The Gathering Storm (19 page)

A glimmer of the red poppies remained. I could see the crimson
color, once so bright. Tonight in the sky there would be stars I had forgotten to look at. Tonight I would remember to see them.

Behind me in the camp, young women laughed together. Spoons
clanked on metal bowls and someone played a gypsy tune on the violin. It was as though someone had arranged it all. But who? Who arranged a giant picnic for strangers living among the dead?

Papa looked at Judah as he drew near and then at me. He said to neither but to both of us: "The oldest suffering has met the newest, and finally the tree bears fruit."

I understood what he meant. Judah's suffering was a lone pain. His loneliness was born of other men's fears that the face behind the mask could be their own.

Judah's green eyes were alive, happy, behind the fixed apparition that concealed his true self. Judah's living vision drank me in. In his long savoring of me, I saw him smile.

"We don't know what to do with ourselves," Judah said, "we Tin
Men. We've been talking to the headstones so long. To hear real voices talking back, we don't know what to do with ourselves."

Mickey Walker called across to Frank Howard, "Bring me a bowl, will you, Frank? I think this might be edible the way they're all after eatin' it."

A single light illuminated the crypt, casting my shadow against the
ceiling. There was a work table and a large pattern laid out with a jig
saw puzzle of a half-completed stained-glass window. A man's navy blue sweater was on the back of a wooden chair. The name, Judah Blood, was written in indelible ink on the laundry mark.

"He's the artist. He created the windows," I remarked.

"Judah?" Jessica breathed. With my nursing and the captain's watchful care, my sister was slowly recovering her strength.

"Yes. Papa told me. And I saw a glass-cutting tool in his vest pocket. It's him."

"He's a miracle worker. I don't think I could've made it if he hadn't..."

"Don't say such a thing." I squeezed my eyes tight. The image of
Judah's eyes, burning with emotion behind an emotionless mask, made me ashamed.

But ashamed of what? That I had not seen his soul when first we met? That I had only looked at the outward appearance? That I had never quite understood that a real human being lived inside the painted shell?

I exhaled slowly as the image of Jessica's agony replayed in my mind. Who was Judah Blood—that he knew how to design and create windows worthy of the Vatican or the great cathedrals of the world? What sort of fellow worked alone on fragile glass in the bowels of a war memorial chapel in the heart of a battlefield? Who was he before? What had he done in his life before the war that made him able to help a woman deliver her baby?

I did not mention these questions aloud, but they gleamed in the front of my brain like a searchlight seeking a secret road home.

Jessica ran her thumb over the baby's downy hair. "I can tell you
this, Loralei. The man knew what he was doing. More even than Doctor Coffel in Brussels. He knew. And I think he saved my life and the baby's life too."

"You would have been okay," I argued, though the reality of what might have happened was a powerful what-if. "I don't want to think about it, okay?"

"Sure." Jessica searched my expression, knowing my heart.

I sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor beside her and watched
as she cradled the baby in her arms. The infant snuffled and turned his face instinctively toward her breast. We grinned in delight as he latched on with a sudden tug.

"Whoa!" Jessica laughed as the baby slurped noisily.

"Impeccable table manners. He's not going to let even one drop escape." I tenderly observed the infant's perfection. "What are you going to name him?"

"I've been giving that lots of thought," Jessica said. "You know I didn't think I wanted a boy...a boy who would be sent off to war someday like his father. So I've decided to call him Nathan Shalom."

"I like it: 'God gives peace.'"

"Yes, it's a prayer. Every time I say his name, it's a prayer."

"Mama would like it, Jessica."

"Hmm." Her smile wavered, and I knew she was thinking of William. Jessica stroked the velvet cheek. "If only William could have..."

"Don't you think he did see him? You know, the great cloud of witnesses?"

Jessica kissed the baby. "Your daddy is so proud."

"He's beautiful. And you're amazing. Hike as long as a soldier. Carry weight like a fieldpack in your belly. Then give birth in a crypt and..." I wagged my head. "You oughta have your name in some sort of record book."

"That Judah." Jessica frowned. "Papa didn't tell us he was a doctor."

"I don't know if Papa knew. I never knew. Even from what I heard, he was just some sort of anonymous fellow behind a mask. I almost didn't much think of him as being a...real person, if you know what I mean."

"His eyes," Jessica said softly. "I only saw his eyes. It was as if he
somehow felt...and understands, at least...pain."

Both of us considered Judah's own pain. What had he experienced when his face had been blown away? "He knows what it means, all right."

Baby Shalom continued to nurse. We sisters sat silently for a long time. I said at last, "Want a cup of tea? I've got the hot plate. See, look. Judah set it up over there."

"Can we have it in Mama's teacups?"

"They're all wrapped up. I wanted them to be safe even if I fell on them."

"Mama would like it, wouldn't she? You and me sharing hot tea served up in her teacups in the crypt of an old church with the entire German army booming toward us. A sort of occasion. Don't you think?"

"If you put it that way, how can I resist?" I set the kettle to boil
on the hot plate, then carefully unwrapped two delicate china cups, leaving the saucers in their nest.

It was true, I thought, as I steeped the Darjeeling and sweetened Jessica's with a single lump of sugar. When I carried the steaming brew to Jessica, the baby was sleeping. Lips parted, a single drop of milk trickled from his rosebud mouth.

Jessica smiled misty-eyed into the cup. "Mama's watching us from heaven, you know, Lora. I heard her cheering when I made it that last mile."

I turned my gaze upward and lifted the cup in salute. "Hey, Mama."

Jessica repeated the motion. "Hey, Mama!"

We each raised the gold rims to our lips at once. "In honor of the boy in the family!"

Their stomachs were filled, and the atmosphere was like Regent's Park on a warm Sunday afternoon. The occupants of Tyne Cott sunned themselves and dozed on blankets spread on the lawn.

From the shade of a sycamore tree, I watched as Gina, Susan, and Judith ventured out from the camp to gather flowers among the silent, other residents of the vast field of dead.

Wilted poppies and nodding lupines filled their arms as they scampered back to me. "We found these for Mommy and the new baby." Gina buried her nose in blossoms.

The younger of the sisters proclaimed, "And this for the doctor, Captain Judah, for saving Gina's mother and the baby too."

Their gesture filled me with a sense of contentment. For a moment I almost forgot the distant rumble of the approaching enemy. "Precious girls. Gina, your mommy will be so pleased. Go on. Take them to your mommy and Captain Judah."

Eyes wide in sudden terror, the girls looked at one another and shook their heads in unison. I asked, "Why? What's wrong?"

Gina pursed her lips. "Well, we can take the bouquet to Mommy,
but not to
him."

The sisters wagged their heads in solemn agreement.

I asked, "Gina? Why ever not?"

She hesitated, as though her thoughts made her ashamed. "You know, Auntie Lora. You know."

I did know. They were afraid of his face. Afraid of the mask and his beautiful eyes that observed everything from behind the painted tin.

Gina squinted as she often did before asking me for something
beyond her reach. "Auntie Lora, will you? Will you take our flowers
to him? Just say we like him. Tell him I said thanks."

"A messenger, am I?" I dried my hands, winked, and gathered
the floral offering into both arms. "All right then." The trio followed
on my heels as I entered the chapel and knocked on the vestry door that Judah used as his office. "Captain Judah, it's Lora Bit-tick... Kepler." I announced my married name, which I seldom used because of my American passport.

His deep, resonant voice replied, "Missus Kepler, come in."

I opened the door and with a backward glance tried to entice the girls to come in with me. They would not but linked arms and peered around me, like three lambs looking into the lion's den.

I left them outside and entered alone, not wanting to draw Judah's attention to their revulsion. He occupied a chair at a massive carved oak desk cluttered with papers. A distinctive cigarette case was open on the green desk blotter before him.

His eyes smiled at me and then beyond me at the girls. I knew he had seen their terror. "Come in, please, and shut the door."

"I've brought a thank offering." I looked around for a vase. "The
girls gathered these for you. By way of gratitude for Jessica's life. And for the baby."

He stood and rummaged through a box, producing the empty shell casing of an artillery round. "Will this do?"

I laughed. "I suppose that's a man's vase."

His green eyes leveled on my face from behind his rigid mask. His voice was surprisingly gentle. "I am a man."

A charge of embarrassment went through me. I stammered, "I—I—I hope it's okay they picked so many."

Pouring a pitcher of drinking water into the shell, he said, "Those who sleep at Tyne Cott won't miss them. And those who are coming to Tyne Cott would have only trampled them. They're fading fast now, anyway."

"Those who are...coming?" I arranged the bouquet.

Judah sat down and extended a hand, inviting me to join him. "You hear the artillery?"

I nodded and sank onto the chair opposite him. "Yes."

"Most of what you hear is not from our guns."

"Yes. My father said that might be the case."

Judah picked up the cigarette case and stared at the inscription inside. "We found this: a memento from the last war. We're still finding little treasures on the grounds. Some artifacts from other wars as well. I lived in Harfleur for a while. A battlefield of Henry the Fifth."

I knew it from Shakespeare's play. "How many centuries ago was that?"

"Every battlefield is riddled with little things the living cherish and carry into battle. A locket with a lock of hair. A silver cross. A lucky coin. And this." He held up the case and passed it to me.

I read the inscription. Personal. Filled with hope for a future that ended too soon. "Makes me feel as if I'm eavesdropping somehow." I nudged it back to him.

"I thought maybe I could find the woman who gave this to him.

Some clue. Maybe she never knew where he fell. So many were unidentified. She would not be old. Forty, maybe. It's worth a try." He sighed and placed the artifact in an envelope that he labeled in red ink. Grasping a poppy, he tucked it inside. "But now, I don't know if there will be time. We finish up planting one graveyard, and then there's a new crop of young men to be sown."

"I am sorry it has happened again."

"Peace only lasts as long as the memory of war."

I changed the subject. "So you were a medical doctor in civilian life?"

"And many things since. I love the peace of this place. We are all waiting for the trumpet. Waiting for the earth to crack open and our friends to rise." He raised his face to me. "Your husband, Missus Kepler? Jewish name, isn't it?"

"My husband, Varrick Kepler. On the front with the BEF, last I heard. A translator for the BEF. He escaped from Germany."

"Ah, yes. You are an American. The marriage. Was it a help to save him?"

"I wish I could have married ten Jews and—"

He laughed. "If you save the life of one Jew, you have saved the
universe."

"Varrick is my universe."

He nodded and considered my words. "I am glad to hear it. A happy ending, Missus Kepler."

I breathed no word of my anxiety that Varrick was dead. "Please.
Lora. Just call me Lora."

"Yes. Loralei? It seems to me I remember..."

I warmed to Judah. "Papa calls me one thing and another."

"Your father is a good man." Judah's words seemed wistful, almost familiar.

"Yes."

"And your mother?"

"She died of a burst appendix. Very suddenly. Very...terrible for
us all."

160

Judah steepled his fingers. "You must look like her. Very beauti
ful. She must have been very proud of you. You know, I could use your face for the Madonna. And baby Shalom as the Christ-child. If there was time to create more windows."