“Was your father a lawyer?” I asked.
“Oh no, he was a small-time businessman, always jumping from one thing to another. A deli, a bunch of car washes, that kind of thing. He was always on the verge of the big breakthrough.”
“He’s dead?”
“Died three years ago. We had to put my mother in a nursing home last winter. She’s got Pick’s disease. One of those dementia diseases.”
“That’s tough.”
He stuffed his paperwork into the seat pocket. “We tried to keep her at home as long as we could but she was starting to set off the smoke detectors every time she got near the kitchen. I was afraid she’d end up at the grocery store in her bathrobe.”
“Or without her bathrobe.”
“Yeah.” He slowly shook his head back and forth. “We’re paying a fortune for this rest home—it’s the best one we could find—but God it’s so depressing. I hate even going to visit her. Keep out of those places if you can.”
“Sounds like good advice.”
“I go in to see her and there are all these people sitting around spoon-feeding their parents and wiping their mouths and it smells like—”
“Piss. It smells like piss.”
He looked at me for a moment. “You’re right. Piss. And it’s kind of—”
“Musty. Tomblike.”
“Exactly,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “First thing I did after she got sick was to make a living will out for myself. I say, ‘Pull the plug friends. Sayonara.’”
“Master of your fate,” I nodded.
He nodded vigorously, then stared up at the ceiling. “You know, the thing I never forget is that my parents never seemed happy their whole lives.”
“Of course not. They were your parents, right? They weren’t supposed to be happy. They’re supposed to haunt you like the ghosts of Christmas future unless you mend your ways. Don’t you ever hear the rattle of those chains at night?” He chuckled. “Your job is to make amends for their failures.”
“That’ll keep me busy.”
“So what do you really want to do?”
“Want to do?”
“With your life.”
“Ah, with my life. Well, let’s see, a lot of things. I guess I really just want to be successful.”
“What do you consider success?”
“A good salary, recognition in my field.”
“That’s all bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
“Yeah, men have defined success all wrong, which is why they are such crotchety old farts when they get to be my age and realize what fools they’ve been, sacrificing their marriages, their children, their health and their souls to their careers, all so they can be considered a somebody at work, which is like hitching your star to the nearest fire hydrant. Who gives a shit, except the other careerists who’ve made the same catastrophic mistake with their lives, and so are desperate to defend the entitlements of being a somebody, lest somebodyism be exposed for what it is: an ill-fated pyramid scheme.” I laughed out loud, then took another big swig of Scotch. “It’s a self-esteem problem, which is why men jumped out of windows during the stock market crash. It wasn’t the money—you know damn well they would have paid all that and more to ransom their life—it was the fact that their money represented their sense of worth. Without it they felt worthless; already dead.”
“Well, since you’re so goddamn wise, why don’t you just tell me what you did so I can just emulate the maestro?”
“I’m afraid that would be disastrous.”
“Oh really?” He leaned toward me. “How did you fuck up?”
“In more ways than I can explain.”
“I’m listening.”
I paused for a moment, then said, “I guess I was always waiting for things to happen that didn’t happen. I married the wrong woman. I never spent enough time with my kids. That kind of thing.” I picked up my drink and finished it.
“Well, at least you didn’t keel over at the office.”
“That’s a real relief.”
“So what would you do if you were me?” I could see him brace himself.
“If I could be in your shoes for a day? I suppose the first thing I’d do is to get laid—and I am being serious—then I’d figure out whether I really loved my wife for the right reasons, and if I did I’d try to get her back. If I didn’t, I’d move on.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Hey, this is make-believe. I mean, if I were really you I would probably make things even worse. That’s the thing about life: even if we had a second chance we’d probably blow it, right? In fact, I think that’s the only consolation for blowing it the first time, knowing that you’d probably blow it a second and third time too, so why sweat it. It’s just human nature.”
“I’ve often thought about being old, what it will be like,” he said.
“Kind of morbid, huh?”
“Well, I guess I think of it in terms of wanting to be able to look back on my life and feel that I did the right things.”
“Good luck.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said.
“The problem is that while happiness is well within our reach, so is a lot of unhappiness. And frankly, the unhappiness is considerably closer.”
“Naturally.”
“I knew a woman once who thought we should work backward from our deaths to make our lives more fulfilling,” I said.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, the less time one has, the more valued that time is, right?”
“Sure.”
“So conversely, the more time one thinks one has, the less each moment is appreciated, right? So maybe death—acceptance of our mortality—can liberate us.”
“I can’t deal with death.”
“Then you can’t deal with life.”
“You really think that way?”
“Let’s just say it’s getting a lot harder to pretend like I’m going to be the one exception who lives forever—though it’s only recently that I’ve conceded this point.”
He bit down hard on another piece of ice. “I don’t know. I just hate the idea that I’m just a worthless sack of cells on a measly little planet circling a sun that”—he pointed his finger in the air—“is just one of three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of billions of galaxies in the universe, which is itself probably just a mole on God’s great big mushy behind.” He flung himself back against his seat.
“It does take some getting used to.”
“Maybe people my age have unrealistic expectations. I mean, we really expect to be happy, and if we aren’t, there is going to be hell to pay.”
“I was every bit as greedy, only I never figured out how to make hell pay. A friend of mine used to say that happiness is like an erection: great while it lasts—especially if you can share it—but unsustainable for any length of time. And boy can it fade fast.”
“Most of the people I work with are too busy to be happy,” he said.
“That’s just the point. They are also too busy to be really unhappy. Ever watch a workaholic—one of those rich, corpulent ones—try to relax on a beach? It’s hysterical. You’d think they were in detox: Day One.”
“That’s why insomnia is so brutal,” he said. “No distractions. Christ, I’m up half the night running worst-case scenarios.”
I leaned back, closed my eyes and whispered:
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.
“You wrote that?”
“I’m flattered. No, that’s Keats. A poem called ‘To Sleep.’”
“I should memorize some poetry.”
“One thing at a time.” I sat back, enjoying the moment
ary cessation of all physical pain thanks to the Scotch, which was mixing beautifully with my other medications. After years of mounting aches and pains, the absence of any pain is a sensation in itself, like a moment of silence in a huge crowd.
“How do you keep from getting too nostalgic? I think I’ll be terribly nostalgic when I’m old. Hell, I’m already nostalgic about college.”
“You just get crabby instead.”
He raised his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I said.
“What was that?”
“That’s the wheels coming down. Or the engine coming off. You can never be sure.”
“Thanks.” His hands were locked on the armrests, and I noticed that his thumbnails were bitten to the quick so that he’d even begun grazing on the skin running up toward the knuckle.
After a few minutes he asked, “Anyone meeting you at the airport?”
“No, I’m taking a taxi to the Gare de l’Est. Then off to Reims.”
“Tell you what. I’ll have a rental car so why don’t I drive you to the station?”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I’d be happy to, really.”
“That’s very kind of you, thanks. I’d like that.”
I’M COMING, Daniel. I’m coming back.
THE YOUNG MAN pulled up to the curb in a blue SAAB and opened the trunk. “Sorry it took so long,” he said, grabbing my suitcase. “Terrible line at the rental agency.”
“I’m in no rush.”
We were both silent for most of the drive. I looked out the window and watched cars and buildings slide by. Nothing looked familiar.
“Have you ever been to the Louvre?” I asked as we approached the station.
“No, I can’t say that I have. I hear it’s quite something.”
“You should spend a day there. It might do you some good.”
“I’ll see if I can sneak away for a while.” He looked at me, then added, “I’d like to buy you dinner sometime, if you’re ever in New York.”
“Sure. Maybe we’ll even find some action.” I winked approvingly.
He chuckled that chuckle again.
At the station we shook hands good-bye and then I stood at the curb, watching him drive away. After I could no longer see his car I went looking for a place to sit down so I could familiarize myself with the station and figure out how to buy a ticket for a train to Reims.
I KNOW, I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t help staring at the young woman sitting two seats down on the left. She boarded the train just after me. I watched her walk slowly down the aisle, searching for just the right spot. Then she tucked her olive-drab canvas suitcase in the overhead before sliding into a seat next to the window. As soon as we pulled out of the station she took a book from her black leather purse, opened it slowly, pressing up and down along the seam with the flat of her hand, then began to read. After no more than a page she turned and looked out the window, sometimes twisting her head to follow some object as the train hurled by.
We were headed east, east toward the front. Did she think of the front? I doubted it. Now we were perhaps ten miles east of Paris. In September 1914 the German Army got within a dozen miles of Paris before French reinforcements shuttled in commandeered taxis held them at the Marne. Did she know that? I looked out my window at the fields and houses and trees streaming by when a sudden stabbing pain in my abdomen caused me to jerk forward. I leaned back again slowly, pulling a white handkerchief from my coat pocket and dabbing my forehead, which was damp. Then I placed one hand on the back of the seat in front of me to steady myself and turned and looked out the window, feeling much too hot.
There was a man marching along the railroad embankment. No, more than that, a soldier; a soldier marching with his head down and a rifle slung over his shoulder. I squinted and stared, then blinked and stared again. Her grandfather. Of course! It was the girl’s grandfather, off to meet the German onslaught; marching off to save Paris and France. How young and handsome he looked, though tired and hungry. I knocked on the glass.
Should I tell the girl? Perhaps she could at least wave or throw him a kiss or shed a tear? No, it’s not something to tell, though I feel certain he won’t come back. But what is she looking at out her window? Does she see something? That field there on the left, does she wonder if that is precisely where her grandfather fell, the grandfather who disappeared somewhere along the front in 1914? What about that brown house up ahead, might not that be where her father was killed twenty-eight years later by another German Army, lined up against the wall with seven others and summarily shot for sabotaging the railroad tracks? Or did her parents resign themselves to the Aryan conquest, even collaborating with the sharply dressed and swaggering occupiers?
She turned back once and looked at me, a brief, point- blank stare. An ancient longing gripped me by the throat. I smiled, trying not to look too eager. Did I look too desperate? Too pathetic? Could she see the tears coming? She smiled and then turned back to look out her window.
I remained perfectly still, hands wrapped tightly around the cane between my knees. Wishing.
MORE PAIN. Much more, so that I must concentrate on remaining conscious. Keep the eyes open. Breathe slowly. That’s it.
Strange how the pain brings me closer to them: to Giles and Daniel, to Page and Lawton and Tometti; and to the others, to all the forgotten millions, and to all their unspeakable agony.
Just try to imagine it. Even momentarily. Try to imagine the most horrifying, grotesque wound possible and then know with absolute certainty that that precise wound has been sustained exactly so hundreds and even thousands and hundreds of thousands of times, that every possible burning, searing, tearing jagged-edged slice, rip and trauma to the human body has been endured again and again by young men from Germany and England and France and Russia and Italy and Austria-Hungary and Belgium and Portugal and Montenegro and Australia and Canada and New Zealand and India and Ireland and Turkey and Bulgaria and Greece and Serbia and South Africa and Romania and Scotland and everywhere else and they had names like Henry and Karl and George and Sergei and Antonio and Erich and Dominic and Albert and Yuri and Etienne and Alexei and Heinrich and Miklos and Pierre and Janos and Kemal and Dieter and Jean.
Maybe there is a comfort in that, in all that multilingual pain. Maybe in our own final suffering we at least won’t feel so terribly alone, knowing that every possible torment has already been suffered, that even on the most excruciating descent toward our own vile end we are in the company of millions. Millions of people who just like us could not bear the pain for even one minute longer and how could this happen to me I cannot endure it I cannot I cannot.
Millions of them. Can’t you see the faces?
I STOOD UP too early. That’s why I fell when the train lurched suddenly before stopping. A young man helped me to my feet. Then the woman stood before me, holding out my cane and my leather bag. I thought she was going to say something but she didn’t; she just smiled shyly, as though sorry for me. I thanked her and sat down, waiting until everyone else had gotten off. From my window I watched as she walked quickly across the platform and into the crowd. Then I stood and made my way to the door.
NUMBERS. I remember the numbers. The clean, crisp and unyielding numbers. The irreproachable godforsaken numbers.
Verdun, February 21, 1916. One million Germans attack along an eight-mile front. (Watch them coming.) In the first five months 23 million shells are fired. (Listen.) Ten months later, 650,000 men are dead. (Kneel.)
It’s a draw.
Battle of the Somme, day one, July 1, 1916. Following a massive seven-day artillery bombardment, 60,000 British troops, fortified by tots of navy rum, emerge from their trenches and start across no-man’s-land, walking. Within hours, more than 20,000 are dead. (20,000 mothers, 20,000 fathers, 20,000 letters home, 20,000 headstones, how many sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and lovers?) Four months later the British dead totals 100,000; French, 50,000; German, 160,000. The British l
ine has advanced six miles, less than the intended gains of the first day. Count ’em: one, two, three, four, five, six. Or 51,666 men a mile; twenty-nine men a yard; nearly ten men for every twelve inches. One man every inch and a quarter. A limb every few centimeters. Blood every millimeter. Tears every… every what?
November, 1918. Armistice. Final tally, estimated combat-related deaths only (bullets, shells, bayonets, knives, gas, bare hands): Germans: 1.8 million; Russians: 1.7 million; French: 1.4 million; British: 900,000; Italians: 600,000; Austrians/Hungarians: 1.3 million; Romanians: 340,000; Americans: 50,000 (and another 60,000 to influenza); Australians: 60,000; Canadians: 60,000; Bulgarians: 90,000; Indians: 50,000; Serbians: 50,000; Belgians: 50,000; Turks: 330,000…
In November came the Armistice… The news sent me out walking alone… cursing and sobbing and thinking of the dead.
—Robert Graves, British Army.
WORLD WAR II begins in 250 months. Count ’em. One, two, three, four…
SOME NUMBERS are more interesting than others. In 1919 a row of rifles and bayonets was discovered protruding from the earth at Verdun, where two dozen French soldiers were buried (alive?) in their trench in 1916. You can still see them, pointing to the sky. The French call it the Tranchée des Baïonnettes.
There are other names for it too.
I FOUND the memorial without much trouble and parked the dark green Fiat I had borrowed from my hotel on the gravel shoulder of the road, which was still rural but now lined with much larger trees. Everywhere the trees were taller, dwarfing my memories. I was glad for that.
Losing Julia Page 34
