Better Times Than These (62 page)

“Do you know our group?” Widenfield interceded. “We’re trying to stop this thing before it goes any further. There are some veterans organizing too—you could be of . . . you could help us, if you want to . . .”

Becky was watching him curiously, and he suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable in the ill-fitting tweed jacket and his short, Army-cut hair.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do right now,” he said. “I haven’t been here very long.”

“Of course,” Widenfield said, “but look, why don’t you take this card? Give a call sometime—even if you just want to talk. Tell whoever answers I said to put you ‘straight through.’ ”

Kahn took the card and put it into his pocket along with Holden’s letter and Congressman Miter’s address. There were only a few people trickling into the church now, and the honor guard had formed up at the curb.

“I guess we should go in,” Widenfield said.

As they walked into the church, Becky dropped back beside Kahn.

“Did he say anything about me . . . before, I mean?”

“I wasn’t there; I didn’t see him for about a week or so before.”

“I hope he knew,” she said, “that I loved him,” and in a lower voice she added, “I was going to marry him . . .” Then she stepped quickly up beside Widenfield and took his arm to walk down the aisle.

Kahn took a seat alone in one of the hard, wooden pews in the back of the church beneath the high beams and buttresses. The organist had been playing low, funereal music, but as he sat the tempo built into a powerful, uplifting throb. It must be, he thought, the hymn they were discussing in the car, the family had requested the old Episcopal prayer of thanksgiving because it was “hopeful.” The sweet melodic strains swept high into the rafters of the church, until after a while they seemed to become a part of the old building itself—as did he, and the others—caught up, all of them, in the spirit of hope and thankfulness . . .

There came to him now something he had not understood before: that there was in fact a strength in the dead; it was their legacy to the living. Somewhere, he realized, in other churches in towns and cities all over the country where the war dead were being buried, this sad, bittersweet legacy was being passed along . . . to those like himself who had come through it and would go on to become bankers, or salesmen, or service-station attendants, or farmers, or forklift operators or geologists—and husbands and fathers—and spend their Friday nights swapping the truths and lies down at a VFW hall or in a bar until in time it wouldn’t matter which; the important thing would be to have a place to go and be with people like themselves, since anyone who hadn’t been there probably wouldn’t know what in hell you were talking about.

At the altar a young priest sat meditating, his head slightly bowed. He, Kahn had also learned from the conversation in the car, was chaplain of Holden’s old prep school, summoned down to New York by the family to deliver the final, parting words.

The organist continued to ring out the powerful joyous message of the hymn . . . A Prayer of Thanksgiving, he thought. It was very beautiful. How odd . . .

. . . Even the others, the ones with missing arms and legs and perforated intestines and steel plates and rearranged faces, he marveled—all of them, including the ones who would lie for years in hospital beds hoping to get well enough someday to walk outside and sit in the garden—they at least were still capable of pondering why it had happened to them; and for this they too could be thankful to the legacy of the dead.

The organist had gone through the hymn once and changed into a higher, more forceful key. From a balcony above, a lone voice rang out the hopeful words of the song:

We gath-er to-geth-er
To ask . . . the Lord’s bless-ing;
And pray that thou still
Our de-fend-er wilt be . . .

. . . and what a strong, wonderful voice! Clear and sweet—belonging, Kahn knew, to a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company: another touch added by the family.

When the singer finished, the organist returned to a deep prelude, building more power this time, preparing for a huge radiant burst which came as the great doors of the church opened and the captain of the honor guard stepped in. Behind him, the six lieutenants stood on either side of the casket, and as the organist plunged into the final stanza they stepped in perfect cadence as the people rose to their feet.

Kahn felt a swelling in his chest. He soared with the music. As the honor guard passed by, a single tear came, and rolled down his face and quickly dried on his cheek, but he made no move to brush it away. It made no difference. He knew that he could go home now to the life that lay in front of him—even though the biggest thing that probably would ever happen was already behind.

He had only one stop along the way, and that would be in Washington, to look up Spudhead’s father and tell him his son was doing fine—and also discuss with him the matter of a certain brigade commander and the deaths of fifty men.

Soon afterward, although he could not possibly know it now, the debt bird would fly away forever, leaving in its place a shadowy, begging void of doubts and questions. Why? What on earth was it had dragged him through the knothole onto the playing fields of hell, then brought him back again and left him here? He had seen many terrible things; yet now they seemed far away and growing dimmer. All he knew for certain was that somehow, he was close to the end of it.

The music exploded into a great ringing crescendo as the organist pulled out the stops; bells and cymbals trembled in the rafters and floors of this venerable house of God.

The little procession was far down the aisle, and the young priest behind the altar looked reverent and grave. Everyone watched the honor guard as it drew to a halt precisely at the close of the hymn, so none of them saw the former commander of Bravo Company raise his right hand to his forehead, bring it down again quickly and then slip out quietly into the cold February sun.

W
INSTON
G
ROOM
is the author of seven books, including the phenomenally successful
Forrest Gump
and the prize-winning
As Summers Die.
He is coauthor of
Conversations with the Enemy,
which was nominated for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize. Before becoming a writer, he served in Vietnam, mostly with the Fourth Infantry Division from 1966 to 1967. His latest book,
Shrouds of Glory,
a history of the last great campaign of the Civil War will be published soon. Mr. Groom lives in Point Clear, Alabama.