by Ava Miles
“Trying to be…tough,” he rasped out. “You…wanted…to celebrate.”
“Not like this,” she said, her brow wrinkling.
He felt her small hand make soothing circles along his spine. Closing his eyes, he focused on that small comfort and on filling his lungs with oxygen. It felt like an eternity until he could stand up straight, and even then his lower back hitched after being in one position for so long.
She took his face in her hands, and he had to focus to meet her gaze. “Don’t ever do that again.”
Anna the Tiger stood before him, and he simply nodded.
“Can you get to the curb?” she asked. “I’ll go get the car. You sit.”
There was no way he was letting her go alone. “I’m coming with you.”
“You look like you’re going to fall down,” she said. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“In that crowd?” he asked. “Forget it. Anna, I marched in the Vosges Mountains nonstop for days with barely any food and water. Trust me, I won’t pass out.”
He had to protect her from those idiots taking advantage of the crowd and the spirit of celebration. How many women had he seen kissed and groped? It was a disgrace to everything they’d fought for, and he wanted to knock those guys’ blocks off.
She put her hands on her hips. “Are you really going to fight me on this?”
“Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Fine.” She turned and marched off, her heels clomping against the pavement.
He followed her, keeping his eyes fixed on her blue dress. She was booking it, and he didn’t want to expend the effort to keep up with her just now. By the time they reached the car, she was breathing hard. She yanked open the door and slid inside, not waiting for him to open the driver’s side for her. He took his time, wanting a few more breaths of fresh air before sitting inside the hot car.
When they were both situated, she turned on the engine. The radio droned out news about the war ending, and she immediately turned it off. They rode back to her neighborhood in silence, a contrast to the traffic and occasional revelers in the streets, and he was glad for the break.
When she pulled to a stop in front of the rectory, she leveled a serious look at him. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Leaning across the seat, she kissed his cheek. His mouth was dry, he realized, and no words came to mind. He’d been like this other times, completely shut down, barely able to take his pack off before falling onto his bed roll.
He found the door handle after a few tries and managed to exit the vehicle. Standing, he felt his body shift like it was weaving in place. He waited for the strange sensation to pass before putting one foot in front of the other and heading into the rectory. When he got inside, he went straight to his room and fell face first onto his bed. The silence was more than welcome. It was comforting, and his eyes grew heavy.
Martin was standing on the ridge, the white flag from his mother’s window in his hands.
“It’s time to take it down,” his friend said. “The war is over, and you need to get going with your life. Time to stop sticking my death and every other guy’s death in your face. Hah. Or in the window.”
Leave it to Martin to joke about something so serious.
“I don’t want to take it down yet,” Noah said. “You deserve to be remembered.”
His friend threw the flag at him, and he caught it against his chest. “Remember me by living. I don’t know why you’re making it so difficult. You know what you need to do.”
“The war just ended, and you’re already getting on my case?” he asked.
“Damn right I am,” Martin said. “You’re supposed to be doing something big with your life. Teach people about all that history and book stuff you know so much about so a war like this never happens again. You’ll be good at it. And when boys get into fights like Willie and Brendan did, you’ll be able to break them up and drive home the lesson.”
Martin was heading away from him, harder to see because of the shadows enveloping him.
It was dark when he awoke. He’d sweated through his clothes, and his heart was going to beat itself out of his chest. It took a while for it to pass, but Noah finally sat up and started to undress. Maybe he’d feel better after he sponged off and changed clothes. He couldn’t have slept long. He would take a walk. Think about the dream.
As Noah roamed the halls of the rectory, he couldn’t help but think Martin was right. That maybe he’d really spoken to him in his dream.
Teaching, huh? He thought about that painting of Plato and Aristotle he liked so much. Isn’t that what they’d done? Taught young people. Encouraged them to think for themselves. He would be good at it, and Martin was right. He wouldn’t mind breaking up an occasional fight either, knowing that in doing so, he might help a man choose peace instead of violence later on.
He wondered if Niall would be in the library. No doubt he’d been out celebrating like everyone else in Chicago. The light was visible under the door as Noah made his way toward the room. When he entered, Niall was sitting in his favorite chair, a whiskey in hand. There was no book in his lap tonight.
“You’re not reading?” Noah asked.
“Lost in thought, I guess,” Niall said with a wave of his hand. “I had a lot on my mind after getting back. You look pretty terrible yourself.”
Noah sank into the adjoining chair, not bothering to seek out a book. “The celebration didn’t agree with me.”
“Me either,” Niall said, sipping his whiskey. “You want one?”
The very thought made him queasy. “No thanks. What has you stirred up?”
“The war’s over, but some things are never over,” Niall said, his ruddy face looking years older tonight. “Oh, listen to me. I’m feeling maudlin.”
Noah thought about his dream. “Me too. I’m glad the war is over, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened.” Heck, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do something as simple as drink milk again.
“You likely won’t,” Niall said. “I never have, and I’m a heck of a lot older than you, boyo.”
Niall’s Irish was prominent now, and Noah didn’t think it was all the whiskey talking. “What do you mean?”
“I never told you that I was a chaplain in World War One,” Niall said, folding his hands. “Why would I? It was a long time ago, and I don’t talk about it much. It’s not the kind of tale that would make anyone feel better right now.”
And yet he was mentioning it to Noah. He felt honored somehow. “You were a chaplain? Were you in any action?”
His friend nodded. “Oh yes, and I’ve found myself thinking about my time in the war more than I’d like. Noah, I’ve only told my confessor this, but I find I want to tell you. Perhaps I’m hoping for expiation. Or maybe I know you’re one of the few men I can tell who would understand and not judge me.”
Noah sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “I would never judge you.”
“I know, and it’s hard for me even so.” Niall downed the last of his whiskey. “When I was a chaplain, I mostly did what I’d expected. Comforted the dying. Said prayers over the dead. Gave pep talks to soldiers when their own will was flagging. Steered them clear of moral dilemmas so they could do their duty. That sort of thing.”
“I imagine you were good at it,” Noah said.
“I was, but the Germans overran the unit I was with one night. One of our soldiers died to defend me. Private George Wallins. God rest his soul. He stepped in front of me without hesitation when they broke through the door. I caught him when he was hit, and we fell to the floor together. The soldiers—there were two of them—stood over me, and the one with the hard eyes raised his pistol. I knew he meant to kill me. Suddenly I was groping Private Wallins’ body, looking for his pistol.”
Noah held his breath.
“I shot the one who was going to kill me first,” Niall said, pressing his hand to the bridge of his nose. “I looked at the other solider, and
in his eyes I could see him deciding whether to run or to shoot me.”
Noah had experienced that same moment many times, with many enemy soldiers. He’d always hoped the guy would run. Had wanted to scream it at him sometimes.
“When the other soldier lifted his pistol, I didn’t hesitate. I shot him too. I was the only man who survived the ambush, and it won’t surprise you to learn the Army didn’t make any notes about me killing those soldiers. Of course, I told them everything that had happened. They weren’t bothered by it and didn’t want me to get into any trouble should the truth get out. I was transferred to a less active area, and after the war ended, I came home to Chicago and tried to act like it had never happened.”
“But you couldn’t,” Noah said, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you as a priest.”
“But am I any different than you?” Niall asked. “You may have killed more people, but you still struggle with the same question. Was it the right thing to do?”
“They were going to kill you,” he stated.
“And yet, I’m supposed to be a man of God, aren’t I? Turning the cheek was the furthest thing from my mind.”
Noah could feel the man’s desolation. “We’ve talked about this, Niall. Your God also talks about an eye for an eye.”
“Which means it’s up to my well-informed conscience to decide if I did the right thing. And therein lies the problem. Oh, I’m so tired of carrying this weight. It doesn’t matter how much I pray or read about war, it still haunts me.”
“You’re a scholar,” Noah said. “And a thinker. What are your arguments that you were in the right?” Maybe he could help Niall find some clarity…and talking this through might help both of them.
“Some days I can justify that God still had a purpose for me,” he said. “Otherwise, I might have missed those soldiers. It’s not like I’d ever been taught how to shoot a pistol.”
Noah nodded. “Exactly. I wasn’t accurate the first time I shot one. I missed. If Martin hadn’t been there…”
“Then I think about those two soldiers—much like you think about the ones you killed—and how they were only doing their duty. But their hard eyes haunt me. That first solider wanted to kill me, and he didn’t even know me. The second one could have walked away but didn’t.”
Noah had seen men like that. “Some men like to kill. The war brings it out in them.” It had crossed his mind more than once that he was lucky Billie was on his side and not the enemy’s. He was formidable in action.
“Does that excuse killing them? Is it still murder like Our Lord says? Excuse me, Noah. My Lord.” He gave a half-hearted smile. “You see why I’ve enjoyed our talks. With the war coming to a close, we’re all going to put one foot in front of the other and try to move forward. Men like you are going to do what the veterans did after the last war. Not talk about what happened. And so we’re all left to our own silent agonies unless we have friends we can talk to in the middle of the night.”
Noah sat back in his chair and propped his ankle over his knee. Niall needed something from him tonight, and as his friend, he wanted to help.
“You told me about that confession thing you Catholics have. Did you do it?”
Niall gave a hearty sigh. “At first I was afraid to. I feared they might sanction me or, even worse, defrock me. But I decided to seek out a priest I’d been in seminary with. He was the kindest of men. Wanted to work with the sick full-time, and that’s no picnic, let me tell you.”
Noah couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to spend all their time like that. He’d seen plenty of people die, and he couldn’t stand it. “So what happened?”
“I told him what I’d done, and he didn’t say anything about it. I thought he might have been surprised or disappointed, but maybe that’s my own lens coloring things. Still he said the prayers over me and gave me a hefty penance. One hundred Our Fathers, but even that didn’t seem like enough.”
“So what happened?”
Niall leaned his head back against the chair, his defeat palpable. “I thought the sacrament would ease my pain, but it didn’t. It was the first time I’d doubted the sacraments, let me tell you, and that’s like doubting one’s faith. It didn’t sit well.”
“No one else can tell you how to feel about something. And they can’t change the way you feel by saying prayers over you either,” Noah said. “No offense, but words don’t mean anything unless you believe them yourself. Although I’m sure that confession thing can be a comfort.” He believed in the power of words. But not like this.
This time Niall leaned forward. “You don’t understand. The words of the sacrament are imbued with the power of God himself. They’re supposed to change us.”
He wasn’t going to debate that. “But not you, apparently,” Noah said matter-of-factly. “Maybe you’re stubborn.”
A glimmer of a smile touched Niall’s face. “That’s why you’re a friend, Noah. You call a spade a spade. I am stubborn. Otherwise, why can’t I find peace? Why can’t I believe God has forgiven me? It was twenty-six years ago, for heaven’s sake.”
Noah didn’t like thinking about carrying such a heavy burden for so long. He was twenty-three now, and if he followed Niall’s example, he might still be having bad dreams when he was forty-nine. That felt like an eternity, and he wasn’t going to allow it to go down that way. Surely there had to be an answer.
He searched his mind as he might a book, looking for the perfect bit of wisdom. But how could he hope to help Niall when he hadn’t managed to help himself? Wasn’t he struggling with the same thing? The search for absolution.
An answer came to him, courtesy of Saint Francis of Assisi, the soldier turned peacemaker. Noah had been reading a great deal of his writings lately. Suddenly he knew what he should say.
“You have to forgive yourself,” Noah said, sitting forward in his chair in his eagerness. “You did what you felt you had to do in that moment. And you have to live with it. Maybe that’s the part you’ve been missing. A confessor and a sacrament can’t give that to you. You have to give it to yourself.”
“You might be right, boyo,” Niall said. “All this time I’ve been asking God to forgive me. Heck, I even asked the two soldiers’ souls to forgive me. I…didn’t think to ask…myself.”
His friend looked vulnerable, smaller and fragile suddenly, in his high-backed chair.
“I hadn’t thought of it either until now,” Noah said in wonder, folding his hands in his lap, as he realized he needed to do the same thing for himself—with Martin’s death and with all of the other deaths he’d been involved in. “You know, I’ve read. I’ve mulled things over. I’ve even taken responsibility for what I did.”
“But we haven’t asked ourselves for forgiveness because to do so, on some level, would mean we admitting we did something wrong.” Niall’s mouth twisted. “I can see why it didn’t dawn on us before.”
Noah felt a smile touch his lips as they shared this moment of illumination, as Socrates might have called it. “I did what I felt was right. Fighting Hitler and everything he stood for. I don’t have to forgive myself for that. But the things I had to do to fight him… Not all of those felt right. They felt…” He searched for the word. “Necessary.”
“A powerful word, that,” Niall said, nodding.
“And you did what you felt was necessary to survive,” Noah said, looking his friend right in the eye. “Personally, I’m glad you did it. I’d have been without a friend otherwise.”
Niall’s chest lifted, and for a moment he closed his eyes. Noah wondered if he was praying and stayed quiet.
“You’re a wise man and a good teacher, Noah Weatherby,” Niall said, finally looking at him again, “and I’m grateful for it.”
There was that word again. “I think I’ve decided what I want to do with my life. I want to teach. History, I think. Maybe I’ll even be able to work in a little philosophy on the side.”
Niall clasped his hands and smiled. “
Bravo! You finally figured it out. I knew you would. You’ll make a remarkable teacher, Noah, and trust me, I have a good sense about that as someone who hires them for our parish school.”
Something calm spread in his chest. Peace. Just like good ol’ Francis of Assisi talked about. And damn, if it didn’t feel good. “I appreciate that, Niall.”
“This calls for a celebration,” his friend said, rising and pouring two whiskeys this time. “Deciding on one’s purpose in life is a big moment.”
They stood, and Noah felt a new camaraderie blossom, one that would span the years beyond the war.
“To all the minds you’ll shape and the lives you’ll touch.”
He thought about how Anna glowed whenever she talked about teaching her students. He’d seen how much of a positive influence she had in their lives. It was one of the things he loved about her. He couldn’t wait to tell her the news.
“Thank you, Niall. And on this day, the end of another war, I want to remember all our fallen boys, in your war and mine.”
Niall’s glass touched his. “And to everyone who died in the wake. May they—like us—be at peace. Slainte.”
“Cheers,” he said.
They threw back the whiskey and sat in easy silence until the first rays of sunshine touched the windows.
Chapter 18
Anna found herself worrying about Noah the next morning as she drank her coffee and had a cigarette. Her eggs lay mostly untouched. His reaction to the V-J celebration had more than troubled her. Was he right about it being immoral to celebrate victory in the face of so much loss? It seemed she’d found one thing he and her mother agreed upon. She’d tossed and turned most of the night, fingering her rosary beads and praying on and off.
In the midst of her turmoil, she’d asked herself what Martin would have done and the answer had been so clear. He would have drunk pint after pint, she imagined, maybe even danced a jig. He might have given a cheeky toast like “here’s to mud in your eye” or something similar. Martin had always loved a good toast.
But then a dark thought had risen. Had the war changed the brother she’d known? Would he have reacted just like Noah did to the sea of people celebrating downtown if he’d lived?