The Fire by Night

by Teresa Messineo

  “Good afternoon, madam.”

  Had she aged as much as that, in the war?

  “Good afternoon. May I speak to the lady of the house?” That was their line, what they were supposed to say.

  “The lady?” The servant’s voice betrayed the slightest hint of inflection.

  Jo swallowed. Her throat was dry.

  “Or the man of the house. Really, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Whom shall I say is calling?”

  “Lieutenant McMahon, United States Army.”

  He inspected her for another minute, examining her dress uniform carefully, as if she were a phony.

  “If you will step this way?”

  Jo had expected it to be dark and cool inside the colossal entryway, but it was flooded with light from above. Skylights shimmered in the full blast of the sun—on the panes of glass, on the ivory marble of the staircase, on the ornately carved tile work beneath her shoes, radiating out like a sun. Jo raised her hand to her eyes; the glare hurt them.

  “In here, madam.”

  Jo was grateful to be ushered into a comfortable library, dark and soothing to her spinning head. The servant brought Jo’s card—first carefully centered on a polished silver salver—over to an old man with bushy hair and even bushier eyebrows. He had been surveying a top row of books, craning his head back. Now he took the card, rubbing the small of his back through his tweed sports coat. He looked nothing like David. Maybe the address they had given her was wrong.

  “Lieutenant McMahon, sir.” The servant withdrew silently.

  “Hello, miss,” the old man said simply. “Will you sit down?”

  Was there the hint of a lilt in there? No, he had called her “miss,” not “lass,” he had said, “Will you sit down,” not, “Will ye.” She was imagining things. This was a mistake.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Jo sank into the cold softness of leather; there was a wooden blind blocking out the light from the garden—Jo could make out chinks of green and red and yellow in between the slats. There was something metal—or perhaps it was water—outside but it reflected the sun and she moved her head back and forth surreptitiously, trying to get away from its piercing light.

  “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “Water, please, sir.”

  “Just water? I thought perhaps brandy? Whisky?”

  “No thank you, sir. I’ve walked a great deal today. And it’s much hotter now than when I started.”

  So much more sun.

  “Of course.” He handed her a heavy crystal goblet, so unlike the small paper cups the Scots had given her on the happiest—on the saddest—day of her life.

  Jo sipped the water, but it tasted funny, like metal.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  Jo thought of the Scots she had met in the street and how they had wanted to help her too, how they had wanted her to find David, to marry him, to raise fine Scot boys who could raise hell like their father.

  “Miss?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Jo shook herself, as if trying to wake up. “I am an American Army nurse, and right now I am soliciting funds for the Allied Pacific campaign.”

  I have to get out of here, this is not David’s family. Even if it is, what am I to them? An interloper, a stranger, they owe me nothing. I am nothing.

  “You’re not acting as a nurse right now? I mean, here in London—”

  The door from the garden burst open, and two young people came barging in. The light was blinding, and Jo squinted painfully.

  “You certainly did nothing of the sort and you know it,” one was laughing.

  “I’ll beat you with a stick—” the young man threatened, and that seemed to delight the girl, who was laughing and hiding something behind her back.

  “Children—” the old man chided softly. “We have a guest.”

  The children who weren’t children but nearly as old as Jo came up short and looked shamefaced for a second before breaking into smiles.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” the girl said, beaming. “I’m so relieved, I thought you were Mrs. Youngblood or somebody awful like that. She does scold so. You look nice,” she ended ingenuously.

  “My niece,” the old man introduced, apologetically, “and one of her many admirers.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but ‘admirer’ my foot. This little whippersnapper of yours has—”

  “Now, children, children, you’re wearing out our guest. Katherine, go see if your mother can come down. Let her know we have a guest from the United States Army with us.”

  “No, not really, how exciting—” and their eyes grew wide and they were about to pounce on her, to hit her with a barrage of questions, but the girl’s uncle shooed them out of the room. He closed the door to the garden they had left open in their exuberance and pulled the cord of the blind so that the light slanted down, onto the Oriental carpet, away from her eyes.

  “Another glass of water? I know my dear sister would be most interested to hear anything you have to say.”

  “Yes, thank you. I must have gotten a touch of the sun today, sir.” As she took the refilled glass her hands shook and dribbles of water fell on her skirt, on her stockinged legs.

  Women did this, she knew. Found the family of a beau they had in the war, or even the family of a complete stranger who had died—you could access charts, you could get people’s names, their next of kin—and passed themselves off as their son’s fiancé. They got money that way, a place to stay sometimes; they could pawn off an illegitimate grandchild, or the bastard child of a complete stranger. Look, he has Johnny’s eyes, the dimple is just the same. We’ll set you up somewhere, dear, get you started in life, just let us keep the baby. Those women made Jo sick, feeding off the dead like ghouls. She wasn’t that, she could never be that. She had come because she had to, had to find out if they had had any news, if they knew anything about David at all, but now she knew it was wrong—she shouldn’t have come. The Scottish captain had her address, he would let her know as soon as he heard anything.

  Jo finished drinking. The water still tasted funny—this was sunstroke coming on. She carefully placed the glass on the side table, using both hands. She let them fall to her sides, then remembered and clasped them squarely in front of her. She always did that now to hide the shaking, or crossed her arms across her chest; once, when it had been bad, she had had to actually sit on her hands, but that had only happened once.

  “You were saying you are a nurse.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m a nurse.”

  “From the United States.”

  “New York—sir.”

  She had paused in between “New York” and “sir”; she didn’t know why. It seemed to have some meaning, she wasn’t sure.

  Another door (there were so many doors to this room) opened quietly, and a small woman walked in. She was wrapped in a black lace shawl, clean but well-worn. Her face was kind and open, but her eyebrows pinched together a little in the middle, as if she was worried about something and trying not to show it.

  “My dear girl,” the old man said, putting his arm around his sister and helping her into a chair. “This is a United States lieutenant, come to see us.”

  The old woman smiled, her face breaking into a thousand creases. I hope I look like that when I’m old, Jo thought fleetingly. If I ever become old.

  “Hello, dear,” and there was something so kindly, so welcoming, in those two words that Jo wanted to kneel down next to her and bury her face in the old woman’s lap and let her pat her head.

  All at once a shadow passed across the woman’s face. “She hasn’t come about—” her voice quavered, and she looked worriedly at her brother. For a second it was as if all the light in the woman’s face had disappeared and was replaced with cold, a shivering cold.

  “No, no, Clotilde, how could she? She’s here raising money for—was it Japan, child?”

  And Jo didn’t mind being called “child,” not by these people, by these wonde
rful, warm people. She could stay here forever with them.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The woman in the antimacassar chair looked relieved, as if she would have slumped back in relief if the highback hadn’t stopped her.

  “I think of those children over there—you’ll excuse me, miss, but they all seem so young to me—you seem so young to me—like children running around with scissors and I wish I could stop them.”

  Jo wanted to stop them too, wanted to desperately.

  “And it must be so hot too. So terribly hot. Too hot to bear, really.”

  The woman didn’t seem as if her mind was wandering, but more like she had given all this a great deal of thought, had thought it all out.

  “She’s a nurse, also, dear.”

  “No, not really? Do they have you canvassing besides doing your rounds?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s not that. This is all I’m doing right now.”

  She could have left it at that, but the woman’s eyes were looking into her own with something Jo couldn’t define. She had to tell her. Jo was speaking before she even realized what she was saying.

  “You see, I was in the war, right up in it.” Her voice faltered for a second, and she hated herself for that and moved on, quickly. “It was quite hard, parts of it, ma’am, and—I’m ashamed to say it, ma’am.” Jo’s eyes fell, were following the intricate pattern of the rug, up and down and around. “I’m, I’m not fit—my hands, ma’am.” She put out her hands like a girl in school, shamefaced, waiting for the ruler to come down. “I’m very shaky right now, ma’am,” and Jo’s voice trembled and she wanted to cry. This was ridiculous. She had to ask them for money to make this seem legitimate, ask them for a couple of pounds, for anything, for spare change, for enough to send over a Hershey’s Tropical Bar, candy-coated, guaranteed not to melt in the jungle sun.

  “You were a nurse near the fighting, miss?”

  Jo nodded her head. The room blurred, but she got the tears back down, she got them down in time, her face was still dry but her cheeks were burning. Even if they were David’s family, she wouldn’t tell them, tell them how he had suffered, how he had nearly died from disease and filth. She wouldn’t make them relive it over and over again—as she did.

  “My dear, we owe you—all you nurses—so very much.”

  Jo folded her hands, then stuck them under her armpits, crossing her arms hard across her chest.

  “You see, my boy was wounded, taken care of by an American nurse.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am.” This was her out—she’d be telling them in another minute if she didn’t leave now. “I don’t ask for funds from families that have already lost someone,” and Jo got up, too quickly; the room tilting.

  “He’s not dead, dear. Just—just missing.”

  The woman in front of her became blurry, weakly smiling at Jo through a haze. She was no longer one of David’s relatives, or anyone in particular anymore. She was just a mother who had lost her child, the saddest thing in the world. There were a thousand like her, a thousand thousand. For weeks now Jo had been hearing, My son . . . my nephew . . . my cousin . . . my brother is dead . . . is missing . . . is injured. Jo had told her matron that she was bleeding these people dry, that they had given too much already, but the response was that every bit helped, went to Japan, went to end the war once and for all. Please, God, for good this time.

  Jo noticed that the old woman had been talking all this time.

  “. . . and I think—it sounds ungrateful, I know, no one understands me when I say it—but missing in action is worse than killed in action, don’t you think?”

  Jo made a desperate sound, a groan and a gasp at the same time, choking down a sob. She turned toward the door, but there were so many, so many more doors than she remembered. They all were closed, they all looked the same—which one did she come in by? One flew open, and the young girl came bounding back in, sandwich in hand, her young suitor no longer with her.

  “Thank goodness you’re still here, it took forever to get rid of Tommy. I want to hear all about the war. My brother was in the war, did you know?”

  Jo reeled away from her. There was a shrill ringing in her ears, it sounded like the mosquitoes back in Sicily, the ones that would sneak into their tent and hover over their faces at night. A tiny sound, small and metallic, growing steadily louder.

  “Emile, do something, she’s gone white all over—”

  The old man was advancing toward her now, hands outstretched. The woman had risen and was walking over too, taking small mincing steps as if her shoes were too tight, steadying herself with the chair, with the back of the sofa. How could Jo not have noticed their eyes before, how large they were, how very large? They were enormous, like saucers. She had to get out.

  Finally, she pulled open the right door. She was blasted with sunlight, she was swimming in it, it was hot and stifling, she was walking into a furnace. She heard the sound again, but now it was louder, like a teapot. No, it was more like a tune. Someone whistling a tune. Jo looked up. The curved stairway went up forever, went up to heaven itself, there was nothing but power and majesty and light, so much light, too much light, Jo was blinded. There were two hands inside her throat, and they were squeezing her trachea shut.

  Then the whistling grew louder, a man was whistling, a jaunty, rollicking tune; he was tripping down the stair and straightening his tie and whistling. Jo’s ear popped, and the whistling grew louder, then stopped altogether as the man noticed Jo and smiled.

  It was David.

  Or it wasn’t David, because he didn’t seem to know her, to recognize her, standing there dazed and dumb, staring up at him, standing in the middle of the burning tiles and gazing up at him in confusion and terror and wonder. His smile kept curving wider, and he winked at her, saucily.

  “Hello there, beautiful.”

  Jo reached her hand out to steady herself, but there was nothing there and she fainted. The sun went behind a cloud, and it was like a light switch had been turned off all at once and Jo crumpled in a heap on the floor, on the lifeless tiles, still warm but dull now without the light of the sun.

  JO WOKE UP on a chaise longue, the family crowded around her. She could see them now. They were no monsters; their eyes looked concerned, that was all.

  “Get her some brandy,” someone was saying, and Jo swiveled her jaw until her ear popped and the words were no longer garbled.

  “I’m sorry,” she said weakly, trying to sit up.

  “You know,” the David who was not David was saying, “I should be very flattered, having a beautiful woman faint dead away at a line like that. Makes me believe I’ve really got something after all.” There was something different about this voice: it was David’s, but it wasn’t. The brogue wasn’t there, or if it was, it was polished, hidden. “But whatever came over you?”

  “You’re—you’re Bumpy,” Jo whispered, remembering a line from one of David’s dictated letters.

  “I beg your pardon, miss—”

  “You’re Bumpy and Kit and—wait.” Jo shielded her eyes, straining to remember. “You must be Uncle Emily.”

  “What?”

  “How could she know that?”

  Jo’s eyes welled over in explanation.

  “Who is she—”

  “Wait a minute—could it really be?”

  “My God, what was the name on that card?”

  The young man snatched it off the tray.

  “J. McMahon. J. Josephine. Jo?”

  “You have your brother’s eyes.”

  THEY ATE DINNER. It was like a dream, but they ate dinner, all of them together, like they would have if David had been there, if he had brought her home to meet his family. Jo never stopped talking—the food on her plate went cold but she never stopped talking, she couldn’t. Here, at last, were people who knew David, who loved him, who could share in her love and her pain and her sorrow. Now that they knew who she was, she told them everything—she told them too much. She wasn’t
allowed to divulge where she had been or who she had served under, but God, she didn’t care. She told them everything, she couldn’t stop herself—the names, the dates, the places—they were starving for information. She told them all about David—everything she could remember, everything—and saying it made it real, made him alive again. But she told them everything else too, because they would care. She could see in their eyes that they did care, they loved David, they would love her given half a chance.

  She told them about Queenie, and she told them about Grandpa and the German and the cold and the rain and the ice. She dropped the Ranger’s head back onto the table again, and she cried this time, and she screamed somehow too, although she never raised her voice. It was like she was burying them all, one by one, her comrades, her friends, laying them down to rest in peace, Please, God, after all that, let them rest in peace. They looked at her in horror, in awe, some hiding their emotion, some crying openly. Tears ran down the face of the old butler who no longer scrutinized her as a stranger, who had bounced the man Jo loved on his knee before she was even born. And the war was over but it wasn’t over, it would never be over, not until David came home, until all the countless lost Davids came home. And of course they never would.

  They retired to the library (there were only two doors, there had only ever been two doors) and Jo looked at a framed picture in the hallway and stood stock-still. It was David, the real David, her David—but David as he had never been for her. She had only ever known him as sick, as delirious, as one step removed from death. But this black-and-white photo came to life in front of her—he was healthy and well, one rubber boot sunk in a stream, the other on a bank lush with grass. He was holding up a catch of fish and laughing at the cameraman as if he had just told a joke. His eyes were glittering with it, suppressing his smile, his bubbling laughter, just long enough to pose for the shot. He was young and healthy and happy, and Jo put her fingers up to the glass reverently, touching it, touching him. Here then was Endymion at last.