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Authors: James Lee Burke
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I’m supposed to be a Christian. I got a wife back home. We’d only been married four months when I enlisted. I’d like to see her again.”
“Spit it out.”
“I don’t regret taking the Jewish woman with us. I won’t ever get rid of what we saw back there in that camp. If I get the chance, I’m going to write Steinberg’s folks.”
I heard the rushing sound of a 105 round arcing out of its trajectory, then a dull, earth-shuddering thump behind us, one that shook snow out of the trees. A second round landed out in a field, close to the road where Pine had seen mechanized infantry. The explosion blew a fountain of dirt and snow and ice into the air. Pine and I stared at each other. “We’re registered,” I said. “Get Rosita.”
She was already up, standing on her own in the bottom of the gulch. Her scarf was tied tightly under her chin, her overcoat powdered with snow, her feet lost inside the big shoes owned by an officer who probably ordered her death and her fellow prisoners’. The cold flush in her cheeks, the hunger in her eyes, the tangled brownish-black thickness of her hair bunched inside her scarf, sent a pang through me that I could not quite explain. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked.
“You remind me of someone I met when I was sixteen. Her name was Bonnie Parker.”
“Sir, they’re going to throw a marching barrage in here,” Pine said.
“You’re a strange man,” Rosita said to me.
“You want me to he’p you, ma’am?” Pine said.
“Who is Bonnie Parker?” she said.
“A beautiful outlaw woman,” I said. “She was my first love. I ended up shooting a bullet through the back of her automobile while she was in it.”
For the first time I saw Rosita smile.
I suspect it was foolish to be musing upon the allure of a young woman when there was a possibility that we might be blown into bits in a snowy, tree-lined gulch in the heart of a medieval forest. But the prospect of death sometimes creates an interlude when time stops and you see a portrait of what existence should be like rather than what it is. The artillery crews began firing for effect, the 105 rounds arcing into the fields, blowing craters in the earth that boiled and hissed on the rims and rained dirt clods on the snow. Pine and I each grabbed Rosita by an arm and labored up the gulch, the 105s marching through the forest, smacking down like Neptune’s net on all of us, Jew and Gentile, German and American. Inside the roar of the explosions, I think I shouted out my mother’s name.
W HEN IT STOPPED, the entire countryside was totally silent, as though we had been struck deaf. We were on the northern tip of the woods and could not see any German troops or hear any vehicles. The sky was pink and blue, the clouds puffy and white. The farmhouse Pine had seen the previous night was built of fieldstones and squared timbers that were notched and pegged and stained almost black by age and smoke from stubble fires. There were no animals in sight; sunlight was shining through the barn walls. The windows of the house were dark, the chimney powdered with frost, a snowdrift piled against the front door.
“What do you want to do, Lieutenant?” Pine asked.
The wind was blowing hard, enough to cover our footprints. I went first, my .45 drawn. I pulled open the cellar door and went down the steps into the darkness. When I lit a match, I saw a wooden icebox against one wall, the kind many people owned when I was growing up in Depression-era Texas. Inside the box were salted fish wrapped in newspaper, a big round of cheese, and two smoked sausages that must have weighed five pounds apiece. Pine and Rosita came down the stone steps and pulled the door shut behind them. “Welcome to the Lone Star Café,” I said.
We ate until we thought we’d pass out.
R OSITA TOLD US her father had been a linguist and professor of classical studies at the University of Madrid. He had also been a member of the Popular Front,
“Spit it out.”
“I don’t regret taking the Jewish woman with us. I won’t ever get rid of what we saw back there in that camp. If I get the chance, I’m going to write Steinberg’s folks.”
I heard the rushing sound of a 105 round arcing out of its trajectory, then a dull, earth-shuddering thump behind us, one that shook snow out of the trees. A second round landed out in a field, close to the road where Pine had seen mechanized infantry. The explosion blew a fountain of dirt and snow and ice into the air. Pine and I stared at each other. “We’re registered,” I said. “Get Rosita.”
She was already up, standing on her own in the bottom of the gulch. Her scarf was tied tightly under her chin, her overcoat powdered with snow, her feet lost inside the big shoes owned by an officer who probably ordered her death and her fellow prisoners’. The cold flush in her cheeks, the hunger in her eyes, the tangled brownish-black thickness of her hair bunched inside her scarf, sent a pang through me that I could not quite explain. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked.
“You remind me of someone I met when I was sixteen. Her name was Bonnie Parker.”
“Sir, they’re going to throw a marching barrage in here,” Pine said.
“You’re a strange man,” Rosita said to me.
“You want me to he’p you, ma’am?” Pine said.
“Who is Bonnie Parker?” she said.
“A beautiful outlaw woman,” I said. “She was my first love. I ended up shooting a bullet through the back of her automobile while she was in it.”
For the first time I saw Rosita smile.
I suspect it was foolish to be musing upon the allure of a young woman when there was a possibility that we might be blown into bits in a snowy, tree-lined gulch in the heart of a medieval forest. But the prospect of death sometimes creates an interlude when time stops and you see a portrait of what existence should be like rather than what it is. The artillery crews began firing for effect, the 105 rounds arcing into the fields, blowing craters in the earth that boiled and hissed on the rims and rained dirt clods on the snow. Pine and I each grabbed Rosita by an arm and labored up the gulch, the 105s marching through the forest, smacking down like Neptune’s net on all of us, Jew and Gentile, German and American. Inside the roar of the explosions, I think I shouted out my mother’s name.
W HEN IT STOPPED, the entire countryside was totally silent, as though we had been struck deaf. We were on the northern tip of the woods and could not see any German troops or hear any vehicles. The sky was pink and blue, the clouds puffy and white. The farmhouse Pine had seen the previous night was built of fieldstones and squared timbers that were notched and pegged and stained almost black by age and smoke from stubble fires. There were no animals in sight; sunlight was shining through the barn walls. The windows of the house were dark, the chimney powdered with frost, a snowdrift piled against the front door.
“What do you want to do, Lieutenant?” Pine asked.
The wind was blowing hard, enough to cover our footprints. I went first, my .45 drawn. I pulled open the cellar door and went down the steps into the darkness. When I lit a match, I saw a wooden icebox against one wall, the kind many people owned when I was growing up in Depression-era Texas. Inside the box were salted fish wrapped in newspaper, a big round of cheese, and two smoked sausages that must have weighed five pounds apiece. Pine and Rosita came down the stone steps and pulled the door shut behind them. “Welcome to the Lone Star Café,” I said.
We ate until we thought we’d pass out.
R OSITA TOLD US her father had been a linguist and professor of classical studies at the University of Madrid. He had also been a member of the Popular Front,
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