1:28 p.m.

I burned the evidence in my backyard incinerator. The bloody clothing, the blue kerchief, the mask. I wadded up newspaper and covered all of it. A single match made it all flame.

I intended to kill him, and may or may not have succeeded. Radio bulletins will confirm the murder. No news will ascribe a clandestine convalescence and prepare me for a fateful knock on the door. In either case, I’ll be ready.

I might waltz altogether. I might be sent to the green room at San Quentin Prison. I’ll walk that last mile with Bette Davis defiance or in the spirit of Claire De Haven as Joan of Arc. I will exhibit stunning artistry in any and all cases. Character and conviction? Maybe, maybe not. I’m only twenty-one, and this war is but three weeks old. These past days affirm my appetite for heedless adventure. Opportunity may or may not find me. In the meantime, I will sit perfectly still.

Approaching footsteps forced me to flee. Busboys saw me escape down the alley, disguised as a small Chinese man. I removed my male clothing in a gas station men’s room and walked out as a woman in blouse and slacks. I was not seen entering or leaving the men’s room and had stashed a handbag under some rocks near the corner of Temple and Main. The bloody clothes and mask went in them; the bloody knife went down a sewer grate. I blended into a passing parade and chanted “Lest we forget!”

The clothes and mask burned. I watched the smoke rise over Wetherly Drive and drift down to the Strip. I sat at the backyard table and wrote Scotty a letter.

Dear boy, I will wear my Saint Christopher medal until you safely return. What are you thinking now? Will full-scale war seem prosaic after what you saw here? I wish I could run off to Scotland with you. We would make love in a cottage on the moors and frolic with a rambunctious dog I just met. We had only a few weeks together, and I never saw you in kilts.

I left the letter outside for the postman and went in to the piano. I was badly out of practice, but gained momentum as I played. Lee failed to appear. The phone failed to ring. No one knocked on the door. The Chopin was for Claire, the Grieg was for Scotty, the dank Rachmaninoff étude was for Hideo. I sent magisterial Beethoven out for the only one who had earned it.

I learned to play in the dark. I seemed to acquire the skill instantaneously. I strung together variations on already-learned harmonies and phrased them as one long sonata reminiscenza. I stayed up all night and all through the following day; I improvised contrasting themes and built them from the raw stuff of fresh war and raw men and women. I banged low chords to announce the conflicts of the man I had come to love dearly.

War. Blood libel. Twenty-three days, this storm, reminiscenza. It was for all of them and him most of all. It was a transcendental mémoire. Here we were in Los Angeles. We were at odds with one another and afire with crazed duty. We were as one and bound by a terrible allegiance in the time of Pearl Harbor.