The Painting (33 page)

Cannon fire booms, shaking the night. Suddenly, he begins to shudder, as if the danger of the battlefield, of what she is encountering, of death gathered at her feet, has laid itself in front of him. Urgency flushes through his limbs. He reads her letter again and tries to release the cold hand of panic gripping his heart. She has his gun and that will save her, he thinks. No, it won’t save her. His illusions about her strong will, her fearlessness, quickly crumble. She is in danger. He must help her. He charges over to the back door and stands stock still. What is there for him to do? He is a cripple, only half a man.

Pierre’s favorite bird has rubbed off its right wing feathers. Jorgen walks over to the cage and undoes the metal latch. He rolls his message tightly, ties it to the bird’s feather, and tosses the pigeon into the gray sky. He watches the
bird flutter against the wind, fly up beyond the rooftops, carrying his words,
Natalia, I will soon join you
.

T
HE OFFICER WHO DELIVERS
the mail comes down the narrow path between the pitched tents. Natalia stands, expectantly, hopefully. Perhaps today, she thinks. Please. Please. Please send money. But the officer walks by without even a glance, only a small exasperated sigh. She has asked him too many times if there is any mail for her. She sits down again. Her only thoughts are of home. A beautiful place, she thinks. Home. With wine and pleasant talk and strolls down flower-lined sidewalks. Jorgen, what is he doing now? And she knows how easy it is to fall in love when the distance is great, so much room for the imagination to invent. Her last letter, perhaps she said too much, succumbed to a fantasy, but there is something about him, isn’t there?—she’d like to find out.

Bazaine ordered the last of the transport mules killed for food; at least a half dozen of the cavalry horses have been slaughtered. When the soldier comes to her for sex, she’s learned to ask for the food first. Too many times he has tricked her, saying he just ran out.

She rips a thread from her coat and jams it into her mouth. Something to suck on. Her mind is endless loops of incoherent phrases. Everything artless and clumsy. She has lost the mind of reflection, left only with these loops, which come seemingly on their own volition, disappear, only to snake back again.

Mouth caked with soil. Caked with. One of the women buried that way. Soil.

Swallowing shadows until we are full.

Caked with. Torn ligaments around the throat.

Later, when she’s sent to gather firewood, she stumbles upon two lovers coupling on a slab of hard granite. She laughs so hard she weeps uncontrollably. The couple looks over and goes back to their business. When she returns to camp, there is only the indigestible pâté de foie gras. Natalia sits beside one of the other women and hangs her head, staring at the hole in her boot. She’ll have to find some way to patch it, or soon she will be without a
shoe. She sticks her finger into the hole and rubs her frozen toes, trying to bring them back to life.

Come on, says the woman. We’ll die of starvation if we don’t do something.

Together they stagger along the fringe of forest toward the town of Metz. They come to a white farmhouse, the glow of a candle in the window. They walk toward the front door. A man comes out holding a rifle.

We’re French soldiers, Natalia calls out, holding up her arms.

We don’t got anything, says the man.

They walk closer. The man is tall and so thin, his pants are held up by a cinched rope. He has a long sallow face, his high cheekbones protruding like two round bowls. His eyes are deep, like punched-out holes. Behind him Natalia sees five children, no six, covered in sores, their limbs as thin as sapling branches. They stare at Natalia with big round eyes.

Don’t got nothing, says the man. They took it all.

Anything you can spare, says Natalia’s comrade.

My wife is dead. Got shot when she went out to the barn to check on the cow. Could have been a Prussian soldier. Might have been French. All the same to me.

A young girl, she can’t be more than ten years old, sneaks from behind her father. She has stringy brown hair and a long pale face; her eyes are protruding brown globes, the luster nearly smudged from them.

We got some milk, says the girl, her voice firm.

The man turns to her. Go inside.

We do.

Louise, get inside.

She stands there, not budging. And as Natalia looks closer, she sees the defiant upper lip, the steeliness behind the glazed eye, a certain stony determinism. Natalia recognizes that look, that fierce will. And now Natalia begins to cry. The other soldier nudges her with her elbow.

We’ll get something from them, she hisses. Hold yourself together. That girl has something. I heard her.

Natalia remembers how she once tried to do the right thing, to be good,
the way Louise is standing there, staring down her father, offering milk that shouldn’t be offered. What does she believe in now? What is left? She no longer knows what is good or right, or who she is or what would have become of the Prussian she shot if he had been allowed to live. Or how many more men she will kill, all in the name of France. What is that name? What does it mean? To be French, to kill for France? She touches the cold metal trigger of her gun, as if seeking comfort.

We don’t need anything, says Natalia. Sorry to trouble you.

The other woman grabs Natalia by the arm. Are you crazy? She walks toward the man and the children. She’s so hungry she can’t think straight, she says, pointing to Natalia and laughing harshly. Milk would be wonderful. It’s been so long since we had anything.

Natalia follows her. Leave them alone.

Louise rushes into the house and comes out with a bottle of milk. Her father tries to catch her, but the girl darts from his grasp and runs down the front steps toward Natalia and the woman. The bottle is wet, and there is the milk, the precious milk, as white as the moon.

That’s a nice girl, says the woman, smiling faintly. Good. Good girl.

We can’t take it, says Natalia. She needs it. Her family needs it.

So do we, says the woman. Now shut up or go on your way.

Natalia looks at Louise. The girl is so thin, her arms and legs are wobbly lines. What has she eaten today? thinks Natalia. Yesterday? Louise looks at Natalia with curious cavernous eyes. Louise holds out the bottle of milk to Natalia. It looks like a bouquet of calla lilies.

Take it, says the woman. Take it.

Please mademoiselle, says Louise. You’re hungry.

Natalia no longer feels hunger, only a sinking dread as she reaches for the bottle. If she had any goodness left, she wouldn’t be feeling the cold, wet glass underneath her dirty fingertips, or placing the curve of the bottle lip to her mouth, closing her eyes and gulping the thick sweetness. No, if there were anything redeemable in her, she’d walk away, leave this rich sustenance for Louise, her brothers and sisters, her beaten-down father. But the milk coats her cheeks, her tongue, so rich, and her hunger wakes with a fury; she
hears herself greedily gulping; she’s never tasted anything like it; she can’t seem to stop. And the girl smiles gently, all the while watching Natalia, who can’t stop staring at the girl. A vision, thinks Natalia, an angel, this Louise, with brown luminous eyes, still holding so much goodness in her small, dying body.

T
HIRTY PIGEONS ARE TO
be released.

This morning, the government delivered the official messages along with personal correspondences. Another thirty tomorrow. They flash shiny beadlike eyes; their feet dance on the metal wiring. Jorgen stands next to the cages and envies their wings.

Svensk steps out on the porch to help. Jorgen looks right through him before he sees him. When he is around the birds now, humans seem almost obscene. The birds coo and jump around the cage, rubbing their wings against the wire. He would release them all, he thinks, in one gleam of gray; he would do it, if they would teach him the mystery of wings.

Svensk pats him on the back. A balloon made it, he says. It caught a favorable wind and landed at Dreux. They say the man stepped out with a handful of the mail in both hands. He waved the letters in the air, then fell on his knees and wept.

Jorgen lifts the metal clasp out of its hole, opens the door, and reaches into the cage. The birds flit around him. He braces his hands around one of the birds, holding down its wings, and slowly pulls it through the open door.

Svensk opens the envelope and pulls out a thin, white note.

Hold him still, says Svensk.

Wait, says Jorgen.

Jorgen puts the bird back in the cage and takes the note from Svensk.

What are you doing? asks Svensk.

Jorgen opens the message. It is addressed to the British ambassador to France who escaped from Paris and is now in Tours.
Bazaine is trapped in Metz. If not assisted by the British, Metz will fall. Then, only a matter of time before France falls to Prussia
.

What does it say? asks Svensk.

Jorgen swallows and tries to control his rapid breathing. He reads it out loud. For a moment, they stand in silence.

Is that where Natalia is? In Metz?

Jorgen shakes his head at the image of swarming Prussian soldiers descending on Metz, the shrills of delight as they fire at any moving thing. French soldiers firing haphazardly, desperately, hidden behind bullet-riddled walls.

If France loses Metz, there’s nothing left. The Prussians will come charging to Paris, says Svensk. What other stronghold does France have?

At least she has my rifle.

You gave her your rifle? Geez. Your rifle. You loved that thing. Maybe you should write her and tell her to desert.

She’d never do that. She’s too headstrong. Too noble, he thinks. She’ll be one of the soldiers fighting to the end. You should have seen her patience at the shooting range, he says. She’s a real soldier.

That’s where you’re going, isn’t it? You asked me the other day if I’d take care of the pigeons if you left. You’re going to her, aren’t you? You gave her your rifle. You wouldn’t give it to just anyone. You’re going to find her.

Jorgen doesn’t say anything.

I won’t tell anyone, says Svensk. I don’t know how you’ll get out of here. Open another one.

Jorgen undoes another dispatch.
Simon being sent to Bordeaux to begin armistice negotiations
.

Svenks stares wide-eyed at Jorgen. France is going to surrender?

Perhaps the armistice will come before Metz falls, he thinks; she could escape unharmed. And the more dispatches they read, the more they understand it is only a matter of time before the Prussians bombard Paris and march down the boulevards in their shiny helmets.

It’s over, says Svensk. It’s almost over.

They stand there a quiet moment, feeling as if the edges of Paris are disintegrating. The prestige, the glamour, the once strong army of France vanquished. Svensk rolls up a note and ties it with waxed thread to the bird’s tail feather. Jorgen tosses the bird into the air and watches the flutter of light gray
wings. A good flight, my friend, he thinks. He follows the bird as it flies beyond the roof of the house, up, up, beyond the tree limbs.

Look at it go, says Svensk.

A strong breeze of optimism blows through Jorgen. The war will be over soon, he thinks, and he clutches to the thought she’s coming home soon. She’s fine and she will be fine. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow she’ll be standing at the front door. Jorgen watches until the bird becomes a gray speck against a gray sky. They stand there watching for a long time.

As easily as it blew in, the optimism drifts away. It’s not true, Jorgen thinks. From her last note, she might be shell-shocked, and in some terrible way, she’s given up.
Death.… It would be so easy
. It would, of course. How many times did he think the same thought? Not only on the battlefield, but here, in the drab office or his depressing room. A miracle that anything stays alive.

He looks up at the bird again. How he wishes he could fly.

Svensk releases another bird, then another, and another.

And it doesn’t stand up to logic, no, it’s quite irrational, but when he had the painting, Natalia was here. Of course it’s not rational, but nothing makes sense anymore, the war, his ghost leg, nothing. The painting, if he had it—he thinks of the many times his hand has swept underneath his bed searching for it, as many times as he has looked out the window in search of Natalia—if he had the painting, she would return, yes, he feels it. She’d find her way back to Paris.

Boy, that’s a big weight off you, says Svensk, turning to Jorgen.

Yes, it’s a relief, says Jorgen, thinking of course she would return. For now there is something for him to do. He’ll get the painting back, and with that, Natalia will find her way home. The painting, a concentration of such beauty. How could he have let it go? He had it, he once held it in his hands, as he once embraced Natalia. She stood in the cup of his arms. He rubs his hand on his forehead, bewildered and astonished he hadn’t seen the connection before.

That’s it, then, says Svensk.

Yes, says Jorgen. That’s it.

A
MAID OPENS THE
front door of Daniel’s house.

The master is out, she says. She is a frail, frightened woman, with worry lines traced over her forehead and around her eyes like an intricately drawn map.

When might I see him? asks Jorgen, trying to keep the frantic desperation from his voice. This afternoon? This evening? I must see him.

The sound of a cannon ruptures the morning air, and she jumps, gives a small shriek, and slams shut the door. He pounds on the door for a while then decides to walk around the block and try again.

Winter nips the air, and everyone is bundled up in layers of scarves and hats and heavy coats. Faces are buttoned down and flattened, no one meeting another’s eye, no one wanting to be asked anything, for money, food, lodging, firewood, not wanting to part with anything, too huddled up in a heavy blanket of deprivation. He passes by a bread line. The wind blows and a woman’s purple hat flies up into the air. No one moves to retrieve it. She asks the man behind her if she might keep her place to get it; the man considers for a moment and reluctantly consents.