“The attrition is beyond anything the generals can have imagined,” Phillip points out. “Certainly they couldn’t have anticipated such large numbers of British dead.”
“Jerome and I got into the subject of books,” Etna says. “He mentioned that you no longer read.”
“No. Not at the moment.”
When they reach the stone barn, Phillip turns in his seat to face her. “You’ll never guess what I’ve found.”
He smiles, and she can’t help but smile with him. “What?”
“A tennis court.”
“Never.”
“I did. A clay court belonging to an abandoned château.”
“It’s February.”
“Almost March. We’ll get a dry spell.”
“Where will you find a tennis ball and rackets?”
“I don’t know, but I will,” he says. “I have to restore my reputation.”
He hops down from the truck and comes around to Etna’s side.
“I had a lovely evening,” she says as he opens the door.
“So did I.” He takes her hand.
For a moment, she thinks he will pull her into a dance move. He bends and kisses her hand instead, a courtly gesture. Impulsively, she embraces him.
She stands back. “Was that all right?”
“I adore you, Etna. I always have.”
She slips her hand from his and walks away from the truck.
The quest for beautiful moments challenges Etna as February moves closer to March. The relentless rain turns everything unpaved into a pool of mud. During the months Etna has been driving an ambulance, she has learned basic maintenance. She can change a tire, check the oil, fill a radiator, and adjust a clutch. Despite this additional knowledge, the actual managing of the truck has become more difficult. The mud sucks in anything with weight. She uses thin metal wedges to dig into the muck under the front of the rear tires. With the wedges, an orderly pushing, and a gentle rocking motion, Etna learns how to gun her ambulance out of the bog. She invents grassy routes and even routes that traverse tufts in fields. With careful steering, she can maneuver the truck onto drier land, a process not unlike stepping across stones to reach the other side of a rushing stream.
Etna finds a lost brooch near the Regimental Aid Post. It puzzles her, even after she turns it in. What is a ruby-and-gold pin doing in a world peopled entirely by men? Can another female driver have had it pinned to her underthings? Can a soldier have lost a prized gift from his sweetheart? When she turns it in to an officer, neither he nor anyone else seems to have much use for it, rubies being of little currency in the trenches. In the end, she decides she cannot count the brooch, though attractive, as something beautiful.
She does see, however, a gold cross on a gold chain tucked into the hollow of a man’s clavicle. The bright gold on the soldier’s white skin, the muscles beneath it smooth and broad, moves her. A mother, a sister, a wife gave the man the cross, believing that the religious symbol would protect him. But before the aides have finished undressing him, a priest has to be summoned.
One afternoon, following heavy rain and a brief clearing, a rainbow appears. It seems to start south of Camiers and end somewhere near the front, where surely no pot of gold awaits. An illusion, and a common one at that, the rainbow summons grown men from the tents. They watch in silence as the rainbow disappears.
Phillip picks her up at the stone barn in early March. Each of them has time only for a quick drink and perhaps a bite of bread before they have to return to duty.
“You go first,” she says, staring at his face as he backs up his ambulance. He executes the turn and bounces off the road. He, too, has invented his own grassy route to the village.
“I came across a driver who had made for himself a sort of tea service that he kept in his kit,” he began. “One day, when we were bored, he showed it to me. He’d invented a collapsible tin cup with sliding sides and a partially detachable bottom. His teapot was made of tin also, and when I first saw it, it looked like a flat disk with two other disks attached. It worked like the cup, except that it had a sealed top with a small hole in it. He had tea in tiny hand-sewn silk bags and small paper packets of dried milk. No sugar, of course. I asked if he could make me a cup, and he said he would. He had with him a short flat candle with a wick. When the small teapot was held against the flame, the water heated surprisingly quickly. Of course, it produced only the one cup, which was hard to touch without gloves, but I have to say it was the best cup of tea I think I’ve ever had.”
“Ingenious,” Etna says. “I think we’ll have to let that count as two beautiful things. The design of the equipment and the taste of the tea. Anything beautiful counts, yes? Taste? Scent?”
“And you?”
Etna tells him of the rainbow and the cross. “I haven’t ruined it for you, have I? Making your pastime a game?”
“Not at all. I’m highly competitive.”
The owner nods as they enter the café. Once again, they find themselves alone because of the hour, four o’clock in the afternoon. Phillip speaks to the waiter, who brings two delicate glasses of transparent gold liquid and, with them, a pitcher of water, a packet containing a few miraculous grains of sugar, and two cups of tea.
“I was famished for tea after my story,” Phillip says. “The drink is Pernod. You put some water in—like this—and a little sugar.” Etna watches as the drink turns a milky custard yellow. “Tastes a bit like aniseed. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me, and I imagine for you, too. This muck is much worse than the ice.”
She takes a sip of the yellow liquid. “Phillip, we’d better see to that tennis game fairly soon.”
“In this mess?”
“I’ve got a week’s leave March thirteenth.”
He must have known it was coming, but still he seems startled by the news.
“I’m happy for you,” he says after a time. “You’ll go to London first?”
“Yes, and I will look Samuel up. It’s the only thing I can think of.”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to help. He owes you.”
“No, no, he doesn’t, Phillip. From his point of view, he did the only possible thing. He has a wife and children now. I assume he’s happy.”
“With the children, yes. I can’t say the marriage is a happy one.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Etna says.
“So was I. We didn’t speak for years, but I never wished him an unhappy life. I think it’s why he was so willing to go to London.”
“Wasn’t he ordered to?”
“He was invited to. It’s a little different. He could have found commensurate work in Halifax. I went to see him when I first got to London. He was furious with me for having left America and even angrier when I told him I intended to go to France. We had a row. A big one. I tell you this because you might not want to mention me.”
“Phillip, are you unhappy?” Etna asks.
He seems surprised by the question. “Not particularly.”
“Sometimes you seem…I don’t know if remote is the word. Guarded, I would say.”
His gray eyes meet hers. He shrugs. “If we get four good days in a row, I’ll come get you.”
Etna backtracks as well. “Did you find rackets and a ball?”
“I did. In Étaples. I asked a boy if he knew where I could get hold of the equipment, and the next day he sold me his. I suspect it may have belonged to his father. Are you sorry you came here?”
“I may be in the future,” she says. “But I’m not now. I know I’ve done something good, and I’ve learned a little about myself.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m useful here.”
On the fifth of March, the sun finally emerges and seems likely to stay. The sight of it, the warmth of it, raises everyone’s spirits, even those of the wounded. Etna, who used to find sunny days painful, revels in the light. She begins to count the days.
On the fourth successive good day, she waits for
a message. When none comes, she begins to wonder if Phillip has forgotten his promise. But in the first post of the fifth day, there is a letter.
Find a way. I’ll be there at twelve thirty. P.
The grippe, she tells the ward sister, who looks her over and then dismisses her with a wave. Etna must stay in uniform, lest she be seen walking from the tent or coming back later in the afternoon in civilian clothes. At the appointed time, she follows her usual route. Most days, the nurses do not have time to check on one of their own until after the evening meal. If they find Etna missing, she will simply say that the symptoms of her illness kept her in the privy most of the day.
Phillip is waiting for her. She climbs quickly into the passenger seat.
“That was nerve-racking,” she says.
“What did you say to get the time off?”
“I’m sick with the grippe.”
“Don’t give it to me.”
Because the road is full of dried ruts, the truck bounces violently from side to side. Still, ruts are better than muck. When they are half a mile from the field hospital, Etna relaxes into the pure pleasure of escaping the camp with an entire afternoon of warm sunshine ahead of her. She whips off her cap, takes out her pins, and lets her hair go free in the wind made by the truck. “Phillip, this is just the best present.”
“Present? I intend to wallop you.”
As they drive, Etna notices red veils of buds in the forest. She inhales the clean air. They take a turn and seem to be driving inland. From the nature of the roads, not rutted, she guesses they have not been traveled much.
“Do you do this often? Go for rides in the afternoon?”
“Not often. The ambulances are always needed, and I have to be careful about petrol. On the day I found the château, I was on a supply mission.”
The woods open up to vast fields. When they pass an orchard, Etna marvels at the dark pink cherry buds. Acres of them. “How have these survived?” she asks Phillip.
“Oh, they’ll be decimated, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Hopefully not before they bear fruit.”
“What will happen to us if we’re caught?”
“Well, if we’re caught by our side, I might get some lashes, hard labor.” He does not mention what would happen if they were to be caught by the Germans. “What about you?”
“I have no idea. A severe reprimand. But no punishment, I think. What on earth would they punish me with? The head nurse needs my hands too much.”
“I suppose I could be sent to the front line. Make an example of the conchie.”
“They wouldn’t.”
The top of a stone structure rises above the trees in the distance. “Is that it?” Etna asks.
Phillip nods.
“And it’s really abandoned?”
“Yes.”
“And not been requisitioned?”
“Apparently not.”
“How amazing.”
As they draw closer, Etna studies the gray stone building, magnificent and austere. The windows above the ground floor are narrow and long, the two turrets imposing.
“Years ago, this must have been a fortress,” Phillip says. “Hence the stingy windows. Big enough to see out of, but not big enough to penetrate from the outside. This house might be three hundred years old. Hard to say. My French architecture is a bit rusty.”
Only on the ground floor does the house resemble a grand and welcoming residence. Large square windows with beveled panes flank the massive wooden door.
Phillip parks the truck around the back of the château, though it hardly matters. They cannot be seen from the road. “When I drove in here the first time, I was certain someone would start shooting. If you listen, though, the only thing you can hear is birds.”
Etna steps out. No guns, no screams, no noisy vehicles. The grounds slope away from the château so that it sits on a promontory. All around them are open fields, overgrown gardens, orchards, and, to one side, what looks to be an old tennis court. “That’s it,” she says.
“If you carry the ball and the rackets, I’ll get the picnic.”
“Picnic?”
“I made a trip into the village to see our friend Monsieur Allard. He gave me bread and cheese and a bottle of wine.”
“Wine. We’ll get tipsy,” she says. “You’ll beat me.”
“I’m going to beat you anyway, so you might as well enjoy yourself.”
Phillip leads them down the hill to the court. The net droops to the ground. Irregular holes have been torn in the fencing. When Etna steps onto the clay, she finds that it is spongy in parts. The trick will be to deaden the ball by landing it in one of these spots, or to learn where the dry ground is in order to bounce it past Phillip. At best, the game will be comical.
“I see you’ve got only the one ball,” Etna says as she walks to the serving line.
“Couldn’t find another.”
“Then you’d better not hit it over the fence this time,” she says with a wink.
Phillip laughs. He removes his brown wool tunic to reveal only an undershirt beneath. She takes off her apron. They hang their clothes from openings in the fence. Etna pins her hair back up.
“Anytime,” Phillip says.
She serves the ball, and though she has done so badly, it hits a wet spot and dies before Phillip can even get to it.
Etna laughs. “I’ll try it again.”
“No, that was a proper serve. Point to you.”
“If you give away points like that, you’ll never win.”
“Do I look worried?”
When Phillip serves, the ball hits dry ground and spins away from Etna. A proper point.
He does it again, and then a third time.
“Have you been out here surveying the court?” she asks.
First game to Phillip. Second to Etna when she breaks his serve.
From a not-quite-deadening patch of clay, Phillip’s return hits the top of the net and stays there. The two of them wait for the ball to drop, but the slackening leather has created a perfect pocket. They walk toward the net to examine the situation. “Point to you,” Phillip concedes, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
“No, I couldn’t possibly,” Etna says.
“Let’s take a break. We’ll have some water and then our lunch with a little wine. By the time we’re done, the wind will have knocked it one way or the other.”
Etna welcomes the respite. Despite the physical demands of her job, she is not in good condition for sports.
They both tumble onto the grass of a gentle slope. “Do you mind if I don’t put that wretched tunic back on?” Phillip asks.
“Not at all,” she says, aware of his naked arms and the muscles of his chest under the now nearly transparent undershirt. They pass his canteen back and forth. “Best to leave a bit for later,” he advises. She watches as he opens his rucksack and brings out some cheese wrapped in paper, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine. Allard has opened the wine and recorked it for Phillip. He arranges their repast on the metal plate from his kit. He puts a knife into the cheese. “Ladies first,” he says, gesturing.
The delicate cheese atop a crusty piece of bread seems like a promise from a world she barely knows. They share a tin cup of the wine. The meal feels, in its simplicity and on that hillside, vaguely biblical.
“You’d think we’d never seen food before,” she says when they have devoured almost all the cheese and bread. She flops back onto the grass, arms behind her head. “I’m going to need a few minutes before I get up again.”
Phillip lounges on his side, facing Etna.
“This is lovely,” she says. “So perfect. Thank you.”
“I’m rather enjoying this myself.” He is ahead in points, though should the ball drop onto his side, Etna will be in a position to continue the game.
“I think I’m drunk,” Etna says.
“Nonsense. You’re tipsy.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Oh, yes. You’v
e probably never encountered a real drunk before. Even if they’re close to death, they don’t get sent on to the hospitals. The men wishing they were dead are never treated. They’re just left to suffer.”
“You’ve been drunk?”
“Of course. No proper man hasn’t.”
She stares at the pillow clouds the way she used to as a child. “Phillip, what was it like for you in Thrupp? Do you mind my asking?”
“Here? You can ask me anything you want.”
“Was it hard?”
“Yes. I’d studied for years to attain my position at Yale. My mistake was allowing myself to be seduced by the notion of becoming head of Thrupp.”
“You were cajoled into the post by the board of corporators.”
“Perhaps. But I had ambition, too. The idea of being dean was heady.”
“In such a backwater place?”
“That was the point, you see. I felt I could improve Thrupp, give Dartmouth a run for its money. That was the challenge I couldn’t resist—to be able to steer the school in an enlightened direction. I should have left immediately after the lectures were finished.”
“And you regret it.”
“Yes. Who in his right mind would choose the trenches of France over the Gothic passageways of Yale?”
“And when Nicholas told everyone of your supposed advances toward Clara?”
“At first I laughed it off,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. When I realized the college and the police were taking the charges seriously, I was sick at heart. I was ruined, yes, but it was worse than that. It was being implicated in any way in Professor Van Tassel’s cruelty to the child that sickened me.”
A sound pricks Etna’s ear. She waits a few seconds to determine its origin. When she does, she puts a hand on Phillip’s arm. He looks down at the place where she is touching him, up at her, and then he hears it, too.
He nods. The sound of a motor.
Remaining as low as he can, he stuffs everything into his sack. With that and the rackets, he runs, crouched, to his tunic while Etna retrieves her apron. Phillip signals to her to follow him as he heads straight for the woods not thirty feet from the court. The sound of the motor grows louder until a sleek midnight-blue touring car pulls into the circular drive. A chauffeur stays in the vehicle while a man in civilian clothes gets out and bangs on the front door of the château.