Quill Pen Scratchings

Chapter 9

Edmund awoke early the next morning.  He opened the flap of his tent and looked outside.  The rain had stopped.  Mist and fog covered the entire camp in ghostly whiteness, and the first chill air of Autumn brushed against his face.  He opened the trunk at the foot of his bed, and he took out the coat that he had brought from home.  It was only a suit coat, and not very warm, but it would do until he got his overcoat back.

Edmund stepped out into the swirling damp and found the pump and partially filled the hanging bucket with icy cold water, which he proceeded to splash on his face and smooth down his hair.  He made his way to the canteen where there were a few men eating an early breakfast.

Edmund ate quickly and alone, two eggs and sausages and tomatoes.  He filled a tin cup with black coffee and took this with him over to the hangar.  No one was there yet.  Edmund turned the switches to light up the electric lights that were strung along the ceiling.  Knox’s Nieuport was just as he had left it.  He opened the locker and took out the report and sat down on the crate and began to painstakingly pour through the pages.  His spoken French was improving faster than his reading and writing skills, so the deciphering took a while.  After an hour or so, he was reasonably reassured that there was nothing in the report to raise any suspicions about where they were really going when the shooting occurred. 

Edmund stood and put the report back in its folder and walked over to the administration office.  The door was open, but no one was inside.  He took a fountain pen out of a stand on the desk that held several and signed his name at the bottom of the report and left it lying on the desk.  He was about to put the pen back but then paused.  He looked in one of the desk drawers and found some base stationery that had the Escadrille’s Lakota Indian mascot printed in the top corner and crossed French and American flags in the other.  He took one sheet of it and a blank sheet and walked back to his tent.  When he got there, he sat at the small table and wrote “Dear Mother,” at the top of the stationery.

He started by apologizing for not writing sooner, and then went on to describe his ocean crossing, the train ride, and the flight to France, which he tried to make sound exciting and safe at the same time.  He talked about Knox and Tino and daily life at Behonne. He filled up the front and back of the first embossed page, and then half of the front of the blank page.  He had written about nearly everything up to Tino’s wounding and the shooting of the German.  He paused.  He was afraid that telling his parents about the incident would worry them too much.  Maybe they should worry though.  After all, they sent him here.  But no, his mother hadn’t.  His father had.  No need to make her worry.  He would just regale them with his wartime exploits when he was safely back home sitting in the parlor.

He began to think of home, and what it would be like to return there.  He was pretty sure that all the news accounts of Penny’s death named him as causing the accident.  Would his friends still be there?  His college friends, Lloyd and Carrie, will have gotten married.  And his roommates, William and Lee, had probably graduated.  No point in going back to school, he supposed.  What would he do?  Edmund looked down at the letter, suddenly feeling that he couldn’t finish it yet.  He picked it up and put it and the pen in the trunk at the foot of his bed.  He would send it later.  He left the tent and headed back to the hangar. 

He spent the rest of the day exploring the mechanics of the plane and how the control systems, particularly the steering cables, worked.  Most of his and Tino’s time had been used working on the engine, so he was fairly familiar with that, but he wanted to know more about how everything else functioned.  He assumed Knox was going to find another head mechanic, but in the meantime, Edmund felt that he should learn as much as he could.  Several of the other mechanics were tinkering with their planes also.  At lunch, Edmund had heard from the other crewmen that the pilots were meeting this afternoon at the mansion, and that a mission was being planned for later that week, maybe even the next day.  Knox’s plane was ready to go, so Edmund didn’t really have anything else to do until it came time for pre-flight checks.  He hoped that Knox would have found another mechanic by then.  Edmund thought he knew everything that he needed to do, but he was still unsure, and a small tightness lodged itself in his stomach. 

After he ate, he headed back over to the hangar to go through the pre-flight checks early, while there was no pressure, to make sure that he got everything right.  This only took a half-hour, by which time he had done everything he could think of twice.  The office clerk came into the hangar and announced a meeting at 7:00 the next morning to discuss the new attack and the readiness schedule for the airplanes. 

Since he was free for the afternoon, and it was getting colder, Edmund decided to go into Bar le Duc to see if Clemence had finished with his coat.  If he didn’t go today, he wasn’t sure when he could get back there soon.  He walked over to the gate and hitched a ride with a supply truck that was headed to the town. 

Edmund hopped out of the truck when they were two blocks from the café.  It was still well before dinner time, but he hoped that Clemence would be in the kitchen getting ready for the evening meal.  When he approached the building, he turned down the side street and walked to the back door where the dog had sniffed so hopefully.  As he got closer, he could hear pots and pans clattering and chopping knives.  He hoped it would just be Clemence and not her mother. 

He walked up to the door, which was standing open, and looked inside.  Clemence was standing facing way from him, peeling carrots into a bowl using a small knife.  Edmund watched her for a moment, the way her body rhythmically moved as she took the skin off the carrot.  After a moment, she paused and looked up and gazed through a window in the back wall.  She stared for several moments, only moving to brush away some hair that had fallen over her face. 

Edmund knocked lightly on the door frame.  Clemence turned her head quickly, looking as if she had just been pulled out of a dream or a strong memory.  She stared at Edmund for a moment with a sort of far-away look, but then she smiled and put down the knife and carrot that she had been holding.  “You came back,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, and then smoothing her hair as she walked toward him.  Edmund just smiled and nodded.  “Mother was worried that you would forget, and in all the excitement when you were here, we never asked your name.  How rude of us!”

“I know your name.”  Edmund said.  Clemence looked at him for a moment and then smiled.  Edmund’s face flushed, and he suddenly felt like that had been a stupid thing to say. 

“Well, I figured you would turn up when it got cold,” she said.  She reached up and lightly held the lapel of the jacket he was wearing between her fingers, feeling the thickness.  “This one wouldn’t have kept you warm for much longer,” she said, turning away from him.  “It does get cold here during the winter.”

“Edmund,” he said.  Clemence turned and looked at him.  “Edmund Fitzhugh.”

“Nice to meet you Mr. Fitzhugh.  Or is it Captain?”

“No, just Edmund.  I’m only a mechanic.  Not even in the army.”

“Oh,” Clemence smiled and then put her hand up to cover her mouth.  Then she turned away.

“What?” Edmund said, smiling, suddenly feeling that he was being made fun of, but trying to be polite.

“Oh, it’s just that, Mother said that you were one of the American pilots.”

“Oh, no.  Not me.”  Edmund paused.  “I work for a pilot though.  And I am an American.”

Clemence laughed.  “Well, I think I figured out that much.”  She stopped laughing and looked at him for a moment, as if seeing him for the first time.  “Let me get your coat,” she suddenly blurted as she turned and walked toward the near corner of the room toward a closet underneath a staircase.  He looked up the stairs and could see light spilling down from a window that was out of his view.  Clemence opened the closet door and stood on her toes to reach up to a shelf.  She pulled down a package wrapped in butcher paper and tied with twine and brought it to Edmund.  “We worked on it for quite a while.  There was still one spot on the sleeve where I couldn’t get all the blood out, but overall it looks pretty good.   Oh, and I sewed part of your left shoulder where the seam had split.”

“Thank you,” Edmund said, turning the package over in his hand.

“You can take it out of that, if you want.  I just didn’t want anything to happen to it before you got it back.”

Edmund smiled, and paused for a moment, and then lifted the package to his nose, sniffing quickly, and then again more deeply.

“Oh, I put a satchel of rose petals in it so it would smell nice.”

“It smells a bit like perfume.”

Clemence smiled, “No, just roses.”  Then she stopped, “I hope that won’t embarrass you?”

“Oh no, though around the airbase I will probably stick out,” Edmund said, smiling.

Clemence smiled again.  “All of your friends will probably think you were off with a woman in Paris.”

“Probably,” Edmund said.  They looked each other in the eyes for a moment, and then Clemence dropped her gaze to the floor.  Edmund suddenly felt very awkward in the silence. “Well, I suppose I should let you get back to work.”

Clemence looked back toward the counter and the bowl of carrots.  “Yes, I…”

“Clemence!  Clemence!”  Clemence’s mother came bustling through the doorway from the dining room.  “Our American!  He has returned!”  She ran over to Edmund and beamed at him.

“Yes, Mother.  This is Edmund Fitzhugh.  Mr. Fitzhugh, this is my mother, Madame Morel.” 

“I am pleased to officially meet you,” Edmund said, bowing his head slightly as he had seen Tino do.

Madame Morel looked at the package in Edmund’s hands.  “You have your coat, I see.  I am afraid that we couldn’t get everything out.  You went through such a terrible ordeal!  And your friend?  How is he?”

“I am afraid there is no word yet.”  Edmund smiled, slightly embarrassed for not knowing.

“Oh, that is terrible.”  She looked Edmund up and down, eyeing his coat particularly, and then looked at Clemence, “But you are not leaving so soon?”

“Yes, Mother, he has very important business waiting for him back at Behonne.”

“Yes,” Edmund agreed.

“Tut tut!  Supper is almost ready,” Madame Morel said, looking back at the kitchen where supper was—most obviously—not almost ready.  “Come, come! Clemence, fetch him some wine and some bread and cheese to hold him until the food is finished.”  Madame Morel took Edmund by the elbow.  Clemence looked at Edmund apologetically, and Edmund smiled and shrugged slightly back at her.  “Clemence, take this,” Madame Morel said as she took the package holding Edmund’s coat out of his hands and handed it back to Clemence.

Madame Morel led Edmund into the empty dining room.  Edmund imagined himself sitting for hours alone or talking to Madame Morel as she bustled in and out, getting ready for supper.  He turned quickly and saw a small table with two chairs sitting in the corner of the kitchen.

“Please, could I sit back there?”  He asked, nodding toward the table.

“In the kitchen?”  Madame Morel said, indicating by her tone of voice that this was highly improper for a man of Edmund’s supposed stature.

“Yes, please,” Edmund said.

            Madame Morel looked back at Clemence and then shrugged and took Edmund by the arm and shuttled him to the table in the back of the kitchen.  “Would you like some wine, perhaps?”

            “Yes, please,” Edmund said again.

            Madame Morel disappeared through a door and down some stairs.  There were a few moments of awkward silence as Clemence finished with the carrots and then chopped them up and put them in a large pot. Edmund thought that maybe he was bothering her, and he should have sat out in the dining room. 

            In a moment, Madame Morel reappeared with three bottles, one in each hand and then one tucked under her forearm against her chest. She sat them down on a table and said, “Clemence, fetch him a glass.”  She then reached into a drawer and took out a bottle opener and opened all three bottles, grunting a bit as she pulled the corks out.  Edmund wondered if he should offer to help but then decided it was better just to stay out of the way.  Leaving the bottles, Madame Morel walked to a tall pantry and took out a white linen tablecloth and spread it out on Edmund’s table, then went into the dining room and reappeared with a lit candle in a small jar.  She placed this down in front of Edmund.

            “Thank you,” he said quietly.

            Clemence had taken three wine glasses out of a cabinet and sat them next to the wine bottles.  Madame Morel poured liberal amounts of what looked to Edmund like Burgundy into each and sat one down in front of Edmund, handed one to Clemence, and then took one herself.  “Santé!” she said, raising her own glass and drinking deeply.  She hiccupped slightly after she drank.  She left her glass sitting on the table and walked into the dining room. 

            There were several moments of silence as Edmund watched Clemence fill the pot she had put the carrots into with water and place it on a large stove.  She turned on the knob and the front, and taking a box of matches, struck one and lit the flame under the pot.  “She’s very glad you came back, you know,” Clemence said, not looking at Edmund, “Mr. American Pilot.”  She looked over and smiled as if they were sharing a private joke.  “For the past two days, she has done nothing but obsess over how to get your coat back to you if you didn’t return.  That is why it was wrapped up in a package.”

            Clemence picked up the large knife she had been using and then walked over to Edmund, wiping the knife on her apron.  She stopped in front of him, and he looked up at her face, but her eyes were looking below his eyes.  She reached out with her left hand and touched him lightly on the side of his chin, and he turned his head slightly.  “Your cut is healing nicely.  Shouldn’t leave much of a scar.”  She looked back into his eyes and smiled again, but Edmund thought she also looked sad.  She turned and stepped back over to her work table.

            “That’s too bad,” he said.  “I want people to ask me about it, so I can tell them my heroic war story.”

            “Well, I hope that is the only scar you get out of this,” Clemence replied as she sliced into a large onion that she had taken out of a bin below the table.  Edmund raised his glass and took a long drink of the wine, and felt its woody, musty flavor on the back of his tongue.  After a moment, Clemence lifted the hand that held the knife and wiped under her eye with the back of her sleeve.  “Onions,” she said, sniffing slightly and smiling tearily at Edmund.

            Madame Morel reappeared from the dining room and took another drink, emptying her wine glass.  She sat it on the table next to the bottles and then proceeded out of a door in the back of the kitchen.  Edmund took another long drink, feeling that he should probably keep up.  Clemence had not touched her’s.

            Madame Morel reappeared carrying a medium-sized slab of beef that looked to Edmund as if it had been smoked.  He remembered visiting some relatives of his father in Charles County in southern Maryland who still smoked their beef to preserve it.  He had liked the flavor, though he thought it was a bit tough.  Madame Morel laid it on a large wooden butcher’s block and then walked over and refilled her wine glass.  She held the bottle up to Edmund and he nodded, as his glass was about two thirds empty.  She walked over, her long skirts flowing around the tables, and refilled his glass, rather fuller than was usual, Edmund thought.

            She walked back over to the beef, and, taking a large cleaver down from a rack on the wall near the stove, she began to vigorously cut the meat into cubes.  Clemence lit another burner on the stove, and put a frying pan on it, and then took a large lump of butter out of a cooler and scooped some of it off with her knife and put it in the pan.  When it began to sizzle, she put the chopped onion into it, and Madame Morel added the beef and began to stir it around with a wooden spoon.  Clemence began to put spices into the stew pot that was now beginning to steam. 

            Edmund sat back and took another drink from his glass of wine.  The silence was no longer awkward as he watched the two women move around in what seemed to Edmund to be a well-choreographed dance.  He guessed that this scene had been repeated every day for many years.  The aroma coming from the stove combined with the warmth of the wine, filled Edmund with contentment, and he felt very much at home.  He leaned his head back against the wall and watched then work as if they seemed to have forgotten he was there.

            Madame Morel lifted the frying pan and put the beef and the onions into the pot, and then walked over to the wine bottles, smiling quickly at Edmund as she turned and took another one of the bottles, not the one they had been drinking from, and poured some into the pan. It made a loud hissing noise and steam rose from the pan in a swirling cloud.  She stirred this around with a wooden spoon, and then she poured all the contents of the pan into the pot.  She scraped it thoroughly with the spoon, getting out every last carameled morsel, and then poured more wine into the pot.  Clemence laughed slightly as she did this, and then gently grabbed the bottle, stopping the flow.  Madame Morel shrugged slightly and then put the bottle back on the table.  The two women stood over the pot and watched as Clemence slowly stirred it, murmuring quietly to each other. 

            Edmund took another long drink and drained his glass.  Clemence put a lid on the stew pot and then turned the flame down underneath it, bending down to look at the level of the flame as she turned the knob.  She then stood back upright and, without looking over at Edmund, walked to the corner of the room and picked up a broom that leaned against the wall. 

            “Give me that, child.”  Madame Morel said to Clemence.

            “But I need to sweep the front.”

            “I will do that.”

            “But I,”

            “Tut tut!   Stay here and keep our friend company.  I’m sure he would rather talk to you than to an old woman.” She smiled at Edmund as she said this. 

            Clemence handed her the broom and looked apologetically at Edmund.  Madame Morel went into the dining room, and Clemence walked over to the pot and stirred the stew and again adjusted the flame.  She sthen walked over and sat in the chair facing Edmund. 

            “That smells heavenly,” Edmund said.

            “Thank you, I hope so,” Clemence said, picking up the bottle and refilling Edmund’s glass.  “It isn’t like it used to be, though.  That is the only dish we will make tonight.  Everyone who comes in will have that stew.  We shouldn’t be very busy though.  We don’t have the ingredients to make a wide variety of things right now because of the war, so we just make one dish and people eat it.  It is easier really.”

            “Well, the beef smelled delicious!”  Edmund said.

            “It is mutton.”

            “Oh.  Well, it still smelled great!”  Edmund felt stupid.   “Your English is very good.  And I am glad because my French is still terrible.  I have been trying but haven’t made much progress. I even studied French before I came here.”

            “My father was British.  He died when I was ten, but my mother insisted that we continue to speak it in honor of him.”  She took her first drink of the wine.

            “I am very sorry to hear that, Mademoiselle Morel.”

            “Oh,” she paused and looked down into her glass.  “That isn’t my name.  It is Dumond.  Madame Dumond.”

            “You are married?”  Edmund looked down at her hand.  There was no ring. 

            “Yes.  I am.”  She paused.  “I was.  My husband was killed at the front one year and three months ago.  Along with my brother.  They were hit by a shell from a large artillery gun.”  She looked down and took another, longer drink from her wine glass.  “They couldn’t find any bodies.  Many men were killed at the same time.”  She saw Edmund looking at her hand.  She lifted it up and rubbed her ring finger with her thumb.  “I stopped wearing it about two months ago.  I keep it here though.”  She reached up to her neck and pulled a gold chain out of her blouse with a small gold ring hanging from it.    “I loved him very much.”  She stared into Edmund’s eyes.  Neither said a word for a moment.

            “I’m very sorry.”

            “Yes, I am too.”  Clemence looked down.  “And thank you.”

            Edmund wasn’t sure how to go on.  “Did you know him a long time?”

            “Yes.  My whole life, practically.  He and my brother were best friends.  We grew up together.”

They both stared down at the table into the candle that flickered between them.  Clemence sniffed slightly.  “How about you?  Did you leave someone behind?”

            Edmund didn’t know how to answer this.  He hadn’t talked to anyone about Penny. Edmund opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  He closed it again and just stared into the flame.

            “I’m sorry.  It’s none of my business.”

“No, really, it isn’t that.  I don’t mind you asking.”  Edmund looked up into Clemence’s face.  “It’s just that, I haven’t ever talked to anyone about this before.”  Clemence held his stare, and Edmund could see the sparkle of tears in the edges of her eyes. 

“You don’t have to talk.”

Edmund didn’t say anything but dropped his gaze to the table. They sat in silence.  Edmund suddenly wanted to tell her everything.  How much he had loved Penny, and how much he missed her, and how sorry he was for what he did.  He wanted her to absolve him of his guilt.  To tell him that it was okay, that it wasn’t really his fault.  He lifted his head again, and opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t know how to start.

“Oh, look how serious!”  Madame Morel came bustling into the room.  “Clemence is always so serious these days.”

Clemence looked at Edmund and smiled slightly.  “Oh, mother!”  She said but continued to stare at Edmund.

“Come, come!  The guests will be arriving soon,” Madame Morel said as she walked quickly to the stove and stirred the stew.  The smell filled the kitchen, and Edmund was suddenly very hungry.

Edmund leaned in towards Clemence.  “I wanted to say…”

“Shhh.  It’s okay.  We can talk later, if you want.”  She reached out and squeezed his hand quickly and got up from the table and walked over to her mother, smoothing her hair as she went.  As she stood behind her mother, she wiped her eye on edge of her apron. 

The stew was good, especially because Edmund had been eating exclusively at the airbase canteen for several months.  The smell of the food and the activity of the women stirred in him a powerful sense of home and belonging.  He remembered past Thanksgiving Days, of waking to the smell of the turkey roasting slowly in the oven and his father relaxing with a pipe and reading the paper, and his mother and their cook, Mrs. Roberts, working away in the kitchen preparing a large feast. 

He knew this wasn’t his home, but the essence of it was there.  He felt very contented and grateful to these two women, to Clemence, for letting him stay there in their kitchen, letting him into their lives.

He ate by himself, as Clemence and Madame Morel worked to keep the stew flowing to the customers that were sitting in the front.  However, this did not take a long time, as only a few families, as far as Edmund could tell, came for dinner.  One or two soldiers as well.  They actually paid him very little attention while he ate and they worked.  Occasionally, Madame Morel would refill his wine glass, and then she finally sat a new bottle down at the table and smiled quickly at him.  Edmund watched Clemence more than he felt he should.  She seemed very graceful to him but also weary. 

Soon, all the dinners were served, and the customers were seen off, and Edmund began to feel as if he had overstayed his welcome.  The stew and bread had fortified him, and most of the dizziness from the wine had worn off.  The women had reached a pause in their activity and stood leaning wearily against the tables talking quietly in French and paying no attention to Edmund.  He felt that it was time for him to depart.  He stood and quietly cleared his throat.  “I should probably be leaving,” he said.

“Well, we were just about to eat,” Clemence said.

“Won’t you join us?” Madame Morel added.

“Well, I have already eaten,” Edmund said, stammering slightly.

“Oh, please, just another glass of wine?  It is always just the two of us.  It would be so nice to have company.  You can tell us all about your life in America.” Madame Morel said.

“Or, what you think of our poor France,” Clemence said.

“Yes yes, that too.”

“Well, I suppose I could stay for a while,” Edmund said, but he felt very grateful to be asked.  To be wanted.

“Wonderful!  Now if you will just bring that bottle and your glass, we can retire to the dining room.”  Madame Morel went into the front room and walked up to a table that sat in front of a large picture window.  Though it had a tablecloth and a candle burning on it, it had clearly not been used for dinner.  “When it gets cold out, we always eat a late dinner here after everyone goes.  We never seat guests here.  When it is nice out, we usually eat out front, but it is too chilly tonight.”  Edmund noticed that there were four chairs around the table.  “Sit, sit!” Madame Morel motioned for Edmund to sit down. 

“Thank you.” 

Madame Morel put down the glasses she had brought and went back into the kitchen as Edmund sat.  As she went, she turned off the electric lights so that the room was illuminated only by the candles on the tables.  Edmund refilled all three glasses and watched the activity out on the street in front of the café.  There was a bar of some sort down the street to the left, and Edmund could see many people going in and out of it—many soldiers and some women.  One or two older men, as well.

Madame Morel reappeared with two bowls full of steaming stew.  Clemence brought a basket of bread, and three small plates.  On top of the bread was a plate of cheese.  She placed a plate in front of each of them.  “I thought you might at least like some bread,” she said to Edmund.

“Thank you.”

Madame Morel leaned on her chair and said to Edmund before sitting down, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like more stew?  There is plenty.”

“No, thank you.  It was very good.”

She sat down, and the two of them began to eat.  Edmund took a piece of bread and some cheese and put them on his plate, and drank again from the wine, but this time more slowly. 

Madame Morel asked him about his parents, which he answered in a perfunctory way.  This led her into a brief history of her own parents, and about Lorraine, where they were from. The family conversation began to bounce back and forth between Clemence and Madame Morel, half in French and half in English.  Edmund remained silent for most of the time, simply watching and listening to the two women talk.  Clemence’s eyes were dark, but very expressive, and Edmund watched them as they smiled and as they looked sad.  They mostly looked sad even when she was smiling.  Madame Morel sprinkled in gossip about people that she saw going in and out of the bar. Many of her comments focused on the ‘trollops’ that she saw on the arms of soldiers, stumbling down the street.

When Madame Morel’s comments became particularly acidic, Clemence would look over at Edmund and smile and shrug slightly. Once again, as in the kitchen, Edmund began to feel very much at home.  Finally, Madame Morel stood and began gathering dishes.

“Well, I need to start scrubbing up,” she said.  Clemence quickly stood and began gathering dishes also.  “No, no, you sit still.  Someone needs to keep Captain Fitzhugh company, and I daresay he would rather it be you than me.”

Edmund thought Clemence turned slightly red, and then she sat back down.  Madame Morel, heavily laden with dishes said, “I’ll be back for the rest later,” as she walked into the kitchen.

There was a moment of pregnant silence when she left the room.  Edmund realized that Madam Morel had been carrying most of the conversation during dinner.  He reached out and refilled Clemence’s wine glass, which was empty–for the first time–he thought, and then topped off his own.  She picked it up and took a small drink from it.  “Well, she certainly has her opinions,” she said, and then smiled at Edmund. 

“Sort of reminds me of my own mother in that way,” Edmund said.  Though there was a difference, he thought.  Madame Morel’s comments, while very acidic, seemed to be more open and disinterestedly judgmental, while his own mother’s bile always struck him as more small-minded, delivered with an inherent sense of inferiority. 

“That is why she likes to sit near the window, so she can comment on the people coming and going from the bar across the street.  I like it better actually when we are inside because in the summer we sit out front and when she has too much wine her comments get louder.  At least in here, I am the only one that can hear her.  Well, and now you,” she said, smiling again at Edmund. “I actually prefer it when we sit over near the fire,” she said, nodding at the dark fireplace, “when it is colder, I mean.  We don’t usually light it until later in the year. Between the cooking in the back, and the people out here, it stays pretty warm.”

Edmund didn’t say anything, but he nodded and smiled.  He felt like she was dancing around the edge of the closeness that he had felt in the kitchen.  He wanted to recapture it, but he didn’t think he could at this point.  So instead, he just sat in silence.  So did Clemence.  She was gazing into the candle, slightly changing expressions flitting across her face as if she had many thoughts running through her mind.  They were subtle changes, and maybe they were just in Edmund’s imagination, caused by the flickering candle light.

There was a loud crashing noise outside by the bar, and they looked up in time to see a soldier picking himself up off the ground.  A large man wearing a bartender’s apron was standing over him shouting.  A table was broken in two beside the man.  Two other soldiers jumped in front of the man, as he drunkenly tried to rush at the bartender, and carried him backwards, shouting insults back at the bar as they walked.  “Little boys with too much drink,” Clemence said.

“Yes,” Edmund said, though he had been through many scenes eerily similar to the drama across the street with his friends back in Annapolis.  The soldier on the ground could have been at various times, him, or Lloyd, or Lee, or William.  He smiled at the thought of them.

“What is so funny?”

“Oh, just remembering picking my friends up off the ground, or being picked up myself,” he added looking sideways at her, “back home.  Little boys with too much booze.” 

“What is America like?”

Edmund wasn’t really sure how to answer this, so he just said, “A lot like here, actually, minus the war, of course.” 

Clemence didn’t say anything but just continued to stare at him.

“I haven’t seen a lot of it.  It is a pretty big place.  I live in Annapolis, which is the capital of Maryland, and I have been to Baltimore a lot with my father, twice to Philadelphia, and once to Washington, D.C.  And I left from New York to come here, but I didn’t really get to see anything.”  He paused, but Clemence just continued to look at him.  “And I actually don’t feel like I have seen all that much of France.  I flew here with Sergeant Knox from London.  I at least had a train ride and a long walk in England.  But here, I have mostly seen the inside of an airplane engine, aside from one truck ride on the Sacred Way,” Edmund said, nodding at the road outside, “and that ended badly.”  He stopped and took a long drink from his glass.  Clemence was leaning toward him, listening.  “But if I had to pick one difference, it would be that people in America are always wanting to be the best at everything.”  Edmund thought of his parents.   “They want to be the best, to have the best, and to have the most money.  And if you can’t really have it, you should look like you do.”

“And here?”

“Well, I think people here just want to live.  And I don’t mean just survive, I mean live well.  Or comfortably, rather.”  Edmund was thinking of Tino. 

“Well, I think maybe you have only seen a small number of people here.”  Clemence said.  “I know a lot of people here who fit your description of America.  But then this damn war came along, and maybe people are just concerned with living now.  And I mean just living.”  She looked down into her wine.

Edmund wanted to bring her back up again.  “Maybe people are the same everywhere.”

“Not the Germans.  They are monsters.”

Edmund didn’t respond right away.  After a moment he said, “They certainly are causing a lot of misery.  But maybe they are just trying to be the best also.”

An edge came into Clemence’s voice.  “They are killing women and babies.  And husbands and brothers.” 

“I know,” he said quietly.  “I am really sorry for your husband and your brother.” 

Clemence leaned back in her chair and looked out of the window.  Neither said anything.  Finally, Clemence looked down into her lap where her hands were clasped tightly.  “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, you have nothing to be sorry for.  I was being thoughtless.”  He felt very foolish for saying things he hadn’t thought about first.

“No, really.  It is just this place.  It overwhelms me sometimes.”  She looked around the room.  “Everywhere I look, I see them.  Mother too.  She cries herself to sleep every night.  My father built this café.  He died when I was small, and she kept it going.  My brother and I helped as much as we could, but we were very young.  We washed dishes and bussed tables, and then when we got older, we both waited on the customers and helped prepare the food.  Mother was always the cook though.  My future husband began coming around soon after my father died.  He and my brother were best friends, and they used to tease me.  But they also watched over me.  If any boy got fresh with me, they would take care of him.” She was crying, but she smiled at Edmund.  “We fell in love and were engaged for a year, and then, two weeks before he had to report to the front, he said he wanted to marry me before he went away.  We had a small ceremony at the church, he moved into my room upstairs, and then he left.  And then he died.  And I just keep expecting both he and my brother to walk through that door.  And they don’t.  I can hear him.  I can smell him.  But I can’t see him.  And I can’t feel him.”

Edmund wasn’t quite sure what to say.  Finally, he said, “I’m sorry.”  She was looking down at the table, and tears were flowing freely down her face, but she didn’t sob, and if you couldn’t see her tears, you wouldn’t know she was crying.  He took the wine bottle and refilled her empty glass.  She looked up at him.  She leaned her head to the side and looked down again, picking up the wine glass, but not drinking it.

Edmund stared at her openly.  She sat back in her chair and wiped her wet cheek with her napkin.  She stared back at Edmund.  “So, why are you here?”

            Her question caught Edmund by surprise.  “Well, to help win the war.”

            “But you are not fighting.”

            “No.  I’m not in the army.  I’m not in the military at all.  I think, and actually, I’m not sure about this, that I am just an employee of sorts.  We don’t really have uniforms, and I get paid by a man in Paris who is supporting all the American pilots.”  Edmund paused.

            “But why are you here?”  She wasn’t going to let him off the hook.  “You now know all about me.”  She stared openly at him with a slight grin curling at the side of her mouth, and he was glad to see that she wasn’t crying.

            “Well, I wasn’t married, but I had a girl.  And I was going to ask her to marry me, but she died.”

            “Oh,” Clemence said, and put her hand up to her mouth, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean…”

            “No, it’s okay.  You were very open with me about painful things.”  He reached out and put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently.  She smiled and looked down, pulling her hand away and putting it on her lap.  She took a long drink from her glass and didn’t look at him.  Edmund looked down into his own glass.  “She died in a car accident.  I was driving.”

            Clemence leaned her head to the side again and looked at Edmund.  “Oh, I am so sorry.”

            “I was driving.” He said again.  “Going too fast and I was angry at her brother who was also with us.  There was a turn in the road, and I was going too fast to make it.  The car went over the side and flipped over.  I don’t remember this part at all, this is just what my father told me.  We were all thrown out of the car.  It had an open top.  Her brother and I landed in the dirt, he broke his arm.  She flew through the sky and hit a tree and died and it was my fault.  I know I didn’t really see it, but I have a vision of her flying through the air.  Her white dress and her hair streaming.  And she had a look on her face.  It wasn’t fear.  It was surprise.  She was looking at me.”

            Clemence had her hand over her mouth.  “It was an accident.”

            “No,” he said, shaking his head, “it wasn’t.  I was angry and going too fast, and now she’s dead, and I’m here.”

            Clemence leaned back in her chair.  “I know you didn’t mean for that to happen.  It was an accident.”

            “No,” Edmund said, and then shrugged.  He wasn’t going to argue with her anymore.

            They sat for a while in silence.  When she saw that he wasn’t going to talk anymore she took a deep breath and said, “Over and over again in my mind, I think about how I could have convinced him to stay and not go away to the war. We could have fled, we could have run away together. But I never asked him to.  He never knew that is what I wanted him to do.  I thought it, but I never said it.  I remember the night before he went away.  I held him so tightly all night and just wanted to stay that way forever.  But when he got up to go the next morning, I said goodbye, and that I loved him, and that I would be there when he returned, and all the stuff like that, but I never asked him to stay.  Not to go.  And I always thought, that if I had just asked him, he would still be here.”

            “He wouldn’t have stayed.  He couldn’t have.”

            “Oh, I know that.  Now, anyway.  But I didn’t for a long time.  And I added guilt to all the other pain I was feeling.  But it was selfish and stupid.”  She stopped, and they both looked out of the window at another loud crashing sound from across the street, but they couldn’t really see anything.  “But, I’m sorry, you were still talking.”

            “No no, I was finished,” Edmund said, and took a long drink from his glass.

            After a few moments, Clemence sat up a bit in her chair.  “We invited you for dinner.  I didn’t mean for it to be so sad.”

            “I’m very glad you invited me,” Edmund said and smiled at her.  “And it is okay.  I have never said any of that stuff to anyone before.”

            “It is nice to have someone to talk to.” She said and smiled back.  And then they both sat in silence.

            A loud clang of metalware rang from the kitchen, and Clemence smiled again at Edmund.  “I should probably go and help mother.”

            “Yes, it is getting late, I think I will head back to Behonne.”  They both stood and gathered up the few remaining items on the table.  Clemence leaned forward and blew out the candle on the table.  Most of the other candles had gone out by themselves. 

            Clemence turned to Edmund in the dark.  “Thank you for staying tonight.”

            Edmund stood and stared into her eyes and wanted for all the world to grab her and hold her and to try and take her pain away. And to make his go away as well.  But instead he felt the doors closing once again, so he just nodded and smiled and said, “I had a wonderful time.”

            “Sorry that things got so serious.  I didn’t mean to talk about all of that.”

            “Actually, for me, it felt good to talk about it.  I hope it did for you too.”

            Clemence smiled back at him, but her eyes seemed clouded over again.  “I need to give you your coat.  You will probably want to wear it tonight, rather than carry it around in a silly little package.”

            Edmund laughed slightly.  “Probably.”  He hadn’t thought of the walk home.  It was probably going to be quite chilly, and longer than he really felt like going.

            “Where is your car?”

            “No car.  I will have to walk.”

            “Oh, it’s so late and dark.”  Clemence looked around the room as if searching for something.  “Maybe you should, I could ask Mother if you could…”

            “No, I will be fine.”  Edmund was feeling torn between a desire to stay and a feeling as if he had to flee.

            “You’re sure?  We have an extra bedroom, my brother’s actually.”

            That made up Edmund’s mind. “No, really, I will be fine.”   He picked up the small stack of dishes that they had piled up and waited for her to lead them into the kitchen.  The lights seemed very bright as they walked through the doorway.  Madame Morel was standing at the sink, washing some of the China that was used by guests at dinner. Edmund put the dishes that he had carried on the counter next to her.

            “Oh, thank you, dear,” Madame Morel said, and smiled at Edmund. Clemence had walked over to the closet and pulled down the package that contained Edmund’s coat.  She untied the string, unwrapped the paper, and shook out the coat.  A small satchel wrapped in a ribbon fell onto the floor.  Edmund stooped and picked it up.  It smelled like roses.

            “Leaving so soon?” Madame Morel called from the sink.  Edmund didn’t really want to go through the long process of extricating himself again.

            “Yes, Mother.  He has to work very early.”

            “Oh.”  She paused for a moment, “You will come back?”

            Edmund looked at Clemence.  She smiled at him.  “It would be an honor,” he said and nodded to Madame Morel.

            “Well, I would come and see you off, but,” she looked at Edmund and shook her hands in the water.

            “Not at all.  Dinner was excellent.  Thank you very much.”

            “You are very welcome, and please, come back soon.”

            “Yes, ma’am, I will.”  Edmund said, putting on his coat, helped by Clemence.  When he had gotten the coat over his shoulders, she straightened out the lapels.  Edmund looked down at her.  She was staring at the buttons on the front of his coat, and she reached up and flipped out his collar, and then slowly ran the palm of her hand down his chest, holding the lapel with her other hand.  She paused for a moment, staring straight ahead.  Then, as if realizing that she was holding on to him, she looked quickly at her mother, and then up at Edmund.

            “I’m sorry.”

            Edmund took her hand in his and gently turned it over so the palm was up.  He put the satchel of rose petals into her open hand and held it for a moment.  “I think you will want these more than me.”

            Clemence looked up at Edmund, seemingly unable to move.  “Thank you,” she whispered.

            Edmund gave her hand a gentle squeeze with both of his.  “I need to go.”

            “Yes.”

            Edmund let go of her hand and turned toward the open door.  He stepped out of the heat of the kitchen into the cold night air.  He didn’t look back to see Clemence standing in the doorway, watching until he was out of sight in the darkness.