Via Dolorosa(66)



“I heard you.”

“You are mistaken.”

“‘Have baby. In stomach.’”

“You—”

“Where did you hear that?” he demanded.

“I don’t—”

“How do you know about that?”

And now she laughed a little bit. There were many teeth involved. “No, no, no. There is no baby here, my Nicholas. What is the matter with you? There is no baby here. I would never say such a thing.”

He could only look at her.

“You are raving,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Raving and paranoid.” Placed a hand to his sweaty cheek. “And drunk.”

“I…don’t…”

“Nicholas,” she whispered, drawing him close again. “My poor Nicholas.”

Again, he pushed her away. “No,” he said. “No. I—no, no.”

“All right.”

“No.”

“All right.”

“My car,” he said. Then he shook his head. Again, he felt obscene laughter boiling up from the very bottom of his throat. “I’m drunk,” he managed.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That, at least, is quite obvious.”

Owing everything to luck, they found the spot where he had parked the Impala earlier that evening, but the Impala was no longer there.

“It’s stolen,” he said.

“Maybe your wife took it.”

“It’s gone.”

“Maybe Emma had the keys,” Isabella suggested.

Furiously, he beat down his pockets with the palms of his hands. “No keys,” he said. “I lost them.”

“Emma must have had them and taken the car.”

“I lost them,” he said, “and my car’s stolen.”

“All right,” she said, and felt for his hand. “Come with.”

Then they were in Isabella’s car—a sleek, topless thing that reflected the moon as they took the turns up through Sea Pines toward the north shore of the island—and they drove fast. A light drizzle bullied the night, but it felt good as they drove. The wind helped sober him up a bit.

“You seem angry,” she said as she drove, not looking at him.

He did not answer her.

“Too many things to think about,” she said, answering for him.

Recalled a bank of elevators—recalled the illuminated floor numbers—recalled the slant of the carpeted hallway, rust-brown and dim in the poor lighting—recalled the turn of the lock in Isabella’s door—click—

“You’re very beautiful,” he said as she pushed him into the open black maw of her hotel room.

“I know,” she said.





—Chapter XVIII—





It was like watching themselves from above, and in a dream. They crossed from one tiny village to the next. Along the white roads, desert palms stood silent in the breezeless afternoon, coming up to the sides of the roads to greet them. The squalid little huts along this leg of the journey had been previously evacuated, the streets desolate and empty and silent as a crypt. When night fell, they camped. In the darkness, it was not difficult to see the green, glowing smoke beyond some phantom horizon. It was always too difficult to tell just how far off the fighting was. It was misdirected and rarely matched up with the sounds. All of it was difficult to see. In fact, the only evidence, beyond the occasional flicker of bombs and the lightning flash of mortars, was the way the ground shook at night, and you could truly be anywhere—be anywhere at all—with your head down close to the ground, and feel and hear the vibration rushing along the earth and tunneling up through your brain. You became used to it surprisingly quick, and after so many nights with it and lulled to sleep by it, it was soon impossible for you to sleep without it.

At night, setting up camp, the sounds and voices of the men could be heard drifting up into the too quiet blackness. Most often they maintained their spirits by singing old war songs—possibly songs their fathers had sung—like “Fortunate Son” and “Run Through the Jungle” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” and there was always one raucous soul—usually Karuptka—bent on crooning just a little bit louder and throatier than the others, caught if only temporarily in the belief that he was John Fogerty’s fatigues-clad counterpart.

The next morning, before it was fully and truly morning, Nick and the others awoke and packed. Some of them ate quickly and just as silently as they had packed. Nighttime was always the time when the men seemed most human. It was in the daylight, perhaps too visible to one another beneath the harsh and unforgiving desert sun, that they had a difficult time pretending to be human. It was an act, a pantomime. In the daylight, strapped to rifles and grenades, anyone would have a tough time finding humanity.

Beside Nick, Joseph Bowerman was rubbing his beard stubble, and he looked like he’d spent an evening with the devil’s prostitute. Hungry for furlough (and too keen to know none was coming), tired of the desert, all the men now looked hauntingly like one another.

“The second I get home, I’m gonna drink me a whole gallon of Mountain Dew,” Bowerman said as he packed his gear. They were like pregnant women, all of them, with their absurd cravings and daydream fantasies.

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