Quill Pen Scratchings

Chapter 18

            The next day seemed to go by in a fast haze.  Since it was Clemence’s last day in Bar le Duc before she headed south to Marseille, Edmund wanted to hang on to every minute, but he found the time flying out of his grasp all too quickly.  In the morning, Clemence apologized to him for the way the day had ended yesterday. He told her that it was okay, and she kissed him.  They ate breakfast and then went out for a walk in the town to see if there was anything they could do.  The Red Cross had indeed arrived in the morning and were giving out blankets and serving food to the people in the church.  They also walked by the train station, and it was much as it had been the previous day, though the crowd didn’t seem as angry. 

            Clemence was very quiet when they returned.  After eating lunch, their second to last meal they would have there, she retrieved two nightshirts from the cellar while Edmund got some water from the well outside.  He brought in several full buckets, and poured some into a wash basin, and some into a large kettle that she had put on the stove.  They changed into the nightshirts and Clemence washed their clothes. Edmund hung a thin rope across the kitchen and helped Clemence hang their clothes over it near to the stove so that they would be dry by morning.  Clemence walked close to Edmund and then to the bed and lay down under the blankets, folding part of it down for Edmund.  He slid in next to her and they wiled away the afternoon in each other’s arms.

            When it was dusk, Clemence arose from the bed and began making their last dinner together while Edmund slept lightly.  When the food was ready, she went around the room and lit the candles and lamps while Edmund built up the fire in the stove for warmth.  He opened the last bottle of wine in the café, and they ate and drank together, and that old feeling of warmth and home returned to Edmund.  Clemence looked beautiful to him with the candlelight shining off her disheveled hair.  They talked and laughed and Edmund didn’t want this time together to end. 

            But finally, Clemence arose, and they cleared away the dishes, and she asked Edmund to get more water so that they could wash.  She took a large washtub off the wall and set it in front of the stove, and Edmund poured several buckets of water into it, some cold, and some from a large pot that Clemence had placed on the stove until it was boiling hot.  Soon the tub was filled and steaming warm, and Clemence took her nightshirt off and slipped into the water.  Edmund opened the front of the firebox on the stove so that they could see and feel the warmth from the fire better.  He pulled a chair up behind her, and she leaned her head back into his lap and closed her eyes as he stroked her hair.      

            Without opening her eyes, she smiled and said to him, “You are staring at me.”

            “Yes, I am.”

            “Well stop.  It isn’t proper you know.”  She smiled again and nestled her head into his lap further, her eyes still closed.  Edmund leaned forward and picked up the cake of soap that Clemence had gotten out, and put it into the water to lather it, and then began to rub her arms and her neck and her chest with it. 

            Clemence said, “That feels good.  I wish we still had the big tub though.”

            “Well, it is lying out on the street with a big dent in the side.  We could try, but it might be a bit awkward.  People would stare.”

            Clemence laughed.

            “As a matter of fact, the tub was blown high into the sky.  It landed right in front of me out on the street was I was running over to you.  A few more steps and it would have landed on me.”

            “What would you put on the tombstone?”

            “Probably have to make something up.” 

The skin on Clemence’s arms and shoulders and upper body above the water was growing taut with the cold, and soon she leaned forward and held her arms around herself under the water.  “Would you help me wash my hair?  I need more water,” she said.

Edmund helped Clemence work the soap into her hair, then she sat straight up, and he slowly poured the water from the bucket over her hair as she leaned her head back.  Her hair looked very long as it was swept down her back by the water. 

When the soap was rinsed, she stood up and Edmund handed her a large sheet which she wrapped around her several times.  Edmund took some of the cooler bath water out of the tub with the bucket and then put in more boiling hot water from the stove and then got into the tub himself.  He didn’t fit in the tub as well as Clemence had, so he washed himself while Clemence combed her hair, and then left it down over her shoulders.  She helped him wash his hair and then handed him a sheet when he was done.  As he stood in the tub, he didn’t wrap the sheet around him but used it to dry himself.  Clemence watched him as he did this.

“You are staring at me,” he said, teasingly.

Clemence smiled and dropped her eyes.  “Stop.”

“It isn’t proper you know.”  Edmund stepped out of the tub and laid the sheet over the chair and stepped close to Clemence. 

In the morning, Clemence was up and dressed before Edmund awoke, and when he rose and put the nightshirt back on, she had made a small breakfast and coffee for them.  Her train was at 10:00, and they didn’t have a clock or watch that worked.  But she had gotten up while it was still dark, and the sun was just over the horizon when Edmund awoke so they knew they had a little bit of time.  He dressed after they ate and busied themselves by cleaning up the room.  They left the bed where it was, and Clemence straightened the blankets on it, and tucked them in neatly under the mattress.  Finally, all the dishes washed and put away and everything made as clean as if the café were going to be open for business in a few hours, Clemence took the one small handbag that she had in the kitchen before the bombing.  The carpet bag and all the items she had planned to take with her had been destroyed in her room. 

She stopped at the door and took one last look around.  Edmund could see that she was holding back tears.  They stepped out into the cold sunshine, and Edmund locked the door of the café behind them. 

They walked through the ruins toward the train station, neither saying a word, but holding hands.  When they got closer, they saw from the large clock that hung on the wall of the station house that it was 9:47 and the train was already sitting steaming and belching by the platform.  They looked at each other and grimaced at how close they had cut it.  The station was crowded but lacked the desperate chaos of the last two days. 

They mounted the platform and walked part of the way down it until they found an open spot.  People were already boarding and hanging out of the windows talking to others staying behind.  They looked at the train and then back at each other. 

“This is going to be a long trip,” Edmund said.

“Yes, several hours, Mother said.”

As they stood and looked at each other, an elderly man with a small and equally elderly woman behind him approached Clemence.  “Madam Dumond, you are not leaving as well?”

Clemence turned and looked at the old man. “Yes.  Mother is in Marseille.  I’m going there to join her.”

“But surely you are coming back to rebuild the café?”  The man looked searchingly from Clemence to Edmund and back to Clemence again.

“I,” Clemence hesitated.  “I don’t know.  There isn’t much left of it.”

The old man nodded his head and looked at the ground.  “Our house is the same.” Then he looked back up at Clemence proudly.  “But we are going to rebuild it!  Aren’t we dear!”  He looked back at the old woman and clasped her hand.  She looked up at them and smiled, but tears rimmed her eyes.  The old man looked back at Clemence and Edmund. “Yes, yes! That is what we are going to do.”  He leaned forward and kissed Clemence on both cheeks and then turned to Edmund and did the same.  He now had tears in his eyes as well.  “Well, safe journey to both of you.”  He turned and patted his wife’s hand, and they walked away in a broken, shuffling gait.

“What are you going to do now?” Clemence asked.

“Well, I have to bring the car back to Behonne or they will put me before a firing squad.  But with Knox gone, I’m not sure I even have a job to go back to.  If I don’t, I will probably need somewhere to live.”

“Well, you have our address in Marseille.  You are always welcome there.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

Clemence continued, “But I also know you have obligations back in America.  Just like I do here, and that this is probably beyond your control.”  There was a longer silence.  “So just don’t promise me anything.”

Edmund didn’t say anything, and the truth descended like a wall between them.  They stood looking at each other for a moment, and then Clemence looked at the train and said, “I should probably get on board.”  She took two steps toward the train, but then turned and kissed Edmund in a long and desperate way. He held her tightly, and then she put her mouth up to his ear and whispered, “I love you,” then she pushed him away and disappeared into the train.  Edmund reached up and felt the wetness from her tears on his cheek.  He strained to try and catch a glimpse of her through the darkened windows of the train car, but he couldn’t see her.  In another minute, the conductor secured all the doors, and with loud hissing and steaming, the train pulled out of the station and Clemence was gone.