by David Leroy
In the hotel lobby a woman screamed “Robert!” Then the teenager on the train turned and screamed back. Marc understood them speaking in French. She was Robert’s sister.
No one called out Marc’s name. He checked the list to see if the Jackson family had arrived, but he could not find them among the names.
“Name?”
“Marc Tolbert.”
“This will be your room, and here are the instructions.”
“I can’t stay here. Neither can my friend Yves. He is outside. Is there another place?”
“Oh. Yes, I understand. We have had other requests. Let me go and check what can be done.”
Marc walked back outside and found Yves and Jacques, with Jacques’ family. After a small conversation, he went back inside the hotel.
“We have other places, but they are full. In a few days we can move you. I am sorry, but you will need to stay here for the next few nights. If there is a room that you wish to avoid, perhaps we can do something,” the clerk said.
“No need. We have a place now for a few nights. But we’ll take the other location when it becomes open.”
“Excellent. Here are your papers and Yves’.”
To celebrate, Marc and Jacques went out for a drink and smoke at a local café. Yves came in a bit later and joined them. Marc continued to eat whatever was given to him, and ordered more. He rolled in satisfaction, so happy for the glorious food.
“Marc, you should be careful. Remember what they told us,” Yves said.
“It is no use. I’ve tried. He is like a goat now?” Jacques said.
A group of British soldiers sat close to Marc and his friends. The soldiers broke out into a chorus of singing.
“Roll out the barrel…” Marc felt as if he’d been shot in the chest. The lyrics pierced his mind and he started to feel nauseated.
“Roll out the barrel and we’ll have a barrel of fun,” the voices terrorized Marc. It was more horrible than any of the bombs or guns during the war. His legs began to shake, and his stomach knotted into a ball.
“Roll out the…” Marc ran from the table, hand clamped over his mouth. Shooting cramps ripped through his stomach as he doubled over. He reached the bathroom just in time to vomit into the toilet. Marc heaved violently, coughing up blood into the bowl, as his entire body shivered.
Yves came running for him. “Marc, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“Make them stop, please for the love of fucking God, make them stop singing, please…,” he pleaded.
“Marc, you’re bleeding.” Yves then ran back to Jacques. “He’s bleeding and vomiting up blood. He has gone mad.”
“We need to get him to the hospital,” Jacques said, getting up from the table. He followed the voices singing in the bar, finding one of the soldiers.
“Can you stop singing for a moment? My friend is very sick and needs some help. Can you help us take him to the hospital?”
September, 1967
Saint-Nazaire, France
“Please be seated,” Jacques said to the gathering by the graveside.
“We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Marc Tolbert. Born 1918 in Paris, France, to Eldon Tolbert and Lynette Bonnet of Paris, at the end of World War One.”
“He grew up with his family in New York, and in 1939, returned to Paris for studies. Marc never returned to America, but stayed in France after the war and switched his studies to medicine, becoming a doctor for the American Hospital in Paris. As you know, he passed away May 3, 1967, of cancer. He is survived by his sister, Elda, who is here with us today from California,” Jacques said, smiling and looking out toward the gathering.
“Marc asked me if I would be so kind to deliver some words for him today, and I, of course, agreed. I met Marc in 1943 in Paris, during difficult times. He was in need of some help, and I was in need of helping some people. His name at that time was “Winoc,” but among friends it was always “Marc.” I asked him if there was anything he would like me to say today, and I will do my best to pass on his wishes.” Then Jacques’ voice changed slightly.
“First, we become our decisions over time. We choose to love, or we can choose to hate. We can choose to forgive, or we can choose to take revenge; to have hope, or we can choose to fall into despair. But, regardless, we become our choices we make over time,” Jacques said. The words were true, he thought, but how difficult for people to accept.
“Second, the tests in life reveal to us who we are becoming in this world. Each of us faces tests in this world and when they come to us, they are like a light from which there is no escape,” Jacques paused, pondering the words and then added, “In that light, you will discover what kind of person you are becoming by the choices you make. Be grateful if you do not like what you see, for you have been given a chance now to change your choices.” He noticed that his voice came back to him with an unexpected tone, as if he were speaking toward trees or hills.
“Third, there are no shortcuts. You cannot cheat these tests, swap, or trade them with others. You are the only one who can pass them,” Jacques said, completing what Marc had spoken to him before he passed. But the words seemed incomplete to him, alluding to something more as he stood in front of the gathering.
“There are those who believe that faith, hope, and love are things we do, in order to lead blessed lives. They are like tricks that earn us a prize from God, such as an easy life. If we play the tricks just right, we will be blessed with love, find riches, and be successful.” Jacques remembered the precise morning the bill came due for his tricks on the Nazis when they came to arrest him.
“It is not true. Faith, hope, and love are states of being, and when you are these states of being combined in one moment, you can pass any test that life may bring to you, even the test of when it is your time to stand for your own death.” Jacques felt as if he had found the note he was searching for.
“Marc knew this, I am sure, because he practiced it in so many ways, before, during, and after the war. I will miss him, as I am sure all of you will. He was a living example of the type of light you would need in dark places such as Buchenwald.” Jacques could not shake the feeling that his voice had bounced off something larger, just beyond the small gathering.
Chapter 46
June, 1945
Paris, France
“Son, would you like to pray?” the priest asked as he stood over Marc in the hospital. Marc awoke startled from a deep dream. “Would you like to pray?”
“No, I’m resting now,” Marc whispered.
“It would be good for you to pray, son. When was the last time you confessed your sins?” the priest pressed, his stare cold. Marc’s body tensed in the bed. He wanted the priest to leave.
“Confession—when was your last confession?” the priest asked impatiently in French.
“I have no sins to confess to your god,” Marc said. The priest looked perplexed by the answer.
“Son, we all have sinned and fallen short of God. Now, please, I am busy and have come to pray over you.”
“Which camp were you in?” Marc asked like a child.
“I was not in any of the camps. Why does that matter?”
“I no longer need your prayer.”
“Are you turning your back on God?”
“No, but I don’t need you to tell me how to feel, or when to pray.”
“So, you are a Jew,” the priest said with a smirk.
“I did not say that.”
“It is a pity that you did not learn the fear of God from your experience,” the priest said, smacking his prayer book back into his hand. The words struck Marc as wholly out of touch with any idea of God.
Marc watched the cleric leave the room. He sat up in bed. At first, he was irate at the rudeness of the encounter, but soon he started to laugh.
“I thought he was going to stuff the prayer book down my throat. The nuns back at my school would have smacked me silly.”
Jacques walked into the room, his arm
looped through Yves’. “I hear you are feeling well today. Soon you will be out of here,” he said as he greeted Marc.
“I was close, real close, Jacques. It was scary there for a moment,” Marc said, his voice relaxed.
“I was worried. You were close, and it scared me quite a bit,” Yves said.
“Yves, is this the end of your grand silence?” Marc asked.
“Yes. I’m still not sure of what I will do now, but my silence is over.”
“Are you returning to your old parish?” Jacques asked.
“No. I can’t do that now. I no longer have a parish. I’m not like the one who just left, at least not anymore. Marc, did you pass through to the other side?”
“It was so odd. Two of me stood on either side of the bed and they would watch me at night. If I started to breathe funny, they would then move in as if they were going to take me away. I watched them all night, but then I had a dream, and they were gone when I awoke.” Marc’s face showed fear mixed with wonderment. It was as if he could not quite believe himself.
“What kind of dream?” Jacques asked, his curiosity piqued.
“It was real. I mean, it felt as real as this right now. But it was nothing like this place at all. I think I really did die,” Marc said looking up towards them from his bed.
“What was it like?” Jacques asked.
“Beautiful, It was beautiful,” he then paused and said, “but, I’m worried for Dr. Jackson. I’m not sure if he made it.”
“Why is that?” Yves asked.
“He was in the dream, and I think he drowned,” Marc said.
“That is amazing. Philip has returned. I checked back on your friends and he told me the same thing. I was not going to tell you but it appears your friend already did tell you himself. We really are all connected in some way,” Yves said to Marc.
Upon his release from the hospital, Marc walked with Jacques down to a new café. He had enough strength, and had regained his ability to hold down food, so he felt confident the typical small portions from the French café would not challenge his stomach.
Marc, Jacques, and Yves sat outside, in the July sun of 1945. They talked about their post-war plans. Jacques wanted to go back to school and become a professor. Yves decided he would return to school, but still did not know exactly what would replace the priesthood.
“I think I’m going back to medical school, but first I need to pass my baccalaureate here,” Marc then said.
“So, not back in the States?” Jacques pressed him.
“No, you heard me. I’m staying here,” Marc said intently.
The waitress came over to take their order, and it was Marie. She looked down at the pad of paper on her tray, and after a moment, looked up at the three men. She smiled at Yves and Jacques, but her face changed as she looked at Marc.
“Is your name Marie?” Marc asked, knowing for certain that the answer was yes. A storm then rose up inside of him. He was hit with so many thoughts at once, he struggled to find a single one to follow.
“No, my name is Brigitte.”
“How odd. You look so much like a woman I met in ’39. Her name was Marie. Perhaps you know her?” Marc pressed, knowing it was her, maintaining eye contact as her eyes avoided his.
“I am sorry. I do not know any “Marie.” Are you ready to order?”
Jacques and the Yves ordered, and then Marc said, “I will have some pigeon, if you have it.”
“Fine, I will check for you,” she said, her voice punctuated, her face strained with tension. Her eyes glanced quickly down to the left as she turned away.
“Is that her? Your voice tells me so,” Jacques said.
“Yes, of course it is her. I would know her anyplace. And that lying voice, well, of course it is her.”
“Who? Who is she?” Yves asked Marc.
Marc fell deep into thought. It was as if nothing existed around him. He could see nothing but blackness and then the flame of a match touching a candle. The light of the flame revealed her face, and he was sitting at a table across from her. A lovely plate of roasted bones sat on the table in front of him. He wanted to eat those bones. He was hungrier for those bones than even the bread or extra soup, or chicken, or any other food.
“She was once pretty. Not so much now,” Marc said, distracted by the scene in his mind. Jacques kept silent, the words passing over him.
The light revealed to Marc that they were in a room of bones. Bones stacked up all around him, just like they were in sheds at Buchenwald. Marc’s mouth watered for them. Marie stared at him with a wanting smile.
The bones talked and had names. Marc knew the bones and hated her for it.
“Was she a girlfriend? Did you leave her?” Jacques asked again, but Marc wasn’t listening to him.
Marc’s soul shuddered to eat. He wanted that plate, the roasted bones of revenge. He wanted to eat for what happened to Allen, Georges, Jean, and the Jacksons.
“Just be honest with yourself. You are doing it for them, whom you could not save,” Joan’s words came from behind the bones.
Marc froze. How old am I? He saw three lives, like precious eggs in a basket. He saw the egg he had before the war, then the egg of the war. He gazed last at the final egg, for his life now before him. How old am I now?
The screaming man on the radio kept his promise, Marc thought. It was a thousand-year reign. It was even more than a thousand years. Every day in the second egg was a year. Marc was only twenty-six, yet felt the weight of a thousand years in his soul. The second egg was denser than lead.
“If you are someplace you never expected to be, always remember it is due to your choices.” It was the officer from 1940, before Marc returned to Paris. He heard the officer’s voice snake from deep within the wall of bones.
Marie stared at him, smiling. He could feel her wanting him to eat. She had brought him to this lovely dinner to dine, to feast upon revenge. She wanted him to have these tender roasted bones. Marc knew if he tasted this dish, she would have his third life.
Marc bent down toward the flame, taking it up in his breath, and then blew it out completely.
“Marc, Marc, are you listening?” Jacques touched his arm. “Are you there, Marc?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Marc said calmly.
“She had a lot of fear in her voice. Do you think you are going to say anything?” Jacques asked.
“There is nothing to be done. Nothing would be changed by it, Jacques. No one would be brought back,” he said as he thought of Jean in the boxcar. Pointing the finger at Marie would never raise Georges from the ashes, he thought. Allen would not be brought up from the sands of the beach, and the Jacksons would not be saved by it now.
“Did you love her? Sometimes it is hard to let go of love when there is no closure. It is easier to let go of the person than the dream,” Yves asked innocently. Marc knew he was quite unaware of who Marie was to Marc.
Marc’s leg bounced. He knew inside that he did love her, but also knew that this was not the woman he’d met in ’39. She was a ghost, and he could not love a ghost. Yves was right. It is harder to let go of the dream of someone than the flesh.
“Yes, I did at one time, but she changed, as have I. We are not the same people we were when we first met,” Marc said.
“That does happen,” Yves said.
“Marc, why don’t you share your vision with us?” Jacques then asked.
“It is just a dream, Jacques, not a vision,” Marc smiled.
“It is a vision, Marc,” Jacques insisted.
Just then, a second waiter returned with their order. “Where did the woman go?” Marc asked.
“Oh, she needed to use the restroom,” the waiter said dryly.
Chapter 47
June, 1945
Paris, France
Marie walked quickly back inside the café and then up to the bar. “Can you take this out, please? I need to use the restroom,” she asked the bartender. He looked a bit shocked by her request, but let it go as
she walked away toward the restroom.
She shut the door and turned the lock to make sure it was secure. Her heart pounded in her chest. She was sweating and had become nauseated with fear. Marie turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face pale, she realized Marc would say something, and that meant arrest followed by a trial. Her mind raced through the faces of those who would be drawn down upon her. She had seen the same thing play out over and over again in the past year. Others—war criminals—noted in the papers, imprisoned at Drancy.
Marie lifted the toilet lid and vomited into the bowl. She continued to heave over and over again until there was nothing left in her stomach.
They were no longer content to just shave heads. That was all just games when Liberation came in the summer of ’44. Now, the people wanted lives. People knew where their loved ones had gone once they were shipped off to Germany. She started to cry, even as her stomach continued to heave up empty air. A total and complete curtain of dread fell upon her from the ceiling.
She scanned her memories. The entire war started to flash in her mind. The images and emotions raced through her consciousness.
Then she found the curve. Her mind’s eye fell into the rut as wide and deep as the British Channel. Marie held it in her mind, tenderly, with love.
A new wave of sorrow overtook her as she cried. She cried harder than any other time in her life. She cried out all of her pain into the rut of her memory.
“We are going to leave soon on the train, but we need food, Marie. The market is open, since there have been no raids,” her mother said to her. Her mother’s face was beautiful, and she could touch it. “Can you meet us in the market, and then we will walk to the station?” she then asked. Marie could see her father, sister, and brother in the background. They all looked healthy and safe.
She cried and cried looking at them. They were always with her, less than a second away. She always could come back to this moment and see them, the last moment she saw them alive.
“Tell Annette hello, and we will meet you at the market,” her mother said.
