So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

  “Bull’s-eye,” he heard Stan say and except for the firing to the right, which did not matter, they seemed to be surrounded by silence, like the silence of a deserted house.

  Toward dusk, just as he was thinking they should be moving, Stan spoke and said that he thought that he was going. It took Jeffrey an appreciable time to comprehend that Stan was saying that he thought he was dying, and Jeffrey told him that he wasn’t, that he had stopped bleeding, that he would take him in right now. He lifted Stan in his arms and got part of him across his shoulders and began walking through the trees to the south until he found one of those paths which were always cut through French forests. Every few minutes he would have to rest and put Stan down. At such times he would ask how he was, and at first Stan said he was fine, but toward the end he did not talk. It was nearly dark when he met an infantry patrol. There were six of them. He remembered the bayonets and the flat tin hats.

  “Leave him down, buddy,” he heard someone say. “He’s all right now.” And then some stretcher-bearers must have come.

  It should have been easier to walk with the load off his shoulders, but the ground moved so uncertainly that he stumbled and fell flat on his face, and then someone took his arm.

  They took him to a small dugout which had been scooped from a cut in the side of the road, the command post of a battalion, where an infantry major sat on an ammunition box with a map in front of him. Jeffrey must have told who he was. He remembered answering questions and he remembered being given something hot to drink. A non-com from the patrol must have been with him too, because Jeffrey heard the enlisted man answer when the Major asked a question. It was difficult for him to keep his attention on the Major. The place was lighted by a single candle by the map and all objects would blur and then come into focus.

  “What about the other one?” he heard the Major ask.

  “Dead, sir.” Jeffrey heard the voice behind his back. “Dead when the Lieutenant brought him in.”

  Everything was as black as though something had struck him in the head. He was always glad of it. There was nothing else he wanted to remember.

  21

  Careful How You Stir Them, George

  Although it was only one o’clock, the afternoon papers were out, and Jeffrey bought one at Columbus Circle—not that there would be anything much except headlines. The British had made another bombing raid on Berlin. Churchill had appealed to the French people not to fight Britain. German planes had swarmed again in considerable force over the south and east coasts of England. Jeffrey dropped the paper into one of those cans with swinging tops. He wished that he could break himself of the habit of seeking for the latest news when most of it meant nothing, but he knew that he would keep on doing it, chiefly out of a fear that he would miss something colossal and unbelievable. It had been that way since the spring, and that uncertainty and shock of defeat had steadily grown worse. It was beyond imagining what was going to happen after the fall of France; he no longer could face the news objectively. He kept wondering if that month of October, 1940, were as clear in Europe as it was in New York, with the same full moon and the same high tides. With those tides and the autumn fog over the channel, conditions were correct for an invasion, and people who ought to know, if anyone knew anything, were saying that October was the invasion month. With clear weather in the daytime, the ceiling was infinity, and the moon was right for night bombing.

  As he crossed toward the corner of 59th Street, he wondered whether everyone else shared his feeling of suspense, but he could see no sign. The crosstown traffic was waiting for the green lights, and the skyview windows of the taxicabs were open. When he passed the open door of a drugstore, he could see the lunch-hour crowd—the girls and boys from the office buildings, pressing against the soda counter, slipping on and off those revolving leather stools, eating pale sandwiches stuffed with lettuce and mayonnaise, and gulping double orange juices because they were rich with vitamins. There was that steamy smell which always permeated drugstores during the lunch hour, and the white coats of the counter boys were spattered with chocolate and butter and coffee. He could see the display of brightly packed confections by the cigar counter where you paid your check—Tootsie Rolls and Baby Ruths and Coconut Mounds and Crunchies and Chock-Full-o’-Nuts bars, or whatever the names of all those things might be. They were heaped up beside a display of electric razors and electric heating pads. For the first time, he rather liked the spectacle because it pushed the war out of his mind. It reminded him that it was time to buy a stick of shaving soap, but he could not walk around all day carrying it in his pocket.

  It was already so late that he would have to take a taxicab and he decided to go east on 59th Street and find one at the Plaza. Jeffrey always liked the Plaza, if only because it was one of the few surviving buildings in New York which had been with him always. He thought of that song in the Twenties about the professional jazzer who played at the Plaza; and working out the words took his mind off the war. By the 59th Street entrance to the Park, General Sherman was all in gold with his gold angel walking at his horse’s head, and the nude lady on top of the marble fountain was basking in the sun, and three Victorias with spavined horses stood in the sunlight, and the balloon men and the peanut men were out. He felt better seeing them, for they also pushed the war away. The windows of the Fifth Avenue busses were open and their green sides towered above the roofs of the motors. He saw the stores with the contorted figures of pale blond and brunette models disporting themselves in static groups, decked in the latest evening gowns. The models were physically undesirable, consumptive, hollow-chested wraiths, an effect which might have been deliberate so that one’s attention could be wholly focused on the clothes. The driver of the taxicab he took was listening to his radio, which was discoursing on the mild benefits of a certain laxative. The driver gave a start, and the voice was cut off in the middle of a syllable.

  “The Clinton Club,” Jeffrey said.

  It put him in a false position to give the name of the Clinton Club, since Jeffrey was not a member, but simply going there for lunch. In spite of the number of times he had been there, he was always acutely conscious of not being a member. Although he could tell himself as often as he liked that the Clinton Club was a dull and stuffy place and actually an object of fun, Jeffrey was always careful to arrive late so as to be sure that Minot Roberts would be there first. He did not want to sit in the little room off the main rotunda and have the doorman keep eyeing him through the half-opened door while he tried to read the London Sphere. No matter how emphatically Jeffrey told himself that it was complete foolishness, he could not escape the belief that the doorman was thinking that he was not quite the right type to be there. Yet the doorman was kind, benevolent and old, looking just as the doorman of the Clinton Club should look. Jeffrey squared his shoulders and walked into the little marble hall with the double marble staircase which led upward to the main rooms. He found himself taking off his gray felt hat, and then he wondered whether he should not have left it on until the boy from the coatroom had come to get it.

  “Is Mr. Roberts in yet?” Jeffrey asked. “Mr. Roberts is expecting me for lunch.”

  He should not have said that Mr. Roberts was expecting him for lunch. It was in the nature of offering an excuse for being there at all, a betrayal of a fear that he might have been thrown out if Mr. Roberts were not expecting him for lunch. He should have simply asked whether Mr. Roberts was there yet, and should have kept his hat on, but the doorman was very gentle, very kind.

  “Who is it, please, sir?” the doorman asked, and Jeffrey misunderstood him. He always did misunderstand the doorman of the Clinton Club.

  “Mr. Roberts,” Jeffrey said. “Mr. Minot Roberts. He’s expecting me for lunch.” And the doorman was still very gentle, very kind.

  “Your name, please, sir,” he said.

  “Mr. Wilson,” Jeffrey said, and then he found himself adding, although immediately afterwards he knew it was unnecessary, “Mr. Jeffr
ey Wilson,” but the doorman was very kind. His every action was a deliberate effort at reassurance, a gentle, thoughtful endeavor to put Jeffrey at his ease.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Wilson,” the doorman said, “Mr. Roberts is expecting you. He is in the Oak Room. Will you go right up?”

  They never referred to the place where one drank in the Clinton Club as “the bar”—they called it the “Oak Room.”

  “Your hat, sir,” the doorman said as Jeffrey started up the stairs.

  “Oh,” Jeffrey said, “excuse me.” He had completely forgotten his hat. He might have gone up to the Oak Room still holding it, if the doorman had not been kind.

  Instead of being heavy or pretentious or baroque, the Clinton Club had a slightly run-down atmosphere of solid tradition which reminded Jeffrey of a club off Piccadilly. Everyone in the Clinton Club felt able to pass the time of day with everyone else, since merely being there made it socially safe to do so, and as Jeffrey made his way toward the Oak Room, several members looked up at him, obviously expecting to see a friend, and to call a friendly greeting. It seemed to Jeffrey that when they saw him, although he knew it was his imagination, their glances betrayed puzzled incredulity, and they turned from him hastily back to their papers, except for one older member who called him “Bobby” by mistake and then apologized. The Oak Room was not garish like the Oak Room of a hotel or a chophouse. The paneling was decorous Jacobean, and the wooden chairs and tables looked as though they had come from a public room in an English Inn. The man behind the bar looked gray and benign, like the doorman, used to the vagaries of gentlemen. Two members were shaking poker dice in the corner, and Minot was at a table by himself. Minot looked as though the room had been made for him. He looked like a drawing in Punch. Minot wore his clothes carelessly, although they fitted him as smoothly as a Hollywood actor’s. He had a way of lounging in the oak chair without having either his coat or waistcoat drift upward the way Jeffrey’s always did. Jeffrey realized again that he could never be like Minot in this world or the next.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Minot asked him. “My tongue’s hanging out.”

  It would have sounded petulant and boorish if anyone else had said it, but Minot could give his voice just the proper lilt.

  “I didn’t want to sit in that stranger’s room downstairs,” Jeffrey told him. “That room is like the office of a nose and throat specialist. I wanted to be sure you were here first.”

  Minot laughed. “Fuzzy wouldn’t have put you in there,” he said. “He’d have let you come up here.”

  “Do you call the man at the door ‘Fuzzy’?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Why,” Minot said, “everybody’s always called him ‘Fuzzy.’ George.” He waved his hand to the bartender, and the bartender moved forward, smiling at them informally but respectfully.

  “Now, George,” Minot said, “we want two Martinis, and Mr. Wilson is very particular about his Martinis. Do your best for us, will you George?”

  If Jeffrey had made that speech to anyone, it would have sounded bustling, but when Minot made it, it sounded right.

  “And, George,” Minot said, “the special London gin, and my own vermouth. You still have a bottle, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, there’s still a bottle, Mr. Roberts,” George said.

  When Minot smiled, Jeffrey felt like a member for a moment.

  “We’ll have to drive them the hell out of France,” Minot said, “before we get some more vermouth.”

  Jeffrey did not have to answer, because one of the dice players called across the room.

  “Drive who out of France?”

  Everybody in the Clinton Club knew everybody else.

  “Who do you think, Bunny?” Minot called. “This is Jeff Wilson. That’s Bunny Rotch, and that’s Sam Hughes.”

  Jeffrey was never sure what to do when he was introduced to anyone at the Clinton Club, whether he was supposed to spring from his chair and shake hands and say that he was pleased to meet them, or whether to nod and smile across the room. He nodded and smiled across the room.

  “Hello,” they said, and began shaking dice again, but they were not rude. It showed that he was a friend of Minot’s, and that any friend of Minot’s was a friend of theirs.

  “Bunny Rotch,” Minot said softly, “you know, from Westbury.”

  “Oh,” Jeffrey said, “that Rotch.”

  A faint wrinkle appeared between Minot’s eyes, and then he laughed.

  “Jeff,” he said, “you can always dish it out.”

  Jeffrey did not answer. He was watching George at the bar pouring the Martinis, not sloppily, like a commercial barkeeper, and not medically, like a chemist, but exactly as he should have poured them.

  “It’s funny,” Minot said, “I always think of you as knowing everyone.”

  “Not around here, Minot,” Jeffrey said.

  Minot looked at him again and laughed.

  “Don’t make fun of us,” he said, “we’re just poor boys trying to get along.” And then George brought the Martinis. He placed one before each of them, and stood waiting. Minot looked at his glass carefully before he picked it up.

  “Right, Mr. Roberts?” George asked.

  “That gin,” Minot said, “is that the special gin?”

  “Yes, Mr. Roberts,” George said.

  “It’s a little pawkish,” Minot said.

  “What?” Jeffrey asked him.

  “Pawkish,” Minot said.

  “Well,” Jeffrey said, “it tastes all right to me.”

  “All right, George,” Minot said, “Mr. Wilson likes it.”

  “God almighty,” Jeffrey said. “Do you always do this, Minot?”

  Minot finished his drink.

  “Two more, George,” he called, “and a little more vermouth. And just a little more careful how you stir them, George.”

  “God almighty,” Jeffrey said.

  “Where were you Sunday?” Minot asked. “I tried to get hold of you Sunday.”

  “We were out in Connecticut,” Jeffrey said. “Out at Fred’s and Beckie’s.”

  “God!” Minot said. “What did you go there for?”

  “Madge,” Jeffrey said; “you know, Madge loves Fred and Beckie.”

  “Who else was there?” Minot asked.

  “Some people named Sales. Fred met him in some bank.”

  Minot shook his head; clearly the name meant nothing.

  “And then Walter Newcombe and his wife.”

  “You don’t mean,” Minot said, “Newcombe the correspondent? Why didn’t you tell me? We could have had him around for lunch.”

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey said, “whether you’d like him, Minot.”

  “How do you mean I wouldn’t like him?” Minot asked. “What’s his wife like?”

  “I don’t think you’d understand her,” Jeffrey said.

  “How do you mean I wouldn’t understand her?” Minot asked. “You know damned well I can get on with anyone. These correspondents are always at dinners at the speakers’ table. I know what they’re like.”

  George brought the second cocktail.

  “Right, Mr. Roberts?” George asked.

  “It’s better this time, George,” Minot said. “I think the stirring did it. Thank you, George.”

  “Thank you,” George said, “Mr. Roberts.”

  “All these newspaper men,” Minot said, “are like anybody else who comes from a small town and gets ahead. You can tell them every time.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I guess you can.”

  Minot was not embarrassed, because he was too old a friend. His eyes, and his whole face, were kind.

  “You were never like that,” Minot said, “and if anybody says you were, he’s a God-damned liar.”

  “Minot,” Jeffrey said, “do you remember that afternoon when I first came to visit you? Madge and I drove past the station there last Saturday.”

  But Minot did not remember, and there was no reason why he should have.

 
; “That time you asked me to visit you,” Jeffrey said. “Well, I was just like that.”

  “No you weren’t,” Minot said. “Who else was there?”

  “Where?” Jeffrey asked.

  “For the week end,” Minot said.

  “Well, there was Buchanan Greene, the poet,” Jeffrey said, “and then—” He glanced at the dice players in the corner, and then back at Minot—“Marianna Miller.”

  Minot set his glass down.

  “Did Madge know she would be there?”

  “Of course she knew,” Jeffrey said.

  “Well,” Minot said, “how did she like it?”

  Jeffrey was not as much offended by the question as he was by the simplicity of Minot’s thoughts and reactions. It made him impatient, not so much with Minot, as with everyone like Minot. Those people lived according to a book of rules which they had learned by heart without ever stopping to analyze them.

  “How do you mean?” Jeffrey asked him. “Why shouldn’t Madge have liked it?” But of course he knew what Minot Roberts meant. Minot was a friend of his who knew according to his book of rules that friends could speak about such things.

  “You know I’d go down the line for you any time,” Minot said. “You know that, don’t you?” And Jeffrey knew it. It was a part of the book of rules. The rules said that you were loyal to your friends.

  “Jeff,” Minot said, “I know you’re always lunching with her. You don’t misunderstand me, do you?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said. “I don’t, Minot.”

  “Just having them both in the same place,” Minot said.

  That was what troubled Minot, because it was not in the book of rules. It was hardly necessary to read between the lines to understand what Minot was taking for granted. Minot did not mind his having an affair, because such a contingency was cared for in several paragraphs in the book of rules. He minded because there were also paragraphs laid down as to conduct when one found oneself in such a situation.