His answer seemed to make her happier still. She took his hand for a while as they walked, showing him off as her possession. He played the game just to keep her happy, his face emotionless and his eyes faraway, staring past the hotels and the beaches toward the haunting crags of Diamond Head. His mind was as removed as his gaze. He felt sullen in the midst of all this opulence, oppressed by old memories of this same beach, memories that now stretched back more than thirty years to the first time he had visited it, hard-bodied and wide-eyed on the way into his first tour of combat in Viet Nam. And irritated by other more recent thoughts, the swirling uncertainties and muted disappointments that would not go away.

“You should have worn a bathing suit,” insisted Maria, glancing at the ever-present blue jeans and T-shirt that seemed to comprise Condley’s modern-day uniform.

“I burn like a lobster, Maria. Who needs that? If you want cancer bad enough, go smoke a Marlboro.”

They neared a loud, packed beachside bar. Inside, the patrons were drinking and laughing as they watched a basketball game on four wall-mounted TVs. “Will you buy me a piña colada?”

Despite himself, he snorted. “Haven’t you had enough of bars?”

His casual dismissals were landing on her ears as sharp rebukes. She suddenly let go of his hand. Now she frowned at him. “You’re not being nice today.”

“When is the last time I was nice?”

She thought about it for a moment and then took his hand again, changing her tactics as they strolled through a stretch of ankle-deep sand. “You’re always nice. I wouldn’t even be here if you weren’t so nice.”

“I wasn’t being nice. You were just smarter than I was. What the hell did I know about green cards?”

“Yeah, but you got me one. That was nice.”

Condley allowed himself a small smile, squeezing her hand a little to show her he wasn’t really mad. They walked from the beach back to the sidewalk. Off to their left was a park where the old Fort DeRussy bungalows had once bordered the beach. The bungalows, built by the Army to house recuperating casualties from the Pacific battles of World War Two, had been a favorite R and R spot for the American military for a full generation after that.

The mind trick worked even on the beach in Hawaii. Ghosts haunted Condley as he passed the park. In his mind the bungalows were still there, low and shabby. Young men with new tattoos and fresh scars from battle strolled the beach uncertainly with teenage wives or girlfriends, trying to find and mend their brains with a week on Waikiki before flying directly back into combat. Yes, that had really happened, and why didn’t anybody care enough to remember?