The Steady Running of the Hour A Novel by Justin Go

Author:Justin Go
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2014-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE CROSS

It rains the whole drive to La Calotterie. Mireille drives as I try to guide us by an old Michelin map from the glove box. We see the water tower as we approach the village, a circle of Romanesque arches in brick with a basin at the top. It lies on a treeless brown field on the far side of town. Mireille navigates to it by sight, zigzagging on paved and gravel roads until we find the fenced-in plot of land that borders the tower. We follow a dirt driveway up to the house and see the name glued in metal letters onto the mailbox: DESMARAIS.

Mireille looks at me.

—You still want to go?

—I don’t know. It can’t hurt to ask.

We park in front of the two-story stone farmhouse. I ask Mireille if she will do the talking. As we get out of the car, the front door of the house swings open and an elderly man looks at us. He wears a checked shirt and his pants are clasped high above a sagging paunch by a leather belt. Behind him a television blares from the living room, something about cigarette price increases in France.

—Bonjour, Mireille says. Êtes-vous Monsieur Desmarais?

The old man regards us suspiciously through pale and watery eyes. He admits that he is Monsieur Desmarais. Mireille tells him our names, touching my arm as she explains that my great-grandfather was an English soldier who was billeted near here with a family called Lefèvre during la Grande Guerre. Desmarais studies us further. He inches forward and looks at the iron sky above our shoulders, at the dirty Peugeot in the driveway.

—Bien, he says. Come inside before you get wet.

Desmarais takes our coats in his beefy hands and sets them on wooden hangers. He hooks the hangers on a curtain rod above the radiator in the living room, then he sits down in an armchair. We sit on a sofa wholly encased in yellowing plastic that adheres to our clothes and makes strange noises as we shift uncomfortably in our seats. Desmarais switches off the television.

—I live alone, he says in French. I don’t go shopping often. So I have nothing to offer you to drink.

Mireille tells him that we are fine as we are. Desmarais asks Mireille where she is from and they talk a little about Picardie. He asks Mireille if I’m English and I tell him I’m American. The old man nods.

—I knew Americans. In ’44. But you have not come to talk about that.

Desmarais glances at Mireille. He looks back at me.

—I was born in 1926. So I never met the Englishman.

—The Englishman?

—He stayed here with my mother’s family. The Lefèvres. My father’s name was Desmarais—

The old man has a strong northern accent and I understand him only with difficulty. He explains that many English soldiers stayed with his mother’s family during the war, but only one officer. His mother was a young girl then and the officer helped her with her lessons.

—The Englishman had been wounded, Desmarais says.

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