Chapter 8-1

 Friends, it has been a longer time than I like to contemplate, but this trilogy remains one of the major priorities of my artistic life.  So when my wife and I managed to take a two day getaway for my birthday over last weekend, which served as a sort of mini writers' retreat, I gratefully took the time to finish this chapter.  I hope you enjoy it.  It will certainly not be so long before I post another.

In Chapter 8 we return to Jozef, and we meet a cavalry regiment of the Polish Legion.  They're a historically fascinating group, whose founder, Joseph Pilsudski became the father of independent Poland.  But I'll let the chapter introduce them to you properly.

Klimontów, Galicia.  June 28nd, 1915.  It was a distance of less than thirty kilometers from Sandomierz where Jozef’s regiment was stationed -- his former regiment as the orders in his uniform pocket made clear -- to Klimontów where the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Polish Legion was recovering from a recent engagement.  There was no military train available, and Jozef was humiliatingly unable to make the journey on horseback because his mount belonged to the Uhlan regiment.  So with his orders in hand and his cavalry spurs jingled on his boots, he was required to stand in line behind two old women carrying chickens in wicker baskets, show his orders to the ticket-master at the Sandomierz train station, and receive a second class ticket (the local train offered no first class) on the slow train to his destination.

The one second class carriage was comfortingly empty; his two companions were a middle aged businessman in a bowler hat, who spent the entire time reading a newspaper printed indecipherably in Slovene, and an elderly Jewish woman dressed all in black who snored softly despite the hardness of the leather-upholstered seats.  

Even with the frequent stops of a local train, within two hours the train pulled into Klimontów and Jozef stepped out onto the railway platform.  The town was small, consisting of little more than a single square with shop fronts and houses surrounding a fountain.  A little beyond, loomed bronze domes of St. Jozefa.  

The men of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Legion might not outnumber the town’s residents, but they were certainly prominent.  As soon as he stepped into the street Jozef saw men in field grey uniforms like his own, but with the distinctive, square-topped czapka helmet of the Polish Uhlans.  Some sat at cafe tables or lounged outside shops, others walked singly or in groups.  All had the casual aire of men on leave.  There was no immediately obvious center of activity, no headquarters building marked out by the runners and orderlies hurrying in and out of it.  

Nor did anyone immediately approach Jozef as someone out of place, even though his Austrian Uhlan’s helmet, set him apart as clearly from another regiment.  After hesitating and looking about for several moments, Jozef approached a group of three men seated outside a cafe.  The jumble of beer and wine glasses told that they had been at the table for some time.  One had taken off his uniform tunic and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt against the heat of the day, as he sat talking with his companions and rapidly dealing out hands of some solitaire card game on the table before him.  

“Where can I find the regimental headquarters?” Jozef asked, counting on the leutnant stars on his collar tabs to make clear his right to ask a peremptory question of these men whose plain collars marked them as rank and file troopers.

By rights, they should have come immediately to attention before even answering his question.  They did not do this.  One of the men inclined his head to the card player, as if to defer the question to him.  The other fixed Jozef with a commanding  eye and asked, “Which is it?  Is Kandinsky a genius or an enemy of the beautiful?”

“Who?” asked Jozef.

“Oh, God!” cried the other trooper. 

“I didn’t address the question of theology,” replied the first, turning on his companion.  “Nor do I admit that it has any bearing on artistic expression.”

“The artistic sense is an expression of culture,” replied the second.  “And culture is the expression of the people, and the organizing principle of the people is politics.  Yet over politics stands the ultimate purpose of the people, and that is theology.  So to the extent that art is cultural, it is political, and the end of the political is God.”

“You are drunk in the presence of an officer, and that is political,” replied the first trooper.  “Sir,” he added, addressing himself to Jozef, “If you’re seeking headquarters the leutnant can help you.”  He indicated the man in his shirt sleeves.  

The card player ignored Jozef for a moment more as he rapidly laid down cards to complete the formation he had been creating.  Then he slapped down a two of acorns with a triumphant “Aha!” and scooped up the entire deck of cards into a pile which he tapped neatly into place.

“Yes?” the card player asked.  “Can I help you?”

“You are an officer, sir?” Jozef asked, with a formality that hinted skepticism.  

The card player shrugged into his tunic and began buttoning it up, making his leutnant’s stars visible in the process.

“Leutnant Zelewski,” he replied, rising to his feet.  “And whom do I have the pleasure to meet, sir?”

“Leutnant von Revay, 7th Imperial Royal Uhlans.  I have orders to report to Oberst Gorski.”

“Well, I’d better escort you to headquarters then.  Come on.”  

He started down the cobbled street and Jozef fell into step next to him.  The leutnant’s walk was casual, without the rigid posture most career officers had taken on through long training, and to sit drinking, his tunic off, with common troopers at a cafe would be unimaginable in a normal regiment, no matter how hot the day.  

“What do you make of the tone of our regiment?” Leutnant Zelewski asked.

Jozef hesitated.  The question alone suggested rather too much insight into the silent judgment he had rendered upon the regiment.

“One thing you’ll find,” Zelewski continued, “is that the backgrounds of our troopers are a little more wide ranging than the standard cut.  Dudek, for instance, is a professor of political philosophy, while Bak, as perhaps you could tell, writes artistic criticism.”

“And you?” asked Jozef, wondering if all the Polish Legionnaires came from such academic backgrounds.

“Bank robber,” replied Zelewski.  He let the phrase drop with conscious showmanship, and after pausing for reaction added, “And essayist.  Political agitator.”

“Have you actually robbed banks?” Jozef asked, accepting the conversational bait.  

“Well of course.  Two banks, at any rate.  And a train.”

Jozef restricted himself to a raised eyebrow.  

“Banks are a tool for political control,” Zelewski explained.  “And they keep a good deal of money in them as well, which comes in handy when running a revolution.”

“A revolution financed by robbing banks?”

“Well, how would you finance one?”

“I don’t know,” Jozef confessed.  “Does a revolution cost much money?”

“In this present world, everything costs money.  Paper and printing costs.  Support for full time agitators, though with a little luck some of them have private means.  Bail.  A little something to help support people in exile.  And then eventually arms and ammunition.  With real success, a revolution is just as expensive as any other government.”

“And then you went from revolutionary bank robber to commissioned officer?”

“There are certain continuities, such as fighting the Russian tyranny.  Here’s the headquarters.”

The building was, in design, a house, though the guard booth which stood next to the wrought iron gate showed that it had been some sort of official building even before the Austro-Hungarian army had taken it from the Russians. Now a Polish Legionnaire with the insignia of a gefreiter stood there, and Leutnant Zelewski nodded to him.  “Is the Pulkownic available?”  The non-commissioned officer promised to find out and, after saluting, hurried off towards the house.  “We use Polish ranks when speaking within the Legion,” Zelewski explained.  “Pulkownic is equivalent to Oberst.”

“But is that allowed?  Even Hungarian units use the official rank names in German.”

“Well…  Allowed.  Such a strong word, don’t you think?  Hardly a friendly way for allies to talk.  Has anyone told you the nature of the Legion?”

“Of course.”  There was something just a bit superior in Zelewski’s manner, and whether they could be friends might rely on whether he could be made to drop it.  Bank robbing or no, he did not look like he was older or more experienced than Jozef himself.

“Oh?  What did they tell you?”

“I was at the horse requisitions with Rittmeister Korzeniowski.  He told me that the Legion was raised from among Polish patriots by the… well, by a nationalist committee of some sort.  And that its leaders hope the Legion will become a Polish national army and aid the creation of a Polish state.  My old unit, the 7th Uhlans, is mostly Polish, and I can speak the language passably.  My father was Polish, too, though I never knew him.”  As soon as he added this last, Jozef wondered if it had been too much personal detail.  

Zelewski, however, met this revelation with his first genuine smile.  “You know Rotmistrz Korzeniowski?  Well, it’s all right, then.  He’s a fine officer.  And brought us some much needed remounts, I can tell you.  And a Pole of sorts yourself, eh?  Do you know enough to order a charge or seduce a maiden?” he asked, switching to Polish for the final question.

Jozef hesitated a moment to pick the words, but was able to deliver in a tone that passed for jocular rather than awkward, “Only if she’s as easy as your discipline.”

Zelewski laughed and slapped him on the shoulder -- confirming the easy discipline which Jozef had noted -- and said, “All right, then, half-Pole.  You’ll be all right.”

A moment later the guard returned and said, “The Pulkownic will see you now.”

They found Pulkownic Gorski sitting at a table awash in papers, with several junior officers hovering nearby.  Jozef saluted, stepped forward and presented his orders, then returned to attention as Gorski read them.

“A leutnant.  And you’re rather young, aren’t you?” Gorski said.

“Yes, sir,” Jozef replied.  Among the first lessons of the army was that if a senior officer decided to make it his hobby to pin one to a card like an unlucky butterfly, one must simply answer his questions and accept it.  Having learned this lesson well, Jozef remained at attention and suffered the questioning without knowing why he was the subject of sudden ire.

“I don’t suppose you’re the son or nephew of some general?”

“No, sir.”

“Or someone highly placed in Vienna?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what damn good are you to me?”

This did not seem like a question that he was meant to answer, so Jozef remained silent.  

Gorski took off his small, steel rimmed reading glasses and ran his fingers through his short-cropped, greying hair.

“Well?  Have you got anything to say for yourself?” asked Gorski.  “What am I to do with a pup of a liaison officer with no connections?”

Jozef looked around for help or some hint of what he was to do, but none was forthcoming.  Leutnant Zelewski was directing his eyes towards an inoffensive corner of the room and avoiding the attention of Gorski.

“I was simply following the orders I was given, sir,” Jozef said at last.  “My Oberst ordered me to report to you as liaison officer, and I obeyed.  I am happy to do whatever is in my power to assist you, sir.”

This simple statement of fact seemed to allow the oberst’s frustration to dissipate.  With a muttered imprecation he took a cigar from the box on the table before him and set about trimming it.  Before he could light it, however, there was a knock at the door and an adjutant entered.

“I’m sorry, sir, there are two civilians who insist on seeing you.”

“Show them in.  Show them in.” Pulkownic Gorski said.  He waved Jozef and Leutnant Zelewski towards some chairs against the far war.  “You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes, gentlemen.  There’s a nation to be built.”

The two young men seated themselves, and the adjutant led in two men, one with the cassock and collar of a Catholic priest, his bald head large and shiny, and the other, wearing the long black coat of a shtetl Jew, a much older man with a long white beard and a long polished homburg on his head. With bows and expressions of respect, they introduced themselves as the priest and the rabbi from Koprzywnica, about six miles to the southwest.

“The Russians still hold the village,” the priest explained, “but they are preparing to withdraw, south, across the Vistula.”

Pulkownic Gorski thanked them for this intelligence.

“No, you do not understand,” continued the priest.  “We do not come to provide military intelligence.  At least, not merely to provide military intelligence.  We come as loyal countrymen, as Poles, but also as countrymen seeking help.  The Russians have made a proclamation that all men of military age must retreat across the Volga with them, so that they cannot join the Austro-Hungarian cause.  They will take from us more than three hundred men.  Men with families.  Men who are needed in the fields and workshops.”

“And they have demanded a special assessment from our community,” the rabbi added, speaking in Polish but with a heavy accent of some strange German variety.  “Russians hate Jews.”  He paused.  “Maybe everyone hates Jews.  But we are Polish Jews.  We don’t want our money to pay for more Russian troops that take our boys and our cows and our grain.”

“We sought you out,” the priest resumed, “because you are Poles.  The Hungarians and the Germans took Sandomierz.  There was shooting in the streets.  Looting and disorder.  People were killed.  I hoped that as fellow Poles you could secure our town peacefully.”

“I appreciate your patriotism,” Pulkownic Gorski replied.  “And also your concerns.  I will take them into consideration, but I can make no promises.  My men have just fought an engagement and suffered losses.  And I am responsible to the chain of command.”

“The Russians have orders to fall back,” the priest said. “It may be that all you would have to do is approach the town in force, and they would fall back without troubling our town further.”

“Father,” said the Pulkownic, standing up and gesturing towards the door.  “I have the greatest respect for your wishes.  But this is war. I must obey my superiors, and if I may speak so without rudeness: I cannot tell a civilian where were will or will not deploy, lest the word somehow fall into the hands of the enemy.  God forbid that you and the good rabbi should be captured, but you see my difficulty.”

“Of course.  Of course.  I understand.”  The priest bowed repeatedly.  Both of men moved towards the door, but then the priest reversed course and returned, shutting the door behind him.  “You must understand,” the priest said in a low voice.  “They are the good sort of Jews.  There are plenty of dirty Jews who hate Poles in other villages.  But these are good Jews.  We have a peaceful village.  They cause no trouble.  If you could protect them, Pulkownic, they will be very grateful.  Very grateful.  And if the Legion’s activities should need any financing, well, you know…  Jews always have money.”

“I understand, Father,” Gorski replied firmly.  The priest left.

With a gusty sigh, the Pulkownic fished a map out of the papers on his desk.  Either proper military maps were not available, or they had not been issued to the Polish Legion, for this was a railway station map whose torn edged and faded colors showed it had been torn from a railroad platform and requisitioned for military use.

“Come have a look at this, little leutnant,” Gorski said to Jozef.  “We’re going to see if you can do any liaising for us or not.”

The tone was not entirely friendly, but if Gorski had expected a higher ranking officer, or one with close connections to senior officers, he was no doubt still adjusting to the slap in the face he had been dealt by the Uhlans in sending an unwanted leutnant.

Jozef approached the desk and looked at the area Pulkownic Gorski indicated.

“This,” said Gorski, tapping a small back dot on the map, and the name written out next to it in Russian characters, “is Koprzywnica where our patriotic friends live in religious harmony.  And this,” tapping a point just south of the town, “is the mighty Vistula, crossed by a railway bridge here.  If the Russians are to pull back across the river, and take any quantity of ill gotten gains with them, or even their own heavy equipment, they must take the railroad.  And if they are to take the railroad, they must cross the bridge.  Now here,” another dot to the northeast of the first “is Sandomierz where your former regiment is currently stationed.  And Sandomierz also has a railroad bridge across the Vistula, here.  Your task is to return to Sandomierz, speak to your former regimental commander, and advise him with my compliments and all your skills as a liaison officer that if the Uhlans cross the river at Sandomierz and follow the river south, they can threaten the Russians at the bridge south of Koprzywnica.  We, meanwhile, will take it upon ourselves to attack the town from the north.  And depend upon it, when signals come up the telegraph wires from the bridge that they are under attack from Hungarian Uhlans, and the Russian commander sees us closing from the north, he will pack his gun and horses and whatever else he can on the train and retreat before he finds himself giving his life for the Tsar on the banks of the river.  Do you understand?”

Jozef stared at the map for a moment, trying to memorize the positions of the towns and bridges, and the logic which must be conveyed to the Uhlans.

“I understand, sir, but if I may ask one question?”

“One?  You’ve a very modest young man.  All right.  You may ask one question.”

“What reason can I give to Oberst von Bruenner as to why he should desire to threaten the Russians at the bridge rather than letting the Legion do it?”

“What, are you suggesting that the greater glory of Kaiser und König will not be enough to sway your former commander?” Pulkownic Gorski asked in a smiling tone.

Banter was a one-sided privilege.  A superior might be as witty as he chose, but it was not acceptable for a junior officer to return the pleasantries.

“He may ask why he should accept my advice,” Jozef said.

“He may, he may indeed,” Gorsky conceded.  “But he will not need you to tell him that there will be credit to be taken for securing the railroad bridge intact.  He has a horse artillery battery attached to his regiment, which we do not, which would be ideal for threatening a railroad bridge. And he can do the thing with very little risk of his own. So the bargain which you are offering him, which von Bruenner will recognize without needing to hear you state, is that he will get the credit while I will get the town. It is an exchange which satisfies everyone.  But if you try to tell him that like some clever pup of an officer, you offend him and make the task much more difficult.  So just keep those wise words under that polished Uhlan’s helmet of yours.  And if you can do this without making a mess of things, we shall keep you around to liaison another day.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now be off,” Gorsky ordered.  

Jozef turned towards the door.  

“Oh, and one more more thing,” Gorsky added.  “Take Leutnant Zelewski with you.  He can keep an eye on you, and you can keep him out of trouble.  So you’ll both be busy.” 

Chapter 7-3

 Wrapping up Chapter 7 with this installment.  The next chapter will focus on Jozef.  

I did a bit more looking at dress designs from 1910-1915 as I was thinking about what the present Natalie receives in this installment might look like.  I think it looks a lot like this 1912 vintage mourning dress, but it's a deep red color rather than black.  (source)

Terespol. Aug 2nd, 1915. Before the war, Russian Poland had stretched out as a peninsula, the westernmost part of the Russian Empire, surrounded by Germany to the north and west, and Austria-Hungary to the south. Through the summer offensives of 1915, that peninsula was being gradually eaten away. Not only was Warsaw now at the extreme western end of this peninsula, but it was under assault from both the north and south.

Much closer to where the field hospital and Third Army were in the fortress of Terespol, at the end of July, a mixed force of German and Austro-Hungarian forces commanded by Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen successfully captured the main southern railroad line which connected Brest-Litovsk and the rest of Russian Poland with Kiev.

Warsaw had not yet fallen, and in Brest it was yet another heavy summer day with the enemy still in the distance, but the men who moved pieces on maps at the Russian central command consulted their rail maps and their unit strengths and determined that it was necessary to begin moving resources out of Poland lest they be cut off and lost to the enemy.

These map men wrote up a strategic note. That note was turned into a set of army group orders. The army group orders were turned into orders for divisions, regiments, and battalions and support formations, and on Monday afternoon Doctor Kalyagin called the field hospital’s key staff together and announced, “We have orders to leave the city.”

This led, naturally, to an explosion of questions. Where were they going? Would they take the patients with them, send them back to the nearest base hospital, or leave them behind? How soon would they leave? Why were they leaving when things seemed relatively peaceful?

To most of these Doctor Kalyagin had no answer, so he answered those he did: They were to board a train for Bialystok, well to the north, within 48 hours. They would indeed take their patients and their supplies with them. The process of packing and moving must be as orderly as possible. This was no panicked move. Nothing should be abandoned which could be used. But with the Germans advancing and Warsaw about to fall, the front would be split and the field hospital would be serving the northern half of the Russian forces as they fell back. No one was to see this as a defeat or as hopeless in any way. They were falling back in an organized fashion. Surely the generals and the Tsar knew what they were doing. Anyone who had read of 1812 knew that Russia knew how to defend through the depths of her territory. Soon the Germans would be as confounded as Napoleon had been in his time.

Many of the orderlies and sisters were still asking questions about why they were leaving and the military situation. Natalie’s mind was already on what needed to be done in the next two days in order to move the field hospital. The patients were to come with them, but even so it would be as well to assess all of them and send any who would eventually need to go to the base hospitals off now. Were there medical stores in Brest which they could take with them in order to avoid shortages later? Could they replace some of the cots which they had lost in their sudden retreat earlier in the year?

She recognized a similarly thoughtful look on Sister Travkin’s face, and together the two of them stepped aside from the press of staff and began making plans, speaking in the half completed phrases and cryptic nicknames which are the language of people who have long worked together.

As with so many aspects of her hospital service, it caused a moment’s shock to think that this familiarity with packing up the hospital and getting it onto the road was the product of only three months’ experience, since the hammer blows of the May offensive had started Third Army’s long retreat from southern Galicia to this point. Three months and two hundred and fifty miles, which had left them feeling like seasoned veterans of maintaining a hospital on the road. Just as the time before the war seemed a lifetime away, it now seemed that the hospital had always been on the move. And Doctor Kalyagin had only been with them on the last, though admittedly longest, of these moves. Here was an area where they were expert while he was still comparatively new.

The doctor finished speaking to the staff and approached the two of them, with Sister Gorka following in his wake. “I’ve already told the regimental transport unit that we require wagons or trucks to move the patients to the rail depot. It’s difficult because we don’t yet have our train schedule assigned. But I’ve made it clear that we must have the absolute highest priority. We must make sure that we have a clear plan for what goes in each load, what goes first, and who is to oversee both here and at the rail depot.”

Natalie could see Sister Travkin’s mouth tightening into a thin line and resolved to deflect the doctor before an argument broke out. “We were just saying, Doctor, that this journey by train offers us an opportunity which our previous movements have not. If you could review all the patients and determine which ones could be returned to duty with another week or two of care, and thus should remain with us, and which should be sent back to a permanent hospital for longer term care, we could arrange for the long term cases to be transported immediately and we would have fewer patients to care for on the journey to Bialystok. After all, there’s no sense in carrying a patient all the way north only to send him off on a hospital train a day or two later.”

Doctor Kalyagin hesitated. Natalie hoped she had been sufficiently diplomatic in directing him. Assessing the patients and determining their course treatment was rightfully a task for a doctor, and in this sense he should not wish anyone else to do the work. But it was also quite clearly his work. It would keep him occupied while the nurses and the housekeeping sisters organized their own domains without his interference.

“Of course,” the doctor said at last. “The patients must be assessed. That first of all. I will prepare the list of which cases should be transported. Send an orderly or a runner to regimental transport and ask when they can provide a couple of cars on a train for Minsk or Vilnius so we can dispatch the patients who won’t be staying with us.” With this resolved, he strode away with purpose, his footsteps echoing on the floorboards.

Sister Travkin sighed. “You managed him. I wasn’t sure he could be managed.”

“Well, for now, at any rate,” Natalie replied. “Let’s make the most of it.”

A housekeeping sister approached the three of them. “Excuse me. Sister Nowakówna? There’s a woman here to see you. I think she’s a Jew. Should I send her away?”

It was not the moment Natalie would have chosen to accept a visit from anyone outside the hospital, but the tone with which the sister said, “She’s a Jew,” did not sit well with her.

“Yes, of course I’ll see her. Where is she?”

The visitor, when Natalie was led to her in the nurses’ sitting room, was Anna Isaakova from the clothing and notions shop. With a slight bob of a curtsey she handed Natalie a package done up in brown paper and string.

“Your petticoats, Madam. I’m sorry they took a little longer than I expected.”

“Of course. I’m so glad that you came today. And the bill?”

Anna handed her the piece of paper and Natalie counted out the banknotes and coins.

“I can never thank you enough for saving my grandfather from those Cossacks,” said Anna.

“There’s no need--” Natalie began.

“But I did want to do something for you, to express my gratitude. All of our gratitude. Our whole family.” When handing over the parcel and the bill, she had kept her eyes down, but now she was looking straight at Natalie with an emotion that was almost painful. “I know it is no small thing to stand up against the authorities, especially on behalf of … a Jew.” With the last word she looked away again for a moment, but then forced herself to meet Natalie’s gaze again. “Thank you!”

She thrust a second package into Natalie’s hands. Like the first package it was soft, and it seemed to be of similar weight. Another three petticoats?

“Thank you,” said Natalie. She could see Anna’s eyes lingering on the parcel. “Should I open it?”

“If you like, Madam. It’s a token of our thanks. I hope you will like it.”

Setting the parcel of petticoats aside, Natalie undid the string and paper on the second package. As she pulled back the wrapping she saw a beautiful, soft, fabric -- such a deep red that it was almost purple. Silk? It was wonderful to the touch, but she hesitated to run her fingers over it too much as her hand -- so often washed in harsh antiseptic solution -- felt as if it would snag against the surface. Carefully she lifted it up and saw an elegant dress, simple in its decoration, though trimmed at the neck and wrists with intricate white lace. It seemed starkly out of place in the nurses’ sitting room of the makeshift hospital. This belonged to the world of her dresses and skirts, carefully packed in paper at the bottom of her trunk, from her one Paris shopping trip before the convent sent her East to meet her father for the first time. Those dresses were more elaborately trimmed, but there was a beauty to the lines of this as she held it up that suggested it might wear more elegantly even than those.

“You made this?” Natalie asked, and immediately wished she had found some more articulate compliment, but from Anna’s smile she could tell that the tone had said what the words had not.

“Well… Yes.” Anna spread her hands. “I’m afraid it’s not all new. There wasn’t time. It’s an example I was making from a Paris fashion print, to display in the shop. But when I tried to think of something I could do for you I realized the measurements were very close to yours that I took down for your petticoats, so I made it over for you. I hope it will fit well. I wish I could have done something new and with more detail work, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting longer for your order.”

“It’s beautiful. I can’t possibly take this. It’s not fair. It was just a few words I spoke.” Natalie found the words tumbling out in no clear order.

“Surely it’s hard to say what anyone deserves, but I wanted to give you this. Our whole family did. I can’t think when you’d use it now, but perhaps some day… And at any rate, it allowed me to use my skill to thank you.”

For a moment the two stood looking at one another. Natalie was so overwhelmed by the gift, so transported into a place other than the soon-to-be-abandoned hospital, it was hard to know how to return to the moment.

“May I fold it properly and wrap it back up for you?” Anna asked.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you so much.” For a moment Natalie let words of thanks tumble forth, while Anna smoothed the fabric out on the table and folded it so as to avoid creasing as much as possible. Then it occurred to Natalie that there was indeed something she could do in return for this beautiful gift. “Perhaps I can help you again,” Natalie said. “You can see that everything is in tumult here. We’ve just received news that the field hospital is leaving the city. They say that Warsaw will be captured at any moment, and the rail lines with Kiev will soon be cut. The army will be pulling back soon as well. When they do, they’ll try to take or destroy anything that would be of value to the enemy. I’ve seen it happen in towns and villages. I can't imagine the chaos of a whole city. You and your family must pack up and leave now, while it’s still possible to get a wagon or space on a train.”

Anna had stopped half way through the process of wrapping the parcel, her expression alarmed. “But surely… Is it necessary to leave now? Warsaw is hundreds of versts away. And everything seems so calm. If we close the shops--” She left the horror of closing down their livelihood hanging in the air.

“But that is why it is important to leave now. Right now I’m sure you could still buy a cart or get space on a train. You could take the merchandise from your shops with you. But when it comes down to the last, when soldiers start ordering people to leave their homes and setting fire to the supplies that can’t be transported in time, then people will be pushing wheelbarrows and baby carriages full of whatever they can carry. Then your grandfather will be walking or trying to ride on a pushcart. It’s terrible. Inhuman. The army requisitions the houses along the way for necessities and the refugees have to sleep in the open. I’m sure the time to leave is while things still seem normal.”

Now Anna was nodding, and her fingers were typing up the parcel with practiced motions. “I will tell my father and grandfather everything you said.”

“Please. Perhaps it will sound mad to them at first, but you must tell them. Our hospital has come all the way from Tarnow since the spring, much of it on foot, and we’ve seen the crowds of people driven from their homes again and again. I wouldn’t want that for you.”

After this their goodbyes were quick. Anna thanked her again -- for deliverance from the Cossacks and for the warning -- and Natalie thanked her for the dress. For a moment she took Anna’s hands in her own, and wildly thought of hugging her. The dress was so beautiful and the giving of it more so. And this moment of generosity seemed infinitely precious against the backdrop of the chaos and suffering so soon to be unleashed. But there was a barrier of class and religion and convention between them, and Natalie was not a person accustomed to the giving or receiving of physical gestures of friendship. She led Anna out of the hospital and thanked her one last time before watching her disappear into the bustling crowd in the street. Then Natalie went to stow both parcels carefully in her trunk before returning to the hurried preparations for the hospital’s evacuation.

On returning to the ward she heard voices raised between Doctor Kalyagin and Sister Travkin. She found them standing outside the dispensary closet, where Sister Travkin had been directing a pair of orderlies in packing the medicines.

“What is the difficulty?” Natalie asked.

“These are essential and highly addictive analgesics,” Doctor Kalyagin said, his voice still loud, as he indicated the crate the orderlies had been packing. “I have asked these men to show me the state of the bottles and account for how much is being packed. It is in a chaotic moment like this that supplies are lost or stolen, and I do not want our patients to suffer from its loss, nor,” he looked significantly, “do I want our carelessness to result in some poor sufferer getting hold of drugs which could very well cause his death.”

Sister Travkin held up the ledger book. “I have checked each bottle against the ledger and have clearly recorded how many doses are packed and how many are being kept out to continue treating patients. There is no need for an inspection unless the doctor is accusing me of personally stealing morphine,” she said, refusing to look at Doctor Kalyagin as she spoke.

Natalie took the ledger from Sister Travkin and looked over the columns of figures. Everything was being recorded precisely according to the system which Natalie had laid out. Doctor Kalyagin had been very complimentary of her drug tracking ledgers when he had first inspected them. The two-entry system -- totalling amounts dispensed and dosage given to patients separately, and then totallying the two to assure they matched -- both did a great deal to prevent theft and also was the sort of big-city-hospital system which appealed to him. Yet the doctor seemed to be someone who, when under stress, felt suddenly that he needed to have a hand in everything. Perhaps, however, it was still possible to appeal to that calmer, more systematically-minded version of the man.

“Doctor, she is following the ledger system precisely as it has been laid down. We will be able to see the amounts of medicine dispensed and administered, and check those two totals against the inventory.”

She could see him hesitating. The doctor’s power within the hospital, especially at a time like this when they had only one, was absolute. In that sense, she was even less within her authority than when she had faced down the Cossacks. But perhaps if she remained calm as she had then, and pointed the way towards the path he knew they ought to follow even if his restless energy drove him differently, perhaps he would follow her direction.

“There are so many things within the hospital that require a surgeon’s direction. I hope that with these more routine matters, we can create systems which can assure you they will run properly even without your supervision. There is a bit of extra time now, before we get the order to start loading the train, and we could indulge in putting everything on your shoulders, but soon enough we’ll be stretched to the breaking point with getting the patients onto the train and providing care during transportation. We mustn’t let ourselves break the routines that we’ll need then.”

She could see in his expression the argument warring against Doctor Kalyagin’s own instincts, but when he spoke it was the argument that won out. “Of course. We just use our energies as efficiently as we may. Thank you for dealing with the dispensary so efficiently.”

He walked away, leaving Natalie and Sister Travkin to exchange silent looks of relief.

Whether it was her speech that turned the doctor’s heart, or he took his time away from inspecting other people’s work to gather his own thoughts more calmly, that was the end of the frantic element of the hospital’s preparation. By the time that their transport order arrived the next afternoon, they were well ready for it. Wagons carried the patients and hospital equipment to the rail depot in good order.

The platform was curiously calm as orderlies and porters hurred everything abort. Six cars had been given over to the field hospital. The rest of the train was taken up with soldiers of various descriptions, including livestock and freight cars loaded with horses and fodder. Natalie sat next to the window in the compartment she shared with the other nurses and several of the housekeeping sisters. As the train at last pulled away from the platform and gathered speed -- passing through Brest and then north of the city -- Natalie could see the light of the city, still seemingly peaceful. No people or carts were on the road that ran next to the railroad embankment at this late hour. How soon would the sky over the city be lit with the artillery flashes of the approaching enemy? How soon would the road be choked with those desperately using the last house to attempt an escape from the invasion? But right now all was quiet.

Chapter 7-2

2020 has been a rough year, but I'm not going to end it (or at least, not end my Christmas to New Years time off work) without completing Chapter 7 and starting some good habits for the new year.  

Terespol. July 16th, 1915. “Would you like a chance to get away from it all for a time?” Sister Gorka asked.

It had been a sorely trying day in the wards. Natalie had hoped that Doctor Kalyagin’s determination to put her under extra scrutiny would fall away after a few days. Despite their clash of wills over Lieutenant Ovechkin’s last days, she was not normally lax in her adherence to procedures. Surely after a few days he would tire of this extra oversight and things would return to normal.

But she had not accounted for the conjunction of the new doctor’s pride and his passion for his work. If anything, his determination not to trust her, and to make this lack of trust obvious to all, had grown over the following days, and as they had received a gradually increasing number of patients over the last few days this had resulted in Kalyagin demanding that she take him through the wards and show him the initials on every treatment protocol. He had even questioned the orderlies and the housekeeping sisters, demanding to know if they had seen anyone (here he looked significantly at Natalie) providing treatment that was contrary to the protocol.

It was with relief that Natalie and Sister Gorka had finished their twelve hour shift, leaving Sister Travkin to oversee the wards until morning.

“What did you have in mind?” Natalie asked, in response to Sister Gorka’s question.

“I’ve secured a motorcar in order to go into Brest-Litovsk and do a bit of shopping,” Sister Gorka explained. “But it’s a strange city. I’d like to have someone to come with me, aside from the driver. Would you come?”

“Shopping?” The word was from another time. Natalie had not had the opportunity to enter a shop since joining the field hospital back during the winter. And yet just across the river in Brest-Litovsk there was a bustling city with shops and tea houses and people out of uniform. Until this moment it had not occurred to her to visit, and yet now the idea became suddenly and desperately attractive to her.

“Lieutenant Serafin told me where there is a shop with photographic supplies,” Sister Gorka explained, in an apologetic tone as Natalie’s private thoughts raced. “I wanted to replenish my supply of chemicals. Who knows when I shall have another chance? And I’m sure there must be other good shops as well. I thought it might be a nice change. Please come.”

“Yes! Yes, I’d love to,” Natalie replied. “Of course I’ll come.”

The motorcar was one of two assigned to the regimental staff, a twenty-five horsepower Crossley touring machine, all gleaming brass and black enamel. The vehicle had begun its life in Britain, been imported to the Russian Empire by a Warsaw business magnate with a fancy for the newest products of industrial ingenuity, and then requisitioned by the army and sent to the regiment as the Germans approached Warsaw. Russia itself had produced, in total, less than a thousand cars before the war’s outbreak, and with the German navy slowing imports to a trickle it was essential that no precious imported technology be lost. But right now, while the regiment was settled into the fortifications around Terespol and Brest-Litovsk, the regimental vehicles could be lent out at times for the use of officers or those they chose to grant favors to. As the nurses settled onto the heavily padded leather back seat, Natalie wondered if the car, like the recommendation of the photography shop, was courtesy of Lieutenant Serafin. Was it, perhaps, a sign of admiration for Sister Gorka, or just a favor done by one hobbyist to another?

The driver wove between pedestrians and carts, working his horn frequently, over the mile of cobbled road and then the old bridge over the Bug River which led into the city gates of Brest and the old fort. While Terespol was a product of the age of artillery, a fort of embankments and trenches, designed to be as impregnable to explosions as the earth itself, the old fort and city wall were products of an earlier age: towers and crenelations of red brick. These would do little to stop modern high explosive shells, and the old fort was now merely a marker at the entrance to the city. Beyond it, they reached the close-packed buildings and milling crowds of the old city.

They pulled up in front of a two-story building in the shopping district with the name MAGID painted in large letters over the shop windows on the lower floor. Although the shops, or at least the building, were all apparently under the ownership of Magid, the windows each displayed different merchandise. The first shop contained stationary and books, the second cameras, telescopes, and binoculars, the third women’s clothing and other necessities. Sister Gorka immediately led the way into the shop with cameras, and after gazing longingly for a moment at a gleaming wood and brass plate camera displayed on a tripod, she answered the question of the elderly man behind the counter by listing off the chemicals she required. These apparently were not simple choices, and as Sister Gorka and the shopman settled into discussing powdered developing solutions and stop baths.

The shop was small, and the floorspace was much taken up with tripods which Natalie did not want to accidentally jostle by wandering about too much. Against one wall there was a shelf holding cameras of various sizes. The larger ones had bodies made of wood and large glassy eyes that looked back at her, offering distorted reflections of her face in their rounded front lenses. The smallest could have fit into a coat pocket -- flat metal cases which opened to extend neatly folded bellows coated in black cloth, and a glinting lens smaller than a fingernail. Against the other wall was a space evidently used as a portrait studio, with a chair sitting on a patterned carpet and a large tripod standing ready. On the screen sectioning off this area hung portrait prints, many of them of soldiers in uniform, singly or in small groups, young men with the solemn expression of the self conscious portrait subject, standing straight in their uniform jackets and resting their hands on sword hilts or rifles.

Moving to the shop window, she looked at the brass telescope which stood on a wooden tripod. As she leaned forward to look through eyepiece, it offered her a highly magnified but upside down view of the shop sign across the street for Kalmanovich’s Grocery. She looked back to the counter, but Sister Gorka was still deep in consultation over chemicals and exposures.

“Do you mind if I step next door?” Natalie asked. Sister Gorka nodded and waved without interrupting the shopman, and Natalie stepped out into the street.

She peered in the window of the stationary shop: little boxes of paper and notebooks bound in cardstock or cloth or soft-looking leather. Just the sight of them made her want to write. But she had never had any ability as a diary or letter writer in her schoolgirl days, and it was hard to imagine keeping one of those beautiful books pristine in the chaotic world of the traveling field hospital. Nor would she have any desire to write down the experiences of each day. Those precious evening hours around the samovar with the other nurses and the housekeeping sisters were better spent forgetting the wards and the operating room than dwelling on them.

Turning away she walked past the photography shop again and stood looking into the window displaying clothing, gloves, handkerchiefs, and stockings. These too seemed like items from another world. How long had it been since she had worn clothes other than her nursing uniform? But these seemed like a train ticket to another world. Perhaps a pair of machine knitted stockings or a soft cotton petticoat to wear under her wool nursing uniform would elevate her world into something like normality. Or having a nice handkerchief in her apron pocket would be a talisman against daily the smells and sights of the hospital. The idea that there was some beautiful thing which she could buy that would make life better seemed powerful.

Down the street there was a rumble which gradually grew to a deafening clash as a cavalry regiment moved down the boulevard, with hundreds of iron-shod horses clattering over the cobblestones followed by the rumble of hay wagons. To escape the noise, and to better contemplate the escape promised by the products on display, Natalie went into the shop.

In glass display cases there were handkerchiefs, knitted stockings, hairpins, combs, and all manner of beautiful little accessories, while against one wall was a shelf holding bolts of cloth and a little platform where the customer could stand while being measured.

“Can I help you, madame?” asked the young woman behind the counter, dropping a curtsey.

It was a sort of formality which was almost as unfamiliar as the merchandise. The soldiers and officers were almost always respectful, but they tended to use the diminutive ‘sestritsa’. The woman behind the counter was probably her own age, though with the curly dark hair and features which marked her as clearly Jewish. Did that account for her deference?

Natalie was on the point of saying that she was only looking to pass the time, but then… Why not? It had been so long since she had occasion to spend money on a few simple pleasures, and how long might it be again?

“Yes. I want to get some summer things. Mine are all wool.”

“Of course! We have machine knitted cotton stockings, real imports from Britain. Also pre-made cotton petticoats. Or if you have time to be fitted, we can make petticoats, blouses, or skirts.”

Natalie ran her hands over the sturdy gray wool of her uniform skirt. Cotton would never stand up to what her skirts had been through over the last nine months, either in the wards or at the hands of the laundry unit and their boiling kettles. But to have cotton next to her skin… That would certainly be more pleasant on the long summer days in the wards.

“I’ll take three pairs of white cotton stockings. And for petticoats… If you take my measurements how long will it take to make three up?”

“A few days. No more. Are you stationed here in the city? We could deliver them to you when they’re done. If you could just step over here, I can take your measurements.”

The shopgirl guided her gently over to the little platform and conversation flowed smoothly as she took Natalie’s measurements down with a cloth tape. So enjoyable was the process that Natalie did not notice the growing commotion outside until the shopgirl stopped, listened for a moment, and then apologized, “I’m sorry, Madame. May I just check?”

She went to the shop door and peered through the glass. Natalie followed her. There was a small knot of soldiers standing in the street outside, four men in long Cossack coats, one of them an officer with his traditional whip in his hand, and they were shouting and waving at the old man from the photography shop while Sister Gorka stood by looking uncertain. The shopgirl turned nervously to Natalie.

“I’m sorry, that is my grandfather. I must see what is wrong.” She pushed the door open and Natalie followed her into the street.

The officer was shouting at the old shopkeeper. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies, Jew. Take the shovel and clear the street or I can put a jump into your step.” He hefted the knout which all Cossack officers carried.

“Sirs, if you will just let me fetch my son,” said the shopkeeper. “My back was injured this spring. I am no use to you for shoveling.”

“No excuses. I didn’t ask for your son. I asked for this street to be shoveled now,” ordered the officer, giving the old man a shove with his whip.

The Cossacks were among the many peoples with their own status within the Russian empire. Hundreds of years ago they had been their own sovereign nation, and fought wars against the Tsars for control of the steppes north of the Black Sea. But for the last hundred years and more they had been a part of the Russian empire, a people with special exemptions from the Tsar’s taxes and their own military units commanded by their own officers. Cossack cavalry had formed a fearsome core of the Russian Imperial cavalry since the invasion of Napoleon, and Natalie had seen many of their soldiers in the hospital. But other Cossack units served a paramilitary function, enforcing order behind the lines in the way that only men who saw themselves as truly different from those they were acting against could. Such units had been deployed against rioters in the 1905 Revolution. And during the long retreat, they had been the most ruthless in making peasants leave their homes and burn supplies before the advancing German armies. Those whips were not just for show. Natalie had seen them snake out to cut across a peasant man or woman’s back.

“Officers, please,” called out the shopgirl who had led Natalie into the street. “Let me fetch my father. My grandfather is not a well man.”

The soldiers turned to face her, one of them giving a low whistle. “Maybe we should make this little piece do a bit of work for us!”

Natalie had been trying to understand what the source of the trouble was, but as two of the soldiers approached her shopgirl it seemed that time was up.

“What is happening here?” Natalie demanded, stepping in front of the girl and using the voice that she used when casualties were pouring in and she had to direct orderlies hither and yon over the tumult.

The soldiers stopped and looked back towards their officer. He stepped forward. “This Jew,” the Cossack officer explained, “is not following orders. He knows very well that all the city Jews owe street cleaning duty at need. The cavalry has just been through and, begging your pardon, Sestritsa, fouled the street. So I’ve ordered him to shovel it and he’s given me nothing but disrespect. It’s about time the old man had a lesson.”

For an instant Natalie hesitated. So far, they were respectful, and yet, unlike a surgeon, she did not hold a rank. If the respect for ‘sestritsa’ cracked, she had nothing. And yet, she could not leave these soldiers to terrify this family simply because they had been born Jews. The way the soldiers had approached her shopgirl was too clear a reminder of the dangers she herself faced as a woman surrounded by an army of men, should respect for her station ever break down.

“I do not have time for this foolishness,” Natalie announced, drawing herself up and determined to show no hesitation. “We must finish our errands and take the motorcar back to the regiment. And you are pulling aside these Jews while they are busy serving us. You must either wait until a suitable worker can be found or else go and find someone else.”

She and the officer looked into each other’s eyes, and Natalie was determined that despite the fact he was six inches taller than she, his uniform coat was festooned with the cartridge belts which Cossacks favored, and he carried a ceremonial whip, she would not be the one who broke.

“Are my orders clear?” she asked, after a moment, realizing as she said the words that she had no plan for what she would do if he defied her.

The Cossack officer shifted his feet. “Yes, Sestritsa. I’m sorry that these men took up your time. We’ll find someone else to clean the street.” He shifted the whip in his hands. “Come on, men. You’ve grabbed the wrong Jew. Let’s find someone loitering uselessly to clean this filth up.”

He turned away, and the soldiers followed him. Natalie’s legs felt as limp as string as she stepped back and leaned against the motorcar, where their driver had watched all these goings on impassively.

“Are you nearly done, Sister Gorka?” Natalie asked.

“Yes. He was just wrapping up my parcel when those soldiers barged in.”

The shopman bowed and thanked Natalie and hurried into the photography shop, promising that he would have the parcel out to them in a moment.

Natalie turned to the shopgirl from the ladies’ store. “What’s your name?”

“Anna Isaakova.” The look she was giving Natalie bordered on worshipful, and Natalie found it embarrassing to receive.

“Well, Anna, I hope that those soldiers will leave your family alone. Do you have all the measurements you require?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Then let me give you my address for the petticoats, and perhaps you can package up the stockings for me now?”

Anna nodded mutely. Natalie wrote down the regiment and the field hospital number in Anna’s little notebook and paid her for the stockings, although the grateful shopgirl had tried to offer them for free. “No, you don’t need to give me the stockings, nor the petticoat neither. Send a bill for them when they arrive as is proper and I’ll pay. I don’t think it’s right for the army to abuse its power over civilians like that. And there will be plenty of hard times coming if the retreat begins again.”

Soon they were packed up in the motorcar, the driver brought the engine roaring life, and Anna and her grandfather were waving from the sidewalk as they pulled away.

“You were very impressive,” Sister Gorka said, in awe. “I do not think I could ever have done it.”

Natalie shrugged. “The way they were treating that old man made me angry. But I didn’t know what I would do if those Cossacks didn’t listen to me.”

“And yet you did it anyway.”

Chapter 6-3

This installment concludes Chapter 6. Next week we'll return to Natalie with Chapter 7.

Village of Chateau Ducloux, France. August 7th, 1915. “Dearest Henri,” the orphan words looked up at Philomene from the page. In her days in the lycee they had completed composition exercises by rote. “Write a letter to your aunt thanking her for the gift that she sent you. The letter must be at least three paragraphs, and the gift may not be mentioned until the second paragraph.” “Write a letter to your grandfather telling him about a recent occurrence in your family.” Never, however, had she seen a model composition for, “Inform your husband serving in the army that during his year-long absence you have decided to adopt another child.”

Nor had the occasional separations of courtship and married life, with their letters filled with equal parts small household news and expressions of longing, provided training for this need. Even the other letters that she had managed to send to him since the war began had carried as their implicit message: here we wait, staying as much the same as we are able, until your return.

She put the cap back onto her drying pen and looked at little Marianne, lying in the small cradle which had held each of her children in turn, and once upon a time had held her as a baby. The baby’s face was pink against the white sheets and her expression was all quiet repose. Even without the natural lassitude that came from having nursed the baby herself there was something in those tiny features. The pointed chin, the softly closed eyelids with their little wisps of eyelash, the tiny white pores against the reddish skin of the nose -- every detail was something that could be contemplated without end. Not only were they small and peaceful, but each feature held the promise of many years unfolding before it. This small bundle of potential which as yet did nothing on her own had bursting forth within her so many possible futures, if only she could be given the time and peace to realize them.

And that was what it was so hard to find the words to tell Henri. Each of their children till now they had made between them, formed within, the product of their love. That she had chosen to add this child, whom he had never seen, to their family without being able to consult him seemed an admission that the family was growing and changing without him. There was no doubt in her mind that Henri would have supported her choice had he been there. It was the necessity of changing the family without his knowledge which made all the more clear that he was gone and that when he returned -- she would not allow the word ‘if’ -- it would be to a different family. And yet that was precisely why it seemed like a betrayal to end this day without writing to him, however long the letter might take to actually reach his hands.

She uncapped her pen again and hesitated with the nib just above the paper. Perhaps in the end the best way was the least artful. She would simply narrate from the beginning.

“This morning I was in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door….”

The letter ran to three sheets, written closely on both sides, as Philomene described not only what had happened, but why she had felt it her duty to make this little girl a member of the family, and also the infant beauty which made her happy to perform that duty. And then in closing, she returned to her love for Henri, to how much she and all the children missed him, to the glimpses of Henri she saw in his son who was becoming a man so quickly. She hoped that soon they would all see him again, that soon the war would be over and they could all live together in peace.

And with such wishes -- and a dash of her favorite perfume, which she hoped might cling to the paper over the weeks it would take to each Henri and give him a waft of memory that would remind him of the times they had spent in close embrace -- she sealed the letter and addressed the envelope to Henri.

This envelope, in turn, she placed in a larger envelope, and this she addressed to the convent in Munich which was of the same order as their convent in Chateau Ducloux. From there it could be forwarded to another convent in Switzerland, and from there to one in Paris, and from there to Henri. It was a slow process that took nearly a month to complete, but it made it possible to exchange letters with Henri even across the battle lines. Already, by this means, they had managed to exchange several letters.

But it was not a sure means. It depended on the tolerance or ignorance of the warring powers, both of whom officially disallowed communication with enemy territory. And in this case, at last, luck ran out. The convent’s packet was opened by an overly diligent German postal official. Among the letters that he found inside was one addressed to “Captain Henri Fournier, 304th Reserve Infantry Regiment”. That, to him, was clear enough proof of the duplicity of these Rome-ish nuns. He threw the small, scented envelope into the fire and for good measure followed it with the rest of the convent’s packet.

Henri, thus, never received the letter. And the disappearance of the packet alarmed the sisters, who held back some months before attempting again to send messages from the Munich convent to France via Switzerland. And this, in turn, would have results for Henri and Philomene that neither the postal official nor the sisters could have imagined.

***

Pere Lebas answered the door of the rectory himself. Here too, as in so many ordinary homes, the war had brought changes. Young Pere Benoit had been called up for service along with the other men in the village who were under thirty, leaving the pastor to carry the full work of the parish of Saint Thibault, with what little help the retired pastor, Pere Durot, could provide. And now, even their housekeeper had left to help her daughter who was struggling with three young children and a husband off with the army -- and truth be told to make a much better wage taking in washing from the German officers than the church had ever been able to give her.

“Why Madame Fournier! It’s good to see you. Come in. To what do I owe this visit?”

Philomene hefted the basket in which Marianne was once again nestled and stepped inside. It was a convenient enough way to carry a baby, and far less conspicuous than the perambulator in which she had taken her own babies for strolls.

“I’ve come for a baptism, Father.”

“A baptism,” the priest repeated back, surprised.

Philomene drew back the blanket which covered the basket, and its occupant obligingly gave a little murmur in her sleep.

“Yes, Father. I’ve brought you my baby daughter to be baptized.”

Pere Lebas had led the way to his little parlor. Now he sat down heavily in one of the stiff wingback chairs and repeated back, “Your daughter?”

Philomene nodded. She sat down in the other wingback chair and set the basket carefully in front of her, but she did not elaborate.

“But how can she be your daughter?”

“Why Father, surely you aren’t tempting me to sin against modesty? I’m certain you know how daughters come about.”

“But-- But, Henri… It’s more than a year that he’s been gone, and you’ve given no sign of being…”

He did not complete the sentence, and when Philomene’s raised eyebrows challenged him to do so, he merely blushed.

“It is important, Father, that we all be able to speak truthfully,” explained Philomene. “If someone asks you about this child, you must be able to say that I came to you and said that she was my daughter and I had bought her to you in order to have her baptized. You could then say, quite truthfully, that you expressed surprise and pointed out that my husband has been gone for over a year. And you may then say that I asked you to hear my confession. Will you hear my confession, Father?”

“Of course.”

Philomene listed her sins of the last few weeks, and then launched into an explanation of Marianne’s origins. “So I came to you with two purposes, Father. One was holy. She is to be my daughter and I want her received into the graces of the Church immediately. But the other was expedient. In order to be sure that she isn’t taken from me and sent off to an orphanage or even on the train to France through Switzerland with the other people they are calling ‘useless mouths’, I have to make sure she is legally my daughter. Then my ability to work, and my father’s, and my son’s will make her as safe a member of the village as any. So as soon as I am done having her baptized, I will go to the city hall and ask for a birth certificate showing that she is my daughter. And I will tell them, if they doubt me, they can come to you and ask about our visit. And what you must be able to tell them is that I came to you saying that she was my daughter, and then I asked you to hear my confession and you of course cannot reveal what I told you in confession.” She paused, watching for the priest’s reaction. “Is that wrong, Father? Have I used you and the sacrament to deceive?”

There was a long pause, and Philomene, at first confident of his answer, began to fear she had misjudged.

“It is certainly true that your motivations are mixed,” the priest said at last. “Still, I must warn you. You have thought out a good plan, but one which uses others and even the sacrament of baptism to your own ends. I know that in this case you want baptism for its own sake, and we are not required to have perfect intentions when we do what is right. But you must be cautious and not allow yourself to fall into using others. And of course, you must not allow yourself to lie no matter what the reason.”

“Yes, Father.” It was true. Once she had set her mind to it there had been a relish in thinking through how she could construct a situation which would deceive the village officials and their German masters without actually having to lie to them. She had enjoyed it.

“Then for your penance, pray the first Joyful Mystery for the intention of this little girl’s mother,” said Pere Lebas. “Now an act of contrition and I will give you absolution.”

The familiar Latin words of absolution were comforting after the self-accusation that had come before.

“What name will you give the child?” Pere Lebas asked her, when he had made the final sign of the cross over her.

It was with that question that the priest’s warning about using the sacrament for other end fully came home to her. She had not considered what name to give the baby, other than Marianne. Surely she must have some saint’s name. With each of her earlier children she had given much thought to the names of favorite saints and relatives. And yet this time she had given it no thought at all.

In that moment an idea came, and she hoped that its occurrence was a sign of providence rather than desperation.

“She is not yet a saint, but I would like to name her Marianne Thérèse, in honor of Sr. Thérèse of the Child Jesus.”

“Of course! She will be a wonderful patron for your little Marianne.”

***

In the frantic last days before the Germans arrived the previous summer, Mayor Binet had determined that his duty to the town and to the Republic was to take the civic records and remove them to a place of safety using his automobile. This duty had no doubt been more pleasant for him because he chose to fulfill it in the company not of Madame Binet, a woman of formidable opinions and girth, but rather his dutiful city secretary, with whom, for some years, he had enjoyed a discreet relationship. Thus it was that after Justin Perreau was appointed mayor by the occupation authorities, he had to find a new city secretary as well.

Whatever objections townsfolk might have to Mayor Perreau and the manner of his selection, Germaine Diot was precisely the sort of person that one would wish a city secretary to be. She had, ten years before, been one of the top students in the lycee, but she had neither left Chateau Ducloux to study further nor settled down to marriage. She had, rather, supported herself through a series of exemplary though unremarkable jobs and lived in quiet harmony with her elderly maiden great aunt. There was no whisper of impropriety when Mayor Perreau selected her as city secretary, and her perfect, swooping pen strokes were a credit to city documents. And yet, she was a person who expected, as the saying went, two and two to make four, and so when Philomene arrived in front of her desk with Marianne in her basket and asked that her daughter’s birth be recorded, Mademoiselle Diot questioned what seemed to her a clear untruth -- and things that were not true were not to be entered on the neat lines of town registries.

“You say that this is your daughter, Madame Fournier?” Germaine repeated.

“Yes,” replied Philomene, whose trim figure and easy movement both belied the idea that she had delivered a child a few days before.

“And who then is her father?”

“My husband, of course. Henri Fournier.”

“Your husband who has been gone with the army for more than a year?”

“Who else but my husband would be my daughter’s father?”

“That’s hardly for me to say.”

“Indeed it is not.”

“And yet, Madame Fournier, we both know that the length of a pregnancy is nine months.” It was Germain’s particular gift that she was able to state this in a tone that somehow was neither insulting nor aggressive. Together we must resolve this difficulty, her look and voice suggested.

Philomene hardened herself. Surely if she insisted, Germaine would eventually have to record the birth in the city register.

“Henri is my husband. Surely he must be considered the father of my child.”

“But Madam Fournier, to falsify the city records is wrong. It would be a crime.”

“I’m not asking you to falsify records. This is my daughter, and so of course, Henri is her father.”

The two women exchanged a look that was very close to a glare, but Germaine almost instantly thought better of the reaction and instead looked demurely down at the birth register that was open before her. This somehow caused Philomene to feel as if she had been rude, and so she tried to move into her planned last resort.

“If you don’t believe me, consult with Pere Lebas. He can tell you that I came to him today to have Marianne baptized and to have him hear my confession.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Germaine replied. “But you know I cannot accept a baptismal record as a legal document. The birth register is a civil record, recording who is born a citizen of the Republic. Surely you can see that I must record the actual parents of a child, because it may affect the child’s citizenship.”

This hinted at the very worst things that Philomene had imagined. Could the child be ruled a German because of her likely paternity? Would she be sent away to Germany to be raised by foreigners? Even after one day and night of feeding and nestling the child, it seemed cruel to be forced to give her up. Perhaps that was strange. But then, she had felt with each of her children a deep attachment from the moment of first laying eyes upon them. Why should this be different? And even the child’s mother, that poor, wretched woman who had been able to do no more for her daughter than to leave her where she might easily be found by loving hands, surely she deserved that her child at least be brought up in France, no matter who the baby’s father was.

“Let me speak with Mayor Perreau,” Philomene said.

“Come, Madame Fournier. It is not the mayor’s duty to fill out the birth register, and he will tell you the same as I.”

“Let me speak with him,” Philomene insisted.

“Very well. I will ask him.” Germaine rose. “I’m sorry, Madame. I wish that you would believe that I am not trying to be difficult. But we have a duty to France, even now.” She did not wait for a reply but left Philomene sitting before the records desk and went in search of the mayor.

Philomene sat and contemplated her situation. It was not as if she had some great store of goodwill built up with the Perreaus. But Justin Perreau was a decent man, if weak. Perhaps he would feel it his duty as a gentleman to listen to her.

Time passed, and Marianne began to fuss in her basket. Philomene took her out and held her. She tried all an experienced mother’s store of tricks: gently rocking her, draping her over one shoulder and patting her back, giving her a knuckle to suck on. All these could at best reduce the child from a full wait to occasional little squacks of frustration, because the one thing which Philomene could not do was feed the child without the milk and rag and funnel that she had rigged together the day before. If only she could complete all this quickly and get home in order to feed the baby.

Mayor Perreau thus found both mother and child on edge when he came into the city office and sat down at Germaine’s desk across from Philomene. He made a sympathetic clucking sound to the baby in the manner of an practiced parent, but Marianne was not to be mollified and gave him a little shriek with so much effort that her face briefly turned red.

“I’m sorry, Monsieur Mayor,” said Philomene. “The child is hungry.”

“Of course,” said the Mayor. “If you would like me to step away for a short time so that you can feed her in private…?”

He left the question hanging in the air, and Philomene took the question in precisely the way he meant it. He knew that the child was not hers, and thus that she could not nurse it.

“No need,” she replied. “Let us get the necessary formalities done and I will take my daughter home and feed her in peace. That is what she needs.”

“Yes, well…” Mayor Perreau steepled his fingers and pursed his lips. “The city secretary told me that you wish to have this child’s birth recorded in the city register.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, if I’m to do that, I must record the child’s mother and father in the register. The German administration is particularly strict about this for what they consider important health reasons relating to their troops.” He added this last with a knowing look. “So if you could just tell me the child’s mother and father, I will record it properly and we shall all be done with it.”

“Monsieur, my answer is not going to change with repeated requests. This is my daughter. Thus, her father is my husband. If you will put this down in the register now, you will save both of us time.”

Mayor Perreau studied her for several moments. “I’ve warned you that if I do as you ask the Germans may draw their own conclusions and act accordingly. Are you certain that you want me to do this?”

Philomene looked to Marianne’s face for courage and found it in the small features and unfocused eyes. And what could the Germans do? Surely nothing worse than if she allowed Marianne to be identified as an abandoned child and perhaps shipped away to an orphanage somewhere. “Yes. Please do.”

“Very well.” The mayor took up a pen and entered the birth record in the register in his own, less decorative handwriting.

Feeling victorious, Philomene hefted Marianne’s basket and carried the village’s newest citizen home. For his own part, Justin Perreau had sufficient decency that he had no desire to expose a respectable woman to the scrutiny of the German occupation authorities, so he made no mention of the child to the commandant and it was some time before her existence came to their attention.

Chapter 6-2

Sorry to miss posting last weekend. Travels continue. I post this section from California, where I'm out helping my mom for a couple days. We're all looking forward to things calming down in March after this eventful February.

But here's the next installment, back with Philomene in occupied France.

Village of Chateau Ducloux, France. August 7th, 1915. The next morning was calmer for Philomene. She gave the girls breakfast and turned them out into the garden to play. Pascal slept late, and when at last he came down he was more her quiet son of a year ago than the sullen young man who had returned to her from harvest duty the day before.

She cut him a large piece of bread and spread it generously with butter.

“Would you like coffee?”

Even with Grandpere’s black market activities, coffee was far more a luxury now than it had been before the war. The beans had to come from Africa, South America, or from the Pacific. All those sea lanes were firmly under the control of the British Navy, and it was their policy that no cargo ships, even under the flags of neutral nations, could sail to Germany and its occupied territories. Thus even in the Fournier family coffee remained a treat reserved for the most important occasions and even then only for adults. But Pascal was only just back from nearly two weeks with the labor detail. Surely that was a special occasion.

“They made us pots of ersatz coffee each morning during the harvest,” Pascal explained, after swallowing down the over-large mouthful of bread and butter that had blocked his speech. “The older boys said it was made from scorched grain. It was hot, so we drank it, but it was so bitter.”

“This is real coffee your grandfather bought. I can put cream in it for you if it’s still too bitter.”

“Yes please.”

Pascal sat taking large bites of his bread and watched her fill the coffee pot. He was all hers and all little boy. And then a knock sounded at the door.

For a moment neither moved. A knock no longer had the harmless function that it had before, or rather, the function was the same, but the range of reasons a visitor might come to the door had expanded to include many that were as uncomfortable to think on as they were impossible to ignore. Nor could they simply wait for the maid to answer it.

Philomene went to the door and opened it.

Relief. There was no stranger in a uniform outside. It was Andre the postmaster, Henri’s old friend and now Grandpere’s unlikely co-conspirator in the black market. He had a basket over one arm, its contents covered with a blanket, while his other hand gripped his cane.

“Andre, welcome! My father went out for a few moments, but if you want to come in and wait for him?”

The postmaster looked up and down the street, as if in fear of being seen, and then stepped in. “Actually, I came to see you, Madame Fournier.”

The words and behavior seemed strange, but the training of the last year taught that the less usual an occurrence, the more urgent it should be out of general sight.

“Of course,” she said, closing the door behind him. “Come into the kitchen. I was making some coffee. May I offer you a cup?”

“Coffee? My goodness! Yes, that would be very fine. Thank you.” Andre was carrying the basket held well out from his body so that he would not bump it as he walked with his cane. The effect was awkward, especially as the basket appeared to be heavy. A secret that was both heavy and delicate. Surely he and her father weren’t involved with something as mad as explosives?

In the kitchen he settled the basket carefully on the table. “There. Not disturbed, I think.”

The coffee pot was beginning to bubble and sputter on the stove. Pascal stepped quickly to turn off the burner before Philomene could get around Andre. He took two coffee cups from the shelf and poured them, setting one before the visitor, then the other in front of his mother.

Such a responsible boy. He hovered quietly in the background, out of Andre’s line of sight, and Philomene did not have the heart to send him away. Let him listen quietly. He had given up his promised coffee to the visitor without a murmur, and there should be rewards for such maturity.

The blanket which covered the basket moved slightly.

“When I came to the post office this morning,” Andre said, “I found this basket in front of the door.”

He twitched back the blanket to reveal a baby, tightly wrapped in an old sheet, with only its head exposed. Sensing the light, or the loss of the blanket’s warmth, the baby stretched, reaching upwards with its chin and exposing the pink folds of a small neck.

“I found this letter with it.” Andre held it out. A few lines written in neat block letters, perhaps to avoid the handwriting being recognized.

TAKE CARE OF THIS POOR MARIANNE, THE PRODUCT OF A WOMAN OCCUPIED LIKE HER NATIVE LAND

“She was left at the post office? What are you going to do?” Philomene asked.

“Precisely my question,” replied Andre. “I’ve no idea what to do with a baby. Why was she left for me?”

Marianne, the symbol of the Revolution. “I suppose her mother wanted to leave her to the Republic and not the Church. Otherwise she would have left her at the convent or the church. And the city building is hardly our own anymore, so the post office probably seemed the most obvious place.”

“No doubt But I’ve no experience with children.”

“No. You can’t keep her.”

As if on queue, the baby’s face crumpled and darkened. She pulled up her legs, gathering her infant strength like a tensing spring, and delivered herself of a hoarse little wail.

Philomene was not a woman who could leave a squalling infant alone in its basket. Immediately she was on her feet, taking up the baby and holding her close, swaying and making little noises of comfort to her. Slowly the baby’s features reordered themselves. The child gave out a long triple snuff and shook her whole tiny frame as she settled back into sleep in the warmth of Philomene’s arms.

“See? This is why I came to see you,” said Andre. “I knew you’d have the womanly instincts to know what to do.”

“To hold her, yes. But what are we to do with her? Who is to take care of her?”

Andre spread his hands. “I could ask the mayor, but that’s no different from asking the Germans. Perhaps by rights it’s their problem, as it was doubtless a German soldier who fathered her.”

“But what would the Germans do with her?”

“I don’t imagine they would see it as their problem. The nearest state orphanage is in Reims, but that’s across the lines. There’s one in Sedan. But who knows if they’re taking babies fathered by German soldiers. What would the Church do with a case like this?”

There had been women in trouble before, of course. A good family would simply make sure a marriage took place, or if that was impossible, send the girl off on an extended visit to family in some other town and see that the child was settled with an appropriate relative. Down in the workers’ shanties by the mine and the cement factory, there were women enough who simply raised children on their own. At times the sisters sent a troubled girl off to stay at a house for single mothers until she delivered her child, and then… Well, a place was found for the child. It had not come to Philomene’s attention before how those situations were resolved, but they were, and often with the help of institutions in larger towns. She could not recall that the sisters had ever had to deal with a baby abandoned in a basket. And yet now, the Germans had been here for more than a year. Perhaps the surprise was that it had not happened before. She must find an answer, for this would surely not be the last time such a thing would happen.

The baby shook itself in her arms, stretched its chin out again and drew up its legs, then gave a long sigh and settled herself down into Philomene’s arms with a gentle shake of its head. The child was so tiny, surely not more than a week or two old. How cruel the world had become to cast such a small baby out on its own.

“I’ll ask the sisters what can be done. And in the meantime, I’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you!” Andre pushed himself up from his chair with the vigor of gratitude. “If there’s anything I can do to help?” He left the question hanging in the air as he moved towards the door.

“There is.” Philomene caught him before he could escape, and he halted. So long as he was not asked to take the baby into his bachelor existence, he was ready enough to perform any other service. “I shall need to feed the baby. That will mean fresh milk, and something to feed the baby with. I’ve heard in the cities they have for sale glass bottles fitted with a rubber nipple that the baby can drink from. Can you see if such a thing can be found?”

Andre had cringed slightly at the word ‘nipple’. The mechanics of feeding babies was clearly not something that he had confronted before, nor did he wish to. But if this absolved him of responsibility for the child, he would attempt it. “I will see what can be done,” he promised, and with that commitment, gained his exit.

Pascal saw him out, then returned to look over his mother’s shoulder.

The baby had opened her eyes. Dark blue pupils regarded the world with the slightly cross-eyed gaze of a newborn. Philomene was feeling a familiar delight at just how small the warm bundle was. With her head nestled in Philomene’s elbow, the end of the swaddled bundle rested comfortably in her hand, a perfect, wriggling. hold-able package.

“Why did the baby’s mother leave it outside the post office?” asked Pascal.

Philomene was on the point of brushing the question away with the sort of vague answer with which children are told nothing of what adults find too difficult to put before them. She stopped herself. Having a child on the borders of maturity would require new habits.

“I’m sure it was some unfortunate woman who was not married. And the child’s father wouldn’t marry her. Probably a German soldier. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to take care of the baby, or she didn’t want people to know that she’d had one. So she left her where people would find her and take care of her.”

Pascal took a step back. “So it’s a Boche baby? A bastard?”

The words were harsh coming from a twelve-year-old’s lips. Pascal himself felt anger rising and his fists clenching just by saying such words in front of his mother. But in his mind loomed the image of one of those big, uniformed threats, with his grey uniform and hobnailed boots and a rifle slung over his shoulder -- a man like those who had stood guard over the boys on labor detail as they worked in the fields. One of those men had taken a village girl and done things to her, the things that grownups wouldn’t talk about, but which the bigger boys said were like how stray dogs mounted each other in the street. Had she liked it? Had she kissed him? Or had he forced her? The questions and the images they inspired were fascinating and revolting at the same time, and somehow this baby was the product of it all. Surely it was not right that his mother should be cradling a baby that had come from such filthy and traitorous acts.

Philomene was feeling the tenderness which a baby could inspire in a mother. Not only did this baby have the tiny pointed chin, the toothless mouth, the delicate ears, all the features which made it possible to sit staring in wonder at a baby for an hour at a time, but she could hold this baby close and think about caring for it without the bloating, the tearing, the misery of carrying and then birthing a baby. Pascal’s words disrupted the peace she felt holding the child close.

“She is a baby. And every child is made by God in His image,” she said, trying to let the words do their work and keep any hint of anger from her voice. “However weak or even wicked her father and mother may have been, God wants every child to be happy with him one day in heaven. She needs our love and care, since she was abandoned by her own family.”

Pascal seemed no more than half convinced, and held back, eyeing the baby with suspicion. At that moment, however, the baby shifted between its two appetites. With her desire for sleep satisfied for the moment, she required food, and although the world had provided a set of arms that held her close to a warm body, the world was providing no food. Her face crumpled and turned red as she gave out hoarse little screams that made her tiny body shake.

Philomene rocked the baby, put her on her shoulder, and gently patted her, but it was plain enough what the baby wanted, and that created a problem. Although the illustrated papers before the war had offered full page advertisements touting the sanitary and figure preserving virtues of the modern glass baby bottles with their india rubber nipples, Chateau Ducloux was an old fashioned town and from the moment when Philomene had taken the infant Pascal in her arms twelve years before, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to nurse her babies herself. Yet that meant that now, faced with this unexpected guest, she did not have suitable equipment with which to offer the baby the refreshment which she desired.

With the baby cradled in one arm, she poured a little milk into a saucepan and put it on the stove to warm, then began to look through the cupboards and drawers for something that might serve to feed a baby. At last she selected a small funnel. The mouth was small enough, but the milk would flow through it much too fast. She cut a piece of cloth from the rag bag and pulled it through the funnel until it made a tongue hanging out of the funnel’s mouth. Testing it with water this proved to let through a steady drip which seemed right for baby.

Taking all these back to a chair by the table, she found that two hands was one too few for this jury-rigged solution. The baby was still screaming, her face now dark red, as Philomene tried to juggle baby, funnel, and saucepan of warmed milk. Pascal was still standing around, shifting from one foot to the other as he watched her. She summoned him.

“Pour a little of the milk into the funnel when I tell you.”

He hovered over her as she settled the baby into the crook of her left arm. She dipped the funnel in the warmed milk so the baby would taste it immediately, and then settled the dampened cloth into the baby’s angry, gaping mouth. The little lips closed on the cloth and she could see the cheeks work, sucking at it.

“Now pour a bit of milk.”

Pascal poured. The baby sucked greedily for a moment, then choked and spat milk. She screamed for a moment, then Philomene was able to settle the cloth back into her mouth, and the baby again began to suck.

Milk glistened on the baby’s chin, and some was spattered on Philomene’s blouse as well. This would never have the same close, comforting feeling to holding a child to her own breast. But the baby was eating, and as she watched the little cheeks work the idea of sending this child off to be raised in an orphanage was already being replaced with thoughts of the tiny girl lying warm against her in bed at night.

They fed the baby in this fashion until she drifted into sleep, letting the milky cloth fall from her mouth and send drops of milk into her ear. Philomene set the funnel into the saucepan and dabbed at the baby and herself with a kitchen towel. Caring for this child would make a good deal of awkward work of this kind. And laundry. Philomene had begun to do a little light washing herself in the kitchen sink, something she would never have contemplated before the war, but washing diapers was not something she desired to do herself. The town’s washer women were now much taken up with seeing to the needs of German officers, and as a result getting laundry done for the villagers required more money -- or the offer of black market luxuries such as white sugar and coffee. Well, if that was what it took, she was in a better position than most people to acquire the needed items. That night she would have to discuss the matter with her father. Surely he would understand.

“What do we call the baby?” asked Pascal. “Does it have a name?”

She had not, till that moment, thought about the question, but when asked the answer seemed obvious. “I think we should call her Marianne.”

***

It was not till afternoon that Louis Martens returned home. Charlotte and Lucie Marie bounced around him shouting. “Grandpere! Grandpere! Have you heard? Have you heard?”

Pascal hushed the girls angrily. The situation was one which should be discussed seriously by adults -- and surely he was nearly an adult himself, Grandpere always spoke to him as if he were more than a child. The shouting of the little girls, who could not possibly understand it all, spoiled the importance of the day’s events.

Grandpere, however, had come with his own news, in the form of a proclamation which had been posted all over town.

“There’s to be a train, going home to France through Switzerland.”

He handed the printed announcement to Philomene.

Home to France. Paris. Henri. All day one set of plans had built themselves in her imagination, plans centered on the baby. Now a wholly different vision built itself in her mind. Together they would take the train through Switzerland, and from Switzerland across the border into France. Free France. They would make their way to Paris. She would send word through the regiment, and Henri would be given leave to come to them. The war might go on, but they would be together. For them it would be over.

“Can we go?” she asked, her voice studiously casual.

“You could go. And the girls. Pascal and I would have to stay. Only women and children too young to work are permitted to leave.”

The vision shattered as if an artillery shell had hit it. It was all too easy to envision the fate to which she would be leaving Pascal. Pressed into labor details. Running wild with the teenage boys in the town. Living under the threat of the occupiers and their guns. Her little boy would become coarse and hard, embittered by the work he was forced to do for his enemies, led into every kind of vice by the older boys. Her father would still be there at home, but what influence could a grandfather have compared to a boy’s own mother. Surely the knowledge that his mother and sisters were at home, expecting the best from him, would restrain him from following the rough boys from down in the workers’ shanties into whatever forms of perdition the frustrations and opportunities of the war would present.

Oblivious to the images going through his daughter’s mind, Grandpere was still talking. “I’ve made some inquiries. The train will take people only. One small suitcase for each family, and it is to contain no valuables or currency. I expect the Germans think they can requisition all the possessions of those who go. Still, if you went and took the girls you could be well away from all this, and Pascal and I could look after the house and the store.”

“I can’t go.” Philomene’s words cut him off. “How many years might the war go on? I can’t leave Pascal alone all that time. He’s still just a boy.”

Now Pascal spoke up. “I’m old enough to take care of myself. If you have the chance to take the little girls to safety and to be with father, you don’t have to stay on my account. We men will be all right.” He planted his feet and folded his arms across his chest, trying to reflect the stolid sentiments of his words.

“No,” said Philomene. “The family must stay together. That’s what your father would want. I was weak for a moment, thinking of the chance to get away and see him again. But that’s not the right thing. We must stay here together and be strong for him.”

This was a formulation which Pascal was able to accept. In truth, the idea of his mother and sisters leaving him behind had terrified him nearly as much as it had Philomene. But the fact that it scared him had simply increased his determination. He must not let his fear keep the women from going to safety. He would have to be like the men he had read about in the illustrated papers before the war, who when that ocean liner was sinking had stood quietly back and let the women and children take the boats. It was the duty of men to sacrifice themselves, whether on the battlefield or in life’s other dangers. But even as he had thrilled to the accounts of those brave men, he had suffered a terrifying dream in which he had stood with his father and Grandpere on a ship’s deck, watching mother and the girls board a boat, and knowing that very soon the icy water would take him to his death. He had so wanted to be brave, and yet he’d jerked out of that sleep in sweating terror and been unable to sleep the rest of the night for fear of dreaming about going down into the depths, never to return. But if Mother didn’t want to go… It was like a sudden stay of execution. He felt exultation coursing through him. The relief stayed with him even as Philomene asked that he take his younger sisters into the garden to play and watch them so that she could talk privately with Grandpere about other things. Normally this request would have drawn at least a few complaints from him, but at this moment all was right with the world, and so he herded the little girls outside and indulged them in a game of hide-and-seek which at other times he might have considered beneath the dignity of his years.

“Andre came to see me this morning,” Philomene said, once she was alone with her father.

“Yes. He told me about it.”

It took an effort for her to speak the next words. This difficulty was something she had not expected. Louis had always been such a close and gentle father, and after her mother’s death they had leaned upon each other. The only time she had felt this difficulty before had been telling him that she would marry Henri despite his objections. Then the reason for her trepidation had been clear to her. Now, she could not say why she felt her throat tightening as she tried to form her words. “I intend to keep the child myself.”

Her father nodded slowly, not so much agreement as acknowledgement of what she said. “Why?”

She had been prepared for practical objections, or some more mature version of Pascal’s objection to the child’s parentage, but this was a question on which she had not thought. Why? Somehow the need to find an answer made the words flow now as they had not before. “When Andre was here we talked about the sisters or a state orphanage. But then the child cried, and I held her close just like each of my own children. I looked into her eyes. And I felt her tiny fingers wrapping around my own. I learned how to feed her. And now I find it seems impossible to send her off to live with strangers, especially in an orphanage with no mother to keep her close.”

“I understand the feelings of holding a baby who needs everything, especially for a mother like you. But is it right to decide so quickly to make this child a part of our family? We know nothing of her parents, except that her mother could not or would not keep her.”

“Perhaps it is strange to make such a decision so quickly, but is any other child so different? I can’t say that any of my own children were the result of long thought and consideration. The decision of a moment, sometimes hardly a decision at all, can result in the bonds that tie us together for a lifetime.”

“But those are your own children, flesh and blood. You had already put your consideration into choosing the husband with whom you had them. Surely taking on another person’s child is something that requires thought. There are so many in need. You cannot help every one.”

“No. But every child in need does not come into my house and into my arms. This one did. Surely that makes her claim the most powerful one.”

“Perhaps you are right. After all, what was it that set the Samaritan apart from all the other passersby on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho? He saw that it was the man in need lying before him which mattered more than any other set of principles.” He took Philomene by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “You are a good woman, like your mother was. At the wedding feast, even our Lord had to be told by Our Lady what needed to be done. You’d better bring me the baby so that I can get to know my newest granddaughter.”