The odd thing was that Heifetz looked younger, less troubled. When they had served together, the operations officer's features had been permanently clenched, the eyes lined with tension and the chin set hard. Now Lucky Dave appeared beatifically calm. The tufts of flesh were smooth around the wandering eyes, and the mouth lay partway open in a mock smile.
Meredith reached for words. It had been hard enough with the succession of passingly familiar faces on the other pillows in the ward. But what could you say to Lucky Dave?
"I'm a lieutenant colonel now," Meredith began. "Just like you, goddamnit. Presidential promotion too." He tried to call up a manly smile. "Hell, just about everybody got one. The chief of personnel went through the roof. He said there hadn't been so many presidential promotions since the Civil War. So I'm a lieutenant colonel now. And I'll be damned if I'm going to call you 'sir.' Unless you want to get up out of that bed and whip my ass."
Meredith stared at the uninterested planes of his comrade's face. Wondering how much Heifetz could really hear and understand. The doctors said it might be a hundred percent. But the face remained that of an infant who grasped nothing.
"You know," Meredith went on, "the old man's in for a posthumous Medal of Honor. He's going to get it too. Just takes Congress a while to go through the formalities. They're already getting together a display about him out at the Cavalry Museum at Riley. You're going to be in it, and Manny. All of us. But mostly the old man."
Meredith looked at the living death of Heifetz's eyes, then looked away. "You remember that old rag of a guidon he used to carry? The one he brought out of Africa? I passed it on to them for the museum. They're going to put it with his Medal of Honor, when that goes through." Meredith let his eyes wander over the blanket, the bed-frame, the floor. "The old man didn't have any family. No wife or anything. So I'm making sure that all his effects go to the museum, where they belong. Where he'll be remembered properly." He suddenly looked up, hoping Heifetz would offer some sign of agreement. "With nothing that could have embarrassed him."
Meredith realigned himself in the chair and smiled. "Those sonsofbitches," he said. "You know how they get all hepped up on appearances. They're going to use a picture of the old man from back when he was a captain. Before his face got screwed up. But… what can you do?"
To his surprise, Meredith took Heifetz's hand. It was soft and warm, yet utterly without human character. The fingers gave way as Meredith pressured them.
Meredith's smile widened into a terrible grin. "And that sonofabitch Reno. He's got the regiment now. Got his colonelcy out of the operation. Under the hand of the President, and all that. Of course, he's all sweetness and light for the press. He and the old man were best buddies, to hear him tell it. But the first duty day we had back at Riley, he assembles everybody in the post theater. And he comes out on the stage like a little Patton. And you know what the first words are out of his mouth, Dave? He puffs himself all up and says, 'We're going to make some big changes around here, men.' He told me to my face he intends to reshape the regiment in his own image." Meredith laughed. "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs loves him.
"Then the goddamned Russians. They sold us out, Dave. Plain as day. But nobody wants to hear that now. The war's over. And the Russians are our best buddies."
Meredith tightened his grip on his comrade's hand. He wanted a response. Anything.
"I'm bailing out," he said. "You know how the old man was. He would have told me to stay in the regiment and tough it out, to do what I could to control the damage Reno does. But I just can't, Dave. I know you understand. The old man just expected too much sometimes." The hand seemed to cower under Meredith's grip. He suddenly relaxed the pressure, afraid he was hurting Heifetz. But there was no response. It was all in his own head. "Anyway, I'm leaving the Seventh. Tucker Williams is going down to Huachuca with a mandate to try to clean up the intel school, and I'm going to be his XO. Who knows?
Maybe we'll get it right this time. If they don't close the place down again. Christ, the peace treaty hasn't even been signed, and Congress is already looking for big cuts in the defense budget."
Meredith released the other man's hand altogether. Down the ward one of the patients made a violent gargling noise, then his body began to contort like a fish tossed onto a boat deck. The duty nurse darted from behind her medicine trolley and manhandled the patient over onto his belly, burping him as if he were a baby.
"Dave? I've got to go. I've got a hell of a drive ahead of me, and I'm on a tight schedule. Tucker Williams wanted me out there yesterday. You know how it is. I want to make Knoxville tonight."
Meredith stood up. He had imagined that something dramatic might happen, that Heifetz might begin to weep or to otherwise acknowledge his presence. But the eyes just continued to flick haphazardly from right to left, up and down, and the mouth hung slackly, poised forever on the verge of speech. It was hard to believe that Heifetz understood a word.
The tinny loudspeaker broadcast a pop song about the joy of being in love.
"I've left Maureen, you know," Meredith said suddenly. "I can't explain it. I just couldn't go back." He smiled down at Heifetz. "You know, the old man was plain fucking crazy sometimes. I remember, oh, it was years ago now, the old bastard gave me a copy of Huckleberry Finn and told me to read it. He said it was his favorite book. I never could quite see myself in the Nigger Jim role. But I don't think that's what the old man had in mind. Anyhow, I feel a little like Huck at the end of the book. Only in a really shitty grown-up sort of way." He sat back down and hung his head. He began to cry.
"I don't know what to do, Dave," he said. "I just don't know what to do."
Snow was falling in Moscow, and Valya told herself she really had to get dressed and go to the park. It would be beautiful for a little while. But she made no move to rise from the couch. On the television, a silver-haired man read an economic report.
The Americans were gone. She had been reinstated in her teaching post, and the other members of the faculty simply pretended nothing had happened. She heard nothing further from the state security officers since the departure of the Americans. But she still imagined that they were out there, watching her.
She had gone out a few times with Tanya, and once with Naritsky. But it had not been satisfactory. For the past week, she had taken to declining all invitations, and when she was not teaching or standing in line for foodstuffs, she stayed in her apartment. She considered getting a cat, but she did not much like the idea of trying to housebreak it.
She looked into the future and saw nothing. She looked into the mirror and felt cold breath on the back of her neck. And she had not had her period since November. Soon she would have to go back to the clinic. She had flirted briefly with the idea of having this baby, but the notion lost its appeal the moment she began to consider the practicalities involved. Really, she would be far better off with a cat. And she did not want to lose her figure. While there was still any hope at all.
They did not need to put her in prison. She was already a prisoner in her life, her city, her country. She glanced from the television screen to the window again. The snow continued to fall as the day waned. For a while it would be beautiful in the park. Then the crowd would make it dirty again.
The doorbell rang. Valya surveyed the wreckage of her room in distress. She decided that she really needed to develop more regular cleaning habits. Then she shrugged and rose from her nest on the sofa. It was probably only Tanya, after all.