Bagombo Snuff Box (18 page)

Helmholtz passed another mark. “Prepare to light!” he
shouted. And a moment later, “Light!”

Helmholtz smiled glassily. In five seconds the band would be
before the reviewing stand, the music would stop, the fireworks would send
American flags into the sky. And then, playing alone, Leroy would tootle
pathetically, ridiculously, if he played at all.

The music stopped. Fireworks banged, and up went the parachutes.
The Lincoln High School Ten Square Band passed in review, lines straight,
plumes high, brass flashing.

Helmholtz almost cried as American flags hung in air from
parachutes. Among them, like a cloudburst of diamonds, was the Sousa piccolo
masterpiece. Leroy! Leroy!

The bands were massed before the reviewing stand. George M.
Helmholtz stood at parade rest before his band, between the great banner
bearing the Lincoln High Black Panther on a scarlet field and Old Glory.

When he was called forward to receive the trophy, the bandmaster
crossed the broad square to the accompaniment of a snare drum and a piccolo.
As he returned with thirty pounds of bronze and walnut, the band played “Lincoln’s
Foes Shall Wail Tonight,” words and music by George M. Helmholtz.

When the parade was dismissed, Assistant Principal Haley hurried
from the crowd to shake Helmholtz’s hand.

“Shake Leroy’s hand,” said Helmholtz. “He’s the hero.” He
looked around for Leroy, beaming, and saw the boy was with the pretty blond piccolo
player again, more animated than ever. She was responding warmly.

“She doesn’t seem to miss the shoulders, does she?” said
Helmholtz.

“That’s because he doesn’t miss them anymore,” said Haley. “He’s
a man now, bell-shaped or not.”

“He certainly gave his all for Lincoln High,” said
Helmholtz. “I admire school spirit in a boy.”

Haley laughed. “That wasn’t school spirit—that was the love
song of a full-bodied American male. Don’t you know anything about love?”

Helmholtz thought about love as he walked back to his car
alone, his arms aching with the weight of the great trophy. If love was
blinding, obsessing, demanding, beyond reason, and all the other wild things
people said it was, then he had never known it, Helmholtz told himself. He
sighed, and supposed he was missing something, not knowing romance.

When he got to his car, he found that the left front tire
was flat. He remembered that he had no spare. But he felt nothing more than
mild inconvenience. He boarded a streetcar, sat down with the trophy on his
lap, and smiled. He was hearing music again.

This place is new, isn’t it?” said Eddie Laird. He was
sitting in a bar in the heart of the city. He was the only customer, and he
was talking to the bartender.

“I don’t remember this place,” he said, “and I used to know
every bar in town.”

Laird was a big man, thirty-three, with a pleasantly
impudent moon face. He was dressed in a blue flannel suit that was plainly a
very recent purchase. He watched his image in the bar mirror as he talked. Now
and then, one of his hands would stray from the glass to stroke a soft lapel.

“Not so new/’ said the bartender, a sleepy, fat man in his
fifties. “When was the last time you were in town?” “The war,” Laird said.

“Which war was that?”

“Which war?” Laird repeated. “I guess you have to ask people
that nowadays, when they talk about war. The second one—the Second World War. I
was stationed out at Cunningham Field. Used to come to town every weekend I
could.”

A sweet sadness welled up in him as he remembered his reflection
in other bar mirrors in other days, remembered the reflected flash of captain’s
bars and silver wings.

“This place was built in ‘forty-six, and been renovated
twice since then,” the bartender said.

“Built—and renovated twice,” Laird said wonderingly. “Things
wear out pretty fast these days, don’t they? Can you still get a plank steak at
Charley’s Steak House for two dollars?”

“Burned down,” the bartender said. “There’s a J. C. Penney
there now.”

“So what’s the big Air Force hangout these days?” Laird
said.

“Isn’t one,” the bartender said. “They closed down Cunningham
Field.”

Laird picked up his drink, and walked over to the window to
watch the people go by. “I halfway expected the women here to be wearing short
skirts still,” he said. “Where are all the pretty pink knees?” He rattled his
fingernails against the window. A woman glanced at him and hurried on.

“I’ve got a wife out there somewhere,” Laird said. “What do
you suppose has happened to her in eleven years?”

“A wife?”

“An ex-wife. One of those war things. I was twenty-two, and
she was eighteen. Lasted six months.”

“What went wrong?”

“Wrong?” Laird said. “I just didn’t want to be owned, that’s
all. I wanted to be able to stick my toothbrush in my hip pocket and take off
whenever I felt like it. And she didn’t go for that. So . . .” He grinned. “Adios.
No tears, no hard feelings.”

He walked over to the jukebox. “What’s the most frantically
popular song of the minute?”

“Try number seventeen,” the bartender said. “I guess I could
stand it one more time.”

Laird played number seventeen, a loud, tearful ballad of
lost love. He listened intently. And at the end, he stamped his foot and
winked, just as he had done years before.

“One more drink,” Laird said, “and then, by heaven, I’m
going to call up my ex-wife.” He appealed to the bartender. “That’s all right,
isn’t it? Can’t I call her up if I want to?” He laughed. “‘Dear Emily Post: I
have a slight problem in etiquette. I haven’t seen or exchanged a word with my
ex-wife for eleven years. Now I find myself in the same city with her—’”

“How do you know she’s still around?” the bartender said.

“I called up an old buddy when I blew in this morning. He
said she’s all set—got just what she wants: a wage slave of a husband, a
vine-covered cottage with expansion attic, two kids, and a quarter of an acre
of lawn as green as Arlington National Cemetery.”

Laird strode to the telephone. For the fourth time that day,
he looked up his ex-wife’s number, under the name of her second husband, and
held a dime an inch above the slot. This time, he let the coin fall. “Here goes
nothing,” Laird said. He dialed.

A woman answered. In the background, a child shrieked and a
radio blabbed.

“Amy?” Laird said.

“Yes?” She was out of breath.

A silly grin spread over Laird’s face. “Hey—guess what? This
is Eddie Laird.”

“Who?”

“Eddie Laird—Eddie!”

“Wait a minute, would you, please?” Amy said. “The baby is
making such a terrible racket, and the radio’s on, and I’ve got brownies in the
oven, just ready to come out. I can’t hear a thing. Would you hold on?”

“Sure.”

“Now then,” she said, winded, “who did you say this was?”

“Eddie Laird.”

She gasped. “Really?”

“Really,” Laird said merrily. “I just blew in from Ceylon,
by way of Baghdad, Rome, and New York.”

“Good heavens,” said Amy. “What a shock. I didn’t even know
if you were alive or dead.”

Laird laughed. “They can’t kill me, and by heaven, they’ve
sure tried.”

“What have you been up to?”

“Ohhhhh—a little bit of everything. I just quit a job flying
for a pearling outfit in Ceylon. I’m starting a company of my own, prospecting
for uranium up around the Klondike region. Before the Ceylon deal, I was
hunting diamonds in the Amazon rain forest, and before that, flying for a sheik
in Iraq.”

“Like something out of The Arabian Nights,” said Amy. “My
head just swims.”

“Well, don’t get any glamorous illusions,” Laird said. “Most
of it was hard, dirty, dangerous work.” He sighed. “And how are you, Amy?”

“Me?” said Amy. “How is any housewife? Harassed.”

The child began to cry again.

“Amy,” said Laird huskily, “is everything all right—between
us?” Her voice was very small. “Time heals all wounds,” she said. “It hurt at
first, Eddie—it hurt very much. But I’ve come to understand it was all for the
best. You can’t help being restless. You were born that way. You were like a
caged eagle, mooning, molting.”

“And you, Amy, are you happy?”

“Very,” said Amy, with all her heart. “It’s wild and it’s
messy with the children. But when I get a chance to catch my breath, I can see
it’s sweet and good. It’s what I always wanted. So in the end, we both got our
way, didn’t we? The eagle and the homing pigeon.”

“Amy,” Laird said, “could I come out to see you?”

“Oh, Eddie, the house is a horror and I’m a witch. I couldn’t
stand to have you see me like this—after you’ve come from Ceylon by way of Baghdad,
Rome, and New York. What a hideous letdown for someone like you. Stevie had the
measles last week, and the baby has had Harry and me up three times a night,
and—”

“Now, now,” Laird said, “I’ll see the real you shining
through it all. I’ll come out at five, and say hello, and leave again right
away. Please?”

On the cab ride out to Amy’s home, Laird encouraged himself
to feel sentimental about the coming reunion. He tried to daydream about the best
of his days with her, but got only fantasies of movie starlet-like nymphs
dancing about him with red lips and vacant eyes. This shortcoming of his
imagination, like everything else about the day, was a throwback to his salad
days in the Air Force. All pretty women had seemed to come from the same mold.

Laird told the cab to wait for him. “This will be short and
sweet,” he said. As he walked up to Amy’s small, ordinary house, he managed a
smile of sad maturity, the smile of a man who has hurt and been hurt, who has
seen everything, who has learned a great deal from it all, and who, incidentally,
has made a lot of money along the way.

He knocked and, while he waited, picked at the flaking paint
on the doorframe.

Harry, Amy’s husband, a blocky man with a kind face, invited
Larry in.

“I’m changing the baby,” Amy called from inside. “Be there
in two shakes.”

Harry was clearly startled by Laird’s size and splendor, and
Laird looked down on him and clapped his arm in comradely fashion.

“I guess a lot of people would say this is pretty irregular,”
Laird said. “But what happened between Amy and me was a long time ago. We were
. just a couple of crazy kids, and we’re all older and wiser now. I hope we can
all be friends.”

Harry nodded. “Why, yes, of course. Why not?” he said. “Would
you like something to drink? I’m afraid I don’t have much of a selection. Rye
or beer?”

“Anything at all, Harry,” Laird said. “I’ve had kava with
the Maoris, scotch with the British, champagne with the French, and cacao with
the Tupi. I’ll have a rye or a beer with you. When in Rome . . .” He dipped
into his pocket and brought out a snuff box encrusted with semiprecious gems. .
“Say, I brought you and Amy a little something.” He pressed the box into Harry’s
hand. “I picked it up for a song in Bagombo.”

“Bagombo?” said Harry, dazzled.

“Ceylon,” Laird said easily. “Flew for a pearling outfit out
there. Pay was fantastic, the mean temperature was seventy-three, but I didn’t
like the monsoons. Couldn’t stand being bottled up in the same rooms for weeks
at a time, waiting for the rain to quit. A man’s got to get out, or he just goes
to pot—gets flabby and womanly.”

“Um,” said Harry.

Already the small house and the smells of cooking and the
clutter of family life were crowding in on Laird, making him want to be off and
away. “Nice place you have here,” he said.

“It’s a little small,” Harry said. “But—”

“Cozy,” said Laird. “Too much room can drive you nuts. I
know. Back in Bagombo, I had twenty-six rooms, and twelve servants to look
after them, but they didn’t make me happy. They mocked me, actually. But the
place rented for seven dollars a month, and I couldn’t pass it up, could I?”

Harry started to leave for the kitchen, but stopped in the
doorway, thunderstruck. “Seven dollars a month for twenty-six rooms?” he said.

“Turned out I was being taken. The tenant before me got it
for three.”

“Three,” Harry murmured. “Tell me,” he said hesitantly, “are
there a lot of jobs waiting for Americans in places like that? Are they
recruiting?”

“You wouldn’t want to leave your family, would you?”

Harry was conscience-stricken. “Oh, no! I thought maybe I
could take them.”

“No soap,” said Laird. “What they want is bachelors. And
anyway, you’ve got a nice setup here. And you’ve got to have a specialty, too,
to qualify for the big money. Fly, handle a boat, speak a language. Besides,
most of the recruiting is done in bars in Singapore, Algiers, and places like
that. Now, I’m taking a flier at uranium prospecting on my own, up in the
Klondike, and I need a couple of good Geiger counter technicians. Can you
repair a Geiger counter, Harry?”

“ “Nope,” said Harry.

“Well, the men I want are going to have to be single,
anyway,” said Laird. “It’s a beautiful part of the world, teeming with moose
and salmon, but rugged. No place for women or children. What is your line?”

“Oh,” said Harry, “credit manager for a department store.”

“Harry,” Amy called, “would you please warm up the baby’s
formula, and see if the lima beans are done?”

“Yes, dear,” said Harry.

B a g o mb o Snuff Box

“What did you say, honey?”

“I said yes!” Harry bellowed.

A shocked silence settled over the house.

And then Amy came in, and Laird had his memory refreshed.
Laird stood. Amy was a lovely woman, with black hair, and wise brown affectionate
eyes. She was still young, but obviously very tired. She was prettily dressed,
carefully made-up, and quite self-conscious.

“Eddie, how nice,” she said with brittle cheerfulness. “Don’t
you look well!”