The Preserve

by Steve Anderson

  “Yes.” Lett tried to add a smile but couldn’t quite force one out.

  “Try wait, please.” She pressed the door almost shut, leaving it cracked.

  Lett could hear peals of men laughing and boasting from somewhere inside. He kept his fists stuffed in his pockets, shifting his feet, teeth grinding.

  “You come, please.” Lett followed the woman down a hall, passing open rooms lined with the house’s many windows. Through the glass panes and their reflections, Lett could see men in civilian clothes going out the back way, strolling by the pool, still laughing and slapping one another’s shoulders.

  The woman left Lett in a main room. The low-slung rafters and columns were carved with decorative curves in the Polynesian style. Various objects stood on shelves, miniature pagodas and Buddha figurines of gold—Lett wondered if the glimmer was the real thing. A bar had more of that Filipino rum—cases of it stacked as if just delivered. The center of the living room, he now saw, had a sunken circular area. He figured it was supposed to look modern, but it only reminded him of a field latrine. His intestines quivered a little.

  Charlie Selfer marched in. He was wearing civvies: a shirt with a tastefully faint Hawaiian print of palm trees on white, light gray linen trousers, white leather sandals. “What are you doing?” he barked.

  “Thanks for releasing me.”

  Selfer sighed, shrugged. “Look, don’t mention it. I mean, really don’t. Lansdale won’t like it. But I’ll explain it to him. He shouldn’t just leave you hanging like that.”

  “That’s just it—the doc, I mean Lansdale, he’s gone AWOL.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” was all Selfer said. “I have work.”

  “I need to talk. Please.”

  Selfer sighed again. He gestured Lett down into the sunken area, which held high-back rattan chairs, and dropped into a chair with a squeak of grinding wicker. Lett did the same.

  “I want the next stage,” Lett said. “I want some duty. I’m ready.”

  Selfer just stared at Lett, a long while. “I have to believe you really mean it,” he said finally. “We all have to believe.”

  “What do you want? A thanks? You’re the one who caused all of it. You.” Lett shot up out of the chair, then dropped back down. “I had to kill a little German girl,” he muttered. “In Cologne. All on account of you.”

  Selfer shook his head, but it wasn’t in denial. They sat in silence a moment, grasping at the wicker chair arms.

  “So help me,” Lett said, in a whisper.

  “I don’t . . . have the authority,” Selfer said. “Only Lansdale does for that. I was already pushing it by releasing you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. On business.” Selfer shook his head again.

  “I can show you I’m ready for more,” Lett said. “Remember you promised I could get a letter to my wife, to Heloise?”

  “I did. The offer stands. Is she still your wife? I never asked you.”

  “It’s a good question. We’re separated.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Does anyone else know about her?” Lett said.

  “Here?” Selfer said. “No. This one is just between us.”

  “Okay,” Lett said. He pulled out the letter he’d grabbed from inside his bungalow. He held it out for Selfer. Selfer unfolded it and read:

  My Love,

  I hope with all my might that you receive this letter. It probably took some time getting to you. I’m well and safe. I can’t tell you where I am, but as you may have guessed I’m receiving the cure to my problem.

  I should’ve listened to you and never should’ve ever returned to the front line. If I hadn’t, I never would’ve seen the things I had, nor done them, nor become this shell of a man with a mechanical beast living inside him. They wrecked me just like you said. The warmongers, the opportunists, they use men like me like matches for cigarettes.

  You were also right to make me leave you and go find a cure for it.

  I’m part of a special classified program that promises a solution. By participating, I won’t have to go to prison. I’m putting all my faith in it, and in the people running things. It’s my only hope. I’m getting good help so far. In fact, it’s much warmer here than home. That’s all I can say about things. But I take them all as a good sign.

  You won’t hear from me again, not until I’m healed for good. That could take some time.

  I remain strong just thinking of how strong you are. Hug our good boy for me and tell him I love him and that I’ll see him again one day, provided that I beat this thing.

  Destroy this letter as soon as you read it.

  Je t’embrasse,

  W. L.

  Back in Belgium he had tried to work odd jobs away from people, helping out foresters and farmers mostly. Sometimes he would go berserk. The forests were never kind to him. Farms could bring smells that provoked. Worse than that, he trusted no one. He couldn’t. He didn’t even trust Heloise anymore. He hated that about himself. And he didn’t want to pass this on to his boy. He himself never had a father to speak of, but having none was probably better than a paranoid father who haunted a boy and plagued a man. Supposing he did that to Holger Thomas? Kept scaring the good boy with his erratic behaviors. Heloise could only explain it away for so long. Supposing his boy tried to live up to things that could not and should not be lived up to, not ever, the weight of centuries of war and hate delivered down his throat like so much cod-liver oil till he choked? Lett wanted to return a good father or not at all.

  As Selfer read the letter, his eyebrows raised. When he finished, he held up the page like a winning ticket, then he folded and slid it into his trouser pocket. “The warmonger line is a little rich but, hey, you’re entitled.”

  “Believe me now?” Lett said.

  Selfer smiled. “Okay, Lett, okay. I’ll have this sent off pronto, on the QT.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, I’ll look into getting you to the next stage. I’ll do what I can, that is.”

  “Thank you.” Lett took a deep breath, his lungs opening up.

  “It’s the least I can do. Considering.”

  “There’s another thing,” Lett said. “I haven’t had my shot.”

  “What?”

  “The second stage—medication. Lansdale dropped it, discontinued it, something.”

  “Oh,” Selfer said. He paused a moment, staring into the carpet.

  “I know I’m not supposed to discuss it, but I figured you knew.”

  “Sure, sure. But, isn’t that half the point of a dosage—so that you don’t require it eventually?”

  “It was helping. I really think it was. What if my condition comes back, but worse? Who says it can’t continue?”

  Selfer nodded. “Well, I suppose we could reintroduce your dosage. Maybe just not so much. I’ll check with Lansdale. Anything that is helping should be considered and reconsidered . . . This is a work in progress, after all.”

  “Thank you. Again. Never thought I’d say that to you.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up too much,” Selfer added.

  “You mentioned not having the authority. What does that mean exactly?”

  Selfer pursed his lips. They threatened to form a pout. “It’s just that . . . Lansdale, well, he outranks me. I know we don’t talk about rank and so forth much here, but the fact is that he does prevail. I’m . . . Like I told you before, I’m more like the manager here than a commander. Sort of a caretaker with pull.”

  “So, you don’t create any orders?”

  Selfer looked up at Lett with sad eyes. “I barely give them.”

  “So who does? Lansdale only?”

  Selfer looked around, even though they were clearly alone. He crossed his legs one way, then the other. He lit a cigarette. “Lansdale has been reporting to SCAP, GHQ, Tokyo, The Dai Ichi. Got me? Whatever you want to call MacArthur now. But there’s also others. Some of them pass through here.”
/>   “Like those ones out by the pool.”

  “Some, yes. A new combined intelligence agency is being established, I’m hearing, and it should prove more powerful than any organ that came before.” Selfer looked at his watch. “But this is all I can tell you. Understand? Mum’s the word.”

  “Of course,” Lett said and tried to make it sound earnest. But he was left with the awkward feeling that Lansdale had earlier confided in him just as much or more than he had in Selfer, possibly. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Selfer that. He buried the thought away.

  Selfer watched his cigarette burn down. “You’re doing so well. I’m proud of you, you know. I do admire your gung-ho way.”

  “I’d just like to get cracking, as Lansdale puts it.”

  “Certainly. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have another meeting to arrange.” As Selfer stood, Lett noticed he had actual wrinkles despite his smooth skin. Crow’s feet. They bore the slight greasiness of sweat. He touched Lett on his forearm. “You’re part of something big,” he added, “and at the vanguard, as well. Remember that.”

  “Something I can take back with me?” Lett said, repeating Selfer’s assurance to him back in the darkest days in the Battle of the Bulge. Selfer was already calling him a hero then. What a word that was.

  Selfer ignored the remark. Lett wondered if the man even remembered it.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Selfer repeated absently and nodded to his words. He lit another cigarette. He hadn’t offered one to Lett. This might’ve been the first time Lett ever saw Selfer’s slick manners slip—not that Lett would’ve accepted. Selfer certainly had things on his mind. Maybe he did have a lot riding on his so-called hero from the European Theater.

  “But, if we move too fast,” Selfer said, “or push things too hard—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Consider me warned. And ready.”

  “Fine.” Selfer turned to step out of their pit.

  “One more thing, if I may,” Lett said. “Where is Kanani?”

  “Who? Oh, yes.” Selfer smiled wide, and the wrinkles smoothed out. “Miss Kanani Alana has been given good duty. She’s still here. Doing more than fine. Now there’s one who needs no cure. I dare say that she’s the remedy.”

  9.

  Two days later, something like normalcy had set in. The clerk had told Lett that he still had to remain in his quarters as much as possible. Now, however, he could visit the mess hall and take short walks, though only out in the clearings. Not too many trails for Lett just yet. And he should still avoid visiting any offices, at least until Lansdale returned. This was all on Selfer and Lansdale’s orders, the clerk had been sure to remind him.

  So, on his second afternoon, Lett again found himself roaming the same turf. This let him reassess and retrain his senses. The main clearing where he’d failed his test was one football field wide and long, he confirmed again. It held those six new bungalows, three to a side, separated by a middle lane. At the opposite end, the clearing turned like an L, leading to olive drab tents that were quickly surrendering ground to the wooden frames of more low huts.

  This was the fourth time he’d passed through. He still felt no ill effects. He peered farther again and just above the treetops spied the tip of that water tower and the guard tower, just like before. The people passing were likewise unchanged, still wearing a mix of fatigues and khaki, aloha shirts and flower dresses. Still no weapons that he could see.

  None of his senses let him down. As he strolled, all he smelled now was barbecue smoke wafting through camp from the mess, though it was interspersed with something pungent, possibly from fermentation or a rotting plant. And he heard an occasional rooster crowing. It was colder up here than he’d recalled, with more wind. Then again, they were closer inland to the two volcanoes that dominated the center of the island.

  He recalled something Kanani had said on their way up to The Preserve. “At some point, all this green is gonna stop and it turns into lava fields, and plenty of it too, just open and barren country.”

  Kanani. She was the real reason he was out here by this point. He was hoping to catch her out, and he bet that she was doing the same. So he kept showing himself.

  He noticed other things. The equipment and gear and matériel were a mix from all branches, with even some British equipment thrown in. And the kitchen items weren’t military grade but commercial. The sum of it all was decidedly not Government Issue but a surplus haul, as would be procured for some private foreign legion. An espionage operation, maybe. Mercenaries even. So Lett imagined. He tried not to think too much about that. Selfer had openly stated that this was more an intelligence outfit than a military post, after all. For him, the cure was what mattered.

  He strolled on, skirting the dense line of jungle foliage that held the camp’s many trails. He brushed large ferns and giant fronds, the greens occasionally dotted with the bright-purple pink of bougainvillea and slick, leather-like leaves tinged rust-red.

  He turned into the next clearing. Along the wall of jungle green, he spotted a floral dress—a woman sitting on a bench.

  Kanani.

  The aloha dress looked adorable on her, but it was a little too colorful, like something a tour guide might wear, and he wondered if they’d asked her to wear it—that or they limited her wardrobe. Her hair now had a little wave to the bangs, and she wore yellow plastic-frame sunglasses with a slight uplift at the outside corners, like a cat’s eyes.

  He crept up from the side, keeping to the shadows along the backsides of the tents.

  She sat upright, on the edge of the bench as if on lookout, her back not touching the backrest. Looking for him?

  She kept her eyes behind those big sunglasses.

  Her outfit had disarmed Lett a little. He couldn’t help a smile.

  Then she turned those sunglasses his way.

  He smiled bigger; she smiled back and rose to hug him.

  “Aloha,” Lett said. “You just come from the mainland, doll?”

  She gave him a little thump on the chest. “Don’t ask.”

  “Well, finally—it’s about time we get to see each other.”

  “It sure is. Sit, sit.” She found her perch. He joined her, just like on the pew in that little old Kona church. She pulled her sunglasses down.

  “You doing okay?” she said.

  “I am. I can actually say so. I think treatment is helping. You?”

  A group of people passed, just beyond the tents. A doctor’s coat. He and Kanani paused. She slid her sunglasses back on.

  “They set me up in my own bungalow,” Lett said eventually.

  “Me too.”

  “Though I don’t know what comes next. Not exactly.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I’m not supposed to have visitors yet,” Lett said. “But who knows?”

  “Same with me, more or less,” Kanani said. “That will change . . .”

  It seemed to Lett that her eyes were avoiding him, even under those sunglasses. He thought of what he could ask her, what she could tell him.

  “We should tell each other everything,” he blurted.

  “Yes. Look out for each other. Same as before.”

  “All that we can, that is. Some things being classified.”

  “Right. You smart, Wendell.”

  “Well?”

  “Oh. I met Jock,” she said, adding another smile. “Ho! Just like a Marine guy.”

  “Who?” He recalled Lansdale saying the name. Jock was the Marine he’d fought. “Ah, right.”

  “He’s okay. You didn’t hurt him any more than he hurt himself. You two will be all right. I like him. You’ll like him.”

  “I’m going to take your word for it,” Lett said. “Listen, when should me and you see each other, you think?” But then he saw it. Them.

  Two MPs passed, in the far distance. Lett turned his back to them, breathing deep. Kanani waited it out.

  “The Preserve has a bar,” she said.

  “I saw it.
”

  “They’re giving me work there when I’m not, uh, training.”

  Lett wanted to ask her what she was training for, but of course she couldn’t say anything about that. She certainly wouldn’t ask him. As a local on the inside, she was probably on thinner ice than he was. “I’m guessing I won’t see you there much,” he said. “You’ll be busy. And too many mucky-mucks, I suppose.”

  She gave a little shrug. “It’s something, Wendell.”

  Lett nodded. “The clerk says I’ll be getting work in the kitchen. Kitchen Patrol,” he added with a chuckle.

  “KP?” Kanani snorted. “You don’t deserve that.”

  “It’s just to fill the hours, in between.”

  Kanani sat up a little taller. Half of one eye appeared out the side of her yellow sunglass frames.

  “It’s Selfer,” she whispered.

  Lett didn’t turn around. “Oh. Well, it’s okay. We’re just chatting. Right?”

  “Right, yes.” She rushed to say, “I’m glad you’re doing all right.”

  “Me too. And you too—”

  “Kids? Hope I’m not interrupting . . .”

  Lett whipped around. Selfer was tiptoeing up to them like the manager of a dime-a-dance hall forced to check on a patron. He wore the same tame aloha shirt, linen trousers, and sandals as the other day, and Lett wondered if it was the only such outfit he had.

  Lett stood.

  “Hello again,” Kanani said, already standing.

  “Hello there,” Selfer said around Lett’s shoulder.

  “Well, I must be going,” Kanani said, “you two always have so much to talk about,” and added a wink at Lett. “Aloha.” She turned on her heel, and Lett and Selfer watched her go.

  Selfer patted Lett on the shoulder, and Lett turned to look at him. The man had a grin on, Lett saw, and it was real.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “You did it.”

  “I did?”

  “Uh-huh. You passed the test! That’s what Lansdale said on the horn.”

  “He’s not here, not back? Wait, what test?”

  “Not yet he’s not, no. So. When I tried explaining to him why I took the liberty of releasing you, I have to confess that I was a little worried. But he wasn’t disturbed a bit. He was delighted! The thing is, you took the initiative. That was the test! That was why he made sure you knew about the Main House. You weren’t going to just stew down there. You needed to act.”