At the Edge of Summer

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. Please oh please. It echoed in an empty hallway. I waited. Then I slumped against the door.

But, from inside, faintly, movement. And the rattle of bolts being thrown and locks being undone. “Oui?” a rich voice asked.

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.

As though she hadn’t heard me, she said, “Maud.” The lamp in her hand began to tremble. “How have you returned?”

I reached up to touch my own face. Over the years, without me having any kind of a say in it, it had grown into my mother’s. “Clare, Madame Crépet. It’s your mademoiselle, your guest, Clare Ross.”

She inhaled. “You’re the very image of Maud.”

Suddenly, standing in the doorway of Mille Mots, hearing my mother’s name, I was brought back to that day all of those years ago, when I’d arrived, sad and scared and wishing for a friend.

Madame nodded. She must have seen that all slip across my face. “Chère Clare. I’m…oh, I’m so sorry.”

It was then that I noticed her plain black dress.

“Oh!” My hand covered my mouth. I knew it couldn’t be Luc. “Monsieur…”

She waved her hand, suddenly looking like the brisk Madame I remember. “He’s back in the kitchen, cooking me an omelette. My dear child, he’s quite all right.”

“Then…”

“Child, I mourn for France.”

—

The Crépets had been living in a corner of the west wing of the château, just the library, a converted bedroom next to it, and the kitchen.

“There’s been no electricity for years and, these days, not enough coal to heat the whole château.”

Monsieur Crépet looked up from the pan on the stove. “And that wall in the east hallway. We do not have that either.”

“Ah, yes.” Madame filled a cracked mug with vin chaud. “I’m sorry, there’s no sugar. But I can grate some cinnamon.”

“It’s fine, thank you.” I settled onto a stool at the table.

“And in two minutes, mademoiselle, an omelette.” Monsieur tossed on a handful of crumbled cheese, looking as sure as he ever did with color and canvas. “I can work with pan as well as palette, eh?”

Madame touched his cheek.

The kitchen was dim and cluttered. It had none of the haphazard order it once had. Also, the line of birdcages was missing. “Marthe?”

“She’s well. She’s gone to stay with her sister in Brittany.” Madame dipped her head to the pan and inhaled the egg and garlic and tang of cheese. “Ah, but even without her, we eat like kings!”

Monsieur quickly kissed her cheek, earning a blush. “Ma minette, I will take care of you.”

I cradled the mug of hot wine. “Madame, Monsieur, I came here today to talk about Luc.”

The air in the room turned brittle. “Luc?” she repeated in a thin voice. “Oh, he’s fine. He was lucky, really.” She busied herself wiping out two more mugs. “Did you know he’s living in Paris, the way he always wanted?”

Monsieur silently slid a plate with a wedge of omelette in front of me.

“I do know.” I inhaled. “I saw him.”

She froze. “You did?” She set the mugs on the table, suddenly animated. “Please, where is he? Where is my boy?”

“He doesn’t write to you?” I asked. He always had before, every day he was in Paris as a student. Maman, I ate ratatouille. Maman, I read Tacitus. I thought of you, Maman, at the pink sunrise. She’d read them aloud to me at the breakfast table.

She shook her head. Monsieur Crépet came up behind with a handkerchief, which she took. He sat across from me. “Every once in a while a package will arrive with bread or salt or tinned oysters—something we can’t get here,” he said. “Once it had a bottle of La Rose Jacqueminot wrapped in sheets of Le Figaro.” He reached behind for his wife’s wrist. It was always her scent.

“And once in the package?” Madame said. “My old sculpting tools that he carried with him into war.” She leaned against her husband’s chair. “We know he’s alive and in Paris. Anything beyond that, he doesn’t want us to know.”

I took a swallow of my wine. No sugar, but there was a swirl of honey. “He was wounded. Did you know?”

Madame hesitated. “Yes.”

From his seat, Monsieur closed his eyes.

“I told him it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I saw him after he was discharged a few years ago. I told him none of it mattered. I just wanted him to come home.”

“Madame, I want that too. I came to ask for your help.”

Monsieur stood and took her arm. “Rowena.” He pulled her into his chair. “Clare, please eat.”

They watched while I took a sip of wine, while I cut my omelette. Monsieur nodded encouragingly as he served up the rest. Madame bit her lip. After I’d eaten half—the cheese cooling, the edges going limp—he finally said, “Tell us.”

“I work in a studio on the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs,” I said. “We make masks for mutilés.” At the word, Madame flinched. “He needs help, please. I want him to come in, for a mask, for our other resources.” I took a deep breath. “I want to help him the way he once helped me.”

“And you want us to convince Luc that he should come to your studio,” Monsieur said, setting down his own fork.

Madame had a forefinger pressed to her mouth. Eyes distant, she shook her head. “No.”

“Madame?” I sat up.

“We can’t. We don’t know where he is, and even if we did, we couldn’t go and plead. He’d never come home then.” She turned to her husband. “Don’t you see, Claude? He said he needed time to know himself. If we go to push him towards a mask rather than—”

“Don’t you want him here, ma minette?” He pushed aside the plates and mugs to sit right on the table in front of her.

“Of course. I want you both here, the way things were before. But I scared him off once. I don’t want to do it again.”

He put his hands on either side of her face. She brought hers up to his shoulders. They made their own little circle.

“He won’t be content with any absolution we give him. With any face,” she said. “He has to find both on his own.”

Monsieur looked searchingly into her eyes. She nodded and, finally, so did he. “Mademoiselle,” he said, dropping his hands. “I am sorry, but we cannot help you.”

“You must,” I pleaded. “This is what he needs.” I slid a scrap of paper across the table. “I copied it from our registry book. His address. And, below that, mine. Please, we’ve helped many mutilés.”

Madame flinched again at the word. “No more.” She pushed the address back towards me. “We’ve always taught Luc by just leaving him be. He learns through his own mistakes and successes.”

It was no different than the way Grandfather had raised me, letting me get lost in the maze of Seville’s streets, cheated in the Djemma el Fna, heartbroken thinking of Luc on a beach along the Mediterranean. “When I was here,” I said, “broken in two after my father died, Luc didn’t leave me be. I won’t abandon him either.”