Her Last Flight(70)

By the end of the evening, I was addressing the empty bottle, which had become Velázquez in my mind. I told him I was awfully sorry about the general and the UPI reporter after Dachau and that sweet, virile, ecstatic GI from St. Louis in the back hallway of the tavern just now, and I assured him that he, Velázquez, had been a better lover than all three of them together (although that idea was also tempting). I said we’ve done it, we’ve beat the Fascists, we’ve got your revenge on Hitler for Guernica and Madrid and your parents and your sister and the girl you should have married. You would feel so vindicated! You would maybe wrangle a pass in the next month or so and come to visit me, and we would not leave our room for two days, and maybe, in the joy of that moment, victory and reunion and postcoital gratitude, when you sometimes confuse the intense, satisfied lust you’re feeling for true love, I might have made the mistake of saying yes, yes, I will marry you, Velázquez, I will become your wife and have your children and live a quiet little life with you in some quiet little house in some quiet little village in the country. I would have promised you this and maybe I would have done it too. Or maybe not. We’ll never know for certain.

I don’t remember how I spent that night. In disrepute, probably. In the morning, I drove the Jeep back to the quartermaster and went on with my work, because what else can you do? You cannot call back those you have lost, however much your bones ache with missing them, however giant and mysterious the holes they leave behind.



Lindquist disappears around the corner at the top of the stairs, to put her children to bed for the three thousandth time or so. The voices and thumps drift downward, Leo and his little siblings, joined by Lindquist. I head for the library and Olle’s liquor cabinet to add another splash of bourbon to the dregs of my cocoa. When I’m on the outside of that, I help Lani clean up in the kitchen, and at last I step outside, where the air is dark and fresh and smells of blossoms. I think how lovely it is to smell blossoms in October. They mingle with the bourbon fumes to produce something new and alluring that I believe I shall always associate with Hawai’i and Coolibah, after I’ve left this place and moved on to the next.

I haven’t taken more than five steps across the lawn before somebody calls my name. I consider pretending I don’t hear, but then I find myself craving some company. So I stop and turn.

“O captain, my captain. What brings you outside on a night like this?”

“Do you have a moment?”

“I’ve got a whole lifetime of moments. The question’s whether I should spend any more of them with you.”

He smiles through the darkness. “Would you? Please?”

“I should warn you,” I say, wagging my finger, “I’m a little the worse for bourbon.”

“I guess I’ve handled a drunk or two in my time. Come along. Find somewhere to sit down.”

“I think that would be wise.”

He laughs in reply and starts walking in the direction of the sea. He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t seek my hand or my arm or anything. The moon has risen, three quarters of a clean white pie, just enough light to see by. By and by we come to some kind of gazebo, all by itself, surrounded by nothing but bushes bursting with flowers. You can’t tell what color they are because it’s too dark, but you can see their petals reflect the moonlight, and you can smell their perfume. I follow Leo up the steps into the shelter of the gazebo and lie down on a bench. He sits nearby, gripping the edge with his hands, and stares at me.

“I just wanted to apologize,” he says.

“You brought me all the way over here to say sorry?”

“Wanted some neutral territory, I guess, in case you were going to throw something at me. I was kind of a bozo the other night.”

“You had a stepmother to defend. I admired you for it, I really did. No hard feelings, as someone once said to me.”

“All right, I was sore. I admit it. I thought you liked me.”

“Oh, I do like you, Leo. I like you very much. I am deeply, deeply attracted to you. That tip you gave me was just the icing on an awfully delicious cake.”

“I see,” he says, husky.

“It’s funny, you’re not a bit like him, though.”

“Like who?”

“Like this fellow I knew during the war. Velázquez. He was gruff and short and hairy and plain, and I can’t ever seem to stop thinking about him.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s dead, Leo. He died in the winter of ’45, in a bombing raid over Cologne.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” I raise my head. “Have you said everything you wanted? Because I’d like to go to bed now.”

He rises and helps me to my feet. I keep hold of his hand, because we’re friends again. We walk to the cottage through the flowery air. The moon glows above us. When we reach the door, I stop and turn to face him, and the air just expires from my lungs. Having watched his face all evening, contorted into all kinds of expressions, I’ve forgotten how simply alluring he is, how alluringly simple.

“Tell me something. How did your father meet your stepmother?”

“It was the airline. She advertised for pilots, and he’d done a little crop-dusting, so he applied. She trained all the pilots herself.”

“And nobody knew who she was?”