I looked at the message again. 1600 hrs, tomorrow, the Wall. Not even “please.” Colonel Karl Gustav Hellmann can be a bit arrogant. He’s German-born, as the name suggests, whereas Paul Xavier Brenner is a typical Irish lad, from South Boston, charmingly irresponsible, and delightfully smart-assed. Herr Hellmann is quite the opposite. Yet, on some strange level, we got along. He was a good commander, strict but fair, and highly motivated. I just never trusted his motives.
Anyway, I sat up and banged out an e-mail to Karclass="underline" See you there and then. I signed it, Paul Brenner, PFC, which, in this case, did not mean Private First Class, but meant, as Karl and I both knew, Private F-ing Civilian.
CHAPTER TWO
It was three o’clock, and I was at the National Mall, a park in Washington, D.C., a rectangular strip of grass and trees, running from the U.S. Capitol in the east to the Lincoln Memorial in the west, a distance of about two miles.
The Mall is a good place to jog, with nice vistas, so rather than waste a trip into the city just to see Karl Hellmann, I came dressed in a sweat suit and running shoes, and I wore a knit cap pulled over my ears.
I began my run around the Capitol reflecting pool and paced myself to arrive at the Wall at the appointed hour of 4 P.M., my time, 1600 hours, Karl’s time.
It was cold, but the sun was still above the horizon, and there was no wind. The trees were all bare, and the grass was dusted with last night’s snow.
I set off at a good pace, keeping to the south side of the Mall, past the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian, and other museums in between.
This is, as I said, officially a park, but it’s also where everyone wants to erect something important; monuments, museums, memorials, and statues, and if this marble mania keeps up, the Mall will someday resemble the Roman Forum, packed full of temples to this and that. I’m not being judgmental — important people and events need a memorial or a monument. I’ve got my memoriaclass="underline" the Wall. It’s a very good memorial because it doesn’t have my name on it.
The sun was lower, the shadows were longer, and it was very still and quiet, except for the snow crunching under my feet.
I glanced at my watch and saw it was ten minutes to the appointed hour. Herr Hellmann, like many of his ethnic group, is fanatical about punctuality. I mean, I don’t like to generalize about races, religions, and all that, but the Irish and the Germans don’t share the same concept of time.
I picked up my pace and headed north around the reflecting pool. My butt was starting to drag, and the cold air was making my lungs ache.
As I crossed the landscape of Constitution Gardens, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial statues came into view: three nurses clad in jungle fatigues, around some wounded guy I couldn’t yet see.
About a hundred yards farther toward the Wall was the statue of the three servicemen — three bronze guys in jungle fatigues near a flagstaff.
Beyond the two groupings of bronze statues was the black wall itself, highly contrasted against the white snow.
The Wall is probably the most visited monument in Washington, but there weren’t many people around on this cold weekday. As I got closer, I had the sense that the people who were there, staring hard at the Wall, were people who needed to be there.
A solitary man stood out from the sparse crowd; it was Colonel Karl Hellmann, dressed in a civilian trench coat, wearing a snap-brim hat, and, of course, looking at his watch, probably mumbling to himself in his slightly accented English, “Vhere is dis guy?”
I slowed my pace so as not to alarm my former boss with the sight of me running full tilt toward him, and when I was on the path that runs parallel to the Wall, about twenty yards from Herr Hellmann, a church bell chimed somewhere, then a second chime, and a third. I slowed to a walk and came up behind Karl Gustav Hellmann, just as the fourth bell chimed the hour.
He sensed my presence, or perhaps saw me in the reflection of the black wall, and without turning, he said, “Hello, Paul.”
He seemed delighted to see me — or sense me — though you couldn’t tell how thrilled he was. If nothing else, I was right on time, and this puts him in a good mood.
I didn’t reply to his greeting, and we both stood, side by side, looking at the Wall. I really wanted to walk off the run, but I remained standing, trying to catch my breath, clouds of fog coming out of my nostrils like a horse, and the sweat starting to get cold on my face.
So, we stood there, silently getting to know each other again after a six-month separation, sort of like dogs sniffing each other to see who’s top dog.
I noticed that the section of the Wall before which we were standing was marked 1968. This is the largest expanse of the Wall, 1968 being the unhappy year of the highest American casualties: the Tet Offensive, the Siege of Khe Sanh, the Battle of the A Shau Valley, and other lesser-known but no less terrifying engagements. Karl Hellmann, like me, was there in 1968, and he knew of some of these places and events firsthand.
The homefront wasn’t so terrific in 1968 either: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the campus riots, the urban riots, and so forth. Bad year all around. I understood why Hellmann had put himself in front of 1968, though I didn’t understand why we were here in the first place. But, old army guy that I am, I never speak to a superior officer until spoken to. Sometimes not even after I’m spoken to, like now. For all I gave a shit, we could stand there in complete silence until midnight.
Finally, Karl said, “Thank you for coming.”
I replied, “It sounded like an order.”
“But you’re retired.”
“Actually, I resigned.”
“I don’t care what you did. I made it a retirement. That’s much more pleasant for everyone.”
“I really wanted to resign.”
“Then we couldn’t have had that nice party — the one where you read your letter of reprimand to everyone.”
“You asked me to say a few words.”
Hellmann didn’t respond, but said, “So, you look very fit.”
“I should. I’ve been jogging all over Washington, meeting people at monuments. You’re the third today.”
Hellmann lit a cigarette and observed, “Your sarcasm and bad sense of humor haven’t changed.”
“Good. So, if I may ask, what’s up?”
“First, we need to exchange pleasantries and news. How have you been?”
“Terrific. Catching up on a lot of reading. Hey, do you read Danielle Steel?”
“Who?”
“I’m going to send you a book. You like chili?”
Hellmann drew on his cigarette, probably wondering what possessed him to contact me.
“Let me ask you, Paul, do you think you’ve been unfairly treated by the army?”
“No more so than a few million other guys, Colonel.”
“I think the pleasantries are finished.”
“Good.”
“Two administrative things. First, your letter of reprimand. This can be removed from your file. Second, your retirement pay. This can be computed differently, which could be a considerable amount of money over your expected life span.”
“Actually, my expected life span got longer when I left the army, so the smaller amount works out okay.”
“Do you want to know more about these two items?”
“No. I smell trouble.”
So, we both stood there in the cold, sniffing the air, thinking five or six moves ahead. I’m good at this, but Karl is better. He’s not quite as bright as I am, certainly not as glib, but he thinks deep and long.