Читать книгу Cry Heaven, Cry Hell - Howard Gordon - Страница 16

Chapter 3

The couple decided to visit America. They saw the sites in New York and found what a fast, exciting town it could be. Rodin was jogging and was approached by an attractive prostitute. Immediately after he refused her wares, he was attacked by a pimp and three cohorts. To satisfy them he reached into his pocket to get a wallet and pulled out a knife and slashed the nearest one across his nose. While the thug tried to stop the bleeding, in a swift motion, the renegade Frenchman slammed his fist into another’s ribs, and the bone could be heard cracking, as the would-be assailant fell to the ground. The third tried to put his hands up, but Rodin was already angered and grabbed the outstretched arm and broke it at the elbow. His parting words to the trio were, “How you make your bed is how you sleep in it. Have a nice nap, boys.” In another incident, he and Liana were in front of the Yiddish library, and he wanted to show off that he understood the Jewish language from some of his experiences (which stemmed from Malkia teaching it to him) and went inside and read a Yiddish dictionary to her. When they came out, a young man, dressed as a mime walked behind Liana and pulled up her skirt. Again, Rodin found himself grabbing an arm and hearing bones crack.

They found the food exotic in New York, and the city was a lot of fun. They enjoyed baseball games and Broadway plays, but the excitement was too much like Vietnam and wartime France. They wanted a little history and culture so they went to New England. They saw the House of the Seven Gables and stopped at the Von Trapp Farm in New Hampshire and heard the beautiful music brought over from Austria by this brave family. They toured the Green Mountains, where Ethan Allen fought. Then they went south into Virginia to a historical town where a mock Revolutionary War battle was fought, and they saw a very Jewish appearing man dressed as an American Continental Soldier screaming about kicking that damn Brit’s arse back to London town where he could go back to peddling stinking fish to Sherlock Holmes and Winston Churchill. A younger man, much bigger than him, and a once sturdy, older man were trying to restrain him. Rodin was curious about them. Something about the older fellow looked familiar.

Unable to stifle his curiosity, Rodin asked the older gentleman his name. His feisty response was to ask him, who in the blarney was this fart of a Frog to be asking about him. Rodin told the old gentleman that he resembled someone he once knew, but he was much older and gave him his name. All of a sudden the old codger’s eyes seemed to light up. He said he was Tyndall Mikawber, and his friends were Moses and Mendel Doleman. Rodin related how he knew Craine and Malkia in Lafayette Escadrille and how he helped Patrick get out of France during the war.

All crowded around the couple and asked for war stories from both wars. They went home and got drunk on Stout and ale.

Mc Tavish called Craine, and he, Pat and his girlfriend, and Molly (whom Craine had by now married) said they would be down in a few hours, as long as it took to drive. When they got there Rodin, Craine, and Pat talked about old times and updated each other. Craine shamefacedly owned up about his activity with Dinty O’Banion, Bugs Moran, and the labor unions. Molly was not shocked about this revelation. He also told Rodin about how the Ornams had tormented his family, how they had killed Malkia, and how he had paid them back and run away from Ireland. Likewise Rodin related how and why his family had a hatred for France, and described his and Liana’s activities in Algeria, the French Foreign Legion, France during and after WWII, Canada, Haiti, French Guiana, and Vietnam. Craine laughed heartily and said, “Brother, I thought I was bad. You sure weren’t anybody’s slouch. You have to watch the quiet ones.” Pat added that it took brains to get him and Corlando out of France. He further related that Corlando had had a relationship with the factory girl he picked up when they blew the munitions plant. He ended up marrying her, and they lived somewhere around Harvard. He heard that he lucked into some stocks and had all kinds of money.

In fact he and his girl, Randi had gone to a movie and ran into him and his wife at Your Father’s Mustache in Cambridge. They laughed over old time antics during the war. Randi nudged him and asked what he had to tell her about his growing up. Pat smiled and told her about trying to pick up a very beautiful German girl, who was a few years older than him in a German bar just before he came home. No one was getting anywhere with her because she was so experienced, compared to these young G.I.’s looking for a piece of tail. Since he knew Yiddish, German came easy to him, and he could communicate with her. When she wasn’t looking, he took a pen and wrote a number on his arm. Seeing the number on his arm, which he obviously displayed for her, she asked if he had been in a concentration camp. He relayed to her that his parents took a trip to Poland in September 1939. He was a baby at the time. They were driving through the Carpathian Mountains, when a Stuka dive bomber shot a rocket at the car. His parents were killed, and he was thrown into the bushes and put into an orphanage. The Nazis emptied out the orphan home and sent him to Auschwitz because he was a Jew. He was young and small and could crawl through holes in the fence and carry messages to the underground. He spent the war years doing this until he was able to escape. Pat said he took the young lady home with tears in her eyes for him. He said it was the best sex he had ever had. Tyndall, Craine, his uncles, Moses and Mendel all laughed and expressed their views of his manly prowess. Randi smiled and said, “My guy is a bullshitter. The Carpathian Mountains do not go into Poland. They end in Austria.” He turned red at being caught, and she stroked his face lovingly. He said he knew this, but the German girl did not, to save face. The others laughed at him.

When Rodin and Liana were back in their room, she began to communicate to him that she was available to him. He asked what caused this sudden interest. She motioned to him and whispered in his ear that she wanted his baby. He stated that he wanted this too, but the life they had chosen took risks. He asked if she wanted to risk the fact that one or both of them wanted children. She answered what was important was that a new generation emerge to right what they felt was wrong with the world. She felt that she had a good man that would love her child the way she loved him: a child raised in love would be loving and work for a loving world. With that end to their discussion, Rodin picked her up and carried her to their bed. They loved each other for several hours after that.

The next day all the troops toured Civil War sites and went spelunking in the mountains. They went down into North Carolina and saw the Cherokee Reservation that the tribe owned. They heard some talk of the Cherokees starting a business of gambling casinos in the Great Lakes area to bring money to the nation and to help other tribes that were in need. The idea sounded interesting. Another point of interest was Pat’s recognizing Corlando Moran and his wife there. They renewed their acquaintance, as well as that of Rodin, who had helped get them out of France. They agreed to meet in one week at Your Father’s Mustache, in Cambridge where he and Pat had last seen each other.