Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

“What do you want me to tell you, you’re right? Because I won’t apologize in a war where fifty million died. And if fifty million did — if forty million I’ll even say — you don’t think — or thirty, or twenty, not to say a hundred million casualties or thereabouts — there wouldn’t have been even a few thousand inconceivable freak accidents, plus the fifty to a hundred thousand that at first seemed inconceivable but you gradually came around to believe in them? For instance, a three-story stone building in an area totally arid from no rainfall for months collapsed on one of the villagers in a village we shelled and she was under the entire thing of it for ten days without air, food, drink or even mud to lick and she survived.”

“That’s only a little more possible to believe than the lieutenant incident, but still quite impossible. In ten days she would’ve suffocated, starved, completely dehydrated, but something to have died.”

“That’s what I’m telling you — impossible to believe but there it was before my eyes.”

“You’re not claiming it was God’s doing, in other words?” ponytailed man says.

“I’m saying it was an inconceivable freak, which is a combination of a miscellany of coincidences and natural life and man-made happenings. Which means it could even have been to her advantage there hadn’t been rain for months, plus her own body and what it was able to withstand and the will to survive and—”

“No, it’s beyond being a freak,” I say. “In ten days, if she came up alive—”

“That’s what she did. But she didn’t walk up, you know. First of all, where were the stairs? Second of all, she had to be lifted gingerly and carried away. Now I’m not saying she lived more than an hour after that, since we never knew how the wounded were doing in the hospitals, except for our own GI’s. It was a human miracle — just us, what we as people fall into and get out of and between those undergo, and nothing dealing with those big manipulative fingers with the strings at the ends of them of the Lord’s. You’re not a great believer by any chance, for if you are, again I deeply apologize.”

“I’m not. But air pockets. Or someone could’ve been feeding her through a tube those last few days. I’m no expert, and you couldn’t have been there all the time those ten days.”

“No tubes. And I didn’t need minute-to-minute information on her, since nothing had essentially changed till we reached her the last day. You see, she started out in the basement of the building because that’s where she went when the village was being shelled, and for ten days she was twenty-five feet under that pile.”

“Maybe you’re right. I’ve never been to war or even in one of the armed services, and I’m getting cold out here,” rubbing my hands, feeling for a coat button I might not have buttoned except for the top one. “But, come to think of it I was in a very serious car accident and nothing happened to me, while the guy I hit nearly died. But that was because my car was a big used Olds compared to his two-seater British something or another sports.”

“What happened?” ponytailed man says. “They weren’t drafting then and you happened to come of age between one of the police actions or wars, or you were deferred?”

“The truth is — you fellows aren’t federal law officers or MP’s in disguise, are you? Only kidding. No, it was so long ago I don’t mind admitting it now. I was called down for a physical and pretended something was a bit more than neurotic with me — but only after I couldn’t fail any of the physical tests — and they believed it. It was a good act, but I just didn’t want to go in then, that’s all.”

“If it was World War Two or Korea would you have acted that way?”

“I think I would’ve gone in some other capacity than gun-holding — that was the thing.”

“Someone’s got to pull the trigger,” shorter man says.

“True. Or not. And I shouldn’t have brought it up, since you did fight, you say.”

“I most certainly did; I can’t speak for him.”

“Coast guard,” ponytailed man says. “Nothing rough, but it could have been. Florida waters, snooping for subs.”

“And you probably lost buddies,” I say to the shorter man.

“I already told you.”

“Me, never, except through natural causes. One slips on the deck. Another talks tough to a hooker. My closest amigo had cirrhosis of the liver when he joined up—”

“Excuse me — and I know,” I say to the shorter man, “and I respect that, and no doubt you still carry deep feelings about those deaths and all, so now it’s my turn to apologize.”

“Forget the apologies and respects to death and how chilly it is out here — it isn’t to me anyway. Just speak your mind.”