At the Edge of Summer

“Hope?” She straightened. “If nothing else, I wished to give you hope.”

I ran a finger beneath the edge of the mask to wipe away sweat. “I thought you wanted to give me a future.”

“Exactly,” she said, her eyes too bright. “With a mask, think of what you could do.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Remember the pamphlet I mentioned? The Institut National?”

“You think I can just pick a new future from a pamphlet?”

“See it as a new beginning.” Through the narrow eyehole, I could see her, standing straight and cold on the pavement. She’d forgotten her jacket. “Whatever skill you want, whatever job you’re hoping for, you can have it.”

“Men like me, we take what we’re offered. We can’t afford to expect anything more.” I touched my metal cheek. “A man like me can’t hope.”

Arms wrapped around myself, I left her standing on the pavement in her sweater.

—

When I got back to the apartment, I needed to wash away Clare.

Demetrius whistled “Mademoiselle from Armentières,” so I shushed him. Lysander, ever the fretter, took up my shushing. I poured out a pitcher of water and splashed a handful their way, until they bristled with outraged squawks. Lysander smoothed down his feathers; Demetrius swore in English.

I took off my new mask and scrubbed with icy water until my arms and face were red. I stripped off all my clothes—the outfit I’d picked out with such care that morning for the studio. The pressed suit, the shirt the color of cornflowers, all neat and all new, like I was setting off for a wedding. I changed into a soft pair of old pants. Dripping, shirtless, I stared down at the enameled face on the washstand. I wondered what Clare saw.

But when a knock sounded on the door, my heart gave a funny leap. I threw a towel over the parrots’ cage. I fastened my mask over my wet face and pulled a clean shirt from the hook.

It was her.

“What are you doing here?” I nudged open the door, enough to see the pale curve of Clare’s face beneath the brim of her red hat. “How did you find me?” Behind the door I buttoned my shirt one-handed.

“Mrs. Ladd gave me your address.” She hesitated. “Are you angry?”

I ran a hand through my damp hair. “No.” A cold drop slid down the back of my neck. “But I’ve been home for an hour at least.”

“And I’ve been standing across the street for an hour at least.”

I leaned against the door, waiting, ignoring those funny little leaps in my chest.

“I just…” She twisted the cuff of her jacket. “Luc, you said back there that a man like you can’t hope.” She barely breathed the next words. “But you can.”

I hadn’t heard her right. “Do you—”

“May I come in?”

I glanced back over my shoulder, at the stained and threadbare rug, the unmade bed, the foul-mouthed parrots, the cracked, dirt-streaked window I kept open because the latch was busted. “No,” I began, but she pushed through anyway. And stopped.

Though my single room was gray and narrow, pale frames hung from each wall, each containing a single pencil drawing. The reasons I lived in this dingy room, why I never had money for the streetcar, why I bought day-old bread. Clare stood in the middle of my room, her open hands straight down at her sides, and spun to see her own drawings.

“I saw them and—” I started, but she cut me off with a chop and a shake of her head.

She’d seen me lying back on that table in the studio, plaster in my eyebrows, my face under the light. Now I was seeing her just as naked.

All of those memories, jumbled up, came back, all of those rare instances of Clare’s face as open and unguarded as it was right now. How her eyes shone at the first sight of the Brindeau caves, how they laughed when she saw my childhood portraits, how they stared into mine that moment when she touched my face and I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to again right now.

“I never thought I’d see these again,” she breathed. She stepped to one framed drawing of a man, craggy-faced and harsh, yet holding to him a small boy with such tenderness that you almost didn’t notice his withered arm. “He was born the day the war began. The bluest eyes, like his father.”

I cleared my throat. “Your cross-hatching…I thought they were blue.”

“As cobalt.” She turned to a picture of a young soldier balancing a harmonica on two stubbed wrists. “He brightened the hospital with his music.” A woman, pale hair tied beneath a head scarf, sat with elbows on her knees, bared forearms puckered and scarred. Her chin rested on open palms with seven fingers between them. “She’s from Belgium, a nurse who I met at the Princess Louise Hospital. Lost everything but her grandmother’s knitting needles. She made me this scarf, you know.”

Eyes still on the framed pictures, she unwound the scarf from her neck and passed it to me. It was as soft as new grass.

“So you were the one who bought all of my drawings,” she finally said. “Monsieur Santi said I had a secret admirer.”