Edna Mae, who had been piling up dirty plates at the end of the table, stopped and sank into the chair next to me.
“The radio goes to static. Then silence. No Ray Charles. No announcer. We leap for the volume knob. Nothing. AFN is missing in action.” He turned to me. “Armed Forces Network is our lifeline out there. All over Europe, in fact.”
Jeez, as if I didn’t know.
“And no TV either. All we can do is wait. The radio crackles and we hear, ‘President Kennedy has been taken to Parkland Hospital.’ Nothing new. And then, ‘All normal broadcasting is suspended. Stay tuned.’ We’re up, Tom and I. Was it an assassin? Some nut? A conspiracy?” He paused, his voice grew metallic. “The first shot in war, a modern Archduke Ferdinand? We. Don’t. Know. We have to assume the worst. Protect our men. And safeguard military secrets.”
Jack looked directly at me. “You may not know this, Ann, but we keep thermite, a mixture of aluminum and iron filings, on top of our safes, on everything of value. You plant a blasting cap in it and set it off, and at three thousand degrees, it’ll burn the whole works—safe and everything inside—right through the floor, into the ground. Everything. If we’re ever overrun, the enemy gets nothing.”
That I didn’t know.
“We begin securing all our documents, equipment, everything in the command shack that could be of value to the enemy.”
Ed nodded. “And your job is to mobilize your men without creating panic, right?”
“Right. The announcer repeats the old bulletin. Fifteen minutes pass. A half hour. An occasional bulletin crackles. It’s serious. It’s worse. Mrs. Kennedy is okay. She’s with him. The Texas governor, Connally—he’s been shot too. Nothing’s clear. Finally, ‘President John Fitzgerald Kennedy died today at 1:30 p.m. central time.’”
Of course, we all knew what happened, but we were captivated by Jack’s first-person Cold War version. Edna Mae gripped my hand. She sucked in her breath at his next words.
“This is it. We start setting in the blasting caps.”
Jack swept his eyes around the table. “I direct my men to put thermite on our tanks, APCs, anything that moves. We scope out locations. Position them in the woods. Camouflage them. Prep the guns. If nothing else, we’ll create havoc for the Czechs when they storm the Danube Bridge.” He mapped it out on the tablecloth. “And all this time, Bonner and his men are land-marching toward Camp Whalen. He has no inkling. We make plans to disable his tanks the moment he arrives.
“Next thing we know, Czech jets buzz the border, turn back, sweep in again.” He put his hands to his ears, feigning protection against the screaming planes. “The Czechs have scrambled their whole doggone air force. Our West German allies strap on their World War II helmets.” He stifled a grin at the mounting absurdity. “We check and double-check our side arms. At the surveillance posts, our troops are glaring across the divide, machine guns at the ready, rifles loaded. The Czechs are armed, glaring back.”
I drained my glass of wine and wanted more, but I didn’t move. Edna Mae still gripped my hand.
“At the command shack, we’re barraged with new reports. Huge traffic jams block the main highway nearby. Cars, trucks, horse-drawn wagons, families dragging handcarts are stampeding west in droves. I speak German, so I sprint outside, wade into the middle of the mess, and buttonhole the first guy I see. He’s out of his blocked-in car, hands on hips, engine off. ‘War! The American Army is moving north,’ he bellows. What? This makes no sense. We are the American Army. The man slams his car door and stomps off. Others join him, whole families.”
Jack shook his head. “I hoof it back to the command shack. Garbled voices sputter over the radio: The three- and four-stars are trying to nail down the intelligence. ‘Intelligence’ has fled with the German civilians. The MO seems to be ‘When in doubt, scream and shout.’
“We wait. No news. Eventually, the teletype springs to life, chuggachugga-chug. ‘Urgent message for all usareur parties stop All units stand down immediately stop Do not move troops stop Repeat do not move troops stop.’
“So now, we’re frozen in place. For what, our final stand? Custer at Little Bighorn on the Danube? Form up and charge? We have no idea. Neither do the brass. The craziness mushrooms. No clear orders. No factual assessment. We’re all running around with our hair on fire. Suddenly we realize the floor’s shaking. Tanks! I’d know those vibrations in my sleep.”
Jack cupped his hands above his eyes as if peering into the night. “By now it’s dark. The camp’s ghostly. Every spotlight and strobe lit up. A line of tanks rumbles into view. They’re ours. The lead tank’s hatch is open, the commander standing tall. It’s Bonner! They’ve been en route all day. He’s grinning ear to ear.”
Jack breaks into a full laugh. “So what’s his first comment? Get this: ‘Where the hell’s Germany going? The whole damn country’s clogging the roads. I hope that wasn’t a new Mercedes I flattened.’
“I wave him down from his horse. I don’t know where to start. ‘They’re, we’ve . . . the president’s been shot. Killed!’”
Jack picked up his wine glass and took a long, slow drink. “In short, Colonel, when you ask about our morale, I’d say it’s great. But frankly, the news rattled us all. Americans. Germans. Czechs. Everyone geared up for war.” He let out a long breath.
Ed broke the silence. “And of course the whole confrontation was self-perpetuating. The Czechs were spooked by the ‘American Army’ on the march—Bonner and his company—so they scrambled their air force to counterattack, right?”
“Exactly!” Jack nodded. “The Czech air show convinced us the assassination was volley one in World War III, so we started repositioning our tanks and APCs. That caused the Federal German Border Guard to mass along the line, muzzles loaded. That frazzled the Czechs, so they did another flyby. The tanks and the air show sent the locals fleeing for their lives. We were all caught in a vortex of ignorance. In short, we all set our hair on fire. The good news—we did stand down. We didn’t set off the thermite. Or charge over the bridge with everything we had.”
“Or start another war,” Ed said. He jumped up, refilled our wine glasses—all of them dry—and lifted his in salute. “A toast to the rewards of confusion, inaction, and what? Comic relief? Or the unseen hand of the benevolent God above.”
It was late, and Edna Mae hadn’t been able to tear herself from the table. But she still had dessert to serve as well as cappuccino or espresso, our choice. No proper colonel’s wife sends guests off without dessert—in this case, my favorite, cherry pie. (“Special for you, dear,” she said. “I remembered.”) And in Italy, no proper hostess scrimps on the after-dinner liqueur.
I began to fade, but Jack went into overdrive, more effusive than he’d been all week. He and Ed were talking shop—officers in their element. Jack was on his way up, wasn’t he?
I was about to take my last bite of pie when Jack asked, “Tell me, Colonel, how in the world do you minister to a ‘flock’ of soldiers from so many denominations? Aren’t they at war with each other?”
I nearly sprayed cherry pie all over the table. What happened to our pact?
“Ah, Jack, that’s the joy in it—dusting away the superficial trappings, the rituals and covenants and dogmas, and breathing life into the core values that unite us as Christians.”
Ed had been trained in the nuances of every major Protestant faith, he said, and rattled off denominations as if they were his own children—Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, and a number of others. He told us about unnamed commanding officers who had tried to swing his ministry toward one sect or the other and about the demands of trying to serve both officers and enlisted men. “Every day is a new challenge. That’s what keeps me energized.”
Despite the years I had known the Kirtleys, I had no idea what he did day to day. Silently, I applauded Jack for his ability to draw the chaplain out. The best part: no attempt at all to divine Jack’s religious convictions. Or mine.
&nb
sp; After coffee and amaretto, Edna Mae escorted us to our rooms—at opposite ends of the house. Our fond good nights? Nothing more than wistful glances. Verona or not, parting was not “sweet sorrow.” After Jack’s riveting account of JFK’s assassination and his ebullience over dinner, it pained me to say “good night till it be morrow.” I wanted to sleep with him.
Thursday, July 9, 1964, Verona. Jack and I headed for American Beach at Lake Garda to revisit the site of my giddy high school exploits. I wore my one-piece bathing suit—no bikini this time.
First thing, he snagged a motorboat, driver, and water skis. “Never tried it. I’ll give it a go,” he said.
Hunkering in the water, ski tips up, he signaled and rose and danced through the wake as if he’d been doing it all his life. I yearned for his athleticism, but I couldn’t risk an embarrassing repeat of my 1956 debacle, especially with the breeze churning the lake into choppy whitecaps. Besides, with my sunburn still tender, the prudent thing was to sit in the shade. I watched him take three or four turns, waving occasionally to show how impressed I was.
He disappeared after a splendid run, returned in a rowboat, and waved me over to the wharf. “Cap’n Jack at your service, ma’am. Care for a cruise?”
He ushered me into the little boat as if it were the Queen Mary and rowed effortlessly, oars glinting in the sun. What a specimen—strong, but not a misshapen weight lifter, wearing the serene smile of a guy truly in his element. For him, it wasn’t a chore, but life at its best. By the time he paused, we were several hundred yards from shore. The sun worshippers and splashing kids were dots on the distant beach.
Jack locked in the oars and flashed an impish grin. “Okay, my dear, I’ve been looking forward to this forever. Ready to go skinny-dipping?”
Uh-oh. In a reckless moment during our correspondence, I’d regaled him with my high school skinny-dipping caper. He teased me, telling me he’d found the “perfect cove” or the “ideal pond” and could hardly wait “to relive 1956 with you.”
Foolish girl, I didn’t really think he was serious. A fourteen-year-old’s romp with her girlfriends withered next to the thought of me at twenty-two swimming naked at a public beach with my twenty-six-year-old lieutenant. Aside from the embarrassment and the message it would send Jack, I couldn’t banish the specter of Edna Mae with her binoculars lurking in the bushes: I knew it, Ed! Just wait till Dorothy and Ralph hear about this!
“Last one in is an old fuddy-duddy,” Jack said, leaping into the lake, bathing suit and all.
Whew! I concluded it was a continuation of our long-running silly joke about skinny-dipping, and I jumped in and struck off swimming. But when I turned to float on my back far from the noisy beach, I saw that Jack was still by the boat, treading water and waving me back like crazy.
“It’s okay. No sharks out here,” I yelled.
“No, wait! You forgot something.”
“Huh?” I swam back.
“It’s ’56 all over again,” he said. “We’re skinny-dipping, remember? First, into the water, next off with the suits. Wasn’t that how your story went?”
His grin mixed allure with boyish anticipation. Despite my misgivings, a part of me did want to fling off my suit. Should I heed his siren call? Or crush this lascivious notion while I could?
I bobbed up above the edge of the boat and surveyed the shore. Eight years earlier, a boatload of horny high school boys zoomed toward us at breakneck speed. Shrieking, we girls had barely squirmed into our wet bathing suits before their boat showered us in a ten-foot wake. This time, no one ashore was paying attention. Still, a nude swim with a grown man?
I teetered on a knife edge between the strict moral code Mom and Dad had etched into my internal navigation system and the thrill of intimacies I had shared with Jack.
Women’s liberation and the sexual revolution had scattered the old ways like dried leaves on a windy day. I believed that women were on equal footing with men when it came to work and play. At the same time, I didn’t “play” in the same arena as Julie and my other friends. To them, I was a sexual misfit. Their subtle influence, though, had greased the skids toward the sexual excursions I had taken with Terry and with Jack, both of whom stoked desires I found increasingly irresistible. So when Jack egged me on, I rose to the moment. “Think it’s safe?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep watch. Need help with those straps?”
“Yeah . . . I guess.”
He unhooked the crisscross straps and slipped them off. I rolled the suit down a smidge. He nodded encouragement. I peeled it over one breast. My shyness vaporized under his sunny smile, and I repressed my hang-ups enough to pull the suit to my waist.
Jack floated closer. Oh, what the heck. Shielded by the boat, I latched my fingers around his neck, and stroked my breasts up his hairy chest.
“Mmm,” he said. “You trying to ignite a fire on the lake?”
“Maybe a spark or two. But wait. I’m just warming up.” I paddled backward, hooked my thumbs in my suit, still around my waist, and tugged at it. It resisted.
He stroked over, cradled my buns, and we sank while he seesawed the suit down my legs, the burn now anesthetized by the cold water. He hitched it off, shot to the surface, and twirled it overhead.
“Jack!” I snatched it and flung it into the boat. “Someone could see you!”
“Guess what, my dear. No one’s watching. But look at you. You’re gorgeous.”
I peered into the water. My breasts shimmered an anemic blue under the ripples. Below, absolutely nothing left to the imagination. But oddly enough, I felt totally free. The cool water excited every curve and crevice. I backstroked away about ten yards and then reversed course into a slow dog paddle. He whipped his trunks off, and his “second lieutenant” snapped to attention. “Whoa, that guy’s dangerous. You’d better calm him down.”
“He’s eager, that’s all.” He pulled me to him and kissed me. Before I could react, he clutched my naked fanny and banged me against his erection.
“Jack! No!” As we started to sink, I shoved at him and backstroked away.
“What? Nervous?”
“You, you poked me! And not a gentle poke, either. Square in the . . . right there. That’s out of bounds.”
“What’s wrong? I thought we were on the same page.”
Naive me, foolish me—that fourteen-year-old girl from a la-la time. No, it was reckless me! In so many ways, I had told him we were on the same page. But this was a new book, and he had skipped too many chapters. “You thought? I’ve told you a dozen times—not yet!”
He banged his fist against the side of the boat.
Too late, I realized I’d been teasing him cruelly. I saw flirting itself as the end game—a physical embodiment of the wordplay I enjoyed so much, not a path that led irreversibly to sex. For Jack, it was a ball game: get to first base, race to second, slide into third, every twitch calculated to speed around the bases, and ultimately score, preferably by virtue of a home run.
He dived underwater and disappeared. For a long time. So long it scared me. I’d made so many promises—with daring behavior, with a look, a gesture, a sigh. No wonder he was beside himself at times, trying to figure me out. I had never considered looking at us through his eyes.
Finally, he erupted in a tower of water, like a whale surfacing, his body half out of the lake. “What kind of game are you playing?” he demanded.
“It’s not a game.” I glanced at our bodies wavering in the water and arched an eyebrow. “Look at us—naked as jaybirds! We’re moving too fast. Can you bear with me as I take it step by step?” I turned my hands upward toward him, hoping he would take them.
He didn’t. “Just know this—it’s impossible to be ‘naked as a jaybird’ with you without longing for much more.”
Somehow, we managed to tug our wet swimsuits on without compromising our dignity any further. Somehow, we rowed back to shore without surrendering to a torrent of angry words. Somehow, our love escaped a burial
at sea in Lake Garda. All in oppressive silence. No helpful partner to fasten my swimsuit straps. No sense of shared adventure in the long paddle to shore.
We drove to the Kirtleys in silence. Jack sat ramrod straight, his hands gripping the wheel as we squealed around corners. A fracas between an indignant Jack and a defensive Ann roiled deep inside me:
Jack: Skinny-dipping was an invitation. I thought it signaled you were ready.
Me: No, for me, skinny-dipping was revisiting a childhood frolic. And you went too far, too fast.
Jack: I’ve tried so hard, Ann. The first night in Strasbourg, I was beside myself with anticipation when you crawled into my tent. In Paris, I thought this must be what heaven is. In the pensione, I was supremely hopeful. But every time—every time—you dashed my hopes. I’m not sure how much more I’m able to take. Or willing to take.
Me: Why the urgency? The peak beckons, but the path itself offers so much. There’s no rush.
Jack: Maybe not for you, but life’s short, how long do—
Me: Not so short that I’m willing to leap a chasm to a place where we can’t unravel yesterday’s decisions.
As I began to see how I had created one unfilled expectation after another, I knew I had to set things right. I said, “Jack, I am so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
The lines on his face softened. “I don’t know.” After a long silence, he let up on the accelerator and added, “But it’s worth a try.”
I wished I were wise enough, articulate enough, strong enough to do and say the right things. Truth is, I was too frazzled, too unschooled to grasp my impact on him. But worth a try? Yes! He was willing.
So somehow, we survived that afternoon. And somehow, we each found an uneasy truce and vague understanding of my sense of violation and of his frustration. We took a couple of steps back. Whereto, now? I didn’t know.
A Rendezvous to Remember: A Memoir of Joy and Heartache at the Dawn of the Sixties Page 20