Nelson Demille Page 8

  Time to chop wood. He pruned the old oaks around the house, gathered up the branches in a pull cart, and took them to the sawhorses. He cut, split, and stacked.

  Aunt Betty had stopped by, and so had some of his distant relatives. The Mullers from the next farm to the south came by, and so had Martin and Sue Jenkins from the farm across the road. Everyone brought something in the way of food, everyone seemed a little awkward, and everyone asked the same questions—"So, you stayin' awhile? Miss the big city yet? Been downtown? Seen anybody? And so forth. No one had asked what was on their minds, which was, Are you nuts?

  Keith got a cold beer and took a break on the front porch. He stared at the lonely farm road and watched the fields and trees moving in the wind. Butterflies, bumblebees, and birds. Then a blue and white police cruiser came by. They came by once or twice a day, he figured, maybe more. It occurred to him that, if by some miracle Annie drove up, there could be a problem. He thought about getting word to her through her sister, but he felt foolish doing that and didn't know quite what to say. Hi, I'm back and being watched by your husband. Stay away.

  Obviously, her husband would also be watching her. But, most likely, she had no intention of stopping by, so why worry about it? Whatever was going to happen would happen. He'd spent too many years manipulating events, then worrying about his manipulations, then trying to discover if his manipulations were working, then doing damage control when things blew up, and so forth and so on Be alert, be on guard, be prepared. Do nothing. Sounded like good advice. But he was getting itchy.

  The following morning, Keith drove to Toledo and exchanged the Saab for a Chevy Blazer. The Blazer was dark green, like half the ones he'd seen around, and it blended well. The dealer secured Ohio plates for him, and Keith put his Washington plates under the seat. He had to send them back to where they came from, which was not the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

  Late in the afternoon, he started for home. By the time he reached the outskirts of Spencerville, it was dusk, and by the time he reached the farm, long purple shadows lay over the farmyard. He passed the mailbox and turned into the drive, then stopped. He backed up and saw that the red flag was up, which was odd because he'd gotten his mail that morning. He opened the mailbox and took out an unstamped envelope addressed simply Keith. There was no mistaking the handwriting.

  He drove the Blazer around to the back of the house, so it couldn't be seen, got out, and went inside. He put the envelope on the kitchen table, got a beer, put it back, and made himself a stiff Scotch and soda instead.

  He sat at the table and sipped his drink, poured a little more Scotch into it, and did this a few times until he looked at the envelope again. Well.

  He thought about things, about her: They'd had a monogamous and intense relationship for two years in high school, then four years of college, and they'd graduated Bowling Green State University together. Annie, a bright and enthusiastic student, chose to accept 'a fellowship at Ohio State. He, bored with school, restless, and in any case not in a financial position to do graduate work, chose not to apply to Ohio State. He did follow her to Columbus, but before the summer was over, he was swept up in the draft as soon as the Spencerville draft board learned of his status.

  Keith opened the envelope and read the first line. Dear Keith, I heard you were back and living at your folks' place.

  He looked out into the dark yard and listened to the locusts.

  They had that summer together, a magic two months in Columbus, living in her new apartment, exploring the city and the university. In September, he had to go. He said he would return; she said she'd wait. But neither of those things happened, nor were they likely to happen in America in 1968.

  Keith took a deep breath and focused again on the letter. He read, The local gossip is that you're staying awhile. True?

  Maybe. He poured a little more Scotch and thought back.

  He'd gone to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for his basic and advanced training, then to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and within a year was commissioned a second lieutenant. Not bad for a farm kid. They wrote, often at first, then less frequently, of course, and the letters were not good. She found her monogamy hard to defend or justify and let him know she was seeing other men. He understood. He didn't understand. He spent his pre-embarkation leave in Spencerville, not Columbus. They spoke on the phone. She was very busy with difficult classes. He was very anxious about going into a combat zone and really didn't care about her classes. He asked her if she was seeing anyone at the moment. She was, but it was not serious. After about ten minutes of this, he looked forward to combat. He said to her, You've changed. She replied, We've all changed, Keith. Look around you.

  He said, Well, I've got to go. Good luck in school.

  Thanks. Take care, Keith. Home safe.

  Yup.

  Bye.

  Bye.

  But they couldn't hang up, and she said, You understand, I'm making this easy for both of us.

  I understand. Thanks. He hung up.

  They continued to write, neither of them able to comprehend that it was over.

  Keith pushed the Scotch aside. The alcohol wasn't working, his hands were trembling, and his mind was not getting pleasantly numb. He read, Well, welcome home, Keith, and good luck.

  Thank you, Annie.

  He'd served as an infantry platoon leader, saw too many dead people lying on the ground, fresh blood running, or bloating in the hot sun. He had no frame of reference for this, except the stockyards in Maumee. Very nice villages and farms were blown to hell, and sandbags and barbed wire were all over the place, and he'd wept for the farmers and their families. He'd completed his tour and returned to Spencerville on leave.

  Keith wiped the sweat off his lip and focused on the letter, read it from the beginning, then read, I'm leaving tomorrow to drive Wendy to school. She's starting as a freshman at our old alma mater. Can't wait to see it again. Be gone a week or so.

  He nodded and took a deep breath.

  He'd spent his thirty-day post-combat leave in Spencerville, and did mostly nothing but eat, drink, and take long rides. His mother suggested he drive to Columbus. Instead, he'd called. She was working on her doctorate by then. It was a very strained conversation, he recalled. He hadn't asked her about other men, because he'd come to accept that. He'd had other women. It didn't matter. But she'd changed in a more profound way in the last year. She'd become more politically active, and she had ambivalent feelings about a man in uniform and had given him a lecture on the war.

  He was angry, she was cool; he'd barely controlled his anger, and she kept her tone frigid. He was about to hang up on her when she said, I have to go, and he realized she was crying, or close to it. He offered to come see her, she said that would be all right. But he did not go to Columbus, and she did not come to Spencerville, nor did they meet halfway.

  Keith read the final lines of her letter. My Aunt Louise still lives out by you, and next time I'm that way, I'll stop and say hello. Take care. Annie.

  He put the letter in his pocket, stood, and went out the back door. The hot wind had died down, and it was cooler now. There was some sun left on the western horizon, but in the east he could see stars.

  Keith went out to where the corn began and walked between the tall rows, a few hundred yards to a small hill that was thought to be an Indian burial mound. The rise was gentle and tillable, but no one in his family had ever planted there, and the Mullers were asked to do the same. Rye grass grew tall on the hill, and a single birch had been planted or had taken root on its own near the top of the hill.

  Keith stood beside the birch and looked out over the corn. He'd played here as a boy and come here to think as a young man.

  Nor did they meet halfway. It was his pride, his ego, or whatever. He simply could not accept the fact that she'd been sexually involved with other men when they were supposed to be going together. But then again, he hadn't proposed marriage, perhaps because he didn't want to make her a youn
g widow. It was the classic dilemma of wartime: to marry or not to marry? He couldn't recall exactly what had transpired between them regarding this subject, but he was certain she'd remember.

  He sat at the base of the birch tree and looked out at the stars. In Washington, he could barely see the stars, but here in the country, the night sky was breathtaking, mind-boggling. He stared up at the universe, picking out the constellations he knew, and remembered doing this with her.

  After his post-Vietnam leave, he had less than a year of service remaining, but he'd decided to stay in a while longer, and requested and was accepted to Army Intelligence School in Fort Holabird, Maryland. This was an interesting field, and he actually enjoyed the work. He received orders for a second tour in the never-ending war, but this time as an intelligence analyst. He'd been promoted to captain, the pay was all right, the duty not bad. Better than combat, better than Spencerville, better than returning to a nation going crazy.

  They stopped corresponding, but he heard she'd dropped out of the doctorate program and traveled to Europe, then returned to Spencerville for a cousin's wedding. It was then, at the wedding, according to a friend who had been there, that she'd met Cliff Baxter. Apparently, they had a good time at or after the wedding, because they married a few months later. This was what he'd heard, anyway, but by that time, it was a subject he no longer wanted to be informed about.

  Keith took the letter out of his pocket but couldn't read it in the fading light. Nevertheless, he stared at it and recalled most of it. The sentences, the words, were innocuous, but as a product of everything that had come before, it was everything he wanted to hear. He knew what it took for her to write that letter, he knew there was an element of danger for her to put it in his mailbox and to say that she'd stop by. And the danger was not only physical in the form of Cliff Baxter but emotional as well. Neither of them needed another disappointment or a broken heart. But she'd decided to take a chance, to in fact take the lead, and he liked that.

  Keith put the letter in his pocket and plucked at the grass around him.

  After he heard she was married, he put her out of his mind. That lasted about a week, and against his better judgment, he wrote her a short note of congratulations, care of her parents. She wrote a shorter note thanking him for his good wishes and asked him not to write again, ever.

  He had always thought, and perhaps she thought, that they'd somehow get together again. In truth, neither of them could have forgotten the other. For six years, they'd been friends, soulmates, and lovers, and had formed each other's lives and personalities, shared the pains and happiness of growing up, and never imagined a life apart. But the world had finally intruded, and her letter made it clear that, indeed, it was now over between them, forever. But he never believed that.

  After he was stationed in Europe, some months after her wedding, she wrote again, apologizing for the tone of her last letter, and suggested that writing was okay, but to please write care of her sister Terry in the next county.

  He waited until he returned to the States, then wrote from Washington, saying little, except that he was back and would be at the Pentagon for a year or so. Thus began a two-decade-long correspondence, a few letters a year, updates, the births of her children, changes of address, his transfer to the Defense Department, her local news from Spencerville, his postings all over the world.

  They had never exchanged photographs; neither had asked for a picture and neither had offered one. It was, Keith thought, as though they each wanted to hold on to the moving, living memory of the other, uncomplicated by a succession of rigid snapshots.

  There had never been the hint of anything but an old and maturing friendship—well, perhaps once in a while, a letter written late at night with a line or two that could be taken as more than Hello, how are you? He wrote once from Italy, I saw the Colosseum at night for the first time and wished you could have seen it, too.

  She wrote back, I did see it, Keith, when I was in Europe, and funny, I had the same thought about you.

  But these types of letters were rare, and neither of them went too far out of bounds.

  Whenever his address changed to some new, exotic locale, she wrote, How I envy you all your traveling and excitement. I always thought I'd be the one leading the adventurous life, and you'd wind up in Spencerville.

  He usually replied with words like, How I envy you your stability, children, community.

  He'd never married, Annie never divorced, and Cliff Baxter did not conveniently die. Life went on, the world moved forward.

  He was in Saigon on his third tour when the North Vietnamese arrived in 1975, and he took one of the last helicopters out. He wrote to Annie from Tokyo, I knew this war was lost five years ago. What fools we've all been. Some of my staff have resigned. I'm considering the same.

  She replied, When we played Highland, we were down 36—0 at the half. You went out there for the second half and played the best game I ever saw you play. We lost, but what do you remember best, the score or the game?

  Keith listened to a nightingale in the far-off tree line, then looked out at the, Mullers' farmhouse. The kitchen was lit, and dinner was probably being served. He supposed that he'd played a more interesting game than the Mullers, but at the end of the day, they gathered together for dinner. He honestly missed having children, but in some odd way, he was happy that Annie did. He closed his eyes and listened to the night.

  He'd almost married, twice in fact, during the next five or six years; once to a colleague he served with in Moscow, once to a neighbor in Georgetown. Each time, he broke it off, knowing he wasn't ready. In fact, he was never going to be ready, and he knew it.

  He decided that the letters had to stop, but he couldn't make the break completely. Instead, he let months go by before answering her, and his letters were always short and remote.

  She never commented on the change in tone, or the infrequency of his letters, but went on writing her two or three pages of news, and once in a while, reminisced. Eventually, though, she followed his lead, and they wrote less frequently, and by the mid-eighties, it seemed as though the letter relationship had ended, except for Christmas cards and birthday cards.

  He had returned to Spencerville now and then, of course, but he never told her in advance, intending each time to see her when he was there, but he never did.

  Sometime around 1985, she'd written to him after one of his visits, I heard you were in town for your aunt's funeral, but by then you'd left. I would have liked to have a cup of coffee with you, but maybe not. Before I found out for sure you'd left, I was a nervous wreck thinking you were in town. After I was sure you'd gone, I felt relieved. What a coward I am.

  He had replied, I'm afraid I'm the coward. I'd rather go into combat again than run into you on the street. I did drive past your house. I remember when old Mrs. Wallace lived there. You've done a nice job restoring it. The flowers are very nice. I felt very happy for you. He'd added, Our lives took different paths in 1968, and those paths cannot cross again. For us to meet again would mean leaving our paths and traveling into dangerous territory. When I'm in Spencerville, I'm just passing through, and I intend to do no harm while I'm there. If, on the other hand, you ever find yourself in Washington, I'd be happy to have that cup of coffee with you. I'm leaving in two months for London.

  She did not reply immediately, but wrote him in London, and never mentioned the last exchange of letters, but he remembered her reply. She'd written, My son, Tom, played his first football game on Saturday, and I thought of the first time I sat in the stadium and saw you come onto the field in uniform. You don't have all these familiar places and things around you, but I do, and sometimes something like a football game makes me remember, and I get teary. Sorry.

  He'd replied immediately, and without any pretense at being cool, wrote, No, / don't have those familiar places and things around to remind me of you, but whenever I'm very lonely or frightened, I think of you.

  After that, their correspondence
increased, but more to the point, it had taken on a more intimate tone. They were not kids anymore, but were approaching middle age, with all that implied. She wrote to him, I can't imagine not seeing you one more time.

  He'd replied, I promise you, God willing, we'll meet again.

  Apparently, God was willing.

  Yet the last six years or so had passed without that promised meeting, and perhaps he was waiting for something to happen, something like a divorce, or her falling ill. But nothing of the sort happened. His parents moved from Spencerville, and he had no reason to return.

  The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and he was there to see it, then he was posted again to Moscow and witnessed the attempted coup of August 1991. He was at the very top of his career and was helping to make policy in Washington. His name was mentioned in the newspapers now and then, and he felt somewhat fulfilled professionally; but personally, he knew very well there was something missing.

  The euphoria of the late 1980s became the letdown of the early '90s. There was a Churchill paraphrase that had been making the rounds among his colleagues—The war of the giants is over, the pygmies have begun. Needing fewer people for the wars of the wars of the pygmies, his colleagues were being told to go home, and finally he, too, was asked to leave, and here he was.

  Keith opened his eyes and stood. Here I am.

  He looked around at the burial mound and, for the first time, made the connection between this mound and the similar burial mounds he'd seen in Vietnam. The burial mounds being the only high terrain in otherwise flat wet rice paddies, his platoon would often dig into them for night defensive positions. This was desecration, of course, but good tactics. Once, an old Buddhist monk had come up to him while his platoon was digging and said to him, May you live in interesting times. Young Lieutenant Landry had taken it as a blessing of some sort, and only afterward learned that it was an ancient curse. And much afterward, he came to understand it.