Part Twenty
Sam, 1925
Chapter 53

Six years later and one friend shy of the reunion they’d pledged to have on their last night of boot camp, Sam met Ryan at Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern, the pub where a soused Paul Revere and John Hancock were said to have plotted the American revolution. The red and gold sign over the door promised “Hospitality for the weary traveller.” Sam had journeyed a long way out and back to get here, but he was too keyed up to be tired. Through the multi-paned windows he saw smoky amber lighting, meant to evoke to the lamps of colonial days. Once inside, he walked past the long, dark bar and chose a quiet table at the back.

Ryan arrived exactly a minute after Sam, at 1701 hours. Clasping hands, they joked that Navy punctuality would dog them the rest of their lives. Sam had proposed dinner at an Italian restaurant, in honour of Tomasio, but Ryan thought that sounded morbid. “Besides,” Ryan said with a confidence he’d lacked before the war, “I need to get home by six, civilian time. I got a two-year old son to feed, another baby on the way. You know how it is with the wife.” Ryan grinned. “Or you will, someday.”

Sam had rehearsed the words to explain where he’d been the last eight years and why he’d waited until now to come home. The speech, which he launched into quickly to get it out of the way, was truthful about what he’d done, even if it muddied the reason why. The story went that when the war ended, Sam was still weak from the Spanish flu and the brisk Orkney air helped heal his lungs. He found he enjoyed working with his hands and took up carpentry, an easy life that let him put the horrors of death behind him. Sam hadn’t contacted anyone for fear they’d urge him to return home before he was strong enough. Now he was ready to get on with his life. He wasn’t sure what he would do, but he wasn’t worried about finding a job. The country was prospering.

Ryan, having been through the war himself, seemed to accept Sam’s explanation. He’d come home soon after the Armistice and found work as a stock man on the Boston and Albany Railroad. “A job on the docks wasn’t for me,” he said. “I had my fill of water in the Navy.”

“I thought you’d be a fireman or a policeman. Most Irishman in this town join the force.” Sam sipped his beer from an old-fashioned glass tankard. He’d learned to drink to be sociable, but alcohol still felt more taboo than pork or shellfish. The one exception was the syrupy kosher wine Jews drank on holidays to celebrate the sweetness of life. Now that he’d be able to buy kosher wine again, he wondered if a sweeter life was in store for him. The men he’d known these last few years had used alcohol to escape life’s bitterness.

“I wasn’t interested in being a fireman or a cop, either.” Ryan gulped half his mug. “I saw enough fire and blood in the service to last a lifetime too.”

Sam nodded. “Remember before we shipped out when you bet Tomasio and me you’d end up in Paris and spend the war carousing? Tomasio was jealous, and said he was the only one of us three with the know-how to appreciate the French ladies you’d meet on shore.”

Ryan laughed. “He was right about the women, at least back then, but I was wrong about where I’d serve.” Sam had to prod before Ryan said his ship had patrolled in the Mediterranean, blocking German subs from entering the Atlantic. Sam pressed again, asking if Ryan had seen any action. Ryan emptied and refilled his glass from the pitcher before answering. “We did support for the USS Druid and a fleet of British ships near the Strait of Gibraltar. Blew up a mess of U-boats. Rescued a few Gerries, but saw a hundred more bodies floating on the water.”

Sam thought of the dead who simply went down when the Leviathan sank their sub, never to resurface.

Ryan gazed at the wall above Sam’s head, decorated with etchings or photographs of the first immigrants to land on these shores to the most recent arrivals. “Decent pay, though.”

“In the Navy?” Sam was puzzled. Rank determined pay, and no amount compensated for a lifetime of nightmares filled with burned and bloated corpses.

“No, at the railroad yard.” Ryan looked back down at Sam, his face green. Sam thought it was the beer until Ryan took another healthy swig. “Sorry, I don’t talk much about the war. You?”

“Scapa Flow. Blew up one sub before it attacked us. Otherwise, uneventful.”

“Why’d you stay over there instead of coming home right after it was over?” Apparently Sam’s story hadn’t satisfied Ryan.

Sam shrugged. “Nothing I can really talk about either. Tell me about your family.”

Ryan shoved aside the pitcher, wiped the table dry, and pulled out pictures of his wife and child. Red hair and freckled cheeks on both. He put his son’s photo in Sam’s hand. “Smart as a whip, like you.” Ryan took back the picture. “Gonna do better than his dad, that’s for sure.”

“You said you were doing well.”

“Decent ain’t the same as well.” Ryan put away the photos. “I’m not complaining. I’ve got a great family and my kids have a future. I’m happy enough. More than enough.”

Sam studied Ryan’s hands as he poured the remaining beer into his glass. His palms were calloused, knuckles blackened. Sam thought of the sweaty creases in Avram’s neck and the burn marks on his fingers from the pressing machine at the dress factory. Unlike Ryan, his father hadn’t been happy. A son and a daughter with a future in America didn’t bring him contentment. Either Avram was too haunted by the past or, having left one unhappy homeland, he could never settle into his new one. Sam wondered if he himself would ever feel settled or content here.

Ryan looked at his watch and stood to leave. They hadn’t talked about Tomasio, but Sam had learned from the men in his workshop that silence didn’t erase bad memories. The pain came out in other ways, drinking to the point of passing out or flying into a rage over a crooked nail. Even if describing Tomasio’s death didn’t help Ryan, Sam knew it was necessary for his own recovery. His eyes dared Ryan to listen as he admitted, “It still haunts me that I didn’t save him.”

Ryan sat down and met his gaze. “You said on the phone that the schoolhouse collapsed before you could go back inside.”

“It went up like a tinder box because the dead men’s sheets were doused in alcohol to stop the flu from spreading.” Sam remembered the dying boy whose red hair had reminded him of Ryan. “The nurses always meant to burn the linens outside, but they never found the time.”

“How’d the fire start?” Ryan ordered another pitcher. Sam was still nursing his first glass.

“I guess you could blame it on Tomasio.” Ryan cocked his head and Sam recounted how Tomasio had persuaded a pretty nurse named Greta to steal the officers’ cigarettes. They laughed at the memory of their friend’s persuasive tongue. “He didn’t want Mikovski to get any though.”

“Still challenging the bastard even after boot camp?”

“He never stopped. Even when the flu almost killed us all, he kept tormenting him.”

Ryan clinked his mug against Sam’s. “It was the fire that killed him, not you. I know you would have saved him if you could.”

“Instead I saved Mikovski.”

“You what?”

Sam told Ryan how the terrified Mikovski had clutched his leg, forcing Sam to drag him outside. Tomasio, sicker than Sam but better off than Mikovski, was in the last batch of patients waiting to be evacuated. By then it was too late. Ryan slammed his glass on the table and echoed Hamble Weir’s feelings. “Mikovski’s the one who should have died.”

“In a way he did die.” Sam described standing on the beach with Mikovski the day the German fleet sank itself. “That’s when the war really ended for him. The lieutenant was good at one thing, training inexperienced kids like us to stay alive. Without that role, he was just another poor kid from the slums taking orders from someone who spit on him. He went home in defeat.”

Ryan swirled the suds at the bottom of his glass. “Guess you could say the bastard saved my life.”

Sam was surprised to hear someone other than himself give Mikovski credit. He waited for Ryan to find the words he’d probably never uttered before.

“Remember when Mikovski made us get up in the middle of the night to practice sealing pipe leaks in the dark?”

Sam nodded. The lieutenant sometimes woke him several times before dawn, especially after a tiring day. “He was trying to break me, but it had the effect of toughening me up.”

“We couldn’t tell day from night when the tin fish hit us.” A distant look crossed Ryan’s face, his memory like a movie he was watching on screen. “We were as good as blind when the pipes burst and the ship listed. We had to see with our hands.” He blinked. “I was the only crew member who’d trained under Mikovski and knew how to fix them. I saved a lot of lives, besides my own.” He opened his collar to reveal a medal, but closed it before Sam got a closer look. Was Ryan modest about his heroism or mortified by the recollection? Sam knew of men who hid their awards in a box at the back of a closet.

“Funny,” Sam said. “Of all us recruits, Tomasio alone had the guts to fight the Germans without Mikovski’s goading. Of course, fire’s a harder enemy to beat. Fickle and unpredictable. No wonder the lieutenant was scared of it.” Scared of the angry fire within himself too, thought Sam, and just as powerless to put it out. No wonder it obsessed him.

“Too bad Tomasio didn’t see more action. Somehow his death would have meant more.”

“Guess it’s up to us to make his memory count.” Sam downed what was left of his beer.

“How?” Ryan asked.

“Teach your kids to stand up for themselves and never back down.”

Ryan nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Laugh when you’re around them, too. That was Tomasio’s best weapon.”

Ryan touched the medal under his shirt and smiled. “You always were good at helping the rest of us figure things out,” he told Sam. “What about you?”

Sam splayed his fingers on the table. Unlike Ryan, he had no medal to wrap them around. “I guess that’s what I came back to find out.”

“You need to visit Saint Anthony,” said Ryan. “The patron saint for finding lost things and people.” He led Sam out of the pub to a nearby church, where he lit a votive candle for Tomasio. Sam lit one too, sure God wouldn’t hold it against him. To be on the safe side, though, he silently recited Kaddish, surprised at how easily the old Aramaic prayer for the dead came to his lips. Outside the men turned a handshake into an awkward hug, then Ryan headed home. “I’ll teach my kid to poke fun at authority,” he called over his shoulder, “as long as it ain’t against me.”

Sam lingered outside the church until Ryan turned the corner. He was sad to see him go, knowing it was unlikely they’d meet again. He was also relieved that their reunion was over. Looking into one another’s eyes had been more painful than he’d expected. Panic surged through Sam’s veins. If it was this difficult to see someone he’d known for only eight weeks, how much harder would it be to see the people he’d known all his life?

Seeking to restore a sense of calm, Sam went back inside the church to light a candle for Mikovski too. The hushed sanctuary reminded him of being in shul. He thought of Ryan hurrying home to his family. Sam didn’t know if he still had a family, but perhaps he hadn’t lost his community. According to Torah, the gates remain open to those who remember the past and return to God. His father’s downfall was to study the past but never go further, while his uncle Gershon scoured the Talmud to succeed in the present. Sam wondered if he could use the past to help the unsettled children of immigrants build their future.

He walked to South Station and bought a one-way train ticket to New York. Either he’d die like Mikovski and the men in his workshop, or he would find a reason to live again, like Laird. Laird, Scottish for Lord. Sam Lord was ready to meet Shmuel Levinson. He didn’t know which name he would choose after their encounter, but he didn’t want people to light votive, or yahrzeit, candles before he was truly in his grave. He was only twenty-four, the number of hours in a day. Yom, the Hebrew word for day, also meant long age. If the Gematria, the mystic study of numbers was relevant, he had plenty of time to find himself, with or without St. Anthony’s help.