Going After Cacciato (34 page)

He watched as Cacciato stepped over a log, stopped, and then, like a woman emptying her wash basin, heaved Buff’s face into the tall, crisp grass.

Then Cacciato climbed the bank. He rinsed the helmet under his canteen, wiped it with his shirt, and tied it to his rucksack. Smiling, he took out a stick of gum and unwrapped it and began chewing.

“That’s better,” Doc said.

“Sure, that’s lots better.” Oscar shouldered Buff’s big gun, gripping the barrel with one hand. “Enough of this shit, let’s go.”

And they moved down the ditch toward the burning village. There were no more explosions. The battle was over, and the day was hot and bright, and white powder covered the land.

“There’s a lesson in this,” Oscar said. “The lesson’s simple. Don’ never get shot.”

“There it is,” said Eddie Lazzutti.

“Never. Don’ never get shot.”

“Tell it, man.”

“I told it. Never.”

T
hat was all of them. Frenchie, Pederson, Rudy Chassler, Billy Boy Watkins, Bernie Lynn, Ready Mix, Sidney Martin, and Buff. Six months. A few half-remembered faces. That was the curious thing about it. Out of all that time, time aching itself away, his memory sputtered around those scant hours of horror. The real war was forgotten. The dullness and the heat and the endless tracts of time and the tired villages and petty conversations and warmed-over jokes and rivalries and rumors and hole-digging and hole-filling and the long marches without incident or foul play—all this was blurred and fuzzy like a far-off summer day. Odd, because what he remembered was so trivial, so obvious and corny, that to speak of it was embarrassing. War stories. That was what remained: a few stupid war stories, hackneyed and unprofound. Even the lessons were commonplace. It hurts to be shot. Dead men are heavy. Don’t seek trouble, it’ll find you soon enough. You hear the shot that gets you. Scared to death on the field of battle. Life after death. These were hard lessons, true, but they were
lessons of ignorance; ignorant men, trite truths. What remained was simple event. The facts, the physical things. A war like any war. No new messages. Stories that began and ended without transition. No developing drama or tension or direction. No order.

Paul Berlin gazed down at the beach. There was enough light now to make out the contours of miniature sand dunes rolling inland like ripples in a pond. Squinting hard, he could see the iron posts that anchored the heavy concertina wire circling the tower. There were other shapes, still obscure, that would soon be turning solid and sharp.

He checked his wristwatch. Five o’clock. Barely half an hour until dawn.

Already he saw a spreading yellow glow at the horizon. The glow would turn pink. The pink would soften. The sea would run with color and the day would start. They would climb down from the tower. Breakfast would be eaten from cans, they would swim, they would bicker over bits of shade. Later in the day there would be patrols. Following the beach, they would trudge up to where the Batangan curved sharply eastward, then they would turn inland, circling, returning to the tower for lunch. If they were lucky, if the day went as most days went, there would be nothing but heat and flies and boredom.

But now, dawn still coming, Paul Berlin let himself wonder how things might have been: the ease of running, lightness of head and foot. How far could Cacciato take him? And what would he find?

Five o’clock sharp—he had to hurry.

L
uxembourg, the first day of April. They board the
Train Rouge
for Paris. A four-hour ride. Four hours, Paul Berlin thinks—four hours out of … what? Six months on the march, eight thousand six hundred miles, continents piled on subcontinents. And now Paris. He wants to yell. Shatter the grimy windows, put his head out and open his eyes, let civilization suck him in, splash over him like a waterfall. Already he sees it coming. Paris, he feels it.

For two hours the train rattles south through a string of small towns, then crosses into France, then turns straight west at Metz.

The speed increases. He can feel it now. Greased tracks, a steady rumbling beneath the floor. He feels the acceleration.

He concentrates. He wants to see cleanly. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he spits into it and carefully wipes his window. It is not rich country. The farms are old and small and broken-looking; many villages still show the damage of a war twenty years
over. Scars, pocked buildings. But what does it matter? He ignores it. He ignores the soot and coal dust, all the artifacts of industry strewn like a child’s toys along the tracks—rusting flatbeds and switching gear, timbers, heaps of mangled iron, incinerators, tin cans, crushed old automobiles, tank cars and abandoned warehouses and barbed wire. He sees beyond this. The season is spring. The trees are making leaves, and among all the junk he sees dainty white flowers. To the north the sky is swirling with a huge black thunderhead. Already dots of rain splatter the windows. Just a sprinkle, but the promise is there.

He feels himself grinning. Glancing across the aisle, he winks at Doc Peret, shakes his head as if baffled, tries to think of something meaningful to say. Instead he just grins. Even the lieutenant is smiling. The old man sits with Sarkin Aung Wan, nodding and looking up when she points things out to him: a passing bridge, a valley, a village. Behind them, Eddie and Oscar are drinking wine, making toasts, joking, ogling a pair of girls in the seat behind them. Paul Berlin wishes they would quiet down. Sit still, watch the unfolding spectacle, pay attention.

Faster now. The train sweeps along the curve of a river, rattles over an iron viaduct, through wet meadows and woods, past an old farmhouse with a rolled red-tile roof and sagging walls, past cattle herding together against the coming storm, past flooded streams and graveyards and broken fences. It is a blur. Speed pressing objects together, momentum turning everything slippery and gray. Detail, he keeps thinking. What would Cacciato see? What would Cacciato want them to see?

“Boom!”

Eddie has crept up behind the two girls, jabs the point of his finger into the air, pretends to execute them for their indifference.

“Boom! Boom!”

Oscar laughs, claps him on the back. The two girls move to another seat.

There is a new sound. Cannon? Artillery? Paul Berlin looks out,
wipes the steamed-up window. Lightning! Two jagged slashes to the north, then a third, then three rambling bursts of thunder, then the rain.

The towns are close-spaced now—Château-Thierry and Meaux and then an unending chain of suburbs—and everything is tangled and fuzzy. Details flash by, too slippery to hold. The window fogs up; he curses and wipes it with his sleeve. Outside, the rain is coming harder. He presses his nose against the window, wants to break through. His fingers tingle. He squeezes them into fists.

Then suddenly they are speeding through tunnels, lights flickering, and then out again into gray daylight. Things sparkle. The air is cold and he smells rain. He smells flowers. He hears thunder and church bells. He does! Deep bronze bells, chiming, he hears them. And the sky. Bruised and fat and tumbling, the sky seems to shiver, trembling, then letting loose. It is raining.

He forces the window open.

He hangs his head out, opens his eyes wide, and he sees Paris.

It comes like a ghost. A swirling skyline. Jagged Gothic towers touching the clouds. Bridges and billboards and a swirl of concrete and brick—things appearing and snapping away like magic—a house with painted shutters, a bakery, a man walking his dog, warehouses, gleaming puddles, streets and parks and umbrellas.

The speed is incredible. Whistle hooting, a clatter, the city rushes at him.

He leans into the rain.

He opens his mouth and swallows.

“Paris,” he says.

The rain makes his eyes burn. He blinks and forces his nose straight into the wind. High spires sweep by. There is a long shudder of thunder, deep thunder rolling from horizon to horizon. The pealing of bells. Behind him, he hears Sarkin Aung Wan squealing, Oscar and Eddie and Doc cheering. But Paul Berlin wants this for himself. He pushes his face straight-on into the rain. He spreads his hands out, wide open, as if reaching—ready to grasp and hold tight
forever. Far off, buried in the thunderhead, he sees for an instant the twin towers of Notre-Dame. He sees a gargoyle’s wild eyes. The gargoyle is torn from its mount, wings flapping, and it flies—it does! Bat wings, screeching, caught up in the acceleration, picked up and flying. The thunderhead scoops up whole pieces of Paris: a great stone bridge and a bus and a cabbage from a lady’s handbag. Real? He feels the wind—it’s real. He licks rain from his lips. Real rain—wet and real. If you can imagine it, he tells himself, it’s always real. Even peace, even Paris—sure,
it’s real
. He believes what he sees. Sidewalks now: gutters flowing like rivers, shops and galleries, bent trees, a green traffic light, horns blaring. And people. People huddled against storefronts and behind steamed shop windows, people cooking lunch and sleeping and holding hands. Sure, it’s real.

The train seems to be slowing. A conductor’s voice. In the railyard a man stands with a lantern, holding it loosely at his side, and behind him a massive heap of coal threatens an avalanche.

There is a braking sound. The train whines against its couplings. They glide into Gare du Nord.

Hissing, steaming, the train bucks and stops.

Rain pelts the station’s huge vaulted roof.

“Paris,” Paul Berlin says.

Then suddenly passengers are crowding the aisles, chattering and milling and reaching for parcels and luggage. Eddie and Doc and Oscar are shaking hands. Clapping shoulders, hugging, blinking in funny ways. The lieutenant’s face is like wax. He keeps touching himself. He straightens his back, tugs down his fatigue jacket, carefully places his helmet on his head.

Then the old man nods.

“Look smart,” he says, so softly he repeats himself: “Look smart, men. Show these folks some class.”

So, yes: Oscar wraps up the M16. Doc wipes his glasses. They move toward the doors.

Proudly, with all the dignity he can command, Paul Berlin is
the first to step down. He helps Sarkin Aung Wan out. Then he waits as the others file off.

The station is dark and damp like a dirt cellar. Thunder rattles the glass roof panes.

They move boldly.

They march into the crowded lobby, down a flight of concrete stairs, through a turnstile and out the main doors. The rain is tropical.

They stop there. Across the street, the buildings are blurred as in a dream. But it is not a dream. Paul Berlin smiles and steps in a deep puddle. The water leaks through his boots. He stamps down. His eyes sting, and he blinks and hears himself laugh. For an instant he feels silly—a rucksack and canteens and combat fatigues. But he can’t stop smiling. His face is wet and his eyes ache.

Doc claps him on the back. They hug. A taxi rushes by, spraying water, but it doesn’t matter. They hug, everyone together. Oscar’s face glistens. Eddie shakes his head and grins and licks his lips. Paul Berlin kisses Sarkin Aung Wan. She’s crying and laughing all at once.

Thunder booms through the city.

The lieutenant tilts his chin up. He seems proud. Solemnly he reaches out to shake hands.

“We’ll end it right,” he says. “On the march. Keep the column tight, no straggling, eyes straight ahead. Try to look like soldiers.”

So they form up single file.

First the lieutenant. Next Sarkin Aung Wan, then Eddie and Oscar, then Doc Peret. Paul Berlin takes his spot at the rear. Proudly, proudly. Shoulders square and head erect. Route step up the gleaming streets. Cars and buses and honking horns, people gaping, but no matter. They march into Paris. And for Paul Berlin, the dreamer, it’s all real.

   In the first week they took rooms in a small brick hotel off St.-Germain, a block from the Italian embassy. The rooms were dimly lighted, the walls papered in brown and gold, the beds made of
brass. Each morning they took breakfast together in a cramped sitting room full of antiques and stuffed couches, then, after two pots of coffee, they would split up to begin the search for Cacciato. It was sometimes hard for Paul Berlin to view this seriously, but Oscar would take great care to remind him of the stakes.

“Forget the tourist shit,” he’d say. “We’re AWOL. Absent without leave from a
war
, an’ there ain’t no way to explain unless we bring in the proof.”

“Proof?” Paul Berlin would say, and Oscar would nod grimly.

“Catch the dude. Hog-tie him and march him right into the U.S. embassy and plop him down on the bargainin’ table. Then we got ourselves some leverage. Dig it? Then we got the physical evidence.”

“And?”

Oscar would snort. “You don’ see? We show ‘em Cacciato an’ we got a story that makes sense. How we kept chasin’ him, all the way here, an’, how we did our job and finally caught him, dragged him in.
Habeas
fuckin
corpus.
”

They would listen to this quietly. Then Eddie would nod. “Us or him.”

“That’s it,” Oscar would say. “That’s the game. Us or him.”

Even so, it was hard for Paul Berlin to see it Oscar’s way. The rain ended. The streets were clean, flowers blossomed in public parks. Church bells chimed. Children slouched to school in blue coats, carrying their bags by long leather straps. On the warmest days people sipped coffee at outdoor cafés, old women and pigeons sunned themselves on park benches, traffic snarled, sleek young girls showed their legs to businessmen hustling down St.-Germain. It was hard to think about Cacciato. Instead he found himself watching the fishermen fishing from bridges, the painters who painted them. In the museums there were pictures of jousting knights and harlequins with wooden swords: masked men, sad and funny. Pictures of ballerinas and castles and ladies on swings. Paul Berlin studied the pictures. He read the inscriptions on monuments. He climbed the city’s hills. He learned the history of the
bridges, which came first and which last, and what they were originally built for. He looked for detail. People chatting while infants slept in carriages, students reading under trees, the order of things. Simple courtesies. “
Merci,
” people said. “
Il n’y a pas de quoi,
” was the answer, and he learned these things. He looked for meanings. Peace was shy. That was one lesson: Peace never bragged. If you didn’t look for it, it wasn’t there.