Free A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley Page B

remember what he had done. But mother was right. His eyes did follow me, and now I saw it and was afraid. If only my brothers were not going, I could have borne the fear. But to be there alone with him terrified me. Sometimes he would brush against me in passing, in a way that was not innocent, or stand a certain way, blocking my path and humming a little song as a way of daring me to come nearer. But when the time came to leave for France, my brothers did go, as did half the village, and we stood by the road and wept. I don’t know about the others, but I think now I was weeping for myself. Mostly that’s what we do when we weep. We just say it’s for others.
    I still remember Rob and Will’s jaunty wave backward as they left, with God’s blessing, to do in France exactly what He had forbidden them to do at home. Even now I find it a mystery why God’s commandments don’t count for foreigners. If you add to the question the consideration that foreigners think we are foreigners, then it gets even more complicated. After all, God has blessed both sides equally, if you go by what the priests on each side say. It seems to me that then God’s law doesn’t apply to anyone at all. The more I think about it, the less I understand war. Maybe God will explain it all to me sometime. I’ll have to remember to ask again after Mass this week. Or perhaps Easter would be better. God often answers things at Easter.
    Not long after, David returned for his last summer at home. He had walked alone, carrying his few possessions in a bundle on his back. He was taller than I was now, all bony and awkward-looking. His voice had started to crack. But he still had the same mop of black curls and serious blue eyes, even if they were perched on top of an unfamiliar scarecrow of a body.
    I had waited all day to be the first to greet him, and ran to meet him by the high road. But he didn’t seem the same anymore, he was so quiet.
    “What a solemn voice! No hug?” I asked him.
    “I’m sorry, Margaret, it’s just that I’ve been living so differently.” He embraced me stiffly, and I put my head on his shoulder. David disengaged himself gently. He was changed, but I couldn’t quite understand how.
    “And will live better yet, better yet, David! Just think, father said to mother that if you study at the university, you become a prince! Does it really work like that?”
    “Father’s not got it quite right, Margaret. But then, he doesn’t know about a lot of things.”
    “But you do learn lots and lots, and then become something splendid, don’t you?” We had turned to walk back down the road.
    “I don’t know. I’ll be a priest, and maybe a teacher, too, if I’m good enough. Some boys get good appointments afterward, but then, they’re rich and have grand families. I can’t expect so much, I think.” I took his hand. This time he forgot to take it away.
    “But you could be like Sir Ambrose and do good.”
    “Yes, that’s so, if I can get a place. I might have to substitute for someone who holds a good post. Then I wouldn’t be so well off.”
    “You mean priests hire substitutes, the way rich men do for their army service?”
    “That’s it, Margaret.”
    “But what do they do when they’ve hired the substitute to sing the Mass?”
    “Take the living from the post and move somewhere they like better, I suppose.”
    “Why, that’s very odd. I would think it would be a great thing to be a priest and save souls from the Devil. But it seems very complicated to me.”
    “It is, Margaret, it is, as I’m beginning to learn.” We were very close to the house now.
    “But tell me, David, what are the things you’ll be learning at the university?”
    “Why, more Latin, and other languages—that’s called grammar—and speaking well and arguing—that’s dialectics—and mathematics, theology—things like that.”
    “And what is mathematics?”
    “Why, it’s—it’s—well, it’s very complicated, too, and too