by Byron Craft
The following year Faren got a month’s leave and surprised me with a trip to New York City. Neither of us had ever been there and it was tops on our list of places to see. There were several art museums I wanted to visit, many plays on and off Broadway to see, an unlimited array of ethnic restaurants to sample and, of course, the usual tourist haunts. My parents had given us some money for an anniversary gift so we rented a small furnished two room apartment in an old brownstone and settled in for the next thirty days.
It was our second to the last day in New York City when Faren told me he was being shipped out to Vietnam.
The fighting was quite heavy in South Vietnam and I was afraid that Faren would end up in the middle of it. I still look back at it now with a large degree of apprehension, because even today, Faren refuses to talk about it.
When we first met, his blue eyes were clear as crystal and seemed to gleam with determination. These days, their brilliance has dimmed considerably. On occasion, he will have his quiet moments lasting for several hours; on others he will lapse into a depression.
Faren can be his old self at times. Days will go by without us ever realizing there was a war and that our lives were painfully interrupted but then it will creep up on him and he gets lost in himself. It is ironic that Faren, a man who abhorred violence, was forced to participate in one of the most senseless and futile of all wars. While here I am in the present writing down what may be my last words in a house which overlooks a place where one of the largest blood baths in history took place.
Our separation was sudden and painful. At once I found myself alone and in a great city. I decided to stay in the small apartment we had taken for the month. There was no reason to return to Wichita Falls and I had always preferred the East Coast. Somehow I imagined that if I gave up that apartment I might not see Faren again. It was kind of a superstition I had about that place. I was determined to live there until the day came that my husband and I would be reunited.
Childish as it seems now, that old run down brownstone took on a certain charm for me. It became an asylum, a hiding place. My first week alone I main stayed myself by keeping Faren alive and well in my mind and pretending to be a good little housewife, cleaning and scrubbing and fixing up the apartment while my husband was away at work photographing the mayor of New York City or some make-believe visiting foreign diplomat.
I would have gone crazy if it had not been for the intervention of Emma, who lived down the hall. Emma had three children ages four through eight, and a husband employed as a hardware representative for a small wholesaler who spent more time on the road than he did at home. Loneliness made the perfect basis for our friendship and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves spending all of our free time together. Emma had a part-time job at Macy’s where she would go after packing her two eldest children off to school and the youngest to daycare. I found a position as a stenographer with a large shipping and transport company and every afternoon at twelve thirty sharp we met at Brennan’s Cafe for lunch.
Life became a little more bearable by then and I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. After a few weeks Faren’s letters began to arrive and my spirits were once again lifted by the knowledge of his safety. It wasn’t long before I detected emptiness in his letters. They were written with a good attempt at being cheerful but he never made mention of what he was doing let alone where he was or who he was with. There was an air of secrecy about his correspondences. It was evident that I was being spared but from what, I never knew.
Emma would give me encouragement from time to time, and if it hadn’t been for her friendly intrusions I probably would have slid back into self pity and remorse.
Strength became my key and Emma showed me the way. I wish she was with me now. We would laugh during our most troubled moments and decide to cry only on the silliest of occasions, such as the separation of Lucy and Earl on “Days of Our Lives” or a broken heel on a favorite pair of shoes.
Maybe it was reverse logic that kept us going but it helped to make the days and weeks pass quickly. After all, time was our worst enemy and we fought it with every weapon we could lay our hands on.
We would spend weeks rating the different meat markets and grocers in the neighborhood. More out of boredom than economics, we made a study of all the local retailers. Who had the lowest prices on dairy products, the freshest vegetables, the best buys on laundry detergents and God be praised if it happened to be double coupon day! Along with our tabulated results and massive coupon clippings, we would spend an entire day to do our week load of shopping. Starting uptown, we would swoop down upon the unsuspecting merchants with canvas shopping bags in tow, carefully selecting our buys from store to store, with each stop calculated to bring us closer to home concluding at the local deli for coffee and Danish.
***
We fought the battle and won the war. My personal battle on the home front, that is, was victorious, although the fighting in South Vietnam was winding down to a costly stalemate. I was ecstatic as many wives were at that time with the news of the return of their consorts. On a summer afternoon one year after our parting, Faren came home.
We cried when we first met. I bawled like a baby and Faren had to hold on to me through the baggage check and customs at the airport and for most of the cab ride home.
We locked ourselves in the apartment and didn’t come out for days. Emma at times would slip little notes under our door to see if we were still alive and on one occasion, she and Harry left a care package on our doorstep containing assorted fruits, cheeses and a bottle of wine.
The days of our secluded bliss helped erase the many long months of loneliness and despair I had felt longing for Faren’s return. After a while, I flung open the door and greeted the world with newly awakened anticipation.
Life had never been happier for me as then; and right now, I wish we could return to those days.
It took Faren quite a while to find a decent job. The economy made it hard enough to find work back then but Faren wasn’t motivated into doing anything special. That’s when I became aware of the change in him. When he should have been out job hunting he was content to stay at home and watch television all day. That wasn’t like him.
Although Faren was never wounded in Vietnam he did spend a month in a military hospital in Germany before being sent home. I have never been able to find out why he was there and Faren has remained tight lipped about it to this day. What happened to my love to make him moody and listless?
When he did manage to land a job he was normally discharged within the first couple of months. He became unemployable. In the years that followed he had been let go from at least a dozen different companies.
Faren seemed to be on the road to recovery when he took a job with a small factory on the east side that made fasteners. Faren worked there for almost a year before he was fired. I became frustrated when it happened. I was at my wits end. I had thought that this time it was going to be different. Faren would not talk to me about it. I wanted him to get help but he would not open up. He just sat there and stared off into space like he always did whenever I tried to pull it out of him. He retreated from me frequently. He appeared to be in a trance when he was in these moods. He looked preoccupied. As strange as it may sound, he looked like someone who was waiting for something to happen. Like the people you see sitting around bus terminals occasionally glancing at their watches.
I still held on to my secretarial position. I had to. There were times that my salary was the only money coming in for months on end. Any thoughts I had about having children were put aside in lieu of obtaining a weekly paycheck.
The next day I visited the factory on my lunch hour. Al Durbano, the owner and manager of the small stamping plant was a warm and friendly man in his early sixties. I was surprised when Mr. Durbano told me that he and his wife were very fond of Faren. The couple was childless and they found in Faren qualities they would liked to have seen in their own son, if they had been so blessed. His feelings
for my husband were genuine. I could tell that it was difficult for him to say anything negative about Faren. Mr. Durbano apologized for having to let Faren go but said that it became unavoidable. Faren, he said, was habitually late almost every morning and sometimes wouldn’t report for work at all. On other occasions he would leave for lunch and not return until the next day. When he did show up his work performance was superior to everyone else and he had an excellent ability for learning different facets of the business quickly. Due to his poor attendance, many times different projects that were dependent upon him suffered. “It got to the point,” said Mr. Durbano, “that we couldn’t depend on him anymore. Never phoning in when he was going to be late or not come in, never offering an explanation when he returned.”
By the beginning of his third year home Faren started drinking heavier then usual. It started in the evening with several drinks during and then after dinner. Then as time wore on I would come home to find empty beer cans in the kitchen. Faren never became mean when he got drunk. His character was far from violent. Instead he withdrew more and more into himself becoming almost lethargic. As the years went by we gradually grew apart.
***
In 1979 the position Faren obtained with the Emmerson and Prynne Company put our lives back on track again. Faren had been reduced to doing odd jobs around the neighborhood and for our landlord by then. Faren came across an ad in the classifieds. They wanted someone with a background in photography and it said they preferred veterans. Even though Faren had not picked up a camera in several years, the ad appeared to be written with him in mind. It took some encouragement but I got him to go and apply for the position. Faren rummaged through some of our things for early photos and dusted off his old portfolio.
The day after his interview we received the good news. He got the job! The position was as head of the photographic department and it paid extremely well. Like a piece of elastic that has been stretched out of shape, and then released, Faren snapped back. He became enthusiastic for the first time since the days before the war.
Faren’s daytime drinking stopped all together and we started making plans again for the future. We were even able to put some money away and have the apartment re-decorated.
Emmerson-Pryne apparently was a large corporation that had several holdings. Faren worked for the public relations division and the main office was just a few miles from our apartment. Things couldn’t have been better. Faren was happy with his job, helping promote everything from the New Coke to Geraldine Ferraro. The close proximity of his job left us a lot of free time to spend together. After a while I quit my job and threw away my diaphragm.
Harry and Faren had become good friends through the years. Faren was able to get Harry a job with one of his firm’s local accounts. The new job kept Harry off the road and at home at nights and on the weekends. Emma’s dream came true.
Every Friday evening, the four of us would take in a movie around the corner and then head for Lim Gardens to fill up on shrimp, fried rice and Sake. We would then take our good cheer with us by way of a long stroll back home. The scars of Vietnam had disappeared from both our lives.
When home, Faren and I would follow those delightful outings on the town with passionate love making. Many an evening I would sit up in bed, long after he had fallen fast asleep, listening to the faint bleating of someone’s car horn, while watching the bar across the street through our bedroom window turn off its neon sign signaling last call for drinks. I remember how I felt during those moments. Secure and at peace with my world, my continued vigil for existence fulfilled a desire that, at a time when Faren was not well, had been rendered hollow and empty. The city had once again become a beautiful place to live. Time Square, Central Park, all of New York was no longer a lonely giant but the great carnival of colorful lights and endless amazement I had once known. The days always held some new adventure for me but the evenings took on a personal nature meant only for me to interpret.
***
The nights were peaceful then, not like they are now. Now terror lurks at every turn. If only I had some insight, some kind of omen to warn me of this nightmare. If only I could have prevented that day when the telegram came and our lives were radically changed. If only I could transform this moorland view from my window to the scene I used to observe through the narrow casement in our little apartment.
At the time the news arrived, that signaled our departure, Emma and I were planning another shopping spree (one of our little pleasures that never ceased with Faren’s homecoming). The telegram came addressed to my husband and I signed for it. Faren would not have been home for hours and curiosity got the better of me. I tore it open while Emma peered over my shoulder with eager curiosity. I had to read it over several times before the full meaning of its contents became clear to me. The return address was from a Campbell, Pickman, Lumbly and Ward, Attorneys at Law. It read:
MR. FAREN CHURCH: YOUR GREAT UNCLE HEINRICH TODESFALL OF VALSBACH, WEST GERMANY HAS PASSED AWAY STOP YOU ARE THE ONLY HEIR TO HIS ESTATE STOP PLEASE CONTACT OUR FIRM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. D. WARD
It was like in the movies. I couldn’t believe my eyes and Faren was even more astonished when he read the message. He arrived home unexpectedly that morning. He was so surprised by it that he was almost speechless. We were both dumbfounded to learn that Faren had any relatives in Europe. The discovery of an unknown relative didn’t seem to make much of an impact on him though. In what appeared to be a stupor of bewilderment he kept muttering about an unbelievable coincidence.
The irony that baffled Faren wasn’t revealed to me at first. I still can’t help from wondering now if coincidence really had anything to do with the situation that developed. Was it also coincidence that brought Faren home early that morning?
His company had chosen him to head up a new International Project in Southern Germany, in the same area as his inherited estate. Faren and a group of employees from the Emmerson-Pryne Corporation were selected as technical advisers to the Army Corps of Engineers and the American and German Armed Forces for the aerial photography and mapping of an area in the West German Black Forest...a short distance from the village of Valsbach.
As Emma and Harry saw us off at the airport, we promised to write often and to return someday and pick up where we left off. All of our belongings were crated up in a large steel container where they were shipped by freighter, at the expense of Emmerson-Pryne, to a coastal town in Germany called Bremerhaven. From there, they would be transported by rail to Stuttgart and then by truck to our schloss just outside the village of Valsbach. Our route would take us first to London to refuel and then one more stop at Munich (or Munchen as the natives call it). The company had arranged to have a rental car waiting at the airport in Munich when we arrived and we spent the next ten days leisurely touring the countryside that ended up at our new home in time to meet the delivery of our furnishings.
That was a radical change, to say the least, in our lifestyles. It took a lot of talking on Faren’s part to convince me to even make the move in the first place. Faren was very persuasive, though, and the amount of money they offered was ridiculously huge. The excitement of travel was very tempting. “It would be the honeymoon we never had,” he said.
Faren’s assignment was a one year employment contract. His income in that period would be three times what he was currently making in New York. The money helped Faren realize a means to an old dream. To be the owner and operator of his own studio and to work freelance developing his own client base. The name “Church Photographic” rolled pleasingly off his tongue. Faren was more like his old self than ever. He was taken by the idea. Excited by the adventure, I didn’t want to disappoint him.
It took less than a month to get organized for the trip and surprisingly less to cut through the legal red tape of our attorneys in Providence and the overseas inheritance laws.
Faren made a journey to Providence to confer with Mr. Ward, the lawyer handling Heinrich Todesfall’s estate. Before coming home
he made a side trip to Massachusetts. It was a good one hundred twenty mile round trip out of his way to pick up the deed to the schloss (our estate in Germany) which was being held for safekeeping in a bank in Arkham. Faren stayed over before returning the next day.
It was during that trip of his that I became aware of a change, this time, within myself. I discovered that inside of me grew the seed of our first child. We had been trying unsuccessfully, for quite awhile, to have a baby. The pregnancy made me hesitant to leave New York. Faren was very persuasive though but not without consideration on my part. In fact, he became over protective to the point of becoming a pest. His concern for my goodwill reached a culmination of over-regard when one afternoon, after we had reached Stuttgart (about sixty miles from our destination); he turned up with a black Labrador retriever in tow. This eighty pound hunk of animal was to be left alone with me while Faren traveled back and forth between Valsbach and Fort Blish. This was my guard dog!
***
Thirty days after the receipt of the telegram, we arrived at the old schloss. Before I knew what was happening, we found ourselves in a country so primitive that it seemed remote from human contact. We drove along a little used road past a few tumbled down shacks where people had once lived and which had long since been taken back by the encroaching forest. It wasn’t a desolate country by any means but was instead an area thick with the growth of twisted and gnarled shrubbery.
The road we traveled on made an abrupt turn to the right and we found ourselves motoring up a steep incline. High up, crowning the top of a large hill, whose sides were layered with more of the same tangled shrubbery, stood the time worn house of Faren’s ancestors...Schloss Todesfall. I was immediately taken back by the castle size and proportions of the house. A large tower centrally fixed in the structure spiraled up taller than any of the century old trees that brooded around it. It looked more like a battlement than any conventional widow’s walk you might see along the eastern seaboard of the United States.