The stained glass is stunning, each tall window a story told in bits of colored glass. The colored light dazzles on the tile floor. Statues of solemn saints occupy alcoves, with Mother Mary holding pride of place.
“It’s like being inside a kaleidoscope,” Deacon says.
“Well, I’ll be. I ain’t the most churchgoing person ever,” Manning says. “But if I was ever to feel the Holy Ghost I reckon it would be here.”
Frangie doesn’t say what’s on her mind: that she does feel the Holy Ghost. That she feels the presence of God renewed, intensified with each turn of her head. She contents herself with saying, “Sure does beat Pastor M’Dale’s church. Though I don’t guess it’s as homey.”
She spots a small line of women sitting in an empty pew near a sort of ornate, carved phone booth. From time to time a woman emerges from one side of the phone booth and another goes in.
“That’s the confessional,” Deacon says. “See, in the papist church you confess your sins every week to a priest. Otherwise you can’t take the sacrament.”
“Confess?” Manning wonders with a laugh. “Who’d want to do that?”
A group of GIs erupts in loud laughter on the other side of the church. The old ladies, and some of the other tourists, mostly military, look askance, but no one says anything.
“Disrespectful,” Deacon grumbles. “I have half a mind to go over there . . .”
“Those are white soldiers, Deacon,” Frangie points out.
“They still should show some reverence for a house of the Lord. Even a papist house of the Lord.”
Frangie makes eye contact with a marble saint whose eyes are blank but somehow reproachful. “What denomination are you, Deac?”
Deacon smiles fondly. “Church of the Brethren in Marion, Indiana. It isn’t much more than a cinder-block building by the side of the road. Even on Easter Sunday it’s never more than seventy, eighty souls. But I sure do miss it.”
“You church folk,” Manning says tolerantly, shaking her head. “Me, I sleep late on a Sunday morning. I have a late night on Saturday at the café.”
“You’re a waitress?”
Manning makes a dismissive noise. “Hell no . . .” She stops and covers her mouth and shoots a guilty look toward the altar. “I mean, gosh no. I’m a short-order cook, a grill man except for being a woman.”
Frangie has been long enough in the war to turn her mind briefly at least to ways in which she can benefit from Manning’s cooking skill. But nothing comes to mind—she doubts even a great grill woman can do much with C rations and a spirit stove.
“How come they didn’t make you a cook?” Deacon asks.
“Because every other colored person who gets drafted they make him a cook or a bottle-washer or an orderly, or else send ’em to a support battalion digging latrines for white folks. I didn’t tell them I could cook, I told them I could drive.” She laughs happily at the thought. “I didn’t want to spend the war digging shitters—sorry, slit trenches—for ofay officers.”
Deacon doesn’t smile much, but he smiles at this. “You don’t have to love the Lord, Manning, He loves you. Must have. He made so much of you.” Manning has a clear four inches on Deacon.
She pats him on the head.
They fall silent as the sheer splendor of the place weighs on them again. It is impossible not to be awestruck at the artistry, the skill, the incredible hard work and dedication that made the Sainte-Chapelle possible.
But it is that very nearness to God, combined with the alienness of the place, that makes Frangie want to question Him.
Why?
That is her question. Why?
Two months have passed since D-day. Frangie can’t begin to guess how many men and women she has treated, saving some, losing others, and, she hopes, comforting even the doomed ones. She has seen the human body inside and out in every detail. She has seen intestines and stomachs, esophaguses and brains. She’s seen stumps where arms or legs had been. She’s seen faces destroyed beyond any hope of repair. She’s seen tankers burned to charcoal over half their body while the other half screams, screams in agony no matter how much morphine she gives them.
She’s heard too many scared, childlike voices calling for mama, mom, mother, mommy . . . Too many begging her to help . . . too many begging her to let them die . . .
Tell me why, Lord. Why? I would usually add, if it is Your will, but I’ve seen too many things and now I need to know.
“Why?”
“Are you asking the Lord or me?” Deacon says.
“Whoever has an answer,” Frangie says. “You look around this place and you have to think, wow, look what human beings can make. Look at all this beauty. And that same creature builds Tiger tanks.”
“War is sin,” Deacon says.
“Tell that to Adolf,” Manning says, wandering back from examining an alcove.
“‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,’” Deacon recites. “That’s what Jesus had to say.”
“Uh-huh,” Manning says. “I got a quotation too. It’s like this: Mess with me, and I will pay it back tenfold. If you start trouble, I will sure as hell finish it. That’s not the Bible, that’s me.”
Deacon tilts his head to look up at her. “Would you shoot a German, Manning?”
“Yes. I would,” Manning says.
“And you, Doc?”
Frangie has no quick answer to that question, so Deacon reframes it. “Let’s say you got a soldier, wounded, and a Kraut soldier pops up and he’s going to kill that man. Would you shoot the German dead?”
Frangie squirms under the close examination of her two companions. Both of them are so sure of their answers. She is not.
“I don’t know, Deac. I guess if that ever happens, I’ll just have to see.”
“It’s all in my report, Colonel,” Rainy says to Herkemeier.
Herkemeier has her report. She’s spent two days preparing it and typing it out. They look at each other from across a metal desk that has been stuffed into a corner of a room in one of the government buildings taken over by the US Army in Paris. Behind them is cheerful chaos: civilian employees carry boxes of folders and wheel filing cabinets into place; Signal Corps soldiers string phone lines; military and civilian typists clack away at their machines; officers rush to and fro looking down at clipboards.
There is, Rainy thinks, a lot more chaos in war than a civilian might imagine. No one writes histories of the men and women who organized this moveable feast of mayhem, but somehow those anonymous folks eventually create order.
“I’ve read your report, Lieutenant,” Herkemeier says, not concealing his irritation. He calls her “Lieutenant” the way an annoyed parent might use a child’s full name. “I am asking now about you. Rainy Schulterman. The woman. You.”
“Me?” Rainy shrugs. “I’m feeling fine, sir.”
Herkemeier sighs. “Come on, Rainy. You don’t have to do that with me.”
It’s Rainy now, not Lieutenant, she observes. He wants her to open up, and, she concedes, he has that right. He is her superior officer, and he has a valid interest in knowing her state of mind. But Rainy is not merely a keeper of secrets because she’s in intelligence, it is her core nature to give up as little as possible.
Give him something.
“I failed in my primary mission,” she says. “I feel . . . disappointed . . . by that.”
For a minute she half believes Herkemeier is going to throw her report at her. Then his expression softens and he shakes his head in a mix of irritation and amusement. “When this is all over you should look to a permanent career in intelligence, Rainy. You are the most close-mouthed person I’ve ever met.”
Rainy’s eyebrows rise. “But surely when the war is over we won’t be . . .” Her words peter out as she begins to sense the truth.
Herkemeier snorts. “
This war isn’t going to end, Rainy, not really. Things have changed for good. Or ill. But changed. The USA isn’t going to retreat back behind the oceans this time. There will be spies. Believe me, there will be spies.”
Rainy nods. “I suppose a knowledge of Russian would be helpful.”
Herkemeier points a finger at her. “You didn’t hear me imply any such thing. Patton was nearly fired for slighting our gallant Soviet allies. But . . .” He shrugs. “It’s never a bad thing to pick up a language.”
Rainy nods slowly. It’s a new thought. She’d always assumed after the war she would return home, go to college, and become . . . well, something worthwhile. A lawyer? A teacher? A . . . what?
A spy?
“I’m fine, Jon,” she says, relenting a little. “It was bad. What I saw in Oradour, that was very bad.”
He plays the professional interrogator and remains silent.
“Look,” she says, leaning forward. “Do you want me to say it bothered me? Of course it bothered me. I spent some time with that little boy Bernard and . . .” And suddenly her voice betrays her, and for a moment she cannot go on. Her next words come out in a lower register. “A terrible, terrible place. There, are you happy? You got me to admit that I’m a woman and I have emotions.”
“A human being, not a woman,” Herkemeier corrects gently. “Do you think because I’m a man I read your report without feeling anything? Do you think I didn’t feel some of the horror behind your very cool, detached, professional report?”
“I didn’t mean to imply . . .” She lets it trail off, embarrassed.
“Listen to me, Rainy, you’re one of the best field agents I’ve ever seen. You failed to get us information on the Das Reich, but you took out a fuel dump that slowed them down and saved American GIs. You also . . . eliminated . . . a maquis traitor. And you killed the Nazi bastard responsible.”
“Not yet,” Rainy says, and an almost dreamy look calms her features. “The bastard responsible is about five hundred miles east of here in Berlin.”
“Rio.”
The voice is familiar, and Rio suspects that if she’d refused that last drink she’d recognize it immediately. But as it is her brain is foggy and her step is unsteady. Cat is sleeping it off on the bench in the Tuileries Garden where Rio plopped her after Cat went facedown.
Jenou has accepted an invitation to go dancing with a rather dashing young Polish officer. Personal friendships between enlisted and officer are extremely out-of-bounds, but that only applies to officers wearing the US uniform. Poles are—at least to Jenou’s mind—fair game.
Rio turns toward the voice and blinks. Blinks again.
“Strand?”
He comes to her, places hands on her upper arms, and draws her close for a kiss. A rather sloppy kiss, Rio thinks, possibly because her lips are numb. Also because his face won’t quite stay still.
“What are you doing here? Have they moved you guys up?”
Strand glances furtively over his shoulder. And only now does Rio realize he’s not in uniform. He’s dressed in slacks and a white shirt with an Ike jacket, his only concession to military appearance.
“I need to talk to you, Rio,” he says, and even drunk she feels the urgency.
“Sure. What’s . . . I mean, what . . .”
He is looking around for a place to go and spots a café. One thing liberated Paris is not short of is cafés. He leads them to a table in the far back corner, to a booth hidden from sight each time the kitchen door swings open.
“Coffee,” Rio says. Strand orders a beer. She’s about to warn him that beer leads to staggering through the streets of Paris, but his expression is too serious for jokes. And not just serious, but heightened, alert. Nervous.
Afraid.
Their drinks come, and Rio downs the bitter espresso in a single gulp. Then she drinks half a bottle of mineral water.
“Okay, what is going on, Strand?”
“I guess there’s no good way to . . .” He stops, reaches across to take her hands, and says, “You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she blurts, then frowns, not quite sure . . .
“And I love you. I want to marry you.”
Rio laughs. “Are you proposing?”
“Oh, I know it’s not right, I should be on one knee, and there should be a ring . . . but all that matters is we’re going to still be together, no matter what.”
Rio may be drunk, but not so drunk her brain doesn’t raise the hairs on the back of her neck at the phrase no matter what.
“Strand. What’s happened?”
He sits back. He tries out a jaunty smile, which evaporates instantly. He fidgets with his glass. Then, in a rush, “I’m AWOL.”
AWOL. Absent without leave.
Rio waves a dismissive hand. “Half of Paris is AWOL,” she says. “The city is neck-deep in AWOLs and outright deserters. I had some fellow from New Jersey offer to sell me nylons and a Luger. Right on the street! Black marketeer, not that I’m saying you’re . . . I mean, AWOL is one thing, some company punishment, clean latrines for a day . . . deserters are a whole different thing.”
“Rio. I’m not going back.”
“Back where?”
“Back. I’m not going back to my unit. I’m done. I’m done with this war, I just want to go home. I want to go home with you.”
“I’m sorry, Strand, but I’m confused.”
He calls the waiter and motions for another beer. Rio orders more coffee. This is clearly a coffee situation.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Strand says. “Everyone’s getting killed. Our last raid we lost three planes! Thirty people. I watched them get hit, I watched them go down, and you know, you watch and you wait to count the chutes. And no one jumped, Rio. They all augered in.”
“We’ve lost some people too.”
“Of course you have. But you don’t understand. Eighth Air Force keeps increasing the number of missions we have to fly before rotating out. I mean, it’s math, Rio, it’s math! Of the guys I started out with, only one is alive. They just keep sending us out till we’re all dead!”
He has become worked up, voice rising in pitch, cheeks red.
Rio struggles to comprehend what Strand is saying. He’s gone AWOL? He’s deserted? Strand? Strand Braxton is a deserter?
“No one wants to die,” she says. It’s meaningless, really, but she feels the need to say something as her head keeps spinning around and around.
“I’m not a coward!” Strand says sharply, as though she had just accused him of it. She hadn’t. Hadn’t even formed the thought. But now . . . well now, there it is.
Is Strand a coward?
“You have to go back,” Rio says. “We get GIs walking off the line all the time. Sometimes it gets to be too much, and they need a few hours to—”
“Go back? You want me to go back?” He stares at her as if seeing her for the first time. “My God, Rio. I expected you to understand. I could die. Me! I could die. I will die if I go back, I know it. I feel it inside.”
“Strand, if you desert they’ll look for you. They’ll find you, eventually, and arrest you. Especially you being an officer!”
“I’ll change my name,” he says. “I’ve never liked my name that much, it’s strange and slightly pompous, I think. I could be a Tom or a George or a Jack.”
Instantly an unbidden thought: You are no Jack.
It’s an unworthy thought. Rio wishes it had never come up, because now she is thinking of them in contrast, Strand and Jack. Strand the dashing pilot, the boy next door, the good son, the one she’s supposed to marry. And Jack, who is less dashing than witty, from some town south of London, and was her subordinate.
A completely foolish comparison.
And foolish to compare their courage too. It is true, she does not know what a B-17 pilot endures on a bombing run over Germany. It had to be terrifying, holding the stick, working the pedals, struggling to keep your plane flying in a straight line as ack-ack exploded all
around and Luftwaffe fighters sprayed machine guns at you.
Of course it was no picnic advancing over an open field with mortars dropping all around you either, and Rio had seen Jack do just that many times.
“This is nuts,” Rio mutters to herself more than Strand.
“I know it would be hard being married to me under a different name, but you’d get—”
“Jesus, Strand!”
Her outburst makes him recoil. He drops her hands.
Rio says, “It’s not a question of what you call yourself, Strand, it’s . . . I mean, it’s just not possible. What do we tell my parents? Or your parents?”
“I don’t know,” Strand says, suddenly savage. “But at least whatever it is, I’ll be alive to tell them. I guess I was a fool to think you’d understand.”
“Understand? That you’re a deserter? A deserter? Every day I’m on the line I have to send someone out on patrol, or tell them to run straight at a machine gun, and they don’t desert.”
“You think I’m a coward.”
“No, Strand, I—”
“You think I am a coward. Admit it!”
“Strand, I’m—”
“Admit it!”
“Yes, you’re being a coward! Yes! You have to go back, Strand, right away, before it gets worse.”
He sits all the way back now, hands dropped to his sides. He looks smaller, narrower, as if his shoulders have shrunk. “You’d rather I die.” He shakes his head bitterly. “You’re not a woman anymore, Rio, not a woman or a girl. No woman sends her man to die. A sergeant does that, not a woman. You’re unnatural, you know that? You’re a freak in a freak show! Gaze upon the warrior woman with her bloody fugging knife and her Silver fugging Star!”
The switch from pleading to hectoring is sudden and shocks Rio. Strand isn’t just angry at her for doubting his plan or even for doubting his courage. This goes deeper. This has been festering for a while.
Since I rescued him in Sicily.
He has no doubt taken a lot of ribbing over that. He’d been saved by his girlfriend, and his girlfriend had won a medal for saving him. But so what? Military life came with a heaping helping of teasing, challenging, ridiculing, but if you delivered, if you came through in the crunch, all of that faded away.
Purple Hearts Page 20