“Back in the war.”
“Being a man again?”
If Charlie had yelled at me, if he had argued, I might have changed direction. But his woundedness brought out some horrible predator in me, a creature that found energy in his hurt. “There is nothing wrong with being strong, and direct, and heroic.”
“You went on dates with him?”
The simplicity of the question marked the beginning of my disarming. I’d had months to absorb the reality of Chris, but to Charlie it was all new. The first inkling arose that I might be making a mistake. “I did. A movie, a couple of dinners.”
“Did he meet your mother?”
It was a surprisingly intimate question. The wall of righteousness that stood between my guilt and Charlie started to crumble. I shook my head.
“Did you kiss him?”
Charlie and I had not yet kissed hello, even after all those months apart. We had not kissed at all that day. How could I tell him the truth? At what point did honesty become cruelty? The pain was written on his brow, which was creased like an old man’s.
“No,” I lied. “He tried but I wouldn’t let him.”
Charlie fiddled with his silverware, eventually arranging it in a straight line. “I don’t know how the existence of a pilot you dated in Chicago erases the technical complexity of what I’m being asked to build.”
“Because you say you can’t make this thing, and I say you won’t.”
Charlie nodded, sliding his spoon up and back. “That might be true.”
“Then be a man.”
Charlie faced me then, and I saw that the rims of his eyes had gone red. Rubbing them with his wrist, he stood, dropped some bills on the table, and walked away.
“Charlie,” I called, but he kept going, across the square and around the corner.
At that moment the waitress arrived, setting a plate before me and one at Charlie’s place. “Do we need anything further here for now?”
“We’re fine,” I said, casual as a millionaire, la-di-da. But in truth, I felt nothing but cruel, a stranger who had just driven away the most decent man I knew. On that golden afternoon, I sat by myself and wondered what the price of my behavior would be.
32.
“All I am suggesting,” Giles said, using a tire iron to nudge a smoky log end into the coals, “is that the war may conclude before we achieve our goal.”
“That would be fine with me.” Charlie sipped his beer, then tossed a twig into the bonfire. “I’d prefer it if no one ever used the Gadget.”
“You two,” Monroe scoffed, staggering into the light, his arms piled with wood. “Dumb as a pair of fence posts.”
“Pray tell how we are dumb,” Giles said.
Monroe dumped his load on the ground. “My daddy,” he said, adding logs to the fire. “Couldn’t bear a whiskey bottle in the house. Said it was challenging him night and day to drink it. Oppie and them others? Same thing.” He continued piling on the wood. “That Gadget is their whiskey. No rest till they blow up something big.”
“What if there’s peace first?” Charlie asked. “The Germans have been in retreat since the Battle of the Bulge ended in January. The Soviets freed the Lodz ghetto, and liberated those horrific camps. We are genuinely winning.”
“Look at it the other way.” Monroe circled the fire before the wind could blow smoke in his face. “Of one hundred and sixty something thousand Jews in that ghetto, near about a thousand were left, right?”
“So the newspapers say,” Giles said. “All the rest were killed or forced to move.”
“And them people in Auschwitz, you saw the pictures, right?”
“Living skeletons. It was terrible. What’s your point?” Charlie said.
“Any of that making you fellas feel peaceful? Or less interested in cutting Hitler’s fool head off? Cause the military guys, you know they all saw that truck, and got twice as happy to show the Third Reich what a good hard American boot in the ass feels like.”
Charlie laughed.
“It’s true and you damn well know it.”
“What about Japan?” Charlie said. “Would they ever use the Gadget over there?”
“What in hell for?” Monroe set another log on the flames, jerking his hand back to avoid a burn. “We’re already fire-bombing them into ashes. Ain’t one of their fighters or flak guns can touch our big bombers, so we can drop as we please.”
“Nevertheless, they’re making us earn every inch,” Giles said. “Iwo Jima was a slaughter.” He took a long draw from a bottle of whiskey.
“Go easy there,” Monroe said. “Save some for a thirsty brother.”
“How about that photo of the marines raising the flag?” Giles marveled. “I’m astonished the emperor didn’t surrender right then.”
“That boy? We’d have to drop the Gadget right in his fool lap before he’d give up,” Monroe said. He took the whiskey bottle and drank long. “Anyway.” He shuddered. “Anyway it’d be mighty hard convincing the world we were justified in flattening Japan, when they can’t barely shoot back.”
“This is why I’m going to the debate tomorrow,” Charlie said. He tilted his head back to gaze at the clear winter stars. “I want to hear the big guys hash it out.”
Monroe studied him. “Again the crazy man believes the world makes sense.”
“Or hopes it will someday.”
Giles kicked a log with his heel. “I wish you were heading to Santa Fe instead.”
“Change of subject,” Charlie said, tilting the bottle to finish his beer.
“It’s a long-distance version of opia, you know what I mean?”
“Afraid not,” Charlie said.
“That’s the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which is both invasive and vulnerable.”
“Change of subject,” Charlie repeated, and they all fell silent. The new logs began to catch, and the three of them moved back from the growing heat.
“Hey, is Trigger in here?”
Lying on his bunk, Charlie winced and did not answer.
“Trigger?” the soldier called again. He was baby-faced, with little on his uniform to show rank or accomplishments. Soldiers rarely entered the barracks. He stutter-stepped forward. “Charlie Fish?”
“Right here,” he said, sitting up. “What’s the matter?”
“No matter, sir. But my superior officer, Captain Halsey, found something.”
Charlie set Midnight aside, her belly now entirely white, and stood. “Yes?”
“Well,” the soldier said, removing his hat. “The captain’s wife had a baby last fall, and sent him a big envelope of pictures. He said it got wet on the way here, but all he was paying attention to was the photos. Today, when he was looking at them for the ninety-ninth time, he discovered something stuck to the back.” The soldier held a regular envelope. “He ordered me to deliver it pronto, with his apologies.”
Charlie recognized the handwriting immediately. He had gone three months without a letter from Brenda, an agonizing dry spell. But the postmark on this one said Chicago, September—more than two months ago. Perhaps everything was about to be explained.