Souvenir (31 page)

“Dad.” He ignored Chris. He smelt burning pine.

“We moved slow at first, but there was no firing. It was hazy, smoky from the trees on fire. We couldn’t see very well. Then Shorty spotted it. He had the best damn eyes of anyone I ever knew. He signaled and we all dove behind the thickest pine we could find. Once he pointed it out, you could see it plain as day. Kraut machine gun position. You could see the gunner, and three other Krauts, one with binoculars. It was strange. They shoulda had us, shoulda had us dead to rights.”

“Why didn’t they shoot?” Chris asked, curiosity overwhelming concern.

“We couldn’t figure that out. Big Ned fired his BAR, but they didn’t move a muscle. We all got up at the same time and walked over to them. That’s when we found the G.I.s. We must’ve drifted over to the next platoon’s line of approach. We found ten of them, all around the Kraut position.”

One of the G.I. corpses looked straight at him. Propped up behind a tree, he had tried to put a compress bandage on his leg, but it hadn’t worked. Blood from his thigh wound had spread beneath him and frozen thick on top of the snow. His eyes were open, staring straight at Clay, as if to ask, how the hell did this happen?

“They were all dead?”

“Frozen stiff as a plank. They’d all been wounded, or killed straight out. The Germans were the strange part. There were eight of them up there. In position, like a picture. One of them was crawling to another guy with a medic’s bag in his hand. The other Kraut was flat on his back, holding his belly. Their faces, their skin, it was all white, crystal white, as if they’d been frozen in a second. You could see the expressions on their faces. Fear, pain, grimness, calmness, everything you felt in a fight.”

“How?”

“Concussion, we figured. Must’ve been. A shell burst above them, but the trees were already down. One chance in a million, but there it was. No shrapnel, no wood splinters, not a drop of blood. Concussion from a shell that burst straight on top of them. They all died instantly, in position, and the cold did the rest. That’s how cold it was, cold enough to freeze a dead man in place. We left them there. None of us could touch them, not even for souvenirs.”

Not even for souvenirs. Everyone wanted souvenirs, until they didn’t. Until the very trophy you’d taken turned and took you.

He felt the snow crunching under his feet as he walked away from the frozen Germans, glancing back at them and wondering. Wondering if he’d end up like that, looking like he should be alive, but dead inside.

And then it was gone. The cold, the scene in his mind, the immediate sense of memory, sight, sound and smell that always lingered. He sat and stared out the window, enjoying the absence of visions, enjoying the mountain, still there.

“Dad,” Chris said, brushing his fingers against his arm. “Are you done?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”

They sat in silence, hands on the table, close to each other, but not touching.

“Do you know,” he said, “that’s the first time you ever told me anything about the war?”

He had to force his eyes from the mountain to Chris. It was a magical mountain, and he’d finally unearthed its secret. All these years, at the mercy of his own memories, and today, for the first time in five decades, he’d been in control. Speaking the words out loud, containing them within his mouth, letting them out into the air, instead of around and around in his mind, again and again, over and over. It was important that he said these words to Chris, he knew, but it felt like he could’ve been alone and it would have been the same.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that too. I never knew, never thought—”

“You never thought we could take it. You never thought Mom or me were as tough as you.”

Clay felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He tried to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say, except a denial, and he knew that would be wrong. He met his eyes, and saw the determination behind them, the desire burning there, the desire to understand, to pull out the memories, as Addy had pulled him through life, half alive, half whimpering in the snow, crippled by shrapnel and memories.

“Jesus,” Clay said, holding his head in his hands, feeling the tears seeping through his fingers. “I don’t know what to do. I thought I’d be gone by now, that it would be all over.”

Clay remembered Addy telling him to talk to Chris, tell him—he couldn’t even repeat Addy’s phrase in his mind. Who—no, he couldn’t say it. He’d avoided it ever since he’d stuffed it back into the corners of his mind and found the perfect escape. The words terrified him. Who he was. The words fell on him like a wall collapsing, revealing his past behind rotten, moldy sheetrock. Who he was. That depended on who his father was, making him the father that he was. Who he was. The thought circled in his mind like a mosquito driving him crazy on a summer night.

“No, no, I can’t,” Clay said.

“Can’t what, Dad? Are you sure you’re all right?”

Clay remembered Addy leaning forward, in the chair where Chris now sat, forcing the words from her uncooperative lips, as if she willed them into coherence.
Come out from under tha-at sha-adow. Long enough, long enough.

He remembered what Miller had told him in Clervaux. Sometimes, the right thing to do grabs you and won’t let go, and you gotta do it, no matter how much you want to run. He wondered how much longer these distant voices would stay with him.

“Yeah,” said Clay, his voice barely a croak. “I’m okay.”

They ate breakfast in silence. Chris cleaned up, more time passed. Clay thought about what to do next. Words were not going to be enough. There had to be a better way.

Clay was watching Chris in the driveway, doing his stretches before a run, when he had an idea. If he couldn’t tell him, maybe he could show him. They could do it, if Chris were willing. It was time, past time, to be honest with his son, and this might be the only way. Time and age had left them drifting, not close, not estranged, not intimate. Clay had always worried about passing on the sins of the father, and it was time to give it up. His own sins were enough.

How unfair. He hadn’t really been worried about Chris, it was his own shame that he was afraid of, and the more alone Chris was, the less chance for Clay’s shame to be revealed through him. Maybe he wanted Chris to fail, or maybe his son would’ve failed at relationships with no help from him at all. He waited, nervous at first, then calm. He watched Chris walk up the driveway, sweaty, his arms on his hips, his mouth drinking in the air.

“I might need a ride,” Clay said, as the back door opened.

“Where to, Dad?” Chris asked, walking to the sink and running the tap for cold water.

“Out of state, maybe overnight.” Clay said.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“There’s some sights I’d like to see, things I want to show you. The place I grew up, to start with.”

“All the way to Tennessee?”

“Maybe not that far.”

“But that’s where you grew up, Tennessee,” Chris said, his certainty reinforced by the pits and pieces of his past that his father had parted with.

“Listen, it’s going to be easier to show you, I can’t explain it. It’s something to do with those guys in the photograph you’re always asking me about. Trust me, Chris, please.”

“Okay,” Chris said, the promise of actual information about his father’s wartime photo overcoming his reluctance. “When do you want to make this trip?”

“Now. Today.”

“What? You were in the hospital yesterday, and now you want a road trip?”

“Listen, Chris, let’s get into the car and drive. I’ll navigate. We’ll be back tomorrow night, no problem. It’s important.”

“Jesus, Dad, why do we have to go all of a sudden? How important can it be?”

Clay spread his hands, unable to conceive of how to start telling his son why this was important. Chris shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay. Do I have time to shower?”

“That’d be worth the wait,” Clay said.

“On the way out we need to stop by the office. There’s something I need to pick up. Won’t take a minute.”

Clay was excited. Scared and nervous too, but at the heart of it, excited. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. He realized Addy would have been excited too. Addy always had a plan for working things out between he and Chris, and this would have pleased her. He ached for her, but he also felt a lightness in his gut, like a tight, twisted cord gone slack. He felt a restful sense of being in the right spot, doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons, knowing the consequences were less important than the act itself.

He finally understood what Miller had said in Clervaux, and thinking about him again, saw the kid looking up at him, calmly explaining it as if it were the most rational thing he ever did.

Chapter Sixteen

1945

Jake dreamed he was home, sitting at his kitchen table, looking out of the small window above the sink, the short white curtains with the red rose pattern his mother had sewn blowing gently in the breeze. She was chopping vegetables at the counter. Seated on either side of him were his father and his sister. His sister’s eyes were riveted to the table, his father’s to her. Little Ned and Shorty were there too, leaning against the counter, sipping coffee from the green-tinted glass cups that came free in boxes of Quaker Oats. They were dressed in clean, pressed khakis, infantry brass gleaming on their collars. Private First Class stripes were stitched evenly on their sleeves, fore and aft caps folded over their belts. They looked like they were on a forty-eight hour pass, ready to go out and celebrate, paint the town red.

Jake looked down at his hands. His fingernails were black, grimy dirt dug in across his knuckles. His clothes were filthy, the green fatigues greasy and stained. Bringing a hand up to his face, he felt thick stubble scratch against his fingers.

Little Ned and Shorty set down their cups, and gave Jake a smile and a wave. Shorty put his arm around Little Ned as they walked down the back hall, pushed open the screen door, and let it slam behind them. Jake heard them laugh, and wanted to join them, to leap up and chase after them. Wait for me, fellas, wait up!

But he couldn’t move. He tried, but for some reason he couldn’t get out of the chair. His mother turned away from the counter, a long, sharp, gleaming knife in her hand. Pa turned to look at her, staring, his mouth set in a dour grimace until she turned away and went back to her chopping. Chop. Chop, chop, chop, chop.

Pa turned his stare toward Jake, as if he just noticed his presence.

“You oughta be ashamed of yourself,” Pa said, disgust twisting his mouth into a foul sneer as his dark eyes narrowed above high cheekbones. Wind blew the curtains in, flapping and snapping in the breeze, taunting Jake with their delicate red stitching. Shame, shame, they scolded, like nagging fingers tipped with red fingernail polish. Jake looked past them, out the window towards the trees and the rocks rising up beyond the yard to a height that vanished from view. Then he was standing out there, his dirty uniform gone now, replaced by khaki pants and a white tee shirt. The sky turned white, but it was a giant Barn Owl, flying above his head, feathers like cornsilk brushing against his cheek, blessing him, carrying him off, away from here, away to that other place he’d always been looking for, away, away, away.

Explosions cracked through the air, multiple blasts waking Jake, ripping him from the soaring whiteness and sending him bolt upright as if a giant hand had grabbed him and pulled him up.

“What?” Wide eyes darted around as his mind raced to remember where he was, gasping in mouthfuls of air, trying to still the panic rising inside him. Again, the loud blasts tore the air and he instinctively ducked, patting the ground around him for his helmet. He hands felt wool blankets, soft straw. His eyes took in stonewalls, thick horizontal timbers, as he rubbed his face, trying to clear his mind. Holding his hand in front of his eyes, he saw it was the same dirty hand he’d seen in his dream.

As the explosions came a third time, Jake continued staring at his hand, remembering where he was, knowing that the Barn Owl could not pluck him away from here, or save him from his family. Then, without thought or warning, he cried, not attempting to hold back the tears, no scrunching of his facial muscles, no hiding his face in his hands. He cried, Little Ned, Shorty and the owl all out of reach, gone, the purity and whiteness, laughing and flying, gone, gone, gone.

“They’re ours, it’s okay,” he heard Clay saying. “It’s okay, those are our 105s, down the road, it’s okay.”

Clay wasn’t talking to him, not directly, anyway. He was working his way down a line of G.I.s opposite him. Big Ned, Miller, Tucker and Oakland among the rest of their group, all shocked awake from their beds of straw. Clay had one hand on Big Ned’s shoulder, the other lowering the BAR Big Ned had grabbed when artillery first went off.

“Coffee’s coming, boys. Breakfast in bed,” Clay said lightly, smiling at Big Ned, “nothing but a wake up call.”

One more round came from the 105mm battery. Jake flinched, but recognized the sound. Of course it was their stuff. He shoulda known, what was wrong with him? Sniffling, he rubbed at his face. The tears stopped as suddenly as they’d started, the clarity and reality of the barn, his buddies, and their own artillery driving the sadness down, tucking it away for now.