The Soldier's Dark Secret

The sky was overcast, the sea a froth of white. Clutching her cloak around her, the hood pulled over her face, Celeste made her way down the main street of the village to the churchyard. She sat by the graves for a long time, closing her eyes and allowing the memories, good and bad, to wash over her. There were still many more painful than pleasant, but she made no attempt to filter them. They were all hers, every one of them. She allowed herself to cry for the first time for the simple loss of her mother. Looking at Henri’s stark grave, she felt no sorrow, only pity for the very unhappy man she saw now he had been, and anger too that he had taken whatever ailed him out on the innocent child she had been.

‘As you did too, Maman,’ she said, kneeling down and spreading her fingers wide on the stone. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘I can tell you that now that you are not here to prevent me. I love you and I wish—I am still angry, a little, with you for not allowing me to. So I do want very much to be able to understand, because I do want, very, very much to be able to forgive you. And myself.’

* * *

Leaving the churchyard an hour later, Celeste found herself reluctant to return to the house. Stopping at the café for a breakfast of café au lait and freshly baked rustic bread, she watched the last of the fishing boats set sail, and the sky, in the way it did at this time of year, change from grey to pale blue. As she approached the house, her footsteps began to drag. She did not want Jack to tell her that he’d been unable to find any clue as to her mother’s connection with Arthur Derwent. This was her last chance to find her answers, and she needed them more than ever. She didn’t want to have to live with thinking so badly of Maman.

More selfishly, she did not want to have to learn to live with the not knowing, and the guilt which nagged and niggled at her every time she thought of her mother’s last visit to Paris. She remembered all those weeks ago—goodness, a lifetime ago— asking Jack how the families of the men who had taken their own lives coped without answers. She furrowed her brow, trying to recall what he had replied, and realised that he had not. He had spared her the truth, that in most cases there were no answers. He would never know for certain why the girl chose to kill herself. He would never know if his being there made any difference. He would never know how close he had come that day to his own death. The girl had spared him. If only Jack would spare himself.

Celeste walked on past the house to the end of the village and the coastal path. The series of limestone cliffs known locally as calanques embraced the vivid blue of the Mediterranean like welcoming arms. Some were deep-water bays, some more gently shelving sandy coves. Here was the one where the deep fissures formed a cave she had once been taken to on a boat trip. It had been summer. She remembered diving from the boat and swimming into the dark, dank cavern. She closed her eyes, trying to picture herself. Twelve? Thirteen? So she had been home from school for the summer. Another memory she had suppressed.

The gentle breeze whipped her hair across her face. She had not bothered putting it into her usual chignon, but had tied it back with a ribbon. In the summer, the heat made walking along the calanques unbearable. Scrub fires were common. Surrendering to impulse, Celeste found the narrow footpath that zigzagged down the cliff to the sandy bay beneath. Sitting on the white sand, watching the waves lap at the steeply shelving beach, she finally allowed her mind to turn to last night.

She was in love with Jack. A smile played on her lips, thinking of the wonder of their lovemaking, only for it to fade into sadness as she faced the sheer wall of hopelessness. Her own journey into her past had peeled from her the years of hard-earned indifference, exposing her to the storm of emotions she’d weathered since first reading her mother’s letter. This new Celeste could be hurt. She cried far too much. She felt guilt and anger, but she also felt love for the first time in her life. That too would cause her pain, because the man she loved could not come to terms with the horrors lurking in his own past.

Thinking back to that night when Jack had told her about the massacre in the village, the horror of it struck her afresh, but she could not, as she had done until now, quite equate Jack’s story with Jack’s determination to make himself miserable. ‘Mon Dieu, that is exactly what he is doing, just exactly like Maman!’