Gifts of War (54 page)

Who would have thought that a war, of all things, could bring me such a gift?

So, more than the fact that I have loved you, Will—dear Will—
you have loved me
. You are perhaps the only person outside my family who I can be sure
has
loved me. One day you will know what that means, but you will also learn that the love of a child is not the same as the love of an adult, of a man for a woman, or a woman for a man.

When your mother first told me, on the cricket field in Middle Hill, when you were crawling all over the blanket, that she didn’t love me—well, I decided I could cope with that, that her kiss on our previous meeting held out a promise, and that I had a whole war to
change her mind. When I saw how much she missed me, the night I stayed out late unexpectedly, shadowing Genevieve Afton, I told myself that our relationship was deepening. When we were by that lock on the canal, watching a filthy barge rise from one level to another and Sam said our horizon was expanding in a similar way, I believed her. When, by another canal, this time in Middle Hill, she said that her love for me was unfolding like a flower in spring—again I believed her. I thought it was a wonderful thing to say. When we made love the night before I left for Switzerland, and she cried out again and again, I thought we had reached the limits of intimacy, an intimacy neither of us had achieved before. When she wrote to me in Switzerland to say she was sleeping on my side of the bed, I thought that was a spontaneous gesture that confirmed our intimacy. When she suggested we take a bath together, on the evening of my birthday party, when you and I had been playing with the shoe polish, she convinced me that, yes, she would one day be able to love me. When she cried out, at the Lister Hospital, and said without thinking that I was your father, I was touched and, yes, I thought a line had been crossed. When she fought with Ruth, after Ruth and Greville had allowed me to take the blame in Lottie’s eyes for Reg’s betrayal, your mother was—was she not?—putting “our” family, as she described it, before her own. When she lectured me about “blood” not being everything it is cracked up to be, I saw no reason to disbelieve her. When she stood on the rung of the kissing gate, in the field where we scattered Izzy’s ashes, and told me she would marry me, I believed her, and all my anger dissolved in an instant. I am sure she meant it, and all the other comforting things she said, when she said them.

I am sure she
tried
to love me. I was as much a gift to her as she was to me.

But… I cannot shake my recollection of how uncomfortable she felt when Ruth showed her the children’s uniforms her factory had
made, or when you saluted the grenadiers at Miss Allardyce’s on the day of the party. Why had she registered your name at Miss Allardyce’s under “Ross” and not used mine?

Our predicaments suited us, both of us. But with me the way I am, there was never any chance of another child—a brother or sister for you—and the complications that might bring.

Did your mother love me, Will, or—I repeat how hard it is to write all this—
or
was I… ? No. You will understand what I can’t bring myself to say.

I recall with vivid but sad pleasure the walk in the back streets of Stratford, that Saturday in July 1915, when I fell in love with your mother right there and then, among the saddleries, foundries, and blacksmiths. I, more than anyone, should know that the internal explosion, the furnace of fire when love swells to fill every organ and every cell of your being, when the juices of your system are warmed by this sudden charging and changing of your physiology, a transfusion that floods your arteries and veins with electricity, is very different from the slow glow that Sam says grew inside her, in regard to me. An adagio is not the real thing.

Until last week, I thought I had been clever and had fooled everyone—Sam most of all—with the way I had contrived to meet her, and then build a life, a family, a love, all derived from a daring calculation, a neat juggling of our joint predicaments, the fortuitous way we had both been trapped by dramatic events and ironic circumstances. But the only one I was fooling was myself.

The peace conference will last a few more weeks, so when she reads this your mother will know where to find Wilhelm. The idea that Wilhelm’s child, the enemy’s offspring, but the enemy who wasn’t the enemy, should be the one person whose love I could know, is strange, is ironic in itself, but the world is as it is.

And, in making you free, Will, and in making Sam free, I hope
that I am making myself free. I can see that now. Your mother could not have known, when she sent me Izzy’s journal, but the great events that put this whole story in motion have also helped bring about its resolution. At least I hope so.

It is getting late and it is still raining outside. In a few hours I leave for Le Havre.

Unlike Izzy’s splendid journal, my story is not for publication. If Sam reads it, if my father reads it, even if Wilhelm reads it, that is as it should be. But first and foremost it is a gift for you, my dearest boy, because in war and in peace I have been happy, joyous, and, yes, privileged to have been, for however short a time,

Your father