“Yes, but Dad, now you’ve got three more scars!” said Harry happily, coming to his father. “And one of them is in the chest! That’s stupendous. My friends can’t believe it. I told them you got shot in the heart and survived. I’m the most popular kid in school. I think your fame is rubbing off even on Pasha.”
“Sticks and stones,” said Pasha, calm and unfazed. “I don’t need the approval of the masses to feel good about myself.” He took his father’s other hand. “Dad, for my science project, I made a replica of the human lung under the stress of tension pneumothorax.”
“Yes, and it did not win first prize,” said Harry.
Pasha ignored him. “Now that one of your lungs has undergone tension pneumothorax,” he continued to Alexander, “will you at least consider not poisoning it anymore with nicotine?”
“Pasha, leave your father’s few joys alone,” said Tatiana. “He’ll be as good as new soon.” She was passing by Anthony with a drink in her hand and almost without stopping, brought it to his face, and he, barely looking away from his folded-over newspaper, bent and drank from the straw, because he could not hold the paper and the drink at the same time; and so he drank from his mother’s hands, glanced casually at her, and then leaned slightly forward and kissed her hand and she moved on, almost without a stagger.
Alexander took Pasha’s arm. “Nicotine isn’t bad for your lungs, son,” he said. “You know what’s bad for your lungs? Acute lead poisoning from machine-gun fire.”
Pasha, his hand still in Alexander’s, turned to his older brother. “Ant, does your stump twitch?” he asked. “I read in one of my science books that you’ll still feel your phantom arm for years because all your severed nerve endings will feel it.”
“Thanks for that info, Pash. For how many years you think?” Anthony briefly lifted his amused eyes to his brother.
“Pasha,” said Alexander, pulling his son to him, “what have you been reading? What the hell is tension pneumothorax?”
“An acutely collapsed lung brought on by trauma,” replied Pasha, looking so happy to be asked. “Seriously life-threatening. In your medevac they had to do an emergency decompression puncture on you. But in the hospital, Mommy got them to place a plastic tube into your chest through an incision under your arm, and this tube expanded your lung and kept draining the unexhaled air that built up in the pleura and drained it until the hole in the lung healed.”
Shaking his head at both his son and his wife, Alexander smiled. “So has that been my problem? A hole in my lung?”
“No, Dad,” Pasha said soberly. “Most of your problems stemmed from systemic and pulmonary blood loss.”
“Pasha!” That was Tatiana. “That’s it. I’m forbidding the children to speak until their father is discharged in a few weeks. Until then, they can just sit and look cute. Pasha, no.” Dragging him away from Alexander, she pointed a finger at him. Eleven-year-old Pasha was already two inches taller than his mother. “No more,” she said. “Don’t even think of opening your mouth.”
Alexander smiled at his chastised son, and even more so at his son’s lioness mother, pretending to be mad but so bosomy and hippy and petite, wearing clingy raw cream silk, her hair in satin ribbons, her full mouth in sheer gloss, her slim legs in seamed nylon stockings, which meant tight accessible open girdles. He stretched out his hand to her, stirred and dilated, aching, alive.
“Daddy!” said Janie, jumping up and down. “I learned how to pee standing up, just like the boys. Are you proud of me?”
“Very proud. But I already have three sons. I need a baby girl, Janie.”
“Anthony,” said Jane, kicking Harry off Ant’s lap and climbing on herself, kissing her brother deeply on the cheek, “Aunt Vikki was crying out on the deck the other day, and I asked her why she was crying, and she said because she lost her husband, and I said I was sorry for her but glad Mommy didn’t lose Daddy, but then I started to cry for your arm because Mommy is so sad about it, and do you know what Aunt Vikki said? She told me not to cry, because even though they’ve cut the silver strings of your guitar, they have not taken away your whisper, and your lips shape words even in silence, and you can still sing, in five languages— and she said that was all right with her.”
“Aunt Vikki said that, did she?” said Anthony. In a silent triangular vortex of exchanged and strangled glances, Alexander and Tatiana and Anthony had their years flicker before them in quavers, Bethel by Scottsdale, Luga by Leningrad, Moscow by memory as they looked down at the fascinating linoleum floor, hoping to find the solace there.
“Tatiana,” said Alexander suddenly, “am I back stateside?”
“Of course, darling.”
He opened his eyes. His wife, his babies were around him. Anthony was in his chair. “Am I back in Phoenix?”
“Of course, darling. You’re home.”
He looked at her. Stared at her. Glared at her. “Tatiana,” he said. “Oh my God. Please, in front of my children, tell me, swear to me that you did not admit me to the root of all evil, submerge me in Hades, tell me I am not in Phoenix Perdition Memorial!”
There was no answer.
“Oh, for the love of all that is holy! Get my kids out of here before they hear their father say things no children should hear. Ta-TIA-na!”
The Son and the Father
The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor
To:
Captain Anthony Alexander Barrington
March 13, 1970
5th Special Forces Group
1st Special Forces MACV/SOG Republic of Vietnam
Entered Service at West Point, NY
Born June 30, 1943, Ellis Island, NY
Citation:
Captain Anthony Alexander Barrington, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group was a battalion leader of a long range reconnaissance unit responsible for covert operations in Laos and Cambodia. On July 18, 1969, he went missing while returning to active duty. He was found by a search and rescue Special Forces squad of twelve men in an NVA POW camp, army base, and training ground that masqueraded as a civilian North Vietnamese village Kum Kau near the border with Laos. The team extracted Capt. Barrington and five other POW. Capt. Barrington, having been tortured, beaten and wounded, having lost his left arm during his imprisonment, despite his serious injuries, engaged the enemy in heavy fire after being pursued for a kilometer and a half flanked on three sides. The team escaped up a steep mountain into the woods, trying to make their way in enemy territory to a helicopter extraction. Despite suffering heavy losses, they inflicted grave damage on the enemy, killing all but a handful of the NVA. Separating from his troops, Capt. Barrington fought off the attackers in an attempt to let the rest of his injured men move closer to HEP. Though severely injured, he carried two wounded men on his back, one by one, to the extraction point. One of the men was a decorated Montagnard Special Forces soldier, Ha Si Chuyk, and the other Maj. Anthony Alexander Barrington, Capt. Barrington’s father. His gallant and intrepid actions during this time earned him the highest honor the U.S. Army can bestow.
Major Anthony Alexander Barrington
March 13, 1970
5th Special Forces U.S. Army Training Advisory Group
MACV/SOG Republic of Vietnam
Entered Service at Fort Meade, MD
Born May 29, 1919, Barrington, MA
Citation:
Major Anthony Alexander Barrington, United States Army Reserve Corps, came to Vietnam in November 1969 to find his son, missing and presumed dead. He led a highly specialized and heavily armed Special Forces squad into North Vietnam to Kum Kau. Though Maj. Barrington was already critically wounded after hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, he found and extracted his son, Capt. Anthony Alexander Barrington, and five other U.S. soldiers who had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army. While escaping through the jungle to a helicopter extraction point, Maj. Barrington and his men came un
der heavy enemy fire of small arms, automatic weapons, mortar and rockets. Eleven Special Forces troops under Maj. Barrington’s command fought a vastly superior division-size force of 550 North Vietnamese soldiers. During the battle, six of his men were killed and five were seriously wounded. The six fallen men included Lieutenant-colonel Thomas Richter, commander of the MACV-SOG headquarters in Kontum, and Squad Sergeant Charles Mercer, plus four indigenous mountain warriors who had fought alongside the U.S. Army since 1964. Despite heavy blood loss, Maj. Barrington carried three of his wounded men through enemy fire, and then stayed in the rear continuing to engage the enemy to let his men get further ahead to the HEP and not be overrun. Maj. Barrington and his son became separated from their troops and staved off the attack, throwing the NVA forces into disarray by grenades and machine gun fire long enough to let their comrades make it safely to extraction. This heroic action allowed seventeen injured and fallen men to be brought home. Maj. Barrington was still repelling the enemy when he fell nearly mortally wounded to an AK47 Kalashnikov round. His extraordinary leadership, infinite courage, refusal to leave the fallen behind, and concern for his fellow men saved the lives of a number of his comrades. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Maj. Barrington’s courageous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon him and his unit and the U.S. Army.
Chapter Eighteen
Crossroads
SDI
In March 1985, Anthony had news that was too big for the telephone. Tatiana asked if she should make some blinchiki—and he didn’t say no! He flew home for the weekend, made sure Pasha was not on call, made sure Harry could fly up from MIT in Boston, and in the evening, when all was quiet and the lights were dimmed in the white kitchen, when they were all gathered and collected in their weathered jeans and jerseys, they sat down at the granite island, the five of them: Tatiana, Alexander, Anthony, Pasha, and Harry. Jane was away in Cabo San Lucas. Tatiana warmed up her blinchiki, and brought out bread and olive oil, wine and cheese, and tomatoes; they sat on high stools and ate, all except her, because when she was anxious she couldn’t keep still, and so she paced and pretended she was tending the troops.
On one of her passes, Alexander took her arm, leaned to her from the stool and whispered, “Sit down. Can’t you see? Until you calm down, he won’t tell us what’s going on.”
“Really, Mom,” said Anthony, “I’m not going to war again. Please sit. I have news. Good news and bad news.”
She sat. “Give me the bad news first,” she said.
A smiling Anthony handed her and Alexander a release from the office of the Press Secretary of the White House. “As in many times in life,” he said, “this is both.”
FORMER SPECIAL FORCES CAPTAIN NOMINATED BY PRESIDENT REAGAN TO BE THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff!” Tatiana and Alexander exclaimed. For a moment they didn’t speak; Tatiana’s jaw fell open. “How is that bad news?”
Anthony smiled. “Keep reading.”
General Anthony Alexander Barrington, a career officer in the U.S. Army has been nominated by President Ronald Reagan to serve as Chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of the United States. If confirmed, Gen. Barrington will become the youngest Chairman ever to serve a U.S. President.
Gen. Barrington has had a long and illustrious career in the U.S. Army. A West Point graduate, he served four distinguished tours in Vietnam and was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese in 1969, resulting in serious battle wounds including the loss of his left arm. His heroic actions during a well-documented intrepid escape led to his subsequent Congressional Medal and have contributed to his meteoric rise in the post-Vietnam era.
Anthony Barrington was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and was commander of Fort Bragg in North Carolina, then commander of a Mountain Division in Fort Drum, New York, and three years ago was moved to the Pentagon where he was promoted to general to chair the United States Special Operations Command. He has also been the honorary chairman of the POW/MIA Committee, at the fore-front of multinational efforts to find and return all the missing coalition soldiers from Southeast Asia.
Ronald Reagan, in announcing his nomination, said, “General Barrington fought for a truly noble cause for which he nearly gave his life. The war he fought in Vietnam has not been lost; it did not begin in Vietnam, it has not ended in Vietnam. The war continues. I have said this before and I will say it again, unless we take serious measures, it will be five minutes to midnight for the United States. Gen. Barrington understands this. He has been fully engaged in the ongoing fight for freedom, and I for one am very pleased to have a man like him in my column. I also appreciate and am grateful to have his stalwart advocacy for an operational strategic defense system that I believe will be instrumental in our endeavors to bring peace to the world. Like myself, Gen. Barrington does not believe that holding people hostage to the threat of a nuclear nightmare is a civilized way to live. I cannot think of a more qualified man to be the principal military advisor to this President, to the Secretary of Defense and to the National Security Council.”
The good crystal and Cristal was brought out. Tatiana knew Alexander was saving the champagne for their anniversary, but he opened the bottle gladly tonight, as they clinked and drank and congratulated their son and brother. Tatiana’s feeling for Anthony was unaffected by such things as pride in his new achievements. No accomplishment of his added or detracted from the unsplittable irreducible atom of what she felt since the moment she leaned over her wounded husband in that Morozovo hospital made so distant by time, and said: “Shura, we’re going to have a baby. In America.” Anthony was conceived in the ashes and under the stars, on doomed frozen soil and yet in hopeful fire. Nothing Anthony did with his life could stop Tatiana from believing that there was nothing Anthony could not do with his life. But looking at Alexander’s face, Tatiana smiled with pleasure, for Alexander was unconscionably and embarrassingly proud of his firstborn son.
Anthony himself, however, was only ostensibly pleased by the proffered chairmanship, muttering that of course he was honored to serve the President in any capacity, and yes, it was on the surface a tremendous achievement, and yes the responsibilities would be astonishing... but he was muted in his enthusiasm. Looking conflicted, he sat at the head of the wide multiangular island; Alexander and Tatiana sat across from each other so they could fully see each other’s faces. Harry was next to Alexander; Pasha was next to Tatiana.
“So where’s the bad news, Ant?” Pasha asked.
Anthony sighed. He said that next week would begin the closed Armed Services Joint Session hearings into his confirmation. He thought the hearings would present big problems for him and would cast clouds of doubt on the success of his nomination.
“You guys are not paying attention,” he said. “Did you read the press release? The part where the President is lauding my support of SDI? Operational Strategic Defense system, ho ho, ho.” He coughed. “Do you not see the one small problem?”
“You don’t know what SDI is?” said Harry.
“Shut up.” Anthony cleared his throat. “I think SDI is a big bunch of flaming bullshit.”
They laughed and said, “Ah.” They expressed surprise. Since the beginning of the eighties they had talked at length about the failing nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviets, but had not talked about the space shield.
“See my problem?” said Anthony. “The press and many people in Congress despise and criticize the President’s ridiculous idea, while the President is grateful I’m on his side. But in my heart of hearts I agree with the people who mock his plan. Quite a pickle, no?” He smiled. “And once I get inside that room, as Dad well knows, it’ll be very hard for me to hide my true feelings. I’m firmly with the President on every other policy on his agenda. But they’ll ask me two sua sponte questions about SDI and they’ll know where my abundance
of the heart lies. Right, Dad?”
“Anthony, refuse to answer sua sponte questions, that’s all,” said Alexander. “But what the hell is wrong with you? Have you not been following what’s been going on with the Soviets? Have you not been reading any of my reports?”
Alexander was still pulling at least five days a month in Army Intelligence. The homebuilding business was running so smoothly, with managers and foremen and accountants and two architects and Tatiana overseeing the bookkeeping that Alexander was able to devote quite a bit of time to the nuclear question since the ABM treaty of 1972.
“Of course I’ve been reading them,” said Anthony. “But can I help it that I think SDI is a joke?”
Harry was shaking his tousled, strawberry-blond head. “Anthony, Anthony, Anthony.”
“Harry, honestly,” said Anthony. “Now is so not the time for me to listen to your crazy theories about impulse accelerators and rotary motors of zero curvature. I need to know in the next seven days if I can or should hide my heart on this issue.”
“Ant,” said Harry, “rotary motors is what it’s all about. If you knew about them, you wouldn’t have to hide anything. So if you don’t want the job, just thank the President and refuse the job.”
“That’s just it—I do want the job!” Anthony exclaimed. “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? I do want the fucking job—excuse me, Mom, sorry. I just don’t want to defend this Star Wars crap. Nuclear disarmament, absolutely; conventional weapons reductions, yes; containing the Soviets everywhere they have their little grapple hooks in, bring it on, I’m your man. But Star Wars? No, thanks.”
“Anthony,” said Tatiana, “next time you get an urge to agree with the journalists, take a short trip to Vietnam.”
“Mom, you’re right,” said Anthony. “Vietnam is extremely clarifying. Out of balance and unreconciled to the universe.” He smiled. “But that’s exactly my problem with Star Wars. We should be dealing with Vietnam— and El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and Angola—not playing with laser guns in space. I can’t hide my skepticism. The President is going to withdraw his nomination as soon as he sees what a fraud I am, and I will have disgraced myself and my family.”