She smiled around her mouthful, chewed carefully, swallowed, then said, “You’re married.”
He said nothing for a moment, then held up his hands, wiggling his bare fingers. She waited, and he said, “Yes.”
“All officers are married,” she said.
He nodded. It wasn’t quite true, but it was an Army fact.
“Is your wife Haitian?”
“Soon-to-be-ex wife. No.”
Tory wiped her orangey hands across her leg. She didn’t care, but had been curious about what he’d say.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m not married,” she said.
“Ever come close?”
She shook her head no, then said, “Maybe.” Her legs were falling asleep, tingling, sitting in the same position so long. She stretched them best she could from her cradle in the burlap grain bags. Then she said, “Yes, sort of. Not really, but sort of. Something like it, anyway. You know us enlisted, not all get-out formal like you officers.” She half-smiled. “All shackin’-up and doublewide trailers for us.”
“Was he in the Army?”
“Yes. Not now, but then.” She reached for her cigarettes, pulling one out. Marc Hall took the pack from her hands, getting one for himself. She hadn’t seen him smoke before. She lit them both, watching him. Marc smoked like an ex-smoker, comfortable but not unconscious. It made her self-conscious, and she mostly let her cigarette burn down between her fingers. “He’s here, actually,” she said.
“Who?”
“My ex.”
Marc Hall’s eyebrows went up and he said, “You seem to have a strange attraction to Haitian men, Sergeant Harris.”
Tory laughed out loud.
“He’s not Haitian—he’s Philadelphian. Irish Catholic.”
Marc laughed with her, and before he could ask she answered: “He’s an engineer. On the mission ship.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder, in the general direction of Jacmel Bay.
“Oh, you mean he’shere, in Jacmel,” Marc said.
“Funny world, isn’t it?”
Marc smoked, not answering.
“He has a small problem with sobriety,” Tory said. “Sobriety, moderation—fidelity. Fidelity he can’t quite get his hands on.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
The feeling she’d had before came back, the desire to talk. She bit her lip. Her cigarette had burned unsmoked, but she took a big drag from it now.
“He, uh—he did a lot of…You know, to be honest I don’t really know. His best friend dimed him out. Trying to help, or something. A real arrow, that guy. A little naive. You met him, on the boat. Sergeant Scabliagni.”
Marc nodded.
“Scaboo dropped the dime on him, and battalion pissed him. Surprise piss test. Junior came up hot for—” Tory laughed, bitter. “Everything, from what I understand. Pretty near everything, really.”
“Did you know?”
“No. Yes. You know?”
She flicked her cigarette over the side of the truck.
“Yeah, I didn’t know everything. Not nearly. Not even close. I knew he was in trouble, but…not like it turned out.”
“He got put out?”
“It was bad.”
“He got put out and you left him.”
“No, actually. He got put out and left me.”
The trucks followed a long, straight road. The road was brown, sodden dirt and still thick mud in places, from the storm. Out here there was vegetation, green and low then higher and sometimes curving over the road, swaths of grasses and wide leaves. The road finally curved down into a short, shallow valley and then up again to a high place, a flat plain with no trees. They could see now where the mudslides had run, carrying buildings and people off the mountain into the bay.
Tory hadn’t looked back once the truck cleared the ramp of the LSV, hadn’t looked back and beyond to where she knew the mission boat was limping into Jacmel’s small harbor. She didn’t know for sure if Junior Davis was still on that ship but believed it to be true. Dead was a possibility, too, of course. Junior could be dead. But Tory didn’t feel he was dead and if he wasn’t dead he was on the ship. Junior tended to stick to things, one foot planted on a home base. She’d been his home base for two years. She’d thought she’d been his home; but no, she’d been his home base.
Tory didn’t look back when the truck rolled off the LSV, didn’t look back at the mission boat beyond, because looking at the ship was maybe a first step in something. Maybe not, but maybe.Hey, there’s Junior’s boat and hey there’s someone who must know Junior now and hey there’s Junior. Did I mention, Marc, that I shoot Expert? Really. Sure. Let me get into the unsupported prone position here. Watch this.
Or worse. There’s worse.
Hi, Junior.
Hi, Tory.
How’s things?
Good, you?
Good.
Great.
Whatcha up to?
Not much, you?
Not much.
I miss you, New Jersey.
Really? You do?
Yeah. Want to make out?
Okay.
Tory had nothing to say to Junior Davis. Nothing and everything. Everything is impossible—you can’t say everything, so everything is better off reduced to nothing.
Chapter
27
McBride climbed to the bridge, looking for Pastor. She’d taken a radio call from the home mission while he was with Staff Sergeant Wagman. He wanted to hear what they’d said. More, he wanted to tell her what the Army sergeant had promised, how generous the military ship was, the parts and supplies they’d been offered. It wasn’t enough, but he knew it would cheer her, this small stuff. He rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, squinting into the sunlight gleaming across his bridge. The space stood empty, dust motes floating in the brightness. He turned and went below to her cabin.
McBride was weary in step and in the slow plod of his thoughts. As a skipper he needed to be quick on his feet, nimble. He felt neither now, just exhausted, tired past where he could easily push through it, press on. No matter, he thought; he would sleep soon enough. Secure the ship for the day, receive the supplies from the Army, maybe check in with Davis—then rest. Undisturbed, long sleep. He almost salivated at the thought of it.
Pastor’s cabin door stood open and he stuck his head in. She sat on the edge of her bed, a white piece of paper in her left hand. She wasn’t looking at the paper, just holding it, staring at a space on the bulkhead. Her eyes rose to McBride’s as he stepped in.
“Well,” he said, “we’re set. They’re—”
She put a hand up, stopping him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Well, it’s not an engine, but it’s a start. We can camp out here a bit, a month or more. Establish a church schedule. Davis and I can work on the main, see what comes of it.”
She looked at him blankly. “Davis is a half-dead addict. And we don’t have a month.” Her face seemed to shiver. She waved the paper in her hand. It was a notebook page, McBride saw, scrawled on in her handwriting. “They’re coming for us, Paul.”
“Coming for us?”
“A tug. A commercial tugboat from Miami. It’s already through the Windward Passage. They’re discontinuing the international mission. They’ve sold the ship, for scrap.”
So,he thought.Here it is, after all.
“What of us?”
“Stay on the ship, for the tow to Puerto Rico.”
“They can’t leave all these people stranded in Puerto Rico.”
“They’ve made some arrangement, with another maritime mission. They say everyone will be in the States by Christmas at the latest.”
“They’ve got it all figured out.”
“They do,” she said. “They do.”
She moved her eyes to the deck, hovering over nothing.
“I insisted and they agreed to pay you, and Davis if he wants it. To strip the ship
in Puerto Rico. And they’ll fly you both home from there. Or to New York, at least.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” he said quietly.
“Don’t be a fool, Paul. You’re not a young man and it’s an easy paycheck. Through January, I’d guess.”
McBride said nothing, felt he couldn’t. She was pale, paler than normal. She looked sick, he thought. Physically sick. He wanted more than anything to embrace her, to put his arms around her and hold her and reassure and comfort her. But she was sitting, just sitting there forlorn on her bed, and it was awkward.
Finally, he just said, “You did the best you could.”
She raised her eyes again, her doughy face soft and fragile. “I need to be alone, Paul,” she said.
She hadn’t called him Paul in two years, and here she’d done it three times in five minutes. It came on him again, the almost overwhelming need to embrace her. Instead, he turned and stepped out wordlessly, pulling her door closed behind him. He stood alone in the passage, holding the rail outside her door, listening to the distant sounds of the ship around him and the deep silence from her cabin.
Chapter
28
Lorraine was gone, slipped sideways past Scaboo through the cabin door to get breakfast. Junior Davis hadn’t moved from the bed, nor offered a seat to Scaboo. So the young sergeant stood, soft cap in hands at the foot of the bed, feeling like a kid calling on a sick older relative. He supposed he was, in a way.
The two stayed like that, silent and unmoving, almost two minutes. Finally, Junior said, “Say something, Roomdog.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re the one who came in here. I figured you had something to say.”
“I, uh—” Scaboo shook his head. “Maybe I better go.”
“Sure, whatever. Come, go.” Junior waved his arm in the air. “You lack direction.” It was meant to be a joke but neither of them laughed.
“You don’t look good, Junior,” Scaboo said. “Is there a doctor on here? Are you sick?”
Junior stared at him, unblinking. Then he said, “No, there’s no doctor on here. And yes, I’m sick.” He let that hang in the air.
Scaboo forced a smile. He regretted his next sentence as soon as it came out of his mouth. “I thought you might get clean on here.”
“What the fuck is it to you?Get clean, ” Davis sneered. “Fuck you.”
“Hey man, I just—”
“No, fuck you. You just what? You just come to finish me off? Come to drive another stake through me?”
Scaboo put his soft cap on. Very quietly he mumbled, “I gotta go.”
He turned to leave and Junior said, “I’m sick, Steve. Pretty sick.”
Scaboo turned around again, and Junior told him how it really was. There was another wide silence, then Scaboo said, “Are you on medicine?”
“No.”
“You gotta get on something, Junior. You’ll die.”
“Not so sure I’m not dead already.”
Junior Davis hadn’t made it to his final Army physical. This wasn’t hard to do; when the government puts you out the only thing they’re concerned with is property, namely theirs, namely that it’s returned. Leaving the Army naturally is a half-year process of meetings and workshops and physicals. Leaving unnaturally takes only a day. Junior had the vague notion that this day was his bottom, absolute bottom—drunk in the passenger seat of Scaboo’s Jeep, making the rounds of Fort Eustis to clear his hand receipts and turn in gear, Scaboo in the end walking most of the stuff in, obtaining the signatures.
The bottom, though—if there is such a thing—and the physical—if you could call it that—came two weeks later, in the Newport News city jail. The quick trip to jail came after being pulled from the back of an idling Pontiac downtown at 2:00A.M., windows steamed and tailpipe puffing in the frosty night. The police asked the red-faced suit in the Pontiac if he had a wife then sent him home to her. Junior was handcuffed. The physical, such as it was, came because Junior passed out in the back of the police van. His blood was drawn in the emergency room, as he slept it off on a restrained gurney.
He was out of jail in a few days. A nurse came with papers he had to sign before they’d release him. She asked if he’d known and he said yes just to bypass the prepared script. He hadn’t known, though. He hadn’t. Somehow he’d thought—if he thought at all—he was bulletproof. He was a soldier, a fucking good soldier, a one-out-of-ten soldier. His uniform was bulletproof. His skin, his veins, all of it bulletproof.
“A fucking good soldier,” he mumbled, watching the back of the nurse grow smaller as she walked down the cellblock.
A fucking good soldier.
And a good fucking soldier.
Ha!That was funny.
A good fucking soldier—and a good fuck.
“A good fuck,” he said. He ran his open palms across his eyes, pushing the water clear, then making a fist and wringing it into his forehead, driving himself back to collapse on the cell cot.
He’d convinced Tory to meet him at a diner on Ocean Avenue in Norfolk six hours before he sailed with the missionaries.
“Why’d you pick that ship?” she said. The missionaries were going to Haiti. And on this cold, rain-soaked spring morning the word across Fort Eustis was that 7th Group would be in Haiti by Columbus Day. “You could have picked a different ship,” she said.
It wasn’t really true, but he didn’t want to argue.
“Listen,” he said. He reached for her hand but she pulled it back, off the table, both hands in her lap.
“This doesn’t have to be this hard,” he said. She didn’t answer.
In the end, he had to just tell her.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he added, almost frantic. “Doesn’t meananything. It’s just a chance, is all. You should get checked because there’s a chance, but I’m sure…I mean, a chance doesn’t mean anything.”
Tory sat stone-faced because it wasn’t a chance and they both knew it. There was no chance about it. She felt it as soon as he said it, felt it in her, the truth of it and aliveness of it. She sat, stone-faced, because she was bulletproof, too, in other ways, and she sat and deflected the bullets for another three minutes then stood without a word and left a ten on the table and walked out of the diner, into the rain. He tried to follow her out and she turned without looking him in the eye and told him to sit back down. Alone in the cab of her truck she checked her watch: 0800—she’d skipped PT and morning formation to come down here, but the LSV was sailing at noon, to spend the afternoon shooting .50 cal a mile off the Virginia Beach coast. They were preparing for war. No one else in the country knew it, but they knew it. She was a new sergeant and her ship was sailing to war and she intended to be on it.
On the back of the lorry, on the way to the camp, Marc asked, “Did you love him?”
She didn’t answer, but she nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“I trusted him,” she said finally. She was looking at her hands. “Even if a part of me never really trustedhim, I—” She thought for a moment, squinting into the bright, afternoon sun. “It’s a funny thing. I adored him, truly. But I never trusted him in jeans. I trusted him in uniform, though. Because that’s where his true love was. And that was something I understood. Or, I thought so.”
“He wasn’t the first soldier to fool around on his girlfriend,” Marc said, as gently as he could.
Tory smiled. “It’s a little deeper than that, Marc.” And that’s as much as she would tell him.
Chapter
29
The hospital sat on a small plain, a collection of low buildings gathered inside a stucco wall. The poor arrived with minor and major wounds, gangrenous cuts, missing limbs, to deliver babies or cure them; most patients in this hospital, though, suffered AIDS or TB or both. It was why the hospital had been built, on charity money and medicine from the States and the UK. Beyond it a sprawling camp of sorts had grown—permanent, semipermanent, and completely temporary structures pu
shing away toward the forest, filling all the available empty land. There were people from other parts of Haiti living here now, travelers to the hospital, in small stone houses they’d built with no quick intention of leaving, and people living with not more than a newspaper between themselves and the elements. And all manner of dwellings and poverty in between.
“It was much more solid, before,” the woman said to Tory, gesturing with a narrow hand across the field from where they stood, looking out the hospital gate. Her name was Brinia Avril. She was a doctor, a young Haitian in a white lab coat. She had large, silver hoop earrings dangling to a sharp jaw line, sharp cheeks. “The camp is here because the hospital is here. And we’ve tried very hard to keep it sanitary, keep it safe. A month ago, I would have told you it was.”
The tropical storm had loosened the surrounding mountains and brought the mud. The mud had taken out a quarter of the hospital, knocking flat a lower wall and sweeping away two small administrative and storage buildings inside. The storm destroyed a third or half the camp outside the hospital walls.
“How many died?” Tory asked, but Brinia Avril shook her head again.
“I’m not sure how many were there alive, you know? So it’s almost impossible to say how many died. It’s more like, you’re used to seeing certain people, certain faces, during the week, coming and going, feeding a sick relative in the ward, doing laundry, whatever. And one day you remember you haven’t seen that face in a while and then you know, ‘Yes, that’s another dead.’ ”
There was a small, clean hut where Captain Hall would live for the few days it would take to supervise the distribution of the Red Cross materials. He disappeared into it to stow his gear.
“I’m staying, too,” Tory told Pelton. “At least through tomorrow. Come back with a Humvee tomorrow and get me.” Pelton raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
Riddle walked toward them, camera in hand. He was snapping pictures of everything, talking to everyone—whether or not he understood them. Not speaking Creole was no impediment to Riddle; constant conversation was necessary for him—actual communication wasn’t neccessary. He’d found friends, a small boy and smaller girl who must be his sister. The girl was blind, and held tight to her brother’s hand. The boy and his sister had been given a ride on one of the Red Cross lorries. They’d followed Riddle and Pelton for the last hour, walking everywhere with them.
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