Clash by Night (50 page)

A short time later he stood in front of a glass plated jewelry store, examining the wares, unsure of what to do. Then he sighed and went inside, determined to get the enterprise underway.

A clerk descended on him immediately. Unaccompanied young men were often buying gifts for lady friends and they tended to overspend.
 

“May I help you, uh...” she looked uncertainly at his collar. The various ranks were a mystery to her.

“Major,” he supplied. “I hope so. I want a ring.”

“A ring,” she said.

“An engagement ring.”
 

She brightened. A live one, she knew it.

“What carat size?” she said.

“Carat size?”

“How much do you want to spend?” she asked, trying again.

He shrugged. “How much do they cost?”
 

They gazed at one another. He’s cute, the girl thought, envying his future fiancée. Nice blue eyes, good smile.

“Well, that depends on the size and quality of the stone. Would you like to see a selection? Maybe you could pick something out.”

“Fine,” he said, watching her walk away to the safe. She wasn’t bad, a little hefty in the calf with too much hairdo. Couldn’t compare to Laura.

The clerk came back with a tray inlaid with blue velvet, fitted out with little slots, each containing a sparkling ring.

“We have unset stones too, if you would prefer that. You can choose the setting.”

“No, no, I want one already done,” he said, looking over the display. “I don’t have much time.”

“Do you see anything you like?”

They all looked fussy to him, too gaudy or something. “Don’t you have anything plainer, simpler?” he said.

“Just a minute,” she replied, going off and returning with another tray.

“This is more like it,” he told her. In the bottom row he found what he wanted, a brilliant cut round diamond in a square setting, mounted on a thin gold band.

“How about that one?” he said, pointing.

“Oh, Major, that’s very expensive,” she said, wanting to make the sale but unwilling to disappoint him. “The stone is close to flawless.”

“How much?”

She told him.

“I’ll take it,” he said, and reached for his wallet.

The clerk recovered quickly and went for the jeweler, happily toting up her commission as she walked. The owner returned with a loupe and examined the stone.

“Very fine choice,” the jeweler said to Harris, beaming.

“Thanks,” Harris replied. “You got a box for that?”

“Certainly,” the girl said, and bent to open a drawer.

“I’ll have your papers ready in a minute,” the jeweler said.

“Papers?” Harris inquired.

“Your gemologist’s appraisal. It’s a certificate indicating the carat weight and quality of the stone,” the jeweler said.

“Oh, okay. Toss that in the bag too, I guess,” Harris said.

“Will this be all right?” the clerk asked, showing him a small black leather box carpeted with white satin.
 

“Great,” he said. “Wrap it up, will you?”

The girl rang the sale on the register, tapping several keys and then pushing up the sidebar. Little numbers indicating the amount popped up in the glass display window at the top. The jeweler returned with the papers and gave them to her.

“Your receipt’s inside, Major,” she said, slipping the franked tape into the bag with the rest as she handed it to him. “When are you getting married?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked her yet.”

“Pretty confident, aren’t you?” she said, smiling.

“I have to be. I haven’t seen her since January of ‘43.”

The girl stared at him. “You just bought
that
ring for a girl you haven’t seen in almost two years?”

“Yup.”

“Major, you’re an optimist,” she said dryly.

“She’ll be waiting,” he said in farewell.

The girl looked after him, noticing his straight shoulders and slight limp, thinking that he was probably right.

Harris took a bus from Port Authority to McGuire Air Force Base at Fort Dix near Wrightstown, New Jersey, and went directly to the office of the company commander. Dix was the center for processing service personnel for overseas duty, and in his pocket Harris had papers authorizing him to use military transportation to and from Carpiquet Airfield in France. He spent the next day in the company of Air Force blues and the following two trying to get to Fains-les-Sources.

It was a challenge. The distance was not great, but the whole French nation was in such a state of transition that he couldn’t travel efficiently. Mass transportation was barely functional and the roads were jammed with traffic, both civilian and military. It was easy to hitch a ride but not so easy to get where he wanted to go. The party atmosphere contributed to the chaos; the newly arrived Americans were a
cause celebre
and a marine was a novelty.

Harris had used up three days of his remaining leave by the time he reached Bar-le-Duc.

Thierry’s birthday fell in the middle of September. Laura picked several bunches of late wildflowers for the Duclos graves and walked to the cemetery behind Saint Michel. It was a lovely early autumn afternoon, bright and warm, with a light breeze. She put the flowers in place and then sat on the ground with her back to the oak tree shading the headstones, which were new, polished and gleaming. Five years ago the people whose remains they marked had all been alive.

She stayed for a long while, motionless, and then looked up as a footfall disturbed her reverie.

Curel gazed down at her, his weathered face concerned.

“What are you doing here sitting on the ground?” he said.

Laura shrugged. “Thinking.”

“About them?” he asked, gesturing to the stones.

She nodded.

He crouched next to her, shaking his head. “That’s not good, Laura. There’s nothing you can do for them now.”

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“My wife,” he answered, nodding toward a row of graves in the distance.

“How long has she been dead?” Laura asked.

 
“Twenty years.”

“And you still remember,” Laura pointed out to him.

“Oh, it’s different for me,” he said, smiling slightly. “I’m an old man. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste it living in the past.”

“But what if the past was better?” Laura asked, her eyes filling.

He took her hand, watching her silently.

“Brigitte said something when she left,” Laura told him. “It’s been on my mind.” She looked into his wise, world weary eyes. “Was it worth what it cost us?” she asked. “The Germans are gone now, we got what we wanted. But was it really worth what it cost us?”

“What choice did we have?” he countered simply.

“But Thierry, he wanted to live. And Alain, my poor Alain...” She bent her head and the tears ran down her cheeks.

Curel’s fingers tightened on hers.

“I can still see his face that last night,” Laura whispered. “So young, so scared, and so brave in spite of it.”

“He was very brave,” Curel agreed.

“Thierry died too but I wasn’t there. I didn’t have to say goodbye.” She pressed her lips together. “I can’t tell you how that farewell haunts me.”
 

“The pain of it will fade,” Curel said gently.

“Will it?” she asked. “Or do we just learn to live with the pain?” She lifted her free hand and let it fall again. “Even Henri would have been all right without the war. Millions of people like him live out their whole lives with their illusions and their dignity intact, simply because they never have to face what he did.” Her eyes drifted past him to the markers. “When I look at these three graves I wonder why I’m still alive.”

“Because you were luckier,” he said. “And so was I. I’ve fought the Germans twice. Why have I survived when so many others are buried in graves like these?”

“When I think of them now their faces don’t come clear to me,” Laura murmured.

“Time does that.”

“It scares me.”

“Why? Do you think you’ll forget them?”

“I don’t see how I could ever do that,” she replied softly.

“Then don’t worry if you can’t remember exactly what they looked like, or the sound of their voices. What they gave you will remain with you as long as you live. Believe me, I know.”

“It’s just that I’m so alone now,” Laura said. She lifted one shoulder slightly. “I guess I’m feeling sorry for myself,” she added ruefully.

“You haven’t heard from Brigitte?”

She shook her head. “I won’t for a while.”

“And Harris?”

She looked away.

“He’ll turn up,” Curel said confidently.

“I wish I had your faith,” she said. “It seems like this war has taken everyone.” She smiled sadly. “Everyone but you and me.”

“Have you thought about going back to the States?”

“I’ve thought about it,” she said dryly. “I don’t seem to be doing it.”

“Why not?”

“This is where Harris left me,” she said. “If he’s still alive this is where he’ll come.”

“Then you haven’t given up hope entirely, have you?” he said, suppressing a grin.

She looked at him and then had to laugh. “No, I guess I haven’t,” she said, rising.

 
He took her arm and helped her to her feet.

“Do you want to come back to the house for some dinner?” she said.

He glanced at her and nodded. “Maybe I will at that,” he answered, and they strolled out of the churchyard together.
 

* * *

“Are you sure this jeep can make the trip?” Harris said to the sergeant.
 

“Sure thing. Fixed it myself.”
 

“I can walk it, you know.”

“Not with that bum leg, you can’t,” the sergeant replied, hitting another rut in the road. The jeep groaned ominously.

Harris prayed that the pile of junk would hold together until he reached Fains. He had appeared at U.S. headquarters late Sunday afternoon trying to bum a ride, and had been referred to the motor pool, where he’d found this hayseed sergeant in charge. The guy talked like Pa Kettle in the movies and drove the jeep as if it could fly. They hit a rock and jolted sideways violently.

“Road ain’t so good,” the sergeant confided generously. “What’s the name of this place you’re going to?”

“Fains-les-Sources.”

The sergeant nodded. “Yeah, we came through it on the way in to Bar-le-Duc.” He pronounced it “barley duke.” He stuck his right hand out to Harris. “Carter Foley. Topeka, Kansas.”

Harris shook it. “Dan Harris, Chicago.”
 

“Going to see your girl?”

Harris looked at him. “Yeah.”

“She works in town, at the school?”

“That’s right. How did you know?”

“I think I met her.”

He had Harris’ full attention now.

“Don’t get huffy,” the sergeant said, laughing. “I met her because she was asking me about you.”

“What?”

“Well, you know, she was asking about the marines in general. Where they might be, the kind of action they’re seeing. Pretty girl, red hair?”

Harris smiled.

Foley nodded. “I have to admit I tried to make some time, me being a red-blooded all-American boy and all, but she wasn’t interested. Don’t get me wrong. She was real nice about it but definitely not interested.”

“Good,” Harris said. His companion laughed again.

“So,” Foley went on, “when you show up for a ride about a week later, looking like Pappy Boyington in that gyrene outfit, it didn’t take much to put two and two together. I mean, marines are not exactly thick on the ground around here and that girl’s not the type you forget.”

“No, she isn’t.”
 

“I guess you got promoted, huh?” Foley said.

“Pardon?”

“She told me you were a Captain.”

“Last time she saw me I was.”

“Flyboy, right?”
 

“That’s right.”

“England?”

“I was based in England earlier on, lately in the Pacific,” Harris replied, trying not to sound weary. Everybody asked the same questions.

“That where you got the leg?”

“Yes.”

“Which campaign?”

“Okinawa.”

Foley nodded. “That must have been some show.” He paused. “I came in on Omaha beach.”

Harris turned. “Yeah?”

Foley shook his head. “Man, I don’t know why I’m alive at this minute and talking to you. Everything went wrong. Rockets firing short, bombers dropping their loads too far inland, troops in the wrong sectors, engineers knocked out, everything. 1,000 dead the first day.”