Losing Julia (38 page)

DANIEL SITS
on an ammunition box in the dugout writing by candlelight as we wait out our bombardment of the German lines. Our attack begins at five a.m. I feel filthy and tired as I sit and clean my rifle. Three weeks in the Argonne and I haven’t removed my clothes. Not once.

A loud explosion rattles the dugout. Bits of dirt fall on my helmet and clothes.

“That ought to cut a pretty path through their wire,” says Page, tightening his puttees.

“Bullshit. They’ve always got wire left. Since when don’t they have any fucking wire left?” says Giles, fingering a tooth that has been bothering him all week. “How are you supposed to get your hands on the bastards when they’re always hiding behind all that fucking wire?”

I look over at Daniel. It strikes me that he always seems much older than me, though we’re the same age. I watch as he rereads what he has written, his forehead creasing before a slight smile comes to his face. Does Julia have a photo of him? She must. Does she look at it every day, trying to remember the gleam of his eyes and the tone of his voice—deep but full of compassion, like a good minister’s—and his broad shoulders and the strength of his large hands? Does she show it off to friends or keep it on her bed stand and how does it make her feel to look at? Is it even worth having a lover who is halfway around the world at war? At least the men know their lovers are safe—maybe not always faithful but safe—but the women? How do they even sleep?

When Daniel finishes reading he tucks the letter into his shirt pocket, then adjusts his helmet and reaches for his rifle. Soon we are side by side in the line waiting to go over the top, our helmets tipped down to our eyebrows. Lawton is on my left and beside him is Page.

“You scared?” asks Page, offering me a cigarette.

“Yeah, I’m scared.”

“Me too,” he says.

“Just up and over,” I say, trying to calm myself.

“Yeah, just up and over.”

He finishes his cigarette and then quickly lights another.

“What time is it? I gotta go take a shit,” he says.

“You got about two minutes.”

“Oh Christ, forget it.”

I look down at my hands, which are shaking uncontrollably. My breathing is fast and shallow and I feel sick to my stomach.

I look over at Daniel. He turns his head toward me; then tries to calm me with his eyes, the way a parent does with a child about to perform a recital. Then he reaches out and pats me on the back.

“You’ll be all right,” he says. “Just stick near me.”

I nod, then check my gear again. Daniel uses his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

“You know something, Patrick?” he whispers, leaning close to me.

“What?”

He hesitates, staring at me.

“What is it? Tell me.”

“I finally… ”

The whistle shrieks and we scramble up over the top and begin running, thousands of us streaming across the sunken field through thick black smoke toward the German line, which erupts in fire. Men to my left and right start dropping and twice I stumble. I catch a glimpse of Daniel up ahead of me, then lose him. A concussion knocks me down. I scramble back to my feet. The air is filled with things. Something is in my eye. Ahead of me a figure crumples. Then another. I jump over them, struggling to stay on my feet.

Now I’m at the German wire. Which way to go? Panic overwhelms me. To the left? I can’t see through the smoke. I crouch among men struggling to find a way through. A hand grenade explodes nearby, then another. I reach for my wire cutters and soon my hands are raw and bleeding as I cut at the entanglements. A machine gun to my left sweeps back and forth. Am I hit yet?
Any second.
I feel so numb.

“There is no break in the fucking wire!”

“Move! Move! Move!”

The wire cutters slip from my hands.

“We can’t get through!”

“The fucking artillery missed the wire!”

“Try to the left.”

“Bring up a bangalore goddamn it!”

“Ah, Jesus!”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Stop that machine gun!”

“Help me.”

“Quick, hand grenades.”

Another explosion, so close.

“Oh God I’m hit.”

“Ow shit goddamn!”

“Medic! Medic! Medic!”

“My leg my leg my leg!”

“You bastards!”

“I can’t see I can’t see!”

“Get down goddamn it!”

“Don’t leave me here. Please don’t leave me.”

Dear God.

I run to the right and then drop and crawl and I see men hung up on the wire like clothes on a line and the clothes are tearing and screaming and clods of dirt are jumping from the ground. I lie on my stomach and look through twenty yards of coiled wire and I can see German soldiers peering over their trenches and firing at me and I fire back and crawl but the wire keeps tearing at me.

Any second.

Am I dead, Mother? Father? But I can’t be because the screaming won’t stop. Then everything goes slow and I see Giles pulling himself forward in the dirt.
John, this way, over here.
But he doesn’t have a jaw where is your jaw John your jaw?

Blood is soaking through my shirt. Must keep moving.

Daniel? No, who is that? I crawl closer. Figures hurry past. Someone steps on me.

Lawton? Is that you, Lawton? Lawton is on his knees vomiting and trying to stuff his intestines back into his shirt but they won’t fit and they’re filthy.
I’ll help you Jack; get you a medic. They’ll know what to do.
A shot hits him in the face. Then another.

Any second.

Another explosion. Something wet hits me in the face. In front of me I see a severed hand, palm facing upward. Mine? No, one of the fingers bears a wedding band.

And who is crying? I hear someone crying. There are dozens of screams maybe hundreds of them but one of them is so close, sobbing like a lost child. Who is sobbing? I hear you sobbing who are you? I think I see him, a shadow caught in the wire to my left but I cannot see his face. Just a shadow suspended in wire and sobbing.

I’m coming for you I’m coming for you hold on. I tear at the wire and scream and shake myself in fury.

“Turn back turn back!”

Someone is pulling on me.

“Go go go!”

Not yet not yet.
Don’t leave them.
A hand pulls hard on my shirt. “Get out of here!”

I’m running now but something catches my boot and I fall. Oh shit my shoulder is burning I’m on my knees now Mother and Father crawling on all fours but I’m going to faint.

A shell hole? Yes. I fall into it, rolling down into blackness.

Daniel?

Losses in retreating over a fire-swept zone are greater than during the advance. If the main attack is effectually stopped, either by obstacles or the enemy’s fire, or both, the troops remain where they are, under such cover as the ground affords or they can improvise, until night, the withdrawal being then effected under cover of darkness.

—United States Army Field Service Regulations,

War Department, 1913.

SEAN CALLED
me today. I could tell from his voice that he was thinking about losing me and how it was going to feel never to say “Dad?” again. So he called me. Old people can sense that, when friends and relatives are calling just to hear a voice that will soon be extinguished or visiting to take one last look because they’ve got a premonition. Then they hang on to each gurgled word as though it may be the last, as though Gramps might finally excrete some cosmic wisdom or at least the location of a Swiss bank account. The pressure can be enormous, though it hasn’t made me any more eloquent. What will my last words be? “Where’s the Metamucil?” “What day is it?” “Who the hell are you?”

I guess I haven’t really given much thought to last words. Perhaps I should. “Death, where is thy sting?” is sort of catchy, though not so convincing when rasped from clenched teeth. What about “Oh shit,” or “Fuck” or “Damn!”? Too knee jerk, I suppose, though certainly to the point. “Help!” seems rather appropriate, though such a cry would inevitably rattle those standing helplessly by. Maybe I’ll just try to wink and let them read into it what they like or mouth some gibberish that will keep me topical for years as family members puzzle over what I was trying to say. (If I didn’t love my children I might expire with the words, “The treasure is buried beneath the… ” so that I could go to my grave cheered by the thought of them digging holes for the rest of their lives.)

Sean’s voice makes me sad too, not so much because of what’s happening to me but because of what will happen to him when I’m no longer there. Growing old will be the one phase of his life where he won’t be able to call me and say, “Christ, Dad, you won’t believe what happened to me today! You’ve been through this shit before, how the hell did you manage it?”

“So how’s it going, Dad?” His voice was softer than usual and I wondered if something had happened.

“Fine, just fine. What’s up with you?”

“Same old shit. You know, I was just thinking… ”

“Yes?”

“Well, remember when I was a kid, maybe six or seven, and I used to say how much I wished that we were kids at the same time?”

I remembered, and looked down at the little face with a sprinkling of freckles across the ridge of his nose; the face that was always looking up at me when I visited and saying, “Watch me Dad watch me look!”

“I wish you were in your fifties now,” he said.

“How the hell do you think I feel?”

“What I mean is, I was just thinking how nice it would be if we could both go away for a few days, go fishing in Alaska or something. Drink some beers, talk. We never did go fishing.”

“I hate fishing.” He laughed.

“You know, Dad, the older I get the more I feel like I understand you, or least some of the things you must of been going through.”

“You poor bastard.”

“It must of been awful when you and Mom divorced, watching me and Kelly crying and begging you not to leave after each visit.”

“It’s still awful,” I said.

“Did you guys ever think of sticking it out for our sake? I’m not saying you should have, I’m just wondering if you thought about it.”

“That’s all any parent thinks until they feel as though they are going to burst inside. You ask yourself, ‘I’d happily lay down my life for my children, so why can’t I just keep the family together for their sake, for a few more years?’ But one morning you wake up and you realize that there is not enough air to keep the family alive, that if you don’t leave you’ll all suffocate. But that doesn’t make you feel any less guilty. It just pushes you out the door.”

We were both silent and I was thinking of something to say when he said, “I think a lot about your experiences in the war and I wanted you to know that you’ve always been kind of a hero for me, even when I was so angry at you for divorcing Mom.”

“A survivor. I’m definitely a survivor, though my skills are being a little taxed these days.”

“How’s your health?”

“It’s okay.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

Pause.

“I wish you had visited more when I was young.”

“So do I. I think I missed more than you did.”

“When I was a kid I couldn’t believe you and Mom were no longer together, and now I can’t believe you were ever husband and wife.”

“Neither can I,” I said, adding quickly, “though I loved her.”

“Dad, Sally and I are in marriage counseling.”

“I see.”

“Things have been pretty rough. Now that the kids are away and it’s just the two of us, well, it seems too quiet.”

“It’s worth the work, Sean.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You okay? You want to talk about it?”

“I’m okay. I’m late for the office but I just wanted to call you. I’m sorry I don’t call more.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“All right then, I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Good-bye.”

After I hung up I went back to my room and sat at the desk that Martin and I share. After a few minutes I pulled out my stationery and began a series of letters to Sean and Kelly to be opened when they turned sixty and seventy and eighty. It took a month to finish them but when I was done I decided to write one more letter to each of them, to be opened when they were eighty-one and a half years old, if they made it that far. I wanted to see what it felt like to address my children not as a spokesman of the impenetrable past but as though we were a couple of old farts sitting right next to each other, say on a bench overlooking the ocean or by a fire, and we were just sitting and gabbing and catching up after all these years, all of us the exact same age.