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Fires Eternal Morning :
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Chapter 2
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The memories keep streaming past Hauberc's eyes. There is no order in time. Some of these scenes even must be coming from other people and even from other times in history? Could there be something like “genetic memory”, like memory buds from his parents and grandparents ? Still with
child eyes, he had been looking out through the bushes / over silver-bird
wing tips, off the edge of my yard, down through the stratosphere,
over continuous ripples of bright steel-blue ocean stretching out
for miles, the green east-west edge of land, coast ports far below
with jetties that extend out into water glimmering in the sun like
tiny diamonds; towns nestled deeper in the hills of Cantabria; and
other villages far off to the south... Waiting to
explode into sunlight together......God, Love, where are you?
Hauberc has
been assigned to observe a suspected courier contact in the indoor
section of the old pier terminal of a ferry excursion to the Bosporus
and Black Sea. Pursuing a lead intercepted yesterday in a short-wave
transmission, decoded by his British contact, Blackwell Hughes,
a higher ranking operative, evidently between Turkish and Bulgarian
agents, he is awaiting Hughes' arrival, readying to take up his
position, yet squeamish at being alone here. Was he alone at this
critical contact point, or only informed as being alone -- not to
know who were the others in position here? This narrow
strait between Europe and all of Asia could be the bridge, the transfer
point, of data on microfiche which could alter the balance of power,
the very proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons in the world. Here, the cavernous
inside of the pier is crowded with tourists and travelers of different
nationalities, Eastern and Western, all standing in roped-off queues
which fill the rear section of the room... He notices that the berth
for the ferry itself is a U-shaped dock, similar to the terminus
of a railroad track, in the outer covered section of the pier, from
which the ferry, yet to arrive, can be boarded from gang-ways on
two sides. Presently, waves from the approaching ferry break up
the peaceful reflections in the water and lap against its inner
sides of the dock as in anticipation of the ripples of altered history. Even with the
crowds, he is fortunately standing in a position in the line from
which he has an unobstructed view of the dock and the tiny streaks
of gold and brown and silver ripples As the people
in the lines waiting to board impatiently begin to move by the ticket-takers
and out onto the dock platform, he walks along with them as masses
of people are disembarking and moving on-board, while he watches
for the precise moment of a contact at a spot at the corner of the
cabin on the deck of the ferry. Across the dock, he thinks that
he sees Hughes finally arriving. Now he is approached by three men, two of whom are in Turkish police uniforms, who roughly order him to come along with them, taking him onboard and quickly shuffling him toward a companionway, as the ferry is beginning to leave the pier and move out into the sunny harbor. Glancing back,
he is unable to glimpse Hughes again on the dock as he is taken
along a narrow companionway to a tiny cabin. Not stopping to tell
him why he has been seized, they shove him into the cabin, only
leaving him grateful not to have been struck. Climbing up
from the floor, he finds that the door has been locked. Sometime
later, another door to the right is unlocked from the other side,
and slightly opened… Waiting several minutes, the door still left
ajar, he cautiously opens it, where he finds the crowded kitchen
galley. The galley hand, walking back and forth between his counters, is preparing various dishes, but as Hauberc comes in the door the galley hand he looks over at him and says something to him casually in Turkish, which Hauberc is unable to follow, so continues to move around the end of the counter, making a gesture of greeting to the fellow, moving toward the door to the companionway. But the galley hand suddenly looks up, pointing a small pistol and gesturing for him to move away from the door and just sit there, while he watches Hauberc out of one eye. Eventually,
Hauberc playfully pokes his head into the passage, but he turns
back only to find himself again looking down the muzzle of a gun,
so The constant side-ward roll of the boat, and his uncertainty, gradually churns his stomach, and he can only console himself that his partner is aware of his capture and might negotiate for his release...
Fifteen hours
later, after making steadily eastward with no sight of land from
his cabin porthole, he finally senses that the ferry is slowing
into a docking approach. Hauberc is
by now mentally exhausted with the fearful prospect of capture,
detention, and maybe execution. His thoughts have already raced
into the state of blankness--- Hauberc and
the other captives are marshaled to move through the gate, awkwardly
tripping over their chains as they go. But now he startlingly realizes that the pier is an exact mirror-opposite of the one from which they had embarked at Istanbul. And across the dock, through the crowd, he sees his partner Hughes casually walking to a waiting car, being saluted by the driver and driven off--- (Hope has been
removed, and today he cannot remember the grueling interrogation,
but only the name of someone in history named Xerxes, and a long
walk inland from the Crimean shores into a Ukraine landscape --
thinking: 'Well, here I am as in the poem : Tennyson's phrase echoing
in his memory -- “Cannons to the right of us/ Cannons to the left...”
as he continues to walk eastward over snowy roads, a helicopter
gunship circling high overhead in the blue to his right, and another
to his left...) "Cannons to the right of us... Cannons to the left of us... We marched down into the Valley of Death..."
From the view
on this mountain trail, he can see over the distant hillsides of
Umbria, quaint villages with pink stucco buildings, and the church
steeple in the early morning angle 'I’ll have
to climb through this rough terrain to get to the other side of
a small ravine,' he said to himself -- though he was unlucky enough
to twist his left ankle badly when he hit the ground, not the proper
landing he was trained for. So he would now have to worry about
getting back to his unit alive, without the fucking Germans seeing
him! General Simone,
his Grandma’s nephew, had hand-picked him for this mission, since
he spoke all the dialects, north and south. like a real paisan,
with Pop from Sicily, Moma from Ferrara. “Uncle Simone” and Pop
had enlisted together in the Italian Engineer Corps back in ’14.
Then, before he was even born, his little sister Hope, only 4, and
Grandma died when the Austrians were shelling Ferrara in '17. Knocking
out this bridge would prove his competence to Simone and being worthy
of being recruited for Strategic Services. Mussolini was
loosing ground since we invaded the Boot, he thought, and he’d soon
be defeated, and then just the Nazis left to fight. 'But I’ve got
to remember to think only in Italian. OK Giani, only in Italian!”
Still, if he could get to the other side of the valley, walking where he would probably come close to peasant houses he knew he’d be safer -- He hadn’t been in this province alone before and so had to watch out, not mistake anyone else to be his contact, Fascisti instead of partisan. He hoped that
no lookouts had seen his chute come down -- black silk in the black
sky? All he could
think about now was just meeting up with his comrades and getting
back to the US lines to the south tonight -- a long walk already
but much longer with his aching ankle. They would be specifically
looking for him in two hours. Still there was no sign of his contact.
Two peasants
were walking further ahead on the path where he trod -- stocky tall
men with dark hair and handlebar mustaches. Both carried beat-up
looking Springfield rifles slung over their shoulders. But he couldn't
tell for sure who might have issued these rifles, maybe leftovers
from the Great War, so he decided to just watch them until they
moved beyond his area, but not to completely lose sight of them. The two stopped
and sat on some large rocks near where Hauberc hid, their voices
just within earshot, talking about the new Social Republic, and
the news that Il Duce had just flown over to the Germans, but the
sound of their words drifted partly to the other direction -- and
he still couldn't make out their conversation clearly enough to
be sure of their loyalties -- He would just sit tight until they
decided to continue along further ahead into the early morning light. Finally, after
more than a quarter of an hour, Hauberc was able to make his way
deeper and deeper into the woods, careful not to break branches
where he trod. He was now beginning to locate his objective.-- The
chart that he had committed to memory seemed slightly different
from the actual lay of the land itself... But when he
discovered his destination some time later, and looked at his small
timepiece, he realized how much later it was now, behind his schedule,
because it had been necessary to stop to avoid these two peasants.--
The bridge
over a gorge in the mountainside was wide enough and apparently
strong enough to allow Panzer tanks and high half-tracks to pass
over. Another 'road leading to Rome.' He was just
able to get the detonator wire stretched to a safe distance away
when he began to hear the sounds of a mechanized unit approaching.
They were ten minutes early! Shit! Fucking stupid goose-steppers.
Shit! They were now
already coming out onto the bridge -- This is not what he hadwanted
to happen -- He could have just done the damned bridge and gotten
the fuck out, with no danger Nazi infantry
men were already at the middle of the crossing, two tanks rumbling
up in line behind them, then a half-track already off the terra
firma -- Why did they
have to be so damned early ? What could he do now? This could only
mean certain death to all these men and disaster to their wives
waiting for them back home, as Phyllis waited for him. He would
be damned by God for this ... just for touching the ends of these
two wires to the poles of this little battery -- But fuck Hitler
and his death camps. Hauberc knew the rumors were true after Simone
had showed him the secret aerial reconn photos: trains of cattle
cars and rail tracks leading to “resettlement camps” they called
them, to which all the Jews of Europe were being brought, though
the number of barracks stayed the same... Just a river of people
being brought in every day, and no one gets out… But, Oh, God,
how could he get out of this? The rumbling of the engines vibrated
the supports of the bridge, but not enough for them to give way
by themselves.-- Now he had to shut his eyes tighter and tighter, wondering if he could do it with his eyes closed. Maybe not, as he felt the hot spark snap between his fingers. 'I'll pray for you men -- about to pay the highest price for obeying Hitler's orders -- Mother Maria, Forgive me my Soul!' Then the dark velvet inside his eyes suddenly flared to deafening white-orange -- a horrendous deafening blast of nitrate and the thundering sounds of men and heavy vehicles falling forward into the chasm : soldiers, jangling utensils, helmets, rifles discharging, and terrified cries.--
Just a few
hours later, many young people have gathered and are crowding into
the garage behind his parents' house, attempting to hide from the
menacing war and the outside air – Huaberc is huddling everyone
in, squeezing himself inside among them, so that he can roll down
the overhead door, looking out through its small panel windows,
and again pretend that the garage is a space-ship, 'We can blast-off,
and escape the fallout clouds.' But then Frederick
Pageant, Hauberc's friend since kindergarten appeared again outside
the side window, trying to get their attention before everything
is closed out entirely to the exterior world. Fred looks now more
like Hauberc remembered him from before, still the same refined
looks but slightly buggy eyes, especially at this moment when he
surely has something to say. Hauberc cannot understand from where
Fred has arrived, although the same applies to all the others crowding
in here. Fred is smiling
and starting to laugh when Hauberc pulls open the window: "Climb
out in the alley, I want to tell you something I just saw,"
says Fred. "OK, what?" "There's
something strange happening down at the pond," Fred tells Hauberc,
"Hundreds of people are just walking around." They climb
over the barricade, cutting through into the drive-way of a rear
neighbor's house and out to the street on the opposite side of the
block, down to the end of the street of houses, to the top of the
rounded stone stairway which overlooks the water of the wide pond.
But now Hauberc
feels lost, as he can only see a few old houses, and a thick grove
of elm trees over the crest of the hill.
"See?"
He points out one stone which reads the name of an army corporal
and the dates 1847 - June 3, 1864, with the epitaph newly chiseled:
"Dear
Mama, I'll pin this letter to my fold, They walk
further southwest across the field parallel to the direction of
Main Street and the buildings of the town center hidden behind a
tall thicket of sumac across the railroad tracks... The sky, once
partly sunny, has become completely gray with heavy clouds moving
in, shading the daylight. By another brook that joins Long Brook,
they finally come up to the unpaved center of town, but there find
only a few buildings surrounding: a tanner's shop next to an old
homestead, then a General Store, with a sign “Ufford's,” and a darkened
tavern and the stately white Congregationalist Church across the
way. As they begin
southward down Main Street, somewhat confused, along the line of
oaks and beeches and large mansions, a sudden commotion of several
horses, galloping up the road from behind them, carrying riders
in long coated blue uniforms, passes by them and then turns right
up ahead at the Green at West Broadway --- Following behind
them, they also turn and walk through the small green, where they
can see the riders tying up their horses outside Benjamin's Tavern,
a stately wide yellow-stucco house situated at the far end of the
green. The men dismounting their horses are already engaged in a
subdued conversation with several other men standing outside the
place. Unheeded by
the activity, Frederick and I enter the door of the tavern and find
seats at the end of a long table, overhearing the semi-discreet
talk going on. We do not have
to wonder long what is happening, as two of the soldiers are relating
the events of a skirmish from which they have come in the town of
Ridgefield against a large force of British Regulars who were marching
back toward their landing point at Compo Beach by Norwalk Town after
burning down the Continental Army supply stores at Danbury -- "We split
forces in Bethel when you men went with Silliman and Arnold against
their main flank; we were with Wooster closing in on a splinter
column left behind. He took a shot through the stomach and went
down from his horse -- Looked like too much blood lost -- He'll
not make it." The speaker slumps into a seat. The others
begin to speculate on what will become of morale at the loss of
a rallying leader, and the loss to strategic planning. But the innkeeper, who had been noticing Pageant and Hauberc's curiosity since arriving, finally comes over to where they sit. "You two young masters look strangers to this town -- Where do you
hail from? And what brings you to Stratford?" The question
takes them off their guard. "I'm Inspection Committee Officer,"
the innkeeper goes on. "and I'll have a look at your papers..."
Frederick and
I look at each other blankly. "We live up at the Green,"
he blurts. "You are
talking about the green above the ox pasture? At whose house there
are you staying??" "Paradise
Green," Hauberc attempts to mend the story. The innkeeper
turns to call over the others, "Men! I think we have here those
two Tory spies they saw in Danbury two weeks ago! They fit the descriptions." "Don't
let them escape us!" shouts the commander summoning the soldiers
over to them. "Wait
a minute," chimes Pageant. "Were you talking about Benedict
Arnold? -- We can give you important information!" "It's
too soon, Frederick..." Hauberc cautions. "He calls
him Frederick! He may be a Hessian!" "You two will please move from that seat," orders the innkeeper. "Search them for weapons..." Pageant and
Hauberc are immediately questioned and at first accused of stupidity
on account for their uninformed answers, then of diabolic deception
regarding their claims that they come from the Twentieth Century.
Producing dated coins from their pockets, they are next accused
of witchcraft. On into the
questions, the Inspection Officer soon intervenes lest the other
inquisitors reveal secret information. Pageant and
Hauberc are taken from the inn and told that they will be brought
to Regimental Headquarters at New Haven, some twelve miles east,
a three hour voyage. They will be interrogated and charged with
espionage. The Colonial
fellows have Pageant and Hauberc walk along next to their horses
through the parade ground they call Broad Street, across Main Street,
and down New Lane, lined with large homes, by the cemetery to Elm
Street with the same salt-box house Hauberc has always known in
that lot. The questions that Pageant and Hauberc ask rain them with
accusations of spying and witchcraft, as if the two we were so confident
of rescue or escape that they would seek to ferret more intelligence.
Heading east,
the Colonial fellows bring them across Tanner's Brook bridge and
up the long Ferry Bridge Road, toward the landing, where they will
be brought across the Housatonic River to go on the rest of the
way through the Milford Colony on the Boston Post-Road to get up
to New Haven. Walking up the carriage trail that traverses a wide
heath covered with birds and sunshine, Hauberc begins to feel almost
hypnotized with their predicament. But Frederick becomes more lucid
and begins to tell their captors, as they walk, that one day this
would be the path of a turnpike super-highway with six lanes and
no stops from Florida to Maine for motorized "horseless carriages"
and also for them on this site, a vast factory called Raybestos
which will make asbestos-lined brakes for these motor-cars. "Yes,
you'll need good spark-proof brakes for a carriage powered by a
machine... "How can
you have a factory in the middle of a field where there is no stream
for the water mill?" "It runs
on steam and electricity. Its the same thing that Ben Franklin discovered
when his kite was struck by lightning." explains Frederick.
"Where
will you get all this asbestos stone?" "Oh, I
don't know...South Africa, I think..." "Queen
Victoria will have a colony there after a war with the Dutch settlers."
"Queen
who? Is she another Hanover ?" "Over
there is the baseball field where we used to go to watch the Brakettes
practice, the Raybestos women’s baseball team from the factory.
Its like cricket --" Hauberc adds. "They
play a game called 'cricket' in New York City and in London, too!
You know that well enough, Tory!" "The mill
owners will make women play field games in public?! It's an immoral
outrage !!" "You two
boys would go to a Bedlam house, if we weren't going to shoot you
first!" "Cease these lies!" shouts the Inspection Officer in their faces, lest they steal the sympathies of his men. "Hold your tongues and your absurd tales!" Now they all
proceed in silence, crossing the wide, scrub field. The same path
on which they walked would shortly bring them to the crest of a
small rise and down to the bank of the Housatonic River. Would there
be a bridge there now? Hauberc remembered going out onto the span
which would be called The Washington Bridge, far smaller than the
Manhattan version of the fuller name, remembered walking out halfway
across, looking down at the surface of the water below, and finding
the iron gate unlocked so that he could climb the narrow stairway
down one of the concrete support structures to the waters edge,
hoping not to be seen, but spotted by construction workers, so that
he had to run back to the top of the steps, and furtively retrace
his steps back to the Stratford side. But now wondering
what will become of he and of Frederick when they have been interrogated
at Regimental Headquarters in New Haven, Hauberc suddenly, finally
realized that he was walking by himself, somehow, as though he always
had been, that there were no others, but that he had been led here. Coming over
the rise, he could see no sign of Moses Wheeler's Ferry Landing
as he knew should be here, that should have been here since the
beginning of the Stratford Settlement. In fact, the only sign of
habitation were the campfires visible deep in the woods on the Milford
side of the river. Now, fearfully,
he recalled the game that Frederick had concocted to imagine the
town in the past, and the game he has disappeared in the middle
of, just as he has always been prone to do when they played in the
woods, not to be late for supper at home... A gnawing feeling
of aloneness descends over Hauberc, as he tried to figure ways of
crossing the wide but calm river. Instead he choose going west back
over the trails behind him, consciously repeating the same journey
as his earlier return home to an abandoned 20th Century town. But mostly
there were no trails leading anywhere, much less where he wanted
to go. Now he could cut through the scrub-brush heath, making his
way across a dry chalk bed, and eventually through other maple groves,
coming along a puddle-covered open meadow at the place which he
knew would one day become football and baseball playing fields of
Long Brook Park. The little
path led up the slope, sparsely lined with tall oak and elm trees,
bringing him closer to some tall conical objects located further
back in a clearing, which he momentarily recognize to be wigwams,
situated almost on the very site of his parents' and neighbor's
car garages. But then behind
him there was a sudden crashing through the underbrush to his right,
and he turns to see a young Indian man running at him. The Indian
grabs at Hauberc, but is moving so fast that he only succeeds in
throwing Hauberc over to the ground. The woman, now alarmed, starts
to run to her wigwam, but her flight is interrupted by the sharp
report of musket fire in the air-- |
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