Julien looked down at the ax, and kept on looking at it.
“Look at me. Do you know?”
Julien looked at him. It kind of hurt. “No.”
“It can put a deep enough cut in your foot to lame you for life. It can put a deep enough cut elsewhere to bleed you to death. Especially,” he said in a sharp voice, “if no one is with you when you do it.”
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I’m really sorry.”
“You’re the only grandson I’ve got, Julien.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I’d like to keep you. If I may.” His voice had the slightest tremble in it. “I know I never forbade you to touch my maul without asking, but I didn’t think I needed to.”
“Your what?”
Grandpa gestured at the ax. “What did you think that was?”
“An ax.”
Grandpa’s mouth twitched. A web of smile wrinkles began to break out around his eyes. “Let me show you what an ax looks like.”
The ax was thin and sharp, for felling trees; the maul was wedge shaped, for splitting them. At least he’d been using it for the right job. Grandpa showed him how to set his log on a base; how to aim along the grain and keep his eye on it; how to try again. And again. And again. Then showed him how to start with the maul as far back behind his head as he could reach. Since he wasn’t strong enough to do it the normal way. Grandpa didn’t say that part. He didn’t have to.
I’m going to get you, log.
Julien lifted his maul into position and sighted; then sudden as lightning, he went into the swing with every ounce of strength he had, feeling the power of it, the earth pulling with him as the heavy maul fell—and glanced off hard to the right as the log tumbled off the base and Julien stumbled forward and cracked his shin on it, painfully. He stood there, his teeth clenched on a curse word, blinking fast against the sting of tears.
“The first time I tried to split wood,” said Grandpa’s voice from behind him, “my brother asked if I was trying to dig a hole. ’Cause he’d never thought of using a maul, but it seemed to be working.”
Julien tried to grin. Grandpa had probably been ten years old. Not fifteen.
“It’s not the easiest, moving.”
Julien stared at him.
“You’re supposed to learn so many things you never knew, and everyone else has known them forever. I only did it once—and I didn’t take to it. Came right back home to Tanieux after a year.”
Well I don’t have that option.
“Looking like a fool. I broke my apprenticeship. That made me officially a failure.”
Julien blinked. “So then what did you do?”
“I did what you do when you’ve failed to better yourself. Became a farmer.” He stood silent a moment, his eyes on the hills, and said quietly, “And loved it.”
Julien followed his grandfather’s gaze out over the long rows of the garden, over the field of oats golden in the sun, to the rounded silhouette of the nearest hill; and suddenly it went all through him again like quiet fire: War. There’s going to be a war.
“Grandpa? What was the Great War like?”
“We were very hungry.”
Hungry? To cover his confusion, Julien picked up the log and set it on the base again.
“The front didn’t come anywhere near this far south. You know that, I’m sure. But there weren’t enough men to go around here in the hills, and there weren’t enough hands to do what needed doing—and even afterward …” His eyes were shadowed as he looked at Julien. “It seemed like only half of them came back. And they weren’t the same. There was something in them you couldn’t understand. I mean,” he said slowly, “something I couldn’t understand. I wasn’t there, you know. Your father wasn’t either. He was too young.” Grandpa glanced away. “Barely.”
Julien looked down at the maul, thinking about this. Neither his father nor his grandfather. And Papa said France would declare war within the week. And here he was.
“Your mother, on the other hand—the front passed over her village twice, in Italy. But you know that, I’m sure.”
He looked away. Something was tightening in his chest. Sure. Of course. Except no one ever tells me anything. He lifted the maul, and his grandfather stepped back; but then he stopped and looked up at the hills and swallowed. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”