Point of No Return

by Gellhorn, Martha;

  “All clear?” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers asked.

  “We’re certainly going the long way round.” Behind his glasses, Major Hardcastle’s eyes were sick with fatigue. The skin around his eyes was white and soft and pleated in tiny lines. He managed still to look neater than any of them but he was shrunken with weariness, as people shrink with age.

  “Then you’ll meet us at Rouvier?” he said.

  The Division convoy was circling wide to the west, to avoid the crowded roads that fed the front. Then the convoy would curve back into France and head south. The Division was being attached to another Army. Major Hardcastle hoped this meant a rest but he doubted it. He did not think the 20th Division was a highly favored outfit; maybe the General wasn’t a good politician or had no powerful friends. The 20th seemed only to get the dirty unglorious jobs. Now the Rhine was the big job, and Berlin was the big goal. Whoever got to Berlin first would be somebody. So they were shifted south, where there was no glory at all but only mountains and lots of fresh krauts.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers looked at his watch. It was 1330 hours.

  “I’ll be at Rouvier at 0500 hours tomorrow,” he said, “waiting for you with the Rouvier band. You better get going.”

  “Have a good time, Colonel.” Even in a dirty jeep, with a bullet hole through the windshield, Major Hardcastle looked as if he were sitting at a bookkeeper’s desk. His back had that pinched, rigid look; he always seemed to be wearing a green eye shade though in fact he always wore a steel helmet and his thin neck bowed beneath its weight. He was a very good officer, unappealing, unimaginative, and reliable.

  “Good luck, Hardcastle,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said and slapped the bookkeeper’s back. Then Major Hardcastle’s jeep was moving on the outside of the line of trucks, like a sheepdog herding the flock, and Lieutenant Colonel Smithers turned and said, “Let’s get started, Levy.”

  Jacob Levy had felt guilty, telling Bert Hammer goodbye. Bert Hammer leaned out the back of one of the Headquarters Company trucks and said, “Enjoy yourself, Jake.”

  “I wish you could come, Bert.”

  “A dog robber like me? What call have I got to see the world?”

  “I’ll pick you up a bottle of cognac.”

  Since, to Jacob Levy, this trip to Luxembourg City was a six hour pass to paradise, he imagined Bert’s sorrow to be intolerable. Paradise was right there, down the straight highway through Belgium, and the whole unlucky Battalion would circle it, cheated, going to no city at all but only from one brown village to another, without stopping.

  “Next war I’m going to be a General’s driver,” Bert Hammer announced.

  Jacob Levy stood in the rain and looked at his friend and, unknowing, his face mourned. This distressed Bert Hammer who now felt guilty in turn.

  “I don’t mean it, Jake,” he said. “I don’t grudge you.”

  But Bert Hammer was forgotten, the tired deprived Battalion was forgotten. Jacob Levy watched the road, easing the jeep around holes, almost raising it over ruts, weaving fast and light through the traffic. He thought of nothing save the need for haste. The brown country, which to all the soldiers was so uninteresting that it became invisible, rolled past. He drove, counting the kilometres that remained between him and Kathe. They had a total of seventeen and one half hours, which belonged to them personally. The better he drove, the more he would have of Kathe.

  The jeep was wedged between a tank carrier and a truck loaded with jerrycans of gasoline, while on the left a convoy of troops proceeded towards the front. Jacob Levy used this forced delay to light a cigarette and did not realize that his hands were shaking. I’ll get her a ring this time, he thought. Joy steadied him as rest would have done. He saw the ring and the marriage and the gentle future all together, as one. In a few hours he would find Kathe and she would see it as he did. I got to keep my mind on driving, he told himself, and pulled the jeep from behind the overhanging cliff of damaged tanks on the carrier, swung it out and through the froth of mud on the road, and ahead as fast as he dared.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers looked at his watch. If Levy kept on driving like this, they would make Luxembourg City by six o’clock. He ought to clean up before he went to Dotty’s club; he could feel the dirt on him like an extra, evil skin. He felt it even on his teeth, on his scalp, under his fingernails. He could smell his itching clothes. But he could not bear to waste time; Dotty would forgive him, knowing no one would choose to look this way. He could pick her up and bring her back to Major Havemeyer’s apartment and she could sit in the bedroom with a drink and he’d leave the bathroom door open a crack so he could talk to her while he washed. Otherwise he’d lose about forty-five minutes and he felt he would not be able to get everything said, even if Levy held this speed and he had a full seven hours with her.

  They would go to bed later and that would be what he’d dreamed of; holding her and feeling again the softness of her skin. But first, he needed to talk. Dotty had known Bill and he could tell her of the fine life, magically brightened in memory, they once had together. He couldn’t remember it by himself, unshared, any more. Dotty would understand: you couldn’t just lose your friend in the accident of death, and bury him in silence and forget about it; you had to have company in this lousy war. Dotty would like to hear all about Bill; after Bill, he was closer to her than to anyone.

  “Christ, it’s cold,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.

  “We’ll be there in a half hour, sir.”

  They had not eaten since dawn; they were shivering, wet, exhausted; the skin of their faces stretched over their bones; their eyes seemed fallen deep into the sockets; and they were fortunate and full of hope for they were going towards women who waited for them and would greet them with tenderness. It was all any man could ask for, it was what everyone wanted. They would not speak of their sorrow and weariness and disgust; the women would not know what happenings of what hours had so marked their faces. They went towards their women as towards water in the desert.

  “Here we are, sir,” Jacob Levy said. His voice broke with excitement. Coming in from the open country, the streets in the outskirts of Luxembourg seemed narrow slits between the towering houses. After the ruins of villages, like sores all along the road, this standing city had the rare beauty of permanence.

  “Where to, sir?”

  “We’ll go to the Red Cross Club,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said. He could feel his heart beating. He wanted to jump out of the jeep, slowed now in the city traffic, and run ahead. “I’ll go in for a minute and get Miss Brock. I won’t keep you, Levy. I know you’d like to get started yourself.”

  Jacob Levy had barely stopped the jeep on the drive leading to the Red Cross Club before Lieutenant Colonel Smithers was out and walking with steps that were almost running, up to the glass and iron porte cochere. Jacob Levy searched until he found a wadded filthy handkerchief in his trouser pocket, and licked a corner of it and tried to scrub his face. This wouldn’t do much good but he would like to be as clean as possible for Kathe. It was still raining. You got used to rain. You probably wouldn’t know how to act if the sun came out.

  The hall and the big room of the club were full of soldiers. They stood around the bulletin board and the ping-pong tables and the billiard table; they lined the cafeteria counter; in another room a juke box played loud familiar homesick music. It was very bright in the club and steaming hot and all the men looked extraordinarily clean and sleek to Lieutenant Colonel Smithers. He turned from the hall, meaning to go and ask for Dotty in the office. He felt self-conscious about the stubble on his chin and the mud on his clothes; the signs of where he had come from seemed like a boast or a reproach to these dolled-up warriors. A Red Cross girl came through the crowd in the hall and noticed at once the silver oak leaf on Lieutenant Colonel Smithers’ helmet, and his alien dirt.

  “Can I help you, Colonel?” she asked. She had, somehow, a professional voice: it was dutifully sweet and officially cheerful. The Red Cros
s girls always wore their uniforms as if the uniforms were their personal choice; they looked stylish, pretty, or sloppy according to the wearer. This woman wore her uniform as if she had never worn anything else. She was older too, a new category altogether.

  “I’m looking for Dorothy Brock.”

  “Oh, she’s not here any more,” the woman said, almost chidingly. “She left weeks ago with the Headquarters. They’re all at Namur. We’re an entirely new staff. Luxembourg’s becoming quite a rest center now.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers stared at this woman. He heard what she said and he could not believe it.

  “She’s not here?”

  “Goodness, no. She must have left in January.”

  Still he did not move. He was too tired to move. There was no place to move to anyhow. His throat felt choked and throbbing and it was not safe to speak.

  “Is there anything we can do for you, Colonel?”

  He did not answer.

  This Colonel’s behavior was really most awkward. He might be getting ready to make a scene of some sort. It would be best to hurry him out of here; this was an enlisted men’s club anyhow.

  “The Officers’ Club is just across the bridge, Colonel. You go right down this street and across the bridge and straight on. It’s just opposite the railway station. It’s a very attractive club.”

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.

  “The Namur Red Cross is APO 613,” the woman added, “in case you want to get in touch with Miss Brock. I’m sure she’ll be awfully sorry to have missed you.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers, moving as if his boots were made of lead, walked back through the hall and out the door. Some soldiers turned from the bulletin board, with its announcements of ping-pong tournaments, conducted tours, lessons in French, cameras for sale, lost and found, and watched him curiously. The Red Cross woman shrugged and went towards the office. He might have said thanks, she thought; Dorothy Brock wasn’t after all the only Red Cross girl in the world.

  When Jacob Levy saw Lieutenant Colonel Smithers coming towards him, alone, slowly, as if walking was a hardship and an effort, he knew what had happened. It was the army again; the army did its best to ruin people’s lives. They would have shipped Dotty out, just to cheat and hurt the Colonel, just to steal from him the only thing he wanted. The dirty bastards, Jacob Levy thought, what do they know what it’s like for a man not to find his girl.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers climbed in the jeep. “I’ll go to the rue Philippe,” he said. “You can pick me up there, Levy.”

  They drove in silence through the familiar streets.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers lifted his musette bag from the back of the jeep. “You’ve got until 0100 hours, Levy. I hope you fix yourself up allright.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He did not drive away at once. He watched Lieutenant Colonel Smithers crossing the pavement and waited until the door of the apartment house closed behind him. He could not help the Colonel or even say anything to him. He was worried; the Colonel was so dead beat, after that forest, that you couldn’t tell what he would do when his plans were sunk. Major Havemeyer ought to look after the Colonel; maybe the Major could fix him up with another date or anyhow enough liquor so the Colonel could tie one on, and forget. It was all the army’s fault. He was lucky he didn’t love someone the army could ship around until they got you so hopeless you wouldn’t know where to turn.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers stopped outside the door of Major Havemeyer’s apartment and listened. He could hear girls’ voices. They were having a party. They sounded as if they’d been having a party for quite a while. He heard a glass break and someone squealed with laughter. They were playing “Sentimental Journey” on the victrola and talking so loud they couldn’t possibly hear it.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers laid his musette bag on the floor beside the door, and turned and walked down the stairs. It would only be worse, to have to drink and jabber and act like a good fellow. He was too tired. None of them knew anyone he knew; none of them had been where he’d been.

  The streets were bare, under the rain; the city was all stone, dead and dark, with strangers’ lives going on secretly behind the blacked-out windows. Much later he could come back and ask if they’d loan him a bathroom; hot water would be nice anyhow; and then it would be 0100 hours and he would go to meet his Battalion.

  Jacob Levy had not meant to burst through the door. The door slammed back and Madame Steller looked up, from behind the nickel coffee urn, and saw Kathe’s soldier standing there, smiling; and she took in at once the lined hunger of his cheeks and the darkness around his eyes and the filth of his clothes.

  “Bong jour!” Jacob Levy said. He crossed the café to her counter and reached out a dirty cracked red hand and smiled and smiled. This restaurant was practically his home, a rooted known place where you returned to cleanliness and warmth and the faces of friends. Madame Steller had given Kathe the afternoon off, long ago. Madame Steller was a fine old lady.

  “Mon pauvre petit,” Madame Steller said.

  “Kathe?” Jacob Levy asked. Kathe must be in the kitchen getting an order filled. He had forgotten that he looked like a tramp. He was waiting for Kathe to come through the pantry door; it made him laugh just to think of her funny loved face when she saw him. In advance, he could hear the torrent of pattering French that would flow from her. And he’d damn well kiss her, in front of everybody.

  “Elle n’est pas ici,” Madame Steller said. “Sa mère est malade. Elle est allée à Müllerhof, il y a une semaine, pour soigner sa mère.”

  Jacob Levy did not understand this. He imagined Madame Steller must be making friendly conversation with him. Maybe she was asking him how he was or where he’d been all this time. Jacob Levy went on smiling. He could wait. He wanted to see Kathe’s face when she came through the door. But probably he ought to answer Madame Steller. He thought hard, to find words.

  “Très bieng,” he said. “Beaucoup guerre. Très bieng.”

  Madame Steller looked at Kathe’s soldier, helplessly. He was alive; there was that to tell poor little Kathe when she came back. Maybe Kathe would eat more, knowing her soldier was alive; she had grown very thin and sad, fearing for this young American. But here he was, not beautiful now, looking old and scoured-out like a burned tree and he did not understand that Kathe was gone.

  “Elle n’est pas ici,” Madame Steller said again. She dreaded telling him, yet she had to. And then he would stop smiling that marvelous smile. “Vous ne voulez pas vous installer un peu? Nous allons vous offrir un grand bon dîner.”

  Jacob Levy began to feel impatient and a little puzzled. He didn’t want to stand here all night, gassing with Madame Steller, even though she was a nice old lady. A shabby grey-haired man, who had been nursing a bock of beer to make it last and make the warmth and the light of the café last with it, rose from his table alongside the door and came to the chromium counter.

  “Je connais un peu l’anglais,” he said to Madame Steller. She nodded.

  “Sir,” the man said, “Madame Steller say Mademoiselle Kathe is with the mother in Müllerhof. The mother of Mademoiselle Kathe is sick. Mademoiselle Kathe is gone from here since one week.”

  Jacob Levy stepped back, away from the man. He looked at this stranger with hate. Who asked him? What did he mean, pushing in where he wasn’t wanted and saying some sort of lying stuff about Kathe?

  “Tell Kathe I’m here,” Jacob Levy said.

  The man lifted his hands, in a gesture of pity.

  “Monsieur Wallach,” Madame Steller said, “dites-lui de bien vouloir s’asseoir, qu’on lui offre le dîner.”

  “Madame Steller say please to take place, she offers you the dinner.”

  “No,” Jacob Levy said.

  The three of them stood by the counter in silence.

  “Where is Kathe?” Jacob Levy said.

  “In Müllerhof, sir. She must go since one week. Her mother is very si
ck.”

  “Where is Müllerhof?”

  “It is south, sir, forty-fifty kilomètres.”

  There was silence again.

  “C’est affreux,” Madame Steller said to the interpreter. “Il faut faire quelque chose.”

  “Rien à faire,” the man said.

  “I won’t see her then.” Jacob Levy was talking to himself. He expected no answer and the others did not speak. “I won’t see her at all.”

  “Donnez-lui un verre de bière,” the man suggested.

  Madame Steller was glad to do anything. She drew a glass of beer from the faucet, and cut off the thin foam with a wooden spatula. Jacob Levy did not see her hand, outstretched with the heavy glass stein.

  “I don’t know when I’ll see her,” he explained slowly to himself.

  “Il ne veut pas boire?” Madame Steller asked. They had to do something for the boy, they had to give him something.

  “Non. Paraît que non,” the man said.

  “Tell her I came,” Jacob Levy said. His voice was heavy with grief.

  Madame Steller watched Jacob Levy go through the curtained glass door of the café and then she put her hand over her eyes. The shabby grey-haired man was still looking at the door.

  “Les jeunes, Monsieur Wallach,” she said, “quelle misère pour les jeunes.”

  She gave the unwanted stein of beer to Monsieur Wallach, who thanked her and went back to his table. With this free beer, he could stay another half hour or even three quarters of an hour. It was brighter and warmer in the café than in his room and he did not like to spend the evenings alone. It was too bad the little waitress wasn’t here but surely later the soldier would meet another girl. All the girls were very fond of Americans.

  Jacob Levy left his jeep before the café, and walked down the street to the park by the river. The river was there, as he remembered it, gleaming in the dark at the bottom of the ravine. This was their park. He stood, looking at the river, and thought: I used to love this city. Forbidding and empty, it was only another strange city in another strange country. The night would be long, and colder and colder. I won’t see her, he thought. He might as well go. There was nothing to wait for, anymore. He could sleep on the hall floor at the rue Philippe and when it was time the Colonel would come and they would return to the Battalion and to the never-ending war.