Dahlquist is irate as he stares at the assembled soldiers, his hound-dog cheeks twisting into a scowl. He turns to his adjutant and points at two companies where only a few soldiers stand.
“What companies are those two?”
“I and K companies, sir.”
“And how many soldiers are there in I and K companies?”
“Four hundred men went into battle, sir.”
Dahlquist bristles. “Then why do I count only twenty-six soldiers here? I told you I wanted everyone to attend. Where are the others? Why aren’t they here?”
His adjutant pauses. “That’s all that remains. Sir.”
Dahlquist flinches. A stunned expression washes over his gray face. Twenty-six? he seems to whisper, his lips moving silently, his eyes blinking. The expression of a man who for the first time sees the blood on his hands.
Later he makes a speech, his voice droning on. He makes no effort to be heard, and the soldiers make no effort to hear. His useless words about courage, about bravery, about patriotism, about America, about freedom, his patronizing words. Everyone wants him to shut up.
Afterward he approaches selected soldiers standing in the front row. One by one he pins medals on their lapels for their acts of bravery. Some stare him in the eye, giving away nothing in their vacant faces. Others look down to the furrowed ground, refusing to look him in the eye.
When he stands in front of Alex, Alex does neither. He only continues to stare straight ahead, looking neither up nor down, but straight through Dahlquist’s chest. As if Dahlquist isn’t even there, as if he is insubstantial and Alex can see through him to the very edge of the dark forest.
“Well, done,” says Dahlquist, extending his hand.
Alex doesn’t say anything. Keeps staring dead ahead, and for a long moment doesn’t extend his hand in return. Finally, and only because he is a soldier, only because he has obedience stamped into his bones, does he dutifully extend his own hand. Dahlquist’s hand envelops his, swallowing it whole with bone-crushing force. As if trying to force Alex to look up, pay some respect, for God’s sake. Alex doesn’t blink, stares straight ahead.
* * *
Later, the names of the dead are read. The soldiers, still standing in formation, are rock still. From the edge of the field, a gloved bugler plays the twenty-four notes of “Taps.” Snow drifts down, slowly, mournfully from the gray skies. Everyone thinking of brothers lost. Zack Okutsu. Teddy Ikoma. Mutt Suzuki. Their faces. Their voices. Their laughter. The bugler goes quiet; a wind picks up. Eyes well up in the silence. A few cry, but with silent, solitary tears. Most stare vacantly at the ground, or across the farmland at the dark line of trees.
Three volleys of rifle fire into the air.
PART FOUR
CHARLIE LÉVY
61
* * *
January 19, 1945
Dear Frank,
It’s been forever and I still haven’t heard from you. But I’ll keep writing.
My artillery battalion was separated from the 442nd, and we’ve become a detached unit. We were on the move for weeks, trudging along on a slow motor march, cooped up in the transport trucks for days on end. We stopped only briefly in towns and villages, sleeping mostly in tents, but sometimes we lucked out and got to sleep overnight in abandoned houses. The names of the towns and villages are a blur now, and would be forgotten if I didn’t jot them down: Mâcon, Cheniménil, Dijon, Valence, Menton. Someday Charlie might be curious, and I want to tell her exactly where I’d been.
I’m currently stationed way up in the French Alps at an observation post near Sospel, where the air is thin and razor cold. An empty world with snow-peaked mountains everywhere. Snow flurries never seem to let up this high in the mountains, but the flakes are light and soft.
It was hell getting up here to the observation post, though. We had to hike on trails that were ice-packed and steep. Mules carried the heavy equipment, but these mules, man they were stupid. Stoooo-peeed. And stubborn as heck. Always trying to shake off the pack saddle, rubbing the attached pots and pans and armory against the rocks, the rattling they’d make. Always biting and kicking at us before trying to scamper off.
Then we got to the switchbacks: narrow, stacked up on top of one another like a messy pile of pancakes. We couldn’t trust the mules with the howitzers on the tight turns. So we had to push the howzies ourselves. That was no fun. Them stupid mules kept grinning at us the whole time, God, I wanted to smack them right in their noggin. Or push them over the edge.
But now that we’re up here, the view is pretty darn amazing. There’s time and space to think and reflect. I’m looking forward to coming back. Never thought I’d say this, but those hot barracks in the Manzanar summer seem like heaven to me. Saunas to thaw out the cold that’s so deep in my bones. I’ve been shivering for months.
But of course, there’s still the war to be won, right? Hitler’s not backing down. We heard the Nazis were putting up a fight in Belgium and Luxembourg not so long ago. But we daydream about coming home. My Hawaii brothers, all they do is talk about hot Waikiki beaches and hot pig roasts and hot Hawaii girls. Cap tells us to keep our mind focused on the war.
And he’s right. Just yesterday I was on guard duty when I noticed something suddenly poke out of the mountains, on the Italian side of the border. Grabbed my binoculars. It was a German railway gun brought out of a concealed tunnel. Aimed right at us. Like staring down the barrel of a gun.
I never worked faster. Grabbed a grid map, worked out the coordinates, radioed it in. Took only two markers, then three salvoes. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. That explosive ball of orange and red fury, it was a thing of beauty, raw and pure, against the white snow and blue sky. It swallowed up that German gun, brought down that tunnel. We felt the boom concuss across the mountain range.
Cap was pleased. He gave me a day pass to this place called Nice. I get to go in several weeks with a few other guys. They’re already talking about hitting up some bars and a brothel. Me? I got other plans. Nice is where Charlie vacationed one summer long ago, staying with a family friend. I remember she wrote me a few letters from there.
Do me a favor, Frank? Go through Charlie’s old letters—they’re in a suitcase under my cot—and see if you can dig up those letters from Nice. This was the summer of ’36 or maybe ’37. There should be a return address on the envelopes. Let me know what that address is, will ya?
Your brother,
Alex
Alex rereads the letter, sighs. He shouldn’t have mentioned the observation post. Or named all those towns, for that matter. The army censors will have a field day blotting them out. He picks up an eraser. Then a moment later, puts it down. Never mind. Who cares.
Because censored or not, it’ll make no difference in the end. Frank still hasn’t written to him. Not a single letter. Not even a postcard all these years. It can’t be because Frank is still angry at him. At least, Alex doesn’t think so. It’s not like Frank to hold grudges this long. Something else is keeping him silent.
Screw it, Alex thinks. He’s not going to erase anything. The censors can do what they want with this letter. Block out the whole damn page if they want to.
62
* * *
February 22, 1945
Hey Alex!
It’s your brother here! Remember me? Sorry for taking so long to write back. Yes, I’m a schmuck. But you know me—writing’s not really my thing.
Hey, good news. No, great news! Father’s back! Yup, he arrived here a couple of weeks ago. He’s a skeleton now, feeble, we barely recognized him when he first got off the bus. Clive, one of the MPs I’ve become friendly with, gave us a ride on his jeep back to the barrack.
Mother’s taking care of Father now. Sneaking food back from the mess hall, tending to him day and night. It must be tiring work but it’s like she’s got this new lease on life. She’s all energy now, bustling around, restoring Father back to health. When I hear them quietly talking and even chuckling together, I’m glad
for them.
You did right, enlisting. I’m sure it’s only because of you that Father was released. But you know what? It should’ve been me who volunteered. I’m the oldest son, after all. Instead all I did was protest here. Which was the right thing to do, I guess, but many nights I lie awake wondering what waving placards and screaming into the wind really achieved.
You’re the hero, Alex. The leader, the real quarterback of this family, while all I’ve done is warmed the bench. And it’s been really tough for me to accept that. And I guess that’s the true reason why I never wrote back to you. Because, yeah, I’m pretty ashamed of myself. There, I said it. Ashamed. I feel like I let you all down these last two years. Some days, I can barely look Father in the eye.
But I’m over that now. I’m just so proud, man. At who you’ve become. At what you’ve done. We’ve all heard about the heroics of the 442nd. I’ve cut out and stuck to the wall newspaper articles about you guys. And I must’ve read your letters about a hundred times each. You don’t know how many nights I dreamed I was there, fighting alongside you in Italy, France, Germany.
I look up to you, you little goober. We all do. You’ve done us proud.
Your bro,
Frank
P.S. Almost forgot. But I went through Charlie’s letters like you asked. And yes, I found the letters sent from Nice. The written return address is 11 Quai des Deux Emmanuels, appt. 3, Nice, France.
P.P.S. Something else I found in that suitcase: your sketchbook. Well, I took a quick peep. On every page, there’s a drawing of someone. That’s Charlie, right? You’re clearly in love with her, you little dolt. You kind of always have been, haven’t you?
As I was flipping through the pages, a magazine article slipped out. From The New Republic. It was about Jews being sent to extermination camps.
I always had a hunch there might be another reason why you enlisted. And now I know.
Yes, my weird, strange little brother, you’ve always had your head in the clouds. But that ain’t so bad a place to be when your heart’s in the right place. And crazy as this sounds, I hope you find what you’re looking for.
63
MARCH 22, 1945
NICE, FRANCE
Nice is nothing like Alex imagined it.
He envisioned a provincial little beach town. But instead it’s a bustling city: alive, vibrant, with a mind of its own. The other three soldiers in the jeep perk up as they speed down boulevard Victor Hugo, their heads swiveling back and forth at the passing buildings and people. And at the women, so many of them. As soon as they reach the town center, they leap off the jeep and race across the street, hooting and laughing, for a brothel around the corner.
Not Alex, though. He has other plans.
Thanks to Frank—whose letter Alex must have read a dozen times, each time with tears—he now knows the address of Monsieur Schäfer’s summer apartment. 11 quai des Deux Emmanuels, appt. 3. Alex doesn’t really expect to find Charlie—or even Monsieur Schäfer, for that matter—in that apartment. This is nothing but a stab in the dark. A fool’s errand.
But Alex has no other way of finding Charlie. He has to try something.
He asks locals for directions. But they are tired of foreign soldiers, and rude. For three years, foreign troops—first the Italians, then the Germans, now the Americans—have invaded their city. The locals wave Alex off, or stare at him in confusion, this Japanese man in an American uniform speaking passable French. Only an older man in an open square stops his bowling game to point Alex the way.
But it is the wrong way. For hours he walks past stores, restaurants, cafés, helplessly lost. One hotel, the Excelsior, inexplicably gives him the chills as he walks past. He asks a storekeeper for directions, is sent down to the shoreline. There he walks on a wide promenade alongside a rocky beach. Less than a year ago the beach was littered with mines and antiaircraft weapons and barbed wire against an Allied invasion. Now it’s been scraped barren and ugly.
He keeps walking, certain he’s heading in the wrong direction. A dilapidated pier extends out from the promenade, and he sees, at the end the Palais de la Jetée, a massive building modeled after London’s Crystal Palace. It’s been razed down to a husk, its metal stripped by the Nazis for building warplanes. A metaphor, Alex thinks, of what war does to places. And to people.
Few strollers walk the promenade, and those who do ignore his request for help. By five o’clock he’s cold and miserable. He begins to wonder if such an address even exists. Or even why it would matter. Charlie stayed there many years ago, after all. His plan is absurd and naive, full of childish optimism. Why did he bother coming?
Almost ready to give up, he turns a bend in the promenade. He sees a pier. Sailboats and rowboats docked along its length, the sound of anchor ropes creaking. I can see a pier from my window, she’d written long ago. The sea so blue! He walks on, faster now. A few minutes later he is standing in front of 11 quai des Deux Emmanuels.
Apartment 3 is on the second floor. He takes the stairs two at a time, then hurries down the length of the hallway. In front of the apartment, he pauses, his heart thumping wildly. His throat has gone raw and dry. Then he raps the door with his knuckles.
Footsteps. The door opens, only partway. Through the slim gap, Alex sees a man with a full head of sheer white hair and sharp intelligent eyes. He frowns at Alex, stares confused at the uniform.
“Excusez-moi,” Alex says. “Êtes-vous Monsieur Schäfer—”
The man narrows his eyes. He answers back in a torrent of French, too fast for Alex to understand. He starts to shut the door.
Alex rams his boot into the gap. The man’s eyes widen angrily at Alex.
“Stop!” the man shouts. He leans against the door, pushing hard. “Take your foot out!”
Alex ignores the pain. “You can speak English, then.”
The man stops pushing. “Go away,” he growls.
“Please. I don’t wish to cause trouble. I’m looking for someone. His name is Monsieur Wolfgang Schäfer. This is his summer apartment.”
“Who? Go away.”
“You don’t know him? Monsieur Schäfer?”
“You have wrong place. Go away.”
“Please. He’s a businessman from Paris.” Alex tilts his head, staring keenly back at the man. “Are you Monsieur Schäfer?”
“I do not know this man. Perhaps he live here before. But I cannot help you.”
“Please, can you—”
“I already tell you. I cannot help you.” He leans against the door again.
But Alex only wedges his boot deeper into the gap. That’s when he notices through the narrow opening the shoe the man is wearing. A two-toned oxford. With fancy wing tips, pattern swirls, a distinctive monk strap. Identical to the pair Charlie once sent him.
“Your shoes,” Alex says. “They’re very distinctive.”
The man stops pushing. He looks down, then back up at Alex.
“A friend once sent me a pair just like those,” Alex says. “A girl from Paris. Her father owned a shoe factory with Monsieur Schäfer.”
The man blinks. He examines Alex carefully as if reading tiny words on his face.
“You are Monsieur Schäfer, I know you are.” Then the question comes out like a breath too long held. “Where is Charlie?”
The man stares back, then shakes his head. “I cannot help you.”
“Did she ever make it here? Is she still alive?”
“I said I cannot help you, Monsieur Maki.”
“Please tell me,” Alex whispers, and there is a deep dull aching in his lungs. He puts his hand into the gap, wraps his fingers around the edges of the door. “Anything you know.”
Monsieur Schäfer stares at Alex. Finally, with a sigh, he opens the door wide. “Come inside.”
* * *
In the small kitchen Monsieur Schäfer motions to the table while he busies himself, putting the kettle on and lighting a few candles. His movement is efficient and decisive, and even in these
simple actions, an intelligence percolates.
Alex pulls out a chair, sits. A lifetime’s worth of fears and hopes tumble inside his head. But he knows better than to pepper the man with questions. Not now. Not yet. He listens for sounds of another in the house. But hears nothing in this quiet, immaculate apartment. Even the kitchen is tidy, not a utensil out of place. Only a bookshelf set off against the far wall is in disarray, stuffed with books every which way. Books in French, German, English.
The far window overlooks the pier, and in the deepening dusk, Alex sees the gentle bobbing of boats. On the windowsill stands a framed black-and-white photo of two young soldiers, grinning. One of them is clearly a young Monsieur Schäfer. The brashness of youth in both men’s eyes, their arms draped comfortably around each other.
“That’s Charlie’s father?” Alex asks.
He nods without looking up. “It was many years ago. A lifetime ago.” He brings out two empty teacups, sets them on the kitchen counter. Then, reluctantly it seems, he moves to the table and sits down across from Alex. In the candlelight he seems softer, less stern.
“How do you know I am here?” asks Monsieur Schäfer. “I have tried to be very careful. I don’t even use my real name anymore in Nice.”
“Charlie spent a summer here. Many years ago. She wrote a few letters to me. That’s how I got your address.”
“And how you found me.” He nods to himself. “Of course, it makes sense now.” He blinks slowly, then stares grimly at the trembling candlelight. “You asked about Charlie. She never come here.”
“Then where is she now?”
“I do not know.” He takes a long breath. “You asked me if Charlie is alive. I also do not know this. But I think maybe she is not alive.”
Alex feels the air in the room drain away.
The kettle starts to whistle. Monsieur Schäfer gets up, returns with two cups of tea. He sets one down before Alex, adds a few drops of honey.
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