Dead Soldiers

Chris looked wonderful. She was wearing blue jeans, a pink something or other and a white wool sweater. It was June but Harry knew, and apparently Chris did too that London could cool off in a heartbeat if a front moved through or the sun set or it just felt like getting cold all of a sudden. It had rained most of the day. The sun had broken through blue-gray clouds in the evening and had thrown off just enough light and warmth to dry up the streets and goad the restaurants into putting up their outside dining tables.

Harry had jeans, a white shirt and an olive blazer on. Cowboy boots too. He figured the baseball cap was a little superfluous. Let the locals look twice to figure he was a Yank. The boots gave him the slightest boost in height. He was about as tall as Chris was, maybe a half inch taller on a good day and seeing her made it a good day. Tonight he had a delicious little stoop to make to kiss her hello. It was so novel, he kissed her twice in the lobby. She didn’t complain.

“Hey.” She said.

“Do I know you?”

She smiled. Flash. Blue, green, blue. Those beautiful eyes. “Are you always such a whack job?”

“Are you always this radiant?”





”You’re sweet.”





”And well-mannered. You can never underestimate good breeding.” Flash. Blue, green, blue.





“Anyway, any preferences on dinner? I reckon if we walk around aimlessly long enough, we’ll run into almost any cuisine.” Harry took her arm and guided her out the door. He winked at the doorman. It had been a good day. He had gotten his mojo back, he had Chris on his arm. Even though he was still puzzling about Wallace and the things that didn’t add up, he had enough due diligence done that he felt he could mentally put T.B.H’s business off to one side without regret.

“I reckon we will.” They walked up Thayer. Harry limped. The knee was a little better and it wouldn’t stop him but it was far from cured. They walked. Close. Together. Chris would slow to look at a store window, Harry would wait. He’d look at Chris. They rejoined each other and headed towards Barrett Street; the pedestrian mall where the nondescript restaurant was. It was the path of least resistance for Harry. He wasn’t interested in cuisine.

“So how was the rest of your day?” Harry asked.

“Good. Real good. Got a lot deeper into the collection. There’s some pretty amazing stuff there.” Harry reached out for her hand and took it. They intertwined fingers. She had smooth, dry skin. Not overly soft, but smooth.





“What are you going to do with it all? Catalog? Print it out?”





”Told you. Not sure. A book project about the rest of it.” Right, Harry thought. She told me. I was paying attention, not. Asshole.

“Yeah. You told me. Sorry.”





”S’ok. Not a lot of people can wrap their brain around looking at pictures just to look at pictures. I like it, but its an acquired taste. Rob could never get it.”





”Maybe he isn’t trying.” Harry said and regretted taking such a disparaging tone. There was a pause. Chris looked at another window on the street. They were turning onto Barrett, walking past the nondescript café.

“Someplace different, right?” she asked.

“I was thinking so.” They walked up Barrett and turned right down Stratford Place; a short, narrow street. There was a Bennetton across the street. Harry hadn’t seen one since he had left New York. It was alight, a wall of glass and chrome in the London twilight. He remembered when Bennetton had come to New York in the early eighties. They were upscale, chic and trendy. He and Claire were students at NYU, threadbare and poor and barely able to afford stuff off the sale rack at Unique Clothing Warehouse. Bennetton was snooty and elitist and made him feel insignificant. And when Harry finally could afford the place, he chose not to. First impressions were lasting ones.

Their side of Stratford was a back to back to back series of small ethnic restaurants with tables outside on the sidewalk. Greek, Italian, Italian again, the end of the street, corner of Oxford and its hustle, even at the eight o’clock hour.

“Little busy here.” Chris said.

“How about the one back there? The Italian place. In the mood for Italian? Or is there something else I can sweep you off your feet with?” She smiled.

“Italian will be fine. The company’s good.” It was Harry’s turn to smile. They walked into the small restaurant. It was busy but not full. The outside tables were empty.



“Sir?” A waitress came out from behind a small counter.

“Two please.”





”Inside, or outside?”





”Chris?”





”Ah. Um.” She looked around the place, pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. Then she turned and looked out at the empty tables lining the sidewalk. “Outside. It’s nice out tonight.”





”Outside it is then. Please.” Harry smiled at the waitress. She took them out and offered them the first table next to the door. “Fine, thanks.” Harry said as an afterthought. Chris was already sitting, looking in her purse.





”Can I get an ashtray please?” she asked the waitress. “Ok?” She asked Harry.

“We’re outside. “ He sat down, wondering why Chris always asked permission to smoke. There was a wine list on the table. He picked it up.





“Glass of wine?”





”Let’s get a bottle.”

Harry looked the list over. “Chardonnay?”





”How about something lighter?”





He looked again. “There’s a nice Riesling.”

Chris smacked her lips. “Nah. Not Riesling. Not tonight.”

Shit. When did she become a wine snob? Harry was nearing the outside edge of his wine appreciation and knowledge. “I’m assuming you want to stay white and not red?”





”Red gives me one hell of a headache.”





”Right then.” He went back to the list. How about this Sauvignon? He pointed out the label to her.





“That’ll work.” The waitress came out with menus.

“Could we have wine first? I’m not ready to order.” Chris asked the woman.

“Yes, certainly.” Harry ordered and the wine was brought out with a cut marble chiller. The waitress opened the bottle and presented the cork. Harry checked it. It was moist and had the proper dampness to it that ensured the bottle had not just been turned on its side just before the dinner crowd arrived. She poured a small amount that Harry swirled, tasted and handed the glass to Chris. ”What do you think?”

She smiled, took a sip, let the wine dwell and then swallowed. “Its fine, thank you.” She said to the waitress who then filled Harry’s glass. He handed the glass to Chris and took her now empty glass back. The waitress filled it and went back into the restaurant. She came out a few minutes later with menus that she handed to Chris and Harry. Chris closed hers and put it down. Harry laid his flat but open on the table. Chris lit a cigarette. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, then took a sip of wine.

“No, he isn’t trying.”





”I’m sorry?” Harry asked.

“Rob. He isn’t trying. At least not anymore. And now I’m not sure he’s ever tried.”





”I’m sorry.” Harry said.

“Not your fault.”





”I know. I’m still sorry. Can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t have an interest in you.” He pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Old habits dying hard, he reclined slightly in his chair, pulled and exhaled slowly.





”I have a feeling I’m corrupting you? Am I?”





”Already corrupt. You’re too late.”

Chris smiled and smoked some more. She sometimes flicked her cigarette into the ashtray, sometimes out onto the street absentmindedly. She took another sip, drink actually of wine. Harry refilled her glass

“Trying to get you drunk.” He said.

“Yeah. Don’t worry. You got me.” She took another drink.

“Takes all the fun out of seducing you.”

“So tell me about your wife.”





”There’s a segue.”





”Does she love you?”





”In her way, I suppose she does.”





”Do you love her?”

“Yes. In my own way as well, I guess”



”What’s the problem?”





”Our ways don’t seem to match up. She thinks I’m a drunk and I think she’s never there. I probably drink a little too much now and then and she probably could afford to stay home one more night a week. Trouble is, neither of us do. We won’t. We won’t do it for the other person and I’m starting to think its because we don’t care. I don’t care about her sensitivity to drinking and she doesn’t care about my chronic loneliness. Do we love each other? I guess we love something about each other but I don’t know that that something is who we are anymore. I wonder if we love the cardboard cutouts of each other during college or just into our first jobs or who we were ten years ago and we’re afraid to let go of that. There’s no one, or worse, someone different behind those cutouts and recognizing that would mean admitting our feelings have changed. I’m not sure we want to face that.”





”That’s pretty fucking intense.”





”Probably more than you wanted to know.”





”Not really. I want to know about the man I’m sleeping with.”





”Slept with. Past tense.”





”Sleeping with. Present tense.”





”So I don’t have to pay for dinner?”





”Fuck you!” She laughed and her eyes, shaded behind the backlight of the restaurant against the dark street were surely aflame.

“Promises, promises.” Chris took another cigarette from the pack. She fumbled in her purse for the lighter. The cigarette was put down on the table. Harry picked it up along with the pack. He withdrew another cigarette and put both in his mouth. Chris came back with the lighter and Harry took it. He lit both and inhaled. Then he handed one back to Chris.

“I am corrupting you.” She said. Then she inhaled deeply.

“Too late. Told you.”



The waitress came by and anxiously scanned the table. The menus had not moved. Chris’s lay closed to one side of the ashtray, Harry’s was open but his wine glass was resting on the antipasto listing.

“I’m sorry,” said Chris, “we really haven’t had time to look. Could you come back in a while? Oh, we could use another bottle though.” The bottle was removed.

“Should we get an antipasto or something?” Harry asked.

“You can if you want to. I’m not that hungry.” Harry was a little woozy from the wine and would not continue drinking on an empty stomach. He ordered a small plate. The waitress seemed relieved.

“Anyway,” Harry said, “That’s kind of us in a nutshell.”





”What are you going to do?”





”I don’t know.”





”Leave?”





”I don’t know.”

“I’m not asking you to leave her for me or anything like that. I don’t know if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just curious. Isn’t everyday you meet someone in the same shitty situation I’m in.”

“Let’s say leaving was an option I’ve been playing with.” Harry almost added ‘lately’ so as not to lie. He didn’t. He had, before the trip, no more thought about leaving Claire than he had swimming naked in the Thames. This was a business trip, pure and simple. He had looked forward to having some free time in London to chase down sights missed on his last vacation here. He had looked forward to being with Lou and Craig and haunting some pubs without Claire looking at him disapprovingly. He had looked forward to being away from her for a few weeks. He had looked forward to the exotic idea of working in a foreign country. Now all bets were off and he was faced with this woman Chris who had walked into his life, with whom he had made love and for whom he was beginning to have feelings that did not seem right. Or seemed all too right. Not that they were anything other than affection and attraction. That was to be expected. What felt wrong, or right, was their intensity. They grabbed on to him and held him and he was spending his day thinking about her. The night they had spent together, their day at the photo archive, looking forward to tonight’s dinner, looking forward to, what? Another night of sex? No, it was more than that and that confused Harry. Sure, they would spend the night together. Hadn’t Chris pretty much said that? So where was the anxiety coming from? He had this woman and yet he felt that without some grand gesture, some dramatic act, she would slip away from him. Slowly. Surely. That was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Harry had put his cigarette out after a few drags. He was dizzy. The cigarette was stupid but it seemed romantic at the time. Romantic was not stupid right now. He’d deal with sucking wind next run with Lou. The gesture was worth it as much as sharing too much wine was.

“I’m corrupting you.” Chris said. Harry looked at her and snorted. Say, that was classy. He shook his head.

“So when you go home…” He knew immediately that that was the wrong thing to say. He had suddenly focused on not the night ahead, not the next day or the fact that they still had ten days together in England. His mind had shot ahead to what his life was going to be like when he got back to the States. He knew something was going to change, big time. He just didn’t have the emotional courage to say it to himself yet so he reached out for a life preserver. The idea that Chris would be there with him the way she was here. He overshot the target. She looked at him. Critically; her brow was furrowed and her lips pursed. He had made her mentally go where she didn’t want to be.

“When I go home he’ll fucking be there and it’ll start all over again.”

“What will?” as long as I’m screwing myself here…

“Us. The mistrust. The fighting. His accusing me of whatever the fuck he is suspicious of this week. I drink, I smoke, I sleep around. The arguments, the hitting…”

“Hitting.” She had mentioned that at the pub a few days ago. Harry had been angry then. Now he was angrier. Now there was the indignation of putting up with an abuser topped off with the investment he was making.





”He has a temper.”





”So do I.” Harry more growled than anything else.

“So do you throw things around when you get mad? Do you slam doors? Do you kick the wall?”





”Sometimes. If I get really pissed.”





”So you hit?”





”Not anybody.”





”Its not a far step.”





”From?”





”From hitting and throwing things to hitting people.”





”It’s a quantum leap. Look. I have a temper. I’m not proud of that and I sometimes lose it and act stupid and do stupid things and lash out but I don’t hit anyone. You don’t do that. Not if you have any decency or control or respect. You just don’t fucking do that.”





”He does.”





”Motherfucker.”





”Yeah, well.”





”He hits you.”





”He has.”





”Mother-“

“Its not chronic and it hasn’t happened in a long time and he mostly takes it out on the house and the furniture. But yeah, he’s throttled me. He’s punched me. I’ve almost called the cops on him.”





”Why didn’t you?”





”That would be sweet. Explaining to the cops about your husband and laying out all your marriage problems to a bunch of guys who really just want to get their shift over with. Easier to go to a hotel and let him cool down. Anyway, he hasn’t done anything in a while.”

“Get out.” Harry said. It wasn’t a question.

“I told you, he’s not ready to be left.”

“But you’re ready to leave him.” It wasn’t a question either.

“I’ve got a plan.”





”Yeah?”





”Get my financial shit in order. Find out how much the house is worth. Figure out what we all owe and to who. Talk to a lawyer. End of the year. End of the year.”





”What then? What are you going to do?”





”Do?”





”Work? Moving? Life? What do you do when its all over?”





”Be myself.” ”Room in there for someone else?”





”Maybe. Eventually. Not for a while.” Chris said it with an absentness that told Harry she had not gotten the hint.

“I’ll…” No. It was not the time to ‘be there for you’ and Harry let the sentence drop.





“You have my card, right? You know where I am back home?” Chris nodded. “I’d like to stay in touch, committing as much as he thought safe.

“I’ll try.”

The waitress came out with Harry’s antipasto and looked hopefully for some movement on the menus. There was none. She checked the wine and seeing about another glass and a half left in the bottle, asked if they wanted another.

“Yes, please.” Chris said. “Oh, and could we get some water too. And I think we should order.” Harry delighted in the use of the plural pronoun by her. The waitress’s step seemed to lighten and she returned to the kitchen for another bottle, having poured and now taking that dead soldier home. They ordered. Dinner came out and it was delicious. They ate and made small talk over forkfuls of food.
They tried each other’s dishes, fed each other and Harry wound up wearing an errant red streak on his shirt. Chris giggled and apologized and wetted a napkin and blotted the spot so it wouldn’t set and offered to pay to have it cleaned. As she moved her chair next to his and was working on the spot Harry stroked her hair and removed the barette holding it up. She stopped, looked at him and he brushed the hair aside and let his hand caress her cheek. He lingered and then ran his finger over her jawline to the other side of her face and caressed that cheek with the back of his hand. Then he leaned forward and they kissed.

“Wasn’t that good.” He said quietly.

“You’re sweet.” ”And you’re special. I can’t tell you why. There’s something about you.”





”I’m easy.”

“No, things are easy. You make, I don’t know, you just make things seem right. It just feels right to be with you.”





”They do seem right. At least right now they do.”





Chris blotted once again and then moved her chair back to her side of the table. They finished dinner. Dishes were cleared and dessert was offered and Chris declined. Harry followed suit. The waitress smiled as she picked up the dessert menus and prepared the bill. The dinner crowd had come and gone. Chris and Harry had been there over four hours but the place had never been so crowded as to seem that they were taking up a table. There had been a couple one table, then two tables down from them. Harry remembered that there had but remembered nothing else about them. The waitress, a woman in her late forties, seemed to smile every time she was at the table catching Chris and Harry in one intertwined moment or another. The smile was not there at first, when they were talking about home and how things were there. But it was when they ate together or held hands across the table and took a moment away from food to watch the goings-on of the street. This waitress knew and that seemed to make her happy.

Harry paid the bill and said Good night and Thank you and pressed a cash tip into the woman’s hand.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, “ Harry said, holding Chris’s hand as they walked away, “But I hope you don’t want to head back just yet?”





”Big dinner, huh?” Chris smiled. “Same here. Let’s walk around a little. Harry squeezed her hand ever so slightly and she smiled at him and they wandered down a bit of Oxford street.

There was a store, a dressmaker’s shop of the classic kind. No mannequins and cutting edge windows but three examples of the craft displayed on headless forms with single silver poles supporting them to the floor. No other decoration but the window ledge was painted a light periwinkle and the whole thing was brilliantly lit. They stopped in front of the window. Chris turned to face it and Harry stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“Which one do you like best?” Chris asked.





”The dresses?” ”Yeah.” Harry thought for a moment, which is to say he had no idea. Dresses were not anything he consciously considered, unlike what was underneath or where the zipper might be. And he couldn’t remember the last time Claire had asked his opinion of dresses. Or anything else for that matter. He looked at the three displays. There was an aqua, conservative cut frock that had nice lines but was interrupted by a wide sash-like thing around the waist. The center sample was a straight, clean dress made of a light fabric with medium blue and green striping over a white background. The rightmost one was a linen example. It was long and flowing and had loose soft folds wherever it might have to snug up against a woman’s body.

“The middle one.”





”Really?” Chris’s voice almost squeaked with genuine surprise. “Why?”





”The lines. Look at them. They’re clean. Straight. There isn’t any unncessesary ornamentation. It can’t hide. It is what it is. I’m not entirely crazy about the fabric pattern but there’s no arguing with the lines.” Harry was amazed at how concise and reasoned his opinion seemed. It was like a lot of other things that had come out of his mouth in the last days around Chris. They seemed right and it was easy to say them.

“Really?” This time, she didn’t squeak.

Harry hugged her from behind and ran his mouth across the nape of her neck. Neither one said anything for a moment. “Which one do you like?” He finally asked her.

“The white one. The one on the right.”





”Why?”





”It’s graceful. Look at it. The way it flows. It’s like watching a dance.” Harry could see its flow but couldn’t see a dance. He said nothing and continued to hug Chris.

“Its getting cold out.” She said, and pulling his arms gently away from her, she turned to him. She moved his arms back around her and put her arms around him. Then she kissed him softly. He could taste the wine and inhaled her perfume, deep into his lungs, holding the breath.





“Let’s go inside and warm each other up.”

***
Harry half sensed the morning light and half woke up. He turned over and craned forward, looking for Chris, finding an empty pillow.

A warm, empty pillow. He turned his head back slightly.

“Hey.” She said.

“Hey.”

“I was watching you sleep.”



“How’d I do?”





”Pretty good.” She leaned down and put her lips on his, tongue jutting into his mouth while her hand ran down his chest and on below the tangled covers, “Pretty God damn good.”