The Last Summer of the World

by Emily Mitchell

  “They are saying you’ll be ready to go soon,” she said, “if you continue to improve.” She was speaking in whispers so as not to wake the men in the beds around them. “You’ll be able to go back to Épernay. Maybe by the end of the week. Isn’t that good news?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I guess it is.” She pulled her feet onto the chair, so she was sitting with her knees crooked in front of her. He remembered: she used to sit like that to draw. He savored the familiarity of the posture, felt grateful to her for this small way of being as she had always been.

  “You don’t sound very certain about that,” she said. Then, looking him directly in the eye: “Are you afraid?”

  “Of what?”

  “When you are flying, are you frightened?”

  “Oh no,” he said without hesitation. “Once we’re off the ground, I’m not afraid, because it doesn’t seem real. I mean, you are flying, so it feels like a dream.” As he spoke, the image of that last German plane diving down toward them formed in his mind. How he had watched it loop around and begin its descent, gathering speed as it came toward them.

  “But you aren’t afraid of falling? Even in dreams I remember that I might fall.”

  “I only think of that during takeoff. Once you feel the force of the air, how strong it is, you can’t feel afraid anymore.”

  “Well, you can’t,” she said. He saw her smile. “I am quite certain most people could find it well within their ability to be stricken with terror.”

  “Maybe,” he said. He was thinking about the German pilot; how, as the plane got closer, he could see the features of his face; all except the eyes, blanked out by goggles.

  “It is not like that for most of the men,” Marion said. “They are afraid all the time in the trenches. They don’t say it, because they don’t want to sound like cowards. But you can tell. It’s the way they clench their teeth when they talk about it. They’ve seen so many people die right in front of them. If the pain isn’t too bad, they can hardly hide how pleased they are to be injured.”

  “If you fly,” Edward said, “people just disappear. They are there and then they are gone the next day. You never see them again. It is almost as if they have just walked away and decided not to tell you where they are going.” He was thinking of the moment when he had opened fire into the face of the German pilot. He saw the propeller shattering, the windscreen shattering, the face shattering. I have no hatred for Germans as individual men, he’d written to his sister, months ago before he left America. All I want to do is record this war, so that people will know what it is really like. He shut his eyes, but the image of the pilot’s face did not go away.

  When he opened them again, Marion was watching him, her expression full of curious sadness. He reached up and twisted his fingers into her hair and through it until he could hold her face cupped in his hand.

  “If you were afraid,” she said, “I wouldn’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t think less of you for it.”

  TWO DAYS LATER, Edward was told he was well enough to leave. He stopped to see Tom Cundall before he did. When Edward opened the door of his room, Cundall was propped up in bed, and at first glance it seemed as if he weren’t badly hurt. In greeting, he made what was meant to be a nod, but really was just a flick of the eyes.

  “I don’t move much at the moment,” he explained. “Everything hurts.”

  “Well, don’t try.” Edward walked over to the side of the bed. The room was small, reserved for serious injuries—it contained only one other bed and that was empty and stripped. Cundall saw Edward look at it.

  “Had two fellows through there already,” he said. “One of ’em left yesterday afternoon. Only here for a night. Boche shell took his nose off. Made me quit my complaining pretty damn quick, that’s for sure.”

  From up close, Cundall’s face was framed by bruising that spread up his back and neck like an ink blot. At the edges it was turning violet and eerie yellow. He grimaced as he shifted his weight a little so he could look directly at Edward.

  “I know about Marchand,” he said.

  “Our orders said to go and investigate anything unusual on the ground,” Edward said. He didn’t feel it was his place to mete out blame, or to dispense forgiveness. “The photographs he took may turn out to be useful.”

  Cundall suddenly gritted his teeth and closed his eyes as the shadow of pain passed through him. “It comes and goes in waves,” he said. He opened them again. “You’re getting out of here, sir?”

  “Just got my release papers. I’m going to get a train back to Épernay today.”

  “Well, good for you. They say I’ll be here for a while, and then they’ll send me away to convalesce somewhere further from the front. In any case, I won’t be flying again for a long time, if at all.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Edward said.

  “Oh no,” Cundall said. In his voice was a trace of his old cockiness. “Don’t be sorry, sir. I’m not.”

  EDWARD TURNED DOWN the offer of a car, and instead he and Marion walked into town to the station. As they went, he tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it and said: “We aren’t allowed to do that. Nurses, I mean. They have rules. If one of the matrons saw us holding hands, there would be trouble for me.”

  As his condition had improved, she had pulled away from him again. Her initial relief at finding him alive had been supplanted by wariness, as though she’d remembered the difficult history they shared, the reasons why she should keep distance between them. He wanted to shake her and say, not here, not now, after all that we have been through, surely those things can be set aside. But he did not dare for fear that she would shut him out completely.

  They were early for the train, so they decided to get a cup of coffee while they waited. When they entered the station café, she chose a table where they sat opposite one another, not side by side. And so sitting there, with his hands by his sides, and her not quite close enough to touch, he decided he might as well question her about Clara. It was partly revenge for her coldness. But she responded so calmly, he realized she’d been waiting all along for him to ask.

  “In the autumn last year, when I first arrived in France, I went to see Clara in Voulangis. The thought of working in a hospital, of caring for the wounded, made it seem important to go and try to talk to her one more time.

  “She wouldn’t see me.”

  “What do you mean, she wouldn’t see you?”

  “I had written to tell her I wanted to visit, and I’d heard nothing back. I should have left it at that, but I didn’t. I went to your house anyway. It was Kate who let me in. When I asked if Clara was there, she told me her mother wasn’t feeling well.” She hesitated and looked at him questioningly. “Should I tell you this?” she asked.

  “I asked you about it.”

  “Kate remembered who I was but not very well—to children that young, three years is like a lifetime. I asked if she would tell Clara that I was there, and she said her mother was sleeping and didn’t like to be woken up, but that I could come in and wait if I wanted. There was a fire going; the room seemed well kept. We sat beside it and I asked her about how things were for them. She said she was going to school and she liked it, but she didn’t like all the soldiers in the town or the noise that they could hear from the guns. She missed Mary, she said. I asked her if she got letters from you. She said no.”

  “I wrote to her every week.”

  “Then she changed her mind and said yes, but that her mother didn’t like it when letters came from you, so she often threw them away without reading them.

  “We talked for a while and then Clara came down. She told me to leave. She would not listen to anything I had to say. Rather than make a scene in front of Kate, I did as she said.”

  “Kate—how did she seem to you?”

  “Well, she looked to be in good health, energetic and talkative. She seemed grown-up for her age. It was like talking to an adult, someone who was used to taking care of things for others. I wan
ted to help her. I asked her if she needed anything, if I should return and visit them again. She shook her head and said no, that there was nothing they needed and I definitely shouldn’t come back. A few months later I heard that they had returned to America. Then in May, I received the letter from the lawyer.”

  Her hands fidgeted with the napkin beneath her cup of coffee.

  “In retrospect, it was a foolish thing to do, going there, disturbing them like that, an unwelcome face from the past. But I wanted to try. I wanted to see Clara, to find out if there was anything left of our friendship that could be salvaged. I didn’t do it to make life more difficult for anyone. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” He reached over and took her hand. She let him.

  She said: “It seems to be my usual trick: good intentions paving the road to somewhere unpleasant. Perhaps I should stop having such good intentions all the time.”

  Outside, there was the sound of pistons and the shrill whistle of an approaching train.

  “There it is,” Marion said. “You’d better take your bags out.”

  “When can I see you again?” Edward asked.

  “I have leave due at the end of the month. But if there is a big push, it will be canceled. I’ll write to you.”

  She offered him her hand and he took it. They stood looking at each other. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned forward and kissed him quickly, hesitantly, on the lips. He caught her face in his hands and kissed her again, this time for longer and more deeply. Outside, the whistle blew.

  “You’d better go,” she said. “They don’t stop for long at each station. Go on.”

  “Will you come with me to the platform?”

  “No. I don’t think I can manage that. I’ll stay here.”

  “OK.” He picked up his kit bag from the floor beside him and made his way to the train.

  He was settled by the window of the carriage when he saw her come out of the café and go to the edge of the platform. Almost at a run she made her way down the cars until she found him. She put her fingertips on the glass and he put his on the other side, so that their hands were mirror images of each other. Then the train began to move.

  AT THE ÉPERNAY airfield, the men were getting ready for a new German offensive. They did not know when it would come, only that it would happen soon. There were more American troops than before in this part of the front. They had taken over some sectors from the French: the 26th Division had replaced the 2nd Division between Vaux and Torcy; the 3rd Division was still deployed near Courthiézy; and the 369th Infantry was to the east of Reims. Other smaller units of Americans were mixed in among the French up and down the line. As soon as Edward arrived back, van Horn called him into his office.

  “We drew up a report based on those photographs Marchand took and sent it to Major Barnes at Chaumont,” the colonel said. “He passed it on to General Mitchell, who found it extremely impressive. His office telephoned several days ago and recommended you and Lieutenant Lutz for promotions. Major Barnes is being transferred back to the States to oversee training operations there. You will replace him as head of the Photography Division; Lutz will go with you as your assistant. You’ll also be attached to General Mitchell’s staff at Colombey-les-Belles and promoted to the rank of major. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Mitchell asked that you report to his office as soon as you are ready.”

  “Who will run things here during this next push?”

  “Lieutenant Dawson was covering your duties while you were incapacitated. He’ll just continue to do so on a more permanent footing.”

  “Well,” Edward said, “this is good news.”

  “Yes, isn’t it just?” van Horn said. “A nice, safe desk job, just at the right time … When can you be ready to leave?”

  “By tomorrow if necessary,” Edward said, trying to sound unfazed. He would not allow van Horn to goad him.

  “Good,” the colonel said. “I’ll arrange a car to take you over there, first thing.”

  So this was how it worked, Edward reflected as he left the meeting and walked across the field toward the developing lab. The accumulated deaths of men added up to one useful (apparently, as van Horn said) piece of information, and the man in charge received a promotion. He had done nothing to deserve any special acclaim, nothing that Gilles Marchand and Daniels hadn’t done, nothing that Deveraux and Dawson didn’t do everyday. He was just the name on the top of the report. He hadn’t even written it. Lutz had.

  But he had to admit that van Horn was right about one thing: he was relieved at the thought of not having to go out there again, not having to see the men around him disappearing, and maybe one day himself being one of those who just didn’t come back. A nice, safe desk job. Van Horn had known what he was feeling, had seen in his face the longing to be out of danger—because of course the colonel must have felt it too when he was offered his promotion, his nice, safe desk job.

  Edward went into the lab. It was almost empty at this hour, when most of the men were at breakfast. He sat down and began looking through the stacks of photographs from the days he had been away. There was the countryside of the Marne, miniaturized and far below him. He felt suddenly, strongly, that he wasn’t ready to leave yet. He wanted to stay at Épernay until this next battle was over. He knew that this attitude made no particular sense. He didn’t doubt Dawson’s ability to run things when his turn came. There was no reason his particular help was needed here by the men or by the army. Somebody else would do just as well, or as badly, as he would, because everyone in this war, including him, was replaceable.

  It was only that this place, for him, was not interchangeable with other places. Now he thought about this landscape as contours, obstacles and cover, places to hide and targets to destroy. But in that other life, the one that Marion recalled to him each time he saw her, he had loved this country for its beauty. The cover had been woods, the contours, hills, the obstacles had been rivers, shining in the summer sunlight of those last days of peace. If the attack was going to come south, toward his house, where all his memories were stored up in the photographs that he had left there, he wanted to stay until it was safe or until it was beyond saving.

  He went back to van Horn’s office, knocked and was admitted.

  “What is it, Steichen?”

  “I’d like to remain stationed at Épernay. Until this next offensive is over.”

  Van Horn stopped what he was doing. “What?”

  “I want to stay, even if it means passing up the transfer and promotion. For this next offensive. If it is possible.”

  “Well, I guess it can probably be arranged. You can stay here for a few weeks more and then go. But why would you want to do that? You’ve never seen a serious offensive before have you, Steichen? You don’t actually know what that is like. Don’t you want to think it over a little more, before you turn down this offer?”

  “No. Sir, I want to stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was my home.”

  Harvest. Voulangis, August 1914. Gum print.

  ON THE FRONT page of the morning paper is a photograph of men and women crowded around a station ticket office. They are well dressed, the sort of people whom you would see climbing out of taxis in front of a theater or strolling in the public gardens on Sunday afternoon, but in their eyes is a common look of mounting panic. Many of them have their mouths open, shouting. Some are waving tickets or other kinds of papers, hoping that these will be seen and recognized, that they will be enough to buy passage out of this city, and out of this country that is on its way to war. Above the picture is the headline, all in capitals: “RUSSIA TO MOBILIZE.”

  Edward has spread the paper out on the kitchen table and he is standing hunched over it, his hands planted on either side of its pages when Marion comes downstairs. Clara has gone out riding early in the morning, taking Mary with her. Arthur and Mercy have driven back to Paris two days previously, taking M
arion’s car to the city with them. Kate is outside in the garden. So it is only the two of them awake in the house. He turns toward the sound of her footsteps and beckons to her. She comes and peers over his shoulder to the newspaper headline and the photograph below it.

  Her eyes click back and forth along the lines of print. Soldiers moving to the border with Austria. Railways and roads commandeered for military use in a time of national emergency. In Moscow, Czar Nicholas reviews rows of saluting troops. Foreigners flock to the stations and ports looking for passage out by rail or by sea. As she reads, the color drains from her face; he sees it go, sees fear take root in its place, as though it were an infection, caught from the faces in the photograph.

  “My poor mother …” she says, without moving her eyes off the page.

  “I’m sure that they are all right,” he says. “They are in the capital, far away from the border.” He tries to keep his voice steady. Marion looks at him. She nods.

  “Yes, I know. They are far away from it all.” She doesn’t sound convinced.

  “If you know their hotel, you can cable them from the mairie. I’ll drive you into town.” He sits on the table, facing her. She is on the verge of tears.

  “I …” she says. “I …” But she cannot seem to find anything to complete the sentence. Instead, she looks back at the newspaper, squints at it as though this will allow her to see through the lines of newsprint to what is not written, to the future. Her eyes flutter over the page like trapped birds. He wants to do something to comfort her, embrace her, but he is hesitant to touch her.

  “Yes,” she says more definitely. “Yes. Take me into town. I’ll send them a telegram. If I send it now, they may be able to reply today. That is, if the wires aren’t too busy … I’ll get my coat.”

  When he pulls the dogcart around to the front of the house, she is waiting outside.

  “I told Louisa to keep an eye on Kate,” she says as she climbs up. “I told her we wouldn’t be long.” Her self-possession has returned. Only a slight hesitation before each sentence gives away that anything is out of the ordinary. And this: When she climbs onto the seat beside him, she reaches out and takes his hand. She doesn’t look at him as she does it, but she takes it and holds it, and they ride to town like this.