The Fire by Night

by Teresa Messineo

  The radio grew louder. She could make out the song “I’ll Be Seeing You.” She knew all the words by heart—everyone did—she could hear voices inside singing along. People were laughing, she could have sworn she heard a woman’s laugh, but that was impossible, the whole thing was impossible. I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you. Jo was standing in front of the tent flap now. She was shivering in the balmy air, her shoes caked with dried mud, her jumpsuit unable to keep her feverish body warm. She opened the flap slowly and stepped inside the tent and her coldness left her—a warm, wet wave of heat and comfort engulfed her, and her painted toenails were visible in her open-toed shoes and the long, white hem of her dress licked playfully at her ankles as the flaps closed behind her.

  The tent was beautiful. Christmas lights hung down like chandeliers from the center tent pole like they had on base, back in the States, the night before they left for the war. It was warm in the tent, deliciously warm, with the warmth of sixty, of a hundred bodies. Bare shoulders, the glimmer of jewelry, lamé that looked like it had been painted onto the women wearing it. Clean-shaven men in their dress uniforms neatly pressed, freshly starched. Their cologne reached her nostrils, and Jo inhaled deeply as the men turned to look at her approvingly and she curled up her lip in a provocative smile. She took in the rest of the crowded room in one glance.

  Queenie was at the baccarat table, laughing and drinking and cheering with everyone else when she won. People were dancing—the music had changed, switched to Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and the place went mad. She saw Gianni twirling a petite blonde in a pink dress. She was a good dancer, but she could barely keep up with his lead, she never stopped spinning—underarm turn, pretzel, behind-the-back backward pretzel, inside-out turn . . .

  Grandpa was playing darts and drinking something out of a snifter; he was dressed in a Confederate uniform that had been tailored just for him, the yellow braid standing out at his waist and embroidered onto the turtle dove gray of his sleeves. The doctors were all there, and the nurses too, gathered around a table heaped with hot food. There was smoking all around, enough cigarettes for everyone, the tent was filled with tobacco smoke, and Jo sniffed it in greedily—it had been so long. The Italians were singing now along with the clarinet, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dahdah, and laughing, clapping along with the crazy tune, swing-dancing with each other, and laughing again.

  Then, from the back of the tent, walking straight toward her, she saw the German. He took off his hat as he came up to her, and she thought for a moment that there was going to be trouble, that they would take him prisoner, but the sergeant who came up to him just gave him a slap on the back and offered to take his greatcoat for him, laying it atop the piano, folding it neatly in half so it would fit. The German’s face was tanned and smooth, and he smiled at her, a deep rich smile. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes made it perfect. He was wearing gloves, but he took them off so he could feel her hands in his. And the music changed again, becoming slow, rhythmic, and melancholy—“You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” which shouldn’t have been a sad song yet it was. The German held her close, pulling her toward him, but he had no gun in his hand this time. His left hand was holding on to hers, his free one slowly inching down from her shoulder blade, where it had started, to her waist; she could feel him rubbing the smooth whiteness of her dress, the tiny seam, the hidden side zipper. He smelled gorgeous, and she closed her eyes and melted against him. The dance floor was so crowded, they were all packed together, no one could move, no one wanted to—she opened her eyes and looked into his, still smiling. The tiny hairs on his jacket stood out smartly, the wool had been brushed; she looked down at his boots, the jet-black tips shone from the polish. You are the last human being left in France, he said again, but this time she understood him, and she got up on the balls of her feet to kiss him again, to make it happen again and again and never stop, this was heaven, she was home.

  But just before their lips touched she heard Queenie give a little scream, throw down her cards angrily, and walk out. Jo craned her neck around to see what had happened, and she saw Gianni push the little blonde away from him. He was yelling at her in Italian—she was no good, go away, you stepped on my feet. Jo looked down at the ground for a second, but it was muddy now. Her partner’s boots were sunk in it, she could feel it squishing between her toes. The lights started to flicker, and the music went off and on—it was “You Belong to Me” one second, and the next it was an Allied news program, and the next it was Axis Sally telling them their sweethearts back home were untrue, would not be waiting for them when they got home, if they ever got home. Things were spinning too quickly now. Jo could only see glimpses of it. The surgeons had on their caps and masks and were pulling surgical gloves over the sleeves of their dress coats; the radio had cracked open and was lying on the floor—someone was stepping on it, but Axis Sally kept talking, kept crying, kept laughing at them. The lid of the piano was closed, but she could hear it playing, a marching tune that sounded German. Then the back flap opened again and women—made-up, lips red, in high heels and filthy jumpsuits—were running, screaming, as a figure approached. As it brushed up against them they disappeared.

  “No,” Jo tried to call out, but her voice was gone. The Italians tried tackling the dark figure, but they vanished as soon as they touched it. Gianni ran up to it—Jo was screaming inside for him to stop—but as soon as his first punch landed, her brother split into atoms, into nothingness, was gone. Jo wheeled around, but the nurses, the dancing couples, were gone. Grandpa drew his saber and raised it above his head, but dropped the sword and held a hand to his heart and collapsed, disappearing when he reached the ground.

  “Don’t touch him, don’t you fucking touch him,” Jo whispered hoarsely, grabbing on to her dance partner, pushing him away from the phantom. Then, just before they went out for good, all the lights shone brightly for one moment and in their light she could make out who the figure was. It was Clark.

  He switched on his flashlight in the darkness, and Jo realized that her arms were empty. The German had vanished when the lights went down; it was dark now, the moon was rising just over the piano. The hem of her dress was soiled, but she had on sturdy shoes, she could walk through the mud, over the cold, hard-packed ground with no problem now.

  “What are you doing out here?” Clark asked, and each word was so real it was like cut glass, tearing into her.

  Jo backed up. She had a military jacket on over her dress; the wind picked up and her skirt billowed around her. She backed up and then started to run, not toward her tent but behind it, toward the field; she knew now that was where all the others had gone, where they were waiting for her. She wouldn’t let Clark stop her; he would try to, she knew that—he was always in her way.

  “Stop,” Clark called, and at the sound of his voice the tent was gone. It had never been there. He was running around the empty pup tents she had negotiated perfectly without even seeing they were there.

  “Stop.”

  She was terribly cold, she was freezing, the wind ripped right through her dress. She had lost her high heels as they scrambled up the hill; her jacket was gone. There was nothing to this dress, it was lighter than air, she had no stockings, no underthings, she was barely wearing a slip, showing sickly white now in the light of the waning moon. Clark was right behind her, she could hear him panting; she was almost to the top of the hill, though, she’d make the field before him. Then she heard him cock his rifle and yell, “Halt!” just as she crested the hill.

  She stopped.

  “Don’t go any farther, you goddamned bitch,” but it sounded like he was crying, Clark was crying, crying and pointing his rifle at her and trying to get her to stop. Jo looked down. Something cold and hard and very thin rested against the front of her bare ankle. That’s called something, Jo thought, burning up in her fever, in her delirium, something like trick. Or tick. No, she had
it. Trip. A trip wire. She stood there, shimmering in the moonlight in her transparent dress, in her stolen jumpsuit, stood there and looked at Clark and thought how beautiful he was, he was a god, she would like to give him fifty daughters, no that was someone else, she was mistaken; he was crying and had a gun on her. I wonder why, I thought we were on the same side.

  Then the fever consumed her and she lost consciousness before she hit the ground, falling backward, the trip wire shining impotently in the rising wind, her white wrap becoming caught up in it for a moment before flying away, over the minefield cheated of its harvest of death.

  JO DIDN’T CATCH typhus. Clark carried her back, and they laid her in James’s bed, and her fever came down, but not for a day or two. By then she had forgotten her dream—or her nightmare—her time spent with all those who had died, with those she had almost joined in the minefield behind the tent. She could eventually eat, her appetite coming back all at once; she was a few days behind everyone else in saying, “God, this stuff is awful, can I have some more?” She got out of bed but had to walk around nearly doubled over, she was so weak. The men made her sit down as much as possible. She smiled at them—they were so strict with her now that she was their patient.

  “We’re fine, miss,” they bragged. “We don’t need you at all.”

  Even James got out a stick and started pacing out the room, and soon he could carry food and water, as long as no one moved his stuff.

  “Where is the goddamned can opener, Jonesy?” he would yell, and then Jonesy would apologize for moving it: “It’s right here. Sorry, I won’t forget again.” James brought the full bowls of food and took away the empties. Jonesy and Billy (who was good for short spurts on his feet) insisted on dealing with the bedpans, though. “We don’t want you tripping over something with them,” they hinted, darkly, to James.

  Father Hook heard David’s confession one day, and Jo asked if he’d hear hers too.

  “What, yours?” the priest asked, incredulous.

  “Why, yes, Father.”

  “I can’t imagine you’d have anything to say, miss. You’re—you’re an angel.”

  And the young boy looked up at her with such devotion, such faith and confidence Jo hadn’t the heart to spoil it for him, to bare the secrets of her soul, to tell him of the lust and the hopelessness and the pain and the anger that had nearly destroyed her, so many times over. Let him believe in me a little while longer.

  IT SEEMED TO Jo that there was a lot of commotion outside the tent, more noise than she had ever heard before.

  “Yes, miss, the patrol made contact,” Jonesy said. “They’re sending trucks for us soon. The bridges were out—that was the delay. But it’s safe to talk and all now, miss, the Germans are a good many miles from us. I think they’re pulling back at last.”

  Jo heaved a great sigh. At last. The trucks would come, her patients were stable enough to be transported. She’d get them back to a hospital, to a real hospital—not a field or an evac hospital but a real one—get them treated and then . . . then . . . well, maybe then she’d have time to acknowledge that knot deep inside her chest, the one that swelled and expanded whenever she breathed, whenever she paused, whenever she looked inside herself. It felt like nothing she had ever felt before. She thought it could be happiness, and if it was, was it because of David? Her feelings for David? If it was, she didn’t have to think much further ahead than that right now. They’d sort it out later, together, when they got back. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, Sister had always said.

  David practiced walking around the tent.

  “Look at us, miss,” he would laugh, sweating from the exertion. “Two people in the prime of life, bent over and hobbling like a guidshir—sorry, miss—like an old man, a grandfather.”

  Breathless, he’d sit down next to her and talk about how they would be leaving soon. “Tell me more about yourself.”

  “We’ll have a long trip back to the hospital, don’t forget, David, and lots of time to talk then. Besides, you’ve gotten everything out of me already. What about you? What will you do after the war? You know, before your fever broke, I imagined you were—no, never mind about that. What will you do, though, really?”

  He looked at her, like he was looking inside of her soul, and she could feel it and it was warm and comfortable; they had known each other forever.

  “Well, miss, I used to think I’d go right back to the farm, my father’s farm. He’s dead now, God rest his soul, but my mum still lives there, and Kit. Bumpy moved off to the city, he likes that kind of life best. But, aye, miss, if you could see it, just once. We raise sheep—gentle creatures, miss, you’d like them, the finest in the county. Walking them up to the high pasture as the sky turns pink with the dawn. Breathing in God’s good clean air—no gunpowder, no smoke like here, miss—and the last stars going out above you and—and just praying and singing inside yourself for the sheer joy of being alive, of being free and whole and alive, miss. And the air so still and clear, and the hills all around you opening into the plains down below, and the lake shimmering far off on the horizon and the birds already calling to each other, calling for their loves. Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Jo was mesmerized. It was like poetry. It was a moment before she responded, as if in a dream.

  “No, never.”

  “Can you imagine it, miss?”

  “Yes. Aye,” she laughed, “when you describe it. It sounds like a fairyland, one I used to read about in books. David, I grew up in a box, twenty feet by twenty feet, with twenty boxes to a floor, piled up five, six floors high. They freeze in the winter and stink in the summer, and it’s all concrete and steel, and streetlights and car horns outside, and there’s no green and no lakes and no big, open sky like you say.”

  “It sounds awful, miss. If you don’t mind my saying it.”

  “I don’t mind, David.”

  They were holding hands.

  “You said you used to think that was what you wanted, David. Have you changed your mind? Are you off to the big city, like your brother?” she teased.

  David’s face clouded for a second.

  “That depends,” he said seriously.

  “On what?” she asked, still smiling. “On the price of wool? On the state of the crops? Are you afraid pastoral life will seem too tame once you come home from the war? It might at that, you know.”

  “Oh, no, miss.”

  “Well, what then?”

  He patted her hand and stood up.

  “I’d better be getting back to practicing.”

  And he walked back and forth, back and forth, until he was out of breath, until he had to lie down.

  THE DAY TO leave came at last, and the rains came with it. The trucks were lined up outside, waiting; the orderlies ran back and forth carrying the stretchers, running lightly when they were empty, plodding along when they were loaded down with the weight of their patients. They had to go slowly in the sucking mud, and that made things worse. Their ponchos were glued to their bodies—they were soaked through. The men with eyeglasses couldn’t see a thing. Jonesy immediately made friends with the two orderlies carrying him; he was so happy to see new faces, to ask questions, to answer them, he was so delighted and obliging it was all he could do to keep from jumping off the stretcher to help them. Major Donahue immediately took charge, making sure each new face knew his rank, knew they were dealing with an important person. “Look lively, son, don’t drag your feet, come on now, move along, that’s right—now that’s more like it.” James walked out under his own steam, refusing everyone’s arm except Jo’s. “Feeling sorry for a blind man,” he fumed at the orderlies. “Puny little voice he had too, bet he was a puny little man. Am I right, miss? Aren’t I bigger than him?”

  “Oh, much bigger—and stronger,” Jo said, smiling.

  “That’s what I thought. I wish I could punch him right in the nose.”

  “Well, I’ll hold him still, right in front of you, and tell you whe
n to swing.”

  Then, for the first time, she saw her patient smile.

  Billy walked out to the truck, hovering over the young priest. Even in a short time, he had developed a penchant for caregiving.

  “Now watch out, men,” he said, spreading a poncho over Hook’s head to keep him dry, stumbling in the mud, bumping into the orderlies. “Be careful now, this is a very delicate patient, severe injuries—and a priest too, so you’d better watch out or you’ll all catch it.”

  “Billy,” Jo said, grinning, “I think you’d make an excellent nurse.”

  “I might at that. Now don’t laugh. Maybe they’ll have male nurses one day.”

  All the men but David were loaded. Jo wanted to rip off the poncho the orderlies had given her. It was doing no good, it smelled of strong chemicals and mold. She headed back to the tent. For the last time, Jo thought. The last time. So many weeks spent there, so many losses sustained there. This had been her world. But she could leave it now. She had done the good she set out to do—she had saved the lives of the six men she had vowed to protect. She was leaving with them. She was leaving with David.

  She walked into the tent. It looked strangely lonely—just the sawhorses standing there without their stretchers, the sheets ripped down, her enclosure gone. She stared at where it had stood and, a moment later, couldn’t even envision it, as though it had never been there at all. Two orderlies were talking with David, taking out his stretcher without him; of course, he was well enough to walk from here to the idling truck outside; it was only a few paces, she’d hold on to his arm to make sure. He was standing with her now, alone in the tent—the first time they had been alone together. Jo looked at him, at his eyes sheltered beneath their thick brows, at his black hair swept back from his forehead; his face was pale but glowing, as though lit from within, lit with a secret joy of his own. He looked taller than he had before, and stronger too, in his woolen jacket, HD embroidered in orange against a blue background on his sleeve. His kilt was gone. Jo wondered whose pants he had borrowed; they were too short for him, barely coming to his ankles. Jo smiled at him, and he smiled back. And then he put on his doughboy helmet.