“I told you. To honor the dead.”

“No, no,” said Ponter. “That may be an incidental effect, I grant you. But surely the purpose of the designer—”

“Maya Ying Lin,” said Mary.

“Pardon?”

“Maya Ying Lin. That’s the name of the woman who designed this.”

“Ah,” said Ponter. “Well, surely her purpose—the purpose of anyone who designs a memorial—is to make sure people never forget.”

“Yes?” said Mary, sounding irritated by whatever picayune distinction she felt Ponter was making.

“And the reason to not forget the past,” said Ponter, “is so that the same mistakes can be avoided.”

“Well, yes, of course,” said Mary.

“So has this memorial served its purpose? Has the same mistake—the mistake that led to all these young people dying—been avoided since?”

Mary thought for a time, then shook her head. “I suppose not. Wars are still fought, and—”

“By America? By the people who built this monument?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“Why?”

“Economics. Ideology. And…”

“Yes?”

Mary lifted her shoulders. “Revenge. Getting even.”

“When this country decides to go to war, where is the war declared?”

“Um, in the Congress. I’ll show you the building later.”

“Can this memorial be seen from there?”

“This one? No, I don’t think so.”

“They should do it right here,” said Ponter, flatly. “Their leader—the president, no?—he should declare war right here, standing in front of these fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and nine names. Surely that should be the purpose of such a memorial: if a leader can stand and look at the names of all those who died a previous time a president declared war and still call for young people to go off and be killed in another war, then perhaps the war is worth fighting.”

Mary tilted her head to one side but said nothing.

“After all, you said you fight to preserve your most fundamental values.”

“That’s the ideal, yes,” said Mary.

“But this war—this war in Vietnam. You said it was to support a corrupt government, to prevent elections from being held.”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“In Philadelphia you showed me where and how this country began. Is not the United States’s most cherished belief that of democracy, of the will of the people being heard and done?”

Mary nodded.

“But then surely they should have fought a war to ensure that that ideal was upheld. To have gone to Vietnam to make sure the people there had a chance to vote would have been an American ideal. And if the Vietnam people…”

“Vietnamese.”

“As you say. If they had chosen the Communist system by vote, then the American ideal of democracy would have been served. Surely you cannot hold democracy dear only when the vote goes the way you wish it would.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Mary. “A great many people thought the American involvement in Vietnam was wrong. They called it a profane war.”

“Profane?”

“Umm, an insult to God.”

Ponter rolled his eyebrow up his browridge. “From what I have seen, this God of yours must have a thick skin.”

Mary tilted her head, conceding the point.

“You have told me,” said Ponter, “that the majority of people in this country are Christians, like you, is that not so?”

“Yes.”

“How big a majority?”

“Big,” said Mary. “I was actually reading up on this when I moved down here. The U.S. has a population of about 270 million.” Ponter had heard this figure before, so its vastness didn’t startle him this time. “About a million are atheists—they don’t believe in God at all. Another twenty-five million are non-religious; that is, they don’t adhere to any particular faith. All the other faith groups combined—Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus—add up to about 15 million. Everyone else—almost 240 million—say they are Christians.”

“So this is a Christian country,” said Ponter.

“Welllll, like my home country of Canada,” said Mary, “the U.S. prides itself on its tolerance of a variety of beliefs.”

Ponter waved a hand dismissively. “Two hundred and forty million out of two hundred and seventy million is almost ninety percent; it is a Christian country. And you and others have told me the core beliefs of Christians. What did Christ say about those who would attack you?”

“The Sermon on the Mount,” said Mary. She closed her eyes, presumably to aid her remembering. “‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’”

“So revenge has no place in the policies of a Christian nation,” said Ponter. “And yet you say that is a reason it fights wars. Likewise, impeding the free choice of a foreign country should have had no place in the policies of a democratic nation, and yet it fought this war in Vietnam.”

Mary said nothing.

“Do you not see?” said Ponter. “That is what this memorial, this Vietnam veterans’ wall, should serve as a reminder of: the pointlessness of death, the error—the grave error, if I may attempt my own play on words in your language—of declaring a war in contravention of your most dearly held principles.”

Mary was still silent.

“That is the reason why future American wars should be declared here—right here. Only if the cause stands the test of supporting the most dearly held fundamental principles, then perhaps it is a war that should be fought.” Ponter let his eyes run over the wall again, over the black reflection.

Mary said nothing.

“Still,” said Ponter, “let me make a simpler proposition. Those letters you read—they are, I presume, typical?”

Mary nodded. “Ones like them are left here every day.”

“But do you not see the problem? There is an underlying belief in those letters that the dead are not really dead. ‘God is taking care of you.’ ‘We will all be together again.’ ‘I know you are watching over me.’ ‘Someday I will see you again.’”

“We’ve been down this road before,” said Mary. “My kind of humanity—not just Christians, but most Homo sapiens, no matter what their particular religion—believe that the essence of a person does not end with the death of the body. The soul lives on.”

“And that belief,” said Ponter firmly, “is the problem. I have thought this since you first told me of it, but it is—what do you say?—it is driven home for me here, at this memorial, this wall of names.”

“Yes?” said Mary.

“They are dead. They are eliminated. They no longer exist.” He reached forward and touched a name he could not read. “The person who was named this.” He touched another. “And the person who was named this.” And he touched a third. “And the person who had this name. They are no more. Surely facing that is the real lesson of this wall. One cannot come here to speak with the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to beg forgiveness from the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to be touched by the dead, for the dead are dead. These names, these characters carved in stone—that is all that is left of them. Surely that is the message of this wall, the lesson to be learned. As long as your people keep thinking that this life is a prologue, that more is to come after it, that those wronged here will be rewarded in some there yet to come, you will continue to undervalue life, and you will continue to send young people off to die.”

Mary took a deep breath and let it out slowly, apparently composing herself. She gestured with a movement of her head. Ponter turned to look. Another person—a gray-haired man—was placing a letter of his own in front of the wall. “Could you tell him?” asked Mary, speaking sharply. “Tell him that he’s wasting his time? Or that woman, over there—the one on her knees, praying? Could you tell her? Disabuse her of her delusion? The belief that somewhere their loved ones still exist gives them comfort.”