"Where?" "In Austria." The time froze, then cracked and shattered, a billion little pieces surrounding us, trapping us both in a small space without air. I had to complete the tragedy, asking the question to which I knew the answer, holding my breath. "Joe, what was the battle?" I waited. He could not know that I knew, that I understood what he was saying. The pause was his own, a steeling for the pain before ripping off a long stuck scab. "Caporetto." The voice was whisper. Suddenly, right there on the banks of the American River, on route 14, there was a space-time implosion, the unseen strings and webs that bind us all to our past generations and history suddenly ripped breathlessly tight. Fifty years, two generations, 12,000 miles, fiction, reality, Hemingway, the characters of his story, their own fictional mini-tragedies, and Joe, now and as a young man, all crammed into the cab of the truck. And a throbbing, guilt. For what? There were so many possibilities. For failing, for retreating, for surrendering, for surviving? There was no single redeeming value to the whole incident, thus it's infamy. All the lessons were executed and buried. We drove along in silence as I sorted out the implications of the few words Joe had spoken, what his role and experience necessarily had been, and got the fiction and the make-believe characters out of my mind. The reality was enough. Then I realized that I could complete a chapter Hemingway could not. The 5 percent who had successfully surrendered. "Joe, you were a prisoner of war in Austria for three years. Austria lost the war. What happened?" Joe hesitated, then, "there was no food. It was very bad. Most died." And those were the last words he was ever to say on the matter. Joe was still suffering in gloom as we drove the last ten miles to the confluence of the Naches River. He needed to pee, his prostate willing, and he wanted to see me catch a fish. So be it. Signs announced a state park and restrooms, obviously right on the river given the narrowness of the canyon. As I hung the right turn I realized this was going to be absurd. Six o'clock on the last day of a three day weekend, really the last day of summer, still bright and sunny, eighty degrees. Every vacationer in Washington traveling back to Seattle had pulled into that park to rest, relieve themselves, eat dinner, stretch their legs and play now that they were within striking
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