It was a pleasure meeting you on the plane. I hope you’re doing well, and that the jet lag has waned. I am writing you because somehow I ended up with one of your historic letters. My apologies; I am not sure how that happened. I will be happy to return it to you if you will send me an address. I translated it—it was a good workout for my French! I’m attaching a copy of the translation to this e-mail, in case you’re interested.
Sincerely,
Rosalyn Acosta
She then sent a few e-mails to producers she was hoping to meet with in Champagne, and once more checked in with Hugh. Business concluded, she turned back to her drawing, trying a few more versions based on her vivid memory of the predawn scene, before going into the kitchen to fix herself two of the farm-fresh eggs Pietro had brought.
The day was cold but sunny and clear. At a loss for what to do next, Rosalyn climbed into her rental car and went for a drive, familiarizing herself with the region. She passed through several sleepy villages withboulangeriesand butchers, pharmacies and greengrocers, all closed for the holidays.
Memorials for thosemort pour la Francestudded the landscape: she noticed them in plazas, in forest copses, in cemeteries, out in the middle of nowhere. Clearly, theChampenoislived side by side with their dead. Rosalyn stopped alongside several roadside markers to read about battles that had taken place there, running her fingers over the lists of names oflesmorts. The dead ranged in age from seventeen to fifty-four, but most were around twenty.
Where had Rosalyn been at twenty? At college in Sonoma, majoring in marketing and design. Going to parties, dating a little, discovering a life outside of her Central Valley hometown of Fresno. By the time she was twenty-two and a senior, she had landed an internship with Dash’s company; they eventually got married, and that was that.
Imagine being so young and watching your friends and fellow soldiers dying at your side, felled by bullets and disease. Looking out across the frozen but picturesque landscape, Rosalyn tried to envision these fields crisscrossed with barbed wire and trenches dug deep into the sticky mud.
She felt an intense urge to read more of Émile’s letters. To know what it was like.
Back at thegîte, Rosalyn had nothing but time on her hands. When the sun went down, she poured herself a glass of Bordeaux and scoured the Internet for information about the Champagne region during the First World War. She studied photographs of soldiers in the trenches, searching their young faces. The old film showed everything in shades of sepia and gray, though of course in reality theremust have been the light blue of the soldiers’ uniforms, the browns and greens of the mud and surviving vegetation, the pale chalk of the open ground.
The deep red of blood.
When Rosalyn researched the caves, orcrayères, under the champagne houses of Reims, she found mostly tour information. There were a few references to theRémois—the townsfolk from Reims—moving underground during the war, bringing their schools and businesses with them, as Hugh had mentioned. But the information was limited and she couldn’t find any photographs.
Finally, Rosalyn looked up Anastasia’s scissors and found a number of ugly caricatures of a bespectacled old woman wielding an enormous pair of shears. According to one article, twenty members of each army corps were assigned to open and inspect letters, and any statements deemed “subversive,” or that revealed army locations or future plans, werecaviardés—blacked out by pen or cut out altogether. The censors lived under the threat of losing their relatively cushy desk jobs and being sent to the front if they allowed anything to slip past, so while some edited with a light hand, others were downright draconian.
In one song written by a patriotic soldier, a mother tried to talk her son out of going to fight on the front. He replied:
I can only live as apoilu.
If I die here I die without glory.
My country first!—My dear child!—
You are only mamma. My mother is France!
Despite the patriotic fervor of the song, it was suppressed by the censors for expressing an “unbearable appreciation of a mother’s feelings.”
An unbearable appreciation of feelings. Rosalyn deliberated on the phrase, rolling it over in her mind. What a sentiment. It was accurate, though; if people knew what it felt like to lose a beloved one, if they truly understood the agony, the unfathomable waste of a life cut short, they wouldn’t be able to support the war.
It would be, quite simply, unbearable.
?Two days after writing her, Rosalyn logged on to her e-mail and found that Emma had replied:
My favorite AirFrance seatmate! How wonderful to hear from you! I’ve been offline for a few days, but I won’t bore you withthatstory—especially when I have so many others!
Please don’t worry about sending the letter by mail. Too easy for it to get lost, and it’s irreplaceable. I’ll come pick it up, or I’ll send my aide-de-camp, André. Expect us when you see us!
And since we’re on the topic... You’re staying at Gaspard Blé’s gîte, right? It’s on the ground floor, right? No stairs? Are all the rooms occupied? Is Gaspard still out of town? So many questions, so little time...
Rosalyn smiled at Emma’s straightforward enthusiasm, and answered:As far as I can tell, no one else is staying here, so either the room next door is unoccupied or whoever is there is creepily quiet. Ground floor, no stairs. Yes, Gaspard is still out of town. A very nice man named Pietro Santini is watching over the place, and brought me food so I wouldn’t starve. You were right, of course; there’s not much in Cochet, and what little is there is closed for the holidays.
Rosalyn paused, surprised at how much she was enjoying the exchange with Emma, the odd closeness she felt with a near stranger. Maybe it was as Emma said: They really were on the same wavelength.
She continued:In fact, nothing’s open in the surrounding towns, either, which makes me wonder where the locals shop. Or do they spend the holidays churning butter at home? Probably they plan ahead, unlike some of us. The whole area is shuttered and quiet. It’s been very restful. I like it.
Her fingers hovered over the keys for a moment. Finally, she typed,I’ve been putting one foot in front of the other,and hitSEND.
Rosalyn turned her attention to other e-mails, and was surprised and pleased when, a few minutes later, Emma responded:
