Part 6

"Many wounded youngsters. We have to put them in the hallways ... all kinds of cases ... Have the Rondes returned?"

"They came this morning; we had lunch together ... I've been writing a letter ... as I came here Aunt Therese stopped me on the stair, saying Lena is ... is with the Maquis."

"She confided that to me ... others know."

"It seems that Therese's worried."

"I guess she is."

Nurses passed through the garden, a few of them saying "hello."

Someone's footprint was filling with rain water and Jean stared at it vacantly, then buried her mouth in his hair, fingers on his face, wondering, vaguely, stupidly, what was going to happen to everyone: the nurses seemed an extension of that everyone.

"I knew you'd like Ermenonville," he said.

"Do you still like it, Orv?"

"I guess I always will."

"Without war..."

"You know, it was hard for Mom and me to move to the States--but a job is a job ... and Cornell pays well enough..."

"I'm grateful to your uncle ... he manipulated strings to get me here..."

"Your French has improved."

"I hope so."

"It's your accent..."

She laughed.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

"Let's ... I brought my coat, just in case."

"Oh, it'll probably rain."

They passed the hospital, passed a grove of pines, the path strewn with muddy needles: he stopped by a new sundial surrounded by dried flowers: hand in hand they read the Falsum Stare non Potest and laughed because they couldn't translate. The chateau's four stubby spires and slate roof were wet, forlorn, seemed misplaced history: the chateaux and the war were millennia apart; so were the swans unreal as they fed close to the shore of the Petit Lac.

Face uplifted to his, she said:

"I come here sometimes ... to rest ... to think of you."

"Lonely, that's it."

"There's something here..."

"Before the war ... but now."

"Just getting away..."

"I used to fish with Marcel ... we had a boat, made it ourselves, kept it hidden. We'd sneak off and paddle the Nonette. Such fun!" He ticked off the years since Marcel's death. His past became too remote, too clumsy. It had to be bypassed--through Jeannette.

"Have you ever gone out to the island where Rousseau was buried?"

"No ... how could I?"

"A rowboat, a punt ... you know my dad's buried near here in Ermenonville."

"I didn't know that."

"He was injured in a three-man tank ... in 1918. The tank was blown up but he had to wait years to die. And so I got born."

"Orville!"

"That's how it was, Jean. As for the tanks ... father and son ... you'll see."

"Don't say that ... that's plain dumb!"

They were walking along the shore of the Petit Lac, swans paddling close to the shore, the greenery of the shoreline greener than the water.

"You and I ... what a joke ... we've got the war around us, the entire world at war!" He was unaware of his change of mood--his fumbling.

"It takes two to face the world," she said. "There's a way for us ... I believe that!"

They walked a short distance, still following the shore of the lake: kids were romping on the cut grass: girls had a goat on a rope and they were urging him along, his bell tinkling: they seemed to be headed for the nearby chateau, visible through the groves: a bunch of boys were throwing stones and sticks into the Lac to annoy the swans.

The tall poplars on the island bent in the wind and their movement seemed to impel the island, transform it into a ship: it was headed into the western sun, leaning somewhat to the starboard.

As Jean and Orville wandered through the park, she told herself she must have faith: last night's love-making said so. Orville struggled with mistrust, concentrating as much as possible on the things around him. Fumbling back to the days in London, Jean heard Orville say, in the threatened Red Cross building:

"So ... you're Chuck's sister ... let me show you your photo ... it's in my billfold ... Here, he gave me your address ... want to see the snapshot?"

"Sure, let me see it."

"Okay."

"But look ... what's happened to your leg? Don't you know that it's bleeding?"

"I hadn't noticed. That flak sure gets around."

"Sit down ... right here!"

"Sure."

As she medicated and bandaged his leg they talked about Chuck's blindness, when and how it happened; she had to attend other wounded, but Orville was able to give her details.

For an hour or more the blitz thundered over the city, damaging buildings on Dalton Street, reverberating, flinging dust and sewer stench. Orville hated the place, this Red Cross hive of death.

"I've got to check in," he said, after the hell had died down; yet next day he was back, bringing her a potted azalea.

Here comes America ... here's somebody who knew Chuck ... somebody who cares ... tell me ...

"I've been thinking how we met," she said, as they walked.

"Yeah ... bad place."

She agreed.

"Better forget it," he said.

They walked to a diminutive temple under pines, beach and ash trees eighty or ninety years old. The temple was a semi-circular building of limestone, a soft brown limestone shell, its roof and pillars in a bad way; a couple of the pillars were lying on the ground, pigeons sitting on curving pediments, weeds among the floor stones.

"It's Rousseau's Temple de la Philosophie ... yeah, but it's falling down ... I used to play here. See that stone slab, lying at the entrance, you can read the inscription."

They bent over the stone but were unable to read the words for weeds and rubble.

"Was the temple made for Rousseau?"

"No ... it was made later ... he lived in the pavilion of the chateau."

"I've been here lots of times..."

"Have you visited the chateau? Is it open these days?"

"Lena took me ... it's closed ... but we got to see the place, the wonderful tapestries in the salon ... remember we don't have many chateaux in Wisconsin."

"Canoes," he said. "Canoes instead of chateaux."

"Are you good with the paddle?"

"Yes ... yes, I am ... and you?"

She nodded.

Separation, mustering out pay, back-pay, travel allowances: they could go to Wisconsin, New York, California. But when would mankind return to nature? Rousseau had said ... let nature repair mind and body ... who remembers? We're lucky to survive these days!

Lucky ... lucky to have Jean ... to be in E ... lucky to be on leave ... to walk in the park ...

As he kissed Jean good-bye at the hospital gate, he tried to summon an optimistic word. Something, during the last half hour or so, had come between them, as if they both admitted they were pawns, as if the miles across the Atlantic already separated them.

Her hair's exquisite copper gleamed in the light: fog was behind her hair: fog was flowing across the countryside, puffing, swirling, smoking in from the Nonette river, fog that smelled of newly mown clover.

"I'll see you tomorrow ... about two. If there's gasoline I'll come in the car ... if I can borrow the car." He smiled.

"Good night, darling." Then a long pause.

"Sleep well."

"See you."

To reach home, Orville followed a short-cut that bypassed the Petit Lac and its island; the path was weed choked: burdock, thistle, artichoke, and mustard. All were rain wet, fog wet. From a rock wall fence he took in the spires of the Ronde place, fog crawling over them, the fog in the pines and chestnut and elm toward the chateau, now fogged out. Crossing a bridge over the Nonette he found the fog thicker, smokier, on the bridge itself it seemed stuffed into the cracks of the 13th century masonry.

In the cemetery he paused by his dad's grave, weedy and foggy. Lighting a cigarette he felt the fog nip at his lighter flame.

You're buried there ... if I'm killed in the war what then? If all of us die ... not a bad idea. Not a bad idea!

He shrugged his shoulders and the shrug brought back painful memories of tank fatigue.

He blew smoke into the fog.

Lights in the windows of the Ronde place--vague in shape and size--recalled his Ithaca home: his dad's insurance policy had made it a reality.

Orville picked up a stone, considered it, dropped it.

I can arrange my papers ... Jeannette will be the beneficiary ... she can purchase a house in Wisconsin, for Mr. William J. Bruce, geometry teacher, football star ... three bedrooms ... split level ... nice ... or nice Ithacan place, by the wine dark sea!

What was that in the fog? Was it fear?

Fear gleaming out there?

Jean has faith, faith in man, faith in us. Lena has faith in the Maquis. Therese has faith in the past.

Maybe we ask too much of life.

Freedom?

What sort of freedom?

Rousseau's?

He flipped his cigarette into the fog and heard it spit derisively.

He walked until late and Lena was sitting in the living room, when he returned.

"Join me, Orv. Have something with me. Mom went to bed a long time ago ... I've been sitting here, reading. Cognac? Cordial? Whiskey?" She regarded him intently, his fog wet hat and jacket. "I guess it's still very foggy," she said, stroking her cat, wanting Orville to sit down next to her.

"It's getting foggier," he said, standing in front of her, removing his hat and jacket.

"I don't like foggy weather," she said. "The airmen ... their missions--you know."

He dropped hat and jacket on a chair.

Lena and her angora, cousin Lena in yellow sweater, Persian slacks, a bird-pin at her throat, barefooted, ponytailed: she smiled the smile of long ago. But there was no turning back.

"I wish we hadn't changed," she said.

"Yes, of course ... but we've changed," he admitted.

"What can we do?"

"Nothing ... but if we could..."

"I was sixteen when you were here last. I was just a kid. Seven years ago ... a hell of a lot of years, with a war tossed in."

"I wondered about coming back ... about us."

"Who escapes change? Half the time Mama's disoriented ... Papa isn't the same..."

"I hear that you're one of the Maquis."

"Maybe better than a convent," she jibed. "More exciting ... do you disapprove? An honest answer."

"I disapprove of a lot of things but it doesn't matter in the least," he said, sitting beside her, making the cat relinquish a little space.

"Your girl is a fighter," Lena said.

"Fighting for men's lives."

"We Maquis fight for men's lives!" she exclaimed, her eyes glassy, and narrow-slitted: she was recalling her last parachute drop. "Better than capitulation! Better than fraternization!"

"I know, I know ... a great job! A tough job. I've heard some things! Without you ... it would be that much longer ... cost more lives ... I know!"

She puttered with whiskey that Claude had brought in. Standing in front of Orville she noticed that his wet clothes made his sex conspicuous. She felt his equal, as friend, as lover. As friend and equal she could confide her Maquis experiences: as part of the Ronde family, its military background, she admired his "uniform": they had much in common: she had been his Amelie.

"Take off your wet shoes ... don't you want to change? How about something? ... Your favorites are ready." Stooping, she touched his shoulder, her fingers moving along his collar, moving to his face. "Let's try to go on as we were ... We read our Atala and Rene by the lake. So, we lived two hundred years ago, climbed the hills, sailed our lake ... ours was all sweetness, as Chateaubriand would say."

Yet as she said this she wanted Orville naked, wanted herself naked, both of them lying by the fire. Lifting the cat onto her lap, she folded her feet under her skirt, and said:

"How's Jean?"

She was annoyed and amused by her own contradictions: perhaps it was two hundred wars ago they had been Chateaubriand's characters. Atala, a foolish fabrication. For that matter, so was the Rousseau legend: there had been little in that man's philosophy for her these last few years.

"How's Jeannette?" she repeated, envious of their love affair.

"She's okay ... do you see her now and then?"

"Now and then."

"Like her?"

"Not really."

"Are you away from Ermenonville a lot?"

"Yes ... and I don't know much about Jeannette ... she has her job."

Sipping his whiskey, he let his eyes wander: the Chopin bust, the tapestry, the books, the fireplaces, the girl. Bending forward, he wet his lips with his tongue.

Raising her glass, Lena began to sketch in the Maquis she worked with: she found them eccentric, unscrupulous, some of them capable, some over-dedicated: as she talked she appreciated Orville: he was Orv: most everything about him pleased her, his unbuttoned shirt, his wet clothes, the way he smoked, the way he talked, his family accent.

Impulsively, in a gentle voice, she began sharing her own life, her life in Paris:

" ... When I'm in Paris I stay most of the time at the Maison Croix ... no suspicions there ... part of the old place has been converted into a hospital ... ambulances ... men coming and going ... doctors ... Maquis ... I was in Marseilles for about a month, stayed with Dad. In Paris I usually stay with a fellow ... we share ... Charles Chabrun ... we sleep together..." She laughed at herself: it was a little like telling him that she had grown up.

The rose-grey Bravort rug stretched out from under her and her angora, its weave intricate and worn, a thing of flowers and wandering blue. Behind her, framed in narrow gold, matted in grey, was a 17th century Chinese waterfall, pointed rocks, clouds. Beyond it the tapestry from boyhood days--Galahad and the Grail.

Orville felt some of these things and they seemed a part of her face, part of her eyes (as he listened), her guilty eyes, the eyes of war. When she brought a tray of food and knelt in front of him he bent over and kissed her passionately.

Aware of his luck, he avoided, with the grin of a hypnotist, the words he could never say, both rapport and frustration.

"Lena?"

"Yes..."

"Can I have your car tomorrow ... Jean and I?"

"Of course you can. Claude will have it fixed I'm sure. It must be difficult to get away from the hospital these days ... so many wounded."

Did he know about the gas chambers at Auschwitz? Did he know about Dachau? We Maquis know ... we ... could he guess how often I cried after he left E ... does he know? ...

"Tomorrow," he managed to say, but now he was afraid, afraid of himself, ambivalence taking over, he continued eating goodies from the tray but the break had come.

She noticed his twisted mouth, his uncertain fingers.

"I'll find us some dance music ... I'll turn on the radio ... dance with me, Orv." Then, she blurted: "Orv, are you really in love with her?"

"I helped get her out of London ... Uncle Victor helped me get her out ... we couldn't leave her to those blitzes. Do you love ... do you really love anyone, Lena? Do any of us really love, any more? Hasn't life become rotted?"

"What are you saying?" she asked, evasively.

"Nothing ... nothing..."

He put down his glass and got up and went to the piano; he had not touched a piano for over a year and he had no notion of touching this one; he wanted to be near it, thinking, for the moment, as he stood by it, of his mother, missing her. In Ithaca their piano had become impotent, had given way to the radio. Unsatisfactory--like altering one's name.

He rubbed his face with both hands.

(Landel had said ... Zinc had said.)

Without seeing Lena, he walked about the room, hesitated by the Chopin bust, lingered in front of the fireplaces; then, rubbing his hands together roughly, shrugging his shoulders, he said, "Good night."

From the stairway, he called:

"See you tomorrow."

That wasn't his voice, Lena told herself. She listened to his steps, going up: two, four, five, eight: life was that way now: automation: death. The click of his bedroom door was the click of Amelie's door: with cold hands she fondled her cat, speculating about tomorrow, the uncertain tomorrows, if there were to be many of them? Softening the radio music, she remained on her knees, fingering dials, longing for Orville.

Orville switched on his bed lamp, and the rack of guns, the fishing tackle, the mounted bass over his bed appeared with a kind of jabbing abruptness. Jean had laughed at his trophy--his Nonette prize. He wished he had her in his room, had her sexiness.

Copies of _Le Matin_ and _Combat_ lay on the bed table and he rustled through them, sitting on the side of the bed, seeing Lena's body catwise. What changes. What irony. Something like double laughter ran through his brain.

He began undressing.

He called himself a fool.

A Rousseau thought came to mind:

"The innocent plans of the good hardly ever find fulfillment." Was that how it went?

Innocence in E?

In Ithaca, life had been innocent enough. Back there, there were thoughts of office plans, gas station blueprints, residential plans. At Cornell, he had a few things pretty well figured out. Not pat, yet ... well ... that new system for track was a good system, based on a series of camera studies of runners: position of the hands while running, the length of the stride: careful correlation had to be established: the same sort of studies for the crew, each oarsman photo fixed, the angles of his oar ...

He dropped his socks on the carpet.

When I was a freshman I used to wear a copper medallion with Rousseau's face stamped on it.

A news sheet fell on the floor and he kicked it aside; at the bottom of the page, in large type, he noticed war news of his arena.

No ... it's my leave ... goddamn the war!

Let them blow themselves up!

All the tanks can go to hell!

Zinc and Landel!

I've got a girl ... a redhead ... calm face ... freckles on her shoulders!

He felt her hand between his legs.

In bed, the lamp out, he saw the fog creeping along the Nonette, he saw a man walking along the river, he saw ... a door banged on the floor below and everything became more illusive, with the radio playing faintly.

Perhaps in the morning ...

Perhaps in the afternoon ...

In the afternoon he called for Jeanette, the gas tank of the old Renault half full; it was a warm, sunny afternoon, more summer than autumn; Bichain had tuned, washed, and polished the car. Agreeing with his suggestions, Orville was to drive a certain route (no Nazi interference). The car buzzed along and then, at the hospital, it refused to budge another inch.

Mme. Ronde, who spent many hours caring for the wounded, appeared on the hospital steps; she said:

"You two walk a while ... be together ... that old car! But you know it's going to rain soon ... when it rains come to the house ... we'll have tea."

And it worked out like that.

She was a true provincial: she had to show Orville that she was more than his aunt, that she was an all-out American:

"Jeannette, you from Visconseen ... I know where 'tis on our maps," she said, in her rough English. With her effusiveness she asked about Wisconsin, the winter sports: was it true the state had so many lakes: was it true that it got fearfully cold there in winter: was the snow deep?

As they drank tea in the living room, Orville sank into himself, the women talking E talk, a silver bowl of dahlias between them: a sense of vacuum haunted him: naked superficiality seemed to surround until scalding tea soaked into his body: the dignity of the old room came to his rescue.

When the phone jangled, he jerked about in his chair.

"When our phone rings it bothers me too," Jeannette said.

Mme. Ronde answered the ring, saying it was Pierre Valeriaud.

"Pierre wanted to apologize for being intoxicated when he was here--he's a pretty nice man." As she lifted her cup, her facial expression became set, almost pained, as if this was something medicinal she was drinking.

In her ladderback chair she seemed to overfill it: for a while she had nothing to say: drinking her tea, biting sandwiches, she might have been a peasant overwhelmed by work or tragedy. When Claude entered and announced three priests, Mme. Ronde was displeased:

"They're men who help with refugees!" she exclaimed, and stalked off. "Have them sit in the dining room ... I have to go upstairs for a list."

While she was gone, Orville found Claude and asked him about the bikes: were they stored in the barn, in the house? Have they been used a lot?

"We've been using them ... there's not always gasoline ... I'll get the key. They're in the linen room. The tires are new. Lena has used one bike for a while. I guess a little oil might help--if we can find any oil."

Key in hand, Claude led Jean and Orville to a small windowless room, behind the kitchen; as Bichain unlocked the door, Orville felt her face against his; his mouth sought hers. The door unlocked with a pop, letting out the smell of soap and fabric.

"We kept our bikes in our barn," Jean said, following Orville inside.

"Big barn?"

"Three cow barn."

Bare light bulbs illuminated shelves of household things.

"There they are," said Claude.

"How are the tires?" Jean asked. "Enough air? Hmm, this one's hard enough."

"How about the rear wheel?" Orville asked. He checked the tire and checked the hand brakes as Claude tried another bike, other tires.

"Let's go," Orville said.

"Where?"

"The park ... along the Nonette."

"Okay."

As he wheeled a bike outside, Orville put together other rides, alone, or with Lena, or with Marcel or some school pal ... no details, just the realization that there had been so many pleasant rides, sun and countryside, picking apples, birds in hedges, chickens and dogs.

"I've got a good bike," Jean said.

"I don't want a girl's bike," Orville said.

"Okay."

Laughing, she mounted and was first away from the house, wishing they could ride a dozen times, ride to nearby places, Senlis maybe: France was bike country: and war controls were lax around Ermenonville.

"I'll lead the way," she sang out.

"Let's ride along the Nonette, to the forest..."

He had a British bike, hers was Swiss; both were scarred, squeaky at the fenders, slack-chained; with worn hand grips. They rode side by side down a slight slope, willows along one side, the four turrets of the chateau visible. The Petit Lac winked a blue wink. Tiled roofs sloped about a stand of chestnuts; a weather vane rose above trees; someone, at a dilapidated farm, had a pen jammed with swine and the swine squealed as the bikers rode past.

The Nonette's rows of willows appeared copper grey--cloud shadowed. The river had a few white swans at a curve and beyond the curve some men were rowing in a white rowboat. The water slid under a stone bridge and they biked across the bridge and followed a cobbled road.

"It's rough," Jean said. "Ride slowly."

"It's the best we can do."

On the bike road the wagon-car-truck ruts had tall grass between them; the surface was smooth; his handlebars looked down on her squatty ones as they peddled. He thought her dress amusingly sedate, hardly a dress for cycling, but then she hadn't planned to ride.

"When did you ride a bike last?"

"I dunno ... years ago, I guess."

As they rode she felt more and more at ease: it was fun knocking at weeds and grass with the pedals: all of a sudden France became USA, became Wisconsin, not foreignness, not isolation. The rooster on a fence, the dog barking at someone's gate, crows flying: weren't they home?

"This way, darling. Our path ends at a farm."

"Coming."

The sun was out now.

Someone's windmill squawked rustily as their route narrowed and ended at a barbed wire fence: the windmill vanished behind trees, behind time.

Orville got off his bike alongside a stile and laid the bike on the road; Jeannette leaned her handlebars against the wire of the fence. Beyond them, a field of grass stretched to another fence line, a smooth, green field, anchored in space by a red mowing machine deserted for the season.

"I used to mow hay in this field," he said.

"By hand?"

"Sure thing."

She climbed onto the stile and sat beside him, the weathered planks shaky, beetles crawling about under the bottom step ... Chuck had collected beetles as a kid ... Chuck would like it here, sitting in the sun.