Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

D evon did everything he normally did to get ready for bed, but after hours of pitching and rolling, and finally sending the blankets to the floor, he got up, turned up the heat, and made himself a cup of coffee that he did not drink. He sat at the kitchen table, his hands curled around the quickly cooling cup, and stared at the ash in the fireplace.

His eyes felt gritty, and he needed to shave, but what if he were in the bathroom and didn't hear Stanley's knock? And then he remembered why he'd not slept—he'd heard Stanley's voice calling out to him in the dark, shouting to warn him of incoming shells, or, in a very quiet way, asking Devon to come get him and bring him home.

When Devon closed his eyes, he saw the trenches as he'd always imagined them before, full of soldiers, some young, some old. All of them were way too practical about it as they walked in the mud, carrying tin mugs of coffee, and singing songs while they stood around a glowing primus fire. Their faces were alight, their shoulders touching in a firm, warm circle, brothers in arms, waiting for death.

Burying his face in his hands, Devon tried to stem the faint strains of It's a Long Way to Tipperary from buzzing in his ears, but he was so exhausted that it was too late to keep the streets from being gold and everybody from being gay—

"Get up, Devon," he told himself. "Drink some coffee and go and look for him. You know you want to."

He did, he most certainly did, even though when he went to the door to look out into the freezing rain, he realized that it was not yet dawn. The rain cast silver shadows in the porch light, making the white crosses, row on row, look like they were being slashed through with bayonet blades. It was as if the rain meant to dig up the bodies, most of them unidentified, and bid them to walk so they could get up and help Devon look for Stanley. The fact that Devon was thinking this was a sure sign he'd not gotten enough sleep and was halfway to the loony bin himself.

Would driving around in circles looking for Stanley help? No, probably not, and keeping the car for additional days would eat into his remaining savings and would not be covered by the stipend. Nor could he claim it as a necessary expense: miles covered looking for ghosts at twenty-five cents per mile would not go over well with the IRS. Regardless, he needed to return the car.

Devon waited until the sun came up, then put on his jacket, grabbed his keys, and drove slowly into the village. His tires splashed through puddles, and if he drove slowly because he was looking for Stanley, it couldn't be helped. He would also look as he walked back to the cottage, and that couldn't be helped either. At least it wasn't raining anymore.

The owner of the garage looked surprised to see Devon returning the car so quickly, though he shrugged and took the keys.

"You didn't keep it long, monsieur ," said the owner. "I saw you speeding through the village yesterday, though. That wasn't smart."

"No," said Devon. "I shouldn't have, and it won't happen again."

"You were also seen skidding into the parking lot by the memorial. What if you had broken down the sign? It's been there since 1920, you know."

"I know," said Devon, and it was true. If anybody knew when that sign went up and all about the ceremony surrounding its creation, it was him. "I was just—"

He stopped short because he couldn't explain any of it, though there was a sudden danger that he would open his mouth and all of his troubles would come tumbling onto the shoulders of the garage owner, a perfect stranger who couldn't possibly understand what had happened. How Stanley had appeared out of nowhere. How he'd disappeared just as quickly, so quickly that Devon was beginning to believe he'd imagined the whole thing, and just as he was beginning to feel that had they been able to share another moment together, he and Stanley—

He was in love with Stanley. Stanley who was gone.

That feeling was cut off so sharply that the pain of it was sinking into his bones only now, as though held off by a sense of shock and of loss, long delayed and smacking into him with the force of a runaway truck.

"Are you all right, monsieur ?" asked the garage owner, in a very kind way. "There are ghosts in that memorial, my sister says, and if you wander unawares—"

"He wasn't a ghost, for fuck's sake, he was real !"

The garage owner took a step back and appeared to be about one minute away from calling les gendarmes to come and take Devon away. If that happened and Stanley came back, then he wouldn't have any way to reach Devon, wouldn't know where Devon had gone.

It struck Devon then that he was picturing himself renting out the cottage for the rest of his days and nights in the hope that Stanley would come back. When he did, Devon didn't want the cottage to be occupied by someone else, or worse, deserted, as it must have looked to Stanley in the war, an empty hull with no life inside.

"I'm sorry," said Devon. "I'm tired, that's all. I've been taught better manners, so I'm sorry."

" Ce n'est rien, monsieur, " said the garage owner with a jerk of his chin. "But please go away now."

Devon obliged him. He walked through the village with his hands in his pockets and his collar turned up against the chill, his feet thudding against the damp blacktop with every step. He kept his eyes peeled for Stanley, but that didn't make any sense because Stanley was gone. Gone back into the past where Devon couldn't find him, couldn't pull him close and hold him.

His dazed brain now believed that Stanley had been a time traveler. Why? Why now? Because he knew he wasn't going crazy, he couldn't be. The memories were too real, and his heart ached too much with missing Stanley. He had to be real.

As Devon approached the cottage and saw smoke from the chimney, he had a sudden, bright, almost painful hope that Stanley had returned.

He opened the door to the completely empty cottage, and realized that he'd left the radiators going, wasting energy on the walls, on the empty rooms. There was only the cottage and Devon and a pile of papers that represented his work of two years. After which he would go back to the States and his perfectly normal life as a professor.

Never ever would he be able to tell anyone about his doughboy, his soldier, his Stanley. And never before in his life had he wanted to cry so hard.

But he couldn't cry; soldiers didn't cry, so he wouldn't. He needed to finish his paper, needed to be doing something; otherwise, he'd stare at the walls or throw open the curtains or stand in the open doorway watching the damp wind whip the trees.

Which was exactly what he did now, imagining that Stanley would come home to him as he looked out over the green humped trenches. The view, once exciting to him, was now desolate with the mist hanging low, a gray shroud on a hopeless terrain that, lifeless, gave nothing to Devon, not even hope. Finally, he closed the door and made himself get to work, unsure of whether he would search again later or just pack his bags and get the hell out of there.