‘What?’ the sister said suddenly and harshly, then to the man with the feather in the same mountain tongue: ‘You are Zsettlani?’
‘What?’ the man with the feather said in French harshly and loudly. ‘I speak French. I will take soup too. I can pay for it. See?’ he said, thrusting his hand into his pocket. ‘Look.’
‘We know you have money,’ Marya said in French. ‘Come into the house.’ And, in the kitchen now, they could see the rest of the first man: the saffron-colored scar not stopping at the hat’s line but dividing the skull too into one furious and seared rigidity, no eye, no ear on that side of it, the corner of the mouth seized into rigidity as if it was not even the same face which talked and presently would chew and swallow; the filthy shirt held together at the throat by the frayed and faded stripes of what they did not know was a British regimental tie; the stained and soiled dinner jacket from the left breast of which two medals hung from their gaudy ribbons; the battered and filthy tweed trousers one leg of which was doubled back and up and fastened below the thigh with a piece of wire, the Englishman propped on the crutches for a moment yet in the center of the kitchen, looking about the room with that alert calm unpitying eye while his companion stood just inside the door behind him with his ravaged insolent peaceless face, still wearing the hat whose feather now almost touched the ceiling, as though he were suspended from it.
‘So this is where he lived,’ the man with the crutches said.
‘Yes,’ Marthe said. ‘How did you know? How did you know where to find us?’
‘Now, Sister,’ Marya said. ‘How could he have come for the medal if he didn’t know where we were?’
‘The medal?’ the Englishman said.
‘Yes,’ Marya said. ‘But have your soup first. You are hungry.’
‘Thanks,’ the Englishman said. He jerked his head toward the man behind him. ‘He too? Is he invited too?’
‘Of course,’ Marya said. She took two of the bowls from the table and went to the stove, not offering to help him, nor could the sister, Marthe, have moved fast or quickly enough to help him as he swung the one leg over the wooden bench and propped the crutches beside him and was already uncorking the wine before the whole man at the door had even moved, Marya lifting the lid from the pot and half-turning to look back at the second man, saying in French this time: ‘Sit down. You can eat too. Nobody minds any more.’
‘Minds what?’ the man with the feather said harshly.
‘We have forgotten it,’ Marya said. ‘Take off your hat first.’
‘I can pay you,’ the man with the feather said. ‘You cant give me anything, see?’ He reached into his pocket and jerked his hand out already scattering the coins, flinging them toward and onto and past the table, scattering and clinking across the floor as he approached and flung himself onto the backless bench opposite the Englishman and reached for the wine bottle and a tumbler in one voracious motion.
‘Pick up your money,’ Marya said.
‘Pick it up yourself, if you dont want it there,’ the man said, filling the tumbler, splashing the wine into it until it was overfull, already raising the tumbler toward his mouth.
‘Leave it now,’ Marthe said. ‘Give him his soup.’ She had moved, not quite enough to stand behind the Englishman but rather over him, her hands resting one in the other, her high severe mountain face which would have been bold and handsome as a man’s looking down at him while he reached and poured from the bottle and set the bottle down and raised his glass until he was looking at her across it.
‘Health, Madame,’ he said.
‘But how did you know?’ Marthe said. ‘When did you know him?’
‘I never knew him. I never saw him. I heard about him—them—when I came back out in ’16. Then I learned what it was, and so after that I didn’t need to see him—only to wait and keep out of his way until he would be ready to do the needing—’
‘Bring the soup,’ the man with the feather said harshly. ‘Haven’t I already shown you enough money to buy out your whole house?’
‘Yes,’ Marya said from the stove. ‘Be patient. It wont be long now. I will even pick it up for you.’ She brought the two bowls of soup; the man with the feather did not even wait for her to set his down, snatching and wolfing it, glaring across the bowl with his dead intolerant outrageous eyes while Marya stooped about their feet and beneath and around the table, gathering up the scattered coins. ‘There are only twenty-nine,’ she said. ‘There should be one more.’ Still holding the tilted bowl to his face, the man with the feather jerked another coin from his pocket and banged it onto the table.
‘Does that satisfy you?’ he said. ‘Fill the bowl again.’ She did so, at the stove, and brought the bowl back, while again he splashed the wanton and violent wine into his tumbler.
‘Eat too,’ she said to the man with the crutches.
‘Thanks,’ he said, not even looking at her but looking still at the tall cold-faced sister standing over him. ‘Only about that time or during that time or at that time or whenever it was afterward that I woke up, I was in a hospital in England so it was next spring before I persuaded them to let me come back to France and go to Chaulnesmont until at last I found that sergeant-major and he told me where you were. Only there were three of you then. There was a girl too. His wife?’ The tall woman just looked down at him, cold, calm, absolutely inscrutable. ‘His fiancee, maybe?’
‘Yes,’ Marya said. ‘That’s it: his fiancee. That’s the word. Eat your soup.’
‘They were to be married,’ Marthe said. ‘She was a Marseille whore.’
‘I beg pardon?’ the Englishman said.
‘But not any more,’ Marya said. ‘She was going to learn to be a farmer’s wife. Eat your soup now before it is cold.’
‘Yes,’ the Englishman said. ‘Thanks:’ not even looking at her. ‘What became of her?’
‘She went back home.’
