Blue Ravens: Historical Novel (44 page)

Augustus and my parents told original and elusive stories about tricksters, and in different styles. The stories my uncle told were more political as the trickster would tease and outwit federal agents. Honoré, my father, told more elusive trickster stories about natural reason and the sentiments of animals and humans. Father Aloysius Hermanutz was a pensive listener, and smiled over the tease of the trickster in stories, but the stories he told were about piety, devotion, sacrifice, salvation, and godly virtues over demonic temptations.

Augustus teased the priest to consider that trickster stories provided visionary surprises, ironic humor, and delight in the face of fear, war, and ordinary contradictions. My uncle declared that stories about evil were the tedious cutthroats of irony. Divine and patriotic stories were never trustworthy in the face of a fierce enemy in war, so the only stories that created a sense of presence were about ingenious tricksters who fractured and outwitted the contradictions of tragic monotheism with guile, creature transformations, and with gestures of humane irony. Native tricksters created avant-garde art.

My first written stories about the dance of the plovers were visionary trickster stories. The most inspired and deceptive plover dances were a variety of feigns and guises as evasive entertainment, and not a predictable pattern or liturgy.

Aloysius created blue ravens as tricksters in elusive portrayals of the
mutilés de guerre
, and the broken faces of soldiers. The scenes at statues and monuments were fractured and grotesque to alter the common sentiments of heroic stature and countenance, the obvious evasion of naturalism and monotheism.

Blue Ravens and Fractured Peace
,
Medals of Honor
,
The Great Wave on the River Seine
, and
Dreyfus in Natural Motion
were the four large portrayals by my brother. He painted two vertical totem scenes,
Totemic Wounds
and
Blue Horses at the Senate
, and fourteen other blue raven portrayals that included
Apollinaire in Flight
,
Saint Michel the Blue Raven
,
Blue Raven Mutilés
,
Natchez Liberty
,
Danton Strategies
, and
Fontaine des Innocents.

A wide blue-and-rouge banner with our signatures as artists announced
the exhibition, and was posted on the display window of the Galerie Crémieux. Aloysius painted a small raven with a broken beak on the right side of my forehead, and a larger blue raven with a fractured wing and touched with rouge on the back of his left hand. Naturally, visitors to the gallery observed the raven on my forehead but never inquired about the beak or the reason. The gesture seemed rather ordinary, and associated with the exhibition, of course, but my reasons were related to trickster stories about the
mutilés de guerre
and political masks of the Great War.

Copies of my new book of war stories,
Le Retour à la France: Histoires de Guerre
, were on display in the window, and stacked on a table at the entrance. The
Corbeaux Bleus: Les Mutilés de Guerre
, twenty blue raven portrayals, were framed and the showcase art of the gallery. The four large watercolor paintings were mounted in a row on the back wall of the gallery, and the two vertical portrayals were displayed on easels near the entrance.

Nathan provided wines, cheeses, baguettes,
petits sablés
, coconut and chocolate macaroons, and other desserts. Most people arrived at dusk, and before dinner, in groups of artists and curators. Marie Vassilieff, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Berthe Weill, Moïse Kisling, Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, Marc Chagall, his wife Bella, daughter Ida, and several student artists were the first to examine my book and view the blue ravens by Aloysius. A mysterious art professor and collector had arrived earlier in the day from Germany. He examined the twenty portrayals that afternoon, and returned for the formal exhibition for a second review of the blue
ravens.

Pierre Chaisson and the wounded veterans from the Square du Vert-Galant arrived later at the gallery. The veterans had painted elegant blue ravens on their cheeks to honor the creation of blue ravens and Aloysius. My brother was moved by the gesture, and was ready to paint blue ravens on the cheeks of anyone in the gallery. Marie, Sylvia, Adrienne, Moïse, Berthe, and most of the art students were decorated with blue ravens that night at the gallery.

Several weeks later my brother presented to each of the wounded veterans a small original portrayal of broken blue ravens with the
mutilés de guerre
in the shadows of the Pont Neuf on the River Seine.

The wounded veterans hobbled around the gallery, examined the art, drank wine, gobbled the macaroons, and teased my brother about the success
of his pictures. They talked to the gallery owners and other artists about the horror and brilliance of war and broken blue ravens.

Olivier Black Elk, Coyote Standing Bear, André, and Henri arrived with another group of artists. Aloysius commented at the time on the incredible coincidence of two native pretenders and masked soldiers in the gallery at the same moment. The native feign of a romantic presence, and the disguise of a broken face. The cruel connections were ironic and obscure, but the agony of that moment was never forgotten, and became one of my best trickster stories of endurance. André and Henri had returned from several years of exile and avoidance in Sète, a commune on the Mediterranean Sea near Montpellier.

Nathan introduced the native veterans to the gallery owners, the other artists, and to our friends. The gallery was crowded, and the conversations were lively, spontaneous, and serious comments were appreciated more fully with a sense of native irony.

The four larger watercolor portrayals were priced at fifteen hundred francs, and the smaller pictures at twelve hundred francs, a few hundred francs higher than the series last year,
Thirty-Six Scenes of Blue Ravens and Bridges on the River Seine.
The franc had lost value in the past year, and was worth about half as much converted to the dollar. Our expenses were the same, and we had never made as much money, so we were not directly affected by the financial crisis in the country.

I overheard one art collector comment that the blue ravens were tourist scenes. My response to the critical comment was direct and concise, that tourist art was not about the
mutilés de guerre
and broken faces of soldiers. Tourist art was a romantic promotion, the commercial nonsense of nationalism, not the scenes of wounded soldiers, and the masks that cover fractured faces and gestures. The art collector looked around the gallery, and then turned to explain that his comments were inconsiderate. I ordered the young collector to have his cheeks painted, and later he actually engaged André and Henri in conversation. He was nervous, of course, and told tourist stories about his family in Boston, Massachusetts. André and Henri appeared to listen to the stories, but the pleasant artistic expressions of the metal masks remained the same.

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler returned several times to consider
Dreyfus in Natural Motion
and
Natchez Liberty.
He told me that the references to
French colonialism, the commerce in slavery of natives, and the biased and wrongful persecution and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus were subjects considered much too risky to present or even discuss at an art exhibition.

Kahnweiler was born a Jew in Germany, and that became a double persecution during the Great War. France was his choice of residence, with absolute loyalty, and his primary language of art, literature, and culture, but he was persecuted and forced to leave his home and gallery in Paris. Kahnweiler confirmed once again that his collection of incomparable cubist and avant-garde art was seized and sold at auction by the police. Not an easy conversation that night at the gallery, but he was never hesitant or unclear about his critical sentiments on colonialism and empire slavery.

Nathan raised his voice and announced my reading of sections from
Le Retour à la France: Histoires de Guerre
. He had translated my collection of stories and the Galerie Crémieux published the book in French. I was hesitant to practice my French, and instead read the short sections that night in English, and Nathan read the selected translations in French.

The gallery was silent. I could hear my breath. Marie smiled and waited for me to read. Every person in the gallery waited for me to read, but the silence was a hindrance. I had never read to a crowd, and was very nervous.

André bowed his head and touched his mask with one finger. That gesture of respect as a veteran relieved my anxiety, and that reminded me to begin the reading with the dedication of my stories to the
mutilés de guerre
and to the courage of André and Henri.

I read three concise stories from the book. The first scene was written about my arrival on the
Mount Vernon
, a troop ship, at Brest, France. The second concise story was about the utter destruction of Château-Thierry, and the last story was a scene about camouflage and combat near the Vesle River at Fismette. I concluded with my recent imagistic poem, “Prefects of the River Seine.”

Brest
: The Mount Vernon and other troopships delivered newly trained soldiers and then immediately returned with the casualties, the badly wounded in the war. Suddenly the wave of red sails and excitement of our arrival had ended, and every soldier on the dock stared in silence at the wounded. Medical vehicles were loaded with wounded soldiers, hundreds of desolate soldiers with heads, hands, and faces bound in bloody bandages. Many of the soldiers had lost arms and legs.

Château-Thierry
: The Germans had bombed the bridge over the Marne River at Château-Thierry. The ruins of churches, farms, and entire communes became a common sight as the trucks moved in a column on the narrow roads west to Villiers-Saint-Denis and Château-Thierry.

German artillery had exploded the roofs, collapsed the walls of houses and apartments, and cracked louvers exposed the private scenes of the heart, bedrooms, closets, kitchens, furniture, and abandoned laundry on a rack. Broken crockery, and the legacy of lace curtains set sail for liberty. Familiar shadows were disfigured at a primary school, and children searched for the seams of memory. The scent of ancient dust lingered in the favors of the country.

Vesle River
: Aloysius painted the blue wing feathers of abstract ravens on the cheeks of the infantry soldiers. The spread of primaries created the illusion of a face in flight. Yes, every painted soldier returned safely from combat that night. Blue was a secure color of peace, courage, and liberty. The soldiers saved the paint on their faces, and later my brother retouched the feathers.

Aloysius lead the way through the forest muck in leaps and bounds with each burst of lightning and explosion to secure a natural mound in the center of huge cracked trees. Our strategy was to fall asleep there despite the weather and artillery, to become a native presence in the folly and deadly chaos of the war. My brother was a warrior beam, the face of malice in every flash of lightning.

The artillery bombardment ended early in the morning. The trees around the mound emerged in the faint traces of light as black and splintered skeletons. We were native scouts in a nightmare, a curse of war duty to capture the enemy.

The Boche reeked of trench culture, and we could easily sense by nose the very presence of the enemy. An actual presence detected by the cranks and throaty sounds, and by the very scent of porridge, cordite, moist earth, biscuits, and overrun latrines at a great distance. Some odors were much more prominent, urine, cigarettes, and cigars, that moist morning. Officers smoked cigars, so we knew we were close to a command bunker. The most obvious scent of the enemy was the discarded tins of Wurst and Schinkin, sausage and ham, and the particular rations of Heer und Flotte Zigaretten and Zigarren.

The Great War could be described by the distinctive scent of mustard gas, chlorine, urine, putrefied bodies, cheesy feet, machine oil, and by cigarettes, Heer und Flotte, Gauloises Caporal, and Lucky Strike.

I paused and turned toward the display window. Two children had pressed their faces against the glass. I waved and motioned with my hand to enter the gallery, but the children ran away.

PREFECTS OF THE RIVER SEINE
Mighty blue ravens
prefects of wounded memories
seasons of war
and the
mutilés de guerre
mustered on the ancient tributaries
down to the River Seine

Soldiers gather overnight
ghostly camps on the
zone rouge
warn the successors
and search for the strays

The early sunrise broken
stream of bodies
shards of country bones
crushed cheeks
noses sheared
bloated hands and shoulders
come ashore in uniform

The Somme and Meuse
Marne and Aisne
Oise and the Seine River
headwaters of the
mutilés de guerre
generations of blue bones
blurred forever on the waves

out to the stormy sea

No one in the gallery that night dared to applaud the images of war, wounded soldiers, or the
mutilés de guerre
at the end of the reading. My
brother saluted me, and repeated some of the images of wounded soldiers, children, and the river,
shoulders come ashore in uniform,
seams of memory,
streams of bodies,
generations of blue bones
, and
out to the stormy sea.

Marie was teary.

André touched his mask with a finger and bowed a second time to me. Henri came forward and touched my cheeks, a gesture of respect. Kahnweiler silently clapped his hands together. Moïse, the soldier and painter, aimed his pipe at me, and then he poured another glass of wine. Augustus, my uncle, came to mind that night in every word and gesture.

The German art collector had closely examined each portrayal several times, and yet he never said a word about the blue ravens, the composition, or the style. Once or twice he touched his right ear, and rubbed the bristly white hair on his chin, but never uttered a word to suggest his mood, assessment, appreciation, or critique.