Part 6 (1/2)

She harnessed the pa.s.sion she had withheld and proposed marriage on a day trip to Montauk. It was what they both wanted. The sky was blue and cloudless. After lunch they watched seagulls. Fis.h.i.+ng boats. Bristling lines of white frothed against the bow.

Across the ocean, Europe smoldered.

John found basic training difficult. It also hurt to be away. He couldn't do a lot of the things they wanted. He was told he would have to kill-would have to cross a field of guts to come home. John could tell that some of the others were ready, and it rea.s.sured him that one day he might be, too.

On Sundays he rode a bicycle into the countryside near the base, with a sketchbook and pencils. He sent Harriet his drawings of plants and never signed his letters. In the evenings he dressed and went into town in search of music. His superiors sometimes recognized him and waved from the orchestra section.

He stayed up late with the other men playing cards and smoking cigarettes. He showed the picture of Harriet at Coney Island, and looked at it before bed. He never felt alone and always had someone to help when his weapon jammed during rifle practice.

John was well liked at home, too. His family had owned a diner for twenty-four years. He worked there after school for tips. He had a lifetime of stories. Pilots from Garden City would come in on their way back to Manhattan. Others drove for miles just to taste his mother's brisket.

The only fights John had in high school got as far as him being pushed over. He played clarinet in band. He collected stamps and kept them in a shoe box.

His parents were quiet people. During the Depression, families they didn't recognize came in and ate quickly without talking. When the check arrived, it was always the same: fathers rifling through pockets for wallets that must have been dropped, lost, or even left in the pew at church.

John's parents always gave the same answer. ”Next time, then.” They figured it was going on all over the country, and had agreed never to humiliate a man in front of his children.

In the years following the Depression, John remembers his father calling him over to the counter from time to time as he sorted the day's mail. Sometimes the envelopes would include a letter, and once a photograph of a house with children standing in front of it. But mostly they just contained checks for the exact amount of the meal, folded once, and with no return address.

John's father worked hard and listened to everything his wife said, even if he disagreed. He never raised his voice and liked to go to Mitch.e.l.l Field to watch airplanes land.

The worst event of John's childhood was when his little cousin Jean got polio. She was taken away one morning and came back a year later in the body of an old woman.

JOHN.

FRANCE,.

1944.

III.

IN THE DISTANCE, sudden flare-ups of light. The crackle of guns. John wondered where their B-24 had hit the ground. The flash of impact. He thought of his crew and tried to remember wives or mothers. He imagined a field of wreckage and the farmer for years to come, tripping on twists of charred metal. The pieces would sit in a bucket and outlive everyone involved.

He remembered that his pistol was still under the navigator's seat along with his wallet. Harriet would have rolled her eyes. ”Typical John.”

Then another shade of black that meant ground. He hit too soon to prepare and lost feeling in his injured foot. The ground was softer than he remembered at training because Europe is wetter.

John collected his billowing canopy and looked for a place to hide it. The sky glowed with dawn.

Then shapes appeared in the distance, dark figures approaching. He dropped his parachute and ran. Sharp pain forked up his torso; parts of his body dragged because he couldn't feel them. He ran for other shadows ahead, dense, motionless, ancient.

He imagined he was running for Harriet's coat in the forest before him. Leaves stuck to the wool, a hand appears, then arms, shoulders and the breathless climb to her neck. He would feel for the collar, then thread his life through the loops and hollows of her name.

The ground was thick with fallen leaves. If he could burrow, he had a chance. He must die and come back to life. He would recite the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud by simply declaring the name of someone he loved. He would trap the contents of his life in the safety of a single word, like a bubble in the sea.

Harriet was a young wife. She lay under sheets without moving.

Moonlight washed over her bed and chair.

The street outside was quiet, but the silence unbearable.

She could not feel the mud stuffed into John's mouth to prevent a fatal sneeze or cough, or the mess of shattered bones in his foot.

Instead she crept downstairs and built a large fire.

Her father woke to the snap of flames. He grabbed his robe and rushed out of the bedroom. The house glowed with the heat of his daughter's blaze, but he stopped halfway on the stairs, hypnotized by the flickering shadows and by the outline of his crying child.

He imagined the fighting overseas. The flashes and the cries. He could taste it in his mouth.

And as he stood there, not moving, his heart opened upon the many fields of dead, with their helmets on and their eyes pretending to see.

Love is also a violence, and cannot be undone.

MR. HUGO.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND,.

2010.

I.

1948. WOKE UP screaming in a Paris hospital.

Soon after-sent to another ward where people walked around. Played games. Stared out the windows. Lay on the floor.

I learned to watch others for clues.

I had to watch, because I understood nothing.

I waited to eat. I waited for night.

Night came.

I waited for day.

First light.

Day.

I kept touching where my head should have been. I wanted to know why and understood nothing. I said nothing but watched all.

I nodded yes. I went along with all.

I was afraid and had nowhere else to go. I wondered about outside. I wondered from where I was.

Later on I was taken to the hospital garden. Amazed by wind. Wanted to be alone to watch people pa.s.sing. There were so many people outside the hospital. I couldn't believe it. Thought we were the main ones.

Years pa.s.sed. I started to understand what they said. The same sounds over and over. I got used to them. I learned them and used them, too.

I spoke and understood some.