The Bells of Times Square

by Amy Lane

  “Sorry, sorry!” Walter held the trousers in one hand and held the other hand up in surrender. “I’m checking—see? There’s your film canister. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with it, but someday, I’m sure it’ll come in handy.”

  He set the little metal screw-topped canister on the counter and submerged the torn, blood-soaked trousers in the basin of warm, soapy water he’d put in the sink.

  “Thank you,” Nate said ruminatively. Something about that night, about the timing, about taking those pictures and then being ambushed by too many enemies to clear away from. He was pretty sure the candle had alerted the air recon teams, but he wondered what those recon teams were protecting.

  He had the feeling it was something pretty damned important. It had been worth throwing all those planes into a chase and a possible dogfight. They had no idea what was waiting for them as Nate’s plane had fled—for all the Jerries had known, Nate and Albert were leading them into an ambush, even though it was only luck that there really had been Allied planes as backup. The point was, that had been an awful lot of firepower against one lone reconnaissance plane when the stakes were so high.

  “So what were you saying about the dolly?” Walter asked, like he was trying to make up for being so stubborn.

  “She wasn’t the girl’s best doll,” Nate said, looking at the craftsmanship again.

  “She looks pretty fancy to me.”

  “She is. She’s perfect. But she wasn’t the girl’s favorite.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Nate smiled, remembered the wooden truck that Zev had clutched even as the influenza had taken him. It hadn’t been his newest toy, but it had been his most beloved.

  “Because a child’s best toy is the most ragged. It’s like these books. The little boy probably took one favorite book, one favorite car. The little girl probably took a softer dolly, something threadbare from too much hugging. So poor dolly—the second best dolly. She gets to see all the action, all the things left behind, but she’s not the most loved by far.”

  Walter’s face did something complicated then—wrinkled over his eyebrows and at the bridge of his nose. “That’s sad,” he said, his voice throbbing with empathy for a doll on a shelf. “That must be rough, wanting to be the rag doll, wishing you were the ragged thing, when all you did wrong was be too perfect.”

  Nate smiled at him, almost wanting to console him. “Yes, well, we shall have to be entertaining company of the first water, so that she doesn’t notice she is the consolation prize.”

  Walter shook his head and waved his hand, blowing away Nate’s fancy for the nonsense it was, but later, Nate would remember that doll of all things and think of his beloved Carmen. Poor doll. It was not her fault she was everything that was perfect when the owner of her heart wanted everything that was not.

  “Are you translating?” Walter demanded grumpily into the rather melancholy silence that had fallen. “Because I know I didn’t let you up to help today, but you got one job, and that’s to keep me from being bored out of my fricking mind.”

  “You know, I’m a soldier too. You can say ‘fuck’ around me.” He’d noticed that since their conversation about summer homes, Walter seemed to try to mind his manners around Nate. It was both sweet and embarrassing. It made Nate feel soft. Coming up through basic training, the other men had sworn as much as possible to try to get under Nate’s skin, but he’d gotten good at ignoring them. This? It felt like he was being mollycoddled.

  “I’m trying to be a gentleman,” Walter snapped, and Nate stared at him in amazement.

  “A gentleman?”

  “Lookit you, translating French, talking about summer places—”

  “We didn’t have one!”

  “You didn’t have a swimming hole and a barn full of cow shit, either,” Walter muttered. “Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to be someone less than you. You ever think of that?”

  Nate stared at him, feeling completely off-kilter. “You dragged me out of a plane and cared for my wounds, Walter. How elitist do you think I will be?”

  “I don’t want you to pity me. I’m not a real doctor, and I got no education. So maybe I just want to not be a redneck in front of you, you think maybe?”

  Nate didn’t point out that he’d just said maybe twice. “I didn’t know it bothered you,” he mumbled.

  “You’re an officer,” Walter told him—something Nate had known but hadn’t really made much of.

  “But I didn’t earn that in battle,” he said, trying to smile like the ineffective fop he knew himself to be. “I sat in the plane, took pictures, and hung on while the real hero did all the flying. There was no battle, no promotion. I knew how to take pictures, how to take care of the field equipment. I didn’t storm the beach in Africa or even fire a shot that killed anybody. There’s no reason to think all that much of me—”

  “God, you’re stupid,” Walter muttered, but he sounded resigned when he said it, which was better than irritated.

  “I just don’t understand why it matters one way or the other whether you say ‘fuck’ in front of me.”

  “It fucking doesn’t,” Walter said flatly, and then held up the wet trousers.

  “Not bad!” Nate praised. “Not felted or shrunk, and you seem to have gotten all of the blood out. When they dry, I shall try to stitch them, and they shall be wearable again.”

  “Do you sew?” Walter asked quizzically.

  “I watched my mother when I was a boy. I think I’ve learned a few things.”

  Walter made an indeterminate noise then—sort of a thoughtful grunt. He had an entire collection of what Nate was starting to think of as “old man” sounds. So much about Walter was older than his actual age. “Nothing you just said makes me think I should swear in front of you, do you know that?”

  Nate narrowed his eyes. “Walter, when the fucking trousers are dry, if you give me a fucking needle and thread, I will fucking sew the hell out of them.”

  Walter started to laugh then, an evil chuckle. He didn’t say much else for a few moments, just kept up that slightly insane sound while he moved on to Nate’s flight jacket and some of the dusty underclothes he’d recovered from the garage.

  Nate went back to reading a children’s story, wherein the boy who obeyed his parents was able to adventure out in the big scary world and survive with his morals intact. Nate was not aware that he made a sound until Walter broke into his thoughts.

  “How bad could it be? That Jean-Simone character didn’t get his foot shot off or anything, did he?”

  “No— What? My God, that’s morbid!”

  “Then what was that sigh about?”

  Nate wrinkled his nose, rattled. Among many other complexities, it appeared Walter was also quite perceptive.

  “It just seems very convenient, doesn’t it, that the answer to all of poor Jean-Simone’s problems is to obey his father. I personally would prefer not to obey my father. My father hasn’t spoken five words in a row to me since my brother died. I told him I was shipping out for boot camp, and do you know what he said?”

  “‘Fucking eat breakfast there’? Because that’s what my father said.”

  Nate recoiled. “Why would he tell you to eat breakfast at boot camp?”

  “He didn’t want to give me the food. It was three days by bus. Last thing I did before I left home was steal a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter so I didn’t starve.”

  “Well, that . . . that makes my father look like a paragon of charity, actually. My God, Walter. What did your mother say?”

  Walter shook his head. “Just that she’d rather me get blown up than turn out queer.”

  Nate gasped. “That’s . . . Why would she say that?”

  Walter turned his back and started to concentrate on the laundry. When he spoke, his voice was garbled and defensive. “Isn’t that how all mother’s think?”

  Nate closed his eyes and tried to imagine what his mother would say if he confessed that
fizzy, happy, golden feeling he got when he looked at Hector Garcia. Or Walter. Especially Walter.

  Which would be worse? That he’s a man or that he’s goyim?

  The thought made him laugh. “I think for my mother, she’d rather a Jewish man than a gentile woman. But then, that is my mother.” It was a lie, relying on the stereotype of his people, but it was worth telling, worth pretending the words didn’t hit home, just to hear that evil giggle as it shook Walter’s shoulders again.

  “Lucky you,” he said, but he no longer sounded defensive and upset. “So, you never did say . . . What did your father say when you told him you were shipping out?”

  Nate closed his eyes and tried to do a good impersonation of Selig Meyer. “‘What? The world needs one less Jew?’”

  Walter made another one of those old-man sounds. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t think he thought enough of me to believe I’d survive.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t think so?”

  Walter shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it sounds worried. Like he didn’t want you to go because he was afraid for you.”

  “You got that, from seven words?”

  “Well, you’re the one who said them. If you said them right, then yeah. I think that’s exactly what he was thinking.”

  “Oh.” Absurdly, Nate felt near tears. “Well then.”

  Walter sighed, put one more thing in the basin, and then dried his hands on a towel he’d scrounged from somewhere and came to sit down at Nate’s feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft as he leaned back against the couch. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. You know, I found flour in the stores. There’s a sifter too. I could get some of the weevils out and see about maybe making us some bread. What do you think?”

  “Yeast?” Nate wouldn’t quibble with the idea of bread on any day.

  “No.” Walter’s face fell. “I guess all that would make is a cracker.”

  “Boil it,” Nate said. “Knead it until it’s tough, then boil it before you bake it. Maybe the yeast won’t matter so much. That’s how some bagels are made.”

  “How what are made?”

  Nate blinked at him. Well, true—he’d already said he didn’t know any Jews.

  “Bagels. They’re sort of round, chewy bread.”

  Walter smiled, wide and delighted. Nate realized he was missing some teeth in the back, but not even that could mar the joy of that smile. “That there is a terrific idea. I’ll have to go see if I can make us some bagels.”

  “If you put them on a tray after they’re done and toast them, they get nice and golden brown.”

  Walter went to slap Nate’s leg in excitement and then, apparently, remembered that Nate was recovering. He paused, let his hand come down softly, and then stayed there, looking at his hand as though he could find some way to take away the awkwardness.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said quietly, apparently relieved when Nate peered up and smiled.

  “You’ll get home,” Walter said with confidence. “You’ll get better. We’ll find a way to hook you up with your squad again. They’ll be missing you.”

  “What about you?” Nate asked, not wanting to talk about the coldly written letter under his pillow. Would they have sent it by now? Or was he still MIA? Did they send the letters when you were MIA? Nate had never asked.

  “They probably assumed I was dead in Africa,” Walter said thoughtfully. “They took prisoners in Morocco. Shipped us by train. I mean, I gave them my intel—name, rank, serial number—but they didn’t take me too seriously. Kept laughing, calling me verkleinem. I think it meant runt.”

  The camera in Nate’s mind clicked again: Walter’s battered, capable hand flexing over the cover, and there he was, touching Nate through the sheet, no awkwardness, no hesitation. He was simply lost in his story.

  Nate would not call his attention to that hand for all the world.

  “So you were shipped to Germany on a train?” Nate asked, and Walter clenched his hand and shuddered.

  “Yup. Train wrecked. Bunch of us took advantage of the wreck—we were starving, anyway.” His voice sank. “The German doctor was always nice to me. I hit him in the face with the butt of a guard’s rifle and took his medical bag.”

  Oh.

  “That was good thinking.”

  “The captain got shot. The one in our car as we were getting away. I . . .” Walter took a breath, and Nate wished he could lean forward and grab his hand. Who did that? Who grabbed another man’s hand? She would rather I got blown up than come back queer. Was that a hint? A truth? Walter was small—his heart-shaped face held a sweet sort of beauty. His father sounded . . . well, awful. Was it just an assumption? Walter wasn’t big enough to be a bully, so he must be queer?

  “I tried to haul him with me,” Walter said in a small voice. “You see it in the movies, the one soldier not letting the other go. We got into the woods, and he was dragging me down and dying, and they were coming after us, with dogs. He told me to go. I didn’t even have time to run. I left him at the base of a tree and climbed up. I . . .”

  He clutched Nate instinctively through the sheet, and Nate was going to do it, seize his hand, give him comfort, when suddenly he stood up, pushing off Nate’s foot and stomping to the other side of the room.

  “He didn’t make it,” Walter said, his voice remote. “But I did, and I kept running. Held on to the damned bag the whole way. It was like . . . like . . . I lost my unit, and they made me a medic. I couldn’t lose that or who else would I be?”

  He turned to Nate then, his mouth moving for a moment, and his gaze bleak. “So, see? You’re expected. You’ve got a place to go. Nobody even cares I’m alive.”

  He made it back to the kitchen and continued to wash clothes, and Nate watched him with troubled eyes.

  “I do,” he said into the sudden silence. “I know you’re alive.”

  Walter didn’t look at him. “Be sure to tell your grandchildren about me, then. I bet it’ll be a great story.”

  What shall I tell them, Walter? That you touched my leg and my body tingled? That’s not something you tell your grandchildren.

  “I’ll be sure to tell them about your kindness and your resourcefulness, as well,” Nate said, keeping his voice neutral. Walter glanced up briefly and met his eyes.

  “That would be nice of you,” he said, sincerity dripping from his words.

  “Well, yes. I live to be nice.” The words sounded bitter, and they rang in the empty room as the late-afternoon sunshine heated the air, because apparently neither of them had anything else to say after that.

  The silence healed after dinner. Walter had set another rabbit snare, as well as discovered the early volunteer carrots from what was probably a summer garden, and the resulting stew was quite tasty. Nate wondered if they would ever get to the GI rations they’d snagged from the plane, and if not, why had Walter even asked for them? It would occur to him later that like so many during the Depression, Walter had been used to living in want. There was no such thing as enough food when there had been no food at all for so long.

  Nate read another adventure story, and Walter sat on the floor, knees drawn to his chest, hanging on every word. This story was about a trip to the ocean and a runaway boat. The young, intrepid hero swam to the boat and rescued the small children who had disobeyed their parents and drifted away. (Nate had to work hard at not rolling his eyes at this part. Walter didn’t care about the subtext; he just wanted a happy ending.) When Nate got to the end of the story, he looked at Walter, with his shining eyes and quiet delight. His mental camera took the shot when he wasn’t paying attention, and he rethought his earlier cynicism.

  “You like the story?” he asked needlessly, and Walter nodded.

  “I was worried there for a minute. It’s hard to be brave.”

  “Yes,” Nate agreed. “But then, you are very brave, so you would know.”

  “Don’t
talk down to me,” Walter said abruptly, standing up. “Blow out the candle.”

  Nate did and heard the sounds of Walter stripping to his undershorts and T-shirt, and hanging the pants and jacket over the back of the love seat. Sometime during Nate’s fever, he had moved a sheet and a blanket down in order to sleep in the same room.

  “It is kind of you,” Nate said into the dark, “to stay down here and keep me company. I haven’t seen the upstairs, but the mattress must be nicer.”

  “It’s not bad,” Walter acknowledged. Moonlight penetrated the slats between the window boards. Nate could make out Walter, sliding between the sheets. “But it’s good to hear someone else breathing under the same roof, you know?”

  “Yes,” Nate conceded. “I do.”

  Walter made puppy sounds then, curling up on the love seat and resting his head, and Nate closed his eyes, still healing, his own head on the uncomfortable bolster. Dreamy, half-asleep, he said, “I wish you had a pillow.”

  “Thanks, Nate. I’ll wish a pillow for you too.”

  And Nate fell asleep dreaming about their heads, together, on the same pillow.

  The dream changed, near morning. A dance at the USO. Joey Shanahan was there with the most beautiful redheaded girl Nate had ever seen, and Joey stared at her, besotted, his narrow, pock-scarred face alight with pure love. Hector was there in his zoot suit, in full-color purple and gold, dancing with his girl, their bodies a frantic whir in the big band jitterbug.

  And Walter was there, standing at his side, wiry body dapper in a fine gray suit, turquoise eyes bright with the music and the lights. Nate smiled down at him and held out a hand, and they were dancing, whirling like tornadoes on the dance floor. They spun like a carousel, laughing to the cheering and clapping of the crowd.

  The music changed to a Glenn Miller tune, and Walter tucked into his arms, his body aligned to Nate’s, and the lights lowered.

  Nate gazed into Walter’s eyes, and he was glowing, staring at Nate like a hero, and Nate felt like a giant among men.

  He awakened abruptly, chest tight with what felt like unshed tears, and looked around. The light outside the boards was the faintly lighter gray of predawn.