Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  He could take Madeline out to that mesa in New Mexico, but would she agree to go, and even if she did, would she be happy in such a place? Oppenheimer had hinted at difficulties with wives. When Madeline's father showed up on the queue, Sime seized the chance to sit with him in the jammed dining car at a table for two. While they ate tepid tomato soup and very greasy fried pork chops, and the car swayed and rattled, and rippling rain slanted in streaks on the window, he told Pug his problem. Pug did not speak until he finished, and not for a while after that.

  "You love each other?"." he asked at last.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, then? Navy juniors are used to living in strange places.

  "

  "She went to New York to break the mold of a Navy junior." Sime had said nothing as yet about Hugh Cleveland.

  His sad tone, his miserable glance at the father, revealed to Pug that Madeline had told all, and that it had gone down hard.

  "Sime, she came home."

  "Yes. To another big city, and another radio job."

  "Are you asking for my advice?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Ever hear about faint hearts and fair ladies? Take your chances.

  I think she'll go with you, and stay with you." The father offered his hand. "Good luck."

  "Thank you, sir." They gripped each other's hands.

  In the club car, Pug drank a large brandy in a contented glow.

  Madeline for years had seemed an irretrievable disaster; and now this!

  He mulled over images of Madeline through the years: the enchanting girl baby, the fairy princess in the school play, the disconcerting flirt with budding breasts, shining eyes, and inexpert makeup going to her first dance, the brassy horror in New York. Now it seemed that poor Madeline would make it; at least there was a damned good chance for her, after a rotten start.

  Pug did not want to spoil his good mood by spending the night bedded down in a room with Colonel Harrison Peters.

  He was used to sleeping sitting up in trains and planes, and he decided to snooze in the club car. Peters had not appeared for dinner; probably he had quaffed several whiskeys and turned in. Pug dozed off with the lights on and drinkers' noise all around him, having slipped the harman ten dollars to buy his peace.

  The car was dimmed, and quiet except for the rapid clacking of the wheels, when he was poked awake. A tall figure in a bathrobe swayed over him. Peters said, "There's a nice berth all made up for you."

  Yawning, stiff, Pug could think of no gracious way out. He stumbled after Peters to the drawing room, which for odors of whiskey and stale cigars was no better than the club car; but the crisply sheeted upper berth looked good. He quickly undressed.

  "Nightcap?" Peters was pouring from an almost empty bottle.

  "No, thanks."

  "Pug, don't you want to drink with me?"

  Without comment Pug accepted the glass. They drank, got into their berths, and turned out the lights. Pug was glad to be under covers after all. He relaxed with a sigh, and was sinking into sleep.

  "Say, Pug." Peters's voice from below, warm and whiskeyish.

  "That Anderson's a corner. Rhoda thinks he and Madeline are serious.

  You'd approve, wouldn't you?"

  "Yep.

  Silence. Train sounds.

  "Pug, can I ask you a very personal question?"

  No reply.

  "Sorry as hell to disturb you. This is damned important."

  "Go ahead."

  "Why did you and Rhoda ever break up?".1

  Victor Henry had tried to avoid a night with the Army man, to duck the risk of just such a probe. He did not answer.

  "It wasn't my doing, was it? It's unbelievably shitty to move in on a guy's wife when he's overseas. I understood you were already estranged."

  "That's true."

  "Otherwise, believe me, attractive as she is, I'd have steered clear."

  "I believe you."

  "You and Rhoda are two of the finest people I know. What happened?"

  "I fell in love with an Englishwoman."

  Pause.

  "That's what Rhoda says."

  "That's it."

  "It doesn't seem like you."

  Pug was silent.

  "Are you going to marry her?"

  "I thought I was, but she refused me." So Peters wrung from Victor Henry his first reference to Pamela's astounding letter, which he had tried to bury from mind.

  "Jesus! You never know with a woman, Pug, do you? Sorry to hear that."

  "Good-night, Colonel." It was a sharp cut-off tone.

  "Pug, just one more question. Did Dr. Fred Kirby have anything to do with all this?"

  There it was. The thing Rhoda had feared was coming to pass because of this forced intimacy. What Victor Henry said next could make or break the rest of Rhoda's life; and he had to answer fast, for every second of hesitation was a slur on her, on him, and on their marriage.

  "What the hell does that mean?" Pug hoped he put the right puzzlement, tinged with anger, in his tone.

  "I've been getting letters, Pug, damnable anonymous letters, about Rhoda and Dr. Kirby. I'm ashamed of myself for paying them any attention, but-"

  "You should be. Fred Kirby's an old friend of mine.

  We met when I was stationed in Berlin. Rhoda had to come home when the war broke out. Fred was in Washington then, and he played tennis with her, and took her to shows and such, sort of the way you've been doing, but with no complications.

  I knew about it, and I appreciated it. I don't like this conversation much, and I'd like to turn in."

  "Sorry, Pug."

  "Okay.

  Silence. Then Peters's voice, low, troubled, and drunk.

  "It's because I idolize Rhoda that I'm so upset. I'm more than upset, I'm tortured. Pug, I've known a hell of a lot of women, prettier than Rhoda, and sexier. But she's virtuous. that's where her preciousness lies. That sounds strange coming from me, but that's how I feel. Rhoda's the first lady in every sense of the word that I've ever known, except for my own mother.

  She's perfect. She's elegant, modest, decent, and truthful.

  She never lies. Christ, most women lie the way they breathe.

  You know that. You can't blame them. We keep trying to screw them, they play a desperate game, and all's fair. Don't you agree?"

  Peters had drank up the bottle, Pug thought, to nerve himself for this. The maundering could go on all night. He made no reply.

  "I mean I'm not talking about these stodgy wives, Pug. I'm talking about stylish women. My mother was a knockout till she was eighty-two.

  Christ, she looked like a chorus girl in her coffin. Yet I want to tell you, she was a saint. Like Rhoda, she went to church every Sunday, rain or shine. Rhoda's as stylish as a movie queen, yet there's something saintly about her, too. That's why this thing's hit me like an earthquake, Pug, and if I've offended you I'm sorry, because I think the world of YOU."

  "We've got a busy day tomorrow, Colonel."

  -i r "Right, Pug."

  In a few minutes Peters was snoring.

  There were two admirals in King's outer office, when Pug came there straight from Union Station. He prevailed on the flag lieutenant to send in a short note, and King at once summoned him inside. The C.N.O sat behind his large desk in the bleak room, smoking a cigarette in a holder. "You look better than you did in Tehran," he said, not offering Pug a chair. "What's this about uranium now? I've shredded your note into the burn basket."

  Pug sketched the situation at Oak Ridge in spare sentences.

  King's bald long head and seamed face turned very pink. His severe mouth puckered strangely, and Pug surmised that he was trying not to smile. "Are you saying," King broke in harshly, "that the Army, after commandeering all the nation's scientists and factories, and spending billions, hasn't got a bomb, while we've cooked one up in that tinpot Anacostia lab of ours?"

  "Not quite, Admiral. There's a technical gap in the Army's method. The Navy process closes th
at gap. They want to take our system and blow it up on a huge industrial scale."

  "And that way they,U get this weapon made? Not otherwise?"

  "So I understand. Not in time for use in this war."

  "HeR, I'll givp 'em anything they need, then. Why not?

  This should make us look pretty good in the history books, hey?

  Except the Army will write the history, so we'll probably get left out.

  How did you become involved in it?"

  King listened to the tale of the couplings, nodding and smoking, his face rigid again. "IColonel Peters has telephoned the Dresser company," Pug concluded. "It's all set. I'm ming to Pennsylvania to make sure that the stuff gets on the trucks and, rolls out."

  "Good idea. Flying how?"

  "Navy plane out of Andrews."

  "Got transportation?"

  "Not yet."

  King picked up the telephone and ordered a car and driver for Captain Henry. "Now then. What do you want me to do, Henry?"

  "Assure Colonel Peters of Navy cooperation, Admiral.

  Before pushing this idea of duplicating our plant, he wants to be sure of his ground."

  "Give his phone number to my flag lieutenant. I'll call the man.

  "

  "Yes, sir."

  "I've heard about your expediting of the landing craft program.

  The Secretary is pleased." King got up and held out a long lean arm crusted with gold to the elbow. "On your way."

  As Pug was paying off the taxicab on his return from Pennsylvania, Madeline opened the front door. She looked almost as she had, going to her first dance: flushed, shinyeyed, too painted-up. She said nothing, but gave him a hug and led him into the living room. There sat Rhoda, looking very dressy for a weekday at home, behind a coffee table on which champagne was cooling in a silver bucket. Sime Anderson stood beside her with a bewildered, foolishly pleased look on his face.

  "Good evening, sir."

  "Well! Return of the warrior!" said Rhoda. "You remembered you had a family! How nice! Are you busy next Saturday?"

  "Not that I can think of, no."

  "Oh, no! Well, fine. How about coming to Saint John's Church, then, and giving Madeline away to this sailor boy?"

  Mother, daughter, and suitor burst into joyous laughter.

  Pug seized Madeline in his arms. She clung to him, hugging him hard, her wet cheek to his. He shook hands with Sime Anderson and embraced him. The young man wore the shaving lotion Warren had used; the smell gave Pug a small shock. Rhoda jumped up, kissed Pug, and exclaimed, "OKAY!

  Surprise is over, now for the champagne." Practical talk followed: wedding arrangements, trousseau, caterer, guest list, accommodations for Sime's family, and so forth; Rhoda kept making neat notes in a stenographic pad. Then Pug took Anderson off into the library.

  "Sime, how are your finances?"

  The young man confessed to two expensive hobbies: hunting, which he had learned from his father, and classical music. He had put more than a thousand dohan into records and a Capehart, and at as much into a collection of rifles and shotguns. No doubt it hadn't been sensible to clutter'up his life that way; he could barely Turn around in his apartment; but then, he hadn't bothered much with girls.

  Now he would store the stuff, and one day sell it off.

  Meantime he had saved only twelve hundred dollars.

  "Well, that's something. You can live on your salary.

  Madeline has savings, too. Also some stock in that damned radio show."

  Anderson looked very Uncomfortable. "Yes. She's better off than I am."

  "Don't live higher on the hog than your own salary wanants- Let her do what she likes with her money, but not that."

  "That's my intention."

  "Now, look, Sime, I've got fifteen thousand dollars put aside for her. It's yours."

  "ye gods, thgit's marvelous!" An innocently-greedy pleasure lit the young man's face. "I didn't expect that."

  "I'd suggest you buy a house around Washington with it, if you plan to stay in the Navy."

  "Sure, I'm staying in the Navy. We've talked that all out. R and D will be very big after the war."

  Pug put his hands on Anderson's shoulders. "She's said a thousand times, down the years, that she'd never marry a naval officer. Well done."

  The young couple went off in a happy flurry to celebrate.

  Pug and Rhoda sat in the living room" finishing the wine.

  "So, said Rhoda, "the last fledgling takes wing. At least she's made it before the mother flew off." Rhoda blinked archly over the rim of her wineglass at Pug.

  "Shall I take you out to dinner?"

  "Oh, no. I've got shad roe for the two of us. And there's another bottle of champagne. How was your trip? Was Hack helpful?"

  "Decidedly."

  "I'm so glad. He has got a big'job, hasn't he, Pug?"

  "Couldn't be bigger."

  Fresh-cut flowers from the garden on the candle-lit table; a tossed salad with Roquefort dressing; perfectly done large shad roe with dry crisp bacon; potatoes in their jackets, with sourcream and milk a fresh-baked blueberry pie; obviously Rhoda had planned all this for his return. She cooked and served it herself, then sat and ate in a gray silk dress, with beautifully coiffed hair, looking like a chic guest at her own table. She was in a wonderful mood, telling Pug her ideas for the wedding, or else she was giving a superb performance.

  The champagne sparkled in her eyes.

  This was the Rhoda who, for all her familiar failingscrabbiness, flightiness, moodiness, shallowness-had made him a happy man, Pug was thinking, for twenty-five years; who had captivated Kirby and Peters, and could ensnare any man her age; beautiful, competent, energetic, attentive to a man's comforts, intensely feminine, capable of exciting passion. What had happened? Why had he frozen her out?

  What had been so irreparable? Long, long ago he had faced the fact that the war had caused her affair with Kirby, that it was a personal mischance in a world upheaval; even Sime Anderson had shrugged off Madeline's past, and made a happy start on a new life.

  The answer never changed. He did not love Rhoda any more. He had no use for her. He could not help it. It had nothing to do with forgiveness. He had forgiven her. But a live nerve now bound Sime Anderson and Madeline, and Rhoda had severed the nerve of their marriage. It was withered and dead. Some marriages survived an infidelity, but this one had not. He had been ready to go on with it because of the memory of their lost son, but it was better for Rhoda to live with someone who loved her. That she was in trouble with Peters only made him pity her.

  "Great pie," said Pug.

  "Thank you, kind sir, and you know what I propose next? I propose coffee and Armagnac in the garden, that's what. All the iris have popped open, and the smell is sheer HEAVEN."

  ."You're on."

  It had taken Rhoda a couple of years to weed out and replant the neglected quarter-acre. Now it was a charming brick-walled nook of varied colors and delicious fragrances, around a musically splashing little fountain she had installed at some cost. She carried the. coffee service out to a wrought-iron table between cushioned lounge chairs, and Pug brought the Armagnac and glasses.

  "BY, the bye," she said as they settled down, "there's a letter from Byron. In all the excitement, I clean forgot. He's fine. It's just a page."

  "Any real news?" Pug tried to keep relief out of his voice.

  "Well, the first patrol was a success, and he's been qualified for command. You.know Byron. He never says much."

  "Did his Bronze Star come through?"

  "Nothing on that. He worries and worries about Natalie.

  Begs us to cable any word we get."

  Pug sat staring at the flower beds. The colors were dimming in the fading light, and a breeze stirred a rich scent from the nodding purple iris. "We should call the State Department again."

  "I did, today. The Danish Red Cross is supposed to visit Theresienstadt, so maybe some word will come through."

  Pug was ex
periencing the sensation of a slipped cog in time, of reliving an old scene. Rhoda's "By the bye, there's a letter from Byron" had triggered it, he realized. So they had sat in armchairs in twilight before the war, the day Admiral Preble had offered him the attache post in Berlin.