Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

Cat considers for a moment, then she stands up abruptly. “Ladies, we are in Paris, France: let’s go look at paintings. Not because we want to, but because when we get home—touch wood—everyone will ask us about it.”

Frangie Marr is looking at paintings but not in a museum. She is just a fifteen-minute walk away from Rio, Cat, and Jenou, standing with Manning and Deacon and craning their necks up in silent awe in the hushed interior of the Sainte-Chapelle.

The church is not vast like Notre-Dame. It is Notre-Dame’s smaller, more modest, much more beautiful little sister. Stained-glass windows rise fifty feet all around them, separated only by graceful stone pillars. The arched ceiling is deep blue and decorated with stars so it seems to be a majestic, star-strewn night sky.

The stained glass is stunning, each tall window a story told in bits of colored glass. The colored light dazzles on the tile floor. Statues of solemn saints occupy alcoves, with Mother Mary holding pride of place.

“It’s like being inside a kaleidoscope,” Deacon says.

“Well, I’ll be. I ain’t the most churchgoing person ever,” Manning says. “But if I was ever to feel the Holy Ghost I reckon it would be here.”

Frangie doesn’t say what’s on her mind: that she does feel the Holy Ghost. That she feels the presence of God renewed, intensified with each turn of her head. She contents herself with saying, “Sure does beat Pastor M’Dale’s church. Though I don’t guess it’s as homey.”

She spots a small line of women sitting in an empty pew near a sort of ornate, carved phone booth. From time to time a woman emerges from one side of the phone booth and another goes in.

“That’s the confessional,” Deacon says. “See, in the papist church you confess your sins every week to a priest. Otherwise you can’t take the sacrament.”

“Confess?” Manning wonders with a laugh. “Who’d want to do that?”

A group of GIs erupts in loud laughter on the other side of the church. The old ladies, and some of the other tourists, mostly military, look askance, but no one says anything.

“Disrespectful,” Deacon grumbles. “I have half a mind to go over there . . .”

“Those are white soldiers, Deacon,” Frangie points out.

“They still should show some reverence for a house of the Lord. Even a papist house of the Lord.”

Frangie makes eye contact with a marble saint whose eyes are blank but somehow reproachful. “What denomination are you, Deac?”

Deacon smiles fondly. “Church of the Brethren in Marion, Indiana. It isn’t much more than a cinder-block building by the side of the road. Even on Easter Sunday it’s never more than seventy, eighty souls. But I sure do miss it.”

“You church folk,” Manning says tolerantly, shaking her head. “Me, I sleep late on a Sunday morning. I have a late night on Saturday at the café.”

“You’re a waitress?”

Manning makes a dismissive noise. “Hell no . . .” She stops and covers her mouth and shoots a guilty look toward the altar. “I mean, gosh no. I’m a short-order cook, a grill man except for being a woman.”

Frangie has been long enough in the war to turn her mind briefly at least to ways in which she can benefit from Manning’s cooking skill. But nothing comes to mind—she doubts even a great grill woman can do much with C rations and a spirit stove.

“How come they didn’t make you a cook?” Deacon asks.

“Because every other colored person who gets drafted they make him a cook or a bottle-washer or an orderly, or else send ’em to a support battalion digging latrines for white folks. I didn’t tell them I could cook, I told them I could drive.” She laughs happily at the thought. “I didn’t want to spend the war digging shitters—sorry, slit trenches—for ofay officers.”

Deacon doesn’t smile much, but he smiles at this. “You don’t have to love the Lord, Manning, He loves you. Must have. He made so much of you.” Manning has a clear four inches on Deacon.

She pats him on the head.

They fall silent as the sheer splendor of the place weighs on them again. It is impossible not to be awestruck at the artistry, the skill, the incredible hard work and dedication that made the Sainte-Chapelle possible.

But it is that very nearness to God, combined with the alienness of the place, that makes Frangie want to question Him.

Why?

That is her question. Why?

Two months have passed since D-day. Frangie can’t begin to guess how many men and women she has treated, saving some, losing others, and, she hopes, comforting even the doomed ones. She has seen the human body inside and out in every detail. She has seen intestines and stomachs, esophaguses and brains. She’s seen stumps where arms or legs had been. She’s seen faces destroyed beyond any hope of repair. She’s seen tankers burned to charcoal over half their body while the other half screams, screams in agony no matter how much morphine she gives them.

She’s heard too many scared, childlike voices calling for mama, mom, mother, mommy . . . Too many begging her to help . . . too many begging her to let them die . . .