He helped her with the cart in the late afternoon and early evening and she talked him into holding the frame that held the photograph of the nude woman. You are a good advertisement. Young strong American. We will sell one thousand. He didn’t want to be an advertisement but he did it anyway, holding the frame and walking beside her, holding it forward to the men who could not help but look and to the women who could not help but look. He was embarrassed the first time she asked him to do it but that fell away and he carried the photograph with more salesmanship each time, raising it high and calling attention when no one seemed to care. Tugging at the frame with fake strength to show the durability of Ella’s creations. Offering pricing deals that she did not authorize and she would tug at his arm and yank him close to her. Scold him and then snap the frame from his hands and put her mouth on his to shut him up. Somehow whatever they were doing together attracted more buyers to the cart and by the end of the week all the frames had been sold. As he had promised their first night together, Nick bought her a big bottle of glue. At an artists’ den in Montmartre he bought several small cans of paint and brushes from a skinny Russian happy to have money for wine and as they strolled through the cobbled streets he made her promise to have new frames ready upon his return.
“You will return?” she asked.
“Of course I will,” he said. She looked at him as if she might believe it.
“But for you to return there must be a departure. And you have not yet departed.”
“No. I am still here. One more day.”
“Then you do not have to leave. There does not have to be a return.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You keep saying that,” Nick said and they stopped walking. Faced one another. She had been telling him each night that he didn’t have to go back. Each night he had said I don’t have a choice and he didn’t want to say it again.
“It is simple,” she said.
“You know the answer. I know the answer.”
“Why must you return? To fill a hole in the ground? There are enough of those.”
“It’s just the way it is.”
“Why?”
He didn’t have a ready answer.
She sat down in the street. “We can go,” she said as she looked at her feet. “Somewhere together. Just go. Where it is safe for the both of us.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why do we have to do what we are told? Why do we have to do what the war makes us do? We did not choose.”
“But it chose us and I know what waits for me,” he said and he knelt beside her. “There is nothing that scares me more.”
She stood. She gathered the bag that held the paint and brushes and she touched her hand to the back of his head and said you will not find me again and that should make you afraid or it should make you feel something.
“I will find you and I will return,” he said as he rose.
“We can go somewhere. And we can live. Somewhere safe for both of us.”
“Are you not safe here?”
She did not answer and began walking. He waited. Then followed her.
“I will come back as soon as I can,” he said.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to.”
“We can leave now,” she said and she stopped and turned. Waited for him. “We can leave.”
It was not what he had ever thought of or heard or imagined. Going where you want with who you want and to hell with the rest of it. He was far removed from who he was and what he had known. In another country and with this woman and he felt himself awakening from a long dream as the hours with her seemed to both stand still and race by. He was in another country where he had been brought to kill and in the midst of that he had found this city and he had stepped away from the killing and the smell of the dead and she was some strange part of all that shrugging off. He tried twice to talk her out of the attic and into a room that he would pay for and each time she gave him a crooked look as if to say you still don’t understand. After the second time he felt small and insulting and said nothing more. Only talked to her and touched her and listened to her as he tried to believe that this was somehow what he had been sent here for. He was far away from the man that he knew but not far enough. He said I have to go back and I don’t know how to make it more simple. And then I will come back to you. She gave a halfsmile. Something patient and empty. And then she said it is not so simple.
8
Nick and his battalion were back and forth from the front for weeks. Seven weeks and two days according to the pebbles he kept in his pocket. Each a day that he survived. Each a day closer to returning to Paris. They were in the middle of relief time when the rest was cut short by the news that the battalion was not returning to the front. The men cheered and slapped one another on the back as if the war was over. The sergeant paused and let them have their moment of triumph before explaining that if you think it’s bad at the front, you ain’t seen nothing yet. We’re going into the forest.
For weeks the Germans had been gathering more and more troops along the backside of a five-kilometer strip of forest on the northern side of the front. It had not been considered a threat at its inception but as the armies stood at a standstill, the forest had become a stronghold for both men and supplies and it was time to move them out as they had steadily crept both men and artillery farther into the woods. Closer to the battle. Several small battalions had been sent to shell the Germans out of the trees but they had been slaughtered. The effort needed more men and more force and Nick’s battalion was going to be a part of the fearsome maneuver.
The men were told to eat and drink plenty of water and restock your kits. We leave in an hour. When the hour was up they loaded into the trucks and drove across the countryside in the opposite direction of the front. The trucks eventually made two right turns and arrived two miles from the forest.
Get out, they were told. We walk the rest of the way.
As they walked a light rain began to fall and they watched the shells rain down on the land that they were marching toward. Scout balloons hung in the sky above the tree line and lightning crashed in the distance like some faint reminder of a natural world. The trench was a hundred yards away from the forest and the rain fell straight and steady as they reached the depleted regiments. Thousands of men were now hundreds and all that was standing in the way of the Germans spilling out of the woods and cornering the French and Americans at the front.
It rained through the night and knocked down the flares. There was no cover and no sleeping. They had expected to attack at daylight but the clouds stayed thick and the rain fell without cease and the orders changed. We will go in the dark. We will slide on our bellies in the cover of night. We will not give the machine guns hidden in the trees the benefit of the light of day. And so they waited and imagined the monsters in the trees.
When night came, they began. The earth between the trench and the forest had long been destroyed. Great caverns and craters and not a single step of flat ground. The rain formed puddles and ponds and created a slick and filthy terrain for the crawling army. One by one they sloughed across the broken earth. Inching through the darkness. Mud in their eyes and nostrils and ears. Mud in their mouths and some lapped at the puddles to quench thirst and the creeping army seemed to become part of the earth itself. Only whispers between them of when to hold and when to crawl again. The rain continued through the night and then an hour before daylight it stopped. By then they were so close to the forest that they could hear the foreign language and hear the clink of metal as machine guns were wiped and reloaded. A thousand men undetected.
The whistle blew and they rose like a burst of nature and delivered the surprise they had hoped for. Rifles fired and others were jammed with the muck but they were quickly on the first line of men and machine guns and they roared and shot and slashed. Their rage echoed through the forest and once they were past the German first
line, the second line scattered them as the bullets came from invisible enemies, the flashes of gunfire coming from the still black woods and the trees splintered and limbs flew and men dropped quickly. They found trees and stumps to hide behind and found their grenades and lobbed them up and through the limbs. Orange blasts rended the dark canvas and gave them a chance. They advanced again and the gunfire shredded them but many continued on and then the Germans rose from their trenches on command and met them.
A storm of violence spread through the forest and in the middle of it all artillery fire began to erupt around them and no one knew who was firing and who it was intended for. The explosions took Americans and Germans and heightened the madness until both uniforms called for retreat and ran for cover. The fractured trees burned and the low limbs held the smoke close.
Bodies lay sprawled across bodies. Those remaining found cover behind fallen trees and in the muck of new craters and held tightly to the wet ground. Disoriented and seemingly lost and so many dead. An uncertainty of what was next. But they had done what they had been challenged to do. They had moved into the forest.
The wounded were dragged to the back of the line and then the others began to dig. Small spades were removed from their belts and they dug homes for themselves and those to come. The rain dripped from leaves and tapped on their helmets and heads as they worked. Exhausted and hungry they sat in their holes with their heads below and tried to realize that something good had been accomplished though that was never an answer that came to any of them until much later.
The water came around and Nick filled his canteen and then passed it over to the next hole. A sergeant he didn’t recognize crawled between them and said drink up. They might be back before the end of the day. We done fucked them up. And we’re not getting any reinforcements until morning so don’t be looking over your shoulder for help.
The forest made him wish for the front. You could see at the front. You knew where you were supposed to be at the front. Everywhere he looked he saw a tree and behind every tree he imagined a grinning man with a rifle and a knife and a grenade.
He drank from the canteen and pulled a tin of some kind of meat from his kit. He had peeled back the lid and pinched a bite between his fingers when another soldier slid into his hole.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Nobody said nothing about jungle warfare.”
Nick ate the bite. Held another toward the man who shook his head and took off his helmet. His hair was in a buzz cut and he bled from a tiny knot at his crown. He pulled a rag from his coat just as a trail trickled past his ear.
“I can’t sit over there in that hole. I see Germans everydamnwhere out here. Jesus Christ. Trees standing and trees down and roots sticking up like broken bones.”
“I find myself missing the wide open spaces of killing.”
“Damn straight. If I’m gonna get my ass busted in two I’d at least like to know where it’s coming from. Feel like I been shoved in a drum and pushed down a hill. I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
“You signed up?”
“I didn’t have nothing else to do.”
“I bet you can think of something now. So can I.”
“You signed up, too?”
Nick nodded. The man with the buzz cut laughed and said at least I got the excuse of being stuck out on a farm in east Tennessee. It’s good most of the time and just pretty as hell. A creek ran through the hardwoods on the upper twenty acres. Can’t see neighbors in no direction. And we got all seasons. Snowpowdered valleys and windswept leaves and pretty dogwood blossoms. Nick noticed the man’s eyes drift as he described the place and he could see valleys and he imagined the sun on the dogwoods and he imagined a dry pair of pants.
But it gets damn lonely, the man kept on. It was just me and my dad. My momma died when I was born. I got two sisters. Millie and Addie. But they’re older and both ran off with the first boy that come sniffing around. Just me and him in this four-room house my granddaddy built. Got a square porch that reaches out on all sides. We didn’t have nothing but forty acres but we couldn’t handle nothing more anyhow. Used to have about three hundred in the family but my granddaddy pissed it all away. Son of a bitch loved to gamble but he wasn’t no good at it. My dad said he’d lost more in one little smoky room than most folks could lose if they lived twice over. Lost the deed to every single acre. Only decent thing he ever did was build that house and make a deal that me and daddy could stay on the land and try to make a living. Maybe if I had three hundred acres I wouldn’t be sitting here. The man looked around and said I bet this could be a pretty place without all the shit.
Nick slid down in the hole some. Lay back.
“My dad told me not to come,” the man said.
“Mine too. I think now that was good advice.”
“Yep,” he said and he looked down at his mudcovered boots. His mudcovered knees. “The hell of it is I did damn near every other thing he asked me to do my whole life. Never fussed none about the work. Never hardly got a hair out of place. I can’t even remember now what made me want to volunteer. And I sure as hell can’t remember why I wouldn’t let him talk me out of it. But I wish I would have because we ain’t getting outta here.”
“It could be worse,” Nick said.
“How the hell you figure that?”
“Have you ever seen them come around grabbing up guys for the tunnels?”
“Yep. They always get the new ones cause ain’t nobody else dumb enough to go. Ain’t nothing but a place to dump bodies.”
“Then see?”
“See what?”
“It could be worse.”
“I’d just as soon run out of this hole naked with nothing but rocks to throw as to go down in them tunnels. I’d have a better chance that way anyhow. I ain’t never heard of nobody coming back after going under.”
“I don’t think that many do.”
“But it seems damn near about the same in these woods. I can’t see us getting outta here.”
“We might,” Nick said.
“Look around. I been lost in the woods before and it’s scarier than scary. You ever been lost in the woods?”
“I can’t remember a time I’ve been in the woods.”
“Then maybe that’s why you don’t look so spooked. Except for that hand of yours,” he said and he pointed.
Nick hadn’t noticed. He’d come to accept that his hand was going to shake and he hoped that it would stop whenever he needed it.
“Don’t be fooled. I’m spooked,” Nick said.
“I got lost in the woods when I was a boy and you don’t forget that shit. I was out hunting and trying to track down a deer I shot. Followed the blood trail and quit looking where I was going. Next thing I knew the sun was getting low and I didn’t know where the hell I was. I hollered but I was too far out. I kept on hollering though but that didn’t keep it from getting dark and all kinds of shit moves in the dark. Stuff that’s there and stuff that ain’t there. It can be a rabbit or a squirrel shuffling around but when it’s dark it sounds like a damn bear or something else willing to rip your guts out. All I could think about was falling asleep and waking up to a bunch of coyotes chewing at my stomach. It’s crazy what your mind can do to you. I always thought it was supposed to be your friend but it’ll give you up quick as anything. Especially when you can’t see.”
Nick nodded. Being lost in the woods didn’t sound much different to him from being lost at home. He put his shaking hand behind his head and rested on it.
“And we can’t see,” Nick said.
“Hell I was more scared than I’d ever been and it was my own woods. But that ain’t nothing compared to this. I didn’t have no choice that time but to gut it out through the night and soon as I could see I started running and hollering. Fired my gun. But my daddy and a bunch of men was looking for me and we figured it out. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like that again but I was wrong. I can’t believe you never been in the woods.”
“I’m i
n the woods now.”
“Yeah. We all are, ain’t we? I just don’t see many of us getting out.”
“Stop saying that. You’re going to have to get out of this hole if that’s what you want to talk about. I’m doing enough thinking about dying on my own without you reminding me of it.”
“Sorry, pal,” he said. Nick expected him to sit. To change the subject. But he was beyond that. He was beyond talking about anything that didn’t concern living and dying and surviving a night in the woods.
“Talk about something else. You might not make it out of here and I might not either but it doesn’t have anything to do with us. It’s not about who is the best shot or who is the strongest or who has some special skill for cutting a man’s throat. It’s about good luck or bad luck and that’s it. So there’s no point in talking about it.”
“What you want to talk about then?”
“I don’t give a damn. Talk about the rain. Or your goddamn fingernails. I don’t care.”
They both looked around the hole. Up at the dripping trees.
“I don’t want to talk about the rain.”
“Then don’t,” Nick said. He felt around in his coat trying to find a cigarette though he knew he didn’t have any.
“You think they’re gonna hit us back today?” the man asked.
“Probably.”
“I can’t think of nothing else to talk about.”
“Then let’s don’t talk.”
“If I don’t I’m gonna go crazy.”
“Then talk. I don’t care. Talk about whatever you want to talk about but I don’t have to talk back.”
“Nope. You don’t. You ain’t a whole lot of fun.”
“I’m not trying to be fun.”
The man with the buzz cut opened his coat and held his hands inside.
“You got a girl?” he asked.
Nick Page 5