The Aeronaut

by Bryan Young

  When I began this story, I had tried escaping heartbreak by running headlong into a war zone to escape it and as different and urgent as this time felt, I knew it was all the same thing.

  And then we arrived.

  Like every other building on the street, the windows were black and the streetlights were out.

  “Are you sure she’s here?” LeBeau said, whispering between panting breaths.

  I shrugged, but took some comfort in the fact that the door had not been kicked in. The knob turned easily in my hand and I opened the door careful and slow.

  Taking in the sounds of the apartment was made more difficult by the ringing in my ears, but I thought I’d caught something from the kitchen…

  Was that a voice I heard?

  Turning my head back to LeBeau, I brought a finger to my lips.

  Tip-toeing inside, the first step inside my home was not accompanied by the feelings I’d hoped for. I wanted my homecoming to feel like the walk of champions, with my wife racing to greet me after our long absence. Instead, I was sneaking like a thief, hoping I wouldn’t be forced to kill a man in my home.

  It was Sara’s voice I heard. She was definitely home, but I hadn’t known her to talk to herself before.

  There was a squealing that masked just enough of her words so that I couldn’t make it out.

  She was making tea.

  And the closer I stepped toward the kitchen, the more I could hear Sara talking to a voice I didn’t recognize, making small talk.

  “…how long had you known him before?” she said.

  And the voice responded quietly.

  “That’s so wonderful. So you must have been close, then,” she replied.

  Having LeBeau at my back emboldened me and I moved more quickly through the darkened living room toward the kitchen, lit by a low flickering candlelight.

  Sara’s back was to me, obscuring the intruding visitor in our home. She was dressed still in her blood streaked uniform, her hair undone, spilling down her back.

  Ever the polite hostess, she poured the hot water for the stranger’s tea.

  I filled the doorway with my frame with LeBeau at my side, holding me up with his moral support.

  “Sara,” I said.

  Startled, she turned and smiled at me. “Robert. You’re here. I’m so glad...”

  Doing so, she revealed the visitor.

  The American.

  In my home.

  Sitting at my table. Drinking tea.

  Making small talk with my wife.

  Hate coursed through me, its burning tendrils tensing me into a ball of anger and action.

  “Yeah,” the American said, his voice finally loud enough to make out. There was an easy charm to it that belied his nature. “Robert. Old friend. I was just tellin’ yer little wife here about the good ol’ days, back in Brooklyn…”

  My jaw tightened. “What would you know about them?”

  “Aw, don’t be like that, Bobby. We’re havin’ a nice time here. Good company, good times, right?”

  “Sara, step back here, please.”

  “Robert?” She knew something was wrong and scanned my face for a clue, but she caught sight of LeBeau behind me, his countenance as hard as my own, but the marble of his look bleeding and bruised.

  She dropped the tea pot and brought her hands to her mouth, gasping. “Andre? What happened to your face, who did this to you?”

  She stepped toward us.

  “He did,” LeBeau said, pointing to the American. “But I’ll be fine, ma bonne ami. There are, how they say, bigger fish to fry.”

  “Ha,” the American said. “I guess it’s no use tryin’ to play it nice anymore. I figured I’d save yer wife the trouble and just handle this outside, but if you wanna do it here, that’s fine by me, too.”

  “Do what here?” Sara said, turning back to look at him, backing up against the counter as she did so.

  And that’s when the American’s hand appeared from his lap. In his clenched fist was a pistol. Loaded and aimed right at me. “How’s about we make a deal here? You gimme what I want and I don’t shoot you.”

  I’d made it so far with the cards, how could I just hand them over?

  My eyes moved to the right, catching Sara’s. Somehow she was resolute, her face tightened with a sneer and her eyes burned with anger. She didn’t know what I carried or what my mission was, but if he was the bad guy, then I couldn’t give in.

  She would have tackled him herself right then and there if she knew what was really at stake and how many people would die if the American got his hands on what I carried.

  After so many instances of having guns aimed at me, it simply didn’t matter to me anymore. What’s the worst that would happen? He shoots me? At least then I’d be with Sara at the end and she’d see that I couldn’t possibly keep my promise, but I’d do it as a man unafraid of the shadows of doubt dancing in my mind.

  Yielding was not an option.

  I poured my voice through the gravel in my throat. “No.”

  “No? That’s all you can say? No rousing speech about me betrayin’ my country or nothin’?” He laughed like none of it mattered. Like I was just one more problem to deal with. “That’s all ya got, Bobby?”

  My fists, clenched at my sides, tightened. “I’m not giving them to you. Threaten me all you want, but I’m not going to just let you have them.”

  LeBeau was at my back.

  Sara was at my side.

  There were too many of us for him to kill. His threats were meaningless. He thought he was setting a trap for us but found himself outnumbered.

  But then why did he keep smiling?

  That smile is something I’ll never forget. The smile of a wolf. Arrogant, knowing. Smug.

  I hated that smile of sadistic satisfaction.

  He was planning something, he still had a card to play.

  And I was too tired and stubborn to realize it.

  “Fine,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it. I won’t threaten you.”

  The American tightened his lips and widened his eyes when the gun changed directions, as though he knew the explosive force of what was coming.

  My face went blank, I could barely comprehend what was happening.

  “Robert,” I heard Sara say, frightened but strong.

  Had she been warning me?

  When I finally realized his pistol was aimed at Sara, he smirked. That snit of breath told me he was waiting for my reaction.

  My stomach dropped from beneath me and the sensation of falling overwhelmed me.

  I saw him pull the trigger, but I didn’t hear the gunshot.

  I didn’t hear anything.

  The only thing I could hear was outrage, the only thing I felt was anger, the only thing I smelled was blood.

  There was a fire inside me I’d never had before, an anger that scared me. The last time I pulled a man to the ground and beat him to death there was a sad remorse to it, but here I was hoping for it, wanting to relish every moment of it.

  With outstretched hands set to murder on behalf of Sara’s protection, I leapt at the American.

  Not expecting me, he swiveled toward me and his gun went off twice. I felt like I’d been kicked by a horse and assumed I was moments from dying, bleeding out and never getting my vengeance, but I didn’t stop.

  It didn’t even slow me down.

  I was possessed with a fire and energy that belied my exhaustion. I could feel every drop of adrenaline pumping through my heart.

  The American shouted, confused and shocked, falling backwards in the kitchen chair, but not without a struggle. Knocking the hat from his head, I grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked. I could feel his scalp pulling up away from his skull and, had he not protested, flailing his arm to stop me, I’m confident I would have ripped the flesh from his head in a bloody mess.

  I certainly wanted to.

  With my other hand, I punched his neck. My fist landed with a sliding thump on the side, bu
t it was a poor connection. There was no smashing of his windpipe, no theft of the life or fight in him.

  There was no going quietly. He fought with every measure of strength he had. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct applied equally, regardless of moral superiority.

  Twisting to free himself of me, he swung the pistol in my direction, forcing me to rip the hair from his head and reach for the gun instead. Aiming for the back of the gun to prevent the hammer from striking the firing pin, I managed to get the side of my hand between the two, rendering the gun useless.

  He pulled the trigger and the mechanism snapped into place, pinching the soft tissue of my hand and shooting pain up my arm.

  Instead of screaming, I responded with a powerful right cross that exploded his nose into a mess of blood, spraying crimson fluid across my kitchen floor.

  With his hands trying to wrestle his gun free long enough to shoot me, he brought one of his knees up at me, doing his best to buck me off of him.

  I punched him again, but the mess of blood glanced the blows, rendering them useless.

  I angled my knee up to his gun hand, pinning it to the ground and forcing my weight on it sharply until he let the pistol fall from his grasp.

  He groaned and clawed at me with his free hand. My hand snapped up to meet his, catching it and grasping his fingers firmly, entwining them with mine. Clenching my jaw and flexing my arm, I forced his fingers backward until I heard the cracking snap of bones and felt his fingers go limp beneath mine.

  The American screamed an ugly, curdled scream.

  Swatting his mangled hand out of the way, I looked back to the gun. He bucked beneath me like a mad stallion doing his best to throw a rider, but I had him too well pinned and the luck of how we fell had everything to do with it.

  Balling my bloodied right hand back into a fist, I smashed it into the American’s face.

  The hit was sound, but wet. My blows did little to him, glancing off as though I were punching a massive, scaled fish. One more punch to the same effect left him jerking his face back and forth, spitting blood out his mouth and trying to blink it out of his eyes.

  Reaching over, beyond my leg, beyond his hand, I collected the pistol and moved it to my right hand. Its weight surprised me. It wasn’t just stainless steel and brass and lead and gunpowder. It was a burden.

  Cocking the hammer on his gun, trembling in agony, I leveled it at his face.

  With his lame hand full of broken fingers, he swatted at the gun barrel. Perhaps he thought he could deflect the shot, but his dangling fingers offered him nothing but pain. His struggle ceased and he opened his eyes clearly.

  Looking at me through the gore, through a pained breath, he said with difficulty, “Just do it...then.”

  His eyes met mine and I set the barrel of the gun right in the middle of his forehead, but a nagging tug in my gut stopped me from pulling the trigger.

  “I knew,” he said, smiling through labored breaths, “that you didn’t have the guts to do it.”

  He was both right and wrong.

  I couldn’t shoot him point blank in the face. That simply wouldn’t give me the satisfaction I wanted his death to provide.

  He smiled as I cast the gun aside, thinking he’d won.

  I waited for him to see the death in my eyes and the swell of pride that washed over me before I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his neck and squeezed. I wanted him to know that threatening Sara was the last thing he’d ever do.

  First the smile left his face as he worked to resume his struggle, but he’d spent the last of his breath. Choking and gagging until the end, struggling to take in air through his collapsing windpipe, the life left his body and he went as limp as his fingers had.

  Taking in a long, deep breath, I knew the grim smile had gone from his face to mine.

  The sound from outside our mortal struggle faded back into reality and I could hear LeBeau panicking.

  And then the reality from the last few minutes came tumbling back to me, one instant at a time.

  The gun had gone off. Not twice but thrice.

  Feeling the soreness in my stomach, I looked down and saw my middle and my hands. They were covered in blood, but the only blood on me seemed to have splashed up from the dead American beneath me.

  Reaching into my coat, I withdrew the box of cards. It was dented, misshapen and blasted open.

  The manilla cards, two bullet holes burned through every single one of them, fluttered out over the American as I dropped them.

  The mission was over.

  But that’s when LeBeau’s panicking ceased. He stopped me and drew my attention with one word.

  “Sara,” he said in quiet pain.

  I turned from the American to look at LeBeau and Sara.

  She was in his arms, almost as I’d feared, but her skin was pale white and her dress was soaked through with red. He held her wound tightly with a rag, trying to stop the blood.

  With blood on his hands, he looked up at me, right into my eyes, squinting through his anguish and tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  Crawling over the dead American, I staggered over to them on my knees, my arms outstretched.

  LeBeau handed Sara to me and when the weight of her came into my arms, I knew what had happened, what the score was, what I’d lost.

  Sara hung limp beneath me and every detail was etched forever into my memory. The way she was still warm, but so still, as if she was made of wax. No breath came in or left, no sweat beaded on her forehead. The blood across her white apron and uniform, a mix of hers and the wounded soldiers she helped, had stolen all the essence from her.

  Her lips paled, a soft pink, vibrant against the rounded alabaster of her blood-drained face. Her eyes…

  …my God, her eyes.

  Her pupils had widened, edging out the beautiful green crystals of her eyes. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing…

  …was no more…

  I brought her closer to me, my lips brushed against her cheek, kissing them, hoping I could bring life back to her…

  That’s when the dam inside me broke.

  My tears came in sobbing heaves and the reality of everything crashed through the concrete wall of shock.

  Everything I knew and loved was gone.

  This was our final embrace.

  I would never again hear her squeaking laugh, or see the smile she reserved for being coy.

  I would never again speak with her, or hear her voice.

  It was all gone.

  Lost foolishly to this war.

  And just like the rest of the war, it was all for no damn reason.

  LeBeau reached his arms around me and held me with the caring of a brother in arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said again.

  And there, over Sara’s lifeless body, we both cried.

  31

  After the attack ended that night, half the city was bombed into dust. The Germans threw everything they could at the French line. Lorrick assumed that it was a last minute rush to do their best to destroy the cards in the event the American had failed. They couldn’t afford an enemy with a gun of that magnitude any more than we could.

  We, LeBeau and I, buried Sara while the French Army buried thousands more in the fields. Soon enough, they gave me a medal before discharging me from the Aeronautic Corps, the service, and anything else I’d been a part of.

  I don’t know what else to say.

  I spent the months after that in a daze, outside myself. I shuffled along, seeing no one and doing even less.

  LeBeau did his best to help. We found a new hobby in sobbing into our beers.

  We never saw or heard from Renault again.

  I’ve spent my days since putting Sara in the ground playing the story out in my mind and writing it down here and there, a sentence at a time, tapping it out on a typewriter LeBeau gave me.

  He thought it might help.

  I’ve written down all the worst parts.

  The betrayals
of LeBeau and Sara in my mind were fleeting images in my memory, but they were enough to stain what I had left.

  It’s said that once we’ve lost someone, all we have left are the memories of them. I’d done the worst thing to my memories that I could: every sweet moment we ever shared, every perfect kiss under a setting sun, every wonderful night under the moon, will be scarred from the choices I made.

  The only good that could come from the whole fiasco could be measured in lessons learned. The fires of cowardice and jealousy and the desire to harm others that had raged so deeply in me would never be stoked again. The pain of it all caused an ache that made me feel on the verge of a stroke.

  I’ll live.

  For Sara, I’ll live.

  The last time my heart was broken I felt as though I’d wanted to die, but this time I could only think about doing my best to carry on Sara’s work. To live to end the fighting and the war and the heartache.

  There could be a nobility there, couldn’t there? Perhaps I’d be able to make some sort of penance by doing my best to end the fighting. With my wounds and the mission a marginal success, perhaps I could have convinced everyone to forget about me, and I could have fled back to America. It wouldn’t have mattered though.

  My home was with Sara, but there was no home left. It was bombed in the German attack like everything else.

  The madness feels as though it’s passed and I know now–and I think I knew then–what I’d set my mind to in the cold and lonely absence of Sara.

  There is one scene left to play out from that night I lost everything. The scene that could shed light on some good that might have happened that foul evening.

  Standing against each other for stability, LeBeau and I couldn’t bring ourselves to leave, but we knew we had to go. The American had to be dealt with, and Sara…

  …Sara.

  After the tears left me and I’d calmed down, at least for the moment, I wanted to know what had happened, how things had gone so terribly wrong.

  Through stops and starts of his own emotion, LeBeau did his best to comfort me. “There is no shame in tears, mon ami. Tu as beaucoup souffert.”

  I collapsed again, knowing the futility of conflict, between people, between nations, and inside oneself. Without realizing what I was doing, I found myself gathering up the spilled datacards, each scattered across the kitchen floor and dripping in the American’s blood. I was impressed that in as bad shape as they were, they were still in my possession after everything I’d gone through to get and keep them.