This Scorching Earth (33 page)

As they walked down the aisle they could indeed hear pounding and hammering. Occasionally there were muffled shouts and the curtain moved slightly. "Except that they take it all so seriously," said Mr. Swenson, mellowed by gin and anxious to show that he too could play the little game of locating the minor faults of the Japanese. "Just as they take seriously everything from carving those exquisite netsuke to heeding Nature's call. They are a nation which has forgotten how to play."

Dottie Ainsley had caught only a part of the sentence. "It's their toilet training, isn't it?" she asked the first four rows.

"Forgotten how to play," repeated Mr. Swenson, pleased with his observation.

"Because," continued Dottie, "I know that if I had to squat on my heels like that, I would be the most frustrated person alive. Maybe that's what's the matter with them—frustrated." She turned to her husband and used her tinkling-bell laugh. He smiled and patted her hand. "From just sitting there on their heels," said Dottie, pleased with her witticism.

Dave smiled again and guided her into a row, pushing her before him and asking pardon of those who stood.

"No, I must say that I do not subscribe to that theory," said Mrs. Swenson seriously. "Only the other day I had a letter—you remember, dear," she turned to her husband, "it was from 'Worried.' And 'Worried' said that toilet training had been overemphasized and that the Japanese ability to relieve Nature was very much akin to their ability to sleep just anywhere anytime. Now, 'Worried' said that, if anything, their toilet training relaxed them and so couldn't be held responsible for the inner tension they all seem to feel." She shook her head, half-judiciously, half-admiringly.

"Well," said Dottie hotly, "they sure crap just about any place you can name, and I know—"

"By the way, honey," interrupted her husband, "how's your inner tension?"

She sighed and patted her round stomach. "It still hurts a little."

He smiled down at her, saying: "You poor kid."

She put on her brave little smile. "Oh, it's nothing really. It sort of itches, you know, but it's not going to kill me."

A great wave of emotion swept over Dave, and he turned to Mrs. Swenson. "There's one brave little girl," he said.

"Where?" said Mrs. Swenson brilliantly, casting her eyes over the audience.

In so doing she discovered some acquaintances several rows away and, aware they were watching her, became even more brilliant. Throwing both hands in the air, she turned upon Dave Ainsley, still blinking his eyes bravely at the thought of the brave little girl's suffering.

"You know Berle was taken ill just after the party?" she asked. Her lips were composed in a joyous smile for the benefit of those several rows away, while with her eyes she attempted to communicate to Dave the terrible sorrow the news had caused her. The effect was not entirely successful.

"Yes," Mrs. Swenson's metallic voice went on, "they took her away after the party. She said she didn't feel well and then clutched herself"—Mrs. Swenson's hands went violently toward her stomach—"and so a couple of soldiers rushed her over to the Dispensary. Something female I think."

Dave was nodding diligently. He was being brilliant too. He had just seen his boss in the audience.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Major Calloway, his hand creeping forward under the outspread program.

"I'm thinking someone is going to lose a hand," said Gloria.

The fingers stopped for an instant, then retreated back to the Major's lap. "You sure know how to treat wolves like me," he said and laughed.

"You're a sheep in wolf's clothing, Major, and it doesn't become you."

He laughed timidly and then studied his program, hurt. "Feel better?" he asked softly.

"Yes," said Gloria, "it must have been something I drank."

"I should guess so. You sounded like one of our old cows taking a bath."

"Lovely simile," said Gloria.

"No offense."

"Naturally not. I just hope the old cow takes it as kindly."

"But you sure sounded sick."

"I was," shouted Gloria. "Now will you stop dwelling upon that unlovely fact?"

The Major went back to his program.

Gloria sighed. She ought to say something to him. He'd spent a lot of money on her. Perhaps she could let
her
hand creep softly over
his
thighs. The idea was so instantly repulsive that she put both hands safely out of harm's way on the other side of her.

Now that her mind was off her stomach she realized that she was bored—bored silly. The Child Cowboy at one side of her, and the Ainsleys and the Swensons—arbiters of the Occupation—in front of her. Now, who would be in back of her? The Emperor? Most likely. She turned around and then quickly turned back again. It was Private Richardson.

Well, that was just dandy. He'd doubtless had a perfect view of the Major's manual dexterity. But it actually couldn't make less difference now, because Gloria was a changed girl. She was going straight. That was what she'd thought about while vomiting up a lot of the Major's money. She quite obviously could not have her cake and eat it too, so she'd just put herself on a slimming diet, and the sight of the boyish beauty of Private Richardson, while tantalizing, was not enough to make her break her iron-clad resolve. Besides, she still had a trick or two up her sleeve. The Army wasn't the only pebble on the beach.

In front of her the Ainsleys and Swensons were talking about the Japanese. Did they ever talk of anything else she wondered. She had heard this kind of talk before. It was the same when a woman of dubious reputation moved into a respectable neighborhood back in Muncie. There was never talk of anything except her latest comings and goings, her reasons for this and that, mock admiration and scandalized surprise. But the Ainsleys and Swensons were more intelligent than that. They never talked about a person; they merely gossiped about a nation.

The Major was growing restless again. His hands were on the move. To keep him amused Gloria suddenly cried: "Look!" She pointed at random among the people in the aisle. Her pointing finger found an entire Japanese family, both the parents in formal kimonos, a lovely girl in an elaborate obi, another man more beautifully dressed even than the girl, a student in uniform, and a man in a business suit who fussily led the way.

"Well, what about it?" said the Major. "I seen gooks before."

"Oh, but these are formal gooks," said Gloria.

"Well, what about them?" asked the Major, becoming aggressive. "And who the hell let them in here anyway?"

Just as Gloria was about to admit a loss of words, the more beautifully dressed of the men saw them and bowed, his gray hair bright in the overhead lights. "Why, it's Mr. Ohara," said Gloria quite surprised.

"So it is," said the Major, waving heartily- "Only you say O'Hara, like in Scarlett, you know. No sense mispronouncing it. Hell, you got sharp eyes. I wouldn't have recognized him in all that get-up."

"Neither would I," said Gloria.

"What do you suppose he went and did that for? He seemed like a regular guy to me."

"Went and did what?"

"Get himself up all in Jap like that. I don't think that's very friendly. Sort of rubbing our noses in it, don't you think, Miss Wilson?"

"Rubbing our noses?"

"Yeah, I mean he comes in with a suit just like everybody else when he comes to see us. Shoes and all. Civilized, you know. And now, at a formal shindig like this he runs home and puts on a costume. I don't know what that's called in your books, Miss Wilson, but—"

"Sort of like Pearl Harbor, huh?"

The Major took this for joking agreement and began reading his program again. Since his proposal, neither had looked the other squarely in the eye. He wasn't sure that she remembered his asking her, and she wasn't at all certain he had any recollection of asking. Gloria was the more uncomfortable. She realized that the Major's proposal demanded some kind of answer. Her answer was no; yet she didn't want to commit herself to it. Here she was sitting with a major who had asked to marry her. She glanced defiantly around the theater. Let them talk, she told herself; for the time being, at any rate, I'm respectable.

"No, not like Pearl Harbor," said the Major after a time, having decided it wasn't a joke after all. "But you know what I mean. Here we are, trying to give these folks a decent way of life and all. Teach them to wear proper clothes and act like white people. Then a man like O'Hara does something like this. I don't know. It sort of hurts, after you've worried about them and cared for them. It seems like they just don't understand the way we do things in the States. And if they do, they're just bound and determined they're going to be different."

"You mustn't be too hard on them, Major."

"You're just too kindhearted, Miss Wilson, that's what you are. Like with that sedan driver today. It's not good, you know. You got to teach these people to respect you, and the only thing they respect is force. You got to show them you're stronger than they are. That way you'll impress them and they'll mind better. I don't approve of this moddle-cuddling—"

"Muddle-cuddling is the word, I believe. Or is it molly-cuddling? Mully-coddling?"

"—that's going on over here," continued the Major, unperturbed. "I think we ought to be firm. Now, if you was to fraternize too much—"

"Not me, Major. Not under this Occupation. Not yet at any rate. It's still illegal to fraternize too much, you know, but there is handwriting on the wall."

"I don't know about no handwriting. I only know what's best."

"And what's best, Major?"

"Why, just what I been talking about. We're examples. We got to go around acting like examples to these people. They're going to imitate us. They imitated everything else, and now they're imitating us. And you got to hand it to them—they're pretty good at it too, unless they sort of backslide like that O'Hara fellow did tonight."

Gloria thought of herself as the glorious example followed by countless schoolgirls in their middy blouses, and felt faint. And. the Major, creating the Japanese in his own likeness—or, at least, unsuccessfully trying to!

"And
that
's why the Army over here has to be careful about its officers. We're the ones in the—what they call it?—in the focal point or something like that. We're the ones that get stared at. We have a mission here."

"Well, you're really waxing quite eloquent this evening, Major."

"Oh, I can explain myself when I got to," said the Major modestly. "So, like I was saying, the Army's got to sort of weed out those that don't fit in. Like the Colonel over there."

"Colonel Ashcroft? Where?"

"Down in front—where else?"

She saw him stroking his moustaches. He looked small, dry, and very tired. "What about him?"

"Well, he just don't fit no more. Old-fashioned. Old Virginia method—correction by example, you know. Tries to correct me. Me! All the time. His kind won't last long in this man's army."

"He's been in it for years though."

"That's just it. Years too long. Getting a little too soft for Uncle Sammie, if you catch what I mean."

"I must confess that its significance does somewhat escape me."

"Well, this is just rumor, mind you, but one has heard that a certain colonel in Special Services is going to get relieved and returned to the ZI pretty fast. Don't know why. Maybe too many caviar and vodka parties, if you get me. After all, it's a pretty cushy job and they—the big wheels—don't see why a major couldn't fill it just as well as a colonel. Hell, it even saves the taxpayers money. Just a bit of readjusting of the old TO. And funny thing, you know, but I sort of agree with them."

"Are you suggesting you might become my boss?" asked Gloria, aghast.

"That's just what I'm saying," said Major Calloway, patting her hand.

"Oh, god!"

The Major looked around them covertly. "But not a word, you understand, to nobody. This isn't a sure thing yet. They're just working on it."

"Does Colonel Ashcroft know?"

"Hasn't the foggiest," laughed the Major, imitating Gloria.

"This is handwriting all in capitals," said Gloria.

"Thought you'd see it my way," said the Major, and again his hand touched hers.

This time she didn't stop him.