In the house of Mme. Villeneuve, all was quiet but for the intrusion of the manmade thunderclaps coming through the bricks and plaster. Sometimes the quakes from the shelling seemed to be closing in on the house like a fist, only to recede into the distance bringing its deadly rain upon some other helpless souls.
The madame grieved as though her son had died in the mad assault of the day before. She mourned for the loss of his youthful spirit, which she knew would be crushed by the sights he witnessed the day before.
Jeannot’s hand would heal, with only a scar and a story to recall its source. His real wound would be invisible, the dual shame of being a murderer and a coward. The young man was motivated by the peculiar brand of patriotism that only the French knew. It drove him to join the others in the forlorn and mad attack.
The horrors of reality sent his brashness flying, and he ran and hid and then killed, not in defense of his homeland, but only to save his own life. He struck at the enemy, not as a blow against those who had the gall to invade his beloved land, but in a frenzied, animal desire to survive.
His mother knew him as any loving mother knows her only son. He had a sensitive soul, unlike his father, who never saw beauty or humor or wonder in anything. It was this same spirit that pulled him along with the rising tide of his fellows on their romantic crusade to lift the ring of fire from the city. The same frail spirit that wilted before the world of carnage he entered.
Time.
Time would bring him from his brooding funk, and she would be there to see him through it. Oh, her boy would make it through, of that she was sure. He would no longer be the passionate, garrulous youth he had been. Those days were gone. That boy was gone. He would now be like so many other Frenchmen from so many other struggles, fatalistic, cynical, and bitter. But he was alive, and that was all she cared about. She would see him through these days unless a German bomb erased them all in the next instant.
She sat at the dining room table playing piquet with Caroline Rivard. It was Claude who suggested that they not play at the card table in the drawing room as that room faced the street and was vulnerable to debris thrown by the shells falling without. The formal dining room was at the stout heart of the house, protected by the surrounding rooms.
Her provincial guest picked up the thirty-two-card game quickly and was playing well after only a few hands. They talked of trifles, the child asleep in a wheeled bassinet in the corner. The conversation and brisk play kept Mme. Villeneuve’s mind from the tremors that shook the house from time to time, as well as the suffering of her son still asleep in his room above. She was grateful for this unexpected company. Without Caroline’s companionship, she might have grown despondent and even been tempted to indulge further in wine fortified with laudanum. And what aid might she have been to her son then?
Caroline won the last trick on the last hand of this deal and wound up with the high score surpassing her host’s cumulative score for the first time.
“You are remarkably skilled for a beginner,” Mme. Villeneuve said and gathered the cards to shuffle them for a new hand.
“My brother won’t play any games with me anymore. He thinks I cheat,” Caroline said.
“Difficult to cheat in a game you have only become familiar with this afternoon. You have siblings?”
“Only one. An older brother. He’s a watchmaker in Ottawa.”
Mme. Villenueve caught the suggestion of a smile at the corner of Caroline’s mouth. This young woman had more than a few secrets.
“Have we eggs, Mother?”
It was Jeannot, standing in the archway to the foyer. He was dressed in a clean shirt and trousers and a brocaded robe. He needed a shave, and his eyes were red-rimmed, with drooping lids as a result of the heavy dose he’d imbibed the night before. Mme. Villeneuve saw only the tousled-haired boy, bright-eyed and smiling, who had greeted her each morning during his earliest school years.
“We have not, my dear. But Anatole tells me he still has bacon, flour, and butter. I’m certain he can make you something to satisfy you,” his mother said. “I am pleased to see you have an appetite.”
“Famished. Good morning, Madame Rivard,” Jeannot said with a bow of his head.
“Afternoon, I’m afraid.” She smiled and nodded her head in return.
“Is it?” he said in an absent tone and left them for the kitchen.
Mme. Villeneuve riffled the cards together, allowed her guest to cut, and then expertly dealt the cards by twos to each of them for the start of play. She won the next two deals with scores that placed her well ahead of her opponent to take the game. The baby stirred, then cooed in his bassinet. The widow made her apologies and left Mme. Rivard alone to feed her waking child while she repaired to the kitchen to watch her own son devour one of Anatole’s creations made from the shrinking stock in their larder. Jeannot ate with relish, and she was pleased.
That evening, by the light of an oil lamp, because the gas lines had been cut by Prussians weeks ago, Mme. Villeneuve sat for the first time
