This Scorching Earth (26 page)

"Nothing. But stop clutching me."

"Well, then, let's eat."

"All right, then," Gloria shouted, "let's eat."

In the elevator a pregnant young woman was talking to a man with steel-rimmed glasses: "Now, of course, I know all about the servant problem, but when one of your own girls dishes up the mashed potatoes cold—stone-cold straight from the icebox, mind you—well, that's just too much. So I sent her back to the agency—it's not my business what she tells them. . . . Really? You blame me? After all, one has to put up some kind of resistance, if you don't want to end up with Climalene on your crêpe suzettes, that is. After all, I'm not like our neighbor—oh, you know her: Mrs. Colonel Ash-croft—who eats her ham-hock sherbert, dresses her maids to match the drapes, and then sits back and thinks everything's lovely."

The Major raised an eyebrow at Gloria. She was staring at the elevator boy. They'd changed boys; this one was older.

"Well, won't have to stand too much more from old Ashcroft," the Major said softly.

"What are you mumbling about?" asked Gloria.

"Nothing—just a little something a bird told me."

"Well, stop simpering."

They got off at the second floor, and the Major walked to the dining-room door and looked at the menu. "Yes, they're really having a feed tonight. Want some guinea hen under glass?"

"No, we might get splintered," said Gloria. "You don't have to smile at my little jokes. They're almost entirely nervous reflex."

"What's truffles?"

"What I have on my underskirt."

"They good to eat?"

"Why, Major, you never told me!"

"I'd like a big, thick steak. Doesn't that sound good, Miss Wilson?"

"I'll take an egg in a glass, or something." She didn't feel well and walked over to the window. It was much darker, and the Palace was blue against the late sky. It made her feel sad. "And here all the time I thought it was lunch," she said helplessly, several tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Hell, no, Miss Wilson, we done miss lunch. This here am supper. We got a couple hours before that opera affair begin, so we can take our time, real nice, you know."

"How much am those truffles?"

"Jesus, five bucks the serving."

"Good. I'll eat an all-truffle dinner. Truffle soup, truffle steak, mashed truffles with gravy, truffle salad with Miracle Whip, and good old American ice-cream banana-split with truffles."

"Feeling better, huh?" asked the Major uncertainly.

"I could eat a horse."

"Not necessary. We gonna eat high on the hog tonight, Miss Wilson."

"Well, that's better than eating low, though I've heard of folks eating those things."

The Major looked back to the menu.

"But what about the starving urchins in front of the PX?" she suddenly cried.

"What about them?" Then he looked pained. "Come on, you don't mean to tell me that you fall for that too. Why those fat little rascals get fed better than we do."

"But—maybe they don't like truffles."

"Look, they get enough to feed an army. The GI's are always feeding them. Popcorn, hot dogs, Coke . . ."

"Such a well-balanced diet too," murmured Gloria.

"Look, no one's starving here except me," said the Major.

A woman with her hair piled in a ball on top of her head, miniature silver honey-buckets swinging from her ears, strolled from the dining room with a distinguished-looking civilian, speaking in a shrill voice: "And so this girl went to the Japanese bakery here—really, these people are
so
darling—and ordered a birthday cake for her husband. He's in Forestry or something—no, maybe it's Labor—well, it doesn't make any difference. And so she thought it would be real quaint if under the 'Happy Birthday' part was the same thing in Japanese. So, on her little order blank, she put down: 'Happy Birthday, Frank,' and then added: 'Japanese character.' When the cake was ready she picked it up, and that's just what she'd gotten: 'Happy Birthday, Frank Japanese character.' Isn't that priceless?"

"Well, go on and starve," said Gloria.

"You feel all right, Miss Wilson?"

"Yes, and take your hand off me. That's not the place that's bothering me. It's my stomach—I think. No, don't touch that either."

"Miss Wilson, please sit down. I want to talk to you."

"Major, what can we possibly have to say to each other?" asked Gloria, recklessly hopeless.

"Will you sit down!"

Catching hold of the table to steady herself, she very carefully lowered herself into the chair. "There, I did it!" she said. And at once she felt better. She must always remember to sit down whenever she possibly could. Lying down was even nicer, but the table didn't look big enough.

She examined the table and noticed that the cloth had been expertly darned in several places and that the napkins were quite new. The coat of the passing waiter was a brocade of darns and patches, A fork prong was bent, and the silver plating on her butter knife was peeling. All of this excited her very much. She sat very still, thinking; "I must sit very still or else I'll never understand." For it seemed to her that she was very near comprehending the secret of life. It had something to do with butter knives.

"Miss Wilson," said the Major solemnly, and Gloria looked up irritably. Now she would never understand.

He swallowed some water and then said: "I wouldn't be saying this if I hadn't had a little to drink—"

"And I wouldn't be listening if I weren't too plastered to stand up."

"But I've been thinking about it for a long time, and, well, I just wanted to tell you how swell I think you are."

Gloria stifled a yawn. Why, she wondered, was she always going out with men of such limited imagination. The Major here had only one approach. He only knew one way to make a pass and that was to be soulful about it. He really was a pig. This, she decided, was their last date. Never again!

"I can guess you probably don't think too much of me, Miss Wilson. I'm sort of dumb, but I'm not
that
dumb. And you're right—we sure don't have much to talk about. But I guess that's the reason I like you. I never met anyone like you before. And I like you. And that's why I'm so stupid around you. I don't know if you've ever had the experience, but around people I like I get just twice as dumb as I ordinarily am. . . . But you probably don't know what I'm talking about."

Gloria had begun to listen. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She remembered trying to be interesting, trying to force another to like her. And she remembered the failures—the times when the sentence that would make the other look at her and smile died upon her lips, when the remark designed to convey her regard emerged monstrously shaped, devoid of meaning, so hopelessly different from what she'd intended that she was forced to follow it with the cheapest sort of joke, the easiest kind of wit, very often the precise opposite in meaning of what she had intended.

"Talk away," she said. "You have an audience." At once she hated herself for the remark. The Major was too vulnerable.

"Please try and take me serious for a few minutes, Miss Wilson. This is hard for me to say." He paused for a second or two. "I mean that I think of you different from other girls. I think—"

Gloria had been rearranging her silverware. Now suddenly she looked up, her mouth a long line of exasperation. "You can stop any time, Major. I know all the approaches to the particular stronghold you're storming, and, believe me, the one you've chosen is the least likely to get there."

The Major looked at the tablecloth, and, suddenly sorry, Gloria cast about for something to say. "I didn't think Japan was going to look like this."

He was still looking at the tablecloth. "Nothing in Tokyo does. Looks just like a bad copy of Chicago."

"Oh, come, Major—Beaumont, surely."

"Avenue A looks like Michigan Boulevard."

"Particularly with the Palace along one side of it."

"If you ignore the Palace, you'll see what I mean."

"Ignore the Palace—" Gloria began, but the Major suddenly pounded the table, making the silverware jump.

"No, damn it!" he said. "I'm gonna say this if it kills me. Now you listen here! I don't care what you've done or what you haven't done. Oh, I've heard all the talk that goes on. I know what people say about other people. I know what they say about
you
, Miss Wilson. I know they only say it because they're jealous or something and that it's always the least sinful that gets the most mud thrown on her. Well, I want to tell you that I don't care. That's what—I don't care. Not even if it's true!"

Gloria was staring at him in amazement. He knew too! Did anyone not know? Did the waiters know? Did Sonoko know? Did even Michael know? Those two waitresses whispering in the corner—were they talking about her? Ever since she had overheard the conversation, Gloria had fought against believing it. Now she believed it. She believed that everyone she met on the street knew. Everyone knew!

She glanced quickly around. The Major was still talking, but she couldn't hear him. His mouth moved, but she couldn't understand a word. At one of the tables a girl in a low-cut, green felt dress, surrounded by four captains, was rapidly becoming ill. They were pushing back their chairs.

Gloria closed her eyes and felt her chair move slightly. She'd just had too much to drink, that was all. She opened her eyes and looked around her. Then she recognized it. It was the end of the world, the fall of Babylon, the destruction of Sodom, the flaming sword dripping fire, purifying fire, over her head. The four trumpets and the seven plagues, the breaking of the seals and the opening of the graves. She heard the two hundred thousand horsemen, and on her forehead was written "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth." The Apocalypse!

Very ill, Gloria tried to stand. The girl in green felt was lying back in her chair, and waiters were fanning her with napkins. One of the officers was cleaning his uniform. There was a discreet murmur from the tables around them.

The grapevine is growing, thought Gloria, her mind working more and more slowly. It is growing. She found that she had the napkin at her mouth, and she bit it again and again. The Major's hand was on her arm, like the green tendril of a vine, groping forward, blindly, seeking, entering.

She stood up so suddenly that her chair fell backward. From the distance she heard the voice of the Major saying: "But, Miss Wilson, I'm asking you to marry me—to marry me!"

Biting the napkin, she turned and ran across the crowded room, tears blinding her, feeling more and more ill. Far away she heard the Major's voice, sounding like that of a child lost in the woods.

"Miss Wilson!" the voice called. "Miss Wilson!"

She ran into the darkness.

At a nearby table a stout gentleman was talking to two very pretty and very young ladies. "But, my dears," he was saying, "Japan is a divine place to be. Take culture, for example, the heritage of the ages. Why, in Kyoto—"

"Kyoto?" asked one of the girls. "That sounds familiar. Where is that?"

"It's a large city," said the stout man reprovingly. "The ancient capital. It's where the finest—"

"Kyoto, Kyoto," she said reflectively. "I don't think I know—"

"It's near Osaka," said the man. "Really the cultural center of the—"

"Kyoto ..." said the girl.

"Yes," said the man, "it's—"

"Sure, Kyoto!" said the other girl. "You remember—we were there. Sure, you remember. That's the place that had the French perfume in the PX."