Silent Parts Read online

  When peace comes, filtering through the ranks on an ordinary working Monday, it’s almost incidental. No one is particularly exuberant. In the evening he finds the atmosphere of the mess-hut somehow morose and resisting, as if no one can quite shake off the habit of scepticism. In faltering spurts someone picks out a tune on a mandolin. Men huddle to gamble, or sit alone to write letters. The war is over, Harry promises himself. To give this meaning he must refer to Colombe. Her name produces a mellowness in his bones. And observing the introspective faces around him, he doesn’t feel quite so separate or unusual. He sees the urgency and doubt of minds prying open their secret caches of love.

  In anticipation of learning where she is, he joins the ranks of the letter-writers, drawing from under his bed a wad of crumpled drafts. His most recent effort is a shambles of cross-hatching and scribble – provisional phrases and words copied from his growing collection of French textbooks. He flits through it then starts again on a fresh sheet. He proposes marriage in the first paragraph. No preamble – straight to the point. He apologises for the hardship he has caused her and promises he will make it up. He mentions his material assets in Australia. (In an earlier version he had put a figure on them.) He says he will live wherever she chooses and take on whatever work he can find to support her. In his concern to be taken seriously and thought reliable he uses the word love very sparingly. Love, desire, need – these are tacit, else he wouldn’t be writing.

  Half an hour’s striving gives him a single page. In review it’s disappointing. His enticements seem lame and pedestrian, yet he can’t bring himself to be more expansive. He would like to mention his relative youth and good health but can’t without implying she is old and on the verge of infirmity. And with no one to correct his grammar he worries in case he’s made some farcical slip. So he pares it back harder and harder, until it reads like a telegraph: sincere regret . . . beg your forgiveness . . . our mutual happiness . . . There is a syllogistic logic here, a progression from premises to the desired outcome. But in turn this too seems inadequate. And pompous. He’s at a loss. There are too many omissions, a tangle of feelings too fierce and melodramatic to be put down on paper. He thinks: You are my survival.

  Nine days before Christmas, more than a month after Armistice, and yet another Sunday, he walks alone across the Pont Corneille and catches a tram for Bapeaume. If his superiors had been more obliging and granted him leave on a weekday he might have ferreted about for information in the law courts or the prefecture. Instead he’s forced to take a less direct approach.

  By an unpleasant coincidence the weather is similar to what it had been nearly a year before when he first came this same route with Bunter, who is now officially listed as dead. He tries to mourn for him, but finds it difficult. An unconscionable part of him regards Bunter’s death, and his own survival, as a vindication. Back home in Footscray, in Bunter’s family church perhaps, his name will be inscribed on some honour board, like those of the men who died in South Africa when Harry was young. Hardly a consolation.

  Snow – first of the season – spatters the windows. Footpaths, awnings, roofs, hats and bare skulls; all are powdered white. Soldiers turn up their collars while draughthorses quiver and snort opaque breath. And all at once the French women are dowdier; bulky and inelegant in scarves and heavy ankle-length skirts. Yet the restaurants are crowded, stuffed to the doorways and glowing yellow like Aladdin’s caves in the dull afternoon. If he notices a change in the city, it’s the resurgence of civilian traffic – sputtering motors, buggies, tradesmen’s carts, even a few well-cloaked cyclists. At the Place Cauchoise the tram takes its usual turn out through residential Bouvreuil, past rows of high tenements that have the same grim aspect as respectable Melbourne. Apart from two American soldiers, his fellow passengers seem to be French. Whole families travel together. They are in public mode, all in their best clothes, the children rocking back and forth as they stand between their parents’ knees, and looking resigned to dull visits with relatives. At the terminus at Bapeaume he steps down into the cold and begins the trek to the Cordier property.

  After five minutes he’s puffing, the blood coursing in his head. After fifteen he has left the paddocks behind and taken the slippery wagon track into the forest. Buffered by the trees he’s less bothered by the sting of wind. He sees the wood smoke of Montigny through the gauze of bare timber, then as he comes out into the clear, the village itself, quiet and snow-bound, but distinct and central in its few square miles of fields. He thinks of the soldier, whether he’s still in the district, whether he has fully recovered. Even if Montigny isn’t his village, Harry imagines he must come from a place very like it – small, insular, protective of its sons. From half a mile the wind carries a chill of accusation, so he’s pleased to turn north, skirting the forest, then trudging between now-familiar farmhouses. Ahead lies the copse of poplars he looked out on for more than two months. As he catches glimpses of the house between the bare branches – dark masonry sliced vertically by pale trunks – he shivers with apprehension. The thatch is caked with snow. Smoke drifts from one of the chimneys: a fire in one of the upstairs bedrooms, his bedroom. He fights an unreasonable excitement. She can’t possibly have returned. By now the family will have reclaimed their house, and even if she has received a lenient sentence or been released prematurely she will hardly have been welcomed back here. Coming out from the poplars, he crosses the road and drags open the gate. He glances at the nursery yard and sees that someone has made a start on the rubbish. Earth, prunings and pieces of broken terracotta have been raked into a heap. Involuntarily his eyes seek out the bricks where the soldier fell – bare, swept clean and indistinguishable from their surrounds. He knocks at the front door then steps down. He hears unfamiliar movements, the sound of strange feet, and is disappointed though he knows his hope was absurd. Eventually a man appears, old at first glance, short, barrel-chested. He wears elastic braces to keep his trousers up. His moustache is feathery and drooping, a greying tobacco-stained yellow. In his best rehearsed French Harry asks after Madame Jacotot. The man raises his chin in contempt. It’s then that Harry realises he’s younger than he’d first supposed, young enough to have been a soldier.

  ‘I’m looking for Madame Jacotot,’ he repeats.

  ‘St Lazare,’ says the man, and shuts the door.

  In camp Harry tries without success to find the name in a guidebook. He assumes it designates a prison, or perhaps a religious institution, or simply a village too small to rate a mention. And now he has to wait weeks for his next leave to try the government offices. Having passed beyond the first flush of his idolatry, he questions whether his patience and determination are enough, whether he’s simply too ignorant and the world too intractable. But he can see no future without Colombe, no happiness, only a terrible reversion to the shrivelled and disappointed existence he led back in Australia. Already the troopships are steaming for home. He has told Maitland that he wishes to stay on till the last, and has put it in writing for the captain to consider, but eventually there will be a final ship.

  It’s Maitland who offers a little hope, not because he wants to, but because he has a problem.

  ‘Swap you a Fritz,’ he says.

  Harry is cautious, expecting a catch or some tasteless jibe. He waits for it to unfold. But no, Maitland wants to offload a German prisoner, one of several recently assigned to his team. As an experienced baker, and once more a section leader in his own right, Harry has several prisoners of his own to supervise, along with responsibility for the vocational training of a batch of Australians. Neither group shows any aptitude or enthusiasm. Everyone is waiting to be repatriated.

  ‘My Fritz are good-oh,’ says Harry. ‘What do I want with yours?’

  ‘He speaks French like a native.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with him,’ says the corporal.

  ‘You just think I
should have him.’

  Despite his earlier attempts to find and befriend a French-speaking German, Harry senses trouble. But ultimately he doesn’t really have a choice. When he goes to investigate he finds a slightly built man in his mid-twenties with cropped black hair and olive skin. Unlike his compatriots, whose movements are ponderous, he divides the dough with maniacally active hands. Aware he’s being scrutinised, he looks up at Harry and winks – actually winks! – a greeting that causes one or two Australians to shake their heads and another to smirk and an irascible giant called Alf Barnes to scowl and mutter, ‘Jesus-Fucking-Christ!’ Harry takes it all in; can see precisely what he’s walked into, and why Maitland should be concerned. But he keeps an open mind, reasoning that perhaps the corporal’s Fritz isn’t to blame. Perhaps a different group of men won’t find him so irritating. Maitland motions to the prisoner to drop what he’s doing, and Harry accompanies them from the pavilion to an out-of-the-way spot behind the sergeants’ mess. Suddenly struck by the need for rudimentary civilities, Maitland confesses he can’t pronounce the prisoner’s name.

  ‘Atzert,’ says the German. Not quite by the book. He really should divulge his rank, though it’s clear from the remnants of his uniform that he’s not an officer.

  ‘Atzert is your Christian name?’ Harry asks.

  ‘The blokes call him Gyppo.’ Maitland can’t see why the prisoner should be displeased.

  ‘My given name is Moritz.’ His English is effortless; his accent soft.

  ‘Must be a stroke of luck for you, working here.’

  ‘It’s preferable to being shot at.’

  ‘Clean work at least. There are worse places. You’re getting plenty to eat?’

  The corporal has to laugh. ‘Fuck me, Lambert, if you’re going to propose to him you better go down on one knee.’

  Atzert looks calmly at Harry, waiting for the upshot.

  Eventually it comes: ‘I believe you speak French.’

  Atzert says yes and continues to wait.

  ‘I’m learning the language,’ Harry confesses. ‘Blundering along alone I’m afraid. I don’t pick things up very quickly.’

  Still Atzert refuses to put two and two together. Harry doesn’t know whether it’s caution or hostility.

  ‘What he’s saying,’ Maitland jumps in again, ‘is he wants you to scribble obscenities to his missus!’

  ‘I want nothing of the sort!’ Harry snaps.

  For a moment the German seems to step back in appreciation of a potential squabble. But when it doesn’t eventuate he remarks that what Harry needs is a tutor. It’s not exactly an offer but Harry’s relieved.

  ‘Perhaps you can help me with something.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘St Lazare.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In Paris. Not a very nice part. I used to go there sometimes before the war.’

  For Harry this is enough. He can’t ask whether there’s a jail at St Lazare, not in front of Maitland, but he’s satisfied.

  ‘Have you any particular preferences to where you work? My bakehouse is the second last – number eleven. I don’t want to take advantage – I mean we can’t help our respective situations – but I’d be very grateful . . . ’

  ‘Good then,’ says Maitland, ‘all settled.’

  At first Atzert is a model worker, quiet, busy and efficient. The rest of the shift is largely indifferent to him, one Fritz being much the same as another, but the men know his presence there is down to a personal whim on the part of their section leader and keep their ears cocked for anything new or interesting in the vaguely ridiculous saga of Pokey Lambert. Instead their exchanges are a disappointment: French lessons, mostly informal but sometimes with reference to a book. It’s noted how tactful Atzert is in correcting Harry’s accent, and how after a time Harry becomes loud and excited; how he beams and laughs and demeans himself like a big dim-witted dog. But he’s oblivious to their disgust. He’s absorbed, listening for the direction of sentences, for the breaks and stops and reversals that lie beneath the specific meanings. Instantaneously he grasps and releases the known phrases and hurries on to the next and the next, only to find himself suddenly lost and gasping for a demystifying word of English, which Atzert provides sparingly, both to challenge Harry and because he obviously delights in leading him a dance. Not that Harry minds. He is flushed with ongoing achievement, thinking French is like drowning, and that the secret must be to keep your head submerged until you forget whether you’re below or above, and water tastes as good in your lungs as air. Longer and longer he remains there. And in the process he learns about Moritz Atzert, or at least the skeletal points of his life, and likes him for his enthusiasm, which might simply be naked conceit. Since the age of nineteen he has travelled on business for the family firm. He knows about leathergoods. He knows about Italy, England and France, and about films. Alone and at a loose end in London he saw Oliver Twist three sessions running. He loves Alma Taylor. He loves Chrissie White. He loves English women . . .

  The effort, the pleasure, the anxiety, all give Harry a headache. By midday he’s in need of respite, and at the risk of offending Atzert goes to eat with the other Australians, who pass a few remarks about his pet German but are essentially laconic in their humour, and less of a strain to keep up with. For several hours in the afternoon he works silently, avoiding Atzert’s too-quick eyes. Then shortly before knock-off, just as the guard detail arrives at the gate to escort the Germans back to their barracks, he asks the question he’s harboured all day. But evidently Atzert feels he’s been snubbed. He delivers his information with matter-of-fact indifference to Harry’s sensitivities. Yes, at St Lazare there is a prison for women. Yes, quite right, a civilian prison. Murderers, thieves, the lot.

  Though irritated, Harry has to admire his stubbornness, his absurd expectation of friendliness and personal fidelity even from his enemies – as if the massed armies of a dozen nations and five years of slaughter don’t come into it. He imagines he will have to win him back slowly, but to his surprise it takes only a few solicitous words the following morning. Obviously delighting in the role of tutor, Atzert reveals he has prepared a series of written exercises. Harry appreciates the hours of thought involved. And seeing as his German has expressed such a willingness to help, he takes advantage of a lull in the work to lead him away to the privacy of one of the woodsheds and show him his own unsatisfactory letter. Atzert is puzzled, less by the peculiar French than by the tone. He berates Harry in stern and gravid English. Does he really think he can woo his mademoiselle with this mean little note? Can’t he see it reads like a transaction between corn merchants: six bushels of companionship, five of material security, nine of bodily comfort? And though it mightn’t be polite to pry, what is this ‘great wrong’ he has done her?

  So Harry is forced to tell.

  ‘Well,’ says Atzert, ‘let’s begin again.’

  The letter he constructs is florid and ambitious. It begins ‘Ma chère Colombe’ – an endearment Harry has never uttered in his head or aloud, let alone on paper. The first paragraph is devoted to how sincerely he loves her, the second to how morbidly ashamed he is that she should be punished for his transgressions. If only he hadn’t broken into her house, if only he hadn’t traded on her kindness! If only he’d heeded her repeated advice to return to his unit!

  ‘But she never said this!’ Harry objects.

  ‘It’s called chivalry, my friend. Don’t you want to show her in a good light? It’s not simply a matter of pleasing your mademoiselle. You’ve got to please her keepers too.’

  Which Harry has to concede is true. An antagonistic official might murder his letter, or withhold it from Colombe altogether on the grounds they are parties to a crime. And he has to admit that in other respects Atzert’s judgement is masterful. The letter is
less a proposal of marriage than a plea. Pity him, forgive him, love him! One word and he will be happy for life. Harry can imagine her scoffing amusement, and her pleasure. He wants to laugh too.

  He’s often heard it said the civilian post is a lottery, even when you provide a correct and precise address – which he hasn’t. So in the week after he despatches his mail he feels quite helpless. And beyond all the barriers and unfavourable contingencies is the enigma of Colombe herself. He doubts she will be bitter. His fear is she will regard him as foolish, as something come and gone, a costly episode. All at once he regrets the glibness of Atzert’s style. Certainly she will laugh; certainly she’ll be flattered and charmed – but can she say yes to such a letter? At least his own proposal was in earnest. She wouldn’t have laughed at that. She would have totted it up to see what it came to.

  But all this might be immaterial, because when he examines their weeks together he’s distressed by their inequalities and suspects there is something infantile in the late-born intensity of his feelings. He perceives her as more level-headed, less compelled. She’s older. She’s been a wife, perhaps several times over. She has had children. He remembers that second time she came to his bed. She had been miserable with loss. He tasted her desperation and supposed it was excitement; heard her body shouting, ‘To hell with frugality and making endless provision!’

  While waiting for her reply he receives a shrewdly offensive letter from Lew Broughton. Somehow Lew has got wind of his disgrace. He begins with family news; how everyone is well except young Dickie, who has nevertheless survived serious wounds and an attack of typhoid, and is recovering in a Cairo hospital. But the larger part of the letter concerns Harry’s interests. Lew confides his sadness at seeing the bakery closed. In contradiction to his usual line, he asserts that the family business is ‘an honourable edifice to return to and stand behind, one’s best face to society’. By this Harry understands he will find himself under siege. If this hint isn’t enough, there’s a blatant lecture, a dour examination of the freedoms and opportunities for happiness a man has a right to expect. ‘Whether you think so, Harry, we are all curtailed for the common good. A fellow has as much liberty as his nation allows. Depending on the times, he can steal a little something for himself here and there. He can withhold a few shillings that he is lawfully bound to give or leave his neighbour to do what he himself is bound to do, but he can steal just so much before there is no nation and no government . . . ’ But Harry shouldn’t abandon himself to remorse. He shouldn’t imagine he’s alone and unloved. Everyone is eager to have him home. The family is ready to fold itself around his errant life.