Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

Sally was ecstatic and frantic at the one time. As soon as the waiter left she felt she had to speak to him, as if it would be impossible once the table was cluttered with food, cutlery, cups, glasses.

There’s something I have to tell you, Charlie, before we go any further. Because it’ll change what you think about me. And it’d be cruel to wait till later. I will not put forward any special pleadings in all this—I’ll tell you how things happened. My mother was ill. It was cervical cancer. Do you know the disease, Charlie?

No, he said. I haven’t even heard…

It’s a vicious thing.

Yes? asked Charlie. He looked confused. After all his certainty in the gallery, he was for the moment lost.

The simple truth is—my mother told me she wanted to die. It was something she repeated and that was very unlike her. In the end, when it had all got beyond bearing and she was pleading with God and me to let her die, to make her die, I stole enough morphine to put her to rest. But she died, you see, anyhow. Of her own accord. Without me having to use it. Just the same, you’re with a woman who intended to murder her mother. I could say it was mercy. And others could say it too. Naomi says it. But that’s it. How does that match up against Delacroix? Or how does it match up with whatever picture you have of me? But you must know if you want to know me.

He had been frowning through this.

What do you want me to say? he asked. Do you want me to stamp out of here in outrage? You want me to recoil in horror? Is that it? To flog you out of the temple or something?

I was hoping you wouldn’t.

But you were a merciful daughter, for God’s sake, he murmured.

Well, you had to be told, that’s all. Because I am sure you’ve never even dreamed of doing what I had plans of doing in those days.

He shook his head. Then he started kneading his cheek as if he had a toothache.

O Jesus, he said privately. O Jesus Christ.

She didn’t know what this invocation meant.

Let me tell you something, Sally, he said suddenly and in a colorless voice. She could see his teeth. They were not quite locked together but seemed for the first time ready to bite. And there was a rictus.

Imagine this. Imagine a man who went out on a patrol last night and got somehow stuck out there, wounded, thirsty beyond belief, in pain without morphine, hanging on the wire and calling to us in our trench. Calling, “I’m here!” Calling, “Help me, cobber!”

Say we go out before dawn and try to reach him, but we can’t—indeed some of us are killed and wounded trying. And the enemy in their trenches lets the poor bastard hang there through the early morning and they call out to us in primitive English to come and get our friend. If we tried it, of course… Well, you can imagine. A feast for the machine-gun nests. And our mate out there is still calling to us. “Just need a bit of help,” he might call. Do you think we let him hang forever? Do you think we don’t do what I would like to have done to me if I were there crucified on the wire? Do you think we go on listening to him plead forever?

I’m sorry, she told him. It’s shocking. Even so, I have to say this and you have to hear it. That man is not related to you by blood.

No, he insisted. She was suddenly astonished that he was close to tears. But he’s the one we’ll always remember. Even if we get to be old men, we’ll never shake him off. And I say “him” even though it’s really “them.” So why shouldn’t I be angry when what you are telling me is a… Well, not a little thing… but nothing done. An unfired bullet, for dear Christ’s sake?

She watched his anger. In part, it fascinated her.

There may come a time, he said, when you will need to reassure me that what I have confessed was nothing at all. That it was compassion, not murder. For Christ’s sake, you must take that same medicine now.

I told you because I can live with the thing if you can. The murders and the killings of mercy have both brought it down to size. But the size is still big. It can be borne though. I can be a happy woman for you. It’s my ambition.

She was in fact feeling exalted. She barely doubted she could fly above the cold river.

He closed his eyes briefly. Opening them again, he said, All right, you’ve told me. And I’ve told you. There’s an end to it for now. I can’t guarantee what I’ve told you might not sometimes seep through and poison an hour. But it won’t poison my life.

Nor mine, said Sally. Neither of our tales will.

Bitterly amused now, he said, If I’d known you were going into all this stuff I would have insisted on wine.

It’s not too late. You could have brandy.

And then their croque-monsieur arrived. They fell to it with all the ravenousness of the redeemed. They said little as they ate, his head frequently down, though once he raised it and smiled broadly at her and shook his head just a fraction one way or another. Cognac, he asked the waiter then. It came quickly. He reached out and held her hand as he downed it. He shook his head.

I’m very slow, he confessed. You wouldn’t have told me about all that unless… Well, unless .

He waved his free hand in the air a little, trying to define the word.

I’m so very flattered. That’s what I should have said straight off. Instead of all that stuff about men on the wire.

He finished the cognac with a gulp. He smiled.

You’ll come with me this afternoon then? he asked.

Yes. With a lot more ease than this morning. Not that I didn’t…

I know. You liked it. This morning we saw the world as it would like to be seen. This afternoon we have the reality of the world. We’ll see the world as it is and the way it will become. When you see some of the work of these new chaps, you’ll wish you were born French or Spanish.

During their exhilarating afternoon at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, whose motto was “No juries, no prizes,” Charlie declared himself nervous that Kiernan would at dinner prove a temperance man and exhibit piety. Sally was able to reassure him. The dinner at L’Arlésienne went delightfully—with Ian himself drinking red wine for the special occasion. Sally and Naomi spoke to each other in an easy way that made Sally remember conversation between them could be blessedly ordinary. The acrid, murderous weight—capable of souring a lifetime—was gone in a day to be replaced by something that could be borne through a lifetime. None of them talked about their particular work—though Kiernan did digress into the organization of clearing stations. Some aspects, he argued, could be better arranged. The stores hut should instead be dug into the earth because without that… well, they got the message. One hit by a Taube and nothing for the wards. And in some of the stores there were—yes, even in these terrible times—signs that a few officials were in the business of war procurement, who were either asinine or had done special deals with suppliers. How rich some people were getting from all these dressings and pharmaceuticals and equipment! he said. How rich from syringes that sometimes fell apart.

But how far it had all progressed since Egypt and the Archimedes, Naomi asserted.

Under the influence of unaccustomed wine, it came to Sally as a fancy that the three of them had been cast into the sea and delivered just for this dinner and as company for glorious Charlie.

Meanwhile Naomi reported on the Committee of Clarity and the enduring suspicions of Madame Flerieu, and explained who “dear old Sedgewick” was.

Hungrier than she ever had been since she went to the clearing station—hungry as the reprieved always are—Sally ate liver and pork like a woman who might one day get plump.