Point of No Return

by Gellhorn, Martha;

“If you got some, Joe, I could use a cup.”

  The coffee, hot, oversweetened with condensed milk, tasted like water. Jacob Levy did not feel it as he drank it.

  “I got the gloomy notion we’ll be moving soon,” Joe Henckel said.

  “Yeh, I guess we had about all the rest that’s coming to us.”

  “I wish we’d move home,” Joe Henckel sighed.

  “For Christmas,” Jacob Levy suggested.

  “For any old time,” Joe Henckel said. Then he went wherever he went, in his mind, and Jacob Levy said to Kathe:

  I had to talk to you about Jews and being a Jew, Kathe, because of that lie I told you and I hope you’ll forgive me. I never would of lied to you if I could talk to you and explain things. But not being able to, I was afraid you’d get wrong ideas. You see, Kathe, it’s different about being Jews and Catholics. I was born a Jew but I’m not religious. I’ve never even been inside a synagogue. My folks aren’t religious either. I don’t know if I believe in God, as far as that goes. There seems to be a big choice in what God you want to believe in anyhow, and I’m in no hurry. Men get religion over here that could take it or leave it before, but I don’t kid myself that God is going to show any interest in what happens to Jacob Levy or the Second Battalion. I sometimes see guys praying and I think they’ve got a nerve expecting all that special attention.

  But if you’re born a Catholic, you’re religious too. You can’t help it, that’s the way it is with Catholics. I don’t care if you’re a Catholic; I mean it’s fine for you to be a Catholic and I’d never get in your way. I’ll be a Catholic myself if the Catholics haven’t got any rules against it, and if you’d like that. Religion don’t make any difference to me one way or the other, I just don’t want you to worry. So you see that’s why I told you the lie about my name but you could ask a priest if they had any rules against Jews and if not, we’d fix it up in a church somewhere and I’d be a Catholic and then everything would be okay. You don’t need to think you couldn’t see any Catholics in America because it’s not like that. Maybe Jews can’t get into fraternities but you could see all the Catholics you wanted to. At highschool, a boy that was one of my best friends was a boy named Mike Murphy and he was a Catholic. There’s nothing against it at all, honestly there isn’t.…

  A sergeant came into the kitchen. “Colonel Smithers’ driver?” he said.

  Jacob Levy did not hear. Kathe was telling him she would arrange it about her religion and not to worry.

  “Wake up, Levy,” Joe Henckel said.

  “What?”

  “Are you Colonel Smithers’ driver?” the sergeant asked. He thought it was a good thing they didn’t have mush-brains like this guy in the Third Battalion.

  “Yeh.”

  “Well get a move on, pal. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the coffee, Joe.”

  Jacob Levy walked slowly around the farmhouse in the rain. He was wondering if Sergeant Postalozzi might be a Catholic so he could ask the Sarge if just anybody could apply for transfer to their church.

  “You sure keep a nice fire in here,” Jacob Levy said.

  “Make yourself at home,” Sergeant Follingsby said.

  Jacob Levy tipped his chair back against the wall and closed his eyes. This room became Kathe’s bedroom, only warmer than it was in life, and there was a big sofa and they were sitting on it, and he had his arm around her. They understood each other now, and were at peace together. He had been wanting for a long time to tell her about their shack, but he had to get the rest cleared up first.

  We’d be living in our shack, Kathe, and we wouldn’t see many people. We’d be more like my old man and Momma, Kathe, just the two of us. I know you’ll like our shack, not that I’ve exactly got it yet, but I’m sure to have. And you’ll love that little stream. It’s the cleanest prettiest water you ever saw and it makes a noise like wind, even when there isn’t any wind. The trees are beautiful too. I can’t describe it, you’d have to see it for yourself. It’s better than anything I’ve seen in Europe and I’ve been to Italy and England and France and Belgium. When you had to buy things or you wanted to go to the movies or eat in a restaurant maybe, we could get to one of those little towns they got down there. We may not have a car but there’s bus service everywhere in America, and those little towns are very up to date, they’ve got just about everything you’d want in them.

  The shack’s got two rooms, a big room for a parlor and dining room combined, and a bedroom. We’ll have a dinette to eat off of, and there’ll be everything you need in the kitchen. I don’t know about electricity but I’m going to look into that. It would be nice for you to have an electric washing machine and an electric stove and maybe a dish washer, wouldn’t it? I got to figure all that out, and the bathroom too; because, before, I was going to live there alone and of course a man don’t need so much. I planned to burn wood in the stove and rig up some kind of old bucket contraption for a shower but I guess that wouldn’t be convenient for a girl. I’ll fix it up good, Kathe, you can depend on that. I wouldn’t expect you to come all the way to America and not have everything nice for you.

  And then we’ll just live there, see, Kathe. You won’t get sick of it. There’s plenty to do in the woods, and we ought to make a vegetable garden. And we won’t have anybody to bother us, or look at us, or get in our way. We’ll have our life.…

  “Jake, are you feeling allright?” Sergeant Postalozzi asked.

  Jacob Levy tipped his chair forward from the wall and said, “Sure Sarge.” He was puzzled for a moment as to who the sergeant was, or what this room was. He had been very far away from the Battalion message center, and Sergeant Follingsby and two runners and a code clerk playing poker, and Bert Hammer whittling a boat for his sister’s kid, and the Supply Sergeant practising on a new mouth organ.

  “You look kind of worried. Had some bad news from home?”

  “No, Sarge, same as usual. You know: hope you’ll be home for Christmas. How’s Agnes?”

  “Agnes is fine. Only she’s scared about showing the baby.” Sergeant Postalozzi counted on his fingers. “I don’t know—three months maybe. Got any idea when a woman starts to show, Jake?”

  “No I haven’t, Sarge.”

  Sergeant Postalozzi was obeying orders. A few moments before, in the front room, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers had said to him, “What’s eating Levy, Sergeant? You noticed him lately? Did he get some bad news from home?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, see if you can straighten him out. I want everybody in the Battalion in good shape, when we get ready to move.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

  When Sergeant Postalozzi had gone, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said, “I’m lucky to have a steady man like Postalozzi.”

  “He’s allright,” said Lieutenant Gaylord who was reading a magnificent book about nymphomaniacs, dope peddlers and gunmen in Key West.

  The staff had separated after supper, as was their custom. The two Captains had found girls in the village and spent their evenings visiting in parlors much like this one and waiting for the parents of the girls to go to bed. The other officers were going to lust over Betty Grable in a movie at Regiment. Major Hardcastle, always diligent, was upstairs studying a book on business management. It was a waste not to be in Luxembourg, but if Colonel O’Neal would call meetings of Battalion commanders for 2030 hours, that settled it. Bill was duty officer; he said he needed a rest; it was a good thing he had to stay home some nights.

  “You know something, Bill? You know Dotty?”

  “Naturally I know Dotty.”

  “I don’t get it. I’m not crazy about her and she’s not crazy about me, but I like her.”

  “Sounds okay to me.”

  “No, but I mean you’re either crazy about them or you’re out to get what you can, but you don’t expect to like them.”

  “You’re lucky you don’t have to listen to that awful office gossip. I’m so sick of
Lucille’s Colonel and all the rest, I don’t get any enjoyment out of it.”

  “What you need is a little combat to warm you up.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Lieutenant Gaylord said. “Nothing’s that bad. Ever been to Key West, Johnny?”

  “No.”

  “It must be a hell of a rough place. Boy, the way the people carry on there scares me.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers returned to the letter he was writing. Painfully, carefully, he explained to his father the intricacies of selling a chicken farm. But he felt it was too late. The old man would be well and truly robbed by now.

  12

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was singing. Since they had just left G Company Headquarters, from which he usually emerged in a frowning temper, this was a remarkable change. Lieutenant Colonel Smithers did not know all the words of the song. He knew, “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day,” and after that he hummed. Jacob Levy wanted to open his mouth and shout the song too, but drivers did not sing with colonels. The sun burned in a moonstone sky; frost covered the fields with spiky glass; the farmhouse roofs were red as holly berries; the pine trees were green as pine trees; the road was an old companion whose failings could be overlooked; and somehow all must go well in this weather.

  “Captain Willcox is a fine officer,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers remarked.

  “Yes sir. The men think a lot of him.”

  “Couldn’t find better.” Paul had lost that half peevish, half hang-dog look, and gone back to work. I’ve got the best Battalion in the whole damn army, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought.

  “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!”

  Such pleasure was catching. Jacob Levy forgot time. The hours were not counted as they passed, lived with regret, and bitterly lost. We’re not going anywhere, he said to himself. It was against nature to fight in perfect weather and, by some accurate dispensation, nobody ever did. You only had to start to fight for the weather to go to hell in a basket, in his experience.

  “I’ll be leaving early tonight, Levy. I want to get to the Officers’ Club in time for supper.”

  “Yes sir.” And I want to get to Kathe’s restaurant. I am going back as if nothing had happened; that is what I am going to do and I was a dope not to start sooner.

  “By God, what a day!” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.

  Without making a sound, Jacob Levy sang, “I love you, I love you, I love you: You are the girl of my dreams.”

  Jacob Levy walked back and forth on the pavement across from the Café-Restaurant de l’Etoile. There was, after all, great risk in entering that door. For perhaps Kathe would look at him with anger, even hate; perhaps she would look at him as though she had never seen him before. And then he would be truly alone and the long silent conversation, which had kept him company, must end.

  St. Louis was so far away that Jacob Levy could no longer believe in it; maybe it was there, as he remembered, but it had nothing to do with his life. His parents were faultless and beloved and dim, remembered as the dead are. The only personal connection Jacob Levy had with himself was carrying trays behind that plate glass window. Kathe had replaced his calendar, his despair and his resignation, and he could not imagine himself without a reason for getting up in the morning, and a hope that was clothed in a body and called by a name. I need her, Jacob Levy thought, I don’t care about the bed part, I’ll do what she wants. He had talked to Kathe more than to anyone else in his life, at last he had explained himself and everything he thought, and he was safe with her. We’re close now, he told himself, we couldn’t get on by ourselves anymore.

  Jacob Levy opened the restaurant door. He did not know that his face looked pale and stern. Kathe, who had watched that door every day and turned grieving from the unwanted faces, stared at Jacob Levy across the heads of the usual evening diners. She held a full tray in her hands and she did not move while tears swelled in her eyes, gathered at the corners and rolled down her cheeks alongside her nose. She turned and pushed through the swing door to the kitchen. Jacob Levy found her in the passage leading to the pantry. He took her in his arms and Kathe leaned against him, still crying. Neither of them spoke.

  Look at the time we’ve wasted, Jacob Levy thought. Three whole days and two whole nights. You might never have so much time, twice. It’s a crime; it’s a shame. Years from now, by their stream, they would remember how crazy they had been in 1944 in December; but it would not happen again.

  Kathe’s head, which was burrowing somewhere near Jacob Levy’s breast pocket, moved and she pushed him away and stood back. Her nose was pink, she was sniffling, the tears had smudged against his not too clean overcoat, she was everything he loved in the world, and he felt like eating a whopper of a big dinner with a bottle of wine. Jacob Levy lifted Kathe until her face was level with his, and kissed the tip of her nose. He put her down, slapped her bottom lovingly, and went into the restaurant.

  “Oh Kathe!” he said, seeing the plate Kathe brought him. It towered with food; he would have to eat his way through to the wiener-schnitzel underneath. What a wife he’d found himself; you wouldn’t believe anyone could have luck like that in this war. Kathe was something like Momma who knew how to look after men and steadfastly, optimistically, fed them as a solution to all problems.

  At the door of 14 rue de la Boucherie, Jacob Levy stopped and said, “I’ll leave you here, honey.” Kathe waited as she always did when he spoke to her in English. Jawn would now explain in signs what he meant. Jacob Levy stooped down and kissed her. It was a tender but careful kiss. Then he waved and started to walk towards the car park by the river. Kathe ran after him.

  “Non, Jawn, non. Viens avec moi. Je veux que tu montes. Je suis sûre que tout sera bien maintenant.”

  The words meant nothing. Kathe held his hand and began to pull him towards the house. She looked very little and determined. It’s up to her, Jacob Levy thought, and took satisfaction in what now seemed an old habit, a family custom, which was to walk like a ghost down the Hefferichs’ hall.

  Kathe could not invent two different acts of daring and welcome, so she repeated what she had done on their last night. Jacob Levy was uncertain. It would be terrible to begin another misunderstanding and lose her again. Kathe insisted, with her arms around his neck.

  Later Jacob Levy whispered, “Kathe, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the best wife in the world.”

  “Mon amour,” Kathe sighed, in contentment. All you need in life is courage, she told herself. The first part had been as she remembered it; that was when their bodies touched, like cream. The second part had not been painful, only uncomfortable, and it did not matter. The second part pleased Jawn. Kathe felt that she was finally a woman; she had experienced the great sorrows and the great joys that belonged to women, and having triumphed through all trials there was nothing further to do but settle down to happiness. As she could not reach Jawn’s mouth without wriggling her way up the bed, and as she was warm and well installed and sleepy, she kissed his shoulder.

  13

  By now he knew this road as if he had been born here, and he loved it. He knew the curved bridge and the grey stone wall and the roadside shrine and the square hill behind Bettembourg and the house called Belvedere with the colored glass porch roof and the water tower and the farm of the Nelles-Spaatz family with the chickens scratching and fluttering around it. He passed them all with a sense of possession and permanence, and this belonging somewhere was part of his happiness. Jacob Levy waved, with friendly pleasure, at a jeep going in the opposite direction. He overtook two red-cheeked girls, whose bright wool kerchiefs blew like flags in the December wind, and he thought how nice they looked, pulling their cart of firewood, and he was glad to have them on his road. He waved and smiled at them too. Down here a ways that kid would probably show up, driving his cows home to the barn back of the second clump of pine trees. He was going to give that kid all his chewing gum before they left. It was a fine thing to
live someplace. He’d lived here for nine and a half days now. You could really establish yourself in nine and a half days.

  My Colonel is a prince, Jacob Levy decided. Lieutenant Colonel Smithers had said, “I fixed up a little deal with Major Havemeyer, Levy. He’s getting some bottles for me. I want you to pick them up at his apartment. I won’t need you here before six.”

  I’m going to see my Kathe in the daytime, Jacob Levy thought. He did not know what Kathe looked like, by day. And there were fifty things they could do in the afternoon. Well, anyhow, they could walk around and look at the store windows. Look at the windows? Go in the stores and buy her presents.

  For the first time, Jacob Levy realized that Kathe was poor. He had not considered this before. Those trays must be heavy for her, and she was on her feet all day and what she had to go home to was that icebox of a room and no running water. Kathe always wore the same black dress and coat, the same shoes; because she didn’t have any others, of course, because she couldn’t go out and buy herself little things she might want or need.

  That’s no good, Jacob Levy thought. Momma would open the newspapers and see something advertised (that was why she read the papers) and she’d say to his father, “Jacob, do you think I’d look nice in this?” and his father would say, “Now Elsie, you know you’re going to buy it anyhow.” She was always coming home with hats or blouses or house dresses or shoes or electric egg beaters or lamp shades or sofa cushions or dresser sets or bath salts or soap made to look like flowers. That was women’s fun, going to Famous-Barr or the Grand Leader and walking around in the afternoon and picking up some knick knack they liked and talking to each other about it on the telephone and showing it to their husbands.

  In his life Jacob Levy had never worked for money. You couldn’t count helping out around your own father’s store as working for money. And you certainly couldn’t count the army. A person wouldn’t go into the army to earn his living; there wasn’t enough money in the world to pay them for combat. No one would sweat through twenty-seven days in that forest for a salary. The army gave you spending money, was what it amounted to. But Kathe had to live; she couldn’t throw her wages away on foolishness.