Souvenir (34 page)

“Week or so,” Miller said, definitely as he could.

“Well, I been up here since first snow, and all I seen these past weeks is nuns and old ladies. Maybe I will shower up with you, sonny!”

Miller looked uncertain for a second, then laughed, then looked uncertain again.

“C’mon,” said Big Ned, grabbing him by the collar. “We’ll go first.”

Jake and Clay followed, the sergeant giving them a wink as he headed back into the building. Tuck and Oakland came behind them, the rest of the men forming into a line. Rifles, web suspenders hung with grenades, ammo pouches, all weapons were stacked along the whitewashed wall of an empty room. Each man left his helmet on top of his pile, then eyeing the bored G.I. guarding the room, they shuffled back out, along the line of men behind them, to the showers.

Inside the trailer, the first compartment held canvas bags hanging on pegs. Coats, sweaters, boots, all their outerwear went into a barracks bag, each of which had a piece of wire strung through the grommets for a dogtag. Jake removed one dogtag, and shuddered at the odd feeling. You were only supposed to be separated from a dogtag when you were dead. He ran the wire through his twice, twisting the ends so it wouldn’t fall off. Losing a dogtag had to be bad luck.

The men stripped to their long johns and underwear, the smell from their bodies no longer contained by layers of thick clothing, the odor as foul as rotting road kill. Jake peeled the pea-green long underwear off, the stain where his urine had flowed down his leg dark and matted to his red, irritated skin. They passed around a canvas bag, dropping the gray, formless items of clothing that had been their second skins into it like an offering to the gods of filth. Noses crinkled, eyes squinted, no one could even crack a joke.

A G.I. walked down the narrow hallway on one side of the trailer, wooden gratings on the floor keeping feet above water. Handing each man a bar of soap wrapped in a washcloth, he showed them to the first station.

Jake stood under the water, letting it flow over his head and down his body. It was a strangely familiar, yet alien feeling. Yesterday at this time, he’d been behind the German lines, wondering if he’d be killed or captured. Now, here he was, taking a shower. It didn’t make any sense. He stood there, thinking, trying to understand, and he couldn’t figure out how to wash himself. He gripped the bar of soap in his hand and willed it to scrub his body, but it stayed put.

“Okay, buddy, move on, more guys are waiting, move on.”

They walked on the grating to the next set of showers, where the water was warmer. Jake began to shake, and even though he knew the water was warm, he couldn’t stop himself. Closing his eyes, he turned his face up to the water, letting it wash over his eyes, nose and mouth. He heard laughter, whooping and yelling. The guys were enjoying this, a small faraway voice said. Go ahead, enjoy it too. Go ahead. It’s okay.

“Keep it moving, fellas, keep it moving, next stop.”

They shuffled along the grating, suds and dirty water running off beneath them. The next showers were hot and steamy, and Jake finally felt his muscles relax, his back unknot, as he took a deep breath of warm, moist air. He brought up the bar of soap to his chest and began to move it in a slow, methodical circle. Around and around, a ring of suds appearing and then washed away, appearing again, disappearing. It seemed useless, redundant. But he pressed on, scrubbing his armpits, face, stomach, groin, legs, working at the grim and caked sweat between the folds of his skin.

“Hot stuff coming up boys, step right in.”

Hot, hot water. So hot it hurt at first, but hot enough to make the scrubbing easier. More yells from the other guys, but it was like they were a universe away, as if he were walking through a dream and was invisible to everyone. He scrubbed his feet, between his toes, working out clumps of wet lint and dirt and wondering if he’d get this dirty again.

“Cool down boys, move on and cool down.”

He’d lost the cloth and soap. He held up his hands in the flowing water, warm now but not as hot. His fingernails were black, but his hands were clean. He looked at them as if they were brand new hands he’d never seen before. The dirt is still under my nails, but my hands are clean, my hands are clean. He massaged his head, getting the water into his scalp and cleansing his thick hair. My hands are clean.

“C’mon buddy, keep up with your pals.”

Jake followed Clay, who looked relaxed, happy. Smiling at Jake, he said something, and moved into the next shower. Cooler now, refreshing. Jake felt like a new man. A new man. My hands are clean and I’m a new man. He smiled. Two more stations, and at the last his body was used to the cool water and it felt good, perfect.

“Get your towels, boys, and step into the next room.”

With a loud mechanical
whirr
, a large fan started up and filled the room with heated air. It felt like the hot breath of God. Jake rubbed his head and wrapped the towel around his body. I’m clean, everything washed away, under the grate, down the drain, running under the streets of Clervaux. The voices of the other guys came closer to him, and he didn’t feel so far away. He wanted to speak, to join in with them, but he couldn’t think of what to say. It had to be the right thing for a new man with clean hands to say, but he couldn’t think of a thing.

“Yow! How’d you like that, Jake?” Big Ned’s face was red and shiny, his face lit up like a little boy. Jake struggled to speak, his throat hurting from the effort of getting the words out.

“It’s like heaven,” he said, evenly.

“God-damn right it is,” Big Ned said, turning and opening the door of the trailer, heading into the building, wrapped in white. Jake followed, his feet cool on the damp granite stones of the walkway. Inside, they walked along tables stacked with wool long underwear, socks, tee shirts, more underwear, and a variety of U.S. Army shirts, in colors ranging from khaki to dark brown. G.I.s eyeballed them, guessed their sizes, and stacked piles of folded clothing in their arms. Jake looked at the shirts. They were mended in places, and stained with a dull rust color.

At the end of the hall, kids were dragging barracks bags into rooms on the left side. Walking towards them, Jake passed a room where old women knelt over buckets, scrubbing shirts with brushes and dunking them into the sudsy water, pulling them out to view their handiwork. In the next room, four old women sat around a table, stitching up holes in the cleaned shirts. Jake was reminded of an assembly line, a great factory of death, reusing worn out parts, wringing every last drop out of them, cleaning and sewing until they looked like new, unless you noticed the mended hole you wore over your heart.

“First group in here,” a G.I. said, motioning his hand into a small room. A cross hung above the door. As Jake followed Big Ned inside, he could see that one wall had been painted with a portrait of the Madonna. The walls were all whitewashed clean, except for that outer wall, where Mary held up her hand in blessing, next to a leaded window on hinges, open to reveal a view of the building across the alleyway. The room was small, empty, and cold.

“What kinda joint is this?” asked Tuck.

“Monastery, I bet,” said Clay. “This was probably a monk’s cell, looks like a whole row of them along the hall.” Dropping his pile of clothes on the floor he began to open his barracks bag, first removing his dogtag and putting it back on the chain around his neck.

Jake looked at Mary, her graceful hand extended, her head slightly tilted, as if she were inviting him in. Her eyes were set to look at whoever entered the room, and Jake realized the painter did that on purpose, to make whoever passed through that door think of God and heaven.

“Hey, Jake, move aside, huh?” Miller edged around him and began working open his barracks bag. Jake felt like he were dreaming, and was surprised that he was actually in anybody’s way. He moved slowly, working his way through the tight room to his bag, set with the others along the wall. Behind him, he heard others in the crowded hallway, G.I.s in towels, kids pulling heavy bags of clothes, soldiers giving directions, laughing, joking, life flowing through the old building like blood pumping through veins.

“Goddammit,” Miller said, pulling at something in his barracks bag. “Something’s stuck.” He gave a hard tug, trying to disentangle whatever was knotted up in the opening of his bag. Jake looked, and saw it a fraction of a second too late. A grenade. Maybe left in a jacket pocket, it didn’t really matter, because the wire run through the grommets of the barracks bag had become wound around the pin, and as Miller gave a last powerful pull, the clump of clothing pulled free, and with it the grenade, free of its pin, rolled onto the floor, the safety level flipped off, its four second timer counting down under the serene gaze of Mary, mother of Jesus.

One-thousand one.

“GRENADE” yelled Clay, and all eyes riveted on the grenade, slowly spinning on the wooden floorboards. Noises from the hallway flooded in as the warning was heard.

One-thousand two.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod,” Miller repeated, diving for the grenade, knocking it toward the wall before getting his hands on it. A young kid, speaking French a mile a minute, came into the room, maybe drawn by the excitement, or to ask a question. Clay dove on top of the boy.

“Throw it, throw it!” Big Ned pointed to the window, stepping to the side, making room for Miller to toss it outside.

One-thousand three.

Miller took two steps to the window. It was small, and he didn’t want to chance throwing it. He’d drop it out, it was the only way to go. Big Ned stood to the side of the window, and saw them the same split second Miller did. The whole scene instantly filling his vision. The nun and the children, walking down the narrow alley below them, the nun holding a length of rope, each of the seven toddlers grasping onto it with one tiny hand. Miller gasped at the sight, and clenched his hand tight around the fragmentation grenade, thrusting it out the window, holding the grenade against the outside wall, his cheek planted on the inside wall, next to the Madonna’s hand. He felt the grit of the surface on his cheek, the rough cold stone against his knuckles…

One-thousand four.

The explosion threw Miller back into the room, into Big Ned’s arms. Screams filled the hall, cries rose up from the alley, and everyone in the room cried for a medic at the top of their lungs.

Big Ned was on the floor, cradling Miller from behind, wrapping one big arm around both his shoulders, wiping the blood from his face with the other. He held the stump of Miller’s arm in a vise grip, clamping it to hold down the blood flow and keeping Miller from trying to lift it up.

“There, there, buddy, you’re going to be okay,” Big Ned murmured in his ear as he cleared the blood from Miller’s eyes with the other hand. “Hold on, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Miller was shaking, his whole body convulsing. Big Ned could hardly hold on, the blood so slippery against bare skin.

“MEDIC!”

Jake went to the window, saw the nun with the children gathered around her, her arms and habit enveloping them as they cried.

“They’re okay,” he said to Miller, kneeling down and looking straight into his eyes. “Hear me? You saved them, you saved us all.”

Miller blinked, his face twitching. “The kids…”

“Yeah, the kids,” Jake said. “You saved them, saved us.”

Clay moved beside Jake with a belt and tied it around Miller’s bicep, pulling it tight. Someone thrust clean tee shirts at them and they wrapped the stump below his elbow, gently padding the broken ends of bone and torn muscle.

“Big Ned?” Miller said, his voice a choked whisper.

“Yeah, I’m right here, kid, I got you, the medics are coming.”

“Did I do okay?”

“You did swell, Miller, just fine.” Big Ned dipped his head down and rubbed the top of Miller’s head with his cheek. “Just fine.”

“I had to do it,” Miller said, a sudden clarity lighting up his eyes, as if he had to explain himself to all of them. “It was the only thing to do. I had no choice, you understand?”

“Yeah,” said Jake, “we understand.” He wondered what it would be like to be presented with such an obvious, terrible choice, and if he’d act with Miller’s certainty.

“I had to do it, no question in my mind,” Miller said, twisting his head to look up at Big Ned.

“That was the bravest fucking thing I ever saw,” said Big Ned, as he started to rock slightly, gently, just a few inches back and forth, his bare arm across Miller’s chest. Clay placed Miller’s wrapped arm on Big Ned’s chest. They were all naked now, towels dropped in the tumult, clean bodies dappled in pink sprays of blood, like newborns ripped from the womb.

“Medics are on the way, ambulance will be here in a minute,” the sergeant said from the doorway, twisting the unlit cigar in his mouth. Glancing between the Madonna and Miller on the floor, he crossed himself.

“Hold his arm in place,” Big Ned said to Jake, as he rose from the floor, in one fluid motion, lifting Miller in his arms. “You’re going home, buddy, you’re going home,” he said, over and over again as he carried Miller out of the room, down the long hallway, past G.I.s in towels and uniforms, Belgian kids and old ladies. They all made room, clearing a path for the naked giant who whispered gentle comfort into the ear of the boy who knew when to do the right thing.