by Tim O'Brien
Oscar laughs, claps him on the back. The two girls move to another seat.
There is a new sound. Cannon? Artillery? Paul Berlin looks out, wipes the steamed-up window. Lightning! Two jagged slashes to the north, then a third, then three rambling bursts of thunder, then the rain.
The towns are close-spaced now—Château-Thierry and Meaux and then an unending chain of suburbs—and everything is tangled and fuzzy. Details flash by, too slippery to hold. The window fogs up; he curses and wipes it with his sleeve. Outside, the rain is coming harder. He presses his nose against the window, wants to break through. His fingers tingle. He squeezes them into fists.
Then suddenly they are speeding through tunnels, lights flickering, and then out again into gray daylight. Things sparkle. The air is cold and he smells rain. He smells flowers. He hears thunder and church bells. He does! Deep bronze bells, chiming, he hears them. And the sky. Bruised and fat and tumbling, the sky seems to shiver, trembling, then letting loose. It is raining.
He forces the window open.
He hangs his head out, opens his eyes wide, and he sees Paris.
It comes like a ghost. A swirling skyline. Jagged Gothic towers touching the clouds. Bridges and billboards and a swirl of concrete and brick—things appearing and snapping away like magic—a house with painted shutters, a bakery, a man walking his dog, warehouses, gleaming puddles, streets and parks and umbrellas.
The speed is incredible. Whistle hooting, a clatter, the city rushes at him.
He leans into the rain.
He opens his mouth and swallows.
“Paris,” he says.
The rain makes his eyes burn. He blinks and forces his nose straight into the wind. High spires sweep by. There is a long shudder of thunder, deep thunder rolling from horizon to horizon. The pealing of bells. Behind him, he hears Sarkin Aung Wan squealing, Oscar and Eddie and Doc cheering. But Paul Berlin wants this for himself. He pushes his face straight-on into the rain. He spreads his hands out, wide open, as if reaching—ready to grasp and hold tight forever. Far off, buried in the thunderhead, he sees for an instant the twin towers of Notre-Dame. He sees a gargoyle’s wild eyes. The gargoyle is torn from its mount, wings flapping, and it flies—it does! Bat wings, screeching, caught up in the acceleration, picked up and flying. The thunderhead scoops up whole pieces of Paris: a great stone bridge and a bus and a cabbage from a lady’s handbag. Real? He feels the wind—it’s real. He licks rain from his lips. Real rain—wet and real. If you can imagine it, he tells himself, it’s always real. Even peace, even Paris—sure, it’s real. He believes what he sees. Sidewalks now: gutters flowing like rivers, shops and galleries, bent trees, a green traffic light, horns blaring. And people. People huddled against storefronts and behind steamed shop windows, people cooking lunch and sleeping and holding hands. Sure, it’s real.
The train seems to be slowing. A conductor’s voice. In the railyard a man stands with a lantern, holding it loosely at his side, and behind him a massive heap of coal threatens an avalanche.
There is a braking sound. The train whines against its couplings. They glide into Gare du Nord.
Hissing, steaming, the train bucks and stops.
Rain pelts the station’s huge vaulted roof.
“Paris,” Paul Berlin says.
Then suddenly passengers are crowding the aisles, chattering and milling and reaching for parcels and luggage. Eddie and Doc and Oscar are shaking hands. Clapping shoulders, hugging, blinking in funny ways. The lieutenant’s face is like wax. He keeps touching himself. He straightens his back, tugs down his fatigue jacket, carefully places his helmet on his head.
Then the old man nods.
“Look smart,” he says, so softly he repeats himself: “Look smart, men. Show these folks some class.”
So, yes: Oscar wraps up the M16. Doc wipes his glasses. They move toward the doors.
Proudly, with all the dignity he can command, Paul Berlin is the first to step down. He helps Sarkin Aung Wan out. Then he waits as the others file off.
The station is dark and damp like a dirt cellar. Thunder rattles the glass roof panes.
They move boldly.
They march into the crowded lobby, down a flight of concrete stairs, through a turnstile and out the main doors. The rain is tropical.
They stop there. Across the street, the buildings are blurred as in a dream. But it is not a dream. Paul Berlin smiles and steps in a deep puddle. The water leaks through his boots. He stamps down. His eyes sting, and he blinks and hears himself laugh. For an instant he feels silly—a rucksack and canteens and combat fatigues. But he can’t stop smiling. His face is wet and his eyes ache.
Doc claps him on the back. They hug. A taxi rushes by, spraying water, but it doesn’t matter. They hug, everyone together. Oscar’s face glistens. Eddie shakes his head and grins and licks his lips. Paul Berlin kisses Sarkin Aung Wan. She’s crying and laughing all at once.
Thunder booms through the city.
The lieutenant tilts his chin up. He seems proud. Solemnly he reaches out to shake hands.
“We’ll end it right,” he says. “On the march. Keep the column tight, no straggling, eyes straight ahead. Try to look like soldiers.”
So they form up single file.
First the lieutenant. Next Sarkin Aung Wan, then Eddie and Oscar, then Doc Peret. Paul Berlin takes his spot at the rear. Proudly, proudly. Shoulders square and head erect. Route step up the gleaming streets. Cars and buses and honking horns, people gaping, but no matter. They march into Paris. And for Paul Berlin, the dreamer, it’s all real.
In the first week they took rooms in a small brick hotel off St.-Germain, a block from the Italian embassy. The rooms were dimly lighted, the walls papered in brown and gold, the beds made of brass. Each morning they took breakfast together in a cramped sitting room full of antiques and stuffed couches, then, after two pots of coffee, they would split up to begin the search for Cacciato. It was sometimes hard for Paul Berlin to view this seriously, but Oscar would take great care to remind him of the stakes.
“Forget the tourist shit,” he’d say. “We’re AWOL. Absent without leave from a war, an’ there ain’t no way to explain unless we bring in the proof.”
“Proof?” Paul Berlin would say, and Oscar would nod grimly.
“Catch the dude. Hog-tie him and march him right into the U.S. embassy and plop him down on the bargainin’ table. Then we got ourselves some leverage. Dig it? Then we got the physical evidence.”
“And?”
Oscar would snort. “You don’ see? We show ‘em Cacciato an’ we got a story that makes sense. How we kept chasin’ him, all the way here, an’, how we did our job and finally caught him, dragged him in. Habeas fuckin corpus.”
They would listen to this quietly. Then Eddie would nod. “Us or him.”
“That’s it,” Oscar would say. “That’s the game. Us or him.”
Even so, it was hard for Paul Berlin to see it Oscar’s way. The rain ended. The streets were clean, flowers blossomed in public parks. Church bells chimed. Children slouched to school in blue coats, carrying their bags by long leather straps. On the warmest days people sipped coffee at outdoor cafés, old women and pigeons sunned themselves on park benches, traffic snarled, sleek young girls showed their legs to businessmen hustling down St.-Germain. It was hard to think about Cacciato. Instead he found himself watching the fishermen fishing from bridges, the painters who painted them. In the museums there were pictures of jousting knights and harlequins with wooden swords: masked men, sad and funny. Pictures of ballerinas and castles and ladies on swings. Paul Berlin studied the pictures. He read the inscriptions on monuments. He climbed the city’s hills. He learned the history of the bridges, which came first and which last, and what they were originally built for. He looked for detail. People chatting while infants slept in carriages, students reading under trees, the order of things. Simple courtesies. “Merci,” people said. “Il n’y a pas de quoi,” was the answer, and he learned these things. He loo
ked for meanings. Peace was shy. That was one lesson: Peace never bragged. If you didn’t look for it, it wasn’t there.
The days were warm. Holding hands, he would stroll with Sarkin Aung Wan in the way he imagined lovers must stroll. They would follow the river to Pont du Carrousel, stopping there to watch the canal boats, then they would cross over to the Right Bank with its expensive-looking people browsing in expensive-looking shops and galleries. They would have a slow lunch, and he would watch her, noticing things he hadn’t noticed before. The way she removed her sandals, curling her legs beneath her. The way her chrome cross bounced on her sweaters, or the way her hair, arranged differently each day, seemed to shine like black silk. They touched in ways they hadn’t touched before.
In Paris, where it ended, it was right to fall in love, and so he did.
“I’m in love,” he told her.
She was walking barefoot along the river. “How lovely!” she said. “Isn’t love nice?”
“It’s true.”
“I thought you only spoke of possibilities, Spec Four.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s the truth.”
They turned back to the hotel. Sunlight flowed through gauze curtains. He liked that. He liked the room’s musty smell, a sparrow singing on the terrace, a vacuum cleaner purring down the hall. He liked it when she removed her gold hoop earrings.
“Such a wonderful possibility.” She smiled. “How very lucky for you. How very fortunate.”
“Don’t make fun of it.”
“Oh, no! I am very happy for you. To be in Paris and to be in love. How lucky!”
Details: the cool quiet he found in Place Dauphin on the Ile de la Cité, where there were pigeons and old-fashioned lampposts and chestnut trees. Someone practicing the piano in a salon across the square. A dog frisking in new grass. All the simple, shy things. A black man in a checkered shirt and purple pants playing La Rose de la France on his accordion.
Except for Oscar, no one mentioned Cacciato. The search was leisurely. There was no talk about mission or duty or responsibility.
At night they would go to one of the cheap sidewalk restaurants along Montparnasse. They would eat fried potatoes and drink wine, then afterward they would go to the dancing places. Eddie would bring girls to the table, and everyone would have great fun with the helmets, pretending they were goblets, and then they would get up to dance. Strangers would buy drinks. Policemen would smile and shake their heads. Money was never a problem, passports were never required.
“Spec Four?”
He kept his eyes closed. It was near dawn, and already there was traffic on the street outside. Below, in the tiny courtyard, he could hear crickets.
“Are you sleeping, Spec Four?”
“Yes.”
“May I wake you?”
He heard a moth playing against a lampshade. His feet tickled.
“Am I being gentle, Spec Four?”
“What is it?”
“A feather,” she said. She laughed and tickled his toes. “There is a duck in our bed.”
“A yellow duck?”
“Heavens, no! A red duck. It will make us a fine supper.”
He opened his eyes. She was kneeling at the foot of the bed. Her skin was dark, very smooth, and there were pillow feathers in her hair.
“Spec Four?”
“It’s a wonderful name, isn’t it?”
“Spec Four … do you think we might see about getting an apartment? Just for us? Nothing expensive, but—you know—a place to have of our own?”
“Isn’t Spec Four a great name?”
“Yes,” she said. She sat up, rubbing a feather against his knee. “Spec Four is my most favorite of all names. But—”
“I had it changed, you know.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“It used to be a very common name. I had it changed to Spec Four.”
“I love your new name. But what about an apartment? Couldn’t we find one?”
“Don’t you like it here?”
“Oh, yes! I do. But this is a hotel. Hotels are for visiting or passing through a place, but a real apartment … it would be permanent. Do you see the difference, Spec Four? If we could find a nice apartment, then we could be settled. It would be lovely, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
She looked at him.
“Then shall we do it? Shall we find an apartment?”
“I guess. Later, after—”
“After what?”
He sat up. “Look, I can’t just walk out. There’s Eddie and Doc and the lieutenant, all of them.”
“Your friends,” she murmured.
“Sort of.”
“Your great and wonderful and true friends.”
“They’re all right.”
“Your sweet friends.”
“That’s not the point. We’re still soldiers.”
“Forget them,” she said. She looked at him softly, curling her legs up. “Can’t you simply forget them? We could find a splendid apartment. I would make curtains and we could … so many things. Be happy! This very instant, we could get dressed and be gone before the others are awake, and we could be happy. We can do it.”
“That’s running.”
“Exactly!”
He shrugged. He fumbled for a cigarette and tried to think clearly.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Just maybe?”
He tried to smile. “No, it’s a real possibility.”
She clapped a hand against her hip. It made a loud, spanking sound that startled him.
Glaring, she got up and went to the window. A large red welt spread across her hip.
“A possibility,” she said. “Possibilities unending. Possibilities and possibilities.”
“I’ve got to think.”
“Thinking! Think and think and think! You are afraid to do. Afraid to break away. All your fine dreams and thinking and pretending … now you can do something, Spec Four. Don’t you see? Why have we become refugees? To think? To make believe? To play games, chasing poor Cacciato? Is that why? Or did we come for better reasons? To be happy? To find peace and live good lives? No more thinking, Spec Four. Now we can make it permanent and real. We can find a place to live, and we can be happy. Now. We can do it now.”
She turned from the window. Quietly she crossed to the bed, held him, rocking, holding his head.
He closed his eyes. Soap and joss sticks, time spinning itself out in long yellow ribbons. Possible?
“Spec Four?”
He nodded. They would do it. Yes, they would: He would find a way to explain it to the others. He asked if she was happy.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Now I am happy.”
They rode the canal boats. They visited the Rodin Museum, sat through afternoon mass at Notre-Dame, took a bus out to Versailles. They had picnics in the Luxembourg Gardens. They climbed the Eiffel Tower, where, at midnight, a tour guide looked out on the city lights and said to them, “Paris is not a place. It is a state of mind.” Paul Berlin smiled, but secretly he hoped it was more than that.
They looked at four apartments. Two were impossible. One, only a block from the hotel, had a rose garden and shutters and oak floors, but Sarkin Aung Wan said she wanted something higher up. She wanted perspective. In the mornings, she said, she wanted to get up and go to the windows and be able to see rooftops and open spaces and even the river.
“Am I too hard to please?”
“No. We’re doing it for pleasure. There’ll be other places.”
“I do so want it to be perfect,” she said.
“It will be.”
“I know that. I wanted to hear you say it.”
“Perfect,” he said.
The fourth apartment was near the top of a steep hill behind Invalides. A row of shops occupied the ground floor, and above them were a dentist’s office and a small fabric store. The concierge’s son showed them the way up. They were out of breath when they reached the sixth floor.
“Many stairs,” the boy said. He seemed shy about his English. “The woman and gentleman are to be very strong, yes?”
The place was not much to look at. Three tiny rooms, a brown-painted floor of simple pine, a ceiling that gradually angled off so as to force Sarkin Aung Wan to stoop as she hurried toward the rear of the apartment. The boy smiled and shrugged apologetically. In the bedroom there were two old bureaus and a mirror and a dangerous-looking plank bed. The walls were badly cracked and the place had the sharp, oily smell of an exterminator’s shop.
Sarkin Aung Wan loved it.
“A good scrubbing,” she said. “Just soap and water and paint.”
They moved through the kitchen and out into a small sun porch that overlooked the belfry of a church. He could see a bronze bell and the eyes of a dozen pigeons roosting there. To the left, looking down the hill, there were narrow alleys and houses crowded close together, a small playground, laundry hanging to dry from rope pulleys.
“Isn’t it splendid?” she said. “We shall have our breakfast here in the mornings. We shall drink coffee and—”
“And hear bells.”
“You don’t like bells?”
“Sure,” he said. “Bells are terrific. Especially big bells. Bells outside your window so close you can read the manufacturer’s stamp on the clappers.”
“You can’t!”
“Made in Hong Kong.”
She made a face, then turned to the boy and said something in French. The boy laughed. He spoke rapidly, pointing at his wristwatch.
“There,” she said. “You see? He says the bells play only three times a day. Six times on Sunday.”
“You like it, don’t you?”
“I would like it if Spec Four Paul Berlin liked it.”
He laughed.
“All right. Ask the boy if we’d pay as much rent as the roaches.”
She spoke to the boy.
“He says it is three hundred francs a month. The bugs pay only half that.”
“A steal.”
“And the boy says the bugs are exceptionally quiet. Only once in ten years has a bug been evicted for rowdiness.”
“Tell him I find it hard to believe a bug was ever evicted.”
