Heroes (7 page)

“Oh, lots of things,” she said, raising her head and looking round at the passing Frenchtown three-deckers, the steeple of St. Jude’s in the distance. “Such a big world out there. I’d like to help more in the war. Maybe become a nurse, if the war lasts long enough …”

I knew that she spent time with the nuns at the convent, knitting socks and scarves for the armed
forces. I teased her about the smell of cooked cabbage that she carried with her when she dropped in to Laurier’s after leaving the convent. “The convent’s perfume,” I said, thinking myself clever.

“Not a bad smell, Francis,” she said. “Better than Evening in Paris.” Which was the cheap perfume that was our best-seller at the store.

Once, as we passed the Wreck Center, I started to sing “Dancing in the Dark” in a comic way, off-key as usual, because I loved to hear her laugh. But she didn’t laugh this time.

“That was a sad party, wasn’t it?” she said.

I agreed, thinking of that December seventh party, during which word was received that the Japanese had bombed a place we’d never heard of called Pearl Harbor, the party suddenly frivolous and superfluous. How could we celebrate a table tennis tournament and a musical show when our country had been attacked and our world had changed so drastically in the space of a few moments?

The party broke up abruptly as everyone left to go home, hurrying through the streets as if bombers were expected to fly over Frenchtown at any minute. We had discovered in one moment on a Sunday afternoon that the world was not a safe place anymore.

Laurier’s Drug Store became the gathering spot for the people of Frenchtown, who bought
The Monument
Times
or
The Wickburg Telegram
and discussed the progress of the war, shaking their heads at the swiftness with which the boys of Frenchtown were becoming fighting men.

“Amazing,” Mr. Laurier said. “A kid graduates from high school, gets six weeks of basic training with guns and grenades, then overseas he goes on a troopship and five months later—five months later!—he’s fighting the Japs or the Germans.”

The small red radio on the shelf near the soda fountain blared the news of the day between wartime songs like “Rosie the Riveter,” which celebrated the working women in the war factories, and “The White Cliffs of Dover,” about the cliffs the fliers saw as they returned to England after bombing raids over Europe.

Every day, page five of the
Times
carried stories and pictures of our fighting forces, often announcing medals awarded for valor on the battlefields.

“Did you hear about Larry LaSalle?” Nicole asked breathlessly, rushing into the store one Tuesday afternoon. Although she was speaking to me at the candy counter, the customers turned and listened and a deep silence fell in the store.

“He saved the lives of an entire platoon,” she announced. “Captured an enemy machine-gun nest. It was on the radio …”

The following Saturday afternoon at the Plymouth,
we were stunned to suddenly see Larry LaSalle featured in the Movietone News. He was unshaven, face gaunt and drawn, eyes sunk deep into their sockets. But it was our Larry LaSalle, all right.

Cheers filled the air, feet stomped the floor, almost drowning out the voice of the broadcaster:

“A New England marine is one of the great heroes of Pacific action, receiving the Silver Star …” and again cheers and applause rocked the theater, drowning out the rest of the commentary.

That night and the following day, the people of Monument jammed the Plymouth to see the town’s first big war hero on the silver screen.

I
haven’t always worn the scarf and the bandage. In the hospital in England, on its grounds and in the surrounding countryside, I enjoyed the sting of air on my flesh, once the bandages were removed. I had barely glimpsed myself in mirrors, windows or glass doors. Until the day I went on a three-day pass in London.

Walking through the bright sunshine of a spring
day, I was disappointed because London had always been linked in my mind with foggy days and evenings and either Jack the Ripper or Sherlock Holmes stalking through the shadows. I headed for Baker Street, hoping to find 221B, even though I knew that address existed only in the stories of Conan Doyle.

As I walked along, I became aware of people coming upon me and turning away, or giving me wide walking space. A small boy holding his mother’s hand suddenly cried out and pushed his face into his mother’s skirt. I wondered what had scared him until I saw him peeking at me again with one big eye before bursting into tears.

I shrank against the side of a building and made my way to the plate-glass window of a pub, where, among the advertisements for pints of ale and kidney pies, I saw what the boy had seen—my face. No face at all, actually, the nostrils like the snout of an animal, the peeling cheeks, the toothless gums, my jaw and mouth jammed together as if by invisible clamps.

I tried to draw up the collar of my Eisenhower jacket to cover at least the lower part of my face but the collar was too narrow, didn’t cover anything at all, and I hurried along the sidewalk, head down, avoiding eye contact, wishing to be invisible.

Why didn’t anyone warn me? I wondered bitterly on the double-decker bus, hiding my face in
my hands. Then realized that the doctors and nurses had probably become so accustomed to the wounded and the maimed that the abnormal had become normal to them.

Enrico made me the gift of the white scarf, which he said he had won from an air force flyboy in a poker game.

Now in Frenchtown, my face is healing. My dentures have given shape to the lower part of my face and my jaw is firmer, but my nostrils are still caves and the flesh of my cheeks refuses to heal completely, remaining raw and red. When I study myself in the mirror, I don’t see
me
anymore but a stranger slowly taking shape.

The truth is that I don’t care whether I heal or not. Because I know that it doesn’t matter. What matters is hiding my face from others, not only to save them the shock of seeing a face in disrepair but so that they won’t identify little Francis Cassavant later on, after I have carried out my mission.

Now each day when I wake up I know that this might be the day when Larry LaSalle will show up and I start to close doors. Not real doors but doors to the future. I take out the address and telephone number of Dr. Abrams in Kansas City and burn it in the kitchen sink. Next is the list of veterans’ hospitals that Enrico handed to me when I left England. “I’ll be in one of them,” he told me, “until I find the
proper method of disposal.” I knew what he meant by disposal because I had already planned my own method after my mission was completed.

I watch the flames eating up the list of hospitals.
Goodbye, Enrico
.

The smell of ashes fills the air, a damp incense burning for Larry LaSalle’s homecoming.

His second homecoming.

Closing my eyes, I think of Nicole and how his first homecoming during the war changed our lives forever.

L
ieutenant Lawrence LaSalle, U.S. Marine Corps, holder of the Silver Star for acts of heroism in the steaming jungles of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific, hero of newsreels and radio broadcasts, was coming home on furlough. He was scheduled to arrive on the 3:10
P.M.
train from Boston on July 3, 1943.

On that hot and humid afternoon, a crowd gathered at the Monument Depot to greet his arrival, including kids from the Wreck Center, Joey LeBlanc, Louis Arabelle, Marie LaCroix and me among them, and parents who knew that Larry LaSalle had been a bright Pied Piper for their children in the bleakness of the Depression.

I looked toward Monument Park, impatient for Nicole to join us. As a volunteer now with the Monument Red Cross, she was preparing food kits for servicemen that day and said she would join us in time for Larry LaSalle’s arrival.

I placed a foot on the rail, hoping to feel the slight trembling that would announce the train’s approach. The heat of the rail burned through the sole of my shoe. Turning, I saw Nicole coming into view through the haze of heat. She wore a dark blue skirt and a white blouse. She waved to me as she hurried toward the depot. At the same time, the chug of engine, blast of horn and hiss of steam announced the arrival of the train from Boston.

A moment later Larry LaSalle stood on the platform, resplendent in the green uniform with the lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders and the ribbons and medals on his chest. He smiled, the old movie-star smile, skin tanned and glowing, small wrinkles around his eyes as he squinted down at us.

We cheered as he stepped down from the platform and walked toward our group, that touch of Fred Astaire still in his walk but something different about him. His slenderness was knifelike now, lethal, his features sharper, nose and cheekbones. I remembered how hard it had been to think of him as a fighting marine when he announced his enlistment but seeing his lean hard body now I could picture him storming a hillside on Guadalcanal, rifle in hand, bayonet fixed, grenades dangling from his belt, pumping bullets into the enemy.

Then he was among us and we surrounded him, crowding him, embracing him, getting as close to him as possible.

“My hero from the war,” Joey LeBlanc called out, clowning, of course, but saying what we all thought. Larry was our war hero, yes, but he had been a hero to us long before he went to war.

He drew away, holding us off at arm’s length, stepping back. “The better to see you,” he said, looking at each of us in turn. When his eyes fell on me, I made a gesture, as if serving the small white ball over the net, and he swiveled his arm, as if returning the ball. His eyes moved to Nicole and I saw the rush of affection on his face. Nicole bowed, tilting her head like a ballet dancer, and he dipped his head in return, his eyes full of her. A blush
turned her cheeks crimson and only added to her beauty.

Mayor Harold Burnham arrived in a big black car, followed by city officials, most of whom walked the short distance from City Hall. Car horns blew and more cheers rose in the afternoon heat as the mayor vigorously shook Larry LaSalle’s hand, embraced him fiercely and presented him with a silver key to the city.

“You are our celebration,” the mayor declared, referring to the fact that holidays were observed quietly during the war years. No bonfires or fireworks and no parades. “Your presence in this great city of ours, Lieutenant Lawrence LaSalle, is cause enough for jubilation.” Other officials made speeches, and the words sailed over our heads meaninglessly, while Larry LaSalle stood modestly before the crowd, eyes lowered. Finally, a stillness fell and he turned to the gathering. “Thank you,” he said.

He spoke of the men and women serving in all parts of the globe who were defending freedom and how some of them would give their lives, willingly and courageously. He paused and looked down at us, his kids from the Wreck Center.

“I’m glad to be home, even if it’s only for a little while. And most of all I want to be with the Wreck Center gang.”

Once again, he had made us feel special, singling us out from the townspeople who gathered there. Nicole squeezed my hand and my eyes grew moist.

“We have to keep the world safe for these young people—they are our future …”

The celebration went on during the afternoon and evening, culminating in a Welcome Home dance that night at City Hall. The hall was a bright spot in the dark wartime city, streetlights dim, air-raid wardens patrolling the peak of Moosock Hill on the lookout for enemy planes, although an air attack on Monument was a remote possibility. But better be vigilant than sorry, said an editorial in
The Monument Times
. German U-boats had been sighted in the waters off the Massachusetts shore and rumors claimed that Nazis prowled the streets of New England in disguise. But City Hall blazed with lights behind the blackout curtains and the big orchestra played the tunes of the day while the dancers twirled on the floor.

We were a merry group, Larry LaSalle’s guests at the dance. Sitting in a special section of the balcony, we looked down as he moved among the city officials and their wives, shaking hands, enduring slaps on the back, the embraces of beautiful women. I glanced occasionally at Nicole as she gazed, wide-eyed and wistful, at the ladies in their fancy gowns,
glittery sequins catching the lights from a crystal ball revolving on the ceiling.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” Nicole said, pointing to a woman in a simple white gown that clung to her body like whipped cream.

“I’ll buy you one like that someday,” I whispered in her ear, my voice trembling a bit, betraying my love for her.

Squeezing my hand, she leaned toward me, and her warm cheek rested against mine.

Finally, Larry LaSalle looked up and motioned toward the front of the hall, meaning he wanted us to join him there. He met us at the entrance, the music muted in the background, and announced:

“A surprise awaits.”

With a flourish, he led us outside and down the City Hall steps.

He lined us up and we began a wild snake dance through Monument Square, among the statues of generals and the Civil War cannon and by the water fountain. Larry LaSalle headed the line; Nicole was next with her hands on his hips and mine on hers. We laughed and yelled and stopped at the fountain to drink and splash our faces, then crossed the intersection of Main and West and began to march down Mechanic Street, breaking ranks occasionally to pause and laugh, as if we were all drunk without having taken a sip of liquor.

Once, Nicole whispered: “Stay close to me,” as we resumed our parade in the shadowed streets, and a thrill went through me like a jolt as I pulled her close and said: “I’ll never leave you.” As if we were living a love scene at the Plymouth.

Finally, the big surprise was at hand as Larry led us along Third Street until we stood in front of the Wreck Center. He bowed to us, produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and swung it open.

“
Voilà
,” he said, ushering us inside. And then told us he had arranged for Henry Roussier, the old retired janitor, to sweep and clean up the center for a special night. When Larry turned on the lights, we saw the Ping-Pong table, rackets and white balls on it. A table with cans of soda pop and candy bars, not chocolate bars anymore because of wartime restrictions, but candy all the same. Larry placed a record on the phonograph and the hall was filled with an old song from the bright and exciting days of the Wreck Center, before the war, in the time of table tennis tournaments and
Follies and Fancies
musicals.