Point of No Return

by Gellhorn, Martha;

  “Jawn.” She did not understand what he said; she did not understand anything. She clung to his name, for safety.

  John, hell, Jacob Levy thought, lousy business. Never mind. Oh you, he thought, and shifted her so that they would be more comfortable in this box of a bed. Oh you sweet little dopey kid. He did not feel excited at all; he felt relaxed and peaceful. Maybe just lying here was the nicest thing he’d ever done with a girl. He felt good about it anyhow.

  Jacob Levy kissed her hair and tightened his arms around her. She fitted him as if she had been specially constructed to his measurements. “Goodnight, Kathe,” he said. I’ll wake up at one o’clock, he promised himself, and she won’t even hear me go.

  7

  The Colonel didn’t look right. He had bags under his eyes and he seemed sort of sour, as if his stomach had gone bad or he was having trouble at Regiment. He acted slow, too, like he was pooped-out and didn’t give a damn for anything. Jacob Levy stood inside the parlor door and waited for orders. What happened with him last night, Jacob Levy wondered.

  “You want to go to town, Bill?” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers asked.

  Lieutenant Gaylord was sprawled on a purple plush chair near the stove, reading. The chaplain had come around in the morning with a box of paper-bounds to give out to the men: morale department. Lieutenant Gaylord kept all the detective stories he wanted and sent the rest on to the Companies. Now he was half through the Saint’s adventures in Hongkong. He was comfortable.

  “Not specially. Lucille’s got a date. I’d just as soon take it easy tonight.”

  “Me too. I could do with a good night’s sleep.”

  This is really bad, Jacob Levy thought.

  “Got any more books?”

  “On the table,” Lieutenant Gaylord said. “By the window.”

  If Lucille didn’t loosen up by tomorrow night, Lieutenant Gaylord decided, he’d find a nurse. Nurses were the fastest operators of all; after the way they handled men in the hospitals, they didn’t have any girlish coyness. You couldn’t blame them. It made them sort of rugged, but what the hell. He didn’t have all year to hang around after Lucille.

  What am I sore about, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought. Why’ve I been going around all day like I wanted to kick myself? What did I expect her to say when I took her home? Dotty had patted his shoulder after she opened her front door, and said, “Goodnight darling. Be seeing you.” Friendly enough, but as if she didn’t care one way or the other. Did she think she was too good for him or what?

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers remembered his driver. “Nothing more tonight, Levy. I have to be at Regiment at eight. Come around at seven-thirty.”

  Jacob Levy had walked up the street to his billet, scuffing over the cobbles and thinking. Now he sat on the edge of his bed, thinking some more. Maybe the Colonel would never go to Luxembourg again. He could get a pass someday, but it wouldn’t be overnight and Kathe had to work. She would worry herself sick; he felt sure of that. How come he knew so much about what Kathe would think; he wasn’t a woman specialist. He never knew what girls thought; that was their business. But he knew about Kathe; she’d get her head full of foolish notions because he didn’t show up tonight. She’d sit in her room, worrying and thinking she’d done wrong.

  I might as well turn in, Jacob Levy thought. He wished he had a particular buddy in the Battalion, so he could talk this over. Sometimes two guys had better ideas than one. Or if you couldn’t get off, the other one would be free and could get around and fix things up. He was friendly with everybody but there was no one he felt really close to, no one he’d like to ask for help or advice. I might never see her again if things keep up this way, Jacob Levy said to himself. He stood, holding his jacket in his hand, and wished he hadn’t thought anything as awful as that.

  Pfc Hammer put his head in the door and said, “Come on down to the kitchen, Jake. The Sarge is giving away cigars and licker.”

  Bert Hammer looked flushed and happy. His eyes shone and his shirt was marked with sweat under the arms.

  “Why?” Jacob Levy asked. It wasn’t Christmas or anything, yet.

  “He’s got four bottles of cognac. He’s having a baby,” Bert Hammer said and clumped down the stairs.

  Jacob Levy put on his jacket. By God, he thought, that Sarge is a fast worker. He was delighted for the Sergeant. Old Postalozzi, you’d never think of him having a baby. He knew the Sergeant was married to a WAC who worked at the Seine Base Section in Paris. He got married on his last leave in September. The WAC came from Detroit too. You had to hand it to the Sergeant, he was a fast worker all-right.

  The kitchen was brightly lighted by a hundred-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was steaming hot and smelled of sweat, cigar smoke, cognac and an unappetising general smell of food. Sergeant Postalozzi stood at the kitchen table, pouring cognac into water glasses. In the center of the table, spread on a clean khaki handkerchief, was a small pile of PX ration cigars.

  “Come on in, Jake!” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “Have a drink.”

  “Thanks, Sarge. Well, congratulations!”

  Sergeant Postalozzi’s small grey eyes gleamed in his large grey face. His thin colorless hair had come unstuck and was hanging in wisps, glued with sweat to his forehead. He was smiling so much that his cheeks seemed to push against his ears. Now he laid his finger alongside his nose, though he had intended to place his finger across his lips, and said, “Ssh! Agnes said not to tell anybody. If they hear, they’ll ship her home. She wants to stay in Paris long’s she can so we can see each other.”

  “I sure hope you get a great big baby, Sarge,” Bert Hammer said.

  “Here’s to the Sarge’s baby,” said Royal Lommax, the cook.

  “We ought to break the glasses,” Dan Thompson remarked. He was a code clerk who had come over from his billet to visit the cook, and been invited to join the celebration.

  “You sure as hell won’t break them glasses,” the cook said. “These’re damn good glasses.”

  “Here’s to Agnes,” Jacob Levy said.

  “Who’s Agnes?” asked Marvin Busch, a truck driver from Headquarters Company, and a friend of Bert Hammer.

  “His wife, you dope, the mother of the baby,” Bert Hammer said.

  “Here’s to my Agnes,” Sergeant Postalozzi said, smiling and smiling. “Fill them up, you guys.”

  “That Sarge,” the cook said. “He’s always got stuff stored away for when you need it.”

  “I wish we had some music,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “You need some music at a party.”

  “You want me to eat some glass for you, Sarge?” Marvin Busch asked.

  “I what?” said Sergeant Postalozzi.

  “Eat glass,” Marvin Busch explained. “You know, instead of music.”

  “Well, damn me,” said Sergeant Postalozzi.

  “He can, too,” Bert Hammer said. “I seen him.”

  “What kind of glass?” the cook asked. “What is this, for Christ’s sake?”

  “You show them, Marv,” Bert Hammer said, encouraging his friend. “Here’s to Sergeant Postalozzi’s son, Mr. Postalozzi Junior.”

  “I need a light bulb,” said Marvin Busch.

  “What the hell is this man talking about?” the cook asked.

  Dan Thompson stood on a chair and tried to reach the electric light bulb in the ceiling.

  “Leave that alone,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “If he eats that, we got to sit in the dark. Have a cigar, Jake?”

  “Well, thanks Sarge. Couldn’t we get Marv the light bulb from the can?”

  “Now you’re talking,” Bert Hammer said. Dan Thompson, who seemed the one for decisive action, left the kitchen.

  “I hope it’s a girl,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “Then she can cook for us when we’re old and she won’t have to join no bitched-up army. Agnes is a corporal,” he added. “Did I ever show you a picture of Agnes, Jake?”

  “No, Sarge,” Jacob Levy lied. He was staring, in apparent ad
miration, at a colored photograph of a girl with yellow cement-like curls under her overseas cap, and rimless glasses, when Dan Thompson came back. The Sarge is sure going to have an ugly baby, Jacob Levy thought. He liked the Sarge; he wished the Sarge could have a baby that would look like Shirley Temple when she was a kid, ten years ago maybe.

  “Will this one do, Marv?” Dan Thompson asked.

  “Listen,” Bert Hammer said, “he can eat beer bottles if he feels in the mood.”

  “You hear that?” Sergeant Postalozzi asked generally.

  “Now I need a towel,” Marvin Busch said. They watched him wrap the electric light bulb in a towel, which the cook supplied, and then break it like an egg against the kitchen table. Marvin Busch spread the towel on the table, and they gathered around him in silence as he picked up the first morsel of glass, with his little finger crooked, and put it in his mouth. They listened to the glass crunching against his teeth and saw his adam’s apple rise and fall, as he swallowed. Marvin Busch, smiling politely, chose another piece of glass, chewed it, and swallowed again.

  “See what I mean?” Bert Hammer cried.

  “Well, I’m goddamned is what I am!” said Sergeant Postalozzi.

  “Didn’t you ought to have a drink to wash that glass down, Marv?” Dan Thompson asked.

  Marvin Busch shook his head.

  “He can’t talk when he’s eating glass,” Bert Hammer explained.

  “Is he going to eat it all?” the cook said.

  “Sure is,” Bert Hammer answered. “One night in Puntrimmy, he ate four.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said the cook. “You’d think he’d get little holes all around his stomach. You’d expect him to bleed somewheres.”

  Marvin Busch, calm but concentrated, delicate-handed and elegant, went on chewing glass.

  “Is he going to eat the metal part too?” Jacob Levy said.

  “Naw,” said Bert Hammer. “He don’t fool with nothing but glass.”

  Then the towel was clean, except for the metal screw fixture and the fine interior wires of the bulb, and they were all beating Marvin Busch on the back and saying that was the goddamndest thing they ever saw in their whole lives. Sergeant Postalozzi filled a glass full of cognac and said to Bert Hammer, as if Marvin Busch could no longer understand English, “Is it okay for him to have a drink now?”

  “Sure,” Bert Hammer said. “Do him good.”

  Marvin Busch looked very pink and a bit rigid, with pride and with the effort of eating the light bulb thoroughly and correctly. “Here’s to you, Sarge,” he said.

  “Say! Here’s to you!” Sergeant Postalozzi answered. “Have another cigar, everybody.”

  They felt exhausted from seeing a man eat so much glass, so they sat on the kitchen chairs and on the floor and drank in comfortable silence. This is a swell party for the Sarge’s baby, Jacob Levy thought. He only wished he could do a good trick, with cards maybe, or juggling. He would like to contribute to the Sarge’s fine celebration. If he remembered any jokes, he wouldn’t tell them so they’d turn out funny. It was a shame not to be able to do something nice for his friends.

  “Cognac?” Sergeant Postalozzi asked. They could drink it all. You didn’t get your first baby every day.

  Royal Lommax, who was sitting against the wall by the stove, stirred from deep contemplation, and said, “Ever seen any knife tricks?”

  “Can you do knife tricks, Roy?” Dan Thompson answered. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Yeh,” said Royal Lommax, “I can do a certain number.”

  “Well come on, pal,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “Drink up, you guys. We got plenty.”

  Royal Lommax began to unlace his boots. Languid and affable, they watched him and it seemed as if he were taking his shoes off under water or in a slow motion dream. Then they looked at Royal Lommax’s bare feet, which were somehow unusual; it made you wonder, thinking every man had these curious objects hidden inside his shoes. You almost never saw a man’s feet, when you thought about it.

  Royal Lommax, too, appeared to be surprised by these large pale appendages. There was black around the nails and the cuticle, and a tuft of black wiry hair on each toe below the joint, and a hard corn on both little toes. Royal Lommax stood up, took a bone clasp knife from his pocket, and placed himself carefully, spreading his toes as if they were fingers. The men made a circle around him.

  “Give him room,” Dan Thompson said.

  Royal Lommax caught the tip of the knife blade between his teeth, jerked his head back, and there was the knife, quivering in the floor boards between the big toe and the second toe of his right foot.

  “God Almighty!” Sergeant Postalozzi cried. “It’s worse than eating glass!”

  “You’ll kill yourself! You’ll amputate yourself, Roy!” Bert Hammer said.

  The others were too impressed to speak. Roy hadn’t even looked where that knife was going. It had a blade like an ax and it went spinning down like a jet-propelled top.

  Royal Lommax grinned and put the knife in his teeth again. It would be awful, Jacob Levy thought, if the next thing they saw was a handful of cut-off toes and the floor covered with blood. Roy couldn’t even walk without toes; that would be a hell of a note for poor old Roy if he couldn’t walk.

  The knife hurtled down and landed between the second and third toes of Royal Lommax’s right foot.

  “I can’t look,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “Is he allright?”

  “He sure is,” Marvin Busch said, with generous admiration. “I wouldn’t try that trick for anything.”

  “I need a drink,” Dan Thompson said. “You’re going to cut the hell out of yourself some day, Roy.”

  “Been doing it for twenty years. Never had an accident yet.”

  Jacob Levy and Bert Hammer and Dan Thompson knocked wood, quickly.

  “Look at them feet,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. “Look at them just standing there.”

  The knife was now trembling in the tight space between the fourth and little toe.

  “Take a drink, Roy,” Jacob Levy urged.

  “Don’t push your luck, boy,” Sergeant Postalozzi said, handing Royal Lommax a glass. “A fellow’s got only so much luck is what I always say.”

  Royal Lommax took the glass, bowed to them all, and drank it in long swallows.

  “Here’s your shoes, Roy,” Dan Thompson said. He wasn’t going to let his friend play with knives after a straight glass of cognac.

  “Thank you,” Royal Lommax said. When they saw that he could not lace his boots, being unable to find the holes, they realized he had been drunk all the time. A man who could throw a sonofabitching sharp knife at his own feet, when drunk, and not cut his leg off, was a man who could really hold liquor. They spoke to him about his performance, with respect.

  “Been practising for twenty years,” Royal Lommax murmured.

  “Well, what I mean is, thank God you still got your feet,” Sergeant Postalozzi said. He sat down at the kitchen table. They were all exhausted again.

  Presently Dan Thompson asked if they knew the story about the G.I. from Texas in the Paris whorehouse. They knew a hundred stories about G.I.s and whorehouses but it wouldn’t have been friendly to say so. They laughed when Dan told his story because nobody wanted to hurt his feelings; but it wasn’t a very good story and anyhow it didn’t seem right to talk smut when the party was for the Sergeant’s baby. Bert Hammer started to whistle “Lili Marlene.” He was a famous whistler and he ornamented the melody, and they hummed with him or tapped the time. Everyone felt contented and warm and a little sentimental. Suddenly Marvin Busch said, “’Scuse me,” and ran for the back door.

  “I guess it was all that glass he ate,” Bert Hammer said. He stopped whistling. Marvin Busch returned, with tears still in his eyes, looking yellow to green. He drank a glass of water at the sink and said in a subdued voice, “Sure has been a fine party, Sarge. Thanks a lot. I better get going.” He waved vaguely to the others and walked out the back
door.

  Sergeant Postalozzi was nodding at the kitchen table. “Gotta finsh ma work,” he announced and rose and moved like a sleep walker on a window ledge, towards the hall.

  The party was over.

  Royal Lommax took the half empty bottle of cognac and put it on the top shelf of the cupboard where the Sergeant would find it tomorrow. There were no cigars left on the khaki handkerchief. He collected the glasses in an unsteady hand and laid them in the sink.

  “Bed,” he said. “Bed, now, everybody.”

  Jacob Levy followed Bert Hammer up the stairs. Bert slept next to the wall so he had to wait for him. Jacob Levy took off his shoes and socks and his shirt, but his trousers proved unmanageable. I just don’t feel like jumping up and down or balancing till they fall off, he told himself.

  “We sure gave the Sarge’s baby a swell send-off,” Jacob Levy said.

  “Sure did,” Bert Hammer answered and took a deep breath that was almost a snore.

  Jacob Levy burrowed his face into his pillow. Pretty, soft, little pillow, he thought, pretty, soft, little Kathe. When me and Kathe get a baby we’ll invite Marv Busch to eat some glass for it.

  8

  I got too much on my mind, Jacob Levy thought. He was leaning against the side of a farmhouse, out of the wind, letting the sun warm his face. The farmhouse was made of knubbly white concrete, covering the old stones. It had a red tile roof and was built according to no design, but had grown as the farmer’s fortunes allowed. This was G Company Headquarters, a mile down the road from Weilerburg. A window opened and someone threw out an empty khaki tin can. Cheese from the C ration, Jacob Levy noted: it made the place messy, they oughtn’t to throw cans around a nice farm. He had heard Lieutenant Colonel Smithers’ voice, briefly, through the window. “You got to put a stop to that, Paul.” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers sounded angry; he would be chewing Captain Paul Willcox of G Company.

  That’s my trouble, Jacob Levy decided, I got too much to think about. They were working hard now and he did not like it. They could have transport, weapons, and personnel inspection every day of the week if it made them feel good. He would drive the Colonel back and forth from the Companies to Regimental Headquarters and all over this pint-sized country, fourteen hours every day, and not mind it. But Jacob Levy watched this faster and faster movement of the Battalion, watched the new men being trained until they were expert, the weapons repaired or replaced, the supplies piling up, the whole machine tightened and readied, and he knew what it meant. The army wasn’t running any free winter vacations: the outfit got in shape and then they used you.