Beckoning War Page 11

  “When you make a decision and you act on it, son, then others look at you in terms of that decision. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean?” Jim thought carefully a moment under the scrutiny of his father before answering. The air was oppressive, as though he could feel the roof and the skies above weighing down on him.

  “Umm …” he began, his words wavering with uncertainty. “It means, um, it means that if you do something, then people think of you doing that thing?” His words were uncertain, curled up into questions at the end.

  “Exactly. You become your decisions. You become what you do. Now what do you think that you should do to make it up to Mr. Logothetis?” Jim squirmed under the humiliation of consequence.

  “Umm … maybe I could apologize to him?” Apologize—that’s the fancy way of saying sorry. Miss Ukranec gave me a prize for spelling that at the spelling bee. Miss Ukranec—from Ukraine, just like her name.

  “Yes, you can apologize to him, but I think you should do something more. I think you should go and apologize and help him clean his store or stock his shelves for the day.”

  “Yes, Dad.” He hung his head low in dejection and skulked away from home on the long march back toward George’s Grocer, his nerves queasing his stomach from fear, his face hot with shame. As he walked, as the snow softly pattered about him, and as he exhaled a crystalline smoke of frost, he thought of what his father had said. You make your decisions. And your decisions in turn make you. He turned these words over in his mind as he sat in his chair. He had made a decision; he had defined himself anew.

  “Are you sure that’s your choice?” Headmaster Harris’ voice stirred the uncertainty of his own thoughts. From across the desk, one leg crossed over the other, hand musingly on chin, Jim thought a moment and answered, “Yes.”

  “You know, this is a prestigious school, and a very good position that you have here.” He held one of the arms of his pair of glasses to his lips, his habit when in a thoughtful mood. His sunburned head shined under the office light, and his fringe of fine white hair was illuminated at the edges like the border of a cloud in the sun.

  “I know that, sir. But I feel that this is what I should be doing, given all that is happening in the world right now.”

  “Not that it is any of my business, really,” began Mr. Harris, setting up what was sure to be an uncomfortable question, “but you were married not so long ago. How is your wife with this decision?”

  “She is fine with it, really,” Jim lied, and not altogether convincingly. “You know, I will probably just end up serving here in Canada. After all, I joined locally, here, at the Cartier Armoury. I could just end up working in the area.”

  “Mmm hmm.” Mr. Harris was audibly dubious at this assertion. “You could be transferred anywhere at a moment’s notice, I’m sure. You know, you’re quite a good teacher. Some of the students have commented on your classes—you got this job because of my connection with your father, but damned if I don’t feel that you are a natural fit for this job anyway. I feel that maybe you are leaving your natural setting here, and I want you just to think about it carefully.”

  “Well, sir, I thank you for the compliments, but I think my calling is elsewhere, now. Besides, when all is said and done, I will have amassed a whole lot of experience worth imparting to the students of tomorrow, don’t you think?”

  A reluctant nod. “I suppose you’re right on that one. You are leaving us?”

  “Yes, I am afraid I am. As you know, I already joined up.”

  “Well, we will definitely try to hold a position for you should you wish to return when this war is over.”

  “Thank you, sir. It is much appreciated.” They stood and shook hands. Mr. Harris tapped him on the shoulder with his palm, adding, “Good luck.”

  “Thank you. Take care.”

  The classroom beckoned him with the groaning of the opening door. He stepped into the interior, greeted by silence and a smell of polish. The sun slanted in from the row of high windows and shined its dust-trafficked rays up the rows of empty wooden desks. On the wall was a painted portrait of the king, a Red Ensign flag, and a poster from the war effort—Save Scrap Iron For Our Fight Against The Fascists! He slumped down in his chair, surveying the empty seats, hearing the voices of students, hearing himself speak, feeling the soreness of his arm as he chalked notes onto the board to the rapt attention of the students and their feverish note-

  taking.

  “And this, students, represented what?” Hands up. He selected one eager student, an earnest and awkward young boy in a navy sweater and collared shirt and with side-parted hair. “Harold Young?”

  “This represented that the British North American colonies could now rule themselves internally.”

  “Exactly. Good answer, Mr. Young, you must’ve been reading your Creighton. The implementation of the BNA Act gave Canada its first inkling of independence, binding the four colonies together as a sort of economic and political bulwark against … ” And on and on and on. Well, he thought, it is now time to act upon Canada’s history instead of merely teaching kids about it, as he opened his drawers and began emptying his desk and the shelves of all that was his: books, pens, papers, mementoes such as a trophy for coaching the basketball team to victory, and a yearbook signed by his last graduating class. Many of whom were joining the services, and all of whom made an impression on him. “I’m joining the air force, sir. I’m going into the navy. I’m joining the army, just like my dad last time.” He couldn’t handle being upstaged in such a manner when he was just young enough to taste the excitement, just young enough to want to ride the wave of an era, however catastrophic it may be, however possible and even likely it was to be dashed against the rocks, to be broken and beaten into flotsam or washed up as wreckage with the oily tide of man’s messy affairs. Over the past year he would often interrupt his own dusty lessons on history and economics and geography to broker class discussions about what was happening. He brought in newspapers about Poland and Phony War and France, about possible conscription, about manpower needs, about where the war might lead, about how the last war affected it, and he found himself becoming increasingly eager to join up, to walk away from the high school right to the armoury, to sign up, shape up and ship out.

  He finished packing up his things and left the school by way of the gymnasium, pausing in its silent expanse to look one last time: at the benches to the side and the stands and railing overlooking the gym from above; at the high windows; at the skeletal gymnastic equipment against the wall, ropes, rope ladders, dangling rings, high and low beams; at the hanging banners of victory commemorating championships in football, basketball, hockey, track and field, soccer, baseball, one commemorating the senior boys’ basketball team that he had coached on to numerous victories; and at the polished wooden gym floor with its striped court markings and the scuffmarks of shoes. He could still hear the full-stop squeak of shoes of players jostling for the ball, the hollow rubber bounce of the ball, could feel the thudding clamour of twenty feet bounding up the court as one player broke away for a clear shot at the other end of the court. The gym was alive with the ghosts of his experience, with the painful adolescent longings for accomplishment and approbation, of pain, of expectation and celebration. You made an impression here, he thought. You were really onto something here, even Dad began to no longer care that neither you nor Mark decided to follow his footsteps into medicine. You’d be a headmaster in no time. Hmmm. A moment’s pause. Encumbered by boxes, he continued making his way out through the gym doors and through the courtyard to the car, an old black 1932 Ford Model 18, with a long, tapered snout and boxy cab, and a scuff in the side from a newsboy’s bicycle that veered too close. The sun winked through the courtyard leaves above and dappled his face and his shoulders, and light skeletal shadows of branches brushed over him as he put the boxes in the passenger seat a
nd then went around to the other side to get in; and he slammed the door and turned the key and left his comfortable teaching job and the mundane possibilities it connoted to him.

  14

  Eyes flutter open to the aural insult of reveille, bagpipes skirling up from the street below. He yawns, and props himself up upon his elbows and bumps his head. He wipes the crust of sleep from his eyes, the afterbirth of awakening. Goddamn reveille. Still, he feels much better, more well rested, the outlines of his thoughts more clearly defined and separated from the world about him, his grip on sanity momentarily more firm. But what the hell? Above him it is dark. He has bumped his head on a wooden beam, just like in that goddamned church. He realizes that he is under the bed. Must’ve crawled here in the middle of the night. Don’t remember a damned thing. Must’ve heard thunder or something. Came close to losing it up there at the front, didn’t you, he chastises himself, nearly blew it up there. What was with that letter you wrote to Dad? Better hope the shrinks or the padre or, God help me, Gordon, don’t get their mittens on that. Crushed it up good and proper. What would the Jerries say if they got their hands on that in a counterattack? Probably that our morale is in the toilet. If I’m any indication, anyway. Jesus Christ man, keep it together, keep it together. He crawls out from under the bed into the bedroom. As he shimmies out from under the bed he catches a musky whiff of his own armpit, and he realizes that he is still wearing his undershirt and his pants from the front. The candles are still burning. He gets up and flops back onto the bed he somnambulantly departed some hours ago. As he turns his hand, he catches a glint of reflected sunlight and glances at the twinkling object playing off the light of the eastern sun that slants through the slats of his shuttered window; it is his watch. He looks at it. It is well after dawn, 0805 to be precise. Well, we got our R and R. A day of this and I could be as good as new. Mamma mia, this truly is comfort next to the cold stone floor of that bloody godforsaken church. Or that house. The shudder of artillery reminds him that he is still near the battlefront. He draws in deeply the air, and a relaxed and contented thrill courses through him. He savours the feeling of the mattress, lumpy though it is, and even the spring in his back isn’t so bad considering his last bed. It’s like that dream the other night under the pew. Except, no Marianne. And no bloody volcano. Well, that’s not entirely true, he adds in his mind to the thud of a faraway shell. This must be the six hundredth or so consecutive time that I’ve woken up alone. You made your bed—now you sleep in it, says the old adage. That I will. He dozes some more, moving in and out of sleep, dreaming trivial dreams, his mind and body at rest for the moment until 0830, when he finally rises. As he yawns upon rising, he feels the itch of the whiskers on his face. Have to shave. Only shaved once in the last five days. I’m starting to look like a hobo. Mother would not approve. Nor would Marianne. A fleeting image of Marianne rubbing her fingers over his bristly stubble and wrinkling her nose, an endearing gesture, a pang of longing in his heart. Gotta spit and polish myself to perfection—be a gentleman in the mud, keep up morale. He rummages through his pack, lying on the floor, and produces his rations. He opens a Hershey bar and sinks his teeth into the squares of waxy chocolate, his teeth twinging in satisfaction and in anticipation of another deep, sinking waxen bite. He makes quick work of the bar, and the influx of sugar and caffeine sharpens him up. There is a knock on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mess call in twenty. There are showers in the courtyard. Get yourself washed up!” It is the curt voice of Gordon.

  Jim opens the door to see Gordon perfectly made up, shaved and showered and in uniform, knocking on adjoining doors, waking up exhausted officers.

  “Here, have a shower, they’re prepared for all of you already,” Estella Ceci yells merrily from further out in the hallway beyond, cutting through the clutter and bustle of awakening men gathering and muttering in the hallway, her voice muffled and echoing about the walls. He shuts the door and proceeds to strip, peeling off his reeking undershirt and pants and his unchanged underwear, each pulled-off garment lessening the itch and irritation that have been building over the last number of days. His pores open in relief to the freshness of the air. He wraps himself in a white towel that has been provided by the quartermasters, and he makes his way in a line of officers clad in towels down the hall and down the stairs and out a secondary door into a central courtyard in which wooden portable shower stalls have been rigged underneath an awning. In the centre of the courtyard, along with an old oak tree, are several saggy green pup tents, temporary homes to some latecomers unlucky enough to be denied a bed. Ahead of him are Gordon, Olczyk, Riordan, and Lieutenant Wells. When it is his turn he pulls the curtain shut and with a pull of a chain releases a weak trickling tide of cold but refreshing water on him. He dips a bath brush into a large bowl full of hot water on the ground and sighs audibly as he brushes himself with it, the bristles scratching his back, his arms, his legs, his stomach, and he loosens the grime that has clung to him, glued to him by the sweat in which he has been slicked, with a bar of soap and a rough cake of pumice stone. The water pours over him, washes him of his experience, and he whistles the strains of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” as he does so without realizing it, its plucky melody apt for the simple but morale-boosting ablution he is undergoing. It is not as good as the hot bath he got just after a rotation out of the line at Cassino provided by the nuns at a convent, steaming hot in a marble tub, or his last one in an abandoned mansion before marching up to assault the Gothic Line. No, the feeble trickle of water under which he stands now can but little conjure the experience of the few hot baths he’s had in Italy, and the many before Italy in the eons before, but given the circumstances, it is far better than nothing at all. He leaves the shower, which is snapped up greedily by a Lieutenant Flaherty, and makes his way out of the courtyard back to his room, his towel tied about his waist, whistling, feeling happy for the first time in days, if only for the pleasure of a trickly one-minute shower in the courtyard of a dilapidated small hotel crowded with soldiers and nearly emptied of its comforts. He dresses in clean woollen battledress, his summer denim khaki uniform now to be washed and steamed and put away; and he relishes the clean, cool feeling of the pressed and steamed fabric of his uniform, and the soap scent that his movements release into the air rather than the grimy musk of his bodily reek, the redolence of the animal existence lived at the front.

  A knock at the door.

  “Capitano,” comes a woman’s voice. “Capitano, qui c’è un po’ d’acqua così si può radere.” Huh?

  Then, Lieutenant Doyle’s voice. “Captain, there is hot water for shaving!” He opens the door. The chambermaid is a young, pretty woman with rosebud lips, blue eyes and wavy dark brown hair. She smiles warmly, revealing a gold-capped eye tooth, and hands Jim a bowl of steaming hot water.

  “Grazie,” says Jim, accepting this battlefield luxury wearing his trousers with suspenders and an undershirt, pants hiked up to his navel, nodding and smiling as he does so, blushing and embarrassed of his unshaven and partially dressed state.

  “Not bad room service, eh, sir?” Doyle smiles at him, his chin dimple pronounced with the creasing of his chin.

  “No, not bad at all, Doyle. Not bad at all. Now, if you don’t mind—” He shuts the door. With this water, he proceeds to his washbasin and faucet, mixing it with a dash of cold that comes sputtering out of the old faucet with a considerable amount of air. He opens his kit, containing a small shaving mirror, straight razor, bowl and stick of shaving soap, and tooth powder and a worn and frayed toothbrush. He lathers the soap with water taken from the washbasin, and he caresses his face with the foam. Be careful now, he thinks. Looking into the mirror, he puts the razor to his face and enjoys the satisfying light scrape and tickle of the blade as it cuts a swath through the crop of stubble, harvesting whiskers. With a controlled, deliberate relish he shaves his face in rows, listening to the ssshk ssshk ssshk sounds of the blade sc
raping along skin, shearing stubble, and he rinses afterward, once again renewed. He looks in his mirror. I look a year younger, he thinks. We’ll see how I look tomorrow. The purple sacks weighing down his eyes recently are faded somewhat, reduced in their pull of gravity. A distant shell ripples the earth underneath his feet, an echo from the front, a sonic shadow of intended destruction. Like a drumbeat, thinks Jim as he now brushes his teeth with the aid of his washbasin. Keeping time, like this were a Big Band or a symphony of sorts. Played in a minor key, of course. Ha!

  After brushing his teeth he makes his bed, tucking the sheet and blanket under the bare lumpy mattress, pulling it tight enough to bounce a coin off of it, as the saying goes, and as his training sergeant Sergeant Cobb did so many times, forcing him to make and remake his bed many a miserable morning.

  “Goddamn you McFarlane, what’s your problem? Didn’t your mommy teach you how to make your bed? Didn’t your mommy teach you anything? Drop and give me twenty and remake that goddamn bed NOW!” He can feel his beefy presence looming over him now, can see his droopy moustache and hard grey eyes, can hear him barking in his ears telling him, you’re not good for much are you, McFarlane, not good for much at all, you’re a sissy McFarlane, you’re a damned sissy and you’ll not make it through officer training. Sure showed that mouthy bag of wind didn’t I, he mouths to himself as he folds his blanket.