It’s going to take forever to put these back in order,” Emma muttered as she opened one set of folded sheets. “Listen to this: ‘April 26, 1916. “Lucie says the blind woman must be granted the prettiest teacup, because who understands beauty more than those who have lost their sight?”’ Isn’t that lovely? By his own admission, Émile Legrand was not an educated man, but if you ask me, he had the soul of a poet.”
“You mentioned he was a farm boy,” Rosalyn said, grateful for the distraction. “I’m surprised he was so well-read.”
“Émile’s fascinating. I wonder whether he was this charming in person, or if he simply had a way with the written word. He wrote two or three letters a week to Doris; I have the sense they were an important outlet for him, helped him survive the trenches.”
“Who is the Lucie he mentions?”
“Mademoiselle Lucie Maréchal. She was living in the caves under the city of Reims.”
“Why was she in the caves?”
“During the war, Reims was surrounded by the German army, which shelled the city for years. Something like ninety percent of the buildings were destroyed, and thousands of civilians were killed. A lot of the citizenry sought shelter in the caves beneath the champagne houses. You’ve never been to Reims?”
Rosalyn shook her head. “Just Paris.” The lamppost on the corner, shaking off snowflakes. “A lifetime of laughter for my beautiful bride. I promise.” “So, what are you going to do with the letters?”
“At the moment, I’m just curious to see how many I can find. My grandmother used to tell me stories about Doris when I was little, and for whatever reason, I’ve always felt a special connection to her. I’m going to try to find a historian or someone to write a book about their story.”
“Why not write it yourself?”
Emma smiled. “Prose—not to mention organization—is not my strong suit. And it will take a lot of work to get everything translated. But I figured while in Champagne, I should search the archives. And I’ve put out some feelers with a few people who will let me root through their attics; and there may still be some Legrands in the area. It’s a long shot, but in my experience a lot of Frenchies have ancient family homes that are passed down through the generations, and since they never throw anything away, it’s entirely possible something might be tucked away in some corner of a dusty attic. Maybe even some photos; can you imagine? It would mean the world to my mother, if I could find them. She’s a nut for family history.”
“Your mother’s still with you?” Rosalyn asked.
Emma nodded but said nothing; her lips pursed slightly.
“Did . . . did Émile survive the war?” Rosalyn asked, suddenly sure she knew the answer.
Emma hesitated. “I don’t know. I haven’t found an official announcement from the war bureau, or anything like that. But like I said, I haven’t gotten to the last letter. Not even sure where it is. I started to put them in order, but it’s not easy reading with that stylized script and fading ink, not to mention the censorship.”
“I noticed bits and pieces of the letters are cut out, or blacked out.”
“Yup. Wartime correspondence was subjected to ‘Anastasia’s scissors.’ The poilus weren’t allowed to tell anyone where they were, or where they were headed. Anything that even hinted at their location or destination was censored. Every once in a while some of the letters slipped past the censors, but it was rare.”
“Sorry—who were the poilus?”
“The French soldiers—the regular boys, not the officers.”
“Doesn’t poilu mean . . . ?”
“‘Hairy,’” Emma confirmed with a nod. “Living in the trenches for days or weeks or months at a time, it was hard to shave or get a haircut, so the soldiers started to wear their hair as a badge of honor. Being hairy was associated with masculinity, being fierce and brave.”
By now Rosalyn had part of the stack in front of her and was trying to match the free pages with their envelopes, putting the military envelopes in order by the dates stamped on the front or, in the case of stamps too faint to read, by the dates written on the letters. It was oddly calming, holding history in her hands. She imagined the words being carefully jotted down on the fragile onionskin paper in muddy trenches, the likelihood that Émile had never made it home from the front. The agony of his loved ones upon hearing the news.
It was profoundly unsettling to find other people’s misfortunes comforting. Whenever she spotted a cemetery, Rosalyn would stop and meander through, hungrily searching the headstones for evidence of young men dying in the prime of life. It wasn’t schadenfreude—she would never wish this pain on another—but rather the recognition of a fellow sufferer. A strange, fathomless kinship.
She wasn’t the only one. Others had survived far worse.
Some, for instance, were forced to live in caves to escape the hell raining down upon their city.
“Anyway, I had planned to check in with my wine producers and vineyard managers, and then do some snooping around in attics.” Emma gestured to her cast, shook her head, and let out a sigh worthy of a martyr. “But now that plan is a bust. Old French homes aren’t exactly built for the disabled.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened to your leg?”
“An unfortunate encounter with a taxi on Bush Street, right outside the Chinatown gates. Ruined a damned fine pair of jeans. But I suppose it could have been worse.”
Rosalyn nodded and turned her attention back to the letters. Emma was right. They weren’t easy to read, but with the aid of the dictionary on her computer, she made out a few snatches of lines: “. . . The air is thick with grenades and trench mortars. These last are a diabolical kind of toy. Their explosion feels like ten earthquakes rolled into one.”
“Intriguing, aren’t they?” Emma asked.
“They are.” Undeniably so. It wasn’t just what the words said that captivated Rosalyn. It was the ghostly presence of the hand moving across the paper a century ago, the lingering stories of lives long gone. A tangible remnant of the past.
The crumbling letters left tiny bits of brown and yellow dust on her tray and the pads of her fingers. Traces of a long-ago life.
“The letters don’t paint a very pretty picture, though, do they?” said Rosalyn, as she tried to decipher a description of life on the front. “A bunch of hairy men living in muddy trenches—can you imagine the smell?”
Emma laughed that boisterous laugh again. “Smelling good was the least of their worries.”
“I’m curious, though,” Rosalyn continued. “If things were as bad as all that, how was there mail delivery to and from troops?”