He leaned against the doorway, enjoying the sight of her moving past his bookshelves. ‘And what are you learning about me, Sandy?’
Her head was turned but he could still sense the smile. ‘Oh, that you’re a man who likes history. Most of your books here are about the past. In fact, our bookshelves are quite similar. I have a lot of history books as well, including the complete works of our mutual friend, Mr. Orwell.’ She turned, a bit quizzical. ‘But here I see mostly books on wars, and two wars in particular. Your Civil War and the First World War. Why is that?’
There, now that was a question. ‘I’m not sure I can give you a good answer.’
‘Oh, tosh, you could try,’ she said, and now she was at his desk. ‘Hello, what’s this?’
He moved from the doorway, walked to where she was. ‘Nothing, really.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘It looks like something to me.’ She had her hands around a thick stack of typewritten pages and was riffling through them. He felt his cheeks warm, seeing her going through something so personal.
She looked up, eyes bright. ‘It’s a book, isn’t it?’
‘Sort of.’
She hefted it in her hands like it was a piece of fruit she was buying at a market. ‘Carl, there are a couple of hundred pages here. That makes it a book where I come from. So, my secretive friend, in the ruins of the Kennedy compound, you wouldn’t tell me if you were working on a book or not. And now I know. Your secret’s out. What’s it about?’
‘Suppose I don’t tell you?’
She flipped more pages, and then stopped, holding one out. “‘A Soldier’s Tale, by Carl Landry.’” She looked over at him. ‘It’s not fiction, is it? It’s a true story.’
‘As true as I think it is.’
She gently put the pages back, glanced once more at the bookshelves. ‘These all relate to your book, don’t they.’
‘A good guess.’
‘I’ve told you, I’m a good reporter, and right now I’m jealous of you.’ She gently tapped the side of her head. ‘Any books I have are still stuck up here. At least you’ve got something on paper. But, back to my original question. Why do you have so many history books?’
Damn, that same good question. He had struggled with it himself for a while, coming home from the Globe day after day, reading and rereading the history books, trying to get his hands around ... what? A theme? A message? Something to make sense out of that decade-old slaughter? And his own desire to put down in words, on paper, something that was true, as much as he could remember it.
Carl cleared his throat. ‘I chose the Civil War for obvious reasons. Before Cuba, it was the last time that we had a war on our soil, the last time hundreds of thousands died in this country, and the last time cities were destroyed. Richmond, Vicksburg, Atlanta.’
Sandy nodded. ‘We did the American Civil War at school. It reminded me of the First World War. There was great cheering and bombast and loud predictions that the war would be over in a matter of months. But four years later, the fighting and the killing were still going on. You even had trenches and mud and rats in the Civil War.’
‘Yep. In some ways, the Civil War was a precursor to the First World War. Use of the telegraph. Long-range artillery. Railroads to move troops and supplies. When I looked at what happened in 1914, it reminded me so much of 1962. Two great alliances, armed to the teeth, teetering at the brink of war, just waiting for that push to send them over the edge. And it’s always events in a small country that set it off. An assassination in Serbia. Missiles in Cuba.’
Carl reached past Sandy and pulled down a slim book. ‘Here. Barbara Tuchman wrote this, just before the Cuban War. Called The Guns of August. In it, someone asks a German general how the First World War started and he said, “Ah, if we only knew.” Two different wars in this same century, and the same excuse. We don’t know.’
She took the book from his hands and gently put it back up onto the bookshelves. ‘And what’s your book about?’
‘Oh,’ he said, letting his fingers touch the typewritten pages, as if seeking some reassurance. ‘Just a ground’s-eye view, that’s all. What it was like to witness the war from thousands of miles away, and what was it like to come back home and find everything in chaos. What it was like to leave home to fight communism as part of a great crusade for a young president, and to come back and see your homeland partially destroyed. Food and fuel in short supply, fallout still a problem, Washington gone, most of the political leadership gone, and one brassy and self-confident Air Force general saying he was in charge and would make everything right.’
‘And did you believe that general?’ she asked, in a slightly mocking tone.
He paused. ‘I actually saw that general once, a decade ago. As part of an inspection tour in Saigon. Quite the character.’
‘You still haven’t answered the question, of whether you believe him or not,’ she said. ‘Do I have to wait to read your book for your answer?’
He touched the pages one more time. ‘It’ll be a long wait, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘Still a while before it’s finished?’
He gently grasped her elbow and took her out of his office. ‘Sandy, no U.S. publisher will ever want to publish a book like that. Now, what have you got planned for dinner?’
‘Show me the kitchen and I’ll get to work.’
~ * ~
He set some dishes on the wide counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, and she got busy. Soon his apartment was filled with smells and sounds that had not been there in quite a while. Sandy moved about the kitchen, throwing things together, heating the dishes from the Park Plaza, putting a couple of Guinness stouts into the refrigerator. He donated a bottle of California red wine to the cause, and they ate a thick lobster stew with salad and chunks of crusty bread, and he could not remember the last time he ate so well in his home.
As they ate he turned on the radio on the counter, getting an evening jazz show from WBUR radio and the music helped deaden some of the street sounds.
‘So,’ she said, spooning up some of the stew. ‘Tell me more about your suspension from work. You crossed up your censor, did you.’
‘That I did. The official reason was that I wasn’t being a good boy around my boss. The unofficial—and real—reason is that I won’t go away on a story.’
Her gaze was direct, and he wondered what would happen if he just kept staring back. ‘Is it a big story? Something to do with national security?’
Plenty to do with national security, he thought, but he didn’t want to say any more. ‘It was a story about an old guy shot dead in his apartment. But the story never ran in the paper, and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms to drop it. And to make sure I got the message, I got my unpaid vacation.’
Sandy dabbed at her lips with a napkin. ‘At home we have the Official Secrets Act, and there are some things we’re not allowed to publish. They slap a D-notice on the press when we’re about to print something that’s so-called against the national interest. Like a skirmish last autumn in the Bay of Biscay, when a Royal Navy destroyer, shelled some French gunboats, harassing our cod fishermen.’
Carl nodded. ‘You’re right. That’s a story that never made it over here.’
‘But at least our editors were on our side,’ she said. ‘They fought against Whitehall and Number Ten, trying to get the story told. But no, sorry, here’s a D-notice. I can’t imagine what it must be like, to have a censor in the newsroom all the time.’
‘It makes their jobs very easy, and ours very hard.’
‘And what will you do when your vacation is over and you’re back from Manhattan?’
He finished his wine, thinking about that list of names, thinking about the mysterious Mr. Thompson, the man with the British accent and business card. Merl, the old veteran from the White House who handled papers. ‘I’ll check for messages, and then I’ll get right back to work trying to figure out what the hell happene
d to get that old man murdered.’
‘Good for you, Carl.’
~ * ~
Later, after the dishes had been dried and put away, Carl stood with Sandy in the tiny kitchen and said, ‘I’m afraid there’s not much in the dessert department. There’s some ice cream and frozen yogurt in the freezer, but I’ll give no guarantees for its freshness. Or we could take a walk down Newbury Street, find a little cafe. Though it is cold out.’
Her eyes were bright and she was leaning back against the counter, arms folded. ‘Isn’t there anything else you can think of?’
Carl smiled, took one step forward. ‘Well, there’s this,’ and he took her in his arms and kissed her, gentle at first, until it was quite clear that she was responding to his approach, moving tight against him and running a hand across his hair, sighing with pleasure. He reveled in her scent, the feel of the fresh and clean clothes, the soft yielding of her skin.
‘Oh, how wonderful,’ she whispered. ‘I was so hoping this would happen.’
~ * ~
She lay on his chest, lightly moving her fingernails across his chest as he nuzzled her hair with his nose and mouth. The scent was intoxicating and he was trying hard to burn that scent and that touch and everything else for the past hour into his mind, so he would never forget it, never forget one second or one sigh or one gasp. From the first fumbling moments in his bedroom, as he drank in the sight of her taking off her clothes, saw the unblemished skin and tasted her warmth, feeling her in his arms, to just the past minute or two, when she had sighed long and loud in his ear and had run her fingernails down his back, he had never thought it could be so wonderful.
Even though it was a cold October night the room was warm and the blankets and sheets were piled up at the end of the bed. Sandy said, ‘You’re very gallant, Mr. Landry.’
He smiled, her hair tickling his nose. ‘Really? I thought I was slow and clumsy.’
She kissed his chest. ‘Hardly, dear sir. The few times—and I emphasize the word few—I’ve done this road before, the men were either so slow you felt like grabbing them and telling them to get a move on, or so fast you thought they had a train to catch. No, this was very, very nice.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
She sat up in mock anger. ‘And what the hell do you mean by that?’
He winked. ‘It wasn’t nice. It was bloody marvelous, that’s what it was.’
She nipped his nose, and he tugged at her ears in retaliation, and after a few moments of tussling she put her head down back on his chest. Then all of the lights went out and Sandy said, ‘Carl, what’s happened?’
He reached over to the nightstand, feeling for the matches he kept there, and lit a candle. Another of his country’s failings had been highlighted. ‘Power failure, that’s all. The grid’s still not stable, and sometimes things just let loose. Like tonight.’
‘How romantic.’
‘Well, at first, but it gets tiring after a while. Especially if it’s for a week and everything in your refrigerator goes bad.’
She lay back down. ‘Hmmm, Carl, can I ask you something?’
‘Have I ever said no?’
‘Not yet, you haven’t,’ she said, breathing softly upon his chest. ‘Tell me, are you scared? About going to Manhattan? Because I certainly am. Most of the stories I’ve covered have been in and around London. That’s where I grew up. I know the shops and the tube stops and the parks, and how things work. In Manhattan ...’ She shivered. ‘It just sounds so dead. I had an awful dream the other night, about being left behind during the tour. Sitting alone in the middle of a street, with the grass growing up through the cracks in the sidewalks, the night approaching, no lights coming on, listening to wild dogs howling ... I know I’ve tried to put on a brave face, telling you about my stout grandmama and how she stayed with her husband during the Boer War, but still, I go cold, remembering that dream…’
He let his fingertips play over her soft skin. ‘No, I’m not scared. Concerned, perhaps. I’m sure it’s reasonably safe or the Army wouldn’t be allowing a press tour. And I’m sure they’ll be keeping us on a pretty short leash. Hard to see how we can get into trouble.’
‘You’ve been scared before, haven’t you?’
He closed his eyes, trying still to remember everything that was going on, feeling that soft skin against his fingertips. ‘Yes, plenty of times.’
‘And how did you handle your fear?’
‘Most times, I took a deep breath and just kept on pressing, hoping it would be over soon. Plus I was younger and well trained, and when you’re that young, full of energy and enthusiasm, you think you’re invincible.’
She said nothing, but her hand moved down, lightly brushing his skin, until she reached his left thigh, where she traced a ridge of scar tissue. ‘And did you stop thinking you were invincible when this happened?’
Something caught in his throat. ‘No, by then I was quite sure I wasn’t invincible.’
‘What happened, then, if I may ask?’
His lips seemed dry. ‘I was shot.’
‘In Vietnam?’
‘No. In California. During the Relief and Recovery mission.’
With her chin on his chest, Sandy looked up at him with great seriousness, the candlelight making her skin look impossibly smooth. ‘How did it happen?’
‘Do you want the real story or the official story?’
‘You decide.’
‘Okay, the official story was that I was out on night patrol, trying to arrest the leader of a militia group in San Bernardino County. We had intelligence information that he was in a ranch house at the end of a long dirt road up in some hills.’
‘Why were you arresting him?’
‘Because he and his people were becoming too effective. They were riling the farmers and ranchers, trying to prevent the Army from feeding refugees from San Diego and other towns like La Mesa and Spring Valley. So that was our mission.’
‘Was there a battle?’
‘That’s what it says on my Purple Heart citation. When we approached the farmhouse we came under fire. Our unit was pinned down. I was trying to get our guys closer, to get to an adjacent barn, when I was hit. More dumb luck than anything else. Even though I was hit, I was still trying to do my job. So there you go. The official story. Shot while leading his unit under intense fire from a militia band.’
She bent her head and kissed his chest. ‘And the real story, Carl?’
‘The real story?’ he said, surprised at the bitterness in his voice. ‘The real story was that this militia was one large family: mother, father, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles and cousins. They didn’t like being pushed around by the state government and what was left of the federal government, which is a popular American trait. They also didn’t like having their cattle and grain confiscated by the relief officials. They saw us as thieves, supporting other thieves, which is why they opened fire. And a very scared fourteen-year-old boy shot me in the leg with a .22 rifle. Not very heroic, not very glamorous. The whole family was arrested and after a thorough trial of about an hour, they were sent to a decon camp outside of San Diego.’
He could feel her breath on his neck. ‘We’ve never known precisely what happened in California, Carl. Just rumors and whispers. Could you ...’
‘Tell you what happened?’ he said. ‘Depends. Is the Times or Sandy Price asking the question.’
Her fingers again, soft upon his skin. ‘Sandy. Just Sandy.’
He sighed, remembering the document he had to sign upon mustering out, swearing he would never tell anyone what he saw. To hell with it. ‘Chaos. That’s all. Just chaos. Before the war, Southern California was this beautifully balanced, jeweled instrument, supplying power and water to millions of people in a desert wasteland. After the war, that instrument was smashed. Imagine London without power for a month, without food deliveries. What would happen next?’
Her voice was quiet. ‘People would leave.’
‘Exactly. Tens of t
housands of refugees from around San Diego start heading north. To Los Angeles. But hundreds of thousands of people there had been without steady power or food for weeks. There was ... chaos. Shooting in the streets. Citizen roadblocks, refugees hung from telephone poles ... Mothers selling themselves and their daughters for a loaf of bread. Whole city blocks being burned ... And then winter came. And...well, the official story is that six or seven hundred people died of starvation that winter.’
‘Oh God ...’ she whispered.
‘Sandy, the real story? The real story is that two or three times that amount were dying every month. Barges were taking the bodies out to the Pacific to be dumped. And the good citizens of Southern California, they were showing their appreciation by shooting at the Army.’
Resurrection Day Page 19
