Chapter 51
Henry's body was sent back first. When he returned, the wounded of Company E were still in Kandahar. Shen Huan was still extremely selfish. She couldn't understand why they would bring back a dead person before the living.
She held her phone every day waiting for Meng Zixuan's call, but he wouldn't call her for several days, even though he was no longer on the mission and spent most of his time playing games in the camp or the hospital. Even when the phone connected, he didn't say anything. She asked him how his leg was, and he said it was fine. She asked how long it would take for the return flight, and he said he was still waiting.
During that time, the wives back home often gathered. When discussing E Company's journey, everyone was veiled in secrecy. Gradually, Shen Huan understood that the Black Hawks transporting the wounded were protected by the Geneva Convention on the battlefield, and the wounded were given the highest priority. But the wounded didn't want to return. It was as if they had made a pact, each one wishing to remain in that desert forever.
Chen Huan recalled an interview with a veteran who had said that the bond between comrades was deeper than that between husband and wife. In most marriages, how could the other party risk their life to protect you? The audience erupted in laughter, not because he thought so—many soldiers felt the same way—but because he had spoken so openly.
But even knowing this, Chen Huan still married Meng Zixian. She thought he didn't believe in the military's ways. She thought that when his five-year contract was over, they would leave Fort Benny and move to the seaside. She believed that life should be lived according to the principles of the day, not the exchange of lives under guns and cannons. But Henry's experience made her no longer believe in these things. Perhaps their agreement was just a dream when everyone was safe and sound.
After realizing this, Shen Huan stopped emailing Meng Zixuan every day. She didn't bother him.
After Meng Zixian returned, Chen Huan also returned home, but two days later, she moved back into Emma's house. Chen Huan realized that they shouldn't be living together anymore. Meng Zixian had a plaster cast on his leg, but he could do everything on crutches, so she felt redundant waiting by the side. She had long been accustomed to living alone in that house. She could mow the lawn, change the light bulbs, and tie the fence. Suddenly, the presence of a man made her feel uncomfortable.
During that time, Meng Zixian would come to Emma's place from time to time. Shen Huan thought he was there to see her, but most of the time he just sat alone in the yard, lost in thought. He said he had some money he had saved over the years, and he didn't know how to ask Emma to give it. He asked Shen Huan if he could give the money to the child in her name.
“You saved some money,” Shen Huan repeated.
"right."
"Over the past few years, I saved this money from your $30,000 annual living allowance in the army."
"Yes."
"My clothes were either given to me by other military wives or found on sale at second-hand stores, but you have been saving some money over the years." Shen Huan said, "Now you have to give the money to Emma because her husband is dead."
Meng Zixuan's Adam's apple rolled, but he didn't say anything.
"How much?" she asked.
Meng Zixuan stared at her in shock, "What?"
"How much money have you saved over the years?"
"Oh." Meng Zixuan reacted, like a child who had done something wrong, avoiding her gaze, "I can't tell you."
"Can't we keep this money for ourselves?" Shen Huan asked. She almost wanted to say that Emma might not want to keep the child. Even if she did, the Schumer and Lawson families were well off, but she swallowed the words back.
He said no, the money must be given to Emma and the child.
"We can also have our own children." Shen Huan said.
Meng Zixuan didn't say anything else.
Shen Huan stood up from the chair in the backyard. She wondered if she had become, in his eyes, the kind of philistine wife who, after someone's death, would wrestle with the meager sums of money from her husband and brother's bank accounts.
Winter was approaching, and the wind was strong. She turned up the collar of her windbreaker and stepped across the lawn. The weeds and the hem of her coat brushed against her calves. Meng Zixuan called to her from behind, but Chen Huan didn't look back.
Later, Meng Zixuan no longer came to Emma's house, and Shen Huan no longer went back home.
Emma originally wanted to bury Henry at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where she and Henry had planned to live after leaving the military, but she was persuaded by Barbara Schumer to arrange the burial in Henry's hometown of North Carolina.
On the day of Henry Schumer's burial, Chen Huan and Emma drove to Raleigh. The flag outside Oakwood Cemetery slowly lowered to half-staff. White wooden chairs were arranged in a square before the podium.
Emma was four months pregnant at the time and had already decided to keep the child. Besides Chen Huan, only Meng Zixuan and Collins knew that Emma had other plans. They knew this because they had just discovered that Chen Huan had stolen two hundred dollars from him.
That day, Meng Zixuan stopped them at a gas station in the service area. He stuffed Shen Huan into his car on crutches and asked Collins to take Emma home.
The process of persuading Emma was very long, with many conversations under the setting sun and quarrels in the morning mist. When Meng Zixuan and Emma talked about this matter, Shen Huan was an irrelevant person. Sometimes she sat quietly aside, and sometimes she found an excuse to walk away.
Emma often cursed Meng Zixuan. Once she yelled, "Henry shouldn't have died!"
Chen Huan threw the oatmeal box aside and stood up to argue with Emma. "Who should die then?" Chen Huan pointed at Meng Zixian and asked Emma. "Him? Collins? Tedesco? You wish the whole E Company would be buried with Henry, you would be buried with Henry, and I would be buried with Henry too!"
Shen Huan picked up the car keys and left Emma’s house.
She hated the way Meng Zixian had stood there in silence. He didn't know that when they were risking their lives in the hail of bullets, every wife in E Company was terrified and uneasy. In their hearts, they had died a hundred times. Shen Huan couldn't stand Emma talking like this.
But Meng Zixian chose to remain silent, choosing not to see the fear that Shen Huan suffered. Because Henry was dead, everyone who was alive was unforgivable.
Meng Zixian found Shen Huan by the river and said, "You shouldn't provoke Emma anymore." Shen Huan said nothing.
When he came to see Emma again, Chen Huan would go to the kitchen, chopping fruit or making oatmeal. Through the glass window, she felt a world away from them. The day Emma came to tell her she planned to keep the child, Chen Huan was slicing a lemon with her head down. She said, "I'm happy for you." Chen Huan still lived in Emma's house, and they remained friends. But the shadow of Henry's death hung over this friendship, like the gradually necrotic tissue at the end of a limb, surviving by sucking nutrients from a healthy body.
Before the funeral, many people came to talk to Emma. Shen Huan stood in a corner of the terrace lawn.
Meng Zixian and the others from Company E had come from the base. They were in the front row, talking with the Ministry of Defense. The plaster on his leg had been removed. Standing together, the soldiers looked like a single, towering figure, carved from the same mold. Their dark blue tweed tuxedos were fitted, tapering from their broad shoulders, their golden trouser seams cascading down to their leather boots. The shadow from the brim of their military caps obscured half their faces, leaving only a clean jawline.
A man in a black suit spoke a few words to Meng Zixuan. The two shook hands, then moved closer and patted each other's upper arms with their left hands.
Shen Huan recognized Brian Sullivan. He grew up in Connecticut, and his sister, Lauren Sullivan, was the ex-fiancée of Meng Zixian, who was studying English literature at Yale, whom Henry had mentioned.
Sullivan's grandparents were familiar with Oliver Schumer, and the siblings were also invited to the funeral. After Brian left, Lauren also came forward and hugged Meng Zixian. She had long golden hair.
Emma came over at some point, followed Shen Huan's gaze, and said, "Look at that bitch." Shen Huan turned her head to look at Emma, but the black veil covered her entire face.
Lauren had been to Fayette a year before, leaving a bad reputation. That night, E Company sent two officers to Ranger School for a tactical demonstration, a special mission requiring face coverings. Lauren waited for Meng Zixian to come out of the school gate. In the middle of the night, a man with a tactical uniform whose last name began with MEN emerged. Lauren hugged him and kissed him, but he turned out to be a 19-year-old corporal named Mendez.
The corporal was a Ranger cadet who had been temporarily released from camp for special circumstances. He unexpectedly ran into a beautiful woman and got into the car with Lauren in his arms. He took off his hood and realized he had made a mistake. The car lights came on and a passing instructor saw him. He called the corporal back and made him run 15 miles before he was allowed to sleep.
The corporal fell in love with Lauren and went to New England to meet her after graduating from Ranger School. They had a disagreement, and the corporal came back to Fayette and told the story in a bar, saying Lauren was a bad kisser.
Everyone in E Company laughed at Meng Zixian about this. Meng Zixian came back and explained to Shen Huan that Lauren had never been his fiancée. He was training at the Beast Camp at West Point, and this woman had inexplicably sent him a stack of nude photos and two pages of handwritten poetry. She probably didn't know that the instructors would open any letters from the camp in front of everyone. So the rumor about her fiancée spread.
Shen Huan asked Emma if Lauren had blonde hair the last time she came. Emma stared at the woman hugging Meng Zixuan not far away and said that Lauren wanted to be a blonde bitch today. They both laughed.
Before the funeral began, Emma sat in the first row as the widow. Shen Huan stayed at the side of the fourth row. Meng Zixian did not sit in the front with the people from E Company. He walked down and sat next to Shen Huan.
The autumn breeze on the lawn blew the flags across the ground. Six soldiers in white gloves lifted the coffin covered with the American flag and marched forward in unison. Everyone sat quietly. Shen Huan folded her hands on her knees and looked at Emma's back.
The figure was very thin, half hidden by the dark blue military uniform behind her. When the gunshot rang out, the figure's shoulders shook.
When the bugle call ended, there were muffled sobs everywhere. Meng Zixian came to shake Chen Huan's hand, but his gaze remained on the rows of white stone tablets in front of him. Chen Huan didn't cry, she just felt heavy, hoping that Henry's death would pass quickly. This burden weighed on Meng Zixian, on Emma, and on herself in the Helmand Desert.
She pulled her hand away from him.
The sergeant major folded the national flag covering the coffin, pressed each corner neatly, folded it into a triangle, and handed it to Emma.
After the ceremony, Chen Huan stood up with everyone else. Meng Zixian held her back, looked her in the eye, and asked if she could come home. Chen Huan never learned to refuse him, so she moved back home for two months. At home, they were like strangers, not sleeping in the same room or eating at the same time. When Meng Zixian came to find her in the master bedroom, she was wearing large headphones, watching movies and playing games. She couldn't hear anything he said.
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