Prudence

by David Treuer

  “I’m wondering if I’m gonna drink this warm,” muttered one of Dickie’s men.

  “Now, now,” continued Father Paul, with his right palm upraised. “You might be wondering what you can do. You can toast our fighting boys and wish them a speedy return. And then you can go home to your loved ones. They are waiting for you in the here and now. You can go back to them and in the morning you can come to church and pray for the ones who are not here. You can pray and give thanks that our soldiers are out fighting for you and for our great country. They are fighting for God. They are fighting for you. You can pray for them to be strong and to finish this war and come home. Pray for them to come home to us. Amen.”

  As one, they raised their mugs and said, “Amen,” and drank deeply.

  “Now go home and get some rest and come help me celebrate the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ tomorrow morning,” concluded Father Paul. With his tongue he wiped away a bit of foam stuck on his lip.

  The men at the tables collected the mugs and brought them up to the bar and thanked Harris. The village girls walked toward the farm boys, who turned and dived for the girls’ coats. Dickie’s men put on their boots but didn’t lace them. They fished in their pockets for cigarettes and stumbled out the front door, laces trailing. Father Paul shook himself from his reverie and put on his deerstalker and his greatcoat and, still listening to some tune or a message from above, walked lightly out the door. Mary appeared with a large tray and began collecting the mugs off the bar and the empty tables. Once a tray was full, she would bring it into the kitchen and limp back out with another one. Dickie shook Harris’s hand and followed his men outside.

  “Well, I suppose,” said Prudence to no one. “I suppose.”

  Davey Gardner gave her a long look and then put on his coat.

  “Good night, Harris. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, Davey.”

  He left.

  “That was a good one, Harris,” said Mr. Brown. “You make a mean Tom and Jerry.”

  Prudence busied herself by the jukebox. She put on her coat very slowly as Harris and Clarence Brown talked at the bar. Harris handed Clarence Brown his coat. He shrugged it on slowly. Once it was on, he removed the telegrams from his breast pocket. Harris poured himself a whiskey. Clarence handed the telegrams to Harris.

  “You’ll see these home?”

  Harris looked through them quickly. “Ahh. Damn,” he said.

  “You give Felix that package yesterday?”

  “I did indeed.” Harris sighed and drank his whiskey down and put the telegrams in the till.

  “Shame. Till next year, Harris.”

  “In short order, Clarence.”

  “Merry Christmas, Harris.”

  “Merry Christmas, Clarence.”

  Mr. Brown left.

  “I suppose,” said Prudence. She walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, and collected her coat and shrugged it on, staggering a little. But it was as though Frankie’s long arms found her and she steadied. His fingers would be light on her sleeve. His smile light into her shoulder. His long fingers light on her arm. She took her scarf and put it around her neck and trapped her clutch in her armpit and walked very carefully to the front door.

  “Merry Christmas, Prudy.”

  “Yeah, Harris. Yeah. Merry Christmas.” She paused and turned back to Harris and breathed in deeply. “Anything for me? Letters or anything?”

  Harris studied her long and hard.

  “No, girl,” he said, not ungently, “nothing today.”

  “Oh.”

  “Probably because of the holiday, you know.”

  He glanced at the till and then wiped out the glass in front of him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Go on home now. Felix is probably waiting for you.”

  “Good night, Harris.”

  “Good night, Prudy.”

  She stepped out of the Wigwam. Everyone had scattered already. The temperature had dropped even lower, and the warm, moist air spilled out of the Wigwam around her in a thin fog.

  “Sweet Mary, mother of God,” she whispered. The air felt sharp in her lungs. She looked up and down the street and over toward the depot. No one was out. She could see the lights—some electric, some kerosene—shining here and there between the trees, spilling over the mounds of snow. The sodium light outside the Wigwam bronzed the road. She shifted her weight and wrapped the scarf tighter around her neck. The wedges of her Mary Janes squeaked in the compacted snow. She pulled her coat to her body and began following the path through the mounded snow along the side of the Wigwam around to the back.

  “Hey, Prudy, you okay?”

  Prudence looked up and saw, over the lip of the snowbank, Dave Gardner leaning from the window of his Ford Eight with the headlights off. It was hard to make out his face but the sodium light flashed off his glasses and she saw a cigarette arc out of the open window.

  “Davey boy, shouldn’t you be home by now?”

  “She wouldn’t start. Not right away.”

  “Ahh.” Prudence teetered a little and then stood straight.

  “You headed home?”

  “Round about,” said Prudence.

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “If you say so, Davey.”

  “You must be cold.”

  “I’ve been warmer.”

  “She’s got a heater.”

  “You don’t say. You got another one of them smokes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, then.”

  Prudence held her arms out to the sides to steady herself and took a step toward the car. Her foot punched through the mounded snow up to her knee.

  “God, I hate it here,” she said.

  “Easy, Prudence.”

  “I got it. I got it. Just why does it have to be so goddamn hard?”

  She took another step and then another, until she stumbled onto the plowed roadbed. She got in the passenger’s side and slammed the door after her.

  “Wow.”

  “Right? Here.” Dave Gardner lit two cigarettes and handed one to Prudence.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  They smoked.

  Prudence leaned her head back against the seat rest and then pulled it forward again. Then she bent down and unbuckled her shoes and put her feet over the heater.

  “Whooeee.”

  “Your feet must be freezing.”

  “Oh,” said Prudence, as though noticing them for the first time.

  They smoked in silence a while longer.

  “This’ll pass,” she said, looking first at her cigarette and then out the window.

  “What will?”

  “This.” Gesturing again. “That.” Again. “All of it.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s got to. It just has to.”

  Dave Gardner pulled on his cigarette again and then unrolled the window and dropped it out.

  “Listen, Prudy.” He turned to face her. His right knee pointing toward her. “I was—”

  “Okay.”

  “You look so—”

  “I said okay. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He paused. “You sure?”

  “You’re sweet. Just not inside me, okay. All right?”

  “Okay.” His voice was very small.

  Prudence undid the belt and unbuttoned her coat.

  Dave Gardner removed his coat and unbuttoned his trousers.

  “Did you take yours off?” he asked. “Did you take them off?”

  “I’ll just pull them to the side,” she said.

  “I can’t see.”

  Prudence reached out to Dave Gardner with her eyes closed. She saw Frankie standing in the woods, his hands shaking. And
then she saw Frankie standing in the door to the maid’s room off the kitchen, where Emma tended to her after the shooting. And then the small lighted window of the boathouse and Felix looking out from under the curtain across the river. She opened her eyes.

  “You poor boys. You poor, poor boys,” she said thickly. She found him—stiff, quivering—with her hand. “Let me help you.” His cock was rigid and Davey looked down on it, pink and thick, in surprise.

  “Oh, God, Prudy. Oh, Jesus.”

  “Not on the dress!” she screamed, and released him from her hand as the first jets of cum arced out. She scooted back against the door. “Watch the dress! The dress!”

  Davey Gardner turned violently and stubbed his cock out against the icy seat back.

  After a moment. “I’m sorry, Prudy.”

  Another long pause. A car went by on the highway.

  “You’re sweet, Davey boy.”

  “Smoke?”

  “I’d better push off.”

  “I can drive you as far as the turnoff. The Ford won’t make it out to the camp.”

  “Naw. I’ll make it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’ll make it somehow.”

  “It’s cold out there, Prudy.”

  Prudence bent low and strapped her feet back into her Mary Janes. She opened the door and tumbled out onto her feet. She reached in and found her clutch on the seat.

  “Merry Christmas, Davey.”

  “Merry Christmas, Prudy.”

  She shut the door and stood there facing the car until Dave Gardner put it in gear and drove around her, out to the street and then out onto the highway. When she was sure he was gone she turned and stomped her feet back down in the holes she had made before in the snowbank, as if she were fitting pegs in a cribbage board.

  She rounded the back of the Wigwam.

  A small figure sat forlornly on the back steps next to the woodpile, bundled into a thick coat.

  “Gracie?” Prudence, her heart beating fast, stepped closer. “Gracie?”

  A match flared. Mary. She lit a short corncob pipe and drew, the bowl glowing red.

  “Oh, you. What a dance, huh?” said Prudence.

  Mary said nothing.

  Prudence stepped closer to her. She could see the lines around Mary’s mouth when she pulled on the pipe. She couldn’t be older than twenty-five. Twenty-six?

  “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” said Prudence as she reached past Mary and took hold of a paper sack buried in the snow on top of the woodpile. She opened it quickly and shook out a pair of woolen long johns, a pair of wool socks, and a pair of galoshes. She kicked off the Mary Janes and pulled on the long johns quickly, followed by the socks and the galoshes. Then she put the Mary Janes in the bag, along with the clutch, tucked the bag into her armpit, and shoved her hands deep in her coat pockets. Mary watched her but said nothing.

  “Merry Christmas, Mary.”

  Mary drew on her pipe.

  Prudence turned and headed for the road. It was terribly cold. Her galoshes sounded like logs banging on the frozen macadam. The road was gray between the mounded snow on either side. The snow glowed between the trees. The stars were out. It must be so cold and lonely up there. So very cold. But it was the same air. It was the same air up there as down here. Prudence closed her eyes and steadied herself. She saw Gracie’s little grave behind the Pines, quiet and quietly covered with snow. The same air that flowed over Gracie’s grave flowed around up there, after all. Five miles up and five miles down. It made no difference. She felt her soul swoon a little. She recovered it and kept on walking.

  NINE

  MIDLANDS, ENGLAND—EARLY DECEMBER 1944

  Frankie was suspended over a large table in a harness attached to wires strung to the roof. A bombsight was fixed to the same wires, and he had it pressed to his face. Below him were photographs of the mainland. He crept slowly along the wires, pushing himself with little taps of his feet. He finished and pulled himself back to the start and did it again. The map table was lit by four floodlights clamped to the ribs of the Nissen hut. It was cold. There was no heater in the map room. Frankie blew on his fingers. A few more runs. A few more and he’d quit. He closed his eyes and saw, once again, the man tucked into a ball, arms clasped around his knees, spinning slowly over the top of the right wing. He opened his eyes to make it stop.

  There were no runs that morning because of the weather, and Molesworth was unusually quiet. No prep, no returning planes. No battle orders fluttered from the bulletin board outside the briefing room. The wind picked at the metal skin of the hut, and the light drizzle hitting the metal sounded like low radio static. It was calming. He should go back to barracks. His fellow officers—the pilot and copilot, navigator and engineer—were all in London on a four-day leave. The enlisted men were being hosted at Moulsford Manor on the Thames. Half of the squadron was gone. He should go back to barracks. He needed to work on the letter. Usually the room he shared with three other officers was too crowded for anything but reading. The enlisted men had it worse: twenty men to a barracks.

  The map table was useless, really, except as a diversion. Their actual objectives were never divulged to the crew until a few hours before each mission. The crew was briefed separately from the officers, and they wanted to know mostly if it would be a milk run or not, how long the fighter escort would last, whether the objective was heavily defended. The officers got more detail but their questions were much the same: How far? How long? Where to? What kind of flak? Would they be dropping high or low? Would they have a fighter escort or not, and if so, for how long? The table maps didn’t help with any of it. They showed Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland from 30,000 feet over clear skies in flat black and white. They didn’t account for any of the variables he learned about in bombardier school in Texas. Altitude. True airspeed. Bomb ballistics. Trail. Actual time of fall. Ground speed. Drift. Not to mention the reality of combat itself. Flying in box formation and bad weather, fighter attacks, flak cover. Still, Frankie spent his free time suspended over the maps, memorizing cities and rivers, fields, villages. Hoogstraten, Eksel, Astene, Rijkhoven, Borlo, Redu, Coulonges-Cohan, Nobressart, Hunawihr, Lourmarin, Coulon, Treignac, Belvès, Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, Hunspach, Domfront, Lisieux, Fécamp. The bigger towns and cities were often the ones they studied for the actual bombing runs. Caen, Brest, Dieppe, Rouen, Paris, Lille, Antwerp, Schweinfurt, Aachen, Stuttgart, Lübeck, Bremen, Dresden. He studied these, too.

  Frankie had been at Molesworth, part of the 303rd “Hell’s Angels,” since summer. It was only then that he understood why bombardiers were so badly needed. Only after he’d become one of the Hell’s Angels and shouted “Might in flight!” along with the rest of them and fitted himself into the catbird seat and they took off to the northeast, circled into formation for an hour, and then crossed the North Sea and into Holland and the black flak bloomed around him, and he got to see it all from behind the Plexiglas bubble in which he rode. Got to see the flak to the sides and below and saw the blinking, ragged yellow lights of the 109s and 190s coming in high twelve o’clock—that he understood why: nothing but the thin Plexiglas, strong enough only to stop “birdshit and rain,” according to the experienced bombardiers, separated him from the great beyond. Bombardiers died often.

  In Florida, too, in the last stage of training, they’d been grounded by bad weather, and the officers and enlisted men sat in their barracks and smoked and argued about what to name the plane that was supposed to carry their crew through the war. Naming the plane was usually a pilot’s honor. But Lieutenant Adams, whose family owned a furniture store in Harrisburg, had never named anything in his life but his dog, whom he’d called Blackie because she was a black Lab. Frankie was sitting quietly off to the side, the flight manual across his lap. During a lull in the argument, he recited, without looking up: “‘As he spoke, the earth-encircling lord of the
earthquake struck both of them with his sceptre and filled their hearts with daring. He made their legs light and active, as also their hands and their feet. Then, as the soaring falcon poises on the wing high above some sheer rock, and presently swoops down to chase some bird over the plain, even so did Neptune lord of the earthquake wing his flight into the air and leave them.’”

  Sergeant Riggle, the left waist gunner, removed his cigarette from his mouth and ashed into the Coke bottle he held. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means: How about Neptune’s Bitch? It’s from The Iliad.”

  “Sold to the highest bidder,” said Adams. “Neptune’s Bitch,” he mused. “Very nice.” When the time came they found a member of the ground crew to paint a mermaid holding a bomb overhead, her blond hair mostly, but not completely, covering her breasts.

  At Molesworth, Frankie was surprised by many things. To start, on his first night there was gear scattered around the barracks and they didn’t know which bunks had been claimed. The member of the ground crew who’d shown them to the barracks said, “Don’t worry about it. They won’t be coming back, so take your pick.” The next day they were woken at 0300 and told to report for briefing. The commander lifted a sheet off an easel and showed them their objectives—the rail yards at Rouen. He covered the mission in all of ten minutes. Within half an hour they were on Neptune’s Bitch. By 0400 they were circling Molesworth, getting into formation. At 0800 just after they reached the coastline of France, they flew into flak. The plane shuddered as the flak burst in the middle of their formation. The plane jumped and dived, and when there were flak bursts above them it rained down, pinging against the thin aluminum skin of the plane. No one—not the pilot or copilot or ball turret gunners, the waist or tail gunners or the navigator—had as good a view of those black, powdery blooms that were bursting all around them as Frankie did. And all he could do was watch. When they were ten minutes away from the target, he and the pilot commenced preparations for the bombing run. At five minutes out, control of the plane passed to Frankie.