by Anne Lovett
I’m so embarrassed, I said. I heard Ava say there was something awful in there. I did put it all back.
You left the photo album and bayonet out.
I won’t do it again, I promised. My ears were burning and my heart was thumping and it was like a great big watermelon was lodged in my throat. But there was one thing I wanted to find out, one thing I wanted to know, and now that I was caught, I could ask.
I read your diary, Duke, I said. And there is no excuse for that, I know. But I just have to know. What happened to the girl? Did you ever save her? Jack was going to tell me, but—
Duke eyes bored into mine. Jack don’t know squat, he said. I never told him the story. He would have fed you some bullshit to impress you. Nobody knows the whole thing. Except Elzuma.
Is that why you go to see her?
One of the reasons.
He wheeled his horse around. Come on, I’ll tell you on the way back. Stay close, now, ’cause I’m not going to repeat myself.
I did as he asked.
The old man. The gem trader. I first met old Mr. Shen from the village near our post when I was thinking of bringing something back for Ava. He dealt in raw stones, bought them from rogue miners down Mogok way. I had never seen such stones, even raw—that rich red, pigeon’s blood, they call it. Told me where I could get them cut and set in Calcutta.
Wanted a king’s ransom, of course. The Japs had shut the mining down. I kept coming back and making offers. Shrewd and stubborn, that old fellow. He had a second sense how much I wanted them and wouldn’t come down. Kept telling me that some Brit was going to come for them any day now. High brass.
A bunch of bull, of course. He kept holding out. I took a liking to the old fox and we became friends.
I would stop by there from time to time to have a cup of tea with him and talk. I would tell him about America. He thought maybe his granddaughter would go to America someday, after he was dead, of course. Her role was to look after him and help him in business. She was fifteen, and her name was Li-wei. She was an obedient granddaughter.
What happened to her parents? I wanted to know.
His only son had been killed by the enemy. His daughter-in-law was kidnapped. I don’t like to think of what might have happened to her.
An orphan like me, I murmured.
Yep, Duke said. The old man’s wife had died and his granddaughter was all he had. He took out a cigarette, and lit it with his Zippo, and we continued on. The sky was darkening, and soon we would have just the moon to guide us.
Little Li-wei reminded me of you, in a way, Mae Lee. She was smart and hardworking. I was fond of her. He let out a little hollow laugh. She was merry, full of fun, made the most of every minute. With all that had happened to her, losing her parents, the war, she could have been sad, but she wasn’t. She had quite a crush on me, would just light up when I appeared. She would have done anything I asked her.
He looked at me then, and I was glad he didn’t see my cheeks turning like the sunset as I recalled what Jack had told me. I had too much respect for her and her grandfather to take advantage, Duke said. He wanted her to make a good marriage.
He let the moment hang, still in the hush of the rolling fields, while I could find no words to say. He continued, I think the old man knew the score. He asked me to find some way to get her out of Burma until we had beaten the Japs. Safe territory somewhere. Had a cousin or something in India.
We made a sort of deal. He finally came down on the rubies and I was going to try to find a way to get the girl safely out to India.
I asked a special friend of mine, a woman correspondent, if she could help. We had a thought of dressing Li-wei up like a nurse, where we were going with that I wasn’t sure. We’d have to get her some false papers. It would be difficult.
I remembered Joan, the woman from the diary. Had they been lovers? It didn’t matter, did it? She was dead. Still Duke went on and I dreaded what he had to tell.
It proved to be more complicated than I thought. Before we got very far on the Li-wei project I got sent on that damned mission and got injured. It was months before I got back to the village.
When I got there, the village was deserted. The people, who had fled to the hills, filtered back slowly. It seems the village had been raided and the girl had been kidnapped by the Japs. The old man was dead.
I was furious. I had never been so angry. Up until then I had just been doing my job of soldiering. Nothing personal. It was my job. Not even what I’d been through got to me like that.
After that I started to enjoy booby-trapping and killing. One day I was out scouting, my buddy and I were spread out, and I came on a hut in the jungle. I went inside and there lying on the floor was a wounded Jap. Starving, skinny, looking at me with the last remains of hope. I didn’t want him to look at me, didn’t want to see any humanity at all. I leveled my gun and shot. Mae Lee, I blew his brains out, all over the place. And I left the body and walked away.
There was a long, long silence.
Duke, I said, choking up, God will forgive you. It was war.
I never liked killing, he said. Until they took Li-wei. That got to me. It was like my nerves had been scraped raw. After that, I hated.
Hated, Mae Lee.
The sun was giving a last splash in the west, a fiery rim on the edge of the land, pink shading up to a purple sky.
He spoke on, quietly. Forgot everything Mr. Shen ever taught me. It was like my soul had been ripped out, that part of myself that cared about people, leaving a big bloody hole. Nothing was left in that hole, not even Ava. Not myself. I didn’t care of I lived or died. I just lived to kill the enemy. They were all Japs, you see, just evil to be smashed. God knows, they had no hearts, no dreams, nobody to miss them as far as I was concerned.
But, Duke, I said, you’re not like that now.
He finished his smoke and dropped the butt into the dirt. How can you be so sure?’
But I know you, I said, realizing with a chill that I really didn’t.
Tell you something, kid, he said. Every day I live with the terror I’ve lost all my humanity, all my decency.
No, you haven’t, I cried. Look how you hired Cyrus. You care for this farm, for your animals, for . . . I spread my hands helplessly. You’re a hero for that.
He smiled then, a smile ripe with gratitude, I think. When I came here, it helped me remember what Mr. Shen taught me, he said. Nature was the Way. To follow nature. He told me there was gentleness in the male nature, and toughness in the female. Yang and yin.
So the farm, I said, is a way back? Warm tears tracked across my wind-cooled cheeks, and I swiped my face on my sleeve. I wanted my illusions.
Gentleness is more victorious in battle than force and holds its ground. For do not the softest things in the world overcome the hardest? That was what he said, Duke told me. He gave Nimrod a nudge and galloped ahead of me. I let him go.
He had given me a lot to think about. I could see what he meant about himself. He was trying to forgive himself for doing something he felt was wrong. It sounded right. It sounded good. But how did that apply to me? Did that mean I shouldn’t fight Ava so hard, be gentle toward her? Why should I? She wasn’t gentle toward me. Duke had gone out there and fought. Chap had gone out there and fought. Chap had fought all his life. And oh, how I missed him. He’d probably think what Duke said was foolishness. But would he have been happier if he had learned to take things easy? Would he still be alive if he hadn’t been so impatient to get that plane in the air?
Soon I could see the welcoming lights of home, Ava back in the kitchen, maybe with news about having a baby. Would it make any difference between them? Could he tell her what he had told me?
She wasn’t soft. She wouldn’t understand. She’d laugh at him.
Duke was washing up at the sink when I walked in. I held my breath when I looked at Ava.
You cool her? He was talking about my horse.
I did.
The soup was in the
pot, bubbling away and the cornbread was heating in the oven. Ava was in a good mood.
Good news? I asked.
Maybe, she said. We have to wait for the tests to come back. We know this guy is okay. She patted Duke’s shoulder.
How do you know? I asked.
He got tested last year, Miss Nosey, Ava said. Lots of wiggly little buggers there.
Well, excuse me, I said, turning red as the soup beneath my spoon.
How was the big city? Duke asked Ava, to change the subject. I think he was a little embarrassed too.
Oh, fine. Busy, she said. I bought the baby present. She buttered a corn stick. Yum, she said.
Eating for two already, I said.
She pointed her corn stick at me like a gun. Pow, Mae Lee.
Cut it out, girls, Duke said.
I think I’ll make an apple pie tomorrow, Ava said. Look here, there’s some of your momma’s chocolate cake left for dessert.
Turn on the radio, Duke said.
She scraped back her chair. I’m bushed, she said. I’m going to lie down. She switched on the radio before she walked out.
I cut Duke a slice of the chocolate cake his mother had brought over Saturday, and I cut a slice for myself. We listened to the news for a while and when they started talking about Korea he put his cake dish on the drain board and wandered out. I got up to switch the station to music.
I cleared the table and ran some hot water and put in soap. The Third Man Theme came on, and I thought about Harry Lime running though the sewers. The last zither notes had barely faded away before the announcer broke in. This just in. Sheriff Dolphus Gray reported that the two escaped convicts are back in custody after a massive manhunt. A roadblock on the Macon Road, which tied up traffic for hours, managed to trap the stolen car. . . .
Funny Ava hadn’t mentioned it. The dishes didn’t take long. I left them to drain and dried my hands. There was a paper bag on the counter, and I opened it to find a white jewelry-store gift box. Inside, nestled in tissue paper, lay a silver baby rattle. I closed the box and put it back in the bag. The ticket was marked ten dollars. The ticket was from a store right here in town.
Lying beside the bag was an appointment card from the doctor. She had another appointment in a week, at 11:00. The doctor was in Macon.
So she might have come back early, before the roadblock was set up. Where had she been?
The next morning the sun broke through, just a little ray of light splitting the heavens, and it cheered me up. But on the way to school, I thought about Ava’s day away from the farm, trying to add up all the bits, and they didn’t seem to work: the doctor, the roadblock, the shopping. Usually when she went shopping it was Katie bar the door, with Duke hollering about the money and Ava hiding shoes and pocketbooks under the bed.
Standing in the cafeteria lunch line, I got to wondering if maybe she didn’t have some dress boxes stashed in the car to bring in when Duke went out to the fields. Lindy was a few kids ahead of me and I hollered at her to save me a place. Lord, it was hard for her to hear me over the din in the big brick room. The other kids jostled and shoved; I pushed my tray down the line, while the lunch ladies spooned up roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, field peas, and banana pudding onto my divided plate.
Lindy waved to me from a table on the far side and I headed over with my tray. I had to pass by the table where the basketball players ate, and Starrett Conable was leaning against it, holding a bottle of milk. He stepped out and blocked my way.
Hey, Starrett, I said. Move over.
Hey, Cinderella, I got some news about the prince.
What are you talking about?
Starrett carefully peeled the aluminum foil cap off the top of his milk bottle. That pilot guy was on the airport road yesterday.
Well, no hock, Sherlock, where else would a pilot be?
Oh, I forgot to tell you. On the back road.
There went my stomach. So what were you doing there?
Skipping school. I like to go out there and hang around.
Okay, now you’ve shown your tail. Let me by.
Not so fast. I haven’t gotten to the good part yet.
The good part?
Your sister was with him. He made a ball of the aluminum foil and flipped it at me. How about them apples?
He took a long swallow of milk, turned around, and walked away.
What happened after that I don’t remember. Mr. Johnson, the principal, told Duke that Starrett had gotten two tables away when I grabbed my dish of banana pudding and threw it at him. It hit him square in the back of the head.
He yelled, wheeled around, and threw his milk bottle in the direction the dish had come from.
It whizzed by my nose and smashed into the brick wall behind me. I heard the crash and then I felt a sharp icy pain across my face, and I put my hand up, and when I brought it down it was covered with blood and I heard screaming screaming screaming.
I remember the emergency room as a big blur and confusion. They told me later that when they called the house, Duke had been out in the fields. Ava had come to the hospital wearing a white angora sweater and black slacks under her trench coat, and when she saw me she gave me a little cry and went to hug me and the nurse said be careful and she got blood on her sweater, and in my mind I can still see that blood on the sweater and her mouth all round like a Revlon ad for Fire and Ice.
When we got back to the house, Duke was standing out front waiting for us. Ava stopped the Caddy and he opened the door on my side. Let me see, he said.
I put my hand to the bandage over the ugly black threads that held my cheek together. It still felt numb from the anesthetic, though not as numb as my heart. Ava’s betrayal made me feel humiliated, but Jack’s betrayal had hit me like a stomach punch. The two punches collapsed me like a deflated balloon, hollow and hopeless.
Duke looked at me with a different kind of pain. Tell me, he said. Tell me what really happened.
I looked away. I don’t remember, I said.
Ava put her hands on her hips. I can’t get anything out of her. The other kids seemed to think she threw some food at Starrett and he threw a milk bottle. It hit the wall and a piece of glass ricocheted and got her cheek.
Shrapnel wound, Duke said. What got into you, punkin?
My lip began to tremble. Starrett made me mad. I guess I went a little crazy.
What did he say?
I stood there and looked down. I had never lied to Dulany Radford in my life.
Starrett’s been suspended, Ava broke in. He’s not talking either. Come on, honey.
I shook my head. He was teasing me. Being mean. Telling lies about something he saw. Out by the airport.
My heart was filling my throat, and Ava was looking at me in a strange manner. Okay, she said in a little strangled voice. Okay. Maybe you ought to lie down. She needs to rest, Duke.
He put his arm around Ava’s shoulder. The airport, he said.
I burst into tears, and they flooded down, soaking my bandage. Duke turned away and kicked a rock, hard. It scudded across the dry grass of the front yard and bounced off the wheel of Ava’s Cadillac.
My knees felt like jelly. I tried to take a step forward and sank to the ground. Through a gray fog I heard Ava and Duke quarreling as he carried me into the house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
For days after the accident, I lay in the high old bed under a pile of quilts, my ruined face to the wall. I did not come out except for necessary functions, and I think that time was the most alone I have ever felt in my life.
I didn’t feel alone after Chap died, because I had Momma and Ava and Mimi. And after Momma died, I had Ava and Duke and Mimi. And now all I had was Duke and Mimi. Duke went places I couldn’t reach, and Mimi was looking after her beloved Mr. Linley, who was going to leave us too. And Starrett? He wasn’t my friend any more.
Ava brought me breakfast on a tray that first day as though she was a zookeeper and I was some kind of tiger or crocodile. She edged
through the door with a kind of fake concern, ooh, honey, does it hurt bad and all that, now don’t you worry, blah, blah. Made me want to puke and I didn’t eat a thing. She finally got the idea of sending Elzuma, who fluffed my pillows and sat in the rocker and told me I had to eat because it was worrying Mr. Duke plumb out of his mind and she had made me a boiled custard special. So I ate it while she rocked with that dip of snuff in her cheek and told me the Lord was carrying me with his wings, and I told her he might as well carry me on up to Heaven. She said it was not my time and I should rise and take up my bed and walk, if Jesus could do that for a dead man he could do it for me.
Where was Jesus when the milk bottle went flying? I wanted to ask her, but I knew she would just shake her head and tell me not to talk like a heathen. And why did Starrett do it? If he liked me as much as he pretended, then why did he try to hurt me? Or was it an accident, like he said? Maybe he didn’t mean for it to hit the wall, but me. Just as bad.
I wanted to scream, but I didn’t.
Duke poked his head in the door every now and then, but didn’t know what to say to me. Nobody said anything about Jack. And then came the morning the doctor visited, one of those days where the sun glinted off my mirror bright and hard as steel.
Ava slipped in the door after he left. Get up, she said. The doctor says you’re fine.
I’m not getting up. I’m not going back.
What do you mean?
I’m not going back to school. Never never never.
Well, just what do you intend to do?
I can work on the farm. Slop the pigs.
We don’t have any pigs.
We can get some.
She snorted in disgust. What would Momma say about you, Mae Lee?
Momma is dead and buried.
Ava pulled out a cigarette. She’s looking down on us. Wash out your mouth with soap.
I started working the fresh adhesive tape loose, and before she could stop me, I had the gauze pads off. I slid out of bed and looked in the mirror at the ugly track that just missed my eye and curved across my cheek. She stopped with the lighter halfway to the cig and I swear she blanched. I was glad. All for you, Ava, I said.