Women's Barracks

by Tereska Torres

  Ursula stared at this new Jacqueline, who looked so triumphant and happy. Mickey said, "Do you know John Wright?"

  "I'm his secretary," answered Jacqueline, with a particularly glowing smile for me.

  We asked her about her little girl, and she talked of her daughter as though she were the only beautiful and intelligent baby in the world. The baby lived with her at Wright's house in Surrey. She had a nurse, who was, of course, the best nurse in all London.

  After the concert, Wright came to the box. There was something at once brusque and timid in his manner, but when he looked at Jacqueline his expression softened. He scarcely spoke. We all went out through the stage door so as to avoid the crowd, and Jacqueline invited us to come and spend the week end in Surrey.

  "I didn't know she was John Wright's mistress," said Mickey when we had left them.

  "But how do you know she's his mistress?" Ursula asked, astonished. She would never be able to divine relationships of this sort. "Jacqueline said she was his secretary."

  "His secretary night and day," Mickey said, laughing. Ursula managed a small smile. "Well, at last she looks happy," she said uncertainly.

  In the car that carried them to Surrey, Jacqueline pressed herself against John. She closed her eyes. Yes, she was happy. She was in a beautiful car that was carrying her toward a house in the midst of a lovely garden, and in the house was her well-cared-for child, waiting for her. She was John's mistress, and all the world was attentive to her. John said he was going to introduce her to his friends in the theatrical world, and that she would certainly become a great actress. Everything in life had become so easy, thanks to him. She was proud of him, and proud also of the role that she played at his side.

  Jacqueline studied John's face. His hair was almost white. Her father would have been exactly John's age. And John had given her what a father gives to his child: security.

  De Prade had given her passion, and this had hurt her; and then he had left her. But to John she owed nothing but joy. He was nevertheless a strange man, rather unsociable. He didn't like people, and he preferred the solitude of his house in Surrey. But Jacqueline told herself that she would succeed little by little in taming him. After all, he was an artist, a genius, and therefore he had a right to his idiosyncrasies.

  John spent all his days working. In the evenings, Jacqueline would come and sit on a stool at his feet. She had told him all about the death of her father, her mother's second marriage, the advances of her stepfather, her broken engagement, the war, her attempt at suicide, the hospital, De Prade, the baby, her solitude, her struggle for life. John stroked her face and told her, "It's over now. You shall never suffer again, my dear. You are with me. Don't worry about anything."

  Long afterward, she told me that their sexual contacts were quite rare. John didn't seem to feel frequent sexual needs, and Jacqueline didn't really care for the physical side of love. With De Prade she had experienced the joy of having conquered, nothing more. And physical love-making had always seemed a sort of degradation to her. She felt flattered that John loved her "without that." For "that" was the barracks, the sailors, girls who came home drunk, Ginette and her lovers, everything that was coarse. John gave her music, art, sensitivity, the beauty of this house, and that sufficed.

  She knew that there would be no marriage. John had told her that he would never get a divorce. Jacqueline knew this, but she didn't believe it. Nothing had ever withstood her will; whatever she wanted she could obtain, even though she had to pay dearly. And she wanted to marry John, she wanted John to adopt her little girl, she wanted to re-enter France, her head high, with her husband and her child, and with no one knowing anything of what had happened to her.

  As she fell asleep that night, Jacqueline thought of us, her friends from the barracks. She was glad to have seen us again. We were her best friends from Down Street, and besides, we were sure to tell everybody at the barracks that she was the mistress of a famous man, and that she was rich and happy. She smiled in the dark. At last she had her revenge on life. She no longer needed anyone, and everybody would know it. She decided to invite us to dinner.

  Yes, everything was simple now, and she was happy.

  Chapter 33

  There were many new recruits, and the dormitories were full. In the Virgins' Room, Monique, our chemistry student, finished reading a passionately exciting chapter on enzymes, without hearing what was going on around her. Ursula took a last look, to be sure that her bed was properly made, and went down to her place at the little table in the hallway. She opened the registry to write down our names as we left the barracks.

  Claude was not at the switchboard that day, as it was her day of leave, and Ursula was glad of it. Claude had become increasingly irritable of late, seeing nothing but enemies all about her, and it had become quite exhausting to listen to the endless repetitions of her quarrels.

  Little by little the house emptied itself. Women came to scrub the hall; they were newcomers, passing their first weeks in taking care of the barracks. A corporal went by, and managed to find an excuse for making them redo the hall, which she considered badly scrubbed. One of the new recruits objected, and the corporal pierced her with a black look and a few well-chosen words.

  Ursula recalled her first days in Down Street, three years ago, when she had been so proud of this uniform and had felt that she was surely going to help save France.

  Did she still think so? At bottom, yes. She had not yet lost all of her illusions. She realized that most of us no longer believed we were being useful to our country by living in Down Street. And yet we all still believed that after the war everything would change, that the golden age would begin, and that there would be love between nations. The traitors would be punished, the collaborators would receive their due, the United Nations would be created, there would be a world government. New leaders, utterly pure, would emerge from the resistance—that at least was certain. Just as certain as the abundance of oranges and bananas and eggs and milk that one would find again. Ursula closed her eyes and deliciously recalled the distant taste of an orange. A beautiful orange, juicy, perfumed, and sweet.

  She was sitting like that with her eyes closed when she heard herself called. "Good morning, Ursula." She opened her eyes.

  Just as on that first occasion three years ago, Michel was standing in front of her, with his slightly astonished look, his round face, his full mouth.

  "Michel!" cried Ursula joyfully, and she jumped up, reaching her hand to him. An immense happiness flooded her. Michel had returned. Michel was found again.

  Michel remembered everyone's name; he asked for news of Mickey, of Claude, of Jacqueline. As for him, he had been in Scotland all this time; now he was stationed in London again, and the Army was giving him free time to attend courses at the university. He was a corporal, he informed her, showing his stripes laughingly.

  "Can you come to dinner with me tonight?" Michel asked.

  It seemed to Ursula that everything had become the same as before. Once again she would ask for an eleven-thirty pass, she would go to dine in a little restaurant in Soho with Michel, and he would talk very little. She still knew little about him; but there was one differencec—Michel had been so often in her thoughts that he now seemed close to her, and it was almost as though she were recovering a part of her childhood.

  Evening came. Ursula found herself facing Michel over a little oilcloth-covered table. Michel spoke more freely than he had before. Suddenly Ursula too had a great deal to say. And it seemed to her now that Michel's replies were real replies. She asked him whether he believed in God. Michel hesitated for a second, and then said yes. He didn't make any imposing speeches, he had the same soft voice, and his eyes were as calm and sad as ever under their look of astonishment, but it became clear that he was interested in a great number of matters about which Ursula had never before thought him concerned.

  Michel too believed in the reconstruction of the world after the war and in the United Nations, and w
hen it was Michel who spoke of these things all doubt seemed truly impossible.

  Ursula asked him where his parents lived now, and Michel said, "In Palestine." After the war, he said, he would join them there.

  Ursula listened with passionate interest as Michel spoke of life in Palestine. It was something new and strange, for she had always believed that Jews were all either shopkeepers or intellectuals, and now it seemed that in Palestine most of them were farmers living a communal life. After the war, Michel said, there would be a new Jewish state in Palestine.

  When Ursula told me about all this, there was one thing that appeared to have touched her most. Michel spoke to her as an adult, she said, as a person with whom one could discuss anything at all, and Ursula felt proud that so intelligent a young man should consider her worthy of listening to all his ideas and projects. She was happy that Michel didn't resent her because of that other time when she had run away, and she was glad that he didn't speak of it.

  He took her home to Down Street and said good night, lifting his black eyes toward her, profound and filled with gentleness.

  Suddenly Ursula recalled her early days in Down Street, her disgust at all the vulgarity in the house, and she recalled her life during these last three years, with all its sordid aspects. There was the fireside scene with Claude and Mickey, and her experience with Philippe, arid her fear of not being normal, and there were the gray days under the demonic smile of the Ambassador of Peru. She remembered one night when she had come home and plunged her face in the washbasin, trying to wash everything from it as though she could wash away all her shame of being human, while so undeserving of humanity.

  This evening, for no reason at all, it seemed to her "that all that had been effaced.

  Chapter 34

  Jacqueline came to Down Street to take Ursula and me out to dinner on an evening when John was away giving a concert. She emerged from a taxi, carrying a little white dog in her arms. Jacqueline gazed upon the house where she had scrubbed floors, peeled vegetables, and accepted the scoldings of her superiors. At last she was free of it! If she wished, she could stick out her tongue to the Captain. She was free, she was wealthy, she was almost married to John.

  In the cab, she told us that John was being asked by the government to undertake a month's propaganda tour in Canada. He would leave soon to conduct a series of concerts for hospitalized veterans. Jacqueline was proud of his mission, of his talent, of his glory, but at the same time she was afraid for him. Perhaps at bottom her fear was not for him but for herself. Her happiness was so new that she still could not believe in it; it seemed to her that it was too wonderful to last. A month was so long a time, and John would be far away from her, among other women just as beautiful, even more beautiful than she. Jacqueline smiled in joy over John's glory, but also trembled in fear. Since she could not prevent his leaving, she was busy weaving bonds to assure his return, attaching him to her by a thousand threads. Jacqueline showed us a sketch for a tombstone that she was designing to be placed over the grave of the little French girl whom John had loved before he knew her. During his month of absence, she intended to have this monument built and the grave arranged. It would all be finished just in time for John's return; the dead one would help the living one to draw him back to England.

  Was this, at last, love? I wondered. Would I ever love anyone the way Jacqueline loved John Wright?

  Did love have to contain this exigence, this ferocity? Would I someday be like Jacqueline, in terror of losing a man? Could you have such ruthlessness toward another person, if you really loved him? Could you accept any means at all, so long as they held him bound to you? Perhaps it had to be so. Perhaps that was what one didn't understand above love, until the experience came.

  I tried to compare Jacqueline's feeling to other loves I had witnessed. Ursula had loved. What she had felt for Claude was love. But it had not been so possessive. And I wondered whether what was slowly happening between Ursula and Michel was love. I hoped it was; I wished it for my sake as well as theirs, for I would feel so much safer if I knew that love didn't have to be like it was with Jacqueline.

  Jacqueline ordered a meal for her dog, and the waiter solemnly served it alongside our table. She talked about her infant daughter, who now called her "Mamma," and called John "Papa," and could stand erect, and was already trying to take her first steps. Jacqueline still talked as though hers were the only beautiful and intelligent child in the world, and this irritated me, though it was touching at the same time.

  Ursula said to Jacqueline, "You remember Michel, the young Polish soldier I used to see, about three years ago? He's back in London again. I had dinner with him."

  "Oh, yes?" said Jacqueline politely, obviously not remembering him at all.

  "He told me the most amazing things about Palestine. He's going there after the war."

  "Oh, yes?" said Jacqueline again. "He's a Jew?"

  It was obvious to both of us that she had no further interest in Ursula's friend Michel; her thoughts went no further than John, his fame, his connections. And somehow, when she said, "He's a Jew?" it had been just like slapping Michel.

  I thought, for a moment, of saying something. But Ursula was sitting quite erect, looking at Jacqueline with a maturity and self-sufficiency that I had never before seen in her. I thought of Michel's calm round face, and realized what Ursula must have been feeling—that Michel didn't need to be defended before anyone.

  After dinner we went to a movie in Leicester Square. Jacqueline insisted on paying for everything, playing the bountiful lady. This was her latest role, and there was something truly touching in her need for people's admiring surprise.

  As we entered the theatre we heard someone call Ursula's name. We all turned, and there was Michel. We stood in the lobby talking a few minutes, and Ursula prodded him with leading questions, drawing him out, showing him off. Michel still spoke with diffidence, but nevertheless it could be seen that Jacqueline was impressed by his intelligence.

  Two Polish soldiers entered the lobby and recognized Michel. Their faces brightened, and they hailed him joyfully. They seemed delighted at having run into him. It was somehow surprising; one would not have thought that Michel would be popular among the ranks.

  When the two soldiers moved off, Jacqueline leaned toward Michel and said with her seductive air, "Ursula says you're planning to go to Palestine?"

  There was obviously no subject she could have mentioned that would have pleased Michel more. His eyes grew animated as he described the collective villages of Palestine.

  Jacqueline said, "But I never heard of anything like that. It sounds wonderful. And you'll live like that?"

  Michel said, "Yes." Then he blushed and added, "If I'm still alive at the end of the war."

  We went on into the darkened theatre then, Michel still with us. We were seeing For Whom the Bell Tolls.

  At one moment I looked at the rows of people with their eyes fixed on the screen, their faces lighted by the projection, and somehow the whole scene seemed unreal, as though all of us sitting there were part of some film. It was an odd sensation, and I mentioned it to Ursula later that night as we were getting ready for bed.

  "I know," Ursula said. "I've sometimes felt that way too. Sometimes it seems as if every last one of us were playing a part." She sighed. "I wonder if I'll ever learn how to play mine."

  Chapter 35

  During John's absence, Jacqueline often came to take us out—sometimes Ursula, Mickey, and me together, sometimes one or the other of us alone. Mickey was with us a good deal in those days, as her husband had suddenly been sent off on a secret mission. She had no news of him. She continued to live in their little apartment, coming to the barracks only on payday and when it was absolutely necessary to appear at drill.

  She had set her heart on the idea that her husband would be back for Christmas. There was a sort of childish hope in her that just because it was Christmas, Peter had to appear.

  But Christmas passed, as
did New Year's Day of 1944. Peter didn't come back. But one evening a tall blond young man came knocking on Mickey's door, and told her, that her husband was in good health, and sent her a kiss. He said nothing else, and disappeared.

  Michel went out often with our little band of women, and sometimes Ann came along, too. It was strange that after our four years of life together, it was Michel who finally became a sort of core around which the little group formed. Before Michel's advent, we had passed entire years together, and yet each of us always felt isolated in loneliness. Now we became a group of close comrades revolving around Michel. Each of us was extremely fond of him, even Ann. None of us—not even Ursula, as yet, was in love with him, and yet each of us loved him. Ann loved him as a wonderfully understanding friend. For Jacqueline he was a revelation—a restful friendship. Mickey loved him as she loved everybody, except that for Michel she had a kind of respect that she rarely had for anyone else, even though she sometimes laughed at what she called his Utopian ideas. I loved him as one of the few truly good people I had ever known in my life—good in the sense that he could do no harm to anyone. As for Ursula, she loved Michel as her salvation. It seemed to her that he had come back into her life to save her, and that without him she was lost.

  Michel was good-humored, even gay, and yet he still retained the calmness and timidity that bad been his chief characteristics three years before. He went to a great deal of trouble to give us pleasure, hunting out books that I wanted, finding works on music for Jacqueline, taking Ursula to the movies, reassuring Mickey about her husband. He navigated in Ann's Lesbian circles with composure and naturalness, and he had become acquainted with Claude, who adored him, kissing him on the cheeks and calling him her little boy.

  He spoke as little as always, but never was mistaken in his judgments of people. He never permitted himself to be overwhelmed by a personality, and never let anyone throw sand in his eyes. If Claude began to tell some extravagant tale that she herself had ended in believing, Michel simply looked at her with his large astonished eyes, without saying a word, and suddenly Claude would stop her recitation.