Read Online Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull - Free Book Online

picked up a clump in my hand and smelled its wet pregnant smell and I thought that this right here in my hand is a man in his afterlife.
    “You can’t really tell me what it was like, can you?” asked Julia.
    I let the dirt fall from my hand, then brushed my palm off. “It never comes out right so I stopped trying a long time ago. It’s enough that it never happens again.”
    “But you don’t mind me asking?”
    “Not at all.” I looked down at the little clumps of dirt at my feet. I loved her asking.
    “The truth is, I don’t really know what to ask. I thought I’d have so many questions… ”
    She was quiet, looking out across the plain. A lone bird landed nearby, then flew away. I felt a sense of sadness in my throat.
    “Is there any way to describe it?”
    “You mean… ”
    “I mean the worst parts.”
    “Not really, no.” But go on, try.
    “What was it like, being around so much… death?”
    I shrugged, then looked over at the nearest trenches, imagining them filled with men. “It was goddamn terrifying. But at a certain point I got so scared that I felt strangely calm. It was as though there was suddenly nothing to worry about.”
    “Because you’d accepted your death?”
    I laughed. “Not graciously. At times it just seemed so inevitable, that such a tremendous effort was being made to bring it about that I might as well concede the inevitable.”
    “And Daniel, how did he take it?” She tensed slightly, as though bracing for my response.
    I thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. He always seemed so brave; almost fearless. But looking back, I don’t know. It’s more like he always knew he’d never make it. Some men just had that feeling. They were usually right.”
    “You think he knew?”
    “I can’t be sure.”
    “So we both knew,” she whispered. I watched the quiver in her lower lip.
    We slowly walked to the edge of a trench, which was partially filled in from the rain and wind. I made out the outlines of a rifle half-buried in the dirt. A Mauser.
    “I wasn’t scared of dying until I had Robin. The prospect of suffering frightened me, but not the idea of being gone.”
    I thought of Sean and how much he needed me; how much there was to teach him and to protect him from. Then I thought of Daniel and what a wonderful father he would have made, patient and loving; how his daughter would have been the highlight of his life.
    “Freud says we’re anxious about sex. I think we’re anxious about death,” said Julia. “It colors everything.”
    “I haven’t read much Freud,” I said, remembering Daniel’s descriptions of her voracious reading habits.
    “Don’t you think it makes sense, that underneath everything we are all terrified of dying, only we can’t bring ourselves to admit it, so we complain about everything else? Look at the way people live their lives; you’d think they had all the time in the world. It drives me crazy.”
    “You can’t expect people to dwell on the fact that they’ll ultimately lose everything they have and love.”
    “Why not? It might make them think about what really matters.”
    “What does really matter?” I asked.
    She looked at me as though wondering if she could trust me with some immense secret. Finally she said, “Having someone to love. Being compassionate. Being fully alive every day so that you really see and hear and smell and feel things.”
    Listening to her made me think how wonderful and rare it was to hear someone talk that way. Was that what really drew me toward her, that she talked and cared about the important things? So few people seemed to that it left me with a certain unshakable loneliness, especially after the war.
    “Do you feel fully alive now?” I asked, anxious as to how she’d reply.
    She looked at me and smiled. “Yes, I do.”
    “Good.”
    I dropped down into a shallow trench and retrieved a battered canteen, the lid still screwed tight. I unscrewed it, then held it to my nose. “Old wine,” I