There was applause that struck Lee as curious: it was scattered, but those who clapped did so with a rapturous lust. He applauded, too, but only because he didn’t want not to applaud. The house lights went up. He saw he was in a theater no more than half filled, but it was of epic size, seating perhaps two thousand people.

Then Lee thought, again, that his father’s name was Percy Duncan. It made him anxious. It felt like deflation, learning how a magic trick was done. Which war had he died in? This one? But it seemed so long ago, the Wild West showman. It made him sad for his father.

A spotlight found the lip of the stage. Stepping down were several men in evening clothes. They found chairs, and sheet music, and then hoisted brass instruments, and began a fanfare as the lights sank again, and the flicker of film illuminated the broad screen.

NEWS FROM FRANCE!

The quartet played a few bars of “Over There,” and then “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” There was an attack of some sort, puffs of smoke over a grayish mass of land, then some vague movement at the upper left-hand corner of the screen, followed by a reaction, then soldiers in the trench listening to the wireless, and showing joy, as something mysterious had been accomplished. To pin your talents on something so exhausted as a Wild West show …

While the quartet played a few staccato stings, a card came up: “The following is the most remarkable footage of the war, the French attack of February 2. The realism is unparalleled.”

Lee leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and his chin against his palms. In the trench, a company of poilus assembled before their lieutenant, who, with a series of short, sharp nods and gestures to the sky, explained they would be going Over the Top. There were exchanges of hugs and the extended kissing of crosses, which were carefully left behind on posts mounted for this very purpose.

As they were assembling by the ladders, a nurse ran into the huddle of men. One was her sweetheart. She removed something from around her neck and put it around his with a kiss—it was not a cross or a medallion, but a pair of child’s puppets, a boy and a girl made of yarn. Lee did not know what they represented, but the men in the trench all nodded.

The next card read “The Moment,” and then the music was very soft, a heartbeat. It took Lee time to understand what he was seeing. The bottom half of the screen was a crude dirt wall, and the top half was sky. It was the view if one was standing at the bottom of the trench and looking upward. Suddenly packs of soldiers scrambled vertically, dozens of them ascending ladders, ants pouring out of a nest, and then the nest was empty.