Women's Barracks (24 page)

Ursula went to the cupboard, took a mug, went to the sink, poured water into it, and then emptied the contents of the two vials into the water. She took a spoon from a drawer and crushed the pills until they formed a white powder that floated in the water like a cloud in the sky.

Ursula must have gone about her task methodically, as if it were only one more of her duties, one more thing that she had to do; for she left no disorder behind her when she finished her bitter drink. There was only the mug on the table, with the spoon beside it, and a little of the white powder at the bottom of the mug.

She went upstairs to the Virgins' Room. How long she remained alone there no one knows. We know she was there, and that she must have been very calm, for afterward we found all her things neatly arranged together on her bed, as though she wanted to make everything as easy as she could for those of us she was leaving. Everything must have seemed quite natural and normal to her. Her life had begun with Michel, and now she was ending it with him. The future was already dead.

When she left the barracks, she slipped out by the kitchen door, so as not to have to pass before the table at the entrance, where she herself had so often sat guard.

After having telephoned the barracks, Mickey and I felt a momentary reprieve. We decided to get in touch with Ann, to help us break the news to Ursula. Ann was one of the most capable girls in the barracks, and we believed that her presence would have a steadying effect.

I had to hurry to my office. I was able to telephone Ann during the afternoon. She took the news in her quiet, strong way, and saw at once that we would have to help Ursula support the shock. As I sometimes had to remain late at my office, Ann promised to be at the barracks before Ursula might receive the news from the Captain.

All afternoon Mickey was worried and heartsick. It was almost as though the tragedy were her own, as though it were Peter who had been cut down. She had intended to meet Ann at the barracks after work, to be with Ursula, but instead she hurried to her little flat, with the panicky feeling that she would find some message there, some news of Peter. As Mickey hurried along, a young English aviator fell in beside her.
"Bon jour, mademoiselle."

Mickey gave him an automatic smile, and then walked on faster. She had no heart at all for flirtation; indeed, since her marriage she had been surprised at the change in herself, at the sense of respectability that had come over her. A married woman never responded to strangers on the street. She had flirted like that as a girl, but now the world was suddenly serious: she was married, her best friend's lover was dead, and there was no response in her to flirtation.

There was no mail. Mickey went slowly upstairs. She dreaded the moment of solitude, of opening the door. She would fix herself a bit to eat, and then go to the barracks to find Ursula.

As she climbed, she heard a record playing. It was Charles Trenet singing:

"Je chante Soir et matin, Je chante
Sur mon chemin…"

Her heart began to beat wildly. She opened the door and rushed into the room. "Peter!"

It was he. He had grown a beard, and looked somehow different, but it was really her Peter, big, handsome, smiling. His expression was grave and matured, as though years had passed, as though he were older. This was no longer the young lad whom Mickey had married, but a man.

Mickey pressed herself to him while he kissed her arched lips. She studied his face, and a kind of pride spread through her. Yes, he was a man now.

"Peter! How did you get here? How could you come back so soon? Oh, darling, I'm so happy!" she burbled half in English, half in French, covering him with kisses.

Peter held her off a bit, the better to look at her. It was still difficult for him to believe that he had a wife, and such a beautiful wife. What times we'll have, skiing together in Norway! he thought. But in the same instant he felt the force of all he had just lived through. He saw himself clambering over a wall in the night, with his grenades belted around him; he saw himself in an icy river; he saw himself bending over a man's body. Peter closed his eyes. A great disgust welled in his throat. He saw the dead, all the dead bodies, the burned villages, the monstrous tanks pushing along the roads; he heard the shells exploding; and there was Eric, whom he loved as a brother, his childhood friend Eric, howling in pain, with his guts crowding out of his belly.

Peter sighed and pressed Mickey close. She looked into his face, feeling him suddenly removed from her, seeking to understand him, wondering at the tightness that had come over his face, and noticing the new creases at the corners of his mouth.

"You'll stay here now, Peter?" she said. "It's finished?"

He shook his head. "No, dear. Only one night. I've been sent back to make a report on a German installation we blew up—a big one. Tomorrow I've got to go back again."

The phonograph record kept going around, the needle caught in the last groove, repeating over and over,
"Chante, chante, chante."
Peter went to shut it off. Mickey started to prepare dinner. She felt like crying.

Only one night.

She thought of the tragedy at Down Street. She could not smother this one night with Peter under that tragedy. She tried to push away from her the trembling thought that next time Peter might not come back. She would keep this one night for him.

After their meal, Peter made a fire on the hearth. He lighted his pipe, and Mickey sat on the rug, leaning against his legs. In the past, they would have gone out dancing or to a movie. But Mickey felt that all that was over, that she and Peter would never again be the same.

As though he had followed her thoughts, he said gently, almost as though he were speaking to himself, "After the war I'd like to live in the country. Do you think it would be too boring for you, Mickey? I want to have a house I'll build it myself, in the mountains, at home in Norway. We'll have a whole lot of children. In winter I'll take them to school on a sledge, and in summer—oh, Mickey, it's also beautiful in the mountains in the summer. You'll see. They're covered with flowers, and you can hear the torrents rushing down. I'll raise a lot of things, and we'll ski and hike in the mountains. You're as strong as a man, you're made for that life. Do you want it like that, Mickey? I've had enough of cities, I've had enough—" he hesitated for an instant—"enough of men. I want to forget the war, my darling. I want to live, really to live. The war—it's the worst, the most horrible punishment that man puts on himself. I don't want my children to have to go to war. And there in the mountains we can teach them to love, not to hate, not to kill."

"Yes," Mickey breathed. Then she looked up with an effort and said, "Peter, I have the most frightful thing to tell you. Michel—Michel has been killed."

"He, too," Peter said. Suddenly he cried out, "It's more frightful than that, Mickey, because it doesn't do anything to me any more! I've seen too many dead, too many of my friends. We've all got used to it. Every day you hear that someone else is dead—fellows like myself, young men, who wanted to live, to have wives and children. They believed in the future, like Michel… Oh, Mickey, I want to begin all over again, all new after the war. I've come to understand so many things. I know what happiness is, and that every man can build it for himself. It depends only on us. We can refuse to kill, refuse to die—that has to come from us, and from the life we choose to live. I know now, I've chosen what I want for myself. You understand, Mickey? Say that you understand."

Mickey was weeping. Tears shone in her large blue eyes. "You're talking just like Michel," she said, and she tried to smile. "Yes, dear, of course I understand. And I'd love to live in the country in Norway, and we'll go skiing, and I'd love to have a whole lot of children..." Already she felt lighter, seeing herself surrounded by her sons, a whole flock of them, climbing the rocks.

Peter took her in his arms. His eyes too had recovered their old gaiety. "Get me a piece of paper, Mickey," he said. "Let's draw the plans for our house."

Ann was the first of us to return to the barracks. She looked for Ursula's name in the register. Ursula had been marked out after breakfast, and had not been marked in again. Ann therefore concluded that Ursula was still in town, and knew nothing.

I got home soon afterward. Ann and I decided that Ursula had probably remained in town for dinner. It didn't occur to us to speak to the Captain.

Ursula must have wandered along the streets until her sleepiness became so powerful that she turned into Hyde Park, and found a quiet corner, between two trees. Although it was still early evening, she was unable to see anything; her eyes could no longer focus. She saw everything double, and the images trembled and danced and multiplied and retreated before her eyes. Her head ached, ached terribly; she had a pain in her stomach, and her heart pounded. Then she slipped to the ground, and curled up as wounded animals do, and she resisted no more.

When Ursula had not yet returned at eight o'clock, Ann reported the matter to the sergeant of the guard, who hurried to the Captain. We learned then that Ursula had been there at noon. She knew. Now the police were telephoned, and a description of Ursula was given out to all the stations in London and its environs and along the Thames.

Someone had telephoned Jacqueline, and she rushed over to Down Street to wait with us for the news that we knew must come. None of us in the Virgins' Room went to bed. We all waited in silence. The hours passed.

At midnight, although I knew I wouldn't sleep, I undressed and put on my pajamas. As I shifted my pillow I heard a soft rustling sound, as though the pillow had rubbed against paper. But I had left no paper there. Who, then? Could Ursula have left a note? My heart thudding, I lifted the pillow.

There was no note, but something more eloquent than anything Ursula could have written. It was a small snapshot that I had never seen before, a picture of Ursula and Michel, standing close together, smiling. It was her only legacy.

Wordlessly I handed the picture to Jacqueline, who had come to stand at my elbow. She stared at it uncomprehendingly a moment. Then her eyes widened. She understood. She gave a wordless cry, dropped the picture on my bed, and ran from the room.

As I gazed after her, I realized that of all of us keeping this hopeless vigil, Jacqueline alone had really expected to see Ursula again. Only Jacqueline had ever made a gesture toward death, and she had failed. There was the night she had lain huddled on the ground beneath the window from which she had jumped, and the day she has slashed her wrists in the department-store washroom.

Jacqueline had tried, and failed, and tried again. For Jacqueline there would always be a new beginning. When she saw the little picture that Ursula had slipped beneath my pillow, I think she realized for the first time that for some, there is only one beginning and one end.

The next morning the door to the barracks was opened by two policemen, who carried in the body of Ursula.

She did not remain long in Down Street. For an instant we looked at her white face, her closed eyes, her blue lips; we saw the head fallen on the shoulder, and the dead hands.

The Captain's door was closed to us all. Only a few officers entered for secret conferences.

The body was taken away at once, no one knew exactly where, and the next day a lieutenant announced that Ursula Martin had been buried in the French military cemetery outside London. It was all done quickly, without fuss. The incident was quite annoying, very disagreeable. The sooner it was over with, the better.

One of the corporals remarked that Ursula had always been a high-strung child, and that was her entire obituary.

But Claude wept. She wept sincerely with all her heart, and she came to me, to Ursula's best friend, to accuse herself for the wrong she thought she had done to Ursula long ago.

After a few days no one spoke any more about her, for their minds were full with preparations for departure. We scarcely went to our offices any more. We knew now that we were at last going to have active work to do—with the wounded, driving trucks and jeeps on the bombed-out roads, working in the newly liberated towns as telephone girls, as interpreters, in liaison, and as guards. We wanted only to leave as soon as possible.

Some days later, I learned that before his departure Michel had left a thick portfolio with his Polish friends. The portfolio contained poems he had written, as well as his diary. From what we knew of Michel, of his sense of beauty, of his sensitivity, and from what Ursula had said of his poems, portions of which Michel had read to her, it seemed certain that this unique work of Michel's was truly precious. But there was a formal direction left with the portfolio: "In case of the death of Michel Levy, please burn these papers at once, without reading."

The young Polish sergeant spoke about the matter to Mickey and Jacqueline and me. We were all absolutely of the opinion that Michel's instructions should be disregarded, that the poems had to be preserved. We felt that their value—of which we were certain—was more important than compliance with his last instruction.

But the Polish sergeant, a simple, direct lad, knew only one thing. He had promised to obey the instruction, it was the wish of the dead, and therefore he had to burn the papers. We attempted to explain our point of view to him, to plead the cause of beauty and of poetry. It was the only thing that remained of Michel, we said. Ursula and his child no longer existed; at least his thoughts should remain.

But the sergeant burned the papers.

That night I wept for a long time. I promised myself that at least if I ever had a son, I would name him Michel. With all my strength, I wanted in some way to fill the emptiness that had come into the world where there had been a voice that had something real to say, and that had been destroyed.

I thought of all of my friends from this little room, and what had happened to them. First Jacqueline had lost John, and now Ursula and Michel were gone. And it had only begun. I felt them coming as though within myself, all the young, the girls and the men who approached in an endless line, the dead, all the dead who were being sacrificed without anyone knowing why.