Yours Is the Night Read online

  “Paris,” I said. “Take her there.” It was farther from the front. Closer to everything she might need. And far from me. “And then—if she is amenable to it—carry the book on to Provins after that.” The French army headquarters was there at the moment.

  “That might take . . .”

  “Weeks, at least, if we’re on foot,” Piccadilly piped up, looking all too eager to take the full amount of time. “Do send me too, sir. I have extensive navigational experience.” He pulled back his shoulders, looking rather proud of himself.

  “I’m sure you do,” I said. Navigating lies and pomp. And this was supposed to be our chaplain? It would do him good to see some of the world and be put in his place.

  And get the reporter out of my sight, to boot.

  The girl was approaching, slowly. Her skirts were soaked in mud, tattered in some places. She murmured something in French, studying me in a way that held me captive.

  “What did she say?” I knew I needed to sharpen my ability to translate.

  “Something about chickens,” Piccadilly said, sounding rather pleased with himself. “Or geese.”

  She did not look as if she spoke of chickens. She looked as if she saw straight through me, maybe saw my Amelia, my June, both tucked down in the dark where I never let their memory away from the pounding in my chest. Not for a second.

  “You three take her. Get some food, canteens, supplies.” I thought of Petticrew, the things he’d suffered in the last battle. It would do him good to get away . . . and selfishly, mournfully, I knew it might send him back refreshed and more ready for the next battle. Which would be, I anticipated, infinitely more intense, and much longer, than the last. We would need his quick instincts on the field. In a war of numbers, every man counted—and I fought hard against the way those numbers quickly turned into faces in my mind. Faces like Petticrew’s. It was too hard.

  “We need you back before three weeks is gone,” I said.

  I could see the wheels in Petticrew’s head turning. It would be much, for them to make it to Paris and back in that amount of time. It wasn’t just a matter of miles. It was the unpredictability of war-torn terrain. Roads sometimes navigable, sometimes not. Enemy and espionage tucked behind our lines. That meant every step in that journey would be on high alert and anything could happen. It wouldn’t be a vacation, but it would still be time away from the trenches.

  “You’ll be on foot for much of it, but you might find transport by supply rail or truck for portions. Keep a look out for them.”

  Petticrew nodded, looking certain, but a flash of fear underpinned his stance.

  “Listen,” I said. “Everything you men have done up till now is impossible. Not one of you could have imagined the front a year ago. But here you are. You’re doing it. And you’ll do this, too. Yes, it might be impossible. But one second at a time will get you there. One second at a time is not impossible.”

  I said it. And wanted to believe it. And recalled a time I had to believe it or else I’d have given up and fallen by the wayside, never to rise again. I had been a father, and you never get back from having that ripped right out of your life. Fact is, I never did let go of it. Nobody saw that part of me, anymore . . . nobody even knew. But you never stop being a father. A part of me stayed back there, in 1904, and always will.

  One second at a time was not impossible. I’d lived a decade and a half that way. These boys needed to hear it now, maybe more than I ever had.

  15

  Mira

  The first night swallowed us up in darkness.

  The English fellow, the one who had tried to tell me of their plan in broken French, snored like my old dog Gustave, who’d had white fur with big brown spots, flopping ears and adoring eyes. In a way, the fellow George reminded me of Gustave’s ways, too, bounding about quite without a clue, saying things that made no sense, but making one feel as if he were a very old friend.

  But I did not trust it.

  The one with the spectacles—Henry or Hank, nobody seemed quite sure which—he was quiet but studious. It was hard to tell what their names were. The soldiers liked to use surnames, as if even their syllables were marching. But I was listening hard and listening to learn, and I thought I had discovered their given names. Henry or Hank Jones, George Piccadilly, Matthew Petticrew.

  Henry-or-Hank seemed much more a Henry to me. Hank—what manner of name is that at all? It sounds like an illness of the skin to me. I have the Hank, one might say of themselves when afflicted with it. I scolded myself. Hank was probably a very fine name in America.

  Yet he seemed to feel the same about it as I. He did not even respond to it, when George Piccadilly called him so. As if he’d forgot his own name. Only when George said “Henry” did he look up. He seemed intelligent and had things to say. He knew how to follow a map and draw one, too. He had not spoken any more of this idea of his that I was the granddaughter of a lost aristocrat. If he had known Grand-père, he would know it to be impossible.

  Henry knew his plants, too, and had managed to brew us a tea of chamomile to drink with the tin of beans we all shared for dinner. He made one feel that he was a very trustworthy guide.

  But I did not trust it.

  And then there was the other one, who seemed always to be listening. To what, I did not know, for I was careful not to speak. But his eyes seemed to hear things even when his ears could not. When my thoughts traveled back to my grandfather in the ground and my heart felt like it would stop beating for the pain of it—I felt his eyes on me, and they were soft. Knowing. As if he could read my thoughts, and I was safe. I could tell he had known such pain too, and therefore he carried mine with care.

  But I did not trust it. I would never trust it. Of the three men, he frightened me most. I kept my eyes on him, that he might be afraid of me instead.

  So we slumbered in the dark—me by the fire Matthew had built, George and Hank and Matthew all spaced far from me and at intervals, like so many guards. Matthew, though, did not sleep. He was as quiet as the others, never moved an inch—but I could feel his wakefulness, even as my own faded into sleep. It was a force all its own. When I awoke, it was to air chilled by a nearly arrived October, and to find myself covered in a blanket that had been dusted off but still held streaks of dried mud.

  They all slept but Matthew, who was nowhere in sight.

  I could have escaped so easily then. But the truth was, I could have escaped at any moment. I knew the woods, and they did not. I knew how to live here, and they did not. But where would I go? Certainly not to Paris. I had no intention of going to Paris. But I did know someone. A single soul in all the world who might help me. And perhaps I might help her, too. She lived in Fontaine d’Argonne, where we would stop for supplies and rest next, according to the plan of the men. The village we so often went to for market now suddenly seemed a beacon of hope on the horizon.

  These were my thoughts, woven in the clarity of fresh morning. The fog of yesterday had lifted, and it felt nice to have a plan. I did not depend upon three Americans. But they were, I knew, the better fate than many others who might find me on my own.

  So I did not escape. I circled the clearing by turns, going deeper only to find more berries for breakfast.

  When I returned, I found Matthew with arms full of kindling, face serious. When he saw me, his features relaxed a little but remained somber. A quick study of the clearing showed more footprints—his, for the others slept on—going in many different directions into the trees surrounding. More directions than one armload of sticks warranted.

  “Good morning,” he said quietly, with a nod. I returned the gesture, wary. He took a step nearer the now-cold fire, and so did I. We mirrored one another step by step, entering into a cautious dance of fire-building. He, laying the kindling. Me, stowing the berries upon a flat stone. He, laying dried leaves as tinder, searching, I presume, for the can he’d pulled out the night before that held matches. Me, standing in stubborn, silent battle with myself.


  I could help. I should help. I had matches, even if only a few. I laid my hand upon my skirt pocket and felt the outline of my little worn cardboard box, the one Papa had entrusted to me as if it were his greatest treasure. The rattling inside it was quieter than it used to be, with so very few matches left. Four, when I had lit the lantern in the woods two nights before and brought all of this upon myself. Had it only been two nights past, truly? It felt like two hundred.

  I wanted to hoard my dwindling supply. Clutch it to myself like a selfish child. As if that would somehow bring Papa back, make this all vanish. By clinging to these last matches, I held fast to a single tattered thread, attached to him somewhere away in the unknown.

  “Keep the fire burning.” His last words to me.

  I drew in a shuddering breath, pulled the box from my pocket. Slid the tray out and watched those four little sticks roll around, clattering like dry bones.

  Something inside me hurt. It ached, so terribly. I pulled out one of the matches. Clutched it fast in my hand, fingers curled tight around it. Closed my eyes. Please, God. I prayed, for the ten thousandth time. Bring him home.

  And then, by sheer force of determination, I opened my fingers and held out my hand. Offered the match to the soldier.

  Opening my eyes, I saw he watched me. Studying, reading me.

  Which frustrated me to no end, when I wished to clutch these embers of dying hope deep inside of me far from anybody’s view.

  But he held my gaze fast. Seeing, if not understanding, the great struggle within. Solemnly he accepted the match, holding it with care, lifting it with a nod to say, “See, I will take care, I promise.”

  And my fortress grew higher. Do not trust it.

  He struck the match upon a rock and lit his dried grasses and leaves, shielding the fledgling flame with his hands as a small breeze tumbled through.

  The kindling caught fire, snapping pleasant greetings of coming warmth, and a smile kindled upon his solemn face, too. He stood and stepped back, gesturing for me to step closer to it and warm myself.

  Swallowing the burn in my throat, I neared the burn of the flames, tucking my last three matches in their box back into safety. Matthew’s listening eyes searched mine. He knew that to ask was futile, but he could not seem to help it.

  “Where did you go?” he asked. His voice was serious but kind as he scanned the outskirts of our camp. He was doing this, always. Searching. Vigilant. “Are you alright?”

  Yes, I nearly said. No, I nearly sobbed. But I said nothing. He looked so concerned, I wished I could reach past this barricade and at least give him relief from his questions. So much weighed upon this soul, this man who said so little. I gave a small smile and could feel the relief in the way his shoulders eased. I gestured to my offering of berries, making my eyes wide to invite him to eat.

  He looked so hungry I thought he might drop right there. But then he looked at his sleeping comrades. Understanding, I knelt and made three piles of the berries. Six in each pile—with one left over. I put it in his pile and picked them up, all seven, to hand to him.

  He only stared. His stomach rumbled and that needed no translation. For the first time, he broke his gaze and drilled it only into the ground, embarrassed. I picked up his palm and poured the berries in. After a moment, he counted out three, closed his hand around them, and gave four back to me.

  And then, the oddest thing—we smiled at one another. Less than a moment, perhaps both of us feeling the shame of a smile at such a time, in the midst of war and death and uncertain future. But that tiny smile fed my soul more than any amount of berries ever could.

  It tasted—it tasted like hope.

  It was that hope that carried us long, long, long through the day. When we reached Fontaine d’Argonne at last, I could never have anticipated the wave of comfort that came with it. There was the Rue de Fontaine, a street cobbled with comfort. I had not been there for over a year, and never expected the window boxes to be still splashed with color. I had forgotten the way ivy clung to the rock walls of the homes, as if it had crept down from the forest to bring wilderness and air to the village. There was the fountain that gave the town its name. As we approached, a line of women came in from the south, looking weary as they washed their arms and hands. This had always been the ritual of the men working the fields. But of course the men were in different fields now. War-torn fields, fighting.

  This hour was once my favorite, here. Families would sit on balconies and front steps. There was an older gentleman who would sit and play his violin, sending the sun off to sleep. And the sun, in response, always lit the sky with colors afresh, every night. A lullaby back to the village. Grand-père and he used to talk long about the man’s goat, whom he kept in a pen and who sang to the man’s violin with his bleating and with hay hanging from his goat beard. The goat would look at me through his funny slitted eyes and chew his hay and happily welcome my hand scratching his coarse hair.

  The man was gone now. His goat, too. And his house. It was an empty space most jarring. Ruins that would have looked pretty had they been taken by time in the natural course of things, with ivy grown over to soften the hard, broken edges.

  But it was all hard, broken edges. Taken in one blow from shelling, and not at all in the natural course of things. I reached out to touch the rough edges of its broken walls and felt so like it.

  My eyes stung. I prayed the man was safe somewhere. His goat, too.

  We approached the fountain, and the men waited until the women were done. The girls looked askance at them. I recognized one of them—a girl who used to sell goose feather pillows at the stall near ours on market day. She whispered to me, “Who are they?”

  “Americans,” I said back. “From across the sea. They have come to help the war.” I bent over the water to splash some on my face in hopes of clearing my head. But the creature who stared back at me in rippled reflection told me I needed much more than head-clearing. I cleaned my arms and my face, like my old acquaintance did. I patted my wayward hair, knowing there was little hope of taming the mangled halo of dark curls.

  “No,” one of the women protested. “America has not come for the war. We have heard no such news.”

  “It is true,” I said, my French matching hers. Papa had been right. Another language was a secret strength. I had little worry over George Piccadilly’s farmstead French translations following our conversation.

  “And what do they do here with you?”

  To answer that would be to tell so many tales I wished to forget. “They . . . are on their way to Paris.”

  “And you?”

  “Here. To see Aline.”

  The girl drew back slowly. “Aline,” she repeated. Her frown sent a tremor into my heart.

  “Oui. Is she well?”

  “She is . . . she is well,” the girl said tentatively. “As well as can be expected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pursed her lips and scrubbed her hands harder. “You will see.” She lifted her chin to gesture up the street where Aline lived.

  She talked on about the village. She was brave, I thought, for seeing blessings here in this place where whole houses had been snatched away. They were lucky, she said. Other villages, like Beaulieu-en-Coteau, down the road many miles, had been ground nearly to powder. Death traps, she called them. But they were lucky, here.

  She took her leave, and in the absence of the women from the field, the men were enraptured with the water, all three. One would think they had never seen it before, the way they drank it in from the steady running metal spout and sloshed it upon the skin of their arms, and the way George looked ready to bounce into it with his whole self.

  And now how to tell the men I would take my leave to see a friend? To make them not panic and startle the village by sending them pounding on every door in search of me, their charge. I had heard their commanding officer’s instructions and felt the weight of it upon me.

  But Henry-or-Hank was pointing to a river
that sounded through the field beyond the village, and in his discreet and respectful way, was mentioning something about “getting themselves clean” to the other two. The other two agreed, and Matthew looked to me, doubtless wondering how to tell me not to come, to wait for them. “Any chance your French tutor taught you how to say ‘we’ll be back and looking much more human soon’?”

  George, bless him, concentrated so hard he looked like he might explode. Then, with a satisfied smile, he stumbled terribly over something that sounded a little like French and translated roughly to “The farmer will harvest the barn!”

  I nodded gravely, signaling I understood. Matthew narrowed his eyes, watching the exchange.

  Not wishing them to panic if they should return to find me gone, I thought to leave a symbol that I would soon return. I slipped off my apron, folded it neatly, set it on the fountain wall, and disappeared up the way toward Aline’s business and home.

  It was a shadowing twilight and a hush that ushered me toward the boulangerie. It smelled of fresh bread but was shut tight. Where the wooden Closed sign once hung in the window, a newer one, painted by hand with the words Until Tomorrow, hung in bright white.

  The flat above the bakery glowed with soft candlelight, one of the windows cracked open. With no stair on the outside, I could not knock to gather her attention.

  “Aline,” I said in a voice that resembled a loud whisper.

  No reply, but I heard her singing, the sound of pots clinking against each other in her little kitchen.

  “Madame Aline?”

  The singing grew louder, as if a maestro had just cued an operetta.

  I waited for a rest in the music and then cupped my hands around my mouth. “Aline!”

  The singing stopped. The pots fell silent. Soon, the rounded, familiar figure of the older woman approached the window. “Peut-il être?” She pressed her hand to her heart. “Can it be? Mon Mireilles?”

  My name, cradled in her old familiar warmth—my Mireilles—washed me with comfort.