The War Bride #3
Buck went to work at Mel’s Garage, leaving me alone with his parents. I stayed in the bedroom. If I ventured out, Mrs. Gustafson fired up the Hoover and aimed it in my direction. When he came home in the evening, it felt as if the savior had arrived.
On Sunday morning, Buck and I entered the church.
I inhaled deeply. Stale incense—something I knew.
When the service started, I recognized the cadence of Latin.
Finally, something familiar. Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear me.
Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. My soul hath hoped in the Lord.
In Paris, I’d hated Mass. In the cathedral, with the sun gleaming through the stained glass, Rémy told me to calm my mind, Maman told me to be quiet and pray.
And throughout the war, I had. For Rémy’s safety.
For peace. For wisdom. But I’d felt nothing.
Today, I bathed in light, as if someone took my hands and told me the terrible things I’d done didn’t matter.
I could be a better person. It wasn’t too late.
I felt blessed. In a town I did not know, in a church with worn carpet, I was at peace.
Until the final blessing, when I felt the glare of the Millers, Jenny tucked between her parents, the outraged trinity.
From the pulpit, Father Maloney, who’d arrived the same week as I had, suggested that next Sunday people stay after Mass for a potluck. I decided to make an apple tart.
The following week at the hall, parishioners devoured Delores Murdoch’s meatloaf and Betty Iver’s Jell-O salad made with chopped celery and maraschino cherries.
Only two people took any of my pie—the priest and Buck.
Even Mr. and Mrs. Gustafson didn’t try a slice.
Someone joked about the “French tart.” At the end of the luncheon, only my dessert remained.
To spare my feelings, Father Maloney told me it was delicious in a voice loud enough for all to hear and asked if he could take the rest home.
I was so overwhelmed by his kindness, the first in Froid, that I could taste tears in the back of my throat.
In the future, to avoid more culinary shunning, he informed his flock that he would order pastries.
Buck
Buck went to the Oasis every Friday after work.
He’d been home for over a year and had yet to pay for a drink.
At the bar, the men hailed the war hero and celebrated his medals.
They slapped him on the back, and after a few beers, asked what it had been like.
He never told them that he’d landed on a beach of blood.
That he’d never been so scared. That he dreamed of body parts strewn on the floor of the supermarket, in the pews at church, and even in his bed.
He didn’t tell them that now he had to force himself to hold his rifle.
That when he and his father went hunting, his hands shook.
His hands still shook. The only way he could shoot was to lie prone, gun wedged between the ground and his shoulder.
He didn’t tell them that most of the men in his squad never made it home.
He didn’t tell them that he wished he hadn’t.
He didn’t tell them how he’d met the enemy face-to-face, both of them out of bullets.
Him or me. He didn’t tell them that he strangled the son of a bitch.
Him or me. Me. He didn’t tell them that twice now in his sleep he’d choked his little gal.
She told him it wasn’t his fault. But it hurt him. It hurt him bad.
He’d traveled. He’d seen things.
He hadn’t wanted to change. But, here he was, different.
Melancholy. That’s what they whispered. In church.
At the general store. That’s what they called the black curtain that came down and caused him to stay in bed.
Or punch the wall. Because his shoelace came untied.
Because the neighbor’s dog wouldn’t stop yapping.
Because he had done things he’d never wanted to do.
Because people called him a hero. When he knew the real heroes were dead and buried.
He loved Odile. Her eyes, still sad after all this time. He knew she was the only one who understood, because she’d done bad things, too. At the hospital, he’d seen it in her eyes. The guilt. The longing. The lost innocence.
The first time they’d met was in ’forty.
Back then, he’d been frustrated by the way America sat on the sidelines.
The antsy quarterback couldn’t wait to get in the game, so he’d crossed the border to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
His squadron had been sent to England, then France, where he’d been hit.
At the hospital, he and a bunch of other wounded soldiers slumped along the walls of the hallway, waiting to be examined.
Odile arrived to bathe his face. He’d been in pain, but those warm hands and that soft accent soothed him.
When he came to after the operation to remove shrapnel from his thigh, hers was the first face he saw.
She stayed with him, stroking his arm. When he told her he loved her, she replied, “With everything they pumped into you, you’d love a goat.
” He smiled at the memory. He’d loved her wide-eyed and sassy.
When he saw her four years later, head bowed on the stoop, he’d loved her even more.
Those brown eyes drenched in regret, he’d comforted her the best he could.
For some reason, she clutched a red belt.
Gently, he pried it from her hand and tied the leather around her waist, even now a lasso he used to pull her close.
There was a before, and there was an after.
And before, in France, Buck had never thought about how hard it would be for Odile after.
Before, she’d had a full life as a librarian.
After, in Froid, she couldn’t find a job.
Father Maloney took pity on her and hired her as a part-time secretary.
She organized a small library in the church vestibule, but with chores at home and on the farm, few people had time to read.
Buck could see she was miserable. He could see she tried to hide it. She hated living with his parents, who, frankly, were no help. He and Odile saved every cent so they could put a down payment on a house. Finally, they moved.
Working at the garage beat being a soldier.
The smell of gasoline and grease beat puke and guts.
He didn’t mind the long hours. He enjoyed the puzzle of a Chevy.
He appreciated each part, the peace he found in taking the pieces apart, in putting them back together, to see the engine whole and running.
A flask idled in the pocket of his coveralls, for when the day got to be too much.
He wished people would leave him alone. His boss said, “I told you to replace the muffler, not dismantle the whole damn truck.” His co-workers elbowed him in the ribs each time Jenny brought in her brand-new Cadillac because of a suspicious noise.
“There’s something ‘suspicious’ about her coming round so much. Har, har.”
She giggled and touched Buck’s chest like they were still in high school.
She probably knew the guys would tell their wives about her every move.
“Tell your folks hello,” he’d mutter and get back to changing the oil on a Ford.
He needed as much overtime as he could get.
He wanted to buy Odile a fancy Louis XIV chair from France.
His little gal never complained, but her smile was wistful, and more than anything, he wanted to make her happy.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when he felt as if he would suffocate under his memories, under her sadness, Buck eased out of bed and pulled on his jeans and went outside.
On the lawn, he hunched over, hands on his knees to steady himself, and sucked in gales of night air.
Times like this, there was only one place he wanted to be.
He headed down the street to the house on the edge of town.
He snuck in the back door and inched up the stairs.
Slipping into the bedroom, he undressed and snuggled under the tatty quilt, surrounded by his trophies, his victories, his life before. When things were still right.
Odile
Each morning, I awoke next to Buck, grateful we had our own home.
When we’d moved in, the first thing he did was build bookshelves in every room, even the kitchen.
Through an army buddy back East, he bought me novels in French.
He seemed devoted. Still, I fretted, almost certain I smelled perfume on his work shirt, and last night, he’d slipped out again.
Furious that he thought he could fool me, I put clothes near the bed so next time, when he left in the middle of the night, I could follow.
It took a week, but eventually, he snuck out.
I crept along, hiding behind hedges, following him to the last place I expected him to go.
Once inside his parents’ house, he didn’t flick on a light.
Did they know he was there? What was he doing?
After an hour, I shuffled home, feeling ridiculous, and vowed to be sweeter to make up for my doubts.
I would pretend I didn’t know anything about his odd nights.
Anyway, neither of us seemed to get much sleep.
In my nightmares, I found myself back in Papa’s office at the precinct, reading crow letters denouncing Jewish neighbors and co-workers.
Roger-Charles Meyer is a pure Jew, well as pure as that race can be, and I will not hide the fact that I would be delighted if he were taken away.
… I agonized about what more I could have done to help Library subscribers like dear Professor Cohen—destroyed more letters, confronted my father, warned people what was happening.