The hidden letter

Roy,

This is not the first of these that I have written, though I hope it will be the last. If it is, it means that it is in your hands, and that I can finally discard the sheaf of old attempts that begin, of course, with ‘Sergeant Grady’. It will be strange to know you without that title, but in the best of ways, I believe.

I pray that this finds you in good health and spirits, for each time I have written it, it has bolstered my own in spite of the events that brought me here. It is a fascinating city, your home, and even though it feels very lonely at times I have never doubted my choice to come here. I am still learning it, walking the streets each morning as I attempt to change bonjour to good morning with every face I see. Perhaps I will some day, and my greeting will seem less peculiar to those I offer it to. Whether I succeed or no, it comforts me to think that the day will come when I can say it to you, and that you will not find my accent so funny as others do.

Many things have happened since that last day I saw you, since you left France to return to your home and let your injuries heal. I can only hope that they have done just that; you are too young a man to be limited by the service you gave to your country and mine. For some time, I worried and wondered about that, if I would ever know your health or if the questions would end up in the long ledger of things that are never answered. Some might say that would be for the best, that uncertainty is more comfort than dire news, but I refuse such notions.

I will know what I have missed, some day, for good or for bad. For however great and mournful the past year has been at times, I would rather know and mourn than know nothing at all.

The clinic where you were treated is no more, raided by the occupying forces slightly more than one year ago, and however dilapidated the building was? I miss it. It was familiar in ways I have not known since my childhood, the familiarity of having a choice in the place, no? I knew it because I helped to shape it, because I was invested in those who worked it and those it saved or eased the suffering of. Those others, both staff and patient, I worry for them every morning and pray for their salvation every night, yet also know that they never doubted their choice to help you and your fellows.

We knew, all of us, that our actions could earn our deaths. This is the price one must pay the moment their nation is no longer their own: submit or risk the loss of all you hold dear. And for many of us, it was a fair risk to take. We believe in France, we know it will be ours again one day. Yet, for others it was too high a price, I believe. For them, I pray the most, because even with something more precious than their country and independence, they chose to help. They could not turn a blind eye to the sacrifices of your military, no more than I. Such selflessness is the trait of the martyr, and as noble as such an ideal may be, so many have already been put to the test. Were I able to affect such change, there would never be another, simply because the world no longer needed them to prove their devotion.

And yet I feel that in such a world, I may never have met a man like yourself. Still, yours is the sort of heart I would see more of in the world, with your devotion to your cause and your quiet care, the focus of a hawk in every task you undertake. Yours is the sort that this war could not break, and that I would know again on the day this missive reaches you.

I have enclosed my telephone number below, as well as the address of the clinic where I work most hours of the day. Some things do not change, I suppose, even if the nation surrounding them does. It is good work, it nourishes my spirit, and with any sense of balance in the world you have found something similar.

We will speak soon, I believe it as much as I can believe anything.

- Amelie Gericault