A Midnight Clear: A Novel (11 page)

“Hey, Won’t, what the hell’s been going on down there?”

“Stan, I think maybe the German Army is cracking up. There’s some good news for you.”

“Miller says they were talking
to
you. What’d they actually say?”

“First it was ‘Hey,
ami,’
and ‘schnapps and zig-zig’; everything prisoners say except
‘Kamerad.’
Then it sounded as if they were threatening us; something like ‘slap good.’ That’s what they said just before they left.”

“Say that again!?”

“Maybe it was ‘slaf good,’ didn’t make sense.”

“Hey, Won’t. That’s Yiddish! My grandmother always said it when we went to bed. It’s
‘Schlaf gut,’
means ‘Sleep well.’”

“Wait a minute, Shutzer. Are you telling me all this creeping around in the cold, scared, with snow coming down, was only some crazy sauerkraut slurpers making a bed check? I’ll tell you, Stan, if that’s it, they’ve been in this cockeyed war too long.”

“I’ll bet that’s what it was, though, Won’t. I’ll bet pickles to bagels that’s just what it was. Lousy, hot shit Nazis laughing at us, softening us up for the kill.”

 

At five before ten, I slide down to the bridge and Miller goes up the hill. The snow’s getting thick. They challenge me just where I told them to. Gordon starts up trying not to slip on the snow-covered pine needles. We’re all slightly punch drunk.

Wilkins and I sit quietly watching the snow fall. There’s something relaxing about the constancy of snow coming down. Could be all the good memories of sledding and ice-skating when I was a kid. God, somewhere inside, I’m still a kid; what happened? One day I was seventeen and in high school, then suddenly I’m nineteen and here.

“What do you think this is all about, Wont? It sounded as if there were more of them than there are of us. What if they make some kind of charge? We wouldn’t have a chance.”

“I don’t think anybody’s going to charge anybody, Mother. They were probably only trying to find out if we’re here and how many of us there are. They saw our smoke and checked us out, that’s all.”

To keep Mother’s mind off what’s going on, I ask him to help make up some new bridge hands. Here we are, two hands down by the bridge making bridge hands. We’ll need to stock up for the fanatics. When they’re nervous or bored, they play more than usual. They’ll probably even start with PANTRANT again; that’s Shutzer’s screwball game of “dictionary,” only without a dictionary. The scoring on that one’s gotten so complicated you need a mathematical wizard or a Monroe calculator to know who’s winning.

I pull my sets of once played bridge deals from my pocket. There are seven. The most aged, the vintage deal, is only five days old. I might be able to slip that one in on them but I need new hands. I keep the bidding, contract and results from the first play; also, who was North-South, East-West. They sign and date the card they’ve played. It’s a regular four-dimensional merry-go-round. I’m half squad leader, half bookkeeper.

So Mother and I stand in the snow leaning against the wall, writing in the dark on my little bits from tab edges of K ration boxes. Shutzer once traded off a German bayonet to one of the typists in personnel for some three-by-five cards but they were mostly used up before we lost the decks on Morrie. Shutzer even got a pack of rubber bands in the trade. I use those to keep each deal separate; I also use them to keep my drawings together. Shutzer’s our best squad trader and negotiator as well as squad “Why We Fight” cheerleader. Maybe I can get him to work up a trade for the P38 pistol I took from an SS officer at Metz; maybe a pack of typing paper. I can work tears up thinking of crisp white bond paper.

Mother is absolutely diabolical when he concocts hands. He says it’s like writing a mystery story; you start with what you know is the right ending, knowing who’s the murderer and who the victims are, then work backwards, throwing in as many false leads and confusing directions as possible. Mother’s idea for the consummate deal is for both sides to feel cocksure of a cold slam but with in-built boobytraps guaranteeing failure either way.

I keep peeking around as he figures out his complicated maneuvers. I’m mostly only writing down what Wilkins tells me. I can assure Mel I’m
not
thinking; my mind is a blank. I’m not much at bridge but I know enough to recognize these deals Mother’s coming up with could turn any serious bridge player into a staggering paranoid. Who’d believe holding all forty points with four-four fit and going down fourteen hundred points? There’ve been times when I’ve been convinced Miller, Shutzer or Gordon was going to murder Wilkins. Father never gets that excited about things. I think all he wants to do is get through the games without making any serious mistakes. The only comment I’ve ever heard him make was one time he said that if the devil could play God for a while, it would be like Wilkins making up bridge hands.

Shutzer spends hours trying to teach Mundy the subtle art of bidding. Gordon and Miller are convinced Shutzer’s training Mundy in inflected bidding and is desecrating our only holy one by turning him into a bridge cheater, a dastardly type, destined for the lowest level of the inferno.

Wilkins doesn’t want to play because he says he can’t forget a hand once it’s played, no matter how many days or games are stuck between. At first, everybody laughed, but now they’re convinced. They like having Wilkins play because he’s so good, but he and his partner, even if it’s Mundy or me, will always win the second time around. Mother claims he can’t help himself; he tries to forget but can’t. For him a bridge hand is like a face, something you remember as a sort of gestalt, without any real effort to memorize cards or plays. Bud is sure Mother’s an idiot savant of some kind. Idiot he isn’t by any count, savant yes.

 

I call in regularly as the first two hours pass. Wilkins comes up with four deals to ruin their lives. We’re liable to roll out of this château with
true
idiots, blithering idiots, slobbering at the mouth, muttering “Chinese finesse” or “Yarborough.” It could happen; you can only push the human mind so far.

Toward the end, Mother is deeply cold. He’s so thin, as well as tall, that despite all the bits of cut-up blanket he has wrapped around his chest or pinned to the inside of his pants, or wrapped around his head and neck under his helmet, he gets miserable. I hate to think what’ll happen when the winter really comes on; after all, it isn’t even Christmas yet.

We still don’t talk about what happened on the hill two days ago. I’m not going to mention it unless he wants to.

 

A quarter hour before Wilkins’s time is up, Father Mundy comes clumping down the hill. He tramps along as if he’s walking across a golf course following a tee shot. He has his head tucked in and doesn’t look up; he forgets to stop and give the password. But he’s there and he’s there early; there’s nothing you can say against Mundy. Mother looks at Mundy’s watch.

“Come on, Paul, I still have almost fifteen minutes.”

“I got tired listening to Gordon snore. He makes more noise than a screaming meemie! Maybe we should aim him at the Germans and destroy them by sound waves. He could be the squad’s private secret weapon. Go on up and you’ll hear what I mean, Vance. But put your fingers in your ears as you go through the door or you’ll wind up with broken eardrums.”

Wilkins stamps his feet and shakes off some of the snow. I tuck away the cards we’ve been working on.

“You’re sure it’s OK? You’ll take over now?”

“Sure, just plug your ears. I’m fine.”

“Thanks. I’m about frozen.”

He starts up the hill, leaning forward, dragging his feet. Father slides his rifle off his shoulder and jams the butt plate in the snow. There’s about half an inch over everything already. My eyes are wanting to close and the slow-falling snow doesn’t help. I’m also having a reaction from being scared.

The snow is like somebody waving a wand in front of my eyes. If I concentrate on the near flakes, I feel my eyes turning up into my head. If I look out through them, the whiteness fuzzes and I start fixating.

“OK if I light up, Sarge?”

“That’s between you, God and Gordon, Father; or maybe that’s ‘amongst.’ Only duck down when you light, and keep it covered. I don’t think anybody can see much through all this white stuff, but be careful.”

Mundy bends over like a bear and smothers most of the flare. He comes up puffing his cigarette between the fingers of his glove. I fumble out one more from my four-pack and light on him. It’ll help keep me awake.

I left my shelter half up in the other hole and Father didn’t bring his down either. It’s going to be a cold two hours and there’s a long way to go. I try using my personal con game of telling myself it’s time passing and the more time goes by, the closer we get to the end of the war and going home, so enjoy it; stop waiting. But I’m too tired.

Father and I stand there smoking, staring out through the snow, hoping not to see anything. It’s even more complicated than that. We’re desperately wanting to see anything there is to see, but praying there’s nothing there. It can twist the brain. Mundy’s leaning his elbows on the wall looking over it and I have my back against the wall looking up toward the chateau. I can feel it coming on. Father Mundy, professional Catholic, has some time alone with a lost soul and he’s going to try reconverting me again.

“Look, Wont; could you explain one more time why you left the church?”

“Come off it, Mundy, I haven’t left any church. I haven’t written to the Pope and asked for excommunication; you’re just making this whole thing up.”

“But you don’t go to mass.”

Father’s from Boston and his accent is exaggerated by a thick-tongued, slow enunciation. It’s fun talking with him; like playing tennis against a wall, you always know where the ball’s going to bounce. It’s not that he’s dumb; except for Wilkins, he could be the smartest one in our squad. He’s just simple. Morrie always insisted Mundy might be the world’s best slow thinker.

“For me, Mundy, going to mass is hypocrisy. When I watch all the hoopla, I automatically turn sacrilegious inside, like cream turning sour, or jelly jelling. Any halfway sensitive priest would exorcise me right out of church before he’d say a proper mass.”

“Aw, you’re not so bad, Wont. Pray for faith and it’ll come; you know that.”

He looks straight into my eyes, he’s so Goddamned sincere. I should shut up.

“Praying itself takes faith, Father; and I’m not sure I ever had it; I don’t think I even want it. It’s like singing, flying, dancing or writing poetry; some do and some don’t, some can and some can’t.”

I take another quick peek around. We can’t actually see more than ten feet. With the dark, the snow falling and now the snow muffling every sound, anybody could creep up and we’d have no idea. If you get to thinking about all the things that might happen, you could go psycho in no time.

“When I was twelve, Father, the Jesuits offered me the whole bag: free school, university, study in Rome. I didn’t sign up.”

“You never told me that. The Jesuits, boy, they’re the tops. What happened?”

“I just said no. Now, if you really believe, Mundy, have faith, it’s dumb not to be a priest. What’s a lousy fifty or sixty years compared to eternity? Well, I didn’t do it, I’m not stupid, therefore,
ipso facto,
I didn’t truly believe, no faith. I thought my mom and dad would never speak to me again.”

The snow seems to be falling even harder. I promised myself I wouldn’t get into any more of these conversations. Mundy’s never going to convince me with the same old arguments and what do I want to do, ruin
his
life? Deep inside me, maybe I do want to be convinced. I could use something, that’s for sure. Father’s quiet. We reverse positions in the hole. He stares up at the château; I turn and try to peer through the trees into the forest. My feet are going numb. I knock off some snow from my shoulders. I don’t feel cold in the chest or stomach and I’m not particularly scared. My stomach isn’t rumbling and I don’t feel desperately tired. It’s only my eyes keep wanting to close.

“You mean, that’s how you lost your faith, because they wanted you to be a priest?”

“What’s a twelve-year-old kid know about faith? I’d just finished having faith in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I wasn’t even sure there wasn’t a real Jack Armstrong and Daddy Warbucks. I was at a place where I could believe anything or nothing.”

“Then how does somebody know if he has faith? What is it?”

“That’s your bag, Father. You’re the specialist; you tell me.”

He’s quiet about three minutes. It’s as if I’ve lobbed one against the wall.

“Then how come you’re fighting this war? Hitler’s Nazis are saying the same kind of atheist things you’re saying. Maybe you’re on the wrong side.”

“Cut it out, Mundy. You’ve seen it, German GIs with rosary beads, missals, holy cards; they’re the ones with
Gott mit uns
on their belts. German priests’re telling them
they’re
fighting a holy war against us. We’re busy making martyrs of each other, fighting Godlessness. Same religions sending us all to the same heaven. We won’t be able to turn around up there. All young guys, no girls, no women, no old people, no priests.”

I’m awake now. Amazing how arguing can even make your feet warm. I only have one more cigarette for the day. I’ll light up when I feel cold again. Snow’s made everything softly quiet; there’s no wind right now. I look at Mundy’s watch; almost one. I’ll make it.

“Besides, Father, I don’t have to worry. I’ve made the nine First Fridays three times. I’m guaranteed ‘The Grace of a Happy Death.’ I’ll spill my guts at that last minute and sneak right through them pearly gates.”

“You’ve got to make them in good faith or they don’t count.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, did I ever make them in good faith. I’d be there in church at six o’clock mass, freezing my butt, praying my ears off. Sometimes it’d just be the nuns and me. We’re in there gilding our halos, burnishing the silver stars in our crowns. Man, you’re looking at an old burned-out true believer here, that’s all.”