Silver Stars. Майкл Грант

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СКАЧАТЬ with his kitten, past Sergeant Cole’s gap-toothed grin in an obviously posed picture with his Thompson on his hip. And then, at last, reveals a somber picture of a GI. The GI’s face is partly shaded by the brim of a helmet, so only the mouth is visible. It’s a partly open mouth, showing a hint of upper teeth. It’s a wolfish half-smile, nothing like the laugh-ready grin of the first picture. There’s something predatory in that expression that matches the tension of the body. In the picture she has her M1 leveled, and a wisp of smoke curls from the barrel.

      For a moment Rio can only stare. For some reason she feels the collar of her blouse chafing her neck, distracting, annoying, spreading irritation through her. She searches for something to say, because again, it’s a very good drawing, but she doesn’t like it. It seems connected to the scrape of collar on her neck and connected as well to the vague nakedness she feels not having the weight of her rifle on her shoulder. In the sketch her right hand melts into the trigger housing of the rifle.

      “That’s—” she begins, but suddenly two male hands appear, reaching around Rio to cover and squeeze her breasts. Rio says, “Can I borrow your cigarette?” and without waiting for a reply takes Jillion’s cigarette from her mouth and stabs the lit end into one of the hands.

      “Goddammit!” the man shrieks. “You burned me! You fugging bitch!”

      “Sorry,” Rio says mildly. “I must have slipped.” There’s an angry red-and-black circle on the back of the man’s hand, and he alternately shakes it and massages it.

      “If you weren’t a woman, I’d punch you in the face!”

      This is loud enough and angry enough to cause Jenou and Cat to close in, standing shoulder to shoulder with Rio. Beebee dithers uncertainly before finally deciding that loyalty to his new platoon mates is more important than loyalty to a fellow male.

      “How about I buy you a beer to show there are no hard feelings?” Rio says, breaking out a tight, false, predatory smile which, it occurs to her, she has just seen in the sketch. That very smile. No smile at all, really.

      “How about you—” the man begins in a belligerent tone, but taking a second look at determined faces, he backs away muttering curses under his breath.

      They order another round of beers and then move on to a different establishment, where the Arab barman, and his whole family who help serve and clean up, is happier to serve them. There they run into Jack, Stick, and Tilo, all somewhat impaired and clearly intent on getting still more impaired.

      Suddenly self-conscious, Rio whispers, “Don’t mention my knife. Or the masher back there.”

      Jenou rolls her eyes but just says, “Oooookay,” with a drawn-out vowel. But she can’t stop herself, so in a whisper adds, “We wouldn’t want you frightening your backup boyfriend.”

      This leaves Rio in the impossible position of either denying or asking who Jenou means by “backup boyfriend,” both of which seem likely to cause Jenou to say still more. She limits herself to shooting Jenou a furious look—not the look from the sketch, an angrier but less . . . less dangerous . . . look—which Jenou laughs off, saying, “Save it for the Krauts and the mashers. You don’t scare me, Rio.”

      “The ladies are here, thank God!” Jack says with a big and somewhat misaligned grin. “I’m stuck with these two.” He waves vaguely at Stick and Tilo. Tilo has the look of an unfocused owl trying to see in daylight. Stick is less tipsy but not quite his usual solid, steady self.

      “Why, you boys have been drinking,” Jenou drawls.

      “Why, yesh, yesh we have,” Jack confesses without shame. He bows from the waist, almost falling over, takes Jenou’s hand, and kisses it.

      “Well, la-di-da, aren’t we fancy?” Jenou says.

      Jack moves to take Rio’s hand, but she deftly sidesteps and he winks knowingly at her. On a previous occasion where too much drink had been consumed, Rio and Jack shared a drunken kiss. Rio has tried since then to put it entirely out of her mind, to file it away under “irrelevant distractions,” but the memory is too strong and seems oddly to be growing stronger and more specific over time. And now it takes the form of that first sketch, the happy one, the one where she isn’t holding a smoking rifle.

       Wet, freezing cold, and suddenly so warm, warm all the way through, when we kissed.

      Her hand reaches for the photograph of Strand Braxton but thinks better of it. It would be too obvious that she was using it as a talisman to ward off thoughts of Jack.

      Inevitably the comparisons come floating up through Rio’s somewhat addled thoughts. Strand is taller, better looking, a pilot, a dashing figure, an officer, not to mention being a hometown boy who will no doubt get married when the war is over, presumably to Rio.

      Maybe.

       If that’s what I want.

       Which it must be.

       Surely.

      Jack is tall enough without being striking, has reddish hair, faint freckles like her own, and he’s funny. And charming. Strand is also charming, but he lacks Jack’s quick and easy wit.

       I’ve kissed them both, and . . .

       Jillion and her damned pictures.

      Strand, unlike Jack, is not here. Strand is on an air base three hundred miles away on the coast of Algeria. She’s had letters from him, all censored of course, but it is clear that he is not flying the fighters he’d hoped to pilot but rather is flying bombers. Where he’s bombing and who he’s bombing, she does not know.

      What she does know is that there are women with the Air Corps, as well as nurses and local women, all of whom would presumably find Strand as attractive as she does herself.

       Strand isn’t that kind of fellow.

       But really, is there a male who isn’t that sort of fellow? Really?

      Suddenly Rio wants a drink or several. Or else to hide away somewhere, all alone, and think. Or better still, not think.

       Jillion and her damned pictures.

      Tilo says, “Heard we’re shipping out. For real, this time.” He speaks with the exaggerated care of an inebriate.

      Rio nods. Everyone knows they aren’t staying in North Africa. Everyone knows they’re going somewhere, and probably soon since summer is coming on and up north the Soviets are crying endlessly for the Allies to open a second front by invading Europe proper.

      “France,” Tilo says in what he mistakenly believes is a confidential whisper.

      “Not France,” Stick says. “It’s either Sardinia or Sicily.”

      “What’s the difference?” Cat asks and drinks half her beer in a single long pull that leaves her with a foam mustache.

      “Damned if I know,” Jack says, but he’s not really paying attention, he’s watching Rio, head cocked, grin hovering.

      Stick sighs and says, “Okay, here it is.” He dips СКАЧАТЬ