Going After Cacciato (38 page)

“Friends,” he begins. The amplification system whines, and he moves back slightly: “Friends, I don’t pretend to be expert on matters of obligation, either moral or contractual, but I do know when
I feel
obliged. Obligation is more than a claim imposed on us; it is a personal sense of indebtedness. It is a feeling, an acknowledgment, that through many prior acts of consent we have agreed to perform certain future acts. I have that feeling. I make that acknowledgment. By my prior acts—acts of consent—I have bound myself to performing subsequent acts. I put on a uniform. I boarded a plane. I accepted a promotion and the responsibilities that went with it. I joined in the pursuit of Cacciato. I marched. I voted once to continue the pursuit. I persisted. I urged the others to persist. I tied myself to this mission, promising to see it to its end. These were explicit consents. But beyond them were many tacit promises: to my family, my friends, my town, my country, my fellow soldiers. These promises, too, accumulated. I was not misled. I was not gulled. On the contrary, I believe … I
feel …
that I am being asked to perform a final service that is entirely compatible with what I had promised earlier. A debt, a legitimate debt, is being called in. No trickery, no change in terms. I knew what I was getting into. I knew it might be unpleasant. And I made promises with that full understanding. The promises were made freely. True, the moral climate
was imperfect; there were pressures, constraints, but nonetheless I made binding choices. Again, this has nothing whatever to do with politics or principle or matters of justice. My obligation is to people, not to principle or politics or justice.”

Paul Berlin pauses here, clears his throat, reaches for a glass of water.

“But, please. I don’t want to overemphasize all this. More than any positive sense of obligation, I confess that what dominates is the dread of abandoning all that I hold dear. I am afraid of running away. I am afraid of exile. I fear what might be thought of me by those I love. I fear the loss of their respect. I fear the loss of my own reputation. Reputation, as read in the eyes of my father and mother, the people in my hometown, my friends. I fear being an outcast. I fear being thought of as a coward. I fear that even more than cowardice itself.

“Are these fears wrong? Are they stupid? Or are they healthy and right? I have been told to ignore my fear of censure and embarrassment and loss of reputation. But would it not be better to accept those fears? To yield to them? If inner peace is the true objective, would I win it in exile?

“Perhaps now you can see why I stress the importance of viewing obligations as a relationship between people, not between one person and some impersonal idea or principle. An idea, when violated, cannot make reprisals. A principle cannot refuse to shake my hand. Only people can do that. And it is this social power, the threat of social consequences, that stops me from making a full and complete break. Peace of mind is not a simple matter of pursuing one’s own pleasure; rather, it is inextricably linked to the attitudes of other human beings, to what they want, to what they expect. The real issue is how to find felicity within limits. Within the context of our obligations to other people. We all want peace. We all want dignity and domestic tranquillity. But we want these to be honorable and lasting. We want a peace that endures. We want a peace we can be proud of. Even in imagination we must obey the logic of what we started. Even in imagination we must be true to
our obligations, for, even in imagination, obligation cannot be outrun. Imagination, like reality, has its limits.”

Full spotlight: Sarkin Aung Wan and Paul Berlin stand, stack their papers, then wait. They do not look at each other. There is no true negotiation. There is only the statement of positions.

Footsteps click in the great conference hall. The lieutenant enters. He wears his helmet and rucksack. He shakes hands with Paul Berlin; they exchange a few quiet words. The old man then crosses to Sarkin Aung Wan. He offers his arm, she takes it, and they move away. A moment later Paul Berlin leaves by a separate exit.

Spotlight dims: An electric hum fills the Salle des Fêtes. The amplification system buzzes indifferently.

Spotlight off.

Imagine it.

A
lready the flies were awake. Two sea gulls perched on the tower’s south wall. The night was over. The sea was blue. Soon the others would be awake. The day would start. They would roll up the ponchos. Doc would shave. Eddie and Oscar would go in for a swim, then they would eat breakfast, then sit in the shade beneath the tower to wait for resupply. Later they would go out on patrol. There would be no battles, no terror, and the day would be long and calm and hot.

Those were the coming facts, as nearly as he could guess.

The war was still a war, and he was still a soldier. He hadn’t run. The issue was courage, and courage was will power, and this was his failing.

“Facts,” Doc Peret liked to say. “Face facts.”

Six o’clock now. He rubbed his face.

The facts were not disputed. Facts did not bother him. Billy Boy had died of fright. Buff was dead. Ready Mix was dead. Rudy Chassler was dead. Pederson was dead. Sidney Martin and Frenchie
Tucker and Bernie Lynn had died in tunnels. Those were all facts, and he could face them squarely. The order of facts—which facts came first and which came last, the relations among facts—here he had trouble, but it was not the trouble of facing facts. It was the trouble of understanding them, keeping them straight.

Even Cacciato. It was a fact that one day in the rain, during a bad time, the dummy had packed up and walked away, a poor kid who wanted to see Paris, no mysterious motives or ambitions. A simple kid who ran away. There was no toying with the truth. It couldn’t be colored or altered or made into more than it was. So the facts were simple: They went after Cacciato, they chased him into the mountains, they tried hard. They cornered him on a small grassy hill. They surrounded the hill. They waited through the night. And at dawn they shot the sky full of flares and then they moved in. “Go,” Paul Berlin said. He shouted it—“Go!”

That was the end of it. The last known fact.

What remained were possibilities. With courage it might have been done.

H
e’s gone,” Doc said. “Split.”

“Gone where?”

“Who knows where? Him and his gear, everything. Just gone.”

Paul Berlin shook his head. “Impossible. He wouldn’t do it.”

“No? Go look for yourself. The man’s gone, flown the coop. Appears he’s taken the girl with him.”

The apartment had been cleaned out. The rugs, the clock, the watercolor, Sarkin Aung Wan’s geranium, and new curtains—all, gone. The floors were swept. The bed was made up in crisp forty-five-degree angles. The closets were bare. In the kitchen a single joss stick smoldered on the counter.

“Believe it now?” Doc said. “Not even a lousy fare-thee-well. Right when things come together, right at the buzzer, the old fart takes off without even a salute.”

Paul Berlin’s eyes burned. It was the joss smoke. He went to the stick and squeezed it until the burning stopped.

“Gone.” Doc sighed. “Both of them. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Makes you faithless.”

“Maybe they just—”

Doc wagged his head. “Face it, they deserted like rats. Must’ve been planning it all along. Everything so neat and tidy, all the loose ends tied up … not even a good-bye.”

Paul Berlin’s eyes were stinging. Her smile when she first saw the place. Her excitement, the way she took his arm. The way she called him Spec Four, thinking it was his name. Clipping his nails. Long sunny days on the march. Refugees. The apartment, the whole idea of refuge. Such a fine idea.

He went out to the sun porch. For a time he stood alone, looking out on the church belfry. He wished the bell would chime—something. He closed his eyes and made the wish. Doc put a hand on his shoulder and led him inside.

“My condolences. Honest, it’s a tough piece of luck.”

“She was, right.”

“What can I say, pal? What can I say?”

Later they found the note. It was tacked to the bathroom door: “Heading east. A long walk but we’ll make it. Affection.”

Doc read it over twice, then three times, shaking his head.

“East?”

“The Far East,” said Paul Berlin, who could see it clearly. “Back to where it started. Reverse march—eight thousand six hundred statute miles.”

“Don’t even say it, man.”

“Maybe—”

“Too simple, too slick. A sick old man, a girl. It can’t be done.”

   Oscar Johnson took command. The final operation, he said: Stake out Cacciato’s hotel, plug up the exits, wait, and, when the kid showed himself, move in to end it.

It was Oscar’s game.

“No waffling,” he said. “No pitty-pat shit. Tonight we do it right.”

There were no arguments. Oscar unwrapped Cacciato’s M-16 and held it out. Doc touched it. Eddie touched it. Paul Berlin touched it.

“Done,” Oscar said.

They showered, changed into fresh uniforms, then met for a final strategy session.

At dusk they moved out.

Single file, Oscar leading, they marched down St.-Germain to St.-Michel. The night was warm. The café awnings along St.-Michel were held full by a breeze. Girls sat at the sidewalk tables, legs carefully folded, smoking cigarettes and watching the passing crowds. Paul Berlin tilted his helmet down. He concentrated on the march.

They crossed the river at Cité. Immediately the lights and traffic were gone. They circled the massive Palais de Justice, moved across Pont au Change, then turned in toward Les Halles.

No one spoke.

Oscar took the rifle from its blanket and carried it openly, patrol-style, the barrel off to one side. No more pretense. Lead-colored turrets stood bare against the sky. Silhouettes, statues, and gargoyles. The night seemed to move. Paris, Paul Berlin was thinking, but the feeling was Quang Ngai. He told himself to be brave.

Counting: That was one answer. He counted his steps, watched the others move in front of him.

They crossed the square at Fontaine des Innocents and moved into the huge deserted market area. Smells of clotted sewage, algae, rotting vegetables, animal fat, the paddies. Moonlight played on the high iron-latticed pavilions. Once, when Oscar spotted a policeman, they stopped and waited in the shadows of an abandoned storefront; otherwise it was just a march.

It was past midnight when they found the dead-end alley.

There were no lights. The hotel looked old and forlorn and empty, like an abandoned farmhouse outside Fort Dodge.

“You’re sure?” Oscar whispered.

Paul Berlin nodded. “Up there. Second from the right.” He pointed to Cacciato’s second-story window. Two panes were missing.

They listened, letting their eyes adjust. There were no lights or signs of life in the building. Doc took off his glasses, spat on the lenses, wiped them, put them on again. He managed a nervous little laugh.

“Think he’s up there?”

Oscar shrugged, cradling the rifle against his stomach. “Wait here. I’ll see what there is to see. Keep alert.”

He trotted down the alley, stopping once to test the front door, then he circled behind the building. When he was gone, Doc moved into the shadows of a cluster of garbage cans. Eddie chuckled and whispered something obscene, and Doc laughed, and they sat down to wait. It was the wound-tight feel of an ambush. Partly hidden, partly exposed. The wondering and the waiting. Paul Berlin felt a little guilt. Not much, but enough to think about. Mostly it was an eagerness to have it over and finished.

Oscar was gone nearly twenty minutes.

Then Paul Berlin felt a cold tickle on his ear.

“Swell lookout,” Oscar purred. “Real alert.”

The tickle was painful. He tried to move. It was the pain of ice when it sticks to flesh. Without looking, Paul Berlin knew it was the rifle muzzle.

“I was Charlie, what would you be?”

“Dead,” Paul Berlin whispered. “I’d be dead.”

“God’s own truth,” Oscar said. “A dead lookout.”

“Sorry. I was—”

“Pitiful.” Oscar lifted the rifle. The cold tickle persisted. “You guys … you’re genuine yo-yos, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“I guess, I guess. Fuckups. Dipsticks in the overall slime.”

“We try,” Doc murmured. “We do try.”

Oscar smiled coldly. “Tryin’ don’t cut it. Honest, I pity you. Battin’ in the wrong fuckin league. I just got pity.”

No one answered him. Paul Berlin scratched the tickle on his ear.

“No more tryin’,” Oscar said. “Tonight you pitiful mothers is gonna
do
. Tonight I teach the basic difference between fuckup tryin’ and
doing. I
say it, you do it. Real simple like.”

Even in the alley’s thick dark Oscar wore sunglasses. Paul Berlin wondered for a moment about the miracles of vision. He scratched his ear and wondered.

Oscar waited a moment.

“So. We got ourselves an understanding? Follow your friendly leader, that’s all.”

Paul Berlin started to speak, then thought better of it.

“Words?” Oscar smiled.

Paul Berlin shook his head.

“Good. An improvement. A definite betterment.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Listen up. I got the place scouted. No back doors. Only other way out is them two fire escapes. See ‘em?”

Doc and Eddie nodded.

“All right then. What you’re gonna
do
is this. You’re gonna climb up there an’ you’re gonna sit an’ you ain’t gonna let nothin’ in and nothin’ out. Think you can manage?”

“Sure,” Eddie said. He looked at Doc and grinned. “We can do that easy.”

“Splendid. Real progress.”

“Nothing to it,” Eddie said.

“When you’re set, give me a wave. I’ll do the messy shit. If Cacciato’s inside … if he’s there, then we got his ass.
Fini
. If he’s not, we hold positions an’ wait. When he shows we nail him.”

“What about me?” Paul Berlin said. “Where you want me?”

Oscar made a wide, mocking gesture with his hands. “I don’,” he said.