“Laurent.”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. Midhat ventured, “I miss him.”
“So do I.” She sniffed. It may have been from her cold. “I had a letter from him last week.”
“Oh,” said Midhat, unable to restrain his surprise. “Is he well?”
“He is fine, he is well. He is coming back, in fact, soon. Would you like to see the letter?”
“If it’s private—”
“Not at all. I’m surprised he has time to write letters, to be honest. One moment, I will run up for it.”
He walked by the pond to wait. He was compelled by a sudden, powerful wish that Laurent should die. But even the salutary prospect of Laurent’s disappearance was swamped by the likelihood that Jeannette’s love for him would only swell with his heroic memory. The water in the pond had risen over the winter, and lines of reflected light wriggled on the inside of the wall. The lower part was covered in a greenish fur. He turned around and Jeannette was on the terrace again, holding an envelope. She came towards him.
“Take it.”
28 April 1915
Dear Jeannette,
I was sent to the Dardanelles in the end, not to Ypres. I’m working on the Pioche cruiser under a hero named Bastien who has already been offered five stripes. Most of the boys here are from Lyon and Toulon. Two days ago more French landed with the English on the European coast, while our regiment set about taking Koum Kaleh, and they say a quarter of our men are down. It has been difficult to make a hospital on a boat in which thousands of men have been crowded for weeks, let alone in the middle of battle. Nearly all the cabins for the wounded were still occupied by soldiers at the height of it, so I spent the afternoon dragging saddles and mailbags into one of the kitchens and replacing them with sterilised sacks and bandages and drugs.
From twilight until dawn the convoys of wounded followed one after another and we spent those hours working constantly. I was in the children’s playroom of the ship where we have some big tables—I’m meant to be a junior but all the ranking gets forgotten once you’re in it. The first casualty was a Senegalese—he lay unconscious on a raft. One bullet had gone through his ear, another two through the abdomen. He died at noon without waking up. Then a master corporal came back with his chest shattered by shrapnel, and for a moment I saw his naked heart, still beating. This is the fastest I have learned anything, Jeannette, honestly it makes a mockery of old Dean Rivaut’s “observation and inference” at the Faculty.
The sight of the Dardanelles these last two days and nights has been unimaginable. You can see a mass of dead on the Koum Kaleh shore. On the European side Krithia is burning. Before Yeni Sher there are ships everywhere—battleships, cruisers, torpedoes, dredgers—a whole fleet surrounds the peninsula—and on the Pioche men are sleeping in every corner. This morning the smoke from the cannon is mixing with the dawn mist and the whole thing seethes and smoulders.
All yesterday the Gallipoli Peninsula seemed to be on fire—the castle of Sedd-el-Bahr was burning. The Australians joined us and fired on the Asiatic coast directly on Koum Kaleh, and sent up cascades of fumes and dust and flames. When the soldiers were waiting in the dining-saloon, someone got hold of a gramophone and played it as though it was the end of the world while the Charlemagne shelled Besika Bay. Since then our warships have been firing unceasingly. We’re an auxiliary but even so we saw a shell fall just in front of us today, and a second sent up a jet of water in the same place, and then a swarm of other shells came soaring above our heads. Since then we’ve been hit a number of times, and with our very thin plating a single shell does a great deal of harm, so there’s always more work to keep the place in order.
By 12 o’clock Yeni Sher was destroyed. The Pioche directed her guns on Intepe and we all got up on deck to watch. Firing continued all through the night and the ship trembled. In the morning the corpses were heaped before us along the front for a stretch of about three hundred metres.
Enough. It feels good to have written after so much seeing, though I hope it is not upsetting to read. I hope Midhat is well, and enjoying his classes at the Faculty. It is very peculiar to think about that now. I still keep time by his watch, though it is necessary to hide the Turkish numerals from the other soldiers. When this battle is over I will be released on furlough, which they say could be next week, or next month. Either way, I look forward to seeing both of you.
With love and affection,
Laurent.
“He’s coming back.”
“The battle ended on Friday. We haven’t heard from Xavier …” She turned over the envelope.
“Did you love Laurent?” he said, forcefully.
“Excuse me?”
“Laurent said he loved you.”
Jeannette stared at him. “When did he tell you that?”
Blood hooted in Midhat’s ear. He looked down at his shoes. “It was at the party.”
“Midhat.” She expelled a throaty syllable of breath. “I—I’m not sure what I should say.” She held out a hand for the letter. Her face had fallen. She looked distraught.
“Jeannette, please, I’m sorry.”
She left him on the lawn. Her skirts folded and unfolded as she climbed the steps.
Over dinner, she did not meet Midhat’s eye. The following day after breakfast he waited on the terrace, but she did not come. He left for the Faculty without his umbrella and, as luck would have it, within a few minutes it began to rain. Umbrellas sprouted around him, and his shoes smacked through the puddles, his socks spreading the cold around his ankles. Before long, the entire avenue was ablaze with watery pavements, and when he arrived at the Salle Dugès a scent of damp wool was rising from his coat.
7
Docteur Frédéric Molineu’s office at the university was smaller and far less grand than his study at home. Still, he worked at the university most days: if he wanted a promotion after his next thesis he needed to accentuate his presence there, which meant being physically present as much as possible. He arrived in the morning at eight o’clock, lectured until noon, then retired to the office to continue his own research and answer questions from any students who came by. So few were left now; one lectured to a mere handful in the auditorium, most of them women and foreigners who regarded Molineu and his pointer with the glazed eyes of victory statues, delirious with so much sorrow.
The office was a corner room on the second floor, accessed by two sets of swinging double doors before the final one with the frosted window. Inside, west-facing windows gave him afternoon sun and a view of the courtyard, and two watercolours above his desk depicted the Hérault River. The offices on the other side of the hall had views of an actual river, a small tributary of the Lez. Frédéric’s desk knocked up against the window, and he kept his liquor in a low cabinet on which he stacked books that wouldn’t fit on the shelves. Any visitor or student would sit in the chair, while Frédéric sat on the desk. He often caught himself thinking about the other, spacious offices in the department, emptied now by war—though of course one would never ask.
The door opened a crack. “Good evening Frédéric.”