At the Edge of Summer

I thought to write him back. Tell him about Luc. If I went to post a letter, it surely wouldn’t hurt anything if I stopped by the studio for a moment. A quick moment. I’d be passing by and, anyway, I needed to give Pascalle her scarf back. I could even bring her a spot of supper. She’d appreciate it, to be sure. Bread was hard to come by, but I had half a loaf and cut her off an end. As I buttered bread, sliced cheese, scrubbed a pear, and packed it all in a basket with a half bottle of wine, I managed to convince myself that this had been the plan all along. If it so happened that a letter had come to the studio from Monsieur Luc Crépet, so much the better. I brewed mint tea for Grandfather to have when he woke from his nap. I forgot all about Finlay’s letter. I caught up my basket, spread a blanket over Grandfather, and headed to the studio.

I heard Pascalle’s shout when I was halfway up the stairs. I dropped the basket of food and ran the rest of the way up.

Inside the studio, Luc leaned back on a stack of pillows, his face covered in a thick layer of wet, white plaster. But he was kicking and twisting between strangled cries. Pascalle held him firmly. Across the room the waiting mutilés craned their necks over their checkerboards.

I didn’t even pause to take off my coat. I hurried across the room and took his hand. “Luc,” I said, “I have you.”

He quieted at my voice, so I knew I had to keep talking. I pulled out memories and long-forgotten adventures. “Do you remember when” and “there was that time” until the sentences ran together. But at each word, the tension left his hand a little bit more. I hoped he wouldn’t hear the quaver in my voice, the hitch of worry that made me breathless. When the mask was lifted, he stared straight up at me, not a hint of that guardedness. “You are safe with me,” I said. I hoped he believed me.

Luc’s eyes stayed on me as I took the cast to the drying table, as I helped him sit up, as I carefully sponged the plaster and Vaseline from the edges of his face with warm water. I didn’t rush, though it was the end of the day and the sun slanted low through the windows. I let those precious still seconds with Luc last.

“Clare,” he said. The first time he’d said my name in years. “Clare, will you?”

The question hung in the air. Behind me, the room quieted as artists and mutilés gradually filtered out, headed to suppers and homes and dreams still to come. Mine was right here.

“Luc.” I felt his name against the roof of my mouth. It tasted like summer. “I’ll help. Of course I’ll help.” I combed down his damp hair with my fingers. “But not only for the mask.” I hated the words as they came out of my mouth. “You have to do more than walk the streets again; you have to walk through life.”

He broke my gaze at last and put his face to a towel. “You make it sound so easy.” His voice muffled through the thick fabric.

“I know it won’t be.” I thought of Finlay, of his ups and downs, of his estrangement from his family, of those days when he had to fight with himself just to leave his flat. But also of his classes, Evelyn the model, and his newly hopeful letter. “But the mask is a bandage. To heal, there must be more.”

“Is there more?”

There had to be. Luc walked through the door of that studio, and suddenly the future stretched out, past the battlefields and shells. If he couldn’t step beyond all that, then what use was seeing the future at all?

I squeezed the wet sponge, leaving drops of water on my skirt. “Have you found employment?”

He shook his head. “Who would hire someone like me?”

“A hero of France?” My voice echoed in the room. Even Mrs. Ladd had gone down to the courtyard, to rinse the bowls and plaster brushes. “Plenty.”

That old guarded look was coming up again. “Wounds and medals don’t make a hero.”

“I’m sure you could take up your old place at the university. Finish your studies. War interrupted that.”

“But then what? I studied to be a teacher.” He wiped the corners of his eyes with a thumb. “I wouldn’t inflict myself on a roomful of students now.”

“You’ll have your mask.”

He stayed quiet. I didn’t know if he was considering or ignoring.

“Tennis?”

He reached to his shoulder in response. I wondered what old wound hid there. “Those days are past.”

“You could coach, I’d think. Couldn’t you?”

“Clare.” He sighed. “Don’t.”

“Maybe you need something new.” Water dripped into the basin. “I have a pamphlet I’ll send with you. There’s an institute now, you know.”

“To teach invalides and mutilés a trade. I know.”

I tried to push a brightness into my voice. “You can learn just about anything. Tailoring, shoemaking, tinsmithing. Clockmaking, I think. Typesetting, binding…oh, all sorts of things.” I blotted along the curve of his cheek. “I had one fellow who trained to be a bookkeeper. He thought of industrial design—that’s a choice, too—but decided—”

“Please stop.”

“Close your eyes again.” I moved the sponge to the skin beneath his brow. “Why not art, then?” I said quietly.