1914

This slog lasted all autumn and became so routine that by the end they’d practically forgotten they were marching. Which wasn’t that bad, after all, one kept busy that way: the body mechanically set in motion left one free to think about something else or more often plain nothing, but the procession had to halt when the war seized up in the winter. What with all this advancing against one another until both sides found themselves unable to extend their positions, it had to happen: everything froze in a standoff during a serious cold snap, as if troop movements had suddenly congealed all along the great line from Switzerland to the North Sea. It was somewhere along this line that Anthime and the others found themselves paralyzed, bogged down in a vast network of line trenches tied together by communication trenches. This whole system, in principle, had been initially dug out by the army engineers, but also and above all by the soldiers, since the spades and picks they bore on their backs weren’t there just for show. And as time passed, by trying every day to kill the maximum possible of those across the way plus crawl forward the minimum number of yards the high command required, that’s where they plowed themselves under.

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AT THE END OF JANUARY, as expected, Blanche brought a child into the world, a female, seven pounds and fifteen and two-thirds ounces, first name Juliette. Lacking a legal father—a lack all the more up in the air in that this presumed-by-everyone biological father had crashed almost six months earlier just outside Jonchery-sur-Vesle—she received her mother’s family name. So: Juliette Borne.

That the mother had had a child outside of wedlock did not cause much scandal or even provoke excessive gossip. The Borne family was not particularly straitlaced. For six months Blanche simply stayed home for the most part and then, after the birth, the war was blamed for the wedding having been postponed, Blanche acquired an engagement in public that had never privately taken place, and the infant’s illegitimacy was obscured by the swiftly heroized figure of the supposed father, wreathed in bravery and, thanks to the hurried efforts of Monteil, decorated posthumously with a medal. Even though Blanche’s father, thinking of the long term, regretted in his heart of hearts that without a male heir, the future of the factory was not assured, Juliette’s birth did not prevent this child, fatherless even before her birth, from immediately becoming the apple of all eyes.

I’ll never forgive myself, sighed Monteil; I’ll never get over this. The family had indeed hoped, thanks to the doctor’s connections, that by dodging the front Charles would be less exposed to enemy fire in the air than on the ground. The connections had worked, of course; everything had gone well: he’d been exempted from ground combat and reassigned to the newborn aviation corps—which no civilian could have imagined then would ever play an active role in combat—as if it were a cushy berth. Whereas that turned out to be a miscalculation: Juliette’s putative father disappeared even more swiftly from the sky than he might perhaps have done from the mud. I’ll always blame myself for this, Monteil continued. Maybe he would have been better off in the infantry, after all. We had no way of knowing. Blanche replied briefly that regrets were useless, no point in going on and on about it, and it mightn’t be such a bad idea if he would instead take a look at Juliette.

Who was three months old, it was the beginning of spring, and Blanche could see things budding in the trees—trees still bereft, however, of even the tiniest bird—through the window next to which she had parked the baby carriage. Forgive me, said Monteil, heaving himself heavily out of his armchair to remove the child from her carriage and examine her— respiration, temperature, alertness—and then declare that my word, she seems to be doing very nicely. Good, Blanche said to him in thanks as she rewrapped the infant. And your parents, Monteil inquired. They’re holding up well, said Blanche; it was hard after Charles died, but the child provides a distraction for them. Yes, Monteil began to ramble on again, I’ll be angry with myself forever for what I did but it was for his own good, wasn’t it. Couldn’t be helped, said Blanche firmly. And his brother, aside from that, asked Monteil. Excuse me, said Blanche, whose brother? Charles’s brother, Monteil prompted her, have you any news? Postcards, replied Blanche, he sends them regularly. And even a letter, from time to time. At the moment, I think they’re in the Somme, he’s not complaining very much. That’s fine, then, observed Monteil. Anyway, Blanche reminded him, he’s never been one for complaints, Anthime. You know how he is: he always adapts.

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