American Romantic

by Ward Just

  Harry watched her carefully all this time, her voice a monotone, the voice of a sleepwalker. If her voice had been a musical instrument he would have called it an oboe. She spoke with tremendous conviction.

  Sieglinde rose, stepped to the counter, and poured a fresh cup of coffee. She stood quietly looking at the appliances, the refrigerator and the range, ovens side by side, the dishwasher, a toaster, an electric coffeepot. She had never seen a kitchen like it except in advertisements in Der Spiegel and Paris Match. She peeked inside an oven and was not surprised to find it pristine. She ran her hand over the counter, smooth as glass, similarly spotless. She had heard that Americans made a fetish of cleanliness. The open shelves were filled with canned goods, beans and tomatoes and condensed milk and chicken soup and lychees au sirop and English tea and artichoke hearts, enough to feed a family for a week or more. During World War II such a hoard would last a month. More than a month. Sieglinde shook her head and began to laugh.

  What’s funny?

  Your kitchen. There’s so much of it.

  It’s an ordinary American kitchen, Harry said.

  Yes, I suppose it is.

  You don’t like it?

  It’s a splendid kitchen. Do you actually cook in it?

  A wartime kitchen, Harry said with a smile.

  A fine wartime kitchen, she said.

  Harry said, I know I’ve brought up memories for you. Memories you’d rather not be reminded of. I’m sorry about that. I wish I hadn’t done it. I wasn’t thinking. Our past lives are so different.

  And present ones, she said.

  Yes, he agreed.

  I’m not complaining, she said. You’re a darling.

  You too, he said.

  So, she said. Two darlings.

  It’s forgotten then?

  A momentary thing, Sieglinde said.

  Can we make plans for the evening?

  Dinner out, she said. I know the place.

  I don’t want to lose you, Harry said.

  I’m not lost, Sieglinde said.

  She said she had to put in an appearance at the ship, to let them know she had not wandered off or been kidnapped, mugged or murdered, dismembered by communist thugs in a back alley somewhere. The ship’s captain had a vivid imagination, believing that the capital crawled with agents provocateurs, including pirates. And you, she said, don’t you have to go to work? Make your report for the file? They walked up the stairs to his bedroom where their clothes were. She showered for a long time and then he watched her dress, bikini bottoms the size of a handkerchief, a Gernreich bra. A prim plum-colored skirt and a white shirt, espadrilles on her feet, a blue ascot at her throat, aviator glasses with yellow lenses. She was combing her hair and whistling some tune when Harry went to shower and shave, already thinking of his leave, due next month, a two-week leave. He had plenty of money saved. They could take a trip somewhere close by, put in at one of the ancient ports with a grand old hotel that had a swimming pool and tennis courts, a view of the sea, a dining room with twelve-foot-high ceilings, the perfume of flowers, elderly waiters in tuxedos. He wondered if she played tennis. She looked as if she could, rangy of build, graceful of manner. She moved in a shuffle-walk. In one of the ancient-port hotels they could talk about anything in the world except the war—Expressionist painters, trends in architecture, cats versus dogs, the Baltic at sunset, Connecticut in winter, New York on New Year’s Eve, the sort of life she envisioned for herself, city or country, crowded or quiet. What that life was he had no idea, but the finding out would be thrilling. She came with baggage but everyone did. He would fill her in on the routine of the American foreign service, more agreeable than she might think. Much more agreeable abroad in an embassy—unless the embassy was in a West African jungle or one of the Stalinist utopias, and even then there were exotic sights to discover, a new language, a fresh culture well away from the Washington bureaucracy, tedious at all times unless you had rank. Washington itself had charm, surely more charm than glum Hamburg. Georgetown was quaint. Harry realized then that his life had turned on a dime. He lived in the present and had done for two years. Now the present was elastic and stretched as far as he could see. It stretched to twilight.

  Harry was a long time showering and shaving. His skin was chafed everywhere. When he looked in the mirror the face he saw was not in all respects his own. This face he saw was possibly the face of a brother, an older, wiser brother, an experienced brother who had gone ten rounds with Aphrodite and when the bell rang was still on his feet. Congratulations from the referee. He took a long look in the mirror—a look, it had to be admitted, of no little self-regard. And then he laughed and waved his thumb at the brother in the mirror, rosy-cheeked, damp hair, bloodshot eyes, but in fine shape all in all. All in all in exceptional spirits. All in all looking forward to the morning, something he rarely did. Harry was an afternoon and evening man. Twilight and darkness were his friends, and now he had someone to share them with. Wasn’t she something? He patted his stomach, taut as a bowline. Harry did not think of himself as vain but thought now that a revision might be in order. Was that a side effect of losing your heart? Did lovemaking lead to megalomania? He carefully combed his hair. Then he put a styptic pencil on a tiny razor cut near his left ear. Deodorant under his arms. He told the face in the mirror that he would spend time with the German classics, Goethe, Fontane, Musil, Brecht. He would reacquaint himself with Dürer.

  When Harry stepped into the bedroom, already talking about resort hotels in the ancient ports, Sieglinde had vanished. Her shoulder bag was gone. Only her jasmine scent remained. For a moment Harry did not move. The room was barren without her, and she had not thought even to say goodbye. Not so much as a tap on the bathroom door. He looked for a note but there was no note. Then, from downstairs, he heard piano music, a waltz, or not quite a waltz. A melancholy nocturne. Harry descended the stairs barefoot, making no sound, and paused at the landing, watching Sieglinde at the piano. Her fingers moved light as feathers. Morning sun streamed through the big window, the edge of it touching the piano. She was playing a Chopin adagio, a familiar piece he could not name. It had the melody and tempo of old Europe, nineteenth-century Europe, Europe before the fall. Harry listened without moving for the longest time, watching her, watching her head slide left and right, watching her fingers, and when she looked up at last, seeing him at the bannister, she tossed her head, gave a brilliant smile, and winked.

  They planned a rendezvous for that night at a restaurant near the harbor, a twenty-minute walk from the embassy. Harry spent the day in his office finishing up the report, a bare-bones affair minus enigma. Enigma was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was clarity, cause and effect, troublesome enigma trampled under the goose-stepping feet of one fact after another. He did his best to make a story of it, a beginning, middle, and end. He had difficulty making the atmosphere of Village Number Five credible, though at some level he understood that the report would likely not be read. At most, skimmed. Now and again he laughed out loud, though the material was not humorous. Harry was not bothered except by the ambassador’s secretary, who looked in to say that the old man wanted to see him in the morning, ten sharp—and added, with a strange look, that he seemed in especially good spirits. It’s good to see you—so cheerful, Harry.

  We’ve been worried about you.

  No need, Harry said airily. All’s right with the world.

  No, it isn’t, the secretary said, and walked away.

  The report concluded, Harry straightened his desk and disposed of the usual memos, wondering all the while what the ambassador wanted. A one-on-one with the boss, and that was what the secretary implied, was unusual. He wrote a letter to his parents, the first in weeks. He told them everything about his life except for the events at Village Number Five and his romance—that was how he described it to himself, a romance—with Sieglinde. That left a dry observation on the course of the war and one or two thoughtful comments about the disarray of the government at Washington and
about the weather, hot all day long and into the evening. He said his health was good aside from a rash on his thigh. Now and again he looked up from the letter, thinking about the romance and what the ambassador wanted. Whatever it was, he hoped it would not interfere with his two-week leave. He hauled out the atlas to look up the precise location of the ancient ports so he could discuss plans with Sieglinde.

  At five he went around the corner for a drink with his office mate Ed Coyle, who said he was much missed at Sunday lunch. The Washington supremo wanted to hear about the events in the village, already the subject of lurid gossip, thanks to Sergeant Orono. Sergeant said you got shot at, Ed said. Sergeant said you were a block of ice under fire. That true? Harry told him a little of what happened, the smoldering clinic, the headman and his dead wife—if that was who she was. Harry asked, What did the supremo have to say? How proud they are of us here, Ed said, our hardships and hard times and hard knocks and the rest of it. You’ll be glad to know that hazardous-duty pay’s going up. More staff here. More troops in the field, many more troops, and many more ships at sea. We’re in for the long haul. Whatever it takes, according to the supremo. Ed went on to give specific numbers and dates but Harry did not listen closely. He was preoccupied by the clock on the wall. The café began to fill up, mostly Americans from the embassy and the USAID mission nearby, but there were other nationalities too, mainly Middle Eastern and European traders in search of contracts. The atmosphere was one of feral low-stakes conspiracy.

  Harry was at Café Celine most evenings, usually with Ed. They had become friends with the owner, a belligerent Algerian named Yves. Yves had the latest gossip concerning the government and the Americans, who was up and who was down at the presidential palace, and if there had been an atrocity or other incident the previous evening he knew about that also and was eager to share his knowledge. Yves was said to be a valued member of French intelligence and perhaps that was so, despite his frequent and public denunciations of the French government. But then again, he would, wouldn’t he? I heard you had an ugly time the other day, he said to Harry on their arrival. Could have been worse, Harry said, and Yves raised his eyebrows a fraction and made the first round on the house. Yves said quietly, I’ll bet you don’t know that the bastards burned that village, every house. A dozen casualties that we know about. So I think you were lucky. When he saw the expression on Harry’s face he nodded and said, Sorry.

  They drank up and Ed returned to the embassy. Harry strolled through streets crowded with tiny cars, mobile soup kitchens, and sidewalk vendors. He saw a pretty scarf for sale and bought it for Sieglinde. The streets were alive with conversation and music, American pop and French yé-yé. Harry was early for their date at the restaurant and decided to meet Sieglinde as she got off the hospital ship. There was commotion on the dock, one freighter arriving and the other leaving. The one arriving was of Nigerian registry but the skipper was yelling in Italian. Stevedores were everywhere, and here and there a police car with turning blue lights, policemen lounging inside. There were prostitutes and panhandlers and crippled veterans on crutches. Harry sat on a bench and watched the show, thinking about the village and what had been done to it. He supposed the headman was one of the dead. The place would be swarming with press conducting interviews amid the ruins. All the villages in the vicinity would be up-to-date: the assault, who died and by what means, and the significance. News traveled fast in the countryside, helped along by the enemy tom-toms. The significance was that the villages were fundamentally unprotected, abandoned by their own army and forgotten by the Americans. Villages were burning all over the country. Not that there were any disturbances in the capital. Nor grief, to the extent that grief could be identified.

  Harry watched a scuffle, two teenage boys pushing each other around. There was so much movement and noise that it took Harry a moment to understand what was in front of his eyes. The freighter had taken the berth of the hospital ship. The ship was gone. He hurried to the edge of the quay but there was no sign of it upstream or down. Harry stood there wondering if somehow the ship was tethered at another berth. That was unlikely. Impossible, really, because of the size of her. He remained a few minutes longer and then asked one of the policemen what happened to the German hospital ship. It took him three tries to make himself understood, and finally the policeman shook his head and said, Di-di, gone, gone away. When Harry asked where, the policeman shrugged. Harry thanked him and hurried to the restaurant but Sieglinde was not there and had left no message. Harry sat at an outside table under the awning and ordered a drink. In fifteen minutes he ordered another and by nine p.m. he had ordered three more, all the time watching the street. He pretended nonchalance, a lone American drinking gin in a rough part of town. He saw no Americans or other foreigners. Local girls came up to him offering companionship but when he shook his head they left him alone, muttering what sounded like a curse. It had been some time since he had sat alone at a restaurant table, chain-smoking cigarettes, ill at ease, with the expression of an insomniac counting sheep. The street grew quiet, only a few furtive strollers here and there. They kept to the shadows.

  You want girl?

  A face was at his elbow. Harry said, No.

  Nice girl. Young girl.

  No, Harry said again.

  Ten-dollar girl.

  Go away, Harry said.

  You give me money.

  Harry gave him some money and the pimp went away.

  In due course Harry paid the bill, hailed a cab, and returned to his villa. She was not there either, but he had not expected she would be. He sat uncomfortably in the silk-string hammock and imagined her at the rail of the hospital ship watching the countryside disappear to port. The ship would be ablaze with light although the moon was full. All hands on deck drinking and saying goodbye to the war. Goodbye and good luck. Goodbye and good riddance. The open ocean would be but a few nautical miles distant. The night was warm. He pictured Sieglinde sitting with the captain, inquiring about the route home. How many days? Were there any ports of call?

  He went inside and made a gin and tonic, peeking into the living room to see if she were somehow at the piano. She was not at the piano. He wondered if it was something he said, some ill-judged remark that irritated her. Infuriated her. Harry went back to the hammock and sat quietly sipping his drink, at a loss to explain her disappearance. He reached for a cigarette but the pack was empty and he crumpled it and threw it away. He imagined her at the ship’s rail, looking skyward, counting stars. Harry looked up and found what he thought was the Little Dipper but might have been mistaken. He was all in. His eyes were filled with gin. He had no idea of the time but supposed it was near midnight. In the darkness he could not read his wristwatch. He had no certain idea of the vessel’s immediate destination. Sooner or later she would put in at Hamburg and there Sieglinde would remain, unless she jumped ship at an earlier port. She was a resourceful woman and would get on one way or another. She hated Hamburg, though. Probably she would find an earlier port, Singapore or Columbo. Who the hell would want to visit Columbo? As she said, she was not lost. She was gone.

  Two

  HARRY awoke at six a.m., thick-tongued, vision impaired. He lay still, coming into consciousness, patient about it, listening to the unfamiliar sound of drizzle in the trees. The cat was asleep at the foot of the bed. Harry threw on a robe and crept downstairs, hearing Chopin. But the piano was unaccompanied. He continued on into the kitchen, where he plugged in the coffeemaker and watched the rain fall. The silk-string hammock was damp with rain leaking through the ficus. He thought about cooking an egg, then decided against it. Two aspirin made more sense and he took those with a glass of orange juice, filthy-tasting army-issue concentrate. The orange juice worked its way down, sluggish as glue, metallic, altogether foul. He put his forehead against the windowpane and tried to remember the dream he’d had. Nothing came to him except bright colors. They said all memories were stored in the brain, even dreams. The key to the door was somewhere.
But nothing presented itself except the bright colors. He believed his headache was retreating, thanks to the cool window glass against his forehead. He smelled coffee but made no move to pour some. Instead, he poured milk into a saucer for the cat rubbing up against his shin. Time was out of joint. Rain was an anomaly at this time of year, hot and dry in daylight and almost as hot at night; and now it was raining and the temperature eighty or thereabouts. Where did the rain come from? The rain belonged in the north. The rain mocked him no less than the silk-string hammock and the forgotten dream. He remembered that one of the colors was yellow. He had bought her a scarf yesterday but couldn’t remember the color. He thought he had left it at the restaurant. He thought, One less souvenir. The rain made no sense. It was not supposed to rain. Rain was verboten until the rainy season, that was the way things were set up. Living was difficult when nothing was dependable. Probably that was why he received hazardous-duty pay, soon to be increased, according to Ed Coyle. Maybe he would take Ed to a resort hotel in one of the ancient ports. Find two girls and drink gin and tonics all day long, tell lies to the girls. The girls could tell lies back. The lies would cancel each other out. If the dream was so damned colorful it would have red along with yellow and probably some blue. Harry thought about the colors but they refused to arrange themselves. Only paint on a palette, the palette lacking a brush. No canvas, no easel. No atelier. At last he poured a cup of coffee but took too large a swallow and it burned his tongue, causing him to cry out.

  Marcia, the secretary, said the ambassador was running a little bit late. She handed Harry the Washington newspaper, just arrived via the daily pouch from the Department. He turned to the sports page but found it difficult to concentrate on the baseball scores. A double in the ninth swept the Chicago series for the Yankees. The reliever lost the game for Boston. He looked over the top of the newspaper to find a photograph of the president of the United States on the wall, a most unusual image. He was wearing heavy spectacles and looked exhausted. The photograph was personally inscribed in an illegible scrawl. Next to it was a candid shot of George Kennan, he of the celebrated Long Telegram, counseling containment of the Soviet Union, a document Kennan insisted was perversely misinterpreted by his successors at the Department, and in Congress and the White House as well. Kennan and the ambassador had been great friends, then fell out over the Long Telegram or some other telegram, but they had apparently made up, making up being a common trait among diplomats. Really, an essential trait given the exigencies of diplomatic work. Kennan was famously difficult and the ambassador famously easygoing, so it was an attraction of opposites. Harry wondered if such friendships always came to grief. A marriage of opposites often worked out, each having an empty space that the other filled. Something like that. His mother was easygoing and his father wasn’t. His father wanted today to be very like yesterday and his mother didn’t. His mother was excited by tomorrow, the dawn of the new day and so forth, whereas his father saw unspecified difficulties, illness or foul weather or a moronic call on his valuable time. Harry considered himself easygoing, quick to forgive. Well, that depended on what he was asked to forgive, the specific gravity of the request. Some acts were impossible to forgive entirely or even partially. These unforgivable acts were too numerous to name. Carelessness, for example, heedless of consequence. Or all too aware of it.