Wherever There Is Light

by Peter Golden

  “Very hungry, Captain,” the sergeant said.

  “You are operating alone?” Julian wanted to avoid the more professional Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units. An officer might get on a field phone to confirm his story.

  “Our company was ambushed by the Americans. We are at a farm. A kilometer north of here. Waiting to join a larger force when we find one.”

  “Let’s go.”

  The farmhouse had been flattened by artillery, but the stone barn had survived. The Germans—the sergeant, four men on the cusp of middle age, another in his twenties with his arm in a sling, and a teenager—ate as if they were starving, devouring ham and eggs, crackers with cheese, sausage, meat loaf, instant coffee with sugar, malted-milk bars, and squares of chocolate. Afterward, all of them except the teenager started chain-smoking the Chesterfields that were boxed with the K-rations.

  “No cigarette for you?” Julian asked the teenager.

  The sergeant chuckled. “That’s Willy Müller. Future Olympic champion.”

  The man with the sling added, “Future sheepherder from Diepholz.”

  Willy, who could have been featured on a Hitler Youth poster if he hadn’t been so slight and cross-eyed, scaled the ladder to the hayloft, grabbed ahold of a rafter and hoisted himself up, then swung round and round and round.

  “My father is a sheepherder,” Willy said, after he’d come down. “I am going to be an Olympic gymnast. When we have won the war and the Führer decides where the games will be.”

  None of the Germans responded to the prediction of winning the war. They smoked instead. Two of them had gone up into the loft and were staring out a window.

  The sergeant saw Julian gazing up at the soldiers. “We keep two men there on three-hour shifts.”

  Julian said, “Lieutenant Theiss and I will do our share. We could use some rest, so we will take the last shift before dawn.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “There is dry hay in the stalls at the rear of the barn.”

  Julian told the sergeant that he and his men should help themselves to the rations and cigarettes, then he and Taft went to the stalls.

  “The guard will wake you first,” Julian said in German. “You be behind him when he wakes me.”

  Julian, bundled up in his coat and a blanket, thought that it would be difficult to sleep, but he drifted off immediately, and the next thing he remembered was being shaken by a German soldier bending over him and holding a rectangular flashlight with a red filter dimming the bulb.

  As the soldier backed up to give Julian room to stand, Taft got an arm around his throat. Julian took the flashlight from the soldier before he dropped it and heard Taft snap his neck. They lowered him onto the hay and pulled back the cocking handles of their Maschinenpistoles. Julian swept the red light across the barn and counted five sleeping soldiers. He jabbed his thumb upward. Taft went up the ladder. The burst from his submachine gun roused the soldiers. They were shouting as Julian emptied his magazine into them. He shone the flashlight on their bodies. Willy wasn’t dead. He was crawling toward the barn doors. Julian stood over him with a Luger in his hand, shining the red light on his bleeding legs.

  “Why are you doing this?” Willy asked, more hurt than frightened. “Why?”

  “He was a boy,” Julian said, rocking forward and back on the bench.

  “A boy in the German Army,” Kendall said.

  “A boy playing soldier.”

  “A boy who would’ve shot anyone he was told to.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You went to a war.”

  Julian rocked faster. “What did I do? I squeezed that trigger and felt part of myself die. And I’m going to be punished for it. I feel that dread every day.”

  “Give it time.”

  “He was a boy, Kendall. God forgive me, he was a boy.”

  Kendall had never heard Julian cry. The depth of his sorrow surprised her, and she chided herself for never having seen that his calm exterior, with the toughness and anger underneath it, could mask a sadness as deep as her own. She put her arms around him to stop his rocking and kissed his face. “I love you.”

  Julian was still. He had killed before but had been able to justify the killings to himself: the Kaiser was a murdering pimp; the four hoods in Newark were no-good pricks trying to shoot him and Abe; and the SS soldiers he’d helped to get rid of in Normandy were maniacal butchers. Yet now, when he thought about these men, guilt triumphed over his rationalizations. Maybe it was the beauty of Paris, a beauty that had the power to bequeath meaning to a stroll down the street. Or maybe it was being with Kendall again, which underscored how much you lose when you leave this world. Whatever the cause, lately Julian had been asking himself who appointed him to be anyone’s executioner. In part, this question accounted for his insomnia. And Willy. He couldn’t forget Willy. Julian should’ve patched him up and left him in the barn. But he didn’t, and now he held on to Kendall, hearing Willy, in his wounded voice, ask him why, and believing that there was no forgiveness for him anywhere, not on earth or in heaven, just love—that was it, love—love was the best that he would ever do.

  Chapter 47

  How’s your old man doing?” Wild Bill asked.

  “He had another heart attack in the hospital.”

  Julian was in the library of Donovan’s Sutton Place apartment: leather club chairs and a ladder leading up to disorderly shelves of novels, histories, and biographies.

  “Us old bastards can last longer than the docs tell ya.” Wild Bill wasn’t aging as well as his Scotch. His head resembled a beach ball with thinning, pomaded hair, and his memory was fuzzy. “Did I say Marcel speaks English?”

  “You did, but he hasn’t—not to me.”

  “Marcel’s crafty, and he’s got balls. I saw his arm get blown off, and all he said was ‘Good thing I use my other hand to scratch my ass.’ ”

  Julian had three hours until his flight to Miami, thankfully not enough time to hear the stories again about Wild Bill and Marcel and the First World War. They had been in touch sporadically between the wars, and after setting up the OSS, Donovan had an operative recruit Marcel to collect intelligence. After Germany surrendered, it was Marcel who had informed Donovan of Isabella’s connection to the Commie big shot Arnaud Francoeur and of her bistro going belly-up, and Arnaud’s running around with Kendall. Wild Bill knew about Julian and Kendall from a drunken evening during the Nuremberg trials, and that Julian had fought alongside Arnaud. Wild Bill was notorious for his harebrained schemes, and he dreamed up this one because Truman, he said, was too wet behind the ears to realize we needed spies to counter the Soviet Union and that power-mad fuck Stalin. Some buddies in Congress got Donovan an off-book budget, and he pitched his plan to Julian, who agreed to sign on—or so he told himself—because Kendall could be in danger. That sounded more noble than the fact that he wanted another chance with her.

  Wild Bill said, “My people tell me Francoeur was in Moscow talking to Soviet military intelligence. And we hear somebody in Paris is buying up surplus weapons and storing them to support the Red Army if it invades Western Europe.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “Maybe you’ll hear something once your nightclub’s going, or maybe Marcel will. He’s got his own network of spies. But we gotta work fast. Scuttlebutt is that Truman’s gonna have an official intelligence agency operating no later than next year. We can’t be doing this by then. It’s probably illegal now, so let’s you and me use Marcel as a go-between. You see anything, tell him. I hear something, I’ll get word to him.”

  “So far, I found out Arnaud was screwing my old girlfriend, and Marcel can roll a cigarette with one arm. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “Fuck hope. All you do is what you can.”

  It was the best advice Julian had heard in a long time.

  As a teenager, Julian had been enraged by his father, scoffing at his demands and exploring the sordid byways of Berlin. As a young ma
n, with Hitler beginning his assault on the Jews, Julian had felt responsible for saving Theodor from his optimism. Yet Julian had never been surprised by his father. Not until now—in the sweltering hallway outside Theodor’s room in Provident Hospital, the Negro hospital, in Fort Lauderdale.

  Garland Wakefield said, “He demanded to be brought where his colleagues or students would have to go.”

  Julian glanced through the doorway. Students ringed Theodor’s bed, and Julian could hear them: they were discussing Spinoza.

  “If it hadn’t been just summer-school students,” Garland said, “they wouldn’t have fit in the room.”

  “I spoke to Dr. Franklin on the way in. He said my father should take it easy and—”

  “The rest is up to the Lord.”

  Julian could see the sadness on Garland’s face, and it reminded him of Kendall, which was odd, because Kendall, tall with hazel eyes and honey skin, looked almost nothing like her shorter, darker mother. But that sad expression was identical to her daughter’s, mixed with the same ire, the same rebellion against bad news.

  “I appreciate you phoning,” Julian said.

  “Your father took sick while we were having our weekly dinner at my house. He didn’t want me to call, but it was only proper. Your office told me you were in Paris.”

  She was eyeing Julian like a cop with a hangover.

  “Kendall and I aren’t—”

  Garland glanced into the room, then clapped her hands and called, “Let’s allow Professor Rose to visit with his son.”

  The students filed out, saying hello to Julian. Garland gave him a slip of paper. “Here’s my home number—if you or your father need anything.”

  Julian said thank you, but Garland was already following the students down the hall.

  His father was thinner than he remembered, and as stiff and wrinkled as laundry dried too long on a clothesline.

  “Hallo, Vater,” Julian said.

  Theodor gazed up at him from the pillows. His hair and beard were as white as the top sheet. Julian wasn’t sure his father recognized him until Theodor said, “You were in Paris?”

  It was strange hearing his father speak English to him instead of German. Julian sat in the bedside chair. “I was.”

  Theodor said, “My books and money should be donated to the college.”

  “You’re still alive.”

  “That’s not a permanent condition. I prefer to be buried in the cemetery on campus. Next to your mother. It has no white section—President Wakefield received some threatening letters after Mother was buried there—so I instructed her to cremate my remains. Then I will be gray.”

  His father chuckled and began to cough. Julian held up a paper cup of water. “Take a drink, Dad.”

  Julian stunned himself, referring to Theodor as “Dad.” He had never used it before. Kendall used it, though, and perhaps he had picked it up from her. Or perhaps he wanted to say it once before Theodor died.

  Theodor waved the cup away. “I was thinking that your mother deserved to find happiness.”

  Julian almost replied that it was a little late for his father to reach that conclusion but decided to say nothing. What was the point?

  Theodor said, “She liked nursing. Whether it made her happy . . .”

  Out past the screened window, car horns honked and a fiery sunset reflected on the traffic, the shiny emblems of postwar American prosperity.

  Julian said, “Did you? Did you find happiness?”

  “With my writing, with my students.”

  “Your family?”

  “I have begun to believe I may not have been designed for marriage.”

  Or for fatherhood, Julian thought.

  Theodor cleared his throat. “Your mother used to tell me I didn’t love her the way in which she wanted to be loved.”

  “Did you?”

  “I was her husband, not her reflection.”

  Julian felt his anger rising.

  Theodor said, “I was aware that I wasn’t the husband she hoped for. Or the father you wanted.”

  Julian unstuck himself from the back of the chair. With the heat, he had sweated through his shirt.

  “Love is a bargain, then?” Theodor asked, as if he were posing a question to a class. “You love if you receive what you want?”

  Julian was in no mood for Socratic double-talk.

  Theodor looked at him with a slight arch to his bushy white eyebrows. “You were the son I wanted? Studious? Obedient?”

  Julian shook his head. Theodor smiled and clamped a hand on his son’s forearm, holding on and not letting go until he fell asleep. Julian watched over him, gulping at the humid air, until he dozed off. The window was dark when he heard Theodor call his name.

  “Dad? Dad?”

  Julian switched on the overhead light. Theodor was staring at the ceiling. Julian sat beside him on the bed, pondering whether you could grieve for what you never had or, more accurately, never believed you were entitled to—your father’s love.

  Yes, he decided, taking Theodor’s warm hand in his. You could.

  Chapter 48

  On opening night, with a cool September breeze blowing off the Seine and sweeping away the mugginess of summer, Club Dans le Vent was jumping. The smell of wood smoke and Isabella’s artistry in the kitchen blew across Rue Blainville, where people were waiting to get in, and inside you had to turn sideways to navigate through the crowd upstairs, which seemed sandwiched between the cream-colored tin ceiling and the oak floor inlaid with red-and-blue roadways of tile. Julian hadn’t seen anything like it since the speakeasies, only now the liquor and wine and beer were legal, though Marcel had purchased most of their stock on the black market. Thirsty customers were five deep at the zinc bar, and the cash register was ringing as if Isabella were accompanying the Otis Larkin Quartet in the cellar, where Otis was pounding out “Let the Good Times Roll,” remolding the slow bluesy number into a cross between the boogie-woogie and one of those gospel hymns that delivered you straight to heaven.

  The turnout was due to several factors: with the US Treasury underwriting the club, Julian could keep the prices low; Otis had his fans; and Kendall had spread the word in Saint-Germain. The intellectual gang, including Sartre, was supposedly downstairs, though Kendall had heard that Beauvoir couldn’t come because she was with her lover in America, and there was a mob of students decked out in black as if staging a wake for the world. Isabella and Marcel had let it be known that an ex-GI was a part owner, which attracted veterans in droves, who, in their telltale khakis, had bumped into their share of resentment in Paris, understandably because they were flush with cash while most locals scraped to get by. The sportier ex-GIs had traded their boots for penny loafers and wore tweed sport coats, and they chased the chic French girls in their felt hats and brightly colored scarves with an impressive inventiveness.

  As Julian and Kendall were waiting for a drink, an ex-GI ahead of them was with a dark-eyed looker, who was saying, “Ze professor de psychologie, he assign us a paper on Psychopathia Sexualis. Why we must study les perversions sexuelles, I do not comprends. Do ever you hear of zis book?”

  “Hear of it? Baby, I’m in it. Dance with me, and later on we’ll blow this joint, and I’ll help you with that paper.”

  After they had gone, Kendall giggled. “Fast thinker.”

  Julian sent a waiter to tell Otis he had a surprise for him, and when Otis came up between sets, he saw Eddie and Fiona standing with Julian and Kendall.

  “Jitterbug!” Eddie shouted.

  Otis introduced Eddie to the double-barreled Gallic smooch, which would require some practice on Eddie’s part. Fiona caught on fine.

  “Girl,” Otis said, grinning. “You ain’t shot this man yet.”

  “I have to wait till Christmas. He promised to buy me a shotgun.”

  “C’mon down,” Otis said. “Jules got seats by the bandstand, and I’ll play you some Mr. Thelonious Monk. That cat’s a hummer.”

  A tobacco h
aze hung over the dim cellar. The walls were blond wood with engraved mirrors, and the tables were jammed. During the set, most of the audience dug the music and snapped their fingers between songs. The exception was at a table in back, where Arnaud Francoeur was sitting and whispering with Thayer and Simon. When the quartet took their next break, Kendall and Fiona headed upstairs to the WC, and Thayer followed them. Simon stayed in his chair, and Arnaud came over and said bonsoir to Julian.

  “This is my friend Eddie.”

  “Hello, Eddie,” Arnaud said.

  Eddie, studying Arnaud as if he were a hissing snake, made a pistol with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and fired at him. This was not his chummiest greeting.

  “A fantastique debut,” Arnaud said, nodding at a corner table across the cellar. “But you don’t want a reputation as a rendezvous for les tapettes.”

  Julian and Eddie looked toward the corner, where Otis was gabbing with some young men bunched around a table. Otis had one arm draped affectionately over the thin blonde next to him, and across from them a bony-faced teenager was kissing a man with a white, rhinestone-studded Stetson on his head.

  Arnaud laughed, a blunt sound brimming with scorn. “We don’t need more Americans turning Frenchmen into cowboys or faggots.”

  “Which one are you?” Eddie asked.

  From the furrows in his forehead, Arnaud appeared to be cooking up a comeback. Ultimately, he chose not to reply, a wise choice.

  “À la prochaine,” Arnaud said, and returned to his seat.

  “What’d he say?” Eddie asked.

  “Until next time.”

  “If that jerk-off likes his teeth, there better be no next time.”

  Fiona and Eddie were in Paris for a week, and they had checked into the Trianon, so Julian packed a bag and stayed with Kendall in her suite. Eddie was a reluctant tourist, but Fiona assured him that his nights would be merrier if he did as he was told during the day. The four of them strolled up the Champs-Élysées, saw the Arc de Triomphe and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concorde; rode up and down the Seine on a Bateau-Mouche and explored the Luxembourg Gardens, the Tuileries, the Bois de Boulogne, the Île Saint-Louis, and the Île de la Cité. They ate dinners at Dans le Vent except for the evening they went to Chez Dumonet–Josephine for the boeuf bourguignon and Grand Marnier soufflé, and Eddie triple-tipped the waiter because he’d never gotten drunk on a dessert before.