Point of No Return

by Gellhorn, Martha;

  I’m going to get her a bathrobe and a blouse and a silk slip and some stockings and a handbag, Jacob Levy planned. But how much money did he have himself, when you got right down to it? He stopped the jeep and took out his wallet: the wad of francs added up to thirty-eight dollars. That wasn’t too much when you wanted to buy everything for a girl. Usually thirty-eight dollars would seem a good-sized roll.

  Kathe was sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, darning table cloths. The café and the restaurant were empty, except for Madame Steller behind the coffee urn, adding up figures in a ledger. Kathe’s just a young kid, Jacob Levy thought, only a kid could look so serious about doing a little job. His tenderness surprised him; it was new; he had never expected to feel this way nor known such a way of feeling existed; and it was sad too, something like being sad anyhow; you could feel like this if you heard a certain kind of soft music or if you were visiting someone you liked who was sick. Then too, because of what the sight of Kathe did to him, he had become the old one, the sure one, the man. He had to be, for he stood between her and a hard world which she did not even know about and from which he was bound to protect her.

  I want to give her everything, Jacob Levy thought, I don’t want her to go short of anything. She’s been looking after herself long enough.

  Kathe raised her head and was amazed to see Jawn here, in the middle of the afternoon. She bunched the table cloth and could not move for joy. Sun, slanting in through the clean plate glass windows, made the brownness of his skin golden, and lit up his dark eyes. He looked even more beautiful in the daylight, happier, easier. What sort of life would it be, Kathe thought, when you could see the one you loved all the time, any time, for as many hours as you could keep your eyes open.

  “Promenade?” Jacob Levy asked. This was a word from Sergeant Postalozzi’s dictionary.

  Madame Steller managed the situation, because Kathe seemed content to sit where she was and stare and smile. Madame Steller told Kathe to take the afternoon off, she need not return until six-thirty, hurry child, it’s a lovely day. Madame Steller was glad that she and her husband were old and childless: war could only ruin their lives, it could not break their hearts. Kathe’s young man would leave, one day soon; war seemed a rush and a disappearing for the young men. Let Kathe be happy.

  “Come on, Kathe,” Jacob Levy said, “we got a lot to do.”

  He had noticed a shop, near the car park, with women’s clothes in the window. They did not look like the goods at Famous-Barr or any first class American store but probably the girls here hadn’t much to compare with so they’d be satisfied. Kathe was puzzled when Jacob Levy opened the door of the Jardin des Femmes. He led her in because she did not seem to want to pass that etched glass panel.

  “Do you speak English?” Jacob Levy asked a solid bosomed saleslady.

  “Un moment, Monsieur.”

  The lady with the steely marcelle and the competent smile spoke English as if she were cracking a whip. The solid bosomed saleslady was nicer, but language-bound.

  “I want to buy a bathrobe for my fiancée,” Jacob Levy told the marcelled interpreter.

  “Perfectly. What color, sir?”

  “Light blue.”

  There was a quick earnest conversation between the interpreter and the saleslady.

  “Follow please,” the interpreter said.

  Across the shop a glass case held raincoats, overcoats, suits and bathrobes.

  “This will look very beautiful,” the interpreter stated, as an order.

  “Do you like it, Kathe?”

  “Monsieur demande si ce peignoir vous plaît, Mademoiselle,” the interpreter explained. She was holding a blue quilted rayon dressing gown, whose collar and cuffs were trimmed with pink rosebuds.

  “Non, merci,” Kathe said. She would not allow this woman to tell her what Jawn said; she and Jawn had always understood each other without the help of a meddling stranger.

  Another dressing gown was taken from the glass case. It was practical and modest, made of thick blue flannel and tied at the waist with a silk cord sash.

  “Et ceci, Mademoiselle?” the interpreter asked. “Do you appreciate this one, sir?”

  “Whatever you want, Kathe.”

  “Monsieur dit qu c’est à Mademoiselle de décider,” the interpreter said.

  Kathe flushed with anger. She could not enjoy this excitement of going into a shop with Jawn, and him buying her a lovely present; she could not talk it over and take her time because of this hateful woman who pretended to understand English.

  “Try it on, honey,” Jacob Levy urged. He took the bathrobe from the saleslady and Kathe started to put it on over her coat, was corrected by the interpreter, blushed, and finally was tied into it. She looked like a fuzzy blue cocoon and Jacob Levy laughed at her.

  “You take it, Kathe. It’ll be warm for you at night. You look pretty in it.”

  “Tu l’aimes, Jawn?” Kathe turned in front of the mirror. It would be very expensive. Perhaps Jawn did not know how expensive everything was in Luxembourg. And she could not understand why he was giving her a present. Was it a day when people gave each other presents in America, like Christmas or Easter? It was kind and sweet of him but she did not want him to spend all his money on her. What would the salesladies think, seeing her accept a bathrobe from a man?

  “How much is it?” Jacob Levy asked.

  There were more consultations and Jacob Levy did division and multiplication in his head. That would come to $15. It was cheap to dress a girl. Kathe, seeing the bills he held out, looked troubled; but she could not discuss their personal business before the overhearing woman.

  “Now we’d like to see a blouse, a silk petticoat, some stockings and a handbag,” Jacob Levy said. He wanted to say something more about his fiancée. He had never used this word but it was a fine one. When they were back in St. Louis, he would go with Kathe to Famous-Barr when she did her shopping. It made him feel like a big shot to give the saleslady orders and see everybody running around to bring Kathe what she wanted.

  “My fiancée would like to see a blue blouse,” Jacob Levy remarked suddenly. When it was time for the stockings, he could say, “my fiancée has very small feet.”

  At a glass counter the saleslady displayed blouses. They seemed hideous to Jacob Levy but Kathe touched them with admiration. She could not believe there were so many different styles. She thought a pink one, with buttons like real pearls, was the loveliest thing she had ever seen. But I have no skirt to wear with a blouse, she remembered. Perhaps I could buy one later. It would take three months or more to save enough, and I must have it now to wear for Jawn. She did accounts: 100 francs for her rent every week and 2 francs fifty for morning coffee and 35 francs to Maman in Müllerhof. That only left 17 francs fifty for the extras such as soap and money in the church box on Sundays and savings. She kept her tips but they did not amount to much. A skirt would cost at least 300 francs and probably 400.

  “Merci, je n’ai pas besoin d’une blouse,” Kathe said.

  “Mademoiselle does not desire the blouse,” the interpreter announced.

  “Je ne porte pas de tailleurs,” Kathe added. “Seulement des robes. Les tailleurs ne me vont pas.”

  “Mademoiselle says she does not wear suits. Only dresses. She says suits do not become her.”

  It didn’t seem right of Kathe not to want his presents. And he wouldn’t have enough money for a dress. Instead of feeling like a big shot, he felt like a tightwad; but he couldn’t ask to look at dresses and then have Kathe choose one and not be able to pay for it.

  Since Jacob Levy knew nothing about his face, he also did not know how it changed. He felt, at the moment, worried and somehow cheated and his face took on an expression of grave and noble sorrow.

  Kathe always watched this face and misjudged it and responded to the emotions Jacob Levy showed but did not feel. She was, she decided, a heartless fool; it was Jawn’s joy to buy her presents; she should take what he offe
red gladly; and she had caused Jawn pain. But how could she now declare that after all she wanted a blouse more than anything in life? It was the fault of that conceited shop woman, and somehow they must leave this place.

  “Quelle heure est-il, s’il vous plaît?” Kathe asked the interpreter.

  “Ah, trois heures un quart,” Kathe repeated with mock anxiety. “Il faut absolument que je rentre. Veuillez faire un paquet du peignoir, je vous en prie.”

  “Mademoiselle says,” the interpreter began.

  “Monsieur est au courant,” Kathe interrupted.

  The interpreter went to get the package of the bathrobe. That little provincial slut was angry about something; impossible to understand the minds of such people. Now she would take the soldier to another shop until he had spent all his money. It was infuriating to lose the business. That girl—his “fiancée,” these soldiers were fantastic—probably had arranged with some other shop to receive a percentage on the customers she brought in.

  “Kathe, what’s the matter?”

  “Ssh, Jawn!”

  Kathe took the package and pulled Jacob Levy from the shop. She went on pulling him until they reached the corner where he planted his feet and looked forbidding. He was not going to be dragged through the streets like a dumb animal. This had started out to be his party; why did Kathe have to bust it up this way?

  “Je connais des magasins bien meilleur marché, Jawn.”

  “I want to buy you some more clothes.” He showed Kathe his grimy roll of banknotes.

  “Oui, mon amour. Viens un peu. Je te montrerai un magasin merveilleux.”

  There was nothing to do but follow Kathe, and when Jacob Levy saw the other shop, La Femme Elégante, he understood that Kathe had her own preferences. His mother always said she wouldn’t trade at Nugent’s for anything.

  It wasn’t so much fun for him because he couldn’t give any orders, as there was no interpreter; but it seemed to be more fun for Kathe. Jacob Levy removed himself from the clatter of women’s voices discussing color, quality and prices and thought about being a man who took care of a woman. He understood why his father didn’t go shopping with his mother; you could see that the kick would wear off pretty fast, and you felt in the way too. But it was a good feeling to pay; it made you own something; it was much more important than buying a girl drinks and dinner and taking her to a show or dancing.

  Already Jacob Levy foresaw a lifetime of Kathe coming home with her purchases. He recognized his future self being indulgent, happy to know that he provided. Kathe, buying clothes with his money for the first time, became a familiar Kathe who had been spending his money during the long contented connubial years.

  He had a daytime life now, as well as the life after dark. He had the security of being depended on, the protection of being needed. He had responsibilities for he was the head of a family, the man who paid. He had been happily married for as long as he could look ahead. This war delayed his plans but if you were living safely in the future the war couldn’t upset you. You didn’t have to worry, you only had to wait.

  Kathe hoped she was doing the right thing in accepting all these luxuries which she had never coveted. She hoped Jawn was happy. But they had spent more money than she earned in a month and to let Jawn ruin himself further would surely be wicked. They divided the packages and Jacob Levy carried the bathrobe and the box with the imitation black leather handbag. There is some natural law which makes it impossible for men to carry women’s parcels without a sense of disgraceful encumberment. Soldiers, lounging by, their hands in their pockets, looked at Jacob Levy with good-natured contempt. Jacob Levy envied the other men with their arms free. He felt stupid now; Kathe should have told those store people to deliver the things. He was relieved when they got on the side streets and definitely eased when he could get rid of his burden at Kathe’s front door.

  It was five o’clock and time to think of Weilerburg and the Colonel.

  “Goodbye, honey.” Kathe was just visible above the layers of packages.

  “Je te remercie des beaux cadeaux, Jawn. Tu es vraiment gentil pour moi.”

  He could not hug a lot of boxes so he kissed her on the forehead.

  “Take care of yourself, Kathe.”

  “Je t’aime, Jawn.”

  “Oui, oui,” he said gaily and crossed the street. He was in a hurry so he did not look back though Kathe waited.

  That was a nice afternoon, Jacob Levy thought, a nice homey afternoon. And he had $4.00 left which was enough for cigarettes and shaving cream and candy bars until next payday.

  Kathe spread her gifts on the white iron bed: the blue bathrobe, a pink artificial satin slip trimmed with machine lace, two pairs of mustard colored rayon stockings, a red coat sweater, a shiny oilcloth-leather bag with a gilt fastener. They were all handsome and stylish and Jawn was generosity itself. But the first afternoon they had ever shared lay wasted in the shops, the very first afternoon, and she had nothing of Jawn to remember.

  14

  Lieutenant Gaylord said, “That was certainly lousy chow tonight. I don’t know what’s the matter with Lommax. He oughtn’t to dish us up garbage like that.”

  “I didn’t think it was so bad,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.

  Lieutenant Gaylord walked to the window and opened a chink in the black-out curtain.

  Across the cobbled street were the same little square concrete houses, with their dull faces and their long badly proportioned windows. Behind them were the same flat, frozen fields. The sky was simply black. You could not even take an interest in the sky.

  “Don’t you ever get sick of this place, Johnny?”

  “This is a hell of a nice place. We got a fine house, we can go to town, the Battalion’s shaping up good. What do you want?”

  “Nothing, I guess.” Lieutenant Gaylord took his usual chair by the stove and picked up a book that was lying face down on the arm. This was a story about a rich old mad-woman in Carmel and her neurotic daughters and a murder they were involved in, though guiltlessly, due to gambling debts. The detective was very tough and epigrammatic and had a yen for one or both of the daughters.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said, from behind the Stars and Stripes, “Why doesn’t this Division ever get any publicity? You always read about the gallant First or the heroic Eighty Second or God knows what. Now here’s a lot about the Third Armored. What’s the matter with us? Haven’t we got glamor?”

  “The old man’s got no time for the correspondents.”

  “They can by-pass the old man. I’d like to see some of my men get a write-up once in a while.”

  “Don’t you ever think about anything except the Battalion?”

  “What’s wrong, Bill?”

  “I’m disgusted,” Lieutenant Gaylord said. He started to rip the flashy cardboard cover from his book and stopped and looked sheepish. “I’m sick of sitting still. We sit on our asses and the goddam war will last forever.”

  “Take it easy, Bill.”

  “I haven’t got all this time to waste!”

  “Hey!” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said. “Take a drink.”

  So now Bill was getting the meemies. He could feel it himself; it was a beating of the heart for no reason, brief pointless angers, a quick knot in the stomach, a short headache over one eye. This was the way it was. There was combat and the first doped pleasure of rest; then some fun, anything you could get and as much of it as possible; then a kind of stale tiredness that you didn’t understand and couldn’t explain; and then this restlessness, this fretful waiting for something you hated and hated to wait for.

  “Have a drink and remember to tell me what a dump Weilerburg was, the next time we’re in the line,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.

  “You’re a sensible guy, aren’t you, Johnny?”

  “I’m a good sensible old man.”

  “Shall I fix you a drink?”

  “Sure. Let’s polish off the bottle and go to bed.”

  At two in the m
orning Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was wakened by a dispatch rider from Regiment. At seven o’clock in the morning dark, the men of the Second Battalion lined up along the junction of the Weilerburg-Frisange road, waiting for the trucks. They were cold and depressed. At noon, the trucks arrived. The soldiers climbed into them and the trucks headed north.

  One thing about the army, Jacob Levy thought, you can’t ever count on it. You get all set for something but no! that’s not what they have in mind. This last deal beat everything.

  The replacements had heard about the forest; the veterans could not forget it; the trucks had seemed like hearses rolling slowly through the pleasant country. Everyone was prepared to huddle in the cold and freeze their way north. Everyone was set for a ride that would shake your guts out and freeze your face off, and after that some more forest. The old hands tried to keep their minds empty and make their bodies as easy as possible. They had started to take the long breath that must last them until this next misery was over.

  And after all that, they drove not more than twenty miles to the northeast of Luxembourg City. The men offloaded; the sun shone brightly down; they dispersed in the fields and small woods that lined the road, lit fires, ate C rations, swapped rumors and slept. The guns, working over the front two miles away, sounded like lazy range practice. At dusk, the 20th Division proceeded to relieve the 108th Division which looked uncommonly cheerful for an outfit coming out of the line.

  By 2030 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was standing in a small dirty room, like countless rooms before it, listening to Captain Huebsch announce over the field telephone that F Company was in position: the Battalion transfer had been completed.

  “You’ve got the sector,” said Lieutenant Colonel Warren of the departing Battalion. “Have a nice time.”

  In a state of grateful disbelief, the Battalion settled down to a quiet night. They seemed to be holding a lot of land but that meant more farmhouse cellars for shelter. The previous occupants had done a thorough job of digging in, leaving behind them deep machine gun emplacements and fox-holes and communications dugouts. Though it was as cold as you could wish, charred remains of small fires in all these showed that it was safe enough here to make yourself comfortable.