‘Maybe it’s like this: it’s not what you fight against. It’s what you fight for.’
‘What are we fighting for in Vietnam?’ Sandy asked Kelly again, having asked herself that question no less than ten times per day since she’d received the unwelcome telegram. ‘My husband died there and I don’t still understand why.’
Kelly started to say something but stopped himself. Really there was no answer. Bad luck, bad decisions, bad timing at more than one level of activity created the random events that caused soldiers to die on a distant battlefield, and even if you were there, it didn’t always make sense. Besides, she’d probably heard every justification more than once from the man whose life she mourned. Maybe looking for that kind of meaning was nothing more than an exercise in futility. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense. Even if that were true, how could you live without the pretense that it did, somehow?
He was still pondering that one when he turned onto her street.
‘Your house needs some paint,’ Kelly told her, glad that it did.
‘I know. I can’t afford painters and I don’t have the time to do it myself.’
‘Sandy – a suggestion?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Let yourself live. I’m sorry Tim’s gone, but he is gone. I lost friends over there, too. You have to go on.’
The fatigue in her face was painful to see. Her eyes examined him in a professional sort of way, revealing nothing of what she thought or what she felt inside, but the fact that she troubled herself to conceal herself from him told Kelly something.
Something’s changed in you. I wonder what it is. I wonder why, Sandy thought. Something had resolved itself. He’d always been polite, almost funny in his overpowering gentility, but the sadness she’d seen, that had almost matched her own undying grief, was gone now, replaced with something she couldn’t quite fathom. It was strange, because he had never troubled to hide himself from her, and she thought herself able to penetrate whatever disguises he might erect. On that she was wrong, or perhaps she didn’t know the rules. She watched him get out, walk around the car, and open her door.
‘Ma’am?’ He gestured toward the house.
‘Why are you so nice? Did Doctor Rosen … ?’
‘He just said you needed a ride, Sandy, honest. Besides, you look awful tired.’ Kelly walked her to the door.
‘I don’t know why I like talking to you,’ she said, reaching the porch steps.
‘I wasn’t sure that you did. You do?’
‘I think so,’ O’Toole replied, with an almost-smile. The smile died after a second. ‘John, it’s too soon for me.’
‘Sandy, it’s too soon for me, too. Is it too soon to be friends?’
She thought about that. ‘No, not too soon for that.’
‘Dinner sometime? I asked once, remember?’
‘How often are you in town?’
‘More now. I have a job – well, something I have to do in Washington.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Nothing important.’ And Sandy caught the scent of a lie, but it probably wasn’t one aimed at hurting her.
‘Next week maybe?’
‘I’ll give you a call. I don’t know any good places around here.’
‘I do.’
‘Get some rest,’ Kelly told her. He didn’t attempt to kiss her, or even take her hand. Just a friendly, caring smile before he walked away. Sandy watched him drive off, still wondering what there was about the man that was different. She’d never forget the look on his face, there on the hospital bed, but whatever that had been, it wasn’t something she needed to fear.
Kelly was swearing quietly at himself as he drove away, wearing the cotton work gloves now, and rubbing them across every surface in the car that he could reach. He couldn’t risk many conversations like this one. What was it all about? How the hell was he supposed to know? It was easy in the field. You identified the enemy, or more often somebody told you what was going on and who he was and where he was – frequently the information was wrong, but at least it gave you a starting place. But mission briefs never told you, really, how it was going to change the world or bring the war to an end. That was stuff you read in the paper, information repeated by reporters who didn’t care, taken down from briefers who didn’t know or politicians who’d never troubled themselves to find out. ‘Infrastructure’ and ‘cadre’ were favorite words, but he’d hunted people, not infrastructure, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Infrastructure was a thing, like what Sandy fought against. It wasn’t a person who did evil things and could be hunted down like an offensive big-game animal. And how did that apply to what he was doing now? Kelly told himself that he had to control his thinking, stay to the easy stuff, just remember that he was hunting people, just as he had before. He wasn’t going to change the whole world, just clean up one little corner.
‘Does it still hurt, my friend?’ Grishanov asked.
‘I think I have some broken ribs.’
Zacharias sat down in the chair, breathing slowly and in obvious pain. That worried the Russian. Such an injury could lead to pneumonia, and pneumonia could kill a man in this physical condition. The guards had been a little too enthusiastic in their assault on the man, and though it had been done at Grishanov’s request, he hadn’t wanted to do more than to inflict some pain. A dead prisoner would not tell him what he needed to know.
‘I’ve spoken to Major Vinh, The little savage says he has no medicines to spare.’ Grishanov shrugged. ‘It might even be true. The pain, it is bad?’
‘Every time I breathe,’ Zacharias replied, and he was clearly speaking the truth. His skin was even paler than usual.
‘I have only one thing for pain, Robin,’ Kolya said apologetically, holding out his flask.
The American colonel shook his head, and even that appeared to hurt him. ‘I can’t.’
Grishanov spoke with the frustration of a man trying to reason with a friend. ‘Then you are a fool, Robin. Pain serves no one, not you, not me, not your God. Please, let me help you a little. Please?’
Can’t do it, Zacharias told himself. To do so was to break his covenant. His body was a temple, and he had to keep it pure of such things as this. But the temple was broken. He feared internal bleeding most of all. Would his body be able to heal itself? It should, and under anything approaching normal circumstances, it would do so easily, but he knew that his physical condition was dreadful, his back still injured, and now his ribs. Pain was a companion now, and pain would make it harder for him to resist questions, and so he had to measure his religion against his duty to resist. Things were less clear now. Easing the pain might make it easier to heal, and easier to stick to his duty. So what was the right thing? What ought to have been an easy question was clouded, and his eyes looked at the metal container. There was relief there. Not much, but some, and some relief was what he needed if he were to control himself.
Grishanov unscrewed the cap. ‘Do you ski, Robin?’
Zacharias was surprised by the question. ‘Yes, I learned when I was a kid.’
‘Cross-country?’
The American shook his head. ‘No, downhill.’
‘The snow in the Wasatch Mountains, it is good for skiing?’
Robin smiled, remembering. ‘Very good, Kolya. It’s dry snow. Powdery, almost like very fine sand.’
‘Ah, the best kind of all. Here.’ He handed the flask over.
Just this once, Zacharias thought, just for the pain. He took a swallow. Push the pain back a few steps, just so I can keep myself together.
Grishanov watched him do it, saw his eyes water, hoping the man wouldn’t cough and hurt himself more. It was good vodka, obtained from the embassy’s storeroom in Hanoi, the one thing his country always had in good supply, and the one thing the embassy always had enough of. The best quality of paper vodka, Kolya’s personal favorite, actually flavored with old paper, something this American was unlikely to note – and something he himself missed after the third or fourth drink, if the truth be known.
‘You are a good skier, Robin?’
Zacharias felt the warmth in his belly as it spread out and allowed his body to relax. In that relaxation his pain lessened, and he felt a little stronger, and if this Russian wanted to talk skiing, well, that couldn’t hurt much, could it?
‘I ski the expert slopes,’ Robin said with satisfaction. ‘I started when I was a kid. I think I was five when Dad took me the first time.’
‘Your father – also a pilot?’