The Truth of the Matter
Last words are the ones that reveal the heart.
Major Willard opened the gate in the white picket fence and walked up the neatly-manicured path. It was a nice house, in a nice street, in a nice city. All very nice. The closest thing to a jungle here was the row of camellias along the driveway.
He knocked on the door. In a few moments, it was opened by a middle-aged woman.
"Mrs Kurtz?" he said.
"Yes," said the woman. "You must be Major Willard. They told me you would be coming. The army people. Please come into the living room."
Willard went into the nice living room. There was a boy there, perhaps twelve. "I'm John Kurtz," said the boy. He and Willard shook hands, rather stiffly.
They all sat down.
"I have some things for you," said Willard. "Some things that your husband had … at the end. In the … camp. Where he … was based."
Willard suddenly thought of the faces of stone, the vines, the stagnant river, the Cambodian woman who had not cried – not outwardly, at least – when she had learned of the death of Colonel Kurtz.
But he said nothing. Instead, he took the folder from his briefcase.
"Were you there … at the end?" said the boy.
"I was," said Willard.
"They didn't tell us much," said the woman. "Just that he had been on a secret mission. And that he had died … doing what he believed in."
"Yes, that's true," said Willard. Perhaps more true than you can possibly imagine, he thought.
From the folder, he took a row of medals. Kurtz' medals. Two photographs, of the boy and the woman, obviously taken several years ago. And a book, The Golden Bough. He handed the photographs to the woman and the medals and the book to the boy.
"And there is this manuscript," said Willard, handing the woman the folder. "Your husband was writing it. It's not finished, and it is missing a few pages."
The missing pages were at the bottom of a muddy river in Cambodia. Where they belonged.
The woman was quiet for a while. Then she put the photographs and the folder aside.
"Major," she said. "I come from a military family, father and grandfather and brothers and uncles. I know that sometimes … a war is … not easy on a man. I know that it can take a toll. And the army people, they said a lot but they told me very little. It was as if there were things they did not want me to know. But Major, you can tell me, here, now, you can tell me the truth, to me and John. Was my husband a good man? At the end, did he die a good man?"
Willard wondered what he should say. How could he explain the river, the heat, the rotting corpses, the temple to the gods of death and cruelty, the motto written in the blood of enemies?
On that night, months ago, in that sweat-soaked darkness, even the jungle had wanted him dead. And now he was. And they had made Willard a major for it.
"I am just a simple soldier," said Willard. "It is not for me to say whether he was a good man or not. But I can tell you that what he did, he did for you. At the end, at the very end, the last thing he said was … your names."
"I knew it!" cried the boy. "I just knew it!"
A single tear ran down the woman's face. "Thank you, Major," she said. "Thank you."
The woman and the boy walked with Willard to the door.
"Where are you going now, Major Willard?" said the boy.
"Wherever they send me," said Willard. "Perhaps back. Perhaps, somewhere else." He shook the boy's hand, and then the woman's hand.
He walked down the path and through the gate and away from the house, and continued to walk, until the city vanished, and then he continued along a road, a dark road, a luminous road, a road that might have led nowhere, or might have led everywhere.
END
