He seals one envelope and opens another. He reads again the note that Ralph has sent. In parentheses of apologies there is the address of a cemetery. It is unequivocally that. There is, Ralph says, no doubt. The face on his film, then, is a mistake. Harry looks up at his own face as he thinks how to begin a letter to Rachel. She had told him that she would be relieved just to know, but he can’t really imagine that could be true. In communicating these facts he will end her awful searching and her hope. Is this an act of cruelty or kindness? He wishes that he could say it to her rather than write it, but then it would be so very difficult to say it to her. He hesitates over words, thinks hard how best to frame the phrases, imagines himself saying those same phrases to Rachel’s face. Though he knows her eyes will rush through his politenesses, he tries to put it in kind terms. He thinks of Daniel East’s eyes and crumples the letter in his hand. When he looks up he sees the reflection of his camera in the mirror. He recalls the insistent eye of Francis’s camera in the mirror of the broken house. He has had to call Mr. Lee this afternoon, which has resulted in another five names being added to the list of graves that he must photograph. He wonders if he will ever be able to escape the graves.

He stands up from the dressing table and takes the camera in his hands. It hits the wall with a convincing thud, leaving another gouge in the already scarred plasterwork. There is broken glass on the floorboards again. He thinks about Edie pulling a fragment of glass from his hand and turns away.

Chapter Fifty-Five: Edie

Chapter Fifty-Five

Edie

Plage de Calais, September 1921

EDIE STARTLES AT THE NOISE OF BREAKING GLASS. THE WIND HAS taken over a café table, dashing glasses to the ground. A waiter fusses in with a dustpan and brush as the drinkers gesticulate over their lost aperitifs.

“Quelle catastrophe!” says a woman in black silk crêpe and laughs.

“Quite,” Edie replies.

“Of course, you’re English.” The woman in black is leaning on the railings. “I did have suspicions about the color of your hair.”

The café table is righted, glasses are replenished, and the waiter is applauded. Beyond, the promenade is busy with day trippers, admiring the sea and the seafront properties. The houses at the top of the beach have a maritime cottage style, half timbered and balconied, with turreted rooflines. There are white-painted railings and palm trees and potted lemons. The promenaders point at the dahlias and bougainvilleas and the smartly varnished shutters, as if this decorative appraising is the thing to do. Edie looks down the sand and wonders how she has come to be watching the strollers and having her coloring critiqued in Calais.