and down, and I fixed myself a big drink and enjoyed every minute of it.â âAre you ready to go to Lejiers?â âOh I couldnât do that,â she says, plucking her thumb. âWhere are you going?â she asks nervously, hoping that I will leave. âTo Magazine Street.â I know she isnât listening. Her breathing is shallow and irregular, as if she were giving thought to each breath, âIs it bad this time?â She shrugs. âAs bad as last time?â âNot as bad.â She gives her knee a commonplace slap. After a while she says: âPoor Walter.â âWhatâs the matter with Walter?â âDo you know what he does down here?â âNo.â âHe measures the walls. He carries a little steel tape in his pocket. He canât get over how thick the walls are.â âAre you going to marry him?â âI donât know.â âYour mother thought it was the accident that still bothered you.â âDid you expect me to tell her otherwise?â âThat it did not bother you?â âThat it gave me my life. Thatâs my secret, just as the war is your secret.â âI did not like the war.â âBecause afterwards everyone said: what a frightful experience she went through and doesnât she do remarkably well. So then I did very well indeed. I would have made a good soldier.â âWhy do you want to be a soldier?â âHow simple it would be to fight. What a pleasant thing it must be to be among people who are afraid for the first time when you yourself for the first time in your life have a proper flesh-and-blood enemy to be afraid of. What a lark! Isnât that the secret of heroes?â âI couldnât say. I wasnât a hero.â Kate muses. âCan you remember the happiest moment of your life?â âNo. Unless it was getting out of the army.â âI can. It was in the fall of nineteen fifty-five. I was nineteen years old and I was going to marry Lyell and Lyell was a fine fellow. We were driving from Pass Christian to Natchez to see Lyellâs family and the next day we were going up to Oxford to see a game. So we went to Natchez and the next day drove to Oxford and saw the game and went to the dance. Of course Lyell had to drive home after the dance. We got almost to Port Gibson and it was after dawn but there was a ground fog. The Trace was still dark in low spots. Lyell passed a car in one of the dips. It was a coupe with the word Spry painted on the door.â Kate tells this in her wan analytic voice and with something of a relish for the oddness of it. âSpry was the last thing I saw. Lyell ran head on into a truckful of cotton-pickers. I must have been slumped down so low that I rolled up into a ball. When I woke up I was lying on the front porch of a shack. I wasnât even scratched. I heard somebody say that the white man had been killed. I could only think of one thing: I didnât want to be taken to Lyellâs family in Natchez. Two policemen offered to drive me to a hospital. But I felt all rightâsomebody had given me a shot. I went over and looked at Lyell and everybody thought I was an onlooker. He had gravel driven into his cheek. There were twenty or thirty cars stopped on the road and then a bus came along. I got on the bus and went into Natchez. There was some blood on my blouse, so when I got to a hotel, I sent it out to be cleaned, took a bath and ordered a big breakfast, ate every crumb and read the Sunday paper. (I can still remember what good coffee it was.) When the blouse came back, I put it on, walked over to the station and caught the Illinois Central for New Orleans. I slept like a log and got off at Carrollton Avenue early in the evening and walked home.â âWhen was the happiest moment?â âIt was on the bus. I just stood there until the door opened, then I got on and we went