Souvenir (30 page)

Addy and Chris were arm in arm, and for the moment it looked like she wasn’t letting go. Clay followed them into the kitchen, smelling the coffee that had been sitting on the stove. Addy’s cup was on the table, half full.

“Tell me,” she said to Clay as she guided Chris to a chair, her voice quavering.

“I have to do something first,” Clay said. “I’ll be right back.”

“What!” Addy said, the strain in her voice now near the breaking point. “Our son was arrested and you’ve got something more important to do, at this time of night?”

“It’s complicated, I’ll explain later. Let Chris tell you what happened. What he tells you, I believe. I’ll be right back.” He reached into the change jar they kept on the kitchen counter and began digging out nickels and dimes.

“What—what do you need change for?” Addy cried out, screaming as she held her hands to her head. The evening had been strain enough, and Clay knew his odd behavior was too much for her.

“Addy, listen to me,” he said, pulling her hands down and holding them in front of him. “Listen to what I’m saying. Chris did something stupid tonight, but not what he got arrested for. He didn’t steal a car. I’ve got to make some phone calls, to try and straighten this thing out. He’ll tell you exactly what happened. Right, Chris?” He gave Chris a hard stare and a nod.

“Yeah—yes, everything. Mom, sit down, I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

Addy looked at Chris, then back to Clay. Her forehead was wrinkled as she fought down the confusion that was building in her mind. Clay let go of her hands.

“We have a telephone right here, Clay,” she said, gesturing with a weak lift of her hand to the wall phone in the kitchen. Clay dropped the change into his pocket. Looking at Chris, slumped in his chair at the kitchen table, and then at Addy, her eyes red, bewilderment etched in the lines on her forehead, he wanted to stay. Drink some coffee, talk, maybe end up laughing a little. It might bring her closer to him. But now was the time. It had to be right now, the timing was perfect.

“Trust me. You both have to trust me.” He didn’t dare wait to hear what either of them said.

At a phone booth outside a gas station on East Main, Clay dropped dimes into the slot and dialed a number he knew by heart. It picked up on the second ring.

“Yeah.”

“Mr. Fiorenza, please.”

“He ain’t here.”

“Tell him it’s important, concerning his current difficulties. He’ll want to talk to me.”

“Who is this?”

“He’ll know.” Clay heard the phone set down, and the sound of fading footsteps. He put some nickels in and waited.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Fiorenza, do you know who this is?”

“Yes, I believe I do.”

“I’m calling from a pay phone,” Clay said, by way of explanation.

“Well, I am not speaking on one.”

“I understand. I’m calling you to ask a question, on behalf of a friend.”

“Yes.” Mr. Fiorenza’s voice was clear, but disinterested. He was a careful man, one who wouldn’t say anything that might incriminate him on a wiretap.

“Well, my friend works for someone, and feels some loyalty to this man. But, he wishes to retire from his business, and does not want to cause any problems for the man he works for.”

“That is admirable, and wise.”

“Yes. Especially since right now, this man and his business are undergoing certain difficulties. Intense competition. Very aggressive competitors.”

“Business is always difficult, as I am sure you know. Now, how can I help your friend?”

“Some advice. If you were in his employers place—”

“But I am not.”

“Yes, but you are a businessman. I am looking for a businessman’s perspective.”

“Ah, in that case, I will try to answer.”

“So, if you were in a similar situation, and this person found a way to help you with the competition problem, would you then not feel badly about him retiring from the business. After the difficulties passed, of course.”

“Well, help is always welcome, but to what degree?”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this man eliminates the current problem.”

“Ah, so he does not simply help his employer, he solves the problem for him. Totally.”

“Yes.”

“I would award him with a gold watch at his retirement party and wish him well.”

“Thank you. I will pass that onto my friend. Your perspective is valuable.”

“You are welcome. I wish your friend well.” With that, Mr. Fiorenza hung up.

Clay pulled out his wallet, and fished out a folded slip of paper. He dropped a dime in and dialed the number. His finger shook as he aimed at each number on the dial.

“Hello.”

“Is Al DePaoli there?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Just tell him it’s the call he’s been waiting for.”

Chapter Fifteen

2000

Sunlight slanted across the kitchen table, a diagonal shadow cutting off the corner of the tabletop where Clay let his left hand lie. He set down the coffee cup held in his other hand as he heard Addy’s footsteps behind him. He leaned back in the chair and turned his head to greet her, the sound of her feet on the floor familiar and comforting.

The room was empty.

He’d dreamed of her too, the same kind of dream he’d had turning the war. Drinking coffee with guys who had been killed, sitting around a table, everyone quiet, until in his dream he remembered they were dead, and the dream ended. He had that dream about Addy, seated at this table. Even while he was awake, the house echoed with her footsteps.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Coffee,” Clay said, gesturing with his thumb to the aluminum pot on the stove.

“Two to one. Not the worst ratio,” Chris said, pouring coffee for himself.

“What?”

“Words.”

“Four to three,” Clay said.

“Well, you can still do the math. You always had a head for numbers, Dad.”

“Is that supposed to be joke?”

“No,” Chris said, laughing as he realized what his father meant. “I mean at the Tavern, doing the books and everything.”

“Oh, oh yeah.” Then he laughed too. “I like numbers. They calm me down. They don’t surprise you, they are what they are.”

“How do you feel this morning?” Chris asked, watching his father carefully.

“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Like it never happened.”

“Really?”

“Scout’s honor. Go ahead, go to work, I’ll be fine.”

“No, I took a couple of personal leave days. Paperwork’s done, so I’ll stay here for now.”

“No need.”

“Not for you, maybe. But I’m staying.”

“Prepare to be bored.”

“Maybe you’ll finally tell me about the guys in the photo. You still have it, don’t you?”

“Yes. And don’t start going through my stuff. I’m not dead yet.”

“Listen, Dad. I don’t really have much to do besides work, so no one’s missing my company. And this attack you had scared me. So let’s hang out a couple of days and not make a big deal about it, okay?”

“Fine. I got nowhere else to go.”

“Me either. Couple of sad sacks, aren’t we?”

“You and me both, you got that right,” Clay said, trying to summon up energy he didn’t feel. He knew there would be more questions, more subtle interrogations, and he didn’t know if he could hold out. He couldn’t deny his own son his company, didn’t want to, but felt Chris’ eyes on him, watching, seeking out a weakness he might well find this time.

Cla-ay,
Addy had said, nearly every morning at this table.
I’ll al-ways want just one more da-ay with you.

Now, Clay was left alone, remembering how they sat, holding hands as the morning sun rose, warming the kitchen and shoving the shadow on the table aside, one more morning of light and quiet joy together.

He didn’t want to think about how many mornings like this were left, unsure if he feared there were too few or too many. The spring sun shone brightly outside, coaxing out buds and grasses watered by yesterday’s rain. Spring and summer, surely he’d have spring and summer, and then fall, with its rotting crispness hinting at the burden of cold to come. He shivered, feeling that old cold inside him, the frigid air of the last century, the deep cold of the Ardennes, the cold that never really left his bones. Winter. Would he make it through the winter, and sit here again, alone in the spring, the first year of the next thousand years?

The shiver came again, a shiver of sadness that he was down to this, counting out the seasons left to him. Not decades, not years, but seasons. He didn’t want to think about it. Looking out the window, he raised his eyes toward Lamentation Mountain, the crumbling rocks and the granite peak. He knew now that everything changed, slowly crumbling over time, nothing staying the same, not even the face of a mountain.

And certainly not him. So little time left, and so much to set straight. There were things Chris wanted to know, but Clay knew what was even more important was that he had to tell him. Tell him before it was too late, too late for the both of them. But could he?

“I’ll make breakfast, Dad. What do you want?”

Chris’ voice jolted him, bringing him out of the deep thoughts that seemed to carry him away more and more these days. The image of another winter stayed with him, watching Lamentation Mountain coated in ice and snow, covering the sliding shale. His hands felt chilled, and he rubbed them together, but the chill crept deeper, running from his fingertips into his palms and on into his joints. Shivering, the winter of 1945 came to him, as it always did with cold sensations, unbidden, drifting like ice floes through his mind. It played out slowly, a single scene of deep, strange coldness, a single chunk of jagged ice bobbing in thick, gray waters. He found himself speaking, his thoughts bubbling to the surface like the last gasps of a drowning man.

“We found some men once. Frozen.”

“What are you talking about? Who?”

“Germans,” Clay said, his eyes focused on the mountain. Hardly conscious of speaking, he began to narrate the memory as it unfolded in his mind. “It was the strangest thing.”

“Are you all right? Dad?”

He looked at Chris as if he could hardly understand him. What was he asking? Of course he was fine. Now he had to get on with the story, or else it would move too fast and he wouldn’t be able to keep up with it. Driven to speak, a force deep inside him wanting nothing more than this tale to be told. With perfect clarity of thought, he understood, after all these years, that he had to be in control, tell the story, not to let it play like a film in his head over and over again.

“Yes, I’m fine. I can’t remember where we were. Everyone was there, Red was still with us, so it must have been—aaw, it doesn’t matter.”

“Dad,” Chris said, placing his hand on his father’s arm. “Are you talking about the war?” His face knotted up in disbelief, as he had given up waiting to hear him speak of the war long ago.

“Yeah. The frozen Germans. It was cold, Addy, so cold that your teeth chattered all the time, and your whole body shook from deep inside, trying to get some heat built up. We’d been moving toward some village, through heavy pines. Big, thick trees, planted in neat rows, the ground cleared all around them.”

“It’s Chris, Dad. Mom’s gone.”

Clay didn’t hear him. He could smell the green fir; feel its needles brush against his helmet. He took in a deep breath, and his eyes rested on Chris, seeing his eyes wide, in shock or surprise. Clay couldn’t stop, he knew he had to keep going.

“We got stopped in the late afternoon, not even close to the village. Kraut machine guns were everywhere, zeroed in on those open lanes between the pines. It was murder, plain murder. Guys got chopped up trying to go tree to tree, but the snow was two, three feet deep, so you couldn’t run fast enough. The orders kept coming all day, push ahead, push ahead. We lost two replacements we’d gotten the day before. The platoon on our left lost half their men in five minutes.”

He looked out the window, and in the reflection saw visions of G.I.s laying in the snow, frozen hands clutching nothing as bullets cut through pine branches, showering green needles down over the brown-coated bodies in the white snow. He heard Red holler out an order to dig in, felt the
crack
of air as a bullet passed by his ear.

“We dug in, but the ground was frozen solid and there were thick roots everywhere. We burrowed into the snow, laid there, three or four guys together, all huddled up. We’d take turns moving into the center, to get warm.”

He felt the wind at his back, and could sense the warmth entering his body as Little Ned crawled out from the middle and he took his turn inside.

“We shelled the woods all night. We could hear the explosions and the trees cracking. Tree bursts, we learned that one from the Krauts. We stayed there all night long. First light, we got up, moved out.”