A Star for Mrs. Blake (30 page)

You cannot, and it’s been a fact for thirteen years, thought Bobbie, straightening up in the uncomfortable chair. She pulled the black veil down from her hat so that it shaded her eyes, and folded her gloved hands in her lap. But touching him was hardly relevant, was it, since she was staring at his grave? There was nothing to be done, she told herself firmly. She was here, that’s the only thing that mattered now. She’d done it. She had made the trip. She took a deep draft of the pollen-scented air of rural France and closed her eyes and thought of Henry. And with that, Bobbie Olsen was at peace.

As they passed, Hammond and Katie saw Bobbie seated primly on the folding chair, and discreetly left her to her thoughts. Katie’d had difficulty leaving the protection of the administration house and Hammond asked if she’d like company. She said yes and he offered his arm. She steadied herself and began to talk, searching for a subject that would save her from acknowledging the heartache out loud. Almost any deep emotion came tagged with transgression, personal things that should be addressed in the confessional, between herself and a servant of God. Here in the raw sunlight with this boy would have been unseemly.

“You know, my mother never wanted me to leave Ireland,” she began, as if telling an amusing anecdote. “She even hid my ticket. But my sister told me where, and I found it, and I went down and booked the passage. There was nothin’ anyone could do about it then! My husband is Irish but American-born, and that was a big catch for a country girl. I surely wrote home and let ’em know.”

They were just outside the door of the main house, facing a row
of red, white, and blue flags, bright and solemn on their golden staffs topped with eagles, and beyond that lay America’s sons.

“But now I’m an American, too,” Katie McConnell said.

Hammond waited patiently, and when the moment was right, walked her with military grace down the steps to find the graves of the brothers, side by side. They were way past Henry Olsen, M.D., nearer to the Memorial Chapel and halfway across the long unbroken row. Katie walked right up and kissed the stones, one and then the other, and touched them lovingly. Hammond set a chair down for her and withdrew. Lily was accompanying Wilhelmina, he knew, and Minnie, clutching a tiny black Hebrew prayer book, assured him this was something she must tend to alone. She seemed dignified by her faith, and her steps were slow but poised as she went in the direction of a Star of David headstone, prominent in a sea of Latin crosses.

Cora had lingered behind, slowed by dread in the pit of her stomach. Having come this far, she was surprised by how difficult these last steps were proving to be. When she finally walked out the door of the main house, she was met by the overwhelming sight of the entire layout of the cemetery. It must have been more than a hundred acres. There was still much open construction. The trees were in. The rows of 14,247 pristine stones were stark against the green. The view from up here on the hill stunned the heart. There were so many markers that they blurred together. Or was it her tears?

Sammy’s stone was located in Plot C, Row 44, Grave 16. Drifting along in a dream, she passed mothers from other groups, black and white, floating in a similar state of disbelief and awe. The stones were larger than life, waist-high and of pure white marble. She came to his name, as featureless as the rest. It was supposed to be Sammy but it was only letters.

She stared and stared. “Sammy?” she said out loud. “It’s Mama. I’m here.”

There was no answer. The cross was puzzling. It was so big. It held no religious significance for her. It seemed like a stump with arms and no face—mute and frozen in time—an army of young men transformed into anonymous symbols. She knelt on the grass that rolled on seamlessly between the rows, and blindly felt the ground with her hands. Was he there? The cross said nothing. She took the shells they’d collected on Great Spruce Island from the pocket in the dress she’d sewn in for that purpose, and laid them tenderly at the foot of the marble, holding in her mind the sound of wavelets lapping the rocks of their cove, as if she could transport that image through the airwaves to Sammy. It was important for Sammy to know the cove was there like always, quiet and untouched, and that she passed it almost every day. She missed him so. A great and nameless force, more powerful than sadness, overcame her. She wept and said out loud,
“Don’t leave!”
—the words she’d uttered when she received the letter brought to the door of the farmhouse by postmaster Eli Grimble, accompanied by the doctor and the minister. It had been written in pencil by hand and was scarcely readable, probably dashed off because the officer had so many to write:

11/7-18

She’d gripped the letter saying,
“Don’t leave!”
And years later, to Linwood in the middle of the night, “He shouldn’t be there. He doesn’t deserve to be there. Alone, in the cold ground.” Linwood held her and stroked her shuddering shoulders and said, “That’s not where he is.” Where was he? Would he come back with her to Maine on those mystic airwaves—or did he live here now among the white
stones? She knew that he had loved her with all the strength of his being, with a son’s undeniable and abiding love. But she wept because he was on the other side of the curtain, at the same time knowing that her tears were useless because they, like everything, would pass. Every time she thought it was done and wanted to flee, she couldn’t. Like waves in the ocean, it took a breath, pulled back, and knocked her down again.

Her reddened eyes squinted against the brightness of the sky. Silence entered her ears and pressed against her brain. Did anybody laugh here? Did anyone rejoice at happy memories? Or did that not serve our country? She stood up, running her fingers along the stone, noting the smooth edgework. She knew something that she hadn’t known before. She’d always imagined Sammy falling alone in suspended space like a stage backdrop, but now she saw a marble forest of young men who were dead, and knew that Sammy was, had been, and always would be in their company. A spasm of grief almost doubled her up—for her boy, for all the boys, and for the lives they never had. And then, a moment ago unbearable, it left her like the breeze.

It was a new day at the Hôtel Nouvel. When the pilgrims came down to breakfast, they found roses on the tables. The stingy cornflakes were gone and the sideboard had been loaded with platters of sausage, along with toasted baguettes and scrambled eggs. The owner’s wife stood at a portable stove wearing a clean apron and making crêpes filled with sautéed apples. Even the coffee smelled richer.

As they stood in line, Lily whispered, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” said Hammond. “We never asked for all this.”

“Maybe they finally realized they should be grateful to the U.S. Army for putting us up in their hotel.”

“As long as they don’t put it on the bill,” Hammond said, smothering his crêpes with a thick layer of Chantilly cream.

Bobbie was waving everyone over to an empty table, and one by one the others joined, including Lily and Hammond. Since Cora and Bobbie were roommates and Minnie and Katie, despite their bickering, were still a pair—and Wilhelmina went wherever the wind blew—it was unusual for all of them to eat together. But after the visit to the graves, everyone seemed to want the security of the group. Just as they’d settled, two glass-paneled doors opened, and the owner of the hotel was wheeled into the breakfast room by his son.

Both were clean-shaven and wearing fresh shirts. The old man was beaming and waving a claw as if to an admiring crowd.

“Mon père est bien conscient,”
explained the son,
“que les mères américaines nous ont rendus célèbres.”

“He says that today the hotel is famous,” Bobbie said, “because of the American mothers.”

“Why because of us?” Minnie asked.

The son had given Hammond a copy of
Le Matin
.

“C’est à la page trois,”
he said.
“Il parle de notre hôtel.”

Bobbie translated: “He says it’s in the French newspaper that the pilgrimage is staying here.” She leaned over Hammond to read a few lines, skeptically arching an eyebrow. “Obviously, they never asked
our
opinion of the place.”

Hammond was quickly scanning the text. “Mrs. Blake! This article is all about you.”

“Me?”

“ ‘The story of an American mother named Cora Blake who traveled 3,300 miles to visit her son’s grave at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery is just one of thousands of pilgrims who have made the journey, but it is a special story of enduring mother love …’ ”

Bobbie’s eyes widened. “Did our Grif write that?”

Hammond nodded. “ ‘By Griffin Reed. Listen to this:
‘Her brilliant blue eyes filling with tears, Mrs. Cora Blake explained that she had come to France in order to lay seashells on the grave of her son, Samuel, so that he’d never be far from the town in Maine where she raised him—’ ”

Katie folded her hands over her purse with exaggerated gentility. “Isn’t that nice.”

“But who is Griffin Reed?” Minnie wanted to know.

“A friend of mine,” Bobbie said casually.

Katie examined a spoon. “They call this polished? This would never pass muster in my mistress’s house.” She replaced it, exchanging a look with Minnie. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?” Cora asked.

“How you got to be in the newspaper,” Minnie piped up.

“Money talks,” Wilhelmina agreed sagely.

Lily thought Wilhelmina looked more doped than usual. She wondered if the crafty old gal had gotten into the Red Cross satchel in their room.

“Excuse me,” Bobbie said, in the gravelly superior voice she might use to dismiss a taxi driver. “Are you implying that because an article appears in a French newspaper, it’s somehow a result of
my
influence?”

Minnie zipped a finger across her lips. “I never said a word.”

“I must have a lot of pull! Can’t you believe anything just
happens
?”

“
Somebody
was pulling strings. The article should have been about all of us—not just one.”

“Write a letter to the editor,” Wilhelmina suggested.

“You know, Minnie? That’s just mean,” Cora said in defense of Grif. “You make it sound like I intentionally tried to leave everyone else out—”

“She’s not blaming you—” Katie said.

Cora turned on her. “Yes, she is—”

“It’s up to the newspaper, what they say,” Bobbie put in.

“Ladies!” Hammond said sharply. “Decorum, please!”

They lowered their eyes and ate in tense silence. Another reason the group didn’t travel in tight formation was the friction that had been building between Minnie and Bobbie. Minnie boiled over Bobbie’s optimism, and Bobbie was impatient with Minnie’s prickly insistence that nothing would turn out right. While they’d been traveling, alliances had formed and re-formed, but now that they were in still waters, everything could fester—nerves, terror, exhaustion, prejudice—and everyone was low on reserves. Although they’d been given markers—plain and simple, in precisely plotted rows—the pilgrims were finding themselves in uncharted emotional territory.

Hammond snapped the newspaper shut. The crêpes were congealing like sludge in his stomach.

“All right, fine. Here’s the schedule for today. First we go to Romagne to view the area where the Yankee Division fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and then we picnic in the woods by the Marne River.”

“How does that sound?” Lily prompted cheerfully.

Katie said, “No.”

“No?”

Katie had been pursued by bad dreams of headless trolls; the last place she wanted to go was into the woods. She stood up at the table. “It’s a curse to go picnicking when we’re here to pray.”

Hammond began, “But of course we can pray—”

“I won’t be part of it,” Katie said. “I’ll get me a taxi to the cemetery and the rest of you can party all ye like.”

Hammond was on his feet as well. “Hold it, wait, calm down, Mrs. McConnell. We’re all going to the cemetery together.”

Katie put a hand on her hip. “And when is that? All I’m hearin’ is larkin’ about on picnics—”

“We’re going in the afternoon,” Lily said smoothly. “We thought it would be cooler and more comfortable later in the day. Is that all right with you? Everyone?”

Heads were nodding.

“Well, you should’ve made that clear at the beginnin’!” Katie said, and sat down hard, clearly unsettled.

“If there’s no more dissent, I’ll go and see about the bus.”

With a severe look at all of them, Hammond left the table, followed by Lily, who was on the way to her room to collect the Red Cross bag. From her point of view, a picnic meant bug bites and sunburn.

“Bully for you,” she told Hammond as they crossed the lobby.