Rosalyn remembered that while her mother had been overjoyed that Rosalyn had “found a good man to take care of her,” a few of her friends had voiced concerns about their different levels of life experience. Such arguments bounced off Rosalyn like water droplets off a waxed finish. She wanted Dash with a kind of mania, studied his fingers and thought of what they could do, inhaled deeply of his scent whenever he was near. She desired him not only physically but with her whole heart; she wanted to cleave to him, to go through the world with him boisterously inviting fellow patrons to dine with them, creating a party everywhere they went, taking care of hotel rooms and rental cars and tickets. Dash had taken care of her, taken care of everything. Except he hadn’t.
“He taught you about wine?” Emma asked.
“Wine and the world, and...everything, really. I’m from the Central Valley of California, and my father left when I was young, so it was just my mother and me. She had to work, of course, but never made much money, so we just scraped by. I had never been to a nice restaurant, never traveled anywhere. I didn’t know much about anything except what I’d read in books. Dash opened up new worlds for me.”
“Sounds lovely.”
Rosalyn nodded. “I used to paint in the vineyard while he worked, and it was... heaven. You know that saying ‘You never appreciate what you have until you lose it’? That wasn’t true for me. I knew how lucky I was, every moment. I felt like I was living in a fairy tale. Everyone in Napa knew Dash. He was larger than life.”
“A ‘great man’?” Emma asked.
Rosalyn was startled by the idea. “I... He... I mean, I suppose so, in some ways.”
“What was your relationship with your dad like?”
“Look, just because Dash was older doesn’t mean I was working out daddy issues.” Rosalyn felt a surge of annoyance. Emma hadn’t known Dash, much less her deadbeat father. Emma didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand.
“Did I say you were?” said Emma. “I was just asking.”
Rosalyn blew out a breath. The flash of irritation ceded to frustration that she couldn’t find the words to describe all she had lost. Even those who had known and loved Dash hadn’t known him the way Rosalyn had, hadn’t experienced the relationship she’d had with him. They couldn’t know. She couldn’t put it into words; she couldn’t explain it.
“Dash brought the joy, that’s all,” Rosalyn said. “And when he died, he took it with him. He took everything with him.”
They drove in silence for a long while.
Then Rosalyn added: “He took everything with him. But he didn’t take me.”
?Although it was late when they returned, Rosalyn didn’t even try to sleep. Instead, she dove back into translating Émile’s letters. She no longer tried to find the correct order, but enjoyed the roulette of picking up letters no matter their date.
August 16, 1917
My dearestmarraine, Mrs. Whittaker,
I am sending you sincerest thanks for the lovely package! I don’t have to tell you my comrades were jealous at the sight of my new scarf, and the tobacco has, I believe, saved my sanity. The playing cards were put straight to use, and my pal Rémy was so moved, he began to sing and play on a funny little fiddle he made from scrap metal.
We left the trenches at xxx on August 5, and marching back nine or ten miles, we eventually reached a village called xxx for the purpose of allowing us a brief respite from the trenches. The signalers thought an orchard would be very convenient to erect our bivouacs in, but an old man appeared at the scene, raising objections. It seems his orchard had been in his family for generations, and he feared the blood and trenches that he had seen marring the fields of others.
After much discussion, we were able to work something out, and traded some tins of confiture for a little fresh milk and a bit of cheese, and the old fellow sold us some apples from his cellar. The fruit was old and slightly soft, but the sweetness mostwelcome. And after too many months of soup and bread, the cheese was heaven, indeed.
We are back in the trenches now. In fact we seem to spend about three times as much time in them as we do out, and at the moment, we expect heavy fire. It was this area toward the end of last summer that witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The countryside is now a veritable maze of trenches, and sometimes we are only about twenty yards from theBoches. The air is thick with bombs, grenades, and trench mortars. These last are a diabolical kind of toy. Their explosion feels like ten earthquakes rolled into one.
I hesitate to tell you this story, my dearmarraine, but you insist that I should tell you all and in truth it has been worrying my mind. The fighting at one time was so fierce that there was only time to bury the dead in the sides of the trenches, but due to rain and bombardment the trenches sometimes start to collapse. So now one is constantly seeing not only boots but the bones of men’s legs or even skulls sticking out from the sides of the trenches. It is not the sight itself that so disturbs me but rather the sense that this has begun to seem normal. I have ceased to see those bones as the sign of a mother’s agony or a wife’s despair or a child’s lifelong anguish, but as the building blocks of the trenches in which I live.
[xxx whole paragraph censored]
I wonder whether these poor fallenpoiluswill be given proper burial one day, when our collective nightmare is over. Otherwise, how will families come to know of the fate of their loved ones? Even now, as we are live men, there are mistakes made. Apparently I look a lot like a man—a boy, really—who comes from Belval-sous-Châtillon; thrice now the officer in charge has mixed us up. When we correct him, he seems to thinkit is a thing of conceit, but believe me when I say it is not. I simply want my remains to be sent back to my loved ones, if the worst happens. I suppose this is the business of war; perhaps those who are running things have a plan. It is hard to believe from here, just now.
With respectful affection, your “godson,”
Émile Legrand
February 1, 1917
My dear Mrs. Whittaker,
This day I fear I have nothing much of optimism to say; please be forewarned! You may not wish to read this letter at all; none could find blame if you burned it, sight unseen.
Here in the trenches wepoilusdescend to primal man. There is no time or water to wash or shave, and the most basic demands of nature are answered as quickly as possible in the handiest shell hole. We are beset by lice and rats, and even trench mouth, where the gums rot and teeth become loose. And of course there are unburied bodies, not only men but also horses, everywhere.
