“How so?”
“Well, for instance, here. You say, ‘Private Commongold walked ahead of me, very steadily, toward the fighting.’ ”
“That’s how it happened. I was careful about the phrase.”
“Too careful. A reader doesn’t want to hear about someone walking steadily. It’s not dramatic. You might say, instead, ‘Private Commongold ignored the shot and shell exploding all around him to such devastating effect, and strode with fierce determination straight into the beating heart of the battle.’ You see how that livens it up?”
“I guess it does, though at the expense of a degree of accuracy.”
“Accuracy and drama are the Scylla and Charybdis of journalism, Adam. [At the time I took “Scylla and Charybdis” to be New York City editors with whom Dornwood had dealt, or perhaps a publishing firm. In fact they were two great Nautical Rocks, in Greek mythology, which had the unusual ability to move about under their own steam, and had formed the bad habit of crushing sailors.]
Steer between them, is my advice, but list toward drama, if you want a successful career. In fact, ‘Private Commongold’ is a little tepid, regarding rank, though the name itself is good—so let’s promote him. Captain Commongold! Doesn’t that have a ring to it?”
“I suppose so.”
“Leave these papers with me,” Dornwood said, casting a glance at his typewriter, which had been silent lately, perhaps due to his consumption of fiery spirits. “I’ll give the subject further thought, and render you more useful advice next week. In the meantime, Adam, in the event of further military action, please repeat the exercise: write it up, as dramatically as the facts allow, and bring it to me. If you do that, I may be willing to show you how to work that typewriter you love to stare at, since you’re an aspiring writer of some talent. How does that sound?”
“Excellent, Mr. Dornwood,” I said, all unsuspecting.
6
The fighting continued up the Saguenay, and things were mainly quiet around Montreal. There was occasional skirmishing, of course, for Mitteleuropan forces remained scattered through the Laurentians, and they would sally forth now and then for a little fun and distraction. I duly wrote up these exchanges for Theodore Dornwood, in return for literary advice; but there was very little to it. During this time Julian distinguished himself by holding a vital artillery position when it came under heavy fire from the Dutch; and his reputation among the men steadily improved—while Major Lampret’s continued to decline.
But what mattered most to me that summer took place in the City of Montreal, during the weekends on which, after Lampret lifted the ban, we were offered leave.
* * *
“So,” Lymon Pugh said, his sleeves rolled up to expose his hideously scarred and muscular forearms, which often frightened strangers, and of which he was very proud, “only the two of us left.”
We were in Montreal , and we had just entered a tavern on Guy Street. Lymon was there to get drunk; but it was the sort of establishment that served food as well as liquor, and I meant to smother my sorrows in a beefsteak, while Lymon drowned his in a bucket of beer. (As for drink, I took a dipperful of plain water from the ceramic jug by the door as we entered. The water was brackish and tasted of tobacco—perhaps one of the previous customers had mistaken the jug for a spittoon.) “Only the two of us left,” Lymon repeated—by which he meant that Sam and Julian had gone off to separate entertainments this Friday night.
Summer was a fearfully hot and humid time around the City of Montreal. The horseflies, which the locals called Black Flies, had lately come into season, and they patrolled the streets in brigade strength, alert for human flesh. The day had been overcast, and the air was thick as butter, and although we were fresh from camp our shirts were already sodden. We wore what scraps of civilian clothing we still possessed or had recently purchased, so that we would not be mistaken for men on active duty, and would blend in more closely with the local population.
But as I had learned on previous expeditions into the city, a soldier is never quite at home in Montreal. The local citizens did not hate us exactly—at one time they had been under garrison by the Dutch, and the memory of that unhappy time persisted, and the Army of the Laurentians was a more comfortable master than Mitteleuropa had been, taken all in all. But we were their masters, at least nominally, for Montreal was under military law, and many of its citizens chafed at the constraints imposed upon them. The Catholic clergy were especially volatile, still smarting over the Dominion’s interference in their affairs; and local men of Cree descent had been known to challenge soldiers on the street, out of some grievance never fully explained to me.
But it was not difficult to avoid the worst of such unpleasantness, and the obverse side of that coin was the generous hospitality of the less political residents of Montreal , including restaurant-owners and barkeepers. We had been given a good table in this tavern, which was called the Thirsty Boot, and we ordered what we wanted from a pleasant woman in an apron, and we were otherwise left to ourselves.
“I swear I don’t know what those two do with their time,” Lymon Pugh was saying. “For instance, what on Earth does Sam want with all those damned Amish?”
“Amish?”
“You know—those black-hatted and bearded men he consorts with whenever we come into the city.”
Lymon was laboring under a misapprehension. Judaism was legal in Montreal , and the city had a substantial community of very devout Jews, with whom Sam had begun taking religious services. It was true that the men in that part of town often sported beards, and wore wide black hats, or small ones that sat on their scalps as if glued there. But they weren’t Amish. “I think the Amish live in Pennsylvania , or Ohio , or somewhere like that,” I said.
“You mean to say those men aren’t Amish? They fit every description I ever heard.”
“I think they’re Jews.”
“Oh! Then is Sam a Jew of some kind? He don’t resemble them in his dress.”
Sam had not made any public announcement about his unusual religion (though neither had he gone to any lengths to disguise his association with the Jews of Montreal), and I could not bring myself to indict him quite so frankly. “Perhaps he’s fond of their cuisine. The Jews have their own special menu of foods, just as Chinamen do.”
“The sight of all those beards might inhibit my appetite, if it was me,” said Lymon, who was religious (figuratively) about shaving his chin, “whatever they eat for dinner. But to each his own.”
“Julian wears a beard,” I pointed out.
“What, that fringe of his? Yellow as a female’s wig, and just about as ridiculous. Speaking of Julian Commongold, I’m confused about his habits, too. Once again he’s gone to that coffee-shop, or whatever they call it, down in the narrow streets by the riverside. Did you get a look at the other customers there, Adam? Frail, loose-limbed types—I don’t know what he sees in them.
The place is called Dorothy’s, and I’m sure I don’t know who Dorothy is—perhaps the only woman ever to visit the establishment.”
“Philosophers,” I said.
“What?”
“Julian has made friends among the city’s Philosophers, just as Sam has made friends among the Jews.”
“Those are Philosophers? I suppose that means Philosophers also have their own particular foods, and that Julian is partial to Philosophical dinners?”
“Yes, in a sense, though it’s more likely the conversation than the food that attracts him. Philosophers discuss Time, and Space, and the Purpose of Humanity, and such topics as that, in which Julian is deeply interested.”