Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B” Platoon
MEF
4 March 1943
I have just returned, darling, from the long, hard journey. Here I am now, sitting in a café at the foot of the mountain that we climbed together not so long ago— It is sweet to think of that.
It is pleasant this little café. Quite small. Just eleven little round tables all covered with bright, clean cloths. A white buffet and waitresses in white caps. The atmosphere does me great good because I am horribly tired, darling. Tired, almost ill.
On the table in front of me you can see: a packet of cigarettes, matches, a cup of coffee, this paper that I am now soiling and seven letters. Seven letters that I ran to pick up at my platoon office just as soon as I got back, it took me at least four hours to put my machine in order. Of the seven letters, six were from you. Six to one, dear Yvette! That’s a good proportion, but it is still below the reality if one takes into consideration your rapport with my life and with the rest of the world which surrounds my life.
I have just finished reading your letters. There is one, especially, which struck me enormously. It is here in front of me, separated from the others and I look at it with limitless gratitude, with a feeling so sublime that I cannot define. It is the letter where you talk to me of Beethoven and of our Concerto, which he wrote for us. You wrote to me on the 17 February and I recall that on the same day, or near enough, I wrote to you also a letter in which I spoke of music, of Beethoven and of his Fifth.
I am not- I have never been – a mystic. But I can’t dismiss this fact, this chance, this identification of circumstances, this I don’t know what – that it happened, which is so touching, and “et me guise doucement, et fait errer inconsiement mon regard sur les gen” at the neighbouring tables, thinking of nothing…. Beatitude. Beatitude is not always a good thing. It can demoralise. But it is fine now because it rests my head, which is heavy with these hundred, these thousands of kilometres that I have just travelled.
It was hard. I drove, drove and drove until I could go no further. How I wanted to sleep, my God, to sleep! You saved me three times darling: there? At my steering wheel, three time I was overcome, my eyes closed, I dropped off, I saw nothing of the road, only a dark blotch in front of my eyes as I let myself go towards the night, an accident and death – and it was you, by well beloved, Yvette my wife, who saved me. Three times, and always the same thing. A sudden thought “ Take car, old chap, you are likely not to see Yvette again- Wake up, quickly, quickly! That’s how I was, that’s how you save me. All very simple.
My little one, my love, my darling Yvette, I am still very tired after my work. My head is strangely heavy, my body feels ill, I am sleepy and smoke an enormous amount, I drink too much coffee, I very often throw down my pen and look through the smoke of the room and my brain to the people who surround me.
I watch them. Thoughtlessly and without result. I am not with them. I am entirely with you. My heart is beating as always. And filled with you, darling. It loves you darling. It beats tenderly for you. It offers you so much tenderness, Yvette – do you know that? So much tenderness, my God!
I saw countries (or countrysides) and I was both been hot and cold. How cold! It snowed and it froze. But it was desert cold, which is not like the cold of the fertile European soil covered with snow; it is the cold of a corpse. Brr!
I saw marvellous mountains with beautiful tall plants all green. It was very pleasant to see. And the road, which there took strange curves and angles difficult to cross, crossed this savage mountain in running over it, cutting it in circular slices one on top of the other in a touching disorder. Then the ground changed. It became quite yellow, so monotonous as to make on sick. I became horribly sad there, but also much more modest and human. Then again, it became grey and covered with enormous stones. Curious; you would think that men have put these stones one beside the other, in perfect order, and have also covered an unproductive soil; but it is the earth itself which rejects them and throws them out of its entrails. It is interesting to see. And at last appeared the kingdom of mud. Oh darling! What horrible mud! You have no idea!
Yvette, my beautiful, my sweet best beloved, the only beloved. I interrupted for a few minutes this letter, as I have often done; I have once again like an idiot looked at the faces of the customers.
Then I establish – and you? – that this is the third time I have changed the ink and the pen. I am nervous. And then this last phrase, where I stopped writing: “Yvette my beautiful, my sweet best beloved, the only beloved” – why did I writ it? That could be the beginning of a phrase, the beginning of something pathetic, couldn’t it? But not just a phrase. When I said that “Yvette etc” I wanted you to understand more, didn’t I? Well no. I had nothing more to say. It was, it was, quite simply, like that- instinctively- something very powerful (not reason?) which moved my hand to write “Yvette, my beautiful, my sweet…” You are so very much loved, my little one. By me. By me,tout entier.
I feel I am in need of a good sleep. To sleep the whole night in a nice warm bed. I need to sleep with you. You know, like this: I tell you something of my life, or of my journey, I talk to you, then suddenly – right in the middle of a sentence, or even a word, I fall asleep, and I sleep so very, very well…
Look, at the moment I feel in me all this good warmth of sleeping like that, it is living. I recall it, oh ye… It is mad, how cold I was in that accursed desert. You know it froze and it snowed and the cold doubled me up in my bedclothes. I made myself as small as I could to get out of the cold spaces, but that didn’t help me.
You know, Yvette, during the whole journey I was alone in my cabin. There was no one but you. That is to say all my thoughts flew (?) around you and around us. You- so separate, independent an entity in yourself and for yourself. And then you – loving me, you a part of me. I often asked myself if I am good enough for you. If I can assure you a little happiness, like that in the long run.
Petit bourgeois, eh? What would you, it’s like that. The war will end. My, with my ideas, my struggle, a man without a trade and loving you so much and wanting to cover you with well being. That will be difficult. I have gone over and over that question many times. It’s a fact. And it’s a fact that makes me feel very bad, darling. But it’s not only of that that I have been thinking,
I sang, also, for you.
And then I recalled that like that, in the very middle of the desert, I spoke to you at length about the Red Army. You listened to me so well. They speak a lot of it now. Even the people in the top hats and frock coats speak of it in their luxuriously lit drawing rooms. We two have spoken of it in the sad, naked desert. These gentlemen speak well. Better than I do. Hypocrites. We two, in the desert, we put there the heart rather than words. You see, my dear, right across the world now there is a tendency to present the USSR as a country which for years built nothing but canon, tanks and aeroplanes- they don’t speak of the schools, of the hospitals, of the universities of the libraries and theatres constructed by the USSR. Certainly, the Red Army is
one of the greatest possessions of the Russian people, one that they have built in twenty-five years of labour and sacrifice. The victories – so costly, darling! Of the Red Army cause a great flow of technical discussion among the gentlemen (messieurs) on the quality of such and such tank, or such and such model of aeroplane produced by Soviet industry.
We two, in the desert, we thought about the man, Soviet man. Isn’t that the greatest achievement of the Russian people? And in its historical perspective, it is also the greatest achievement of all humanity. Soviet man! What other regime, what other social order could produce the man we see now, in the Russian factories and fields and in the ranks of the Army at Stalingrad! We also, darling, the two of us in the desert, celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the Red Army. It was neither as solemn or as pompous as the celebration in London, but you can be sure that it would have pleased them more that the pathetic drawn out tirades at the capital city banquets.
So you were always with me, dearest Yvette. Yvette. Yvette! I love you, my little one. My soul is os poor without you, so poor. Oh, how I need you. I absolutely must see you near me. I cannot put up with your absence. It is true, that I cannot live without you, darling. Yvette, my love. Yvette darling, I tell you so often that I love you. But it is not enough.
I remember telling you of my love on the banks of the beautiful peaceful Nile in Upper Egypt. And on the banks of the Mediterranean. Once
was on a Sunday, before midday, in a café on the crowded beach of Tel Aviv surrounded by the noise of a jazz band. I was poor then. Misunderstood by the one I loved. The other time was in the evening, near the Kibbutz. The stars and the lights. Oh, but I was already rich then. As now. On the banks of the wintry far away Tigris, I also whispered to you of my love so deep. I had one cheek against yours and I told you in a breath: “Yvette, I love you”…
I am due for a “leave” (English) with you. Without it, I will surely lose my reason, which is already for that reason gravely compromised.
This letter will be the most cogent proof of that. But you mustn’t judge me by what I write to you half- asleep. But even while fully asleep, I am still conscious of my love for you.
Tomorrow I will ask for leave. “Marriage leave?” (Eng) Even in that case it seems that I will not be able to come to your place, but you will have to come here. Are you ready to do that? Quite? From every point of view? Darling, reply very quickly to my questions. And you know, frankly, as you know how to be.
Good night, little one. I am going to sleep. I love you, Yvette. I want so much to touch your skin with my pining lips- Oh darling!
Henri
tom rigby - melbourne 