Life Between Wars

by Robert Patton

  Jerome was taken aback. He realized this was the real man talking, not some invalid whose mind and soul had been reduced to watery mush. There was no way Jerome could refuse him. He stepped aside and let Mr. Winston, his leather portfolio clamped under his arm, ascend to the widow’s walk.

  The platform creaked under Mr. Winston’s feet. The night sky that grazed the hair on his head, the breeze off the ocean, and the distant surf gave him a sense of helming a top-heavy galleon through an uncharted passage. Windy voices that might have been lookouts aloft in the spars belonged to partygoers below on the lawn, while up through the opening came exclamations of wonder as the youngest guests climbed the ladder.

  Mr. Winston kicked the trapdoor shut, almost crushing the hand of someone reaching through. He found the bitten notch on the railing marking the launch pad of his thrice-confirmed miracle. He’d already regressed, already forgot it was the worst kind of nonsense, all this study and formulation applied to a theory straight out of the loony bin. But as he sighted over the notch to the right-hand arborvitae, apparently intending to somersault down the roof in a better than average probability of having his faith confirmed, the inanity of his behavior struck him with brutal clarity. He fought to regain himself, snorted protestingly like a dog sniffing pepper, muttered, “What am I doing? It’s all bullshit,” a common sign of restored mental health. Then he looked down and beheld with infant wonder how high he was, and how small and sad were the dozens of people there below, their upturned faces vaguely recognizable, long-dead friends and relatives from his childhood, maids and wives he must have adored once, faces out of his past bidding him to come join them. He tried to. He lunged over the railing but was held back. “No!” he screamed. “Let me!” He twisted around to face his devil and was horrified to see a specter of himself as a younger man, brawny and scowling and capable. Mr. Winston crumpled and began to cry. Yet once more he revived, and with a great howl hurled his portfolio, his precious, ridiculous memoir, into the air. He saw sheets of white manuscript flutter and swoop through the ashen moonlight and thought to himself very clearly. They look like magical seabirds, but they’re not.

  The trapdoor had pushed open. From a far distance he heard a boy’s voice ask, “Is he okay, Dad? What’s wrong with him?”

  Mr. Winston collapsed into the strong arms that encircled him. He heard Jerome answer, “He’s old, Bren. He knows it’s all over for him.” Mr. Winston shut his eyes. He was relieved more than sad. It was indeed over. Until this moment he hadn’t been sure.

  “Did you get his story, Dad? I didn’t at all.”

  “He’s just wishin’ for stuff to be different. To be better or perfect or somethin’.”

  “Like your lieutenant friend, from the war? That’s what he wants too, I think.”

  “Yeah, Bren. That’s about right.”

  Jerome helped the old man descend the stepladder. Brendan, Araby, and Johnwayne stayed behind on the widow’s walk to survey the dark starry world around them. They saw headlights approaching down Oceanside Road. The lights looked like a spaceship from a science fiction movie, soundlessly cruising for humans to nab.

  “Oh, it’s shaky!” Araby exclaimed.

  “We are high. We are very high.”

  “It’s an illusion. It’s only three stories.”

  “Look at the water! I bet we got twenty miles’ visibility.”

  “Mr. Fisherman.”

  “And proud of it.” Brendan then asked Johnwayne, to include him, “Whaddaya think? Cool enough?”

  “Yup!”

  The kids, who’d witnessed a big dose of human frailty in Mr. Winston’s breakdown, were handling it with minimal smirks. The experience had cemented a bond between them. This was dangerous. The boys’ competition for Araby, which had kept them behaving as gentlemen, had lost its threatening edge. Johnwayne particularly was vulnerable as a result. Having never had a friend, to suddenly have two was as dizzying as love. Now he wanted it all — Brendan for a friend, Araby for a friend and girlfriend — hence the possibilities for disappointment were multiplied. Brendan, for his part, thought Johnwayne, in lightening up, was less likely now to burden Araby’s conscience with sympathy. Things could resume their proper course, with retards fine for friendship but odd men out for love.

  Johnwayne pulled from beneath his windbreaker the automatic pistol he’d found in the dumpster this afternoon, its black metal sparkly in the starlight. He’d practiced with it at home earlier, so was expert at pulling back the receiver to charge the bullet chamber, the pin now cocked to fire. The sound drew the notice of Brendan and Araby, who saw the weapon simultaneously and knew at once it wasn’t a toy. Johnwayne raised it to Araby, who screamed.

  Anna was in the solarium with Mrs. Winston, the Clearwaters, and the Rickerts. The dogs had begun barking at the sound of a car in the driveway. Anna went to the door to shoo whomever away, so didn’t see the body plummet off the roof. Everyone heard Araby scream. The dogs wheeled in confusion in the front hall, unsure where the action was.

  Brendan had grabbed the gun barrel to wrench it away from Johnwayne. Johnwayne let go and Brendan tumbled backward, his outflung arm snapping the wood railing as he pitched off the widow’s walk onto the roof. He rolled like a child down a grassy hill till the roof tiles ended and he fell through the air. Johnwayne and Araby heard a great smash below. Johnwayne descended the ladder to escape her screams. He began to feel very frightened.

  He met Jerome rushing back upstairs, stepped aside to let him pass. As he continued down he heard Araby’s faraway scream become words: “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!” In fact Johnwayne didn’t have a gun. He’d lost it somehow and was glad, hoping no one would blame him now. He moved through the foyer and through the solarium to see about Brendan out back. Lights from the house laced the lawn with yellow-black shadows. Johnwayne felt the heat of people chasing him and felt tears begin to come.

  Exiting his car, Del Locke heard Araby screaming on the roof. He pounded the front door to no answer. He ran around back, ran low to the ground with his service revolver in his hand. He would do his job, defend the public and his injured dignity too, maybe more the latter, maybe mostly. Johnwayne stood near the solarium across the lawn. Del looked first at his brother and secondly, beside him, at the body of a boy sprawled upside down in a wide, tall bush. “Oh no,” is what Del said.

  Jerome had rushed downstairs. He went to his son hanging in the arborvitae. Brendan’s face was thrown back — it had been torn open from his mouth to his ear from hitting the corner of the solarium. The flap lay over his eye, exposing his teeth to the molars. Dark, syrupy blood ran out the opening and streamed from his hair to the ground. Jerome touched his son, and Brendan slid down in the branches, which were broken and splayed where they cradled his body. Jerome saw Brendan’s shirt was ballooned down like a tarpaulin filling with rain and he realized Brendan’s side had been ripped open somewhere. Dead. His child was dead. Jerome’s mouth moved like a fish’s, suffocating in air.

  Anna came up behind, her shock dispelled in a rush of caring. She saw Johnwayne’s face and Del’s beyond. She heard Johnwayne say, “Sorry.” Jerome turned to the sound, and his gaze, as if drawn there, fell to the grass where lay the pistol Brendan had dropped during his fall. Jerome picked it up. It was the pistol he’d thrown in the ocean after shooting the whales last week. At once a huge pit of unknowing opened beneath him, and he felt as ignorant as the first ape that ever walked. His stomach turned. His knees went. With his last strength he aimed the pistol at Johnwayne, who intently regarded its little black hole as if it had something to tell him.

  Del killed Jerome with one shot. The bullet hit Jerome in the head and twirled him backward into Anna. They went down together. Del slumped to his knees and released his pistol and prayed things were not as they looked.

  For what seemed a long time, nobody moved. Mr. Winston reached forward to touch Brendan’s body a
s a believer might touch a saint’s statue. The body slipped from the branches to the ground. The shirt spilled its red liquid. After so much stillness Brendan convulsed and coughed up a wad of clotted blood. He began raspily to breathe. In a quick, lucid command, Mr. Winston said, “Call an ambulance. The boy’s been saved.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “Look!” Matthew pointed gleefully. “A falling star.”

  “Some folks call them shooting, no?”

  “I abhor violence.”

  They were standing on the front steps outside Matthew’s house. Willoughby was trying to make a polite getaway. They’d shaken hands goodbye upstairs. Matthew had walked him out — they’d shaken hands again. Tension issued off Matthew like heat off a fireplace stone. “I don’t want you to go,” he said. “I don’t do well on my own.”

  “That doesn’t sound too healthy to me.”

  “It’s not healthy at all. I’m not a healthy person, I thought you realized by now.”

  “I don’t mean your, your supposed cancer or whatever.”

  “Neither do I. I mean my head. My heart.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t hear this.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.” Matthew resolved to be clear. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”

  “I’m glad to know that.”

  “I thought you would be. But: a problem.” Matthew’s hand patted Willoughby’s arm paternally, as a coach might touch a player before sending him into the game. “I still want to be with you every minute of every day.”

  “Good Christ.”

  “I know. It’s ungainly and I’m sure, for you, unusual. But it’s the fact and I want to be honest about it.”

  “Is it me by default?”

  “A fair question. And yes, I’ve felt a bit abandoned by my friends lately. But none of them knows I’m sick, so it’s hardly fair of me to resent their not rushing to my aid.” Matthew was facing him head on now. “The reason I want to be with you is because I think I can do you good. Even more good than I know you’ll do me.”

  “I leave Penscot tomorrow. Like I told you before, I came here about Cochran. That’s over now.”

  “Because you lied to his son? That’s the cure?”

  “Hey, I’m surprised too.”

  “He committed murder! Then he tried to murder you! He was a hateful person.”

  “The soldiers liked him. He always chose for them — get ’em home alive. Fuck the mission. Fuck the lieutenant. He put a round through a Chieu Hoy’s head to make that point to me. They didn’t matter, the dinks flat didn’t matter. North, South, VC, ARVN — they were all just fucking bugs.”

  “To this day it bothers him. For what it’s worth.”

  “I really don’t care. That’s the amazing part. I’m free.”

  Matthew shook his head, eyes closed. “You can’t leave. I need you to accompany me to the hospital this week. For my verdict.”

  “You gotta understand: I’m not the right guy.”

  “No! That’s how I’d help you. By letting you help me.”

  Willoughby regarded him with pity, “Like I said — ”

  “Look!” Matthew pointed to the sky, not wanting to hear, not wanting to think he’d repelled another friend. “There’s another one.”

  “Where?”

  “And another! And, my God, three in a row! You’re good luck, Willoughby. I knew it was so.”

  Matthew’s laugh was thin and fragile. Willoughby would stay with him. They’d be friends forever. “Trust me,” Matthew said, his fingers clutching Willoughby’s arm frantically. In the distance the sound of an ambulance siren matched the ringing in Matthew’s head. “Trust me, please. Falling stars promise wonderful things.”

  Part Three

  Twenty-Nine

  In the Middle Ages it was often a blessing for a girl to be sent to a convent. There she was freed from a husband’s lordship, from bearing babies one a year till she dropped. There she might learn to read and write.

  Today the calling seems weighted with drawbacks. Enrollment is down. At the Convent of Our Lady of Grace in upstate Connecticut, the Mother Superior was ever on the lookout for new members. She believed in miracles of conversion, but knew that faith also is a function of psychology, of receptiveness. Long before Anna Edman visited Penscot Island in September 1987, and certainly after she left, she fit the profile perfectly.

  Anna had come of age in the 1960s, but, since late in the decade, she’d got a slow start on the disillusion that wised up her counterculture role models. The committed kind, she eventually embraced an alternate revolution after hearing, at a mass she impulsively attended after long absence, the priest speak in his homily of struggle and doubt. Anna liked that. Changing the world had been supposed to be fun. She preferred the harder truth.

  She first visited Our Lady of Grace on a weekend eighteen months before her trip to Penscot. The Benedictine monastery, its vegetables and homebaked breads for sale at its farm stand, was popular with the upscale, antiquing, arts-and-crafts Manhattan crowd that summered in northwestern Connecticut. The altar in the convent chapel was divided by a grillwork of woven wood slats, on one side priests, congregants, and visitors, on the other a batch of nuns.

  Nuns. American girls, cloistered together in the 1980s. They took communion through a slot in the grille, like meals for prisoners, though no one seemed to mind. Blurred by the grille, clouded in incense, their faces framed in white wimples like masks worn by players in ancient drama, the nuns owed much of their mystery to the setting itself; it was their turf. Anna was intrigued.

  The convent sat on two hundred acres bequeathed it by a rich libertine for whose soul the Sisters daily prayed. Retreats were the convent’s bread and butter, and Anna had begun attending them regularly. Raking fields, milking cows, mucking out the barns and sheds, met half of St. Benedict’s rule of fulfillment: work. The other half, contemplation, could be met in private reverie or by chanting psalms with the nuns in the chapel seven times a day. Or you could have parlor with the nun of your choice. “Parlor” meant you conversed with her in a dark vestibule divided by that delicate grille. The grille was the convent’s dominant image, its coherent absurdity. Behind it, the nuns held a poker hand that couldn’t be called. Were these women cripples or heroes? The bet was yours to make.

  A week before leaving for Penscot, Anna had a private parlor with the Mother Superior. The old woman had a history Anna had heard told with reverence. Born in America, she’d spent her youth in France, her novitiate in a Benedictine convent near Chartres. During the Nazi occupation Jewish women had been found elsewhere disguised as nuns; when, here, the Sisters refused to identify the Jews among them, all were herded into the barn before it was ignited. As the flames ascended the youngest women took refuge in the root cellar; there was room for twelve. Cracks in the overhead door were stuffed with wet cloth. The barn collapsed above them. Six of the twelve survived, including Sister Dolores, the nun from America who, in the smothering black of the root cellar, made a delirious vow that if God let her live she would found a convent to His glory. Our Lady of Grace was it.

  The Mother Superior was late. She swept into the vestibule like Night in Disney’s Fantasia, her black robes faintly starry, her face not altogether sweet. “I’ve heard much about you, Anna. I’ve heard you are honest.” The chat from there was friendly but labored. The Mother Superior took the blame. “I’m not so good with young people. Your hope worries me. And if you have no hope, that worries me. With older older people it is all past.” Her face was distracted, slack. “How old are you, Anna?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  “Thirty-seven should not be old.”

  “It feels that way to me. Like it’s all passed.”

  The woman gave no comment. She was seated in such a way, the slats of the grille obscured her eyes. Anna had to shift to see one eye, shift to see the
other; they seemed never to blink. Anna spoke to fill the silence.

  “I find this a remarkable place. It stays with me. When I’m home or at work, it stays in my mind. It’s like,” don’t say it, she thought, “like I have a crush on this place.”

  “It is where we live. Otherwise, it is nothing.”

  “Then what is it that attracts me?” Anna had an answer but wanted to hear it told. The Mother Superior aimed a finger through the grille. Anna saw it was aimed at her heart and felt anticipation throb. Yes, her heart!

  “This,” said the woman, tapping the grille, “is what attracts everyone, or repels them. Exactly this.” A bell chimed within the convent, signaling another round of prayers. The Mother Superior rose to leave. “I suppose you are used to it by now. Our cage?”

  “Oh yes,” Anna said eagerly.

  “I am not. I find it a harsh and frightening thing. I have no love for it, and nor should you. Goodbye, my dear.”

  Anna’s heart sank. Through the door at the rear of the vestibule she heard Sisters filing to chapel. Anna went out the front door into another afternoon.

  Anna studied St. Benedict’s Rule, written in a.d. 500; and in his Rule his darkest admonition: “To keep death daily before one’s eyes.” Seven times a day the Sisters of Our Lady of Grace chanted the praises of death. It is where we live, the Mother Superior had said. Otherwise, it is nothing. Anna found herself envying the old woman’s wartime experience of horror. She imagined confronting the fire, imagined the chants of the Sisters as they burned (for surely they’d said no special prayer, only the prescribed psalms of another canonical hour, as if this were just any day and not the greatest day of all); and she imagined possessing the guilt and pride that somehow levitates survivors of suffering, whether a person or a people, above the ones unscathed. If death was the sun, the light in the east, Anna longed to see it pure. On Penscot Island she got her chance.