“Jeez, Joe, you shoulda’ seen it. Nothing but French babes lined along the roads begging gas with those big, French jalopys in the ditch. I could only spare three gallons, and I let ‘em have it...one lay per gallon. I’d a’ killed myself if the gas’d held out.”
Bill’s cost me a lot of money, and it’s been worth it. He uses everything I’ve got as if it were his own, but I’ve always known he’d climb through a division of Krauts if he figured I was in a tough spot. He’s a simple guy who doesn’t need much to be happy, so he always is. He wants willing women and a substantial alcoholic content in anything he drinks...and he must be lined with zinc for he’s never had a hangover. He’s got a cute trick he’ll pull if you bet him a bottle. Hell take a grenade, a Mills bomb with a five-second fuse, pull the pin, and toss it in the air. He counts three, catches the bomb, and throws it with one second to spare—that’s how Bill is.
The blitz started like a summer storm. One minute it wasn’t there and the next minute it was, but it didn’t end like a summer storm—it went on and on, and I guess it’s still going on. It seemed tougher at first, though, because they came in the daytime, and it raises hell with you when you can see those sticks falling. After a while we got used to it, and the bombings started forming a pattern—like part of our lives. A leave in London meant spending a good part of our time in a shelter. The scramble would start with the first dry wail of the siren—then the long wait with usually just room to stand, waiting, through the mixture of smells. Smells of cordite, of burning buildings, of kids who’ve filled their pants, of urine running in streams down the subway tracks...waiting for the single dry wail which would tell us it was over. Then we’d pile out to see what the bastards had done, and usually we’d spend the rest of our leave pulling bodies—alive or dead, whole or in pieces, out of the wreckage of the buildings. It was on a leave like that in November of ‘40 that I met Nancy Benton again. We were drinking a bottle of whiskey in the hotel room when we heard the siren. Bill refused to leave.
“T’hell with it, Joe, let’s stay here. If we’re hit, it’ll be where we can have a drink.”
The shelter we didn’t go to was across the street, a subway station, and a five-hundred pound bomb landed in the doorway but didn’t let go until it had skidded down inside. We helped carry them out for hours—men, women, and little kids. Lots of kids. Some mangled and some like an old lady we carried out. An old, fat lady without a mark on her, and not even a hair out of place. She was killed by blast...some of them are like that, and the old lady just looked as though she’d gone to sleep. But she hadn’t, she was dead, and so was every last one in the shelter. As we lifted her into the ambulance, I heard someone speak to me and I’d heard the voice before.
“Hello, Joe Mack...” It was Nancy Benton.
We were too busy to stop and talk then, both of us, but after the last body had been carried out Nancy came with Bill and me to the room to wash and have a drink. She was changed. She’d changed like her whole class changed, but Nancy didn’t wait until Dunkirk or until the bombs started falling to change. She knew they’d been wrong when Togger and his dog went bird-nesting. We sat there and drank while a gray dawn fingered its way across a staggering city. The awfulness of. the night’s work had knocked any hope of conversation out of us. Most of the crowd in the subway hadn’t had a chance to become people...they’d been kids. Bill looked out of the window quietly. For once in his life he didn’t seem to have anything to say. I knew he was thinking of a little girl whose body he’d carried out, a sweet little kid with a pinched, frightened look.
He turned and said, “D’yuh think there’s anything in it, Joe?”
“In what?”
He paused, stumbling for words. “Well, like that song...like that song we sang in Sunday School when we were kids...‘He sees each little sparrow fall...’”
Nancy bent her head down. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, Mr. Preston? I think there is ‘something in it,’ though.”
Bill turned and smiled, “My name’s Bill, Babe...would you like to hear the story of my life?”
I expected Nancy to freeze him, but she returned the smile and said, “I can imagine it’s quite a story.” The events of the night stayed with us, and Bill turned again to look out of the window. Nancy had tears in the comers of her eyes. She looked up and said quietly, “I remember a verse I read once; perhaps it answers things like this...
Come away, O human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
[From W. B. Yeats: “The Stolen Child,” in his Collected Poems published by The Macmillan Company.]
And I thought of Steffie, of our two kids on the star, and I thanked God those kids hadn’t been born. I want them so much it makes my head ache when I think of it...but will it be any better for them? Will it be any better from here out? How do Steffie and I know what they’d have to face? We’ve faced every damned thing that man can think up to hurt man; poverty that comes in the midst of plenty, disease that comes where there’re ample means to protect, but the means aren’t used, and a war that comes to a world still trying to recover from the last one. Why bring any more kids into it? It’s all still here, every last thing that makes poverty and disease and war. Nothing has changed and maybe nothing ever will. These things come from hate, and man still carries hate in his heart, and just so long as he does there’ll be war, and disease, and poverty. There’ll be whores, too. There’ll be a pay-off with someone to pay and someone to collect. But the fat old woman in the subway can sleep, and the little girl needn’t be afraid any more.
Bill walked over to me and put his hand out palm first. “Spring, chum. I’m going to get drunker than a fiddler’s bitch...I’ll see you back at camp.”
I gave him some money and he left. After he’d gone Nancy came over to me and kissed me.
“I’m offering that for what I was when we first met, Joe.” She started to cry softly and it tore at me; Nancy wasn’t the kind of person who cried easily. I tried to talk her out of it, but she said, “It’s not for the people in the shelter, it’s for us...and I’ll stop in a moment.”
We talked for a while and Nancy told me of her home near Dover, where she’d taken twenty-five London kids and was keeping them. I asked if I could help her finance it and she said I could. I gave her a check for a thousand dollars. She wondered if I’d like to visit the place, and after breakfast we started for Dover.
Along the way out of London were the dead embers of what had been homes, what had been shelter for thousands of people. Shelter from all the things the weather may bring, but not much protection from the things man may send against man. They had been rather smug little homes sitting securely in this rather smug little island. The sea had been this island’s protection for centuries but now it was no more use than the homes had been. And I wondered what this ingenious race would do to wiggle its way out of this spot. They’d always fought before, but was there any point in continuing this fight now? The man with the cigar continued to make great speeches, but what could they actually do?
Nancy started to talk. She didn’t offer any explanation for the change in her attitude other than the kiss, but she told me of Togger’s death in the fields behind their home. Her eyes stayed on the road, keeping the preposterous little car straight, and her voice was steady.
“It’s so senseless, Joe,” she concluded, “Togger wasn’t a soldier. He was a civilian walking a dog in a field. Whatever was served by killing him? It isn’t war...it’s murder!”
Whatever is served by killing Togger, Nancy? Whatever has been served in all history by killing any man? One thing—one quality alone is served. It’s hate, Nancy. Hate that can justify war or murder. Hate alone can justify the blood, and the blood only prints it more clearly so all the future may see it, and the hate will continue to grow in millions of hearts still unborn. Perhaps, Nancy,
perhaps one day man will know nations are made only of men, and men are made of loves and hates; and war or peace, poverty or wealth, disease or health, will come depending upon which is encouraged to grow. If man doesn’t learn this—learn it well and learn it fast, we’ll do this all again one fine, bloody day.
It was nice being with Nancy. It was as if we’d known each other for years, and sliding down to the country on a Saturday afternoon was a long established practice. We both must have known where it would wind up, and I guess that’s where we wanted it to go. We weren’t in love, not then nor ever, but we needed each other. She was warm and lovely and damned lonely, and you can be damned lonely when all the world you’ve known breaks into a million pieces around you, and one of those pieces kills the only thing you’ve loved. I told her of Steffie, and what a mess I’d made of things, and how it had ended. She hesitated a moment.
“I don’t think your Steffie meant it, Joe,” she said, “or if she did, she wouldn’t mean it now. If she knew how you felt...Why haven’t you written to her?”
“I can’t, Nancy. Steffie sent me away...it might be different if I could see her, but what could I say in a letter?”
It was easy to talk to Nancy. Far easier to tell her of my life than I ever thought it would be to tell anyone. We talked until late, and when it was time to go to bed, we went together. The next morning Nancy sat up in bed and smiled down at me. The sun of the faded summer was printed in a copper-cream line above her firm breasts...the sun that had shone while she helped Togger find birds’ nests. She leaned down and kissed me.
“And that’s for your Steffie. You were thinking of her, weren’t you?”
CHAPTER 11
I knew then why I liked Nancy Benton. She was so much like Steffie. I could close my eyes and slide into a warm, shadowy place where she became Steffie. I’d built a cold security of spiked beer to keep Steffie from my thoughts, but that was gone, and in the oneness of these wonderfully similar women Steffie walked freely back into my life; into my days, into my nights, and into my dreams. It was as if I’d pushed aside a thick growth of jungle-green, and stepped out of its unhealthy dampness into the warm cleanliness of a sunny beach. And with Nancy Benton in my arms, I dreamed of Steffie.
Yes, my darling, you came back. And you stayed and you’re here with me now. You’ve been with me in every waking and sleeping moment since. Even as I held Nancy almost savagely, I was holding you...and I knew, Steffie, that she was pretending, too. Lonely people can pretend now and then, and I’ve been so damned lonely, my darling. She was lovely as a shoot of heather, and soothing as a soft, cool pillow. She had to be like you, Steffie, before I could know how lovely she was. And with Nancy I learned that even the dream of you was a greater fact than the presence of anyone else. You returned, and along with you came the wild longing to get back to you. To hold you, to feel your sweet aliveness surging to me, and the desire for you circled my life like a thick blanket, all but smothering me with its choking hopelessness.
Now I know better, Steffie. Now I’m going to get back to you...and if I shouldn’t make it, my darling, I’ve known the dream of you, and I’ve lived long enough to learn that dreams are our only facts. Through those long days of learning to kill, those long nights of seeing and hearing and smelling death, you were with me. You, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a sweet woman...a very sweet woman, my darling, who lived in a quiet home in some patches of green. She was lonely and she needed me as I needed her, but she never was you, Steffie. It was just that she was lovely like you, and she reminded me of you. But then, lovely things have always made me think of you, Steffie. Sweet things, things with a dewy breathlessness. Or great things, things with the majesty of decency. And only the lovely things can make me think of you...for only the lovely things are you.
It helped. It helped a hell of a lot to pretend, but it only worked when I was with Nancy...the rest of the time I could only dream. The dream grew until it became an obsession, and it led me up weird, twisting paths, Steffie, always hoping you’d be at the end. It grew, until I had to get back...had to see you once more...had to hold you. It was nurtured with the feeling that we’d lost the war. It flourished in the bloodsucking frustration of not being able to hit back, while howling savages rode the clouds above us, sneering at the pitiful attempts we made to fight them. It grew, from standing like a dummy watching people die. All these things helped my obsession, Steffie...but you were really it. You were the object, you were the reason, you were the beginning and the end.
The world paused and caught its breath while two men, much alike and much different, shaped the salvation of mankind. Shaped it with a cigarette holder in a great hand, and a cigar in a strong hand. Shaped it with great speeches and warm smiles that fell on the eyes and ears of a waiting world like a breeze in May. All the world watched this, Steffie, all the world but me. I lived only in a dream, a dream that was you, and would take me back to you. These good men talked, and of their talk came deeds, and of their deeds, hope was reborn. But I moved through it wrapped in cloudy cellophane. Good cellophane, for nothing could get in and nothing could get out. Inside it, the dream twisted and moved into channels—whacky channels and dreary channels, but all with the faint promise of leading back to you, back to Canada. Why stay, I argued? We’ve lost the war and no one but a babbling idiot would deny it. Go home. Get out of this water-walled slaughter pen while you still can. Do it any way you can—but do it! Then our Joe got his “big idea,” darling, and it stayed with me from that cold winter night when it first struck me, warming me like a drink of hot whiskey, to its end on a hot summer night, months later, when it cooled me like a touch of your hand.
The “big idea” was the bastard product of my wild yearning to get home. How to get home? How to get out of the Army? It would have to be a medical discharge, but how could a guy whose physical category is “A” get it reduced to “E”? There must be a way, and a doctor would know it, but where do I find a doctor who’ll tell me? Where do I find a doctor whose standards aren’t above a little dough? Doctors use the stuff, too—find one who fixes up these empty-faced English babes when they miss their deadlines. And I found a couple of doctors, and I learned something about their standards. Fixing up a foolish girl who’d got herself in a jam was one thing, but helping a strong-looking lad desert in time of war was quite another. Neither of them looked at the two hundred bucks, and both of them looked as though they’d throw me out of their grubby offices if I didn’t move, and fast.
It took me six months to find a willing doctor; to find one who wasn’t too concerned about the war. He took the two hundred, and asked for eight hundred more.
“It’s possible to simulate a cardiac condition,” he said, “with the use of a drug called digitalis...come back tomorrow and I’ll give you the dosage. Bring the rest of the money.”
And I walked out with my heart singing, and for two hours I was as happy as I’d been since I’d come to England. It was two hours before I realized why I couldn’t do it, why I wouldn’t do it...and it wasn’t the war, or the idea of deserting. To hell with that crap...it was you, Steffie. I knew I couldn’t use another trick. I’d lost you with an angle...and I couldn’t get you back by using another. But I was happy for almost two hours—and if it cost two hundred dollars, it was worth it.
I’m in a different spot now—I can forget those days and nights of thinking up a super-angle that would take me home. I don’t need one now. A Heinie sniper gave me my out. I won’t wait for the end. Maybe it’s over the next hill and maybe it isn’t. I stopped worrying about that fifty hills back, fifty towns, fifty smells...murders, whores, years back. I’m in a different spot now, Steffie, I’ve a nice, clean hole in my shoulder, and I don’t care who gets the next hill, or what’s over it. I’ve lived a lot since England...I’ve lived too long where it’s moldy; where it creeps and staggers, falls and dies, rots and smells. I’ve lived too long in that scummy old bitch’s private preserve, too long in her hunting ground. Now...no
w is enough; our Joe is starting to learn who wins a war.
But it was different back in England. I thought I knew about war, but all I really knew was the endless waiting. I guess I should have done what many Canadian lads did—I should have taken some roots. Men can’t stand still for three years without fastening on to something, and many of the lads took roots, deep roots. Fellows like Bill...Bill won’t ever return to Canada even if he does get through this show; he’ll go back to England. Bill’s got a wife and a kid in England, and a good pub in an English village. Yes, I should have taken roots. I should have married Nancy Benton...but I didn’t even think of it. You, my darling, were in far too deep.
I had tried the doctor, and after I knew why I couldn’t go through with that I tried to think of legitimate ways I might get home. But nothing would present itself. I tried to write to you, too. I tried for months, but each time it became curiously foreign scratching on white paper, paper that would end in the fire. Yes, Steffie, I wrote letter after letter, but I never mailed one. What could I say that you didn’t know? What could I write that didn’t sound anemic? Puling? I couldn’t say “I love you, Steffie”—you’ve always known I love you. I couldn’t write because I had nothing to say. If I could have seen you, my darling, if only for a moment, I could have taken you in my arms and there’d be no need to say anything. I did write you, but it was much later, and maybe it was too much later.
The Long November Page 16
