The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Read online

  After Natalie and Marshall leave, I open my eyes. I’m awake enough to fumble for the button to call the nurse. A tear tickles my cheek. Arlequin! I try to sit up higher, but the morphine drags me back to the pillow.

  Late in the afternoon, they move me from post-op to a private room. After my new nurse, an older woman named Martha, asks me to confirm my name and date of birth, she says, “I’ll turn the TV on. You’re a celebrity. You made the news.”

  “Uhmm.” My arm aches like a horrible toothache. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Pain?” Martha asks.

  I nod.

  “Look at your right arm.”

  I pull the sleeve up and look. What the hell? It’s black and blue from the biceps to the wrist. I rotate my arm carefully. It’s black and blue on the inside, too. All the way around!

  “In addition to the bullet you took to the chest, you suffered what’s called a distal biceps tendon tear. You must have really clobbered that guy with your cane to rip your muscle that badly!”

  “It hurts,” I say.

  “Not as much as it hurt that guy. I’m told he was still staggering when the police caught him. It’s hard to believe he could shoot straight. I guess you’re just unlucky.” She hands me a plastic device with a button. “It’s connected to that machine beside your bed. It’s a PCA pump, patient-controlled analgesia. Press the button and you’ll get a shot of morphine. And don’t worry, it’s set so you can’t overdose.”

  That nagging sense of panic returns. “What about Arlequin?” I ask.

  “What’s Arlequin?”

  “Who’s Arlequin. My dog. He disappeared when it happened. Poor fellow must have been frightened out of his mind!”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about your dog. Maybe when your family returns.”

  I turn away from her and look out the window. I press the PCA button and squirt morphine into my body. And I try not to cry.

  Later, on TV, there is commentary about a Red Sox walk-off win the previous night, followed by a weather forecast, then footage of Old Ironsides comes on that shows a ribbon of yellow police tape fluttering in the breeze. I listen to the syrupy voice of the anchorwoman:

  “And now for one of those stories that restores your faith in humanity. Last night Henry Budge, a historian with several best-selling books to his credit, and all of ninety-two-years-young, saved a woman from being molested and possibly raped. It happened in a lonely area of the Charlestown Navy Yard, not far from Old Ironsides. Mister Budge, a veteran of World War Two, who courageously parachuted into France on D-Day seventy years ago, displayed his extraordinary courage once again when, while taking his nightly constitutional with his dog near Old Ironsides, he came across a woman struggling with a man in the shadows. Listen to the woman describe what happened. We’ve disguised her voice and image to protect her privacy.”

  “I was with friends at the Pier 6 Restaurant. After an early dinner, we were walking to North Station when I realized I’d left my phone at the restaurant, so I went back to get it and as I was heading back, and came near Old Ironsides, I was suddenly grabbed from behind. I screamed and fought, but the man was strong, and dragged me behind a dumpster, and threw me to the ground. He started to tear at my clothes. But, suddenly, I saw somebody standing over us. This man—who turned out to be an elderly man, with a cute dog that I had met earlier—started to beat the attacker with his cane, over, and over, and over again. I couldn’t believe the energy and strength he had. I’ve never seen a person so angry. It startled me. My attacker jumped up and started to run away. But then he turned around. He was staggering and tripping over his pants. But even so, he shot at the old man. I thought I heard the bullet ricochet off the ground before it hit my rescuer. He fell immediately and hit his head on the dumpster. I called nine-one-one. And, well, you know the rest. That angel of a man is a hero, and I hope he’ll be all right.”

  “A hero, indeed!” says the news anchor. “They don’t make them like that anymore. The latest information we have is that Mister Budge was undergoing surgery at MGH. We are following the story and will keep you informed. In the meantime, we have news about the D-Day commemoration. The White House, which had previously announced President Obama will join world leaders in Normandy to pay tribute to American and Allied forces who fought and died in the D-Day landings seventy years ago, further announced the president will meet with Vladimir Putin who will also be at the observances, marking the first opportunity the two men will have had to meet personally since the Ukraine crisis that was precipitated by the Russian takeover of Crimea. More on the situation in Ukraine after the break.”

  “Ninety-two-years-young!” I mutter.

  “What?” Martha asks, reappearing in the doorway.

  “Why do they say that? Ninety-two-years-young? Ninety-two is decidedly not young.”

  “I suppose to compliment you on your youthful vigor.”

  “It’s not a compliment. Who wants to be associated with foolish youth? I’m old, damn it. I’ve earned it. It took a lot of years to get here.”

  She shrugs. “Whatever.”

  “Whatever,” I grunt, part pain, part annoyance. Usually I’m a cheerful man, not always so tetchy. But then on most days I haven’t just been shot and haven’t lost my dog. Thinking of Arlequin makes another wave of panic roll through me. I squeeze my eyes closed.

  “Is the pain increasing?” Martha asks. “Don’t you want to press the button for more morphine?”

  “I’m fine! I’ll press the damn button in my own good time. I was only out for my damned walk. Nothing heroic about it.” I lean back against the pillow. Also, it was not a goddamned “constitutional” near the U.S.S. Constitution. Christ! This new generation of newscasters think puns make them clever! Where are you, dear, old Walter Cronkite? I’m not a hero. A helpless person cries for help and either you help, or you walk off the pier and separate yourself from humanity. And the news lady with the cloying, talking-down-to-children voice doesn’t even know what the word “ironically” means. “Coincidently” would have been the right choice. I punch the “off” button on the TV remote.

  “Well you must admit,” Martha says, “it’s not every day someone goes out for their walk and something like that happens. The right man in the right place, I’d say.”

  “What do you mean ‘their’?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean, ‘their’?”

  “You said, ‘someone.’ That’s one. Singular. One person. Then you said, ‘their.’ That’s more than one. Plural. Are you confused about how many of me there are? Perhaps I had a clone walking alongside?”

  She furrows her brow and shakes her head. “I don’t follow.”

  I feel sorry for being rude to her. But the pain and the worry are overwhelming. What will I do if I lose Arlequin? I raise my head, but it instantly falls back onto the pillow and, within seconds, I’m out.

  I wake some time later to sunlight streaming into the room. A slant of light lays across the bed. The morphine has worn off. The pain has returned. I punch the PCA button with my thumb several times. A nurse I haven’t seen before draws the blinds and turns to me. “Ah, you’re awake. I came in to say you have a visitor. Shall I let her in?”

  “Who? Is it my daughter?”

  “She said she’s a neighbor. Her name is Maddie Callahan.”

  “Oh yes, Maddie. Please tell her to come in.”

  Moments later, Maddie appears by my bed. “How are you feeling, Mister Budge?”

  “Henry.”

  “Yes, of course. Henry.”

  “I’ve had better days.”

  “Well I hope I can make the day a little better for you.” She pulls out a tablet computer, touches the screen a few times with a long, neatly manicured finger, and holds it before my eyes. I see a video in which Maddie’s husband, Ted, holds Arlequin in his arms and says, “Say hello to your Papa, Arlequin.”

  Arlequin gives a yip.

  I can’t hold it back. It’s a dam bursting. My
eyes well with tears. “You found him!”

  Maddie says, “He showed up at the outside door. We were really worried for you. We were about to call the cops, and go out and search for you, but just then the news came on.”

  “Thank you,” I manage to choke out. “Thank you!”

  “No, Henry. Thank you for restoring our faith in people. It was a brave thing you did. They’re calling you a hero.”

  I give a dismissive wave. “Pouff!”

  “Pouff yourself! Ted and I can’t wait till you’re well enough to share that pizza we planned. In the meantime, we’ll be happy to take care of Arlequin for you.”

  “That’s wonderfully kind of you.”

  “It’s the least we can do.”

  “You’ll need to take him outside to poop.”

  “No problem.”

  “And I haven’t trained him to run.”

  “Again, no problem. We’ll walk. I’ll run later. And now I’m gonna let you get some sleep. The nurse said it was important that you rest.” She places a hand on my shoulder.

  I lay my hand over hers, and say, “Thank you, thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if I lost him.”

  “Our pleasure,” she says, and turns to leave.

  “Oh, Maddie, one more thing. Arlequin really likes Milk-Bone biscuits and Cesar brand wet food. I’ll pay you back when I’m out of here.”

  “You rest. Don’t worry about Arlequin.”

  Mummified as I am in the bandages, I have no idea where we are, only that we have been heading in a southerly direction for a long time. I know this because we started out from our last stop in the early afternoon and in the moments when I woke from a morphine-induced sleep, the sun has always been to my right. My throat tightens. I realize now there’s no way I can get back to my outfit near Utah Beach. I don’t even know where I am! I squeeze my eyes shut and think, but I can’t come up with any alternatives. It looks like my only option is to let Élodie escort me over the mountains and out of France. My chest feels hollowed out at the thought. Every instinct, every moment of training, screams at me: You’re abandoning your buddies!

  The warmth of the sun and the effect of the opiate combine to make me drowsy, and I fall in and out of wakefulness. By now it’s clear I don’t need the morphine for my wounds and I’m using it only to numb myself to the discomfort of the full body bandages they’ve used to disguise me.

  I am barely awake when the motorcycle’s engine sputters to a stop, and Jean-Baptiste hops off the bike and joins the other men as they go off into the bushes, presumably to pee. Moments later, Jean-Baptiste returns and grabs Élodie by the arm and drags her away from the rest of us into a small copse of trees. I can’t see them, but I hear them arguing vehemently in French, each saying the word “American” several times. When Élodie finally returns to my side, she says, “Marcel will help you walk to the bushes, so you can relieve yourself. It will be a long time before we stop again.” As I stagger unsteadily toward the bushes with an arm around Marcel’s shoulder, I pass Jean-Baptiste who glares at me but says nothing.

  Some hours later—I gauge it must be mid-afternoon—I hear a man’s voice call out “Achtung!”8 The word is snapped off as if it had splintered in his throat. “Halt!”

  Élodie appears at my side. I smell her perfume. She whispers, “We’ve come upon a German platoon. Herr Leutnant will undoubtedly question us. Remain silent. I’ll stay here beside you.”

  Moments pass. I hear voices some distance off. Soon I hear approaching footfalls, the clatter of hobnailed boots. I sense the man standing beside me and speaking to Élodie in German with the rising inflection of a question.

  “Wer bist du?9”

  “Ich bin eine Krankenschwester und meine Kollegen sind Kampfmediziner.10”

  There’s a pause, then the man says, “Bitte beenden Sie dieses Gedicht: Über allen Gipfeln ist ruh, in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch.11”

  I hear Élodie’s quick reply. “Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde, warte nur, balde ruhest du auch.12”

  My head immobilized by the bandages, I jink my eyes from mouth to mouth like a spectator following a tennis ball.

  “Gut,” says the man. “Sie übergeben können.13”

  Moments later, the engines roar to life and I feel a jolt as the motorcycle lurches forward. We ride for what seems like another ten minutes before again stopping. Élodie comes to my side. “Water?”

  “Please,” I say.

  She places a ladle to my lips. The water is cool and some of it drips onto my neck where it isn’t covered by the bandages. Élodie wipes it dry with a handkerchief.

  “What was that all about back there?” I ask.

  “He just wanted to know who we were. I told him I am a nurse and the others are combat medics. Then he gave me a test to make sure we were truly who we said we were. He asked me to finish a poem by Goethe. It’s one every school kid in Germany learns. It’s like an American asking someone about Babe Ruth.”

  “You know about Babe Ruth?”

  “We prepare carefully,” she replies with a smile. “We could pass for American, German, British, even Canadian. Do you know the nickname of Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team?”

  “No,” I say.

  “It’s ‘Rocket.’ Do you know what number he wears?”

  I give a short laugh. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Fifteen. You wouldn’t pass for Canadian, but I would … eh?” She smiles.

  “Do you ever mix languages up?”

  “Only British English and American English. It’s very frustrating. Or, since you are American, I should say, frustrating. And, while we are on the subject, you said I had ‘my dander up’ when I treated you harshly—and appropriately, I might add!—after you tried to pitchfork your way back to your American friends and we found you nose-down in the mud. Is that an American expression?”

  “Yes. It means being pissed off.”

  “Got one’s dander up. Is that how you say it? Always with a possessive pronoun?”

  “If you mean ‘my’ ‘your’ ‘his’ ‘her.’ Yes.”

  “Hmm. Then, we must be careful about getting Jean-Baptiste’s dander up. I am increasingly amazed by this woman as, later, Jean-Baptiste kicks the starter, the engine roars to life, and we are off.

  I sit up in bed to watch the Red Sox game—more to drown out the sounds of beeping machines, doctor pages, and ringing telephones than a real interest in the game—when my granddaughter Callie appears in the doorway. Callie! She always brightens my life!

  “Hello, Papa. May I come in?”

  “Of course, Callie. Come give Papa a kiss.”

  She approaches the bed and leans over and plants a kiss on my forehead and says, “I arranged for a colleague to cover the rest of my shift.”

  “I’m delighted.” I still have happy memories of traveling to California with Anna to watch Callie graduate from Stanford Medical School, and even today I tell people my granddaughter is a doctor every chance I get. Of course, I do. I’m a grandfather!

  “They said you might be sleeping.”

  “I’ve been dozing on and off, but I’m glad to be awake now.”

  “How are you doing?” Her eyes expertly sweep the medical readouts beside my bed: heart rate, heart rhythm, oxygen saturation.

  “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

  “Shakespeare?” She checks the IV drip and the PCA Infusion Pump.

  “Macbeth.”

  “What do you mean by it?”

  “Foul or fair depending on when I last juiced up with morphine.”

  “And how is the pain now? Fair or foul?”

  “Fair since they let me shoot myself up.”

  Callie laughs. “That’s this machine,” she says, touching the PCA pump. “It tells me you gave yourself a dose just a little while ago. Sounds like it helped.”

  “Like a charm.”

  “You’re lucky the guy was a small-time hoodlum with a
small-time pistol and not some gun lover with a Magnum. I’ve seen what those monsters can do.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “I talked with your doctors. They’re confident about your recovery, thank God. I don’t think I could handle losing you.”

  I place a hand on her forearm. “Well, I’m not goin’ yet,” I say. “But when the time comes, you’ll be able to handle it quite fine.”

  She smiles, brushes the backs of her fingers across my cheek. My whiskers stand up with the sensation. It’s like when she massages the bottoms of my feet after trimming my toenails. It’s a secret Callie and I keep from her mother. If Natalie knew her doctor-daughter was giving me pedicures, we’d never hear the end of it. She assumes I go to a pedicurist, but it’s treasured time I get to spend with Callie.

  “What makes you so sure?” Callie asks.

  “You were trained to cope with loss the right way.”

  She chuckles. “What’s the right way? Is this gonna be one of your lectures?”

  “I’ve often thought circumstance should introduce children to loss—to the inevitability of loss—little by little, starting with small losses, then gradually escalating them, as their ability to handle things grows. It’s far better than having a piano dropped on you from the word ‘Go!’ Believe me, I know.” I remember the children in France. I remember Élodie.

  “What’s a little loss?”

  “The best example I can think of is a balloon.”

  Callie gives a short laugh. Her voice inflects high. “A balloon?”

  “You may not remember, but when you were about five, Nana and I took you to the Topsfield Fair.”

  “I think I vaguely remember.”

  “Do you remember begging us to buy you one of those animal balloons, and we did, and the balloon man made you a puppy with balloons of assorted colors forming the body, the tail, the snout, the legs and the ears, and you loved it so much that you gave it a name? Do you remember that?”