Candlemoth (29 page)

    I
smiled. 'Helluva question, Nate.'

    'So?'
he prompted, and I leaned back and looked at him, feeling strangely awkward.

    Nathan
was my closest friend, had always been, ever since that day beside Lake Marion
and the baked ham sandwich, but in all that time I could not recall him ever
having asked me such a close-to-the-heart question.

    Nathan
Verney was a rock, an anchor, an island. He appeared distant, uncommunicative
perhaps, and yet behind that wall beat a heart so large it could have swallowed
the world.

    'I've
been in love, yes,' I replied.

    'Tell
me.'

    I
shrugged my shoulders. 'What's there to tell?'

    'How
it is, what it feels like, how you know…'

    'You're
not serious?'

    'As
I'll ever be,' he said.

    And
there was something in his eyes, something in his entire being that told me
just how serious, that he really wanted an answer to his question.

    'I
don't understand -' I began.

    'I'm
here,' he said. 'I've left my home, my folks, everything I've known throughout
my life. I'm here because I don't want to die right now… and seeing as how
things have been going recently I don't know that I stand a much better chance
down here than I would in some godforsaken jungle in the middle of nowhere.
I've been thinking about what makes a life matter, about important things,
things like family and friends and having something to believe in. I've thought
about faith and God, all the things my father told me as I was growing up… and
I can't say that any of them are as important as loving someone, being loved by
someone, and knowing that whatever might happen you'll always be there for one
another…'

    Nathan
Verney turned and looked at me.

    I
believed, just for a second, that there were tears in his eyes.

    'When
I die, Daniel… when I die I want to be able to say that I loved someone…'

    I was
quiet for a time, and then I started to speak, and words came from my mouth
that I never knew I possessed.

    'There
was Caroline,' I said. 'You remember Caroline Lanafeuille?'

    Nathan
smiled and nodded.

    'I
loved her as much as I imagined anyone could love anyone. She was my first, the
very first one, and there was something truly amazing about how she made me
feel.'

    Nathan
shifted his weight from one leg to the other and watched me intently.

    'She
made me feel strong… strong and passionate. She'd laugh at things I said, not
because they were stupid, you know? But because they actually just made her
laugh. She stood close to me, just stood close sometimes and said nothing, and
the way she did that made me feel like the most important person in the world.'

    I
paused for a moment, and saw that Nathan had never felt such a thing.

    'And then
there was Linny Goldbourne… and Linny was like a firework, a mad firework going
off inside your head.'

    I
smiled. I laughed.

    'She
would rush at you with everything she had and there was something about her
that made you feel as though nothing else in the world mattered while she was
around. She made me feel loved, a different way than Caroline… not better, just
different. I loved Caroline, but I don't believe she loved me the same. But
with Linny that love came back threefold, almost overwhelming in some way, and
it was addictive… like a drug.'

    I
hesitated, and in hesitating I realized I was talking of things I no longer
felt. For a moment a strange sense of panic overtook me, of loneliness, a fear
that having felt that way twice in my life would be all I would ever receive. I
believed - just for a second - that I would never have the chance to love like
that again.

    In my
throat a fist had swollen and strangled any other words I might have found.

    'I
want -' Nathan said quietly.

    I looked
up.

    'One
day… I want to feel something like that, Danny.'

    In
that moment I believed that Nathan Verney was more important than anything in
the world, more important than anyone… and I couldn't find a single, solitary
word to give him.

    If I
had known how that moment would haunt me later I would have told him anything.
But I wasn't to know, and so it did haunt me, followed me like a ghost.

    Followed
both of us, resolutely, irrevocably, each to our own deaths.

    Later
he seemed quiet, distant and withdrawn.

    'You
okay?' I asked him.

    He
turned, smiled as if in philosophical resignation, and asked me a question.

    'What
is it that you want, Danny?'

    I was
a little taken aback. 'Want? How d'you mean?'

    'Out
of life. What do you want out of your life?'

    I
shook my head. 'Can't say I've thought a great deal about it.'

    Nathan
smiled. 'Everyone thinks about it, Danny… about being happy, about what might
make them happy.'

    'Happiness,'
I asked. 'What the hell is that when it's at home?'

    Nathan
shrugged. 'My father says it's faith… faith is happiness.'

    'But
he's a minister… of course he's gonna say that.'

    Nathan
shook his head. 'Didn't mean it like that. Not faith in God or anything, just
faith.'

    I was
puzzled.

    'Faith
in something,' Nathan went on, as if talking to himself. 'Faith in yourself
even. Having such a strong belief in something that it really is the most
important thing in your life.'

    'I
don't know that I have ever really believed in something that strongly,' I
said.

    Nathan
looked at me. 'You believed enough in what we were doing to leave home,' he
said.

    
Believed
enough in you,
I thought to myself, but didn't say it. Instead I said,
'Yes, I believed enough in that.'

    'And
what
was
that?' he asked. 'What was it that we believed in?'

    'Life?'
I asked, rhetorically almost.

    'Maybe,'
Nathan replied.

    He
was quiet for a moment.

    'But
only our own,' he added after a while. 'Believed only in our own lives, not the
lives of others.'

    'I
don't get you.'

    'What
about my folks, what about your ma… what do they think about this?'

    'They
think we've gone to find work.'

    Nathan
shook his head. 'You're kidding yourself, Danny. They know why we left. They
know exactly why we left.'

    'You
figure?' 'I figure.'

    'Well,
if they know that we haven't gone north then I don't know what they think.'

    Nathan
turned, closed his eyes for a second. 'They think that we have betrayed them,
betrayed our country… and they have lost their faith in
us.'

    I
didn't know what to say.

    'And
therefore we have taken away their happiness.'

    'But
they would be more unhappy if we'd gone out there and been killed,' I said.

    'Would
they?'

    'Of
course they would,' I retorted.

    'You're
sure?'

    I
didn't reply. Nathan was unnerving me. Guilt was invading my thoughts.

    'People
get over losing their friends, their family,' he said. 'Somehow they always
recover. And it's never the things that people have done that they regret, it's
only the things they haven't done. I know my father will think of all the
things he never said to me, all the times he could have asked me what I felt
about the war, about being an American, about serving my country, and he will
tear himself to pieces over it. If I'd gone, if I'd gone out there and been
killed, then at least he would have had time to grieve for me, to convince
himself that I had done the right thing. Now he has no such chance. All he
knows is that his son didn't face up to his responsibilities. That is something
he will never forgive himself for.'

    'You
really believe that?'

    Nathan
nodded. 'I do.'

    I
looked away. I felt such pain inside. I thought of my mother, of how my father
might have felt had he been alive.

    'So
we took away their faith,' Nathan said. 'And that, of all things, is possibly
the worst of all.'

    I
closed my eyes. I wanted to cry. Not for me, not for

    Nathan
or Caroline Lanafeuille or Linny Goldbourne, not for my mother.

    I
wanted to cry for myself.

    Because
I had no faith.

    I
recognized later how much Nathan had changed. Where he'd once been almost too
considerate he became single- minded and stubborn. Where he'd once possessed the
patience of Job he had learned the value of acting quickly, decisively, and
taken it to the extreme. Where he'd once allowed that perhaps I had some choice
in the direction we'd take, he now treated anything I might have to say merely
as a test of his will to execute what he wanted.

    And
so it was in March of '69 that we were moving again, further east, out towards
Panama City and Pensacola.

    I did
not argue, I had learned already the pointlessness of such a venture, and I
allowed Nathan to lead the way. We had some money now, money we had worked for
during our months near Apalachee Bay and, at least on a physical level, I was
not concerned for our survival and well-being.

    Emotionally,
spiritually, I was not so sure.

    I
thought often of my mother. We had been gone seven months, and in all that time
the only communication she had received from me was a single letter containing
a multiple of lies. This was not how I had treated her before, certainly not
how I'd have wished to be treated myself, and though I spoke often with Nathan
of contacting her, he remained resolute. We had left. We were not going back.
This was final.

    I
conceded defeat following the third or fourth attempt to resolve this, and it
was soon after my concession that he told me we should move on, that we were
becoming settled, becoming familiar.

    'Too
many people know our names,' he said. 'Someone comes down this way looking for
us and there are a hundred or more people who know us by name and face.

    You
forget too quickly, Danny. You forget we're still on the run.'

    And
though I could have questioned and challenged him I did not.

    He
had
changed, there was something inside of him, something our recent
experiences had released, and that something held shadows and dark aspects that
I did not wish to test.

    Had I
known then what would occur I would have left him alone, let him go wherever he
wanted to go. I could have stayed, could have remained right where I was, and
perhaps enjoyed my freedom right through until the war was over. But Nathan was
stronger than me, his personality had always held sway over our relationship,
and I was afraid of being alone. Nathan Verney was the one man who knew where I
had come from, why I was running, and why I didn't wish to be found. With such
a secret it was easier to be with someone who knew - even though that someone
might be a little crazy - rather than alone. I believed that then, perhaps
still do. But now my belief is tempered with hindsight, and I see all the
things I could have done and said that might have changed the outcome. Who
knows? I don't, and now I don't care to know. It was what it was, I saw what I
saw, and what I believed then is not what I believe now. I have changed more
than I could have imagined possible, and part of that change was the result of
knowing Nathan Verney, following his lead, trusting him to take care of what we
had and to ensure we came to no harm. I trusted him to do that much. If nothing
else, I trusted him with that.