American Romantic by Ward Just Read Free Book Online Page A

once one of them saw me and unslung his carbine and said something, I had no idea what.
I do not have the language,
and so we were strangers to one another. But his meaning was not difficult to imagine.
Stop! Who are you? What are you doing here?
I decided to ignore him and walk away. I pretended to myself that he was not present. That he was not armed. And that is what I did, and when I reached our boat he remained where he was, now with a look of—I would call it disgust. The sergeant told me later he had fired one round, but I did not hear it and doubted the sergeant’s word. Later, when we took fire from the shore, I knew somehow that we would not be harmed. The shooting was a farewell. Adieu. Don’t come back. And we motored on without incident. Early this morning I attempted to write a report of the affair. We call it a “report for the file.” But it wouldn’t write. It was a sentence fragment, you see. So I went to Mass and listened to the songs and the interminable sermon at the end, all the while looking at the light falling through the Connecticut Window and thinking of Cardinal Newman’s directive. Thinking about it, I concluded that my fate was to witness events I didn’t understand and would never understand. The way of the world. I did believe that the invisible hand had shown its cards, a specific prophecy, perhaps a warning—and what that warning was, I cannot say.
    Nothing good, Harry concluded.
    Sieglinde yawned. She said, I don’t believe in invisible hands.
    Harry said, You should. You don’t know what you’re missing.
    I think you are an American romantic, Harry.
    I’ve been told that before.
    I think also that you love the war. I think you have found your life in the war. Everything else is an interlude.
    That’s not true, Harry protested, and even as he said it he knew that Sieglinde was on to something. A partial truth, certainly: not the whole truth, but still a useful truth, though not to Harry.
    Why did you tell me that story?
    It was on my mind. Who else would I tell it to? I had the feeling you might see something in it that I didn’t. Or couldn’t.
    She said, Maybe I did.
    He said, I had to tell it to someone.
    Did it bother you, your afternoon in the village? What did you call it? Village Number Five?
    Bother? Bother would not be the word.
    No, she said, I suppose not.
    But believe me, the invisible hand was real enough.
    Oh, she said dismissively, that again.
    Â 
    Fireflies gathered in the crown of the tree, a kind of celestial starburst or halo. Dawn came softly, silky pink and then crimson. Exposed in the daylight, their Garden of Eden stark in the glare, their emotions were disconnected. They might have been strangers. Harry wished he had never brought up the village, the headman and the dead woman, or the invisible hand. A busted flush, it turned out. He supposed Sieglinde was uncomfortable with enigma. That would be the German in her. Germans were uncomfortable with enigma generally, even Nietzsche. “God is dead.” But Harry did not appreciate her silence now, nor the stubborn expression that went with it. They carefully disentangled themselves from the hammock and stood together, swaying a little. Then her hand flew to her mouth and she gave a sharp cry, stumbling backward, losing her balance. Harry looked up and saw the cat in the tree, its back arched, yawning, its slender tail coiled around its legs.
    My God, she said. It’s a cat. I didn’t know what it was—
    Only a cat, Harry said.
    I thought it was a snake, she said.
    They walked the few steps to the villa. She allowed him to take her hand but did not seem happy about it. He fetched two robes from the bedroom and gave one to her in the unlikely event the houseman, Chau, showed himself. Harry made a pot of coffee and they sat side by side at the kitchen table without speaking. Sieglinde looked uncomfortable in the robe, as if by accepting it she