American Romantic (16 page)

Inside the paper, together with photographs of the damaged embassy, was a sidebar datelined Washington. The story cited unnamed American officials denying reports of a recent meeting with high-level communist military officers. The meeting was said to be the first known contact between the adversaries. Absolute falsehood, the American officials stated, disinformation designed to sow distrust between the allies, a well-known communist tactic born of desperation. There was no such meeting and would not be one until the communists laid down their arms, ceased terrorizing native villages, and promised to pursue their objectives in a nonviolent manner. The United States and its allies were always open to constructive discussions.

The newspaper article noted that rumors had circulated for weeks that an American embassy official had met with communist representatives at an undisclosed location in the south of the country. It was unknown if the alleged conversations had produced results. But an American official said that the embassy bombing was answer enough as to whether any contact with the enemy would have official endorsement.

S
IEGLINDE
departed Madagascar by ship the day Harry arrived by air, neither aware of the proximity of the other. Sieglinde watched the coastline disappear with the certainty that she would never again see Madagascar, an island that seemed to her forlorn despite the exotic animals and flowering plants, a profusion of color. The people were friendly but reserved. They were very poor, often malnourished. Sieglinde was restless and felt herself in the wrong place. Whatever in the world inspired her to go to Madagascar? Surely not the dozens of species of bats. She devoted her days to beachcombing and her nights to stargazing, lost in thought. The first few nights she stopped in at the hotel bar for a glass of Löwenbräu, but after some unpleasantness with a French bush pilot she stayed away from the bar and finally bought passage on a steamer bound for the Mediterranean. Each day brought her closer to Germany, though she did not consider Germany her destination. Sieglinde stopped for a day in Aden, then continued on through the Suez Canal to Cairo, where she visited the pyramids and rode a camel. She thought that in their massive gray brutality the pyramids could well have been designed by Hitler's architect, what was his name? Herr Speer. Sieglinde was often the object of scrutiny and conjecture, such a pretty young woman traveling alone. From her distant manner she was assumed to have suffered misfortune, no doubt of a sentimental nature, an affair of the heart. She discouraged conversation yet was adventurous. She rode the camel as if born to it, arms spread wide as she held the reins and cried, Hut! Hut! That night she attached herself to a tour group from California and spent the night in the desert.

When anyone asked, she said she was traveling to Hamburg.

Do you have family in Hamburg?

Yes, my sister.

And your parents—

Yes, my parents also.

It's a pleasant city, Hamburg.

My family is in the shipping trade.

How interesting!

I hope to be home for Christmas, Sieglinde said. It is always a great celebration in my family. Roast goose. Gingerbread.

Oh, it sounds like a feast.

It is! Sieglinde said.

Leaving Cairo, Sieglinde had begun to worry about money. Of course she had her savings with her. She had been careful to put aside what she could during her time on the hospital ship and had been frugal in Madagascar. She had been paid in deutsche marks and the exchange rate was favorable, but now she put herself on a regime, coffee for breakfast, a salad for lunch, a simple dinner in a café. She had always paid her own way and hated worrying about money now, like some disappointed shopgirl. Sieglinde stopped at Tripoli and went overland by bus to Tunis. She had no fixed destination. She told herself she would know it when she saw it. Harry was much on her mind during this journey. When she thought about the silk-string hammock, the details of that night came vividly to mind and she smiled and giggled and smiled again. Harry so athletic, and gentle, too. Had she ever been happier? At last she was living in the present moment. She remembered also Harry's rapt expression as he stood on the stairs of his villa watching her play Chopin. Less happily she recalled telling him of the war, her father's death and her mother's disappearance, Hamburg in flames, the nation on its knees. What could he know of that in Connecticut! He lacked imagination. He could not comprehend the situation in Europe. He had never in his life been hungry. Never breathed ashes in the air. He had made a joke involving the Third Reich and she had felt a chill deep in her bones. He had no understanding of the way things were, owing to his lack of imagination.

Still, he applauded her piano music. He was moved by it. Sieglinde had not touched a piano in months and was surprised at how quickly it all came back to her, phrasing and tempi. Of course Chopin reminded her of Europe, and Europe of the war, and she did not wish to think of either one.

Her thoughts were scattered. She had taken to calling herself a wanderer. The hospital ship had been her home and now it, too, had gone away. She wondered if she should have stayed on board until Hamburg and then shipped out again when it received orders. There were rumors that the next ports of call would be in the Baltic, if the Russians would consent. She remembered her years in Rügen as a child. The beaches were mostly unclean and the water frigid. Why on earth would she want to visit the Baltic?

In Tunis she took a bus to one of the nascent resort towns on Tunisia's east coast and stopped there, finding work as an x-ray technician in a local hospital that dated from colonial times. The x-ray machine was primitive. All business was conducted in French. The three doctors, two French and a Tunisian, were brusque. All three were exploring ways and means to emigrate to Marseilles. Watching them work, she thought them no more than competent. Sieglinde settled into a routine, putting in her eight hours and returning to her hotel on the edge of the resort, close to the beach. Each evening she went for a long walk and drank a cold Löwenbräu on the porch of her hotel as dusk settled. One night she looked up and searched, unsuccessfully, for the Southern Cross, remembering it as one of Harry's failed quests. It had something to do with the Polish writer Conrad, she'd forgotten what. And now she would never know. At times she thought she had made a terrible mistake leaving Harry, at other times not at all. Theirs was a doomed love affair. The precise reason she could not name, except to reflect again and again on how different their childhoods were, how different their upbringings, how different the societies from which they had sprung. Their personal histories at no point connected and Harry seemed so confident of the life he had chosen. Was there room in it for someone else? They were parallel lines that would never touch. Still, her thoughts turned to him each day, where he was, how he was doing. What had become of Village Number Five? She hated thinking of him in the jungle yet again. Sieglinde read a newspaper when she could find one, always turning first to news of the war, when there was news of the war. A brigade of American troops had landed, the first organized fighting unit in the country. Surely the brigade would bring the insurgency under control. She had no idea where Harry fit in. When one of the articles referred to the embassy bombing weeks before, her breath caught in her throat. The article mentioned one fatality, the fatality unnamed. She was appalled. She had no idea how to learn the identity of the fatality. The obvious solution was to write Harry at the embassy, but then she would have to give a return address and she did not want to do that. She decided finally to call the embassy. She had the number and the next day she went to the post office to book the call, and when the embassy operator answered, Sieglinde's voice was so soft and shaken that she was asked to repeat the name. Harry Sanders, she said, and the operator said that Mr. Sanders was no longer at the embassy. Sieglinde said, He was not hurt in the bombing? No, the operator said. He was not hurt. Mr. Sanders was reassigned. When Sieglinde asked what posting, the operator said she could not answer that, but if the caller wished to write Mr. Sanders a letter, the letter would be forwarded. Sieglinde hung up, her eyes filled with tears. At least he was safe. But she wondered where he was.

 

At the hotel in the Tunisian resort town—it was a resort in name only, and the hotel was more rest house than hotel, though it did have a pleasant dining room that looked over the sea—Sieglinde fell in with a team of archaeologists conducting a dig to the west of town. They were confident they had found a colosseum that dated to the fourth century. The team was composed of four men, British and American, and a woman, a Canadian. One night, seeing she was alone, they asked Sieglinde to join them for dinner. They were in the midst of a friendly dispute concerning the dimensions of the colosseum, presuming it was a colosseum and not an agora. They were at the beginning of their dig, the British arguing for large and the American for small. The Canadian woman, Suzanne, called the dispute bootless since they would know the answer soon enough, meaning sometime that year. Suzanne looked at Sieglinde and rolled her eyes—they were listening to a typical male dispute in which patience was ignored. Of all the disciplines in all the world, archaeology called for patience. Only from patience would intuition arise. Suzanne asked Sieglinde what she was doing in Sfax, of all places. Sieglinde said she was traveling with no fixed destination. She liked places near the sea and had fetched up at Sfax faute de mieux. And was she alone? Yes, alone. Sieglinde told Suzanne that she had found work as an x-ray technician at the hospital and that would keep her going until she moved on, perhaps Italy, perhaps somewhere else. Suzanne did not inquire further except to ask if Sieglinde had medical training beyond x-ray machines. Yes, of course, Sieglinde said. She had had a year of medical training, one of the requirements in Germany.

You could tend to a broken bone, for example.

Yes, Sieglinde said. Later, certainly, hospital care would be necessary.

And you could diagnose tropical diseases?

Some of them, I suppose. Yes.

Stomach disorders?

If there were medicines available . . .

Suzanne pulled her chair closer and poured them both a glass of wine. She said, We have need of a medical person. The desert is very tough. Snakes, scorpions, strange maladies. Other than our team we have twenty locals for the heavy digging. Someone is always being injured or falling ill and then one of us has to take him to the hospital here. We waste time. If we could put together a pharmacy and a medical tent, could you do—what has to be done? Ailments and broken bones and the like. This would save us time. Save us money. I think I have seen you at the hospital, Sieglinde.

It's possible, Sieglinde said. Truthfully, it's not a very good hospital.

In this part of the world, Suzanne began.

It's what we have, Sieglinde said.

It's interesting work, ours. We live in the desert and once every few weeks we come here for a few days off, a sort of rest-and-recreation thing. We get on very well. We've known each other for years. We are compatible and I think you would be compatible, too. Our work is slow work. We'd teach you how to go about it and when one of the natives got sick or stung by a scorpion you could look after him until we could get him to a hospital. Probably you could do what the hospital does and do it better.

Also, Suzanne said, I would like some female company. What do you say?

Would I be paid?

Of course, Suzanne said, and named a figure.

It's more than I'm making now, Sieglinde said.

We have funds, Suzanne said.

How long—

You would have to give us a two-month commitment. After that, if you want to go away no one would stop you. We're not running a prison.

Two months, and then if I didn't like the desert, I could go.

Exactly, Suzanne said.

Maybe it's time I settled for a while, Sieglinde said. I was about ready to give it up here and go somewhere else.

You have been traveling a long time?

Long enough, Sieglinde said.

I would like to do what you're doing, Suzanne said. Moving from place to place, no fixed itinerary . . . Her voice trailed away.

They were sitting on the porch of the hotel, the one facing the sea. At distant points over the water were ships' lights. The air had a pungent smell, not unpleasant. It was different from tropical air. Probably it was the desert that made the difference, dry air mixed with sea air. The effect was somnolent and Sieglinde yawned, thinking of the prospect of two months in the desert excavating a fifteen-hundred-year-old colosseum (if it was a colosseum). She looked at the men across the table. The argument had ended and they were throwing dice for the check. Their faces and necks were deeply tanned, their arms bruised and scratched. Suzanne had joined in the dice-throw, and when she was eliminated she turned back to Sieglinde. She said she had been married once but the marriage had not taken—that was her phrase, “not taken”—and she had returned to her archaeological work, suspended when she followed her husband to Los Angeles. He was an actor waiting for a break, and she waited with him until it seemed obvious to her that the break would never come, or come in an incompatible way. Los Angeles was said to be hospitable to those waiting for a break but Suzanne had not found it so. People were hospitable if they thought you could help in some way with the break, if you had connections, a school friend or an uncle in the industry. After a while her days were consumed with quarrels and so she left and found work with her college friend Ted. She nodded affectionately at the man with the dice in his fist, a heavily muscled redhead with hair so tightly woven to his scalp that it looked like an animal's pelt, now muttering some incantation over the dice. Ted was a miracle worker with angel money and now they were a unit, she and the four men. They had enough money for a year's work and had to show progress before another grant was approved. Suzanne laughed. She said, A year is nothing in this business. A year is a snap of the fingers. But we're making progress.