I’d wanted then to tell him thank-you. I’d wanted to tell him that, yes, sometimes I wasn’t as strong as I thought. I’d wanted, with some small part of me, to cling to him and never leave. At Mille Mots, the rest of the world could be forgotten.
But I didn’t. I nodded, only once, hoping I could put all of that into my eyes.
Luc, I think he understood. He reached out, took my hand and kissed it. “Always at your service,” he whispered. Then he was out through the bedroom window, across the roof. I went to the window and watched him disappear into the dark. Overhead, Perseus and Andromeda shone. It was the last time I saw him.
Sitting across from Grandfather over a table of pastries and spilled tea, I shook my head. “If nothing else, I owe him my help.”
Back then, all of those years ago, he’d been at my service. Now it was my turn. I could help him get his face back. I could help him reclaim himself.
The casualties of war I saw every day were the men who came into the studio. But they weren’t the only ones. As I sped from Paris, I saw from the train window the ruin that the war had spread across the countryside. The colors of that first trip to France, those brilliant greens and yellows and oranges and reds, they faded to memory. All I saw around me now were fields burnt brown, blackened stumps of trees, gray piles of rubble.
I got off at Railleuse, my handbag held tight. The station was deserted but still standing. It had been hastily shored up with new lengths of wood at some point, crooked planks that smelled of sap. I called up a mental map and stepped onto the road to Mille Mots.
The dirt was dusted with new snow. Deep tracks cut through the mud, old tracks. I wondered if they were from armies advancing or armies retreating. Maybe both. Littered along the sides of the road were discarded wheels, torn shoes, scraps of cloth fluttering colorlessly against the rocks. I hurried on. Up ahead was Enété—the little cluster of white houses on the road to Mille Mots, the village where Luc and I had stopped on the way home from Paris.
Enété was no more.
Low piles of white stone marked where the buildings had been. The high street was a slick of churned mud. Here, that outline marked the shop where he’d bought me a cool drink. There, those were the walls of the smithy. I could still see the outlines of the blacksmith’s anvil, though the rest of the tools were gone. And, here, the charred remains of the bench where I’d sat while the accordion played. Enété had no music anymore. Holding my handbag tight against my chest, I walked from one end of the village to the other. The skeletons of houses and stores and stables, the crumbled mounds of stone, all were still.
The war had been closer than I thought. It had reached across the river to touch the village, to hurl shells and reduce my memories to rubble. The war had ended, but what was left?
I walked on, faster and faster. I passed more scarred landscape, more fields twisted brown and barren, more empty orchards, more ruins of houses and barns, more scraps of lives discarded. This, this here, was what Luc brought home with him, worn across his cheek. The wreckage of the life he used to know. This landscape of loss. Even the poplar tree was nothing but a splintered stump. I walked quickly past so I wouldn’t cry. After four years of war, I wouldn’t cry anymore.
Night was painting the sky violet around the edges when I turned down the long road between the trees. I held my breath until I passed the last tree. Château de Mille Mots still stood.
But it was dark, so dark inside. No light, not even candlelight, shone behind the windows lining the front. Maybe all of this was a fool’s errand. The long train ride, the even longer hike. I should have written first. I should have just sent a telegram.
I set my handbag on the porch step and slipped from my shoes. Stretching my toes, I leaned against the door, to summon up an ounce of energy. The wind sang through the few dry leaves left on the trees, and, below, the Aisne burbled. With my eyes closed, I caught the scent of roses on the air. February, and yet I swore I could smell them. Despite myself, I smiled. Even here, even in the middle of all this, it was summer.
I straightened and rang the bell.
I counted out a minute, then counted out a minute more, before I tried the bell again.
But, from inside, faintly, movement. And the rattle of bolts being thrown and locks being undone.
I spun around. “It’s me!” I said, lips close to the wood of the door. “It’s Clare Ross, returned. Do you remember me?”
Those unlocking hands stopped at my words. Inside, it was silent. My heart pounded.
The door swung open.
Madame stood in the doorway, a sputtering oil lamp in her hand. Behind her, the house was dark and shrouded.
