Silent Parts Page 23

  How appealing! Lew couldn’t have honed his words more perfectly to achieve the opposite result. The blood thumps in Harry’s head. He thinks: Meddling little bastard! Who does he think he is?

  He knows he shouldn’t feel cut off. He has Maggie’s letters as a counterweight. She demands explanations – why the delay? Why is he still absent when he should be on his way home? There is also a card from a soldier nephew – very warm and chatty. Possibly the Lamberts do regard him as a problem to be managed, but they’re big enough to stare down any unpleasantness. They’re being good; extending a hand. Yet he ripples with anger. It’s almost blissful. Fuck their festering little town! They can practise their magnanimity on someone else! Fuck compulsion! Fuck sacrifice! Fuck Australia!

  The alternative, to stay here in France, has a liberating momentum. Wipe the past! Care nothing for what anyone thinks! It has the feel of something settled and decided. Whether it will be a feat of defiance or a brave new genesis depends on Colombe. He continues to hope.

  Her reply comes after three weeks, arriving in the company mailbag along with the letters of parents and sweethearts and legitimate Australian wives. The handwriting is quite accomplished, certainly not hers. There are three pages, which he tries to read without Atzert’s help, relying on his improved French and a dictionary. He recognises formal good wishes for his health. She makes no reference to her circumstances. Nor to his proposal, unless he counts her warning that he isn’t to be concerned for her welfare. Not to feel responsible does she mean? After this the going gets difficult. He claws at a knot around the word blesse. Signifying injury? Implying blame? He flicks through the dictionary, eventually alighting on what seems to be an English equivalent: injured party. She has no desire to be regarded as an injured party. She will get by. She has always gotten by. She has family. They will help her. He begins to plummet. What family? Where have they been? How can they be suddenly anxious for her welfare after having left her to fend for herself? Nowhere is it clear. The words have ceased to run. They coagulate. They guard their sense. They revert to mere loops and scratches of pencil. He leaps ahead, anticipating the worst, the bare assertion: I cannot marry you. He doesn’t find it. That at least is heartening. Nevertheless, she mentions an estranged husband. To the best of her knowledge he is still alive. Is this such an impediment? Surely divorce is possible. Can the stigma be so terrible? He resents her failure to give him an unequivocal answer. She has risked herself; she had gone to jail for him, but can’t discuss the subject of marriage. She seems to say she’s past the age for such things, but the language is impenetrable. Does she mean she’s not free to marry, or that she has no wish to?

  He pounces on Atzert the instant he arrives from his barracks. The German sees that he clings to a slim hope and reads rapidly. He looks up, offers a sympathetic grimace and shrugs. After a start, a visceral jolt, it occurs to Harry that he hasn’t properly prepared himself for failure. Exile might be bearable, even desirable, but how is he to survive the loss of his imaginary places?

  ‘She is not asking to be persuaded?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  To avoid the wind they sit together in the lee of the flour shed. Atzert translates patiently, paragraph by paragraph, pausing between each small revelation. It seems Harry has missed important points.

  ‘She says she has received letters from her family. She says she is not alone. You are not to worry for her.’

  ‘What family?’

  ‘She says family. That’s all.’

  ‘Her husband?’

  ‘No. He has been gone a long time. She says she is past the age for husbands, old or new. By the time she gets out she will be older still. Five years, my friend. She has another five years. She is not asking you to wait. She is letting you know.’

  ‘Five years!’

  ‘It seems very harsh.’

  ‘They could release her earlier.’

  ‘Perhaps. She does not mention it. She tells you the worst.’

  thirty-seven

  Julie Keely

  12 Morah Street,

  Parkville,

  Victoria,

  November 21, 1968

  Dear Terry,

  I was so pleased to see you there. Thanks for coming all that way. It was a wonderful surprise after you said you had no heart for it. You mightn’t think so, but the research was as much your achievement as mine. Without your help I doubt I would have got far at all. I’m sorry we only had a few minutes together. It was a very demanding day. I’ve come to the conclusion that old people are bullies. I’m not whingeing. I knew what I was letting myself in for. I know you say the old men give you the willies too, but they’re worse with me – always wary, and so bloody condescending!

  I received commendations for the New Guinea display. The truth is I did very little. They brought in their odds and ends and I arranged them on the tables with a few notes. Those guys know their stories and I didn’t interfere. I must say I’m not overly thrilled by Bren guns and grass skirts. But the old boys were happy. Everyone loves attention. It’s not as if I neglected them.

  But really the whole thing was for the first war. That’s where I transgressed. I won’t pretend I didn’t know what I was doing. You don’t muck about with ‘the one we lost’ – not if you know what’s good for you. Old Harry’s untouchable. He holds us together. Mum said I got high marks for presentation. They liked the photos. If they were still smiling it was because they hadn’t read the texts. People are so lazy.

  I think I mortified old Dickie. Did I tell you I wrote to him two more times? I asked him several blunt questions. No reply. Then on the day he avoided me like the plague. They tell me he hobbled around the Harry stuff with an approving eye until he saw the words ‘Pokey Lambert’. They say he went very pink and spent the rest of the day denying he was the source of my lewd stories. A bit sad really. It’s possible he was more worried about this than my suggestion that Harry had deserted. If only your dad was still with us. He’d have settled the question. Several people said, ‘That old scuttlebutt!’ One of the aunts took me aside and said, ‘You shouldn’t listen to anything the McArdles say.’ No one referred to you specifically, certainly not me. But she had a sixth sense. My guess is you’ll be pleased to know the old rivalry is going strong. You McArdles! Always sniping!

  Your friend Uncle John wasn’t having any of it. He thought I was out of my depth. Silly little Julie. I kept my mouth shut. You learn what’s best with men like him. He asked me to pass on his thanks to you for your ‘gesture’. Couldn’t bring himself to speak to you directly. I guess by now your ‘Ashes’ are back in Lorna’s cabinet, safe from thieving hands. He asked whether I knew anything about the Frenchwoman’s letter. He seemed to think I had it. At any rate he was suspicious. I told him I’d found no trace of it. I didn’t mention your dad but I said it had probably never been more than a rumour, a furphy put about by Lew Broughton. John imagined I was trying to put one over on him. He was quite annoyed. He told me very hush-hush that Lew Broughton had paid for a translation, which John’s father had seen. You can imagine the tenor – a work of literature, so sad and poignant, the little French girl with her fatherless bubbies telling how Harry’s dying wish had been to have his remains sent back home, because he missed and loved us all.

  I didn’t contradict him. I thought maybe one day he’ll read the booklet and see what I think about old Harry missing us. I don’t say it outright but the implication is there. Harry didn’t like us. If he did he’d have come home.

  On the subject of Lew Broughton I had a satisfying conversation with one of the Rushburn Lowrys. I could tell you how they’re related but you probably wouldn’t be interested. I very shrewdly got her rattling on about Harry’s window, the one sponsored by Lew Broughton, in the C of E church. It’s more thrilling than it sounds, because she was under the misapprehension that it commemorates Harry
’s death in action. I said, ‘But Harry Lambert died ten years after hostilities were over.’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Lew Broughton stuck by the Lamberts.’ She roundly approved. Someone had to shore up the family reputation.

  To my mind it’s a miracle there’s anything true and reliable left to gather. It’s all deliberately topsy-turvy. Of course Mum’s transported. There was such a good turn-out! You were being funny when you said I should have left Harry in his black hole where he belonged, but it’s a fair summary of their attitude. They wanted a nice commemoration. I don’t know what I intended, definitely something more cerebral and searching than the occasion allowed. They wanted a good bloke, one of their own. But I doubt I upset their dinners too much. Most of them will go to their graves with their old opinions intact.

  Not that I pretend there’s all that much you can know about a person forty years after his death. The connection is imaginary and artificial, even if you go looking without preconceptions. I don’t think we can tell anyone what to think of Harry Lambert. I suppose a man who runs away must be a dissenter. Maybe that’s what I like. I don’t know. I’m glad you came, Terry,

  with love,

  Julie

  thirty-eight

  Let me get up at my own pace. The cabbages can wait. Sister understands. Too quick and I get dizzy. You don’t want me seeing black again. I pray it’s not getting worse. I just want to be well when he comes. He makes such an effort, always coming from so many kilometres, I should be well for him.

  The first time I had a howling toothache. It’s a tradition between us. I’m always sick on the crucial day. Maybe I get nervous. But the tooth was real. I didn’t want to see him. I looked and felt awful. He stood there very neat and upright in the visitors’ room. I was startled. It’s amazing what a careful shave can do. Probably I was intimidated. We sat at the last table in front of the plaster Madonna. It was like she was eavesdropping. I could see him thinking: She looks dreadful. He swears he didn’t, but it was obvious. I felt dreadful. He says I frowned a lot. He says I looked like I wanted a fight. I wanted my tooth to stop hurting.

  I gasped when he spoke. He was so proud of being able to communicate. You know he couldn’t speak a word. At Montigny it was like a dumb-show, the two of us pulling faces and waving our arms. Now he wouldn’t shut up. He was so pleased with his new faculty and wanting congratulations. It was for me, he said. I said you don’t learn to talk to please someone. You learn a language because you have to. My tooth was killing me. I told him I’d been waiting months for the dentist. I had an appointment for the next morning. It was a big thing, maybe bigger than seeing him again. That was our reunion: we talked about my tooth. We talked about the gas and how it never stops the pain.

  I did say, ‘Why haven’t you gone home?’ He said, ‘You know why.’ He meant his proposal. We left it there. I didn’t believe in it. I still think it’s crazy. I say, ‘Oh, you again!’ Even now – as if I’m astonished to see his face. I suppose I am. I don’t know what’s in his head. But he keeps showing up. I used to think: Well, that’s it, he’s losing interest, he won’t come any more. But no, there he is again, grinning like a fool.

  Let me stand a minute. I need time to adjust. My blood moves too slowly.

  You have to wonder what kind of man would forsake his family. His parents are dead, he has no children, but he sometimes speaks of nephews and nieces. A whole tribe. They’ll all want a piece of the cake when he dies. The law’s different in his country, so he’s not obliged to leave them anything. He tells me there’s property. He owns it outright. No wonder the family is resisting. I would too. I tell him property should stay with flesh and blood – to prove I’m not mercenary. Fortunately he doesn’t listen. They know about me. In his letters I am the ‘French Wife’ – as if it’s all legal and fixed and Leon isn’t all too alive and well. He makes out we’re set up in a nice little cottage like birds in a nest. Maybe it will happen, who knows? You want to believe these things.

  You’ve seen his drawings. He makes it look beautiful – smoke from the chimney and tulips at the door. Maybe it’s real and maybe it’s not. How can you tell with foreigners? You have to ask whether there’s something wrong in his head. Who does he know in this country besides me? He has no friends, no true friends. Oh, he thinks they’re friends. He’s always saying how people have helped him. I hear where he’s been, all the good people he’s met, this job, that job, how much money he’s saved. Oh, he’s overjoyed. He makes me ashamed. And he looks so healthy, so brown in the face and arms. He’s dropped five or six kilos. He had hips like a woman. No, that’s an exaggeration. I’m cruel. I like him better without the uniform. Now it’s a nice brown suit. I don’t know what I did to become such an attraction. When I was young, yes, there might have been reason. I don’t complain.

  Sister Stump-Foot is besotted. ‘How is your Henri?’ I told her Henri because it’s easier. If I can’t say his name properly, how can I expect anyone else to? She lets us have longer than we’re entitled to. She sees this ring and believes it means something. I confessed it was only gold-plated, not the real thing, but for her it’s a legal token. He says he’s got her a New Year’s gift, to keep her happy. I tell him who matters.

  I wish I could get shifted to the machine room to make him something. You feel bad when you can’t give anything back. I don’t know what he has for me, something nicer than those glazed dates he brought in April. He has started teasing me. Yes, teasing. He lets me think he’s a walking disaster. There’s always someone taking advantage. Some woman. He’s not stupid. I laugh, but I don’t feel equal.

  When I feel rotten I look at his drawings. I think: A house of my own, and laugh. I’m laughing at myself, because I’m happy to believe anything. The nearest I came was the place at Montigny. I don’t count my husband’s house, which was never mine. I want a bed by the fire like I had at Marsaults’. I shouldn’t say what I want. It’s asking for trouble. But I like his drawings. They’re terrible. He has no skill whatsoever. Skill would spoil everything. You wouldn’t see his kind intentions.

  It began as an accident, something he did to soothe me after I argued with my sister. They arrived the same day. He saw us fighting. Not an out-and-out fight, just hard words. It was about an old dress, my mother’s confirmation dress. I’m the oldest so it’s always been with me. It’s perfectly safe. They’ll give it back when I go. But she wanted me to hand it over, because her daughter is doing her catechism and because I’m in here. If she’d asked respectfully, yes, I might have obliged. But to demand! I said I’d burn it. I said I’d burn it so the kid wouldn’t have to suffer all that rubbish.

  He didn’t hear, but he saw. And this after I’d been telling him how devoted she was, how she had a good husband and a farmhouse in Caen with a room set aside for me. It’s true. There’s a room. She wouldn’t refuse me, even now after what I said. They’d take me under sufferance. I’ve never asked. But he saw how it was.

  That’s when he drew me the cottage. He made it up so I would feel better. I’m sure there was no such place at the time. He drew ripe apples hanging on the trees, and funny looking geese in the field.

  I said, ‘What are these meant to be?’

  ‘What do they look like?’

  ‘Ostriches!’

  He laughed but I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d cry. He had seen everything.

  thirty-nine

  Up from the south a couple of weeks earlier than usual in this, his sixth European winter, Harry trudges between the hedges, his clogs slurping in the mud. He leans forward, straining, his improvised harness pulling tight against his shoulders and chest. He drags an iron-wheeled cart that he bought cheaply in a village near Le Mans. He has dragged it for more than sixty miles, steadily heaping it up with building materials and necessities. It squeaks with each revolution of each wheel, making a see-sawing phrase that after such a distance no longer sounds discordant. Beneath the t
arpaulin there are cans of plaster and lime, bolts of cloth, tools, new workshirts, dried beans, potatoes, boxes of galvanised nails. There is window-glass, cutlery, china, a camp oven, a dozen sleeping tulip bulbs.

  In the February cold the hedges are dormant but nonetheless dense. Evergreen gorse and broom give substance to the enveloping net of grey twigs so that he has only a keyhole prospect of the way ahead. The bracken droops with the weight of dew and ice. Hoof prints brim with water and drowned worms. As the track rises he grunts and breathes noisily through his mouth. His knees jolt and ache and his hip grinds bone on bone, none of which spoils his mood of homecoming. He remembers that first winter when he began to wander – a plague-time of scarcity and improvisation, of hard labour, of influenza and lone women and vanished men – and swells a little with the achievement of survival. Step by slippery step he comes home to Normandy.

  The village he approaches is a diminished place, one of those purely agricultural settlements that the previous century’s railways never reached. Even before the war it was marooned in the deep countryside between centres of greater prosperity. The government institutions have vanished – no post office, no school. There isn’t even a shop. According to Victor Vanangot, widower and one-time hotelier, there are fewer than fifty residents left, mostly old like himself, and just two families of child-rearing age. Yet when Harry has stayed here in the past (routinely for three years now, always in the warm months) Victor has taken pleasure in a minor renaissance: a recent and prolific crop of boys. He swears that since the war no daughters have been born there, only sons. Harry regards it as an extreme instance of what he has seen elsewhere. Villagers in every region comment on the abundance of small French boys. They tell him God is restoring the balance, restocking the arsenal. They’re very pleased and proud, and think that he, as a man who crossed the world to fight for France, must be too.