Page 56 of The World That We Knew

ARDÈCHE, AUGUST 1944

AVA FOUND THE BONES IN the field. The captain’s car had been towed away, but the burned-out skeleton of Victor’s car was left, blackened and smoldering. It was a hot day and the sun struck her skin as she made her way through the grass. She first came upon the shoes, then the bits of charred, blackened bone. She carried what was left of her maker into the woods. The place she chose was deeply green and silent. She dug the grave with her hands. Her fingernails broke, but they would grow back. The scent of earth stung the back of her throat. If she cried there was no one there to witness her tears, other than the birds that came to watch, in silence.

She was without a maker. She was herself. She walked back to the doctor’s house, though it was a long way. When he saw her with the red shoes he came out to meet her, and they mourned together in the orchard. She had a solemn expression as she asked if, in his opinion as a doctor, he had come to the conclusion that all living things had souls. Creation began when God commanded, Let the earth bring forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animals and creeping animals and wild animals. Ruach applied to spirit, the invisible force of a spark that animated all living creatures. If a soul was formed by meaning and purpose, did not every blade of grass have a soul, for each had a purpose. If this was true, Ava believed she might have one as well, just as her maker did.

It was an unexpected question.

“Perhaps,” he answered.

Ava was clearly unsatisfied with his remark. “A dove feels sorrow when she loses her fledgling, does she not?”

“I believe so,” he agreed, both to please her and because he had seen animals mourn one another.

“And a cow separated from its mother, does it not cry and wail?”

“Yes. True. The difficulty is, we can’t know if such responses are merely nature, ingrained to continue the species.”

“So you’re saying no. That beasts are sparked with life, but not a soul.”

Girard rubbed his eyes and thought this over. That conclusion didn’t seem right. He thought back to the dog he’d had when he was a boy, a long-legged hound. Once he’d been lost and the dog had tracked him for over ten hours. His parents had sobbed, assuming they would soon be planning a funeral, but the dog did not give up. When at last he tracked Henri into the woods and they saw each other, it was difficult to know who was more overjoyed. So now he asked himself, was the dog merely a beast trained to search for a missing child, or was he doing so out of his own desire, because his soul would not let him rest until he found his beloved master? It was a complicated matter, one he did not feel qualified to answer.

“I’m a doctor,” he said. “I deal with flesh, not spirit.”

“But you do deal with spirit. You speak to the dying. You’re with those who are being born. This is an honor not many humans have.” Ava was very serious. “Have you seen the World to Come?”

He supposed she meant heaven. “Why do you ask?” Perhaps she was more religious than she appeared to be; all of this talk of spirit seemed to point to it.

She wanted to know what she herself was, but she merely shrugged and said, “Isn’t it natural to wish to know such things?”

“Actually, in my experience, it seems most people try their best not to think of such things. They avoid doing so at all costs.”

“But you do.” She seemed very sure of this. “You think about these matters every day.”

In order to continue his work in the best way possible, he did not dwell on such matters. And yet, he had an inkling of what she was speaking about. There was often an illumination around the dead, and those being born seemed touched by a similar light. Sometimes it lasted for no longer than the time it took to blink, but there were other times when the light continued to hover, so that a room might be filled with sparks for an hour or more after someone had passed away. He’d never spoken of this to anyone, it seemed pompous, perhaps mad to suggest that he was in some way doing God’s work. Yet there were times when the doorway into the next world seemed to have been flung open and all he could do was get down on his knees and look with awe upon the gift of life. It was the same with death, how strong an adversary death was, how all encompassing, how its arrival could be a gift or a tragedy.

When he thought about the matter of the spirit, Girard was forced to think of his wife as she truly was, not as sitting in the kitchen or parlor waiting for him, as he liked to imagine, but as mere bones, cold and in her grave. Now he must think of Ettie in the same way, when only days before she had been so alive, filled with spirit. He wondered what he might have done to change the fate of the two women he had loved in this world.

He had lost his faith on a night when Sarah asked him to lie beside her. He took off his shoes and did so. She was so thin in his embrace, it broke his heart. He knew the way the ending of a life occurred, and was well acquainted with the simple facts of death—how the kidneys stopped functioning, how the breathing became labored and the body could no longer maintain heat and was cool to the touch. Girard knew it was impossible to stop what was happening, yet begged her to stay. She stroked his hair and Henri sobbed, as if he were the one who was dying. Sarah had already given up on the world they were in, the beautiful blue world where it was possible to fall in love at first sight. “I’ve done everything I wanted to,” she told him. They had never been able to have children, and instead of that lack being a burden, it had served to make them closer. It was fate, she always said, insisting she wasn’t disappointed. There was no one else to love, only one another.

He kissed her, as if his breath could bring her back. He was not like other people, he was a doctor, and because of this he could see the Angel of Death. He knew him well. Look for the shadow, his father had told him when he was a boy and they visited the homes of the dying. And do what you can to defeat him. When he finished his medical studies his father reminded him to keep watch for the last angel. He’d thought the old man was joking with this Angel of Death nonsense, but his father’s expression was serious. He will surprise you and you’ll think you’re going mad sometimes, seeing all manner of things. But he’ll be there at the moment life ends. He’s always there.

Since that time Girard had spied the angel as he threw open a window and stepped inside a house. He had seen him in the fields, moving through the sunflowers, and in hospital surgery wards. Now he had appeared in their bedroom. Henri was not about to give in to him. He had planned for this moment, and quickly shifted Sarah to his side of the bed, then positioned himself in her place.

“Are you expecting me to take you instead?” the angel asked.

Henri had been awake for three nights in a row and he knew he might be imagining the angel, but he remembered what his father had said. It will be him, there in the room.

Azriel listed the names of everyone who would not be rescued by the doctor if he should die on this night. Since that time, Henri had kept a small leather notebook in which he later wrote down the names, at least the ones he could remember, and every time he met one of the people he crossed their name off the list, even though he had not been the one to decide to save them, so he took no credit. He wanted his wife, and no one else, but it was not his will to decide such things.

He could not claim to know what a soul was, or who possessed it. But he knew that a dove mourned its young, and a dog yearned for its master, and a man who lost his wife never truly recovered, and love that was given was never thrown away. He went to the closet in his bedroom and carefully stored the red shoes. Then he went to the guest bedroom, where he found Ava sitting in the chair. He put a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up at him there were tears in her eyes.

When the moon was high, Ava went out onto the lawn, where the heron was waiting. She had danced with him a hundred times before, and they danced again on this night. Girard could see them from the window. He’d heard a call that he’d thought was a person wailing, but when he looked outside he saw the bird. He realized how little he knew of this world, but he knew this: If you could love someone, you possessed a soul.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

WEST OF THE MOON

THE WOLF’S PLAIN, AUGUST 20, 1944