Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/articles/s_m1193.zip/CTRY

Text File | 1993-10-31 | 13KB | 215 lines

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 ░░░░░░░░░░░It Was Another Country, and We Were Very Young░░░by Robert McKay
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         The old soldier, as old soldiers often will, sat at the table
    drinking his beer and looking at the passersby, in their disparate
    finery, with a jaundiced eye.  He'd lived most of his life in
    uniform, and to see whole gaggles of men and women, of all ages and
    degrees of importance, dressed without any effort at looking alike
    was unusual to him, although, as he had told me on the day we met,
    he'd been out of the service for over 20 years.

         I never knew the old soldier's name; I called him sir, as his
    inherent dignity quietly suggested, in addressing him, and when I
    thought of him he was simply the old soldier.  He didn't need a
    name, really, for even though old soldiers are a common lot these
    days, what with the end of the War and imposition of the Peace, he
    stood out in the crowd.

         The old soldier seemed never to associate with "his own kind."
    The restaurant where we first met, and where we continued to meet,
    was the kind of place where young people with peaceful inclinations
    seemed to feel most at home.  He wore none of the emblems of the
    various military organizations formed for such as he, and he did not
    once refer to any present associations with the military, either
    active or discharged.  He was enigmatical, my old soldier, and I
    like to think that he talked to me more than to others, that he'd
    picked me for some odd reason that had nothing to do with my
    character and everything to do with his inscrutable whims.

         On the day I speak of, we sat in the restaurant while I skimmed
    a novel.  I read while I eat - a habit that was formed in an
    indulged childhood.  The old soldier graciously allowed me this
    small discourtesy, without the usual elderly annoyance of seeking to
    impart as much information as possible to a youngster whose ears
    simply aren't tuned to the need for learning from those whose
    experience is greater, if not necessarily profitable.  We who are
    young often miss the things we can learn from the old, and they in
    turn often miss the need to respect our ways; the old soldier was
    not like this.

         I finally put my book down, and looked out at the crowds
    passing by.  We sat on the terrace, he with his beer and plate of
    fried mushrooms, me with my half-eaten burger and salty fries and
    fizzing Coke.  We often sat there, especially in warm weather, which
    since the end of the War seemed to me to be more common, although no
    doubt the departure of the conscription fear had much to do with
    that.  As I have said, he regarded the bright colors and varied
    styles of the clothing on the civilians with an eye that had not yet
    adjusted to the life of a non-soldier.  As I drank from my glass,
    and he from his, our eyes roved over the crowd.

         I was quite startled as a gasp burst from my friend's mouth.
    He was a stoic, my old soldier, and I'd seen him walk in the frost
    and sleet without gloves, refusing to either put his hands in his
    pockets or complain about the pain they surely must have caused him.
    Yet now he audibly gasped, as he stared with fixed eyes into the
    crowd.

         I turned and sought the object of his gaze, but could only see
    young people passing and repassing, strolling in the bright sunshine
    of early fall, some few with sweaters on to guard against the very
    slight nip in the autumn air.  I turned back to the old soldier, and
    once again he was calm, his eyes scanning the crowd.  But there was
    a shine there, a moistness in those eyes, that was new to me, and I
    believe new to him as well.

         I am not given to prying, and I had always been careful to
    speak with delicacy in probing the old soldier's memories.  He would
    speak when he would, and would not when he would not, and I had no
    desire to intrude into his private decisions as to when and what he
    would say.  Yet now I was somewhat alarmed; something that could
    visibly disturb my friend was cause for concern.  I spoke.

         "Tell me, sir, what disturbs you so?  I have never seen you so
    put out of your usual equanimity."

         The old soldier, with an unwonted crudity, drained his glass at
    a gulp and waved it in the air, signaling a waiter to replenish his
    beer.  When that was accomplished he lifted the glass again, but set
    it down with a strange, almost loathing look.  "I saw someone in the
    crowd," he said quietly as creeping fog.  "My memories on that point
    I had thought were dead.  But I find they are not."

         He seemed as if he would go on, if only he knew where to start.
    Taking my boldness in my hands, I asked, "Sir, would it be prying to
    ask of what you speak?"

         The old soldier's eyes again took on the mistiness that had
    come over them as he saw the one in the crowd who had so stirred his
    memories.  "I suppose not.  It was another country.  It was long
    ago, and we were both young - younger than you are now." He gazed
    again upon the crowd, and came to a decision.  With a firmer voice
    he repeated, "It was another country, and we were very young."

         And then he told me this story.
                                   - - - - -

         I was, as I've said, younger than you.  I had just joined the
    army, filled with ideas of glory and adventure and winning a
    chestful of medals on some foreign battlefield.

         Like many a young fool, I thought only of the honor and glory
    and the pride of service, never of the blood and pain and slaughter
    and the sickening knowledge that you have literally killed men by
    your own deliberate actions.  I strutted in my uniform, proud of
    those silly stripes that I thought meant something special, even if
    they were of a low rank.  And I must admit, in those days, before
    the War, a uniform was something to turn a young girl's head.

         I turned my share of those heads.  I am not proud, though not
    necessarily ashamed, to say that many young ladies knew me for a
    night, and missed me in the morning.  I had no compunction in those
    days; only a willingness to use any female body for pleasure, if
    that body was attractive enough and the face atop it of a nice
    enough cast.  I took and then I left, and no doubt many of the
    ladies I thus abused had already grown used to it and thought no
    more of me in a week's time than I thought of them.  Some, perhaps,
    wished I had been more of a gentleman, but not many, I don't
    suppose.

         I was rather pleased with myself for my conquests.  And when I
    saw Ravenna, I determined to add her to the list.  The name was
    singularly appropriate; whether it was meant to call the raven to
    mind or not I can't say, but the dark, gleaming hair, the thick
    slanting brows, the white skin, the even teeth often revealed in a
    smile, all made me think of a raven, only this raven was polished
    and polite and very far from a scruffy, ominous bird.

         Ravenna was the daughter of a merchant, not wealthy, but not
    poor either.  She hadn't been spoiled rotten, but neither had she
    suffered the deprivations of poverty.  Her blouse was silk, her ring
    a genuine emerald, though small, her shoes genuine leather.  She
    smiled at me across the room, as she had just smiled at another
    entering soldier and would soon smile at another.

         Her father was throwing a small party for the few soldiers
    stationed in the town - did I mention the base was a minor one, and
    the unit small?  - and as a soldier who delighted in parties and the
    like, I could hardly have stayed away.  There were ladies in plenty,
    but from the moment I entered I had eyes only for Ravenna.  I had
    rarely been so smitten, and never by someone whose attractiveness
    was such that I was completely distracted from the other women.

         As soon as I decently could, I stepped to her side and
    introduced myself.  Her smile was polite - no more.  I made
    conversation; she answered.  I carefully restrained myself, for I
    instinctively realized that she would recognize a line and be
    offended instantly.  Instead, I spoke, perhaps superficially but
    with a certain genuinness, of myself and my desires and my hopes and
    my plans.  Slowly, she responded.  She became more animated.  She
    began to actually enjoy our conversation.  Indeed, whereas initially
    she had periodically acknowledged others, and drawn them into the
    circle of talk, now she skillfully led me into a corner of the room,
    and we sat on a sofa away from the larger crowd and talked.

         Ravenna listened well.  Many think that the art of conversation
    is to tell others what one thinks - on every conceivable subject.
    Ravenna knew much better.  She got me on my favorite subject at the
    time, which like all young people was myself, and she listened.  The
    intensity of her listening frightens me now; at the time I did not
    recognize the commitment of total abandonment to another person.
    Had I but known it, by the time our conversation that evening was
    concluded, I could have asked her to hang herself, stripped naked,
    in public, and her commitment to me would have caused her to meet
    the request if she thought it would truly please me.

         Need I describe what transpired later that night?  I see that
    is unnecessary.  You understand what I, in my stupidity and
    callowness, proceeded to do.  With Ravenna, it was a complete
    surrender, a giving of herself - body, soul, mind, heart - to me.
    For me, it was but one more conquest, one more feather to stick in
    my cap and parade around the barracks.  Though I had indeed been
    more deeply affected by her than I had ever been affected by a
    woman, and though, as I know now, more deeply than any other woman
    ever has affected me or ever can, I still thought that night with my
    hormones and not with my mind or my heart.  I took Ravenna, and took
    from her that which she had cherished and kept for the one man to
    whom she would give herself unreservedly.

         I never saw Ravenna again.  She sent me messages.  She called
    me.  She begged - literally - for me to meet with her, to explain
    myself, to offer something that could ease the pain of a betrayed
    heart.  I refused.  I thought myself independent of all such
    claptrap.  Finally, she took poison; melodramatic, perhaps, but very
    fatal, and utterly final.

         I never married.  I thought of it, later, after I grew up and
    met a woman I could have, perhaps, loved.  But although Ravenna was
    dead, her memory was not.  Each time I thought to propose, that dark
    hair and flashing smile and that broken heart and life would rise up
    before me, and I could not.

         In the crowd just now I thought, for just a second, that I saw
    her.  It was not her, I know; I have never been visited by her
    ghost, and as the years have gone by the memory has eased somewhat,
    and besides, Ravenna would be my age now.  But when I saw a young
    girl, with that dark hair and a gay smile and the pale skin that
    Ravenna had, I thought - for just a moment, an involuntary moment -
    that she had returned to me, and I was glad.

                                     - - - - -

         It was shortly after that day that the old soldier died - of
    heart failure, the coroner said.  It was no doubt possible, for he
    was an old man, and weakened by age.  But I think that the real
    cause was something else.  I think that finally, after all the
    years, he simply chose to go to where his Ravenna had traveled those
    long years ago, when he was still young, and lived in another
    country.

                                   -end-
                   Copyright (C) 1993 by Robert McKay