The Enemy

holding up. He was a little strained around the eyes, maybe. We didn’t talk. Just waited.
    At five to ten we went down to the street. The
corbillard
showed up right on time, from the
dépôt mortuaire.
Behind it was a black Citroën limousine. We got in the limousine and closed the doors and it moved off after the hearse, slow and quiet.
    “Just us?” I said.
    “The others are meeting us there.”
    “Who’s coming?”
    “Lamonnier,” he said. “Some of her friends.”
    “Where are we doing it?”
    “Père-Lachaise,” he said.
    I nodded. Père-Lachaise was a famous old cemetery. Some kind of a special place. I figured maybe my mother’s Resistance history entitled her to be buried there. Maybe Lamonnier had fixed it.
    “There’s an offer in on the apartment,” Joe said.
    “How much?”
    “In dollars your share would be about sixty thousand.”
    “I don’t want it,” I said. “Give my share to Lamonnier. Tell him to find whatever old guys are still alive and spread it around. He’ll know some organizations.”
    “Old soldiers?”
    “Old anybody. Whoever did the right thing at the right time.”
    “You sure? You might need it.”
    “I’d rather not have it.”
    “OK,” he said. “Your choice.”
    I watched out the windows. It was a gray day. The honey tones of Paris were beaten down by the weather. The river was sluggish, like molten iron. We drove through the Place de la Bastille. Père-Lachaise was up in the northeast. Not far, but not so near you thought of it as close. We got out of the car near a little booth that sold maps to the famous graves. All kinds of people were buried at Père-Lachaise: Chopin, Molière, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison.
    There were people waiting for us at the cemetery gate. There was the concierge from my mother’s building, and two other women I didn’t know. The
croques-morts
lifted the coffin up on their shoulders. They held it steady for a second and then set off at a slow march. Joe and I fell in behind, side by side. The three women followed us. The air was cold. We walked along gritty paths between strange European mausoleums and headstones. Eventually we came to an open grave. Excavated earth was piled neatly on one side of it and covered with a green carpet that I guessed was supposed to look like grass. Lamonnier was waiting there for us. I guessed he had gotten there well ahead of time. He probably walked slower than a funeral. Probably hadn’t wanted to hold us up, or embarrass himself.
    The pallbearers set the coffin down on rope slings that were already laid out in position. Then they picked it up again and maneuvered it over the hole and used the ropes to lower it down gently. Into the hole. There was a man who read some stuff from a book. I heard the words in French and their English translations drifted through my mind.
Dust to dust, certain it is, vale of tears.
I didn’t really pay attention. I just looked at the coffin, down in the hole.
    The man finished speaking and one of the pallbearers pulled back the green carpet and Joe scooped up a handful of dirt. He weighed it in his palm and then threw it down on the coffin lid. It thumped on the wood. The man with the book did the same thing. Then the concierge. Then both of the other women. Then Lamonnier. He lurched over on his awkward canes and bent down and filled his hand with earth. Paused with his eyes full of tears and just turned his wrist so that the dirt trailed out of his fist like water.
    I stepped up and put my hand to my heart and slipped my Silver Star off its pin. Held it in my palm. The Silver Star is a beautiful medal. It has a tiny silver star in the center of a much larger gold one. It has a bright silk ribbon in red, white, and blue, all shot through with a watermark. Mine was engraved on the back:
J. Reacher.
I thought:
J for Josephine.
I tossed it down in the hole. It hit the coffin and bounced once and landed right side up, a little gleam of light in the grayness.

    I called long-distance from the Avenue Rapp and got orders back to Panama. Joe and I ate a late lunch together and promised to stay in better touch. Then I headed back to the airport and flew through London and Miami and picked up a transport south. As a newly minted captain I was given a company to command. We were tasked to maintain order in Panama City during the Just Cause endgame. It was fun. I had a decent bunch of guys. Being out in the field again was refreshing. And the coffee was as good as ever.