CHAPTER 20 – STAR GAZERS
Leandre Durand looked up at the night sky and watched a satellite sail across.
"A worn-out obsolete franc for your thoughts," Bertin Nason said.
"Oh, it's nothing really. I was just thinking of my father. I don't remember the big fuss about Sputnik, not really, but Papa never got used to it. We used to sit outside at night, in the summer when it was hot, waiting for the house to cool down enough for a person to sleep, and Papa would see a satellite, and would point and shout, 'Look, Leandre! Look!' And I would look and say, 'But it is just a satellite, Papa.' And he would shout toward the hammock – Mama always rested in the hammock while she waited for the house to cool, it helped her ankles to put them up like that – he would shout, 'Do you hear that, Marguerite? The boy says it is just a satellite!' To be honest, I couldn't understand his excitement. I never thought he was crazy, exactly. But I thought he was perhaps a little off-kilter about satellites. I didn't understand. I don't think I could understand at that age, that when you get older there are changes you couldn't dream of, and because they are so strange to you, the newness never quite wears off."
"And now you understand?"
"Take your age, double it, add a few years, and you have me. What do you think? You like to study history, I think. Are there not enough unforeseeable things that have happened in that timeframe?"
"Oh, I am sure. If it is not too personal, what is your equivalent of satellites?"
Durand shrugged. "I can remember big events, and lots of little changes, and there are many modern devices that seem perfectly marvelous to me. But I can think of nothing that so sums up how much the world has changed, as satellites did for that generation. Before them, we were Earthbound. After them, we were spacemen, and could be reminded of it night after night, just by watching the sky and being patient. Sooner or later, a satellite would come across, and prove that mankind had done something incredible, and had found a way to keep on doing it. It was wonderful. It was first-class as a symbol: bright and fleeting, but repeating – but not so often that it became commonplace. It was nearly perfect."
Nason grinned sheepishly. "I have a weakness for shooting stars. I enjoy watching satellites. But I feel crazy happy when I see a shooting star."
"Here, then! What are you doing sitting around this time of night? Go home to bed," a policeman fussed as he walked toward them.
"What? A curfew? Here?" Durand asked.
"Don't be stupid," the cop said. "The people in the neighborhood are tired of having you out here, that's all. They say you must have been sitting here all night, and they do not like it. Go home."
"But I have only been here an hour, and my friend has just arrived," Durand said. He shrugged. "A man feels like getting an early start on the day, and this is what he gets. In the country, people understand getting up before dawn, you know."
"Well, go back to your chicken farm, then," the cop said. "Or anywhere else you like. But this is my neighborhood, and unless you have a good reason to be hanging about, it is time for you to move along."
Durand checked the time. "It is about time for us to go anyway," he said. He and Nason stood up and stretched, and walked away.
After rounding the corner, they peeked back the way they had come. Jean Blondet was walking to the front door of the house they had been watching from afar. The door opened and he went in.
"I am going to be sick," Nason said.
"Let us not jump to conclusions," Durand said. "But all the same I am glad that we are wearing disguises."
"Speaking of which, how soon can I take the pebbles out of my shoes?"
"Let us get well out of the neighborhood, at least. I, for one, do not want to be recognized by my walk around here, do you? Do not tell me you put in jagged pebbles, which are lacerating your feet?"
"Close enough," Nason said. "It's not like I usually am asked to put rocks in my socks, you know, or like pebbles are something a man keeps around the house. I had to grab the first ones I could find, more or less."
"To make it easier, use pebbles to hide the potting soil in your potted plants."
"I do. But it did not occur to me that there was any reason to buy smooth rocks, and those were truly jagged, and so I could not use them for this. I had bought them for their color, nothing more, nothing less. After all, I am only a sniper. I do not usually live in the crazy, dangerous world that you do."
Not Exactly Allies Page 20