So your sergeant’s a terror, is she? That makes me laugh. What did I tell you? Man or woman, a sergeant is a sergeant is a sergeant. My old sergeant could curse the paint off a barn door, spit tobacco juice thirty feet, and keep us running until we all dropped dead on the ground and he was still running in place. Backward!
Mother and Poppa are fine and so am I. Poppa and I got the old Ford running finally, and the weather has been glorious.
Well, as you know I’m not a writer, so I best keep this short. Anyway, it’s pretty boring here and much more exciting where you are.
Take care, Meemo, we all miss you here. And we are very proud, even Grandpa, though he won’t admit it and still mutters about it being unnatural and so on.
Keep your head down. Come home in one piece.
Your loving brother,
Tommy
Dear Mother and Father,
I don’t have much time, I’m only in the rear to pick up replacements and give Beebee an opportunity to scrounge us up some smokes and booze and necessary items. But I wanted at least to get a note to you to say that I am all right. The landing was tough. And the fighting afterward has been tough. But the word is the Krauts are retreating and we should be in Paris soon. Maybe I can send you a bottle of perfume from there! Something alluring and foreign. (That’s for Mother, of course.)
Father, I still remember you telling me to find a good sergeant and stick to him. And now I am the sergeant, though I don’t know that I’m a good one. To say it isn’t easy isn’t half of it. I don’t like it much, to tell the truth. My people still treat me in a friendly way, but it’s different. There are times when they don’t want me around because I’m “Sarge” now, not just “Richlin.” Even Jenou! No one warns you, but the higher up you go the more lonely it gets. It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for Ike.
I do have a quick funny story though. The other day while we were on a hike we came across some very full cows and no one to milk them. So me and one of my new privates did the job. I believe we set a speed record for milking! The smell really took me back and made me feel a little sad. And the taste was great too, though I happen to think our cows give a sweeter—
Damn. Okay, my ride is here, and I think Beebee is anxious to make his getaway. I suspect the two big cans of peaches in his arms came from the officers’ mess, and I know for sure that whatever that is clinking in his rucksack did.
Bye for now. Love,
Rio
PART II
PARIS
Arrested by the police of the Vichy government, accomplices of the Nazi occupation, more than 11,000 children were deported from France from 1942 to 1944 and murdered at Auschwitz because they were born Jewish. Never forget them.
—Paris plaque remembering French Jews betrayed by Vichy
19
RIO RICHLIN, FRANGIE MARR, RAINY SCHULTERMAN—PARIS, LIBERATED FRANCE
“I thought French men were supposed to be romantic,” Jenou says. “But they all look a bit, you know . . . small.”
Rio sits with Cat and Jenou at a minuscule round table at the outer edge of a sidewalk café in Paris, at the corner of tiny rue de Saint-Benoît and the larger, grander boulevard Saint-Germain. They each have a beer. They have a demolished tray of salamis and cheeses. They wear clean, pressed uniforms, with polished boots and tightly knotted ties.
And they get looks from the locals. The looks are baffled or reproachful or sneering. Paris, it seems, does not quite know what to make of women soldiers.
Rio’s division did not take part in the triumphant march through liberated Paris, a fact for which Rio is grateful. The division that marched through Paris to an enthusiastic crowd kept right on marching up to the front, which is now rapidly approaching the German border.
Instead, Rio’s division is quartered outside the city and profits from a generous policy on passes.
“Jenou likes them over six feet,” Rio says, and Jenou nods agreement.
“I like them over six feet away,” Cat says, smiling her upside-down smile so she doesn’t sound too hostile.
“It’s fine for the men,” Jenou says. “Paris has plenty of whores. But what about us? Where’s my six-foot-two Frenchman ready to fulfill my every wish for a pack of smokes and a chocolate bar?”
“No boy back home, Castain?” Cat asks.
Jenou leans toward her, nearly knocking over her beer. Her fourth beer. “Can I ask you both something very, very, very important?”