PART I
The light shifted, casting a shadow between Gina and the easel; drawing her to the window. Translucent shades of green marked the boundaries of cool rain trailing a bank of storm clouds. A thick dark line slashed across the valley as the rolling edge of the front approached the city. With her forefinger, she traced its path along the beveled glass of the new bay window and felt the wind press the pane against its frame. Across the narrow gravel road a stand of old cottonwoods bowed halfway to the ground beneath the weight of a sudden gust, and then sprang upright as if an arrow had been released.
Under protest, Jim had installed the window just last week. He couldn't understand why she wanted it. One skylight and two other windows, offering both western and eastern exposure, gave the attic natural lighting throughout the day. From their hilltop perch, rounded slopes covered in cedar and mesquite meandered gently down onto the plains. He built the studio, so she allowed him his questions. Wouldn't the view of the city distract her from her work? She had to admit, but only to herself, the winding of streets through the maze below had caught her attention.
She turned back to the easel. As if appraising the work of a stranger, she pursued, with slightly unfocused eyes, the disjointed image dominating the canvas before her. No hint of her usual style remained, usurped by this claim to undiscovered potential.
It would be easy to blame her preoccupation with the city below for the anomaly. The wall she had painted, broken grays offering no hint of growth, seemed cold and immovable, the image of antipathy. First glimpsed in a dream, she felt compelled to capture it on canvas. All week she had puzzled over it, shaking it around in her mind like a box of secret objects whose sounds might reveal its contents.
No answers emerged from the grotesque form. She relinquished her gaze, and returned to the storm. Too bad Midnight wasn't here. Half dachshund, half bird dog, he could smell a storm coming hours before it appeared on the horizon.
They would sit on the back porch, watching the boil of a thunderhead spiraling upward. He'd rest his chin on her knee, listening, while she told him stories. She could tell him anything. Those empathetic eyes, intent upon every word, responded in a language she understood. What were those stories? she couldn't remember.
The city seemed to shrink from a descending sky, as thunder echoed in waves over a memory of government housing. Rectangular blocks, arranged in neat rows, stretched as far as she could see to the south. The despair of those within screamed in the territorial wars of children. The sovereignty of tiny patches of yard four feet deep, bordered by cracked sidewalks, was never taken for granted. Outdoors packs of half wild dogs and children roamed, ignoring the coming night and the inevitable retreat.
The window pane vibrated, suddenly, like the screen door her father shoved against the small of her back. "Are you stupid? Get in here!" Lightning flashed as she skirted past him. Midnight tried to follow. A kick to the ribs sent him tumbling down the steps. Bolting into the fury and safety of the wind, he looked back only once.
Gina pulled the easel closer to the window. She picked up a brush and tapped it against her hand, trying to match rhythm with the extended limbs of rose bushes banging against the trellis. If she ignored the pretense of order, she could detect a resemblance to those blockhouses of her childhood.
With twisted strokes of violet and gold that curled upward then fell like meteors and swooping bird wings, she tried to soften the ominous rock. Ten minutes later, as a gravel of hailstones began to pelt the window, she tossed the brush aside in disgust. Impervious to her attack, the painted grays, the block of stone wall, disregarded the giant golden bird broken upon its base.
Gina dismissed fear as nonessential work that could be boxed up and, like the unmended garment of an overworked seamstress, saved for less pressing days. More and more often, lost images rose from amnesiac memory, raging within the stormbound confusion of nightmares just before dawn. Gina threw an oil cloth over the wet painting and set it against the wall, knowing it would continue to haunt her.
The front door slammed shut downstairs. Startled, she glanced at the clock. The heavy thud in the entrance hall told her Jim was home, early. She waited for the sound of his footsteps in the hallway, but only the creaks and groans of the old house in the wind responded. Not until the rain began to subside did she make her way quietly down the stairs.
Jim sat on the edge of a chair in front of the TV. As if frozen in mid-motion, his elbows rested on his knees with the remote held up in one hand. His eyes reflected the blank screen before him. The evening newspaper lay at his feet, unopened.
Stepping just inside the doorway, Gina asked, "Jim, is something wrong?"
He looked up slowly, as if swimming underwater toward a distant surface. Something in his face reminded her of Aunt Claire's face, the day they buried her daughter, Slyvia. A kind of frozen in time solidity. Without a glimmer of emotion, Claire looked upon the face of her daughter's murderer, a year later, at his trial. The sentence is what did it; that's when the ice broke. "Three years", the foreman said. Claire slipped past the bailiff, retrieving the gun from his holster, and held it to the murderer's head. Calmly, she addressed the jury, "so what you're saying is if I kill this man, so long as I don't try to rob him, I'd get three years. . . you're saying, property is more important than life. You can see, I don't want anything from him, except what he took and can't give back. Three years isn't much to me." The man began to scream for someone to stop the crazy woman. Claire just smiled, handed the gun back to a stunned bailiff and walked home. No one stopped her.
The focus of Jim's gaze centered somewhere just past her. "Have you read the paper today?" The intensity of his voice was hollow. She moved back a few steps trying to fall into the path of his vision.
He didn't wait for an answer. "No, of course not. Too busy painting pretty fantasies of that stinking city. It reeks of war industry and it has to be fed, you know."
Refusing to reflect an activist politic in her work had ceased to be an issue for argument long ago. Occasionally he still charged her with escapist behavior, but never with such venom.
He kicked the newspaper across to her; it fell open at her feet. She read one line: Troops Mobilized. She kicked the paper back toward him and headed for the kitchen, muttering under her breath, "This is not your war and I won't let it become mine!"
After slamming a few cabinet doors and banging a pot down onto the stove, she sat at the breakfast table and tried to breathe. Would they have to relive it all over again?
The personal war after the war is the one no one wants to hear about, but she had listened. Through the nightmares and the anger she held fast. Even in the spaces of relative quiet, she had listened. Until finally, like the rain, the pain eased. Jim returned to graduate school and, after an internship at the VA, emerged with a mission. His practice remained an open door for those who made it back but, still carrying the sounds and smells of foreign dust within them, were unable to find their way home.
She never really believed it was possible to be free of deep wounding, to recover the losses. All you could do is go on. Outside, water pooled upon the blood-red patio tiles. She didn't bother to cook supper; she knew they wouldn't eat. Near sunset the sky cleared to a solid golden sheen that settled upon the garden wall. In moments it slipped away, leaving the house in darkness and an even deeper silence.
"Gina? I'm sorry, hon." Framed by the double doorway of the dining room, Jim seemed small; his eyes barely visible. "Get the suitcases and let's get out of here. Think your sister will mind the short notice?" Not waiting for an answer, he disappeared into the shadows.
She refused to move, as if her resistance could influence the flow of events. A glow of light crept from the hallway and the closet of suitcases beckoned. No, her sister wouldn't mind.
She stood behind him with four bags tucked under her arms. Jim's haphazard motions, as he tossed clothes from his dresser onto the bed, told her he was fighting panic. With a loud click of metal wheels upon hardwood floor, the largest suitcase slid from her hand. A spasm ran through his shoulders; his spine stiffened, arresting the impulse to crouch. She saw it, but said nothing; she understood spooked. They packed with the urgency of refugees, as if this chance to escape might elude them.
PART II
The moon struggled free from the haze on the horizon by the time they fought their way clear of the twisted vines of inner city freeways. Stretched out behind them, flattened by the unrelenting heat wave, the city surrendered. Cooled only briefly by the afternoon rains, it settled down into a heavy steam of humidity and news reports.
At midnight they caught their first glimpse of open fields. Jim sighed, a deep wavering sigh. The long August day had passed, with the rain and an unopened newspaper. But Gina could hear the chains of the war machine rattle in his weariness. She could feel the startled heart of a nation once again crossing a bridge into a future of uncertain value.
The moon shadow-danced through fences and trees. Gina watched the light flicker from behind closed eyelids until she slept.
She was outside at night, playing hopscotch. Through the barren branches of a tree she could see the moon as it began to descend. She thought it looked peaceful, but then realized it was too close to the Earth. She heard someone shriek, "It's the red moon of death; it will devour the Earth." Pale women in dresses of white gauze wailed at the expanding moon. Flailing at the air with long, bony fingers, they swooned to the ground, begging for mercy. She ran to the door; it was locked. The windows were boarded shut. Through a tiny crack she could see into the kitchen. Her mother sat at the table, laughing and talking with a man who sat with his back to the window. She beat against the boards, screaming to be let in, but her mother didn't hear. Then the man turned. She knew from the sneering grin on his face that he could hear her, but he didn't tell her mother. She looked up at the moon as it swooped down and swallowed her.
"Gina!" She heard Jim's voice from a great distance. "Gina, wake up!"
She felt smothered and struggled to inhale. She sat bolt upright with the first breath, hitting her head against the window. Jim held her wrist to keep her from hitting him. "What was that about?"
The dawn waited just over the next hill. "Just a dream I used to have as a child." The man had never turned before; she had never seen his face. It was her father.
Jim looked sideways at her, waiting for more. Gina felt numb and said nothing. "Well warn me if you feel a nightmare coming on. I don't know if I could handle anything more than 'just a dream' while I'm driving." She didn't laugh. He let it go.
Just then they crossed a small space of pine marking the border between east and west, northern prairies and southern dunes. The sun rose as the moon set.
"Almost home."
Gina glanced at him; he seemed wide awake. They were three hundred miles from home and she felt as if she'd walked the whole distance.
"Hey, quick, to the right!" He motioned for her to look. "There. Technology for the modern saint."
A man walked along the service road, bent beneath the weight of an enormous cross. His shoulder supported the crux and two tricycle wheels brought up the end. He was moving with them, rolling his load south toward the ocean.
On the bay bridge to the island, smelling the first salt air, Gina's spirits lifted. She could pull out of this if she could just see the Flagman. She wished she hadn't told Jim about him. Jim liked to place people, locate them on a psychological map, make them predictable. The Flagman was a mystery to her, one she didn't want solved. Like most people, he might fit neatly into a slot, but he was more.
An island legend of sorts; no one knew his name, yet everyone claimed to know him. The first time Gina ever saw him she wanted to stop the car and ask if she could paint his portrait. He awakened something within her that she couldn't explain. Unprepared to be disillusioned, she kept her distance.
He rode a bicycle down the median of the divided highway that ran parallel to the beach. From a seven-foot pole, hooked onto the back of the bike, flew a full-sized American flag. Most people fixed on the flag, saying he must be a Vet and the flag a memorial.
Gina saw the upward tilt of his face into the light. She felt his enthusiasm in the way he responded to the urging of sun-bleached hair tapping his shoulders. Clear, undaunted eyes touched her in deep, forgotten places. He had looked straight at her with such undefended joy that he had slipped right past her inner guard.
Today was different. Gina watched the sun push through a retreating morning fog. Her vision seemed distorted, myopic. A sense of foreboding stalked her. She needed to see him; she needed to know that someone could outrun the clouds.
Rounding the last bend before the turn off to her sister's beach house, the Flagman rode into sight. Almost holding her breath, she whispered, "That's him."
Jim slowed the car. Like pilgrims waiting for a sign, they stared as he drew near and turned back longingly as they passed him.
His gaze remained fixed upon the ground, his head bent slightly forward as he struggled against the wind. The laughter was gone; the flag was gone. In its place a wind sock twirled and pointed, first in one direction and then another.
Jim slammed his hand against the steering wheel. "Damned...whichever way the wind blows."
Even now, Gina realized, he could reach below the surface; Jim felt it too. A barometer of natural forces reflecting what they already knew: all realities were fragile.
~*~ They lingered three days on a windy deck, watching the gulls hunt the white caps and avoiding the clamour of media indoors. Her sister, immersed in the newest spectator sport of war reports, was oblivious to their presence.
Gina felt herself drifting, disconnected from the world as she thought it existed. She wanted to reach out to Jim, but couldn't. Caught in separate nets of controlled panic and dread, they drifted alone, lost to each other.
He looked up from the shell he held in his hand. "Let's go home. There's no peace here."
PART III
As the months passed Gina accepted the ebb and flow of Jim's mood. Tense and silent one day, the next he would sit for hours in the attic reading aloud commentaries gathered from the computer bulletin board.
The general consensus on the probability of war seesawed. "Perhaps it's a necessity... more likely, testosterone... Hopefully, reason will prevail." No one really believed it would happen. As the troops continued to build, the consensus continued to delude itself. "Only a preventative measure. . . to let Saddam know we mean business."
Like elks in mating season, they push each other around, butt heads, knock each other off balance, maybe a few scars incurred, but no one dies. "Ah, testosterone."
Jim's nightmares returned. Gina watched the long nights pass, hiding from sleep and her own 'nonessential work.'
The desert storm came -- and went -- but the blackened midday skies and oil-poisoned waters remained. The Kurds fled to the mountains and the Eygptian conscripts found themselves stranded between two countries with no way home. The flow of dialogue on the computer dried up, except for one bitter soul who dared to speak of the 'psuedo warrior' returning home from a six month war to honors not given since World War II. Jim didn't sleep for three days after that one.
Gina's box spilled open and the moon of her childhood dream reached out for her again. Only this time her mother was herself and the man was Jim. There was no smirk upon his face, just tears that wouldn't stop, as he struggled to unlock the door. Outside the wailing women bent over bodies of their dead husbands and sons. And one small boy wept in the hair of his lifeless mother. This time the moon did not engulf her.
~*~ When they returned to the island in late Spring, Gina carried her easel and her questions. Was the storm truly spent? Could they put aside stoic posture and mourn? They searched vigilantly for the Flagman but he seemed to have vanished.
Daily Jim found excuses to drive into town and patrol the highway. When he returned he'd walk down the beach kicking sand at the gulls, only turning back to her on the deck long enough to shake his head, no.
Gina heard him shouting long before she could see his silhouette against the sunset. Running up the beach, almost stumbling over clumps of seaweed, a southern breeze carried his words ahead of him. "Hurry -- come on -- you've got to see this!"
He grabbed her arm as she reached the bottom of the steps and pulled her along, slowing only enough so she wouldn't fall. The gulls were gathering, huddling together near the dunes.
In the last rays of sunset Gina saw them -- a small group of people hovered round something on the beach. She stopped and tried to pull back. "Has someone drowned?" Jim pulled her forward. "Yes, I nearly did. No, come on; you have to see this to understand."
Gina edged up behind a man on the fringe of the gathering. He moved aside, offered her a lantern and politely ushered her into the group. She hesitated and, turning back to Jim, lifted the light higher. Then she saw the man who stood beside Jim. The Flagman gently turned her forward again. "Go ahead, look. It's for you too."
The enormous cross propped against a low dune surprised her. With technology and lunatic perserverance the modern saint had actually finished the journey. Nailed to the top in a tight spiral was a weave of war medals. Some came from the men and women standing round, some from their fathers, uncles, brothers, others from personal collections of memorabilia. Allies and foes alike rested, together.
Along the outstretched limbs bits of paper rustled softly in the stilled breeze -- news clippings and poems.
One was an abbreviated quote of a news story recounting a soldier's letter to her mother. It began, "I saw my first dead body today . . ." Here someone had cut and pasted in ". . . on the street in front of my home." Then it continued, "You seem as if you don't know what to say to me anymore, as if you don't know me."
Copies of children's letters and drawings to their parents from wars as far back as World War I marked the procession of battle down one side of the base. Letters of notification of death lined the other side. Carved into the centerpoint were five words, "And this too shall pass."
Secured between two tricycle wheels she found the ceremoniously folded American flag. She looked up; the wind sock fluttered at the top of the dune. The Flagman approached, carrying an old man. He set him down upon a log of driftwood at the edge of the dune close to the cross. Everyone had paused and watched their arrival and seemed to be waiting for an introduction.
"This is my grandfather."
The old man eyed the group. "Well, I'm not here to give no speeches; but I enjoy a good talk. Chigger here told me there's a bunch of strangers down here pokin' around at somethin' in the sand. Had to come see for myself."
"Yep." He looked at each face with the same straight on, undefended eyes of his grandson. "Sure are. Everyone of ya's a stranger. I'd say for quite some time, too. Since ya came back from the war zone."
"Look around! who do you see here? Every one a stranger, and everyone a brother." He looked at Gina, "or sister."
"It don't matter what war, declared or undeclared." He turned to the woman standing beside Gina. His voice softened. "It don't matter whether it happened across the ocean or in the streets and houses of your home town. Coulda been a big war or a skirmish. Coulda lasted years . . . or an hour. You coulda been nearin' forty like me, or barely grown like Chigger. You coulda been a little girl playing' jumprope. None of that matters."
He gazed at the cross, his lip trembling, and wandered a moment in some old sorrow. "Some of you been a bit P.O.'d bout the boys comin' back to a big hero's who-rah-rah. Don't make it a concern. How long's it gonna last? A day, a week? Besides I've been on that side of the fence. And I can tell you, it rings false against the memories of children starvin' back where you just come from, trapped in a war zone they can't leave."
"What counts now is how we come home. We all come home carryin' the same stuff: pain, guilt, and memories. We all lost the same stuff: friends, innocence, and memories." He looked down at his legs. "Plus or minus a few physical or mental attributes."
"The real battle don't begin until you come home -- a stranger to those that love you; a stranger to yourself. Resolution, we've all been lookin' for that one big answer that's gonna make sense out of it, once and for all, Amen. But best I can tell there isn't one. There's a whole lot of little ones."
"Mendin', that's your job now. Mendin' whatever you can see that needs mendin' -- inside and out. Doin' what you can, when you can. Askin' hard questions that slow down the power brokers and takin' time to answer the questions the children ask. And I know, it's a lifelong chore; but that's how you keep from gettin' lost once you get home."
He looked out at the waves for a while, then started as if he were about to stand up. "Thanks to you all, it's good to spend time with brothers and sisters. Just wanted to make sure you knew it's possible." Chigger lifted the old man and carried him home over the dunes.
They made a fire of driftwood and seaweed and spoke softly in the night. A woman laughed and compared them all to a widow who feels she has betrayed her dead husband when she wakes up one morning and can't remember his face. She rushes to the dresser drawer where she keeps his photo hidden so no one will say she lives in the past.
Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Gina studied the puzzlement on his face. He held up an old photo of a young man in uniform.
"My own photo in the dresser drawer." He tossed it into the flames and laughed. "Of course, my mother, my sister, and my cousin all have copies."
The tide moved in slowly at first, gently rocking the cross back and forth. Gina felt a wall crumbling within her as the great burden of wood finally lifted and floated away.
Eventually the little details pass into rewrites of memory, into outlines of history, into oblivion. But the important things, like strangers and survival, memories that haunt and memories lost, live in the old storytellers.
There are children waiting in the war zone with questions. Without the story the child will remember only scrapes of half-truths told in books. The important things, like coming home and mending, won't be in the books.
They need to know how the golden bird struggled to overcome the wall. They need to know why the giant's wings, even broken and exhausted, were beautiful. They need to know what it means to be more.