LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t know what I can do but try me. I can always move my schedule around.”

      “How about a beer tonight? We’ll hit Larry Blake’s, just like the old days.”

      “How about five? Your time.”

      “Let yourself in, we still don’t lock the door.”

      “You haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

      “That’ll be the last to go.”

      “You teaching this summer?”

      “No. I took spring semester off, too. I’ll go back in the fall, but between us I don’t know how much longer I want to do this.”

      “Listen, I’ll call you in a few days. You’ve got my numbers here, I expect you to use them.” I could hear Diane and the kids coming in. “My brood returns.”

      “How are they? How old’s the oldest now?”

      “Peter’s ten.”

      “I don’t believe it. Listen. We’ll stay in touch. Count on it.”

      I sat there staring into space. Gus was how old now? Mid-forties in sixty-three, well into his sixties... that long ago. Diane pushed open the door which was ajar. “You in there?”

      “I was on the phone to Gus. Akiko died.”

      “Oh, dear. That’s what the letter was. When’s the funeral?”

      “Two weeks ago. It happened two weeks ago.”

      She frowned. “I thought you were his good friend. Why’d it take him two weeks to let you know?”

      I sighed. “You know, Diane, I didn’t ask him that. The man just lost his wife. Obviously he wanted privacy.”

      “Well, I’m sorry. I did like her but I always thought he was an arrogant blowhard. I have never understood what you see in him.”

      “He has plenty to offer.”

      “Could have fooled me.”

      “There’s a lot about me and my friends you don’t understand.”

      She turned her back. “I’m going for a walk. You feed the kids for a change. See how mister big shot likes that.” Over the television noise I heard the door slam. Oh well, I thought, a night alone with the kids isn’t so bad.

      If you’re thinking we weren’t getting along, Diane and I, you’d be right. Usually we did okay, though most of the fun had gone out of our life together, which really bothered me. I’d been thinking about this a lot recently, trying to reconstruct what happened, why it happened, but I couldn’t pin it down.

      I went into the kitchen. Emma greeted me with a big “What’s for dinner?”

      “Dunno, let’s take a look.” I went over to the fridge. A casserole dish held some familiar remains. I lifted the waxed paper. “Mac and cheese, that’s what.”

      By now Peter had appeared. “Yuck! We had that last night.”

      “Peter, my mother had a saying. ‘I hope you never get worse.’ Got that? ‘I hope you never get worse.’”

      “Can’t we at least have some hamburger in it?”

      “If we have any.”

      I was reading in the living room when Diane returned. It was nine-thirty. She blew by me and went straight to our room. Anticipating this I had retrieved my pajamas and clock and hung tomorrow’s clothes in the hall closet. In the morning she showed up in the kitchen as if nothing at all had happened. I knew there’d be no apology, but she did deign to accept a cup of coffee I’d just brewed. A positive sign. Any port in a storm.

      7. A Backward Glance

      I HAVE DREADED COMING TO THIS PART. Can’t add a thing – I won’t even try. Together thirty-seven years, every day more precious than the last. I stare at the papers but see nothing. I guess Paul’s star rising makes me a bit envious. I know it’s mean-spirited, but I can’t help thinking – what did I accomplish? Sure, a few giants have stood on these puny shoulders, and I figured out some things and wrote them down, but it’s not the same. Never have I seen my name in lights. Then again, I never wanted to see my name in lights, so what’s the problem? I was reflected in my Akiko’s eyes – isn’t that enough?

      Suddenly it is ten-thirty, and I have accomplished exactly nothing. The hell with this, I say. The sun is high and the day is warm so I start walking up Fifth Avenue. I bid the lions good day. Seeing them always makes me feel good, and before long I am at Central Park, where I commence to wander. Late afternoon, as I turn the key to my place I hear the phone ringing. Jonathan is back. He just landed and is going straight to bed. He’ll be in first thing tomorrow. I hope that will make for a better day.

      * * * * * * *

      THE SUMMER WAS UNBELIEVABLY HECTIC, chasing stories and churning out Dispatches, plus feeding Ed Feldman material for 60 Minutes. I couldn’t believe how much background they wanted for thirteen on-air minutes. The first segment would be a war retrospective. The second explained how the Wall came to be. I was third. As always, Andy Rooney would close.

      I sent Ed my old scrapbook plus an envelope of photos and some bylined stories including the JFK interview. Another set of Berkeley – protest scenes, Gus and Akiko. I gave him Gus’ name and phone number, also Benny, Father Ronan, Catherine, but after some soul-searching, not Pat. I dug out pictures of Basic and Fire Base Tango, a couple on patrol Nathan had taken and included his number also. Zama and Letterman, my rehab, swimming, lifting weights, visiting with my Dad. And of course, Diane and the children, a number of these. They said they might want to interview Diane, which made me more than a little nervous. My Gazette clips were in good order, from the Korean shopkeeper to Paris. Ed said he was set with CBS film of me.

      In late August I met with Plavin and his team, going over their questions, offering anecdotes and color, helping them flesh out the story. I sensed a certain kinship but that didn’t keep them from asking tough questions. Plavin was skeptical about my leaving the draft haven, which gave me a sense of his possible take on the story, though that could shift and anyway they wouldn’t share it with me. We set a date to meet in early October for in-studio taping, next day at the monument. They didn’t want to follow me around at the dedication which was fine by me – I had my own story to write and didn’t need the extra baggage.

      OUR FIRST FULL SUMMER IN PARIS gave me the chance to enjoy the long light evenings with the children. We had discovered a jewel right in our own backyard, the Arènes de Lutèce, a first century AD Roman amphitheater hidden behind a high wood fence on Rue Monge – actually only part of it, the rest demolished by Baron Haussmann. After several times watching the men at pétanque, one day they invited Paulie to make a toss. He stepped up and rolled his boule toward another near the jack, the target, smacking it dead on and knocking it out of play. Great hilarity all around. “Le jeune Américain, pas si mal.”

      The next day I went out and bought a pétanque set. Paul picked up the game immediately and was soon beating his brother and me. Emma preferred drawing a hopscotch course in the sand, where the gladiators used to square off, I told her. Little girls wandered over and she never lacked for a game. On a hunch I took Paul to the Musée de Cluny and let him explore its cellar, the thermes where the Gauls and the Romans used to relax. On the way home he asked a bunch of questions. Why did the Romans come here, how tall were they, what happened to them. He had taken a unit of ancient history but only now did it register that people from long ago might have walked the same roads he did. “Did they speak French?”

      “Nobody spoke French in those days. It was invented later,” I said, exhausting my expertise on that subject.

      “Well then, Latin, I suppose.”

      “You suppose correctly. In fact Lutèce, you know, the arena, that’s

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