Free Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes

voice. So sometimes you pretend the R/T has broken down; sometimes you pretend to be going through a strong silent patch. You keep your mouth shut and you let the sourness bump against your throat. Half your body is full of this sour sick, and because you can taste it all the time you think you can sick it up and get rid of it. But you can’t. It just stays there, cold and sour and congealing, and you know there’s no good reason for it ever to go away. Ever. Because it’s quite right to be there.”
    “It might go away,” she said, conscious of a false brightness in her voice; as if she’d patted an amputee and assured him his legs would start growing again soon.
    “Twice burnt,” he replied quietly.
    “I’m sure you can get it back,” she went on, her voice still full of district nurse. “Back to poaching over the dromes and things … whatever.”
    “That was before,” said Prosser. “That was when everyone was doing khaki knitting, wherever you looked. Remember?”
    “I’ve still got mine. I never quite finished it.”
    “That was it. Khaki knitting. Hate the Hun. Repel the invader. It was all nice and clear and you were happy. You thought you might die, but that didn’t seem so important; and you didn’t think how long it was going to last or anything, you just got onwith it. And anyway it was all new. And bits of it were like the best bits of your life.”
    “Like watching the sun rise twice.”
    “Like watching the sun rise twice. Like taking some bombers across to their target and getting there and the reception committee throwing up a lot of dirt, and you just looked at it—green and yellow and red, hanging in the air—and you didn’t think about it hurting you, you thought about how it looked like paper streamers at a Saturday-night hop. Now it’s different. You can’t go on like that forever.”
    “And you don’t hate the Germans as much as you used to?” Jean thought they were getting somewhere. Perhaps courage comes from hatred, or at least it kept going by it. Sun-Up had lost his hate, that was all. Nothing shameful about this; quite the contrary.
    “No, no. I hate them just as much. Just exactly as much. Maybe for different reasons, but just exactly as much.”
    “Oh. Did … did something happen? Something awful?” Something which made you not brave anymore.
    Prosser smiled carefully, as if he really would make things simple for her if he could. It was just that he couldn’t.
    “Sorry. It’s not like that. The boy grows to manhood overnight. The man becomes a hero. The hero cracks. New boys arrive, new heroes are welded.” He was almost teasing her, though not in a way she’d ever been teased before. “It’s not like that. I didn’t crack—at least, not how everyone thinks of it. Things just run out after a while. The stocks are exhausted. There isn’t anything left. People tell you it’s just a question of having a break and recharging the batteries. But there are a lot of batteries that won’t recharge. Or not anymore.”
    “Don’t be so pessimistic,” she said, though she felt unconvinced by her cheerful voice. “You still love flying, don’t you?”
    “I still love flying.”
    “And you still hate the Germans?”
    “I still hate the Germans.”
    “Well, then, Mr. Prosser?”
    “Well, then, Mrs. soon-to-be Michael Curtis, I’m afraid you haven’t got a QED there.”
    “Oh. Oh, but I’m sure. I just know it. Think of the sunrises.”
    “Well,” said Prosser. “I’m not sure I want to anymore. You see the sun rise twice—you get burnt twice. That seems fair enough to me. Fair dos. Just better get used to it. May as well sling my hook.”
    “No, please don’t get used to it.”
    “I wasn’t serious.”
    The following week Jean returned to see Dr. Headley. She made herself promise not to find anything funny. Not that there was much likelihood of this.
    The circular tin came out again, and the French chalk rose, and the smearing of the jelly