“When Dad came home from the war, I cried and cried. He said he was fine and there was nothing to worry about, but I thought he was only telling me that so I wouldn’t be sad about him dying.”
Dying?
“Let me get this straight. Are you saying that the fact that your father was not dying convinced you he was?”
“What?” she says. Then, presumably, the semantics of the question sort themselves out in her head, and she answers, “I guess that’s right. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“I cried all night long.”
“Do you feel like crying now?”
“No, why would I cry now? That’s silly. I was eleven years old. I don’t want to cry now.”
I can’t see Rebecca, though I can hear her, through the mist, breathing. I choose my next words with care. “Sometimes people bottle up their feelings, and years go by, and those repressed feelings can cause neurotic depressions and resentment.”
“Oh, please. Don’t be so condescending. I’m not one of your patients.”
“I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Dad wasn’t hurt badly. Everything was better in the morning. He let me help with his bandages.”
“How nice for both of you,” I say to her. It’s a tactical error, and I am immediately aware of it as such; I sound petulant and mean — I am petulant and mean. She of course hears the jealousy in my voice. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” she says.
“No,” I lie.
“Why are you mad at me? I’m not the one who goes around sticking people with bayonets. You want me weepy like a little girl, because you can’t deal with me as a woman.”
“Hey! Hey!” is all I can manage to reply. Because of course she is indicting me for a legitimate reason.
In a voice that sounds very much like a woman’s, in that it is deep and resonant with self-possession, with, I suppose I would say, feminine dignity and sexuality — not at all a girl’s voice — she offers, “Why don’t you tell me about the War Against the Crown, Tom?”
“Rebecca, we don’t have to talk about the Revolutionary War if it makes you unhappy.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Maybe it would be better not to.”
“I want to.”
In this way, together, we struggle, offering little concessions, trying carefully to establish good faith.
And I am cheered by her use, in such unaffected, relaxed style, of my name. She has acknowledged our connection. Is it decadent for me to feel optimistic about things? We are entering a new, more mature stage in our relationship.
There is, however, little more of interest to relate about the Incident on the Mound. The Americans were able to muster themselves and retreat without casualties. They stormed the frozen emplacements and captured the undefended six-pounder guns.
“That was the end of the battle?”
“Pretty much.”
“It wasn’t a major event, was it?” Rebecca asks me. I can tell from her voice that she is disappointed. Who could blame her for feeling this way? I can also tell that she is close at hand. I have made it, or almost made it, across the giant tablecloth. All I need to do is reach up and fumble around until — I hope — I touch her; then, if feelings are mutual, and if she truly does not hate me for stabbing her dad; if, as is quite possible and in fact perversely likely in a situation like this, she in some way, perhaps without knowing it, loves me for slicing up her old man, we will embrace and, wrapping the cloth around us for a blanket, watch the sunrise and, in some probably limited way that gently and affectionately takes into account the loss of my legs, Rebecca and I will cuddle on this sacred earth.
I wiggle closer to her. I know she is near. It is touching to listen to Rebecca’s breaths. The pursuit of the mound’s summit has exhausted me. I am depleted, a cripple. In spite of the April night’s cold, my face and back are damp with sweat. But what the wetness feels like to me is blood.
It hurts to breathe. I clutch the blue fabric laid so neatly by Rebecca across the meadow grass, and I tell her, in panting, half-delirious tones, a few entertaining facts about military provisioning and outfitting in the era of mad King George. Particularly noteworthy were the uniforms, which came complete with a tight, double-breasted tunic designed to button up and look smart on the parade ground, but which allowed for precious little movement of the upper body or arms. On behalf of her father, and to relieve my obvious sense of guilt, I denigrate the coats to Rebecca.
“They were straitjackets.”
Then I tell her, “Your dress and this tablecloth are the identical shade of blue worn by American officers in the War for Independence.”
“So?”
She’s got me. What is the point I am trying to make? Everything runs together and collides in my mind. Redcoats? Blue cloth? Guns blazing? Sticks and stones?
The hospital in the clouds. Sweat and blood. A little dog and the fishermen in their boats.
I am after all a married though childless man. I have a lot of problems. I have an unpainted room at the top of the stairs. I feel the dread of love. Jane wants our room blue.
Blue for a boy! Soul of my unborn son! The cloth on the mound! The waitress in her blue dress and Bernhardt wearing red, and the sweetness of pancakes and pitchers of milk and beer in bottles, and Sherwin Lang and all our old, tired heads going bald, and a hard-on pressing against my back, a man’s arms wrapped around me.
General Burgoyne. Jane upstairs walking barefoot, the cat rubbing against her leg. Fog like a white smoke pooled beneath the sky.
“The fog that winter morning in 1775 was no accident, Rebecca. That bad weather came for a reason. I realize it may sound intemperate of me to say this, but I believe that the souls who reside in this grove will brook no violence against their resting place, nor against the living who seek asylum in the magic circle inscribed by the mound.”
“Do you believe that?”
It’s a good question. I’m not sure I can give an answer. Instead, I reach out with my hand and, without much trouble, find Rebecca’s in the mist. My hand goes to hers. We are united. Holding Rebecca’s warm fingers laced between mine, I am able to breathe more freely, and to stop thinking so hard about death. I feel soothed, a little.
It is at this moment that rain, having stayed in the distance, in the background as it were, for such a long time, for the duration of the night practically, begins to fall. I wrench my body forward — an ultimate, slightly dizzying effort to move before, finally, I am able to rest my head in Rebecca’s lap. Rain strikes my shirt and the tablecloth, making its muted, intermittent noise, precipitation hitting fabric. Closing my eyes, I say to Rebecca, “The spirits of the dead are everywhere around us. They’re out here now. Can you hear? We’re not alone. Listen. The dead have come out to make love on the mound. Do you hear?”
“You’re crazy,” she says; and I murmur to her, “The spirits want us to love each other.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, they do.”
“They don’t.”
“They do.”
“No. They don’t!” she insists.
“I’m afraid they do, actually, Rebecca,” I say to her, shamelessly keeping to my line of seduction, adding physical emphasis by pressing and rubbing my forehead against her kneecap.
She giggles, “You’re being silly.”
She’s right. The question “How can I possibly speak with authority in a situation defined and permeated by sexual fantasy?” might better be asked: “How can I invoke ghosts as an excuse to come on to Rebecca, and keep a straight face?”