The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama Read online

  It must have thawed. Write. I don’t like to ask Sara to do your duty for you – it’s mean. We’re going to look at Staten Island. Beachland Amusements.

  28

  A card with a picture of a long metal bridge over a river.

  Thank you. Letter tonite.

  S

  29

  The worst.

  Dear You,

  In the end, some nights, some nights, what you are doing is too much for me.

  People say, ‘Where’s his father?’ and I don’t say, ‘Oh, re-building our house by hand.’ Because I don’t want to see them thinking what I think. That it’s mad, Jacques.

  Some letters – this one, finally – I want to tell you that it must be over.

  Do you really think that I’ll leave here to come back and live in a field?

  And I know you do. You must. You think it’s the price you pay for sending us away to live.

  You can’t dream we’ll come back (when? – in ten years?) and just pick up where we left off. That’s crazy-time, Jacques.

  Don’t you ever think that what I’m living is not my life Without You – it’s My Life.

  Yes, with your son – but what will he be when you’re done? An American teenager. I promised you we’ll come and I won’t break that promise but you must understand – must know – that your paradise – me, you and him – is a dream.

  I can’t live with you believing that it must happen.

  And I can’t believe you live without the conviction that it will.

  Maybe I’m wrong.

  Maybe in 5 years time he and I will hate America and long for France and home and you. I can’t say. Like before – I can’t promise.

  But I fear your dreams.

  And worse – I fear wounding them. I’m afraid of killing you.

  I’m afraid these words could kill you. But I have to write them.

  Honestly I do.

  It’s me. Here. Tonight in two rooms in a tenement block in America. Don’t hope it’s not true. It is. Tonight.

  I always knew one day I’d really hurt you and this must be it. I feel cruel.

  I don’t know why I’m writing pain – I’m only sure I must. Will I post it? Yes. No. Yes.

  I beg you to release me from your dream.

  So we may come when we can – but not because we have to. That would be wrong. For all three of us.

  I don’t know the future.

  I’m not sure about the present.

  I do know the past – and – it’s gone.

  I have to grow him to Love and Respect you and I can’t when I feel like this.

  There – finally you have my fears.

  I feel like a prisoner of your hopes. Tell me how to help you honestly, because Jacques, I haven’t been honest for a year and more. I’ve held you up because I dreaded putting you down. That’s insulting you. It’s false, Jacques. This is true.

  Simone.

  It’s morning and I haven’t slept and I have to get him up and out to nursery and me to work and to post this if I dare. Rain. I owe you this life and some days I feel so good and so grateful I could maim myself for the hurt you’ve been in. That can’t be right. I can’t grow if I’m shackled to that guilt. And I can’t remove it. He’s waking. I must go – get on with his life, this life.

  I remember.

  I remember the grasping at ‘I won’t break that promise.’

  I remember that day, every stone, every slap of mud cement. One hand asking, ‘For what?’

  The other grasping, ‘I won’t break that promise.’

  And it rained here. Her rain came in the envelope.

  I remember I wrote.

  ‘You should only try suicide once. I won’t again. I’m building a home.

  When it’s done I may have forgotten. Some days I work so I will forget.

  Some days I work because I have to provide for you both. If you won’t need it – then that’ll be another Life.

  I have money.

  The world turns once a day. It seems quick compared to my world.

  There is no ‘when’. There is only ‘if ’.

  I’m building ‘iffing’.

  So yes, I’m mad.’

  30

  Dear Jacques,

  Spring is good and here. He’ll be three soon. Three years.

  I read your letter many times and you’re right. We live with the ‘if ’s’. What else can we do? I hope your money is in a bank, Jacques.

  I will take David’s advice and apply to the school system here.

  I feel happier for what I said and for what you said. Yes, there are days when I forget and days when nothing and no-one else is in my mind.

  Simone.

  31

  Dear Jacques,

  Did you know about Lafayette and his help during the American Revolution? No – me neither! But when I made a first tentative enquiry to see if I even could teach – they greet me with open arms – because I’m French. Did you know the French gave America The Statue of Liberty? So, when they discovered I speak and teach German they fell over themselves. I was given a list of fifteen (!) schools, for me to choose from. I’ve chosen the one nearest here – Hester Street Junior and Senior High and they’ve promised to take Jack when he’s 5.

  I worried about my legal status but no-one else did – they’re short of teachers – and there’s The Displaced Persons Act for those who fled either the Nazis or The Russians. Americans seem paranoid about Russia, which is bizarre – they just defeated a common enemy and when we got here I saw posters of Russian soldiers and – in big letters – This Is A Friend. Not any more... It feels, and I could have this wrong, that if the working-people (paysans to me and you) ask for higher wages they’re branded Communists – and that seems to be the new dirtiest word in the American language.

  This city! You can go shopping at midnight!

  I have days when I’m glad he’s growing here because if you can survive this you can survive anything.

  His birthday? He needs shoes. His feet are like courgettes – never stop growing. He needs trousers. He does not need guns. I ‘lost’ the one Susie gave him and he made three new ones out of breakfast cereal packets. I think the teacher at nursery showed them how. You read the papers and there are gun murder stories every day. Their films are guns. Their History is guns. Guns are glamorous. And I think of the soldiers who came to Puech – and the guns that killed my mother and father. They’re destruction.

  Not here. I don’t understand and I don’t want to.

  His present, father? A letter – he’d love that more than anything money could buy.

  I’ve just read this through and it’s all of a ramble – like New York.

  And – I forgot! – I start teaching in September!

  You said I’d be a teacher! You promised.

  What else can you see? Can you see this smile? Hey!! Come with me now – come on, come Jacques – I want to show you something. Round this partition, move that red curtain aside – gently – shh, there! There’s the last of your curls. Doesn’t he smell warm, eh? One kiss and no more or you’ll wake him and he hates that!

  Sleep now, us parents.

  32

  When I walked to Souceyrac to see the Curé for the first time, you went to Janatou – and we sat at evening and I SO wanted you to ask me something and you didn’t. And that was you.

  When I told you about the children and the barn – and you said ‘yes’ – I think I began to love you a little then.

  If it’s not exactly true there’s a truth in it. Because you gave me what I wanted..!

  Sometimes it’s not the smartest thing to examine our reasons for doing things, is it? I bet you think that, don’t you, you single soldier?

  There’s a habit here to examine thought that I’m not sure is so damned smart either.

  Last night something happened outside the house I want to tell you about and I realised I’ve never described where we are – and I thought, ‘Does he want to know
?’ and then I remembered you wouldn’t ask...

  So. Here it is!

  The house has six floors, four apartments on each floor, so twenty-three post boxes. Twenty-three because the janitor has a ground-floor room and he sorts the mail. He’s supposed to sweep the stairs.

  He never does. There’s always a dead cigarette in the corner of his mouth and he’s real old.

  We live on the fourth floor with the Italian woman, Teresa, opposite; the Spanish woman, Maria, at the end of our landing and a real American family, The Potters, in the other flat. There’s no such thing as ‘real’ Americans – everyone is an immigrant. (Yes, his name is not Jack, but that’s what everyone calls him here. I won’t again, I understand) I suppose the area is poor. Yeah.

  My school is two blocks away, south. His nursery is one more block away. A block is a street. New York is made of straight lines!

  Anyway – last night, through the open window, outside the house, about seven o’clock, we heard singing. We went to see. Jacques, there were five boys – the oldest maybe fifteen – on the steps, singing! People came down to listen and clap and it’s called Doo-Wop! You can’t listen without a smile. There’s part of New York called Harlem and this music comes from there. We’re going up Harlem at the weekend! There’s so many parts of New York we haven’t been to – do they all have their own music, we wonder?

  The boys just sang – no instruments. ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ was the best. After a half-hour they’d sang all they knew and we clapped and they bowed and Jacques loved it. This city can feel like the centre of the world – every colour, every race, every religion, every language.

  Our first jar is filling. We’ll count it only when it is full. It’s very real in his mind and I’m determined it shall stay so.

  33

  Jacques,

  Saturday came and on Friday David was very circumspect about our going to Harlem. He wanted me not to – but you can’t break a promise, can you? He flat said it was dangerous. I said I had Jacques to protect me and he didn’t think that was funny – and in the end he practically begged me not to go – and when I said it was not his affair he made me promise not to go in the evening.

  So, we caught the morning subway, all the way him expecting we’d step out into singing.

  I said the area where we live is poor. What does the word mean? You and I were ‘poor’, weren’t we? Jacques – Harlem! The rooming houses are teeming with people – people sleep in the streets, in alleyways, all the shops have iron bars over their windows, and at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning there was no chance of anyone singing. People, men, were drunk and all of them, the people, are Negroes.

  Africans. You’ve never seen a black person, have you? There’s so many here I never thought to mention it. The boys who sang were negroes.

  He wanted a drink so we walked up 135th street a block, looking for a café or anything open, frankly. Everywhere everyone staring. A sign said ‘Breakfasts’ and we went in. It was too dark, Jacques. Down a long corridor and a corner and a big dark, windowless room with a bar and men, drinking, and very suddenly not only was I the only woman but we were the only white people. I can’t describe the feeling. Jacques, bless him, walked straight up to the counter and asked for a Coke! (It’s the fizzy drink.) The man laughed, went to the ice-box (it keeps things cold) and gave him one, then asked what I wanted. I said a coffee and everyone laughed. A man who’d been playing cards said, ‘Give me girlie a rum.’ I couldn’t refuse because the man put money down to pay. I thanked him and looked for a table. Only boxes. Rum starts off tasting sweet and then sets fire to your chest. I coughed and everyone – and there must have been twenty or thirty men in there – at that time of the morning! – laughed as I spluttered. So, there we were, Jacques, in this cavern. New York and everything safe – our rooms, you and France never seemed so far away. If I hadn’t had him with me I could have been very afraid. A man brought two boxes from a corner and we sat. Breakfasts? We were in a drinking den.

  The man who’d bought the drinks sat with us. Why were we here? Jacques said we’d come to hear the singing. Sad laughter. Not till real late evening the man said. Off went your son. ‘Why?’ ‘Do you sing in the morning?’ the man asked Jacques. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Well, neither do I,’ said the man. ‘Why?’ Laughter. ‘Why don’t you sing?’ the man asked. ‘I don’t know,’ Jacques said. Then the man said, ‘Men don’t sing. Boys sing.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Cos men is sad and they boys ain’t learned sad yet. You ain’t sad, are you?’ ‘No.’ ‘There you are.’

  Then the man asked, ‘Where you from?’ and Jacques said, ‘France.’ I was so proud of him. Now everyone in the bar looks blank. ‘Is that far uptown?’ someone asked. I said, ‘It’s Europe.’ Everyone still looked blank; so I said ‘Where the war was.’ A man said, ‘Japan? France is one of them damn itty-bitty islands?’ Now they were all talking and a new man came out of the dark and said, ‘I was out East – ain’t no France there.’ I said, ‘No, not that far East – Europe.’ ‘What – Eng-a-land?’ the first man asked and I said, ‘Near there, yes,’ and now everyone understood. ‘Oh! Eng-a-land. Churchill?’ I said, yes. It seemed easier than mentioning De Gaulle and now toasts were made and more drinks poured and the man offered me another and I said I’d rather have a coke and he asked for a rum-and-coke. The man who’d come from the corner toasted the war. I asked him why. And, Jacques, he said ‘In the war, in the army, I was an equal; I was a brother in arms to me white sergeant and the boys in me regiment. Now we got peace and I’m a dirty nigger again...’

  Everyone agreed and the mood in the bar changed and I had no idea to what or why. And I felt guilty. And I had no idea why.

  Jacques asked could we go and we came home.

  I’ve asked a lot of questions since and heard a lot of different answers. Black people are inferior, is the most common. They (Negroes) have separate schools, separate buses, separate churches and Harlem is like a separate place where they live. I thought again of M. Feyt. This is the same as being a Jew, in Germany – and France. But in a country with so many different kinds of people..? I heard tell of a priest who preaches the black man has to suffer because God made him ignorant.

  There are times when I need to talk to you – like when I came back from Souceyrac – and this is one.

  And the reason I went to Souceyrac and didn’t come to Janatou was because I’d decided I had to do something. I feel that same feeling. I didn’t know what then – and I don’t now.

  Simone.

  34

  Dear Jacques,

  David took me to Manhattan. Jacques, you can take a subway ride from Manhattan to Harlem and go from inconceivably rich and white to dirt poor and black. And, in the middle, the Europeans.

  David talked about a law called Harty-Taft which will restrict working people from demanding their right to bargain for better wages, or from forming unions – and they have to swear not to be communists. This communist thing is more serious here than I’d imagined. When I start teaching – in two weeks – I may have to sign something similar. My father was a communist – I’ll be betraying him.

  Something in me is getting angry – good! People here, even David, are wary of talking about the communists and what they want. Well, the Communists won’t be, will they? I’m going to find a meeting...

  I’ll write again soon, but suddenly, what with planning lessons and him and all these new things – well you know how hard it is to find time to write! I’m sorry, that sounds mean – it’s not meant to be.

  Busy me, busy you.

  Simone.

  35

  Jacques,

  When you have good reason to be jealous I will let you know. David is twenty-nine years older than me. Get on with your work!

  36

  I’ve started teaching, but I’ll write about that next time.

  We can’t thank you enough for the letter. We got out our crayons and spent all evening drawing. I’ve drawn a picture of how I remember the house and
we’ve put the one we did from your letter next to it. And next week we count the pot! But he can picture it. All the cave walls finished – how did you get those beams up? Did Arbel come? We haven’t drawn the bache because then he couldn’t see the house.

  Are you proud? No. Not you.

  When he’d gone to bed I sat and read your letter again and there you were, sitting in the autumn sun bending, writing, thinking, working. And Jacques, I dared imagine you aren’t lonely. It’s more I hope you aren’t. Don’t be afraid to tell me. I hope there’s nothing you can’t tell me. And there must never be anything you can’t tell him.

  Your family.

  37

  Dear Jacques,

  I’ve done two weeks and the Headmaster seems pleased.

  I have a room, ‘The Language Lab’ and when the bell rings – I jumped out of my skin at the end of my first lesson and all the children laughed, so that was good the children leave my class and another forty come in. There are desks, which are screwed into the floor. I’ve no idea why but I’m taking my time asking...

  I’m teaching French, no German (!), some Spanish (I’ve asked may I bring Maria into the school) and English – because there are children here who speak no English. On my first morning I got my ‘curriculum’ (that’s Latin – a dead Italian language!) and the Headmaster gave me the registers and a leather strap. ‘To beat the children with.’ I put it in a drawer and I’ve sworn never to use it. I’m pretty unusual let me tell you. I’ve no idea what I’ll do if Jacques ever comes home and says he’s been strapped.