American Romantic

by Ward Just

  Three

  SIX days later, Harry awoke in a string hammock in the damp heat of early morning. He had not slept well, bothered all night long by insects and unsettling dreams. He lay still and heard the feral rustle of the jungle, indistinct and undefined except for the sudden meow of the camp cat and, a moment later, the waking cry of a bird. How many days since he had bathed? Five days? No, six, counting the night in the market town before he had set out at dawn on his mission—the ambassador’s much-discussed “moment of consequence” that now appeared to be a moment of no consequence. Harry eased himself out of the hammock and stood, listening once again. He had heard heavy breathing during the night, unmistakable sounds of lovemaking and not for the first time. Unmistakable was probably the wrong word. In the deep jungle anything was mistakable, including heavy breathing. The jungle was disorganized, without form. He remembered reading somewhere that the deep jungle’s shapes and colors were luxurious. They were not luxurious, they were coarse, mean sights, without harmony, the very soul of chaos. The sounds at night were neither benign nor consoling. They were sinister. They seemed to promise harm, even the meow of the camp cat. Harry stood in the doorway of his hut, jungle darkness all around him. He started when something brushed his ankle, God knows what it was. He was damp with sweat on his chest and back, sweat slick as a mirror. They had not bothered to shackle him. If he escaped, where would he go? This terrain might as well have been a concentration camp, the jungle as forbidding as any barbed wire. The first half hour en route he had been blindfolded, slow progress, one bend after another, and then they removed the blindfold. What was the point? One bend was much like another and the path itself monotonous as a piano’s middle C struck again and again, all the grace and variety of a jackhammer. The going was easier without the blindfold. He saw no villages on the trail and no signs of human life except the occasional mark of a sandal’s tread. He was sorry now that he had thought of the piano analogy. The piano put him in mind of Chopin, and Chopin was not helpful. It would be good to think of something that was, but nothing came to mind.

  Harry saw stars through the trees and guessed the time near dawn. They had taken his wristwatch, for safekeeping they said. Une garantie, according to Comrade Fat, the one who seemed to be in charge. There were four of them, Comrades Fat, Thin, and Tall, and Comrade Mao, for her round face and sour disposition. The names were Harry’s inventions. None of then offered their actual names. Harry was called Yankee. Now someone murmured in his sleep and shifted position, a rustle of bamboo and what sounded like a fart. Harry had a vague idea of direction, and by starlight he could see the two huts opposite his own, and a little apart from them the third hut, occupied by Comrade Mao, and the pit where the fire had been. Harry moved slowly into the clearing, and when he heard the creak of his rubber flip-flops he removed them from his feet and put them in the pocket of his khaki shorts. His mind was working slowly, the effect of fear. He did not know if this was fear of the known or fear of the unknown but it was surely one of the two. His thoughts were discomposed. They were residue thoughts, slippery and barren as slush. He moved slowly, but not so slowly as to lose his balance. Unbalanced, he would stumble. In a few moments he was at the camp’s perimeter—and how long had that taken him, three minutes, four? The earth was damp beneath his feet and he remembered now the water along the way, water sometimes an inch deep, other times a foot or more, and he had blundered along while the others complained. He was in the middle of the file, entirely disconcerted when he was blindfolded, Comrade Mao muttering directions. Go straight. Now we turn left. There had been an argument over the blindfold but Comrade Fat insisted on it and then relented when Harry stumbled and fell twice in the space of five minutes. Evidently they were awaiting instructions from a senior comrade, supposedly arriving from a base camp farther south. Days passed and the senior comrade did not arrive. Harry’s escort became restive. Without instructions they were adrift. They were difficult to tell apart, except one was fat, one thin, one tall, and one female. They were Munch-faced, featureless; not the Munch of The Scream but the Munch of the dead or the ill. Of course when they spoke they might as well have been speaking Norwegian.

  And then the senior comrade arrived without warning, striding into camp at high noon—that was yesterday—wearing a pressed khaki uniform with the shoulder pips that signified captain. He ordered the girl to prepare a pot of tea and he and Harry sat cross-legged in the largest hut and talked. The captain did not offer his name so Harry thought of him as Captain Munch. His English was very good. He knew Harry’s rank in the foreign service, knew that he was born in New York, had graduated from Columbia, was unmarried. The captain revealed nothing of himself but Harry suspected by his slurred accent that he was most likely a country boy. They talked through the afternoon and early evening without measurable result. There was something coiled about the captain, a muscle-bound suspicion so complete as to suggest obsession. He was ever watchful, switching to French as the afternoon wore on, a flat monotone, occasionally lapsing into his own language without offering translation. His voice carried great assurance, ex cathedra pronouncements as definitive and unassailable as a recitation from an especially reliable dictionary. Harry listened for any hint of irony or uncertainty and did not find it. Talking to the captain was like talking to a statue—on those few occasions when he was invited to speak. Harry had the idea that the captain regarded him as a particularly obtuse student.

  All would be satisfactory in his country when the Americans departed and until that time—nothing. Departure was the precondition for peace. Nothing else mattered. Everything else was by the way. The puppet administration was not serious. They were lackeys of the American empire and would collapse soon enough when left to their own miserable follies, ignorance, and corruption. They were in any case unable to defend themselves. They do not understand that their army belongs to us and would assert itself at the proper time. The war was already lost and the Americans knew it and yet refused to take the necessary step. A simple step, really. Quite logical. This is a strange mission you have undertaken, Monsieur Sanders. On whose authority are you here? Harry replied that he was here on instructions from the American ambassador to listen to what the captain had to say. To hear the views from the other side. He had hoped they might have an exchange of views, find points of agreement, some mutual understanding that might help bring light to the darkness. There were already many dead. There will be many more. Perhaps—and here Harry smiled and stated in well-rehearsed Vietnamese—we could have a moment of self-criticism.

  A part of your own dialectic, I believe, Harry said.

  Where did you get such an idea?

  Your chairman has mentioned it many times.

  The captain shrugged, a show of annoyance.

  I know a man who thought such a dialectic would be helpful in his marriage.

  I do not understand, the captain said.

  It wasn’t, Harry said. Helpful.

  The captain had been chain-smoking all this time and now he lit another Old Gold and looked off to the west. Dusk was coming on, the air lifting and cooling a degree or two. They sat for a moment without speaking. Harry wondered how the captain’s mind worked, if there was anything in it besides ideology. He gave the impression of filtering everything through the ideology and then leaving it to age like fine whiskey, growing deeper and richer, more profound, a whiskey without impurities. Certainly that was what he wanted for his country, a regime without impurities. If only to please himself, Harry decided to take the conversation in another direction, sports, films, music. But the captain had no interest in sports and had not seen a film in years. He tried to remember the last one he saw. The Four Hundred Blows he said suddenly. A French film, worthless, depicting a state of ennui. A tedious affair, the camera moving in and out of metro stations. The Four Hundred Blows was self-absorbed, another example of French personalism. It was not instructive. It was not logical. The captain said he had no time for films. He had no interest in fil
ms that were incorrect and there was no place for them in the Party. He looked directly at Harry and said, I want a simple thing. A people’s government. A government therefore without corruption.

  The ambassador had instructed him to listen, listen damn hard. Harry had done as instructed without recourse to pen and notebook, which in any case had been taken from him. He had listened and listened and decided now to tell a story of his own, his last evening in Paris en route to the war zone. That evening he went to a recital, a pianist playing Liszt at a small salle off the Champs-Élysées. A countrywoman of yours, he said to the captain. A disappointment at first. She was tentative at the piano and Liszt does not respond well to tentativeness. However—and here Harry smiled at the memory of her—she was lovely to look at, tiny, small-boned, wearing a flowing amber tunic over white silk trousers. Around her throat was a gold necklace with an emerald pendant the size of a chestnut. Seated alone in a box seat, stage left, was an elderly Frenchman, quite tall with snow-white hair, immaculately dressed in a dark suit with a white silk scarf. His arm rested casually on the railing of the box. He never moved during the recital—a short program, a nocturne, the Sonata in C Minor. If the Frenchman had been sitting for his portrait, the artist would have been Max Beckmann. The Frenchman watched the pianist with a private half-smile, as though he were watching a cherished daughter. And I go into such detail, Captain, because halfway through the program a miracle occurred. Her tentativeness vanished and she threw herself into Liszt, attacking the piece with the passion, one might almost say the fury, of one of the Russian virtuosos or Liszt himself. She seemed to gather confidence as she advanced, bending over the keyboard as her fingers flew left and right. And when she finished the Frenchman rose to join the storm of applause. When she took her bows she looked so delicate that the slightest breeze could carry her away. But appearances were deceptive. She was made of steel, at least as far as her music was concerned. The evening concluded, the Frenchman vacated his box and disappeared into the crowd. Onstage, two workmen were peering into the interior of the Steinway. It seemed that in the final two minutes of the Sonata in C Minor the pianist had broken a string. Do you know how unusual that is, Captain? As for me, I thought I owed myself something more after such an evening, so I strolled down the avenue thinking about this girl, your countrywoman. She wore an emerald at her throat and she played like an angel. A story from Europe, Captain.

  I do not care to be adrift in a European world, the captain said.

  A thrilling evening, Harry said. She played beautifully. If she had been a young American I would have been very proud.

  The captain looked at his fingernails, expressionless. He said, Our diaspora is not large and much of it finds refuge in Paris. Paris is a grail for them, especially the women. True comrades prefer native soil. Our ancestors are here. I have no doubt that your pianist is from our South, probably a landowning family. Their daughter was educated abroad so that she could play your Liszt in a salle off the Champs-Élysées. These people, they own land and have import licenses. This one is better off in Paris playing foreign music. Here, she is a parasite.

  Harry replied that she was much appreciated by the audience. A standing ovation. Three curtain calls. Many in the audience were in tears.

  What was her name? the captain asked. No doubt she has taken a French name.

  But Harry had forgotten the pianist’s name.

  The two sat smoking as dusk came on. The suddenness of it was always a surprise, an invisible hand on the cosmic meridian. There were no sounds elsewhere in the camp and Harry wondered if the others were asleep. He thought that in other circumstances this meeting would be an agreeable interlude, conversation of no particular significance, two friends discussing the day’s events and planning for whatever came next. Exploration was poor today, perhaps something will turn up tomorrow. There was so much terrain still to cover. However, things did not always proceed according to plan. Mistakes, errors of judgment, bad luck. Chance always played a role. Chance married to unreasonable expectations, a lethal combination.

  It’s a disappointment, Harry said. We’ve come to know each other, not intimately but well enough to speak cordially. Yet we’ve made no progress.

  The captain did not answer, unless his grunt was an answer.

  It’s a shame, really, Harry said. This dead end.

  I am not certain what it is you want, Monsieur Sanders.

  Nor I you, Harry said. This meeting was your idea. Your side’s.

  That is not true.

  I believe it is so.

  You are in error, the captain said.

  Harry summoned a smile. We’ll have to begin this dialogue sooner or later. Next month, next year, the year after. It’s inevitable. The longer we delay, the more difficult dialogue becomes—

  Au contraire, the captain said.

  —because positions harden. I suspect you find time on your side but the longer this war continues the more blood will flow, your country awash in blood. Rivers of it. You cannot imagine the force we can bring to bear. Armadas, aircraft beyond count. Six, seven divisions of troops. Surely there is a way this can be avoided.

  The captain did not reply, seemingly lost in thought. Then he looked up and smiled, a wide bright smile of undoubted sincerity. Harry was taken aback, then realized that was the point of their war. Throw everything at us. Throw everything you have. Throw the hydrogen bomb, and at the end of the engagement we will remain and you will be gone. The greater the odds, the greater the victory, a victory that will be written about for generations, for a hundred years. A thousand years. Harry had been waiting for an insight and now he had his insight, bleak as it was.

  So our conversation is at an end, Harry said.

  It would seem so, the captain agreed.

  A waste of time, Harry said.

  Not entirely, the captain said.

  I am already overdue. My ambassador will worry about my whereabouts. If you can lead me to a secure area, I will take my leave.

  That will take time, the captain said. Not a long time. Perhaps a few days. Arrangements are being made.

  The agreement was: safe passage for me.

  Nevertheless, the captain said.

  Nevertheless what? Harry said.

  You will not be harmed, the captain said. But for your part, it would be wise to exercise patience. Reflect on where you are and who you are and who you are with. This mission of yours is—controversial. Not everyone approved.

  He slowly stubbed out his cigarette and put the butt in his pocket. Harry thought there was something petulant about him now, a show of boyish insurrection, his voice rising when he said the word “controversial.” The captain said nothing more and strolled away. Harry watched him go, then fell into a worried sleep.

  Now he stood at the perimeter of the camp in the early morning wondering what came next. He was not a wilderness man. Connecticut was not wilderness. He remembered sitting around campfires twenty years before, listening to the complaints of boys. He was a Cub Scout. On overnight trips to the hills around Salisbury the pack and its leader sat in a circle and told stories while the campfire blazed, ghost stories and other stories. Harry was recognized as the storyteller of the troop and always went first, weaving fantastic tales of pirates and other outlaws lurking just beyond the ring of fire. There were many villains—ghosts, savage Indians, Nazis, and the pitiless infantry of the Japanese Imperial Army—but everyone preferred pirates. Harry got so wrapped up in his story he half believed it himself, the peg-legged captain and the first mate with a parrot on his shoulder, the captain’s wife with Dracula’s long teeth. They were supposed to be learning about the woods and how to survive on a tin of water and a shard of flint, little else. A hatchet and native cunning—except there was no native cunning, only a half-dozen ten-year-old boys and the scout leader, Mr. McDonald, overweight in a royal-blue shirt and khaki shorts, high-top tennis shoes, and a yellow neckerchief. Mr. McDonald was a postman by trade, a disciplined walker. Everyone was a
sleep by nine p.m., except Mr. McDonald, who read mystery novels by flashlight. That was the sum of Harry’s experience in the wilderness. He wished now he had been attentive when Mr. McDonald told them about navigation by the stars, the North Star and the Dippers and Orion’s belt, but he had not been, unable to imagine the usefulness of such knowledge—yet another failure of his imagination. He remembered lying awake and wondering what lay beyond the circle of light and wishing he were older and able to explore on his own. The wilderness was unpredictable. That was why it was called wilderness. Late one Saturday afternoon the group had gotten lost, blundered, mistaking one trail for another. Mr. McDonald, studying his map, declared that everything was fine, absolutely fine, they’d reach the trail just ahead . . . Except Harry could hear the fear in his throat, the little cough after “just ahead” and a surreptitious peek at the flimsy trail map in his hand. Harry heard it and pretended it wasn’t there, that the cough and the tremor around the edges of Mr. McDonald’s voice were the result of a long day spent with unruly boys, not fear and discomposure. He had heard a similar rustle in the voice of Basso Earle, courtesy and Southernness, its sinuous sentences speculative yet sure-footed. His voice was not quite confident. It was the summoning of confidence, as in his account of Adele, the leftist rogue whose friendship with Basso’s wife was—dubious. And toward the end of their conversation, Basso asked, Who’s Sieglinde? As if to signal knowledge of his private life. At the time he had thought little of it, beyond his own surprise. But now when Harry thought about it he wondered if denial was a part of his own inner makeup, his world view, the way he got on in life day to day. Not believing what was in front of his eyes. Of course it was. The odds were always stacked against, and the way around it was to ignore the odds. Diplomacy itself had illusory aspects. Smoke, and then mirrors.