Chapter 5

Between the Lines

“My dear Juliet,

“I hope this letter finds you well—and in a forgiving mood.

“It seems we hurt most the people we love most. It seems I hurt most the people I love most. I am sorry. I am sorry I hurt you. Please understand that I never intended to cause you distress, never meant to betray you, please understand that I did what my conscience told me to do.

“Do you remember how we talked about honour once?* I said I couldn’t look into the mirror in the morning if I knew I’d done something dishonourable. And before I left for Virginia it was hard to look at myself in the mirror, harder and harder each day. Staying out of the war and letting others fight for my convictions seemed just that: dishonourable. Mylady, remember how you told me you thought I was incapable of doing something dishonourable? That I would never do anything I thought was wrong?

“I thought staying safely at home was wrong.”

Juliet snorted. Leave it to Adam to use my own words against me. She read his bold script again, and only on that second reading she realised he even had mimicked her spelling. “Honour.” She shook her head, trying to suppress the smile that threatened to light up her features, and she snorted again as she surrendered to the futileness of it. As she felt the family’s eyes on her, she looked up to see Ben gazing at her questioningly. She smiled faintly at him, finding herself embarrassed and quickly lowered her eyes to the letter she held in a white-knuckled grip.

“And it would have been wrong. Leopold Hohmeyer and I were enthusiastically welcomed at the XI Corps. They do need every able man after they sustained some losses at Chancellorsville in early May. I was made sergeant with the prospect of being promoted soon. I’m not sure I want to be promoted, though. Don’t roll your eyes. I’m not an expert in military life, and having to command a bunch of soldiers who are far more experienced than I am reminds me painfully of the first weeks at the Ponderosa when I came home from college.

“We’re now stationed near Fredericksburg, where we moved shortly after I enlisted. Life at the camp is a bit like going on a hunting trip. I’m sharing a tent with Leo and a handful of other men, most of them German immigrants. There are two brothers, Karl and Fritz Boettcher, who remind me a lot of Hoss and Joe. Fritz has a new inventive idea on how to raise their meager pay every second day; and Karl takes care that his brother doesn’t fall too hard on his behind when his latest scheme goes inevitably awry. It’s almost like being at home. They are good men, and very amiable. Along with Leo, who has become a close friend in a very short time, they try to teach me German words. Words like Liebchen and mein Schatz—I asked Leo to confirm those words I mentioned mean “sweetheart” and “my darling” (be sure, Fritz loves to slip in words I can’t share with you)—as well as commands like schnell and Deckung (“quick” and “get cover.”)

“But you don’t really need my translations, do you? I know now that your German must be much better than you made me believe. General Schurz does indeed remember you. He said you plagued him with questions about the Bonner Zeitung when he wanted to teach you Goethe’s words. Yes, he said “plagued.” What have you done to the poor man?”

“Why…? Nothing,” Juliet couldn’t help but mumble indignantly. All she had done was inquire after the German Revolution in which she’d known Schurz had played not too small a role and the newspaper he had founded. There was nothing wrong in being interested in one’s work, was there? Very fortunately the rest of her family was too occupied with studying their own letters to notice her muttering.

The rest of her family. Her family. When had she started to consider them her family, not just her husband’s? It must have happened sometime between her coming home from San Francisco and today. As if Adam’s absence had moved them closer together, as if missing Adam had connected them more than loving him. She let the hand holding Adam’s letter sink down into her lap, taking a break from reading to watch her family.

Hoss sat on the edge of the hearth, holding his letter in both hands. His back was bent, his face showed attentive concentration. He knew that every word Adam wrote counted, and he knew how to read the whole truth out of them.

Hoss, with his sky-blue eyes that reminded her so much of her brother Henry, had been her friend from the moment they’d met; and in the year she’d been married to Adam, he had become a brother. In many ways a different brother than Henry had been, but very similar in that one thing: Hoss was one of the few people by whom she felt understood. Recognised. She never felt the need to explain anything to him.

Joe, sitting on the settee, had his letter loosely in one hand, his elbow resting on a cushion and his feet on the table—a fact that must have slipped his father’s attention: usually only Adam got away with propping his feet on furniture. (Juliet suspected that it was Ben’s way of making up for the very strict way he’d raised Adam on their journey to the West.) Joe’s eyes seemed to be running over the sheet of paper, his mouth slightly agape, one corner of it curling into an easy half-smile every now and then. Suddenly he began to giggle and looked up and around as if to check if the others had the same funny part in their letters, too. When his eyes found Juliet’s, she cocked a questioning eyebrow mouthing “Fritz?” and chuckled at his surprised nod “yes.”

This exchange would have been impossible two months ago. The connexion between Joe and her had never been the easiest, and most probably never would: they seemed to be just too different. But Adam’s lonely decision had made them equals, had brought out some unexpected similarities, had made them see the necessity to look for affinities rather than for distinctions.

She tried to be less biting towards her younger brother-in-law, to be more tolerant of his youthfulness; and in turn Joe seemed to make an effort not to mistake her sarcasm for insults and her habitual aloofness for rejection. For the time being, it all worked out surprisingly well.

Ben was holding his letter like a precious gift. He read it with an expression somewhere between delighted and pained, and Juliet fully understood why. Unlike Hoss and Joe, Ben had fought in a war, and he was aware that this very letter could be the last sign of life he’d ever get from his first born.

Involuntarily, Juliet reached out for Henry’s bassinet that was placed next to her chair. She kept the baby in close reach; in the first days after she’d come home from San Francisco she’d carried him in her arms almost constantly, until her father-in-law had come and gently pried him from her.

“He won’t leave, too,” he had said; and it had sounded like a promise both to her and to himself. To them all, the whole family.

Her family. The family that had become hers when she had started to accept their help, and their love.

She swallowed, but couldn’t keep her eyes from watering, and quickly hid her face by bowing her head over the letter again. It took her a while, though, until her vision had cleared enough to make out its words.

“We will be moving again soon. Lee’s army is shifting northwards, and it seems General Meade is intending to follow and confront them. But no more of that. I’m sure you’re still keeping in touch with Joe Goodman from the Enterprise and have firsthand information about every little skirmish.

“Mylady, I wish the celebration of our first anniversary could have never ended. In my dreams I can still see you with that green dress lying in waves around your feet. You looked so radiant, with your eyes sparkling, your skin almost translucent, your hair a golden cascade…like Venus emerging from the sea. I ache for the day I’ll hold you in my arms again.

“My love, I miss you and Henry more than I can express. I—”

The words blurred again. This time there was no hiding it, and so she decided to make a quick exit. How she hurried out of the house and onto the front porch wasn’t very dignified, but it saved her from questions and well-meant words. She wasn’t always amenable to facing her family’s love.

She stood there leaning against one of the sturdy posts that carried the porch roof, angrily wiping away the traces of lachrymose weakness from her face, cooling her burning cheeks in the fresh night air.

Adam had never written her a love letter. No one had ever written her a love letter, for that matter; and as wonderful as it was that she’d finally gotten one, as much as she felt warmed by his words, as much as they overflowed her with joy, that much she found herself pained that those words were written, not spoken, and she was chilled by the haunting notion that they might never be spoken at all.

She glanced up at the sky. The stars sparkled down at her as if nothing had ever happened. They sat there just as they had since the beginning of time, as they had when Adam had shown her Ursa Major, the Pleiades and other constellations, more of them than she could ever remember. She wondered if Adam was watching the stars, too, maybe right now, seeking solace in their quiet company.

“It’s colder than one would think after such a scorching day,” she heard her father-in-law’s warm voice murmur as he wrapped her pale blue shawl around her shoulders. “I don’t want you to catch a chill.”

“Thank you.” She found herself surprised that she really meant it. Perhaps now it was time to accept some family-love.

Ben didn’t waste any time feigning ignorance. Apparently he’d learned that Juliet preferred direct speech; and that any kind of beating around the bush would just lead to her withdrawing into herself.

“Was there something in that letter upsetting you?”

“No. It’s a lovely letter, it—” Whom was she kidding? “It’s not what’s in the letter,” she started again. “It’s what’s not in the letter that concerns me.”

“What’s not in the letter.”

He didn’t voice it as a question. Maybe he hoped she would tell anyway or maybe he knew the answer already. It didn’t matter. She had to say it out loud, had to tell it, tell it to the stars so they might tell Adam that she wasn’t fooled, that she wouldn’t be lulled in, that she knew.

“Adam makes the war sound like a camping trip.” She turned and looked Ben straight in the eye. He didn’t have to nod; she read in his face that he was with her. “He talks about friends he’s made, about witty conversations and practical jokes. But he doesn’t say he’s all right. He wouldn’t lie to me, and that’s why he doesn’t say he’s all right.”

She turned back, looked over the dark nocturnal yard, then up again to her friends, the stars. “He doesn’t tell about fighting and if it feels that he’s making a difference; he doesn’t share what he’s living through. And that he doesn’t share tells me it must be horrendous. It scares me. It scares me because I fear that even if I get him back eventually, I won’t get him back.”

“Now, Juliet—”

“Ben, I’m not ignorant. Adam’s at Fredericksburg, and I know what happened at Fredericksburg. You’ve seen the pictures in the Territorial Enterprise, too. He has been there. Ben, he has seen all that—and not in a picture but in reality. He’s been a part of it.”

“Those pictures…they were illustrations, drawings. I don’t mean any offence, but you and I know how Goodman likes to exaggerate. You can’t know if—”

“The pictures were painted after photographs. They don’t exaggerate. It’s how it was.” She took a deep breath. “It’s how it’s going to be until this stupid war ends. It’s how Adam will go through it until—”

“Until he comes home.” Ben took her by her upper arms, turned her around and locked eyes with her. “Until he comes home. We have to have faith. We have to pray and have faith in the Lord. He will bring him home.”

It was comfortable to believe it. Ben’s voice was comforting and calming, reassuring and urgent. And Juliet wanted to believe; she wanted to be comforted and reassured. She let it happen, let herself be carried on a wave of faith, trying to ignore the tight knot that formed inside her stomach, and so it took her completely by surprise when she suddenly heaved and vomited the remains of her supper in a bed of Queen de Bourbon roses.

__________

The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you,
but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would
understand him, listen not to what he says,
but rather to what he does not say. ~Kahlil Gibrain

 

***

 *This conversation took place in The Art of Setting Priorities chapter 24.

This time we were allowed to choose ten words out of a list of fifty. Somehow I ended up with using seventeen: betray, conscience, honour, Leo, brothers, husband, gift, promise, celebration, anniversary, green, sparkling, radiant, dream, dignified, joy, constellation.