Women's Barracks

by Tereska Torres

  It seemed to me that the God in whom he trusted so obscurely, and whose face he had never seen, was perhaps rather a yearning in his spirit than a belief.

  He thought of Ursula and wanted to weep over her, for she was so young, and so hungry for love, and for knowledge, and for happiness. What did he have to give her? He thought of Ursula's friends. He thought of all of us—young women in search of love and of happiness, and in the end, what could we have? What hope was there for us in a world bent on self-destruction?

  And yet, he said, none of us made great demands. What strange confidence we had in this life that ceaselessly deceived us! For we wanted to live, and we were satisfied with our little ersatz loves and with our few years of difficult life, which would in the end lead only to death. And then our children would begin the whole thing all over again.

  Yes, Michel was very young, and pessimistic sometimes to the point of melancholy. I thought at the time that, like all of us, he would grow less heavyhearted with age. But his pessimism was more profound than the general unhappiness of the young in the face of mankind's inhumanity. "I am a hypocrite," Michel declared. "I ought to cry out the truth, tell all of you what I really think, tell everyone of my inner despair. Of what use is it that I, too, should lie to you, and Ursula, and Mickey, and Jacqueline? Instead of saying what is true, I talk to you about the future, about love, about reconstruction and peace, when I don't really believe in that at all. And you have faith in me. It's shameful."

  If there were only a man, a man like Christ, he cried out. If only once more there would be such a miracle, that a man would rise up and speak to the multitude as Christ had spoken! But even that—what use would it be?

  Christ had spoken and his disciples had betrayed him and his church had been betraying him for centuries, and his brethren the Jews would not even recognize him as one of their own, as their greatest teacher. And all this too was part of the immense comedy that had been playing in the world since time immemorial.

  Michel felt that he had no right to deceive Ursula about his inner beliefs, and yet he loved her, he wanted her to be happy. At least he could give her a short while of happiness.

  The evening arrived gently, stealing in through the window and covering Michel's books. There was a knock at the door, and Ursula entered, looking at him with her limpid eyes. Michel took her in his arms, pressing her against him.

  I knew that this was somehow to protect himself as well as her, somehow to keep himself from showing her his deepest bitterness. I knew too that he drew force from her, against his wish for death.

  She said, "Michel, Michel, I'm happy!"

  He smiled gently, kissing her girlish round cheeks, caressing her long glossy hair. In Ursula's eyes I could read an elation that said, he can do anything! He will do great things! And in Michel's eyes there was the effort of all humanity, it seemed to me, to try to live.

  As I saw them together, something unknotted in me. I wanted to cry, and at the same time I knew that I was healed of all the doubt and fear that had come into me through these years of living in the barracks. Mickey's marriage had seemed to me to contain mostly the excitement of war. But these were the pure in heart. I would no longer be ashamed of seeking what was pure. I knew that someday I might hope to feel love like theirs, and I could wait.

  Chapter 39

  The first of June brought a response from Ursula's mother. It was a strange, disconnected letter written in a disorderly handwriting, nervous and irregular. She wished her daughter great happiness, and at the same time warned her against marriage. Men were all egotists, she said; they were all cruel and untrustworthy. As for herself, she was quite ill, but she was feeling better since she had been seeing a noted psychoanalyst. She described her luxurious life in California without ever asking whether her daughter was in need of anything. In closing, she .said that she adored Ursula and was sure that she would be happy. "But do be sensible, dear, and don't have any children," she added.

  The next day, Michel submitted his marriage request to the Army.

  On the morning of June third, he telephoned Ursula at the barracks. He was at a railway station. He had just received his orders, and had to leave within half an hour. He thought it was for maneuvers and that he would be back in a week. He loved her and would write to her as soon as he could.

  Ursula was not particularly disconcerted by this sudden departure. She was used to the ways of the Army, and counted on seeing Michel the following week.

  The weather was magnificent. At lunch hour our little group went to take sun baths in Hyde Park. We rolled down our stockings, removed our ties, and rolled up our shirt sleeves. Sheep moved among the trees, cropping the grass. Ursula read to us from a book of poetry.

  I had a very early errand in Mickey's office. Uncle Henry was already there, perspiring in huge drops before a pile of letters that he was answering. As I waited for some documents, he received a steady procession of visitors at an accelerating tempo, under the indifferent eye of the sentry. From time to time an explosion was heard, but no one paid any attention. It was only another V-2 (for now there were also V-2's). Everyone was buried in the daily routine and life was relatively calm.

  Suddenly there was a strange siren—one we had never heard before. A red-faced lieutenant burst into the room. At the same moment we all knew. We all cried out together, "They've landed!”

  "In Normandy! At home!"

  "The invasion!"

  "They've landed!"

  We had known in the last days that it was coming, and yet we had not known, for we had known it for so many years. Uncle Henry's face broke out into a great grin of relief, and he sweated more profusely than ever, for now at last he could confess that he had been in on the secret—a few in our services had been briefed. The lieutenant pounded him on the back. Mickey came in just then, late, with a dazed, uncomprehending expression, and we all fell on her, hugging her. "They've landed!"

  It was an unforgettable day. When I went out, the English stopped me in the street, shaking my hand and crying, "Vive la France!" People walked with their faces radiant. French sailors crossed Piccadilly singing. American soldiers bought rounds of drinks for the English, and there was joy everywhere. The second front! The second front in which no one had believed any more, so long awaited on both sides of the Channel. Finally it was true! People were happy, as though the war were already over.

  In the street, people tore the newspapers out of each other's hands. When I got back to our newsroom I found everyone clustered around the radio. The British and Americans were already advancing on the roads of Brittany and Normandy. The Germans were in retreat. The Maquis was fighting in the interior of France. The FFI had occupied German barracks, and the population everywhere was in revolt.

  I didn't see Ursula until that evening. So this was why Michel had left so quickly. Now we understood. Ursula was pale and nervous, but during dinner in Down Street she, like everyone else, talked of nothing but the invasion.

  We realized that we would all soon be leaving to work with the Army, driving trucks and helping in all sorts of tasks in makeshift headquarters under the hazards of war. There was a general fever. Who would be the lucky ones to be the first to leave? What would be their jobs? Certain of the girls assumed airs of importance and whispered that in their offices they had been promised immediate embarkation.

  That night there was dancing in the barracks, and the noise became intolerable. Finally some of us went up to the dormitories. Monique was meticulously packing her suitcase so as to be ready to leave at an instant's notice. Ursula sat down on her bed and began to take off her stockings. Suddenly she jumped up and went running out of the room.

  Worried, I followed her to the bathroom, and found her throwing up her entire dinner. I told her not to be worried, that it was the emotion of the day. But Ursula looked at me with her large eyes and said quite simply that she was going to have a baby. It was just the sort of news to learn on this day!

  Ursula had already suspe
cted it for a week. That afternoon she had been to see a doctor. He had told her that he could not yet be certain, but that it was more than likely that she was pregnant.

  I said all that I could find to say. That it was wonderful, and that she should let Michel know right away, and perhaps he would be able to come back on compassionate leave, and they could be married.

  Chapter 40

  Ursula received a postcard from Michel, sent from an English port before his departure. It contained his new military address, to which Ursula wrote every day.

  In Down Street, packing cases were being hammered closed. Everyone was preparing to leave, and some of the privileged had already left. Petit was among the first to go, to serve as a liaison officer right at the front. We now spent all our lives glued to the radio or scrutinizing the newspapers.

  We passed an agitated week. All of us were so unnerved that we quarreled for no reason whatever. One felt that the Down Street period was coming to an end.

  At the Carleton Gardens headquarters, bags were being packed, files were being burned, cases of documents were carried off. And every day officers left to join the active forces, while the entire GHQ was getting ready to move.

  During the noon hour we all went to the newsreel theatre to see the American tanks advancing on the roads of France. We watched our own people, the people of France, throwing flowers to the Americans, and we saw our villages in ruins.

  About two weeks after the opening of the second front I happened to be on Buckingham Road, passing the Polish headquarters, when I saw one of Michel's friends from the office to which he had been attached. The young man said to me, "You know the news?"

  I felt a sort of contraction in my heart, for the Polish soldier's face was grave.

  "Michel was killed" on the first day, during the landing. He got sixteen bullets in him while he was running to help another fellow who was wounded. His body was recovered. He's buried there, at Falaise, in Normandy."

  I could scarcely keep from bursting into tears right there in the middle of the street. Ursula, poor Ursula! Poor Michel!

  Once more I saw the round face, the great black eyes, the raised questioning brows, and the small plump form of Michel in his heavy khaki uniform. And I thought of all the things he had said to Ursula and Mickey and Jacqueline and me, about the future, and reconstruction, and the United Nations, the things he had not really believed in his heart. So he had been right. There was really only death, all death.

  Suddenly I thought again of Ursula and the baby. It was frightening. What should be done? The Polish sergeant told me that a letter addressed to Ursula had been found in Michel's pocket, and that his chief had received the letter and had just informed Down Street that morning.

  I had an important errand and couldn't get to the barracks. I had not been there for lunch, and I was afraid that Ursula might have been there and received the news. I hurried to Mickey's office. When I told her what had happened, she started to cry, soundlessly, weeping as we telephoned Down Street to find out if Ursula had come in for lunch. The sentry said no, and we concluded that Ursula could not yet have learned about Michel. We had the rest of the day to think of some way to protect her. We tried and tried to find a solution. It seemed to us that the child would be the only safeguard. She would have Michel's child to raise. Yes, there would be the child, and that would be a help for Ursula. It was life, it had to be accepted.

  At the same time, we simply could not bring ourselves to believe that the gentle Michel, the foe of all that was hateful, could have been killed—not that particular boy, immediately, in the forefront of the liberating army. Mickey said frantically that perhaps it was a mistake, that he was a prisoner, that the news was false. I could see that she had to doubt, she had to deceive herself, for if Michel were only the beginning of the list, if Peter too…

  Chapter 41

  Ursula had come to lunch at the barracks, after all. The sentry had not noticed her as she slipped in. Afterward, she, along with the rest of us, had to piece together what had happened.

  Immediately after lunch, our captain had called Ursula to her office.

  The Captain spoke very considerately, and Ursula said nothing. She did not cry. The Captain knew that she was to have married Michel, for the marriage request had passed through her office. But like nearly everyone else, she was ignorant of Ursula's pregnancy.

  Ursula was seated, her head lowered; her Hair covered her face almost entirely. Her hands tightly grasped her knees. The Captain told her to cry, that it would do her good to let herself go, but Ursula didn't answer and she didn't cry.

  There was a long silence, and the Captain could think of nothing else to do with this child whom she scarcely knew and with whom she had almost no contact. She told Ursula that she could have a week's leave, that she didn't have to report to her office, and that she could do whatever she liked. The Captain spoke also of the war, of the hundreds of young men sacrificing life and happiness that the world might be free of oppression, that there might be no more concentration camps, no more refugees on the roads, no more homeless, and no more blood spilled, so that peace and friendship should reign between nations. She no doubt said what everyone else would have said in her place.

  When Ursula sensed that the Captain had finished, she rose and went out. She seemed calm. The Captain reflected that the girl was quite young, and that the sorrows of love are transitory.

  Ursula went directly to the infirmary. No one was sick just then, and the infirmary beds were vacant. Ursula quietly asked the nurse for some aspirin.

  While the nurse went to get the aspirin, Ursula reached out her hand and took two vials of sleeping pills.

  Then she went down to the kitchen in the basement. It was about three o'clock, and no one was there. The kitchen was clean, with everything in order. Machou was in town, as were her assistants, for they were always at liberty between two and five o'clock.

  Ursula went to the cupboard, took a mug, went to the sink, poured water into it, and then emptied the contents of the two vials into the water. She took a spoon from a drawer and crushed the pills until they formed a white powder that floated in the water like a cloud in the sky.

  Ursula must have gone about her task methodically, as if it were only one more of her duties, one more thing that she had to do; for she left no disorder behind her when she finished her bitter drink. There was only the mug on the table, with the spoon beside it, and a little of the white powder at the bottom of the mug.

  She went upstairs to the Virgins' Room. How long she remained alone there no one knows. We know she was there, and that she must have been very calm, for afterward we found all her things neatly arranged together on her bed, as though she wanted to make everything as easy as she could for those of us she was leaving. Everything must have seemed quite natural and normal to her. Her life had begun with Michel, and now she was ending it with him. The future was already dead.

  When she left the barracks, she slipped out by the kitchen door, so as not to have to pass before the table at the entrance, where she herself had so often sat guard.

  After having telephoned the barracks, Mickey and I felt a momentary reprieve. We decided to get in touch with Ann, to help us break the news to Ursula. Ann was one of the most capable girls in the barracks, and we believed that her presence would have a steadying effect.

  I had to hurry to my office. I was able to telephone Ann during the afternoon. She took the news in her quiet, strong way, and saw at once that we would have to help Ursula support the shock. As I sometimes had to remain late at my office, Ann promised to be at the barracks before Ursula might receive the news from the Captain.

  All afternoon Mickey was worried and heartsick. It was almost as though the tragedy were her own, as though it were Peter who had been cut down. She had intended to meet Ann at the barracks after work, to be with Ursula, but instead she hurried to her little flat, with the panicky feeling that she would find some message there, some news of Peter. As Mickey hur
ried along, a young English aviator fell in beside her. "Bon jour, mademoiselle."

  Mickey gave him an automatic smile, and then walked on faster. She had no heart at all for flirtation; indeed, since her marriage she had been surprised at the change in herself, at the sense of respectability that had come over her. A married woman never responded to strangers on the street. She had flirted like that as a girl, but now the world was suddenly serious: she was married, her best friend's lover was dead, and there was no response in her to flirtation.

  There was no mail. Mickey went slowly upstairs. She dreaded the moment of solitude, of opening the door. She would fix herself a bit to eat, and then go to the barracks to find Ursula.

  As she climbed, she heard a record playing. It was Charles Trenet singing:

  "Je chante Soir et matin, Je chante

  Sur mon chemin…"

  Her heart began to beat wildly. She opened the door and rushed into the room. "Peter!"

  It was he. He had grown a beard, and looked somehow different, but it was really her Peter, big, handsome, smiling. His expression was grave and matured, as though years had passed, as though he were older. This was no longer the young lad whom Mickey had married, but a man.

  Mickey pressed herself to him while he kissed her arched lips. She studied his face, and a kind of pride spread through her. Yes, he was a man now.

  "Peter! How did you get here? How could you come back so soon? Oh, darling, I'm so happy!" she burbled half in English, half in French, covering him with kisses.

  Peter held her off a bit, the better to look at her. It was still difficult for him to believe that he had a wife, and such a beautiful wife. What times we'll have, skiing together in Norway! he thought. But in the same instant he felt the force of all he had just lived through. He saw himself clambering over a wall in the night, with his grenades belted around him; he saw himself in an icy river; he saw himself bending over a man's body. Peter closed his eyes. A great disgust welled in his throat. He saw the dead, all the dead bodies, the burned villages, the monstrous tanks pushing along the roads; he heard the shells exploding; and there was Eric, whom he loved as a brother, his childhood friend Eric, howling in pain, with his guts crowding out of his belly.