Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“You’re wheezing like a busted hose in there, sir.”

“We’re not talking about pneumonia, are we?”

“No, sir, we’re not.” He lifted his eyes into mine. “There’s a new drug available that’s supposed to work miracles.”

Chapter

6

THE TUBERCULAR UNIT was in a converted eighteenth-century French mansion in vineyard country, one with a wide stone porch that allowed a wonderful view of the gardens and poplar trees and the low green hills in the distance and a meandering river and the white stucco farmhouses with red Spanish tile where the owners of the vineyards lived. The miracle drug I was given was called streptomycin. I took other forms of medication, too, but I do not remember their names. In the drowsy warmth of the breeze on an August afternoon, I would sleep the sleep of the dead, with no desire to wake up.

I had no dreams of the war, as though it had been airbrushed from my memory. I wrote in my notebook, If I allow myself to feel, I will drop through a hole in the bottom of my stomach and begin to fall into a place from which I will not return. If I dreamed at all, it was of my boyhood home, where I had lived with my mother and grandfather. Sometimes I dreamed of the pets we had owned, and the windmill creaking in the breeze at night, and the way the rains had returned in the form of gulley washers, our pastures blooming with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush after years of drought.

But I did not dream of the war or hear the sounds that always accompany dreams about war. Perhaps this was due to the narcotics humming in my bloodstream along with the streptomycin, although I never asked what was being put into my system. The wooden wheelchair in which I sat, with its woven bamboo backrest, had become my friend. The countryside was a re-creation of medieval Europe, snipped out of time, the valleys cultivated, the grass on the hilltops golden in the sun, more like southern Spain than France. On a mountain not far away were the softly molded biscuit-colored ruins of a castle. A nurse told me it had been built by Crusader knights, and according to legend, a great treasure was hidden in its stone walls. The Song of Roland had found me of its own accord.

On a singularly hot day, I took my medication and fell asleep on the porch. I could feel raindrops striking my skin like confetti, but I didn’t wake up. I felt a nurse wheel me to a dry place under the overhang, though I never raised my head. I was inside a chemical environment that was warm and cool at the same time; the air smelled of flowers and rain spotting on warm stone. When I woke, the sky had turned to orange sherbet, and I thought I could see Knights Templar wending their way on horseback up the hill to the castle, the sunlight melting on their armor. Perhaps I was becoming the prisoner of a pernicious drug. The truth was, I didn’t care.

Mail was delivered early each morning. Somehow I felt one of my many attempts to find Rosita Lowenstein would be rewarded. I received APO letters from friends and my mother and other relatives. I also heard from Hershel Pine, who was back in the States. But there was no word from anyone about Rosita.

After breakfast I read the newspapers in the hospital dayroom and played checkers with a man whose left lung had been removed, which caused him to sit sideways in his chair as though his spine were broken. In a side room I could see a man inside an iron lung, a nurse placing a teaspoon of ice in his mouth. I went back to my bed and put the pillow over my face, trying not to think about the type of surgery that might be awaiting me. I thought I could smell an odor like wild poppies on the wind. Soon I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a boxlike automobile that contained four individuals who had just robbed a bank and were heavily armed and dangerous. I opened my eyes and looked at the silhouette of a tall American officer dressed in suntans.

He was wearing aviator glasses. His hair had a metallic tone and was cut short and wet-combed, his skin sun-browned. He removed his glasses and placed them in a case. He snapped the case shut and slipped it into his shirt pocket, before letting his eyes settle on me. Major Lloyd Fincher was an officer who thought in terms of first things first. “Getting a little extra shut-eye?” he said.

“How you doin’, sir?” I said.

“I’m back at Division now. Pretty nice deal, actually.” He nodded and looked around as though agreeing with himself or indicating approval of the surroundings. “The nurses treating you okay?”

“They’re fine.”

“I’m quartered right outside Paris. It’s quite the place in peacetime. Paris, I mean. French ladies love a liberator. You have to fly the flag, though.”

“I’m hoping I won’t be here much longer.”

“I just approved your nomination for the Silver Star. We were a little slow on the paperwork. That’ll give you three Hearts and the Bronze and Silver Star.”

“Silver Star for what?”

“Gallantry in action at the Ardennes. You might think about going into politics when you get home. Or insurance. You know I run an agency in San Antonio, don’t you?”

“I don’t remember a lot of what happened at the Ardennes.”

“Others do. That’s what counts. For a promising young fellow like yourself, it won’t hurt to have the right cachet.”

I couldn’t track what he was saying. Maybe that was because his gaze never really focused on me. While he talked, his eyes were constantly roaming around the room. He dragged up a chair and sat down. “Are you listening?”

“I was never keen on politics,” I said.

“That’s because you’re a warrior.” He was holding a manila folder on his thigh. His gaze followed a nurse. “We had some times, didn’t we? You should come to Paris and enjoy the fruits of victory.”

“It’s a long drive down here, Major. I appreciate your coming.”

“I thought we’d be in the Pacific now. Frankly, I was looking forward to it. You know Japs can’t pronounce the ‘l’ sound, right? One of them starts hollering out in the dark, ‘Hey, Joe, I’m hit! Help me!’ Then one of our guys hollers ‘lollapalooza’ or ‘Little Lulu.’ If the Jap doesn’t yell ‘Lily lollipop,’ he gets hosed with a flamethrower. The marines are still burning them out of caves on Iwo.” His eyes steadied and looked into mine. “You knew a camp survivor named Rosita Lowenstein?”

“I was in hiding with her.”

“Hold on a minute. You were not in ‘hiding’ with her. You saved her life.”

“Sergeant Hershel Pine and I saved her life. She helped us save ours, too, at least when she could. The people who hid us didn’t speak English. Rosita did all the talking for us.”