Beckoning War Page 4
Once again he twirls the pen as his mind draws a blank. He feels a dull ache in his head and takes a gulp of whiskey from his flask. Much better, he thinks. Again, he puts the pen to the paper.
Right now I am in a church that we soldiers have taken over. A bit of sacrilegious sanctuary I guess you could say. Being in here reminds me of Pompeii—in a way, we’re like the eruption of the volcano, ending one era and beginning another. And wrecking everything around us. I should have been a philosopher! I am safe right now so you don’t really have to worry too much about me. I take care of myself and I take care of my men. It can get hard here and when it does I do nothing but think of home. But still this is where I belong now. This war is important. It’s hard but it’s the right thing to do. And if I ever stop thinking that, I have no business leading men into combat. There is no way I’d make it out of my trench. I think Marianne’s starting to come around and see it that way. When the guns open up and we hit the dirt, you have to rationalize it—this is the right thing to do, because if I were to die here, I would at least think there was some meaning to it. But, I don’t want you worrying, because I am competent and confident in my abilities. If I were not, they would never have made me a captain. You and Dad raised a strong son. Take pride in that.
For a moment he pauses in search of the right words. He continues. He thinks to himself. Tell about the battle. About the smell. Jesus. Across the room is a stone Jesus. Stone Saviour. Stoned by pieces of lead. Martyred Marble. Mangled Messiah. Ha! He clears his mind of babble, and writes again.
Overall I am fine. Give Dad my best. Love you always,
Jim
He folds the letter, puts it in an envelope, and takes out another sheet of notepaper. Again, he writes ‘Somewhere in Italy’ at the top of the paper. He continues—
Dear Marianne,
I know I haven’t written you for a bit, but things have been hectic here. Heavy fighting and not much sleep. I have a little bit of a break here, a lull in the action and a chance to collect my thoughts. I just finished writing a letter to my mother, as I owed her one. Nobody frets and worries like a soldier’s mother, and if you miss a week, she would assume the worst. I couldn’t let poor Mom go through that! Mind you, I did miss a week, and that’s why I wrote to her first.
In the dim flicker of the candlelight, he ponders, once again pirouetting his pen in the air with his hand. In the distance, he hears the dull crump of artillery. Outside the window he can see the flicker of distant gunfire. Closer, he can hear the manoeuvring of men and vehicles moving in the
darkness. Up above is the drone of unseen planes, likely British bombers heading north on a night raid. So much commotion.
“Chow’s ready!” shouts Witchewski when Cooley and Lafontaine and Briggs arrive with some food and wine scrounged from nearby locals.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” responds Jim, exhausted. He adds to his letter.
I know what me coming here has done to you, but I want to tell you, I’m fine. We all take care of each other here so we can all go home. We recently fought a series of major battles that have had an effect on our campaign here. It’s rewarding to think that there is a flip side to all this suffering and that we are gaining ground, and that we are fighting for something. As our lieutenant colonel likes to say, with us on the job, the Third Reich’s entered its third act.
This experience is important to me. I had never taken many risks until I did this. It’s important to learn your strengths and take your licks. Doing this tells you exactly what kind of a man you are. There is no ambiguity. That said, everyone has his limits, and you have to keep yourself sane to avoid being stretched past yours. I have seen more than a few men invalided out of here without a visible scratch, but their minds shattered.
He stops and thinks. Thinks of home. Thinks of coming home after a day’s work to his wife. Thinks of her wrapping her arms around him, thinks of her smell, a clean, inviting, warm, womanly smell. His heart quickens, and he begins to write at a feverish pitch—
I miss your meals. I miss your beauty. I miss your smell, your perfume. I miss your love. I miss everything about you. I will come home. I assure you. And when I come home, I won’t leave again. Ever again. I’ll stay with you. I will have had enough adventure for one lifetime, I think. Forgive me for leaving—you know I had to—if you saw what this enemy does, you’d understand why it is we’re here. But I promise you—I promise you—when I come home I will never leave you again. I should go for now, I’m about to eat dinner and I’m starving, I can hardly think straight and write. I’ll write you again very soon. I love you more than ever—
Jim XXOO
Hands jittering from this tremor of emotion, he folds this letter as well and puts it in an envelope. He joins members of his headquarters section and his fellow officers. There are Cooley, Briggs and Lafontaine, as well as Private Thibeault, the company signaller. And there are Lieutenants Doyle and Olczyk. They are young, younger than Jim, and an epoch younger than Witchewski, who is forty and a career soldier. Doyle and Olczyk are replacements. Doyle of Lieutenant Barry, killed by mortar fire while manning the Cassino line in April, and Olczyk of Jim’s friend Lieutenant Barrett, wounded in the leg during the Liri Valley offensive a month later and since sent home. Therrien has opted to eat in his position in the dark, and has sent his new second in command, Sergeant Webster, to dine in his place. Other than Therrien, Jim hasn’t really bothered to get to know any of them yet. Witchewski sits among them, and together they eat unleavened Romagnola piadina bread with salty Parma ham and drink rich Sangiovese red wine. Cooley has once again proven his worth as a scrounger. They are bolstered by this, and by their field rations, bully beef and hardtack and other such soldiers’ fare. They eat, they make small talk, they smoke a cigarette, they consult over orders. Then, they retire to their duties, or if they can, a few minutes or maybe even an hour of sleep. Under a pew surrounded by broken masonry, Jim crashes, his boots still on, his Browning automatic pistol still at his side, and sleeps, sleeps for a half hour on the cold flagstones, an unexpected and overdue luxury. This time there is no nightmare.
4
“Is there anyone sitting here?” he asked in the crowded aisle, light suitcase and cap in hand, after she caught his eye, curved into her window seat, wearing a royal blue cotton summer dress, culminating downward in white leather sandals, one foot crossed over the other, top foot pointed down, a confident and refined womanly poise evident from head to toe and back again. She was reading a paperback novel and was utterly and soberly immersed, eyes half shut and brow rippled in concentration, her fine-featured face framed by tresses of dark curly hair. He was seized by this presentation of beauty. After a moment, the spell was broken. She looked up slowly, and with a warm smile that set his stomach aflutter, answered, “No, go on ahead, feel free.” At this, her eyes and her attention went back to her book, her face utterly, wonderfully serious again as she engrossed herself back in her reading. His heart pounding, he opened his suitcase and rummaged for the Canadian Forum magazine he’d been reading, found it, and placed the suitcase on the overhead rack before sinking into the seat beside her before pretending to read, or rather, reading the same two sentences over and over again without at all interpreting their meaning, the fine black print defamiliarized into hieroglyphs. As the train lurched into motion, screeching over the track and settling into a soporific rhythm, his eyes scanned the article in the magazine, and he frantically tried to think of a way to start a conversation with her. Beside him, she yawned, and her hands slid down to her lap, her book still open, and she shut her eyes and dozed, buying him time as he nervously fidgeted his way into making a move of some kind. He didn’t. After a while she woke up, and her heavy-lidded eyes met his. She smiled and yawned, blocking her mouth as she did so with the palm of her hand.
“Enjoying your magazine?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah. I’m reading an article by Arthur Lismer, abo
ut the relationship of art and intelligence. It’s quite interesting.”
“Sounds like it. He’s the nature artist, right?”
“Yes, he is, with the Group of Seven. Are you enjoying your book?”
“Oh, it’s alright, I guess. Passes the time, anyway.”
“You seemed to be really into it. What’s it about?”
“Oh, it’s just a romance novel, kind of silly and all that; it’s about a woman schoolteacher who falls for a man in a small town where she moves to in order to escape the memories of a failed love affair in her past. You know, it’s one of those stories.” She smiled a smile of unabashed glee at enjoying a tale constructed of such clichés, of relishing such a guilty pleasure. Jim immediately fell in love with her.
“Well,” he said, hesitant and momentarily unsure about the wisdom of what was about to come out of his mouth, “this reminds me of another story.” He flashed a grin.
“And what story would that be, exactly?” she responded, playing along, adding a dimension of loaded expectance into the air.
“It might be a bit of a cliché, but … did you ever read the one about a man and a woman who meet on a train to Ottawa? The man is a schoolteacher on his way to a new job, and … I’m not exactly sure about the woman, but I do know this … ” A nervous, excited thrill coursed through him and his heart jumped a bit, and he felt himself flush about the face, “… that the man finds the woman utterly attractive, and asks her to have dinner with him. I don’t remember if she says yes; I think I only read that far.”
Taken aback, she uttered a surprised giggle, embarrassed and flattered all at once, looking away from him and at the situation itself, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, incredulous at what the moment brought. “Oh, my. I wasn’t expecting that.” Turning to him and looking into his eyes, she continued after a moment: “And I suppose you would like us to continue the story by my saying yes, am I correct in assuming?”
“Indeed you are correct. But whatever your answer, please accept what I said as an honest compliment. It would have been criminal had I not even tried.” He smiled, and she beamed in response.
She turned serious. “Well, I think I could be persuaded, but—”
“But what?” His tone was light, but nonetheless he felt himself backsliding into failure after such a promising start.
“But I don’t even know your name. You have to let me know who you are before you can treat me to dinner, Mr. Stranger on a Train.”
He blushed at his mistake, and relief washed over him when he realized his small oversight. “Oh, I’m sorry. James McFarlane. You can call me Jim.” He held out his hand. She took his hand. “Marianne Temple. You can call me Marianne. Pleased to meet you, Jim McFarlane.”
“And you too, Marianne. Stranger on a Train. Strangers on a Train. That would be a good name for the story, wouldn’t it?”
“I agree. It has that novel feel: Strangers on a Train, by James McFarlane. Sounds like a bestseller.” Jim was uncertain if he was being mocked or flattered. “And a bit of a cliché.” She rolled her eyes as she said this. Now he was certain. “Well, that was an awfully dashing way for you to ask me out, if I must say, but, well, I don’t know if I can take you up on your offer.” She was aware that she was in control of the situation, was having a little fun with his insecurity.
“Why is that?” Jim was suddenly crestfallen.
“You have to prove something to me.” Her voice had a playful, mock-serious timbre.
“And what do I have to prove, exactly?” Jim was smiling, up for this game, heartened by her tone.
“You have to prove to me that you really want to be with me. Can you go a month without seeing me?”
Jim sighed, a shadow of defeat settling over his features. “I suppose so.”
“Good, because I am going to visit my cousins in Montreal after you disembark. I will be there for almost a month. When I return to Ottawa, I would love for you to treat me to dinner.” Jim felt a tide of relief topped by a giddy lightness. Outside, a line of telephone poles whooshed by one by one by one, framing the farmers’ fields like the rolling of a film reel, the film adaptation of Strangers on a Train. Filmed in Technicolor, starring promising newcomers James McFarlane and Marianne Temple in their first leading roles.
“Do you live in Ottawa?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. I was just visiting my sister in Toronto. I live in Sandy Hill, not too far from the Market. My parents own a furniture store nearby, Temple Furniture. I help them out; earn my keep, if you will. Learning the trade from the table legs up. I like working there, but I want a little more. I was thinking of taking some clerical courses and working in an office.” She paused a moment, thoughtfully. “If ever there is work to be found.”
“I will be teaching at Ashton College. I have a boardinghouse arranged already nearby. It’s a pretty good position, I should think, great considering the lack of jobs around.”
“Well, Jim, I will definitely take you up on your offer when I’m back. We’ll go have dinner, and perhaps we can see a film.”
“I’m sure it can be arranged.” And so they talked, and talked, and talked, all the way to Ottawa, talked of their families, their upbringing, their interests, the train clickety clacking its way down the track, by the deep rippled blue expanse of Lake Ontario, by the fields, by the forests, by the stacks and steeples and through the whistle stops of small towns, the countryside rolling by in all its myriad majesty.
The ensuing courtship was immediately fruitful. He received a telegram from Western Union two days later:
HEY YOU STOP LOOKING FORWARD TO DINNER STOP WITH CHARMING STRANGER ON A TRAIN STOP TAKE CARE AND SEE YOU SOON.
He could barely contain himself, and wrote a letter in his lonely room in his Elgin Street boardinghouse, surrounded by semi-unpacked luggage—
Dear Marianne,
Thank you very much for the telegram. It really lifted my spirits when I got here. You know, I came here and realized with some dismay that I don’t really know anyone yet in these parts. Such is life. Still, I think I am settling in as well as I can, considering how short a time I’ve been here. My experiences so far have included being defecated on by a pigeon and nearly getting run over by a streetcar. There is, thus, only one way to look at my future here, and that is up: it can only get better, as it certainly will when I see you again—
How is life in Montreal? By all accounts, it is a beautiful city. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been there. I’ve been in the U.S. before, but until now, I’d never been east of Toronto or North Bay. I went north to saw wood for a year to build some character and muscles, but that’s about it ... It’s time to broaden the old horizons, take the bull by the horns. Well, take care and I’ll see you when you get back—
Sincerely Yours,
Jim
5
Sunbeams through the August window touch his face. The floral-patterned curtain flaps in the teasing morning breeze in the absence of glass or screen. A stir, a murmur, the light fanning of sheets as he awakens. Beside him, she sleeps, Marianne, his wife. He kisses her gently on the cheek and she smiles softly in her slumber. Sssssssshhhhh … Let her sleep. I’ve been here before. I think. Never mind. Look out the window. He parts the curtain and looks out over a jagged sea of faded terra cotta roofs and chimneys and steeples into the piazza in the early dawn. Beyond the cobblestoned piazza and its fountain, through the downward curve of a narrow street between the pastel façades of buildings strung lazily together by lines of drying laundry is the sun, gilding the waters that lap molten at the beach as it rises from the horizon of the sea. He looks back down into the piazza. The Neo-Classical post office is colonnaded with marble columns that remind him of the legacy of the Romans. There is no one in the street. The world belongs to him and Marianne. She has come all this way—I can’t believe she made it! Must’ve bribed her way over here! He whistles to himself at h
is good fortune. He crawls back into bed, careful not to awaken her. He fingers a tendril of her dark, soft corkscrew curls spilled about the pillow and tickling his shoulder. She sleep-sighs and stirs slightly in an expression of utter contentment. The earth quakes underneath his feet and the sky goes black with ash as with a deafening, volcanic roar the air is sucked from his lungs in a Vesuvian—
Up with a start to a thundering jolt. He bashes his head on something hard above him upon coming to. “Marianne,” he mouths, but no sound comes out. Dream flickers dissipate like smoke. The church trembles and Jim immediately covers his head with his hands, a well-practised attempt to duck from danger. His forehead throbs from its contact with the underside of the pew.
“Shit!” he can hear someone shout in the commotion. He looks about in the darkened interior of the church amid the scurrying silhouettes of men dropping their playing cards and their books and their letters, and hitting the floor. Outside, a massive shell has burst, rattling everyone and everything in the town.
“That’s a 150!” Witchewski yells. Jim is still in an addled blear, not fully responsive to the alarmed commotion about him. He shakes his head and comes somewhat to his senses. Clarity asserts itself. He briefly thinks, is there a moment’s respite?