The infantrymen, with their Brens, froze: they still expected help from their smashed tank: they signalled each other and began to fan out as Dennison stared, his bus motionless. The sun was beating down: the smoke was clearing: dust was rolling up from somewhere: pigeons flew low: like a Hollywood prop the antenna mast on the Panther bent, and then collapsed onto the cobbles.Landel was first to come to:He whirled his machine gun on the half petrified infantrymen: he was too fast and depressed the barrel and bullets clattered across cobbles and rubble. Some of the soldiers crouched behind the tank. Others ran. A man fell. Then no soldiers: they had melted away.Dennison tried to follow them and then returned to the square where other M4's were parked, near a small stone fountain and several olive trees.Now, he thought ... I can rest ... get outside ... some water ... wet my face ... walk ... eat ...Egging himself outside, he stumbled to the fountain where GI's were standing, and splashed water on his face; removing his helmet, he splashed his head, staring into the shallow white tiled pool. A single fish was swimming: or was it a trick of the mind? Alive? Or coloration? And that bubble: were there still bubbles in the world?He splashed his face again, the tank forgotten.Water, air, trees, a grey-grey something, a gnarled something!A lizard scuttled up a branch, stopped, flicked its tail, puffed its body, and stared inquisitively.A cat slunk out of a bombed house and crossed the square and brushed against a GI, meowing, wobbling."I'll be damned ... a mangy cat," croaked Zinc, his hands in the fountain: he flopped water over his face and soaked his shirt.Dennison heard Zinc's words faintly: it would be hours before the tank deafness wore off.More crewmen milled around, jostling, swearing. A fat guy pounded Landel on his back as though he had won the war: he had seen Landel's bus knock out the Nazi machine. Landel pointed overhead. Planes roared by; low on the horizon, a dozen Fortresses crawled through a dusty sky.Dennison picked up the cat and stroked it.As the line of men washed and drank, a boy scuttled from one of the houses, carrying a clay bottle of water: he offered it to the men nervously, speaking French, talking jerkily, as if something had injured his tongue. He could not get it into his head that the crewmen were temporarily deaf; his mother had told him they might not understand his French; he thought that was the trouble.Dennison drank from his bottle--cool, cool.He explained that the Corpsmen were deaf; then, as Dennison handed back the bottle, the boy began to shout and point: he indicated the roof of one of the buildings across the square."Look, Monsieur ... look, on the roof ... the roof of the mayor's house! See! There's machine gun ... it's pointed this way! Maybe somebody can ... see, the gun is moving ... they're getting ready."Dennison had difficulty understanding the boy's jargon; when he got it straight he yelled at the nearest crewmen. The warning spread. Someone at the fountain, a skinny guy in oily jeans, raced across the square and lobbed a grenade.It fell short. At once the gunmen fired.A bullet chipped Dennison's arm, and the waterboy dropped, Millard fell, slumping heavily against the basin of the fountain; the cat scampered for shelter, leaves fell from the olive trees.Seconds later, another grenade wiped out the roof gun and gunners ... planes roared overhead ... Millard was dead; the water-boy lay motionless ... Zinc began bandaging Dennison's arm.Two minutes, or was it three? Or five?"It's nothing," Dennison objected. "I'm okay. We'd better see about the kid.""I know it's not bad ... a nick. Hold still!" Zinc yelled.They were crouched alongside the fountain, Zinc's first aid kit on the rim. Millard faced the olive trees and the many ripped off leaves around him. Dennison thought that his face had become years older: oil had spattered his chin. His lowered lip sagged, exposing his missing teeth. Landel was bending over him, checking for his ID, his dog tag. Landel's greasy bald head filled Dennison with great bitterness: it said:Here we are, who cares! In Africa, who cares!Who will bury us?The waterboy was moving."Hold still," Zinc commanded."Now there are only four of us to crew our tank," Dennison yelled."So what!" Zinc yelled."Four of us," Dennison repeated."We can manage, Chuck is good."Dennison wondered what Millard's wife was like: had she loved the guy or was the beneficiary sum worth far more? His hands trembled: death was such a crappy business. In Ohio death wasn't like this! In Ohio, there were preachers, graves with names and dates on them.When Zinc had taped his arm they carried the waterboy, carried him into a house across the square, banging on a door, shoving him inside when two women opened. A bullet had smashed his leg. The kid moaned and flopped his arms. He was bleeding badly.Dennison liked his bright face, his gaunt, nomadic build. He respected his courage: that business with the water bottle, the spotting of the roof gunners. Kneeling and sitting on the tiled floor of someone's living room he and Zinc did their best to bandage the boy's leg. Dennison tried to talk to him but he couldn't come to. People crowded around, yapping, yapping: he saw their mouths going.Speaking French he yelled at a woman:"Try to locate a Red Cross man!"The veiled figure hovered over the boy, her blue boubous was flecked with something white."Médecin," she mumbled.Dennison and Zinc risked a third of their stock of bandages: they rebound the break, padding it."Good boy, good boy," Dennison said to himself. "Nice kid, nice kid!" Zinc said.According to Landel, the Anadi mess was a mere delaying action, a hinge in the Nazi retreat. Millard was left, to be trucked to a base. The tanks gulped water. A supply tank furnished gas and oil. Landel, Zinc and Chuck and Dennison worked steadily, with a few minutes for food.Where's the thermos? Where's the coffee? Cigarettes? God, thought Dennison, where now?A radio screamed:Advance to Beramet.A merchant, with a yellow and blue turban on his head, was opening a double door, a pack of dates lay on his table, a girl was prostrate on a cot, two camels appeared, a pigeon flew.There was no opportunity to remember the olive trees: Dennison shut his eyes: he belched and swayed in his seat: the hatch banged shut, was bolted shut: he shifted his controls ... Remember?His arm stung where the bullet had nicked him; he minded the heat; already the roaring of the tank had lost some of its noise: he was growing deafer.Over the intercom--far away--he heard Landel:"There's a concrete pillbox ahead!"Why the hell should we knock it out! Whose pillbox was it? Why was it there? Where was the damn artillery? Asleep! Must be some other M4's around! Or an M18! Maybe the rest of the Corps was lost on the desert--in some hellish place. Thoroughly angry, swiping sweat from his face, he decelerated to 5 mph. Let some other bastard wipe out the pillbox!Landel indicated starboard and they swung close to a brick wall, snailed along it, rounded a corner, and there, near a chapel, was the pillbox, white, dirty, plastered with faded movie posters. Before Dennison could shift gears the crew in the box let go and a shell blew bricks out of the wall and shrapnel crashed against their armor plate.Landel signalled.Dennison bent forward in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue, and felt the blood flow from his head: he thought: going to conk out. Must have canteen, soak my handkerchief, sop my face. Better tell him, better tell him ..."Side street ... go side street."Dennison obeyed automatically.Zinc and Chuck bawled at each other."Get shells ready ... ready, Chuck..."Swinging roundabout, they caught the pillbox from an angle: its cannon was futile, just a rod of steel: methodically, Chuck trained his 75; his first shell overshot but the second crushed the concrete dome; the third shell, aimed low, burst open a side.Machinegun triggered, visors wide opened, Landel accounted for the crew, his blood boiling:He was yelling, whistling, screaming.Barbed wire fenced the box and Dennison smashed it, treads burying the spirals, the port tread crushing remains of the pill box.Thinking of the canteen, he got it and sopped his handkerchief: water, face, water, the turret flung open, now he could breathe. Water, a little more water ... there was plenty of water!As they sped onto a highway the surface seemed annoyingly, deceptively smooth: probably mined.Watch it, boy!"Mined?" he asked Landel."Safe," Landel reported, doubting their luck.He had sopped his head and underneath the open turret, his face shone like an Inca ceremonial head: a scratch under one eye was bleeding; his naked shoulders were soaked; he leaned against the side of his seat, mouth gaping ...He hated the day, hated the bad luck, hated losing Millard. He called himself a fool for permitting his men to crowd about the fountain. Should have known, should have. It was Dennison's fault for not reconnoitering. Give him hell tonight. Tonight ... well, they'd be midway to Ghat. The swaying tank, the roaring treads made him clamp his eyes.Someone was yapping on the radio.On the road, beside a bombed truck, lay a crippled GI. The fellow raised his arms--appeared to see the oncoming tank--but Dennison could not avoid him without crashing off the highway. He had no chance to diminish his speed and zoom aside since they were clocking forty. Dennison's nerves buckled, his spine stiffened, his throat contracted painfully, his hands shook: the Sherman raced over the man in a flash and yet Dennison saw him die--could see him underneath the treads--felt him gasp, heard him scream."Jesus Christ ... I killed him ... I killed one of our guys ... Jesus Christ..."Sun was beating through the turret, stabbing the desert. Desert heat swirled with engine heat.If the highway is mined!Landel was using his periscope.The viewer showed an even expanse.Souped-up, they were hitting sixty.Was it riskier to cross a mine at top speed? What would the explosion do, heel then over, crumble a tread, stove in the floor, belch out the walls? ... In the white walled house, the Arab, in the yellow-blue turban, was opening the shutters to his windows ... did he sell dates?In Texas, while piloting his training tank, he had thought of the rags and litter on the ground as the bodies of men. Excellent imagination. Useless. Absurd. Such thinking had not hardened him. It was just another kind of fear. Another kind of folly. His hands were still trembling.Nothing had prepared him for the first dead in Africa, that first week in Africa, when men got crushed underneath his treads: then it had seemed to him that he had crushed them himself, mashed then with his own weight. He had dreamed then, for many nights, of arms and hands struggling against pressure, faces blotted into nothingness. He had longed to climb out of his machine, kill himself, go, go somewhere.And now?Beramet appeared on the road ahead ... palm trees, white one-story buildings, olive trees, tamarisk.Through radio transmission he knew that their tank forces were pincering: the town was to be grabbed by nightfall.Light shimmered in front, misty pools of it, mirage water, the desert--port and starboard--was undulating with heat and light: heat, combining a scab of dust, wavered over Beramet: a single point, a blue minaret, broke through.An MP slowed Dennison: standing beside his motorcycle, black glasses over his eyes, tropic hat slapped down low, he seemed a little insane as he swatted at flies. The dust on his cycle matched the dust on his fatigues. Dust was approaching, trailing from a stream of converging trucks, half-tracks, tanks, cars, and ambulances.Dully, Orville stared at his compass ... so this was Beramet? Where, in Beramet, would they stop, climb out, rest?In a few minutes the compass began quivering: they were in the thick of street fighting, Arabs dodging from house to house, Nazis firing from doorways, windows, firing machine guns, firing rifles. GI's opened a front. A grenade exploded. Sand gushed up. Another grenade forced sand through the visors and ports of the bus. Both Dennison and Landel coughed violently. Dennison leaned forward, his back soaked, his arms soaked, the cushion behind him clumsy, lumped.Urine sloshed across the floor.He forced his brain above the shaking tank and roar of fighting. Hell, how lunatic, self-preservation and fear clawing each other. Eyes on the street havoc, he moved his machine as directed. Sometimes he saw Arabs firing, sometimes Nazis, sometimes smoke blotted everything. Something crumbled and fell through dust. Blinding sunlight took over as the Sherman crept forward.Gradually through radio communications, through signals with Landel, he became aware that the Beramet probe was almost over ... now he noticed that his hand was scratched and he licked the scratch absently, groggily. It seemed to him that it was some other person's hand.It seemed to him he was very old (these had been days not hours): in this world there was only pain and everyone hoped to die. In this world there was the torture of sound being tortured. Following a deserted street, he observed death at the next corner, sitting on an oil drum.He snarled at himself for having joined the Corps, for having thrown in his lot with Landel. A concentration camp would have been better. Time could never obliterate these memories. The brain was permanently wounded. He tried but could not tap the future: he was too exhausted, too hot--as Landel ordered "stop" Dennison doubled over, craving water: he wanted to lie down in water: he wanted to die.That night, sleeping in the open, death woke him. He woke shaking, remembering, half-remembering ...On Sunday, eleven tanks and two half-tracks were compelled to halt because of gas shortage: they squirmed into a wadi below a hundred meter red cliff topped by a single dead tree, an acacia that had been dead and stark for fifty years or more.Crewmen called the place "the dam" although there had been no water there for many seasons. The dam was a low, concrete wall that crossed the wadi. Its concrete apron bedded a few of the Shermans. Landel, hoping the cliff might afford some protection, had suggested they make a halt until supply tanks and trucks could catch up.Flies were everywhere: they were inside the tanks; they were outside on the treads, guns and turrets--on weeds, rocks, sand. They zoomed into food the crews tried to eat. They crept over hands and faces and necks as men tried to work. They bit. Singly and by the dozens, they came from below, from above, left, right, and flew into eyes, ears, mouth. Men slapped at them, swore at them, shouted at them.They crawled over K-rations.Dennison and Zinc, sharing rations, sprawled below the cliff, troubled by the flies. Zinc poured cold coffee from a thermos. With a rag over his face, Dennison was determined to rest as long as possible, doze perhaps. He felt himself drift perhaps ten minutes: how long he never knew.A bomb hurled him, dragged him through gravel and sand.Through a torn spot in the rag he saw the tree on top of the cliff fall; he heard rocks and gravel avalanche onto the tanks, rocks and then a dribble of sand.A second bomber flew over but dropped no bombs.In a kind of back-flash, he recognized that the second plane was a reconnaissance plane, following their tell-tales across the desert. Like infallible radar the ruts could lead bombers to "the dam." Scrambling to his feet, dropping the rag, he raced for his tank.A plane swooped low: a black wall of sand met Dennison and spun him around; as he fell he saw the tread of a Sherman expand like a rubber band and slice a man across his waist and chest: the man did not scream. God, Dennison groaned. Another bomb flattened Dennison: Jesus, how many did they have upstairs! The scream of steel on steel mingled with the roar of falling rocks. A bomb with a bent fin howled as it dropped.He burrowed into sand to avoid hurling metal: he imagined Zinc, Chuck, Landel, dead.Pain twisted his back.Silence ...Getting up, he stumbled across the gully. He found crewmen there, crouched behind boulders and camel grass. Somebody had spread a tarp overhead to cut down on the spray of sand. Nobody said a word. Presently, Chuck Hitchcock came crawling, blubbering, mouth gaping: crawling on hands and knees he banged into a rock. A blast of sand had sandpapered his eyes: lids and eyeballs were ingrained, a sand and blood inlay.As Dennison dragged Chuck under the tarp he realized he would never see again: he tried to shield his wounded face, the man sobbing, breathing in gasps, his blond, pallid face distorted.He won't play billiards again, Dennison thought, remembering Chuck's stories about billiard games at the University of Wisconsin.A bomb crashed and a tank exploded: it seemed to leap into the air--the whole Sherman--fell into ensheathing fire. It was visible to everyone under the tarp. Sand fountained. Ignited gas and oil spouted: machine gun bullets began to ricochet. Metal whizzed past.Another bomb exploded."Let's run for it!" Dennison shouted."Get out of here! ... get out of here!" someone roared.Dennison and a fellow, Jim Harrington, grabbed Chuck, and rushed him down the wadi, swaying, pitching, dragging. They began to gasp. Chuck was sobbing. Dennison thought every step was getting them nowhere; yet Landel appeared out of a wall of smoke, his head plastered with dirt. He slid an arm under Chuck and the three carried him into a thorn thicket out of the wadi and laid him on the sand."I'm blind!" Chuck cried. "I'm blind! Help me!"Another bomb geysered sand: it left a fog of sand, everyone coughing and spitting. Men tied rags or handkerchiefs or shirts over their face. So, it was sand, not flies. The heat sweated the sand into the flesh. So, it was heat, heat coming down from the cliff."Can't see our bus" Dennison shouted, trying to estimate damage. He snuffed and continued coughing.Suddenly, he grinned, and began to shake: the flies are gone, the bomb's got rid of the flies! He laughed loudly, throwing back his head."No flies ... no flies ... the bombers killed our flies!""Shut up," Landel said, hitting him."No flies!"Landel hit him again.Dennison crumpled to the sand: he knew what Landel meant: he realized too, in spite of his hysteria, that he was lucky to have escaped: cradling his head on his arms he attempted to blot out Chuck's raving.With the last bomber gone, the crewmen came to life, swatting off sand and dust, huddling, at first in little groups. In twos and threes they began checking, climbing on their machines, crawling inside. Out of nowhere supply trucks arrived."Gas," the men said."Gas."Zinc pointed to some butterflies, flying close to the sand, headed past the Shermans.Dennison rubbed his face: they can really fly: yellow butterflies ... beyond them, in the face of the sun, the heat puffed and writhed; a slight wind kicked up dust. A section of the wadi cliff had toppled and sand had buried snouts and sides of several machines and both half-tracks: the sand had acted as a cushion protecting treads and armor plate. Men began to dig ... gas tanks got filled ... motors started ... tanks pulled away ...Dennison led Chuck by the arm, Chuck moaning and trembling. They both fell into a sand hollow. Directly in front of Dennison lay a pair of arms, intact from finger to shoulders, the dog tag visible on the wrist, above the greasy fingers.Lawrence, Dennison saw:Lawrence Robinson, from California.Dennison jumped away, shrank back, dragging Chuck, almost hurling him down, bumping into Landel."What's wrong with you?" Landel scoffed. "Watch where you're going! A pair of kooky arms scare ya!"Without hesitating, Dennison whirled on Landel, and knocked him down: he tried to jump on him but Chuck clung to him, moaning, saying "no ... no...""Jeez, man!" Landel gulped. "Are you nuts again?""That was Lawrence Robinson," Dennison yelled. "Larry Robinson ... it could have been me!""Fuck you," said Landel, picking himself up, remembering a corner of the Argonne, where men's bodies had been blown about like chips. Glaring at Chuck's bloody eyes he felt no pity for him: he felt they should save themselves for their machines and the job of fighting: let scabs go to hell!But remembering his job as captain he ordered Dennison to take Chuck to Corporal Willits ..."He's over there ... he's Red Cross ... take him, then let's get our bus rolling. He's not been hit. Not bad!""Not bad," Dennison said to himself, angrily.He saw himself returning to Base Camp with Chuck; he would see him hospitalized; on leave, he would rest by the ocean; ships would be unloading; the surf would be warm; he'd have good chow.Assisting Chuck, Dennison sat down by him as Willets examined the lidless eyes: in the sun the imbedded sand glistened like glass; blood glistened like glass. Chuck was trembling, his hands quivering on his lap, fingers wholly uncoordinated.Willets was talking kindly to Chuck."Can you hear?" Dennison asked, bending close."No.""Willits is looking after you ... he's from the Medical Corps...""Who?""Willits.""He a doctor?""Medical Corps.""Where am I?""By a half-track ... there are wounded here ... Willits and Cobb are helping the men ... we'll be moving out of this gully...""Don't go, Dennison.""Can you move your head ... to the side? ... I want to put medication in your eyes," said Willits."Okay.""The stuff won't hurt.""Okay.""Hold still.""Light me a cigarette, Dennison.""Sure..."Dennison began fumbling through his clothes, expecting his cigarettes to be shredded; the pack was badly squashed but he straightened a cigarette, lit it, and put it in Chuck's mouth.Chuck drew a puff or two and then pain doubled him up as smoke trailed across his eyes; the cigarette dropped to the sand; rolling his head from side to side, he groaned, and flailed his arms."My eyes ... my eyes!""Keep your hands off them!" Willits ordered."Are they so bad?""Yeah ... they're bad--keep your hands down..."The wind shook a dwarf thorn tree behind him."Lift your head up ... higher ... I'm using more medication ... soothing...""Can ya gimmie a drink?""I will," said Dennison.Willits was a dark skinned man, very Italian, with greying moustache and grey animal-kind eyes. When Dennison returned with water, he nodded at him, jerked his head toward Chuck, then shrugged his shoulders: hopeless."Now you keep your hands off your eyes ... I'm gonna put cool antiseptic salve on a bandage, real loose ... gonna put that around your head ... over your eyes ... we'll get you to a doctor soon as we can ... I'll use the transmitter ... others ... other guys ... you know ... get help ... they need help..." Groggily, he went on repeating, talking to himself.Chuck was still shaking as Dennison walked away--back to his machine.He and Zinc removed shovels from the rear of the tank: it was slow digging but they released a tread, cleaned the hatches, freed the guns: Landel had a shovel: there was no Al, no Millard, no Chuck: climbing inside Dennison switched on lights, checked dials, checked the intercom and radio: something about the white interior helped.Switching on the transmitter he shouted:"Dennison calling ... Lieutenant Dennison calling ... calling X2B ... calling X2B ... Dennison reporting for Fred Landel ... M4-221 reporting ... bombers caught us at point L-T ... place we call "The Dam" ... tanks badly damaged ... several wounded ... one man dead ... can you send medics? Dennison calling ... can you hear me?..."A little of the horror abated: there was promise in the lights around him, in the transmitter, the old seat cushion, the thermos on the floor, the gleam of dials: with the earphones over his ears he waited.The radio spluttered:"X2B ... we read you ... roger ... we've got you on the maps ... news has been coming in ... we know your conditions ... medical help enroute ... tanks moving forward ... medical help coming ... tanks coming ... pass on the word ... over..."Climbing out of the tank, into the dying day, Dennison notified officers and crewmen. Enjoying a smoke he perched on the rear of his bus: crews were shoveling sand away from the tanks, bedding treads with tarp and gravel. A star specked the horizon. For an instant, for several minutes, he contemplated the ancientness and greatness of this continent: perhaps some of that greatness could resurrect mankind. How absurd the steel hulks, primitive without claiming any antiquity, primordial because of weight and shape. Yet their hellish threats were not absurd. They had crawled into sand as if it was their birthplace, as if returning home after millennia.After dusk, after the takeover of the sky, tanks, trucks and halftracks arrived: there were two makeshift ambulances, a corps of medics: "the dam" became an encampment, a black-in of men and steel. Dennison, at the door of the ambulance, did his best to break through to Chuck who was lying beside an unconscious GI.It seemed to Chuck, as he fought his pain and depression, he was losing his best friend: everything was out of proportion as he talked to Dennison." ... sure ... sure ... and you know there's my sister in London. You've got to meet her ... somehow you've got to meet her. She's, she's pretty ... was the prettiest girl in Racine ... She's stationed at Red Cross ... Dalton Station ... Red Cross ... Dalton ... remember ... if you are ever in London on leave ... remember ... Jeannette..."The roof lights in the ambulance blinked off.The chauffeur said: we're shovin' off."Here ... take her pic ... her photo from my billfold ... here ... tell her I sent you ... take it ... you can find her ... send me word when I'm at Hopkins ... tell me ... find her...""Good-bye.""Good-bye."London, Dennison thought, as he shovelled away more sand: I'll never see London again. Perspiration made his hands slip on the shovel handle. He and Zinc were digging by lantern light, their shadows mugging each other: arms, heads, legs, shovels, machine. They were able to hear the hissing sound of sand. Nearby someone revved a motor.In the light of a tank, Jeannette's photo showed a beautiful woman. Slipping it into his billfold he called her his pinup."Hell ... I'm hungry," he said to Zinc."There's chow," said Zinc. "I saw the truck ... yeah, there's chow," he repeated, rubbing his beard. "We gotta get some sleep ... gotta sit ... rest." He was trying to rub away intestinal pain with his right hand: he had strained muscles as he helped load wounded into the ambulances. Somebody had given him a sticky candy bar, he could still taste it; maybe it would stay down."Chuck's had it ... he's lost his sight ... he's..."He went on mumbling to himself.He and Dennison had located Robinson by flash. Dennison had brought his arms and placed them across his mutilated body, on a stretcher in a converted supply tank. Robinson's ID fell beside the tank and Zinc brushed off sand and stuck it inside Robinson's torn shirt and buttoned the shirt over the crushed leather."Well, he doesn't have to be buried here," Dennison said, folding some canvas over him. "Who's better off ... Chuck ... or Robinson? Chuck or..."Zinc was too weary to reply; his eyes were swollen from the heat, sand, and lack of sleep: numb, he stumbled toward the chow wagon, shoes sinking into the sand: everything he saw was indistinct: everything difficult.Behind trucks, sitting on the sand, on gasoline drums, oil drums, boxes, the crewmen ate, no light, no smoking.Shivering as night came on, the two bedded together on the floor of a truck, under blankets and tarpaulin. Wind scraped at the tarp with a sandpapering sound: it tapped on the truck cab and clicked on its glass."We attack early in the morning," Dennison said."I know," Zink said."Hope we have luck.""Yeah."Overhead, Libyan sleep was dropping lower and lower: Dennison squinted at the stars, wondering how many more miles they had to travel before the war ended. Three stars burned in a ragged triangle: gradually, the upper star assumed a greenish pallor. While digging out Robinson's body a star had glittered above the cliff ...Dennison felt the expanse of the desert around him, felt its thousands of square miles. Pulling the tarp over his head he imagined himself in a grotto, Atala's grotto: ah, that pitiful story: beauty obliterated by superstition, by folly: lovely Atala had been his companion in Ermenonville, as boy, she and her Chactas ... Chactas the blind man ... the lover ... the wanderer ... Doré's wonderful engravings--those days in E ...And now ...The desert rustled the tarpaulin. The truck swayed.Still cold, Dennison hunched closer to Isaac, needing all of the warmth he could steal: his arms and shoulders ached: sand grubbing had done that: sand, he felt it in his shoes, in his shin, between his fingers ...Poor Chuck ...Soon, dawn threw out its flag of light; soon men were yelling, talking, pushing, urinating, shitting, coughing, eating ...Motors throbbed.The radio in a truck blared boogie-woogie, from Casablanca.Dennison read his wristwatch.Their tank motor refused to start.Landel transferred them to another Sherman--number 58. 58 started easily, warmed easily, and they rolled out of the gully, rolled across a flat of sand and sandstone that could have served as an airport, the full moon its beacon.Everything about the new tank pleased Dennison: it was a pleasure to get away from the old bus.Little by little, he coaxed 58 into top speed, glancing at his watch, leaning back against the seat, the cushion solid. A shaft of light came in. The periscope was excellent. The viewer clean. He leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue, something like a smile on his face.Landel was occupied with his map, his phone wobbling against his Adam's apple, black, cancerous: his bald skull teetered stiffly, pencil between his fingers.Directly in front of 58, a tank rolled along, another M4, grey, lobbing up dust.Dennison contrasted its size with the immensity of the desert.The M4 climbed out of a bomb crater, flicked its fantail, ducked, disappeared.Dennison realized that the men inside were as lonely as he: men riding inside nothingness, gaping at dunes and flats of sand.Wasn't that a knock in the motor?What was that strange vibration in the port tread?Wasn't that a clicking sound in the transmission shaft?And the motor temperature?Heat began to close in.Driving ports were wide open, the turret was open, the fan was rotating; yet it was growing hot rapidly. Dennison mumbled to himself about the vents. The roaring of the treads knocked the roof of his brain; he felt that the old deafness was returning.When gasoline and oil fumes increased he let up on acceleration but not before Zinc came down with a harsh coughing spell.Fear came ...It crawled along his spine, yesterday's fear, last week's, the past mucking up death, Robinson's arms in the sand, Al screaming, a village gouting smoke and fire. He saw, as in another world, another man's world, his years in Ithaca, at Cornell. The bronze figure of Ezra Cornell was hazed by leaves--then blurred by falling snow. He saw tree-fogged paths winding to his flat on the hilltop above Cayuga. He saw the lake gleaming, blue as a smudged blueprint. He saw himself rowing with the university crew, his body synchronized to the dim bodies of his mates: Locksley ... Neilson ... Murphy ... Lee ...Lee was coxswain:Steady boys, steady now ...But all this was dead: his mother was dead: Aunt Therèse was dead, Uncle Victor, Landel and Zinc were dead: all were travelling through a fog, a distant fog.Without being aware of it, Dennison began to rub his neck at the base of his skull. His head was pounding. He wanted to drink. He wanted to close his fingers around a tangerine, strip the peeling, smell the strong smell. His mother used to buy tangerines at Christmas, tangerines from California, tangerines and purple grapes, oranges, avocados--pile them on a platter on the dining table.He wanted a piston to jam, he wanted the radiator hose to split.He longed to sleep during the afternoon or all night.Sleep, he thought, sleep ...* * *2The Ermenonville rain was a cold autumn rain, falling out of a dull sky, slanting in a light wind.Orville stood beside the grave of his father, weather streaks across the red granite tombstone, across Robert St. Denis, and the dates: 1893-1921. Orville warped his hat to shed the rain and tried to button his makeshift coat closer, broken umbrella hooked over one arm, umbrella and coat from a Paris flea market. He had left Paris early in the morning, on a heaterless bus, a trip of delays and Nazi harassment.When he started to walk to his dad's grave the sky had been bleak but not threatening. Maybe the sky was trying to flip its calendar, turn it back to another rainy day in June, when Robert had been wounded at Bermicourt, his little Renault tank exploding from a direct hit, on that muddy battlefield of World War I.Orville was peeved that the rain had caught him; he had wanted to sit on the grass and think of other times in Ermenonville. He noticed other graves in this family plot, those of Aunt Irene, Uncle Mark, his cousin, Marcel ... graves under leafless Lombardies. The rain made him resentful of the place and of death. The ground was spongy; the sod could absorb little more; he kicked at weeds with a quick kick. Through the poplars he observed the Petit Lac, its placid water grey: the small poplar covered island, at one side of the lake, with its carved Rousseau tomb, seemed adrift in the falling rain.Well, here we are, father and son, in the rain. I wish we could have shared our lives. You might have been a pretty fair provincial lawyer. The rain has had you a long time. If I'm killed in my tank I'd be carted here ... I guess we like it in Ermenonville.So long, Bob.He had never called his dad Bob. He had no memory of him except from photos: one of them came to mind, young face, maybe like his own. Moustache. Blond moustache. A tall man, lean, a horseman, dead for twenty-seven years. Tall man who had taken years to die the invalid's death.So long ...A swan, on the little lake, close to the poplar planted shore, moved without any apparent effort, its reflection now bright, now dark, now in the rain, now in the clear.There were swans here when Jean Jacques Rousseau lived here ... swans ... château swans ... and when Rousseau said we should return to nature, had the swans influenced him?Walking toward his aunt's house, Orville felt undercurrents as a boy in E, when the wind vane on Lautrec's house had thrilled him, when the spire on the stone church had prodded more than clouds. In those days there had been frogs to spear in the Nonette, kites to fly, boats to sail on the Petit Lac.He passed the bronze statue of Rousseau in the village, a rain beaten thing. Cobbled streets fanned out from the figure. The statue was unchanged. The cobbles were the same. Smoke from peasant houses climbed as it had years ago.The rain was coming down as it had years ago: a beautiful scene.He tried to raise his umbrella but had no luck; it banged against his leg as he began to walk faster, hustling into the wind, his aunt's home a few blocks away.Old Claude Bichain, the family servant, opened a side door; he had been watching for Orville, his bearded face close to a window. Orville, glancing at the rambling breaktimber house, saw his face and, cane-like, lifted his umbrella."My, you're soaked! Mon dieu, Orville, come in...""I shouldn't have tried ... but it's not far to the cemetery," Orville said, and handed Claude his umbrella and hat, shedding his coat in the doorway."I came in the back way ... the front lawn's flooded.""Yes, it's a heavy rain. The gutters are poor ... we haven't been able to find anyone to repair them. Come with me," Claude suggested. "I have a fire in the kitchen."Orville followed him through the butler's pantry, perturbed by the house, somehow stiff, apart, unfriendly. The weather, no doubt."Change here ... it's the warmest place. I'll bring your clothes, the things that you left here ... we've kept them for you.""Claude, how has life been?"Ah, well enough, I guess ... well enough.""You haven't gotten married again?""At my age!"Orville enjoyed his laughter, the restrained laughter of old age."And you?""Me ... I'm glad to be here. Seven years since I was here ... seven or eight."Bichain nodded, remembering."And the war?" he asked, unsure of himself, trying to interpret Orville's sad face."It goes on and on ... I sometimes..." but he stopped."I'm glad you made it ... your bus was late, but buses are always late now ... let me get your clothes ... I put some pots of water on the stove ... you see the boiler isn't working for the bathtub." He found it hard to speak: he was troubled by Orville's greasy mechanic's clothes, his bearded face, his staring eyes, grim mouth.Orville found it comfortable washing himself by the cast iron stove--polished as always. Copper pots and copper spoons decorated a wall. The fire was crackling in the stove; there was plenty of hot water, Claude had stacked several towels on a chair. Cakes of soap.The rain guttered down the windows.Orville stood on a braided rug, probably braided by Annette long ago. He appreciated Claude, so thoughtful, respectful: his beard was longer and whiter. Annette was in the village but what had delayed the Rondes? Where was Jeannette? On duty at the hospital, no doubt. He wondered whether the hospital was overrun with wounded.It was a long way in space and time, from Africa to London, to Ermenonville's kitchen: that bombed railway station, that taxi ride through bombed streets, past the British Museum spewing books and walls, blocking the street, one siren triggering another until the city howled like dying children. It had taken some doing to locate Jeannette Hitchcock, at the Dalton Street Red Cross station.Opening the stove door, Orville poked the fire and shoved in a couple of sticks: the light played on his naked body. Dumping dirty water down the sink he poured himself a hot pailful. Soap and hot water relaxed him as he washed his legs and thighs.Claude had his arms full of clothes; stopping in the doorway he envied Orville his hard, white body."Can't find anyone to repair the heater," he said."This is fine ... I guess this is where I scrubbed when I was a kid.""Use all the hot water.""Will Aunt Therèse be home soon?""I think so.""I'd forgotten it could rain so hard around here.""Where did you get off the bus? Did they let you off at the wrong place?""No ... I got off in the village...""You shouldn't have gone to the cemetery. Not today.""No matter ... I wanted to look around ... to think..."Claude spread Orville's clothes on the kitchen table, arranging them carefully--the valet's touch. He hoped everything would fit. Orville hadn't put on weight. Was I ever built so well?He limped away and Orville saw his hand on the closing door, remembering it as a boy, the red "v" on the back: it wasn't so much the redness, it was the ragged shape of the thing. Bichain had the face of a Pole; his Cracow ancestor's grey eyes that faded into nothingness, his beard went to his chest, the hair was always brushed and immaculate.As he toweled, Orville glanced at the scars across his stomach, where he had been burned by an engine explosion during training at camp. It was pleasant picking up his clothes from the table, holding them up, remembering. He thought everything would fit. Socks first. That old crew neck shirt from mom.He was eager to telephone Jeannette.The trousers were okay ... Claude had remembered his belt.By god, maybe it was going to be good after all, this leave, this Ermenonville, his Jean.Somebody ought to shut off the rain.It was growing dark: the eye of the fire poked across the door. Across the braided rug.The phone was at one end of the long living room, unless someone had rewired it. Without switching on lights or lamps, he walked across the room, hoping it had not been altered: the phone ... he lifted the receiver and waited:"What number, please?" a pleasant voice asked: the voice was Ermenonville French and yet Orville thought of a girl in Ithaca, a face with yellow hair around it, a happy face."Can you get me the hospital?"There was a pause as if the operator was trying to identify Orville or was puzzled by his accent."One moment, please."Then the hospital responded--someone, a man, spat through an earful of static:"What do you want?"It was the voice of war, with a German accent."This is Claude Bichain," Orville lied. "I want to speak to Mlle. Jeannette Hitchcock," he said. "She may be on duty.""If she's on duty, I can't call her.""It's an emergency ... damn you!" he snapped out. "Important ... get it? Important!" He hated the guy."You'll have to wait ... I'll call you back, M. Bichain. Are you at the residence?"Orville waited on the tapestry upholstered telephone chair; listening to the rain his mood began to adjust: drops were racing down the French doors: Claude was switching on lamps, tending a fire in one of the fireplaces. Firelight blurred the walls. It was an elegant room. 1788, he recalled. The Rondes had purchased the property from some member of their family. He couldn't remember who the builder was.Both fireplaces were constructed of yellow glazed brick, their white mantels rested on rococo Caen stone pillars. The furniture, of several periods, blended well, touches of ormolu, marquetry, rosewood, mahogany.The phone jangled."Hello ... hello ... is this M. Bichain? This is Jeannette Hitchcock.""Hi, Jean?"Orville had to bring himself round suddenly, snap into the present."Hi, darling!""Orv, Orv ... oh, it's you. How's everything?""Fine. And you?""Fine ... Orv, you're here, you're safe!""When am I going to see you?" he asked, excited now, wanting to see her at once. "Can I see you tonight?""Not tonight, darling." Her voice trembled. "Can't be tonight. I'm on emergency shift. Surgery. Maybe for three hours ... a bad case. I don't want to see you when I'm tired. We've waited ... I can't spoil it.""When?" he asked."Tomorrow morning. I'll meet you anywhere you say. How about that, Orv?""Can a hospital car bring you here?""But I don't want to be with your family. Not now. When did you get here?""On a late bus ... I have gotten into some clothes ... get a lot of rest, turn in early, if you can. I'll come in the morning." He wanted to say it's marvelous, hearing your voice, being in Ermenonville; she was already saying good night, and he heard himself saying good night with woodenness; then the phone went dead in his hand--the crude, dumb thing.Hardly had he placed the receiver on its hook when the phone rang. Picking it up indifferently, he said:"Hello.""Orville, it's you! How nice. Oh, Orville, I'm so glad you are home. When did you get home? I've been trying to get you, but this wretched phone...""Hi, Aunt Therèse! I got here an hour or so ago. You sound far off or the connection's bad. Where are you?" He dropped into her kind of French, the kind she had taught him, Ermenonville's patois."I'm out in the country about ten or twelve miles, at a horrible, dirty farm. Our car has broken down ... I'm afraid I won't get back till late. Maybe not till tomorrow. Lena and I are here--we're so disappointed not to be home ... to welcome you. Tell Annette to fix a supper. Claude will look after you..."Therèse's effusiveness annoyed him but he sent his love to Lena and assured them that everything was all right." ... Lena's fine ... we got awfully wet because we had the top folded down, and we couldn't get it raised again. Such a muddy road. And then our engine had to act up. Have you seen Jeannette? Have you phoned her?" She was sputtering. Orville remembered her volubility; she went on chatting about nothing, Orville nodding, smiling."Their car broke down ... they won't be back until late or tomorrow," he explained to Claude, who was offering a pack of cigarettes. "They're at Placiers."Bichain nodded."Anything you want?""No ... I'll let Annette know."Orville walked about the elegant room. Yes, it had been seven years since his last visit: he and his mother had stayed several weeks during that summer. During those seven years he had ample time to finish high school, enroll at Cornell, make the crew, go to war!In front of the alabaster bust of Chopin he shoved his hands into his pockets. Chopin's face seemed more poetical than he remembered it. The man's eyes stared absently into his eyes. The lips had their absinthe smile.No, the furniture had not been changed; of course the settees, sofa and chairs had been reupholstered with the identical pattern of pomegranate flowers: that was Therèse's way. The woodwork had been dusted and polished two thousand times and Claude had waxed the parquet--over and over. Parchment lamp shades seemed to be new. He bent over a cloisonné vase: its birds and flowers were in the same Kyoto greenery. He glanced up: ah, it was there, the gold and silver and green fresco of oak and laurel leaves, twined in their ceiling wreath.Dark red curtains ...Tired, he dumped himself on a settee, his thoughts reverting to his trip, a sick and quarrelsome woman, the SS troopers playing poker, a boy begging for food ... a half hour slipped away.He absorbed the quiet. Had the rain stopped? He hoped so. The fires in the twin fireplaces spread their warmth. Maybe the war was ending ... maybe it would end while he was home; certainly it was the right place. Yet assurances were missing.Shall I go upstairs, to my room?He closed his eyes as he sensed the firelight.Claude woke him to say that supper was ready.Colonel Ronde's meticulous oil portrait dominated the wall alongside the dining table: the gold fame was heavy and ornate: the Colonel was wearing his 1918 captain's uniform, a trench helmet and a pistol, and a pair of grey gloves lay on a table beside him: he appeared to be a reticent, egocentric, stupid man. Orville remembered how dictatorial he had been: you kids get out of the greenhouse ... you kids are not to ride your bicycles through the garden ... you kids must come to dinner punctually ...Orville was relieved that the old boy was not around: the portrait's frame was tarnishing: pigment was flaking: the Ermenonville forest background was fading: good.Orville fiddled with the table silver, idly aware of the monogram, the crystal candleholders, the cut glass sugar creamer: three days ago, less than seventy-two hours ago, it had been hell itself at the front: fooling with his knife, eyeing its ornate handle, he wondered where it had been crafted; he sampled the entrée, glad that Annette was putting herself out to please him.When will I be eating alone like this, in such middleclass pomp!Annette served roast duck, stuffed artichoke, creamed parsnips, and buttered carrots. Finger rolls were a specialty of hers. He recognized the dry local wine ... he imagined, as he tasted it, the wines, brandies, liquors inside that inlaid buffet ... Therèse would soon be insisting. He would come across some favorites.The kitchen door widened a crack."Everything all right?" Annette asked, hands pouching her apron, smiling attentively."Just great!" Orville said. "It's a treat, having you and Claude look after me ... like old times. Where's the Colonel these days?""He's in Marseilles.""Good ... then he's not caught in the thick of it.""But he's, ah, on duty ... he's ... well, you know how it is."The door shut but not before he realized that Annette could lose twenty pounds across her stomach and another five through her breasts. Obviously, she knew how to provision her Ermenonville larder.The dining room was a cluttered place: it reflected neglect or unconcern: unmatched chairs rectangled an ormolu table of cherry, the antique silver service on the Louis buffet represented several periods: the flowered wallpaper and a bevy of melancholy still lifes in oil were unharmonious. Orville could not remember the room as it had been years ago but felt it was quite different.He heard Jean's voice. "What a surprise!""Hi, darling...."Jumping up, he buried his face in her neck; he kissed her passionately; she seemed to taste of everything good, smell of many perfumes. He helped her remove her rain wet coat, slowly folding its red lining ... his eyes never leaving her.In the living room she made a little speech, ridiculous words; she hugged him and kissed him on the sofa, the fire glow on her face and hair. He fussed with her hair, smiling."Orv ... where's everybody?""I thought I told you ... everybody's in the country ... their car broke down.'""So that's why you were eating alone! Then they won't be back tonight?""Not tonight ... I guess they'll phone again.""Swell ... gee, it's our place."He kissed her, with a long, seductive kiss, easing her against the cushions, her breasts swelling: not since London ... tonight ... tonight ..."My god, the months!" he blurted."I'd almost given up.""So had I!""Your letters ... you don't say much.""Or you ... Wasn't that the telephone?"She was playing with the ring he had bought her in London: her fingers slid the crudely faceted amethyst round and round: her mind followed it; then she sought his mouth.Raising his head, Orville saw Claude Bichain, standing by the piano, one hand on top."Your aunt just phoned again ... she's staying at M. Placier's ... she was worried ... she thought...""Thank you, Claude.""I'm glad," Jean said."Let me get something to drink."Orville wanted to explore the buffet: together, they knelt on the floor, both doors open: they nodded: there were vintages and brands across the years: Orville selected a Charpentier brandy."How about this?""Good," said Jean.A gust shook the French doors and windows, it was raining hard once more. When they returned to the living room, Claude was adding wood to the fires: he wanted to keep both fireplaces burning, celebrant: for love, he thought, as he laid oak slabs over a pair of iron griffins."To us," she toasted, lifting her glass."To us ... to your loveliness.""To your luck!"On a settee, close to one of the fires, she burrowed against him, tasting his brandy lips, her fingers searching between his legs."God, I love you...""Tonight.""Yes...""Sip it slowly...""I am...""Like it?""Yes ... yes...""Should we drink everything in the buffet?""Of course...""Why not?""Sure, why not ...?""Are there more wonderful girls in Wisconsin?...""No," she kidded."I believe that.""Let me undress you tonight.""Maybe I won't be able to wait that long.""Or I."Shoulders and head against the settee, she told him how grateful she was to be in Ermenonville ... I escaped from old London ... I love the Petit Lac ... I love the gardens ... the forest ... the shrines ... I've seen Jean Jacques' ghost ... oh, yes, at the Lac ... ah, you and Colonel Ronde, to work things out for me here ... the hospital staff tries, tries very hard to favor me sometimes ... so many wounded ... but I think ... no, no, don't stop kissing me ... what difference does all that make? I'll stop talking ... now ...With refills, they contemplated the fires, drowsing, yet wholly alive, eager, stalling like animals, happy animals, sure of themselves--anticipating through the medium of the firelight, each other's faces, each other's hands.He thought of the freckles on her shoulders ... thought of her lovely breasts ... her perfumed skin."Shall we go upstairs?""Yes ... but...""I know...""Yes, it seems..."
The infantrymen, with their Brens, froze: they still expected help from their smashed tank: they signalled each other and began to fan out as Dennison stared, his bus motionless. The sun was beating down: the smoke was clearing: dust was rolling up from somewhere: pigeons flew low: like a Hollywood prop the antenna mast on the Panther bent, and then collapsed onto the cobbles.
Landel was first to come to:
He whirled his machine gun on the half petrified infantrymen: he was too fast and depressed the barrel and bullets clattered across cobbles and rubble. Some of the soldiers crouched behind the tank. Others ran. A man fell. Then no soldiers: they had melted away.
Dennison tried to follow them and then returned to the square where other M4's were parked, near a small stone fountain and several olive trees.
Now, he thought ... I can rest ... get outside ... some water ... wet my face ... walk ... eat ...
Egging himself outside, he stumbled to the fountain where GI's were standing, and splashed water on his face; removing his helmet, he splashed his head, staring into the shallow white tiled pool. A single fish was swimming: or was it a trick of the mind? Alive? Or coloration? And that bubble: were there still bubbles in the world?
He splashed his face again, the tank forgotten.
Water, air, trees, a grey-grey something, a gnarled something!
A lizard scuttled up a branch, stopped, flicked its tail, puffed its body, and stared inquisitively.
A cat slunk out of a bombed house and crossed the square and brushed against a GI, meowing, wobbling.
"I'll be damned ... a mangy cat," croaked Zinc, his hands in the fountain: he flopped water over his face and soaked his shirt.
Dennison heard Zinc's words faintly: it would be hours before the tank deafness wore off.
More crewmen milled around, jostling, swearing. A fat guy pounded Landel on his back as though he had won the war: he had seen Landel's bus knock out the Nazi machine. Landel pointed overhead. Planes roared by; low on the horizon, a dozen Fortresses crawled through a dusty sky.
Dennison picked up the cat and stroked it.
As the line of men washed and drank, a boy scuttled from one of the houses, carrying a clay bottle of water: he offered it to the men nervously, speaking French, talking jerkily, as if something had injured his tongue. He could not get it into his head that the crewmen were temporarily deaf; his mother had told him they might not understand his French; he thought that was the trouble.
Dennison drank from his bottle--cool, cool.
He explained that the Corpsmen were deaf; then, as Dennison handed back the bottle, the boy began to shout and point: he indicated the roof of one of the buildings across the square.
"Look, Monsieur ... look, on the roof ... the roof of the mayor's house! See! There's machine gun ... it's pointed this way! Maybe somebody can ... see, the gun is moving ... they're getting ready."
Dennison had difficulty understanding the boy's jargon; when he got it straight he yelled at the nearest crewmen. The warning spread. Someone at the fountain, a skinny guy in oily jeans, raced across the square and lobbed a grenade.
It fell short. At once the gunmen fired.
A bullet chipped Dennison's arm, and the waterboy dropped, Millard fell, slumping heavily against the basin of the fountain; the cat scampered for shelter, leaves fell from the olive trees.
Seconds later, another grenade wiped out the roof gun and gunners ... planes roared overhead ... Millard was dead; the water-boy lay motionless ... Zinc began bandaging Dennison's arm.
Two minutes, or was it three? Or five?
"It's nothing," Dennison objected. "I'm okay. We'd better see about the kid."
"I know it's not bad ... a nick. Hold still!" Zinc yelled.
They were crouched alongside the fountain, Zinc's first aid kit on the rim. Millard faced the olive trees and the many ripped off leaves around him. Dennison thought that his face had become years older: oil had spattered his chin. His lowered lip sagged, exposing his missing teeth. Landel was bending over him, checking for his ID, his dog tag. Landel's greasy bald head filled Dennison with great bitterness: it said:
Here we are, who cares! In Africa, who cares!
Who will bury us?
The waterboy was moving.
"Hold still," Zinc commanded.
"Now there are only four of us to crew our tank," Dennison yelled.
"So what!" Zinc yelled.
"Four of us," Dennison repeated.
"We can manage, Chuck is good."
Dennison wondered what Millard's wife was like: had she loved the guy or was the beneficiary sum worth far more? His hands trembled: death was such a crappy business. In Ohio death wasn't like this! In Ohio, there were preachers, graves with names and dates on them.
When Zinc had taped his arm they carried the waterboy, carried him into a house across the square, banging on a door, shoving him inside when two women opened. A bullet had smashed his leg. The kid moaned and flopped his arms. He was bleeding badly.
Dennison liked his bright face, his gaunt, nomadic build. He respected his courage: that business with the water bottle, the spotting of the roof gunners. Kneeling and sitting on the tiled floor of someone's living room he and Zinc did their best to bandage the boy's leg. Dennison tried to talk to him but he couldn't come to. People crowded around, yapping, yapping: he saw their mouths going.
Speaking French he yelled at a woman:
"Try to locate a Red Cross man!"
The veiled figure hovered over the boy, her blue boubous was flecked with something white.
"Médecin," she mumbled.
Dennison and Zinc risked a third of their stock of bandages: they rebound the break, padding it.
"Good boy, good boy," Dennison said to himself. "Nice kid, nice kid!" Zinc said.
According to Landel, the Anadi mess was a mere delaying action, a hinge in the Nazi retreat. Millard was left, to be trucked to a base. The tanks gulped water. A supply tank furnished gas and oil. Landel, Zinc and Chuck and Dennison worked steadily, with a few minutes for food.
Where's the thermos? Where's the coffee? Cigarettes? God, thought Dennison, where now?
A radio screamed:Advance to Beramet.
A merchant, with a yellow and blue turban on his head, was opening a double door, a pack of dates lay on his table, a girl was prostrate on a cot, two camels appeared, a pigeon flew.
There was no opportunity to remember the olive trees: Dennison shut his eyes: he belched and swayed in his seat: the hatch banged shut, was bolted shut: he shifted his controls ... Remember?
His arm stung where the bullet had nicked him; he minded the heat; already the roaring of the tank had lost some of its noise: he was growing deafer.
Over the intercom--far away--he heard Landel:
"There's a concrete pillbox ahead!"
Why the hell should we knock it out! Whose pillbox was it? Why was it there? Where was the damn artillery? Asleep! Must be some other M4's around! Or an M18! Maybe the rest of the Corps was lost on the desert--in some hellish place. Thoroughly angry, swiping sweat from his face, he decelerated to 5 mph. Let some other bastard wipe out the pillbox!
Landel indicated starboard and they swung close to a brick wall, snailed along it, rounded a corner, and there, near a chapel, was the pillbox, white, dirty, plastered with faded movie posters. Before Dennison could shift gears the crew in the box let go and a shell blew bricks out of the wall and shrapnel crashed against their armor plate.
Landel signalled.
Dennison bent forward in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue, and felt the blood flow from his head: he thought: going to conk out. Must have canteen, soak my handkerchief, sop my face. Better tell him, better tell him ...
"Side street ... go side street."
Dennison obeyed automatically.
Zinc and Chuck bawled at each other.
"Get shells ready ... ready, Chuck..."
Swinging roundabout, they caught the pillbox from an angle: its cannon was futile, just a rod of steel: methodically, Chuck trained his 75; his first shell overshot but the second crushed the concrete dome; the third shell, aimed low, burst open a side.
Machinegun triggered, visors wide opened, Landel accounted for the crew, his blood boiling:
He was yelling, whistling, screaming.
Barbed wire fenced the box and Dennison smashed it, treads burying the spirals, the port tread crushing remains of the pill box.
Thinking of the canteen, he got it and sopped his handkerchief: water, face, water, the turret flung open, now he could breathe. Water, a little more water ... there was plenty of water!
As they sped onto a highway the surface seemed annoyingly, deceptively smooth: probably mined.
Watch it, boy!
"Mined?" he asked Landel.
"Safe," Landel reported, doubting their luck.
He had sopped his head and underneath the open turret, his face shone like an Inca ceremonial head: a scratch under one eye was bleeding; his naked shoulders were soaked; he leaned against the side of his seat, mouth gaping ...
He hated the day, hated the bad luck, hated losing Millard. He called himself a fool for permitting his men to crowd about the fountain. Should have known, should have. It was Dennison's fault for not reconnoitering. Give him hell tonight. Tonight ... well, they'd be midway to Ghat. The swaying tank, the roaring treads made him clamp his eyes.
Someone was yapping on the radio.
On the road, beside a bombed truck, lay a crippled GI. The fellow raised his arms--appeared to see the oncoming tank--but Dennison could not avoid him without crashing off the highway. He had no chance to diminish his speed and zoom aside since they were clocking forty. Dennison's nerves buckled, his spine stiffened, his throat contracted painfully, his hands shook: the Sherman raced over the man in a flash and yet Dennison saw him die--could see him underneath the treads--felt him gasp, heard him scream.
"Jesus Christ ... I killed him ... I killed one of our guys ... Jesus Christ..."
Sun was beating through the turret, stabbing the desert. Desert heat swirled with engine heat.
If the highway is mined!
Landel was using his periscope.
The viewer showed an even expanse.
Souped-up, they were hitting sixty.
Was it riskier to cross a mine at top speed? What would the explosion do, heel then over, crumble a tread, stove in the floor, belch out the walls? ... In the white walled house, the Arab, in the yellow-blue turban, was opening the shutters to his windows ... did he sell dates?
In Texas, while piloting his training tank, he had thought of the rags and litter on the ground as the bodies of men. Excellent imagination. Useless. Absurd. Such thinking had not hardened him. It was just another kind of fear. Another kind of folly. His hands were still trembling.
Nothing had prepared him for the first dead in Africa, that first week in Africa, when men got crushed underneath his treads: then it had seemed to him that he had crushed them himself, mashed then with his own weight. He had dreamed then, for many nights, of arms and hands struggling against pressure, faces blotted into nothingness. He had longed to climb out of his machine, kill himself, go, go somewhere.
And now?
Beramet appeared on the road ahead ... palm trees, white one-story buildings, olive trees, tamarisk.
Through radio transmission he knew that their tank forces were pincering: the town was to be grabbed by nightfall.
Light shimmered in front, misty pools of it, mirage water, the desert--port and starboard--was undulating with heat and light: heat, combining a scab of dust, wavered over Beramet: a single point, a blue minaret, broke through.
An MP slowed Dennison: standing beside his motorcycle, black glasses over his eyes, tropic hat slapped down low, he seemed a little insane as he swatted at flies. The dust on his cycle matched the dust on his fatigues. Dust was approaching, trailing from a stream of converging trucks, half-tracks, tanks, cars, and ambulances.
Dully, Orville stared at his compass ... so this was Beramet? Where, in Beramet, would they stop, climb out, rest?
In a few minutes the compass began quivering: they were in the thick of street fighting, Arabs dodging from house to house, Nazis firing from doorways, windows, firing machine guns, firing rifles. GI's opened a front. A grenade exploded. Sand gushed up. Another grenade forced sand through the visors and ports of the bus. Both Dennison and Landel coughed violently. Dennison leaned forward, his back soaked, his arms soaked, the cushion behind him clumsy, lumped.
Urine sloshed across the floor.
He forced his brain above the shaking tank and roar of fighting. Hell, how lunatic, self-preservation and fear clawing each other. Eyes on the street havoc, he moved his machine as directed. Sometimes he saw Arabs firing, sometimes Nazis, sometimes smoke blotted everything. Something crumbled and fell through dust. Blinding sunlight took over as the Sherman crept forward.
Gradually through radio communications, through signals with Landel, he became aware that the Beramet probe was almost over ... now he noticed that his hand was scratched and he licked the scratch absently, groggily. It seemed to him that it was some other person's hand.
It seemed to him he was very old (these had been days not hours): in this world there was only pain and everyone hoped to die. In this world there was the torture of sound being tortured. Following a deserted street, he observed death at the next corner, sitting on an oil drum.
He snarled at himself for having joined the Corps, for having thrown in his lot with Landel. A concentration camp would have been better. Time could never obliterate these memories. The brain was permanently wounded. He tried but could not tap the future: he was too exhausted, too hot--as Landel ordered "stop" Dennison doubled over, craving water: he wanted to lie down in water: he wanted to die.
That night, sleeping in the open, death woke him. He woke shaking, remembering, half-remembering ...
On Sunday, eleven tanks and two half-tracks were compelled to halt because of gas shortage: they squirmed into a wadi below a hundred meter red cliff topped by a single dead tree, an acacia that had been dead and stark for fifty years or more.
Crewmen called the place "the dam" although there had been no water there for many seasons. The dam was a low, concrete wall that crossed the wadi. Its concrete apron bedded a few of the Shermans. Landel, hoping the cliff might afford some protection, had suggested they make a halt until supply tanks and trucks could catch up.
Flies were everywhere: they were inside the tanks; they were outside on the treads, guns and turrets--on weeds, rocks, sand. They zoomed into food the crews tried to eat. They crept over hands and faces and necks as men tried to work. They bit. Singly and by the dozens, they came from below, from above, left, right, and flew into eyes, ears, mouth. Men slapped at them, swore at them, shouted at them.
They crawled over K-rations.
Dennison and Zinc, sharing rations, sprawled below the cliff, troubled by the flies. Zinc poured cold coffee from a thermos. With a rag over his face, Dennison was determined to rest as long as possible, doze perhaps. He felt himself drift perhaps ten minutes: how long he never knew.
A bomb hurled him, dragged him through gravel and sand.
Through a torn spot in the rag he saw the tree on top of the cliff fall; he heard rocks and gravel avalanche onto the tanks, rocks and then a dribble of sand.
A second bomber flew over but dropped no bombs.
In a kind of back-flash, he recognized that the second plane was a reconnaissance plane, following their tell-tales across the desert. Like infallible radar the ruts could lead bombers to "the dam." Scrambling to his feet, dropping the rag, he raced for his tank.
A plane swooped low: a black wall of sand met Dennison and spun him around; as he fell he saw the tread of a Sherman expand like a rubber band and slice a man across his waist and chest: the man did not scream. God, Dennison groaned. Another bomb flattened Dennison: Jesus, how many did they have upstairs! The scream of steel on steel mingled with the roar of falling rocks. A bomb with a bent fin howled as it dropped.
He burrowed into sand to avoid hurling metal: he imagined Zinc, Chuck, Landel, dead.
Pain twisted his back.
Silence ...
Getting up, he stumbled across the gully. He found crewmen there, crouched behind boulders and camel grass. Somebody had spread a tarp overhead to cut down on the spray of sand. Nobody said a word. Presently, Chuck Hitchcock came crawling, blubbering, mouth gaping: crawling on hands and knees he banged into a rock. A blast of sand had sandpapered his eyes: lids and eyeballs were ingrained, a sand and blood inlay.
As Dennison dragged Chuck under the tarp he realized he would never see again: he tried to shield his wounded face, the man sobbing, breathing in gasps, his blond, pallid face distorted.
He won't play billiards again, Dennison thought, remembering Chuck's stories about billiard games at the University of Wisconsin.
A bomb crashed and a tank exploded: it seemed to leap into the air--the whole Sherman--fell into ensheathing fire. It was visible to everyone under the tarp. Sand fountained. Ignited gas and oil spouted: machine gun bullets began to ricochet. Metal whizzed past.
Another bomb exploded.
"Let's run for it!" Dennison shouted.
"Get out of here! ... get out of here!" someone roared.
Dennison and a fellow, Jim Harrington, grabbed Chuck, and rushed him down the wadi, swaying, pitching, dragging. They began to gasp. Chuck was sobbing. Dennison thought every step was getting them nowhere; yet Landel appeared out of a wall of smoke, his head plastered with dirt. He slid an arm under Chuck and the three carried him into a thorn thicket out of the wadi and laid him on the sand.
"I'm blind!" Chuck cried. "I'm blind! Help me!"
Another bomb geysered sand: it left a fog of sand, everyone coughing and spitting. Men tied rags or handkerchiefs or shirts over their face. So, it was sand, not flies. The heat sweated the sand into the flesh. So, it was heat, heat coming down from the cliff.
"Can't see our bus" Dennison shouted, trying to estimate damage. He snuffed and continued coughing.
Suddenly, he grinned, and began to shake: the flies are gone, the bomb's got rid of the flies! He laughed loudly, throwing back his head.
"No flies ... no flies ... the bombers killed our flies!"
"Shut up," Landel said, hitting him.
"No flies!"
Landel hit him again.
Dennison crumpled to the sand: he knew what Landel meant: he realized too, in spite of his hysteria, that he was lucky to have escaped: cradling his head on his arms he attempted to blot out Chuck's raving.
With the last bomber gone, the crewmen came to life, swatting off sand and dust, huddling, at first in little groups. In twos and threes they began checking, climbing on their machines, crawling inside. Out of nowhere supply trucks arrived.
"Gas," the men said.
"Gas."
Zinc pointed to some butterflies, flying close to the sand, headed past the Shermans.
Dennison rubbed his face: they can really fly: yellow butterflies ... beyond them, in the face of the sun, the heat puffed and writhed; a slight wind kicked up dust. A section of the wadi cliff had toppled and sand had buried snouts and sides of several machines and both half-tracks: the sand had acted as a cushion protecting treads and armor plate. Men began to dig ... gas tanks got filled ... motors started ... tanks pulled away ...
Dennison led Chuck by the arm, Chuck moaning and trembling. They both fell into a sand hollow. Directly in front of Dennison lay a pair of arms, intact from finger to shoulders, the dog tag visible on the wrist, above the greasy fingers.
Lawrence, Dennison saw:
Lawrence Robinson, from California.
Dennison jumped away, shrank back, dragging Chuck, almost hurling him down, bumping into Landel.
"What's wrong with you?" Landel scoffed. "Watch where you're going! A pair of kooky arms scare ya!"
Without hesitating, Dennison whirled on Landel, and knocked him down: he tried to jump on him but Chuck clung to him, moaning, saying "no ... no..."
"Jeez, man!" Landel gulped. "Are you nuts again?"
"That was Lawrence Robinson," Dennison yelled. "Larry Robinson ... it could have been me!"
"Fuck you," said Landel, picking himself up, remembering a corner of the Argonne, where men's bodies had been blown about like chips. Glaring at Chuck's bloody eyes he felt no pity for him: he felt they should save themselves for their machines and the job of fighting: let scabs go to hell!
But remembering his job as captain he ordered Dennison to take Chuck to Corporal Willits ...
"He's over there ... he's Red Cross ... take him, then let's get our bus rolling. He's not been hit. Not bad!"
"Not bad," Dennison said to himself, angrily.
He saw himself returning to Base Camp with Chuck; he would see him hospitalized; on leave, he would rest by the ocean; ships would be unloading; the surf would be warm; he'd have good chow.
Assisting Chuck, Dennison sat down by him as Willets examined the lidless eyes: in the sun the imbedded sand glistened like glass; blood glistened like glass. Chuck was trembling, his hands quivering on his lap, fingers wholly uncoordinated.
Willets was talking kindly to Chuck.
"Can you hear?" Dennison asked, bending close.
"No."
"Willits is looking after you ... he's from the Medical Corps..."
"Who?"
"Willits."
"He a doctor?"
"Medical Corps."
"Where am I?"
"By a half-track ... there are wounded here ... Willits and Cobb are helping the men ... we'll be moving out of this gully..."
"Don't go, Dennison."
"Can you move your head ... to the side? ... I want to put medication in your eyes," said Willits.
"Okay."
"The stuff won't hurt."
"Okay."
"Hold still."
"Light me a cigarette, Dennison."
"Sure..."
Dennison began fumbling through his clothes, expecting his cigarettes to be shredded; the pack was badly squashed but he straightened a cigarette, lit it, and put it in Chuck's mouth.
Chuck drew a puff or two and then pain doubled him up as smoke trailed across his eyes; the cigarette dropped to the sand; rolling his head from side to side, he groaned, and flailed his arms.
"My eyes ... my eyes!"
"Keep your hands off them!" Willits ordered.
"Are they so bad?"
"Yeah ... they're bad--keep your hands down..."
The wind shook a dwarf thorn tree behind him.
"Lift your head up ... higher ... I'm using more medication ... soothing..."
"Can ya gimmie a drink?"
"I will," said Dennison.
Willits was a dark skinned man, very Italian, with greying moustache and grey animal-kind eyes. When Dennison returned with water, he nodded at him, jerked his head toward Chuck, then shrugged his shoulders: hopeless.
"Now you keep your hands off your eyes ... I'm gonna put cool antiseptic salve on a bandage, real loose ... gonna put that around your head ... over your eyes ... we'll get you to a doctor soon as we can ... I'll use the transmitter ... others ... other guys ... you know ... get help ... they need help..." Groggily, he went on repeating, talking to himself.
Chuck was still shaking as Dennison walked away--back to his machine.
He and Zinc removed shovels from the rear of the tank: it was slow digging but they released a tread, cleaned the hatches, freed the guns: Landel had a shovel: there was no Al, no Millard, no Chuck: climbing inside Dennison switched on lights, checked dials, checked the intercom and radio: something about the white interior helped.
Switching on the transmitter he shouted:
"Dennison calling ... Lieutenant Dennison calling ... calling X2B ... calling X2B ... Dennison reporting for Fred Landel ... M4-221 reporting ... bombers caught us at point L-T ... place we call "The Dam" ... tanks badly damaged ... several wounded ... one man dead ... can you send medics? Dennison calling ... can you hear me?..."
A little of the horror abated: there was promise in the lights around him, in the transmitter, the old seat cushion, the thermos on the floor, the gleam of dials: with the earphones over his ears he waited.
The radio spluttered:
"X2B ... we read you ... roger ... we've got you on the maps ... news has been coming in ... we know your conditions ... medical help enroute ... tanks moving forward ... medical help coming ... tanks coming ... pass on the word ... over..."
Climbing out of the tank, into the dying day, Dennison notified officers and crewmen. Enjoying a smoke he perched on the rear of his bus: crews were shoveling sand away from the tanks, bedding treads with tarp and gravel. A star specked the horizon. For an instant, for several minutes, he contemplated the ancientness and greatness of this continent: perhaps some of that greatness could resurrect mankind. How absurd the steel hulks, primitive without claiming any antiquity, primordial because of weight and shape. Yet their hellish threats were not absurd. They had crawled into sand as if it was their birthplace, as if returning home after millennia.
After dusk, after the takeover of the sky, tanks, trucks and halftracks arrived: there were two makeshift ambulances, a corps of medics: "the dam" became an encampment, a black-in of men and steel. Dennison, at the door of the ambulance, did his best to break through to Chuck who was lying beside an unconscious GI.
It seemed to Chuck, as he fought his pain and depression, he was losing his best friend: everything was out of proportion as he talked to Dennison.
" ... sure ... sure ... and you know there's my sister in London. You've got to meet her ... somehow you've got to meet her. She's, she's pretty ... was the prettiest girl in Racine ... She's stationed at Red Cross ... Dalton Station ... Red Cross ... Dalton ... remember ... if you are ever in London on leave ... remember ... Jeannette..."
The roof lights in the ambulance blinked off.
The chauffeur said: we're shovin' off.
"Here ... take her pic ... her photo from my billfold ... here ... tell her I sent you ... take it ... you can find her ... send me word when I'm at Hopkins ... tell me ... find her..."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
London, Dennison thought, as he shovelled away more sand: I'll never see London again. Perspiration made his hands slip on the shovel handle. He and Zinc were digging by lantern light, their shadows mugging each other: arms, heads, legs, shovels, machine. They were able to hear the hissing sound of sand. Nearby someone revved a motor.
In the light of a tank, Jeannette's photo showed a beautiful woman. Slipping it into his billfold he called her his pinup.
"Hell ... I'm hungry," he said to Zinc.
"There's chow," said Zinc. "I saw the truck ... yeah, there's chow," he repeated, rubbing his beard. "We gotta get some sleep ... gotta sit ... rest." He was trying to rub away intestinal pain with his right hand: he had strained muscles as he helped load wounded into the ambulances. Somebody had given him a sticky candy bar, he could still taste it; maybe it would stay down.
"Chuck's had it ... he's lost his sight ... he's..."
He went on mumbling to himself.
He and Dennison had located Robinson by flash. Dennison had brought his arms and placed them across his mutilated body, on a stretcher in a converted supply tank. Robinson's ID fell beside the tank and Zinc brushed off sand and stuck it inside Robinson's torn shirt and buttoned the shirt over the crushed leather.
"Well, he doesn't have to be buried here," Dennison said, folding some canvas over him. "Who's better off ... Chuck ... or Robinson? Chuck or..."
Zinc was too weary to reply; his eyes were swollen from the heat, sand, and lack of sleep: numb, he stumbled toward the chow wagon, shoes sinking into the sand: everything he saw was indistinct: everything difficult.
Behind trucks, sitting on the sand, on gasoline drums, oil drums, boxes, the crewmen ate, no light, no smoking.
Shivering as night came on, the two bedded together on the floor of a truck, under blankets and tarpaulin. Wind scraped at the tarp with a sandpapering sound: it tapped on the truck cab and clicked on its glass.
"We attack early in the morning," Dennison said.
"I know," Zink said.
"Hope we have luck."
"Yeah."
Overhead, Libyan sleep was dropping lower and lower: Dennison squinted at the stars, wondering how many more miles they had to travel before the war ended. Three stars burned in a ragged triangle: gradually, the upper star assumed a greenish pallor. While digging out Robinson's body a star had glittered above the cliff ...
Dennison felt the expanse of the desert around him, felt its thousands of square miles. Pulling the tarp over his head he imagined himself in a grotto, Atala's grotto: ah, that pitiful story: beauty obliterated by superstition, by folly: lovely Atala had been his companion in Ermenonville, as boy, she and her Chactas ... Chactas the blind man ... the lover ... the wanderer ... Doré's wonderful engravings--those days in E ...
And now ...
The desert rustled the tarpaulin. The truck swayed.
Still cold, Dennison hunched closer to Isaac, needing all of the warmth he could steal: his arms and shoulders ached: sand grubbing had done that: sand, he felt it in his shoes, in his shin, between his fingers ...
Poor Chuck ...
Soon, dawn threw out its flag of light; soon men were yelling, talking, pushing, urinating, shitting, coughing, eating ...
Motors throbbed.
The radio in a truck blared boogie-woogie, from Casablanca.
Dennison read his wristwatch.
Their tank motor refused to start.
Landel transferred them to another Sherman--number 58. 58 started easily, warmed easily, and they rolled out of the gully, rolled across a flat of sand and sandstone that could have served as an airport, the full moon its beacon.
Everything about the new tank pleased Dennison: it was a pleasure to get away from the old bus.
Little by little, he coaxed 58 into top speed, glancing at his watch, leaning back against the seat, the cushion solid. A shaft of light came in. The periscope was excellent. The viewer clean. He leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue, something like a smile on his face.
Landel was occupied with his map, his phone wobbling against his Adam's apple, black, cancerous: his bald skull teetered stiffly, pencil between his fingers.
Directly in front of 58, a tank rolled along, another M4, grey, lobbing up dust.
Dennison contrasted its size with the immensity of the desert.
The M4 climbed out of a bomb crater, flicked its fantail, ducked, disappeared.
Dennison realized that the men inside were as lonely as he: men riding inside nothingness, gaping at dunes and flats of sand.
Wasn't that a knock in the motor?
What was that strange vibration in the port tread?
Wasn't that a clicking sound in the transmission shaft?
And the motor temperature?
Heat began to close in.
Driving ports were wide open, the turret was open, the fan was rotating; yet it was growing hot rapidly. Dennison mumbled to himself about the vents. The roaring of the treads knocked the roof of his brain; he felt that the old deafness was returning.
When gasoline and oil fumes increased he let up on acceleration but not before Zinc came down with a harsh coughing spell.
Fear came ...
It crawled along his spine, yesterday's fear, last week's, the past mucking up death, Robinson's arms in the sand, Al screaming, a village gouting smoke and fire. He saw, as in another world, another man's world, his years in Ithaca, at Cornell. The bronze figure of Ezra Cornell was hazed by leaves--then blurred by falling snow. He saw tree-fogged paths winding to his flat on the hilltop above Cayuga. He saw the lake gleaming, blue as a smudged blueprint. He saw himself rowing with the university crew, his body synchronized to the dim bodies of his mates: Locksley ... Neilson ... Murphy ... Lee ...
Lee was coxswain:
Steady boys, steady now ...
But all this was dead: his mother was dead: Aunt Therèse was dead, Uncle Victor, Landel and Zinc were dead: all were travelling through a fog, a distant fog.
Without being aware of it, Dennison began to rub his neck at the base of his skull. His head was pounding. He wanted to drink. He wanted to close his fingers around a tangerine, strip the peeling, smell the strong smell. His mother used to buy tangerines at Christmas, tangerines from California, tangerines and purple grapes, oranges, avocados--pile them on a platter on the dining table.
He wanted a piston to jam, he wanted the radiator hose to split.
He longed to sleep during the afternoon or all night.
Sleep, he thought, sleep ...
* * *
2
The Ermenonville rain was a cold autumn rain, falling out of a dull sky, slanting in a light wind.
Orville stood beside the grave of his father, weather streaks across the red granite tombstone, across Robert St. Denis, and the dates: 1893-1921. Orville warped his hat to shed the rain and tried to button his makeshift coat closer, broken umbrella hooked over one arm, umbrella and coat from a Paris flea market. He had left Paris early in the morning, on a heaterless bus, a trip of delays and Nazi harassment.
When he started to walk to his dad's grave the sky had been bleak but not threatening. Maybe the sky was trying to flip its calendar, turn it back to another rainy day in June, when Robert had been wounded at Bermicourt, his little Renault tank exploding from a direct hit, on that muddy battlefield of World War I.
Orville was peeved that the rain had caught him; he had wanted to sit on the grass and think of other times in Ermenonville. He noticed other graves in this family plot, those of Aunt Irene, Uncle Mark, his cousin, Marcel ... graves under leafless Lombardies. The rain made him resentful of the place and of death. The ground was spongy; the sod could absorb little more; he kicked at weeds with a quick kick. Through the poplars he observed the Petit Lac, its placid water grey: the small poplar covered island, at one side of the lake, with its carved Rousseau tomb, seemed adrift in the falling rain.
Well, here we are, father and son, in the rain. I wish we could have shared our lives. You might have been a pretty fair provincial lawyer. The rain has had you a long time. If I'm killed in my tank I'd be carted here ... I guess we like it in Ermenonville.
So long, Bob.
He had never called his dad Bob. He had no memory of him except from photos: one of them came to mind, young face, maybe like his own. Moustache. Blond moustache. A tall man, lean, a horseman, dead for twenty-seven years. Tall man who had taken years to die the invalid's death.
So long ...
A swan, on the little lake, close to the poplar planted shore, moved without any apparent effort, its reflection now bright, now dark, now in the rain, now in the clear.
There were swans here when Jean Jacques Rousseau lived here ... swans ... château swans ... and when Rousseau said we should return to nature, had the swans influenced him?
Walking toward his aunt's house, Orville felt undercurrents as a boy in E, when the wind vane on Lautrec's house had thrilled him, when the spire on the stone church had prodded more than clouds. In those days there had been frogs to spear in the Nonette, kites to fly, boats to sail on the Petit Lac.
He passed the bronze statue of Rousseau in the village, a rain beaten thing. Cobbled streets fanned out from the figure. The statue was unchanged. The cobbles were the same. Smoke from peasant houses climbed as it had years ago.
The rain was coming down as it had years ago: a beautiful scene.
He tried to raise his umbrella but had no luck; it banged against his leg as he began to walk faster, hustling into the wind, his aunt's home a few blocks away.
Old Claude Bichain, the family servant, opened a side door; he had been watching for Orville, his bearded face close to a window. Orville, glancing at the rambling breaktimber house, saw his face and, cane-like, lifted his umbrella.
"My, you're soaked! Mon dieu, Orville, come in..."
"I shouldn't have tried ... but it's not far to the cemetery," Orville said, and handed Claude his umbrella and hat, shedding his coat in the doorway.
"I came in the back way ... the front lawn's flooded."
"Yes, it's a heavy rain. The gutters are poor ... we haven't been able to find anyone to repair them. Come with me," Claude suggested. "I have a fire in the kitchen."
Orville followed him through the butler's pantry, perturbed by the house, somehow stiff, apart, unfriendly. The weather, no doubt.
"Change here ... it's the warmest place. I'll bring your clothes, the things that you left here ... we've kept them for you."
"Claude, how has life been?
"Ah, well enough, I guess ... well enough."
"You haven't gotten married again?"
"At my age!"
Orville enjoyed his laughter, the restrained laughter of old age.
"And you?"
"Me ... I'm glad to be here. Seven years since I was here ... seven or eight."
Bichain nodded, remembering.
"And the war?" he asked, unsure of himself, trying to interpret Orville's sad face.
"It goes on and on ... I sometimes..." but he stopped.
"I'm glad you made it ... your bus was late, but buses are always late now ... let me get your clothes ... I put some pots of water on the stove ... you see the boiler isn't working for the bathtub." He found it hard to speak: he was troubled by Orville's greasy mechanic's clothes, his bearded face, his staring eyes, grim mouth.
Orville found it comfortable washing himself by the cast iron stove--polished as always. Copper pots and copper spoons decorated a wall. The fire was crackling in the stove; there was plenty of hot water, Claude had stacked several towels on a chair. Cakes of soap.
The rain guttered down the windows.
Orville stood on a braided rug, probably braided by Annette long ago. He appreciated Claude, so thoughtful, respectful: his beard was longer and whiter. Annette was in the village but what had delayed the Rondes? Where was Jeannette? On duty at the hospital, no doubt. He wondered whether the hospital was overrun with wounded.
It was a long way in space and time, from Africa to London, to Ermenonville's kitchen: that bombed railway station, that taxi ride through bombed streets, past the British Museum spewing books and walls, blocking the street, one siren triggering another until the city howled like dying children. It had taken some doing to locate Jeannette Hitchcock, at the Dalton Street Red Cross station.
Opening the stove door, Orville poked the fire and shoved in a couple of sticks: the light played on his naked body. Dumping dirty water down the sink he poured himself a hot pailful. Soap and hot water relaxed him as he washed his legs and thighs.
Claude had his arms full of clothes; stopping in the doorway he envied Orville his hard, white body.
"Can't find anyone to repair the heater," he said.
"This is fine ... I guess this is where I scrubbed when I was a kid."
"Use all the hot water."
"Will Aunt Therèse be home soon?"
"I think so."
"I'd forgotten it could rain so hard around here."
"Where did you get off the bus? Did they let you off at the wrong place?"
"No ... I got off in the village..."
"You shouldn't have gone to the cemetery. Not today."
"No matter ... I wanted to look around ... to think..."
Claude spread Orville's clothes on the kitchen table, arranging them carefully--the valet's touch. He hoped everything would fit. Orville hadn't put on weight. Was I ever built so well?
He limped away and Orville saw his hand on the closing door, remembering it as a boy, the red "v" on the back: it wasn't so much the redness, it was the ragged shape of the thing. Bichain had the face of a Pole; his Cracow ancestor's grey eyes that faded into nothingness, his beard went to his chest, the hair was always brushed and immaculate.
As he toweled, Orville glanced at the scars across his stomach, where he had been burned by an engine explosion during training at camp. It was pleasant picking up his clothes from the table, holding them up, remembering. He thought everything would fit. Socks first. That old crew neck shirt from mom.
He was eager to telephone Jeannette.
The trousers were okay ... Claude had remembered his belt.
By god, maybe it was going to be good after all, this leave, this Ermenonville, his Jean.
Somebody ought to shut off the rain.
It was growing dark: the eye of the fire poked across the door. Across the braided rug.
The phone was at one end of the long living room, unless someone had rewired it. Without switching on lights or lamps, he walked across the room, hoping it had not been altered: the phone ... he lifted the receiver and waited:
"What number, please?" a pleasant voice asked: the voice was Ermenonville French and yet Orville thought of a girl in Ithaca, a face with yellow hair around it, a happy face.
"Can you get me the hospital?"
There was a pause as if the operator was trying to identify Orville or was puzzled by his accent.
"One moment, please."
Then the hospital responded--someone, a man, spat through an earful of static:
"What do you want?"
It was the voice of war, with a German accent.
"This is Claude Bichain," Orville lied. "I want to speak to Mlle. Jeannette Hitchcock," he said. "She may be on duty."
"If she's on duty, I can't call her."
"It's an emergency ... damn you!" he snapped out. "Important ... get it? Important!" He hated the guy.
"You'll have to wait ... I'll call you back, M. Bichain. Are you at the residence?"
Orville waited on the tapestry upholstered telephone chair; listening to the rain his mood began to adjust: drops were racing down the French doors: Claude was switching on lamps, tending a fire in one of the fireplaces. Firelight blurred the walls. It was an elegant room. 1788, he recalled. The Rondes had purchased the property from some member of their family. He couldn't remember who the builder was.
Both fireplaces were constructed of yellow glazed brick, their white mantels rested on rococo Caen stone pillars. The furniture, of several periods, blended well, touches of ormolu, marquetry, rosewood, mahogany.
The phone jangled.
"Hello ... hello ... is this M. Bichain? This is Jeannette Hitchcock."
"Hi, Jean?"
Orville had to bring himself round suddenly, snap into the present.
"Hi, darling!"
"Orv, Orv ... oh, it's you. How's everything?"
"Fine. And you?"
"Fine ... Orv, you're here, you're safe!"
"When am I going to see you?" he asked, excited now, wanting to see her at once. "Can I see you tonight?"
"Not tonight, darling." Her voice trembled. "Can't be tonight. I'm on emergency shift. Surgery. Maybe for three hours ... a bad case. I don't want to see you when I'm tired. We've waited ... I can't spoil it."
"When?" he asked.
"Tomorrow morning. I'll meet you anywhere you say. How about that, Orv?"
"Can a hospital car bring you here?"
"But I don't want to be with your family. Not now. When did you get here?"
"On a late bus ... I have gotten into some clothes ... get a lot of rest, turn in early, if you can. I'll come in the morning." He wanted to say it's marvelous, hearing your voice, being in Ermenonville; she was already saying good night, and he heard himself saying good night with woodenness; then the phone went dead in his hand--the crude, dumb thing.
Hardly had he placed the receiver on its hook when the phone rang. Picking it up indifferently, he said:
"Hello."
"Orville, it's you! How nice. Oh, Orville, I'm so glad you are home. When did you get home? I've been trying to get you, but this wretched phone..."
"Hi, Aunt Therèse! I got here an hour or so ago. You sound far off or the connection's bad. Where are you?" He dropped into her kind of French, the kind she had taught him, Ermenonville's patois.
"I'm out in the country about ten or twelve miles, at a horrible, dirty farm. Our car has broken down ... I'm afraid I won't get back till late. Maybe not till tomorrow. Lena and I are here--we're so disappointed not to be home ... to welcome you. Tell Annette to fix a supper. Claude will look after you..."
Therèse's effusiveness annoyed him but he sent his love to Lena and assured them that everything was all right.
" ... Lena's fine ... we got awfully wet because we had the top folded down, and we couldn't get it raised again. Such a muddy road. And then our engine had to act up. Have you seen Jeannette? Have you phoned her?" She was sputtering. Orville remembered her volubility; she went on chatting about nothing, Orville nodding, smiling.
"Their car broke down ... they won't be back until late or tomorrow," he explained to Claude, who was offering a pack of cigarettes. "They're at Placiers."
Bichain nodded.
"Anything you want?"
"No ... I'll let Annette know."
Orville walked about the elegant room. Yes, it had been seven years since his last visit: he and his mother had stayed several weeks during that summer. During those seven years he had ample time to finish high school, enroll at Cornell, make the crew, go to war!
In front of the alabaster bust of Chopin he shoved his hands into his pockets. Chopin's face seemed more poetical than he remembered it. The man's eyes stared absently into his eyes. The lips had their absinthe smile.
No, the furniture had not been changed; of course the settees, sofa and chairs had been reupholstered with the identical pattern of pomegranate flowers: that was Therèse's way. The woodwork had been dusted and polished two thousand times and Claude had waxed the parquet--over and over. Parchment lamp shades seemed to be new. He bent over a cloisonné vase: its birds and flowers were in the same Kyoto greenery. He glanced up: ah, it was there, the gold and silver and green fresco of oak and laurel leaves, twined in their ceiling wreath.
Dark red curtains ...
Tired, he dumped himself on a settee, his thoughts reverting to his trip, a sick and quarrelsome woman, the SS troopers playing poker, a boy begging for food ... a half hour slipped away.
He absorbed the quiet. Had the rain stopped? He hoped so. The fires in the twin fireplaces spread their warmth. Maybe the war was ending ... maybe it would end while he was home; certainly it was the right place. Yet assurances were missing.
Shall I go upstairs, to my room?
He closed his eyes as he sensed the firelight.
Claude woke him to say that supper was ready.
Colonel Ronde's meticulous oil portrait dominated the wall alongside the dining table: the gold fame was heavy and ornate: the Colonel was wearing his 1918 captain's uniform, a trench helmet and a pistol, and a pair of grey gloves lay on a table beside him: he appeared to be a reticent, egocentric, stupid man. Orville remembered how dictatorial he had been: you kids get out of the greenhouse ... you kids are not to ride your bicycles through the garden ... you kids must come to dinner punctually ...
Orville was relieved that the old boy was not around: the portrait's frame was tarnishing: pigment was flaking: the Ermenonville forest background was fading: good.
Orville fiddled with the table silver, idly aware of the monogram, the crystal candleholders, the cut glass sugar creamer: three days ago, less than seventy-two hours ago, it had been hell itself at the front: fooling with his knife, eyeing its ornate handle, he wondered where it had been crafted; he sampled the entrée, glad that Annette was putting herself out to please him.
When will I be eating alone like this, in such middleclass pomp!
Annette served roast duck, stuffed artichoke, creamed parsnips, and buttered carrots. Finger rolls were a specialty of hers. He recognized the dry local wine ... he imagined, as he tasted it, the wines, brandies, liquors inside that inlaid buffet ... Therèse would soon be insisting. He would come across some favorites.
The kitchen door widened a crack.
"Everything all right?" Annette asked, hands pouching her apron, smiling attentively.
"Just great!" Orville said. "It's a treat, having you and Claude look after me ... like old times. Where's the Colonel these days?"
"He's in Marseilles."
"Good ... then he's not caught in the thick of it."
"But he's, ah, on duty ... he's ... well, you know how it is."
The door shut but not before he realized that Annette could lose twenty pounds across her stomach and another five through her breasts. Obviously, she knew how to provision her Ermenonville larder.
The dining room was a cluttered place: it reflected neglect or unconcern: unmatched chairs rectangled an ormolu table of cherry, the antique silver service on the Louis buffet represented several periods: the flowered wallpaper and a bevy of melancholy still lifes in oil were unharmonious. Orville could not remember the room as it had been years ago but felt it was quite different.
He heard Jean's voice. "What a surprise!"
"Hi, darling...."
Jumping up, he buried his face in her neck; he kissed her passionately; she seemed to taste of everything good, smell of many perfumes. He helped her remove her rain wet coat, slowly folding its red lining ... his eyes never leaving her.
In the living room she made a little speech, ridiculous words; she hugged him and kissed him on the sofa, the fire glow on her face and hair. He fussed with her hair, smiling.
"Orv ... where's everybody?"
"I thought I told you ... everybody's in the country ... their car broke down.'"
"So that's why you were eating alone! Then they won't be back tonight?"
"Not tonight ... I guess they'll phone again."
"Swell ... gee, it's our place."
He kissed her, with a long, seductive kiss, easing her against the cushions, her breasts swelling: not since London ... tonight ... tonight ...
"My god, the months!" he blurted.
"I'd almost given up."
"So had I!"
"Your letters ... you don't say much."
"Or you ... Wasn't that the telephone?"
She was playing with the ring he had bought her in London: her fingers slid the crudely faceted amethyst round and round: her mind followed it; then she sought his mouth.
Raising his head, Orville saw Claude Bichain, standing by the piano, one hand on top.
"Your aunt just phoned again ... she's staying at M. Placier's ... she was worried ... she thought..."
"Thank you, Claude."
"I'm glad," Jean said.
"Let me get something to drink."
Orville wanted to explore the buffet: together, they knelt on the floor, both doors open: they nodded: there were vintages and brands across the years: Orville selected a Charpentier brandy.
"How about this?"
"Good," said Jean.
A gust shook the French doors and windows, it was raining hard once more. When they returned to the living room, Claude was adding wood to the fires: he wanted to keep both fireplaces burning, celebrant: for love, he thought, as he laid oak slabs over a pair of iron griffins.
"To us," she toasted, lifting her glass.
"To us ... to your loveliness."
"To your luck!"
On a settee, close to one of the fires, she burrowed against him, tasting his brandy lips, her fingers searching between his legs.
"God, I love you..."
"Tonight."
"Yes..."
"Sip it slowly..."
"I am..."
"Like it?"
"Yes ... yes..."
"Should we drink everything in the buffet?"
"Of course..."
"Why not?"
"Sure, why not ...?"
"Are there more wonderful girls in Wisconsin?..."
"No," she kidded.
"I believe that."
"Let me undress you tonight."
"Maybe I won't be able to wait that long."
"Or I."
Shoulders and head against the settee, she told him how grateful she was to be in Ermenonville ... I escaped from old London ... I love the Petit Lac ... I love the gardens ... the forest ... the shrines ... I've seen Jean Jacques' ghost ... oh, yes, at the Lac ... ah, you and Colonel Ronde, to work things out for me here ... the hospital staff tries, tries very hard to favor me sometimes ... so many wounded ... but I think ... no, no, don't stop kissing me ... what difference does all that make? I'll stop talking ... now ...
With refills, they contemplated the fires, drowsing, yet wholly alive, eager, stalling like animals, happy animals, sure of themselves--anticipating through the medium of the firelight, each other's faces, each other's hands.
He thought of the freckles on her shoulders ... thought of her lovely breasts ... her perfumed skin.
"Shall we go upstairs?"
"Yes ... but..."
"I know..."
"Yes, it seems..."