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“I’m not!” I said, laughing. “They’re real places. With beautiful views.”
“I got myself into trouble trying to pronounce the name of these mountains we’re sitting in, so I just gave up.”
“All newcomers make that mistake. They aren’t pronounced like they’re spelled—Shawangunk. You just say Shongum.”
“I think I can manage that.”
“They have mountains where you’re from in Kentucky, don’t they? Do you miss your home and your family back there?”
“In a way. Yes, we have mountains. I grew up in the ones in eastern Kentucky. Coal mining country. To be honest, my family is very poor. They were glad I was able to move out of there. I started out as a stable boy on a place a lot like Blue Fence Farms. I worked my way up and discovered that I loved working with horses. And I was pretty good at it. After I got out of the Navy, I started looking for a job. The fella I trained under back home put in a good word for me, and now I’m here.”
“What did you do in the Navy?”
“I was a radio operator on a destroyer in the Pacific. I don’t talk about those years very much.”
“I understand. All of Jimmy’s buddies feel the same way.”
“I haven’t lived here very long, but I already love it. I’ve made some great new friends this summer, including a very pretty gal to take on picnics.” He looked at me and I felt my cheeks turning pink. We talked and laughed as we finished our food, then gathered up the trash and the blanket. We needed to walk back through the woods to the car before it got too dark. I hated for the evening to end but we both had to work tomorrow.
“See you soon,” Paul said when I dropped him off at his cottage.
I hoped so. Boy, did I hope so!
“It looks like you had fun,” Mrs. Barnett said when I returned home. “It’s so nice to see you smiling.”
“Am I smiling?” I pressed my hands to my cheeks. They felt warm, as if they were glowing with happiness.
“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “Why don’t you tell me all about your picnic. Gordon says he’s a nice young man.”
“He is!” Mrs. Barnett had made lemonade, and we sat in rocking chairs on the front porch as fireflies flickered in the bushes and more and more stars filled the sky. She asked me what I liked about Paul, and as I told her, I thought, This must be what it’s like to have a mother to talk to and to share secrets with. I could confide in Mrs. Barnett and ask her advice about men and dating and all the other mysteries that lay ahead. I couldn’t remember ever feeling happier.
Two days later, when Mr. Barnett and I arrived home for lunch after our morning rounds, Mrs. Barnett had good news. “I’ve been calling all over Fort Bragg for days, trying to track down Major Cleveland. I’ve been leaving messages, having my calls transferred, talking to government receptionists and secretaries—and running up the long-distance charges, Gordon. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. I believe it’s worth it. What did you find out?”
“Nothing, yet. But I finally managed to arrange a time to telephone Major Cleveland in his office. They promised he would be waiting for my call.”
“Is this the man who was Jim’s commanding officer at the concentration camp?”
“Yes.”
“I think maybe we should all listen in on that call.”
Mr. Barnett had planned to place the call himself, but there was an emergency on Windover Farm the next morning, so it was left to me and Mrs. Barnett to speak with the major. We held the receiver between us, listening together.
“I understand that you’re calling about Corporal Jim Barnett,” Major Cleveland said after we’d exchanged greetings.
“Yes, we’re his family,” I replied. “Jimmy suffered a breakdown after he returned home. He’s in the veterans’ hospital.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. How can I help?”
“We’ve been talking with his Army buddies and the other doctors and medics he worked with, trying to figure out what caused his breakdown so we can help him get well. From what we’ve learned, he began to change near the end of the war, especially after working in Buchenwald. Anything you can tell us about his time there might help.”
“I see. Well, I didn’t know Jim before we were assigned to the camp, so I can’t make any comparisons. But I can tell you that Buchenwald changed everyone who worked there. It was the stuff of nightmares.” There was a long pause as if the major was gathering himself. He cleared his throat. “I was concerned about Corporal Barnett after the first few weeks. Mind you, he was an excellent medic. I believe he would make a fine doctor. But I could see that the work was getting to him. I made him take a seven-day leave at one point after he lost a young patient and took his death very hard. But he went right back to work after he returned.”
“We’re also wondering about a nurse he may have worked with over there. We found a photograph in his bag of a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform.”
“The only female nurse we worked with at Buchenwald was a young Jewish woman who had been a prisoner there. She did some translation work for us and later helped care for the other patients after she recovered sufficiently.”
