Only I wish, Dorothy Brock thought, that I could tell him to stow Georgia and let’s get to bed. That’s what we came here for, and this room isn’t a place I’m just thrilled about sitting in.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was mixing a second drink. If we don’t start soon, he thought, those Majors will come home from the Club. He handed Dorothy Brock the drink and as he did so, he bent down and kissed her hair.
“You’ve got pretty hair,” he said.
“I’m glad you think so,” Dorothy Brock said, mocking him and mocking herself.
With his glass in his hand, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers kissed her on the mouth. She had turned her face up, obligingly.
“Honey!”
“Let’s take our drinks with us,” Dorothy Brock said. She hoped it sounded breathless and overcome with passion, and not simply practical. She thought she could not stand any more talk, she really hated it, it made her sick. This Lieutenant Colonel was a big handsome man, and he had come from a bad place, and she would be very nice to him if only he’d keep his mouth shut.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was now sitting on the edge of the bed, unlacing his boots. Dorothy Brock had walked in, put her glass on the bureau, and unbuttoned her coat. Methodically, she hung it over the back of a chair and started to pull down the zipper of her skirt. She said nothing. He turned his back then and went to the bed. Light blazed from a chandelier that looked like a piece of knotted glass intestines.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was shocked and hurt. Whores acted like this, only at least they’d say something agreeable while they were about it. And he knew she wasn’t a whore, she was a nice girl, she had come from a good family. They checked up on all these Red Cross girls before they let them join. It was awful to think American girls got like this, just wanting it the way a man would.
No respectable girl, where he lived, would behave like Dotty. They’d let you neck them as much as you liked, but you’d have a tough time getting them to bed and then only if they were so crazy for you they couldn’t help themselves. With Dotty, you had the idea that the line formed on the right. He wouldn’t mind with a French girl; you expected it. But Dotty made him feel cheated and disgusted, and ashamed for American girls, the good ones at home. Here I go worrying, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers told himself, what do I care how she acts? Okay! she wants it, I want it; she’ll get it. But he stood up, abruptly, and went to the door where the switch was, and turned off the light. Somebody had to have some decency around here.
Dorothy Brock did not speak and she understood the rebuke and the anger. What a delicate fellow, she thought, he wants everything complete with lies. My God, I’m tired; it would be nice just to sleep. Well, sleep was not exactly what she had to look forward to. Why did I bother; I don’t need him and he’d have found somebody else. I could be home in my snug little cot, with a hot water bottle and nourishing cream on my face and nine lovely hours until morning.
I’d just as soon give her a hundred francs and get the hell out of here right now, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought.
In this state of mind, silently, and in the dark, they climbed into bed from opposite sides.
She was naked. (What did I expect? Did I think she’d have on her chiffon negligée? I forgot to bring my pyjamas myself, that are in a foot locker in Durham England.) Lieutenant Colonel Smithers put his hand on her, pulling her closer. She was warm and her skin felt soft, unbelievably soft. The smoothness of that skin acted on him as nothing else did, for it was like nothing else. Ah, he said to himself, you may be a hard little bitch, but you feel like heaven to me.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers stopped thinking. Dorothy Brock had stopped thinking when his hands rested on her waist and he lifted her towards him.
She was sleeping on her side, with her face against his chest. His arm stretched above her head, like a frame. Lieutenant Colonel Smithers lay on his back, plunged into a black drowning of sleep. He woke, sickened by the suddenness of it, and sweating. He sat up in bed, and said in a low furious voice, “Get them over that road! I don’t care what’s hitting you!”
At once, he was aware of a girl’s body by his side, of a bed, of four walls and the quiet of a sleeping house in a sleeping city. He held his breath. Then he knew where he was. He had been saying something; he hoped it wasn’t some dumb whiney stuff; he hoped Dotty hadn’t heard him. He lay back, moving gradually and in silence.
Dorothy Brock had heard. She did not understand what the words meant and she was confused by sleep, but she felt they were words from a nightmare. This man would have had many chances to pick up nightmares. She stirred, pretending to be asleep, and laid her arm across his chest. She did this without plan, in pity, so that he would not be alone. It was her first gesture of tenderness.
This thin girl’s arm seemed to Lieutenant Colonel Smithers like safety itself. He did not remember what he had been dreaming, but her arm was against those dreams. It was what life was meant to be, and would be, when he got home again. He let out his breath carefully. She was soft and gentle and he did not know how to thank her.
“Dotty,” he whispered, “I love you, darling.”
When they said that before, it meant they were trying to buy you with easy words. But when they said it afterwards, they were trying to be nice, or squaring their consciences, or something. Anyhow, it was sweet and sort of pathetic. “Of course you do,” Dorothy Brock murmured.
Why didn’t she just give me a good hard slap on the puss, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought. Dotty was breathing regularly; she had gone back to sleep. Allright, he thought, that’s how you want to play it. Allright: I don’t love you, and you don’t love me, but there’s still something we can do together. Come on and do what you’re good at.
Oh my, she thought, feeling the strong demanding hands, he certainly doesn’t want to miss a single opportunity.
6
There was still time to catch Kathe at the restaurant. Jacob Levy drove fast in the dark and saw her walking down the street with quick small steps. When he pulled up at the curb she walked faster and he could tell she was scared. Maybe guys bothered her in the night when she was going home alone. She ought to have somebody to take her home every night. She didn’t know anything; she was too young; she couldn’t look after herself. He called to her and Kathe ran towards him with her face surprised and joyous. Jacob Levy lifted her in his arms and put her on the front seat, though it was against orders to drive civilians. Kathe seemed delighted with the jeep; not shrinking from the cold wind but jolting with the car and laughing, as if to bounce were a special treat. Jacob Levy made her get out and wait at the corner while he drove the jeep past the sentry into the wired enclosure of the car park. If he came back and found any soldier bothering her, he’d kill him.
When Kathe opened the big front door she put her finger on her lips. Jacob Levy wanted to laugh. If he could only talk to her, he would tell her that he knew how to move without making noise if he didn’t know anything else. He had learned when it was a lot more important than now. Kathe turned once on the stairs, because she thought he had not followed her as she could hear nothing. How foolish I am, she told herself, why did I ever fear this? The Hefferichs would not hear him; no one would hear him. He was also different from all others in that he was silent as a cloud.
Jacob Levy had locked the door of her room so cautiously that she did not hear the key turn. Kathe drew the black-out curtains and switched on the little lamp by the bed. It had a mottled pale blue glass shade and a chromium base, and she thought it was beautiful. She hoped he would not think her room a poor place. No doubt in America all the rooms were very big with carved mahogany furniture and satin hangings at the windows.
They sure don’t spoil the civilians with coal, Jacob Levy was thinking. When you compared this little icebox with his room and his stove at Weilerburg, you saw how good the army had it. Maybe he could scrounge some coal for her; the cook might let him have it if he said it was for old people that were sick. Kathe
kept her room just the way he knew she would. The white iron cot had a clean white cotton bedspread and there was a starched curtain hanging flat like a table cloth over the window, and her washstand with the flowered china pitcher and bowl was so neat you’d think nobody used it. The marble top of the washstand was cracked and the legs were scratched but that wasn’t Kathe’s fault. Now that bureau or chiffonier, or whatever it was, was a good practical idea; built with a place to hang your clothes on one side and drawers on the other. Kathe could do with a new piece of mirror though and that straight chair would stand a new seat on it. And she was a Catholic allright because there was the picture of the Sacred Heart and another of the Virgin, the way everyone seemed to have in Europe. Well, he had guessed Kathe would be a Catholic and what difference did it make? She’d be warmer if she had a carpet on her floor.
They were both standing. Kathe had not moved to take off her coat. She knew now that he was disappointed; he was used to better rooms. She had nothing better to offer, she could get nothing better. She always thought it was nice here until he stared at it this way.
Jacob Levy noticed Kathe watching him with a funny look in her eyes; not being able to talk made things awkward. He smiled and crossed the room to kiss her. Kathe let him kiss her but she did not seem to be happy. What’s gone wrong now, he wondered. He started to unbutton her coat. They’d freeze if they didn’t get into bed quick. I’m pretty big for that bed, Jacob Levy thought, it’s going to be a tight fit.
Now that she had brought him here, and whatever it was would start, would happen, Kathe felt wretched and dazed with uncertainty. There were too many thoughts churning in her head, and even if he understood her she would not know where to begin; her hands were cold and she wanted to hide. They had to talk first; she needed to hear him say something, she needed to tell him something, but she did not know what this must be. She must explain to him who she was, so he would realize about the war and the Adolphe bridge and all her life.
“Je m’appelle Kathe Limpert,” she said. She had taken hold of both his hands and stopped him from unbuttoning her coat. If only he could understand, she would tell him everything. Jacob Levy looked down at Kathe’s hands, and his face was puzzled. Didn’t he know that she was telling him her name? Not that her name explained her, but perhaps he would see that there was her father and mother and brother and the farm, in her name. Or maybe it was because the name sounded German? Oh dear Lord, he must not think that! Almost all the people have German-sounding names, Kathe said to him in her mind. Our own language is much like German. We know German too. But after the Germans came we tried only to speak French even if it isn’t the best correct French the way people in France speak. No, he couldn’t think anything so terrible. He would hate her, and go away.
“Kathe,” she said again. “Tu comprends? C’est mon nom. Kathe Limpert. C’est un nom Luxembourgeois.”
Jacob Levy did not understand what this was about, but she looked worried. “I get it, honey,” he said. “Kathe.” He sat down on the bed and took her on his knees. She was scared maybe. He knew she didn’t have much experience of men. Well then they wouldn’t hurry, was all. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Toi,” Kathe said. “Comment t’appelles-tu?” He did understand her name and now she would learn his name, and that would make it closer and better between them.
Jacob Levy shrugged and shook his head. Too much French, he thought, her hands are cold. I could keep her warm in bed.
Kathe frowned a little, because it was necessary for him to understand. She had fixed on this; if they knew each other’s names, they would know each other, and there would be no danger of a mistake or any ugliness. It would not be as if they were strangers.
“Moi,” she said again, pointing to herself. “Kathe Limpert. Toi?” and she pointed to him and waited. Jacob Levy knew what she wanted. He looked at her, his eyes narrowed and veiled, and said very fast without really knowing what he said, “John Dawson Smithers.”
Then he was horrified at what he had done. What if Kathe ever came asking for him and the Colonel found out? The Colonel would think he’d been playing some cheap joke on him. He must be crazy; why had he said such a thing? The trouble he was fixing for himself. What made him tell a stupid lie like that; he must be nuts.
But he knew why and he was ashamed. He said “John Dawson Smithers” because of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin and the fear that Kathe would not want a man named Jacob Levy.
“Jawn,” Kathe said happily. Everything was allright now, for they knew each other. Jawn and Kathe.
Jacob Levy realized at once that John was as much as she remembered; so there would be no trouble later with the Colonel. There would only be that bad feeling of having used another man’s name because your own wasn’t good enough. He shivered, and Kathe—remembering that her room was unheated—pointed gravely and shyly to the bed.
Well, Jacob Levy thought, that’s what I did it for so I may as well get some use of it. He lifted Kathe from his knees and began to undress. She turned out the small blue-shaded lamp; it was easier to be brave in the dark. But she stood still and was too frightened to move; everything she knew about animals came back to her and it seemed revolting and she would not be able to.
Jacob Levy stopped undressing. “Kathe,” he whispered. “What’s the matter?” He was barefooted on the cold floor boards. Oh God, he thought, this is too much complications for me.
No, Jawn would not hurt her; not that gentle voice and those kind hands. And if she let him go now, she would have only herself to blame for the lost years behind and the uncertain years ahead. She loved him and there had to be a beginning for every woman.
Jacob Levy waited and heard the bed springs creak and said to himself, I guess it’s okay now. He took off his underclothes, and the cold of the room was solid around his nakedness, and then he slipped into the narrow bed.
The need and the nervousness left him at once. He had never imagined this would be possible, that you’d go to bed with a girl you were crazy for and the only thing you’d want to do was laugh. He couldn’t help it; maybe he ought to see a doctor about his brain.
Sex-mad Levy, he thought, and this only made him want to laugh more. Me and my fine plans: Charles Boyer Levy. How he’d worked it all out, what a sweat of a hurry he’d been in, couldn’t live until he got his hands on her. The big moment arrives, he told himself, and our hero lies on his back and laughs his stupid head off.
Kathe was certainly the most comical kid in the whole world. And he was right about that petticoat; it felt like a straitjacket with ruffles on it. If he could turn on the light, and look at her, she’d be just like those dolls you saw in the store windows, the Christmas presents for little girls: made of pink and white plaster, stiff, with open doll’s eyes and wearing a white doll’s dress starched like a board. And this comical bed too; he hardly had room for his shoulders. He couldn’t help it, it was the funniest damn thing he ever saw. I’m in a kindergarten bed with a Christmas present doll, Jacob Levy thought, and laughed softly but aloud. Then he gathered Kathe in his arms and said, “You funny little kid,” and patted her as if he had been presented with a baby to hold, soothe and put to sleep.
“Jawn,” she whispered.
“There, there,” he said and went on laughing to himself. Honest to God, who’d ever believe it? Experience of men, hell. She didn’t have to say anything; you’d know it if you were blind, deaf and dumb. I bet she’s the only virgin in the ETO, he thought. The petticoat was the funniest thing of all. The poor ignorant kid, she was probably scared out of her wits right now. He was sorry he’d taken off all his clothes because that would scare her worse if she noticed. Don’t know the first thing, Jacob Levy thought. I’m sure glad it’s me she stumbled on. Yeh, well, it wasn’t so funny after all. What if it had been some guy that didn’t give a damn and would have thought, “too bad, baby,” and gone ahead anyhow. They oughtn’t to let young girls around loose, Jacob Levy told himself indignantly, they don�
�t know what can happen to them.
Sure, allright, it had to happen someday but then it ought to be with a fellow that would look after them. You could see how it would scare them, not knowing anything, and maybe hurt them, too, how did he know? He couldn’t even remember how it was for him in the beginning, it was so long ago; some floozy of a Wop girl and he was sixteen, that was six years ago. For a long time the girls knew a lot more than he did and they could always take care of themselves. It wasn’t the same.
Kathe lay in his arms and he could scarcely believe that he had desired this helpless pitiful little creature. It was as if you’d get all steamed up about a lost kitten. I sure know how to pick them, Jacob Levy thought, and had a pleasant feeling that there was more nonsense in life than he had guessed and you did not have to be so serious about it. Kathe was trembling: no, what was she doing? Crying? Yes she was, and trying not to show it.
“Kathe,” Jacob Levy said, “Don’t you worry, honey. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I know how it is, see? Nothing’s going to happen.”
But girls were goofy when you thought about it. How could Kathe tell he’d leave her alone, as soon as he guessed? What a hell of a chance to take. He wished he could talk to her and explain she oughtn’t to take such chances. He wouldn’t touch her for anything: it didn’t work him up to think a girl was a virgin. But there were plenty of guys who’d think it was a picnic.
“Go to sleep now, honey. You’re allright with Uncle Jacob.”
Point of No Return Page 7
