Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (45 page)

He sat down at the table again.

“I forgot,” I said, “to offer you a cup of coffee, Caleb. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“If it's no trouble. Am I keeping you up?”

“I told you that sometimes I don't leave this place until four o'clock in the morning.”

I went into the kitchen and put a light under the coffee and took out the cups, the sugar and cream; and had to face the fact that I simply did not have the courage, under Caleb's eyes, to pour myself a drink. This exasperated me, and made me very angry with Caleb. But I was afraid that if I poured myself a drink, I would be doing it only to hurt him.

He sat very quietly at the table until I came back. I poured the coffee and sat down and lit another cigarette. He watched me with a bright, disapproving smile, but only said, shaking his head, “Little Leo.” Then, “We were in Rome for quite a long while, between you and
me I don't believe that this war was very well managed at
all,
and by and by I found me a real nice little girl, her name was Pia.”

Then he stopped—for quite a long while; and his face changed, unreadably; now, it was not merely a private face, but a personal face. He kept his eyes on the table. He sighed once, looked shamefacedly, just like Caleb, up at me, and smiled. He tirred his coffee and blew on it as he picked up the cup. “Ah,” he said, “I have to tell you—I was different in those days. Well, you remember how I was.” He paused again, and sipped his coffee. “And I have to tell you that most of the guys, well, they were still, you know, going from here to yonder. I mean, you know, maybe they had
lots
of girls, but me, I just had one. She was a pretty girl, she really was, and she was a
nice
girl. She really was a nice girl.” He blew on his coffee again. “She was a blonde and I didn't know but that seems to mean something in Italy because there aren't many, I guess. And she came from a nice family except they'd lost all their money. They expected us to get married. Married! Can you imagine that?” And he looked up at me, with his eyes very big. I said nothing. “And when I look back,” he said, “I guess I wasn't, you know, very truthful. I wasn't thinking. I was like a child. I was happy with Pia. I had never been so happy before. I thought maybe I would stay in Italy.”

Then he was silent again. I felt that he wanted to cry. I sensed tears somewhere in him, dammed up, drying fast. I wished I could have reached out and stroked the place where the tears were hidden; stroked the place and probed it and let the blood-red, salty tears come out.
There is a fountain filled with blood.
His face would
have changed then, and he would have become Caleb again. But he did not want to be Caleb anymore.

“I was so happy, I didn't see what was going on around me. Well, the colored guys and the white guys didn't really get along, not most of us. Frederick and me still hung out together, and he had other colored buddies, mainly because of me, I think, and we had some nice times, but most of the guys, you know, they just stayed away from each other. Most of the white guys, we tried to stay away from them and they sure stayed away from us.” How careful his voice was now! “Well, we didn't need them, we weren't at home. They couldn't, you know, like in the States, tell you where to sit and when to stand and all that; they couldn't stop you from going out with a girl if you wanted to; if the girl didn't care, there wasn't much they could do. They couldn't stop you from making friends with the people. If the people wanted to make friends, well, you know, that was it. But they didn't like it. They gave a whole lot of guys a whole lot of trouble. And they told the people, oh, they told the people ridiculous things, Leo, like we had tails and back home we weren't allowed on the streets after dark and wouldn't nobody in the States never sell a black man no liquor because we got savage when we was drunk and started cutting up people just like savages, cannibals, and we was always raping white men's daughters and wives and mothers and sisters and—and—our—
member
was so huge that it just tore white people to pieces, you know, ridiculous and childish stuff like that. And a lot of the people believed it, and guys had trouble sometimes, especially with the women, on account of stuff like that. And we was there supposed to be fighting for freedom. Well, it was, you know, it was just ridiculous.

“But, you see, since I was spending all my time with Pia, I didn't go to the bars much, and I wasn't running after women, so what was going on around me didn't bother me. I just didn't see it. My free time, I'd go on over to Pia's house and talk to the folks for awhile. They were really nice old-fashioned people and they seemed to like me, we got on very well. I was really surprised. They treated me like a gentleman. Of course, they was too intelligent to believe any of that stuff the Americans was spreading around. We'd go out and eat dinner, Pia and me, or maybe we'd eat at the house, and we might go dancing someplace. But we wouldn't go where most of the Americans went. We might go out in the country. We rode out in the country many a night. And sometimes we'd just sit there, under that beautiful Italian sky.”

His coffee cup was empty. He stared into it. “And she could make me moan. She really made me moan. Over and over and over. It was—it was mighty. I never shook like that. I wanted us to have a baby so bad. I knew it would be beautiful, it would have to be, it was so beautiful with us. And I really thought I could stay in Italy. I didn't see how I could ever leave. But I knew it was going to be hard for us to get married as long as I was in the service. They didn't like it, and they could make it mighty rough. So I hadn't figured out exactly what I was going to do. I guess I thought I'd wait until I got discharged. I guess I thought I'd do that and then maybe open up a club or a restaurant, you know, then it could have been done, a lot of guys did it. Well, I was just happy for awhile, I guess, putting it off. But I certainly didn't see how I could live without Pia. I used to wonder sometimes how come I had to come all the way to Italy. I
used to pinch myself. It didn't seem possible. And sometimes I'd catch myself laughing, Leo, just like a kid.”

He rose from the table and walked back to the fireplace. I heard his song again.
Won't somebody write my mother and tell her the shape I'm in.

“I didn't—think—that Frederick Hopkins had any reason to be upset. We had been buddies, tight buddies. I never thought of him at all. I'd see him, naturally, and everything certainly seemed to be all right. If he seemed a little strange sometimes, well, that didn't bother me, white people are always a
little
strange. He was always talking about his women. I never talked about mine. I never have talked about women, I don't believe in that. But he knew I had this girl, because I'd told him. The other guys knew, too, naturally, that I had this girl somewhere, but they didn't mess with me because I had, you know, a bad reputation. They thought I was crazy, and that was just fine with me.

“One night I come in this bar where we used to go sometimes, late, and I found Frederick there, all alone, crying. So I tried to find out what the matter was—you know. And he told me this sad story about how some girl he was going with had put him down, and what I realized, right quick, was that
all
his women put him down and I could see why, he wasn't nothing but a baby, really, and all that talk of his was just talk. Well, you know, if you got to talk it all the time, you can't be doing much. I didn't say any of that, what I was thinking, to him, naturally, but I tried, diplomatically, I
think,
to show him where he might be going wrong and to make him look at it in another light. I tried to cheer him up, you know, even though I had just suddenly realized that I didn't have no respect for this man. He was just a poor, sick,
homesick baby, no wonder the women put him down. And he looked at me, I remember, with this funny look in his eyes, and he said, You don't have no troubles, do you? And I said, Sure, I have troubles. Everybody has troubles. He said, You don't have no troubles with women, and I don't know what I said, I turned it off, somehow, it was just too silly, and I wasn't about to start talking about me and my women and you
know
I wasn't going to start talking about me and Pia.
He
might be a child, but I wasn't. So we went on in, and I forgot all about it. The next day, when I was fixing to go, he asked me if he could come with me and like a chump I said Okay, because I was sorry for him, you know, and, bam, he met Pia, and, bam, baby, my troubles started. That boy, my buddy, a man I'd tried to help, and we'd looked on death together, he took one look at Pia and he decided to take her from me. To his mind, it was real simple. This poor, ignorant Italian girl—but she was much better educated than him, he didn't know that—was running with me because she didn't know any better. But she certainly wouldn't want to be bothered with me, once she realized what
he
had to offer. And what he had to offer was his house and his cars and his money, back in Boston. What he had to offer was his family's social position, and the fine future waiting for him, in Boston. And he hammered away at it. And it wasn't, you know, that he cared about the girl, or had any intention of marrying her. He just wanted to get her away from me. He was determined to give her a taste of what life would be like if she stayed with me, and so he caused her to start being harassed in all kinds of ways, like one time they wanted to make her register as a whore, things like that. Oh. I can't tell you. Or we'd go out someplace, we'd be walking
down the street, and somebody would insult her and I'd get into a fight and my liberty would be canceled. And then
he
would go to see her. Stuff like that. And then she and
I
would fight about
me
getting into fights, and what was happening, though we didn't realize it right away, was that all the pressure was getting to us, and we weren't the same with each other. She didn't believe Frederick, but, just the same, he had planted a seed, I could see the doubt begin, I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me, I could see the fear begin, I could see her wondering if she could really make it, if anybody could ever love
anybody
enough to take what she was going to have to take. And I lay on my bunk one night—I was different then, I've changed, I've changed—and I hadn't seen her for two weeks because I hadn't had no liberty, and I thought, This is really something. I'm five thousand miles from home, in this man's uniform, protecting
him,
and he brings his poison all the way over here with him to spoil my girl and ruin my life. I lay on my bunk and I cried worse than Frederick had ever cried. But I cried because I was mad. I had whipped too many people, I was
tired
of whipping people, and it hadn't done me no good, here I was, lying on this bunk, and I might as well have been in chains.

“The next time I saw Frederick it was in a bar, I was by myself, he come in, and he was whistling. He didn't see me right away. He came along, slow, whistling, with his cap on the back of his head, and, I don't know, I never
decided
to kill him, just as he came closer that was all that was in my mind, and I knew I was
going
to kill him. I knew it. I had never noticed before how, when a guy whistles, there's a funny little trembling high up in his neck. I noticed it now. His neck wasn't going to be trembling
long, he was whistling one of his last songs. I noticed the space between his eyebrows, that kind of little no-man's-land between the hairs, there's bone there when you touch it and if a bullet goes in there, you're dead. I watched his whole body as he moved toward me, and I saw him lying flat and still, on his back, forever. It takes less than a second to kill a man. I wanted him to look surprised, like I'd seen so many look.

“And I knew exactly how I was going to do it, and I would never be caught. I knew we were going to be moving out of Rome soon, going north. And I was just going to stay real close to him, like white on rice. I knew, we all knew, the fighting was going to be heavy, where we was going. And one night or one morning just as soon as I saw my opportunity, I was going to pull that trigger and blow his head off. I didn't have any reason to be fighting the people I was fighting. But I had every reason in the world to kill
him.
And I knew I was going to do it.

“He looked surprised when he saw me. He stopped whistling. He started to say something, and then he didn't. I just looked at him. I didn't say a word. He sat down at the bar. Then, he just suddenly got up and left.

“Well, we moved on out. I only saw Pia once before we left Rome, and she was as beautiful as ever, but it wasn't like before. It wasn't like before in
me.
And then I stuck close to Frederick, I kept him in sight. It happened one morning, very early, not like I'd planned. He was all alone, he was near a tree. We was away from the others, nobody could see us, and the valley where we were was full of snipers. I started running up on him and I called his name because I wanted him to know it was me who killed him. And he turned around. He looked surprised,
all right. He raised his hands in front of him, like a baby, and he was trying to say something, and while he had his mouth open, his mouth opened wider, all of a sudden, and another look came over his face, another surprise, an awful agony, Leo, I'll never forget it, and he pitched forward on his face. I knew I hadn't yet pulled the trigger. I hadn't heard a sound. I just stood there. Leo, I started to tremble. He lay there with his arms stretched out in front of him on the ground. I looked down at him and I looked around. I could hear shouting and running and all; but it all seemed like in a dream. I turned him over. He wasn't dead, but he was dying, and he didn't look surprised anymore. He looked at me, just for a minute, right in my eyes, and he said, I don't blame you. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Then he died. In my arms. Like that, he sort of hiccuped and then he was still, with his eyes wide open. All of a sudden, he was mighty heavy. He'd gone into eternity believing I'd killed him. I just sat there. There was noise and flame all around me. Guys were running and crying and ducking. Some guy pulled on me and pulled and he was shouting something and just then the earth blew up right at my feet and Frederick rolled out of my arms. And I was on my face like he had been, and then I started crawling and then I started running. We was all running in the same direction, we must have been running to some kind of shelter, but I didn't know what I was doing, my legs was just carrying me, carrying me with the others, wherever they were going. I kept thinking how I should go back and close his eyes. I fell, and I heard somebody right nearby scream. It sounded like Frederick, but I knew it couldn't be him, he was back there where I'd left him, he was dead. When I fell, I didn't get up, I just hugged the ground. I listened to the screaming
and tried to figure out where it was coming from and I tried to inch my way in that direction but I couldn't see ahead of me and the earth was shaking and turning over. I wanted to help whoever it was, because I thought that might make up for Frederick, but then, the screaming stopped, and I knew. No. No life can be given back. And that was the moment of my repentance, Leo. It was a pain I had never felt before, a heartbreak I had never felt before. I saw my whole life stretching ahead of me forever like this, in lust and hatred and darkness, and to end like this, face down, hugging the earth, and you feel your bowels moving for fear, Leo, and to be like that until the earth covers you. I struggled up to my knees. I knew, I knew for the first time that there was a God somewhere. I knew that only God could save me, save
us,
not from death but from that other death, that darkness and death of the spirit which had created this hell. Which had sent men here to die. I cried out, I cried out something, I remember I was thinking,
Lord, send the angel down,
and then I was struck. It didn't hurt. It knocked me flat on my back, it knocked me out of my body, and I remember I thought of Frederick's eyes and I thought, Well, now, I can tell him I didn't pull the trigger. And it seemed to me God's great mercy that I hadn't, and I praised Him for His mercy, that He'd held me back from mortal sin, and was taking me home now, washed of my sins, forgiven. I thought I was dying, but I wasn't afraid. I understood for the first time the power and beauty of the love of God.”