The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

A ghostly tale, but not in the traditional sense, The Warm Hands of Ghosts is as much an homage to the bond between siblings and the utter horrors of war as it is a spiritual morality play about the choices we make to remember and forget and how those memories are the essence of who we are. The story is told, in two different timelines that converge about halfway through, and from the viewpoints of Laura Iven, a Canadian field nurse during the first World War, has been wounded and discharged back to her native country, and her brother Freddie, who has been reported missing and presumed dead back in Europe.

When Laura receives mysterious word of Freddie’s disappearance and presumable death, she decides she must know the truth and volunteers to return to Flanders, Belgium in the hopes Freddie may yet be alive. She is accompanied by two female nursing companions, Mary Burton and Pim Shaw. Burton is a head nurse under whom Laura worked in Europe and Shaw is a grieving mother whose son was killed and for whom she is seeking spiritual proof of his existence after death. Freddie has been injured and been stranded somewhere in Flanders with a German soldier named Winter. Though they are supposed to be enemies, Freddie and Winter save each other’s lives and form a bond as they search for help. They are discovered by a mysterious fiddle player called Faland with a strange inn that appears when you’re not looking for it, tempting you with your greatest desires in exchange for your memories. Faland’s inn features magical wine that causes forgetfulness and a magical mirror that reveals your deepest desires (sound familiar, fellow Harry Potter fans?)

Faland himself is an enigma. He offers a Faustian bargain of wine and oblivion to soldiers in exchange for memories of their lives, with the reminder that to forget one’s life is to also forget the horrors of what they have experienced in life, and is a not-so-subtle reminder that in order to live, one must experience both the pain and suffering as well as the joy and happiness. They are flip sides of the same coin called life., and begs the question – would you want to forget the terrors and pain if it also meant forgetting the good and beautiful and wondrous?

This is a fascinating take on the traditional war story, not just part of it is told from a female viewpoint, but also in how the story is executed. The importance of memory, of dreams, and how they impact our reality and our mental, emotional and physical well-being is the key theme here, told through the lens of one of the most devastating military combats in modern history. Topics of death, serious injury, emotional and physical devastation, grief, the horrors of war and the joys of falling in love are blended with the paranormal backstory of Faland’s mysterious inn, wine, and mirror and the reader is sucked into this magical, terrible world where nothing is quite as it seems.

I was inspired culinarily after reading a passage where Laura amusingly describes her first meeting with one of the military lieutenants they dine with on their way to Flanders.

“Where did you meet Lieutenant Gage?……”At a party, I suppose……..But he’s famous for the asparagus. “Asparagus?” Laura laughed a little. “His unit was ordered up the line while he was on leave……he was shopping at a greenmarket in Oise and missed their departure. Came back to the billets and found his unit gone. The whole crew. Didn’t faze him, though. he took his servant and his basket of cress and asparagus, ordered a taxi, and set off for the Front.”

So of course I had to do something with asparagus, and nothing is more delicious than a frittata. Or simpler.

INGREDIENTS
6 eggs
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
6 slices smoked, thick-cut bacon, cut into cubes
4 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded
1 white onion, minced
6 oz fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into small pieces

METHOD
Heat your oven to 375F. In a large bowl, crack in the eggs and add the heavy cream, the salt and pepper, and the shredded Gruyere, keeping back about two tablespoons.

In a large pan over medium heat, add the bacon cubes and cook until brown. Drain on a paper towel.

Drain the oil but leave about a tablespoon of it in the pan, and add the asparagus pieces, cooking the tip ends separately and then cooking the other bits. Sauté them about 5 minutes, until they soften a bit but still have some crunch. They will also continue cooking in the frittata.

Grease a glass pie pan and add the cooked bacon and the asparagus pieces, leaving out the tip ends.

Pour over the egg-cheese mixture and tilt the pan back and forth to ensure the bacon and asparagus are well covered.

Decoratively add the asparagus tip ends in a circle so that it looks pretty, and sprinkle over the rest of the Gruyere. Bake for 35 minutes.

Serve with fruit and sausage and mimosas (not Faland’s wine, God forbid) and give thanks for the joys and pains of life. It means you’re still on this Earth, which is a very good thing.