Good Hope Road: A Novel (52 page)

All that rain durin’ the Champagne offensive, it given James pneumonia. The officers done forced him see the medics who packed him off to the hospital for a couple of months. We ain’t said much before he left, ain’t been in touch all the time he was gone, and when he come back to the Legion earlier this week, I was powerful glad to see him, but again, the words, somehow they just ain’t come out right. Too much to say, and so we ain’t said nothin’ at all, just noddin’ stiff like at one another and keepin’ outta each other’s way.

I watch as he dig some chocolate from his pocket on one of our breaks, snappin’ it into itty bits that he hand to the children we pass. They take it from him, lookin’ away, down, at the road. A little girl, led by her mammy who look so bone-tired, she don’t even notice when James hand out the chocolate. That little girl take it, quickly, as if James might change his mind. She tug on her mammy’s hand and offer that chocolate to her instead. Her mammy, she look like she wakin’ from her dream. She carry a framed photograph in the other hand, holdin’ it real close. She try to smile at her daughter as she shake her head – no, you eat it. ‘
Merci
’ she say, real quiet, as she turn and look at James.

An old man comin’ up behind them, bent low over his pushcart. He got things piled every which way inside – pots, pans, a jug of wine, rope, two pails, and on the handle of that cart, a parrot. That bird now, he hoppin’ mad. All red and green and puffed up mad, twistin’ his head this way and that and cussin’ up a storm.

‘
Cochons
!
Quels salauds
!’

So ridiculous that bird sound, so outta place in that silent, done-in column, that my mouth start to twitch. James glance at me, and I know he amused too. I make like I ain’t noticed, watchin’ that mother instead as she go past with her daughter, huggin’ that photograph close.

That parrot, it go right on squawkin’ and yellin’, and it ’bout the only thing sayin’ anythin’ at all. ‘
Cochons
!’ We hear it long after it gone from sight. ‘
Salauds
!’ Screamin’ into the night.

Hungry and footsore by the time we get to the village, we billet in the dark, in and around the empty houses. I wake in a sweat in the middle of the night, same as I been doin’ these past months, not sure at first if it a dream. The whisper ‘
Erbarmen. Erbarmen
,’ in my ears, Gaillard’s laughter fadin’ into the night. I lie still, waitin’ for the rattlin’ in my chest to ease. Breathe in, breathe out.

‘
Erbarmen
.’

The moon, she sail slowly past the open windows, leakin’ silver everywhere.

I’m up before dawn, even though my bones full of achin’, my tongue as if wrapped in cotton. At least it shapin’ up to be an easy day – reveille, a spot of drill in the square, and then we let off with orders to build a first line of defence around the borders of the village, usin’ whatever we can find. There still a shell or two that the Boche send over our way, but few and far enough for us to ignore.

We break off into groups. I set off clean the opposite way from James, again, why, I can’t fully explain. The sun warm on my shoulders, easin’ the stiffness from them as we poke ’bout the village. In every home, signs of a quick leavin’. I light a pipe I find by a fireplace, filled nearabout to the top with decent tobacco. An open bottle of jam, the spoon still standin’ in it, knittin’ left on chairs, the needles still pokin’ from them. Socks, a hat, a scarf maybe, meant for some loved one at the Front. I finger each piece, but ain’t nothin’ finished enough to be of use; annoyed, I toss them aside.

From house to house, gatherin’ up mattresses, chairs, tables, just ’bout anythin’ that might stand in for bobwire and slow down a Boche attack, even for a bit. The shell holes in roofs and walls look like mouths, open wide in surprise. Beside one front door that hang all crooked, a heap of postcards, the sort kids like to send each other, thrown all over the floor.

I pick one up, readin’ the large, scrawly writin’ on the back.

‘
Chère Mathilde
. . .’

Easy to imagine the scene. The little girl told to hurry, to help get the important things together: deeds and such, food, what money they got in the house, ‘Hurry, be quick, we have to leave.’ And Mathilde, bitin’ her lip, being real brave and tryin’ not to cry. She pick up this most important of all her things, this here collection of postcards. Her poor mammy smackin’ them from her hand at the door – ain’t no room for trifles, not at a time like this.

I stare at Mathilde’s postcard. The darkness that been risin’ up inside, more and more of late, that feelin’ like there ain’t no hope, ain’t not much point to anythin’, the feelin’ I be tryin’ to keep locked away, it come bubblin’ up again like river sludge. More legionnaires come troopin’ through the door just then, and I rise to my feet. James with them; I turn away, lettin’ the postcard drop real casual from my fingers, as if it don’t matter none. He say nothin’ either and we start to work on the door in silence. We take it off its hinges and a couple of the
jeunes
haul it away for the barricade.

Right restless all of a sudden, I cast ’bout for a joke. Somethin’ to make us all laugh, bring some cheer into these empty homes, but the words, they don’t come. We searchin’ through the bedrooms upstairs when I find the clothes hangin’ in the armoire. It take ’bout two shakes of a duck tail for me to tie on a bonnet, pull on a petticoat and put on a show for the men.

James, he start to grin, wider and wider, the other legionnaires, they roarin’ with laughter as I mince and prance ’bout. The Boche, they still sendin’ over a shell or two as I sashay out the door and up the street, poppin’ open a pretty pink parasol at each fresh burst of shrapnel.

Pretty soon, everybody gone and caught a case of jester fever. We swan in and outta them houses, outdoin’ each other in our pretty frippery. Skirts and hats and old tweed coats; we got straw baskets on our heads and bonnet ribbons trailin’ past our chins. James begin to laugh proper; findin’ a spare bonnet, he jam it on his head.

Even the officers get a laugh outta it all. For a while, that ghost village, it filled with merrymakin’, some of the men even startin’ a mock weddin’ party in the square. We all joinin’ in when the shellin’ get worse all of a sudden; James and I, we still laughin’ as we pick up our skirts and race for cover.

That how we first got to the chateau, James and I. We ducked inside its grounds to wait out the shells.

They slow down soon enough, with no real damage done other than a couple more roofs torn and the steeple of the church destroyed. We sit up and look around where we are. The wall around the chateau got shell holes through it. The two gateposts still standin’ though, with a lion on the left, an eagle on the right, starin’ down at us. We make our way through the garden. A shell gone through the roof at the back of the chateau sometime. When we push open the door, James start to cough from the dust lyin’ thick on the floor.

We look around us in surprise. Everythin’ covered in black net. Yards and yards of the stuff, draped over the chairs and tables, coverin’ the paintings and the chandelier still hangin’ fine from the ceilin’. It unsettle me to walk through the rooms. Black everywhere, over the mantel, along the curtains, across them carved armoires and canopied beds. It dull the sounds of the day, the buzzin’ of bees and such, the birds callin’ in the trees outside. I kick at a small pile of broken tiles. They fall apart, even their clatter soundin’ far away, the dust risin’ just a bit before sinkin’ back to the floor.

So much black. I seen this sort of thing often enough in the great houses down South to know what it mean: the chateau, it a home in mournin’. The mourners, like the dead, gone now, leavin’ only memories and shadows in all this net. They even got it coverin’ the mirror on the wall.

‘I’m gettin’ the hell out—’ I start to say, when I stop.

That mirror, it ain’t covered in no net at all. It ’bout the only thing in here that ain’t been covered up;
that mirror
,
its glass itself is black
.

It given me the shivers, right from the start.

‘A Claude mirror.’ It was used by painters and such James say. He touch a finger to it and the glass, it look like a well of dark water.

Voodoo water.

I ain’t said nothin’ to him then, but I known right away. That mirror, it ghosted. I want nothin’ to do with it, but my feet, they move on their own. I get near, real near to it; when I’m right up to the glass, it’s Pappy’s face I see lookin’ back at me.

Pappy, as he looked in the end years, with his cheeks all lined and drawn, and the eyes sunk deep in his head. The colour gone from his face, leavin’ only the grey mask of the dyin’. I stare into those night-shine eyes, so dark and heavy with meanin’, and I ain’t got no words to speak. My mouth dry as I stumble backwards, crashin’ into a table just behind.

‘There’s the dead inside that thing,’ I manage, real hoarse.

James look at me amused like as he start to take it down. It right heavy, that thing, settin’ his arms to strainin’ as he lift it from the wall and set it on the floor. The mirror lie at our feet, like an ink-black stain.

A sudden movement off to the side catch my eye. I’m spooked enough by this silent, mournin’ house, and I swing around sharply. ‘What the—’ I begin, rifle already liftin’ when I stop, completely thrown.

A kid stand there.

A boy, ’bout nine, maybe ten years old. Out of nowhere he come, and it a right good thing that mirror lyin’ on the floor. Had I seen him in that black glass, I’d have gone and given myself a heart attack, I would, figurin’ him for a haint.

The kid, he stand real easy in the doorway, stretchin’ his neck to see over the large white dog that just ’bout fit in his arms. James and I, we just stare at him. No kid got any business being here in this empty place.

He don’t look one bit shook up. ‘Bread?’ he asks, from over the cayoodle that growlin’ and waggin’ its tail at us, as if it can’t quite make up its mind.

It James who gathers his wits first. ‘You speak English?’ He frown. ‘What in God’s name are you doing here, son? Where’s your family?’

Shakin’ off the hand the kid got on its muzzle, that dog, it start to bark.

‘
Non
,
Gaston
, shhh.’ The kid rocks back and forth, nearabout fallin’ clean over from the weight of the animal. Now I see it, the dirty, stained bandage around the mutt’s leg.

‘Bread?’ the kid ask hopefully again.

We fish in our pockets for what chocolate we got. The kid take it hungrily.

‘What’s your name?’ James ask. ‘Where’s your family?’

‘Jean Henri,’ he say, in between his chewin’. ‘English . . .’ he pull a face. ‘Little bit.
Comme ci
,
comme ça
.
Parlez-vous français
?’

Seems his pappy been the caretaker of the chateau. He done enroled in the war soon as it started, he and the two sons of the chateau. The kid’s pappy been the first to be killed; word of the sons’ deaths come a few weeks after. The old lady of the house, she taken it real hard, her children’s passin’. Jean Henri touch a finger to his temple. ‘
La vieille dame est allée un peu coucou
folle
,’ he say.

He bend to let the dog outta his arms. Gaston stand there a moment, testin’ his bum leg on the floorboards. He bark a couple times more just to prove his point, then limp over to us, sniffin’ at the hand James offer him, and waggin’ his tail.

The kid look at us real curious. ‘London?’

‘Vermont,’ James correct, the same time as I say ‘Louisiana.’

A small pause. ‘America,’ we say, together.

‘
Des Americains
!’ The kid’s eyes go wide. ‘New York!’ he exclaim, and damn if he don’t start buildin’ skyscraper shapes with his hands. It tickle me proper, and James, I know he got a twinkle in his eyes too.

‘
Pourquoi tu n’es pas parti avec les autres
?’

The kid shrug. Leave with the others and go where, he ask. Besides – he nod at Gaston who sniffin’ at the black mirror still lyin’ on the floor. The dog was awful spooked when the shells first hit the town. Barkin’ his head off all the while they were fallin’, and jumpin’ outta the kid’s arms just as that bit of roof done fallen in. Part of it catch his leg. The doctor said it’d heal, but that the cayoodle needed to rest it.

Right on cue, Gaston cock a leg against the mirror. ‘
Non
!’ James and the kid yell together, and the cayoodle change his mind, settin’ down on the floor to scratch his ear instead.

Well, if the leg needed some rest, better then that they stay put,
non
, the kid continue. He hid in the cellar while the others left. The old lady was still too cut up over the death of her sons to pay much attention, to wonder where he was as the carts pulled away. He’d kept aside a bit of food when loadin’ her cart; there was water in the well behind.

‘It is a good thing you came,’ he say to us all cheerful. ‘We have finished all our food.’

‘And what if we
hadn’t
come when we did?’ James look awful stern. ‘No food, all alone—’

But you did, Henri point out, grinnin’. He wasn’t sure when he heard us tramp through the streets last night, whether we were friendlies or the Boche. He figured to have a proper look at us this mornin’, but he couldn’t make out the uniforms under all the dresses. ‘Why are you dressed as women?’ He point to the skirts we still got on.