Prudence (21 page)

Van Winckle and Billy forced themselves to walk slowly down the main road that ran parallel to the lake, so that they didn’t exhaust the sights too soon. They had reached the middle of the village when a middle-aged man—bald except for a fringe of hair—stood up from the chair he was sitting on outside a shop. He shook their hands and spoke to them in Walloon. He pointed down at their feet and spoke again, this time in French, then pointed up at the painted wooden sign hanging above their heads, which depicted the outline of a shoe. When he pointed down at their feet again, they looked. The leather of their Type II Roughouts was cracked across the toe box, and the stitches holding the rubber soles to the uppers had been worn and broken through, so that gaps opened with each step.

The man pointed at their boots again, then at the sign, then jabbed himself in the chest with his finger. He stepped to the side and swept them into his shop with one hand as he held the door open with the other. He motioned them toward two chairs. Not wanting to offend the old man, they sat down, ill at ease with their M1s across
their laps. Billy set his behind his chair and Van Winckle did the same. The cobbler scurried behind the counter and came back with a short wooden stool. He planted it in front of Billy and sat down. He raised both hands in front of them and, with a flourish like that of a casino dealer, turned them front to back to show that they were indeed empty, smiling broadly. Billy smiled back. The funny gesture put him at ease, because it reflected some understanding of what Billy had been through in the preceding 114 days. The man hitched up his sleeves and delicately, without touching Billy’s skin, unbuckled and unlaced the boots. He did the same for Van Winckle. Then he took each pair of boots in his hands, bowed as though he were handling religious relics, and retreated to his work area behind the counter.

With a hooked awl, he first pulled out the rotten cord that held the soles on, and then ran a knife between the leather and the rubber, separating them. He lifted a section of the floorboards and reached in blindly, seeing with his hands, while smiling at Billy and Van Winckle. When he righted himself he was holding up a sheet of heavy leather. He pointed east and shook his finger as if to say “no, no, no,” then held the finger to his lips. He placed the soles of their boots on the leather and scribed their outline with a curved knife, then with firm, expert pressure, he pieced out the leather. He reached under the counter and extracted a thick square of boiled wool felt from which he cut foot beds, using the leather insole as a pattern. Billy and Van Winckle, in their bare feet, watched him work, flexing their toes against the floorboards, enjoying the feeling of air on their skin. The old man opened a can of adhesive and secured the bottoms, then fitted them to the uppers, and finally, using a treadle machine, stitched the boots back together. He carried them back out to Billy and Van Winckle and motioned for them to try them on. They fit perfectly, and the felt insole provided what seemed like an extravagant amount of cushion. As a final gesture, the old man greased
the boots with neat’s-foot oil. He clapped his hands again and flipped them—palm and back—to show that he was done. Billy and Van Winckle moved to pay him, but the old man protested in French. So Billy reached into his pocket and handed over a pack of Luckies, and Van Winckle did the same. Then, bowing, he saw them out.

Out on the street, Billy and Van Winckle looked at each other. “Goddamn,” was all Van Winckle could manage. Billy said nothing. They had nowhere to go in their refurbished boots except back up the hill to the château, where Van Winckle couldn’t stop talking about his boots, describing in detail what the old cobbler had done and marveling that he didn’t want any money. Still Billy said nothing. He suddenly couldn’t stand the sound of Van Winckle’s voice, the metallic twang of it. He got up from his bedroll and wandered out of the château through the kitchen, past the carriage house, and up the hill to the spruce that grew straight and true behind it.

These trees were much bigger than the spruce back home, and straighter. A few hundred yards in, the trees opened up, and he saw a small cottage tucked between them. It was dark. He put his thumb on his shoulder under the sling of his M1, but it wasn’t there. He’d left it by his bedroll in the château. He panicked for a moment. He patted his pockets as if something in them would provide a secondary line of defense. He listened. The wind raked through the pines. One of the shutters of the cottage banged in the wind.

The cottage was small compared to the château, but it was bigger than all the shacks in Billy’s village. It was made out of the same dark slate as the rest of the buildings. The windows were framed with rough-hewn spruce logs, and the rafters were squared spruce as well. Billy could see adze marks on their faces. The door was secured by a strong iron hasp and padlock. He tried the shutters on the window to the right of the door, but they were barred from the inside. He moved off the steps and tried the window to the left. The wooden bar was rotted and he was able to open them. The leaded-glass window was
filthy, and he rubbed his sleeve on the glass and cupped his hands and peered in.

The stone interior was plastered over and whitewashed above walnut wainscoting. Opposite the door was a massive split-stone fireplace with a metal grate on a swivel pulled to the side. There was a low table of dark wood in front of the fireplace, surrounded by wooden chairs with wickerwork seats and backs. The chimney was almost black with soot, and behind it, above empty pegs, Billy saw the outlines of three guns painted in soot, as though the ghosts of the guns rested there. On either side of the fireplace were deep bookshelves filled with leather-bound books. Both of the far walls were covered to the wainscoting with prints of stags, boars, and birds in flight.

A plane droned overhead. Billy rested his forehead against the glass. Frankie hadn’t listened to him. After Ernie saw them kissing, he’d said, “Goddamn Indians,” and stalked off into the woods, and Billy had run after him. He should have taken the Winchester from Frankie then, before anything could happen. He’d known they weren’t going to find any German out there. They weren’t going to find anything.

What if Frankie had listened to him? “Wait for me, Frankie. Wait.” And he did. He turned to face Billy, the Winchester drooping. “What is it?” “Just wait, okay?” And in two steps Billy was there, by his side. He took the gun out of Frankie’s hand and raised his own and held it against Frankie’s face. Frankie closed his eyes and his lashes brushed away Ernie’s incredulous sneer and Felix’s stoic, comprehending gaze. And they turned away from the deeper brush and blowdown because there was nothing to see there, nothing waiting for them there. Instead they turned back toward the Pines and walked up the steps to the stone cottage.

The door was unlocked and when Billy pushed it open and stepped in, still holding Frankie by the hand. A fire in the stone
fireplace greeted them, radiating heat. They shucked their jackets and hung them from the rack next to the door. They removed their boots. Frankie dropped into one of the chairs near the fire while Billy hung the Winchester on the pegs and then sat down next to him. The books were funny in their old-fashioned way, so sure of their own authority. Frankie filled the teakettle from a pail of water, his gestures sure and precise, and Billy put it on the hob and swung it over the flames. After they had their tea they moved to the couch. Frankie wasn’t tired, not at all, but Billy was. And so he did something he’d never dared before. He stretched out with his head in Frankie’s lap. He closed his eyes against the bright glow of the fire. Frankie rested his elbow on the couch arm and read a book. His left hand rested on Billy’s forehead and he absentmindedly stroked his hair. They had nothing to hide, nothing to worry about. Occasionally Frankie lifted his hand to turn the pages of the book, and Billy’s forehead felt the heat of the fire until it returned. And then the hand drifted down to his chest, and his stomach, and lower still. Frankie lay down next to Billy. They had nothing to hide because no one could see. There was no rush. There was no rush this time, and it was Billy who was being held and Frankie who was doing the holding.

They had all the time in the world. So they stood and took off their clothes and lay back down again. Billy closed his eyes against the utter shock of having Frankie’s full length pressed against his legs, his back. How perfect, how acceptable, it was to feel Frankie’s skin against his, and what a surprise it was to feel how cold the front of Frankie’s thighs were, and how warm his groin. He felt Frankie’s erection pressing against him and he reached back and brought it between his legs so that it rested against his own, which was now in Frankie’s hand. They had all the time in the world, and they’d use every blessed minute of it. Frankie tasted him. And he tasted Frankie back. They had all the time in the world.

Billy’s mind’s eye retreated until the two of them were framed by the window. Then he moved farther back still, and up, until the boys inside the cottage and the window itself were framed by the trees. Higher and higher in the sky he went, until he lost sight of them, and the firelight was a glow, a smear, then gone altogether. The slate-shingled roof was lost among the branches. At last there was only a wisp of smoke, which might have been from the chimney or, from that height, might have been from the fires of war burning brighter all around them in the dark.

*   *   *

B
illy fit his hands in the grooves of Prudence’s ribs and helped her move. His orgasm, which had felt a long way off—and was made even more notional by the whiskey and vodka—arrived suddenly, unannounced. He kept going on empty for another half minute, the way a heart-shot deer would keep running till it died. Prudence leaned back and looked at him, still galloping along on top of him, but then she slowed and stopped. His erection melted. Prudence coughed and his penis gushed out, along with a rush of semen.

“I came inside you,” said Billy apologetically.

“Don’t sweat it, Billy Cochran.”

“I mean—”

Prudence rolled her eyes and shook her head.

She cupped her mound with her left hand and dismounted. She found the door handle with her right hand and stepped out of the truck. She squatted down and peed on the ground, her upper arms resting on her knees.

“You’re a peach, Billy.”

She picked something out from between her teeth with her fingers, stood, and slid back into the truck. She bent forward and rummaged on the floor of the truck for her purse. Billy could see the
knobs of her spine. She sat straight and put her feet back on the dash and lit a cigarette. She stared out the windshield across the river.

He reached down and pulled up his pants, lifted his hips off the slick seat and brought them all the way on, and buttoned them and renotched his belt. He couldn’t look at her.

“I didn’t do it.”

“Feels to me like you just did.”

“No, Prudy. I mean, I didn’t shoot her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Billy Cochran.”

“I was there. I was standing there. Right next to him.”

“I know it. I was there, too.”

“Frankie’s the one who did it.”

Prudence didn’t look at him. She took another drag on her cigarette and looked at it as though it might tell her something before ashing out the window. He could feel her mind working.

“You were there.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was there.”

He still was. Still there. Forever there. Forever walking fast after Frankie after Ernie and David and Felix had seen them kiss. The branch slapping to a standstill like the ticking of a radiator. The goddamn heat bearing down on them. The lazy sound of deerflies. And Frankie just ahead of him. “Stop, Frankie. Wait, Frankie. Just wait.” He’d said that and Frankie had stopped. And he’d waited until Billy caught up. Very little sun came through the canopy. There was no wind, not a lick of it. Nothing. Frankie’s hair was damp at his temples and he bit his lip.

“Just calm down, Frankie. We can circle around the back.” That’s all they had to do. They could just take the long way around and avoid Ernie. Felix wouldn’t say anything. Davey Gardner was scared of his own shadow. And who would he tell? A mosquito landed on Billy’s arm and he pinched it between his finger and thumb. It was so dripping hot, even the mosquitoes were slowing down. He reached
out for Frankie’s arm. Frankie waved his hand away. “Hear that?” He bent forward and peered into a blowdown in front of them. Something stirred deep in the branches. “Hear that?”

Frankie raised the gun. “Watch me,” he said. Just the way Billy used to when he shot at squirrels high in the trees. Just the way he had said it when he killed that duck that first day long ago. Billy reached out and said, “Stop,” but Frankie fired at the same time. Billy’s ears rang. He wasn’t ready for the sound. The forest absorbed it. But then, a second later, they heard something thrashing in the brush. Frankie turned toward Billy, smiling.

“You see? You see that? I got him! I got him! That’s what a man does, Billy. I can’t believe it. I got him.” Billy took the gun from him. Frankie’s hands were shaking and he fumbled for his cigarettes. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Lucky or what, kid?” he said. But they’d never been lucky again.

“I was right next to him, Prudy. Next to Frankie, I mean. He’s the one who did it, Prudy. I’m telling you. He was the one who did it. He wanted to get the Kraut. He wouldn’t let anyone else carry the gun.” Billy was crying.

“I’m tired, Billy.”

“You didn’t know him. You were only around him for those two days.”

“You were the one holding the gun when Felix pulled me out of there.”

“I took it from him, Prudy. I took it. He couldn’t even hold it anymore.”

“So what? But it was you. You were holding it. I saw you holding it,” she said. “I saw you.”

She looked very small and lost, pressed against the door across the seat from him. She seemed miles away.

“But no one told me. No one told me that.”

“I’m telling you.”

“I want you to stop, Billy. I just want you to stop telling me.”