The Frequency of Violets Part One
Originally appearing in an anthology called Monsters of Memphis (1997) Lou Kemp is taking us on a journey back to France in 1944. Following Finian who is a medic haunted by a chilling gift—he can see the shadows of death before it strikes. As the horrors of battle unfold around him, he’s drawn into a mystery deeper than the blood-soaked trenches. When a young girl’s brutal murder unveils a web of betrayal and desperation, Finian must confront the true cost of life and death in a world where every moment teeters on the edge of oblivion. The Frequency of Violets is a haunting tale of war, loss, and the fragile hope that endures.
The Frequency of Violets Part One
Southern France 1944
The night turned white, and then more golden than a summer’s day.
Like a rose unfolding, the first bomb opened the hill from within, exploding the rocks and dirt, and burying everything below. The cluster of houses at the top disintegrated and burning debris rained like confetti. Was this the hellish version of the 4th of July, Finian wondered.
The thought left him as he heard the whine of the bombs coming closer as the soldiers cursed and screamed.
A warm and bloody hand gripped his wrist. Finian turned, and a soldier without a face fell on him. By the time he found the soldier’s pulse, he didn’t have one anymore.
“Move your ass Finian!”
The deafening roar of the planes faded to the south, and the cries of the wounded escalated, billowing into the clouds of dirt that hung in the air. Finian stumbled on something that looked like a bloodied, legless sheep. He threw down his bag and knelt beside the first body.
As he turned the soldier over, a package of cigarettes spilled into the mud. Finian stuck one in his mouth and pushed Corporal Johnson’s guts back into his shirt, before wiping the blood from his own eyes. When he moved to the next soldier a few feet away, he didn’t need a torch or headlamp; the fires burned bright as the trees on the hill blazed and the stench of burning flesh wafted in a tangible cloud toward them. Finian didn’t turn around; if it was a cow burning, or the body of a child, he didn’t want to know.
Finian had bandaged five and bent over the sixth when he heard Sarge bark, “Over here, Finian! It’s Frank.” Finian pretended he didn’t hear him, just like he tried not to see anything at all as he tried to help a soldier without a hand stand up.
Sarge spun Finian around.
“I said, go help Frank.” He pointed to the body lying under a cargo truck.
“Yessir.”
“Don’t fucking Sir me. Fix him up!” Sarge shoved Finian ahead of him. “You cold son of a bitch!”
Finn fell twice before he knelt beside Frank Torino. In front of him, the other medic breathed in short gasps, and his eyes had dilated to opaque disks. Finian glanced over his shoulder; Sarge still watching him as he bellowed orders and lifted a stretcher.
As Finian held Frank’s hand and waited for him to die, the scent of violets pervaded the air, growing stronger. With a last shuddered breath, the soldier’s soul lifted from his body.
###
Twenty-eight hundred men had arrived outside the village of St. Marie. They set up the mess tent and established headquarters in an odorous barn behind the church.
In the ninth century, the township of St. Marie had been built into a hollow a few miles from the road to Marseilles. So far, it had been unmarked by the Nazis. As the sun set, heavy clouds cleared to the south and the sour stench of boiling beans rolled across the unplanted fields.
Finian cupped his coffee against his chest and waited for sundown. He sat just inside the perimeter, under the trees that bordered the village. To his left, gurgled the stream that fed the river, and to the right rose the medieval abbey built of stone. Every night he relived the same thing, and he dreaded what he’d see, unable to ignore what impelled him to look. He’d tried whiskey, the Army shrink, and a blade across his wrist, but they hadn’t helped. The impulse to look could not be ignored.
The scene always began normally with men walking, talking, sitting and smoking. A few slept under pup tents. When the darkness became complete, the faint smell of the violets would come, and then the first shimmering image. Maybe one, or maybe dozens, but for every man who would soon die, Finian saw a pale shadow mirroring him, following the living, shuffling close behind.
Last spring, Finian had seen the first image outside the seediest pub in Bristol. Their company had gone ashore, drank as much as they could, then stumbled into the night as the nocturnal bomb parade started. The cook fell down the stairs by the river and into the water. When Finian reached to pull him up, the body seemed to turn white, and a pale shadow fled the body. Finian screamed all the way back to the ship.
Last night, Frank Sorino had walked the camp shadowed, as had more than seventy men. Finian huddled into himself, knowing his ability to see death intensified with each day. Maybe he’d always been able to see the shadows, or anyone could, or maybe it took too much death, the kind that saturated your nerves until you could see.
The frequency of death came faster after they landed on the Normandy beaches and began the long walk south. Men went to sleep and never got up again. The pale shadows followed the rest of the company, still dressed in fatigues, and wandering like they would wander forever.
###
“Fourteen villagers left. The rest are dead or in pieces hanging from the trees.” Corporal Nevin pointed with his clipboard. “See the little girl on the other side of the square? She’s been sitting there all day, ever since the bombs stopped.”
Morning had seeped from the watery clouds, and the cleanup begun from the night before. The remaining men of the company worked various details trying to establish order. Finian should have been sleeping, but it had been days since he could. The fear of waking and finding his own image staring back into his own eyes, felt real.
“Her mother got it last night. Father is the mayor. That’s him over there, tall guy talking to the Sargent.”
“What is her name?” Finian asked. She looked like a sparrow fallen from a nest and into cold water. He could understand.
“Suddenly you care about the civilians, Finian?” Corporal Nevin flipped pages on his clipboard. “Emily Caron. Talk to her Finian, you talk to yourself enough.”
As Finian walked across the square, he skirted mounds of rubble and parked jeeps to where the girl sat on one of the boxes in front of the trucks. Tears dripped off her chin.
He shoved a handkerchief into her hand. It fell into the mud. As he bent to retrieve it, he saw the anger behind the tears. She was looking beyond him, at her father.
“I’m sorry about your mother, Emily.” Finian said.
The girl shuddered. Eyes bluer than the river studied him with the inscrutable wariness he’d seen in many of the villages. She blinked several times. He recognized exhaustion.
“If you want to sleep. I’ll be here.”
###
Darkness fell, and Finian didn’t move, just listening to Emily softly snoring as the camp settled around the destruction like a warm hug that came too late. The moon rose, glowing like a portent. The poker games began with the rattle of the dice in the bedpans.
As Finian lit his last cigarette, Emily shifted, curling into a tight ball. When her breathing changed, she sat up, took the cigarette from him, and inhaled.
The mayor of St. Marie came toward them, talking animatedly with one of the officers. He waved to Emily and walked by. She stiffened.
“Why do you hate your father?” Finian asked.
Her lips barely moved, and she wiped away the first tear.
“He killed my mother, Monsieur.”