Mat stopped the jeep in a small clearing at the edge of the road that led into a green bamboo forest. The shade and a cool breeze that blew on them from deep within the forest was such a sudden change from the searing heat of the day that Anne shivered.
Mat had the peculiar sensation of having lived the moment before, and then realized in one sense he had. As he had been with Cynthia the day she lost Yale, so he was with Anne. Again he had a vivid image of Joe Trafford and Pat Marratt as symbols of the strong forces of a new order in the world. The new leaders who loved mankind but hated men; especially they hated the men who refused to conform to what they conceived to be "the greatest good for the greatest number."
"I found the truth a few hours after we arrived in Shillong," Anne said. "Howard told me that he had no choice; that I was a disgrace to the Red Cross, that if he had followed Colonel Trafford's recommendation I would be on my way back to the States now." Her hands shaking, Anne lighted a cigarette. "Oh, God, Mat, I guess I just wanted to die. When the world itself has gone mad, why do individuals have to be so full of cruelty and hatred?"
Mat shook his head sadly. "Believe me, Anne, I feel badly for you and Yale."
She looked at him dazedly, her blue eyes large with tears. "You don't understand, Mat. You just don't understand. I've lost Yale just as surely as I lost my husband, Ricky. I don't know where Yale has gone. Colonel Trafford won't tell me. I went to his quarters last night and begged him. He just sat there with that hateful grin he has and offered me his services." She shuddered. "He was disgusting. How do men like him ever get to be leaders?"
"I guess without the cruel ones," Mat said softly, "we'd have little chance of winning this war." He gripped Anne's shoulder. "We'll find Yale. My sergeant knows one of the men in the adjutant's office. I'll get a copy of his orders."
Anne opened her pocketbook and handed him a piece of paper. "There's his orders, Mat," she said bitterly. "Proceed to Hastings Mill, Calcutta, for re-assignment from there. Yale probably already has another set of orders. At Headquarters they could send him anywhere. Don't you see, Mat? Trafford has made very certain that I can't find where Yale has been sent."
"Yale will write you here, Anne. Trafford can't stop that. Then you'll know where he is. You'll be able to write to each other."
"It's too late, Mat." Anne tried to stop her tears with a handkerchief. "I'm leaving Talibazar tonight. Oh, our friend Trafford did a thorough job. I have been reassigned to the European Theater." She shrugged and said hopelessly, "It doesn't make much difference, I guess. I'll never get to Europe. Very soon, now, I'm going to have to walk into the office of some field director, and enjoy his shocked expression when I tell him that I'm pregnant."
She saw Mat's surprised look. She wondered what he would think if he really knew her thoughts. How she had been unable to tell Yale, because she wasn't sure whether he loved her or not. How she had hoped that the hundred-and-fifty-mile ride from Shillong, occurring as it had right at the time of her second period, might have caused a miscarriage. How she had examined herself so carefully for traces of blood. How she had looked at her body this morning, after Chris Powers had left, examining the shape of her breasts and stomach and finding only slight traces of change. A vein on her left breast closer to the surface of her skin. Her nipples just a shade browner. How she had touched herself lightly, pretending it was Yale, and feeling a desire so strong for him that it wracked her body as she released it in pent-up sobs of despair.
"No, Yale doesn't know," she said, answering Mat's question. "Don't you understand, Mat? I can't hold him that way! Our Hindu marriage was so beautiful. I think sometimes he loves me. Other times I'm not so sure. He seems far away. Lost in memories. Do you know what I think sometimes?"
Mat nodded and said slowly, "You think he is still in love with Cynthia."
"I know he is, Mat, and for that reason I can't tell him I'm pregnant. We've been pals. We both needed each other's physical love. I'm to blame for being pregnant. Unless I dissuaded him he was always very careful."
Mat took her hand, noticing Anne's long tapered fingers. He was silent, remembering Cynthia's hands, thinking unaccountably of the beauty of the human hand, and wondering why artists and photographers hadn't related the loveliness of the female face and body with the hands of a woman; hands so capable of expression and beauty in themselves that they equalled any other aspect of the feminine body, as an incarnation of God in man. "I think you undervalue Yale's love for you, Anne. Even if he still cared for Cynthia, I think he would want to assume his responsibility. When you go back to the States you can contact his family in Midhaven. He will have written them."
Anne withdrew her hand. "That's not worthy of you, Mat," she said, a playful smile suddenly on her face. "It's almost as cliché-ridden as your sermon this morning. I have heard enough about Patrick Marratt not to walk into his house and expect to be greeted as a long lost daughter-in-law."
Mat caught at her return of humor. "You might be surprised. Pat Marratt would appreciate your blonde grace. Anne, I am sure that Yale will do everything he can to contact you. I'll have the mail sergeant watch for his letters and will personally forward them to you. And," Mat said firmly, "you've got to do more than accept this with a Hindu fatalism. You've got to approach it in a Christian belief that you and Yale were meant for each other. . . ."
"And all's for the best in this best of all possible worlds," Anne said quietly. "Really, Mat, either the things you preach for the general public conflict in your own mind, or you don't understand the implications of your 'Seek the True Love.'
Mat sighed. "I do speak with a forked tongue. Blame it on the Army. I know what you mean, though. You're trying to say that if the ultimate can be found in the male-female relationship as Sundari preaches, then it cannot be particularized; that any woman or any man who have opened their minds to each other, can take the final step and blend their bodies. . . ."
"And . . . marriage in a Christian or Judaistic one-for-one conception," Anne interrupted, "inadvertently perpetuates the myth of the separateness. From this inevitability come the seeds of hatred, building the divisive factor in human life." Anne smiled. She smoked her cigarette thoughtfully. "Have you ever discussed these things with Cynthia?"
Mat nodded. "You're not saying it, Anne. But, I assume, what you are driving at is, that, if Yale has absorbed all this discussion of the past few months, then he does not feel that his love for you has an exclusive existence . . . that it could be equally attained with Cynthia or someone else . . ." Mat turned the key in the ignition. He backed the jeep onto the road. "I'm not shocked by this idea, if that's what you think. The fact is that any religious concept of man and woman exists in a social framework. That must be accepted. Cynthia is married to me. Yale has married you. Willingly. Wake up to the fact that he wants you, Anne."
As they drove back to the base Mat tried to explain his growing belief that a religion based on human love, a religion that idealized sexuality would allow civilized man to take a vast forward leap. "It would do for us in a social and psychological sense what science has done in a physical and material sense. With this kind of belief, with children brought up believing in the wonder of man . . . it might, eventually, be possible to have a real brotherhood of men. Children would be taught, not only in their churches, but in their schools to exalt man; to realize that, in the incomprehensible wonder of the act of creation, every man is united by a sacred bond. For in the act of love a man and woman could be taught to give themselves up to each other, not in degradation, but in devotion . . . in this act, common to all men and women, is the embryo of a civilization without hatred . . . without war. . . ."
"Men love in anger," Anne broke in, forgetting for a moment her own problems. "Men rape . . . I think Sundari has infected you with an idealism that is beyond achievement in this world, Mat." She smiled, thinking that with one statement she could jar Mat out of his complacent dream-world. She decided to say what she was thinking. "You once said to me tha
t Cynthia still loves Yale. It has been apparent enough to me without your saying it. I can't believe, Mat, that for all of your high-sounding goodness you like the idea. You just as much admitted it when you said, 'Cynthia is married to me.' It sounded kind of possessive . . . not so rational as you would like to believe that you are."
Mat turned the jeep into the base road. He didn't answer Anne until he stopped in front of the enlisted men's club. Then, when he replied, Anne listened to him, astonished.
"Of course, I said Cynthia is married to me. I love Cynthia. But I'm not jealous of her. Marriage is not possession. I do not believe that God is concerned or interested in the sanctity of marriage. Sanctity is desirable only for love itself. Sanctity means 'inviolable' . . . real love is all inclusive and impossible to violate. The only validity marriage has is from the standpoint of men; not to protect the right of possession, but to make each mating of man and woman responsible in the event that a child is conceived.
"When you really analyze it . . . what is love, anyway? I don't mean passion. Passion is for animals. If men and women were really taught how to unite in love, the experience would approach divinity." Mat smiled. He looked at Anne strangely. "I believe, for example, that you and I have the possibility for that kind of love. In honest fact . . . I love you. What does that mean? It means, probably, foremost that I find it very easy to communicate with you both in the surface of words and the deeper understanding that lies unspoken between us. From time immemorial the inability to communicate is at the root of all misunderstanding . . . all hatreds . . . all wars; so the existence of this ability should create a favorable groundwork for love. If one day this ability of ours to share thoughts and experience brought with it a mutual desire for bodily contact . . . for the act of love . . . we would have intercourse. Just as, I expect, would Yale and Cynthia . . . If the impulse, natural to all men and women, was not constrained by me, then the horizon of Cynthia's love would be extended. She should love Yale . . . She should love all human beings . . . If she should mate again with Yale . . . and if she really loves me . . . she will continue to love me. . . ."
"Mat Chilling . . . do you know something?" Anne interrupted him, "You have such crazy ideas that you are dangerous! You better not seek a pulpit, or try to preach this philosophy. You would end up like Henry Ward Beecher. Your women parishioners would all fall in love with you. They wouldn't really believe that you mean what you say. They would just think that any man who could talk so charmingly of love was just a big boy making up nice little stories . . . and basically all that he needs to be cured is to be cuddled on their trembling breasts."
Anne held Mat's hand a second, feeling his bony fingers and large knuckles. She smiled at the deep, questioning look in his eyes. Pulling his head down, she kissed him on his mouth, and then quickly hopped out of the jeep. "I'm going to miss talking with you, Mat," she said. Her voice was edged with a sob. Trying to hold back her tears, she grinned crookedly at him. "You know something, Mat Chilling? You may be right!"
Mat watched her walk up the path to the enlisted men's club. He felt Anne's unhappiness deeply. She was a strong, lovely woman. He prayed that Yale's love for her was sincere enough to re-unite them. Mat started the jeep, and drove slowly back to his basha.
I AM RIGHT, he thought, I'm on the right track. Recognizing that I love Anne has not diminished my love for Cynthia. I have almost come full circle. Wasn't this really Christ's idea before the theologians took over? Somehow, he thought, I must find a way to tell the world. . . .
9
Two days after he arrived in Calcutta, Yale received word to report to Chengkung, China, a small Air Transport Command base ten or twelve miles from Kunming. The finance office, already in operation under authority of the Fourteenth Air Force Service Command, was being transferred in an organizational shift to the Air Transport Command. When Yale was given his orders he found that he had been promoted to a 1st Lieutenant and had been assigned, together with qualified, enlisted personnel, to take over as disbursing officer. Yale realized that Trafford had simply used his influence to get him transferred out of Talibazar. He had shown no prejudice nor had he reported Yale's marriage to Anne.
Yale's orders gave him a week before he had to report to the base commander at Chengkung. Dangerous though it was, he knew that he must see Anne. He moved his belongings from Headquarters at Hastings Mill to Dum Dum Airport in Calcutta. The next day he hitched a ride on a C-47 back to Talibazar. The pilot who had agreed to take him without orders told him that he preferred not to know Yale's problems.
On the three-hour flight into the Assam Valley back to Talibazar, Yale was the only passenger. He was surrounded by cargo intended for use at the base. Amused, he noticed several cases of Scotch earmarked for Colonel Trafford. He was tempted to pry one open and write an insolent message to Trafford but he decided against it. All that he really wanted was to arrive at Talibazar, unnoticed, and find Anne. He prayed that he could have one more night with her, not only to tell her where he was assigned but to make plans for the future. He knew that if he waited until he got to China, and relied on the Army postal service to contact her, it would be weeks before she would hear from him or get an answer back to him.
Tonight they could plan for after the war. Tonight he would whisper softly to her, "Anne, I love you. I'm glad you're my wife. For the first time in many years I seem to be alive again." Alive, he thought, because I am not alone. He wondered why he had neglected to really tell Anne how much he loved her. He had laughed when she suggested that he seemed aloof and pre-occupied, but he knew that she was right. The shadow of Cynthia seemed to have grown longer, to have dominated his life even more, in Talibazar. He knew that in their contacts, Mat and he had been afraid to probe into each other's feelings.
The shock of being separated from Anne had shown him how really close they had become. It wasn't that she had supplanted his love for Cynthia; it was rather that for the first time he realized that love for another person was capable of multiplication. Waiting nervously in the cabin for the flight to be over, he couldn't help grinning. It was Mat's idea, but worth exploring. If you really loved once, you not only never ceased loving, you became susceptible to an arithmetical progression that could embrace the world.
When the plane landed at Talibazar, the co-pilot came back into the cabin. He looked sourly at Yale. "Jesus," he scowled, "we would have you aboard. We make this milk run week in and week out, and nobody knows we're living. Now, here you are with no damned orders and we get the red carpet treatment. They just radioed in that Colonel Trafford was meeting this plane personally."
"Oh, brother! Now, the fun begins," Yale said. He wondered if he should try to hide, and then decided against it.
"It's not because of you," the co-pilot said. "It seems we have two cases of Scotch aboard. The Colonel is giving a party tonight. He's concerned about it. Just keep out of the way. He probably won't notice you."
Both the pilot and co-pilot were considerably shocked when Colonel Trafford did notice Yale. "Wait a minute!" Trafford bellowed. He grabbed Yale's arm as Yale tried to walk by him unnoticed. "You've got your nerve with you. I suppose you have orders to cover this trip."
Yale shook his head gloomily. Trafford started to laugh. "You should be pissing in your pants," he said nastily. "I would, by God, if I were you! And you two," he pointed at the pilot and co-pilot, "transporting a soldier without orders could get you both up to your ass in trouble. You can all thank your lucky stars that I'm in a damned good mood this morning."
To Yale's surprsie Trafford patted him on the shoulder. "Just to show you there's no hard feelings, and that I'm not such a prick as you might believe, I'm going to forget the whole thing. You're invited to the club tonight. We're entertaining the British. Your friend Helen Axonby will be there."
Trafford didn't tell him that Anne had left Talibazar two days earlier. He watched Yale head in the direction of the enlisted men's club, knowing that Yale would find out for himself.
Yale tried to hide the dismay that he felt. "I must find Anne, Jane. I must! I must. She doesn't know where I am."
Jane shook her head. "Eventually, she'll write to me or Chris, Yale. You leave us your address in China. When she writes, I'll write you. At the same time I'll send her your address. Howard can wire Anne your address. You just wait. In a couple of weeks we'll make the connection for you. You'll be writing each other, at least."
Yale thanked her. He knew that Jane was optimistic. The way mail was forwarded between theaters of war, months could elapse before he located Anne. He walked toward the chapel in search of Mat Chilling. Trafford drove by in his jeep and stopped. "If you're looking for the Reverend," he said, "you won't find him. I cleaned house. Chilling loves these wogs so damned much, I saw that he was dispatched a little farther up the valley. Who knows, maybe he'll become a yogi? He looks like the type that should be sleeping on a bed of nails." Trafford laughed, obviously enjoying Yale's misery.
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 38
