My father bought our first Ford secondhand when I was eleven years old. We had just moved into a narrow, respectable brownstone house on East Thirty-Second Street, after two years of renting a basement apartment somewhere on the West Side—I don’t recall the exact neighborhood, just that it was quiet and slightly downtrodden, the kind of place where you minded your own business and didn’t get to know your neighbors—and Father came home one day and said he had a surprise for us. I still don’t know why he bought it. We hardly ever drove anywhere; we never left Manhattan. I think he just wanted something to tinker with, or maybe to keep my sister busy. She shared his joy in mechanical things. I didn’t; I learned how to drive and how to keep the flivver in working order, but only because I had to. Because Father said so. When Sophie was old enough, I washed my hands and turned the Ford over to her.
But even if you didn’t take joy in engines, you couldn’t help admiring that car. It was blue—before the war, you could buy a Model T in red or green or blue, just about any color except black—and really a marvel of simple utility, easily understood, made of durable modern vanadium steel, lightweight and versatile, so that you could jam the family inside for a Sunday drive or build a wooden truck atop the chassis and call it a delivery van.
Or an ambulance.
And when I went to Paris and knocked on the door (metaphorically speaking) of the American Ambulance Field Service in Neuilly and begged for a vehicle, I didn’t tell them I hadn’t bent over the hood of a Model T in five years. I just bent like I knew what I was doing, and it all made sense again. The neat, economic logic of engine and gearbox. The floor pedals and the gear lever, the spark retard on the left of the steering wheel and the throttle on the right. And I thanked my father for making me learn, even though I hadn’t wanted to, and I thought—as I drove out of Neuilly, truck packed tight with hospital supplies and spare parts—about that first driving lesson. How frustrated I had been, how angry at Father’s unsympathetic sternness. But why do I have to learn? I don’t care a jot for automobiles, I said recklessly, and he said implacably, Because a car can make you free, Virginia, a car can take you anywhere you want to go.
But maybe need was a better word. A car could take you anywhere you needed to go. Like the garage of a medieval chateau in north-central France—a garage that wasn’t really a garage, just an old stable, lacking electricity, lit by a pair of kerosene lanterns, smelling of grease and wet stone and melancholy. I didn’t want to be here, cleaning the mud from Hunka Tin’s brave, scarred sides, changing her oil and examining her tires, but I needed to be here. And needing was of a higher order than wanting, wasn’t it? A nobler calling.
By the time I finished, it was nearly midnight, and the lamps in the great hall had darkened at last. The atmosphere lay black and dank on the stones of the courtyard. I strode from the garage to the main house, carrying one of the kerosene lanterns, so absorbed by the question of Hunka Tin’s suspect fuel line—to replace or not to replace?—that I didn’t notice the fiery orange dot zigzagging at the corner of the western wing until the smell of burning tobacco startled my nose.
I lifted the lantern. “Who’s there?”
The orange dot flared and disappeared. “Your humble servant.”
“Captain Fitzwilliam?”
“I didn’t mean to disturb you. Have you been taking care of your ambulance all this time?”
“Yes.” I raised the lantern higher, and at last I found him, resting against the damp stone wall, arms folded, cigarette extinguished. The peak of his cap shadowed his eyes. “How are the patients?”
“Tip-top. Showered in grateful attention from the ladies of the Overseas Delegation of the—which chapter is it?”
“The Eighth New York Chapter.”
“Of the American Red Cross. Yes. They were delighted to see us. I was reminded of Jason and the women of Lemnos. Except that ended rather badly, didn’t it? In any case, commendable zeal. Commendable.”
“Does that mean we’ve passed your inspection?”
“With flying colors.”
I wondered if he had been drinking. I thought I smelled some sort of spirits on his breath, though I wasn’t close enough to be sure, and the pungency of the recent cigarette still disguised any other smell that might have inhabited the air. His voice was steady, his words beautifully precise. I couldn’t fault his diction. Still. There was something, wasn’t there? Some ironic note at play. I stepped once in his direction, so that the light caught the bristling edge of his jaw. “You’re making fun of us, aren’t you?”
“I? No, indeed. Perish the thought. I admire you extremely, the entire enthusiastic lot of you. So fresh and dear and unspoiled. The fires of heroism burning in your eyes.”
I lowered the lantern and turned away. “Good night, Captain.”
“No, don’t go. I apologize.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“I have not been drinking.” Injured air. “I’ve had a glass or two of wine, served over dinner by your redoubtable directrix, but I haven’t been drinking. Not as the term is commonly known.”
“You had dinner with Mrs. DeForest?”
“She insisted.”
Yes, I had lowered the lantern and turned away, but I hadn’t taken a step. The soles of my shoes had stuck to the pavement by some invisible cement. I don’t know why. Yes, I do. Captain Fitzwilliam had that quality; he could hold you fast with a single word, a single instant of sincerity. Don’t go. I apologize. And there you stood, rapt, wanting to know what he really meant. Wanting to know the truth. All that charm, all that marvelously arid English wit—there had to be something behind it, didn’t there? It couldn’t just dangle out there on its own, a signboard without a shop.
A light flickered to life in one of the bedrooms above us. Fitzwilliam went on. “I made my escape, however. As you see.”
“You might have chosen a warmer place for it.”
“Ah, but I wanted a cigarette, you see, after all that. Rather badly. And my mother, who detests cigarettes, always made us smoke outdoors.”
“I see. An old habit.”
“That, and I was hoping to encounter a certain intrepid young ambulance driver, to thank her for her fortitude. And for enduring the cynicism of a jaded old soldier along the way.”
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“Not to you, perhaps. But essential to me.”
The handle of the lantern had become slippery in my bare palm. I had left my gloves in the garage. Essential. That word again. “Well, I’m sorry to have put you to the trouble. I hope you weren’t waiting long.”