The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  He laughed.

  “And, why would I, a poor sinner like the rest of us?” His congregation began to gawp somewhat.

  “You see – Our Lord said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ So, please stand now – that we may feast our eyes on your sight. A being without sin!”

  He gestured – offering, as it were, the floor of his church, to be taken.

  The church shuffled.

  Someone coughed. Curé Phillipe felt his first full flushing intoxication of Attention.

  “Someone here is without sin. We know this – because someone here was so offended by the defamation of our codes of conduct, of the Holy Scriptures and of Our Lord God himself – that he cast the first stone. And even a second.”

  His church had become very quiet.

  “Because our belief in decency, and morality – even our imaginations – have been profaned. Our Holy Mother Church itself, profaned.”

  Murmurs.

  “Our understanding of what is human and what is inhuman.”

  He heard someone say, under their breath, “Yes.”

  He was also sure everyone else had heard it.

  “We are soiled. Abused and angry.”

  “Righteously,” Madame Cantagrel was clearly audible. “Righteously,” he repeated. “But – what is righteous? What is right? Might is right? God is Mighty. In fact, He is Almighty. What does God think?”

  “Shame,” a voice muttered.

  “Disgrace,” called Madame Cantagrel. Her husband coughed, ashamed to his bones. Where would this end? Curé Phillipe gripped hard now at the stone of his pulpit’s edge. The stone was warm under his touch.

  “I’m not a brave man. As you all know. I would never have been brave enough to throw a stone if Christ himself had stood between me and the act. I wouldn’t. And He is everywhere, people. He is right here, now. Amongst us. Now. Or. Or, He doesn’t exist.”

  The congregation didn’t move. He was that close to sacrilege. “And now you have to decide you know what God thinks. Because I’m not brave enough for that, either. But somewhere here is a man – or a woman perhaps – who is without sin. So, let them, or God, in the words of his son, be your guide.”

  The church was as silent as if it were empty.

  “In the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost.”

  He crossed himself, felt Pride and asked God to forgive him. He felt relief and thanked Him for that. He felt fearful and asked for strength. As he turned and fainted gently down the three steps of his pulpit.

  Madame Lacaze and Sara were the last ones to leave. They had so much and absolutely nothing to say to each other. And the church square had been silent.

  For that Sunday.

  Another stumbling day.

  “Write to me,” came from across an ocean on the back of a picture postcard. Of a bridge.

  He found paper, blew the grime from it. I can’t tell her what I’m doing.

  I can’t tell her why.

  To come back she has to want to come back. His arm swept a space at his table.

  Not feel she ought because of my madness. He sat at a chair, licked at the pencil.

  But I can’t lie. He flattened the paper pointlessly. And I have no other truth.

  The end of the pencil found his mouth, like a schoolboy. Tell her about myself and Ardelle?

  That faithlessness? Give her an excuse to not come back?

  Tell her about Jerome and Sara? The election? Madame Valet? Tell her about the cancer in the world now she’s gone?

  Jacques bent over the paper and wrote to his son.

  “I know what it feels like to have your mother all to myself – I know how you glow. Your turn, n’est-ce-pas? You are the love we shared. Simone, it’s all been arse about front for me. I’ve had my rewards. Now I have to earn them. So, I work. Taking things down. To write is to think and I daren’t think any more than this. That’s this life.”

  They were marked, surely, to die. One way or another. Her month’s money was going, there was no sign of the promised pension and only the cheese man who came Wednesdays would sell her food. And Jerome, she dreaded, was no longer afraid to die. The blackmail of Zoe was past. He was beyond all recall but the alcoholic and the physical. And Celine was even more afraid, for herself, that the sex would stop. That there could be some hideous kind of realisation. A different, worst of all kind of death. Alone. And she thought all this as he was inside her. Pounding and circling and reaching and knowing and finding and there there I am, that’s me, that’s Us; Oh! Love again – again – don’t ever stop – and, with each crashing orgasm she knew exactly, she knew oh so precisely how much she wanted to live and wanted him to live. She held him panting on her chest.

  They’ll have to pay.

  She kissed the top of his hairless head.

  She dressed in something long ago resembling clean clothes whilst he snored. And walked down the lane, turned right and strode into the Mairie.

  Curtains moved everywhere. Severine’s eyes ballooned.

  “I want to see The Mayor.”

  “I’ll – ask.”

  “He’s in? Good.”

  She stalked out of Severine’s office, down the short corridor and, opening both doors, strode into Dominique’s office, where he and Madame Lacaze looked up, startled.

  “You look guilty,” she told him. “The pair of you.” Madame Lacaze stood. Gathered her bag together.

  Dominique simply stared at the creature who’d taught him to read and write. It was a shocking sight. Torn clothes, angry sunken eyes, lank skin.

  “Pay us to leave,” it demanded. “Buy us a house. A room. Rent it. Anywhere.”

  Dominique Duthileul blurted, “What? You’ve got a pension...”

  “Have I? Where is it? It won’t buy a room, will it?”

  Madame Lacaze waited.

  “The commune…” said it’s Mayor, trying to grasp this fog, “…should pay – for you?”

  “Or you. Your father.” She flicked her head in Madame Lacaze’s direction, “Her. She’s got money. You’ve got the money. Spend it you squirrel-minded fools or there’ll be death – murder perhaps – in this village. It’s money. That’s all it is. Get us out of here.”

  Madame Valet turned and left. Severine darted back to her papers. When Celine stepped back into the sunlight there were more than a dozen in their doorways. One standing in the road. With a broom handle.

  She turned for home.

  Her house was a hundred yards down the street and left by La Poste. She’d have to pass the ones in front of her and the man in the street.

  Her steps became instantly heavy. They made no distance – was she in cement?

  Somehow she was now alongside the man with the broom. “Fat cow.”

  Some woman laughed from a doorway across to her right. “Fat ugly cow.”

  Two more came out of doorways ahead of her. “Filthy whoring tramp.”

  There were voices gathering behind her.

  She stepped into the road – the pavements were claimed. “Shall we teach you a lesson, Mistress?”

  She walked, hard.

  “Leave us, or else.” she heard.

  “You touched my child!”

  Then, “Fetch my scissors!”

  She reached La Poste, saw her house, and ran. A stone overtook her, skidding past and splintering against a wall. Another passed her ankles. A few yards. Her huge chest hurt. Another stone. She reached her door.

  “Inhuman!”

  She recognised Galtier’s croak.

  “Cage her! Cage them both!” Gley.

  She had no key.

  She battered at their door. If his drunkenness sleeps him through this?

  She banged again. “In-HuMan.”

  More voices, joining into a chant. “In-human, in-human, in-human,” a mantra excusing and generating violence. Nearer, up the lane they came now, their hands finding missiles. She banged till her fist hurt and turned to see Galtier, Gley and three o
ther men approaching, hands loaded, the women crowding behind to see the justice done.

  “Jerome!” Her terror eachoed. She turned and hammered at her door.

  “In-huMAN!”

  Run to the Gendarmerie? They’d catch me. She kicked the door.

  “JER-OME!!”

  Her voice shocked her cold as Christmas.

  They’ll stone me.

  All of them – her, the men, the women, nearing a primal state. She turned to face her fear. Face the eyes. Face the stones.

  The men slowed.

  Then there was no movement, except the women, sensing denouement, pushing for the best view.

  Jerome, naked, opened the door. “What?” he squinted at her back.

  Those who’d voted for him recoiled furthest. A totally naked man. A smooth man.

  Madame Valet moved to his side and he saw the mob, struck quite perfectly dumb by the sight of him.

  As they closed the door a brick hit it.

  They stood in the hallway; he naked, she panting, sweating and waiting.

  A beat of silence. Another.

  A third.

  It was past.

  Madame Valet allowed a full screaming breath from her twitching body.

  Jerome stood, watching.

  Jacques worked.

  Madame Lacaze re-seated herself at her Mayor’s invitation. This was Trouble.

  Madame Valet was right. It had been there in the church, the Curé’s fine words had not lasted, and now it was in the street. They had to act.

  Madame Lacaze waited.

  On her own agenda. Monsieur Le Maire would have to consult his father. And as there was no advantage for Jean-Louis in parting with his money then he wouldn’t, would he? But surely she could use this?

  What had been said? “Whatever hurts you least...” Waffle. Conniving balderdash – but the fool had said it. Her gaze rested on the son, lost in his response to his responsibilities. A child really... So, there’s opportunity, too.

  Dominique looked at his farmer’s hands and this desk and the papers and Lacaze’s mother, sitting there; prim, tight, composed... She looks at me like my father does.

  She weighs me. For what? As what?

  He’s looking at me just as his father looks at me. How perfectly can this revenge go?

  He picked up the phone.

  Severine leapt to her extension, heard him ask the Chef De Gendarmes if he were free; then he telephoned Chibret to ask his advice.

  “Can’t have mob rule...”

  “Quite so, sir.” He hoped his voice sounded deferential.

  “Best for all if they went.”

  “I agree.”

  “Mind you, can’t make them go.”

  “Seemingly not.”

  “Problem.”

  Dominique waited for the old man to consider. He offered Madame Lacaze a tiny ‘in-a-moment’ smile. She returned it.

  “Personally,” Chibret had done with consideration, “I don’t give a fig. Sex is it’s own master sometimes. Bad for the commune, though.”

  “Yes...”

  “Well,” Dominique heard the old man snigger, “good luck.”

  The line went click. The Mayor put the phone back in its cradle. He looked up.

  “Waste of breath.”

  “He always was.”

  “I meant mine.”

  She folded her hands on her lap. Waited. “What is your counsel, Madame?”

  “Speak to your father.”

  He nodded.

  So, she’s not going to stump up a sous. Why should father?

  We. When I inherit. When he goes. If he ever does.

  He nodded, hoping it looked like responsive consideration. She stood.

  “And will you speak to your son?”

  “To say what?”

  Dominique watched her mouth thin at the idea. “What you feel. Whatever that is.”

  “My son knows my feelings.”

  “May I?”

  Madame Lacaze blinked. That was direct. “About my son?”

  Dominique listened to the silence before he said, “Yes please, Madame Lacaze.”

  “I don’t think they affect…” she gestured around the office, “…this.”

  Dominique needed another breath to say, “It wasn’t as Mayor that I asked.”

  That was a request for an intimacy.

  She crossed one hand over the other so neither could tremor. “They are not wholesome,” she allowed.

  He nodded, but his eyes asked if there were more. “And yours?” she asked.

  Dominique hesitated.

  “Don’t spare my maternal feelings. I have none.”

  “Then...” he ventured forward into coded areas in which he was a virgin, “perhaps...” the resonances of what he was about to say hummed in his reddening ears, “...our feelings might be mutual?”

  She felt sure she’d heard that correctly. Careful, now.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they are.”

  And now she smiled.

  “Then I shall speak to my father.”

  Madame Lacaze, herself feeling her way through this new minefield, smiled again. Slowly.

  Dominique momentarily toyed with suggesting she came to speak to him too, but was astute enough not to. I’m no match for father. Yet. I’m no match for her, come to that. Yet.

  He stood. “I must talk with the Chef.”

  “Of course.”

  She placed a warm hand on his, “Courage. Dominique.”

  But when The Mayor had walked home for his supper her car was parked next to his father’s.

  His father had phoned her? What? Was he interfering in my Mayoring again? Were they both?

  Needing to gather his thoughts he stepped into the barn. Renée, looking up from his milking, tilted his head towards the house. A wink, a dirty grin. His thought was transparent – and the same as mine, thought the Mayor.

  He shook Renee’s gnarled hand, slapped at a cow’s buttocks, inhaled the warm hay-shit smell and wished he’d never left it.

  I knew this.

  I know this.

  This – Mayor business. It’s a fucking fog. And this – other thing.

  This flirting. With her... That’s beyond belief, surely? Her...

  He slumped a moment – his body leaning hard onto one of the cow’s stalls.

  No. No.

  Genetic pride and weak arrogance straightened him. I am Mayor.

  Only me.

  My father thinks I’m his toy. I don’t know what she thinks. I’m not sure what I think.

  He wants her – I do know that. He tasted that. It was true.

  And – he gave truth a centimetre more rein – I want her. Why? For herself or to fix father?

  He snorted a laugh that turned Renée’s head.

  And, if we did – she and I – then what would be the difference between Valet’s widow and Lacaze and his mother and me? Eh? Jesus Christ – what is this in the air?

  Peace? “Ha!”

  Renée looked up again.

  The son was barking mad laughter in the barn, by himself. He shrugged – bourgeois turds.

  And why haven’t I got a car?

  I’m the fucking Mayor, walking home. Into this. Some plan, some concoction. What’s my plan?

  Across the lane Jacques Vermande stood like stone.

  He hadn’t seen Madame Lacaze’s car since driving to bring Arbel into hell. And before that?

  Don’t remember. Don’t remember!

  “Work,” he said. The dog looked up at the sound of the rusty voice. In what had been their living room there was now only enough wall to support the two window frames and their lintels, a comically free standing door frame with its huge lintel, and, above an inert fireplace, a chimney stack.

  He stood, looking at it, living in it, the insane grief-soaked wreckage of his Plan. The Future.

  “I am mad,” he said and the dog cocked its head and waited. No more. The ears subsided.

  Can’t go back.
Can’t go on. I’m mad. She’s gone. They’ve gone.

  Back to that again. Never went anything like away, did it. Won’t weep. I will not weep.

  He took his shirt collar and twisted it into his gritty mouth and bit hard to hold back the flood. Spat the grit out.

  “Work.” The dog sat up. “Work.”

  He didn’t move. “Work.”

  The dog lay back down.

  You reap you sow you reap you sow you pay.

  He ordered his back, his knees, to bend, ordered his hands to pick up a stone, just a single stone. They all disobeyed him. The soul ruled and his soul grieved afresh. Hell is inside us.

  Heaven is outside us then. I wish I was outside us.

  Is their attraction to each other that they’re both misers? What’s mine to her, then?

  Never mind her, he snapped to himself – what about the village? No, fuck St. Cirgues – what do I want? You can’t make a plan without being honest about what you want.

  I want – her.

  Because it would break my Father – and – and because I do. I do. I want his mother. Her.

  Fact.

  I want Lacaze and that eyesore out of harm’s way. And harm’s way are the members of my commune! Fact.

  I want my father and her to sort it. To pay. And I want a damned car.

  And I’m very afraid I may be out of my depth. Renée heard him sigh. He milked.

  What’s going on in there is them deciding. What they’ll tell me to do.

  Time to go see then. Time to influence my life.

  He snorted an encouraging laugh – stood free of the wooden stall – turned and hooked a punch into the wood. Another. His hands hurt. Good. He laughed. Renée stood and watched...

  Dominique grinned at him. “Right, Renée – right.”

  Renée waited for more information.

  All he got as Dominique turned in the barn door-way was, “Right.” He milked.

  Jacques Vermande finally moved. Feet of lead, hands of stone, heart of glass.

  27

  Serendipity has the charm of appearing profound, when it could just be one more random factor, one more admirable evasion. Either way, the magic is – it works.

  Dominique opened the door to see his father, red-faced, elbows on the table, leaning forward at Madame Lacaze. “Why?”