I nodded, picking out the way with my eyes, glad that the moon was directly above, so that I’d leave no trailing shadow. “I may not be able to be quiet.”
Her voice was very soft. “They will not hear you, Joe.”
“Why?” My chest felt tight.
“Because I am beautiful. Because I am the only woman in the village and they are men, Joe. Kiss me once more.”
I kissed her. I tried to crush the life out of her so nothing would take her away from me, but she was too strong and pulled back with a sad smile. “Always I will love you, Joe,” she said.
There were only seconds left now. “No matter where I am I’ll be loving you, Claire. Remember this, the present doesn’t last long. When it’s over I’ll be looking for you, if we can live through it. It might take a while to find you because even in peace there are problems. I can’t give you much, but it will be more than you ever had before. If I can’t get to you, try to come to me. Right off Broadway there’s a tiny bistro. A red rooster hangs outside the door and we’ll meet there. No matter where I am, I’ll come back on this day, the ninth of each month, looking for you.”
“I’ll remember, Joe.” Then she was gone. A white shadow that simply disappeared. I shifted the sack of explosives and stepped into the stream.
A cat couldn’t have been more silent. I left nothing to reveal my passage through the brush. Not even a splash or the snapping of a twig. Sure, I made it. No trouble at all because she was right all along the line. It was a snap getting under the bridge and it left me feeling good because there was nothing to it. The boys back in HQ better get their medals ready, I kept thinking.
It made nice thinking, until I got a good look at the underside of the structure, then I felt like a jerk. There was a keystone there that would pull the whole works down, but getting up to it meant a scramble and a lot of noise. Swell. Just one lousy sound and I’d be dead. You know what I felt like. Not too far south a thousand guys could figure on dying because the job was too big for me. Maybe one of those guys was somebody you knew. Then you know how I felt.
Twenty feet above me the muted noises of soldiers on guard sounded like the drone of bees, never loud enough to muffle foreign sounds. I couldn’t wait any longer. I shook my rope out and stood ready to throw it over the projecting beam above. One lousy sound and I’d die. Nice.
It didn’t come. Like everything else I froze because the only other sound in the night was a deep, rich voice lifted in song. Somebody barked an order and the lights came around. Two of them. They pointed down river and merged on the banks where she stood so lovely and white and naked.
Somebody choked out a whistle.
She dived into the water, flashed to the surface and shook her hair back from her face, then swam to the shore again, framed in the lights that never left her, laughing and waving toward the bridge.
Sound? Who could have heard me? There was so much sound that I whistled while I tied the explosive into place and set off the long fuse. They screamed from the rail, whistled and shouted to that vision so tantalizingly close to them, yet so tar out of reach. Hell, I even laughed too.
Yeah, I laughed. I finished the job and got away.
I made the field where the plane picked me up, but the laugh was a frozen grimace of hate and fury because I’ll never forget the light picking up the officers throwing their clothes on the banks and diving in after her. She swam away, her arms flashing in the light, laughing over her shoulder, letting them draw closer and closer so every eye on the bridge was focused on the wanton sight, their eager shouts and cheers drowning out the noise of my escape and the sputtering of the fuse and even the sound of the light plane taking off again from the field.
And from the air I could see the bright fingers of the light trained on the banks of the river now, and I said, “Oh, God! Oh, God!” and I thought I could hear their laughter even up there. Then when the flash came there was nothing. No noise. Just that one intense glare and I went on into the night. Later, I wondered if she gave all that for me or for her country. I tried to joke about it. It wasn’t funny. Not even to myself.
I saw her again. Sure, so did you. Beauty didn’t die that easily. The present went and the future came after it. The world settled back and enjoyed the beauty that had been hidden by the war, and you saw a star come out of France that was a bright light of fame and fortune that glittered from the stage.
Those soldiers on the bridge weren’t the only ones she drove mad. Whenever you saw her picture you saw someone staring at it with that funny look on his face. Everybody wanted her and she had everything she wanted. What was it I was going to take her away from — the poverty that was Europe? That was another laugh.
The price of a necklace she wore at a premiere was more than I could save in five years. It was a real big laugh, a regular howl, because I could go through a succession of Helens and Jeans and Frans and it was Claire who kept them out. Claire, the memory.
So she wound up in New York, the hit of the year’s biggest play. And she ate at the bistro with the sign of the rooster over the door, but that was only because it was noon and time for lunch and it was only a few doors away from the theater...
I started past the door for my appointment with Gus Kimball and then I got curious. Hell, I thought, why be a dope? Any guy likes to shake hands with fame, and maybe she’d remember me if she thought hard enough. I wouldn’t prod her with unpleasant memories. That’s what the psychiatrists would say. Go in and face your problem, and then you’ll have nerve enough to walk up the street again without going all shaky inside.
I opened the door and stepped in. Henri hadn’t seen me for years, but his memory was good. He said, “Why, good afternoon, Joe! It is good to have you back. A table, yes?”
“No, Henri, not right now.” I was looking across the room. “I just came in to speak to somebody a moment.”
My feet pulled me through the tables. She was by herself off in a corner and didn’t see me until I was in front of her. “Hello, kid,” I said.
“Joe.” Just like that, “Joe.” That’s all she said.
I pulled a cigarette out and stuck a light to it. Funny, but my hand didn’t shake. I blew the smoke toward the ceiling and grinned at her. “Imagine us crossing again. Didn’t think you’d remember me. I saw you turn in here and had to come in to be sure. You look good.”
“Do I?” I damned Henri for not having more lights in the place. I couldn’t see her face very well.
“Yeah. You did all right for yourself, too. I see your name in the papers every day. How do you like our country?”
“I like it, Joe.”
She hadn’t moved. Now that I was in the dark a while, after the brightness of the street, I began to see the vague outline of her face. The fires started inside of me and I couldn’t let them do it to me again. Not any more.
“Well, I got an appointment, kid. Maybe one day I’ll look you up if you’re not too busy. I have to go now.”
People were looking over at us, and I thought I saw her teeth bite her lips. Maybe she was thinking back to those searchlights.
She stood up quickly, scooping her handbag under her arm. What the hell, I didn’t blame her a bit. Nobody famous wants to be hamstrung by something from a forgotten past.
“It is I who has to go, Joe,” she said. Then she was gone.
Henri stood at my elbow. “You were to have lunch with the lady?”
“No, Henri. I was just saying hello.”