Free Echo House by Ward Just Page A

hecatomb. Civilians were exiled or imprisoned or slaughtered where they slept, whole cities torched and liquidated. Nothing again would be as he had known it. People and places and the emotions that connected them would disappear, except from the memory of those who could bear to remember. The West would set about reassembling its history. Fred was making some point about
The Song of the Earth.
Axel promised himself that if he survived he would make his life count for something, to bear witness to what had happened in the war. He realized he had never before thought about surviving.
    He stared across the great dark dining room to the heavy door slightly ajar and saw Nadège at the kitchen counter slicing strawberries, her face lit by a bare overhead bulb. The crimson juice of the strawberries flowed over the cutting board as she stared at it, savagely slicing the fruit with a huge knife, the juice on her fingers and the cutting board. He could not fathom the look on her face, and then he thought he knew. She was waiting for one who would never come. She would wait forever, her lover always out of reach. Even when he returned he would be out of reach, because she would never be able to imagine his days in Poland. He would not be able to explain them and she would not be able to imagine them. And he would be unable to grasp how she had lived in their remote village. Axel knew that he, too, was out of reach, an American on foreign soil. Only the war was near to hand, and if the count was correct—and who would daresay he was wrong—it would not be the last. And Axel was not yet forty.
    The table was silent now, the count and Fred having reached no agreement on Massenet or Mahler. Nadège delivered the strawberries and did not appear again. The kitchen was dark. At the count's invitation they returned to the fireplace for coffee and Cognac, but after only a few minutes he announced that he would have to retire. He was obliged to be up early on business and, alas, would be unable to see them off in the morning. He wanted them to know that they were welcome to stay on. They could stay with him in the château or in the village. There was much to be done in the fields, and anyone familiar with machines was a godsend. Of course they would be paid for their work. Even Americans needed a respite from combat, and there was no more secure location in all France. This was logical, but the choice was theirs.
    Unfortunately, Axel said, they were expected at the war. Personal invitation of General Patton.
    As you wish, the count said.
    They shook hands and he walked off, pausing at the staircase to look at Fred. His expression was impish.
    It is not cowardice, Monsieur Greene. You should be clear on that point. Cowardice is a simple thing, and we are not simple here. No, it is a more complicated thing altogether.
    And then he was gone.
    The Americans remained a few minutes longer, finishing their Cognac. Fred wanted to replay the evening. He was especially caustic about Jules Massenet, sentimental moron. He had less to do with the modern world than Renoir, that illustrator. The German genius for dissonance and excess in music accounts for their military brilliance, wouldn't you say? But Axel was distracted and answered him in monosyllables. They were very good at reading each other's moods, so Fred did not press except to say that his friend looked tired. Why are you weary, Axel? Are you tired of our horseshit life? Are you tired of thinking about Germans? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in this leet-le château with ripe Nadège? Working the fields like two characters in a Millet canvas? Maybe we'll find God as they do in Victor Hugo's novels. If we remain, Fred said, no doubt we'll learn the subtle qualities of endurance so prized by Monsieur le Comte. Count Coward
    It was midnight. They refilled their glasses and took them upstairs. Axel checked to see if the spider had returned to its web and was gratified to