Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny

by The Caine Mutiny(Lit)

  He was quite fixed now in his decision to break with May. Seeing her again had confirmed it. He was certain it was right. He estimated himself, as truthfully as he could and with no great pride in the result, as a rather mediocre middle-class intellectual. His ambition went no further than the life of a gentleman-professor at a gentlemanly university. He wanted a life upholstered with the good things that money bought, and that meant his mother's or his wife's money, not university money. He wanted a wife, in the dim future, of his own kind, smooth, sweet, pretty, and educated, with all the small graces of good background and a moneyed family. May Wynn was bright, yes, unbearably attractive, maybe, though not at this moment. She was also vulgar, brassy, and over-perfumed in the show-business way, and she had allowed him all sorts of liberties from the first, and had slept with him. She seemed a little soiled to him, a little cheap; and in every way jagged and wrong for his planned future. And she was a Catholic. May's disclaimer of any devotion to her faith had not convinced Wil-lie. He was inclined to believe the general notion that Catholics never wholly abandon their religion and are capable of sudden great plunges back into it. He was very unwilling to complicate his life and the lives of his children with such a disturbing possibility.

  Whether all this might have been swept away had he come back to a girl triumphant and gorgeous, the star of a hit musi-cal comedy, it is impossible to say. He was at her bedside now in a shabby room in a dirty hotel, and she was sick and messy and broke. The schoolbooks made her seem more pathetic, not more desirable. She had made a bid to reform herself nearer to his tastes, and it had been a feeble failure. It was all finished.

  She was sleeping with her mouth open, and her breath came quick, irregular, and noisy. The gray bathrobe had pulled open, uncovering her bosom. The sight made Willie uncomfortable. He pulled the blanket to her chin, and slumped in the arm-chair, and dozed.

  "Am I seeing things?" said Willie, when the cab pulled up in front of the Grotto Club. "Where's the Tahiti? Where's the Yellow Door? Isn't this where-"

  "This place used to be the Yellow Door," said May. "The Tahiti is gone. That Chinese restaurant used to be the Tahiti. Nothing lasts long in this godforsaken street."

  "What happened to Mr. Dennis?"

  "Died," May said, stepping out into the bitter dusty night wind.

  She had been subdued and listless through dinner; and list-lessly she waved at Willie as she vanished from his sight through the dressing-room curtain. He was amazed when she came out to sing half an hour later. She was fresh-faced and radiant. The customers, crowded in the smoky cellar between narrow walls of papier-mƒch‚ rocks interspersed with tanks of gloomy gray fish, listened in silence, and applauded loudly after each number. She acknowledged the applause with gleaming eyes and a genuine girlish smile, and sang on. She performed five numbers with undimming verve, gathered her full green skirt, and swept off the little stage as bouncily as a gymnast. "How does she do it?" he said to Rubin, who had arrived midway in the act, and was pressed beside him on the wall seat behind an infinitesimal table.

  "Well, you ought to know, Willie, the show must go on. She's a pro. The customers aren't paying any less for their beer because May has a cold."

  May came to their table with a yellow gauzy shawl around her throat and a black velvet jacket over her shoulders. Rubin rose and kissed her cheek. "Honey, maybe you ought to have colds more often. You're really putting out tonight."

  "I feel fine- Think I'm any better, Willie?"

  "You're wonderful, May-"

  "Don't lay it on, I'll know you're lying- Where are you sneaking off to, Marty?"

  "I have other clients. Get her to bed after the two o'clock show, Willie."

  Willie sat on the little hard seat for five hours, talking to May or listening to her sing. Customers came and went, but it almost seemed that the departing ones handed their faces to the newcomers at the door to wear, so much alike did they all look. The air grew staler and the crowd noisier, and the fish in the tanks sank to the bottom and lay motionless, gaping and goggling in the slime. All charm had departed out of night-club surroundings for Willie. To earn a living amid such fusty make--believe struck him as a worse fate, even, than perpetual steam-ing on the Caine.

  He told May nothing of the mutiny, though he took pleasure in making her laugh and gasp at stories of Queeg. She had re-cuperated startlingly. Her manner was bright and lively, and in the cellar gloom, with her make-up, she seemed rosily healthy. But Willie had been too scared in the afternoon by her appear-ance to feel free with her. The evening went by in restrained, good-humored, evasive chatter. May accepted his tone and followed it.

  When they came into her squalid room back at the hotel, it was a quarter to three. Willie was suppressing yawns, and his eyes smarted. Without a word they took off their coats, lay on the bed, and kissed hungrily and wildly for a few minutes. Her forehead, her hands, felt hot to Willie's lips, but he went on kissing her anyway. At last with a common impulse, they slowed and stopped. She looked him full in the face, her eyes shining in the dim light of the floor lamp.

  "Willie, we're all washed up, aren't we?"

  It is the worst question in the world. Willie didn't have to answer. The answer was on his miserable face. May said, "Then why are we doing this?"

  "You're right, as usual. I am a swine. Let's stop."

  "No. I still love to kiss you, unfortunately." And she kissed him again, several times. But the spoken words had snapped the sweetness. They sat up, and Willie went to the armchair. "If only I hadn't had a cold," May said dolefully.

  "May! May! This afternoon made no difference-it's just the kind of guy I am-"

  "Darling, you don't know. It might have made all the differ-ence in the world. Nobody loves a sick cat. However, it's all past history. It was an uphill struggle. Your letters were bad-"

  "What can I say, May? You're the most wonderful girl I'll ever know-"

  "Strangely enough, that's the truth. For you, I am. Only you're too young, or you love your mother too much, or some-thing." She rose, and opened the zipper of her dress in an absent-minded way; went to her closet and changed into her bathrobe, not troubling to hide herself. The glimpse of her young body in the clinging slip was very painful to Willie. He wanted to gather her in his arms as he wanted to breathe, and he knew that it was absolutely impossible now. She faced him, her hands deep in the pockets of her robe. There was a tremor of uncertainty and pain about her eyes and mouth. "It's all quite definite, I suppose?"

  "Yes, May."

  "You don't love me?"

  "It's all mixed up and lousy, May. Talking won't help it-"

  "Maybe, but I'd like to tie up the bundle all neat and proper before I throw it into the cellar. If you don't love me, that does it, of course. You kiss as though you love me. Explain that."

  Willie was unable to say that he loved May's mouth, but not enough to drag her through life with him-though that would have been putting it in the simplest terms. "I don't know what love is, May. It's a word. You'll always be the image of desire for me. That's a fact, but there's more to life than that. I don't think we'd be happy together. Not because of any lack in you. Call me a snobbish prig and let it go at that. Everything that's wrong between us is wrong with me-"

  "Is it because I'm poor, or dumb, or Catholic, or what? Can't you put it in words, so I'll know?"

  There is only one way to get off this particular kind of grid-dle. Willie looked at the floor and said nothing, while long seconds of silence ticked off. Every second brought another stab of hot shame and embarrassment, and his self-respect gushed out of the wounds. May managed to say at last, in an unembittered tone, though a shaky one, "Well, all right, Willie. It must be a load off your mind, anyway." She opened a drawer in a peeling, dirty bureau, and took out a bottle and a pillbox. "I'm going down the hall to doctor myself. I won't be long. Want to wait?"

  "May-"

  "Dear, don't look so tragic. It's not world-shaking. We're both going to live."

&nb
sp; Willie, hardly aware of what he was doing, picked up Troilus and Cressida and read a couple of pages. He started guiltily when May came in, and put the book aside. Her eyes were red, and with her make-up removed, she was very pale. She smiled slightly. "Go right on reading, dear. Give me a cigarette though. I haven't dared to smoke all day, thought my throat would close up." She took an ashtray to the bed and lay back against the cushions with a sigh. "Ah, that tastes wonderful. Temperature, by the way, is down. Just a little over a hundred: Nothing like night-club air for what ails you.... What are you going to do after the war, Willie? Going back to piano playing?,

  "I don't think so."

  "You shouldn't. I think you should teach."

  " `Those who can, do; those who can't, teach'-eh?"

  "The world couldn't exist without teachers. It just seems right for you. I can see you in a university town, leading a nice quiet life, plugging Dickens faithfully as the years slip by-"

  "Sounds heroic, doesn't it?"

  "Willie dear, everyone does what he can do best. You talked me into wanting to read. It was quite an achievement."

  "Well, I've thought of it, May. It would mean going back to school for a year-"

  "Your mama will certainly see you through, won't she?... Especially now." May yawned like an animal. "Sorry, dear-" Willie stood. "I don't blame you for being bored with me--and you must be dead-"

  "Oh, sit down. I'm not bored with you, and I'm not angry at you." She yawned again, covered her mouth, and laughed. "Isn't it silly? I ought to be wailing and tearing my hair. My energy must be all out. Willie, I've gotten pretty used to this idea, really. I had a little hope at San Francisco-at Yosemite, I mean-but not after you talked to your mother and sent me home. However, it's done me no harm to have someone to be true to-"

  "May-I know what Yosemite meant to you-to me-"

  "Now, dear, I didn't bring it up to torture your conscience. We both meant well. I was trying to trap you, I guess. I don't know. I'll have to take some psychology courses to figure my-self out-"

  "My mother doesn't hate you, May-it isn't her doing-"

  "Willie sweetheart," said May, with a little tired sharpness. "I know exactly, but exactly, how your mother feels about me. Stay off that ground."

  They talked some more, not much. She came to the door with him and kissed him affectionately. "You're very, very good-looking, all the same," she whispered.

  "I'll call you tomorrow, May. Keep well." He rang for the elevator. She stood in the doorway, looking at him. When the elevator door was opened by a Negro in shirt sleeves, she sud-denly said, "Will I see you any more?"

  "Sure. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good night."

  "Good-by, Willie."

  He did not call her the next day, nor the day after that, nor the day after that. He went to matinees with his mother, to dinner with his mother, to shows at night with his mother; he visited the family with his mother. When Mrs. Keith urged him to go out by himself he glumly declined. One afternoon he went to Columbia and took a solitary walk through Furnald Hall. The incessant salutes of baby-faced midshipmen in khaki at first flattered, then depressed him. Nothing had changed in the lobby. Here was the leather couch on which he had told his father of his forty-eight demerits; there was the phone booth where he had talked to May a hundred times-and there was the knot of impatient midshipmen outside it as always, and inside was the youngster with a crew haircut crooning and giggling into the telephone. Dead lost time hung in the air. Willie hurried out of the building-it was midafternoon, gray and windy, and his mother would not be at the restaurant for a couple of hours-and so he went into a dim, shabby, empty bar on Broadway, and rapidly drank four scotch and sodas, which only seemed to make him a little dizzy.

  His Uncle Lloyd joined them for dinner at Twenty-one. A banker in civilian life, he was now a colonel in Army public information, and he liked to talk about his experiences in the artillery in World War I. He was very grave about the mutiny. He told Willie long stories to prove how in the artillery he had had much worse commanding officers than Queeg, and. had al-ways conducted himself with true martial forbearance and loy-alty. It was clear that he disapproved of Willie and thought he was in serious trouble. Mrs. Keith pressed him for a promise to help her son, but Uncle Lloyd only said he would talk to some of his Navy friends and see what the best procedure would be.

  "Maybe they won't court-martial you after all, Willie," he said. "If this other fellow, this Maryk fellow, gets himself ac-quitted I guess that'll be the end of it. I hope you've learned your lesson by this time. War isn't a pink tea. Unless you can learn to take the rough with the smooth, why, you're just not worth a damn to your country in an emergency." So saying he departed for Washington, where he maintained a suite at the Shoreham.

  Saturday night Willie was in his room, dressing to go to the opera. His eye fell on his wrist watch, and he realized that in twelve hours he would be on an airplane, returning to the Caine and the court-martial. His arm reached around stiffly, like a lever in an automatic phonograph, and picked up the telephone. He called the Woodley.

  "May? How are you? It's Willie."

  "Hello, dear! I'd given you up-"

  "Is your cold better?"

  "All gone. I'm in fine shape."

  "I'm going back tomorrow morning. I'd like to talk to you."

  "I'm working tonight, Willie-"

  "May I come to the club?"

  "Sure."

  "It'll be around midnight."

  "All right."

  It had never seemed possible to Willie that Don Giovanni could be tedious. The opera had always been a wonderland of sound in which time stopped and the world dissolved in pure beauty. On this night he thought Leporello was a coarse clown, the baritone a scratchy-throated old man, Zerlina a screechy amateur, and the whole plot a bore. He strained his eyes at his watch in the middle of his favorite arias. At last it was done. "Mother," he said as they came out of the lobby to the slushy street, "do you mind if I go on the town by myself for a while? I'll see you back home."

  Her face showed how well she understood, and how worried she was. "Willie-our last night?"

  "I won't be late, Mother." He felt able to stuff her bodily into a taxicab if she argued. She must have known, because she signaled for a cab herself.

  "Have a wonderful time, dear."

  May was singing when he came into the crowded Grotto. He stood at the bar, looking around at the admiring male faces turned at the singer, his soul full of bitterness. There was no place to sit when the show was over. She took him by the hand and led him to her dressing room. The glare of light in the hot, closet-like room made him blink. He leaned against the make-up table. May sat in the chair and looked up at him, glowing with an unfathomable sweet inner attraction, all dif-ferent from her outside of rouge and white shoulders and round bosom half exposed by her tight singer's dress.

  "I didn't tell you about something last time," Willie said. "I want to know what you think." He described the mutiny and the investigation to her in long detail. It felt like confessing; his spirit brightened as he talked. May listened calmly. "What do you want me to say, Willie?" she said when he was finished.

  "I don't know, May. What do you think of it? What shall I do? What's going to happen?"

  She heaved a long sigh. "Is that why you came tonight? To tell me about that?"

  "I wanted you to know about it."

  "Willie, I don't know much about the Navy. But it doesn't seem to me you have to do anything. The Navy is a pretty smart outfit. They won't condemn any of you for trying to save your ship. At worst, you made a well-meaning mistake of judg-ment. That isn't a crime-"

  "It was mutiny, May-"

  "Oh, hell. Who do you think you are, Fletcher Christian? Did you chain Queeg up and set him adrift in a boat? Did you pull knives and guns on him? I think he was crazy, whatever the doctors say-nutty as a fruitcake. Willie dear, you couldn't mutiny-not even against your mother, let alone a ship's cap-tain-"

  They both
laughed a little. Though May's verdict was the same as his mother's, it filled Willie with hope and good cheer, whereas Mrs. Keith's opinion had seemed emotional and stu-pid. "Okay, May. I don't know why I had to load you down with my miseries- Thanks."

  "When are you leaving?"

  "Seven o'clock in the morning."

  May rose, and slipped the bolt on her door. "Nosiest musi-cians in the world work here." She came to Willie and put her arms around him. They exchanged a fearfully long, blind wild kiss. "That's all," May said, pushing herself out of his arms. "Remember it the rest of your life. You'll have to go. I find it hurts to have you around." She opened the door; Willie walked out and threaded through the jostling dancers to the street.