The Night In Question (11 page)

The man walked over to the open door and held out his hand.
“Madame,”
he said. When Claire stayed where she was, he made a flourish and said,
“Madame! Entrez!”

Claire walked up to the car. “We really should go,” she said. She sat sideways on the seat and swung her legs inside, all in one motion. She nodded at the man and he closed the door. “Yes,” he said, “exactly as I thought. The designer was a friend of yours, a very special friend. This automobile was obviously built with you in mind.”

“You look great,” April said. It was true, and she could see that Claire was in complete possession of that truth. The knowledge was in the set of her mouth, the way her hands came to rest on the wheel.

“There’s something missing,” the man said. He studied her. “Sunglasses,” he said. “A beautiful woman in a convertible has to be wearing sunglasses.”

“Put on your sunglasses,” April said.

“Please,” the man said gently. He leaned against the car and stood over Claire, his back to April, and April understood that she was not to speak again. Her part in this was done; he would close the deal in his own way. He said something in a low voice, and Claire took her sunglasses from her purse and slipped them on. Then she handed him her hat. A gust of heat blew over the lot, rattling the pennants, as April walked toward the showroom. It looked cool in there behind the tinted glass. Quiet. They’d have coffee in the waiting area, old copies of
People
. She could give her feet a rest and catch up on the stars.

F
or two days now Miller has been standing in the rain with the rest of Bravo Company, waiting for some men from another company to blunder down the logging road where Bravo waits in ambush. When this happens, if this happens, Miller will stick his head out of the hole he’s hiding in and shoot off all his blank ammunition in the direction of the road. So will everyone else in Bravo Company. Then they will climb out of their holes and get on some trucks and go home, back to the base.

This is the plan.

Miller has no faith in it. He has never yet seen a plan that worked, and this one won’t either. His foxhole has about a foot of water in it. He has to stand on little shelves he’s been digging out of the walls, but the soil is sandy and the shelves keep collapsing. That means his boots are wet. Plus his cigarettes are wet. Plus he broke the bridge on his molars the first night out while chewing up one of the lollipops he’d brought along for energy. It drives him crazy, the way the broken bridge lifts and grates when he pushes it with his tongue, but last night he lost his will power and now he can’t keep his tongue away from it.

When he thinks of the other company, the one they’re
supposed to ambush, Miller sees a column of dry well-fed men marching farther and farther away from the hole where he stands waiting for them. He sees them moving easily under light packs. He sees them stopping for a smoke break, stretching out on fragrant beds of pine needles under the trees, the murmur of their voices growing more and more faint as one by one they drift into sleep.

It’s the truth, by God. Miller knows it like he knows he’s going to catch a cold, because that’s his luck. If he was in the other company they’d be the ones standing in holes.

Miller’s tongue does something to the bridge and a thrill of pain shoots through him. He snaps up straight, eyes burning, teeth clenched against the yell in his throat. He fights it back and glares around him at the other men. The few he can see look stunned and ashen-faced. Of the rest he can make out only their poncho hoods, sticking out of the ground like bullet-shaped rocks.

At this moment, his mind swept clean by pain, Miller can hear the tapping of raindrops on his own poncho. Then he hears the pitchy whine of an engine. A jeep is splashing along the road, slipping from side to side and throwing up thick gouts of mud behind it. The jeep itself is caked with mud. It skids to a stop in front of Bravo Company’s position, and the horn beeps twice.

Miller glances around to see what the others are doing. Nobody has moved. They’re all just standing in their holes.

The horn beeps again.

A short figure in a poncho emerges from a clump of trees farther up the road. Miller can tell it’s the first sergeant by how little he is, so little the poncho hangs almost to his ankles. The first sergeant walks slowly toward the jeep, big blobs of mud all around his boots. When he gets to the jeep he leans his head inside; a moment later he pulls it out. He looks down at the road. He kicks at one of
the tires in a thoughtful way. Then he looks up and shouts Miller’s name.

Miller keeps watching him. Not until the first sergeant shouts his name again does Miller begin the hard work of hoisting himself out of the foxhole. The other men turn their gray faces up at him as he trudges past their holes.

“Come here, boy,” the first sergeant says. He walks a little distance from the jeep and waves Miller over.

Miller follows him. Something is wrong. Miller can tell because the first sergeant called him “boy” instead of “shitbird.” Already he feels a burning in his left side, where his ulcer is.

The first sergeant stares down the road. “Here’s the thing,” he begins. He stops and turns to Miller. “Goddamn it, anyway. Did you know your mother was sick?”

Miller doesn’t say anything, just pushes his lips tight together.

“She must have been sick, right?” Miller remains silent, and the first sergeant says, “She passed away last night. I’m real sorry.” He looks sadly up at Miller, and Miller watches his right arm beginning to rise under the poncho; then it falls to his side again. Miller can see that the first sergeant wants to give his shoulder a man-to-man kind of squeeze, but it just wouldn’t work. You can only do that if you’re taller than the other fellow or at least the same size.

“These boys here will drive you back to base,” the first sergeant says, nodding toward the jeep. “You give the Red Cross a call and they’ll take it from there. Get yourself some rest,” he adds, then walks off toward the trees.

Miller retrieves his gear. One of the men he passes on his way back to the jeep says, “Hey, Miller, what’s the story?”

Miller doesn’t answer. He’s afraid if he opens his mouth he’ll start laughing and ruin everything. He keeps his head
down and his lips tight as he climbs into the backseat of the jeep, and he doesn’t look up until they’ve left the company a mile or so behind. The fat PFC sitting beside the driver is watching him. He says, “I’m sorry about your mother. That’s a bummer.”

“Maximum bummer,” says the driver, another PFC. He shoots a look over his shoulder. Miller sees his own face reflected for an instant in the driver’s sunglasses.

“Had to happen someday,” he mumbles, and looks down again.

Miller’s hands are shaking. He puts them between his knees and stares through the snapping plastic window at the trees going past. Raindrops rattle on the canvas overhead. He is inside, and everyone else is still outside. Miller can’t stop thinking about the others standing around getting rained on, and the thought makes him want to laugh and slap his leg. This is the luckiest he has ever been.

“My grandmother died last year,” the driver says. “But that’s not the same thing as losing your mother. I feel for you, Miller.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Miller tells him. “I’ll get along.”

The fat PFC beside the driver says, “Look, don’t feel like you have to repress just because we’re here. If you want to cry or anything, just go ahead. Right, Leb?”

The driver nods. “Just let it out.”

“No problem,” Miller says. He wishes he could set these fellows straight so they won’t feel like they have to act mournful all the way to Fort Ord. But if he tells them what happened, they’ll turn right around and drive him back to his foxhole.

Miller knows what happened. There’s another Miller in the battalion with the same initials he’s got, W.P., and this Miller is the one whose mother has died. The Army screws up their mail all the time, and now they’ve screwed this up.
Miller got the whole picture as soon as the first sergeant started asking about his mother.

For once, everybody else is on the outside and Miller is on the inside. Inside, on his way to a hot shower, dry clothes, a pizza, and a warm bunk. He didn’t even have to do anything wrong to get here; he just did as he was told. It was their own mistake. Tomorrow he’ll rest up like the first sergeant ordered him to, go on sick call about his bridge, maybe downtown to a movie after that. Then he’ll call the Red Cross. By the time they get everything straightened out it will be too late to send him back to the field. And the best thing is, the other Miller won’t know. The other Miller will have a whole other day of thinking his mother is still alive. You could even say that Miller is keeping her alive for him.

The man beside the driver turns around again and studies Miller. He has small dark eyes in a big white face covered with beads of sweat. His name tag reads KAISER. Showing little square teeth like a baby’s, he says, “You’re really coping, Miller. Most guys pretty much lose it when they get the word.”

“I would too,” the driver says. “Anybody would. It’s
human
, Kaiser.”

“For sure,” Kaiser says. “I’m not saying I’m any different. That’s going to be my worst day, the day my mom dies.” He blinks rapidly, but not before Miller sees his little eyes mist up.

“Everybody has to go sometime,” Miller says, “sooner or later. That’s my philosophy.”

“Heavy,” the driver says. “Really deep.”

Kaiser gives him a sharp look and says, “At ease, Lebowitz.”

Miller leans forward. Lebowitz is a Jewish name. That means Lebowitz must be a Jew. Miller wants to ask him why he’s in the Army, but he’s afraid Lebowitz might take
it wrong. Instead he says conversationally, “You don’t see too many Jewish people in the Army nowadays.”

Lebowitz looks into the rearview. His thick eyebrows arch over his sunglasses, then he shakes his head and says something Miller can’t make out.

“At ease, Leb,” Kaiser says again. He turns to Miller and asks him where the funeral is going to be held.

“What funeral?” Miller says.

Lebowitz laughs.

“Fuckhead,” Kaiser says. “Haven’t you ever heard of shock?”

Lebowitz is quiet for a moment. Then he looks into the rearview again and says, “Sorry, Miller. I was out of line.”

Miller shrugs. His probing tongue pushes the bridge too hard and he stiffens suddenly.

“Where did your mom live?” Kaiser asks.

“Redding,” Miller says.

Kaiser nods. “Redding,” he repeats. He keeps watching Miller. So does Lebowitz, glancing back and forth between the mirror and the road. Miller understands that they expected a different kind of performance than the one he’s giving them, more emotional and all. They’ve seen other personnel whose mothers died and now they have certain standards he has failed to live up to. He looks out the window. They’re driving along a ridgeline. Slices of blue flicker between the trees on the left-hand side of the road; then they hit a space without trees and Miller can see the ocean below them, clear to the horizon under a bright cloudless sky. Except for a few hazy wisps in the treetops they’ve left the clouds behind, back in the mountains, hanging over the soldiers there.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Miller says. “I’m sorry she’s dead.”

Kaiser says, “That’s the way. Talk it out.”

“It’s just that I didn’t know her all that well,” Miller
says, and after this monstrous lie a feeling of weightlessness comes over him. At first it makes him uncomfortable, but almost immediately he begins to enjoy it. From now on he can say anything.

He makes a sad face. “I guess I’d be more broken up and so on if she hadn’t taken off on us the way she did. Right in the middle of harvest season. Just leaving us flat like that.”

“I’m hearing a lot of anger,” Kaiser tells him. “Ventilate. Own it.”

Miller got that stuff from a song, but he can’t remember any more. He lowers his head and looks at his boots. “Killed my dad,” he says after a time. “Died of a broken heart. Left me with five kids to raise, not to mention the farm.” Miller closes his eyes. He sees a field all ploughed up and the sun setting behind it, a bunch of kids coming in from the field with rakes and hoes on their shoulders. While the jeep winds down through the switchbacks he describes his hardships as the oldest child in this family. He is at the end of his story when they reach the coast highway and turn north. All at once the jeep stops rattling and swaying. They pick up speed. The tires hum on the smooth road. The rushing air whistles a single note around the radio antenna. “Anyway,” Miller says, “it’s been two years since I even had a letter from her.”

“You should make a movie,” Lebowitz says.

Miller isn’t sure how to take this. He waits to hear what else Lebowitz has to say, but Lebowitz is silent. So is Kaiser, who’s had his back turned to Miller for several minutes now. Both men stare at the road ahead of them. Miller can see that they’ve lost interest. He feels disappointed, because he was having a fine time pulling their leg.

One thing Miller told them was true: he hasn’t had a letter from his mother in two years. She wrote him a lot when he first joined the Army, at least once a week, sometimes
twice, but Miller sent all her letters back unopened and after a year of this she finally gave up. She tried calling a few times but Miller wouldn’t go to the telephone, so she gave that up too. Miller wants her to understand that her son is not a man to turn the other cheek. He is a serious man. Once you’ve crossed him, you’ve lost him.

Miller’s mother crossed him by marrying a man she shouldn’t have married. Phil Dove. Dove was a biology teacher in the high school. Miller was having trouble in the course, so his mother went to talk to Dove about it and ended up getting engaged to him. When Miller tried to reason with her, she wouldn’t hear a word. You would think from the way she acted that she’d landed herself a real catch instead of someone who talked with a stammer and spent his life taking crayfish apart.

Miller did everything he could to stop the marriage, but his mother had blinded herself. She couldn’t see what she already had, how good it was with just the two of them. How he was always there when she got home from work, with a pot of coffee all brewed up. The two of them drinking their coffee together and talking about different things, or maybe not talking at all—maybe just sitting in the kitchen while the room got dark around them, until the telephone rang or the dog started whining to get out. Walking the dog around the reservoir. Coming back and eating whatever they wanted to eat, sometimes nothing, sometimes the same dish three or four nights in a row, watching the programs they wanted to watch and going to bed when they wanted to and not because some other person wanted them to. Just being together in their own place.