Free The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya Page B

he shaves.
    D’you think you could get a bead on him from here, Dave? Frobenius asks.
    Dave Hendricks glances over indifferently. He aims an imaginary sniper rifle at the man. From this distance, easy, he says.
    Frobenius says: This town is dead, man.
    Hendricks says: It’s Vicenza, Nick, not Frankfurt.
    Yeah, whatever. It still sucks.
    Hendricks suddenly pushes back from the table and stands up.
    Ya’ll going somewhere, Lieutenant? Whalen asks.
    Yup. I’m heading into town. Time to party.
    He puts on his jacket and glances at Frobenius. Nick?
    Oh, I don’t know.
    Still not over Emily, eh? Hendricks says, grinning.
    Let’s not go there, shall we? Frobenius warns, his voice suddenly steely.
    Sorry, bro, I was just sayin’ …
    Don’t.
    Hendricks puts his hands up. No offense. I don’t suppose you’re in the mood, then?
    Frobenius looks at Whalen, then at me.
    Whalen avoids his eyes. I nurse my beer silently.
    With something like a sigh, Frobenius rises to his feet. He puts on his jacket and cap and glances at us again.
    Whalen continues to look away; I stare back at Frobenius without speaking.
    Abruptly, he says: Fuck this.
    There’s always that, Hendricks says deadpan.
    Frobenius grimaces.
    Well, gentlemen, he says tonelessly, good evening.
    We watch them walk out, the barroom doors swinging shut behind them.
    Lieutenant Frobenius is going to pieces, Whalen observes. He’s drinking too much, whoring too much. I don’t like it.
    He’s his own man, First Sarn’t.
    That still don’t mean I gotta like it.
    At their age, what else have they got to do? It’s all bars and floozies.
    Whalen rubs his hands together so hard they turn a pasty white.
    Still, he says, I know he’s hurting. I went to their wedding, you know. It was by the water. On the Hudson. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She’s a good kid.
    Aww, that’s sweet, I say mockingly.
    I mean it. It was real.
    So she loves him?
    More than he thinks.
    Then why’d she leave?
    Because she loves him.
    All right, what is this? A riddle? From everything I’ve heard, she was frickin’ hard on him. And more than a bit judgmental.
    Whalen winces. Aren’t they all?
    He downs his beer, then looks at me. There’s a movie playing that I want to see. It’s in Greek, with English subtitles. Interested?
    I raise my eyebrows. With subtitles … jeez, I don’t know, First Sarn’t.
    Aw, c’mon. I don’t want to sit in a movie hall all by my lonesome self.
    I think for a moment, then: Why not? It isn’t like I got a hot date waiting.
    We walk down to the movie hall. The cobblestones are still wet from the rain, and slippery. Whalen insists on buying my ticket, so I wait in the lobby and look at the poster withIrene Pappas staring out fiercely at the world. I think she’s gorgeous.
    The picture’s from 1961; the hall’s half empty. It’s an old print, and white blips and flashes spark across the shadowy screen. I feel my eyes blurring from the combination of too much beer and too much straining to read the subtitles. I begin to regret coming, when, with her voice pitched low, Pappas seems to address me directly:
             I will bury Polyneices. I will do what I must do
             And I will die an honorable death .
             I am his family, his kin, and kin will lie by kin .
             Mine will be a holy crime .
    She reaches out of the screen and shakes me by the shoulder.
    Wake up, Steve, she says urgently. Wake up!
    I start and sit bolt upright: Pfc. Serrano has his hand on my arm.
    He says: I’m sorry, Doc, but the captain wants to see you in the command post. Immediately.
    I peer at my watch: I’ve been asleep for less than twenty minutes.
    What’s going on? I ask, but Serrano’s already on his way out. I’m not sure, he calls out over his shoulder, but I’m on my way to get First Sergeant Whalen and Lieutenant Ellison.
    I swing myself off the bunk with a sense of foreboding. I throw on a shirt, pull on