Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“You’ve disappointed me on this one, Marty, you know that.”

“There is no Fifth NVA Regiment.”

“Well, the First of the Twenty-second has got somebody in the squeeze out there.”

Together they looked out the window. There was nothing to see but the bumps and pits, shadows and variations of triple canopy tropical forest. The door to the cockpit opened on the sunburnt face of a chubby major. “Excuse me, sir, Colonel Findley would like to speak with you.”

“Keep your eye out,” said The General, unbuckling his seat belt.

The plane circled in a holding pattern over a spot that to Major Holly seemed indistinguishable from any other spot. He scanned the ground for movement, the flash of weapons until his eyes started to burn with the effort. The country was distressingly opaque.

“Remember Barney Findley?” asked The General, returning to his seat. “One hell of a soldier.” He motioned toward the window. “There’s a terrific battle going on down there.”

“Is it the Fifth?”

“They’re not sure, probably VC.”

Holly studied his reflection in the glass. The horizon was a bluish-gray blur. Why was there always haze in the sky? Did the land naturally emit its own organic pollution?

“Don’t get smug,” said The General. “Wait till we flush those rascals out and you’ll have to look me in the eye with your hat in your hand.”

“I was just thinking that if we put a dome over it, dehumidified and air-conditioned the atmosphere, Rome plowed the earth, and treated the water we might have a fairly decent prison farm. And yes, you put the Fifth on a platter and I’ll eat it.”

The General pulled out his black briar, his bag of Egyptian blend. “How’s it going, Marty,” he asked quietly as he filled the bowl. “I mean back at the group. This underground business, you can imagine what we thought.”

“Beard, beads, hair.”

“An amusing image for about half a day.”

“The men like to pretend I’ve gone over to the other side.”

“Of course there’s no denying the danger, one of the hazards of command. Unfortunately we have lost some good people in a few of these cowardly incidents. Reprehensible behavior. But tunnels now, are they really the proper solution?”

“I’m not hiding out. I’m in my hootch at night, in the office every day. I come and go as I please. So I’ve made a couple holes in the ground. I’m simply being prudent. The tunnels also serve a useful security function by connecting the command bunker to the orderly room and my quarters. I fail to see what’s improper about such preparedness.”

“Well, I’ve spoken to Captain Rossiter. He seems to feel that with this Franklin individual out of the picture the potential threat is reduced markedly.”

“There have been several incidents since Private Franklin disappeared.”

“I never heard about this.”

“Do you think I’m going to bother you every time a weapon is discharged in the company area.”

“Was it close?”

“Near enough.”

The General sat still for a moment, sucking in silence, the familiar odor of smoldering mummy wrappings slowly engulfing the cramped cabin. The General leaned forward and rapped on the cockpit wall. The plane completed one final circle, lifted its nose and its passengers toward that realm above the clouds where the days were always golden, the nights dark silver.

“How’s that Annie of yours?” asked The General, pipe wiggling between his teeth.

“You mean Anh?”

“You know who I mean.”

“She’s pregnant.”

The General’s expression went from startled to concerned to bemused. “Is there anything we need to do about that?”

Major Holly shrugged. “She says it’s not mine.”

“Who else’s could it be?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Look,” exclaimed The General, pointing off into the clear bright sky, “Arclight,” and as if at the direction of his extended finger scores of tiny black cylinders began dropping from the long bellies of a formation of big green B-52s, the sticks of heavy explosive wobbling downward in neat perpendicular order and vanishing into the soft endless cloudscape below.

“That ought to shake up the nest,” declared The General.

“Sometimes, on very quiet mornings, I’ve been able to feel the vibrations from strikes in the Ashau.”

“Hard lessons,” remarked The General. He poked about in the bowl of his pipe with the tip of a penknife blade. “Have you given any consideration to your future in the coming peace?”

“Lately it’s been difficult to imagine me having one.”

“Oh, there will definitely be a peace all right, the question is how long will it last. The smart boys are all learning Spanish.”

“I would have guessed Arabic.”

“I hear Bolivia.”

“Up in the mountains, isn’t it, cool and clean.”

“Colonel Tuttle informs me you’ve worked wonders on that compound.”

“You’ll have to drop in for a tour.”

“Fine, maybe next week after the tournament. You’re planning on attending the tournament, aren’t you?”

“A couple hours on a golf course at this point would be like two weeks R&R in Honolulu.”

“We’ve put together quite a lineup this year. Stone from the First Cav, Kingsley from the Twenty-fifth, Concannon from the Eighty-second, and Charlton Heston has promised to try to get in for the day.”

“My calendar’s already cleared.”

“Here, have some of the orange juice in this thermos or my steward’s going to be miffed.”

A towering wall of thick shifting cloud appeared before them. The plane plunged in.

“By the way,” asked Major Holly, “what happened back there anyway?”

The plane seemed to be surrounded by suds, immersed in a multiplying mound of soapy sparkling bubbles.

“Back where?”

White foam streamed past the windows.

“On the ground.”

“What do you think?” replied The General, puffing busily. “We won. We always win.”

1. Two weeks after the petals have fallen off watch for these signs:

1. darkening of the upper green stalk

2. yellowing of the lower leaves

3. hardening of the capsules accompanied by a color change from light green to a darker green with a brownish tinge or light green to a dull metallic blue sheen

4. most important, the time clock of the plant, the ring at the base of the capsule where the petals were joined darkens in a single day to dark brown or black

2. On a clear, sunny, calm morning, taking special care with your Amasya knife to cut neither too deep nor too shallow, make several circumferential incisions about the ripe capsule.

So I turned full time to gardening, brown fingers puttering between the greening rows, that rich crotchlike odor, the silent company of vegetable life. At dusk I sat in the window, agreeably fatigued, surveying the yield as the red sun fell at my back, stretching a shadow across leaves and stems. It was a bumper crop. Nodding heads wall to wall.

I rarely left the room anymore. The plants required attention, I required attending. I weeded, I watered, I whispered encouragement. I dragged the boxes one by one into the bright window light and out again. The seeds burst, and the soil broke and I used to lean against a box, eye to the ground, and monitor a miracle as tiny separate shoots, tender as a baby’s fingers, poked curiously through a wall of earth. The strength in such softness. The simple mystery. I could watch and watch. Later, I read dozens of botany books but diagrams and nomenclature couldn’t satisfactorily explain the direct wonder of one growing plant. You had to feel your way into understanding. I could see myself stripped to the skin, lying in a box of my own, swollen root burrowing into the ground. Blossoming all over.