No. 4 Imperial Lane

by Jonathan Weisman

  “Cristina’s right. I apologize,” she said through a shy smile.

  “Don’t apologize to me. You might want to have a word with her.”

  “Those were the worst days of our lives, you see. My mother’s death was so sudden. My father had had enough time to say good-bye to us, in any case. By the time he pulled the trigger, he saw what was happening to us, to his family. He probably felt like a third wheel, or a fourth. Cristina never paid much mind to him. A bit stuffy for a twelve-year-old girl.

  “Anyway, we hemorrhaged money. Funeral expenses—we had to have a big show. It was in all the papers, none too flattering of course. There were lawyers’ fees, taxes…”

  She paused for a while and smoked in silence. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I wanted to hear the rest.

  “Funny, that was when James and Wills really came throgh for us, became friends, I s’pose. They had bought some first-edition Thackerays or some sort that I had sold to Haversham. Paid a bloody fortune for them. The next time Haversham popped round to their shop, they laid it on thick. They’re good at that, sort of coaxed it out of him where the pieces were coming from. They decided to drive down to Houndsheath themselves to try to cut out the middleman. They were supposedly book people, but they bought some objets, I remember, an ivory carving of Wellington, a bronze escutcheon my father used to swear dated back to the Roman invasion, some oil paintings—I never understood who on earth would buy a painting of one of my relatives to adorn their living room. But mainly they were taken by us, by Hans. Don’t ask me why. S’pose they didn’t have children of their own. They’ve been around ever since.

  “Anyway, we ended up here to be close to the hospital, as I’m sure you’ve figured.”

  “Why didn’t you go back to Stoke Mandeville, or whatever it was called?”

  “Didn’t trust ’em. Anyway, Hans fancied the idea of being by the sea. I told him you could hear the waves from the house I had found. It wasn’t really a lie. When the breeze is right, you can. He just never opens the window. We tried to hang on to a full-time nurse, but it didn’t take long to realize that wouldn’t last. You’re only the third volunteer. That’s why we’re not sick of ya.” She gave me a wink.

  “Really, only three? I heard about the one that fancied Wills.”

  “Oh, you heard about him? Didn’t last long. A bridge, really, between the nurse we let go and Italy. Something not quite right about him.

  “And the last one. God, Hans can go on about him. Rode a motorcycle, always getting into trouble.

  “Hans did live vicariously through Paul,” Elizabeth said after taking a deep drag. “He got through the winter. That was alright. I wasn’t taking so many classes then and could pick up the slack.”

  “Wait. So I made it the longest?”

  “But I need you the most, David. You’re the one to see us through to the other side, you know. The last, I’m sure. You should be honored. ‘When beggars die there are no comets seen.’” She stabbed out the cigarette and reached for the pack. “I just hope he’s well enough for the trip to Tuscany this summer. He’d so love to die there.”

  I wandered into Hans’s room that night to read. It was a violation, really. Of privacy, to be sure, but mainly of etiquette, of the tightly drawn world Hans had created for himself. But then again, I always thought I was just some hired help, passing through on eighteen quid a week, doing what was expected of me. Now I discovered I was only the third in a very short line, and the only one to feel the coming of spring at No. 4 Imperial Lane. I was due some license. I went to the top drawer of the dresser, or maybe it was a highboy or a lowboy or whatever, to pull out the next letter in the pile, when the phone rang.

  “David, it’s for you,” Elizabeth called out.

  I shoved the paper letter into my pocket and hustled into the kitchen, a little embarrassed.

  “The hospital,” she said, rolling her eyes as she handed over the phone.

  “Hello?”

  A woman’s voice on the other end of the line said she was calling for Hans Bromwell.

  “Is this David, the volunteer?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to be calling so late, love. Hans here said he’d like some reading material. Frankly,” she continued conspiratorially in an exaggerated stage whisper, “I think he’s looking for a little company.”

  Dearest Bet,

  I apologize for being so tardy with this letter, the suffering of the slothful. The less you do in life, the less you are inclined to do. Writing a letter can be so daunting, especially to one whose life is so bloody interesting. To clear up matters immediately, I have not thrown aside Segolaine, as you so rudely intimated. She is bleeding me dry with her incessant need for affection, but I have not withheld even once—well, maybe once or twice, but I was too pissed to pop.

  I trust that I can no longer scandalize a woman, now married, who has seen it all. Just lie back and think of Lisbon. Isn’t that what that old bat Victoria said?

  I am under dreadful pressure from Sir Gordon Bromwell to get on with my life. I can’t imagine what he means by that, but I am humouring him by at least looking for a job. I believe I told you Julian had gotten a job at a Parisian bank. It sounds dreadful, but it is a regal structure with wonderful art deco and art nouveau touches inside, lots of young lasses to chat up. They run in and out all day doing errands for their bosses. They like nothing more than to be waylaid by a dashing young man who might give them an excuse to stay a minute or two longer away from the office. If I don’t be careful, I might just have to accept Julian’s offer for a post there. Ah, but then Segolaine might get sore. She does have a jealous streak, remarkable for one of such questionable virtue. Maybe I’ll try graduate work, get a D-Phil in something or other.

  I and the Bromwell stash of cash have been able to keep my Segolaine off the streets for some time, though she still dances in some rather seedy locales. She says it’s her art form. I suppose one could call it that. Her customers do get excited by it, though I’m not sure the trousers are supposed to be the body part aroused by art.

  But listen to me, sounding the prude. This is the sexual revolution, the 1970s, and in Paris, magnifique! As Rubashov would say, “The masses have become deaf and dumb again, the great silent x of history, indifferent as the sea carrying the ships.” The opiate has changed, however, to libertine delirium. Better to be a Parisian intoxicated on free love than a Russian, lost on the tide of history, no?

  Simon wishes you well. He’s potentially balking at Tuscany this summer, says Julian is too tiresome even to suffer through wine and pate with under the Italian sun. I really must talk him out of that. If he backs out, I will have no choice but to foist Segolaine on Julian’s family. I’ll need the company. That should spice up matters, wouldn’t it?

  Write soon, dear, and while you’re at it, get the hell out of Africa. I trust you’ve gotten the gist of the place.

  Your peevish brother,

  Hans

  Chapter Thirteen

  The news of João’s escape crackled across the radio in the officers’ club from the agriculture station in Contuboel. From there, it swept through the Portuguese wives auxiliary of Bissau—real news, not just gossip. Lovely Raquel Brito burst from the low-slung building into the bright African sunlight, giddy with the good fortune of being the one to bring Elizabeth the word. Her cotton dress, softened by repeated washing by hand with the harsh lye soap of West Africa, clung to the front of her thighs while billowing behind her. She found Elizabeth in the PX, sniffing a wrinkled tomato.

  Elizabeth had gone on aimlessly after João’s capture and Spínola’s departure, having called off her crusade. Spínola’s halfhearted appeals to Senghor apparently went unheeded, if they happened at all. Elizabeth busied herself cashing João’s paychecks, cooking for Angélica, keeping up with her Portuguese lessons, and trying the language out listlessly on the chittering wives. She had tried to will herself to be useful at the hospital, but she felt like an imposter. There h
ad been a young soldier, recuperating from a bullet to the spine, just below the neck. He was paralyzed from the chest down, with only marginally functioning arms that feathered by his sides as he tried to sit straight in a wheelchair. He had lit up the first time he saw Elizabeth. She beamed back at him. She was lonely. But she could not relieve him of his anguish. They talked about the past. There was no future to discuss. After a week of effort, she never went back.

  She was showing clearly by now; not much was expected of expectant Portuguese wives. At night, she set deadlines for word of her husband’s return. If she heard nothing in a week, she’d go home. The week passed, and she’d give him another week, then another. Soon, two months had passed, then three, then four. By summer’s end, she’d be back in Hampshire, she swore.

  “Elizabeth, Elizabeth, seu marido, your husband, he’s alive,” Raquel blurted out, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her whole face radiating joy. She wanted to throw her arms around the Englishwoman, but Elizabeth just looked at her blankly for a moment.

  “What?”

  “Your husband, they found him. Maybe he found them. I don’t know.”

  “What?” Elizabeth repeated, but this time her face showed comprehension. A smile was breaking out, a smile of disbelief, but joy as well. “What?” she asked breathily. “How?”

  Raquel wiggled her head in a silent laugh. A cute little squeal involuntarily escaped her chest. Then she threw herself forward, wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s neck, and squeezed her ebulliently. “I don’t know. I don’t know. My husband said something about a bread man.”

  For João, it had been shamefully easy. He had crept to the same jeep that he had seen so many times roaring in and out of the agriculture station’s feeble gate. The euphoria of finding Luis had faded a bit. He was petrified he would be caught by Farinha’s men and hauled back to the guerrilla camp to face what his countrymen had done. Head bent, shoulders hunched, he climbed into the back and tried to pull the loose canvas covering over himself. Luis laughed.

  “Doctor, what is the problem? Do you think they care about you that much, or even want you back?” He laughed again. “You must think very highly of yourself.”

  João knew Luis had a point. A commander who had just sustained heavy casualties after a brutal surprise attack could use a doctor, but he would have far bigger things to deal with at the moment than hunting down an escaped prisoner. The camp was a wreck. There were bodies to dispose of, salvage operations to mount, and then there was the matter of appealing to the Senegalese government, which was supposed to stop such cross-border counterattacks. João knew all this. He just couldn’t make himself believe it. He tried to lie as flat as he could, as his traveling companion climbed behind the wheel, let a huge bag of baguettes slide off his shoulder and onto the passenger seat, and started the engine.

  “Suit yourself, man,” Luis shouted over his shoulder.

  João motioned frantically from under the canvas for Luis to turn back around and stop talking to him. Was he determined to let the world know a man was hiding in the back of his jeep? For God’s sake, he thought. Luis couldn’t see the gesticulating. He just chuckled as the jeep got into gear and stuttered into motion.

  The ride back into Guiné was completely uneventful. After forty minutes, the decent Senegalese road had given way to the barely passable Guinean furrow. João had had enough of being slammed around in the unpadded, steel storage space. He was more likely to die of head trauma than meet up with guerrillas again. As Luis maneuvered through the ruts and potholes at a crawl, João uncovered himself and climbed into the front.

  “Watch the bread, man,” Luis shouted, reaching over to make sure Gonçalves didn’t kick it out of the vehicle. “That’s what I was sent to fetch, baguettes, man, not you.”

  Luis didn’t talk like this when Elizabeth was around, João thought to himself, cranky as he struggled to wedge the bread back behind his seat.

  “Hey, grab me one of those baguettes,” Luis demanded, elbowing João playfully. Suddenly João was starving. They split a loaf, still a little warm, as they tossed from side to side. It was already starting to taste of Guinean dust and clay, a taste João knew well from his meals at the agricultural station.

  When the jeep passed through Contuboel, the children ran out to ask for bread. Seeing João in the passenger seat proved far more interesting. They dashed ahead.

  By the time Luis swung the jeep up the slope and through the gate, word had reached Menges. He stood there, in the dusty flat landing outside the complex of buildings, smiling like an imbecile.

  “Dammit, João, you lucky bastard,” he said as the doctor walked up to him, beaming. The two men embraced.

  The helicopter ride back to base took a half hour at most. By the time the chopper touched down, Colonel Brito had taken full credit for the doctor’s liberation. His only regret, he said with a shrug, was that he could not bring helicopter commandos to rescue João, but he said he had rightly calculated that escape would be easy enough, once Esquadrão 121 had done its job. Elizabeth lost track of Brito’s boasts. She had more pressing concerns. How exactly was she to greet this man? What was expected of her? A passionate kiss? A look of ecstatic joy or admiration or wonder? Was she to slap him for his abandonment, or take him by the hand and lead him away for sex, right then and there? At twenty-one years of age, she still didn’t really know what she was supposed to do around men, much less her husband, who had disappeared without a trace for a good chunk of their marriage.

  João had not taken the time to shave or cut his hair before leaving Contuboel, though he had showered in the same stall where his wife once confronted a cockroach, a lizard, and a dozen bats. He stepped off the Alouette III, its round, glassed front giving the crowd an early glimpse of their hirsute Robinson Crusoe. He was immediately mobbed. Men and women, in uniforms and dresses, rushed to slap his back, mock his beard, and welcome him home. Elizabeth stood on the outside, gingerly waiting for the crowd to clear.

  João, tall and lean, searched for her and caught her eye. The crowd parted. He approached her hesitantly, looking at her rounded belly for a good long time, and then pulled her to his chest.

  “I didn’t think you would stay.”

  They were not the words Elizabeth had expected or had wanted. “I missed you,” “I’m sorry,” or a simple “I love you” would have done nicely, maybe something about the joy of learning she carried his child. He didn’t think she would stay? Was that a hope or a lament? Was he worried or wishing? Well, what did she know? He had just been through a trauma she could hardly imagine, violent deaths, captivity, threats, she was sure, beatings maybe, and escape. What right did she have to expect anything from him? He was holding her. She was smelling her husband, her face buried in his familiar, bony shoulder. Everything would be alright.

  João Gonçalves’s head was spinning. She was plainer than he remembered, her face doughy, her eyes a little vacant, her body swollen. She was wearing one of those ample, formless African shifts the women tailors of Contuboel made, stiff and unattractive, festooned with color to make up for their lack of style. Formless, but stretched tight over her belly. His wife was pregnant, what, four, five, six months? This woman was going to bear him a child, and soon. What was it his father had said? You will have ugly children? Maybe he did deserve better. He was still young at twenty-eight, a physician, trim, fit, and now a combat veteran if not a hero, an escaped prisoner of war. Why wasn’t one of these pretty little things his? Raquel Brito, Paula Pelegrin, Ana Aveiro? Look at the way they smiled at him. Admiration, pity, desire. How did his life take this turn? He felt sick. He held on to his wife like a drunk holding on to a telephone pole.

  “Gonçalves,” a voice boomed, “there’ll be time enough for that. We need you now.”

  Colonel Eduardo Medeiros, the new base commander, clapped a big hand on João’s shoulder. Relieved beyond words, Gonçalves pulled back, locked eyes with Elizabeth for a moment, then walked off with the starched uniforms tha
t led him to base headquarters. It would take hours to be debriefed. They needed it all: the number of fighters who had attacked, the weapons, the look of their clothes, the condition of their boots, the hours and days marched to their camp, the route taken, as best he could remember, the layout of the camp, the sources of supplies, the command, any names he could remember at all. Were there Soviets, Cubans, or Chinese? Did they eat well or were they desperate? Did they drill or train? What services had he rendered? How was he treated? What of his fellow captive, the medic? They had no word of him since the air raid.

  João was eager to share, and he spoke in a great verbal fusillade until he was spent. It was liberating. He felt no remorse for the guerrilla fighters he had lived with and cared for. Many of them were dead already. The survivors would be targeted again with the information he was imparting. Nor did he relish aiding the Portuguese army. He had no belief in the cause, whatever it was, empire, rescue, punishment. He just wanted to talk, to tell his story, and, if truth be told, to avoid his pregnant wife.

  Darkness had fallen by the time Medeiros poured an ample brandy and pushed the snifter across the heavy, shellacked wooden table. Then the colonel walked through a door and returned momentarily, with a straight-edged razor and a white-glazed metal basin.

  “You’re a good man, Major Gonçalves. You’ve served your nation well. Now”—he smiled, handing him the razor—“go find that wife of yours. She’ll be ready for you, if you know what I mean.”

  João shaved, collecting the remnants of his beard and throwing them in the trash, worried that he would clog the sink in the headquarters bathroom. He looked in the mirror and liked what he saw. Then he stepped into the sticky, hot night, surprised by the streetlamps that illuminated the dusty parade ground. By Lisbon standards, the stars were a light show. But they were washed out compared to the heavenly firmament he had taken in for the past four months, outside a town called Kolda, on a guerrilla base darkened each night for fear of an air force that for so long had failed to show, and then had shown as brutally as they had feared.