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Requiem for a Revolver

Writer's picture: Rodica BretinRodica Bretin

“A gallery tour?”

The old custodian of the museum opened the doors of the halls for me, letting me walk unhindered through Aladdin’s Cave. For I was truly in a cave of treasures: paintings, sculptures, statuettes, amphorae, frescoes, tapestries, cups, clocks, and coins – in apparent disorder, graded in such a way that the eye could encompass them all and discern them one by one, detail after detail. Rarities, unique pieces, works of art that deserved their pedestal were collected here, made of gold, silver, bronze, marble, and amethyst. They all looked like an ordered chaos, a mixture of materials, shapes, colors, and styles. And they were all like shards of glass reassembling the stained glass window of history.

I walked through the halls of Greek and Roman civilization, through the medieval hall, the renaissance hall and the last one, the one with the transparent showcases holding the dormant relics of two world wars: bayonets, rifles, machine guns, grenades, and mines. Once, they had caused death and destruction. Now they only radiated the dull shine of iron, the obsolescence of inventions overtaken by other, more terrible ones. They looked like black and white photos, benign and inert. Only the black revolver sitting on a mahogany stand was different. There was something grim, lethal and menacing about that weapon.

Look at whatever you like, but don’t touch anything, the custodian had told me.

I passed my palm across the smooth, brown barrel and then took it in my hand. I did not expect it to be so heavy, and I had nearly dropped it. I had clenched my fingers around the grip, when a drop fell on my eyelid, rolling over my cheek, and on my lips. It was a tear? It wasn’t salty. It had a taste of…water?

...The rain was light and incessant, one of those calm, continuous overflows, with no lightning or thunder, and hardly any wind, nothing spectacular, not a storm, but a deluge. I didn’t remember how, or when it started − a month ago, two, or three? All I knew was since then, it had never ceased. My men and I breathed water, not air.

I?

Within the cracked mirror, I saw the reflection of a man looking back at me. The half-shaved face, his eyes, the blade of the razor – all appeared grey under the torrential downpour. Then, the edge of the razor blade caught on a few stray hairs left a stain of color. And it wasn’t the only one. Red octopuses clung to the uniforms of the wounded, sometimes covering their faces. And the trenches were filled with the dead. All of them lay where they had fallen, some with their eyes open, still clutching their rifles, others crucified on their backs or ripped apart by shrapnel. Among them, a few soldiers slept, just as grey and still.

At the parapets, the sentinels kept their watch in surreal silence, deepened by the monotonous dripping of the rain. They rotated the periscopes or pulled the tarps from the machine guns in an expectation full of fear.           

A whistle and an apocalyptic rumble left us − him, me? − stunned, with the eardrums vibrating painfully. A not too distant explosion splattered me with mud, blood, scraps of brain, and entrails. After that, all hell broke loose.

The shells were passing over us and some landed in our trenches sharing death. The shrapnel flew about like swarms of wasps and there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It was life or death for us, and fate indifferently chose one of them. Howls, moans, curses, and swearing covered the noise of the rain.

Then the uproar and madness stopped as unexpectedly as they had started. Through the curtains of water and smoke, I saw some silhouettes limping towards us, after they had struggled to break free from the barbed wire. “We had maintained our position,” as our general, sheltered in his concrete bunker would have said. After an artillery barrage, the silence seemed deeper, the air felt thinner, even the rain sounded different. We were alive and we had been given a respite.

But the gods are jealous of people’s happiness, and they decided we had been lazy enough in the warm, soft mud. The time had come for a counter-offensive − five hundred meters under the fire of German machine guns. A stroll that was sure to reinvigorate our morale and raise our spirit, as high as they could ever go.

I gave the order to attack and I was the first to climb the ladder. The steps were slippery from rain and blood, but I didn’t stop, I didn’t look over my shoulder. My men were following me, just as always, leaving the dying to guard the trenches and the dead to patiently awaiting our return.

If not, we will see each other on the other side.

A bullet passed by my temple and I threw myself into the mud. In an instant I was on my feet again, racing through the steel wasps. The machine guns rattled, thinning us without slowing us down. But can anyone run faster than death? Again I fell on my stomach in the blood-soaked mud. I was getting up, dazed, when I heard the rumble of the engines. It came from above, from the sky sifting liquid ash. I could hear planes, coming closer. Were they ours or theirs?

“What are you doing? Put it back!”

The old man’s voice restored the tapestry of reality: the stuccoed ceiling, the paneling, and glass display cases. But the fear stayed. The rain had soaked me, I had sunk into the mud, bullets were whistling past my ears. I was there! A piece of metal had memories? It will pass, take a deep breath, get a grip of yourself, is over! That’s what I was telling myself, over and over, litany meant to get me out of the paralysis of the mind, of the body, and to separate the nightmare from reality.

I knew what had happened with the revolver – I had read it! It wasn’t the first time when I touched an object and, instead of feeling it only smooth or rough, I suddenly recalled what those who had lent to it more than the warmth of their hand had felt. Some objects will absorb images, sounds, and emotions. Its an energetic imprint, kept for seconds or millennia. Hate, love, and terror before death, are the most enduring feelings. And reliving them can be overwhelming.           

The custodian took the gun from my hands, carefully putting it back. I was shaking, and the old man touched my shoulders transmitting to me a sense of calm, but also a warning − we weren’t alone anymore.

I immediately recognized the face of the man who was unhurriedly approaching us. It was him! My knees felt like wet noodles and the custodian supported me, whispering to me, with an apologetic smile for the stranger. “Things are in showcases for a reason, Kayla. Did you forget?”

He was mad at me and worried. Somehow, I managed to stand upright.

“What­...

…was that?” I wanted to articulate, but all that came out was a choked whisper.

The stranger gave me a short reply. “It was a Webley and Scott MK 6 revolver, caliber 0.455.”          The features, that voice − he was shaved all oer his face this time, and his hair had grown in long, copper locks. What was he, a hippie doppelgänger?

Where were you a hundred years ago?

Before I could ask him, the old custodian stepped between us.

“Keeghan Thorson is one of the most generous donors of the museum. The revolver belonged to his great-grandfather, an officer on the Western Front. He fought at Vimy Ridge and at Passchendaele.”

My knowledge of history was rather vague, but some facts stirred in my mind. “Passchendaele? Wasn’t it conquered by Canadians in November of 1917?”

“Yes, after dozens of attacks, retreats, and bombings, and three months of constant rain.”

The man didn’t even address me directly. Was he talking as if he remembered?           

And again I heard the custodian’s voice, as if far away.            

“Mister Thorson comes from a family of career officers. They fought in the Great War, in the Second, in Korea and Vietnam.”            

“After the Great War they chose to go into aviation,” said the man with coppery hair. “There is no mud in the sky. And if you die, it’s a death some might call beautiful.”           

He said the Great War, not the First. That was the name that was given to it only by those who had witnessed the event. It was just an expression or he had something to hide?         

I was starting to see secret societies, cabals, and conspiracies everywhere – was this a new leap in paranoia from my part?

Keeghan was just an attractive and fascinating man, who was treating me like I didn’t exist. He had only looked at me in passing, with disconcerting disinterest. Maybe I wasn’t his type, or he could only care about his own person. Was he selfish, egocentric, infatuated, narcissist, or misogynist? Sometimes appearances can be deceiving, and sometimes not. Was he an immortal soldier passing through the wars of the world, a whim of the genetic code, repeating the same face, like an indigo copy, from grandfather to son and then grandson?

Some enigmas are meant to remain unsolved, but this was not one of them. It was enough to ask the right question, and that’s exactly what I did.

          “At Passchendaele, on the day of the last attack, whose planes arrived first?”         

He had an almost imperceptible hesitation before answering.         

“Those of the Germans.”         

Then he turned his back on us, striding away.



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