Gone to Soldiers: A Novel

by Marge Piercy

  “Point for you.… You don’t think I am?” She was just thinking how they were both almost exactly the same age, born within two weeks of each other, and she thought of herself as far more mature.

  “To tell you the truth, no.” Daniel beamed cherubically, pouring them more rum. “Tastes like hair tonic, doesn’t it?”

  Abra was stingingly insulted, yet to show it would be to prove him right. She wished he would make a pass at her so that she could reject him coldly, but he had not done that in months. He was much too smart, unfortunately, to bother as long as she was crazy about Oscar. She probably needed Daniel more than he needed her, because while he enjoyed chewing over his relationship with Ann, he was not obsessed with Ann. She lay awake at night analyzing Oscar. Daniel was the only sharer of all that cogitating.

  “When I think how simple my life used to be!” she burst out. “What we call love in this society can expand to fill any amount of time and brain cells. It’s a cancer! When I was wanting him and not having him yet, I thought when I had leapt that hurdle, life would be straightforward again.”

  “Sometimes it works that way,” Daniel said. “If what you want is just a body or some entity you’ve invented to fit that face or body. But if you come to know the person and then you want them, I don’t think going to bed does more than increase the fascination. Or so I would suppose.”

  “You’ve never really been in love.” Now it was her turn to attack. “Do you think you’re capable?”

  “I think I was in love once, back in Shanghai. Mostly I’ve been a virtuoso of infatuation. I’ve fallen in love with a scent, a way of wearing a scarf. I’ve fallen for characters in novels or in films. Sometimes I think I could become infatuated with a bowl of ripe fruit.”

  “Isn’t it fascinating how discussion of one’s faults can be a vehicle for flirtation and self-aggrandizement, Daniel dear.”

  “That was the old days. Then I used to have a problem focusing on anything. Now that I have work I find passionately involving, I believe I can focus my mind and energy when I locate the right woman.”

  “Translation is that interesting?”

  His gaze broke away. He tugged at his hair. “Well, the kind of translating I’m doing is demanding. Oriental languages are so foreign in their construction, they cause you to organize the world quite differently.”

  “I’m surprised. At one time I did a fair amount of translation from German speech …” She stopped. She had to give some explanation. “I was doing some interviews for my thesis in New York. I had to interview a few refugees in German.” She hoped that had not sounded lame. She must watch such references. She had recently had her clearance raised, but she imagined that someone like Daniel had probably never been vetted at all. She must watch what she talked about more cunningly; lately R & A had been madly stamping documents SECRET, TOP SECRET.

  The next evening she had a conversation with Oscar about the new security measures in R & A. “Do you really think it’s necessary?”

  “No, but I think it’s irresistible.” He was sitting propped up in bed. The daughter and the ex-wife had finally left town, and she was spending the first night that week with him.

  “Irresistible to whom?” She brooded on his strongly cut profile.

  His eyes, facing ahead as he thought about his answer, were chips of anthracite. “Irresistible because, A, we cannot resist it because such messages come de haut en bas and overwhelm us academic peasants. B, Irresistible to those on high because security measures make them feel important, that they’re playing poker with the big boys.”

  She liked about Oscar that if he said “A” there was always a “B.” If he said there were three things wrong, he would not forget after two or go on to four. She liked that orderliness. She was more intuitive herself. She might say she loved three things, but then she would always think of a fourth to add to the list. He finished his survey before he spoke.

  He was saying almost dreamily, hands crossed on his belly, “Most of our research is based on facts out there for anyone to use. Only putting them together and analyzing them makes us unique. Most of the so-called secret intelligence we get down the pipeline from SI is bullshit, just rumor mongering, social, political and ethnic prejudices passing for hard data.”

  “Oscar, what did Langer want with you today?” William Langer was the head of R & A. “Can you tell me?”

  “I not only can, I must. Langer is sending me to London to head up a little project in the Labor Branch there.”

  “Oh …” She thought her heart had stopped. She thought she could not speak out of fear of the answer. She must keep her voice light, if she had any strength and any dignity remaining. “Will I be going also?”

  “I put in for you.”

  “We work so well together,” Abra said sweetly, curling up against his side. “Wouldn’t you miss me a little?” Now keep it light, she ordered herself. He asked for me. He is trying to take me along. If I show any violence of feelings, it simply will not go as well for me.

  Oscar turned to face her. “I missed your soft self this week. However, that was not one of the arguments I used to Langer.”

  “You can’t just say to him, See here, old boy, she’s my bedmate, don’t you see? Work much better that way, don’t you know.”

  “One always suspects that in the true old boys’ network, they can get away with that. But while R and A is a lot looser than the ruling class Ivy League network that began it—for one thing, there are Jews like me in it—I can’t presume. They’re always sticky about moving women overseas, but I think I’ll succeed. I’m one of his favorites since we rang so many bells with that last report.”

  “What did you say on my behalf?” Did you argue hard and effectively enough? Or are your feelings mixed about taking me? How could what went on in one man’s head be so important to her?

  “I called his attention to your sections in our last two reports. I described you as highly efficient and most objective in your analyses. They eat that up. I made yard-wide promises about the wonders we would perform in London for R and A Washington and how we would never, as some have been reputed to do, allow trying to help with the war effort to deflect us from our primary duty to feed R and A Washington useful goodies. I depicted us as loyal to the end to our bread and butter.” He took her chin in his large hot hand. “Trust me, Abra. I’ll get you over … one way or the other. Now remind me why I want to.” He guided her head down toward his prick.

  Oscar had taught her oral sex. Most of her sexual encounters had occurred with graduate students, suitors from her own background or New York politicos, the best of whom had been rough and ready fuckers. Oscar liked oral sex as a prologue to intercourse. Sometimes she had a preliminary orgasm with his mouth on her; sometimes she just grew very excited. She felt connected with his body in a more intimate and compelling way than she had to any of her previous bedfellows. Not infrequently she had multiple orgasms, sometimes of an intensity that came close to frightening her.

  She did not see him after work the next night. They worked late and then he got tied up in a consultation with two other researchers. Since he had tipped her no sign, she gave up and left with Susannah at eleven. She was exhausted but could not sleep, worrying about London. What would she do with herself if he could not take her along? She felt as if she had been grafted into Oscar; she could not conceive of her life without him.

  The next days were gutted by her inability to think about anything else. She was afraid to bring it up again with him, yet she was convinced he knew exactly what was on her mind, and even to what extent it obliterated logic. They worked all day Saturday. Traditionally Saturday night was OSS party night and Sunday they took off. Sunday it rained, hot and rusty. Oscar was at home working. She went for a walk in the rain with Daniel.

  “Disgusting leakage,” she snarled at the thick dirty dripping air.

  “‘With my eyes looking skyward

  I wait for heaven’s water

  Eager as a bab
y hungry for milk …’

  As they always say, it’s good for the gardens.”

  “Is that poem yours?”

  “Otomo Yakamochi. My translation. It’s good practice.”

  “For what?” She kicked a cardboard container lying in the street. “I’d write about the sky as a big grey stallion pissing all over Washington.”

  “What a charming image. I perceive you’re in a fine uplifted mood and will prove great company today.”

  “Up yours, Balaban, up yours with a flowering cherry bough.”

  “By the way, did you notice this spring those poor trees had become known as Korean cherries?”

  “Be glad they didn’t ax them. I’ll ax you something. My lover is going off to a posting overseas, and I still don’t know whether or not he can take me along. If he doesn’t, the mood I’m in today is sweet Nesselrode pudding compared to how I’m going to be feeling if he goes and I stay. What am I going to do with myself?”

  “London, Stockholm, Algiers, Lisbon, Madrid or Istanbul?”

  “Does that about cover it?”

  “I try to be thorough.”

  “You try to be a smart ass, and commonly you succeed. If I do go with him, I’ll miss you.”

  “You’re missing me now,” Daniel said, taking her arm companionably.

  On May 22, 1943, Oscar and Abra sailed out of New York on the Queen Mary, turned into a troop ship. They were not in the same cabin; rather they were each sharing a cabin with numerous others. Three other OSS women and eight nurses shared an eight-by-eight cabin with Abra, makeshift bunks thrown up with barely room to fit herself into her slot. The Queen being a fast ship, they did not travel in convoy but charged on alone. Abra was out to sea two days before it occurred to her they could actually be torpedoed. She was horrified to note that her first thought was how she and Oscar could end up in the same lifeboat.

  Yet lined up at the railing watching the water break and sky alter, she enjoyed the time in limbo, talking, endlessly talking. Oscar admitted to her that one reason he had intrigued for the London posting—the first time he had not pretended it had emerged from the blue heavens like an angel descending—was that he nurtured vague hopes that once near Europe, he could get some word of his sister Gloria in occupied France. Through Louise he had learned something that led him to believe that surely there were ways in and ways out that he could exploit at least to learn her situation and at best to help her.

  Every day was livened or rendered obnoxious, depending on what was interrupted, by lifeboat, fire, collision, enemy air and enemy sea attack drills. As many people as possible hid in the bathrooms after the first day. The boat was jammed. Except for the dining rooms, all the large rooms were dormitories. They were among the only civilians on board, along with half a dozen other OSS people. There were fourteen of them altogether, but the others had been given noncommissioned or commissioned officer status, and wore nondescript uniforms. They tended to keep together, as they had to tell other people cover stories. Meals occurred in four sittings, the last for the colored personnel. The Queen was segregated all ways.

  She actually began to feel that she was approaching the war zone. She had been so muddled about whether Oscar was going to take her, whether he genuinely wanted to take her, that she had not focused on where she was headed. Evenings tended to be dull. A strict blackout was observed. No one was allowed on deck after dark. Sailors were stationed to block any conceivable area of privacy where the few women on board might copulate with the many men. They managed to make love exactly once by skipping their sitting at lunch, but there was time to think and time to talk.

  “I was in Europe in thirty-eight during the summer. Ready—my middle brother—had just graduated from Annapolis, and my parents took us abroad to celebrate. I remember we came into Le Havre on the Normandy—my mother swore by French boats as having the best food. I know we spent time in Paris, Florence and Rome, where it was unbearably hot. I remember Nice and someplace with a Roman amphitheater where my parents had a dreadful row. Then we visited third cousins in Northumberland and in Edinburgh. My father had a prejudice against London, the same as he did against New York.”

  “I’ve been in London, but not long enough to know it. I spent a good part of a year in Frankfurt, with Louise. We had no money, but we thumbed rides and rode third class on the slow trains. At the end we wandered around Italy. Later on we came back every couple of years. Besides Frankfurt, Paris is the European city I know best.”

  “I can’t say I got much out of the trip. I gawked at a mess of paintings and churches and ate great quantities of veal and pastries. Every single day I fought with my father or my mother.”

  “What did you fight about in those days? Not politics?”

  “I was a flaming radical, or so I imagined, for I’d never met any. I thought saying that I was a Socialist was rather risqué. It certainly exercised my father.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed traveling, but it’s better when you don’t drag a child along.… Sometimes I wonder if Louise and I should ever have had Kay. Only children get too much attention or none.”

  “Why did you, then? Just because that’s what married people do?”

  He grinned. “Exactly. At least on my part. I think Louise wanted a baby, although I never could grasp why. It wasn’t as if her life was empty and needed filling.”

  She waited to see if he was going to ask her if she ever wanted to have a child, but he did not. That was rude. Involved as they were, he ought to at least pretend to be interested in what she wanted long-term. Or was he afraid to leave an opening? Watching a squall blow up, she thought that perhaps he defended himself so well because he feared their intimacy. She had won to a relationship with him; she would win through to a fuller love.

  They had to clear off the deck as it was time for the twice daily drill of the antiaircraft crews, shooting into space. Once and once only on their sixth day they saw the smoke of another ship. Oscar was feeling the frustration of prolonged chastity also. The way he took her arm had become quite desperate. He explored the ship incessantly without success. Even the lifeboats had guards posted to keep them from use as improvised bedrooms. “When we get to London,” Oscar said in her ear, “the first thing I’m going to find is a nice double bed. And a door that shuts.”

  She worried too much, she decided, because love had come to her comparatively late. He told her he loved her; he showed his attraction every desirable way; he had taken her off to London with him. What more did she want? She tried to pack herself tight the way she had packed her trunk, everything folded or rolled in its place and the lid locked on. In London he would be far away from his ex-wife, his ex-girlfriends, his daughter, his mother, his brother and sisters. He would be with her and a handful of Americans, and they would become much closer.

  LOUISE 5

  Of the Essential and the Tangential

  Louise swore at her alarm, but hauled herself up. She was determined to rise every morning before Kay, to prepare a proper hearty breakfast and present it with appropriate motherly behavior. She was not at her best upon waking, but she summoned up images of warm, understanding, efficient film mothers. She had been seeing too many movies lately, because it was something she and Kay could do together without friction. In addition, there were always films she ought to see because she knew someone who had had a hand in making them, Claude or an acquaintance she had met in Hollywood.

  She had visited Claude several times, because Billy Wilder was filming one of her novelettes. Claude satisfied her on many levels, but they did not share a life or even a common context. With him she learned the pleasures of tangential relationships, but she knew quietly and without it being something she would find appropriate to convey to anyone else, how hollow that left a place that had once been well filled.

  Claude thought in French; he dreamed in French landscapes. He lived in an exile world whose true coordinates were streets in another city, on another continent. There were women who would seek the ex
otic to love, who would follow a man willingly into another set of customs and expectations to achieve not only abnegation but a personal liberation in the abandonment of what they had been. Louise could imagine Kay doing that, escaping from her obsession with her father by running off with a sheik or a gaucho.

  She prodded her melancholy warily, mistrustful that any good could come of pitying introspection. Her situation seemed obvious and neither ideal nor sad, a life to be lived, rich in friends, rich in work. No writer had financial security and no mother alone ever felt secure, but she made a good living. What would she change, if she could? She wished she had a better relationship with Kay. She wished Kay were—more responsible? less sullen? less self-pitying? more affectionate? All of the above, perhaps.

  “Mommy, ugh, here I am.” Kay stumbled in, rumpled from sleep. Lately Kay had been calling her “Mommy” as she had not since she was ten. It was not so much a sign of Kay’s dependence as of her willful sojourn in childhood. Kay one day dragged out her favorite doll (last seen in 1938) and placed it on her bed, where it sat in a pink organza dress. She reread her old favorites, Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows. She began braiding her hair, but girls at school teased her out of that affectation.

  Louise bore with the regression, because it could not last past September when Kay would be going to Mount Holyoke College. This was an easy time to choose a college, because they all wanted students, although traveling was rough. Louise and Kay had visited a dozen colleges up and down the Eastern seaboard, from the University of Virginia to the University of Maine, but Kay had liked South Hadley, a pretty, placid New England town. “It seems very safe here,” Kay had said approvingly. They saw few young men, although many young women passed them on bicycles and on foot.

  Louise had been almost sorry when Kay had chosen, because she had been enjoying their trips. Each college was a new experience providing them a topic of conversation. They could compare colleges in endless discussion; not endless, for the idyll had run out.