American Romantic by Ward Just Read Free Book Online Page B

had assumed an obligation. Harry watched the sunlight gather. Somewhere far off he heard the thumpa-thumpa of a helicopter and a car’s horn in the street. It seemed the morning did not belong exclusively to them, Sieglinde and him. She pulled the robe tightly around her and bent over the coffee cup, the coffee too hot to drink. How did they reach this point of discord? Harry knew it was something he said or something he failed to say. He had been misunderstood, certainly. He looked out the window at the limp silk-string hammock and remembered a conversation he overheard years before between his father and his father’s oldest friend. The friend had recently separated from his wife and was explaining that they, he and the wife, could not agree on the definition of “virtue” and once they understood that, the fundamentals of it, the disagreement seemed to illuminate everything else. All their disputes over how a life should be lived, including who was responsible for what in the household. A great relief, really. Once they discovered their irreconcilable views on the subject of virtue, the marriage was ended, case closed. Harry remembered a long uncomfortable silence and then his father clearing his throat and giving a wan laugh. Virtue? You can’t be serious. Never more, the friend said.
    Harry said, I’ve offended you.
    Yes, I think you have. You didn’t mean to. Perhaps that’s worse.
    Can we forget it?
    It’s better forgotten, she said with a slight smile.
    We can come back to it later, Harry said.
    Or not at all, Sieglinde said.
    When we know each other better.
    Sieglinde did not reply to that.
    It’s my job, Harry said. It’s what I do. I’m assigned somewhere and I go. Today it’s the war, and if you’re a foreign service officer and want to get ahead, that’s where you must be. The war is in first position. You could be somewhere else, New Zealand or Portugal, but what would be the point? Or back at the State Department in Washington, moving pieces of paper from the in box to the out box and back again. That’s part of the drill, too, tedious but necessary. That’s where I’ll be in a year, Washington. But right now it’s important to understand what’s wrong here. And much is, and the end is not in sight. The war is the interlude, Sieglinde.
    She said, What kind of war is it that we can devote six hours to screwing in a hammock?
    He said, I think there was some of that even in the Great War. Even in the trenches.
    She was silent a moment, idly stirring sugar into her coffee. She said, My grandfather was in the Great War. He never spoke of it. Not one word. But he left behind a diary, a day-by-day account of his life. A thick diary, ninety-two pages. He began with full paragraphs, often accompanied by drawings. He was a competent draftsman. And ended with two- and three-word entries and one word repeated:
Shrecklichkeit.
Frightfulness. My feeling was that the sense of life, the pulse of it, had been drained from him. He was a shell. A husk of a man. And he lived to great age, perhaps because there was so little of him to be kept alive. I do not think there was sex in the trenches, Harry. Not at Verdun. Not on the Somme. I have discussed this with the ship’s doctor and we agreed that Herr Freud was wrong, perhaps because he led a sheltered life. Sex is not the primal instinct. Survival is. I have to say that my other grandfather was the lucky one. He was killed in 1916 and did not bother to keep a diary. His experiences died with him. The one who lived, quite frankly, frightened me. I think he frightened himself.
    Harry watched her carefully all this time, her voice a monotone, the voice of a sleepwalker. If her voice had been a musical instrument he would have called it an oboe. She spoke with tremendous conviction.
    Sieglinde rose, stepped to the counter, and poured a fresh cup of coffee. She stood quietly looking at the appliances,