What memories does he see as he gazes out across the moat? What version of Francis does he see in those memories? She can’t help but feel there are some memories that Harry has chosen not to share with her. They stand side by side and swallows’ bellies glimmer blue over the water. A man is sculling, concentric circles stretching out from his quiet blades. Harry skims a stone. It skips three times.

“Ducks and drakes,” she says.

Beyond the ramparts there is an area of new housing. It is a township of huts, yellow wood walls and pitch roofs. These streets look like something made of matchsticks, she thinks, like something that a strong wind might easily level.

“It’s called the Plaine d’Amour,” he tells her. “The Plain of Love! It’s not very lovely, is it?”

“I remember reading that it was all going to be preserved,” she says. She has followed all of the stories about Ypres in the newspapers, knowing that this is the area where Francis was. “That it was going to just be left as untouched ruins, that the town was to be made into a symbol and a souvenir and war memorial.”

“This was home to people, though. They wanted that back more than they wanted a monument for the British to visit. I read in the paper yesterday that five thousand men are presently employed in construction in Ypres.”

“What great days these are for joiners and carpenters.” Her foot strikes against a piece of metal then. “What is it?”

“An air shaft.”

Edie crouches and peers down. There is only blackness and a smell of stale air below.

“The ramparts were full of dugouts,” Harry says. “We sheltered here one night in 1917. I remember an earth-floored cellar, furnished with a salvaged velvet armchair, a long-case clock, and needlework alphabets on the walls.” He widens his eyes and smiles. “It was a long night. I was down there with an Australian, a second lieutenant from Melbourne, who swore each time the clock struck the quarter hour and kept standing up to straighten the pictures. We finished a bottle of Benedictine together, and talked about spin bowlers and parrots and wildflowers, but the shells were splintering the walls outside.”

“We? Was Francis there? He was with you?”

“No. This was after.”

“After,” she repeats. She is no longer sure what after means. A church clock somewhere repeats the hour.

“Will you tell me again? About that last day, I mean.”

“Edie, please—”

“It’s all I have.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times.”

“But there might have been something that we’ve missed. Some possibility that you’ve overlooked which, in the one-hundred-and-first telling, might jump out at me.”