I don’t answer. She neglected to mention Pfc. John True. I drag a forkful of waffle through a puddle of maple syrup and stuff it in my mouth. After a few moments, I look up at her. “Do you remember that time we had planned to meet for dinner and I called you from the Boston Common?”
“The night of the vigil?” she asks.
“Yes.”
It was a Saturday night two and a half years ago—mid December of 2012—when we’d planned to meet at “No. 9 Park,” a restaurant near the State House and Boston Common. The previous day, there had been a mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. I had been sitting alone, transfixed, in front of the television, cursing at the horror of it, crying openly, wishing Anna was still alive so she could sit with me and we could console each other just as we had on that terrible Tuesday in September of 2001 when planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, or in the days after the assassination of JFK, and again the dark days in April and June of ’68 with the assassinations of MLK and RFK. At such times, nobody wants to be alone, so I called Callie who said she would come over and cook dinner and sit with me. And I said, “No, I don’t want to have you cook. Let me buy you and the kids dinner.”
“David has the kids for the weekend,” she said.
“Oh. I was hoping to see them. Well, okay, then, just you and me. I want to get out. I want to be with people.”
“I understand,” Callie replied. “I’ll be happy to have dinner with you.”
“Good. Speaking of the kids, have you talked with David since the shooting?”
“Yes, Papa. And I told him not to let the kids watch the news.”
“Good for you.”
Later, when my taxi arrived at the intersection of Tremont and Park, less than 200 yards from the restaurant, I saw a mass of flickering lights. “What’s going on here?” I asked the driver.
“It’s a candlelight vigil for those kids killed in Connecticut. God, can you imagine? Those poor little kids! Their parents! I have two kids about the same age. Goddamn!”
Immediately, I thought of Élodie and Rachelle Monsigny … and Adrien. The carrots are cooked! The thought of Élodie made me realize how much it would have meant to me if I could talk with her about the Newtown children. “Let me out here, please,” I said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
I remember standing in the lee of the concrete blockhouse that was the Park Street subway station, and saying, under my breath, “I have no words, my lovely Élodie.”
“Who can say anything, my love?” she replies. “This should never happen to children.”
“We saw too much suffering, you and I.”
“And experienced it, too.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“At least we helped the children. We can be glad of that.”
“But now, in the face of this, I feel so helpless. I wish, so goddamn much, you could be here with me.” I press my hand hard against the rough wall of the blockhouse and instantly a fleeting image appears of me leaning, with Élodie, against the parapet of the stone bridge over Noguera Pallaresa River in Spain.
“Don’t speak, mon chou.54 We did all we could.”
“But it wasn’t enough.”
“It was all we could do.”
“We were so much in love.”
“We were young.”
“We were old, as old as the war made us.”
“Think of the children we helped.”
“Adrien.”
She touches her lips lightly with her fingers. Oh, that familiar gesture! “Yes, there was Adrien, too.”
“And you still think we did all we could?”
“What more could we have done?”
And as quickly as she appeared, Élodie vanished.
I called Callie. She answered on the second ring. “Hi, Papa. Are you there already?”
“No. I’m at the Common. Meet me here. There’s a vigil for the children.”
“God, Papa, every time I think about it—”
“Yes, I know. Come to the Common. I’m standing in front of the T station.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
While waiting for Callie, I gazed at the sea of lights, candles held by hundreds of people, one hand holding the candle, the other cupped around the flame to shield it from the wind; the tall, conical Christmas tree with thousands of lights and topped by a blinking star, the necklaces of lights hanging in loops from the elms and the maples, the oaks and the lindens. And I saw a brief image of Élodie cupping her hand around a match as she lit a lantern in one of the caves where we were forced to bivouac. The dancing reflection of the flame in her eyes. The hopeful gazes of the children. It’s all burned into my memory.
A soft singing rose up from the crowd. I made out the words to “Amazing Grace.”
“I once was lost, but now I’m found …”
Clouds of condensation from the mouths of the singers filled the chill December air. In a quiet voice, I sang along with them. A frigid blast of wind funneled down Tremont Street and struck me in the face. My eyes watered. I knew the appalling damage automatic weapons could do to a body, especially a child’s body. I had seen it in the war. I remembered. Oradour. A child’s pram. I shivered at the memory. With my forefinger, I wiped away a tear. A cloud drifted and graceless moonlight shrouded the Common.
“What in the world made you think of that now?” Callie asks as she finishes her vegetable omelet in the King’s Court Restaurant aboard the luxurious Queen Mary.
“Hmm?”
“Newtown was more than two years ago. What made you think of it now?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe seeing those kids in the pool on Deck 6.” But I know that’s a lie. The truth is I had been thinking a lot, lately, about Élodie and the children in the Pyrénées, some of whom had been about the ages of the Sandy Hook children. And I had been watching a young boy at the buffet filling his plate with French toast, sausages, cinnamon buns, sweet rolls and topping off with a cataract of maple syrup over everything.
Later, in the fitness center, I mount a stationary bike. As I pedal, I say, “Do you know when you were a baby, Nana and I used to babysit you?”
“Sure, I remember.”
“But did you know it was always I who changed your diaper?”
“Of course, I knew. Then you would kiss me on the forehead. It’s one of my fondest memories.” Callie gives a small, incredulous laugh. “What made you think of that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Trying not to think of my legs, I guess.”
“Are they hurting?”
“Burning a little.”
“Lactic acid,” says Callie.
Less than two minutes later, I am gasping for air.
“You better stop, Papa.” Callie frowns. “I should have seen the signs first thing yesterday. That’s one of the problems of being a doctor where family are concerned. There’s a tendency to entirely miss the signs or, conversely, over-read them.”
“What signs?”
“You’re not nearly complete with your rehab. Will you come to see the ship’s doctor with me?”
“You really think it’s necessary?”
“Yes. You clearly are experiencing dyspnea. I want the doctor to check it out.”
“Dyspnea? You’ve gone all doctor talk on me.”
“Labored breathing,” she says. “But you know that.”
“Just giving you a hard time.”
“Don’t I know it!”
We get directions to the medical office: midships, deck 1, port side. “I’m not surprised,” she says. “Midships on the lowest deck will be the most stable place for medical procedures.”
“What medical procedures?” I ask. “I’ve had enough of that!”
“Don’t worry. I meant for other patients. If my diagnosis is right, there’s no real procedure involved. Just some antibiotics and some breathing exercises.”
In the medical unit, I sit o
n the edge of an exam table while Callie briefs the doctor, a young man named Clarkson, on my recent medical history. As she speaks, he furrows his brow and finally interrupts to ask, “Are you a doctor?”
Callie nods. “Yes. Doctor Calliope Roza. Emergency medicine. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.”
“Brilliant! It’s good to have you aboard. How about we see what his OSAT is?” He asks the nurse for an oximeter and places it on my forefinger.
“What is OSAT?” I ask.
“Stop playing dumb, Papa. You know it means oxygen saturation. Why do you play these games?”
“Have you experienced rapid, shallow breathing,” Dr. Clarkson asks, “or just difficulty catching your breath?”
“Rapid, shallow.”
“Coughing?”
I nod.
Dr. Clarkson reads the oximeter. “Your oxygen saturation is ninety.” He looks at Callie. “Atelectasis?”
“That’s my thinking,” she says.
“We can confirm it with an x-ray. If we were at a shoreside hospital I might order a CT-scan, maybe a bronchoscopy, but we’re not equipped for that and, besides, I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“I concur,” Callie says with a thoughtful nod. “Antibiotics and incentive spirometry?”
“Exactly.”
I hold up my hands in protest. “Okay, now I’m truly in the dark. Enough doctor talk. What does it all mean?”
“It means I become a rehab therapist and we resume your rehab,” Callie says. “Do you remember putting a tube in your mouth and breathing in hard?”
“Yes.”
“That’s incentive spirometry. That’s what you would have been doing at the rehab center if you hadn’t sprung a jail break.”
“So, does this mean I have that condition you said prevented me from flying?”
“Pneumothorax?”
“Yes.”
“No. This is different. What we were worried about then was air collecting in the pleural space outside your lungs. But with atelectasis, air doesn’t escape into the surrounding cavity but the alveoli inside the lungs deflate and lose air. It’s like a collapsed lung from the inside. Except in your case, I think it’s only partial.”
“So, what does this all mean?”
“It means, if you don’t improve, we’ll have to get you to a shoreside facility with a pulmonologist,” says Dr. Clarkson. “But we can afford to wait and besides, we’ve no choice. It’s not even an option for a little while yet because we must be within about two hundred miles, maximum, of a helicopter base capable of carrying out a medical evacuation. We’re already out of range of the American and Canadian Coast Guards. Ahead of us is Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Ireland, all of which can airlift a patient, but we won’t be within range for a little while yet.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we have a lot of work to do to get you through this.”
“And if we can’t?”
“I’m afraid if you can’t get through this, we’ll have to put you into a London hospital until I can take you home. And that would mean no Normandy.”
“That’s out of the question,” I say, my voice a bit more adamant that I would have liked.
Callie glances at Dr. Clarkson and then shrugs. “Okay, then. Time to get to work.”
The morning ground fog gives way to a brief period of sun. In the distance, deckled clouds scrape and shred over the mountains, followed by thicker, impasto clouds layered with a golden glow that fades as the clouds roll over the Pyrénées and smother the light. The mountains themselves disappear behind clouds that drag over the tops of the nearby foothills which are like curry combs, shrouding the conical pines in mist. Élodie looks up and points. “I wonder if there is snow in those clouds.”
“In June?”
“At the highest levels, there’s often snow year around. I’m worried there will be snow in the passes. It would make it much more difficult for us.” She puts a hand on my elbow and whispers, “We could lose some of them.” She stops. The procession of children comes to a halt. “It’s time to put on your ponchos,” she says to the children, first in English, then in French and lastly in German. “Rain is on the way.” Looking back along the path we have been following, she says with a frown, Yvette and Adrien have fallen behind again. We must wait.”
“I’m afraid it’s hard on them,” I say, as I shrug off the rucksack and lower Mitzi to the ground. The child immediately embraces my leg in a hug and murmurs, “Papa.”
At last, Yvette and Adrien rejoin us. Élodie leans toward them and whispers something. I can’t hear what she says, but I instinctively know she is comforting them while also telling them they must try not to lag behind. Finally, she rises, nods to me, and sings the first line of La Marseillaise.
“Allons enfants de la Patrie …”55
As she sings, she sets out with an exaggerated marching stride, arms swinging stiffly like a drum majorette, eyes glancing to the sky. Looking for storm clouds? German planes? Allied planes? Giggles and laughter float up from the children. Even Yvette is laughing. She elbows Adrien, trying to get him to participate, but he remains silent.
Raindrops arrive less than half an hour later. At first, the leaves, hanging by the side of the path, bead with raindrops, bend under the weight, then snap back as they shed the water. But soon the rain is too hard, and the leaves stay bowed toward the ground. Our refugee column, with the paint-splotched ponchos, trudges through a field of borage where the white, star-shaped flowers are pressed to the earth.
The rain is too intense for the ponchos, and by the time we reach Sainte-Aimée, everyone is soaked through to the skin. When Abbé Peire Basc greets us at the door of the rectory, which is attached to the small stone church, he surveys us head-to-foot and clasps his hands together. “Mon dieu! What has God delivered to my door? A colony of drowned rats!” His English is heavily accented.
Élodie pulls off her poncho and says, “I am Azalais.”
“No need for your nom de guerre here, Élodie Bédier. I know who you are. I saw you play a concert in Carcassonne. Quite beautiful. You introduced a new piece of music.”
A smile flits across her face. “Ah yes. The first movement of the
Barber Violin Concerto.”
“From the stage, you said it wasn’t finished.”
“It wasn’t. Mr. Barber worked on the concerto in Switzerland, but then Americans were warned to leave Europe because of the coming war, which he did, but not before stopping in Paris where I met him. He showed me the score and gave me permission to perform the first movement. I performed it in Carcassonne as a kind of protest against the war.” Élodie pauses. “But tell me something. You greeted us in English. Why?”
Abbé Basc gestures toward my boots. “American boots. Americans don’t speak French.”
Élodie and I exchange glances and she says, “Our plan was to say he took them from a dead American.”
The priest shakes his head. “One should never think the Boche are stupid. But enough of that. We must get these poor children dry and warm. Wait here for me.” He hurries into the next room and returns, moments later, his arms cradling quantities of cloth. “Bien, now follow me.” He leads us out of the rectory and into the street. Abruptly, the rain stops and a swath of sunlight spreads over the hills and over the village. Three men with expressionless faces rise from where they are sitting at a table—on which rest a bottle and three glasses—under the covered arcade of a medieval half-timbered house and cross the street toward us. I protectively step in front of the children and face the advancing men. One lumbers toward us on a pair of wooden legs; the other 2 limp on one good leg and one wooden. As they near, I see their faces are not frozen at all. Instead, they are wearing masks.
Élodie says, “It’s okay, Henry. They mean no harm.”
“How do you—” I start to say, when one of the men, the one with two wooden legs, reaches out and grasps my hand. “Vous êtes Américain?”
I don’t nee
d it translated. “Yes, I’m American.” I see, through the holes in his mask, he has doleful eyes.
The man embraces me. I feel the hardness of his copper mask against my cheek. The other two men also shake my hand and offer embraces and, as quickly as they appeared, they return to the table under the arcade. There, they lift up their half-filled glasses and sip from straws.
“What the hell was that about? Gratitude for the invasion?”
“No. I don’t think so. They are the men we call ‘gueules cassées,’ or ‘broken faces.’ We also say, ‘mutilés.’ They are veterans of the last war who suffered horribly disfigured faces in combat, as well as other wounds like missing limbs. I saw many when I was in England. They had masks made at a hospital in London that had a department the Tommies called the ‘The Tin Noses Shop.’”
“So, these men went to England for their masks?”
“No, no. Paris. But that’s why they wanted to shake your hand.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The person who made their masks was an American woman who studied the process in London, then moved to France. Her name was Madame Ladd.”56
“So, it wasn’t because of the Normandy landings?”
“Maybe some of that, but mostly gratitude for their other American, their mask-maker.”
“What are they drinking?”
“Pastis,”57 replies Abbé Basc. “And those are bamboo straws which they must always use because of the masks. But now, please follow me.” He leads us through a side alley into a field behind the rectory. In the sky, the sunlight appears as crepuscular rays fanning out from the cloud bottoms. It is the kind of light often called God rays. And on the land, long shadows stretch from right to left across the field, ten times longer than the pines casting them are tall. The sun, peeking through a break in the clouds, appears about to be impaled by the serrated tops of the trees at the western edge of the field.
After a brief intermission, the rain begins again. On the other end of the field is a stone barn with a red tile roof. The stones appear pink in the slanting sunlight. As he strides ahead of us, wheezing with the exertion, bent over to avoid dropping the cottons and linens held tightly to his chest, Abbé Basc says, “That barn belongs to Madame Esclarmonde Cazenave. As you can perhaps tell from her name, she and her husband come from ancient Occitan stock. She speaks French, Occitan and English. It was she who, in former times, taught me English at the local school. Her husband and two young sons were killed by the Boche last year when they tried to stop the devils from taking their sheep. Now she lives alone.”
The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Page 20
