Monday, November 11 1963 - 12:14pm
Last night, I dreamt of Five again, and I don't understand this dream, even less than the previous ones. It was much fuzzier, diffuse, with the strange impression that it was being told to me backwards. I don't know if this makes sense: I just think I saw the few seconds of this dream unfold by going back in time. With a dull anguish, almost as in some dreams where you see yourself dying, and wake up feeling nauseous. I'm still experiencing it, this lunchtime, in a nagging way. I don't think I'll be able to have lunch.
Sitting on the store's balcony swing, I try to find some shade. Really: don't underestimate the autumnal Texan sun. Finally, since 1961, it's the first fall I spend here, just like the scorching summer, when every asphalt shingle seemed to give back at night all the heat accumulated during the day. The smell of grilled meats is everywhere this noon, in the hiss of a radio somewhere over an open windows of the neighborhood. At least, it's a bit windy.
With today's newspaper beside me, I take a deep breath. Lloyd was right: Kennedy's arrival is imminent, and everyone's got a TV set to fix. History is unfolding, right before my eyes, while - every day a little more - the wind of change also starts blowing through the dusty streets. Even in front of Stadler's or Cecilo's. Social revolt is spreading, fierce as a grass fire. We are at the dawn of deep transformations that will reshape America. I run a hand over my eyes: I'm both troubled and happy to be able to witness it.
I've been hearing from Klaus a lot lately. A lot more since Jill plugged the phone in the room where he's often isolating himself, pretexting meditation and yoga. And for Klaus to want to lock himself away anywhere, I can swear the situation is getting on his nerves. She pinned the number to the wall for him, in large handwriting. She knows him really well, and it pains me a little to realize that he still can't remember her name. Yet, thanks to her, he calls. Often.
I think the little trip to the Bay will soon come to an end. Because he literally can't take it anymore, as a matter of fact, and because he's got the 'Children' where he wanted them to be. Ken Kesey, like us back in '61, is about to embark on a Priscilla-inspired bus journey across Eurasia: a trip that will - I know - be documented and covered by the media enough to set the hippie movement ablaze within two years.
Klaus will not have succeeded in accelerating or amplifying the Flower Power, even if he didn't admit to himself that this was his aspiration. Now, nothing about the 'Destiny's Children' makes any sense anymore, really. And this devotion sometimes overwhelms him to the point of suffocation, without him being able to understand that he himself has created it. Cults have many victims. And in this particular case, the number-one victim is probably its leader himself.
With slights taps on my cheeks, I try to shake off my numbness and stand up, only to stop dead in my tracks. My eyes widen slightly in surprise. On the balcony next door stands David, who had disappeared since mid-August, though I didn't dare ask why. Sun-kissed, with a book in his hand and laughing eyes. I blink three times.
"Hey, hi," I say, a little taken aback, and he hands me his book, which I look at, amazed.
"I just finished it, thought you'd like it."
I turn the book over and look at the cover. It's Robert A. Heinlein's recently award-winning 'Stranger in a Strange Land'.
"I haven't read it, thanks David".
I wonder what makes his eyes shine like that in this book, but I know he'll refuse to influence my opinion, and anyway, he's already asking me:
"Lloyd's not here?"
I shake my head.
"He's in Houston for the opening of the Merelec branch. He hasn't been home much since summer. But it's the day after tomorrow."
" Do you miss him?"
I smile, for David is no fool.
"A little."
And I tilt my head, before adding:
"And where have you been?"
He goes to sit on his camping chair in the sun. He doesn't have any lunch either, but I know why: it's Monday. He'll have lunch with Brian at Stadler's, as I doubt he'll renounce his beloved hamburger. He looks down briefly, then up at me.
"I was at the Summer Youth Military Camp at Fort Hood. Six weeks, until mid-September, and then at family, nearby."
I frown.
"Fort Hood?"
"The U.S. Army base near Killeen."
I don't know anything about it at all, but it sounds like a far less exhilarating vacation project than he lets on.
"Tell me this isn't a punishment from Brian because of what happened on the fourth of July".
He shakes his head, briskly, as if desperate to stop me thinking that. He stands up straight, clearly having meticulously prepared for the moment when he would say that. To me and to anyone else, probably.
"Oh, no. No, it was always in the pipeline. My father fought in World War II, you know, and my grandfather in the First."
My eyebrows pinch.
"Is it hereditary in males ? Is it like butt-chin?
He shrugs.
"Maybe it is. Brian fought in Korea too. Or maybe it's just because it's... the right thing to do."
I sigh. I know David thinks like that. That sometimes you have to be ready to go through hell before better days can come. But he has no idea what's ahead, and it would be a pity if he did it for wrong reasons. My feeling is that he's mostly trying to convince himself that he's doing it for himself. Just as I shuddered at the thought of telling Keechie - in Reykjavik - I find myself again somewhat paralyzed at the thought of the operations to which David might be sent.
"Why not the National Guard," I say, "the Reserves... or even the Marines?"
I know why I'm saying this. Because I know these are the corps that will be least subject to mobilization in Vietnam.
"Or the logistical support corps, perhaps? That's very useful..."
He shakes his head once.
"Brian says that if the youngsters who can do so don't go to the battlefield, then who will?"
This makes my conscience bleed.
"Are you really going to enlist?"
"Maybe. Not right now. But if anything happens to America, yes. Yes I think I'd do it right away."
He's silent for a moment and then adds:
"I really want to protect and care for people".
This time, I know that this sentence is really his. But the enlistment office is on the same sidewalk as Stadler's. I know he's - literally - a short step from doing it. I remain silent. I don't even know what to say. I struggle to untangle his convictions from his desire to do his duty. And anyway, the universe seems determined to leave it at that. Suddenly, the phone starts ringing in my room and Brian shouts from the store downstairs:
"DAVID! Jerry won't keep our table!"
The phone rings, again and again, and we both take a step towards the tall windows of our two neighboring stores. I give him a little wave, a smile. And before we both disappear, I say to him::
"Thanks for lending me the book".
Only four steps lead me to the phone handset, which I reach for by pulling on the wire before flopping onto the bed. No one but Klaus ever calls on this line, so it's with a smile that I pick up, preparing to wipe off one of his jokes. Yet - as soon as a voice is heard - I freeze. I listen. I frown. And I can only respond with a few words of bewildered understanding. My interlocutor has a strong accent, and the dull tone of someone who dislikes doing this. This person doesn't expect me to react anyway. I thank him soberly, I don't even know why. The call cuts off, and I remain frozen for a moment. Then - slowly - I hang up.
I remain in a daze, for how long, I don't know. I tell myself it's sunny, it really is. It's often sunny when such things happen, don't ask me why. So finally, slowly, I pick up the phone again, I hold it to my ear... and use the rotary dial to call a number I know by heart, preceded by the San Francisco area code:
415-444-2367
*Rrrring-rrrring*
*Rrrring-rrrring*
*Rrrring-rrrring*
*Rrrring-rrrring*
"For God's sake, pick up."
*Rrrring-rrrring*
*Rrrring-rrrring*
*Clic*
"Spectral Ministery of Underneath Turpitudes, can I help you?"
"Klaus".
"Oh, I'm sorry, the SMUT no longer conjures the orphan socks spirits."
"Klaus !"
"If you wish, I can redirect your call to the STD, that will-"
"KLAUS, SHIT, LISTEN TO ME".
"..."
"What?"
"Kitty passed away, in Varanasi."
"She had chartered a medical plane a week ago".
"Are you there?"
"I think I knew".
I rub a hand across my forehead, the telephone base shaking a little against my thigh and the book David lent me resting motionless on my lap. There's no good way to announce it. So somehow, Klaus is making it easier for me by saying that. We knew this would happen. But it's yet another step we've missed, and we won't climb it ever again. I hear him take a deep breath, then he says to me, in a voice that expresses his sadness:
"She didn't want the Communions with music to stop, in the fields."
And I sigh.
"That's your wish. Without those silly bowings, you can't keep the 'Children' under control."
"They don't bow, they look up to the sky".
"It's all the same, Klaus: it's absurd. And Kitty agreed with me."
We both remain silent for a while, and he is the one who breaks the silence with words I'd been awaiting to hear for a while.
"I'm so sick of all this, Rin."
He doesn't see me blink, but no doubt my wordlessness speaks volumes, so he adds, as if to lighten the situation:
"I just can't stand them worshipping my farts anymore".
I don't know if it's that call that just triggered this, but I'm glad he's finally expressing it, and I reply:
"See, this time I was the one who knew."
He breathes out deeply.
"It's complicated to get back. But what's going to happen now?"
"I don't know. The deed will be handled by James, I guess. You remember he's a lawyer, as well as being a macramé teacher. And he's the Governor's son. He'll make sure nothing has to be declared".
Just like me, Klaus has no administrative existence at this time, for the simple reason that Number Four Hargreeves isn't born yet. Yes, that's what appears in his civil status, and nothing else. In a way, he's used to having no reality. He grunts, and I can hear his handset moving.
"It's too complicated for me. I'm not able to think anymore."
"Have you ever been?"
There's a silence, on the other end of the line. This is only half a joke, and he sort of agrees:
"The more goddamn time pass, the less I am."
"I've noticed."
I know what he's talking about, once again: every year gets harder - I've already mentioned that - but lately it's the months - and even the weeks that go by - that he struggles to cope with. Klaus never remembers dates, as you know. But today he tells me:
"It's November 11th, you know".
The world is celebrating the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, but it's obviously not peace that's on his mind.
"I know what day it is. What scares the shit out of me is that you know too."
There is a silence. Endless. Much longer than the one that followed the announcement about Kitty. And finally, when he speaks again, it's almost inaudibly, so much that my fingers stop tracing the slice of the book on my knees.
"He was saying that he had enlisted the day Kennedy was assassinated. That it was the final trigger that drove him to go and serve the Country."
His words remain stuck on the edge of my brain, weighing more than a ton on my heart. Because I know whe 'he' is. In the past two years, this is the first time Klaus intentionally mentions Dave, without dodging with second-degree digressions. I'm not going to let this open door close again, even though my pulse is beating so fast it's piercing my temples.
"He had deliberately chosen to go".
"He wanted to convince himself of it anyway".
My words ache to come out, because I know this wound is one of the few that Klaus can't heal in a day. Because - I too - have had Dave's blood on my fingers. And because the conversation I just had with David is painfully echoing.
"He was so young, Rin. He was twenty-two, can you believe it?"
I shudder, clutching the book in my lap.
"Here, I see some of those kids enlisting."
"He was carrying that with him. He really wanted to protect and care for people, and that's also what he did with me. It wasn't bullshit and empty talk. And he had no idea what fucking nonsense this war would become."
"Protect and care..."
I just repeat those words, which are tearing my heart a little. That little pumping bastard is beating far too fast for me to speak clearly. But one last time, I try to stop the connections happening in my mind, and I say to him:
"I know it wasn't just words. I've seen how he's changed you for the better.
If I could see him, I bet he'd be shaking his head, over there in his San Francisco hideout. And I hear the muffled voices of the Children, singing nonsensical Vedas beyond his locked door.
"He was easily open to newcomers. He accepted me straight away, just as I was. Without judgment, only with curiosity, and he took it all in. What I am, what I do... And even that fucking darkness over me, which he might never have believed in."
With a thousand precautions, I ask him:
"Did he admit that ghosts were real?"
He sighs.
"Maybe he did. But it didn't matter: real or not, he never thought I was nuts. He wanted me to be able to overcome it and live with it, whatever it was."
I blink, because that's what pure, simple love should always be.
"The Gao Yord was his idea, wasn't it?"
"Yes. And without him I would have died twenty times on the road to Bangkok."
This protective thaï tattoo of the ancient Khmer warriors, symbolic of fortitude, which almost made my grandmother choke. Somewhat unconventional, no doubt about it, intertwining Dave's name and the lotus flowers beneath the seven peaks of his family. That ink marked the beginning of the whole mutation I've observed in Klaus over the last few years. To the point where he now has much more control over himself, any cult in Tiffany-blue aside. And he adds:
"Once again it doesn't matter whether the ink has a real power or not. It works for me."
"Be careful what you say, Granny would be able to haunt you when she dies, for doubting that."
I blow a sad laugh to hide my unexpressed tears, because I heard that - he - isn't holding back his own in the crackling phone.
"I said it works."
He sniffles.
"I know it does. Real powers aren't the ones people think."
I sniffle too.
"Connection, empathy, affection... He was saying it could get you through hell, to better days."
I frown painfully, but he's already adding:
"You can do that too. You guys would have gotten along so well."
I've stopped sniffling. I don't even blink anymore, under my furrowed brows. I'm thinking of David again - the one from here - because his hopes and convictions are also the same. Klaus breathes heavily, not noticing that my silence is now that of confusion. And he says to me:
"Rin, sometimes I... I think I'm forgetting his voice."
My hand sweeps over my eyes as he adds:
"My brain is a goddamn acid-flushed sponge, I hate myself so much for it".
I try to hide that in my head, words and facts are colliding in a senseless chaos. To focus again on him, on what he's telling me, and on the fact that sobs are now coming from him, over this phone line I can almost trace back to San Francisco through the energy oh his sadness.
"You... you do what you can, Klaus... You know that your memory works on unexpected details."
He can remember things. Simply not like everyone else.
"Plenty of details. In all directions. Sometimes they kill me".
Now I feel like he's about to talk and never stop. It's like he'd been wanting to pour it all out for three years, but never could. Maybe being on the phone helps him talk freely. But maybe it's also because now time is running out before Kennedy's assassination. And he whispers:
"I remember the way he was talking about Herbert's story structure, from the first chapter of Dune he read. And Clarke's. And Bradbury's. The way he would stuff his socks down his rangers because of the damn spiders. His fingers in the hair at my temple when he was feeling something was wrong, and you know how fucking often that means".
I listen to him. I'm desperately grateful to him for telling me all this, and I whisper back:
"I remember you mentioning the water tower shed at the camp in Ap Bia".
In the visions he'd had after his 'blow to the head' while looking for Luther. Đồi A Bia as locals say, rising from the western A Shau Valley, that some hunters call 'the lonely mountain of the crouching beast'. Klaus falls silent for one moment, and I can hear from his breathing that this memory moves him more than the others.
"The shed... was a haven. Hiding it was hell, Rin. It was a freaking military camp, absolutely nothing like Ken Kesey's goddamn hippie fuckfests."
I don't say anything, but I smile through my tears. Back in 2019, I had already figured it out. And he takes another shaky breath.
"All that remains of him is this dog tag and those... 'snippets of memory'. The smell of the M16 rifle grease... the corned beef I would always leave for him... and the way he was always folding the last page of the camp library books when he'd loved them. Into a triangle".
My hand is shaking, on the book David lent me. Because I think a part of me has understood a few minutes ago. I don't know what irony of the universe has set in again, but my tears are as heavy as his now. I don't know why I haven't been struck by his name earlier: I know this dog-tag by heart, having seen it up close a hundred times. Maybe because the name Katz is so common here in the local Jewish community. And maybe - above all - because it's hard to see what you could never have expected.
"Klaus..." I say hesitantly.
Deep down, I know there's no way I can keep it from him, no matter what the voice of reason or space-time might require. Slowly, still trying not to tremble, I open 'Stranger in a Strange Land' to its last page.
There it lies, carefully folded into a perfect triangle.
"What?"
I blow my nose a little into my sleeve, I stare at the swing that rocks on the balcony in the Texan autumn breeze. I run my hand over the paper, I close my eyes. And with barely a breath, my eyebrows pinched to the point it hurts, I whisper to him:
"There's something I should probably tell you."
Notes :
This is the last chapter before the series' Season 2 events unfold, as you may expect. For me, it was both painful and beautiful to see the puzzle pieces fall into place. The elements of these two chapters have come together, as if they were always meant to be.
We never really knew how Klaus found Dave, back in 1963. We could assume that Dave had told him about the hardware store in Vietnam, and that a phone book might then have been enough. I just seized on this void in the series to suggest something else, and perhaps meeting David in this story will have troubled you as much as Rin.
We'll see him again, before he eventually gets on a bus.
Today, I also feel an infinite affection for him.
Any comment will make my day.
