Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes

We remained in Bastogne two more days.

I had signaled Teedle that Gita was here if OSS wished to interview her, and awaited his order to formally abandon the effort to arrest Martin. Pending a response, I worked on a long report about the past month for Colonel Maples, who had moved to the new Third Army Headquarters in Luxembourg City. I also spent a couple of hours both days with the men from my former command who were hospitalized here. But every minute was only a long aching interval, waiting for dark and the end of Gita's shift, when she would slip into my room.

"You are an unusual woman," I had told her again that first night after she had come to me, as we lay whispering in the narrow bed.

"You notice only now?" She was laughing. "But I do not think you mean to praise me, Dubin. What do you find so uncommon?"

That you mourn Martin and are with me."

She thought a moment. "No soldier in Europe more eagerly sought death, Dubin. I knew that, no matter how often I tried to say otherwise. Besides, if my father died or my brother, would it be unusual, as you say, to find comfort in life?"

"Martin was not your father or your brother."

"No," she said and fell silent again. "He was both. And my salvation. He rescued me, Dubin. When I met him I was on the boil, furious at all moments except those when I simply wanted to die. He said, If you are angry, fight. And if you wish to die, then wait until tomorrow. Today you may do some good for someone else.' He knew the right things to say. Because he had said them to himself."

"But you do not mourn him as your lover?"

"Qu'est-ce qui to prend?" She raised her head from my chest. "Why does that matter so much to you-me with Martin? Do you fear that I liked Martin better this way than I like you?"

You think that is the issue?"

"It is the issue with every man at times. And it is stupid. With each person it is different, Dubin. Not better or worse. It is like a voice, yes? No voice is the same. But there is always conversation. Does one prefer a person for the voice, or the words? It is what is being said that matters far more. No?"

I agreed, but pondered in the dark.

"Doo-bean," she finally said, more emphatically than usual, "I have told you. With Martin and me that aspect was long over. It became impossible."

"Because?"

"Because this is no longer an activity for him."

I finally understood. "Was he wounded?"

"In the mind. He has not been good that way for some time. He punishes himself perhaps, because he likes the killing too much. He has clung to me, but only because he believes there will not be another woman after me. Comprends-tu?"

Surprisingly, something remained unsettled. I looked into the dark seeking the words, as if attempting to lay hold of a nerve running through my chest.

"When I think of Martin," I said then, "I wonder what interest I could have to you. I am so dull. My life is small and yours with him has been so large."

"Tu ne me comprends pas bien." You do not understand me well.

"Well'? You are the most mysterious person I have ever met."

"I am a simple girl, with little education. You are learned, Dubin. Occasionally humorous. Brave enough. You are a solid type, Dubin. Would you drink and beat your wife?"

Not at the same time."

"Tu m'as fait craquer." I cracked, meaning, I couldn't resist. "Besides, you are a rich American." "My father is a cobbler."

"Evidemment! Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chausses." The shoemaker's son always goes barefoot. "I have miscalculated." Once we had laughed for some time, she added, "You have a conscience, Dubin. It is an attractive quality in a fellow in a time of war."

"A conscience? Lying here with you when I have promised myself to someone else?"

"Eh," she answered again. "If you and she were destined for each other, you would have married before you departed. What woman loves a man and allows him to leave for war without having him to her bed?"

"It was not solely her choice."

"More the point, then. You are not so scrupulous here, when there are no expectations." She laid her fingertip directly on the end of my penis to make her point. "You chose to be free, Dubin. No? Qui se marie a la hate se repent a loisir." Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

Gita's observation, made in her customary declarative fashion, seemed too stark to be true, but there was no avoiding it. I yearned for the aura that surrounded Grace like a cloud-her gentility, her blonde hair and soft sweaters, the way she glided through life, her pristine American beauty. But not enough to separate myself from my parents in the irrevocable way our marriage had called for. My sudden decision to enlist, rather than wait out my fortunes with the draft, seemed highly suspect from the distance of a convent bed in Belgium. But so did the balm these conclusions gave to my conscience.

"At any rate, Dubin, you are here with me now. Even though you felt no longing." She stroked now where she had left her finger, and I responded. quickly. "Aha," she said. "Again, Dubin, you are betrayed."

"No, no, that is merely to save your feelings." "Then, perhaps I shall stop," she said.

"No, no, I am much too concerned for you to allow that."

Afterward, we slept, but in time I was awakened by growling. I had heard it in my dreams for a while, but it grew insistent and I stirred, ready to scold. Hercules. Instead, I found Gita snoring. Her constant smoking had apparently done its work on her sinuses. From an elbow, I studied her in the light borrowed from the hall. Lying there, she seemed, as we all do in slumber, childlike, her small sharp face mobile in sleep. She suckled briefly; an arm stirred protectively, and her eyes jumped beneath her lids. I was impressed by how small she appeared when the current, as it were, was turned off on her imposing personality. I watched several minutes. As she had been trying to tell me, she was, at heart, a far simpler person than I supposed.

After Gita had snuck back downstairs the first night we'd arrived in Bastogne, I met Cal for breakfast at the officers' mess, as planned. He had been in surgery until 4:00 a. M., then had made rounds to see his patients. He was still in a bloody gown, gobbling up something before he grabbed a few hours' sleep. Apparently, it was he who had directed Gita and the dog to my room, and he let me know promptly that he'd guessed the score.

"So how did your quarters work out? Bed a little tight?"

I could feel myself flush, and then, like a switchboard operator plugging in the lines, I made a series of connections which, when complete, brought me up short. Cal would write home that he had seen me. He would say I had a woman here. Grace, in time, would hear.

"Oh, don't worry," he said, when he saw my expression. He made that zipper motion across his lips.

But somehow I was caught up in a vision of Grace reacting to this news. Would she rely on some bromide about how men will be men? Or take comfort from the extremities of war? My mind continued tumbling down the staircase, descending into various images of what might occur when word reached Grace, until I finally crashed and came to rest at the bottom. In a figurative heap, I checked myself and was shocked to find myself frightened but unhurt-no bruises, no broken bones-and thus I knew at that moment, absolutely and irrevocably, that I was not going to marry Grace Morton. I cared intensely about Grace. I still could not imagine being the brutal assassin of her feelings. But she was not a vital part of me. Gita's role in this seemed incidental. It was not a matter of choosing one woman over the other, because even now I continued to doubt that Gita's interest would last. But, in the light of day, what I'd recognized lying beside Gita remained. Grace was an idol. A dream. But not my destiny.