactly what was taking place. One night someone tried to kill him; he woke up being strangled, and this man was not even the enemy.

  A few days before the war was over, the soldiers were allotted train passes, but with a warning that all transport was slow. The journey home could take weeks. He looked at a map and realized that with a horse he could return to Marseillan and see whether the house was safe; later he could take the train and meet his family in Paris. He looked for an animal he could buy, anything that would allow him to leave the war zone sooner, eventually bartering for a horse that might take him a day’s journey. Further away from the front, he could probably buy another. He strapped up all his documents and left everything else behind, medical texts, clothes, the utensils he had needed till now. There would be clothing at the house, and he could shave and bathe there before eventually going on to Paris.

  At Montargis, he traded the horse as he had planned. With luck it would be only three more days, and he would reach Marseillan late on the third or fourth evening.

  There was bright sunlight everywhere but it was cold, and what he was wearing did little to keep him warm. At an abandoned farm he found rolls of burlap that he cut and fashioned into a cloak. The animal was not healthy, they had to move at a slower pace than expected. He found himself losing his judgement. By the late afternoon on the second day, Lucien was fading into half-sleep, then waking unsure of where he was. He was lost for two hours in a river valley. He discovered himself suddenly riding through a field of onions and dug some up with his hands, ate one, and saved the rest in a pannier.

  In Figeac, a farmer sold him a bowl of milk, which he gulped down. He saw virtually no one on the roads. A man on a horse passed him, going the other way, cradling a dog in his arms. The rider said nothing, did not even look at him. He too must have been fearful of gangs. Lucien realized he should have waited for a troop train.

  The next night was colder, and Lucien shook, as he had with the diphtheria. He kept looking at the whiteness of his breath to convince himself he was alive. He believed it would be the last thing he saw in his life. He woke in the unending darkness and lit a match to see the time and whether his breath was still there. The horse, near him, had not moved. It started to rain and he gave up. He slept or passed out, he was not sure which.

  When he woke in the morning, his body was stiff from the coldness of the ground. He could hardly rise. He turned and saw the horse calmly eating grass, its head coming up slowly to gaze at him. He walked beside the animal for more than an hour before he was able to mount it. This must have been the fourth or fifth day of Lucien’s travels, and he was skirting the forests whenever he could because he feared encountering strangers. Though what did he have that they would want? Then he thought of the documents he was carrying, and the awareness of them made him step back from his torpor. What he had was more than himself.

  It had been dark for many hours when Lucien reached Marseillan. Everything was closed. He went on the last ten kilometres. It was unlikely there would be food at the house, maybe some cans, or dry food, but at least he could bathe and sleep. Or perhaps Marie-Neige would still be next door. He had no knowledge about where Roman was, or whether he was alive, or home by now. The animal was slowing down, and he got off and walked beside it, needing to generate more energy and heat in his stiffening body. The dampness in the air filled his cloak. He knew his mind wasn’t right. For some time he had been thinking his mother would greet him. Then, when he remembered, he began to believe she would welcome him as a quiet ghost. She would welcome him and feed him, have his bed made. There would be a fire.

  He walked up the road to the farmhouse in total darkness. The world around him was moonless, not a star. Not one candle flame. He let go of the animal and just stood there. Then stepped up onto the porch, found his way in, and soon had his house awake with light. He moved from room to room, speaking loudly to himself, every now and then saying a name. He removed the damp burlap coat and saw himself in a hall mirror. It was so long since he had seen himself. The clothes he put on now seemed too big. He looked from a window and there was no neighbouring light. So they had gone too. The rise of hill was black. A paraffin light or a candle would have shown.

  He went out into the dark and led the horse to the barn to feed it. Returning, he smelled something, the remnant of a fire. Smoke could have come from more than a dozen fields away, caught in a pocket of the wind. If there had been rain, smoke would have been pounded down and a thread of it might have remained in the grass. But he wanted to make certain no one was next door. This was his homecoming, and he had not seen a soul in the village or for most of the days of his ride. And not even his mother’s ghost had met him. He walked up the hill into that black landscape, leaving the lights on behind him.

  There was no wagon or horse in their barn. He knocked at the farmhouse and waited. He lifted the latch and walked forward slowly until his thighs touched the table. He knew the table. He knew its old blue colour when it existed there in daylight. So often he had sat there playing cards, or talking, when he was younger.

  Lucien had no idea where they could have gone. He called out both their names. First Roman’s, then hers, although he rarely used her name when they spoke. It had always felt too formal for what there was between them. Even her simpl
e, lovely name. He thought he heard a cat. He walked to the cupboard where they stored candles, and swept his hands back and forth on the shelf. He lit one and it warped light onto the walls. He heard the cat sound again and, carrying the candle, drew back the curtain that separated their bedroom. She was lying on her back like a corpse, covered in a black blanket, her head moving from side to side. He saw a spasm overtake her, and the cat noise came out of her. She was alone in the farmhouse, and there had been no light or heat. But when he touched her forehead his hand slid off the slickness, she was perspiring so much. This was chills and fever. Marie-Neige? He whispered her name as if he did not wish to disturb her, as if at the same time he needed to wake her discreetly, without scaring or confusing her, so she could be aware of his presence.

  Where is Roman?

  All her lips seemed able to do was blow out air. And when he bent over and looked at her closely, her eyes kept edging over— as if signalling—to something behind him in the other part of the room.

  He had thought during his journey to the farmhouse how much he wished to talk with her about what he had witnessed in the war these last few months, when he had felt the presence of her within him. He needed to realign himself alongside her. If they found themselves alone, then perhaps they would lie in a bed and sleep together. But that path had now changed beneath his feet. He needed to care for her in her fever. He began telling her about the time he was alone, when he had been ill and delirious in his tent and all that had saved him was his history with her. Marie-Neige’s eyes stilled for a moment, then she convulsed, so much her head rose off the pillow; then she lay back breathing hard, twice as exhausted. In Compiègne, he had seen horses with the ‘thumps,’ whose bodies convulsed because of the lack of calcium.

  I saved you? she said, barely audible, as if to herself, as if he did not exist there except as somebody she was imagining.

  Yes. It was as if you were the only one who would visit me in that cold tent.

  He lowered the candle he was holding to the floor and placed his palm on her forehead. It was still damp, her hair wet. He raked his stiff fingers through her hair slowly, again and again. It was a gesture he used in love, and now, sensing this was a comfort to her, he did not stop.

  Most of the light the candle gave off collected on the low ceiling of the room, so they were dark outlines to each other. Now and then a glint on her cheekbones. She was about to convulse again and he held her shoulders. Her body jerked up violently, then fell back, a stone figure in a vestry. She must have felt capable of death. She drifted somewhere, and he sensed he had lost her. He left the candle where it was, on the floor beside her bed, and returned to the kitchen and lit another. ‘She’s with us,’ his mother said, beside him.

  He ripped up some old cardboard to use as kindling and opened the iron door of the stove. There was a slope of wood, cobwebbed, against the wall, and he lit the fire. Where was her husband? It felt to him that the house had been deserted for some time; the stones on the wall and the floor held an old cold. The cracking and banging of the burning wood woke her, and he heard her say, Roman? He came back and wiped her face dry with the blanket. ‘Lucien. It’s me. Let me change your bedding, it feels as wet as you.’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. In the cupboard he found a flannel sheet. It looked familiar. His mother must have at one time handed it down to her. He spread it over a chair in front of the fire.

  He opened a can of soup, put it on the stove, then brought the warm sheet to her. When he pulled the coarse blanket down, her chest heaved as if freed of the weight, and her head came up coughing with each spasm. She was bent almost in two, a naked hairpin. When she lay back, the shadow of her ribs broke his heart, her thin whiteness reflecting the candlelight from the ceiling. He wrapped her in the warmed sheet and covered her with the blanket. Then he brought soup to the bed and began spooning it into her. She was drinking it eagerly.

  Roman.

  No. It’s Lucien.

  It’s Lucien, she repeated slowly, as if confusedly shifting dance partners.

  Yes, he confirmed. Where is Roman? But as he said that, he saw he’d lost her again, her mind elsewhere, in the shadows.

  He must have fallen asleep in the chair. When he opened his eyes he couldn’t see her. He thought he’d just felt a hand on his shoulder. But the candle wavered then, and he saw her face on the pillow, looking at him. Her eyes signalling something. You, my friend. You have to take me out. Do you understand? She closed her eyes again, giving up, as if she’d been shouting at him through thick glass. He didn’t understand. But she kept turning to him for help, there was something else. Do you … Suddenly he understood. He was a fool. The blanket wrapped tight around her, he gathered her into his arms, crossed the room, pushed the door open, and carried her into the cold night. He didn’t have a light with him, but he knew where it was—the small shack that was the outhouse. ‘Thank you,’ she was saying. ‘Thank you, Roman.’

  In the cubicle he lifted the blanket so she could sit down, and then sat next to her so he could hold her upright. After a minute she nudged his arm. All right? She nodded, with almost a smile. Again he gathered her like a frail branch and carried her to the farmhouse, and put her back into the bed. She was already asleep, and calm; he drew the curtain across so she would not be wakened by daylight.

  He woke in the morning, his head on the kitchen table, his eye against the blue of it—the scratched and cut-into blue, a history of them all. So he knew where he was, coming out of the deepest sleep, in the instant of waking.

  He sat up in the chair. Light from the east window revealed dust across the floor. He noticed the stove and went forward and touched it tentatively, but it was cold. There was a pan on it with the remnants of solidified food. He stood there not moving. The room, the air, was so still that he felt he could not be existing within it. He could hear nothing. He looked down at his feet, then at his hands held out in front of him, to make certain he was fully alive.

  All he wanted to hear was a cough, or the movement of a bed-spring. He walked forward and looked at the bare faded landscape of trees and a river depicted on the curtain that cut the room in half. As though it was another spectrum of life he could now almost enter. He had not breathed for so long. He drew the curtain back and there was nothing there.

  Say Your Good-byes

  He walked into Marseillan and at the police station discovered that what he had warmed and carried in his neighbours’ house was a splinter of memory or light within himself. Marie-Neige had died during the last months of the war. And there was no longer evidence of Roman in the records of the prison. He had enlisted, but they were not sure he would ever return, even if he was alive. Lucien walked back to the farmhouse alone. For the first time in his life he had no one around him. He did not have a neighbour. His neighbours’ home was empty. He slept that night in the one room that had belonged to her and Roman. He sat at their table. He rode his horse into Marseillan and gave it away, then went by train to Paris, collected his family, and brought them home.

  Lucien Segura completed the report on his time in the military camps and field hospitals, exposing what he had witnessed there. The first chapter was read, then the report was shelved. Almost no one read the work. His experience was questioned. How had this writer moved from a complex, finely tuned poetry to a blunt, coldly prepared vendetta? It irritated the literary populace of Paris, and they hoped once again for the slim volumes of verse. But he knew poetry would demand everything from him.

  Roman did not return. And Lucien moved his workplace from his stepfather’s room into Roman’s farmhouse. He began to write again, and as he wrote he waited for her arrival, usually halfway through a book, long after a location and a plot had been established. She entered the story sometimes as a lover, sometimes as a sister. And in this way he spent most of his days with Marie-Neige as an ally in the court, or as a village girl who saves the hero without his being aware of it. Marie-Neige as a lost twin, Marie-Neige as a jongleuse the central char
acter falls in love with, who, disguised within her craft as singer-acrobat, robs the great châteaux of the Bordelais, Marie-Neige who in one book guides a blind father out of a foreign city.

  Often there was in these fictions a finite love or an unrecognized affection. But for the most part Lucien gave his readers the happiness of a resolution. As the stories were completed, he mailed them to a small press in Toulouse, where the success of the books brought stability to the publisher. With the printing of these tales, the central characters became popular public figures, especially as no one knew who the author, ‘La Garonne,’ was. Lucien had composed them in secrecy, in much the same way he had walked and dreamt as a boy surrounded by copses and thickets and rivers that had been his true intimates. The books hardly seemed the work of a well-regarded poet, or the author of the bitter jeremiad on the recent and already forgotten war.

  The adventures had a hero who was at times awkward and at times gregarious, at times cautious, at times foolhardy. Before he plunged his rapier into a villain’s heart he would fling out the line ‘Say your good-byes.’ Whenever readers saw the line ‘Say your good-byes,’ they would know the very necessary death would occur in the next paragraph. It was a signal for final music as ‘Roman,’ after slaying the Count de Guispelle at the Académie Française and nailing a proclamation of motive to the imperious oak doors, leapt from the second floor into the waiting hay wagon driven by a Mathilde or a Melicante or a Marie-Neige.