by Herman Wouk
Willie noticed for the first time when the party went into the living room that his father limped and walked with a cane. After a while Dr. Keith interrupted the question session. “Time out,” he said, “while a man has a few words in private with his sailor son.” He took Willie by the arm and led him into the library, a mahogany-paneled room full of leather-bound collected editions of standard authors and motley best sellers of twenty years. The windows looked out on the garden behind the house, where patches of old snow lay in shady corners of the brown empty flower beds. “How is it, really, Willie-the Navy?” Dr. Keith said, closing the door, and leaning on his cane.
“Fine, Dad. I’ll get by. What’s the matter with your leg?”
“Nothing much. Infected toe.”
“I’m sorry. Bother you much?”
“Some.”
Willie glanced at his father in surprise. It was the first time he had heard his father complain of an ailment. “Well-what can I say to a doctor? You’ve had it looked at?”
“Oh, yes. Nothing to be done. It will simply take time.” Father and son looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. “I shouldn’t keep you from the company,” said the doctor, limping toward the window. “But we’ve really never talked much, have we? I’m afraid I’ve let your mother do all the upbringing. And now you’re off to the wars.”
Willie did not know what to answer. It seemed that his father wanted to say something but could not find a way to begin.
“I never got overseas myself, Willie, in the first war. Maybe you’ll he lucky, too.”
“I’ll take what comes,” said Willie. “The Navy’s spending a lot of time and work on me. Maybe I ought to go overseas if I’m good enough for it.”
Dr. Keith ran his fingers across his small black mustache. His eyes searched Willie’s face. “You’re changing a little. What’s doing it? The Navy?”
“I’m afraid I’m the same poor lug.”
“Do you get a chance to play the piano?”
“Forgetting what one looks like.”
“Willie,” said his father, “have you met a girl?”
Willie was too startled to lie. “Yes, sir.”
“A good girl?”
“In her way, wonderful.”
“Do you want to marry her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well-it’s not that kind of thing.”
“Don’t be too sure. Bring her out here to meet us.”
A picture flashed across Willie’s mind: the narrow dark fruit store in the Bronx which he had once visited, tended by May’s mother and father. The mother was fat, wore a shapeless rusty black dress, and had a hairy face. The father was a wizened man in a dirty apron, with gaps in his brown teeth. They had both seemed warmly good-natured in the few broken sentences they had spoken to him. Another grotesque image presented itself: Mrs. Minotti and his mother shaking hands. He shook his head.
“Well, there was a nurse I once didn’t marry,” said his father thoughtfully. “But I have no regrets. Your mother and I have had a fine life- Well, they’ll be wondering what happened to us.” Still he made no move to go.
“Dad, is there something else you want to talk about?”
The father hesitated. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Why don’t you visit me down at school? It’s kind of interesting.”
“I’m not free much.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Maybe I will, though.” Dr. Keith put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “This isn’t necessarily a bad time for you, Willie. The Navy.”
“Not if I emerge in one piece. It might do me good.”
“It might- Let’s go.”
Willie glanced at his watch as they re-entered the living room. Five to four. He made hasty excuses to the guests, overriding his mother’s loud protests. She followed him to the door. “When will I see you again, dear?” she said as he pulled the belt tight on his blue raincoat.
“Next Saturday, Mom, if I stay out of trouble.”
“Oh, no. I’ll come and see you before that.”
It was twenty past six when he rushed into the Stork Club. Hurriedly pulling off his coat at the check room, he caught a glimpse of May. The phrases of apology faded from his mind. Marty Rubin, the agent, sat with her. “Now, what is that Jew doing here at this point?” he thought. His greeting to both of them was cool.
“Congratulations on making midshipman. May’s been telling me about it,” said the agent. “I envy you your uniform.”
Willie glanced from his own brass-buttoned blues to Rubin’s gray single-breasted suit cut too full for the taste of Manhasset and Princeton. The peering baldish fat agent seemed a living cartoon of the Civilian. “I envy you yours,” he said with a quiet irony, and chose a chair opposite May, leaving Rubin between himself and the girl. “What are you drinking?”
Rubin beckoned to a waiter. “Scotch,” he said. “What will you have?”
“Double scotch,” said Willie.
“Good heavens,” said May. She regarded Willie in an intent, not quite friendly way.
“A man’s drink for a naval officer,” Rubin remarked. He lifted his half-empty glass. “I’ll finish mine and run along. May and I were just talking a little business till you got here.”
“Don’t rush off,” said Willie. “Have dinner with us. Sorry I’m late, May.”
“Marty is very good company. I didn’t mind,” answered the girl.
“Thanks,” said the agent. “I know when it’s time for a fill-in act to get off.” He drained his drink and stood. “Have yourselves a time, kids. By the way, your dinner is paid for.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Willie.
“My pleasure. I’ve seen Frank,” he said, indicating the headwaiter. “Don’t let the sailor pay for anything, May. They’ll be gypping him. So long.”
Willie felt obliged to get up and shake Rubin’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. “That really wasn’t necessary.”
“My bit for the war effort,” said Rubin, and walked off with his heavy waddling gait.
“That was sweet of Marty,” said May. “I didn’t know he’d done it.”
“Very sweet. Also a bit vulgar,” said Willie, sitting and taking a deep gulp of his drink. “I don’t like favors to be pressed on me.”
“Go to hell,” said May. “Marty Rubin is my best friend in the world, and I include you-”
“I gather that. You’re inseparable.”
“I keep him around to remind me that there are decent men in the world who don’t consider every girl a thing to be jumped at and pawed-”
“Sorry I’m such a beast as to find you attractive. Possibly your friend prefers tall girls.”
May was conscious enough of her height to wear extra-high heels. The blow knocked out her wind for a moment, but she rallied. “How dared you talk to him like that?”
“I was very pleasant. I invited him to dinner-”
“The way you’d invite a dog to lie down by your chair.”
“I wanted to be alone with you because I love you and haven’t seen you for three weeks.”
“Three weeks and an afternoon.”
“All right.”
“Plus an extra hour.”
“I apologized for being late.”
“It would have been better, of course, for me to sit here by myself for an hour, looking as though I wanted to be picked up.
“May, I’m glad he was with you. I’m sorry I had to leave you. We’re together now. Let’s start from there.” He took her hand but she slipped it free.
“Possibly you don’t like Jews. Or Italians, either. They have a lot in common.”
“You really want to fight.”
“Yes!”
“What about? Not about Marty Rubin.”
“No. About us.” The girl’s fists were clenched in front of her on the table.
Willie’s heart ached, because she was so beautiful in the gray dress, with her dark red hair
falling to her shoulders. “Wouldn’t you rather eat first?”
“I don’t want to eat.”
“Thank God. I couldn’t get down an olive myself. Let’s go to the Tahiti. One drink, then we fight.”
“Why there? If you think I’m sentimental about that place you’re wrong-”
“I said I’d meet my roommates there for a few minutes-”
“All right. I don’t care.”
But when they came to the Tahiti the check-room girl and Mr. Dennis and the musicians came flocking around to admire Willie’s uniform and joke about his romance with May. The thread of the quarrel was broken. They sat drinking glumly while the place filled with a noisy swelling crowd, mostly Army and Navy officers with their girls. Just before the ten o’clock floor show Roland Keefer came rolling through the smoke and din. His hair was disheveled, his paper collar wilted, his eyes bloodshot. He was towing a fat blonde of about thirty-five in a pink satin dress. Her features were not clearly visible through her make-up.
“Hey, Willie! H’ya, fella! How’s the old mainspring holding up tonight?”
He giggled happily and inspected May. Willie stood and introduced him. Keefer greeted May with respectful, suddenly sober politeness. “Hey, whaddya think of old horse-face Keggs?” He dropped back into hilarity. “Went to a concert, I swear he did. They give him a free ticket at the officers’ club. He wanted me to come. I said ‘Shinola on that!’ ” He pinched the blonde’s arm. “We make our own concert, hey, sweetie?”
“Don’t be fresh,” said the blonde. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”
“This here is Tootsie Weaver, folks. Tootsie, this fella comes from Princeton.”
“How do you do,” said Tootsie, in her best Senior Prom manner.
“See you, folks,” said Keefer, dragging Tootsie off as she seemed settling herself to be sociable, “we got drinking to do.”
“Don’t forget,” called Willie, “five demerits for every minute you’re late after midnight.”
“Son, you talking to the human time clock,” shouted Keefer. “Bye-bye.”
“Keefer has odd tastes,” Willie said as he sat.
“Maybe he thinks you have,” said May. “Order me another drink.”
The floor show ran its usual course of comic master of ceremonies, girl singer, and knockabout comedy team in funny clothes. “With us tonight,” blared the master of ceremonies after the last act, “are two great entertainers who delighted audiences here at the Tahiti for many weeks last March. May Wynn, the lovely singer who just finished a triumphant run at the Krypton Room, and Willie Keith, who is now in the service of his country.” He pointed and clapped his hands. The pink spotlight swung to the couple. They rose reluctantly and the crowd applauded. When the servicemen saw May the handclapping became stronger. “Maybe we can induce this charming couple to give us a number. Don’t they look nice together, folks?”
“No, no,” said Willie, and May shook her head, but the applause grew.
“Mozart!” shouted the hat-check girl, and the audience, having no idea what the cry meant, took it up all the same. “Mozart! Mozart!” There was no escape. They walked to the piano.
May sang deliciously, with sweet sadness in her tones. There was something in the performance that hushed the customers, a note of farewell and regret for passing love that cut through the fumes of tobacco and alcohol and touched all the men who were soon to leave home and fight-and even those who had intelligently arranged to remain behind were touched, too, and felt vague pangs of shame. Tootsie Weaver, squeezed in a corner of the bar, put a heavily perfumed handkerchief to her eyes.
May stumbled during the last strains of the song. At the end there was a storm of hand-clapping. She hurried back to her seat without bowing. The three-piece dance orchestra struck up, and couples jammed the floor. “First time I ever blew up like that,” she muttered to Willie.
“It was wonderful, May.”
“I’m ready to fight now,” said the girl, draining her flat drink. “I don’t want to see you any more.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t call me again at the candy store. I won’t come to the telephone.”
“Why? Why?”
“Let me put it another way-will you marry me?”
Willie pressed his lips together, and looked down at the glass in his hands. The trumpeter blew deafeningly into the microphone and dancers joggled their table. May said, “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t expect you to. This is all my fault. You played it straight when you told me your pedigree over the pizzas. I was having a wonderful time until recently and I didn’t care. But somewhere along the line I made a terrible mistake. I forgot I was Tootsie Weaver-”
“Look, May-”
“Oh, sure, skinnier, younger, and somewhat more presentable-would you take either of us home to meet your mother?”
“May, we’re both kids-I’ll be out to sea in three months-”
“I know. You’re a darling, Willie. I hope you find a wonderful girl someday. I just don’t want another three months as Tootsie. I don’t want another evening of it. Not another minute, in fact.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she stood. “Never let it be said I earned you any demerits. Let’s go.”
They went out and climbed into a taxi, and fell into the most racking kisses they had ever exchanged. It was not pleasure, it was torment which neither could stop. The taxi drew up under the street lamp at the entrance to Furnald Hall. Willie’s wrist showed eleven twenty-five. “Keep going,” he said chokingly to the driver.
“Where to, mister?”
“I don’t care. Up and down Riverside Drive. Just so we get back here by midnight.”
“Right, mister.”
The driver started his motor and slid the glass panel closed between himself and his passengers. The taxi plunged downhill to the Drive. There were more kisses and broken futile words. May held Willie’s head comfortingly to her bosom, and stroked his hair. “Sometimes I think you like me,” she said.
“I don’t know why God makes human jellyfish like Willie Keith-”
“You know what Marty Rubin says?”
“Damn Marty Rubin.”
“You don’t know it, Willie, but he’s a friend of yours.” Willie sat up. “This whole mess started with him.”
“I asked him what I ought to do about you.”
“And be said throw me out.”
“No. He says he thinks you really love me.”
“Well, hooray for Marty.”
“He wondered whether I would become more acceptable to your mother if I enrolled in college.”
Willie was astounded. Moaning and protesting his undying love was one thing. But this was a serious matter.
“I could do it,” said May eagerly. “I could still get into the February class at Hunter. I had good marks in high school though you do consider me an ignoramus. I even have a Regents’ scholarship, if it’s still good. Marty says he can get me enough bookings in and around New- York to keep me going. I only work nights, anyway.”
Willie wanted to spar for time. His beautiful prize was drifting within reach again, but on sobering terms. May regarded him with lustrous, hopeful eyes. Her hard-boiled wariness was all gone.
“Could you stand going back to school?”
“I’m pretty tough,” she said.
Willie realized that she spoke truly. She was not a companion for good times any more, but a challenger to his mother for his life. It had all changed in a few minutes; he was dizzied. “I’ll tell you God’s truth, May. I don’t think it would make a particle of difference to my mother.”
“Would it to you?”
Willie looked into her eyes, and quailed, and turned away.
“Don’t trouble, darling,” she said with sudden dryness. “I predicted the answer to Marty. I said I don’t blame you. I don’t. Tell the little man to take you back to the Navy. It’s late.”
But when the taxi parked again at Furnald Hall and Willie h
ad to get out and leave May behind forever, he couldn’t do it. At three minutes to twelve, he started a desperate harangue to recover lost ground. On the sidewalk outside, midshipmen were running, walking, and staggering toward the entrance. Several were kissing girls in nooks of the building. The tenor of Willie’s plea was that he and May ought to live for the hour, and gather rosebuds while they might, and drink for once dead they never would return, and youth was a stuff that would not endure, and so forth. It took him the whole three minutes to round out this message. The couples outside finished their business. The stream of midshipmen disappeared. But Willie, with demerits beginning to pile up, was compelled in courtesy to wait for May’s answer. He hoped it would be favorable and short.
“Listen, Willie darling,” said May, “for the last time, because we’re all finished. I’m a poor Bronx girl with a lot of problems. I don’t want to add a hopeless romance to them. I have a mother and father with a fruit store that doesn’t pay, one brother in the Army and another a plain bum that we never see except when he needs money to get out of trouble. All I want is a chance to make some money and live in peace. I was a fool to fall in love with you, and I don’t know why I did, because you’re a bigger fool than I am. Emotionally you’re about fifteen, and when your hair stands up in back you look like a rabbit, which is frequently. I guess I’m a sucker for comparative literature. Hereafter I’ll steer clear of any man with more than a public-school education and- For God’s sake,” she broke off irritably, “why do you keep looking at your watch?”
“I’m getting demerits,” said Willie.
“Get out-get out of my life. I’ll never see you again(“ stormed the girl. “You must be my punishment for not going to mass. Get out!”
“May, I love you,” said Willie, opening the door.
“Drop dead,” cried May. She pushed him out and slammed the door.
Willie raced into Furnald Hall. Awaiting him was a huge clock over the entrance which grinned four minutes past twelve. And under the clock, terrible in his gloating happiness, grinned Ensign Brain.
