Losing Julia (60 page)

I STOOD UP
too early. That’s why I fell when the train lurched suddenly before stopping. A young man helped me to my feet. Then the woman stood before me, holding out my cane and my leather bag. I thought she was going to say something but she didn’t; she just smiled shyly, as though sorry for me. I thanked her and sat down, waiting until everyone else had gotten off. From my window I watched as she walked quickly across the platform and into the crowd. Then I stood and made my way to the door.

NUMBERS.
I remember the numbers. The clean, crisp and unyielding numbers. The irreproachable godforsaken numbers.

Verdun, February 21, 1916. One million Germans attack along an eight-mile front. (Watch them coming.) In the first five months 23 million shells are fired. (Listen.) Ten months later, 650,000 men are dead. (Kneel.)

It’s a draw.

Battle of the Somme, day one, July 1, 1916. Following a massive seven-day artillery bombardment, 60,000 British troops, fortified by tots of navy rum, emerge from their trenches and start across no-man’s-land, walking. Within hours, more than 20,000 are dead. (20,000 mothers, 20,000 fathers, 20,000 letters home, 20,000 headstones, how many sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and lovers?) Four months later the British dead totals 100,000; French, 50,000; German, 160,000. The British line has advanced six miles, less than the intended gains of the first day. Count ’em: one, two, three, four, five, six. Or 51,666 men a mile; twenty-nine men a yard; nearly ten men for every twelve inches. One man every inch and a quarter. A limb every few centimeters. Blood every millimeter. Tears every… every what?

November, 1918. Armistice. Final tally, estimated combat-related deaths only (bullets, shells, bayonets, knives, gas, bare hands): Germans: 1.8 million; Russians: 1.7 million; French: 1.4 million; British: 900,000; Italians: 600,000; Austrians/Hungarians: 1.3 million; Romanians: 340,000; Americans: 50,000 (and another 60,000 to influenza); Australians: 60,000; Canadians: 60,000; Bulgarians: 90,000; Indians: 50,000; Serbians: 50,000; Belgians: 50,000; Turks: 330,000…

In November came the Armistice… The news sent me out walking alone… cursing and sobbing and thinking of the dead.

—Robert Graves, British Army.

WORLD WAR II
begins in 250 months. Count ’em. One, two, three, four…

SOME NUMBERS
are more interesting than others. In 1919 a row of rifles and bayonets was discovered protruding from the earth at Verdun, where two dozen French soldiers were buried (alive?) in their trench in 1916. You can still see them, pointing to the sky. The French call it the Tranchée des Baïonnettes.

There are other names for it too.

I FOUND
the memorial without much trouble and parked the dark green Fiat I had borrowed from my hotel on the gravel shoulder of the road, which was still rural but now lined with much larger trees. Everywhere the trees were taller, dwarfing my memories. I was glad for that.

I turned off the ignition and sat in the car for a few minutes, staring out the window. How unbelievable to think and feel that tomorrow it would be exactly sixty-two years to the day when the 152 names on the memorial became just names, names to be etched in stone; long enough so that even anniversaries pass unnoticed, until one day perhaps the monument itself cracks and crumbles and is finally bulldozed to make way for an office building, like Indian graves in Manhattan.

It took three attempts to get out of the seat, which seemed ludicrously close to the ground. I closed the door quietly and then leaned against the car, wheezing. The air was damp and sweet, as after a rain, and the gravel beneath my feet crackled loudly as I made my way down the path to the monument, clutching my cane tightly in one hand.

After a few yards I paused to catch my breath again, uncertain whether I suddenly felt much too cold or much too hot. Looking up I squinted and saw a young woman kneeling next to the monument and trimming the grass with hand clippers. There was a basket of fresh flowers on the ledge behind her. I didn’t want to frighten her so I tapped my cane loudly on the ground as I approached. She turned to look at me, and her face quickly relaxed as she saw that I was far too feeble to pose a threat.

I waved my cane and continued toward the far side of the memorial, where I could look out across the field to the low ridgeline several hundred yards away. The woman, who appeared to be in her early twenties, stood and approached me.

“Bonjour,
” she said.

“Hello,” I said, turning toward her just as I felt a series of sharp spasms in my abdomen. Her face was beautiful and I tried not to wince as I pushed down hard on my cane to keep my balance. With my left hand I felt for a bottle of painkillers in my coat pocket.

Oh but her face.

“You’re American?” she asked, in perfect English.

I nodded.

“You must be a veteran,” she said, walking closer.

“I am.” I tried to stand straight.

“Of this battle? Were you here?”

“Afraid so. It dates me a bit, doesn’t it?”

She put down her clippers and wiped her hands. “I was just tidying the place up a bit,” she said. “I come by every year… ”

“For the anniversary?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think anyone remembered anymore,” I said.

“You’re the only other person I’ve ever seen here.” She took a few steps toward me, staring.

“It’s kind of you to visit,” I said. “Do you live nearby?”

“I grew up near here but I live in Paris now. What about you?”

“I’m traveling.” Was that it?

“Have you been back often?” she asked.

“Only once before, many years ago.”

“Is it very different?”

“A lot of it, yes. But it feels the same, at least right here.”

“Do the changes bother you?”

I shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“I’m not sure I could. But I’m talking too much. Here, let me gather my things and leave you in peace.”

“No please, don’t mind me. I just want to sit for a while.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded.

She picked up her clippers and walked to the other side of the memorial. I listened to the sound of the shears slicing through the grass.

“There, that’s enough for today,” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. She put the clippers into her blue nylon backpack and then sat down near me.

“I love this time of day,” she said. “Just when it starts to get a little hard to see things.”

“Between night and day.” Then I laughed to myself.

“What is it?”

“I was just thinking how the war ruined dawn and dusk.”

“Ruined them?”

“That’s when attacks were most likely so we always had to stand-to with fixed bayonets for an hour at sunrise and sunset.”

“I see.”

“And the pity was that’s all we had, just a small slice of the sky to stare at when it changed colors.”

“God, I’ve never thought of that. From a trench you really couldn’t see much else, could you?”

“It was kind of like living in a tall box with the top open,” I said.

She kept staring at me. “You look familiar,” she said, leaning toward me.

“Old people tend to look alike,” I said, feeling flushed by her attention.

“No, there is something about your face, your eyes.” She peered at me as though I were on display in a museum.

“My God, you’re the man in the portrait, aren’t you?” She looked almost awed and I noticed how clear her eyes were, as though they’d just been made.

“The portrait?” I stood up and tightened my grip on my cane, taking fast and shallow breaths and struggling to maintain my balance.

“Yes, the portrait my grandmother painted years ago. It was in her living room for, God, forever.”

“Julia?” I leaned harder on my cane.

“Yes, Julia!”

I staggered toward her a few steps.

She talked quickly: “There was one portrait of Grandfather Daniel, he was walking across a field. There was a church steeple in the background and he looked so tired and dirty. Sad, really. And then there was another painting of a man—of you—standing here, right in front of this memorial, standing in an overcoat like it had just rained. She said you were the only two men she ever really loved. But I thought you were, well I thought you were dead, that she’d lost you too.”