I love you,
Sunday, October 13
Dear Bertram,
I am writing this in Nancy’s stead, and with great trepidation. I know you will begin to worry if you do not hear from her as usual, but at the same time I don’t want to add to your burden by bringing you bad news. I must tell you, however, that Nancy has been taken sick with influenza.
It was quite sudden, Bertram. She went to sleep with a headache Friday night, and yesterday morning we had to send her to the hospital as her fever had gone up to a hundred and three degrees. She is still very sick, Bertram, and we are all praying for her recovery. I will write to you daily. I pray God that you are safe.
Yours truly,
October 14, 1918
Dear Bertram,
There is no improvement in Nancy’s condition. She is still feverish, and Dr. Henning fears that the influenza may lead to pneumonia. My father is recovering. It is our hope that he will be out of the hospital very shortly. This is his third day without fever, and Dr. Henning says he is no longer in any danger. We hope and pray that Nancy will have the strength to overcome this terrible disease as he did.
God keep you safe, Bertram.
Yours truly,
Clara
Tuesday, October 15
Dear Bertram,
Dr. Henning was here just a short time ago, and I’m afraid the news is neither good nor bad. Nancy’s fever went down to a hundred and one yesterday, but is up to a hundred and three again today. Her lungs seem clear, with no symptoms of either bronchitis or pneumonia, but Dr. Henning is afraid the influenza may have caused some other infection which he cannot as yet diagnose. I will of course let you know as soon as there is any further word.
My father came home today. He is still a bit weak, but seems anxious to get back to work.
God keep you safe.
Yours truly,
I received all three of Clara’s letters on the same day, October 21. It was the day after Timothy Bear got killed in the Clairs-Chênes woods. He had been lying not three feet away from me when the German shell exploded. We had both thrown ourselves headlong into the dirt seconds before it hit. Timothy did not get up after the explosion. He lay silent and motionless with one hand still clasped over the base of his skull, just below the protective line of his helmet. There was no blood on him, no scorched and smoking fabric to indicate he’d been hit. I thought at first he was merely taking a longer time than usual to get to his feet again. I crawled over to him, and I said, “Timothy? Are you okay?” and he did not answer. And then I saw the steel sliver that had pierced the top of his helmet, sticking out of the metal and the skull beneath it like a rusty railroad spike. “Timothy?” I said again, but I knew that he was dead.
The next day, the 33rd Division on our right was relieved by the French 15th Colonial, who brought in mail for us, and with it Clara’s three letters. I had not cried when Timothy Bear was killed. There is something in war, you do not cry, it is almost as if the person never existed. But now, reading Clara’s letters, I began to weep because I was certain I would lose Nancy, too, and then nothing in the world would matter. They thought I was shell-shocked at first. I cried all during the attacks on La Mi-Noel and the Bois de Forêt and the small woods southwest of Clery-le-Grand, cried throughout the mopping-up operations on October 24. I did not stop crying until we were relieved by the 5th Division on October 27, and sent back to Montfaucon, leaving our artillery behind in support.
A letter from Eau Fraiche was waiting for me upon my arrival there.
Sunday, October 20
Hello, darling,
Clara says she’s been afraid to write to you for almost a week, so let me assure you here and now that I am alive and well and back home again and in receipt of two letters from you, so I know that you’re safe, too, and that’s all that matters to me.
They thought I was dying.
I’ll tell you something, Bert, I thought so, too!
Oh boy, Bert, what a time it was! I guess Clara told you it started with an awful headache which I didn’t pay any mind to because I figured it was caused by all the worry over Daddy and everything. But the next morning I tried to get out of bed and almost fell on the floor, I was so dizzy. And there was a terrible knife pain behind my eyes, as if someone was inside trying to cut his way out! Mother took my temperature, and I seemed to be all right, but that night it shot up from normal to a hundred and three and Dr. Henning packed me off to McIver. (They are now calling people like Daddy and me, who go to the emergency hospital and manage to get out of it alive, “McIver Survivors.”) I didn’t think I would make it, Bert. I kept having terrible nightmares, all about Hell and being burned alive at the stake, and this went on for more than a week, which is quite unusual since if you’re going to get well at all it usually takes three or four days for the fever to pass. Dr. Henning tells me, though, that I also had a touch of encephalitis, and that I’m “a very lucky little girl.”
I have to tell you something, Bert.
I can’t hear too well in my right ear. Dr. Henning says this was caused by the infection in the auditory center, and may be temporary or permanent, but that in any event it is a small price to pay. I feel terrible about it because I don’t think it’s exactly feminine to be saying “How’s that?” all the time, do you? Will you still love me if I have to carry around a horn?
Clara is here with some aspirin and some hot milk, so I’d better take it and close the light. She has been an absolute dear all through this. I may even let her read your next letter (if you promise not to say any of those awful things in it!) Seriously, Bert, I think it might be a good idea if you wrote to her personally, if you have the time, that is. She was so worried that she’d done the wrong thing in telling you I was sick, and I know a reassuring word from you would set her mind at ease.
Keep safe and well, Bert, and let’s hope the war will soon be over as they say it will be. Then you can come home and marry me, and we will live happily ever after, okay?
I love you,
November
The train had come down from Boston, and it was jam-packed when it stopped at New Haven. She had her crap spread out all over the seat, two valises, a guitar, and a duffle bag, as if she were going on a grand tour of the Bahamas instead of probably just home for the Thanksgiving weekend. I had conic through three cars looking for a seat, and when I spotted her living in the luxury of this little nest she’d built, I stopped and said, “Excuse me, is this taken?”
She had dark brown eyes and long black hair parted in the middle of her head, falling away straight on both sides of her face, framing an oval that gave a first impression of being too intensely white, lips without lipstick, checks high and a bit too Vogue-ish, a finely sculpted nose and a firm chin with a barely perceptible cleft. The look she gave me was one of extreme patience directed at a moron, her glance clearly saying Can’t you see it’s taken?
“Well, is it?” I asked.
“I’ve got my stuff on it,” she answered. Her voice sounded New Canaan or mid-Eighties Park Avenue. It rankled immediately.
“I see that,” I said, “but is anyone sitting here?”
“I’m sitting here.”
“Besides you.”
“No.”