From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

  Then he realized suddenly that he was doubting, here he had just learned it and already he was doubting, and he was frightened worse. Was logic still logic if you could doubt it?

  This is old stuff to Slater, he told himself, he’s used to it, of course he can turn it off. Its just new to you, thats all. And you’ve still got that old habit of doubting. Thats all. He wondered if Sam Slater had ever doubted any, when he first learned it? Of course he had, he told himself. But somehow he doubted that. What if Slater had never doubted it? what then? He thought of asking Slater if he ever doubted and his heart suddenly skipped warningly with more than fright, with fear, at the obvious giveaway of his disbelief such a question would confess.

  He was not doubting the logic, he realized suddenly, what he was doubting was himself. He was doubting his ability to stop doubting. Perhaps Slater had made a mistake in him?

  But if Slater was wrong, then Slater’s logic was fallible, wasnt it? Capt Holmes felt the old yawning bottomless feeling coming back on him, felt the earth once again refuse his feet.

  What if his wife had not refused to cook his dinner for him, had not gone with her rich civilian?

  What if Jake Delbert had warned him beforehand that there would be a General here tonight and given him time beforehand to get apprehensive?

  What if Sam Slater had not had the needle out for Jake?

  Capt Holmes saw quite clearly very suddenly that he would have been a different man, and that things would have happened very differently, and when Sam Slater handed him his fresh drink his hand was trembling.

  “Come on,” Sam Slater grinned. “They’re all in the next room back here.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” said Capt Holmes, and followed him, hoping only that he had not seen. He wondered if Slater would remember this tomorrow? And he wondered if this world-shaking conversation was in reality only a Holmes-&-Slater-shaking conversation? And he wondered why it was the earth would not ever stand still, would not let you set your feet upon it?

  He looked at the people in the room, at the Colonel sprawling drinking on the bed, at the woman drinking with him, at the Majors, at S/Sgt Jefferson handing around another tray of drinks, at Sam Slater grinningly picking out a woman, at the woman he had picked out himself. He did not know them, any of them, and he felt like a man looking out of the window of a skyscraper down the diminishing receding length of wall to where the beautifully miniature cars hum and crawl like beetles in the street, and he had to pull his head back in. Or jump.

  Not that, Holmes. You’ve been on that road, that road leads nowhere, thats the road that brought you here. The thing is, to believe. You must believe. You must have faith. Thats the answer. The only answer.

  So he looked at Sam Slater and he believed. He looked at the frolicking Sam Slater from Sheboygan, like the woman looks frightenedly but still hopefully at the man beside her whom she has let seduce her, whom she has given it to, and who has turned over and begun to snore. He knew there must be some logic in all of it someplace. It couldnt all be just so haphazard.

  Tomorrow he would buy that new Mixmaster at the PX and have it sitting in the kitchen when she came home. When she walked in the first thing she’d see would be that. Then she’d know.

  He stood up swaying only slightly and escorted the hefty Chinese girl back into the back.

  Chapter 24

  THE MAN WHOSE SALVATION everybody seemed to be concerned about was not worried at all himself, did not even for the moment realize he was a sinner, as he climbed the stairway to the New Congress Hotel.

  Prew had that old on-pass feeling there again, telling him life was postponed until tomorrow morning, that he could think about being a sinner again tomorrow, but that right now he had better not let anything spoil this that was coming. Maybe he could not have the bugling. All right then, he could not have it. But he could have this and this would help to fill the hole and he had better be very careful to hang onto it because he might need it bad someday soon. Right now he much preferred to think about Lorene. There was a name for you. Lorene. That was no whore’s name, that was a really truly woman’s name, Lorene. It had a special private sound all its own for him, when he said it over, as if no other woman had ever had that name before. Hell, he could transfer out of this fucked up jockstrap company, what was to stop him? Get in a real soldiering outfit again and really work hard again. Get a sergeant’s rating back again because a rating would mean something again now.

  Then he remembered he could not get a transfer out of this outfit.

  All right, so he couldnt get a transfer. So what? What did that mean? Not a goddam. All this will have blown over in a year from now. She plans to go on working for another year anyway, dont she? By then you will be due to ship back home, back to the States, in a year from now, by this time next year, in 1942. He knocked on the steel door happily loudly, seeing it all in his mind suddenly, how it would be then, some sturdy little permanent post that drowsed along from day to day, like Jefferson Barracks or Fort Riley, with solid brick barracks and new-cut grass and well kept walks under the long afternoon shadows of big old oak trees that had been standing in the same place since before George Armstrong Custer had his hair cut by the Sioux, that would be the kind of place to re-enlist for, where the NCO quarters were brick too and not this jerry-built ship lath they have here, and where you can take her right into a community and a little society that the married noncoms made and maintained for themselves alone. Didnt all the old timers like Pete Karelsen always say whores made the best wives? Whores knew how to appreciate the little things, didnt they say, after they’ve been down and out. Lots of old timers married whores. Look at Baldy Dhom, his wife was a whore in Manila. No, lets not look at Dhom, his wife is a gook, she dont count, thats you if you had married Violet. But you dont want to marry Violet, you want to marry Lorene. And if comfort and security is what she wants, what better place is there to find it than in some little out of the way permanent post that has been the same for sixty-nine years, and will be the same for sixty more?

  Why, hell. She could marry him now, today, and still go on working for a year, she planned to do that anyway, what did he care? Respectability had done him a lot of goddam good in his time, hadnt it? Respectability and fifteen cents will get you a beer. Respectability and its matronly advocates who were trying to hide their own youth when they too had been alive, because being alive was always a little obscene, you always made people uncomfortable to be with you when you were alive. Well, up yours, ladies, thats all.

  “Why, Prew!”

  Mrs Kipfer gracefully admitted him.

  “I certainly didnt expect to see you again so soon. This is a surprise.”

  “Hows business?” he grinned as the thick sawdusty circus-day atmosphere broke over him in waves. Mrs Kipfer was looking slightly harassed. Not that it had wilted her corsage, just that the International Sterling lady had been candid cameraed during a receiving line, or been caught presiding over a difficult dinner for some drunken guest her husband had brought home.

  “Isnt it awful though?” she said.

  With both waiting rooms full, men moving laughing up and down the hall, the two jukeboxes having a perpetual battle of music, sweating girls slamming doors, spike heels jarring the floor, it looked like a defense plant assembly line in full swing. There was a strong smell of mingled perfumes in the tobacco cloud and a male voice was half drunkenly competing with the jukebox in the second waiting room and from far down the hall a harried voice yelled, “Towels!”

  “One might easily,” Mrs Kipfer said wearily, “mistake us for the Republican convention in Philadelphia, mightnt they?”

  “Or even the American Legion National Convention in Detroit,” Prew said.

  “Oh, no, not that!”

  “Towels!”

  Mrs Kipfer winced. “Petunia. Josette needs towels. In number seven.”

  “Hokay.” The great black roll of flowing fat moved off indifferently. Indifferent even to the wisp of cap and tiny apr
on she had been afflicted with.

  “And see if anyone else needs any.” Mrs Kipfer brushed at her cheek distractedly. “And hurry! Petunia. Her name really is Petunia. Isnt it awful? Just like the movies. But I dont know what I’d do without her though. Minerva is such a goldbrick. She’s sick today. She’s always sick on Payday. I cant do a thing with her at all.” She sucked a breath. “That Minerva! I only have just the two, you know. The Service has at least four maids. But of course they’re the biggest place in town.”

  “Wheres Lorene?” Prew said.

  Mrs Kipfer put her hand lightly on his arm and beamed at him sideways knowingly. “Why, Prew! Is that why you came down specially on Payday? What did you do, did you go and borrow money? Just to come down here today and see Lorene?”

  “Why would I do that?” Prew said, stiffly. He could feel both his upper lip and his neck get stiff simultaneously. “As a matter of fact,” he said stiffly, “I won a little money today and decided to come to town before I lost it back is all.”

  “Well, I think thats very wise of you.” Mrs Kipfer was smiling at him sideways with her head cocked on one side. “How much did you win, dear?”

  Prew felt a hollow fear cut down sharply through his irritation, splitting it into halves that fell away leaving a complete blankness in his mind, and he reached for his wallet quickly as a man will who is used to having to calculate his funds. It was still there. He breathed again.

  “Oh,” he said. “About a hundred.”

  “Well. Thats quite good, isnt it?”

  “Only fair,” he said. He was remembering he had already spent one dollar of the twenty for two drinks to help him drop the trapdoor in his mind (there are times when it is imperative to drop the trapdoor in the mind, but the hinges have a tendency to stick so often) and that left him nineteen. Take a buck out for cab fare both ways (be could not risk hitching back, not this time) and that left eighteen. Fifteen for all night and three for a quickie now, and no bottle at all. It was running him too close for comfort.

  Mrs Kipfer was still smiling at him sideways. “You know, I vastly admire your taste, my dear. But there is always such a heavy call for Lorene on Payday, and there are two or three other girls available in the waiting room.”

  “Listen,” he said, wanting now to laugh at her, “I aint in no hurry. Just tell me where to find her.”

  Mrs Kipfer, smiling, shrugged. “Very well. She’s in number nine. Straight down the hall. The best way is to wait and catch her in the hall. Excuse me theres the door.”

  He grinned after her, still wanting to laugh at how she didnt know near what she thought she knew, and turned away down the hall.

  “I’m sorry, boys,” Mrs Kipfer was saying through the slot “We’re just completely filled—

  “There just isn’t a bit of room—

  “I’m just awfully sorry—

  “Well,” she said. “If thats the way you feel, you just go right ahead. I’m sorry.

  “Oh, Prew-ew,” she called.

  “Yes?”

  “Drunk as lords,” she whispered, coming back. “I wanted to ask you how Sergeant Warden was?”

  “Who?”

  “Milt Warden. He’s still with the company, isnt he?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, he is.”

  “He hasnt been in for such a long time now I thought perhaps he had been transferred back to the Mainland. Will you remember me to him?”

  “Yes. Well,” he said. “Yes, I’ll do that.” He would do just that, walk up to The Warden after Reveille and tell him exactly that.

  “You know,” Mrs Kipfer said, “you boys are lucky to have a man like that for your first sergeant.”

  “You think so?” Prew said. “I think so, too. Oh, in fact, we all think that.” Well, well, he thought, well, well. But The Warden! Well, well. Will wonders never cease?

  The door of number nine was open and a Marine tech sergeant with the bar under his chevrons instead of the rocker was coming out tying his tie. It was remarkable how every detail of him seemed so very clear and personal to Prew. Prew watched him absorbedly as he went off up the hall.

  Lorene came out after him, moving at a swift walk that jarred the spike heels down staccato-ly and he saw her suddenly, heart-jumpingly, as if she had been photographed life size in mid-stride and stuck there and then walked right out of the print into the hall, the unzippered dress held together with one hand that also clutched one white poker chip, a brimming bottle of dark liquid in the other that she swung slightly to keep from spilling the way a waitress swings a cup of coffee. She was moving fast, and she swung her shoulders sideways to pass him in the narrowness of the crowded hall.

  “Hey,” he said. “Lorene.”

  “Hello, dear,” she said.

  “Hey! Wait a minute, will you?”

  “I’ve got to hurry, dear, theres three or four ahead of you.”

  Then she saw him. She stopped. “Oh, its you. Hello. How are you?” She glanced down the hall.

  “How am I?” Was that all she had to say? He hunted desperately for an eternity through a mind that was suddenly completely blank. “I’m fine,” he said lamely. “How are you?”

  “Well thats nice,” Lorene said, glancing down the hall. “Listen, dear, I can take care of you in—” she looked at her watch “—say half an hour? Thats the best I can do, honey.”

  “Yeah?” Prew said, feeling his throat close up as if he had swallowed alum. “Say,” he said. He had to work hard to get it said. “Say, do you remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you, silly,” she said, leaning back and looking down the hall. “Did you think I could forget you? Listen, I just cant talk now, dear. You could come back in an hour, why dont you try that?”

  “Ah, forget it. To hell with it.” He stepped back, still blankly.

  “I guess that wouldnt have worked anyway,” Lorene said. “There’ll probably be more than four waiting by then anyway.”

  “Yeah. Mrs Kipfer told me you was popular. Just forget it, I dont want to put you out any.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. She looked down the hall. “I dont see any of them around. Maybe I can slip you in ahead, how would that be?”

  “Dont do me no goddam favors.”

  Lorene looked at him then, her eyes coming alive with an anxiety, alive for the first time, as if she was just now seeing something other than a regular customer. “Now dont be like that. What did you expect?”

  “I dont know.”

  “You picked a bad time to come is all. I work here, you know. After all.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “I’m the guy that was here three days ago and stayed all night with you and promised you faithfully I’d be back tonight. To stay all night with you. Remember? I’m the guy that laid in bed with you and talked for about three hours.”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Hell, you dont even remember my name.”

  “Of course I do. You’re Prew. We talked about why I got into this racket. There. You see? I do remember.”

  “Yeh,” he said.

  “Listen, you go on in number nine and wait and I’ll be back in just a minute. You can get undressed while you’re waiting.”

  “No thanks. I had rather wait till later, if you dont mind. I never did much go for mass production, somehow.”

  She had started away again, for the third time, but now she came back and looked at him squarely. But her eyes kept slipping away, off his face. “That wont work either, Prew,” she said softly. “I’m already dated up for all night tonight.”

  “What!” His mouth felt very dry, he noticed, and he worked his lips to moisten it. “You dint tell me that the other night. You told me . . . What is this, the run-around?”

  “I didnt know it then,” Lorene explained, with great patience. “This is Payday. Remember? I can pick up more credits ahead—” she shook the white chip at him “—on this one day than in the whole last three weeks of the month together. Theres a bunch of the b
ig brass coming down from Shafter for a party and they’ve engaged the whole place almost. They called Mrs Kipfer up this morning and they asked for me special.”

  “But you’d already promised me,” he protested, “goddam it. Why dint you tell her that?” What’re you doing, begging now? he told himself. Dont you know when you’re not wanted? You’ve lost damn near everything else now, do you have to lose that too?

  “Listen,” Lorene said exasperatedly, “cant you understand? When the brass comes around, Mrs Kipfer closes the whole place up for them. How do you think it would look for the EM to see them here?”

  Yes, he thought, that bitch, that lousy bitch, she knew it all along. “I dont give a good goddam how it ‘would look.’ Not a single good goddam.” A big GI in civilians and fat enough to be a first cook pushed through between them elbowing by, and Prew watched him hopefully. “Watch what the hell you’re doin, Mack. You son of a bitch,” he said, but the big guy did not even turn around. Damn, he thought, cant even insult somebody, oh damn.

  “You couldnt have even gotten in,” Lorene was saying, “even if I did turn the job down. I just would have lost the commission, thats all, and for nothing. When they come down from Shafter they pay big money. They scatter it around like leaves of lettuce. What is fifteen bucks to them? The girls make more off of one of those nights than they do in a whole ordinary week. I’m sorry, Prew, but what else could I do?”

  “You’re sorry? How the hell you think I feel? She’s sorry,” he said. “She’s very sorry. I only been counting on this like a goddam kid counts on Christmas.” Why dont you shut up, Prewitt? Aint you got any pride left at all?