The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (54 page)

 

 

Mat nodded. "You're not saying it, Anne. But, I assume, what you are
driving at is, that, if Yale has absorbed all this discussion of the past
few months, then he does not feel that his love for you has an exclusive
existence . . . that it could be equally attained with Cynthia or someone
else . . ." Mat turned the key in the ignition. He backed the jeep onto
the road. "I'm not shocked by this idea, if that's what you think. The
fact is that any religious concept of man and woman exists in a social
framework. That must be accepted. Cynthia is married to me. Yale has
married you. Willingly. Wake up to the fact that he wants you, Anne."

 

 

As they drove back to the base Mat tried to explain his growing belief
that a religion based on human love, a religion that idealized sexuality
would allow civilized man to take a vast forward leap. "It would do for us
in a social and psychological sense what science has done in a physical
and material sense. With this kind of belief, with children brought up
believing in the wonder of man . . . it might, eventually, be possible
to have a real brotherhood of men. Children would be taught, not only
in their churches, but in their schools to exalt man; to realize that,
in the incomprehensible wonder of the act of creation, every man is
united by a sacred bond. For in the act of love a man and woman could be
taught to give themselves up to each other, not in degradation, but in
devotion . . . in this act, common to all men and women, is the embryo
of a civilization without hatred . . . without war. . . ."

 

 

"Men love in anger," Anne broke in, forgetting for a moment her own
problems. "Men rape . . . I think Sundari has infected you with an
idealism that is beyond achievement in this world, Mat." She smiled,
thinking that with one statement she could jar Mat out of his complacent
dream-world. She decided to say what she was thinking. "You once said
to me that Cynthia still loves Yale. It has been apparent enough to
me without your saying it. I can't believe, Mat, that for all of your
high-sounding goodness you like the idea. You just as much admitted it
when you said, 'Cynthia is married to me.' It sounded kind of possessive
. . . not so rational as you would like to believe that you are."

 

 

Mat turned the jeep into the base road. He didn't answer Anne until
he stopped in front of the enlisted men's club. Then, when he replied,
Anne listened to him, astonished.

 

 

"Of course, I said Cynthia is married to me. I love Cynthia. But I'm not
jealous of her. Marriage is not possession. I do not believe that God is
concerned or interested in the sanctity of marriage. Sanctity is desirable
only for love itself. Sanctity means 'inviolable' . . . real love is
all inclusive and impossible to violate. The only validity marriage has
is from the standpoint of men; not to protect the right of possession,
but to make each mating of man and woman responsible in the event that
a child is conceived.

 

 

"When you really analyze it . . . what is love, anyway? I don't mean
passion. Passion is for animals. If men and women were really taught how
to unite in love, the experience would approach divinity." Mat smiled. He
looked at Anne strangely. "I believe, for example, that you and I have the
possibility for that kind of love. In honest fact . . . I love you. What
does that mean? It means, probably, foremost that I find it very easy
to communicate with you both in the surface of words and the deeper
understanding that lies unspoken between us. From time immemorial the
inability to communicate is at the root of all misunderstanding . . . all
hatreds . . . all wars; so the existence of this ability should create
a favorable groundwork for love. If one day this ability of ours to share
thoughts and experience brought with it a mutual desire for bodily contact
. . . for the act of love . . . we would have intercourse. Just as,
I expect, would Yale and Cynthia . . . If the impulse, natural to all
men and women, was not constrained by me, then the horizon of Cynthia's
love would be extended. She should love Yale . . . She should love all
human beings . . . If she should mate again with Yale . . . and if she
really loves me . . . she will continue to love me. . . ."

 

 

"Mat Chilling . . . do you know something?" Anne interrupted him,
"You have such crazy ideas that you are dangerous! You better not seek a
pulpit, or try to preach this philosophy. You would end up like Henry Ward
Beecher. Your women parishioners would all fall in love with you. They
wouldn't really believe that you mean what you say. They would just
think that any man who could talk so charmingly of love was just a big
boy making up nice little stories . . . and basically all that he needs
to be cured is to be cuddled on their trembling breasts."

 

 

Anne held Mat's hand a second, feeling his bony fingers and large knuckles.
She smiled at the deep, questioning look in his eyes. Pulling his head
down, she kissed him on his mouth, and then quickly hopped out of the
jeep. "I'm going to miss talking with you, Mat," she said. Her voice was
edged with a sob. Trying to hold back her tears, she grinned crookedly
at him. "You know something, Mat Chilling? You may be right!"

 

 

Mat watched her walk up the path to the enlisted men's club. He felt
Anne's unhappiness deeply. She was a strong, lovely woman. He prayed
that Yale's love for her was sincere enough to re-unite them. Mat started
the jeep, and drove slowly back to his basha.

 

 

I AM RIGHT, he thought, I'm on the right track. Recognizing that I love
Anne has not diminished my love for Cynthia. I have almost come full
circle. Wasn't this really Christ's idea before the theologians took
over? Somehow, he thought, I must find a way to tell the world. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

Two days after he arrived in Calcutta, Yale received word to report to
Chengkung, China, a small Air Transport Command base ten or twelve miles
from Kunming. The finance office, already in operation under authority
of the Fourteenth Air Force Service Command, was being transferred in an
organizational shift to the Air Transport Command. When Yale was given
his orders he found that he had been promoted to a 1st Lieutenant and
had been assigned, together with qualified, enlisted personnel, to take
over as disbursing officer. Yale realized that Trafford had simply used
his influence to get him transferred out of Talibazar. He had shown no
prejudice nor had he reported Yale's marriage to Anne.

 

 

Yale's orders gave him a week before he had to report to the base commander
at Chengkung. Dangerous though it was, he knew that he must see Anne.
He moved his belongings from Headquarters at Hastings Mill to Dum Dum
Airport in Calcutta. The next day he hitched a ride on a C-47 back to
Talibazar. The pilot who had agreed to take him without orders told him
that he preferred not to know Yale's problems.

 

 

On the three-hour flight into the Assam Valley back to Talibazar, Yale was
the only passenger. He was surrounded by cargo intended for use at the base.
Amused, he noticed several cases of Scotch earmarked for Colonel Trafford.
He was tempted to pry one open and write an insolent message to Trafford
but he decided against it. All that he really wanted was to arrive at
Talibazar, unnoticed, and find Anne. He prayed that he could have one
more night with her, not only to tell her where he was assigned but to
make plans for the future. He knew that if he waited until he got to
China, and relied on the Army postal service to contact her, it would
be weeks before she would hear from him or get an answer back to him.

 

 

Tonight they could plan for after the war. Tonight he would whisper softly
to her, "Anne, I love you. I'm glad you're my wife. For the first time
in many years I seem to be alive again." Alive, he thought, because I
am not alone. He wondered why he had neglected to really tell Anne how
much he loved her. He had laughed when she suggested that he seemed aloof
and pre-occupied, but he knew that she was right. The shadow of Cynthia
seemed to have grown longer, to have dominated his life even more, in
Talibazar. He knew that in their contacts, Mat and he had been afraid
to probe into each other's feelings.

 

 

The shock of being separated from Anne had shown him how really close
they had become. It wasn't that she had supplanted his love for Cynthia;
it was rather that for the first time he realized that love for another
person was capable of multiplication. Waiting nervously in the cabin
for the flight to be over, he couldn't help grinning. It was Mat's idea,
but worth exploring. If you really loved once, you not only never ceased
loving, you became susceptible to an arithmetical progression that could
embrace the world.

 

 

When the plane landed at Talibazar, the co-pilot came back into the cabin.
He looked sourly at Yale. "Jesus," he scowled, "we would have you aboard.
We make this milk run week in and week out, and nobody knows we're living.
Now, here you are with no damned orders and we get the red carpet treatment.
They just radioed in that Colonel Trafford was meeting this plane
personally."

 

 

"Oh, brother! Now, the fun begins," Yale said. He wondered if he should
try to hide, and then decided against it.

 

 

"It's not because of you," the co-pilot said. "It seems we have two cases
of Scotch aboard. The Colonel is giving a party tonight. He's concerned
about it. Just keep out of the way. He probably won't notice you."

 

 

Both the pilot and co-pilot were considerably shocked when Colonel
Trafford did notice Yale. "Wait a minute!" Trafford bellowed. He grabbed
Yale's arm as Yale tried to walk by him unnoticed. "You've got your
nerve with you. I suppose you have orders to cover this trip."

 

 

Yale shook his head gloomily. Trafford started to laugh. "You should be
pissing in your pants," he said nastily. "I would, by God, if I were you!
And you two," he pointed at the pilot and co-pilot, "transporting a soldier
without orders could get you both up to your ass in trouble. You can all
thank your lucky stars that I'm in a damned good mood this morning."

 

 

To Yale's surprsie Trafford patted him on the shoulder. "Just to show you
there's no hard feelings, and that I'm not such a prick as you might
believe, I'm going to forget the whole thing. You're invited to the club
tonight. We're entertaining the British. Your friend Helen Axonby will
be there."

 

 

Trafford didn't tell him that Anne had left Talibazar two days earlier.
He watched Yale head in the direction of the enlisted men's club, knowing
that Yale would find out for himself.

 

 

"She won't have
any
address for a while," Jane Belcher told him sadly.
"It's a darned shame. Colonel Trafford must have had something to do
with it. She's enroute to Paris. I suppose it's a break. It would be for
me. But Anne wanted to stay here, Yale. Honestly, she was quite broken
up. Howard Tuttle says that he had nothing to do with it. Of course,
everyone on the base knows about your marriage. Wild stories have gone
around that you had one of the natives feed the Colonel and Captain
Baker a mickey. You and Anne really set this base on its ears for a few
days. They'll be telling their grandchildren about what happened here."

 

 

Yale tried to hide the dismay that he felt. "I must find Anne, Jane.
I must! I must. She doesn't know where I am."

 

 

Jane shook her head. "Eventually, she'll write to me or Chris, Yale.
You leave us your address in China. When she writes, I'll write you.
At the same time I'll send her your address. Howard can wire Anne your
address. You just wait. In a couple of weeks we'll make the connection
for you. You'll be writing each other, at least."

 

 

Yale thanked her. He knew that Jane was optimistic. The way mail was
forwarded between theaters of war, months could elapse before he located
Anne. He walked toward the chapel in search of Mat Chilling. Trafford
drove by in his jeep and stopped. "If you're looking for the Reverend,"
he said, "you won't find him. I cleaned house. Chilling loves these wogs
so damned much, I saw that he was dispatched a little farther up the
valley. Who knows, maybe he'll become a yogi? He looks like the type
that should be sleeping on a bed of nails." Trafford laughed, obviously
enjoying Yale's misery.

 

 

Yale looked at him coldly. "There's one word for you, Trafford.
You're a shit."

 

 

"One more remark like that, son, and you're dead," Trafford said calmly.
"If I were you, I'd get myself over to operations, and plead with them
to get me the hell out of here before the day is over." Trafford shifted
the gears on his jeep. "I've just been too goddamned lenient with you,
Marratt, and you know it!"

 

 

There was nothing Yale could do except leave. Two days later he had
crossed the Hump to Kunming, China. Wandering the narrow streets of
the city, bending and swaying through the thousands upon thousands of
Chinese, Yale felt an immediate affinity with these grinning, sweating
humans who, by sheer force and perseverance, had refused to surrender
to the Japanese. Even now with their backs against the Himalayas, with
the country half immersed in a civil war, they good-humoredly lived each
day at a time. They offered you the main commerce of living . . . money
. . . food . . and sex, in that order, with a blunt take-it-or-leave-it
manner that even shocked the blunt take-it-or-leave-it Americans.

 

 

Yale stayed in Kunming two days before he requested transportation to
Chengkung. He was alone again. A sense of loss dogged his footsteps as
he walked the city. He kept trying to tell himself that what had happened
with Anne was more than a war-time episode. Somewhere she was as lost and
solitary as he was. Just as soon as she could, she would write. Somewhere,
sometime when this god-forsaken war ended he would find her again. For
his own sanity he must believe that.