One Hundred Twenty-One Days (4 page)

I wonder if he has a fiancée. I think about all those girls whose lovers will return disfigured, and all those whose lovers will never return… I don’t know which will need more courage.

The worst will perhaps be for those who won’t know, because their men will have been declared missing.

November 14, 1916

Today, a surprise: Cousin Paul, dressed in full mourning attire, came to the unit. He had come to see a patient, and it was Lieutenant Mortsauf, my polytechnician! They spent the whole afternoon together, talking about mathematics. Paul had brought some books. I listened to their conversation while I was treating the others in the room—they were discussing things and writing formulas on sheets of paper that were then falling all around them onto the floor. When Paul left, I came over to remove the polytechnician’s stitches from his last operation. As I picked up the papers, he said, “So, Mademoiselle Marguerite, I take it you know Professor de Saint-Bonnet?” When I replied that he’s Mama’s cousin, he commended me. I told him that one of Paul’s sons had been killed in January and another last month, but he knew. He said that Paul was going to help him make use of his time at the hospital and that he was going to write a dissertation.

Friday, December 1st

As I move throughout the room, treating the other patients, I can see the polytechnician filling entire pages of his little yellow notebooks with calculations. Paul comes to see him two or three times a week. Sometimes he brings other mathematicians, and the patient always introduces me to them as “Mademoiselle Marguerite, the nurse who saved my life.” He tells me he owes his “second birth” to me. He explains his work to them; sometimes he tears sheets from his notebook and they take the papers with them. I don’t understand what they talk about, and besides, I don’t have time to listen, but I know that when they’re here, he smiles more. Even underneath
the layers of gauze, I can discern a smile as soon as one is there. Today I heard them speaking in the stairwell as they were leaving.

Paul was crying and I could see his colleague had teary eyes. I know Paul was thinking about his two sons. Jacques, his oldest, was so brilliant, and he hadn’t even had time to start working on anything. At least he died gloriously. Glory and honor are also (I don’t dare write what they are above all) death and tears.

December 11, 1916

Last week, like he asked me, I brought home a few pages from the polytechnician’s notebook to write out a clean copy in the evenings—that’s why I haven’t had time to write in this diary.

I told him I really like his handwriting, but I don’t understand any of it and I hope I don’t write something foolish or add in mistakes.

Maybe I spend a little too much time talking to him. I worry that the other patients in the room, behind the beige curtains, resent me. So I try to speak with some of them as well. I give words of comfort to those coming back from rehabilitation sessions, where heavier and heavier weights are attached to their lower jaws in order to help their muscles get used to opening their mouths, in spite of their deformed jawbones. Sometimes I write letters for those who don’t know how to write very well. Last night, I even played charades with two of them. Although I had to force myself at the beginning, we were soon laughing together. But laughing also makes them suffer.

December 19, 1916

I’ve finally finished copying the one hundred twenty pages that Christian (Lieutenant Mortsauf asked me to call him by his first name) gave to me. Fortunately, his handwriting is very readable. When I told him once more I didn’t understand any of it, he laughed and replied “Of course you don’t understand any of it, it’s not for girls, do you expect a girl to understand the transcendence of π?” But he seemed very satisfied. I could see him smiling under the bandages then, too.

The battle of Verdun is finally over. Major de Brisson says 300,000 men died there. But their sacrifice was not in vain because the victory was ours.

December 20, 1916

I stayed very late at the hospital yesterday evening. The doctors aren’t finished with my polytechnician, so he’s going to have to stay here for the holidays. In any case, his family is in Africa, and it would be out of the question for him to get leave to visit them. He told me about the village where he was born, where his parents run a peanut plantation. He described a big river, with the Negroes’ pirogues, the pelicans, and beautiful trees called flame trees
.
He told me about his mother, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, and a little yellow dog, a kind of retriever, that he loved very much and that had died. If I were a man, I think I would like to travel and see such places. But a woman’s place is the home.

He told me, very tenderly, about a nurse, a young nun who had cared for him in Africa. He also mentioned his injury and the evil fairy Carabosse.

December 21, 1916

I brought him a few books.

Friday, December 22

I stayed very late at Val-de-Grâce, but Major de Brisson drove me home. It was nighttime and very cold. I was so moved by what happened today that I couldn’t speak in the automobile.

I spent the evening with my injured soldier; together we read the books I had brought him. He didn’t really appreciate Dante, whom I like a lot. I opened the book to the page where the song of Ulysses begins. “It’s very beautiful,” he said, “but I prefer Shelley,” and he quoted:

The soul’s joy lies in doing.

I must confess that I thought of Robert again. But we mainly read Papa’s poems:

Jesus, the wounded one, the sinner, the wanderer

Washes his ailing heart in the flow of Your blood.

That’s when I felt a real bond between us. Then we talked a lot; he asked me how we had fared after Papa’s death, I explained how he had made some shrewd investments, and how since Mama was wealthy, too, we were living quite comfortably. He seemed pleased with this, as well as when I said that Papa had bought a beautiful house in Normandy and that we also owned an apartment on Rue d’Artois, where Papa had worked and which Mama was renting out. It’s really nice of him to be so interested in us.

I have leave for Christmas, so I’m going to spend the holidays with Mama and Thérèse.

Christmas

I got up early this morning and decided to take stock of my feelings in this diary.

I have to revisit what happened with Robert in March. He needed a lot of support, both morally and, I think, spiritually. I admit, I really enjoyed our conversations. But I didn’t expect him to ask me to marry him. Naturally, I refused. He asked me why, like a child, and I answered that we were too different.

I haven’t even told Mama about it. I know Papa would never have agreed for me to marry a Jew, Papa who, along with Cousin Paul and a few others, founded the League of the French Homeland during the affair with that man Dreyfus.

Wednesday the 27th

I returned to the hospital today. Lots of work, as if the Germans wanted to celebrate Christmas by killing as many of our men as possible. Yet there’s talk of a truce here and there. I didn’t have time to talk to him.

January 2, 1917

Today I had to try to comfort two wounded men who were crying because they were thinking about their fiancées. “I’m a monster,” one was saying, “She won’t want me anymore,” the other was saying, “No one will want me,” said the first, all of this in sobs.

I hope their fiancées will think of the sacrifice they have made for our country and will love them for their moral greatness. I asked to pray with them, but one told me that while he would be grateful if I could pray for him, he could never pray again. The other, who works in an automobile factory in civilian life, turned his back and pretended to sleep.

The weather is so misty and sad.

January 5, 1917

Lieutenant Mortsauf has finished writing his dissertation. Cousin Paul will come get it tomorrow. In the meantime, I wrote out the dedication in beautiful lettering, for which he thoughtfully put:

“To the Polytechnicians Who Died on the

Field of Honor in a Just War”

with all those pretty capital letters.

He told me he was very satisfied with what he had done, and I’m sure it’s true, given how happy he seemed.

January 8, 1917

So much work. I couldn’t even stop to eat at midday.

No time to write again this evening.

January 9, 1917

He’s still working in his yellow notebooks. Paul told him he’ll probably win a prize for his dissertation. He also told me Paul was his Saint Christopher. I didn’t really understand what he meant by that.

When I congratulated him for the glorious prize he was going
to receive, he answered:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

(…) You’ll be a Man, my son!

Thursday, February 1st

Today I begin a new notebook, the third for this diary I’ve been keeping in secret since Papa’s death. I was so young then!

I haven’t had very much time to write. I’ve often stayed late in the evening to talk to the men, who also need moral support. I’ve talked to Christian the most. We told each other what we like—I told him I like flowers. He told me he likes dogs. I really prefer cats, and I told him so. He told me that his dream, before the war, was to have a house with three dogs and six children, six boys. I told him I’d really like to have a little girl.

He’s going on a few days’ leave to defend his dissertation. I would’ve liked to go but I didn’t dare say so; after all, it’s not the place for a young lady, and I couldn’t imagine asking permission to leave the hospital for that.

So much snow again this year.

Thursday, March 1st, 1917

At least we haven’t had a February 29th this year. A year already, I remember the numbers: 29 and 479, which are prime numbers, Robert had shouted to everyone in the room, as if to announce some good news. “But why 479?” one of the patients had asked, while the others, with their bandaged heads, tried to escape the
racket. “Because,” Robert replied, “if there is a February 29th, it’s because 1916 is divisible by 4, so divide it, divide it!” he had shouted.

Today, while I was changing his dressings, my patient took out a photo of himself from under his blanket. “That’s how I was before. No one will want me now,” he said—him, too. I told him as gently as I could that he must not say that.

I prayed for God to give me the strength to understand my feelings more clearly.

March 2

I looked at Jesus on the cross above my bed. He is wounded, too. I took His cross in my hands. I looked at His unfortunate face and He drank my tears.

March 3, 1917

I told Mama that Christian asked if I would agree to marry him.

I don’t dare think back on the mean things Thérèse uttered. And yet, I will. She said he wants to marry me because we’re rich and we have relatives in high places, and besides, I’m not even pretty. And she also said I agreed because I want to show everyone I’m capable of sacrifice, so that, along with my angelic airs, I would appear patriotic. Mama was angry and made Thérèse be quiet while saying I have beautiful blue eyes and “la beauté du diable” (the beauty of youth), and as for Thérèse, who thinks she’s so pretty, we’ll see how she looks at age thirty after having a few children, if someone still wants her in spite of her meanness.

Mama trusts my opinion.

On my table, a moonbeam lights up the white statue.

Our Lady of Lourdes, please help me.

March 5, 1917

I spoke to him. He asked the hospital for leave so that he can come see Mama and make his request. His father is much too far away for this to be done by the rules.

I will be Madame Christian Mortsauf.

April 2, 1917

We have set the date, June 23, a Saturday. It will be at Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, our parish, and Father de La Martinière will marry us. Then we will leave for our “honeymoon” at our house in Normandy.

Today, the cherry trees there must be in blossom.

His parents won’t be able to come. Not only is it too far, but, with the Krauts’ submarines ready to torpedo any innocent ships that pass, it would be too dangerous. Jean-Baptiste, his younger brother, will get leave to come. He and Cousin Paul will be Christian’s groomsmen. Major de Brisson and Thérèse will be my bridesmaids. Grandfather will walk me down the aisle.

You will be there in the church, Mary, full of grace, and you will support me with your love.

I would have loved a simple ceremony, but Father de La Martinière and Major de Brisson insisted, because of the symbol it will be: Christian will represent all of his comrades lost in combat and will wear the full uniform of the École Polytechnique, with the medals for the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur. He was fitted for a mask in black taffeta, which hides the scars and
reproduces the shape of his nose. That way he can go without the bandages and wear the cocked hat—I hope the red lock of hair will show from underneath. Cousin Paul, although he is still in full mourning, will wear the green uniform of the French Academy. This means I had to go and be fitted for a dress that is far more complicated than what I would have wanted. I cried when I saw myself in the dressmaker’s mirror. Is this really me? I feel more myself in my canvas blouse. At least the veil reminds me of my nurse’s uniform.

Mama is busy doing up the apartment on Rue d’Artois, where we will live.

He is different, too. His family isn’t from the same background as ours. But Cousin Paul says his career looks very promising, and his family is far away.

Besides, Papa would have been happy to know I’m marrying a young man with such a bright future, who is a good Catholic and a polytechnician.

CHAPTER III

One Polytechnician, Three Murders, Twenty-Two Articles