“Ted Williams?”
“Ted Williams batted.406.”
Francino was silenced.
“If it wasn’t for all the songs and the radio coverage — what does that have to do with the game? If the guy’s so fucking graceful, give him a tutu.”
Francino was too shocked to laugh. Burns was nodding again, maybe to his patron saint or whoever it was who seemed to agree with him wherever he went, whatever generous spirit kept Burns feeling justified. It was because of this — the incomprehension on his part — that Francino didn’t realize that the prisoner had stood up and was walking toward them. The prisoner stopped just short of the end of Burns’s rifle, which was now readied, and said, “You an idiot.” The prisoner was shaking with emotion and his hatred of Burns showed clearly in the spite and accuracy of his words. “Joe DiMaggio is the greatest player, even Ted Williams say that.”
Francino took strong steps backward. The shock of hearing the prisoner’s fluent English had scared him more than if a knife or gun barrel had been pointed at his face. Burns shoved his rifle at the man’s head. The prisoner pushed the gun away with the back of his hand. He had stared death solidly in the eyes and knew he had lost, that dying was just a matter of time. He would have his words first. He would have them, if it was his final act.
“You moron,” he said to Burns. “You worried about Japanese eating you? Whole jungle full of fucking cannibal. Not one Japanese. All native from New Guinea eat people. They everywhere.”
Burns looked around, frightened.
“You not see them,” the man continued. “They like tree, belong here, not stand out like you, like me. You not see them,” he repeated.
“He’s lying,” said Burns.
“Why would he be lying?” asked Francino. “Are you lying?”
“You fucking stupid American! Where you think all the native go? You think they go on vacation — hey, crazy Jap and stinking American shoot each other, why not we go to Palm Spring?”
Francino and Burns hazarded a look at each other.
“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you,” said the Japanese soldier. “Fuck all America and all American mother.” Then he sat down on the ground as if speaking had been too much, too exhausting.
“Where’d you learn to speak English?” asked Francino.
“University of Michigan,” said the soldier, not raising his head. “I have Ph.D. in chemistry.”
The prisoner looked upward, where a beam of light projected solidly into the thick air, substantive and menacing. Dead leaves circled through it and slowly wound back to the jungle floor. The light, from where Francino stood, seemed to dissolve into a misty cloud around the prisoner’s head. Francino felt a profound, general sadness.
Francino patted himself down and found the cigarette he had been saving for later. He’d liked the idea that he believed in a later. He had a lighter, which had been useful the last few days. Francino walked over to the Japanese soldier and squatted down.
“What the fuck you doing?” asked Burns.
Francino raised his head to Burns. He was surprised. He couldn’t speak. His voice stuck in his throat and his eyes felt the unfamiliar sting of tears. He took a deep breath to compose himself. “This man is dying,” said Francino, “and I am giving him a cigarette. Do you have a problem with that?”
Burns squinted, then looked away up at the canopy of sky.
“Thank you,” said the Japanese soldier. “I shit blood, die soon. I alone.”
Francino smiled and lit the cigarette.
“They both born in California,” said the Japanese.
“Who’s born in California?”
“Williams,” said the soldier, “and DiMaggio.”
The prisoner fell asleep. Burns was affable, which was all right with Francino, even though he was unsure how to proceed. Francino took his glasses and folded them. He put them in his pocket. They’d been sliding down his nose for days and now seemed pointless.
“Can you see?” asked Burns.
“Yeah,” said Francino. “The far stuff is still pretty clear, but I have a hard time making out what’s right in front of me.”
Burns nodded sympathetically. “You like Australia?”
“Yeah, I like it.”
“I’m thinking of relocating after the war. I’d like to maybe get a house in Brisbane.”
“Brisbane.” Francino smiled. “I won a dance contest in Brisbane,” he said. “I was jitterbugging”—here he laughed, because the idea of doing something like that seemed incomprehensible — “with an Australian lady. We were great. After we won, she liked me even more.” Francino smiled. “So we kept dancing.”
“Dancing?” said Burns.
“Yeah. Dancing. She was nice. She had a nice smell, some kind of perfume. We were getting along and then right in the middle of this dance, my Saint Christopher medal goes flying off my neck.”
“Your medal just flew off?”
“Flew right off.”
“Must have been some dance.”
“Yeah, it was. But get this. She sees the medal and she says, ‘You’re a Mick and I don’t dance with Micks.’”
“You?”
“That’s what I say. ‘I ain’t no Mick.’” Francino and Burns chuckled together. “And she says, ‘You’re a Catholic. That makes you a Mick. And I don’t dance with Micks.’”
When Burns had nodded off and Francino was left to swatting mosquitoes and watching their immobile prisoner, his mind wandered back to Brisbane. There had been a trainload full of Italian POWs, Axis soldiers. They were all shoved in together in a boxcar like livestock. The boxcar was uncovered and the sun beat down on them. Francino was entranced. He listened to the heavy, sonorous conversations. He understood every word. He looked street-end to street-end and saw two Aussies, one with a broad-brimmed khaki hat, the other darker skinned and hatless, squinting out at nothing — as Aussies were inclined to do — with his hand resting on a street sign and the arch of his left foot set solidly against his right knee. In the boxcar, the Italians were talking about food and drink. Francino fought a desire to join them, climb into their small, familiar prison, to embrace them all and tell them about his family. He patted down his jacket. He had three packs of cigarettes with him. He opened each pack and jumped on a nearby bench. Joyfully, he threw the cigarettes into the boxcar. They snowed down on the prisoners and soon cheers rose out of the car. Francino threw in a box of matches and the Italians roared in approval. Francino almost couldn’t hear the Aussies yelling at him, running from all sides to see the why of the commotion. He heard them yelling “Wop,” “Neapolitan nigger,” and other things, but he didn’t care. He was happy for the first time in months.
Francino fell asleep while thinking of this, the boxcar, the Italians he’d met in Australia of all places. His head fell to his chest and his rifle slid to the jungle floor.
He woke to Burns’s yelling.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“What?”
“That fucking Yankee-loving Nip’s escaped.”
Francino raised his hand in a silencing gesture; Burns’s aspect shifted from anger to panic. Francino knew Burns by now and his mind followed the same route. The prisoner had taken off, met up with some Japs. They were in danger. Only Burns had added fear of cannibalism to the equation.
“I ain’t gonna let no Nip do that to me,” he whispered.
They were in a small clearing at the foot of a large tree. Burns inspected the edge of the greening and discerned some trampled leaves that weren’t the work of the previous day’s march. He gestured over to Francino, who followed him at a short distance. The sun was pushing through the tall foliate ceiling in blades and Francino, with his eyes partially closed and his breathing quiet, felt the great beast shift beneath him. Burns sighed loudly, sidestepped, and Francino saw the prone, still body of the Japanese prisoner lying unmolested on the jungle floor. The soles of his sandals were bared and one arm reached out ahead, as though he had never given up reaching his destination.