From Here to Eternity: The Restored Edition

by James Jones

  “Okay,” he said. “But its true about Stark though, isnt it?”

  Karen turned on him, her eyes starting and blazing. “You came to my bed a virgin, didnt you?”

  “Then it is true,” he said. “Well?” he said conversationally, “how was it? Did you like it? Did you really like it? Was he as good as I am? He looks virile enough.”

  “Well, we’ve gotten awfully possessive, awfully suddenly, haven’t we?” Karen said contemptuously. “What business is that of yours?”

  “Oh, I thought maybe I could work up some new ideas, new techniques maybe, if you werent satisfied. G Company prides itself on keeping its customers satisfied.”

  “That is a rotten thing to say,” Karen said contortedly. “But if it will ease your mind any, I hated it,” she said. “I loathed it.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying?”

  “And just who are you? to wonder if I’m lying?”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “You want to know why I did it? You really want to know. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime. Like hell. You’re getting to sound so like a typical husband, why dont you just sweat it out like a typical husband?”

  She laughed spitefully, and then her face suddenly seemed to crumple up. Ugly wrinkles gathered around her mouth and eyes and she was crying angrily.

  “You son of a bitch,” she said. “You son of a bitch you son of a bitch. You dont leave a person anything, do you you son of a bitch?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I dont blame you.”

  She stood staring at him and crying and in her eyes was the greatest hatred he had ever seen, and he had seen some pretty fair hatreds, in his time.

  “No,” she said. “I think I’ll just tell you now. I think now is the time. You can take it back to the barracks with you. It’ll make fine conversation in the barracks.”

  She dropped the clothes that she had had so much trouble gathering, and that she was holding protectively in front of her. She sat down on the bed and pointed at the long scar on her belly, the scar he had noticed every time before but had always been somehow reluctant to mention.

  “See that?” she said. “You know what that is? You never noticed that before, did you?

  “Well, thats a hysterectomy scar,” she said. “A hysterectomy is a uterectomy. A uterectomy is an operation in which they excise the uterus. But they call it hysterectomy. You know what hysterectomy comes from, of course? From hysteria. Hysteria and womb and women are synonymous in the medical profession, you know. Thats where they get their biggest source of income, you see. You know: stupid women who weep and are very nervous and go to pieces and maybe lose their minds as they approach the change of life, but whose husbands always dutifully sorrowfully protect them and lovingly take care of them at home so that they seldom go to institutions. Look in a medical dictionary some time,—if you can ever get hold of one that is, they’re very hush-hush and try to pretend they are restricted, so you’ll probably have to buy one. I had to buy mine. But look up the prefix hystero- and see the words derived from it. A hysteroscope is an instrument for inspecting the uterus, did you know that? A hysterometer is an instrument for measuring the uterus, did you know that? A hysterograph is an apparatus for measuring the strength of the uterine contractions in labor, did you know that? Two, perhaps three, full pages of small type: hystero-this, hystero-that.

  “You go in to them and they look you up and down, appraisingly, then they ask how old you are. You say I’m thirty-five. Oh, they say. They nod. They look knowing. Thirty-five, they say. Change of life coming on, you know. They soothe you. Mustnt be upset. Be calm. Happens to the best of us. They examine you. They’re gynecologists and its all professional of course. Then they wash their hands and nod profoundly. Just as I thought, they say, you need a hysterectomy, thats all, just a little old hysterectomy.

  “God knows what the medical profession would do if it didnt have its hysterectomies and their hystero-derivatives. Probably all go broke and vote for socialized medicine after all, I guess. At the hospital I was in they performed as many as nine hysterectomies in a morning. Surprised? Oh, you dont realize. You dont know how many women there are over thirty in this country. And its really very simple any more. Still a major operation, but they’re getting the technique down better every day. Soon it’ll be as minor as an appendectomy, then every woman over thirty-five can have one, cheap.

  “Its really quite the thing any more, a profession in itself, the excising of the uterus. When they excise the uterus, they take all the rest out with it. Its no good to you any more, with the womb gone. They take it all out, the tubes, the ovaries, all of it. Just in case theres some of the pus producing tissue left. They even take your appendix out too. They throw that in free.

  “But after they sew you up, you suddenly discover you’re not a woman any more. Oh, the outside’s still there, the part the men care about, its not at all like castration. Some doctors even intimate you’ll like it better with the fear of getting pregnant gone. You still look and dress the part of woman, your skin and hair dont change, nothing like that, even your breasts dont dry up because they’ve got some little pills to keep the shell acting just the same as though you werent changed. Hormones, they call them.

  “See?” she said; she got a little square green bottle out of the overnight bag she had brought. “You take them every day. The pills you’ll never be without. Its really remarkable, isnt it?” She put the bottle back.

  “But,” she said, “you’re still not a woman any more. You still go to bed, the men still get what they want, but the purpose of it all is gone. The meaning of it is gone, too. You’re not a woman and you’re certainly not a man, you’re not even a poor freak of a hermaphrodite. You’re not anything. You’re a gutted shell. What they need to make next is a pill that will give the meaning back, or at least the illusion of the meaning, then you can take two kinds of pills a day and life will be wonderful. But now—now you’re still the rich ripe grape, only the meat has been ripped open and the seed plucked out. You’re an empty hulk and the meaning of sex is gone, you cant have children.

  “Maybe,” she said, “maybe thats why it is you hunt so hungrily for love, why you have to hunt for it, even though you know they all are secretly laughing at you, winking behind your idealistic romantic back—another neurotic woman at the change of life who wants to change the world and give it love, as if the world ever needed love! What would the world do with love?

  “But love, if you can find it, you think, might give sex meaning—and give you meaning—might even give life meaning. Love is all you’ve got then—if you can find it.

  “No,” she said, “no, dont say anything. Not yet. I’m not finished yet. Let me tell it all, first.

  “I’ve never told it to anybody before, you know. Never talked about it to a living soul—except my doctor, until he wanted to find out what it was like with a woman who had her organs out, after my recuperation.

  “So just let me tell it all.

  “You know what caused my hysterectomy? I bet you couldnt guess. Gonorrhea caused this one. Gonorrhea causes most of them. Not all of them, of course, but a large majority.

  “And where do you think I got my dose of gonorrhea? I bet you couldnt guess that either. I got it from my husband, where most of the wives who get it get it. From Capt Dana E Holmes. Only he was still a 1st/Lt then.

  “Dont look so shocked. I’m not being bitter. Wives also give it to their husbands, I’ve heard. Its not unusual, not nearly as unusual as you think.

  “We had been married three years then; when it happened. I had already had the baby then. The heir. The proud bearer of the line. The inheritor of society’s blessing. I had already done my duty and had my son. That was lucky, wasnt it?

  “Of course, we hadnt been married two months before I knew he was stepping out on me. But then that was no different from the lot of other women. That was all part of being a wife. Your mother tells you that is life. Even your mother-in-law
is sympathetic. I finally got used to that, fairly easily; although it wasnt quite the picture of marriage I had been brought up to expect. You see, your mother doesnt tell you all this until after it has happened to you.

  “Then after the baby was born he gradually stopped sleeping with me. Except on rare occasions. This was a little harder to get used to because I didn’t know why. But I got used to that, too, eventually. It was almost a relief, actually, because those rare occasions were so obvious: He would come in late half drunk, all worked up because he obviously hadn’t been able to get into the woman he’d been out with. It was always the same; I suppose thats why men keep wives at home, isnt it; but somehow I never could get much pleasure out of it.

  “Then for a while he stopped altogether. It seemed natural enough to me; I supposed he was getting all he wanted elsewhere; how was I to know he was being treated for gonorrhea? Respectable women arent even supposed to know what gonorrhea is, are they? So I didn’t think much about it when he came around this one particular night, a little drunker than usual.

  “Of course, a little later on I realized. Well, maybe he was just too drunk to remember. Or maybe he just was so worked up that he forgot. You know how those things are.”

  “Jesus!” Warden said. He had long ago set the bottle down. “Jesus Christ!” he said. “Jesus Jesus Christ!”

  Karen smiled at him lividly.

  “I’m almost finished now,” she said. “Just a little more. I want to tell you about Stark.

  “You see, Dana had taken me to his doctor, the one who was treating him. In town, of course. He would have been kicked out of course, if he had gone to the Post Hospital. I don’t think the doctor liked him very well over it, but then he was a very scientific little man. Bald and scientific and very objective, like all true scientists, and quite rich, lately. I never knew where Dana got his name, some fellow sufferer on the Post, I imagine. Anyway, the doctor did a thriving business; Texas always was a bad place for gonorrhea. Too near the border, you know.”

  “Listen,” Warden said tensely. “Listen. Please.”

  “No, no, let me finish. I’m almost through. Stark was after I came back. I had to go away on a trip, you see. Its harder to cure in women than in men. Almost always it entails a hysterectomy. I was gone quite a while. While I was gone Stark came in as a recruit. He was only a kid, I suppose. A regular bragging kid who made a pass at me as a matter of pride. I think he was scared half to death when I took him up on it, me being the Lieutenant’s wife. But I had to do something. I had to clean myself out. I was dirty. I had been dirty for so very long and I had been trying so hard to convince myself I wasnt dirty, that it was like what all women had to go through. But quite suddenly I no longer gave a damn what other women went through or didnt go through. I knew I was dirty. Maybe they could kid themselves. I couldnt any longer. I knew. You can see what I mean, cant you?”

  “Listen,” Warden said.

  “Stark was the instrument I used to clean myself, the first one that came to hand after I got back. Any instrument would have done as well. It only happened once, and it hurt me physically, and I loathed it. But afterwards I was clean. You can see, cant you, how I had to be clean?”

  “Yes,” Warden said, “I can see how. But listen.”

  “Thats all,” Karen smiled lividly. “I’m through now. Now I’ll go.”

  She sat and looked at him and the livid smile gradually, very gradually, faded off her face and then she was just looking at him, sheer absolute nothingness that was too tired to give a damn on her face. She collapsed kind of sickly down on the bed and lay there sickly, not unconscious, not fainted, not crying, not vomiting, not anything. She was like a recently pregnant woman who has for a long time felt this thing growing and growing in her, this man-made tumor that has to be got out of her but that she is afraid of getting out of her, and then finally does get it out of her, and collapses kind of sickly with relief into sheer nothingness for a while.

  Warden got the bottle and took it over to her. “Listen,” he said urgently. “Listen to me.”

  “You want me to go now, dont you?” she said hollowly. “You want to get this rottenness out of your sight, dont you?” She hoisted herself up. “Well, I’ll go in a minute. I just want a minute to rest first.”

  “Listen,” he said. “Wont you please listen?”

  “All right, I’m listening.”

  Warden nodded. “You have to listen,” he said urgently.

  She looked at him and took the bottle out of his hand. “I believe I will have a drink, before I go. Why, Milt,” she said, “you’re crying.”

  “No I’m not,” Warden nodded. “Listen. Listen to me.”

  “You have a drink,” Karen said and gave him back the bottle.

  Warden nodded. “I dont want you to go, see?” he said. “I’m asking you please not to go.”

  “I dont want to go,” Karen said. “I want to stay. Oh, Milt, I do want to stay, Milt.”

  “Thats it,” he said. “Listen,” he said. “Oh, that son of a bitch. That miserable lousy son of a bitch.”

  “I dont have to be back until tomorrow evening,” she said vaguely. “He’s going to one of Col Delbert’s stags tonight, you see.”

  “I love you,” Warden said. “Oh that son of a bitch.”

  Chapter 23

  CAPT HOLMES MAY OR may not have been a son of a bitch, it all depended on your point of view, but Capt Holmes was not a stupid man. He knew his wife was having an affair. When you live with another human for twelve years you get so you sense those things. Tonight his wife had refused to cook his dinner for him. His wife never refused to cook his dinner for him. Breakfast, yes; luncheon, always; but not dinner. Cooking dinner was part of the agreement. Agreement? Capt Holmes thought. Treaty. Or perhaps armed truce would be better. This was not a typical marriage. Or was it?

  Rather than eat the gook maid’s cooking Capt Holmes had dined, and dined well, in the Bachelor Officers’ Mess with the other married officers whose wives did not cook dinner for them, and now with a comfortably full bowel he was sitting unhappily at the Payday-deserted bar of the Club Taproom watching the enlisted barman solicitously polishing glasses, while waiting for his Colonel to show up.

  Capt Holmes had not been on the best of terms with his Colonel lately, since the loss of the championship. In fact, when he thought about it, he had not been on the best of terms with much of anybody lately. First his Colonel, then his wife; but then, there was always his wife. Neither his 1st/Sgt nor his Mess/Sgt seemed to like him very well. Half the men in his company hated his guts. The other half, whom he knew he had done things for, did not even seem to realize it. At times, he suspected they disliked him more than the first half. He did not know why all this was. Apparently, he had not yet located his proper place in life. Logically, he ought to be on the best of terms with everybody because, logically, he had chosen this place in life as the only one he wanted, and he wanted to be on the best of terms with everybody.

  Where had it all gone? he wondered, feeling a yawning bottomlessness that always frightened him opening up beneath his feet. Where were the ideals of the leader of men who had marched forth from the Point? Where was the gay and happy marriage, the good living, the conscientious leadership? Where was the dashing, hell-for-leather young cavalryman? He could not remember having lost them anywhere, and he knew he had not laid them down. What then had happened to it?

  It will be a civilian man, he thought. She is too discreet to pick an officer, and she has too much breeding and good taste to take an EM. Ergo, a civilian man, preferably a rich one. Capt Holmes had always been a believer in the efficacy of syllogistic logic.

  He ought to be feeling good, he told himself. Now he did not have to go home at all tonight, or any night, unless he felt like it. He was freed of the necessity of keeping up appearances with his wife in name only. Thats good, that: Wife In Name Only, I remember a book called that. It was one of those I used to hide from mother in the haymow. Who was it n
ow? Clay. Bertha M Clay. Dear Bertha. Well, it was good to know your wife possessed sexual instincts, just like any other human. Now he had something on her. It was a sound basis for a fruitful union. Logically, he really ought to be feeling fine. He had always believed in logic, hadnt he? Deductive reasoning was an absolute necessity in a military man, wasnt it? They inculcated you with that, didnt they? Yes, but just try and apply it. Ah, if you only could apply it.

  To rid himself of that frightening bottomlessness Capt Holmes called for another whiskey and soda; he discussed the vagaries of life with the solicitous enlisted barman, who although bored listened solicitously; he allowed himself to wonder cynically where the hell Old Delbert was.

  Col Delbert, in fact, arrived a little late bringing with him as his guest a Brigadier. This Brigadier was a sort of exec officer to the Brigade, which was commanded by a Major General. But for once Capt Holmes was not even bothered, although it was a dirty trick to pull on him, without giving him warning. Col Delbert’s moustache fluffed its feathers somewhat preeningly as he introduced them—informally. Even this could not cause anxiety in Capt Holmes who still felt his wife should be above such things.

  Mentioning that the others (the two Majors from Regiment) would be along later, Col Delbert led them out and along the slab stone dogtrot that ran across the patio that opened on the gulch that separated them from the brightly lighted Station Hospital. He led them through the deserted dining pavilion where they held the mixed dinner parties to the stairs in the deserted main lounge where the ladies usually had their bridge games. The ladies had their club luncheons under the dogtrot. The ladies took their hula lessons in the pavilion. The ladies, if they were around, seldom got upstairs. But this was Payday, and the ladies were not around.

  “Flatter m’self,” Col Delbert told the Brigadier, “that I pulled off a tour de force this time, b’ pickin’ Payday.”

  “Oh, indubitably, Colonel,” the Brigadier, who was a much younger man than Col Delbert, said thinly. Capt Holmes immediately liked him.