『Actual Author's Note: For convenience, all of the names in this chapter are the actual names of the characters. In reality, as Gilbert said though, Matthew is called "Birdie" and everyone else has nicknames or fake names.』
chapitre un:
•un jour•
Bonjour. I'm German and I just started the first chapter of this book in French. (Verdammt, Potato brother, I'm PRUSSIAN not German. That's the last time I'm letting you edit.) [Potato brother: 1.) Prussia stopped being a country in 1871, and it is now a part of the German Empire, so you are actually German. 2.) You can barely type right now and you need rest, so I'm editing.] (The Awesome Me: 1.) PRUSSIA LIVES. 2.) I'M FINE.) I don't usually speak or write in French because it's not my native language or even my secondary language, so I haven't nearly perfected it yet. However, I thought it was appropriate to at least start and end these chapters in French because that was the primary language Birdie used. He was fluent in English, but whenever he was with his family, he had always only usually used French.
He also once told me that most of his thoughts were in French, so by adding this little bit of language, it's like having him embrace the chapter with the arms of his little French-Canadian soul around each end- start and finish. That was a weird analogy.
I really want you to feel connected to this story. Though I wrote these words, they essentially belong to Birdie. This is the only way I know how to make him live on. In memory. If I can't create new memories with him, I'll just keep reliving old ones. I'll never get tired of them.
As you can tell, I'm still struggling to move on. Just look at my cluttered room, stacks of dirty laundry, untamed hair, and scattered tissues. I'M USUALLY A CLEAN FREAK. ASK ANYONE. The other two musketeers came over to check on me today and I swear that their jaws dropped to the floor when they saw the state I was living in.
It appears that the only constant thing is the beer in my hand. It's already my second one I've had while writing this.
Everything is still fresh but it feels like I've been grieving forever and can never stop. It's been about three months (at the time I'm writing this chapter) since he died, though it feels like it has been three years. This will hopefully act as a journal to help me through this though.
I just really don't know how I could ever move on. How anyone who knew him or what he did could.
I wonder if even you'll have a hard time moving on. I know you don't actually know him, but you'll feel like you do throughout this.
Anyways, enough with these lame emotions. I deal with them too much already.
I'll add notes throughout the story. I'll try not to interrupt so much, but anyone who knows me knows that I really can't keep my mouth shut (as you can probably tell by my rambling right now).
Birdie always did say I was "so loud". I always said that it was because I needed to balance him for being "so quiet".
My notes will be marked by those star things (*) because they look like snowflakes, which remind me of Birdie, and will be in this slanted letter format because it makes up for my lack of elegance.
That isn't specific enough. What're those called again?
Okay, thank God for smart people. I've just been informed by my brawny younger brother that the lazily designed sparkle thingy mabobbers are named asterisks (more like half-assterisk snowflakes) and the tipsy drunk letters are called Italics.
You learn something new everyday. Even the awesome me does. (I know right. Shocked.) Usually if the Brit with a stick up his arse ever knew that I just used such atrocious grammar, he would kill me, but now I'm lucky enough to happen to be friends with his new lover or something, so I'll probs be saved.
As I mentioned earlier, Birdie used French in his household. Note that all of the conversation in this chapter was spoken originally in this language and is in English to fit my own language barriers for my own convenience. Birdie and Fancy-Pantsy would be so disappointed.
For those of you who don't have a little yellow canary or a slightly hairy French Fry (ew, that's actually a really gross image) in your life to teach or translate French for you, welcome to Chapter One: One day.
Matthew remembered the expression on his aunt's face when Canada entered World War II.
It was September 10th, 1939, exactly nine days after Germany invaded Poland. It came as no surprise to many. England had declared war the day prior, and France before that, so the Parliament of Canada quickly took action and joined in to support its fellow allies.
Which was why his aunt wasn't shocked. Anastasia Williams had been apprehensive of the news for the entire past week, but she was calm about it, not because she wasn't worried but because she was too used to war to really give a damn anymore, like a prisoner who had numbed to chronic beatings and went from a scream or shout each lash to a grunt or a jolt- silence or a twitch of their back- with each whipping.
Still, Matthew could see the faraway distant look in her eyes, and for those nine long days after the invasion of Poland, she was living in another world, another time. She had gone back to 1914, when she was forced to become an adult at the age of 14- for there was no room for being a kid in war- all the way to 1918, when she died for the first time in her life when her father and brother passed away on the hellish bridge of no man's land.
Aunt Anastasia was reliving it all over again because now there was a possibility that her family's history would repeat. She was less afraid for herself and more for her nephew, who was just the prime age to be a soldier. Oh how she prayed to the gods that there would be no draft, like the one they had in France that fated her family to a road of death, pain, trauma, grief, and poverty.
As soon as the news spread, Anastasia had refused to let Matthew and his fraternal twin brother, Alfred, who lived in the U.S. with their father and stepmother, to enter the war. She wanted the Allies to win just as much as everyone else in her country, but like all who had lived during the Great War just over two decades prior, they were reluctant. It was if their generation as a whole had taken a spoonful of piping hot soup, thinking that it was cooled, and now were more hesitant after scalding their sensitive tongues, taking the tiniest sip or testing the temperature with the tip of their finger to make sure it was cool enough the second time they checked.
However, despite Anastasia's wishes, six months after Canada joined the war, Matthew Williams had become a pilot for the Canadian Air Force behind his aunt's back.
It was one week after that, on a Sunday morning, that he sat at their cheap, ancient, and scratched oak dining room table, on the East side of the house with the sun climbing the horizon out of the huge arched window, bordered with white curtains, as he guided Aunt Elaine's delicate hands, worn from using them as a substitute for her sightless eyes, to her silverware. He watched Anastasia as she read from a thick, dusty novel that was written in her native language, French, over her wire spectacles. The boy never lied to Anastasia- this woman who had taken care of him as if she were his real mother, when his biological one, Genevieve, had passed away during a trip to France when he was twelve years old, supposedly from the same illness that her mother and younger brother had (Matthew could only assume that this meant it was genetic).
So something inevitably tugged at Matthew's heart. Guilt. Anger. Nostalgia. Anticipation. A twinge of excitement. Doubt. The replaying of the serious words that came from the mouth from a far from serious man. A key and a sealed envelope in your mother's penmanship. The ticking clock of a bomb as the seconds counted down.
'Ten Mississippi. Nine Mississippi…
Eight Mississippi. Seven Mississippi...
Six Mississippi. Five brief sentences…
Four chaotic years. Three related deaths…
Two possible paths...
One damn final decision…
Zero tickets back.'
An engine combusted into vibrant flames and clouds of smoke spontaneously, showering debris all over a wet, moonlit cobblestone road and lighting up Paris in vermillion and the scent of gasoline. Everything burst inside of Matthew. He blurt out the news. The practiced, rehearsed, and final news.
His two aunts completely froze.
Elaine fell silent, blind milky white eyes piercing the air in front of her and pale bony fingers caged around her fork, hanging it mid-air with a chunk of pancakes sliding from the clutches of the prong, dangling like Elaine's slack jaw, dripping syrup like the tears that clung to the corners of her eyes. The news was so sudden that it sucked all of the strength from her hand so that her fingers unraveled from the silver scratched body of the silverware and let it stumble off her frozen thumb and clash against her ceramic plate with a clang. She held her breath to keep back the thoughts that attempted to escape and nodded once in obedient acceptance, as she usually did. Twice. Thrice. Gulp. A small kind smile from thin pink lips.
"That's wonderful, darling. I know that all of Canada will be safe in your hands." She patted Matthew's shaking hands and returned to her reserved, overly polite, and restrained self. She was more positive than her sister, though she was blind and one would assume that she looked at life in a negative way, since she couldn't see the beauty in the world. Not having her sight just made her all the more understanding and grateful for the little things.
Anastasia was silent the whole time. Nerve-wrackingly silent. She was stone frozen and no one could tell her emotions until she suddenly broke the overly polite white lies Elaine sung and the tense cloud that seemed to loom over the dining table for hours. She slammed her palm down onto the countertop, asking, "How could you?"
Matthew jumped at the booming voice, and he trembled slightly as he saw tears begin to trail down her round cheeks. He expected that this would happen, knowing his aunt's past. Nevertheless, he had never made anyone cry before besides his brother when he was younger (*-and that one time he totally smashed his "perfect athlete brother" at hockey. He told me to never tell anyone about that, but he's dead now so... Damn tears. Always making my awesome face wet and smearing my inked words. Mein Gott. Rude.*) as he knew of, and at this new unfamiliar sight, he couldn't help but feel the guilt continue to rise in his chest.
This had to be done though.
The next few moments went in a dazed blur. His aunt stormed out the front door, sobbing now, and fled to an unknown location to clear her mind.
*There were no accounts as to what happened between then and that night, but based on the anxious pacing and crashes Elaine heard from his bedroom, his bear that was found damp with tears, and this unfinished journal entry that was found crumbled and under his bed, I think you can assume what happened in that short timespan. You'll probably even understand more in the following chapters.
This, my amigos (I actually remembered something Tomato Lover taught me! Birdie would be so proud. Damn, the tears are back. Gratias.), is where our story begins. Well, sorta. You'll see. Time isn't represented in a linear path of chronological events in this book (I used big words. I gotta tell Arthur).
I'm getting off topic. Again. This is why I never imagined myself ever writing a book.
Let's continue.
Also, just for fun, let's include an interruption counter. I'm a depressed man with nothing better to do but write this and cry, so let's make this a game. Pause. Get a piece of paper. A pencil, pen, broken crayola crayon, or whatever. Write how many times you bet I'll interrupt this chapter. It'll be fun. Don't throw this paper away though. You'll need it.*
That night, when Anastasia returned, she found Matthew laying in his twin bed, which he had grown out of, causing his feet to jut over the edge, with nothing but air and the ground below them. The blonde had been trying to fall asleep, but had found himself unable to so with all of his racing thoughts that reflected on everything that had happened on that eventful day, so he was awake when she entered.
Aunt Anastasia crept silently into his bedroom and knelt beside his frame, stroking his silky golden hair with her long slender fingers. Matthew, who wanted to avoid conversation, pretended to be asleep, but even though he was a far better liar and actor than his brother, his aunt saw the slightest twitching of his lips and heard his unsteady breathing, and she knew that he was awake.
She nudged him with such gentleness that contrasted her earlier behaviour, her lips curled into a small smile. "Matthew, put on your shoes." Matthew could tell that she had calmed down and was back to herself.
Two minutes later the two stepped outside into the chilly Spring air of Ontario- Matthew in his red plaid pyjamas and robe and Aunt Anastasia still in her oversized green canvas coat that used to be her father's, brown leather oxfords, white blouse, and waist-high pleated flannel kaki trousers- a gentle zephyr wafting through their blonde and brunette locks. Owls hooted, crickets chirped, and cicadas croaked songs into the crisp night air, creating a soft symphony as their echoing footsteps and steady breathing kept time to the nocturnal music that filled the silence.
Both wondered when the other was going to speak, but neither did so themselves, as if by muttering a word they may shatter the fragile reality around them and everything would spiral out of control, like the world had done ever since 1914.
Matthew observed the woman beside him. Her worn hands recorded her history and life: paper cuts from flipping the pages of a novel a little too eagerly, a pink scar crafted into the skin of her left hand from her days spent engineering. They were tender like her expression when she cared for her patients, swift and angled like her movements and thoughts, scratched against the Earth from hiking adventures, constantly racing as if time was running out, and old, but strong, from carrying the weight of her family. They were wild like her personality, and animated when her passion or excitement or emotion flowed from her throat, through her veins, and to her rusting wrists, shooting to the ends of her calloused fingertips, causing them to gesticulate as she danced the words that flew rapidly off her tongue.
These pair of books that told her whole history were now hidden and stuffed into the large patched pockets of her coat.
The woman had a short bob of chocolate-coloured finger waves that swayed with every step, a loose curl of hair tucked back behind her ear with a makeshift metal bobby pin that had been bent out of shape countless times to pick the locks when she forgot her keys (which she did often) and perhaps to unlock something else, something that Matthew was unaware about. She looked young for a woman of her age. Well, at least in Matthew's opinion. He didn't see any grey hairs unless he got up close, and her skin lacked any early forming wrinkles, despite the fact that she was stressed for the majority of her life, because her countless smiles and fits of laughter probably always reversed those affects. She was a woman of average height- about 5 foot, 7 inches- her body constructed of sharp angles and thick thighs and muscular long legs and rosy skin, and her face crafted from round cheeks and a bridge of freckles that dotted the underside of her eyes, ran from one ear to the other, and rounded over her flat nose, which barely had a bridge to hold her reading spectacles and was simply a round bump above her full lips, which were painted with a scarlet lipstick- the only makeup she ever wore- to make a "statement". Her eyes were raging storms, wild, animated, moving, fast, and a marriage of blue and grey.
Anastasia was the first one to speak. "I'm sorry, Mattie." Her grey eyes remained focused in front of her, ears dusted pink from the nipping cold.
Matthew glanced over, surprised by the sudden sound of the voice- rich in a guilty tone and laced in her French accent- that snapped him back to reality. By looking into those serious slate irises, devoid of their usual glow, and her nonchalant expression, red lips tucked into a thin line, Matthew knew that she was serious and had pondered on this for a while now. She rarely looked this grim. His aunt was usually lively, exuberant, adventurous, wild, cheery, and halcyon like his twin brother, Alfred.
Like his mother, Genevieve. No one ever spoke of her though. Not after all that had happened. (*Birdie often told me that he worried Alfred would end up like his biological mother because they were so alike.*)
Matthew bit his lip and focused his gaze back in front of him, letting the clopping of his aunt's heels and scuffing of his loafers create noise to fill the pause he took as he thought about what to say.
"It's okay," he lied. He had done a lot of lying lately, and would have to continue to do so for years to come. "I understand," he said softly, letting his words die off with the wind. He was never one for words. He was quiet, and in these few moments in which he was expected to fill the silence, he felt like a hopeless fisherman trying to catch a fish.
"Do you?" She asked, though the words didn't come out harsh. Instead, she spoke them softly, like a teacher kindly trying to help their student understand something and guide them through their mistakes.
Even if he was lying about all of this, the answer was still the same. He let his head drop, exhaling a sigh with a puff of air. The simple motion spoke his answer- No, I don't- and his aunt smiled softly, indicating that he was correct.
"I understand though," she whispered (*Little did she know that she was unusually far from understanding the situation*). "I understand you all too much. Which is why I was angry. I see you in me."
This caused Matthew to slow down his long strides and glance sideways at Anastasia in confusion, an eyebrow raised and his eyes dancing in thought and curiosity as he waited for an explanation. A sense of fear rose in him. Did she know what he was really doing?
"You always say that you and your brother 'ave nothing in common, but this just proves that that's quite the opposite." She chuckled dryly to herself. "You both want to be 'eroes, just like I did."
Matthew sighed silently in relief and pushed his askew glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I don't want to be a hero though."
She shook her head. "Yeah, you do, Mattie," she said a matter-of-factly. "You just don't want the glory or fame of it all. You don't care about being called a 'hero', as Alfred does, but you both 'ave an undeniable desire to want to 'elp others."
Matthew didn't deny it. It was true, even if she didn't know the full situation. This woman could only know lies and yet still be able to conjure up some facts. "You wanted to be a hero too?"
"Indeed." Anastasia skipped for a few steps like a child, though her mind was really beyond her years. "I did all I could to participate in the war effort and I still don't know if it was enough."
"It was more than enough. You saved lives, Anastasia."
Anastasia shrugged. "I won't keep you from fighting in the war. If we all stayed behind in fear, nothing would be done. Some people 'ave to be the heroes. And you'll make a fine one at that," she said. She glanced at Matthew before tilting her head back to smile at the stars. "You're mighty brave, Matthew."
Matthew looked up at the stars as well, letting them gaze for a few meters before he broke the comfortable silence. "I know, Ana," he whispered.
*Too brave, Ana.
He was too damn brave.*
"At least you are a pilot and not a foot soldier." It was more like she was talking to herself than her nephew.
"I'm doing more by being in the Air Force." Oh how the lies just kept falling out. His words were so true and so false at the same time. He could probably do the most he could by being in the Air Force, but that isn't why he joined. Neither is his love for flying or the sky. It was something more.
There was a long pause. Anastasia pulled Matthew down onto a patch of dry grass in a field by the pavement. Dandelions and daffodils lacked their full vibrant colour in the purple umbras of night, but the ones that the moonlight casted directly on in the dark field looked as if they were illuminating.
The two laid on their backs, grass crunching beneath them, and star gazed silently together. In that single serene moment, the war and Matthew's lies drifted away until they felt so distant, and both knew that it would be okay.
Whatever happened, even if the truth never came out, they would be okay, as long as the stars were there above them.
It was a cloudless night and because of the little air pollution in the countryside, one could see so many stars that they were like grains of salt sprinkled randomly across a dark quilt blanket. The two could point out every constellation in their minds, and they held a conversation about these formed pictures in the sky with their eyes only. They held a silent look that said, 'Remember?'
And Matthew did remember. So did Anastasia. His aunt had taught him how to spot all of the constellations when he was just a boy and when they had read all of their books from the library or didn't feel like going to the ice skating rink nearby. They once laid in the same spot, seven years earlier, with Alfred. It was nearly midnight, they ate a late night snack of chocolate chip pancakes- "This one time," Anastasia had said, "but you have to make sure you two brush well."- and they were all in their pyjamas (except for Alfred of course, who wasn't used to the cold weather and had brought both a coat and blanket along).
"I'll miss you, Ana." The words lingered in the air.
"I'll miss you too, Mattie." Her eyes darted to the constellation of Leo, Matthew's horoscope. "When you miss me, just look at the stars. Though we may be miles apart, we are still under the same sky, and we will take turns gazing upon the same stars."
"We'll send messages." Matthew shot a silly smile, a sign that he was about to say something he thought was funny. "I'll look into the sky and think of something to tell you, and when you look into the stars the following night, they will magically send you my message." His soft chuckle and Anastasia's loud and boisterous laugh echoed into the night.
"Yes! That method is so much more quick and efficient than sending letters. It also takes a lot less effort!" Anastasia added dramatic hand motions for the effect. Her eyes lit up. "That's a bloody brilliant idea!" She said in a terrible mock British accent.
Matthew leaned closer and excitedly rambled in a hushed voice (*which I didn't even know was possible. I thought that if he spoke any quieter he might as well not be speaking.*), pretending as if they were speaking about some huge revolutionary secret. "Even better- maybe we can try to move the stars with our mind, and make them form messages." He had just quoted Alfred, who had once said the exact thing that night so many years ago. Their laughter died down as nostalgia nipped at it. They both reflected on that time when Alfred went on and on about becoming the first superhero to use stars to save people.
Anastasia chuckled. "Alfred..." She sighed. The simple mention of his name spoke hundreds of words. "Does he know?"
"No, and I think it's for the best that he doesn't." Matthew wound a few thick blades of grass between his fingers. He didn't want to lie to anymore people than he had to.
She shook her head. "Yeah. He'd probably hitch a ride here just to join the Canadian Air Force and fight by your side. Either that or he would be so determined to protect you and be the hero that he would take your place and tape you to the wall to prevent you from getting a single paper cut."
"He's indeed a reckless soul." Matthew's chest shook with laughter.
"Honestly, I was first thinking of trying to join too when I heard the news of the war. I was the one who taught you how to fly after all."
"Why not try?"
Anastasia shook her head, as if the answer should've been obvious. Matthew didn't live a sheltered life, but his optimism sometimes made him a bit endearingly clueless. "For starters, I'm a woman and though I probably 'ave more experience piloting and navigating and know how to engineer a lot of different machinery, they would probably never let me fight in the war as a pilot. At least not yet. They might if things start getting desperate. 'Owever, even then, I still have people here who need me: Elaine, Theodore, Charles, Annie, and Lincoln. After all, I bring the majority of the income into this household."
"You know more than me. You're older and wiser. That isn't fair." Matthew knew it wasn't fair, and it was almost childish the way he said this. He knew all of this and witnessed everything first hand, but yet he believed that he would never quite get used to the injustice and wrong in the world.
"It's life. I raised you and Annie to 'ave open minds. Keep opening the minds of others until things change. One day, they will. One day, things will change. They 'ave to."
One day, things will change. They have to.
Those words, however small they were, filled him with hope. Things were going to change, and he was fighting for what he believed in one step at a time. One day, this war would end. One day, women would be able to become pilots. One day, they would share the same rights. One day, he would be able to get married to a man. One day, there would be no people blackmailing teenagers. One day, there wouldn't be the need to become a pilot and risk your life at a young age to gain information and save your family. One day, there would be no need to spend the last words to the woman you consider your mother on a boot full of lies. One day.
One day until he left forever.
One day left. Un jour reste.
Back at their house, the coo-coo clock chimes.
Midnight. Minuit.
Zero days left.
Zéro jour reste.
*Au Revoir.*
*Interruption tally (no, for once I wasn't joking): IIIII*