William Boyd - The New Confessions

“Mr. Todd.”

I turned. Dagmar. I introduced the orderly sergeant, who discreetly, and decently, took himself off a few paces.

“Miss Fjermeros …” I felt an irritating blush grow. I took off my trench cap, set down my clinking tools. The dim peasant greets lady of the manor.

“ Fee-ermeros . The J is silent.”

“Sorry. Of course. How are you?”

“What’re you doing? You’re so dirty. Are you in trouble?”

“No, no. I’ve been digging latrines. Nothing serious.” I needlessly ran my fingers through my short hair, touched my moustache as if it were false and coming unstuck.

“Where are you going?” I asked. The soft sun on her face at that moment made her almost unbearably beautiful. I felt like weeping. I wanted to lay my head on that starched apron and weep.

“We’re being transferred.”

I nodded. She mentioned a name. I suppose I should have remembered it, but my head was full of a drumming sound, like heavy rain on a tin roof.

“I’m sorry we didn’t have our chance of a walk on the beach.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Thank you for bringing my watch that day. It was kind.”

“Don’t mention it.” My sergeant cleared his throat. “I’d better be off. I hope he fixes your lorry soon.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s agreeable to be in the sun.” She lifted her calm face to the oblique rays and closed her eyes. I saw the iridescent golden eyelashes, the fine blue veins pulsing on her lids.

“Isn’t it.… Well, good-bye.”

She opened her eyes. “Remember what I told you, Mr. Todd.”

The walk back to camp at Coxyde-Bains might have taken place underwater, so blurred and streaming were my eyes. I sneezed and honked into my handkerchief all the way back, unable to control myself.

“Hay fever,” I said to the skeptical sergeant.

That night I wrote in my diary:

Dagmar has gone, and with her, what wonderful opportunities? Living, it seems to me, is really no more than a long process of steady embitterment .

May 23, 1917. Back in Wormstroedt at brigade reserve. All my lust for Huguette has returned, enhanced and fortified by the loss of Dagmar. I spend all my time in the estaminet.

It is curious how the enamored eye transforms. Huguette now seemed to me the very image of pulchritude. Every detail contributed to the harmonious impact of the whole. The dark downy hairs on her lip, the thick fleshiness of her upper arms, her plump cheeks, the three or four creases round her neck. All this made me love her more.

She greeted me as always — curtly — but at least she knew who I was. She was manifestly fatter since our last time at Wormstroedt, but in my inflamed state the idea of fat round soft thighs, round fat soft belly and fat soft round breasts seemed far more attractive than anything more svelte and lissome. And there is, is there not, something enticing about youthful obesity, where the extra weight has bounce and firmness and nothing has turned loose or slack?

In my preoccupation I only half-noticed the increased traffic in Wormstroedt. The big guns and their limber constantly moving through the town, the lines of lorries, the increase in staff officers in sputtering motors, the military police, the frequent arrival of new units. In the tobacco factory we had doubled up to provide space for others, and for the first time the reek of tobacco was overwhelmed by the smells of hot, tightly pressed human bodies.

There was some talk of a transfer away from Nieuport. Teague and Somerville-Start indulged in eager speculation about potential postings. Such guesswork that reached my ears only turned my thoughts more towards Huguette. One fact now dominated my thinking: I must not die without the experience of sex. I played in a few football matches; I visited the bathhouses, drew new equipment, went on a bombing course; I drilled as if I were some sort of automaton. During off-duty hours I sat in the estaminet , drinking Huguette’s abominable tea, eating eggs and chipped potatoes, watching her punch holes in condensed milk tins or move sullenly through the tables collecting plates and cutlery on a tray wedged against her yielding thigh.

On the third of June we received orders to return to Nieuport, where the 13th was to await further instructions. Our days in the quiet sector were all but over. Teague’s face was round with glee. I realized we might never be in Wormstroedt again. That last evening I stayed on as late as I could in the estaminet . Most of the 13th had left. There were a noisy three tables of Australian engineers drinking beer. There was little demand for tea. Huguette stood by the dull copper urn, head down, preoccupied, as she picked at a callus on her finger. The late-evening sun shone through the small windows turning the room’s smokehaze milky, basting the chipped tables and curved chair backs with a rare polished gleam. I moved through a wand of light towards her. She looked up.

“ Voilà, Tommy; encore du thé? ”

“No, no thanks.” I gestured outside. “ Une minute. Parler? ”

She glanced at me quizzically. Then looked round the room, her top lip held between her teeth. It made her look faintly simian.

“ Pourquoi pas? ”

We went out through a side door into a small sad courtyard. Some lank hens scratched. We turned a corner and found ourselves in a narrow sunny lane, unused, weedy. Over a brick wall I could see the slab back of the tobacco factory and its rows of grimy windows. Huguette led me down the lane to a shed and we went in. I saw an old machine, a turnip mincer, rusted and useless. A clean scythe hung on the wall. At the back was a dank hump of turnips. A pile of jute sacks was on the floor. An earthy root-vegetable smell in the air — wet, organic, dark.

Huguette leaned against the wall. I tried to kiss her. I was trembling and sweating. She pushed me away.

“ Baiser, c’est dix francs! ”

I emptied my pockets and gave her ten francs. I held her big face between my hands. Slowly, tenderly, I touched my lips to hers.

Her squirming agile tongue almost made me shout with shock. It was like a live leaping eel in my mouth. I felt I had a piston in my chest compressing the air of my lungs. It was astonishing. Then she pushed me away again.

I had six francs and a few sous left. All my money had gone on her filthy tea and eggs and chipped potatoes. I held the money out on a slick and jittery palm. She scooped the coins up.

“ C’est pas beaucoup, ” she said, counting, somewhat sulkily. She put the money in a pocket, shrugged, took my hand and thrust it up under her skirt. I felt her thighs — warm, soft — and moved my hand upwards. Fingertips touched hair — curled, springy, dry — just like my own. I gently cupped her groin. I seemed to have stopped breathing. I will show you fear in a handful of fuzz. My eyes were fixed on a knot in the wood of the plank wall before me. Huguette shifted slightly.

“ Fini? ”

“Yes. Oui. ”

I stepped back. She looked faintly surprised.

“I love you, Huguette,” I said, hoarse.

“ Oh, pouf, oui.… ‘I loave you,’ ça marche pas! ” She shook her finger grimly. “ C’est une question d’argent. ”

She opened the door. I walked out into the palpitating dusk. The sun hit the tall windows of the tobacco factory, turning them to fabulous golden mirrors.

At least I had said it. A man to a woman. I had kissed. I had touched that secret place. I felt buoyant, strangely calm. On the train back to the railhead at Coxyde I sat on the floor of the truck beside Leo Druce. He had his cap off; it was sitting balanced on one of his knees. A faint sweet smell came from the oil on his hair. His kind, delicate features seemed at odds with the crude cut and serge of his battle-dress coat. He twirled his cap on his knee.