Losing Julia (25 page)

“What do you suppose he is saying?” asked Julia, turning her back to the strong wind and pulling her hair away from her face as she leaned against me. Her brow was creased and her lower lip was tucked in. It occurred to me that she was one of the few people who are just as attractive when they are serious as when they are smiling, maybe more so.

I looked over at the French soldier, and then at the young faces of the students, riveted by what he was saying. Watching him and his dramatic gestures and the supreme pride in his face made me flush with anger.

“I’ll tell you what he’s not saying. He’s not saying what it’s like when a shell lands in a trench full of men. He’s not saying what that looks like and smells like and sounds like and how it feels to be covered with bits of flesh. And I don’t suppose he’s saying anything about the surprising heft of a decapitated head, how awkward it is to pick up for burial and how—”

“Please, no more,” said Julia.

“But it’s true. Look at their faces. They’re ready to revenge their fathers. Ten years and people have forgotten. Christ, a couple of more years and everybody will be ready for a rematch.”

“They’re so young. They don’t know any better.”

“Maybe someone ought to tell them. Maybe we should have allowed the war to continue on one small section of the front, just a few hundred yards, enough so that anyone who starts itching for a little glory can have a taste.”

Julia turned and looked east toward the Meuse; then northwest across low hills toward Montfaucon, site of the massive Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, the largest in Europe. Everywhere the earth was deformed like the skin of a child pulled from a fire.

The cadets stood at attention, then saluted.

Julia turned toward me. “Can we leave?” she asked. Her fists were clenched and she avoided looking at me.

As we walked quickly down past the cadets and toward the car I wondered if she was upset with the war or with me for dwelling on it. But I needed to dwell on it. Wasn’t that why I had returned?

We drove for an hour in silence. Finally Julia said, “I don’t want to see any more memorials.”

“That’s fine with me.” Was it? I’d wanted to see the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery. Perhaps another day.

“Maybe you want to, but I don’t.”

“I don’t want to either. No more memorials.”

“Good.” She smiled. “Why don’t we buy a bottle of wine somewhere and go for a hike?”

“Excellent idea.” I stretched my right arm out on the seat rest behind her.

We found a small store run by an old woman with cataracts and no front teeth. On the counter she kept a German helmet brimming with red and green sweets; a shell casing in the corner held umbrellas. I noticed she kept staring at me and I wondered if she thought that she knew me. When we paid she offered us each a piece of candy and then pointed to a picture of a smiling, handsome young man hanging in a small wooden frame behind the counter. Then she placed her hand on her heart and dropped her head forward slightly. The gesture hit me so hard that I found myself unable to speak.

When we got back to the car Julia began biting her nails, then suddenly burst into tears. I turned and wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, feeling the heaving of her back.

“He’s not dead you know,” she said, pulling back from me.

“Who’s not dead?”

“The man in the photograph. He’s not dead.”

“But she was indicating that—”

“I saw him. Just a glimpse. He was in the back room. He was horribly deformed. Like a monster. It was awful.”

“Les gueules cassées.”

“The what?”

“The smashed faces. That’s what the French call them. They’re hidden all over Europe.”

“I hate this place,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. “No, I don’t hate it. I hate all the destruction. I hate the bombs and the debris and the graves and the wounds and the heartbroken mothers and fathers.”

“Yes, I do too.”

“And I hate helmets with candy in them.”

As she leaned back against me she rested her head on my chest and began to softly cry again. I rubbed her back and rocked her gently like a child, then closed my eyes and lost myself in the smell of her hair.

KELLY CAME
to visit me today. She was in town for a one- day management seminar and dropped by at lunchtime. I looked up from my soup and saw her walking toward me and I felt the tightness in my throat that I always feel now when I see any of my children or grandchildren.

“Dad!” She bent down and gave me a tight hug and a kiss on my forehead. “You’re looking good today. I’m glad to see you eating.” The very young and the very old are under enormous pressure to eat.

“You look beautiful, Kelly,” I said, clasping her hands in mine. “What a sight for an old man.” At fifty, Kelly looks barely forty, though her son David is twenty-six and his daughter Katy three. Maybe it’s because she never drank or smoked, but I think it’s probably because Kelly was born with a certain immunity to the low-level anxiety that grinds the rest of us down like old teeth. I used to think that people like Kelly were simply tougher than the rest of us; now I realize they are wired differently.

“You always knew how to flatter,” she smiled. We walked outside and sat on the patio. I noticed that her shoes were worn and wondered if she was having money troubles.

“How are you feeling, Dad?”

“I’m okay. How’s work?”

“The same. I’d quit if it wasn’t for the money.”

“I guess that’s why most jobs include some form of remuneration. Any interesting men?”

Kelly has been single since she and Stewart divorced eight years ago. Stewart was a bland and bulky Dartmouth boy who followed his own father nose-to-ass into investment banking in New York, abandoning Kelly for all but a few disappointing hours a week.

“Not a one. Frankly, Dad, I don’t care if I never get married again. I’ve got plenty of good friends. I’m not lonely.”

“You’re too pretty to be single,” I said. “Or maybe you’re too pretty to be married. I’m not sure which anymore.” As she smiled the corners of her mouth tugged more to the left than the right, just like her mother. I always loved that.

“Do you ever wish you remarried after you and Mom divorced?” She’d never asked me that before.

“I tried,” I said.

“With who?”

“A woman I once knew. But it didn’t work.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I never knew that. A heartbreak, huh?” She tilted her head slightly as she looked at me and I wondered how Stewart could have been such a fool.

“Yeah, one of those,” I said. Then I stood with my cane in one hand and held her hand with the other as we walked across the grass.

“I felt terrible that you were alone over Christmas.”

“I told you not to worry about that. It’s not like I’m ever alone here.”

“I worry about you. You should be with family. Are you sure you won’t come and live with me?”

“I’m fine right here. Besides, they’ve got great medical facilities.” I mention the medical facilities every time my children suggest I move back in with them; I think it helps alleviate some of their guilt.

“You’re not too lonely?” she asked, looking at me closely. She smelled of soap and I remembered plucking her slippery white body from the tub each evening after dinner and wrapping her in a big yellow towel and rolling her back and forth across our bed as she howled with laughter.

“Lonely? Christ, I can’t get a minute to myself and you know what a loner I am.”

“I hate thinking about you here, like we’ve abandoned you.”

I put my hand up and shook my head.

She tried to smile. “Do you need anything? Books or something? I can send whatever you need.”

“Got any recent photos of Katy?”

MY STOMACH HURTS.

“WHAT DO YOU
do with your pennies?” Eleanor Kravitski was staring at me across the lunch table, her soup spoon frozen halfway between bowl and mouth.

“My pennies?” I asked.

“Yes, your
pennies
,” she said. “In my eighty-four years I have never found a satisfactory method of disposing of all the pennies one accumulates. Have you?”

“Well, Eleanor, come to think of it, I don’t believe I have. Let’s see, you can keep them in a big jar… ”

“But then you either have to spend two days stuffing them into those penny rolls, which always rip and bend at the edges, or you have to carry the jar to the bank, which I can’t do.”

“You can try to spend them as you get them.”

“Never works. It’s impossible to spend your pennies as fast as you get them unless you hold up every checkout line and count out a dollar’s worth of pennies with every purchase, which of course you can’t do. Do you know how long it takes to count pennies under pressure, especially when you have arthritis? The fact is, you can usually only spend about two or three pennies at a time to make exact change, and that’s no way to dispose of a huge penny collection.”

“You could refuse to take pennies.”

“I do! I stopped taking pennies two years ago. Said I want nothing to do with them, thank you. But I’ve still got a huge jar of pennies on my dresser, which means I’ll have to make exact change for another ten years or so to get rid of them all. Why, I don’t even care about the money, I’m just tired of thinking about pennies.” Her frozen spoon lurched back into motion and she slurped her soup.

Four days later Howard and I snuck into Eleanor’s room and carted her pennies away in a wheelchair covered by a blanket. We buried them out back behind the largest oak tree, about sixteen dollars worth, we figured. Ever since, Eleanor has appeared positively radiant. I’m certain she believes her prayers were answered.

I MISS
Julia so much.