Part 12 (2/2)

”Bill, at this very moment, in Germany, there's a man your age, bothered with the same dreams, crying in his beer, remembering too much.”

”As well they should! They'll burn, h.e.l.l burn too, remembering my friends, the lovely boys who got them elves screwed into the ground when their propellers chewed the way. Don't you see? They didn't know. I didn't know. No one told them, no one told us us!”

”What war was. Christ, we didn't know it would come after us, find us, so late in time. We thought it was all over; that we had a way to forget, put it off, bury it. Our officers didn't say. Maybe they just didn't know. None of us did. No one guessed that one day, in old age, the graves would bust wide, and all those lovely faces come up, and the whole war with 'em! How could we guess that? How could we know? But now the time's here, and the sides are full, and the s.h.i.+ps just won't come down, unless they burn. And the young men won't stop waving at me at three in the morning, unless I kill them all over again. Jesus Christ. It's so terrible. It's so sad. How do I save them? What do I do to go back and say, Christ, I'm sorry, it should never have happened, someone should have warned us when we were happy: war's not just dying, it's remembering and remembering late as well as soon, I wish them well. How do I say that, what's the next move?'

”There is no move,” I said quietly. ”Just sit here with a friend and have another drink. I can't think of anything to do. I wish I could ”

Bill fiddled with his gla.s.s, turning it round and round.

”Let me tell you, then,” he whispered. ”Tonight, maybe tomorrow night's the last time you'll ever see me. Hear me out.”

He leaned forward, gazing up at the high ceiling and then out the window where storm clouds were being gathered by wind.

”They've been landing in our backyards, the last few nights. You wouldn't have heard. Parachutes make sounds like kites, soft kind of whispers. The parachutes come down on our back lawns. Other nights, the bodies, without parachutes. The good nights are the quiet ones when you just hear the silk and the threads on the clouds. The bad ones are when you hear a hundred and eighty pounds of aviator hit the gra.s.s. Then you can't sleep. Last night, a dozen things. .h.i.t the bushes near my bedroom window. I looked up in the clouds tonight and they were full of planes and smoke. Can you make them stop? Do you believe me?”

”That's the one thing; I do believe.”

He sighed, a deep sigh that released his soul.

”Thank G.o.d! But what do I do next?”

”Have you,” I asked, ”tried talking to them? I mean,” I said, ”have you asked for their forgiveness?”

”Would they listen? Would they forgive? My G.o.d,” he said.

”Of course! Why not? Will you come with me? Your backyard. No trees for them to get strung up in. Christ, or on your porch....”

”The porch, I think.”

I opened the living-room French doors and stepped out. It was a calm evening with only touches of wind motioning the trees and changing the clouds.

Bill was behind me, a bit unsteady on his feet, a hopeful grin, part panic, on his face.

I looked at the sky and the rising moon.

”Nothing out here,” I said.

”Oh, Christ, yes, there is. Look,” he said. ”No, wait. Listen.”

I stood turning white cold, wondering why I waited, and listened.

”Do we stand out in the middle of your garden, where they can see us? You don't have to if you don't want.”

”h.e.l.l,” I lied. ”I'm not afraid.” I lifted my gla.s.s. ”To the Lafayette Escadrille?” I said.

”No, no!” cried Bill, alarmed. ”Not tonight. They mustn't hear that that. To them them, Doug. Them. Them.” He motioned his gla.s.s at the sky where the clouds flew over in squadrons and the moon was a wound, white, tombstone world.

”To von b.i.+.c.hthofen, and the beautiful sad young men.”

I repeated his words in a whisper.

And then we drank, biting our empty gla.s.ses so the clouds and the moon and the silent sky could see.

”I'm ready,” said Bill, ”if they want to come get me now. Better to the out here than go in and hear them landing every night and every night in their parachutes and no sleep until dawn when the last silk folds in on itself and the bottle's empty. Stand right over there, son. That's it. Just half in the shadow. Now.”

I moved back and we waited.

”What'll I say to them?” he asked.

”G.o.d, Bill,” I said, ”I don't know. They're not my friends.”

”They weren't mine, either. More's the pity. I thought they were the enemy. Christ, isn't that a dumb stupid half-a.s.s word. The enemy! As if such a thing ever really happened in the world. Sure, maybe the bully that chased and beat you up in the schoolyard, or the guy who took your girl and laughed at you. But them, those beauties, up in the clouds on summer days or autumn afternoons? No, no!”

He moved further out on the porch.

'All right,” he whispered. ”Here I am.”

And he leaned way out, and opened his arms as if to embrace the night air.

”Come ont What you waiting for!”

He shut his eyes.

”Your turn,” he cried. ”My G.o.d, you got to hear, you got to come. You beautiful b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, herel” And he tilted his head back as if to welcome a dark rain.

”Are they coming?” he whispered aside, eyes clenched.

”No.”

Bill lifted his old face into the air and stared upward, willing the clouds to s.h.i.+ft and change and become something more than clouds.

”d.a.m.n it!” he cried, at last ”I killed you all. Forgive me or come kill me!” And a final angry burst. ”Forgive me. I'm sorry!”

The force of his voice was enough to push me completely back into shadows. Maybe that did it. Maybe Bill, standing like a small statue in the middle of my garden, made the clouds s.h.i.+ft and the wind blow south instead of north. We both heard, a long way off, an immense whisper.

”Yes!” cried Bill, and to me, aside, eyes shut, teeth clenched, ”You hear hear!”

We heard another sound, closer now, like great flowers or blossoms lifted off spring trees and run along the sky.

”There,” whispered Bill.

The clouds seemed to form a lid and make a vast silken shape which dropped in serene silence upon the land. It made a shadow that crossed the town and hid the houses and at last reached our garden and shadowed the gra.s.s and put out the light of the moon and then hid Bill from my sight.

”Yes! They're coming,” cried Bill. ”Feel them? One, two, a dozen! Oh, G.o.d, yes.”

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