Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  He turned on his heel and strode away. Later, perhaps at midnight, he would come back, he told himself, and finally get this question of the Americans settled. He pulled his shoulders high in disgust as the sound of his own voice squalling about the cigarette sounded in his ears, but there was nothing to be done about it and he walked without looking back. Midnight, he thought, midnight is still time.…

  Back under the tarpaulin, Boullard looked around him at the men. Their faces were grave, but except for Millet, there was consent in all of them.

  Boullard walked out from under the tarpaulin with his rifle.

  Midnight, Lieutenant Dumestre was thinking, when the bullet struck, midnight is still time.…

  They buried him quickly without marking the grave and sat down in front of the gun to wait for the army of the Americans.

  Medal from Jerusalem

  “The question that haunts me,” Schneider was saying in his high, soft voice, “is, my jazz, is it real jazz or is it merely European jazz?” He was leaning against the bar of the Patio restaurant between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, which used to be the old German consulate, and speaking to Lieutenant Mitchell Gunnison in short, gaspy bursts of talk, smiling a little sadly and a little archly at Mitchell, and occasionally touching his sleeve lightly with the tips of his fingers. “I mean,” he said, “I know it’s good enough for Palestine, but in America what would they say about a pianist like me?”

  “Well,” said Gunnison gravely, “I’d say they’d think it was real jazz.” He was young and he spoke slowly and he seemed to think very hard before he answered a question.

  “You don’t know,” Schneider said, sighing, “how you’ve encouraged me. I listen to the records, of course, but they’re old, and you never know what actually is going on in America and, after all, we all know there is no other jazz, no place, and with a war like this, and God knows how long it’s going to last, a musician gets out of touch. And once you are out of touch, you might as well die. Just die.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Mitchell said. “You’ll be a sensation in America.”

  “If I ever get there.” Schneider smiled sadly and shrugged a little. “Anyway, you must come tomorrow. I’m working on a new arrangement with the drummer. A rhumba, Viennese style. It’s ridiculous, but I think you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mitchell said. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

  “Then next night,” said Schneider.

  “I won’t be here then, either,” Mitchell said. “I’m going tomorrow. Leave’s up.”

  There was a little silence and Schneider looked down at the bar and flicked his beer glass with his fingernail, making a frail musical sound in the dark oak barroom. “Some more fighting?” Schneider asked.

  “A little more fighting.” Mitchell nodded soberly.

  “You fly, no doubt,” said Schneider. “I have no wish to intrude on military information, but the wings on the chest …”

  “I’m a navigator.” Mitchell smiled at him.

  “It must be an interesting profession. Measuring the distance between one star and another star.” Schneider finished his beer slowly. “Well, sholom aleichem … That’s good luck. Or, to be more exact, peace be with you.”

  “Thank you,” Mitchell said.

  “Hebrew,” said Schneider. “I’m ashamed to talk Hebrew to anybody who knows it. The accent, they tell me, is frightful. But you don’t mind, do you?”

  “No,” said Mitchell. He turned to the bartender. “Mr. Abrams,” he said, “another beer please, for Mr. Schneider.”

  “No, no.” Schneider waved his hands in protest. “The artist should not drink before the performance. After … Another matter … Ah,” he said, bowing elaborately, “Fräulein, we are enchanted.”

  Mitchell turned around. Ruth was standing there, looking a little hurried and out of breath, but smiling, and as pretty as ever in a light cotton dress, with her skin burned dark by the sun and her eyes full of welcome and pleasure at seeing him.

  “I was afraid,” she said, coming over to him and taking his hand, “I was afraid you were going to be angry and leave.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave,” Mitchell said. “Not until they closed the doors on me and threw me out.”

  “I am delighted.” Ruth laughed and squeezed his arm. “I am so absolutely delighted.”

  “My presence,” Schneider said, bowing, “I no longer consider necessary. A hundred thanks for the beer, Lieutenant. Now I play or Mr. Abrams will start complaining he is not getting his money’s worth out of me. Listen, carefully, if it is not too much of a bore, to my version of ‘Stardust.’”

  “We’ll listen very carefully,” Mitchell said.

  Schneider went outside to the patio, and a moment later preliminary erratic runs and fragments of melody came floating into the bar as he warmed up for the night’s work.

  “So.” Ruth faced him, looking at him with an expression that was half ownership, half amusement. “So. What have we been doing all day?”

  “Well,” Mitchell started, “we …”

  “You are the most beautiful lieutenant in the American Army,” Ruth said, grinning.

  “Well, we went swimming,” Mitchell said, pleased and embarrassed, pretending she’d said nothing. “And we hung around on the beach. And we flew a couple of barroom missions. Gin and grapefruit juice.”

  “Isn’t Palestinian grapefruit wonderful?” Ruth asked loyally.

  “Sensational,” Mitchell said. “Nothing like it in America.”

  “You’re such a liar.” Ruth leaned over and kissed him lightly.

  “There was an Eighth Air Force pilot down from England,” Mitchell said, “and he told us how tough it was over Wilhelmshaven and we told the lies about Ploesti and then it was time to shave and come to see you.”

  “What did you think while you were shaving? Were you sad because you had to leave your interesting friends and see me?”

  “Broken-hearted,” Mitchell said.

  “You’ve got such a nice, skinny face.” Ruth touched the line of his jaw. “You’re as pretty as an English lieutenant. I’m not fond of the English, but they have the prettiest lieutenants of any army.”

  “We send our pretty ones to the Pacific,” said Mitchell. “Guadalcanal. We preserve them for American womanhood.”

  Ruth signaled Mr. Abrams for a drink. “I was in Jerusalem today. I told my boss I was sick and went there. It’s so bad—we never got to see Jerusalem together.”

  “Some other time,” Mitchell said. “I’ll come back and we’ll see Jerusalem.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Ruth said, seriously. “Please don’t lie. You won’t come back. You won’t see me again. Absolutely no lies, please.”

  Mitchell felt very young. He felt there was something to be said, and an older man would know how to say it, but he felt dumb and bereaved and clumsy, and it must have showed on his face as he peered at his glass, because Ruth laughed and touched his lips with her fingers and said, “You have such a tragic face for an American. Where do you come from in America?”

  “Vermont,” Mitchell said.

  “Has everybody got a face like yours in Vermont?”

  “Everybody.”

  “I will visit there,” Ruth drained her glass, “at some later date.”

  “I’ll give you my address,” Mitchell said.

  “Of course,” said Ruth politely. “You must write it down some time.”

  They went out into the patio and sat down at a table on the old flagstones under a palm tree, with the blue blackout lights shining dimly over the uniforms and pale dresses, and the moon riding over the Mediterranean and casting flickering shadows over the dancers who now claimed the spot where the German consul had lived well in days gone by. Mitchell ordered champagne because it was his last night. It was Syrian champagne, but not bad, and to both of them it gave an air of festivity and importance to the evening, as it rocked in its silver bucket of ice. Eric, the waiter with the limp, ceremon
iously took Ruth’s ration tickets, and Schneider, seated with the drummer across the patio, with the drum dimly lit from inside by an orange light of which Schneider was very proud, played “Summertime” because he had decided that was the song Mitchell liked best. The old song, played trickily and well in the soft, echoing patio, somehow sounded, by some ineradicable stamp in Schneider’s blood, like Carolina and Vienna and the Balkans, with here and there chords of an old Hebrew chant, quite just and indigenous here between the heavy stone walls on the edge of the Sinai desert.

  “I’m jealous of him,” said Ruth, speaking over the edge of her glass.

  “Who?”

  “Schneider.”

  “Why?” Mitchell asked.

  “Because of the way he looks at you. He’s crazy about you. Has he asked you to come to tea with him and his mother?”

  “Yes,” said Mitchell, trying not to smile.

  “I’ll tear his eyes out,” Ruth said. “I’m jealous of anybody who looks at you that way. The girls back in Vermont and those Red Cross girls.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Mitchell said. “Nobody looks at me that way. Not even Schneider or you.”

  “That’s the nicest thing about you,” Ruth said. “You don’t know anything. I’m so used to men who know just how many steps out of bed each look a woman gives them measures. I must visit America after the war.…”

  “Where will you really go?” Mitchell asked. “Back to Berlin?”

  “No.” Ruth stared reflectively down at her plate. “No, not back to Berlin. Never back to Berlin. The Germans have made clear their feeling about me. A little thing like a war will not change them. The lamb does not go back to the slaughterhouse. Anyway, I have nobody there. There was a young man …” She leaned over and picked up the bottle and absently poured for Mitchell and herself. “I don’t know what happened to him. Stalingrad, maybe, Alamein … who knows?”

  Four men came into the patio and walked through the brief illumination of the blue lights. Three of them were Arabs in European dress, and the fourth was a man in the uniform of the American Army with the civilian technical adviser patch on his shoulder. They stopped at the table. The three Arabs bowed a little, ceremoniously, to Ruth, and the American said, “I thought you were sick.”

  “This is Mr. Carver,” Ruth said to Mitchell, with a wave to the American. “He’s my boss.”

  “Hi, Lieutenant,” said Carver. He was a big, fat man, with a weary, puffy, intelligent face. He turned back to Ruth. “I thought you were sick,” he repeated in a pleasant, loud, slightly drunken voice.

  “I was sick,” Ruth said, cheerfully. “I had a miraculous recovery.”

  “The American Army,” Carver said, “expects every civilian worker to do her duty.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Ruth. “Now please go away with your friends. The lieutenant and I are having an intimate talk.”

  “Lieutenant …” It was one of the Arabs, the shortest of the three, a slight, dark man, with a round face and liquid, veiled eyes. “My name is Ali Khazen. Permit me to introduce myself, as no one here seems to remember his manners well enough to do so.”

  Mitchell stood up. “Mitchell Gunnison,” he said, putting out his hand.

  “Forgive me,” Carver said. “I’m suffering from drink. This is Sayed Taif …” He indicated the tallest of the Arabs, a middle-aged man with a severe, handsome, tight-lipped face. Mitchell shook hands with him.

  “He doesn’t like Americans,” Carver said loudly. “He’s the leading journalist of the local Arab world and he writes for thirty-five papers in the United States and he doesn’t like Americans.”

  “What was that?” Taif asked politely, inclining his head in a reserved, small gesture.

  “Also, he’s deaf,” said Carver. “Most useful equipment for any journalist.”

  Nobody bothered to introduce the third Arab, who stood a little to one side, watching Taif with a fierce, admiring stare, like a boxer dog at his master’s feet.

  “Why don’t you all go away and eat your dinner?” Ruth said.

  “Lieutenant,” Carver said, ignoring her, “take the advice of a veteran of the Middle East. Do not become involved with Palestine.”

  “He’s not becoming involved with Palestine,” Ruth said. “He’s becoming involved With me.”

  “Beware Palestine.” Carver weaved a little as he spoke. “The human race is doomed in Palestine. For thousands of years. They chop down the forests, burn down the cities, wipe out the inhabitants. This is no place for an American.”

  “You drink too much, Mr. Carver,” Ruth said.

  “Nevertheless,” Carver shook his big head heavily, “it is no accident that they picked this place to crucify Christ. You couldn’t pick a better place to crucify Christ if you scoured the maps of the world for five hundred years. I’m a Quaker myself, from the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and all I see here is the blood of bleeding humanity. When this war is over I’m going back to Philadelphia and wait until I pick up the morning newspaper and read that everybody in Palestine has exterminated everybody else in Palestine the night before.” He walked unsteadily over to Ruth’s chair and bent over and peered intently into her face. “Beautiful girl,” he said, “beautiful, forlorn girl.” He straightened up. “Gunnison, I admonish you, as an officer and gentleman, do not harm one hair on this beautiful girl’s head.”

  “Every hair,” Mitchell said, gravely, “is safe with me.”

  “If you must drink,” Ruth said to Carver sharply, “why don’t you do it with Americans? Why do you have to go around with bandits and murderers like these?” She waved her hand toward the Arabs. The journalist smiled, his handsome face frosty and amused in the wavering light.

  “Impartiality,” Carver boomed. “American impartiality. We are famous for it. We are nobody’s friend and nobody’s enemy. We merely build airfields and pipelines. Impartially. Tomorrow I lunch with the President of the Jewish Agency.”

  Ruth turned to the journalist. “Taif,” she said, loudly, “I read your last piece.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, his voice a little dead and without timbre. “Did you like it?”

  “You’ll be responsible for the death of thousands of Jews,” said Ruth.

  “Ah, thank you,” he said. He smiled. “It is my fondest hope.” He turned to Mitchell. “Naturally, Lieutenant,” he said, “our charming little Ruth is biased in the matter. It is necessary to give the Arab side of the proposition.” He began to speak more seriously, with a severe, oratorical emphasis, like an evangelical preacher. “The world is dazzled by the Jewish accomplishment in Palestine. Fine, clean cities, with plumbing. Industries. Where once was desert, now the rose and the olive bloom. Et cetera.”

  “Taif, old boy,” Carver pulled at his arm, “let’s eat and you can lecture the lieutenant some other time.”

  “No, if you please.” The journalist pulled his arm politely away from Carver’s hand. “I welcome the opportunity to talk to our American friends. You see, my good Lieutenant, you may be very pleased with the factory and the plumbing, and perhaps, even, from one point of view, they may be good things. But they have nothing to do with the Arab. Perhaps the Arab prefers the desert as it was. The Arab has his own culture.…”

  “When I hear the word ‘culture,’” Carver said, “I reach for my pistol. What famous American said that?”

  “To Americans and Europeans,” the journalist went on, in his singsong, dead voice, “the culture of the Arab perhaps seems backward and dreadful. But, forgive us, the Arab prefers it. The virtues which are particularly Arab are kept alive by primitive living. They die among the plumbing.”

  “Now,” said Ruth, “we have heard a new one. Kill the Jew because he brings the shower bath.”

  The journalist smiled indulgently at Ruth, as at a clever child. “Personally,” he said, “I have nothing against the Jews. I swear that I do not wish to harm a single Jew living in Palestine today. But I will fight to the death to keep even one m
ore Jew from entering the country. This is an Arab state, and it must remain an Arab state.”

  “Gunnison,” Carver said, “aren’t you glad you came?”

  “Six million Jews have died in Europe,” Ruth said, her voice harsh and passionate, and surprising to Mitchell. “Where do you want the survivors to go?” She and the journalist had forgotten the rest of them and were locked with each other across the table.

  The journalist shrugged and looked for a moment up above the palm fronds at the dark sky. “That,” he said, “is a question for the world to decide. Why must the poor Arab have the whole decision? We’ve taken in much more than our share. If the rest of the world really wants to see the Jewish race survive let them take them in. America, Britain, Russia … I do not notice those large countries taking in great masses of Jews.”

  “There are no great masses,” Ruth said. “There is only a handful.”

  Taif shrugged. “Even so. The truth may be, perhaps,” he paused, a little doubtfully, reminding Mitchell of an old Latin teacher in a class in Cicero, shrewdly hesitating for effect, before telling the class whether the word in question was in the ablative or dative absolute, “the truth may be that the rest of the world really wants to see the Jewish race die out.” He turned and smiled warmly at Mitchell. “It is an interesting supposition, Lieutenant. It might be most interesting to examine it before talking any more about Palestine.” He walked over to Ruth and leaned over and kissed her fleetingly on the forehead. “Good night, little Ruth,” he said, and went to a table across the patio, with the silent, adoring Arab behind him.