by Gore Vidal
And then she had said, “It seems like such a long time ago.” They thought of this as they sat in the blue darkness.
Holton finally spoke, saying, “Isn’t it a shame that this has to change again?”
They had been surprised to hear him say this; Trebling was more surprised than Carla because, though he had known Holton longer, she knew him better. Trebling was surprised to hear Holton speak seriously: he was never serious at other times. He always tried to be funny.
“Why should this change again?” asked Carla, looking at him, trying to tell his expression in the dark.
Holton only sighed and said, “Because everything changes when you go away.”
“You can come back,” said Carla and Jim remembered now the exact way she had said that and he was sorry for her.
Holton didn’t answer for a moment and then he had said, “Yes, I suppose you can.” They knew then that he would not come back and Trebling could sense her sadness as they watched the lights flickering below them.
“Do you remember Carla?” asked Jim suddenly, his mind adjusting to the present.
“The girl in Florence? Sure, I remember her. Was that her name...Carla?”
“That’s right.”
“She was very nice looking, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Sure, I remember her.”
“I thought you liked her quite a bit,” said Trebling, not looking at Holton.
“I suppose I did. We ran into a lot of people, though. There were so many people.”
Trebling agreed that there had been a number of people in Europe, people they had known.
“That was a good town, Florence,” said Holton suddenly.
“It was.”
“We were there a week, weren’t we?”
“About that.”
Holton nodded, and Trebling watched him to see how he felt; Holton’s face told him nothing, though. He was only remembering.
“It’s certainly a nice feeling to be out,” said Holton finally.
“I guess it must be.”
“Not having to worry about being moved from place to place.”
They were standing in the Roman Forum. All around them were pieces of shattered marble, shattered in earlier wars. Trebling and Holton had looked at three slender columns of marble, all that was left of a temple.
Trebling had remarked, “I’ll bet those pillars are pretty old.”
Holton agreed, “Maybe a thousand years old.”
Together they had looked at the three columns of the ruined temple.
Trebling asked, “Do you think you would’ve ever gotten here except in the army?”
“No. I don’t guess so.”
“I probably wouldn’t have either.”
“It’s sort of interesting.”
And Trebling had said, “I like the traveling part of all this.”
Robert Holton agreed to this and then they began to complain about other things.
Trebling sat back in his chair and looked around the office. He didn’t like offices and he didn’t like this one at all. The clear constant light standardized the people in the room.
“How do you like it here?” he asked.
Holton shrugged. “O.K., I suppose. It’s something to do.” “You think you’ll stay in this sort of work?”
“Probably, I don’t know yet.”
“I had thought you might go into this new thing with me.”
“Well....”
Neither spoke for a moment.
Finally Trebling asked, “Can I smoke in here?”
“I’m sorry, Jim, but....”
“Sure, I know: rules.”
“I’m sorry. These people are awful stiff about a lot of things.”
Jim Trebling wished again that he hadn’t come. He had an impulse to run away. “What’re you doing tonight?” he asked finally.
“I’m going to a big cocktail party.”
“Being social, eh?”
“Well, you know you have to make contacts...” he continued, explaining himself carefully.
Then Holton asked Jim about himself, and he listened as Jim talked. The cataloguing of army camps, the different duties in each, the girl he had decided to marry and then didn’t, his current leave of absence, the trip across the country, the pleasure of seeing Robert Holton again.
Trebling told this story automatically, as one always tells a much-told personal story and as he told this he wondered what had happened to Holton.
In the war he had been considered wild. He had spent most of the time laughing at things. He had been easily bored and now he was changed.
“It must be nice to be out,” Trebling repeated, not knowing what else to say.
And Robert Holton explained to him in detail why it was so nice to be free.
Paris had been the most interesting place of all. They had spent two days there. Trebling had been very conscientious and had insisted that they see palaces and landmarks and they had actually tried to see a few but then Holton decided that there was not enough time for that. They met two girls. Trebling could not remember their names; he could remember nothing about them except that they were rather pretty and claimed to be sisters.
The girls had suggested they go on a picnic. Holton had liked this idea and he managed to get some food from the mess officer of a near-by company. They took bicycles and drove out of Paris. They rode through Sèvres and some small towns on the outskirts. They approached Versailles but the girls didn’t care to go into the town and so they turned left from the main road. At a small town called Jouy-en-Josas they stopped, and on the dark green lawn of a bombed-out château they had their picnic.
The sky was overcast that day. And the woods that surrounded the château were blue and smoky and looked mysterious, like the pictures of enchanted forests in children’s books.
When they had finished lunch Holton wanted to go walk in the woods. Only one of the girls spoke English.
“Let’s take a walk in the woods,” Holton suggested.
The two girls giggled and talked together very quickly in French. The one who spoke English finally said, “Sure, we go walk in the woods with you.” They walked in the woods.
Hand in hand the two couples walked between the misty trees. There was no underbrush here and the trees came up out of the stony, grass-covered ground, free and straight.
The two girls understood what was expected of them. His most vivid memory was not of the one he had but of Holton’s: a stocky, pink-faced girl. He remembered clearly the way her head lolled against the tree, her eyes closed and her thick lips slightly ajar. He remembered that her hair was almost the same color as the bark of the tree.
“Say, Bob, do you remember those two girls from Paris?”
“When was that?”
“You know, the time we went on the picnic.”
“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” That was that.
A large important-looking man came into the office. When he saw Trebling with Holton he stopped in the middle of the room, changed his course with the unself-conscious dignity of a schooner under full sail, and walked straight over to them.
Holton got to his feet quickly and Trebling did the same, sensing that this was a person of importance.
“Jim Trebling, this is Mr. Murphy, the Chief of our section.”
“Glad to meet you, Lieutenant.” They shook hands vigorously, Mr. Murphy smiling with goodwill.
“Well, Lieutenant, I suppose you’ll be getting out soon?”
Mechanically Trebling explained what he was planning to do.
“Think you’ll go into Business?” asked Mr. Murphy.
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Lot of openings now for a young man who wants to get ahead.”
“There probably are.”
They talked for a while of Business as though it were a state of being.
Trebling looked at Holton as Mr. Murphy talked, looked at him, trying to find something familiar in his face. For a moment as
he looked he thought he could see a tightness about the mouth, an effort at control but Jim Trebling could not tell what Holton was controlling and the mouth soon relaxed and he could tell nothing then.
Coming back on the boat together they had talked of what they were going to do when they got out.
“I think I’d like to make money,” said Holton, looking at the white wake of the ship.
“That’s not a bad idea. How?”
“Damned if I know.”
“We could always start that pottery business I was telling you about, back in California.”
“That’s a thought.”
“Of course there’re a lot of other things we could do.”
“I suppose it’s all a matter of picking the right one.”
They looked at the gray water and thought of new things, of works not yet begun. Pensively Holton leaned out over the railing and spat. Trebling, interested, did the same. For several moments they were in serious contest to determine who could spit the farthest. Holton won, although Tripling claimed he had been helped by a gust of wind.
Then they walked about the decks of the transport. Soldiers were everywhere. They sat in groups on the covered hatches, they leaned over the railing to look at the sea and, also, to be sick.
“I guess all these people are going to be trying the same thing,” said Holton suddenly.
“Try what? Starting a business?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think so.”
“A lot of them will.”
“So what?”
“I guess it could work.” They stopped amidships and looked out to sea again. “I’d certainly like to have a lot of money,” said Holton sincerely.
“So would I,” said Trebling with casual sincerity.
They had decided then to start in together when they got out of the army. Holton had been discharged first, however, and he had immediately joined Heywood and Golden. In his occasional letters Holton never mentioned the business again. Trebling remembered that now and was sorry so much had changed.
Mr. Murphy was talking about Business.
Holton was listening to him with what appeared to be interest. Trebling shook himself and tried to act as if he had been following the lesson Mr. Murphy had been giving him.
“Very nice to have met you, Lieutenant,” said Mr. Murphy at last.
“Nice to meet you.” They shook hands. Mr. Murphy turned to Holton. “I’d like to see you for a moment if your friend doesn’t mind.”
“Certainly.” Holton gestured to Trebling to stay where he was. Then Mr. Murphy and Holton went over to the other end of the office where the windows were.
Jim Trebling sat in his uncomfortable chair beneath the fluorescent lights. He wanted to leave this office, leave it now and not come back. He couldn’t understand Holton any longer. He no longer knew him.
Trebling was aware of someone standing beside him. He looked up: it was the blue-eyed girl. He started to get to his feet.
“Don’t move,” she said. “I’m just passing by. Mr. Murphy and Bob seem to be having some sort of conference. I thought I’d wait outside the gate till they were through.”
“Sit down,” said Trebling.
“Thank you.” She sat down in the chair beside him. He wondered what to say to her, what to talk about.
“Have you been here long?” he asked.
She told him that she had been there for several years. “It must be interesting working in a place like this.”
She laughed. “It’s pretty awful, I think. As jobs go, of course, it’s not bad.”
“But you’d rather not work at all.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, you’ll probably be married soon.” This was a leading question. There was a simple ritual to conversation with pretty girls who might be had.
She recognized this and answered according to the ritual, “Oh, maybe someday, when I meet the right person.”
This could mean a lot. He was interested now. “That’s important, meeting the right person.”
They were both silent, thinking how important it was to meet the right person.
Trebling began to think of this girl (was her name Caroline?) quite seriously. It was such an important thing to discover: if she could be had or not. For one night she might be very pleasant. He liked the way she looked. But then he thought of certain other one-night stands and of the phone calls and letters and emotion that often came of them. He would be very careful about this. He resumed.
“I suppose you can have a pretty good time in New York if you know the right places to go.”
“Yes, there are some nice places. You have to be very careful, though.”
“A lot of them are clip joints, I guess.”
She laughed. “I’ll say they are.”
“Depends, I guess, on who you go out with.”
“Well, you should know your way around.”
They were drawing nearer and nearer to the act. Everything was going well. She was returning all his signals. He began to breathe a little hard as they approached the gateway.
“I know so few people in New York,” he said. “Bob’s really the only person I know well. I don’t know any girls.”
“Well, there’re a lot of them around.”
“I know.” He paused and then he began to speak carefully but casually. “I was going out tonight but I don’t think I will now.”
“Why?”
“It’s not much fun alone.” This was said almost pathetically.
“What about Bob?”
“He’s going to that cocktail party.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot.” A pause now, a silence with great meaning in it.
“Maybe,” and he was saying it at last, “maybe you might go out with me tonight.”
“Me!” Surprise, pleasure, a certain asperity, all these emotions splendidly portrayed in that one word. “Well....”
“Of course if you’re busy....”
“Oh, no....” She spoke almost too quickly. “I’m not really certain,” she added, regaining her dignity. “Perhaps you might call me back around five. I’ll know then.” At that moment both of them knew.
“That would be fine. I hope you don’t think it’s...”
“Certainly not.” Then she said that any friend of Bob’s was a friend of hers.
Trebling felt pleased with himself for having managed so well. It might take a week but it would still be pleasant. He looked forward to the final moment of yielding. He sighed and started to think of other things.
Caroline, seeing that Holton was on his way back, got up from her chair. “Nice to have seen you, Lieutenant. I’ll be looking forward to your call.”
He also stood up. “I hope you can make it.” She said that she did, too, and they both knew what was going to happen. Robert Holton came back and Caroline left.
“That’s a pretty girl,” said Trebling.
“Caroline? Yes, she’s pretty nice.”
They stood looking at each other awkwardly. “Shall we get together tomorrow evening?” suggested Holton.
“Sure, that’d be fine.”
“Well, listen, Jim, it’s been wonderful seeing you....”
“And I’ve enjoyed it....” Their voices intermingled into a single sound. Neither of them listened to the words of the other.
“See you tomorrow then, Bob?”
“See you then.” They said good-bye and Jim Trebling left the office. As he stood in the reception room waiting for the elevator he felt sad at the way Holton had changed. It was such a shame because they had once been very close. Then Jim Trebling thought of Caroline and he felt happier. The Carolines were the important things.
The elevator door opened and he stepped inside.
Chapter Eight
AT FIVE-THIRTY THE WORLD CEASED TO BE OFFICIAL AND Became private.
Happily Robert Holton put away his books and figures and prepared to leave. Monday was over and he wouldn’t let himself think of the
other days of his week.
Caroline was putting on her hat and Mr. Murphy sat at his desk behind her, dreaming, his eyes fixed shrewdly upon nothing.
Robert Holton walked over to Caroline.
“Ready to go?”
She nodded. “All ready.” Together they walked through the emptying offices, rode down the crowded elevator, and stepped out into the more crowded street.
The sky was gray now and the sun had vanished behind buildings. The air was cool and the smell of exhaust was strong as cars moved slowly in the streets, trying to escape to less crowded places. They walked with the stream of people toward the subway opening. They talked.
“Guess what?” said Caroline.
“What?” “I’m going out tonight.”
“Well?”
“I’m going out with Lieutenant Trebling.”
He was surprised. “That was fast work. Did he do that while he was in the office?”
“We talked about it. He called me back later and I told him I’d go out with him.”
“Well, well.” Holton was admiring but Caroline was not sure whether he was admiring her or Trebling.
“I think he’s nice,” she said, not committing herself.
“Yes, he’s a good guy.”
They crossed a street nervously and in silence. On the other side they went on talking.
“Tell me something about him?” she asked.
“There’s not much to tell. He’s from the West Coast. He went to UCLA, I think, and his old man’s in the insurance business. He went into the army about the same time I did and he’s still in.”
“That’s not what I want to know.”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
She had trouble saying this. “Oh, you know...the sort of person he is. All that sort of thing.”
Robert Holton, who hadn’t thought much about it, had a hard time answering. “I guess he’s what you’d call a dreamer. He’s not very practical. He always wants to start things...businesses, you know. In the war he was pretty good and other people liked him. He wasn’t very wild then.”
“Is he now?”
“Just his ideas. In those days I used to be the wild one.”
She laughed and thought he was joking with her and this made him angry and sad but there was nothing he could do about it because he had assumed a certain identity with her and it had to be maintained.