Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

Janice reached into her handbag and showed her passport. The soldier examined it, saw that the photograph matched the person, but did not know the purpose of a passport. He went to the door of the outpost, knocked deferentially, and opened it. He gestured for Janice to follow him in.

A sergeant sat at a large, scarred desk. He had a drooping mustache and black hair. His uniform was spotless and a little tight. He took special pride in his leather cross-belt with its shining medals. A black revolver hung at his belt. He was very surprised to see Janice walk in by herself. He kept looking for someone to come in after her and when no one did, he ordered that the door be closed. In the gloomy dank air, Janice finally noticed a second soldier, as unkempt as the first, who had snapped to attention when she entered.

Suddenly, the thunder rolled overhead, drowning out the sound of the river. Janice presented her passport. The sergeant took a long time to study it and her, buying time, since he clearly did not know what to do.

“American?” he finally said.

“Yes. You speak English?”

“No.”

He scrutinized her entry stamp in the passport, showed it to the soldier, who spoke a few words while still at attention. The sergeant handed her the passport.

“Area is closed,” he said in good English.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“No.”

“I’ve come from the ashram. ”

The sergeant stroked his mustache and looked at her clothes.

“Tourist?”

“I’m not a tourist. I have business here. I’m looking for my husband.”

“Husband?” the sergeant said suspiciously.

“Yes,” Janice faltered.

Suddenly the air had taken a chill. The sergeant glanced nervously over his shoulder at the black sky.

“Rain,” he said, agitated. “Soon too much rain.”

He snapped his fingers, pointed at Janice’s passport in her hand; she dropped it on the desk. He telephoned and waited a long time. He spoke quickly, then pronounced her name very slowly, with bad pronunciation. Janice waved to get his attention.

“His name is not Templeton,” she whispered.

“But he is your husband?”

“Yes.”

“What is he called?”

“Elliot Hoover.”

“Ell-i-ot Hoo-ver,” he said into the receiver, then waited.

“American,” Janice whispered.

The sergeant gestured impatiently for her to be quiet. He nodded, listening, then hung up.

“Mr. Hoover is registered in a village in sector number five. He is with three members of the ashram that worships— Tejo Lingam. ”

“Yes, I understand.”

“The sector is stable, so it is not impossible to meet him.”

“God bless you,” Janice blurted.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, thank you very much. Very, very much.”

The sergeant blushed, cleared his throat, and stood up. He tried to be angry, as though to restore a sense of his command.

“A truck will move to sector five tonight.”

Janice nodded.

“There is a small house,” he continued, “next to the river. You can rest there.”

The sergeant smiled, satisfied that things were under control. He spoke to the soldiers waiting at the door. They indicated for Janice to follow them down a small path among the saplings.

The house had once been whitewashed, but now it was caked with dried mud along the bottom and large cracks showed down the walls. Inside it smelled of feces and dry dust. She saw a tattered mattress, heavily mildewed and rotted at one end. On it the soldiers had carefully placed two blankets stamped with the insignia of the Indian Army, and one soiled pillow. From her suitcase Janice selected fresh underwear and stockings. She changed beneath the privacy of her blanket and gingerly settled on the mattress. Then she put one blanket under her, the other around her, and lay her head on the clean end of the pillow. The saplings outside rustled in the wind. The river splashed, strangely irregular, as though too much water was funneling down from the heights. She wondered if the rains had started further south. Janice dropped into a heavy sleep, and the last thing she thought she heard was bells far away, perhaps from the Tejo Lingam ashram.

Janice awakened at eight. It was dark. Fires were lit to boil tea. Then boots quickly stamped them out. Shouts were heard. The trucks exploded into action, the engines roaring, soldiers jumping into their seats. The sergeant looked anxiously for Janice and found her on the stone steps of the headquarters.

“Come,” he ordered. “You shall ride with me. First class.”

Janice swallowed and climbed into the cab. She was pinched between the sergeant, who stroked his mustache and kept looking into his own sideview mirror, and the driver, a short man with a sloping forehead and thick eyebrows. The sergeant waved an arm, and the two trucks slowly pulled out of the outpost.

In the darkness, Janice saw the headlights pick out rough tracks of other trucks. Scrub brush grew in profusion along the rutted road. The trucks were climbing, at first gradually, then making hairpin curves that left the driver sweating and offering apologies to the sergeant.

“The bandits all run away,” the sergeant chuckled. “Look. How many do you see?”

Janice looked straight ahead, hoping to see nothing but the livid forms of dirt that the powerful headlights threw up suddenly from the humid void. The truck plowed into the hard clay at the side of the road and stopped. The supply truck had innocently followed and was now also stuck in the dust. Cursing, the sergeant had the men dig out the supply truck, and the two vehicles then backed down the road. Shamefaced, the driver bent low over his wheel and peered into the darkness.

“You must love your husband very much,” the sergeant said after a while. “To come all this way for him.”

Janice smiled. “Yes, I do,” she said simply.

After two hours, the supply truck honked its horn. The lead truck stopped, the sergeant jumped out, and there was a waving of arms and arguments. Janice looked into the sideview mirror. She saw the sergeant slap a soldier across the face. Then the soldiers leaped back into the cab of the supply truck. Soon they were laboring up the mountainside again.

“The problem,” the sergeant said, when he had regained his composure, “is the monsoon.”

“The monsoon?”

“Yes. When it does not come, the earth dies. When it comes, the earth drowns. And these stupid people, they do not understand why the government must interfere in their lives and build dams!” He laughed. “They are like children. Like baboons. They believe in magic. Their children die, but still they go to the magician, not the doctor. I tell you, we shall teach them a lesson!”

Again, he patted his revolver. What worried Janice was his need to reassure himself. The sergeant licked his lips and peered anxiously into the darkness on all sides. After half an hour, the trucks stopped, maps were brought out, and the sergeant finally decided which of two mountain roads to take. The trucks rumbled on.

Janice was just dozing off when the trucks abruptly halted.

“Sector Number Five,” the sergeant said.

Eagerly, Janice jumped down from the cab. The ride had taken so long that her legs had cramped, and she had to walk slowly, unstiffening them. As the soldiers clumsily unloaded their wooden boxes, she followed the sergeant toward a dark hut.

“I will ask about your husband,” he said softly.

As he went inside, the horizon glimmered. Jagged mountain peaks were suddenly visible. Then the thunder rumbled into the darkness. Soldiers ran back and forth in rain ponchos, but there was no rain. The breeze turned cold as it had the night before. The sergeant came out.