After Hours: Tales From Ur-Bar

by Joshua Palmatier; Patricia Bray

  “Damn straight,” Henry said. “I’m not here to bring home silver or, God help us, bronze.” He raised his glass again. “To glory—in sport, in war, and in the almighty dollar!”

  They clinked again, and drank. This time the booze went down cool and smooth, without any bitterness at all. Richard thought that he could get to like this Frenchy drink, whatever it was called. Maybe they could bring it back to New York, make it a sensation.

  A man at the table next to them overheard them speaking. “Vous êtes aux Olympias, non?”

  “Oui, nous sommes,” Henry said. “Suis Americain. We are here to compete in the Fencing events. Épée.”

  “Ah,” the stranger said, seemingly delighted. He was their own age, but heavyset, with a hooked nose and slicked-back hair, dressed casually in an open-necked shirt, with a thin brown cigarette held carelessly between two stained fingers, emitting a strong, almost fruit-like smell. “American! Many Americans in Paris these days.” His English was heavily accented, but understandable. “Perhaps you too will stay, after you lose in horrible defeat to the French team.”

  “Bah,” Henry treated that suggestion with the scorn it deserved. “We will trounce your team, and leave them crying for the bronze.”

  The man laughed, and offered his hand. “I am Jacques.”

  “Henry, George, and that’s Richard,” their captain said, taking the offered hand and shaking it firmly.

  Suddenly they had gone from being three alone to part of a larger group, the bar opening up somehow and voices surrounding them in raucous good humor, a constant stream in two different languages. All men; none of the bright, flirtatious women they had seen at the other bars, but a rougher, more familiar camaraderie.

  George and Henry took it all in stride, accepting offers of drinks, exchanging toasts and letting the locals practice their English—so much better than the Americans’ French—on them. Only Richard felt adrift, the calm of earlier fading away, even as his glass was taken away and refilled. The boasting, taunting tone of the conversation began to chafe him, making him impatient rather than amused.

  He rose, excusing himself, and headed for the toilet. When he returned, his place at the table had been taken by someone else, who was finishing his drink.

  There was a flush of annoyance; that was his! Then, shaking his head, amused despite himself, Richard went toward the bar to order another.

  Halfway there, he noticed that the bartender who had served them the first time was gone, replaced by a much larger man, broad-shouldered and tall, with black curls and a close-trimmed beard covering a square chin. Richard read him quickly, the way he would an opponent, and decided to go with English rather than French to avoid any possibility of offending the man with a poorly-chosen word.

  Before he could say anything, a scuffle erupted from the depths of the bar.

  “T’as une cervelle d’un mammouth congelé!” The deep-throated shout rose through the hum of the crowd, and Richard felt his reflexes kick in, dropping into a defensive posture even as he tried to find where the angry shout had come from, just in time to see two men in dark pullovers stagger at each other, clearly intoxicated.

  “Et toi, t’as des couilles d’un lapin,” the man on Richard’s left spat, holding up his fists in a classic pugilistic move, obviously challenging the other man to follow his words with action.

  Queensbury rules were clearly not in order, here. A sloppy roundhouse punch from one actually, through some miracle of God, managed to land on the other’s jaw, and he staggered back into the crowd, who shoved him back toward his opponent. Neither man looked to be under forty, but they were still well-muscled, and determined to do damage.

  “Assez!”

  The shout came from the bar behind Richard, a deep, booming voice, and it was as though the voice of God Himself had come down on the two. Their arms dropped, and they stared at each other with the blinking, slightly dazed look of men who had just been doused with cold water.

  And as quickly as it began, the fight was over, the two men grinning stupidly at each other, the crowd going back to its previous discussions, leaving a careful bit of space around the two in case they decided to start up again, but otherwise ignoring them.

  Richard found himself shaken as much from the abrupt end to the fight as the suddenness and close violence of it. The bar had settled back into the same low buzz as before, once the offenders had been settled, and when Richard craned his neck to see over the crowd, even Henry and George seemed to forget about it entirely, talking happily with their new companions. Richard tried to make his muscles relax, to imitate their seeming nonchalance. It had only been a scuffle, nothing he hadn’t seen before—hell, he’d been involved in one or two himself, in college. Somehow, in this place, it seemed so much more . . . brutal.

  He shook his head, and turned away, intent on getting another drink.

  The new bartender watched him approach, his gaze unnervingly intent, enough that Richard felt the urge to look behind him, to see who this man was staring at.

  “Bon soir. What can I get you?”

  Something about the man’s voice, his expression, made Richard suspect it was a loaded question, something being asked beneath the words that he wasn’t swift enough to hear.

  “Bon soir. I would like, ah....” What were they called, again? “A sidecar?”

  The bartender nodded, reaching overhead for a clean glass. “You are American.”

  “Yes.” He felt the urge to apologize. “Is my accent that terrible?”

  “It could use some work,” the man said, and his face eased a little, no longer holding such a still intensity. “The trick is to relax. And have another drink. We are all multilingual when we are in our cups.”

  “You . . . aren’t French?” The other man sounded British, there, or German, but that was unlikely, even years after the end of the Great War.

  “No,” the barkeep admitted, leaning forward, a confiding pose, one old friend to another. “My home is nowhere you would ever have heard of. But I have traveled. ...”

  In fact, Gil had not left the confines of the bar—was not able to leave the confines of the bar—in too many centuries to count. All he knew of the world was what came through these doors, carried by voices and newspapers. But he knew a great deal about men, and dreams. And hunger.

  The boy handled himself well, when startled by the fight, when accosted by strangers. Dark haired, dark-eyed, younger than the other two he had come in with, although it might be less years and more a lack of experience. He was not hard yet, for all his toughness.

  In that moment, Gil decided.

  The new bartender fussed with the bottles, and then poured him another drink, not the sidecar he had ordered but something different, mixing it with a flourish, like a magician. Richard thought about protesting, but didn’t trust his French, or the bartender’s mood, enough to risk it. The bartender pushed the drink across the bar, accepting the coins Richard pushed back at him with smooth motions that reminded Richard of the second crossing of blades, where you think you have your opponent’s measure, but want to make sure before you ventured anything tricky

  “I’ve never gone anywhere,” Richard admitted, not sure why he was telling this man anything except . . . that was what you did with bartenders? He took a sip of the drink, and nodded in approval. It was much better than the sidecar. “I mean, I’ve traveled across the States, of course. I’m from Chicago, in the Midwest, and I’ve been to Boston and New York, and Pittsburgh, and. . . .” The names of the cities were only that to the bartender, he realized, somewhat taken aback. ‘American’ was all he knew, and all he saw. “But well, that’s all home. We speak the same language, mostly, except for slang and such.”

  “But among your fellows, these Olympiads, there is . . . fraternity?”

  Richard considered the question, taking another sip of his drink to give himself time. It was much stronger than the first one, too, or maybe he was feeling it, suddenly. “Yes,” he said. “Oui,
there is ... fraternity.” He liked the word, the more he thought of it. “We are all here for the same purpose; we’ve been working for years to reach this point, and even though there is competition, there is also a bond in knowing that we want the same thing.”

  “Do you?”

  The bartender’s eyes were an odd shade, a green that was closer to seawater than grass or stone, stormy and changeable and oddly compelling.

  “Of course.” Richard let out a laugh, fiddling with his cuff a little, to avoid that gaze. “We all want the gold.”

  “Ah, oui, all want to win.” The bartender nodded as though that were self-evident, and Richard in fact felt foolish for having said it, like the greenie the others teased him for being, younger and less sophisticated. Of course they all wanted to win.

  “Why?”

  Why? The question was like the roundhouse punch, throwing Richard into blinking silence for an instant. “Winning . . . it means that you are the best. Proving yourself against the rest of the best. It’s a thing to bring home, to hang on the mantle, or on an office wall, to show that you’ve proven yourself. ‘Ah, Dicky, he’s been with us for ten years, since he took the gold for the States, you must remember. . . .’ ” Richard managed to do a credible imitation of Henry imitating his father the banker, although there was no way the bartender could know that.

  “Ah. Glory, to build the reputation, make others fear you, respect your ability ... that is a fine goal for a man.”

  It sounded grand, when the bartender said it, not silly at all. Richard turned the glass around, watching the condensation on the bartop fade and dry up, only to be replaced by new rings as he moved the glass. His mouth was dry, and he took another sip.

  “Hey, Dick!” George was calling to him, and he turned, waving a hand to indicate that he would return soon. The stranger was still in his seat, however, and an odd bitterness rose in his throat.

  “Glory. Fame. Fraternity. It’s all fleeting, isn’t it?” Even a name on a medal was fleeting; eventually people would stop looking at it. Someone else would win another, the way someone had taken his chair.

  “All life is fleeting,” the bartender said, but there was a weight to his words that made Richard frown again, aware that he’d missed something unsaid. This second drink was much stronger than the first; his head felt muzzy and his eyesight seemed almost blurred, as though he’d been drinking all night, and not just this brief time.

  “There has to be something in life that lasts, that matters,” he protested, not quite sure why—or what—he was arguing. “And not the way the pastor claims, glory in the hereafter, either.”

  “Bah. There is nothing.” The man to his left had terribly accented English, but he seemed to understand enough to have followed their discussion. “We are born, we sweat, we are for the worms.”

  The bartender held Richard’s gaze, and the American could not look away. “Jacques, arrêter de causer, t’es un vieux fou. You make despair a religion, you.”

  “Bah.” But the old man went back to his own thoughts, his weathered, whiskered face scowling down into his drink.

  “At least, in feeding worms, we live again?” Richard said, attempting to smile, unsure why the words had shaken him so. The bartender—the owner, Richard suddenly realized—scowled at the old man, as though he would take up the argument again, with Richard, were they alone.

  “Dicky!” George came over, a little unsteady on his feet, and slung his arm across Richard’s shoulders, startling him from any further rejoinder he might have made. “You’re being anti-social again, chum. What’s eating at you?”

  George had an edge to his voice, and Richard wondered if he looked or sounded as half-under as his teammate. How long had they been there? It seemed as though they’d just arrived, and yet he felt as though he had been talking to the bartender for hours. The occasional gin taken in a speakeasy never had this effect on him—what had the bartender put in this drink? Or was it the air in here, the pungent smell of the butts these Frenchies smoked, harsher and more aromatic than cigarettes sold back home, until the air was practically blue with it? Richard shook his head, as much to clear his thoughts as to answer them. But George took it the wrong way.

  “Come on, old man. You need a keeper, get you home safe so the coach doesn’t have a strip of hide off us in the morning. Don’t drink alone, it’s not good for you.”

  It was easier to give in, go back and rejoin the group. They would make room for him, shove the interloper out of his seat or find him another one. He was just letting nerves nibble on him, was all. Once things got started he’d have his focus back, his eye on the gold, and everything would make sense again.

  That was what they’d worked for, why they’d come here. To go home known as the best, the very best. Anything less was unthinkable.

  “Knowing what you want,” the bartender said, speaking, it seemed, only to Richard, his shagged-curled head leaning in close, his voice pitched to carry through the endless murmur of noise. “Being very sure of what you want. C’est ce qui compte. That’s the trick.”

  “Trick to what?” His tongue felt thick, his skin feverish.

  “To getting it. To living with it, once you have it.”

  It seemed as thought the bartender was waiting for him to respond. What did he want? He wanted to win the gold, of course. He would accept silver, or even bronze, but it was important to bring home a medal, to show everyone back home what they could do, to represent the United States against the other nations....

  But what did he truly want? After the bouts were done and the excitement and strangeness of it all faded away ... what did he want then? It seemed impossible to think that far. The moment was now, the now was the moment. After that would come war, George was right; even though nobody talked about it, everyone knew it.

  Glory. Honor. Pride. A shiny gold medal hung on the wall in some office, or over the mantle, and the memory of soldiers just come home from war, their faces gaunt, butts held in shaking hands as they told stories that didn’t tell the real story. Eyes that were too intent on something you couldn’t quite see, or looked at nothing at all, even when they looked right at you. Richard had seen the soldiers come home, not the generals or the heroes, but the boys who’d gone and bled and made it home not entirely whole. His friends could talk about being officers, but there was something in Richard that shied away from the thought of giving orders that sent men to such a fate.

  Given a choice, he would choose to sleep at night, to wake anticipating the day, not dreading it.

  “So be it,” the bartender said, softly, sounding almost pleased. Then, louder: “Drink up, young Olympiad. Drink up, and face your destiny!”

  There was no gold for the team that year. No silver or bronze. The Games ended, Richard went home, and hung his favorite épée on the wall. He went to war, and came home and got married. Taught high school, and raised two daughters. Saw them grow up and get married, and held his grandchildren when they were born. All those years, the épée hung on the wall, and he would touch it, every now and then, as he passed by. And when his wife died at the age of 79, two months after he had been diagnosed with lung cancer the doctors could do nothing about, he held her hand as she breathed her last, remembered the despairing words of a drunk old man in a bar in Paris of 1924, and his expression was one not of bitterness or regret, but content.

  STEADY HANDS AND A HEART OF OAK

  Ian Tregillis

  IN November of 1940, the average life expectancy of a sapper in His Majesty’s Royal Engineers was six weeks. Reggie Brooks had been on the job eight weeks and three days when the Jerries lobbed a 1500-pounder onto Guy’s Hospital in Southwark, in the shadow of London Bridge.

  The bomb had crashed through three floors before coming to rest beneath the foundation, where it lay quiet and malignant as cancer. From his vantage point wedged beside the iron eggshell of unexploded ordnance, Reg glimpsed a patch of sky far overhead. An azure circle shone through the clean round hole punched neat
-as-you-please by the bomb’s passage through the hospital.

  He lay on a tarpaulin over a pile of broken timbers, legs wrapped around the nose of the bomb. It had come to rest at an angle, leaving just enough room for Reg and his kit. A stabilization fin dug into his shoulder. The bomb case still retained a bit of warmth left over from atmospheric friction, but not enough to thaw the sheen of hoarfrost over the pit in Reg’s stomach.

  Was this the one? Would he snuff it on his last job? Would this crater become his grave?

  It would be a closed-casket service, of course.

  He caressed the bomb with trembling fingertips, tracing the curve of the shell like the small of a woman’s back. But instead of the buttons and latch-hooks on Sybil’s dress, he fumbled for the sharp corners of steel bolts, harder and smaller than a schoolgirl’s nipples, that would give him access to the bomb’s deepest intimacies. He counted eight bolts arranged like the crosses on the Union Jack. Felt a rough weld along one seam.

  Reg whispered into a glass funnel affixed to a length of garden hose. “Looks like a Dietrich,” he said.

  The hose snaked from the crater, through the wreckage, past red and white barricades (DANGER: UNEXPLODED BOMB) to the other sappers waiting anxiously outside the blast radius thirty yards away. Every model had a nickname; this was a Dietrich, after Marlene, because the bomb, just like the bint, could seduce you, make you think she was easy.

  Ease could be a trap. God knew Sybil had been easy enough.

  “That’s good news, Reg,” said Captain Hollister. Holly led the 246 Field Company, Royal Engineers, Third Division.

  “Right,” Reg said. “Got my number three spanner, taking it to the aft-most bolt.” Somewhere up top one of his mates recorded this, documenting each step in the procedure. A formality in the case of a Dietrich, but still absolutely necessary.