In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

“You’re not afraid of dying, Henry. You’re just opposed to killing. That isn’t cowardice.”

They had committed the cardinal sin: they had been found out.

It was amazing how much less affectionate “With affection” sounded than “Affectionately.”

You’re a fool and a coward, yet I envy you. You were right to leave Ellwood alone. I have lost more than I can say, and what remains of me is not worth much. Stephen and I had a few happy weeks before we were expelled, but nothing could be worth what I now feel.

It seemed almost worse to know so little than to know nothing.

have tried to keep things from you, Elly, you are so fresh and clean, and I did not want to be the one to open your eyes, but I must write, I must describe, I must tell you about the man I saw trying to claw open his own windpipe without seeming to realise that he was missing a hand and was only succeeding in smearing the blood and tendons of his blasted arm all over his blackening face—I stood as he pressed by, and I thought, Why are you at Ypres? Why are you not sitting in a courtyard in Algiers, eating a ripe orange? We have conquered the world with promises that could not be kept. We told those Algerians that their civilisation was no good, that they must have ours instead, we carried our white man’s burden dutifully, enlightening Indians—Indians! They who built the Taj Mahal! And Egyptians! For we knew better than their pyramids! We swarmed through Africa and America because we were better than they, of course we were, we were making war humane, and now it has broken down and they are dragged into hell with us. We have doomed the world with our advancements, with our democracy that is so much better than whatever they’ve thought of, with our technology that will so improve their lives, and now Algerian men must choke to death on their own melted insides in wet Belgian trenches and I—

His bland, forgettable face concealed a sensitive determination to be loveable, to make life easier for other people.

Ellwood wanted to punch him. He wanted to make him bleed, and then tend to the wounds.

He was clever enough to know he didn’t fit in, but not clever enough to know how to change.

“Yes,” said Ellwood, because that was simpler than explaining to her that there was no vibrancy to a friendship not threatened by violence.

“I think we’re all so busy offering that we forget how much we take.”

He felt oddly clear-headed, despite the pain in his chest. It was much easier to be brave for your friends than for yourself.

This is only one example of Percival’s almost aggressive modesty. He seemed incapable of understanding the extent of his worth. I hoped adulthood would teach him how much we loved him.

He didn’t care about the poems, one way or another. He merely cut away the blackened, gangrenous bits of his soul and sold them.

“I should never have told you, if you hadn’t asked,” he said, finally. “So. Thank you. For asking.”

As he lay in bed, Ellwood rigid and pretending to sleep beside him, Gaunt reflected that it did not feel like loving Ellwood. It felt like loving a brittle impostor, one who had stolen Ellwood and would not return him. And yet, Gaunt was powerless: he loved every part of Ellwood, changed or not. If there was a lonelier feeling, Gaunt could not imagine it.