Just
recently, by air mail, I received an invitation to a wedding that will take
place in England on April 18th. It happens to be a wedding I'd give a lot to be
able to get to, and when the invitation first arrived, I thought it might just
be possible for me to make the trip abroad, by plane, expenses be hanged.
However, I've since discussed the matter rather extensively with my wife, a
breathtakingly levelheaded girl, and we've decided against it--for one thing,
I'd completely forgotten that my mother-in-law is looking forward to spending
the last two weeks in April with us. I really don't get to see Mother Grencher
terribly often, and she's not getting any younger. She's fifty-eight. (As she'd
be the first to admit.)
All
the same, though, wherever I happen to be I don't think I'm the type that
doesn't even lift a finger to prevent a wedding from flatting. Accordingly,
I've gone ahead and jotted down a few revealing notes on the bride as I knew
her almost six years ago. If my notes should cause the groom, whom I haven't
met, an uneasy moment or two, so much the better. Nobody's aiming to please,
here. More, really, to edify, to instruct.
In
April of 1944, I was among some sixty American enlisted men who took a rather
specialized pre-Invasion training course, directed by British Intelligence, in
Devon, England. And as I look back, it seems to me that we were fairly unique,
the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch. We were all essentially
letter-writing types, and when we spoke to each other out of the line of duty,
it was usually to ask somebody if he had any ink he wasn't using. When we
weren't writing letters or attending classes, each of us went pretty much his
own way. Mine usually led me, on clear days, in scenic circles around the
countryside. Rainy days, I generally sat in a dry place and read a book, often
just an axe length away from a ping-pong table.
The
training course lasted three weeks, ending on a Saturday, a very rainy one. At
seven that last night, our whole group was scheduled to entrain for London,
where, as rumor had it, we were to be assigned to infantry and airborne
divisions mustered for the D Day landings. By three in the afternoon, I'd
packed all my belongings into my barrack bag, including a canvas gas-mask
container full of books I'd brought over from the Other Side. (The gas mask
itself I'd slipped through a porthole of the Mauretania some weeks earlier,
fully aware that if the enemy ever did use gas I'd never get the damn thing on
in time.) I remember standing at an end window of our Quonset but for a very
long time, looking out at the slanting, dreary rain, my trigger finger itching
imperceptibly, if at all. I could hear behind my back the uncomradely scratching
of many fountain pens on many sheets of V-mail paper. Abruptly, with nothing
special in mind, I came away from the window and put on my raincoat, cashmere
muffler, galoshes, woollen gloves, and overseas cap (the last of which, I'm
still told, I wore at an angle all my own--slightly down over both ears). Then,
after synchronizing my wristwatch with the clock in the latrine, I walked down
the long, wet cobblestone hill into town. I ignored the flashes of lightning
all around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't.
In
the center of town, which was probably the wettest part of town, I stopped in
front of a church to read the bulletin board, mostly because the featured
numerals, white on black, had caught my attention but partly because, after
three years in the Army, I'd become addicted to reading bulletin boards. At
three-fifteen, the board stated, there would be children's-choir practice. I
looked at my wristwatch, then back at the board. A sheet of paper was tacked
up, listing the names of the children expected to attend practice. I stood in
the rain and read all the names, then entered the church.
A
dozen or so adults were among the pews, several of them bearing pairs of
small-size rubbers, soles up, in their laps. I passed along and sat down in the
front row. On the rostrum, seated in three compact rows of auditorium chairs,
were about twenty children, mostly girls, ranging in age from about seven to
thirteen. At the moment, their choir coach, an enormous woman in tweeds, was
advising them to open their mouths wider when they sang. Had anyone, she asked,
ever heard of a little dickeybird that dared to sing his charming song without
first opening his little beak wide, wide, wide? Apparently nobody ever had. She
was given a steady, opaque look. She went on to say that she wanted all her
children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just mouth them,
like silly-billy parrots. She then blew a note on her pitch-pipe, and the
children, like so many underage weightlifters, raised their hymnbooks.
They
sang without instrumental accompaniment--or, more accurately in their case,
without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost
to the point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might,
without straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest
children dragged the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer's
mother could have found fault with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept
hoping it was one with a dozen or more verses. Listening, I scanned all the
children's faces but watched one in particular, that of the child nearest me,
on the end seat in the first row. She was about thirteen, with straight
ash-blond hair of ear-lobe length, an exquisite forehead, and blasé eyes that,
I thought, might very possibly have counted the house. Her voice was distinctly
separate from the other children's voices, and not just because she was seated
nearest me. It had the best upper register, the sweetest-sounding, the surest,
and it automatically led the way. The young lady, however, seemed slightly
bored with her own singing ability, or perhaps just with the time and place;
twice, between verses, I saw her yawn. It was a ladylike yawn, a closed-mouth
yawn, but you couldn't miss it; her nostril wings gave her away.
The
instant the hymn ended, the choir coach began to give her lengthy opinion of
people who can't keep their feet still and their lips sealed tight during the
minister's sermon. I gathered that the singing part of the rehearsal was over,
and before the coach's dissonant speaking voice could entirely break the spell
the children's singing had cast, I got up and left the church.
It
was raining even harder. I walked down the street and looked through the window
of the Red Cross recreation room, but soldiers were standing two and three deep
at the coffee counter, and, even through the glass, I could hear ping-pong
balls bouncing in another room. I crossed the street and entered a civilian
tearoom, which was empty except for a middle-aged waitress, who looked as if
she would have preferred a customer with a dry raincoat. I used a coat tree as
delicately as possible, and then sat down at a table and ordered tea and
cinnamon toast. It was the first time all day that I'd spoken to anyone. I then
looked through all my pockets, including my raincoat, and finally found a
couple of stale letters to reread, one from my wife, telling me how the service
at Schrafft's Eighty-eighth Street had fallen off, and one from my
mother-in-law, asking me to please send her some cashmere yarn first chance I
got away from "camp."
While
I was still on my first cup of tea, the young lady I had been watching and
listening to in the choir came into the tearoom. Her hair was soaking wet, and
the rims of both ears were showing. She was with a very small boy, unmistakably
her brother, whose cap she removed by lifting it off his head with two fingers,
as if it were a laboratory specimen. Bringing up the rear was an
efficient-looking woman in a limp felt hat--presumably their governess. The
choir member, taking off her coat as she walked across the floor, made the
table selection--a good one, from my point of view, as it was just eight or ten
feet directly in front of me. She and the governess sat down. The small boy,
who was about five, wasn't ready to sit down yet. He slid out of and discarded
his reefer; then, with the deadpan expression of a born heller, he methodically
went about annoying his governess by pushing in and pulling out his chair
several times, watching her face. The governess, keeping her voice down, gave
him two or three orders to sit down and, in effect, stop the monkey business,
but it was only when his sister spoke to him that he came around and applied
the small of his back to his chair seat. He immediately picked up his napkin
and put it on his head. His sister removed it, opened it, and spread it out on
his lap.
About
the time their tea was brought, the choir member caught me staring over at her
party. She stared back at me, with those house-counting eyes of hers, then,
abruptly, gave me a small, qualified smile. It was oddly radiant, as certain
small, qualified smiles sometimes are. I smiled back, much less radiantly,
keeping my upper lip down over a coal-black G.I. temporary filling showing between
two of my front teeth. The next thing I knew, the young lady was standing, with
enviable poise, beside my table. She was wearing a tartan dress--a Campbell
tartan, I believe. It seemed to me to be a wonderful dress for a very young
girl to be wearing on a rainy, rainy day. "I thought Americans despised
tea," she said.
It
wasn't the observation of a smart aleck but that of a truth-lover or a
statistics-lover. I replied that some of us never drank anything but tea. I
asked her if she'd care to join me.
"Thank
you," she said. "Perhaps for just a fraction of a moment."
I
got up and drew a chair for her, the one opposite me, and she sat down on the
forward quarter of it, keeping her spine easily and beautifully straight. I
went back--almost hurried back--to my own chair, more than willing to hold up
my end of a conversation. When I was seated, I couldn't think of anything to
say, though. I smiled again, still keeping my coal-black filling under
concealment. I remarked that it was certainly a terrible day out.
"Yes;
quite," said my guest, in the clear, unmistakable voice of a small-talk
detester. She placed her fingers flat on the table edge, like someone at a
seance, then, almost instantly, closed her hands--her nails were bitten down to
the quick. She was wearing a wristwatch, a military-looking one that looked
rather like a navigator's chronograph. Its face was much too large for her
slender wrist. "You were at choir practice," she said
matter-of-factly. "I saw you."
I
said I certainly had been, and that I had heard her voice singing separately
from the others. I said I thought she had a very fine voice.
She
nodded. "I know. I'm going to be a professional singer."
"Really?
Opera?"
"Heavens,
no. I'm going to sing jazz on the radio and make heaps of money. Then, when I'm
thirty, I shall retire and live on a ranch in Ohio." She touched the top
of her soaking-wet head with the flat of her hand. "Do you know
Ohio?" she asked.
I
said I'd been through it on the train a few times but that I didn't really know
it. I offered her a piece of cinnamon toast.
"No,
thank you," she said. "I eat like a bird, actually."
I
bit into a piece of toast myself, and commented that there's some mighty rough
country around Ohio. "I know. An American I met told me. You're the
eleventh American I've met."
Her
governess was now urgently signalling her to return to her own table--in
effect, to stop bothering the man. My guest, however, calmly moved her chair an
inch or two so that her back broke all possible further communication with the
home table. "You go to that secret Intelligence school on the hill, don't
you?" she inquired coolly.
As
security-minded as the next one, I replied that I was visiting Devonshire for
my health.
"Really,"
she said, "I wasn't quite born yesterday, you know."
I
said I'd bet she hadn't been, at that. I drank my tea for a moment. I was
getting a trifle posture-conscious and I sat up somewhat straighter in my seat.
"You
seem quite intelligent for an American," my guest mused.
I
told her that was a pretty snobbish thing to say, if you thought about it at
all, and that I hoped it was unworthy of her.
She
blushed-automatically conferring on me the social poise I'd been missing.
"Well. Most of the Americans I've seen act like animals. They're forever
punching one another about, and insulting everyone, and--You know what one of
them did?"
I
shook my haad.
"One
of them threw an empty whiskey bottle through my aunt's window. Fortunately,
the window was open. But does that sound very intelligent to you?"
It
didn't especially, but I didn't say so. I said that many soldiers, all over the
world, were a long way from home, and that few of them had had many real
advantages in life. I said I'd thought that most people could figure that out
for themselves.
"Possibly,"
said my guest, without conviction. She raised her hand to her wet head again,
picked at a few limp filaments of blond hair, trying to cover her exposed ear
rims. "My hair is soaking wet," she said. "I look a
fright." She looked over at me. "I have quite wavy hair when it's
dry."
"I
can see that, I can see you have."
"Not
actually curly, but quite wavy," she said. "Are you married?"
I
said I was.
She
nodded. "Are you very deeply in love with your wife? Or am I being too
personal?"
I
said that when she was, I'd speak up.
he
put her hands and wrists farther forward on the table, and I remember wanting
to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was wearing--perhaps
suggest that she try wearing it around her waist.
"Usually,
I'm not terribly gregarious," she said, and looked over at me to see if I
knew the meaning of the word. I didn't give her a sign, though, one way or the
other. "I purely came over because I thought you looked extremely lonely.
You have an extremely sensitive face."
I
said she was right, that I had been feeling lonely, and that I was very glad
she'd come over.
"I'm
training myself to be more compassionate. My aunt says I'm a terribly cold
person," she said and felt the top of her head again. "I live with my
aunt. She's an extremely kind person. Since the death of my mother, she's done
everything within her power to make Charles and me feel adjusted."
"I'm
glad."
"Mother
was an extremely intelligent person. Quite sensuous, in many ways." She
looked at me with a kind of fresh acuteness. "Do you find me terribly
cold?"
I
told her absolutely not--very much to the contrary, in fact. I told her my name
and asked for hers. She hesitated. "My first name is Esmé. I don't think I
shall tell you my full name, for the moment. I have a title and you may just be
impressed by titles. Americans are, you know."
I
said I didn't think I would be, but that it might be a good idea, at that, to
hold on to the title for a while.
Just
then, I felt someone's warm breath on the back of my neck. I turned around and
just missed brushing noses with Esmé's small brother. Ignoring me, he addressed
his sister in a piercing treble: "Miss Megley said you must come and
finish your tea!" His message delivered, he retired to the chair between
his sister and me, on my right. I regarded him with high interest. He was
looking very splendid in brown Shetland shorts, a navy-blue jersey, white
shirt, and striped necktie. He gazed back at me with immense green eyes.
"Why do people in films kiss sideways?" he demanded.
"Sideways?"
I said. It was a problem that had baffled me in my childhood. I said I guessed
it was because actors' noses are too big for kissing anyone head on.
"His
name is Charles," Esmé said. "He's extremely brilliant for his
age."
"He
certainly has green eyes. Haven't you, Charles?" Charles gave me the fishy
look my question deserved, then wriggled downward and forward in his chair till
all of his body was under the table except his head, which he left,
wrestler's-bridge style, on the chair seat. "They're orange," he said
in a strained voice, addressing the ceiling. He picked up a corner of the
tablecloth and put it over his handsome, deadpan little face.
"Sometimes
he's brilliant and sometimes he's not," Esme said. "Charles, do sit
up!"
Charles
stayed right where he was. He seemed to be holding his breath.
"He
misses our father very much. He was s-l-a-i-n in North Africa."
I
expressed regret to hear it.
Esme
nodded. "Father adored him." She bit reflectively at the cuticle of
her thumb. "He looks very much like my mother--Charles, I mean. I look
exactly like my father." She went on biting at her cuticle. "My
mother was quite a passionate woman. She was an extrovert. Father was an
introvert. They were quite well mated, though, in a superficial way. To be
quite candid, Father really needed more of an intellectual companion than Mother
was. He was an extremely gifted genius."
I
waited, receptively, for further information, but none came. I looked down at
Charles, who was now resting the side of his face on his chair seat. When he
saw that I was looking at him, he closed his eyes, sleepily, angelically, then
stuck out his tongue--an appendage of startling length--and gave out what in my
country would have been a glorious tribute to a myopic baseball umpire. It
fairly shook the tearoom.
"Stop
that," Esmé said, clearly unshaken. "He saw an American do it in a
fish-and-chips queue, and now he does it whenever he's bored. Just stop it,
now, or I shall send you directly to Miss Megley."
Charles
opened his enormous eyes, as sign that he'd heard his sister's threat, but
otherwise didn't look especially alerted. He closed his eyes again, and
continued to rest the side of his face on the chair seat.
I
mentioned that maybe he ought to save it--meaning the Bronx cheer--till he
started using his title regularly. That is, if he had a title, too.
Esmé
gave me a long, faintly clinical look. "You have a dry sense of humor,
haven't you?" she said--wistfully. "Father said I have no sense of
humor at all. He said I was unequipped to meet life because I have no sense of
humor."
Watching
her, I lit a cigarette and said I didn't think a sense of humor was of any use
in a real pinch.
"Father
said it was."
This
was a statement of faith, not a contradiction, and I quickly switched horses. I
nodded and said her father had probably taken the long view, while I was taking
the short (whatever that meant).
"Charles
misses him exceedingly," Esme said, after a moment. "He was an
exceedingly lovable man. He was extremely handsome, too. Not that one's
appearance matters greatly, but he was. He had terribly penetrating eyes, for a
man who was intransically kind."
I
nodded. I said I imagined her father had had quite an extraordinary vocabulary.
"Oh,
yes; quite," said Esmé. "He was an archivist--amateur, of
course."
At
that point, I felt an importunate tap, almost a punch, on my upper arm, from
Charles' direction. I turned to him. He was sitting in a fairly normal position
in his chair now, except that he had one knee tucked under him. "What did
one wall say to the other wall?" he asked shrilly. "It's a riddle!"
I
rolled my eyes reflectively ceilingward and repeated the question aloud. Then I
looked at Charles with a stumped expression and said I gave up.
"Meet
you at the corner!" came the punch line, at top volume.
It
went over biggest with Charles himself. It struck him as unbearably funny. In
fact, Esmé had to come around and pound him on the back, as if treating him for
a coughing spell. "Now, stop that," she said. She went back to her
own seat. "He tells that same riddle to everyone he meets and has a fit
every single time. Usually he drools when he laughs. Now, just stop,
please."
"It's
one of the best riddles I've heard, though," I said, watching Charles, who
was very gradually coming out of it. In response to this compliment, he sank
considerably lower in his chair and again masked his face up to the eyes with a
corner of the tablecloth. He then looked at me with his exposed eyes, which
were full of slowly subsiding mirth and the pride of someone who knows a really
good riddle or two.
"May
I inquire how you were employed before entering the Army?" Esmé asked me.
I
said I hadn't been employed at all, that I'd only been out of college a year
but that I like to think of myself as a professional short-story writer.
She
nodded politely. "Published?" she asked.
It
was a familiar but always touchy question, and one that I didn't answer just
one, two, three. I started to explain how most editors in America were a
bunch--
"My
father wrote beautifully," Esmé interrupted. "I'm saving a number of
his letters for posterity."
I
said that sounded like a very good idea. I happened to be looking at her
enormous-faced, chronographic-looking wristwatch again. I asked if it had
belonged to her father.
She
looked down at her wrist solemnly. "Yes, it did," she said. "He
gave it to me just before Charles and I were evacuated." Self-consciously,
she took her hands off the table, saying, "Purely as a momento, of
course." She guided the conversation in a different direction. "I'd
be extremely flattered if you'd write a story exclusively for me sometime. I'm
an avid reader."
I
told her I certainly would, if I could. I said that I wasn't terribly prolific.
"It
doesn't have to be terribly prolific! Just so that it isn't childish and
silly." She reflected. "I prefer stories about squalor."
"About
what?" I said, leaning forward. "Squalor. I'm extremely interested in
squalor."
I
was about to press her for more details, but I felt Charles pinching me, hard,
on my arm. I turned to him, wincing slightly. He was standing right next to me.
"What did one wall say to the other wall?" he asked, not
unfamiliarly.
"You
asked him that," Esmé said. "Now, stop it."
Ignoring
his sister, and stepping up on one of my feet, Charles repeated the key
question. I noticed that his necktie knot wasn't adjusted properly. I slid it
up into place, then, looking him straight in the eye, suggested, "Meetcha
at the corner?"
The
instant I'd said it, I wished I hadn't. Charles' mouth fell open. I felt as if
I'd struck it open. He stepped down off my foot and, with white-hot dignity,
walked over to his own table, without looking back.
"He's
furious," Esmé said. "He has a violent temper. My mother had a
propensity to spoil him. My father was the only one who didn't spoil him."
I
kept looking over at Charles, who had sat down and started to drink his tea,
using both hands on the cup. I hoped he'd turn around, but he didn't.
Esmé
stood up. “Il faut que je parte aussi," she said, with a sigh. "Do
you know French?"
I
got up from my own chair, with mixed feelings of regret and confusion. Esmé and
I shook hands; her hand, as I'd suspected, was a nervous hand, damp at the
palm. I told her, in English, how very much I'd enjoyed her company.
She
nodded. "I thought you might," she said. "I'm quite
communicative for my age." She gave her hair another experimental touch.
"I'm dreadfully sorry about my hair," she said. "I've probably
been hideous to look at."
"Not
at all! As a matter of fact, I think a lot of the wave is coming back
already."
She
quickly touched her hair again. "Do you think you'll be coming here again
in the immediate future?" she asked. "We come here every Saturday,
after choir practice."
I
answered that I'd like nothing better but that, unfortunately, I was pretty
sure I wouldn't be able to make it again.
"In
other words, you can't discuss troop movements," said Esme. She made no
move to leave the vicinity of the table. In fact, she crossed one foot over the
other and, looking down, aligned the toes of her shoes. It was a pretty little
execution, for she was wearing white socks and her ankles and feet were lovely.
She looked up at me abruptly. "Would you like me to write to you?"
she asked, with a certain amount of color in her face. "I write extremely
articulate letters for a person my--"
"I'd
love it." I took out pencil and paper and wrote down my name, rank, serial
number, and A.P.O. number.
"I
shall write to you first," she said, accepting it, "so that you don't
feel compromised in any way." She put the address into a pocket of her
dress. "Goodbye," she said, and walked back to her table.
I
ordered another pot of tea and sat watching the two of them till they, and the
harassed Miss Megley, got up to leave. Charles led the way out, limping
tragically, like a man with one leg several, inches shorter than the other. He
didn't look over at me. Miss Megley went next, then Esmé, who waved to me. I
waved back, half getting up from my chair. It was a strangely emotional moment
for me.
Less
than a minute later, Esmé came back into the tearoom, dragging Charles behind
her by the sleeve of his reefer. "Charles would like to kiss you
goodbye," she said.
I
immediately put down my cup, and said that was very nice, but was she sure?
"Yes,"
she said, a trifle grimly. She let go Charles' sleeve and gave him a rather
vigorous push in my direction. He came forward, his face livid, and gave me a
loud, wet smacker just below the right ear. Following this ordeal, he started
to make a beeline for the door and a less sentimental way of life, but I caught
the half belt at the back of his reefer, held on to it, and asked him,
"What did one wall say to the other wall?"
His
face lit up. "Meet you at the corner!" he shrieked, and raced out of
the room, possibly in hysterics.
Esme
was standing with crossed ankles again. "You're quite sure you won't
forget to write that story for me?" she asked. "It doesn't have to be
exclusively for me. It can--"
I
said there was absolutely no chance that I'd forget. I told her that I'd never
written a story for anybody, but that it seemed like exactly the right time to
get down to it.
She
nodded. "Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested.
"Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"
I
said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form
or another, all the time, and that I'd do my best to come up to her
specifications. We shook hands.
"Isn't
it a pity that we didn't meet under less extenuating circumstances?"
I
said it was, I said it certainly was.
"Goodbye,"
Esmé said. "I hope you return from the war with all your faculties
intact."
I
thanked her, and said a few other words, and then watched her leave the
tearoom. She left it slowly, reflectively, testing the ends of her hair for
dryness.
This
is the squalid, or moving, part of the story, and the scene changes. The people
change, too. I'm still around, but from here on in, for reasons I'm not at
liberty to disclose, I've disguised myself so cunningly that even the cleverest
reader will fail to recognize me.
It
was about ten-thirty at night in Gaufurt, Bavaria, several weeks after V-E Day.
Staff Sergeant X was in his room on the second floor of the civilian home in
which he and nine other American soldiers had been quartered, even before the
armistice. He was seated on a folding wooden chair at a small, messy-looking
writing table, with a paperback overseas novel open before him, which he was
having great trouble reading. The trouble lay with him, not the novel. Although
the men who lived on the first floor usually had first grab at the books sent
each month by Special Services, X usually seemed to be left with the book he
might have selected himself. But he was a young man who had not come through
the war with all his faculties intact, and for more than an hour he had been
triple-reading paragraphs, and now he was doing it to the sentences. He
suddenly closed the book, without marking his place. With his hand, he shielded
his eyes for a moment against the harsh, watty glare from the naked bulb over
the table.
He
took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it with fingers that bumped
gently and incessantly against one another. He sat back a trifle in his chair
and smoked without any sense of taste. He had been chain-smoking for weeks. His
gums bled at the slightest pressure of the tip of his tongue, and he seldom
stopped experimenting; it was a little game he played, sometimes by the hour.
He sat for a moment smoking and experimenting. Then, abruptly, familiarly, and,
as usual, with no warning, he thought he felt his mind dislodge itself and
teeter, like insecure luggage on an overhead rack. He quickly did what he had
been doing for weeks to set things right: he pressed his hands hard against his
temples. He held on tight for a moment. His hair needed cutting, and it was
dirty. He had washed it three or four times during his two weeks' stay at the
hospital in Frankfort on the Main, but it had got dirty again on the long,
dusty jeep ride back to Gaufurt. Corporal Z, who had called for him at the
hospital, still drove a jeep combat-style, with the windshield down on the
hood, armistice or no armistice. There were thousands of new troops in Germany.
By driving with his windshield down, combat-style, Corporal Z hoped to show
that he was not one of them, that not by a long shot was he some new son of a
bitch in the E.T.O.
When
he let go of his head, X began to stare at the surface of the writing table,
which was a catchall for at least two dozen unopened letters and at least five
or six unopened packages, all addressed to him. He reached behind the debris
and picked out a book that stood against the wall. It was a book by Goebbels,
entitled "Die Zeit Ohne Beispiel." It belonged to the
thirty-eight-year-old, unmarried daughter of the family that, up to a few weeks
earlier, had been living in the house. She had been a low official in the Nazi
Party, but high enough, by Army Regulations standards, to fall into an
automatic-arrest category. X himself had arrested her. Now, for the third time
since he had returned from the hospital that day, he opened the woman's book
and read the brief inscription on the flyleaf. Written in ink, in German, in a
small, hopelessly sincere handwriting, were the words "Dear God, life is
hell." Nothing led up to or away from it. Alone on the page, and in the
sickly stillness of the room, the words appeared to have the stature of an
uncontestable, even classic indictment. X stared at the page for several
minutes, trying, against heavy odds, not to be taken in. Then, with far more
zeal than he had done anything in weeks, he picked up a pencil stub and wrote
down under the inscription, in English, "Fathers and teachers, I ponder
`What is hell?' I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love."
He started to write Dostoevski's name under the inscription, but saw--with
fright that ran through his whole body--that what he had written was almost
entirely illegible. He shut the book.
He
quickly picked up something else from the table, a letter from his older
brother in Albany. It had been on his table even before he had checked into the
hospital. He opened the envelope, loosely resolved to read the letter straight
through, but read only the top half of the first page. He stopped after the
words "Now that the g.d. war is over and you probably have a lot of time
over there, how about sending the kids a couple of bayonets or swastikas . .
." After he'd torn it up, he looked down at the pieces as they lay in the
wastebasket. He saw that he had overlooked an enclosed snapshot. He could make
out somebody's feet standing on a lawn somewhere.
He
put his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He ached from head to
foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a
Christmas tree whose lights, wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb
is defective.
The
door banged open, without having been rapped on. X raised his head, turned it,
and saw Corporal Z standing in the door. Corporal Z had been X's jeep partner
and constant companion from D Day straight through five campaigns of the war.
He lived on the first floor and he usually came up to see X when he had a few
rumors or gripes to unload. He was a huge, photogenic young man of twenty-four.
During the war, a national magazine had photographed him in Hurtgen Forest; he
had posed, more than just obligingly, with a Thanksgiving turkey in each hand.
"Ya writin' letters?" he asked X. "It's spooky in here, for
Chrissake." He preferred always to enter a room that had the overhead
light on.
X
turned around in his chair and asked him to come in, and to be careful not to
step on the dog.
"The
what?"
"Alvin.
He's right under your feet, Clay. How 'bout turning on the goddam light?"
Clay
found the overhead-light switch, flicked it on, then stepped across the puny,
servant's-size room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing his host. His
brick-red hair, just combed, was dripping with the amount of water he required
for satisfactory grooming. A comb with a fountain-pen clip protruded, familiarly,
from the right-hand pocket of his olive-drab shirt. Over the left-hand pocket
he was wearing the Combat Infantrymen's Badge (which, technically, he wasn't
authorized to wear), the European Theater ribbon, with five bronze battle stars
in it (instead of a lone silver one, which was the equivalent of five bronze
ones), and the pre-Pearl Harbor service ribbon. He sighed heavily and said,
"Christ almighty." It meant nothing; it was Army. He took a pack of
cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, then put away the pack and
rebuttoned the pocket flap. Smoking, he looked vacuously around the room. His
look finally settled on the radio. "Hey," he said. "They got
this terrific show comin' on the radio in a coupla minutes. Bob Hope, and everybody."
X,
opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, said he had just turned the radio off.
Undarkened,
Clay watched X trying to get a cigarette lit. "Jesus," he said, with
spectator's enthusiasm, "you oughta see your goddam hands. Boy, have you
got the shakes. Ya know that?"
X
got his cigarette lit, nodded, and said Clay had a real eye for detail.
"No
kidding, hey. I goddam near fainted when I saw you at the hospital. You looked
like a goddam corpse. How much weight ya lose? How many pounds? Ya know?"
"I
don't know. How was your mail when I was gone? You heard from Loretta?"
Loretta
was Clay's girl. They intended to get married at their earliest convenience.
She wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points
and inaccurate observations. All through the war, Clay had read all Loretta's
letters aloud to X, however intimate they were--in fact, the more intimate, the
better. It was his custom, after each reading, to ask X to plot out or pad out
the letter of reply, or to insert a few impressive words in French or German.
"Yeah,
I had a letter from her yesterday. Down in my room. Show it to ya later,"
Clay said, listlessly. He sat up straight on the edge of the bed, held his
breath, and issued a long, resonant belch. Looking just semi-pleased with the
achievement, he relaxed again. "Her goddam brother's gettin' outa the Navy
on account of his hip," he said. "He's got this hip, the
bastard." He sat up again and tried for another belch, but with below-par
results. A jot of alertness came into his face. "Hey. Before I forget. We
gotta get up at five tomorrow and drive to Hamburg or someplace. Pick up
Eisenhower jackets for the whole detachment."
X,
regarding him hostilely, stated that he didn't want an Eisenhower jacket.
Clay
looked surprised, almost a trifle hurt. "Oh, they're good! They look good.
How come?"
"No
reason. Why do we have to get up at five? The war's over, for God's sake."
"I
don't know--we gotta get back before lunch. They got some new forms in we gotta
fill out before lunch.... I asked Bulling how come we couldn't fill 'em out
tonight--he's got the goddam forms right on his desk. He don't want to open the
envelopes yet, the son of a bitch."
The
two sat quiet for a moment, hating Bulling. Clay suddenly looked at X with
new-higher-interest than before. "Hey," he said. "Did you know
the goddam side of your face is jumping all over the place?"
X
said he knew all about it, and covered his tic with his hand.
Clay
stared at him for a moment, then said, rather vividly, as if he were the bearer
of exceptionally good news, "I wrote Loretta you had a nervous
breakdown."
"Oh?"
"Yeah.
She's interested as hell in all that stuff. She's majoring in psychology."
Clay stretched himself out on the bed, shoes included. "You know what she
said? She says nobody gets a nervous breakdown just from the war and all. She
says you probably were unstable like, your whole goddarn life."
X
bridged his hands over his eyes--the light over the bed seemed to be blinding
him--and said that Loretta's insight into things was always a joy.
Clay
glanced over at him. "Listen, ya bastard," he said. "She knows a
goddam sight more psychology than you do."
"Do
you think you can bring yourself to take your stinking feet off my bed?" X
asked.
Clay
left his feet where they were for a few don't-tell-me-where-to-put-my-feet
seconds, then swung them around to the floor and sat up. "I'm goin'
downstairs anyway. They got the radio on in Walker's room." He didn't get
up from the bed, though. "Hey. I was just tellin' that new son of a bitch,
Bernstein, downstairs. Remember that time I and you drove into Valognes, and we
got shelled for about two goddam hours, and that goddam cat I shot that jumped
up on the hood of the jeep when we were layin' in that hole? Remember?"
"Yes--don't
start that business with that cat again, Clay, God damn it. I don't want to
hear about it."
"No,
all I mean is I wrote Loretta about it. She and the whole psychology class
discussed it. In class and all. The goddam professor and everybody."
"That's
fine. I don't want to hear about it, Clay."
"No,
you know the reason I took a pot shot at it, Loretta says? She says I was
temporarily insane. No kidding. From the shelling and all."
X
threaded his fingers, once, through his dirty hair, then shielded his eyes
against the light again. "You weren't insane. You were simply doing your
duty. You killed that pussycat in as manly a way as anybody could've under the
circumstances."
Clay
looked at him suspiciously. "What the hell are you talkin' about?"
"That
cat was a spy. You had to take a pot shot at it. It was a very clever German
midget dressed up in a cheap fur coat. So there was absolutely nothing brutal,
or cruel, or dirty, or even--"
"God
damn it!" Clay said, his lips thinned. "Can't you ever be
sincere?"
X
suddenly felt sick, and he swung around in his chair and grabbed the
wastebasket--just in time. When he had straightened up and turned toward his
guest again, he found him standing, embarrassed, halfway between the bed and
the door. X started to apologize, but changed his mind and reached for his
cigarettes.
"C'mon
down and listen to Hope on the radio, hey," Clay said, keeping his
distance but trying to be friendly over it. "It'll do ya good. I mean
it."
"You
go ahead, Clay. . . . I'll look at my stamp collection."
"Yeah?
You got a stamp collection? I didn't know you--"
"I'm
only kidding."
Clay
took a couple of slow steps toward the door. "I may drive over to Ehstadt
later," he said. "They got a dance. It'll probably last till around
two. Wanna go?"
"No,
thanks. . . . I may practice a few steps in the room."
"O.K.
G'night! Take it easy, now, for Chrissake." The door slammed shut, then
instantly opened again. "Hey. O.K. if I leave a letter to Loretta under
your door? I got some German stuff in it. Willya fix it up for me?"
"Yes.
Leave me alone now, God damn it."
"Sure,"
said Clay. "You know what my mother wrote me? She wrote me she's glad you
and I were together and all the whole war. In the same jeep and all. She says
my letters are a helluva lot more intelligent since we been goin' around
together."
X
looked up and over at him, and said, with great effort, "Thanks. Tell her
thanks for me."
"I
will. G'night!" The door slammed shut, this time for good.
X
sat looking at the door for a long while, then turned his chair around toward
the writing table and picked up his portable typewriter from the floor. He made
space for it on the messy table surface, pushing aside the collapsed pile of
unopened letters and packages. He thought if he wrote a letter to an old friend
of his in New York there might be some quick, however slight, therapy in it for
him. But he couldn't insert his notepaper into the roller properly, his fingers
were shaking so violently now. He put his hands down at his sides for a minute,
then tried again, but finally crumpled the notepaper in his hand.
He
was aware that he ought to get the wastebasket out of the room, but instead of
doing anything about it, he put his arms on the typewriter and rested his head
again, closing his eyes.
A
few throbbing minutes later, when he opened his eyes, he found himself
squinting at a small, unopened package wrapped in green paper. It had probably
slipped off the pile when he had made space for the typewriter. He saw that it
had been readdressed several times. He could make out, on just one side of the
package, at least three of his old A.P.O. numbers.
He
opened the package without any interest, without even looking at the return
address. He opened it by burning the string with a lighted match. He was more
interested in watching a string burn all the way down than in opening the
package, but he opened it, finally.
Inside
the box, a note, written in ink, lay on top of a small object wrapped in tissue
paper. He picked out the note and read it.
17,
----ROAD,
-----DEVON
JUNE
7, 1944
DEAR
SERGEANT X,
I
hope you will forgive me for having taken 38 days to begin our correspondence
but, I have been extremely busy as my aunt has undergone streptococcus of the
throat and nearly perished and I have been justifiably saddled with one
responsibility after another. However I have thought of you frequently and of
the extremely pleasant afternoon we spent in each other's company on April 30,
1944 between 3:45 and 4:15 P.M. in case it slipped your mind.
We
are all tremendously excited and overawed about D Day and only hope that it
will bring about the swift termination of the war and a method of existence
that is ridiculous to say the least. Charles and I are both quite concerned
about you; we hope you were not among those who made the first initial assault
upon the Cotentin Peninsula. Were you? Please reply as speedily as possible. My
warmest regards to your wife.
Sincerely
yours,
ESMÉ
P.S.
I am taking the liberty of enclosing my wristwatch which you may keep in your
possession for the duration of the conflict. I did not observe whether you were
wearing one during our brief association, but this one is extremely water-proof
and shockproof as well as having many other virtues among which one can tell at
what velocity one is walking if one wishes. I am quite certain that you will
use it to greater advantage in these difficult days than I ever can and that
you will accept it as a lucky talisman.
Charles,
whom I am teaching to read and write and whom I am finding an extremely
intelligent novice, wishes to add a few words. Please write as soon as you have
the time and inclination.
HELLO
HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO
HELLO
HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO
LOVE
AND KISSES CHALES
It
was a long time before X could set the note aside, let alone lift Esmé's
father's wristwatch out of the box. When he did finally lift it out, he saw
that its crystal had been broken in transit. He wondered if the watch was
otherwise undamaged, but he hadn't the courage to wind it and find out. He just
sat with it in his hand for another long period. Then, suddenly, almost
ecstatically, he felt sleepy.
You
take a really sleepy man, Esmé, and he always stands a chance of again becoming
a man with all his fac-with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact.