Ordinary Heroes (40 page)

Gita's observation, made in her customary declarative fashion, seemed too stark to be true, but ther
e w
as no avoiding it. I yearned for the aura that surrounded Grace like a cloud--her gentility, her blonde hair and soft sweaters, the way she glided through life, her pristine American beauty. But not enough to separate myself from my parents in the irrevocable way our marriage had called for. My sudden decision to enlist, rather than wait out my fortunes with the draft, seemed highly suspect from the distance of a convent bed in Belgium. But so did the balm these conclusions gave to my conscience.

"At any rate, Dubin, you are here with me now. Even though you felt no longing." She stroked now where she had left her finger, and I responded. quickly. "Aha," she said. "Again, Dubin, you are betrayed."

"No, no, that is merely to save your feelings." "Then, perhaps I shall stop," she said.

"No, no, I am much too concerned for you to allow that."

Afterward, we slept, but in time I was awakened by growling. I had heard it in my dreams for a while, but it grew insistent and I stirred, ready to scold. Hercules. Instead, I found Gita snoring. Her constant smoking had apparently done its work on her sinuses. From an elbow, I studied her in the light borrowed from the hall. Lying there, she seemed, as we all do in slumber, childlike, her small sharp face mobile in sleep. She suckled briefly; an arm stirred protectively, and her eyes jumped beneath her lids. I
was impressed by how small she appeared when the current, as it were, was turned off on her imposing personality. I watched several minutes. As she had been trying to tell me, she was, at heart, a far simpler person than I supposed.

After Gita had snuck back downstairs the first night we'd arrived in Bastogne, I met Cal for breakfast at the officers' mess, as planned. He had been in surgery until 4
:00
a
. M
., then had made rounds to see his patients. He was still in a bloody gown, gobbling up something before he grabbed a few hours' sleep. Apparently, it was he who had directed Gita and the dog to my room, and he let me know promptly that he'd guessed the score.

"So how did your quarters work out? Bed a little tight?"

I could feel myself flush, and then, like a switchboard operator plugging in the lines, I made a series of connections which, when complete, brought me up short. Cal would write home that he had seen me. He would say I had a woman here. Grace, in time, would hear.

"Oh, don't worry," he said, when he saw my expression. He made that zipper motion across his lips.

But somehow I was caught up in a vision of Grace reacting to this news. Would she rely on some bromide about how men will be men? Or take comfort from the extremities of war? My mind continued tumbling down the staircase, descending into various images of what might occur when word reached Grace, until I finally crashed and came to rest at the bottom. In a figurative heap, I checked myself and was shocked to find myself frightened but unhurt--no bruises, no broken bones--and thus I knew at that moment, absolutely and irrevocably, that I was not going to marry Grace Morton. I cared intensely about Grace. I still could not imagine being the brutal assassin of her feelings. But she was not a vital part of me. Gita's role in this seemed incidental. It was not a matter of choosing one woman over the other, because even now I continued to doubt that Gita's interest would last. But, in the light of day, what I'd recognized lying beside Gita remained. Grace was an idol. A dream. But not my destiny.

With some bemusement, Cal had watched all this work its way through my features.

"Who is this girl, anyway, David? I asked the nuns about her. They say she knows her bananas, bright, works hard. Bit of a looker," said Cal, "if you'll forgive me. Every man in this hospital will be pea green with envy, even the ones cold down in the morgue."

I smiled and told him a little about Gita. Runaway. Exile. Commando.

"Is it serious?" he asked.

I shook my head as if I didn't know, but within
a d
istinct voice told me that the correct answer was yes. It was gravely serious. Not as Cal meant. Instead it was serious in the way combat was serious, because it was impossible to tell if I would survive.

Gita's nursing duties included washing bedridden patients. Imagining her at it made me nearly delirious with envy, although I admitted to her that I was uncertain if I was jealous of her touch or of the chance to bathe. When she arrived on the second night, she swung through the door with a heavy metal pail full of hot water. It had been boiled on the kitchen stove, the only means available in the absence of working plumbing.

You are an ange
l.

"A wet one." The sleeves of her shapeless uniform were black.

"So you can no longer tolerate the smell of me?"

"You smell like someone who has lived, Dubin. It is the complaining about it I cannot stand. Get up, please. I will not bathe you in your bed like an invalid."

She had brought a cloth, a towel, and another bowl. I removed my clothes and stood before her, as she scrubbed and dried me bit by bit. My calf, my thigh. There was a magnificent intermezzo before she went higher to my stomach.

"Tell me about America," she said, once she continued.

"You want to know if the streets are lined with gold? Or if King Kong is hanging from the Empire State Building?"

"No, but tell me the truth. Do you love America?"

"Yes, very much. The land. The people. And mos
t o
f all the idea of it. Of each man equal. And free." "That is the idea in France, too. But is it true
in
America?"

"True? In America there was never royalty. Never Napoleon. Yet it is still far better to be rich than poor. But it is true, I think, that most Americans cherish the ideals. My father and mother came from a town very much like Pilzkoba. Now they live free from the fears they grew up with. They may speak their minds. They may vote. They may own property. They sent their children to public schools. And now they may hope, with good reason, that my sister and brother and I will find an even better life than theirs."

"But do Americans not hate the Jews?"

"Yes. But not as much as the colored." It was a dour joke and she was less amused than I by the bitter humor. "It is not like Hitler," I said. "Every American is from somewhere else. Each is hated for what he brings that is different from the rest. We live in uneasy peace. But it is peace, for the most part."

"And is America beautiful?"

"Magnifique." I told her about the West as I had glimpsed it from the train on my way to Fort Barkley.

"And your city?"

"We have built our own landscape. There are giant buildings."

"Like King Kong?"

"Almost as tall."

"Yes," she said. "I want to go to America. Europe is old. America is still new. The Americans are smart to fight on others' soil. Europe will require a century to recover from all of this. And there may be another war soon. Apres la guerre I will go to America, Dubin. You must help me."

"Of course," I said. Of course.

By the next morning, it seemed as if every person in Bastogne knew what was occurring in my quarters at night. Gita had made a clanging commotion dragging her pails up the stairs. I worried that the nuns would evict both of us, but they maintained a dignified silence. It was the soldiers who could not contain themselves, greeting me in whispers as "lover boy" whenever I passed.

Third Army had established a command center in Bastogne, and Biddy and I walked over there every few hours to see if Teedle's orders had come through.

For two days now, no shells had fallen on the city, and the civilians were in the streets, briskly going about their business. They were polite but busy, unwilling to repeat their prior mistake of believing this lull was actually peace.

As we hiked up the hilly streets, I said, "I find I'm the talk of the town, Gideon."

He didn't answer at first. "Well, sir," he finally said, "it's just a whole lot of things seem to be moving around in the middle of the night."

We shared a long laugh.

"She's a remarkable person, Biddy."

"Yes, sir. This thing got a future, Captain?"

I stopped dead on the pavement. My awareness of myself had been growing since my conversation with Cal at breakfast yesterday, but trusting Biddy more than anyone else, things were a good deal clearer in his company. I took hold of his arm.

"Biddy, how crazy would it sound if I said I love this woman?"

"Well, good for you, Captain."

"No," I said, instantly, because I had a clear view of the complications, "it's not good. It's not good for a thousand reasons. It probably conflicts with my duty. And it will not end well." I had maintained an absolute conviction about this. I knew my heart would be crushed.

"Cap," he said, "ain't no point going on like that. They-all can do better telling you the weather tomorrow than what's gonna happen with love. Ain't nothing else to do but hang on for the ride."

But my thoughts were very much the same when Gita came to my bed that night.

"Your phrase has haunted me all day," I told her. "Laquelle?"

"Apres la guerre.' I have thought all day about what will happen after the war."

If war is over, then there must be peace, no? At least for a while."

"No, I refer to you. And to me. I have spent the day wondering what will become of us. Does that surprise you or take you aback?"

"I know who you are, Dubin. It would surprise me if your thoughts were different. I would care for you much less."

I took a moment. "So you do care for me?" suis la." I am here.

"And in the future?"

"When the war began," she said, "no one thought of the future. It would be too awful to imagine the Nazis here for long. Everyone in the underground lived solely for the present. To fight now. The only future was the next action and the hope you and your comrades would survive. But since Normandy, it is different. Among the maquisards, there is but one phrase on their lips: Apres l
a g
uerre. I hear those words in my mind, too. You are not alone.)
,
"And what do you foresee?"

"It is still war, Dubin. One creeps to the top of a wall and peeks over, I understand, but we remain here. If one looks only ahead, he may miss the perils that are near. But I have seen many good souls die. I have promised myself to live for them. And now, truly, I think I wish to live for myself as well."

"This is good."

"But you told me what you see, no? The hearth, the home. Yes?"

"Yes." That remained definitive. "Et toi?"

"Je sais pas. But if I live through this war, I will be luckier than most. I have learned what perhaps I most needed to."

"Which is?"

"To value the ordinary, Doo-bean. In war, one feels its loss acutely. The humdrum. The routine. Even I, who could never abide it, find myself longing for a settled life."

"And will that content you? Is it to be the same for you as me? The house, the home, being a respectable wife with children swarming at your knees beneath your skirt? Or will you be like Martin, who told me he would soon look for another war?"

"There will never be another war. Not for me. You said once that a woman has that choice, and that is the choice I will make. 'A respectable wife'? I
cannot say. Tell me, Dubin"--she smiled cutely--"are you asking?"

Lightly as this was said, I knew enough about her to recognize the stakes. She would chuckle at a proposal, but would be furious if I was as quick to reject her. And at the same time, being who she was, she would chop me to bits for anything insincere. But having left one fiancee behind for little more than a day, I was not ready yet for new promises, even in banter.

"Well, let me say only that I intend to pay very careful attention to your answer."

"You sound like a lawyer."

We laughed.

"Martin once said you will never be content with just one man.''

"Eh, he was consoling himself. Believe me, Dubin, I know what I need to know about men. And myself with them. But one person forever? For many years that sounded to me like a prison sentence."

"May I ask? Was that perhaps your mother's influence?"

"I think not. My mother, if she had any influence, would have told me to find a fellow like you, decent and stable, and to stand by him. 'One craves peace,' she said always." She sat up into the borrowed light. Gita was more physically shy than I might have expected and I enjoyed the sight of her, her small breasts rising perfectly to their dark peaks.

"But she did not succeed herself."

"She had tried, Dubin. When she was seventeen, her looks attracted the son of a merchant, a wool seller from the city. She thought he was rich and handsome and a sophisticate and married him on impulse."

"This was Lodzka?" I tried to pronounce it correctly.

"Lodzki, yes. He was a cad, of course. He drank, he had other women, he was stingy with her. They fought like minks, even battled with their fists, and naturally she took the worst of it. One day she left him. She returned to Pilzkoba and announced that her husband was dead of influenza. Soon she had suitors. She had been married again for a month, when it was discovered that Lodzki was still alive. It was a terrible scandal. She was lucky they did not hang her. She always said she would have left, but it would have given everyone in Pilzkoba too much satisfaction." Gita stopped with a wistful smile. "So," she said.