#chambers

I am finally ready. They said I can leave the hospital now. There is no reason for me to stay. I can speak. I can walk. My hair has grown back. It may even end up covering the scar completely. My writing is getting better, though I am still slow. The words do not always come easily. 

The memories are coming easier now. I finally remember the truth behind what the doctors call a miracle.

It was a miracle. But not the one they think. I survived because of him.

He made me immortal. 

He saved my life. And he wasn’t even there. He saved my life fifty years ago and saves it every day still. 

Any ordine ordinary man in my circumstance would have died instantly. Any ordinary man would not have woken up after nearly two years in a coma. Any ordinary man would not have recovered the use of his faculties in the way I have. 

It has not been easy. Recovery is slow much of the time, with bursts of great progress. Only to become slow again. I get frustrated. 

It is my memory that frustrates me most of all. I still cannot recall his name. Or maybe I do. Sometimes I think I do, but then I think I must be confused. Is it his name or mine?

I remember his face. The glitter he has in his eye when he performs. Performs what, I cannot entirely recall. I just know he looks magnifa magnificent doing it. 

I remember the particular curve of his mouth when he laughs at me. A favorite freckle right below his eye. The color of his hair. The sound of his voice.

Other, more baffling things come to mind as well. The smell of gunpowder. Bright lights. Bruises on his arms and the worry that he’s been reckless with something…some experiment? Some daredevil feat? I just know my heart pounds when I think of him. I don’t know where he is. I hardly know who he is. But I worry. 

What a fool I am. Why should I worry? If I know one thing for certain, it is that he gave me my life. I don’t know how, but I know it to be true. And surely that means he does not need me to worry over him. Perhaps he is an angel of some kind. Looking over me for God only knows what reason.

I could use heavenly guidance now. I’m being aloud allowed to leave, but I don’t know where to go. At least I appear to speak some Italian. It will make things easier once I leave the care of the British Army. I may speak the language, but I don’t think I live here. And the name I gave them has not yielded any answers. I have suspected for a few months now that it may not have been the right one. And now that I am healthy, they have nothing left to give me.

They are letting me take the books. I’m glad. They help.

I wish I had my old diaries. I know I wrote in one often. I wonder what became of them.

[from the personal diary of C.X. Chambers]

John Jack My dearest,

These are words I’ll never send. It’s too dangerous, letting it pass through the hands of the army. I have no idea if they’d truly care—surely they have more important concerns than the affairs of one officer—but I refuse to put you needlessly at risk. And perhaps I could address the letter to someone else, create a disguise for you, but when I say these things to you—really say them—I want you to be certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are meant for you, and no one else...

John, 

Happy New Year, my friend. I’m not even sure my letters are getting to you - I know you, I know you're writing to me, but it’s been months now without a word. Who knows if this will make it across the Atlantic. But I would be remiss if I didn’t write to you; if I didn’t still try to share this holiday with you in some way. Though you would’t think it a holiday with the mood around here. This war seems never-ending and the winters are the worst. 

I’m afraid, John. I’m not ashamed to admit it. This war has both denigrated my opinion of mankind and elevated it. I’ve seen things I’ll not forget for the rest of my life, which may, in fact, be the rest of time. Centuries could pass and I wouldn’t forget how cruel—how depraved—mankind can be. 

I also won’t ever forget the kindness and camaraderie I’ve experienced. Not only from my fellow brothers in arms, but from the ordinary citizens of besieged lands, who are so terribly brave to endure what they have. There is goodness here, still so much beauty left in humanity, but I fear if this goes on much longer, we may lose it. 

But I don’t write to you to share the horrors of war. Despite my unit’s morale, this is a holiday, at least for me, and it brings me no small amount of warmth to imagine you celebrating somewhere safe. Perhaps with a drink in your hand, toasting with a friend, or looking up at the stars in your lovely garden. Picturing such things has made the cold and miserable weather here somewhat bearable. 

But that isn’t all I imagine. I keep thinking of our last New Year’s spent together and I find myself filled with regret, wishing that night had been so different than it was. After you’ve read this letter, you can tear it, burn it—you can choose to never write to me again—but I ask that you do read it, all the way through. Just this once. 

There are things I want to say to you, things I should have said on that night three years ago. I almost did say them, I tried, in whatever clumsy way I could but fear got the better of me then, the way it had many times before. I began to worry that you were doing me a kindness in not rising to the bait. That you knew exactly what I was angling for and were too good-hearted to lead me into making an ass of myself.

That is only one possible version of events I imagine. I’ve had too much time to think these last few years, John—too much and too little—and sometimes I’m tortured by the idea of that unspoken rejection and other times a powerful belief grips me that you were right there with me, on the same page. Thinking the same things. Wanting the same things. Wishing I could be brave.

Who knows, maybe I give myself too much credit in casting the kind eyes of hindsight on my actions. But, with those eyes, so many things that were previously hazy have become startlingly clear. Perhaps I wasn’t fully aware of what I was doing back in ’41 ’42 (just barely), but I’m aware now. Enough to proclaim what I have long known, in my most secret of hearts, to be true.

I have never adequately expressed the depth and intensity of my regard for you. And I can’t here, not in writing, not in a letter that will pass through who knows how many hands before it reaches you. But I promise you that when I come home, I will tell you. I’ll tell you everything. If you’ll let me, I’ll do much more than that. 

I have no idea how you’ll react. It’s very possible that you will be shocked, that I have been successful in my misdirection. I certainly was with myself, choosing not to see what has been there all along. 

But somehow I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve never been able to pull one over on you, John. And, of course, it would serve my interests better if you weren’t surprised, if you’d seen the truth all this time. That is what I hope for. It’s certainly conceivable that that hope is misplaced—perhaps I’m a fool who believes something requited when it isn’t—but I’d rather be a fool with hope than a cynic without it. 

And God, I have hope. 

There’s more I would say, but I’m perilously close to reaching the end of this page. We move out tomorrow—I’ll write again when we’re settled. 

‘Till such time we meet again, I am, as ever,

Your fool,

Charlie

[a letter received by J. S. Fogg]