13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [6]
In the trenches, they sleep in these. They never take them off, never unwind the bindings. They get used to them because they have to. Did you know—each roll of this bandage around the shin is an incantation, truly a binding ritual, meant to keep the meat on the bone. Each roll around the confined flesh is a prayer: don’t fall apart
don’t fall apart
no no don’t fall apart
please.
You see, all the men in the photograph wear puttees. All the men in the picture are bound, trying to keep themselves together. That is how considerate they are, for the love of God and country and women and the other men—for the love of all that is good and true—they keep themselves together because they have to. They are afraid but they are not cowards.
Also, look at how bulky their coats are, and how every single button is fastened, up to the very last one around the neck; they must have several layers of clothes under there. They must be trying to keep the heat in. These men always suffer from the cold. Every day they suffer from the cold, but still they find time to gather at a pile of rocks. They find time to arrange themselves artfully and stay still for a moment—the moment of picture-taking. It is a moment of companionship; they have brought some of their beloved accoutrements: the dog, and the fellow next to the queer one has his pipe in his hand, and the fellow next to that fellow holds what looks like a roll of papers (maybe he likes to write?). It is a moment of companionship; a loose fist rests on a friend’s shoulder; an arm wraps around a friend’s knee.
Huddled together, but strong
still for a scrap of time
for this picture
look at it
they want you to.
Still, this picture is a postcard that Louise receives from her father—so why don’t you flip it over and look at the message?
It reads:
Col d’Oderon—Alsatian Frontier. On 12-10-18.
To my beloved little Louisette
A souvenir of my holiday here.
Your father who embraces you:
[Illegible initial] Victor
His signature is very difficult to read. Louise’s father apparently likes muddled flourishes. You are not even sure what his first initial is. Is it an L? You will have to pay attention to some of the other documentation to see if you can figure this out.
You are caught by his word villégiature. You had to look it up in your desk reference because you’d never run across it before. You thought it meant something like a military campaign, but the clear black type in your book states “holiday, vacation.”
Holiday?
Vacation?
It occurs to you: perhaps Louise’s father has a strange sense of humor also. He has been to war, too. Why should he be different from all the other men?
THERE WAS A DAY, about two months after this postcard arrived, when the father and daughter almost—
But wait, first let us gaze upon another object, relevant to the forthcoming episode—another souvenir that Louise has left behind in the record. It is an object she was given in childhood to pray with, and she always remembered very well the last time she used it to say Our Father over and over again. That day she tried to muster up all the scraps of faith she might have in her unbelieving heart, her fingers clutching the beads, attempting so earnestly and so hard to believe that it would be all right, that another boy would not be lost. The war had just ended and another boy would not be lost: it was not necessary.
*
It was a day in December 1918. A weary France had just signed the Armistice. Louise was back at home with her father and her brother. Her father was well and her brother was not. Her brother was in bed delirious with fever, and Louise sat at his side with her wood and mother-of-pearl rosary dangling from her hands, praying for his recovery—oh, if this worked—if he got better, she might perhaps believe a little in a benevolent God, if only for a flicker of time.
Her brother turned slowly on his side. She looked up from her rosary