Victory Road. Mark Bowlin

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СКАЧАТЬ necklace on without taking off the longhorn. As she modeled them both for Perkin, she exclaimed, “I love it! And I’m not giving back the cow, either. You’ll have to give your other girlfriend a pig necklace! Which one do you like better?”

      With a grin, Perkin replied, “Depends on where we stand with the prophecy I guess.” He gave her another kiss and a hug.

      They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and as Gianina answered it, Perkin unwrapped the second painting. He was still staring at it as Gianina walked back to him.

      “That was my director. I told him we were looking at The Fortune Teller and that I was taking the rest of the day off. We’re lucky he likes you; he said…oh, Perkin. I didn’t want you to see this one.”

      Perkin had a strained look on his face. “It’s OK, sweetheart. This is about Abraham and Isaac?” It was more of a statement than a question. The three foot by four foot canvas showed Abraham as an old bald man with a long beard and a full robe. Abraham was shoving his terrified son facedown onto a rock while looking back towards an angel who was restraining Abraham’s hand from cutting Isaac’s throat. As he tried to stop Abraham from sacrificing his son, the angel pointed to a ram which seemed to be watching with interest. Despite knowing the story, Perkin felt it wasn’t clear from the painting whether Abraham would take the angel’s suggestion and sacrifice the ram instead.

      Gianina turned Perkin’s face from the painting and looked worriedly in his eyes. “You are all right? Yes?” She kissed him on the cheek, stepped back, and explained, “Caravaggio did two depictions of the sacrifice of Isaac. This is the second painting—maybe painted five years after his first—but the action takes place first in this one. In the other painting, which is in America, it’s maybe, I don’t know, ten seconds later than this. Abraham has just realized he does not have to kill his son. It’s more vivid, I think, but less terrifying. I’m sorry that you saw this.”

      “It’s OK. The knife…It’s OK.” Perkin’s voice trailed off and he shrugged. Two months before, Perkin had killed a rogue Italian soldier with his trench knife. It was a horrible moment for the then lieutenant—one that he relived frequently in his dreams. More than any other act that he had seen or done in the war, it was his worst memory.

      As Gianina wrapped up the Caravaggios, she almost stamped her foot with anger at herself. She had known instinctively that the second painting would disturb Perkin, and she had determined that she would not let him see it. He was getting so much better, she thought—less angry, less moody, and the happy-go-lucky nature that she had suspected existed when she met him was once again the dominant aspect of his personality. His cousin, Sam, had told her that she was a gift to Perkin, “better than fried trout for breakfast,” and she was inwardly furious that she might have imperiled what looked to be their last day together.

      Perkin seemed to have that sense as well, and he stepped away from the darker side of his nature and smiled gently at her. “Don’t worry. It was just a little shock. I’m fine. It’s a fantastic work of art about a fantastic story, and maybe someday we can see the other version together in America.”

      As they walked holding hands down the dark corridor and up the stairs, he said, “Caravaggio should have met Kierkegaard.” She shook her head, unfamiliar with the name. “He was a Danish philosopher who wrote a book in the last century called Fear and Trembling—I read it my last year in Austin. Kierkegaard used the story of Abraham and Isaac to talk about a lot of things surrounding morality and religion, which were interesting, but the thing that I enjoyed about it was his discussion of faith. He said that Abraham took a leap of faith when he set out to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son because he knew that such an order was unreasonable, absurd…I don’t know, unlikely to come from God. Yet that is the essence of faith: the belief in something that you know intellectually to be unreasonable, absurd, or unlikely, yet you also know in your heart is as certain, as real, as the fact of your hand in mine.” As they walked outside into the daylight and towards a bus stop, he stopped and faced Gianina. “Love is like that, I think. Maybe it takes a leap of faith to believe that when the war ends, you and I will be together. It’s absurd to think that, yet I do.”

      1235 Hours

      Naples, Italy

      Many regard the Neapolitan pizza as the best in the world. Sam certainly thought so, but he had never had anything else. He, Jim Lockridge, and company commander Bill Spaulding had waited for Perkin and Gianina to join them for lunch, after which they all would return to the base together and oversee the final preparations for moving out. With his stomach rumbling, Sam decided he couldn’t wait indefinitely, so he gave his cousin five minutes past the appointed time and then ordered pizzas for the table.

      Sam seldom ventured far from the company. He despised Naples. The near total destruction of the city and the poverty and misery of the people quickly became oppressive. While anything could be found for a price—anything—Sam felt guilty for spending money on food in the city when so many people around him had neither. The plight of the children of Naples was deeply disturbing to Sam, and he had written home to his wife Maggie that he would buy all the change he could from his soldiers before venturing out so he would have coins to give the kids. There was never enough to go around. With few exceptions, Gianina being one, Sam had little regard for the people of Naples. He understood that times were hard, but he saw little effort to rise above the tough times. Instead, he saw theft and vice on a previously unimaginable scale. Jeeps had to be guarded—taking the rotor was not good enough—supply depots had issued shoot-to-kill directives—and the pimping of female family members was rampant. Despite the best efforts of the Allies, jeeps continued to be taken, stolen American and British supplies were brazenly sold on the black market at inflated prices, and boys gleefully sold their mothers or sisters for cigarettes. Sam knew that most of the crime and vice, particularly the vice, was with the collusion of unscrupulous Allied soldiers, but that endeared him to Naples even less. The whole city was corrupt and corrupting.

      “So where are we headed, Jim?” Captain Bill Spaulding, the Able Company commander, knew that there were few options, but speculating on future movements was an obsession for the soldiers.

      “North,” Jim said teasingly.

      “I swear, Jim. I count two professors as close friends, and you both don’t know shit sometimes.” Both Jim Lockridge and his fellow graduate student at the University of Texas, Perkin, had recently been informed that their written defense of their respective doctoral dissertations, sent from an American encampment in North Africa, had been successful.

      “That’s not true, Bill. I know a lot. It’s Perkin that don’t know shit.”

      “Well, he knows enough to have the prettiest girl in Naples,” Sam defended his cousin and stood up to kiss Gianina as she and Perkin arrived.

      “Thank you, Sam. You men are terrible to each other. You should not say such things, Jim.” Gianina kissed each of the men in turn in the European style and took a chair at the table which the grinning intelligence officer held for her. She sat down a large bag that she had brought from her apartment.

      “Gia, there was no offense intended for you—only for Perk. My lord, I like that necklace!”

      The Italian girl fingered her emerald necklace and held the stone out for the men to admire. “Perkin gave it to me. Isn’t it lovely?”

      “That one’s nice as well, but I meant the longhorn. It makes me nostalgic.” Jim and Perkin had been classmates at the University of Texas.

      Sam snorted, “Makes me queasy.” Seeing that Gianina didn’t understand, Sam said words he would never have uttered to anyone else. “I’m just kidding. СКАЧАТЬ