FROM BILLY ABBOTT’S NOTEBOOK—

MY FATHER WAS IN PARIS ONCE, WHEN THEY LET HIM OUT OF THE HOSPITAL JUST AFTER THE WAR. HE HAD NOT YET MET MY MOTHER. HE SAID HE WAS TOO DRUNK FOR THE THREE DAYS HE WAS THERE TO REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT IT. HE SAID HE WOULDN’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARIS AND DAYTON, OHIO. HE DIDN’T TALK MUCH ABOUT THE WAR, WHICH MADE HIM A LOT BETTER COMPANY THAN SOME OF THE OTHER VETERANS I’VE BEEN EXPOSED TO. BUT ON SOME OF THE WEEKENDS THAT I SPENT WITH HIM UNDER THE TERMS OF THE DIVORCE, WHEN HE HAD HAD ENOUGH TO DRINK, WHICH USUALLY WAS EARLY ON, HE’D MAKE FUN OF WHAT HE DID AS A SOLDIER. I WAS MOSTLY CONCERNED WITH RED CROSS GIRLS AND MY PERSONAL SAFETY, HE’D SAY; I WAS IN THE AIR FORCE AND FLEW A TIGHT DESK, TAPPING OUT STORIES FOR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPERS ABOUT THE BRAVE BOYS WHO FLEW THE MISSIONS.

STILL, HE “DID” ENLIST, HE “DID” GET WOUNDED, OR ANYWAY, HURT, ON THE WAY BACK FROM A MISSION. I WONDER IF I WOULD HAVE DONE AS MUCH. THE ARMY, AS I SEE IT FROM HERE AND FROM WHAT I READ IN THE PAPERS ABOUT VIETNAM, IS A MACABRE PRACTICAL JOKE. OF COURSE, AS EVERYONE SAYS, THAT WAS A DIFFERENT WAR. WITH THE COLONEL I ASSUME AN EXTREME MILITARY POSE, BUT IF WAR IN EUROPE DID BREAK OUT, I’D PROBABLY DESERT THE FIRST TIME I HEARD A SHOT FIRED.

NATO IS FULL OF GERMANS, ALL VERY PALSEY AND COMRADES-INARMS, AND THEY’RE NOT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER ANIMALS. MONIKA, WHO IS GERMAN, IS ANOTHER STORY.

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It was almost dark when Rudolph left the consulate. The consul had been an agreeable man, had listened thoughtfully, made notes, called in an aide, promised he would do everything he could to help, but it would take time, he would have to call Paris, get legal advice, he was not convinced that the lawyer in Antibes had been on sure ground when he had told Rudolph to ignore the French, there would have to be a determination from higher authorities as to what documents would be needed to transfer the ownership of the Clothilde and free the bank accounts. The death of an American in a foreign country always presented knotty problems, the consul had said, his tone hinting that it bordered on treason to commit an act of such importance on alien soil. That day, Rudolph thought, hundreds of Americans had died in Vietnam, which might be considered a foreign country, but the deaths had not produced knotty problems for consuls anywhere.

The demise of Thomas Jordache was going to be even more complicated than usual, the consul warned; it could not be solved overnight. Rudolph had gone out into the gathering dusk feeling hopeless, trapped in a dark web of legalisms which would entangle him ever more tightly with every move he made to free himself. Trapped once more, he thought, self-pityingly, in other people’s necessities.

What did they do, Rudolph wondered as he left the consulate behind him, in the old days in the American wilderness when the leader of the tribe was killed in battle? Who got the wampum, the wives, custody of the children, the tepee, the warbonnets, the eagle feathers, the lances and arrowheads? What clever nonwarrior, what shaman or medicine man, took the role of administrator and justifier?

He had left his car along the shore, in front of the Hôtel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais because he hadn’t wanted to risk getting lost in the streets of the unfamiliar city and had taken a taxi to the consulate. On foot now, not knowing exactly where he was going, not caring, he went in the general direction of the Negresco, not paying attention to the people around him hurrying home to dinner. Suddenly he stopped. His cheeks were wet. He put his hand to his eyes. He was crying. He had been crying without knowing it as he walked blindly toward the sea. Oh, God, he thought, I had to come all the way from the Hudson River to Nice to cry for the first time since I was a boy. None of the passersby seemed to notice his tears; there were no curious stares. It could be that the French were used to seeing grown men walking weeping through their streets; maybe it was a national custom. Perhaps, he thought, after what their country had gone through since Louis the Sixteenth, there was plenty to cry about.

When he reached his car it was already dark. He had wandered through back streets, changed direction aimlessly. Bella Nizza, he remembered. The Italians had taken it back in the Second World War. Briefly. In the Italian equivalent of the Pentagon there probably was a plan for recapturing it at some belligerent future date. Good neighbors. They were growing jasmine and roses for the moment on all battlefields, waiting for the next war to come along. Poor, hopeful, doomed Italian generals. Not worth the trouble, not worth the bones of a single Calabrian peasant. It wasn’t Bella Nizza anymore, it was a modern, junked-up commercial city, a peeling jumble of tenements, with rock music blaring from the loudspeakers of music shops, promoting its past loveliness in fake tourist brochures. All things became worse.

The lamps of the Promenade des Anglais were lit, reflecting off the roofs of the endless stream of cars, twinkling in the polluted sea murmuring against the meager strip of gravelly beach. In his conversation with the consul the man had said that Nice was a good post in the Foreign Service. The consul must know something about Nice that was not evident to the naked eye. Or perhaps he had been stationed in the Congo or Washington and even Nice would look good after that. Rudolph wondered if he had passed his brother’s murderer somewhere between the consulate and the sea. Entirely possible. Murderers were constantly being arrested by the police in Nice. He speculated about what he would do if a man sat down next to him in a café and recognized him and said, calmly, “Bonjour, monsieur, you may be interested to know that I am the one who did it.”

He opened the door to his car, then stood there, not getting in, thinking of the night ahead of him, going back to the hotel in Antibes, having to explain to Jean that they would have to plan on staying on in the place that had become a horror for them, having to explain to Kate and Wesley and Dwyer that nothing was settled, that everything was in abeyance, that they were tied indefinitely to death, that there was no way of knowing when they could get on with the business of living.

He closed the door of the car. He could not face what was ahead of him in Antibes. As unattractive as Nice was it was better this evening than Antibes. At least he had stopped crying.

Careful in the traffic, his nostrils assailed by the fumes the scientists of his country had assured him were deadly to the human race, he crossed to the other side of the Promenade des Anglais, bright with illuminated storefronts and the lights of cafés. He went into a café, seated himself at a table on the terrasse, ordered a whiskey and soda. Time-hallowed cure, palliative, nepenthe, transient unraveler of knotty problems. When the whiskey came, he drank slowly, glad that Jean was not with him, since he could not drink in her presence. Sometimes he felt he could not breathe in her presence—a condition to be dealt with at another time. He took another sip of his drink.

Suddenly, he was ravenously hungry. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and then only a croissant and coffee. The body had its own rhythms, made its own uncomplicated, imperative claims. His hunger drove all other thoughts from his mind. He sat back in his chair sipping his whiskey, luxuriously composing the menu for the evening meal. Melon with a dash of port to begin with, then fish soup, he decided, specialty of the region, with garlicked croutons and a sprinkling of grated cheese, steak and salad, slab of Brie, strawberries for dessert. A half bottle of blanc de blancs with the soup and a half bottle of heavy red wine of Provence with the steak and cheese. The evening stretched out ahead of him in gluttonous splendor. He never had to worry about getting fat, but he knew that he would have been ashamed to order so self-indulgent a meal at a time like this if he were not alone. But he knew nobody in Nice. The mourners were in another town. He paid for his whiskey and went along the promenade to the Negresco and asked the concierge for the name of the best restaurant in Nice. He walked to the address he was given, striding out briskly, his eyes dry.