The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  “I don’t want to drink.”

  “You don’t have to, misanthrope. I’ll drink.”

  Jacques stood aside.

  Jacques saw Jerome was more than content to drink the first bottle alone. In silence. No rush. Not like Arbel. When he opened the second Jacques rolled a cigarette.

  “Do you know you were here this afternoon?”

  Jerome looked up, “Did I make any sense?”

  “None.”

  “Thank God for that.” He poured. “We’re all making it up as we go along.”

  He took a mouthful, tasted it.

  “Oh, this is rank. What did we win a war for? We’re French for fuck’s sake! This is pitiful.”

  He pushed the other glass an inch nearer Jacques and his energy suddenly flagged. “Can I sleep here? Worry the crone. Eh?”

  “Take the blankets upstairs. I chopped the other bed up.”

  “Did you? Good.”

  His body slumped a little more at the table.

  As a quiet began he looked up at Jacques and said, “Have a drink please – it’s piss – but I’ve no-one to drink with. Huh? Don’t worry – I’ve nothing to say and nothing to ask and nothing to pry. I can’t do a damned thing at the moment – except drink – and it’s not long till I fall over now so share a glass in this little life please – old friend?”

  Jacques touched their glasses together. “And – I won’t ask in the morning, either.”

  “Because you won’t remember?”

  “Not a word. Guaranteed.”

  Jacques lugged Jerome to his bed. He took some blankets upstairs and only when he got there realised how cold the house was. He lay down as he had – above her – above that memory and that time. His heart ached.

  I want to be in so very many places and none of them here.

  Jerome was still asleep when Sara came up the lane, alone. Jacques watched her knock at Ardelle’s door.

  “What?” Ardelle was cold as the morning.

  “Jerome said...”

  “He sent you?”

  “Yes. Please talk to me.” Ardelle looked at Sara.

  “Jerome sent you?”

  “Yes...”

  “Then – you’re back together?”

  “No. He came last night. Worried.”

  Why doesn’t Ardelle let her in?

  Will she tell her? I won’t. What does it matter? What does it alter? Turn back the clock and I would rather have died than caused this. And what’s to come.

  “What is it? Don’t say ‘nothing’ again.”

  They sat across the table.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Arbel is coming home, Ardelle. To this?”

  “I know.”

  “What are you going to say when he says ‘What is it?’”

  “I shall tell him.”

  Sara nodded.

  “Good.”

  “Yes. Then we’ll see.”

  “How did Jacques take the news about America?”

  “Badly.”

  Ardelle stood, fetched a handful of beans and a knife and began topping and tailing them.

  “He is bad,” said Sara.

  “What?” Ardelle’s eyes scoured Sara’s.

  “He’s dead in his mind.” Sara felt a need to defend her choice of words. “He’s lost.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She resumed her cutting.

  “What can we do?”

  Ardelle laughed a single cold dark bark that shook Sara.

  “What?”

  Sara was still.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Ardelle lied.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was true. Ardelle stopped cutting. “What?” she asked.

  Sara looked at her evenly. “You tell me.”

  “No.”

  Sara stood.

  “His pain isn’t funny.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s a friend.”

  Ardelle wanted to say ‘then you have him’ – but instead she swept the cut ends into her hand and threw them into the compost bucket. “I know,” she said.

  Sara went to the door.

  “Let us know the news – about Arbel,” she said sadly.

  Ardelle said, “Of course, yes,” whilst she thought ‘I won’t, no.’

  He was sitting on Arbel’s fireplace bench in front of cold dead ash.

  “No fire?”

  “No.”

  Sara sat opposite him. Where she’d sat. “We’ve survived – and we’re in tatters.”

  I don’t want to hear this. I do not want to listen to this. “Ardelle...” she prompted.

  Jacques was at one with the granite wall. “Ardelle, Jacques.”

  “Mm?”

  “What’s happened?”

  This is nobody else’s business. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “That’s what we all say now. ‘I don’t know.’ And ‘nothing.’ All the time.”

  Jacques didn’t move, didn’t look at her. Sara shivered.

  “Why are you angry with each other?”

  This is Arbel’s business. Not Sara’s. Or Jerome’s. Asleep. In my bed. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing.” His eyes met hers, not warmly. “Nothing, Sara.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How long have I known you?”

  “Leave it, Sara.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you angry?”

  “That’s a very stupid question.”

  “I’m here because my friends are in distress. Isn’t that the business of a friend?”

  They faced each other across the fireplace. ”There’s nothing – can be done.”

  “Till Arbel comes home. When she tells him.”

  Jacques paled.

  But he said, and he meant it, “Good.”

  He leaned back into the wall.

  Sara rubbed the gooseflesh at her arms. “Hell’s cold I see...”

  I don’t want this conversation either.

  “He’s asleep – in there. Jerome.”

  “He came back here?” Jacques nodded.

  “Did he realise he’d already been?”

  Jacques shook his head. A beat of time. She looked round the barren room.

  “We’re all – lost.”

  A beat.

  “Can I talk to you, please?”

  Jacques quailed.

  “Not now. I understand. And you wouldn’t actually have to listen – just... but some time, eh?”

  “Talk...”

  Sara’s smile was as feeble as his gallantry, and she shook her head and stood to go and out it poured.

  “Zoe and my mother and that house and he he he used me to get out of his house and what did I do wrong, Jacques? What? Mothered him too well? And now I have to be strong for Zoe and not feel shat on and not show shat on because that’s not fair to her and where and what’s fair to me? Eh? I’ve no idea, Jacques. And, why aren’t I truly angry? Haven’t I the right? Don’t I think I have the right? I was a hook he used – a rope a climbing rope-thing and he’s climbed and looked and loved such a little and made his child and gone back down again and I was – nothing. He never— ” She stalled on the word ‘love’.

  Jacques sat, stone.

  “And living love-less is cold. Isn’t it?”

  Jacques couldn’t even nod.

  “Even if it wasn’t Love. And it wasn’t, was it?”

  Jacques thought, ‘Do I shrug?’

  “And you know the best? It’s not a surprise.” She gestured at the bedroom door, “He’s from The Big House, and I’m me!”

  She almost laughed.

  “I keep waiting to cry. I’d like to. But there’s no sorrow in it.” Jacques could only tell she hadn’t finished yet.

  “He’ll be Zoë’s father and – I think he might even become a friend! And he won’t leave here. Big fish little p
ond. And I won’t – so. None of us will. There’s nowhere to go, is there? No horizon.”

  I will have. I must.

  “I can’t see a thing beyond the child. And I’m frightened.” She heaved a long breath.

  “There. Thank you.”

  She saw a stone man, stripped either of, or to, his barest emotions. She couldn’t tell which. And he wouldn’t.

  “What’s happened to us?”

  “War – he says...”

  “He’s right.” Sara sat down.

  Oh no, not more.

  “Tell me about Simone. And little Jacques.” Horror leaped from his soul to his face.

  Desolation.

  Sara reached across the fire and took his cold hand.

  She rubbed the pads of her fingers over the huge square thumbnail till she’d made a tiny warmth in that cold house; a warmth she eased gently down his thumb, over the knuckle, into the softer flesh between thumb and first finger – into the calloused layers of his farming. His palm loosened a millimetre. Her fingers and thumb worked into the rough sides. When the warmth made him look up into her eyes she let the hand go and went home.

  Jacques walked down to the copse and watched and waited till Jerome left.

  Now there was quiet.

  Now there was only Puech. And Ardelle and him.

  Till Arbel came home. And she told him. I cannot – I will not wait for that.

  I must leave. No.

  I must wait –

  Because – I have a share in that...

  The cows groaned, pointlessly searching the iron earth.

  He walked to Ardelle’s door.

  So many memories.

  How could a man so young have so many bad memories? “We’ll tell him,” he stood at her door.

  She waited a little. “All right. Thank you.”

  He went home before he might smile. At her face. One tiny pebble less of the load.

  16

  Arbel and the men watched the flocks of bombers flying east every night, raining liberating death.

  They reached Buhl and, for the first time, were refused everything. All Arbel’s practised charm and blackmail failed. They starved.

  Huddled in the nooks of an empty summer-house in a ragged wintry park.

  Dreading Police. Or anyone with the authority and the sadistic will to send them back. Now.

  He pulled his wee stool and the bucket up to the udders and thought of what Jerome had said.

  “Go to America.” To find them?

  How?

  He milked.

  How could I afford it?

  Well, if I was going I wouldn’t need anything here. Sell it all. Then what would you bring them back to?

  This is insanity talking. I can’t speak a word of American.

  But, Duthileul would buy the house. Definitely. And the garden.

  The wood.

  God! I could afford it...

  Had anyone been near enough they would have registered Jacques Vermande’s rusty laughter.

  I land in America without a word and – he snorted another mad laugh – I don’t even know her name! Simone. That’s it. I never asked her. Chibret must know it. On some paper. Go into the village and ask those shits my wife’s name?

  His mind cooled in the instant. I’m milking someone else’s cattle.

  Arbel and the men went back to the D roads and the tiny frightened farms where they might steal a chicken. Or anything. Root vegetables, anything. They ate like pigs. And walked. Slower. In the cold. But nearer. Every step did feel nearer now.

  He marched out of his house, the dog following, crossed the lane and found Duthileul and Dominique in the bigger of their bulging barns. Father and son, alerted by their dogs. The hounds circled each other, sniffing.

  “I won’t work as a slave. Pay me or do it yourself. Tayo!” And he was gone.

  Dominique said, “Even he was bound to notice. Eventually.” His father scowled. “Must be hungry. Needs money.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “He’s got a point.”

  “Of course he has. He forgets I offered once. I’ll think.”

  “And I’ll do his work?”

  “For a week.”

  “Thanks. Why not pay him?”

  “Dominique – if I’m to pay a farm hand I’ll choose who I pay.”

  “Jerome Lacaze?” Father and son smirked.

  Duthileul was right. Jacques needed, or would very soon; candles, matches, soap, flour, grain for the animals, and protein for the human. His winter vegetables and stored maize made plain fare. If the snow came hard and stayed, as it usually did, it would get monotonously so.

  Jacques sat in his silent tomb-house. Pay me? Ha! He won’t give me a sous. Duthileul couldn’t give anything. I’ll have put his knobbly nose right out now. Good. Good. Good to be angry. Good to feel some heat.

  What the hell am I supposed to do with it?

  A sign read France 6 kms.

  They had no papers beyond Arbel’s from a factory miles and months away. One more tomorrow. One more. Little was said. Until you’ve been far away you cannot truly know what home is – or means.

  Madame Lacaze tidied the damp winter leaves into a pile and lit them. Eventually they took. She stood there, hypnotised for an instant, gazing into the reluctant flames.

  Her son, upstairs, asleep.

  Another year ending. What would the next bring? What did she want?

  What did she desire?

  The word troubled her. The connotations.

  She poked at the fire and allowed that she hoped for some future for her son.

  Yes – and for yourself? What do you desire?

  The fire smoked badly and she turned from it and the thought.

  Jacques had no cheese left. Make some. He had no milk. Thou shalt not steal. He would not steal the milk.

  And he would not buy it from the village. No cheese, then. This might be harder than no tobacco.

  Sara, her mother and Zoe edged about the house. There was so much Sara’s mother would have loved to have said but didn’t, and slowly Sara came to the conclusion her mother chose not to inflict pain and in that belief she gave a daughter’s respect and the mother sensed it and the atmosphere in their home softened. Warmed, even.

  When Jerome called the mother was as brusque as she’d always been with him. She’d never understood him, liked him, or trusted him. Nor had she ever seen what her daughter might have seen in him. She’d always given Sara more credit than that she’d wanted any part of Lacaze’s money – but when there was never any evidence of any of it, what was the point of the waster? All right, yes – he’d fought – and like a lot of St. Cirgues she never castigated him for ridding the commune of Gaston Valet – but since? Decadence will out, Sara’s mother thought. Proof of the pudding.

  Zoe absorbed the changes. She went with her father to ‘his house’ for Sunday meals with Mimi Two. There were more forks and knives and different plates. And more food. And more wine.

  Galtier cycled up the road with St.Cirgues’ first ever letter from America.

  And he stood at Vermande’s door in the blatant hope Jacques would open it, discuss it with him and let him be the bearer of the glorious gossip.

  Jacques shut the door on him, and he thought, ‘I knew I should have steamed it open...’

  And, ‘I will next time...’

  The straggling German D road had a border post and a barrier – but as soon as it came into view they could see it was dilapidated. They ran, sprinted, galloped, laughing.

  One by one they recognised they were racing.

  They all slowed. Then taking each offered hand they linked arms and finally, as a ten-legged creature, they walked back home together.

  He left the letter unopened till twilight. Why, he didn’t know. Something about wanting to read it by candle-light. He didn’t know why that either. He knew he hadn’t forgotten her for a second, ever, or his Jacques; and he knew he didn’t hate her,
never had, never could. And by the time he opened it he knew the letter must say she was staying there, oceans away.

  Dearest Jacques,

  You were right, I was wrong. I am teaching. German! In a war. In New York. I have a room in what they call a brown-stone. We have a room.

  You don’t want to hear this. I will settle here, Jacques. And raise him and the ocean will keep us apart.

  What a man – what a giver you are. You gave me so much – and him his life – and I seem to have taken it all. Away. A long way.

  He is well – he is alive and well because of you. May we meet in paradise.

  Simone.

  He read it over and again and he saw the bones on her neck as her hair fell from it, sitting at a table in the New World while she wrote to him. He read it again. “May we meet in paradise.” He poured over her signature. It was the proximity of her hand to the paper that shook him. She, his life’s wife, had touched this paper. That was enough.

  And they were safe. A part of him had been right, then. It had been A Right Thing.

  He read till he knew it. Then read it again. “May we meet in paradise.”

  There was something. Something. He took the letter to bed.

  Next morning as a feeble winter sun rose so, finally, did Jacques Vermande’s heart.

  A deep expanding smile took hold of his soul, radiating through every vein, every pulse in his whole body.

  “Of course!”

  The dog looked up at the warmth in his voice. And the smile on his face.

  A smile that reached his eyes for the first time in the longest darkest dying time.

  “Of course, Tayo! Fool!”

  Of course.

  I understand.

  And Jerome was right. ‘He must be proud of me.’ And he will. He will be proud of me.

  I know what to do, wife!

  17

  Dominique Duthileul took Jacques’ herd.

  When he came back he saw Vermande sitting on a kitchen chair in the garden staring at his house.

  That evening when he walked the beasts back he was still there. Still looking.