The place was jammed with Arabs, and a Middle East mixture of people with swarthy, strange faces. With the exception of a few British officers, Yale guessed they were the only westerners in the place. Every fifteen minutes or so exotic, heavily mascaraed Arab girls appeared. They gyrated enticingly to the music, shaking naked breasts and rolling their greased bellies.
"American girls could learn a lot from these babes," Stevens said appreciatively.
"You mean to roll their bellies like that?" Anne asked. "I don't think that's so much."
"You could do better?" Yale asked, mocking her. The noise was so loud they could scarcely hear each other.
"Come on, Anne," Trafford said, grabbing her roughly. "Get up and show 'em what you can do." He pushed Anne to her feet, and said to the Arabs sitting at tables near them, "Hey, you wogs, here's an American girl says she can shake her ass better than that dame." Trafford swirled his hips and pointed at Anne who suddenly looked frightened.
The grinning Arabs caught the idea. They pushed Anne toward the dance floor. The orchestra leader nodded approvingly. There was a wild applause. Suddenly Anne grinned and to Yale's astonishment slipped out of her blue-grey jacket, kicked off her high heel shoes and began to sway suggestively to the music. Despite the surge of anger he felt at both Anne and Trafford, like everyone else in the audience, Yale was captured by Anne. Her hair that she had worn piled in a chignon fell loose over her shoulders. She moved with increasing speed to the pulsations of the music. It was a breath-taking dance. Eyes closed, she abandoned herself to sinuous rhythm.
Leaning back in his chair, Trafford whistled. "Boy, I'd like to dip my wick into that little tomato. Just shows you can't tell about any dame. I'll bet half the guys in this joint have a hard-on for her."
The orchestra continued to play. Yale could see that Anne was getting tired. She started to walk off the stage and there was a low hum of anger. For some reason the Arabs expected her to continue dancing. One big Arab grabbed her and pushed her back to the stage. She screamed.
Both Trafford and Yale reached her at the same time. The Arab looked at them menacingly, and then he shrugged and let them pass.
"We better get out of here," Yale said. "I don't like their reaction."
"The hell with them, I like it here," Trafford said belligerently. "No wog is pushing me around." Back at the table, Anne pinned up her hair. "I guess I shouldn't have done that." She looked at Yale impishly. "Do you think I was better than the Arab girls?"
"Oh, you were a knockout," Yale said morosely. "Why didn't you take off your clothes and do a thorough job?"
"Pay no attention to him," Kanachos said, patting Anne's shoulder. "He doesn't appreciate the finer arts."
"Oh, I think he does," Anne said, teasing him. "I think Lieutenant Marratt just has a very idealistic idea of women."
Yale scowled at her, peeved with her flippant manner.
"And," Anne continued, "since he has such a chivalrous idea about women, and so that I won't hinder your evening further, I'm going to ask Lieutenant Marratt if he'll take me back to the hotel."
Trafford protested. He insisted that she stay with them. It was only eleven. They could go to a dozen places yet. Yale could see that Kanachos and Stevens were pleased to get rid of Anne.
"Thanks, Major," Anne said. "I'm sure you'll understand . . . I'm really tired. I'd just never last the evening."
As they walked away from the table they heard Trafford say, "That stupid bastard wouldn't know what to do with her even if she lay on her back and spread her legs."
Yale found a taxi to take them back to the hotel. Trafford had parked the staff car across the street from the entrance. Yale suggested that they could sit in the car if she wished.
"I wish, Yale," she said and sighed happily as she slumped into a corner of the back seat. "God, it's good to be quiet. I hope they stay away all night." She looked at Yale. "You're angry with me, aren't you? You thought it was pretty cheap to do some private bedroom gyrations in front of all those men."
"I don't have any right to be angry with you," Yale said, intrigued by her forthright manner, "but I was. You're so very lovely I guess for a moment I thought you ought to be dancing like that just for me. Silly, isn't it? I scarcely know you -- so why should I care?"
"You still want to know whether it's skin deep, though?" Anne asked mischievously.
"Somehow," Yale said, reaching out and taking her hand, "I don't have to ask. I know it isn't." She came into his arms, and he kissed her gently. "You frighten me, Yale Marratt," she whispered in his ear. "You won't believe it. It sounds corny, but you're the first man I have kissed since my husband was killed. I just haven't wanted to get in the clinches with anyone else."
Slowly, they tried to explain themselves to each other. To tell their emotions, and their fears and their loneliness. It would take days and months and years and a lifetime, but they each sensed a deep desire to break through the limitations of human consciousness; for a moment to become the other. He kissed her slender neck, snuggling his nose into the hollow behind her ear. "You smell warm and soapy and nice," Yale said. He sat up suddenly. "How did you manage to wash your neck so recently?"
She giggled. "In the ladies' room, silly. Before we ate." She curled up in his arms. Breathing sleepily against him she said, "I'm sorry about the dance. I did it because I knew it would make you angry . . . I scarcely know you. Why did I want to make you angry, Yale . . . ?"
She was sleeping in his arms when Trafford, Kanachos, and Stevens returned. She heard Trafford's sneering remark, "Well, ain't this charming," as they piled into the car. The idyll was over. Yale looked at his watch. It was four-thirty in the morning. It had lasted five hours. A simple thing . . . a man and a woman . . . and a longing for communication. But he was a Lieutenant and she was a Red Cross girl invited to India to run an enlisted men's club, and this was the backwash of the war. As Trafford drove toward the air terminal, reciting the events of the evening, both Anne and Yale wondered if they would ever be together again. The impossibility of it left them silent and constrained.
On the flight to Karachi, Anne sat in a bucket seat near Yale. They spoke only occasionally. Sitting across the aisle, Trafford watched them both with a leer that seemed to be a permanent part of his countenance. He made caustic remarks about the two love-birds. He suggested that the Army should see to it that all its officers were more adequately supplied with female diversion. His painfully spelled-out nastiness froze Anne into silence.
In the cold light of morning, without the warmth of Scotch releasing her inhibitions, she regretted that she had been so friendly with Yale. Nothing could come of it. In Karachi, they would be sent to different destinations. The brief, casual contact that a war had given them would vanish as quickly as it had come. She knew that she had been seeking a moment's refuge from a frightening loneliness, and yet she knew that huddling in the warmth of a stranger like Yale Marratt was no solution. Having Yale's arms around her was a false security, momentarily concealing her deep need to live and share another human's life. That was the trouble, she thought. Once a woman has lived her life for a man, she knows that there can be no other way for her. Trafford would probably state it boldly. A widow was easy; once she'd had "it" she wanted "it." But what was "it" when you stopped to analyze. A small response really in much larger picture.
"It" was the final offering one human could make to another. The only blending possible to say: "I care for you so much I want to be you." She grinned to herself. Not for Trafford she guessed. For him "it" was a form of gymnastics, with laurels for virility. She wondered what "it" was for Yale. She shivered. She was frightened of her reaction to YaJe. She knew that for some puzzling reason, given the opportunity, she would seek Yale with all the strong sexuality she had suppressed for nearly a year. It was a good thing, she guessed, that it would be impossible. Tonight they would be in Karachi, separated quickly by impersonal mimeographed orders into the vastness of the China-Burma-India theater. There was
no surcease for loneliness. Certainly not a few hours in bed with some man. Hours that might mean infinitely more to you than to him.
The pilot started to drop altitude. Looking out the narrow windows of the plane, they could see miles of date palm trees. In the distance, mixed incongruously on the ancient landscape, were the huge superstructures of oil wells.
"That's a part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company," Trafford said. "Some Arab is making more money out of this war than you will ever dream of. Probably has a hundred wives and several Cadillacs. It's all in knowing how!"
A staff sergeant, the navigator, told them to fasten their seat belts. They would be landing at Abadan to refuel with a half hour layover.
As the place circled for a landing, the sunlight caught in the propeller shafts and flicked rays of sunlight through the cabin. Anne looked at Yale and smiled. Suddenly, the starboard engine coughed. . . . It sputtered . . . conked out . . . then caught again. The plane lurched sickeningly, rapidly losing altitude. Again the engine misfired and then lapsed into silence. The quiet in the cabin, the sound of wind rushing by, was unbearable.
"He's got to bring her in," Trafford said grimly. "He'll never get it up again, now."
They skimmed the tops of date palms. "Hang onto your hats," someone yelled.
Yale had a momentary glimpse of a concrete runway. They screeched across it. Hard. Bounced and then bumped hard again . . . again . . . again.
Anne screamed and clutched at Yale.
The plane overshot the runway; leaped into the sandy desert beyond, and flipped up on its nose. The seat belt lashed against Yale's middle but it held him secure. Anne was flung violently against him.
For a second there was a horrible silence . . . then screams of pain and yelling as some of the passengers, who had only been stunned, revived, and knocked out the emergency exits. Yale found that he had both his arms around Anne in a bear hug. She looked at him in shocked horror . . . tears streamed out of her eyes.
"You're all right, Anne," he muttered. "You're all right." Trafford staggered across the tipped plane and hacked at their seat belts with his trench knife. "Get out, quick," he shouted. "The damned thing may catch on fire."
Yale pushed Anne through the exit. An emergency crew grabbed her and lifted her out. Yale could see Trafford working his way forward. The son-of-a-bitch has no fear, Yale thought. He tried to follow him but Kanachos pushed him into the exit. "Come on, stupid, get the hell out, and be glad you can walk! There's a few in front who are pretty smashed up."
The plane didn't catch on fire. It simply stood in the air, like a huge dead bug with a smashed proboscis. The pilot, the navigator and two passengers were killed.
Standing in the tiny terminal building, Anne held Yale's hand tightly. "We were lucky," she whispered. An open truck passed in front of the terminal, carrying bodies covered with blankets.
"There goes four more telegrams," Trafford said brutally. "We regret to inform you . . . shit, I need a drink! It looks as if our maker wants us to see the year nineteen forty-five." He looked around at the bleak airstrip and the bamboo terminal building. "Only for my money, this is a hell of a place to spend New Year's Eve."
"Wasn't that a pisser? I guess we're lucky to be standing here," Al said, slamming the door as he walked into the terminal.
Stevens looked as if he were going to be sick. Trafford slapped him on the back. "Jesus, man, get into shape! They'll never get us out of here tonight. It'll give us a chance to see Abadan."
"I'm game, Major." Stevens grinned weakly and looked at his watch. "It's only two o'clock. We've got plenty of time. If you don't mind I need to crap out for awhile, and I don't care where . . . right here on the floor will do." He slumped on the floor, curled his arm under his head and started to snore.
A grey-haired Lieutenant Colonel walked into the terminal. He smiled grimly at them. "There were twenty-six on board. Four were killed. God knows why, I don't." He shook his head; took a second to ponder their fate, and then dismissed the dead. "As the saying goes . . . there but for the grace of God. . . . Well, we don't have tremendous facilities here. This is a refuel stop mostly. Exotic Persia . . . you can see around you. We have a medic and I want you all to report to him." He looked at Anne. "Ah, I see we have an American girl. Only stateside girl aboard, as the saying goes. You can have the female transient quarters to yourself. We are in touch with Karachi. I'll let you know later when we can move you out." He started to leave. "Oh, yes, there is a Polish refugee camp next to us. Both the enlisted men and officers' club are having a little party tonight. They have an excess of females in the D. P. camp so we are inviting quite a few. You are all invited to join us."
After the doctor, a Captain, had checked him and dressed his leg wound, Yale went to his transient billets and located a cot. The officers' quarters was a low cement building. Trafford, lying on a bunk across from him, watched Yale undress.
"So you really did get knifed?" he said, noticing the bandages on Yale's leg and stomach. "What happened between you and that Red Cross tomato last night? Did you screw her?"
Yale didn't answer.
Trafford yawned. "Oh, I remember you're the pure one. Never mind. Tonight, I'll show you how to plug her little thatch!"
Yale heard Stevens choke with laughter. Almost shuddering with his anger Yale stood beside Trafford's bed and stared down at him. "Major," he said, pronouncing the words very deliberately, "stay with your own kind. Leave that girl alone, or I'll slit you from crotch to Adam's apple."
"You bastard," Trafford said, sitting up and glaring at him. "I could have you court-martialed."
"You just try it, Major."
Yale walked toward the showers. He heard Trafford muttering to Stevens that he wasn't taking that shit from any Second Lieutenant.
Yale and Anne ate supper together in the mess hall and then walked to the officers' club. Although it was only six o'clock a cold wind was blowing off the desert. Anne shivered. She leaned against Yale. She was thinking about the plane crash. The transition from Miami to this remote desert in Iran had been too sudden. She felt an overwhelming desire to just lie down and cry and not stop until all her tears were gone.
The club was deserted. An enlisted man bartender sold them a bottle of Indian whiskey and then made them drinks. Yale took the bottle to a small bamboo table in a corner of the club. They sat and looked at each other in silence.
"I suppose in a little while it'll be crowded here," Anne said.
"I suppose so . . . it's New Year's Eve."
Anne sighed. "I guess I'm not in the mood. I feel kind of low."
"Did you get hurt in the crash?"
"I've got a nice black and blue spot." She toyed with her drink. "Must be from you. I hit you like a ton of bricks. How about you?"
"I'm okay," Yale said, wondering how to say the words that filled his mind whenever he looked at the clean lines of Anne's face. He wanted to stroke the wisp of hair that grazed her cheek.
"I suppose that Major Trafford will be around here soon," she said.
Yale was surprised. "Do you want to see him?"
"No, of course I don't. . . Yale Marratt." She smiled at his pleased grin. "If you could be anywhere you wanted tonight, or do anything you wanted to do . . . where would it be? . . . What would it be?"
"What do you mean?" Yale asked.
"Oh, I don't know . . . once a long time ago before wars . . . when I was a girl . . . it was something you thought . . . who you went with . . . where you went . . . what you did on New Year's Eve . . . it seemed very important."
Yale poured another drink for them. "I guess, if I really stopped to analyze it, I would say right here is where I want to be. Anything else would mean either repeating the past or predicting the future . . . both kind of futile."
Anne drank her drink silently.
"What about you?" Yale asked. "For you it would be back somewhere in time?"
She shook her head. "No . . . not and know that time was running out."
"He must have been a gentle person," he said. "I was like that once. There isn't any room in the world for the meek or humble."
"So now you play at brutality," Anne said. "What about last night?"
He told her, and in the telling tried to convey his feeling of disgust. "It wasn't for the money . . . why did I take the gamble? I guess I'd have to tell you my life's history to explain that." Yale smiled.
She listened in detail to his recital of the events in Casablanca, asking him questions and weighing his answers. "I think you are still a gentle person," she said finally. "Look, it's starting to get crowded in here."
Yale stared uncomfortably at the officers who had gathered in the club. Trafford would probably arrive any minute, drunk, ready for a quarrel.
"You know, a little while ago you asked me if I could do anything I wanted tonight what would it be?"
Anne nodded.
"When twelve o'clock comes," Yale said slowly, "I'd like to be alone with you in bed . . . holding you close in my arms . . . reciting the last lines of Dover Beach to you."
Anne looked at him quietly. "Is there any point to it? What happens afterwards . . . tomorrow?"
Yale shrugged. "I guess I just want to escape into another world for a few hours. Forget it, I'm sorry if I offended you. A few drinks and I get a kitten complex. I like to curl up with the other kittens."
Anne stood up. "It's silly . . . tomorrow I'll be sorry . . . but I agree. It's a sensible way to spend New Year's Eve. Come on, Yale Marratt!" On the way to her room, she asked him what the last lines of Dover Beach were.
"I'll tell you at midnight," he whispered.
Her room was tiny. Two wooden charpoys supplied with thin mattresses and rough wool army blankets and a table were all that occupied the room. They locked themselves in. Anne found a candle and lighted it. "It's better than that bulb hanging from the ceiling," she said. "This way there's shadows." Yale moved the mattresses from the beds to the floor.
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 32
