The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (47 page)

 

 

Morosely, they analyzed and re-analyzed their desire for each other. They
made a case study of their needs. They stripped the warmth of their first
embrace of its wonder. They tried to pin it down with words until it was
almost a crass and ugly thing. And then Yale had said suddenly, "Anne,
Anne, this is stupid! Why are we afraid? Because we may be separated?
It's as simple as that. But I care for you deeply, and you care for me.
Let's not analyze it anymore. Let's just be glad we met." He looked at
her tenderly. "At least I am glad. How do you manage to look at me with
such love in your eyes?" He grinned and kissed her. . . . "And you are
a pretty good belly dancer, too."

 

 

When their orders came through, they were amazed to find that they both
were assigned to the Assam Valley; to a new pipe line base that was just
being established. Talibazar. Anne was assigned to the enlisted men's
club with three other Red Cross girls. Yale's orders directed him to
establish a finance office with a complement of enlisted personnel who
in civilian life had been bank clerks and accountants.

 

 

Anne remembered Joe Trafford's sardonic grin when they boarded the plane.
"Well, ain't this just cozy," he had said, grimly. "You're all going to be
under my jurisdiction. Talibazar is mine! Read it and weep!" He dropped
his mimeographed orders in Yale's lap.

 

 

In essence Major Trafford had been promoted. He was now Lieutenant-Colonel
Trafford in full charge and authority of the new base at APO 1468.
Talibazar . . . in the Assam Valley.

 

 

On the long flight from Karachi to Talibazar Trafford remarked ominously
to Yale and Anne, "What I know is my business, Mrs. Wilson. We're with a
new group now. These other girls will know nothing about you and Marratt
from me. But understand this. When this plane sets down at Talibazar, you,
Marratt, are running a finance office, and you, Mrs. Wilson, are running
an enlisted men's club." He looked at Anne sourly. "And never the twain
shall meet. Just keep it in mind. I won't encourage a private romance
on a base where there will be a few thousand men, and only a handful
of Red Cross girls and a few nurses. Like I told you, Mrs. Wilson,"
he finished balefully, "spread it around; and everyone will be happy."

 

 

A few days after they arrived at Talibazar, Trafford drove up in front
of the huge Red Cross basha in his jeep. He found Anne perspiring as
she worked with the other girls moving in equipment supplied by the
recreation officers. Trafford was genial. "You girls won't have to bunk
here any longer. I've found you a home."

 

 

Merrily, they piled into his jeep. Martha Burton, Chris Powers, Jane
Belcher, and Anne. She listened warily as Colonel Trafford drove them off
the base, past the town of Talibazar, deep into the country. As he drove
he extolled the merits of the Axonbys. "They are English, you know. Been
out here for years. Most of Talibazar was a huge tea plantation before
the Americans took over. Half a dozen English families live here and
run it for some big outfit in England. You girls are lucky. They have
an empty house right on their property. They've turned it over to you
four plus a few of our nurses."

 

 

"How will we get back and forth?" Chris Powers had asked. "It seems
pretty far out."

 

 

"You'll be picked up and delivered by a sergeant from the motor pool,"
Trafford said. He turned to stare at Anne. "The Army believes in taking
care of you girls. You can all appreciate that we can't watch two
thousand men every minute. Some of them have been out here for nearly
thirty months." He turned off the dirt road and pulled up in front of
an English bungalow. "You know men. You can take it from there."

 

 

Helen Axonby greeted them. 'This is so much fun," she told them. Her lean,
English face was bright with her enthusiasm. "We've been out here all by
ourselves for so many years. Now the U.S. Army has moved in and brought
civilization with it."

 

 

Trafford followed them into the house, listening while Helen Axonby
apologized for the smallness of the rooms. She told them that they could
decide which girls would share a room together. There were four small
bedrooms, a primitive kitchen, and a sitting room. No bathroom.

 

 

"There's no plumbing." Helen Axonby sighed. "But then there isn't any
on your dusty old base either, and we do have plenty of servants." She
waved at the shiny faces of three Hindu girls who had followed them
in, carrying jugs of water. Wrapped in saris, they looked shyly at the
American girls. For no accountable reason they burst into laughter.

 

 

Anne took a room with Chris Powers. "This is for the birds," Chris said,
shaking her long corn color hair in dismay. Anne liked her easy Texas
accent. "I didn't join the Red Cross to get plopped out in the sticks of
India, old top. This ferret face Colonel Trafford can shove this place,
you know where."

 

 

"I don't think you'll get anywhere with him," Anne said, knowing that
her interest in Yale had played some part in Trafford's decision to get
the girls off the base. "He's pretty tough."

 

 

Chris tried her charm on Trafford and met with quick rebuff. "You're
here to do a job, Miss Powers. If you're not happy, I'll contact the
local field director. You can leave. I'm just stopping trouble before it
occurs. I'm not particularly in favor of these clubs anyway. You girls
flipping your butts around the base can be more of a challenge than some
men can endure. At least, I'll sleep better at night knowing you're five
miles away."

 

 

"Won't we even see you, Colonel?" Jane Belcher asked, teasing him.

 

 

Trafford smirked at her. "The code for officers who are presumed to be
gentlemen is somewhat different. I'm sure you won't be lonely. You are
right next door to the local tea planters' club. Any Army officer in
good standing with me is automatically a member."

 

 

In the following two weeks Anne saw Yale twice. Once to wave at, as
he passed her with several other officers, and the second time for a
few minutes on a Sunday at the bar of the tea planters' club. Anne had
decided that he was purposely avoiding her. She reacted coolly to him
when he passed her a warm gin and orange crush.

 

 

"Tasty English drink," he said, sipping his gingerly. "They like warm
drinks. Ugh. Tastes like a lollipop." He looked around. A group of
officers were sitting on the porch. "Trafford's not here yet. Thank
God. But that snotty looking character on the porch with the Captain's
bars is his adjutant."

 

 

"So you're afraid of Trafford," Anne said bitterly. "That's why the
brush-off."

 

 

Yale took her arm in a fierce grip. "Don't be stupid! First, I've been to
Calcutta for two days and then to Dacca getting funds and instructions on
activating this finance office. Next Saturday is the end of the month.
Pay day. Remember. i've also been dabbling in rupees. Remember my francs.
They are now a hundred and forty thousand rupees. Not as much as I expected,
but -- in dollars -- about twenty-two thousand more than I had in Miami.
We've got enough to set up light housekeeping."

 

 

"Which leg did you get hacked off this time?" Anne asked sarcastically.

 

 

Yale looked at her, a hurt expression on his face. "That's unkind."

 

 

"I'm just beginning to realize how important money is to you." Anne sipped
her drink. She looked at him and felt that odd tugging at her heart. What
was there about Yale that charmed her so much, she wondered. "I can see you
when you are fifty years old piling furs and diamonds on a plump wife
while you patiently explain how lucky she was to have married you."

 

 

"I'd like to paddle your plump little fanny," Yale said, half in anger.
"Didn't you hear what I said about light housekeeping? I've bought us
a house. . . ."

 

 

"I see you two have met. . . ."

 

 

Yale and Anne looked around startled to find Trafford walking toward them.
Trafford ignored Anne. "Are you all set up for pay day, Marratt?" he asked.
"Colonel Beaver may be up from headquarters to see how it goes. I was
talking with him yesterday."

 

 

"I'm sure he'll be pleased, Colonel Trafford," Yale said coldly.

 

 

Trafford turned to Anne. "I just drove Howard Tuttle out. He's on the porch.
I suggest you meet him."

 

 

Yale quickly touched Anne's hand. She could feel a piece of paper being
pressed into her palm. "It was nice seeing you again, Anne." He watched
through the open screened windows as Trafford introduced Anne to Tuttle.

 

 

Later Anne had read the note with tears in her eyes. "If you are reading
this note," she read, "it's because I haven't been able to escape the
eagle eyes of our friend Trafford. I know you are probably angry with
me, but for reasons only Trafford would understand, I believe he would
like nothing better than to have me transferred off the base. He can't
do this unless he could prove to Headquarters in Calcutta that I was a
bad boy. Problem. How to be with you and keep it a secret when five or
six thousand male eyes know everything you do? You might sigh and say it
was impossible, but then maybe you're not so much in love as I. If you
love me do what I say. The very next day you are free, go to the base
officers' club. It's a bamboo building across the swamp from the enlisted
men's club. Behind the bar is an Indian Walla, called Vaswani. When no
one can hear you, say to him, 'Take me to Chatterji.' He'll know what
to do . . . I love you."

 

 

Two days later, in the afternoon, feeling her heart pounding, dismayed
with her need to be with Yale and trembling with fear at being discovered,
Anne went to the officers' club. Feeling like a spy or fellow-traveler,
she whispered the words to the fat brown face behind the bar. The face,
attached to a well-balanced, corpulent body, broke into a happy grin.
"Me, Vaswani. You, memsahib! Tee kai! Come with me."

 

 

She followed Vaswani at a distance, watching him waddle in the direction
of the officers' quarters. She waited on the road before a group of
bamboo bashas, wondering who might see her. Vaswani returned in a few
minutes followed by a tall Indian whose thin emaciated appearance was
in striking contrast to Vaswani's fleshy body.

 

 

"He, Chatterji . . . Sahib Marratt's bearer. Take to his gaon, thori dur."

 

 

Chatterji had smiled at Anne's bewilderment. "Means village," he said,
showing beautiful white teeth. "Not far. Follow. But not look like." Anne
realized that he meant that an American would not walk beside a Hindu
servant. Certainly not a woman. She followed him, watching his clean
white dhoti billowing behind him. They had finally left the base on a
footpath leading through rows of tea bushes.

 

 

 

 

It's the same path that I walked that day, Anne thought. Then the rolling
green terraces of tea bushes had looked strange and unfamiliar to her. She
had had an instinctive reaction to flee and not follow Chatterji. What
if she had, she wondered? What if ninety days or so ago, she had thrown
Yale's note away? That would have ended it. She would have lost all the
wonder of this fairytale existence and the ecstasy of their greeting
after a few days of separation. She would have lost this love. Because
now she was wildly . . . passionately . . . crazily in love with this Yale
Marratt who sometimes made her feel so tender, engulfed in her emotions,
that she would cry from happiness; and who at other times awoke in her
a strange bewilderment that she had surrendered herself to a stranger
who was already committed to another woman.

 

 

As she walked toward the village she waved to some of the tea pickers
who looked shyly in her direction. Soiled and dusty in their grey saris,
they peered decorously from behind veils. She knew that some of them
were Moslems from a nearby village. But the language they spoke softly
to each other, commenting on this strange American woman, was the same
warm glissando Hindustani that was now so familiar to her, and some of
the words were beginning to trip on the threshold of her consciousness.

 

 

She looked at her watch. It was five-thirty. Yale would be waiting,
wondering what had detained her, fearing that she had been assigned some
project that would keep her from the village that night.

 

 

She remembered that first overwhelming day when Chatterji had led her
across the rice field into the cool oasis of the village, along narrow
paths between the bamboo houses. And then she had caught a glimpse of
Yale, before he saw her, leaning indolently against the side of a tiny
house built of bamboo, and roofed with dried grass several feet thick.

 

 

He had led her inside. There was a big rope bed covered with mosquito
netting, and bamboo chairs and a table. On the wall was a print of the
three-headed aspect of the Indian world Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. He had
chuckled when she looked at it in consternation. She mentioned that it was
not very pretty. "It's Chatterji's house-warming present." Yale hugged her
excitedly. "Say you like it, Anne! Please. This is our home. This is where
we escape Trafford. The lines of communication between us are Vaswani and
Chatterji. Right after Vaswani brought you to Chatterji, he came to me.
I rushed out here to welcome you. Chatterji's relatives built it for us.
The whole thing cost two hundred rupees. Sixty dollars. Isn't it wonderful?"

 

 

"It's crazy, Yale Marratt," she had said. She withheld the thought that
crossed her mind. So I'm an Army shack-up job and the smooth Yale Marratt,
the big operator, has not only outwitted Colonel Trafford, he has what
every soldier wants, a little sexpot, at his beck and call.