Double Play

Pentimento

Burke didn’t know how much of what he remembered was based on things he’d heard spoken or hinted at, and how much was sheer fantasy which had ripened beneath the ceaseless scrutiny of his imagination. Whatever it was it was detailed and exact.

This boy was Airborne, 101st, Screaming Eagles, wounded at Bastogne. He wore his jump wings, his CIB, his campaign ribbons. His wound had healed, except that he still used a cane to walk.

“Can you dance, Mr. Paratroop?” she said.

Bare-legged, blue dress, tiny white polka dots, red high-heeled shoes.

“Sure can,” the boy had said and leaned the cane against a chair. “Cane’s mostly just for meeting girls.”

The band played “Sentimental Journey,” she sang softly to him, “...gonna set my heart at ease...”

“Are you in any pain?” she said softly.

“No. Just a little stiff now, another couple months I’ll be fine.”

He was a slim kid, with smooth black hair combed back, and nice even features.

“Where’d you get wounded?” she said, moving her hips against his.

“Bastogne. Last winter.”

“Nuts?” she said.

The boy laughed.

“General McAuliff? They tell me he said that. I didn’t hear him.”

“Was it a bad wound, Mr. Paratroop?”

“Depends,” he said, “what you mean by bad. It hurt like hell. But it got me out of there.”

“Oh God,” she said. “I’d have been so scared.”

“I was,” he said.

“But you did it.”

“I guess I had to,” he said.

“That’s so brave.”

“No braver than anyone else,” he said.

The music changed. “Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, then kiss me once again...”

“You going home to anyone, Mr. Paratroop?”

“Not really,” he said. “My parents, I guess.”

“No sweetheart?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe, for now, anyway, that will be me,” she said.

When the club closed they walked back to her apartment.

“Do you like scotch?” she said.

“I like pretty much everything,” he said.

She put out Vat 69 and ice and put the soda siphon beside it on the coffee table. He made her a drink and one for himself. She sat on the couch beside him.

“What did you do before the war?” she said.

“I was in college.”

“Did you finish?”

“No. I’ll probably go back when I get out.”

She had her legs crossed. Her bare legs were white and smooth. She pressed her thigh against his.

“Have you ever been able to talk about it?” she said.

“The war?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we talk about it some,” he said. “You know, me and the other boys.”

“But then you have to pretend about it,” she said. “Have you ever had the chance to really talk about it, all of it, no need for pretense.”

“I guess not.”

“It’s hard for men,” she said. “To talk about feelings.”

She was pressing close to him. He could smell her perfume. He put his arm around her. She put her hand on his thigh.

“Has it been a long time?” she said softly.

She rubbed his thigh gently.

“Long time?” he said.

“Since you’ve made love.”

He laughed.

“Mademoiselle from Armentiers,” he sang. “Parlez vous?”

She laughed too.

“I’ll bet there wasn’t much conversation,” she said.

“Not much more than combien,” he said.

“Have you ever made love with a woman who actually cared about you?” she said.

“Not yet.”

“Well,” she said, “then it’s time.”

She pressed her lips hard against his and opened her mouth.

They were together every night. He was not inept. He’d learned from French professionals. But he insisted that she teach him, and she did show nuance and invention to him. At the most intimate of moments she urged him to let go, to talk about the war, about his wound, about himself.

“Let it all come out,” she said, “let it go.”

He did his best. He wasn’t sure he had that much to say. He told her all the things he could think of.

“Everything,” she would moan, “everything.”

“Carole,” he would say, “that is everything.”

She would shake her head and kiss him and whisper that a woman knew. And she knew. There was more. One night he told her he had to report back.

“Did you know I was married?” she said.

“No. Where’s your husband?”

“Naval Hospital,” she said. “He was wounded in Guadalcanal.”

“Marine?”

“Yes.”

“So I guess that means that we’ll be saying goodbye to each other,” he said.

“No,” she said.

He looked at her without saying anything.

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“What about your husband?”

“It was a two-week romance, you know, boys going off to war, maybe they won’t come back.”

“How bad is he shot up?”

“Bad. They’re not sure about him.”

“And you want to divorce him?”

“Yes. I’ll divorce him and go with you.”

“I’m not ready to get married,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll go with you. I love my Little Mr. Jump.”

“What will you tell your husband?”

“Something,” she said.

Had it happened that way? Burke no longer knew. Fact and anguish had blended so fully and for so long that whatever was factual, this, for Burke, was the truth.