In Love and War…

“In somnis innocentes sumus” Ambrose Bierce

Curtis Bowman stood in the lobby of a travelers hotel in New York City. He didn’t know the town nor a soul in it. Everyone was strange to him. Everybody seemed indifferent, some even threatening. He wanted out of the hotel and out of New York, but when he went to the front desk to pay his bill, Bowman discovered he had no cash. Then he realized his wallet was gone. He wondered, agonized over how he would get out of this dilemma. In his despair, Curtis decided to call on his father in California to bail him out. The specter of his father’s wealth and power seemed to be his only available resource. 

Curtis awoke. He realized he’d been dreaming. Then he fell asleep again and back into the same nightmare. This went on for awhile. Curtis would wake, and then he would sleep. He’d be in the gloom, and then out of it. Every time he awakened, he assured himself that he still had his cash and wallet intact.  But then he’d doze off and be right back in that strange place, with no money, no identity and no sense of anyone being his ally. There was just the specter of a powerful father who was far away and who could get Curtis out of the fix he was in. Curtis knew that all he had to do was abandon his self respect and make the phone call. Bowman awoke again. Then he remembered that his father had been dead for more than a decade. 

Once more Bowman fell asleep. Again, he was standing in that lobby at the front desk, feeling unforgiven. In the noisy din, Curtis heard a voice behind him. He knew that voice. A voice from another time. Deep, gravelly, oddly female, but unmistakably her. Diane Rothstein. 

“What have you done now?” Diane said. “What’ve you gotten yourself into?”

Curtis turned around and saw Diane dressed in a sleek evening gown, as gorgeous as ever. Once again her big brown eyes and knowing smile cast their spell.

“Oh…” said Curtis, “Hi… I mean, Diane. What are you doing here?”

“Might ask you the same,” said Diane.

“I’m stuck, I’ve lost my wallet and I have no cash.”

Without a pause, Diane said “Oh here!” and reached into her elegant purse removing a billfold. “What’s the damage,” she said to the desk clerk.

“Here,” said the clerk, showing her the bill.

She counted out a sum of cash, placing it on the counter. 

“This is for him?” inquired the desk clerk.

“Of course it is,” said Diane. Then turning to Curtis, “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

As the two exited the hotel the faint scent of Diane’s perfume wafted past Curtis, sparking memories of magic evenings that carried them off into other dimensions. Curtis took a deep breath and slowly let it out. 

Again, Bowman was awake. Now his thoughts were otherwise placed. 

Years before when he and Diane had parted ways, he told his old friend Jack Bender about the loss. To this Jack remarked, “Curtis, if you try to make sense of this you’ll just go crazy.”

“That may be so,” Curtis said, “but… God I loved her.” 

Early in his life Curtis adopted a bohemian lifestyle. Having grown up in the stifling world of wealth and power, he found things casual and colorful more to his liking. He was drawn to eccentric people and enjoyed an existential approach to his days on the earth. Diane gave Curtis access to the world he had forsaken. And with Curtis, Diane felt the utter sense of abandon she craved yet dared not embrace. 

Diane’s apartment was in fact a penthouse suite overlooking Central Park. Curtis sat down on a plush white couch, looking out at the golden light of an autumn sunset over the New York skyline. Diane brought two crystal glasses filled with ice and Cola and sat down next to Curtis. For the longest time they sat there, sipping their drinks.

“So you moved to New York?” said Curtis.

“No,” said Diane. “I’m here on business. I’ll go back to Los Angeles next week. What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Curtis. 

“Ha ha…” Diane had a blunt, guileless laugh that Curtis couldn’t resist.

“No. I mean I don’t know how I got here,” Curtis said. “I think I’m dreaming but this seems kind of real. Maybe I’m losing my mind?”

“When weren’t you?” said Diane.

“Yah… I know,” said Curtis. “But I’m pretty sure I was dreaming when you showed up in that hotel lobby.”

“This is real my dear,” said Diane.

“Or maybe a festival of dreams?” replied Curtis. 

“Oh God!’ Diane exclaimed. She stood up and abruptly left the room.

Curtis knew how mercurial Diane could be. “Beauty and the beast,” he murmured.

“I heard that,” Diane growled from the other room.

Curtis was awake again, but he didn’t know where he was. The bed he was laying on didn’t feel familiar. Looking around the half lit bedroom he saw nothing that he recognized. He heard soft stirrings next to him. Looking over to his right, Diane was sound asleep on the bed, now wearing a sheer black nightgown. “What a thing this is,” Curtis thought.  “What a beautiful, terrible thing it is.”

Diane awoke and looked over at Curtis. For the longest time the two of them gazed into each others eyes. Then breaking the silence, Diane asked, “Do you think we choose who we fall in love with?”

“No we don’t,” he thought. “It takes us by surprise and we’re captured. It transforms reality, alters time. We’re lost in it and though we pray at the alter of wonder, contemplating our perdition, this is the great mystery of life.“

“I don’t know,” said Curtis.

“I think you do,” said Diane.

“I sure didn’t choose to fall in love with you,” said Curtis.

“But you did.’

“Didn’t you?” said Curtis, “I know this is a dream… any minute now I’m going to wake up and you’re going to vanish.”

Diane turned her head, looking up at the ceiling and heaved a sigh. There were faint rumblings in the distance.

Suddenly the deafening report of a violent explosion threw Curtis backwards onto a cold, muddy surface. Looking up at a grey sky filled with black smoke and bright darts of light, Curtis heard machine gun fire and the whistling of artillery shells passing overhead. Loud explosions and the screaming of men were everywhere around him. This was clear. This was real. Bowman was awake now. He was in the Argonne Forest in France. He was a soldier in the final battle of the war to end all wars. “So much for love,” Bowman thought.