Sparta (56 page)

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Authors: Roxana Robinson

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“Stop it,” Conrad said.

Ollie grabbed for the bag, lunging in as Conrad raised an elbow. It caught him in the face.

Ollie fell back with a grunt, raising his hands to his face. He stood still.

“You fuck,” he said, his voice muffled. “You're trying to commit suicide and you've given me a bloody nose.”

Conrad snorted again. “This isn't really a joke.”

Ollie leaned his head back, holding his hand across his nose. “Get me a towel. I'm going to bleed all over your friend's white sofa.”

Conrad went into the kitchen. When he came back, Ollie had gotten hold of the bag with the hose. He was holding it high, trying to look inside it while tilting his head back to keep his nose from bleeding.

“You little fucker,” Conrad said, and grabbed for the bag.

Ollie yanked it away. He reached inside and pulled out the hose. It lay in coils, narrow and supple.

“You reallyâ” He stopped. “Con.” His face was flooding. The blood cascaded down over his mouth, glistening in the light from the window. “You really are planning. To do it.”

Conrad handed him the paper towels.

“You have no idea,” Conrad said. “Christ.” He sat down again. “I can't give you any idea what it's like. You know what, Oll? I can't do it anymore. I have nowhere to go. I can't go on.”

Ollie lay down on his back, pulling off a long stretch of the towel. He wadded the sheets against his face, where they darkened at once with blood. “Lookâ” he said.

“You have no idea,” Conrad said, his voice dull. “It's like I'm a secret criminal. No one here knows what I've done. No one has any idea what it was like.”

“We don't care, Con,” Ollie said. He sat up, holding the wadding to his nose. “We don't care what you did. We love you.”

“You don't know me,” Conrad said slowly. “You have no idea who I am. You love the person you knew before. You wouldn't love me if you knew who I am.”

There was silence.

“Okay,” Ollie said. “I get it. I mean, I get it as much as I can. But I'm going to tell you something. You don't have a choice. I am going to hang on to you until you're better. I'm dropping out of Bard, and I'm moving in wherever you are going, and I will not leave you. I'm serious. I'm going to handcuff myself to you until you're better.”

Conrad laughed. “You idiot.”

“I mean it.”

Conrad rubbed his face slowly. “Ollie, it takes me an Ambien and four drinks to get two hours' sleep. You want to handcuff yourself to that for the night? Every night? You must be crazee.” He smiled faintly.

“So, okay, then, let's party,” said Ollie. He was leaning against the back of the sofa now, his chin tilted at the ceiling.

“You cannot fix this by being a smart-ass,” Conrad said.

“I know that,” Ollie said. He was still holding the paper towels against his face, and he twisted his head sideways so he could look at Conrad. Conrad could see his eye gleaming in the dim light, watchful. “Only you can fix this.”

“Why should I?” Conrad asked. “Why should I go on?”

“For the rest of us,” Ollie said. “Don't do it to us.”

“Yeah,” Conrad said. “But what if it's too hard?”

“Do it for us,” Ollie said. “Please. We will save you. I'm not leaving you again.”

Conrad said nothing.

“I know you feel bad about losing your men,” Ollie said. “Or shooting people, whatever you did. But whatever you feel about them is how you'll make us feel about you, if you”âhe hesitatedâ“quit. It will mean we've failed you. Whatever Anderson did to you, don't do it to us.”

His plan was to get through one year. He could do that, day by day.

In late August, Conrad was out in Katonah.

One evening he asked Ollie to come outside. Conrad stood in the doorway of the porch. Ollie was lying on the big sofa, reading.

“Oll, I want you for a few minutes,” he said.

Ollie saluted Conrad. “I'm with you, yah. What's up?”

“A couple of things,” Conrad said.

They pushed through the screen door onto the lawn.

It was nearly dark. The lawn was cool and thick underfoot, and in the meadow fireflies flickered and glowed in their mysterious code. The two brothers walked across the lawn toward the big ash, which towered over them, a great canopy overhead. A tongue of the stone wall jutted out into the middle of the lawn, and on top of the wall Conrad had set a small wooden box, a candle, and a box of matches.

He gave Ollie the candle. “Hold this,” he said, and lit it.

The flame quivered, then held steady, pale against the darkening twilight. Conrad opened the box and took out a piece of paper. He held it up formally in front of the candle. He stood very straight, as though at attention.

“This is a memorial ceremony,” he said, “for my good friend and trusted comrade, Ali Sadra. I don't have a photograph of him or his full name. I don't even know if Ali Sadra was his real name. It probably wasn't. It was probably too dangerous for him to work under his real name. But that was the name I knew him by. I remember the way he looked, and I don't need a photograph. He was a handsome man.” Conrad paused. “Ali was a brilliant translator, and one of the bravest men I know. He was generous and courageous, curious and intelligent. He was a man of great dignity and humanity. He was a husband and father. He probably gave his life for our cause.” He paused. “He helped the allied forces, and through his courage and compassion he helped the human race. This is in his memory, in the memory of Ali Sadra, Ramadi, Iraq, OIF, 2005. With respect and admiration from Conrad Farrell, Katonah, 2007.

“And this is also in memoriam for all my other friends in Iraq, for those I met and those I did not. And for my friends from the Marines. For PFC James Carpenter, and PFC Alejandro Olivera, and Lance Corporal John Carleton, and Corporal Paul Anderson, and the others who were there with me, for those who came back and those who did not. And for those who came back but didn't stay. They were good men and I miss them.”

Conrad had dug a small hole next to the stone wall, beneath the wide presence of the ash. He folded the paper, put it inside the box, slid the wooden top shut, and set the box gently in the hole. He and Ollie knelt on the lawn, and they leaned over and pushed the soft humus back into the opening with their hands until it covered the box.

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

It was a year before Conrad could stand comfortably in a crowded room, a year before he stopped feeling wild tides of rage. It would be two years before he could sleep through the night. His plan was to try again to volunteer for the vets' organization and to try again for graduate school. He also planned to try to persuade Claire to share an apartment with him. So far he had not succeeded.

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

Sparta failed, in the end, because the energies of the state were directed only toward war. Robbed of its young men, the country became hollowed out from within, and what remained was a hard, burnished carapace. This repelled the enemy and expanded outward, pushing into the rest of the world, but it had no heart from which to draw sustenance. The costs of war were great, both to the nation and to the soldiers.

Sparta made young boys into warriors; it was left to the warriors to restore themselves to men.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their generosity and trust, I'd like to thank all the Iraq war veterans who shared their stories with me. They gave me a window into the world I tried to render, and for that I am forever grateful. They have patiently offered me expertise and knowledge; any errors here are my own. For their encouragement, support, and information, I thank Helen Benedict, Christopher Brownfield, Lovella Calica, Brian Calvasina, Shanna Calvasina, Mike Drindak, Stacey Engel, Keith Everett Glasgow, Dwayne Harris from the Band of Brothers, Micah Ilowit, Jennifer Karady, Petty Officer Second Class Jeff Kohler, Mike Lang, Steven O'Connor, Jess Podell, and others who wanted to remain anonymous. Special and enormous thanks go to two former Marines, Elliot Ackerman and Philip Klay, who were most particularly generous with their time and assistance and gave me hours of their counsel, both military and literary. I also want to thank my wonderful agent, Lynn Nesbit, for supporting the book, and my wonderful editor, Sarah Crichton, for shepherding it to its final version. And thanks to the whole excellent team at FSG.

As a matter of written resources, there are many excellent books on the subject of Iraq. Here are a few of the nonfiction works that I found especially useful.

Joker One
, Donovan Campbell

Operation Homecoming
, edited by Andrew Carroll

One Bullet Away
, Nathaniel Fick

The Forever War
, Dexter Filkins

The Good Soldiers
, David Finkel

On Killing
, Dave Grossman

Winter Soldier
, IVAW and Aaron Glantz

War
, Sebastian Junger

Road from Ar Ramadi
, Camilo Mejia

Chasing Ghosts
, Paul Rieckhoff

Jarhead
, Anthony Swofford

Kill Generation
, Evan Wright

GMAT 13th Edition Review
,
Graduate Management Admissions Council

The Marine Officer's Guide
,
seventh edition

ALSO BY ROXANA ROBINSON

Cost

A Perfect Stranger and Other Stories

Sweetwater

This Is My Daughter

Asking for Love and Other Stories

A Glimpse of Scarlet and Other Stories

Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life

Summer Light

A Note About the Author

Roxana Robinson is the author of the novels
Cost
,
Sweetwater
,
This Is My Daughter
, and
Summer Light
; three collections of short stories,
A Perfect Stranger
,
Asking for Love
, and
A Glimpse of Scarlet
; and the biography
Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life.
Her work has appeared in
The New Yorker
,
The Atlantic
,
Harper's Magazine
,
The Washington Post
,
The Wall Street Journal
,
More
, and
Vogue
, among other publications.