“What’s so funny, Kitt?”
“You and your work ethic, Winnow.”
“If I remember correctly, you were one of the last people to leave the Gazette almost every single night.”
“So I was. And you’ve just given me an idea.”
“I have?”
He nodded. “Why don’t we open the twin doors and bring our type writers down to the kitchen? We can write at the table and enjoy this warm air while we wait for Marisol and Attie to return.”
Iris narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Kitt?”
“Yes.” Roman traced the corner of her mouth with his fingertip. “Let’s work together.”
{37}
The Crime of Joy
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table, their typewriters nearly touching. Their notepads were open, stray papers with thoughts and outlines and snippets spread over the wood. It was harder than Iris had anticipated, looking over the notes she had gathered at the front. The stories of soldiers she knew were now dead.
“Any ideas on where to start?” Roman asked, as if he was feeling the same reluctance as her.
Sometimes she still dreamt of that afternoon. Sometimes she dreamt she was endlessly running through the trenches, unable to find her way out, her mouth full of blood.
Iris cleared her throat, flipping to the next page. “No.”
“I suppose we could tackle this in two different ways,” he said, dropping his notepad on the table. “We could write about our experiences and the timeline of the attack. Or we could edit the stories we gathered about individual soldiers.”
Iris was pensive, but she felt like Roman was right. “Do you remember much, Kitt? After the grenade went off?”
Roman raked his hand through his hair, mussing it even more than it already was. “A bit, yes. I think the pain had me quite dazed, but I vividly remember you, Iris.”
“So you remember how stubborn you were, then? How you insisted I grab your bag and leave you.”
“I remember feeling like I was about to die, and I wanted you to know who I was,” he said, meeting her gaze.
Iris fell silent, pulling a loose thread from her sleeve. “I wasn’t about to let you die.”
“I know,” Roman said, and a smile broke over his face. “And yes. Stubborn is my middle name. Don’t you know it by now?”
“I believe that name is already taken, Carver.”
“Do you know what Carver would like right about now? Some tea.”
“Make your own tea, lazybones,” Iris said, but she was already rising from her chair, thankful that he had given her something to do. A moment to step away from the memories that were flooding her.
By the time she had prepared two cups, Roman had started to transcribe soldier stories. Iris decided it would be best for her to write about the actual attack, since she had been lucid the entire time.
She fed a fresh page into her typewriter and stared at its crisp blankness for a long moment, sipping her tea. It was strangely comforting to hear Roman type. She almost laughed when she remembered how it had once irked her, to know his words were flowing while she worked on classifieds and obituaries.
She needed to break this ice.
Her fingers touched the keys, tentatively at first. As if remembering their purpose.
She began to write, and the words felt slow and thick at first. But she fell into a rhythm with Roman, and soon her keys were rising and falling, the accompaniment to his, as if they were creating a metallic song together.
She caught him smiling a few times, as if he had been waiting to hear her words strike.
Their tea went cold.
Iris stopped to freshen up their cups. She noticed that the wind was still blowing. Every now and then, a tendril would sneak into the kitchen, fluttering the papers on the table. The breeze smelled like warm soil and moss and freshly cut grass, and she watched as the garden beyond danced with it.
She continued with her article, cutting up her memories and setting them back down on paper. She made it to the moment when the grenade went off and she paused, glancing up at Roman. He tended to scowl while he wrote, and there was deep furrow between his brows. But his eyes were alight, and his lips were pressed into a line, and he tilted his head to the side, so his hair would drift out of his eyes.
“See something you like?” he asked, not missing a beat. His gaze remained on his paper, his fingertips flying over the keys.
Iris frowned. “You’re distracting me, Kitt.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Now you know how I’ve felt all this bloody time, Iris.”
“If I was distracting you for such a long period of time … you should have done something about it.”
Without another word, Roman reached for a piece of paper and crumpled it into a ball, hurling it across the table at her. Iris blocked it, eyes flashing.
“And to think I made you two perfect cups of tea!” she cried, crumpling her own sheet to fire back at him.
Roman caught it like it was a baseball, his eyes still on his work as one hand continued to type. “Is there any chance of a third, do you think?”
“Perhaps. But it’ll come with a fee.”
“I’ll pay whatever you want.” He stopped typing to look at her. “Tell me your price.”
Iris bit her lip, wondering what she should ask for. “Are you sure about that, Kitt? What if I want you to wash my laundry for the rest of the war? What if I want you to massage my feet every night? What if I want you to make me a cup of tea every hour?”
“I can do all of that and more if you like,” he said, deadly serious. “Simply tell me what you want.”
She breathed, slow and deep, trying to dim the fire that seemed so eager to burn within her. That blue-hearted fire that Roman sparked. He was watching, waiting, and she dropped her eyes to where she had left her sentence hanging on the page.
The explosion. His hand being ripped from hers. The smoke that rose. Why had she been unscathed, when so many others hadn’t? Men and women who had given so much more than her, who would never get to return home to their families, their lovers. Who would never see their next birthday, or kiss the person they least expected, or grow old and wise, watching flowers bloom in their garden.
“I don’t deserve this,” she whispered. She felt like she was betraying her brother. Lieutenant Lark. The Sycamore Platoon. “I don’t deserve to be this happy. Not when there’s so much pain and terror and loss in the world.”
“Why would you say that?” Roman replied, his voice gentle but urgent. “Do you think we could live in a world made only of those things? Death and pain and horror? Loss and agony? It’s not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless. Iris, look at me. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I intend to see that you have it.”
She wanted to believe him, but her fear cast a shadow. He could be killed. He could be wounded again. He could choose to leave her, like Forest. She wasn’t prepared for another blow like that.