Whispering in French Page 17

  “They married very young.”

  “And?” I felt we had reversed roles. Me pushing and him halting in response.

  “They barely tolerate each other.”

  “Why? Is this since he returned from his last posting or has this been long-standing?”

  “I don’t think their marriage was ever a spectacular pairing. But this last return, it unraveled more so than ever before, as I understand it. And he won’t talk to me or anyone. These moods take over and he becomes as silent as sin. And he’s drinking more than he used to, as I told you. It’s made it all worse.”

  “Was your great-nephew a happy child?” I leaned forward. This was important.

  “He was.”

  “His father, your brother’s son, was of good character?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Kate, I’ve always blamed myself for not stepping in. I think he battered his boys a bit, maybe, but not his daughter. And he drank himself to oblivion, especially after his sons died in the war.”

  “And his mother?”

  “A bit batty and kept to herself. Always knitting, but never saw the end result of all that needlework for some odd reason.” He pushed his plate away. “Those children raised themselves. Never a good thing.”

  “Hmmm.” I sighed deeply.

  “What?”

  “There are no serious problems with Edward’s children, are there?”

  “Lord, no. They are delightful. And in the past, he was an outstanding father. I’ve never seen a man more devoted to his children, when he wasn’t serving the Queen. He is the opposite of his own parents.”

  “And he’s never hinted at any event that caused him to fall into this current state?”

  He shook his head. “He won’t talk about any of it, and I’ve tried.”

  “All right then,” I said. “That’s all I need to know for now.”

  “Is he talking to you? Can you tell me that at least?”

  I took a last bite of the duck confit—so tender it almost melted in my mouth. And I smiled. “Oh, he’s talking to me all right. Not about himself, of course. But he has a lot to say about me. Suffice it to say, I don’t impress him. At all.”

  “Kate, may I say something at the risk of sounding a mite patronizing?”

  “I think we’re beyond formalities, Phillip.”

  “Excellent.” He paused. And I saw the almost imperceptible movement of his body as he pressed the servant buzzer that most likely rested under his foot.

  “So?”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  I swallowed.

  “You didn’t have to come to France. No one else stepped in. I was worried, of course. I would have invited Jean to live with me if it had come to that. Indeed, we are both two old bachelors now who enjoy each other’s company immensely. But he would have never accepted. His pride would have gotten in the way just like your pride is not allowing you to accept my offer of a loan or gift. But, you see, ever since you’ve come here, everything and everyone has improved. Your grandfather. Even my nephew a tad. Everyone. And no one has thanked you. So thank you for coming. Thank you for coming when you had your own problems to sort and you could have easily looked the other way.”

  I’d never been good at praise. Never knew what to say. Nothing ever sounded right. I opened my mouth but then closed it again when I couldn’t form a sentence.

  He reached across the table, covered my hand, and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t have to say anything, my dear.”

  I nodded and mashed my lips together.

  “Edward should be here any minute to whisk you away for another one of those marches he’s forcing on you. So I just have two last questions.”

  “Yes?” I managed.

  “Please wait.”

  A cadre of servants entered to clear the table, brush the crumbs from the place settings, and place dessert and cheese plates in front of us. A platter of fruit tempted, alongside wedges of Comté and Brebis served with the traditional cherry jam. A golden Gâteau Basque à la crème awaited in the center of the table. The servants departed from whence they came.

  “So, Kate,” he said, all efforts of holding back a smile removed. “I admit I’m a wily old goat who doesn’t accept defeat all that graciously. Have you figured out a way to stave off Jojo’s relentless effort to turn Madeleine Marie into the new mairie? And what about Pierrot, your friendly Basque terrorist neighbor?”

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “My offer remains extant,” Phillip said.

  I REGRETTED THAT second slice of Gâteau Basque during the third mile. I’d agreed to a very long trek from Bidart to Saint-Jean-de-Luz and back. Edward wanted to explore the old Nazi bunkers that dotted the coastline. Right now, I wanted to explore the possibility of Uber in France. God, it was hot today. A storm had been brewing and threatening to break for the last week. The barometer was all over the place and so were the winds. The moon was full, and the tides at their lowest points for the year.

  And I wondered, once again, the same thing I wondered each time I saw Edward. What was it going to take to get him to open up? Would he ever trust me enough to say what was going on in that massively large hard head of his?

  “Come on, Kate. Keep up. It’ll be dark before we get back at this pace.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, bringing up the rear in pathetic fashion.

  “How are you faring anyway?”

  I laughed.

  “What?”

  “That’s the first time you’ve ever asked me that question. Are you warming to me?”

  “Uh, that’d be a no,” he replied, in a tone that spoke the opposite.

  “You are. Definitely. Now, don’t get all soppy on me. I’m not sure I would know what to do.”

  “You really don’t have a comical bone in your body, Hamilton. Americans are just so bloody emotional. No sense of irony or understatement at all.”

  “Got it. Next observation.”

  “And you never say please. So rude.”

  “Next observation, please,” I said. “Although it does seem a bit ridiculous to be asking for yet another insult.”

  “You’re always prodding me. Please try another tactic. If only to keep me interested. I’ll never pour my guts out to you if this is the best you can do.”

  “So why don’t we stop wasting each other’s time and you just tell me?”

  “Roger.”

  I stopped dead. “Roger, what?”

  He turned around. “Come on, keep walking for Christ’s sake.”

  I kept walking. I wasn’t sure when I’d started obeying him blindly, but it was annoying. I’d decided I’d never take orders from anyone ever again the day I’d paid for the privilege of a divorce. “Roger, what? Um, please.”

  He stopped abruptly and started laughing.

  I caught up only to see he had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. “What? What’s so funny?”

  He stretched. “You. You’ve got some wit in you after all. Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Me neither.”

  He started laughing all the harder.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  He wiped his eyes and replaced his hat. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Okay, then. Listen up. I’m only going to speak about this once. And don’t ask any of your bloody stupid questions. Don’t ask me about feelings. Don’t interrupt me. Just pay attention. And don’t rush me.”

  “Can we sit down?”

  “No! Already a question. An interruption.”

  “I am not under your command, major.”

  “Come on. Let’s go.” He began to walk ahead of me. Again. “I assume you’ve heard of Op Herrick?”

  He had picked up the pace, and I dug in and prepared for a hike long on exhaustion and short on water. I’d forgotten my supply. “Um, sounds familiar, but better explain all.”

  I saw his head shaking in probable disgust. “Well, then. It’s the name
for a British operation in Afghanistan. Okay, then. I’ll skip educating you more otherwise we’ll be here all day. Suffice it to say that I was based at Camp Bastion, a fortification built by Royal Engineers—you know that’s what I am, Roger?” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Roger.”

  “Okay, then. It’s what we built in the Helmand province. It’s a lovely little spot if you like the Taliban and sand in all your orifices. Local pastimes included grenade fishing and detonating Russian mines. Ten million of them. Not being nicknamed Stumpy was considered a win.”

  I studied his shoulders. They were becoming more hunched as he spoke.

  “Excellent,” he said, and then was silent for so long I wasn’t sure he’d say another word.

  “I was deployed there three times for six months at a go. I was CO of a Specialist Team Royal Engineers—a squadron— talented in civil, structural, electrical, and mechanical engineering. Essentially, we built infrastructure—everything from roads, bridges, repairing airfields, ports, and more. You need something built or repaired? That’s our job. Sappers—that’s our nickname—have their hands in just about everything. Got it?”

  “Roger.” My hamstrings were going to be tighter than a new clutch if he kept up this bruising pace.

  “Good.”

  Again silence. I could almost hear his brain humming and sorting.

  “So. I was assigned an Afghan interpreter the first tour. His name was Abdul Aarash Abdullah. I dubbed him Triple A when we first met six years ago. He was loyal, dedicated, took grave risks to help the allies, and spoke Pashto, Russian, French, and English with equal flare. He had wanted to be a writer or a teacher. I could not have done my job without him. He was twenty-two on the first tour and twenty-six the last one. I watched him grow from a young man to a young father. I remember how innocent he was despite growing up in a war zone. He . . .” Edward stopped in his tracks and turned to look at me.

  I stopped in front of him, grateful for a moment’s rest.

  “I remember listening to him talk about the beauty of his bride’s hands with a wonder and reverence I’d never encountered. Anyway.” He resumed marching and I had to follow.

  “I was sort of a big brother figure to him. I saw a photograph of his father, his two younger brothers, his bride of the beautiful hands, and his mother.” He paused. “He took grave risks for us, which only became more dangerous with each tour. The Taliban killed Afghans working with us, and Triple A knew it but never spoke of it. At the beginning of the last deployment, he came to me and asked for asylum for himself and his entire family. Eight in all, for he had two children by then—a two-year-old and a newborn. He wanted to live in Kent, where my family lived at one point. He dreamed of owning an oast house, and kept yammering on about planting mulberry trees and pomegranates. Questions?”

  “Not yet,” I replied. I wanted water, but didn’t dare sidetrack him.

  “Excellent,” he barked, his voice a bit high. “So, it’s a simple thing really. He’s dead. His family too. All of them were wiped out by the Taliban when they finally learned his identity. I put in the asylum requests too late. Anyway, that was one of the issues on the last tour.”

  His gait had become narrow and ever faster, and he was avoiding every blade of grass for some odd reason. Every muscle in his back was visible through his sweat-soaked drab green shirt.

  “Major, could we stop for a moment? I—”

  “Sodding hell! No. We don’t have time to . . .” He stopped in his tracks. “What do you need?” He barked but did not turn around.

  I closed part of the distance between us and touched the side of his arm. His elbow automatically rammed back in stunning response and I was lucky he missed me.

  “Sorry. What do you want?” His voice was unnaturally calm, like the sea before a storm.

  “Water. I forgot mine.”

  He slowly turned around and his expression made me suddenly realize I was all alone in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t the chilling Mr. Hyde face I’d seen too many times on my ex-husband in my past life. It was something far worse. It was black death come to call in all his random nothingness draped in no meaning. For some odd reason I wasn’t afraid for me. I was afraid for Edward.

  His voice was a low rasp in the heat of the day. “How could you be so stupid? Water is life. Without it you’ll die out here.” His mind was not in the lushness of the Pays Basque. He was in some desert three and a half thousand miles away.

  “Got it,” I said. “Won’t forget.”

  He watched as I looked around for a place to sit and, seeing nothing, lowered myself onto a grassy knoll with wild primroses next to a gorse-like hedge overlooking the deep blue sea. Goose-stepping over patches of wild grass, he removed his water bottle from his shoulder string and offered it to me.

  “Thank you.” I gulped down a third of it and held it up to him.

  He was still standing, surveying the area. He finally leaned against a shelf of rock face. “Okay, Hamilton. I remember your fondness for questions. Try to keep it to under a dozen. Please.” His expression was halfway to normal.

  “Abdul and his family’s deaths are so tragic. That must have been terrible for you.”

  “It’s just part of war. You can’t be deployed and not see death and suffer from some form of PTSD. You can ask, Hamilton. Just say it. You know you want to. Am I fucked up from too many deployments or just fucked up because of a handful of Afghan deaths?”

  “Okay. Which is it?”

  “All of it. The last one was probably just the proverbial cherry on top. And I hate clichés.”

  “How did Abdul die?” The hair on my neck was tingling—always bad news.

  “Ah, that is the wrong question.”

  “Okay.” I tilted my head questioningly. “What should I ask?”

  “How did his family die?”

  “Okay, then. How did his family die?”

  He took a long swallow of water and carefully screwed the top back on. “One at a time.” He replaced the neck of the bottle in the elastic loop of the shoulder string and focused on my eyes. “We were on the move. Part of the transport convoy of a two-hundred-twenty-ton turbine to the Kajaki Dam. Op Eagle’s Summit comprised three miles of more than one hundred vehicles. We had a lot of security, of course, to protect the billions in equipment during the transport through territory heavy with insurgents.” He rearranged his shoulder strap. “Just before rejoining Highway 611, near known areas of recent active Taliban insurgency, the convoy was forced to stop so NATO could bomb the hell out of the insurgents to allow safe passage to the final destination. Abdul and two other members of the squadron and I were in the third vehicle, chewing the fat, when we heard someone shout, ‘Stand to.’ You know what that means?”

  “No.”

  “It means stand ready for attack because something is amiss. In this case, we could see a goatherd and a handful of goats heading toward the road to probably cross it. Something you see all the time. The man had a staff and something slung across his body. Abdul and I got out and walked to the front of the convoy in case Abdul needed to translate, yeah?”

  “Got it.”

  “The goatherd was terrified. You could see it in his eyes as he held his hands up and begged for them not to shoot. Abdul was translating, explaining the man had been sent on a proxy mission for the Taliban. The man’s wife was being held hostage until he delivered something to us along with a note he kept waving in the air. Of course, that made everyone very twitchy and the bomb team moved forward. The goatherd finally said the note and package were for Abdul, using his full name. The goatherd was told to retreat into the dunes until the bomb blast area was secure and finally he was ordered to remove the canvas bag slung over his body. Blood was seeping through in several places. He was ordered to open it, and when he looked inside he made an unholy sound, a sort of raspy scream. He dropped the bag and note and ran. We didn’t go after him. Rules of engagement. Oddly, the goats didn’t follow him.” Soames’s thr
oat convulsed in a swallow. It was the only part of him that moved.

  “Abdul elbowed through the bomb squad before anyone could stop him and ran into the dunes beyond the roadway—a completely unprotected area likely filled with improvised exploding devices. I followed in his footsteps. And there, in the bag, which was a British Army canvas laundry bag—were his parents’ heads. I didn’t move fast enough to grab it from him. And you know what I did?”

  I shook my head.

  “I arrested him. Zip tied him to stop him from leaving. How’s that for compassion?”

  “You did it to stop him from getting killed.”

  “Nope. You’re far too sentimental. I did it to protect the people on mission and myself. The insurgents would have tortured him for information.” He examined his hands. “Every day, for the next three days and nights, the Taliban sent proxies to deliver more bits of Abdul’s family, of which I took possession. The note had promised more of the same unless he left the convoy. Yes, we all knew he was a dead man if he left and that the Taliban would kill his entire family no matter what—as a warning to any Afghan working with us.” Soames finally swung his eyes to mine. “The last day, his wife’s hands and his two children were delivered. His babies’ heads. I never showed him or told him any part of it. But it was as if . . .”

  “Yes?” I whispered.

  “As if the insurgents knew he loved his wife’s hands. And they probably tortured her to find this out. And they also probably knew it would drive him insane, wondering if she was still alive.”

  “It tortures you,” I said slowly.

  “He never faltered,” he continued. “He didn’t ask about his family. He knew they were all dead. Instead of grieving, instead of seeking comfort, his only concern was for me. He told me it was all part of Allah’s plan.” He paused. “Whilst I was putting zip ties on him and escorting him back to a secure area of the convoy.”

  “He saw it was torturing you.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “You probably think he committed suicide.”

  “That was my first guess.”

  A magpie, in his tuxedo of black-and-white feathers, landed on a nearby bush.