by Irwin Shaw
Corinne got up and made him breakfast. There was real white bread he had brought from the shop that did the baking for the officer’s mess. The coffee, of course, was ersatz, thin and black. He felt his mouth draw sourly as he drank it in the still-dark kitchen. Corinne looked sleepy and messy, with her heavy hair in disorder, but she moved around the kitchen deftly enough, putting the dishes in front of Christian.
Corinne sat down opposite him, her robe open loosely, showing a large expanse of the coarse, pale skin of her bosom.
“Chéri,” she said, sipping her coffee noisily, “you will not forget me in Germany?”
“No,” said Christian.
“You will be back in three weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Definitely?”
“Definitely.”
“You will bring me something from Berlin?” She coquetted heavily.
“Yes,” said Christian, “I’ll bring you something.”
She smiled widely at him. The truth was, she was always asking for something, new dresses, black-market roasts, stockings, perfume, a little cash because the sofa needed recovering … When the corporal-husband comes back from Germany, Christian thought unpleasantly, he’ll find his wife completely outfitted. There’ll be a question or two he’ll want to ask when he looks through the closets.
“Chéri,” Corinne said, munching strongly and evenly on her bread, which she had soaked in the coffee, “I have arranged for my brother-in-law to meet you when you return.”
“What’s that?” Christian looked at her, puzzled.
“I told you about him,” Corinne said. “My husband’s brother. The one with the produce business. Milk and eggs and cheese. You know. He has a very nice offer from a broker in town here. He can make a fortune if the war lasts long enough.”
“Good,” said Christian. “I’m delighted to hear your family is doing well.”
“Chéri …” Corinne looked at him reproachfully. “Chéri, don’t be mean. It isn’t as simple as that.”
“What does he want from me?” Christian asked.
“The problem is, getting it into the city.” Corinne spoke defensively. “You know the patrols on the roads, at the entrances. Checking up to see whether it is requisitioned material or not You know.”
“Yes?”
“My brother-in-law asked if I knew a German officer …”
“I’m not an officer.”
“Sergeant, my brother-in-law said, was good enough. Somebody who could get some kind of pass from the authorities. Somebody who three times a week could meet his truck outside the city and drive in with it at night …” Corinne stood up and came around the table and played with his hair. Christian wriggled a little, certain she had neglected to wipe the butter off her fingers. “He is willing to share fifty-fifty in the profits,” Corinne said, in a wheedling tone, “and later on, if you find it possible to secure some gasoline, and he can use two more trucks, you could make yourself a rich man. Everybody is doing it, you know, your own Lieutenant …”
“I know about my own Lieutenant,” Christian said. God, he thought, her husband’s brother, and the husband rotting in prison, and the brother anxious to go into business with the wife’s German lover. The amenities of French family life.
“In matters of money, Chéri,” Corinne held him closely around the neck, “it is necessary to be practical.”
“Tell your miserable brother-in-law,” Christian said loudly, “that I am a soldier, not a black-market merchant.”
Corinne took her arms away. “Chéri,” she said coldly, “there is no need to be insulting. All the others are soldiers too and they are making fortunes.”
“I am not all the others,” Christian shouted.
“I think,” Corinne said, beginning to cry, “that you are tired of me.”
“Oh, God,” Christian said. He put on his tunic and picked up his cap. He wrenched the door open and went out.
Outside, in the dawn, smelling the cool, thin air, he felt less angry. After all, it had been a pleasant convenience, and a man could do much worse. Ah, he thought, it will wait till I get back from Germany.
He strode down the street, sleepy, but each moment more happily excited with the thought that at seven o’clock he would be on the train and leaving for home.
Berlin was glorious in the fall sunlight. Christian had never liked the city much, but today, as he walked out of the station, carrying his bag, there seemed to be an air of solidity and purpose, a dash and smartness to the uniforms and even the clothing of the civilians, a general sense of energy and well-being that was in refreshing contrast to the drabness and boredom of the French towns in which he had spent the last twelve months.
He got out the paper that had Mrs. Hardenburg’s address on it. As he took it out of his pocket he remembered that he had neglected to turn in the pioneer private who had needed a shave. Well, he would have to remember that when he got back.
He debated with himself whether he should find a hotel first or deliver the package to Hardenburg’s wife. He decided in favor of delivering the package. He would get that over with, and then, for two weeks, his time would be completely his own, with no hangovers or duties from the world he had left behind him at Rennes. As he walked through the sunny streets, he idly mapped out a program for himself for the next two weeks. Concerts and the theatre. There were agencies where soldiers could get tickets for nothing, and he would have to be careful of his money. It was too bad it was too early for skiing. That would have been the best thing. But he hadn’t dared wait for his leave. In the Army, he had learned, he who waits is lost, and a leave delayed is more often than not a leave vanished.
The Hardenburg apartment was in a new, impressive-looking building. A uniformed attendant stood at the door and there were heavy carpets in the foyer. As he waited for the elevator, Christian wondered how the Lieutenant’s wife managed to live so well.
He rang the bell on the fourth floor and waited. The door opened and a blonde woman with loose disheveled hair, which made her look as though she had just risen from bed, was standing there. “Yes?” she asked, her voice brusque and annoyed. “What do you want?”
“I’m Sergeant Diestl,” Christian said, thinking: Not a bad life, just getting up at eleven in the morning. “I’m in Lieutenant Hardenburg’s company.”
“Yes?” The woman’s voice was wary, and she did not open the door fully. She was dressed in a quilted silk robe of deep crimson and she kept pushing her hair back out of her eyes with a graceful, impatient gesture. Christian couldn’t help thinking: Not bad for the Lieutenant, not bad at all.
“I’ve just arrived in Berlin on leave,” Christian said, speaking slowly so that he could get a good look at her. She was a tall woman, with a long slender waist, and a full bosom that the robe did not quite hide. “The Lieutenant has a gift for you. He asked me if I would deliver it.”
The woman looked thoughtfully at Christian for a moment. She had large, cold gray eyes, well set in her head, but too deliberate, Christian thought, too full of calculation and judgment. Then she decided to smile.
“Ah,” she said, and her voice was very warm. “I know who you are. The serious one on the steps of the Opera.”
“What?” Christian asked, puzzled.
“The photograph,” the woman said. “The day Paris fell.”
“Oh, yes.” Christian remembered. He smiled at her.
“Come in, come in …” She took his arm and pulled at it. “Bring your bag. It’s so nice of you to come. Come in, come in …”
The living room was large. A huge plateglass window looked out over the surrounding roofs. The room was in a profound state of clutter at the moment, bottles, glasses, cigar and cigarette butts on the floor, a broken wineglass on a table, items of women’s clothing strewn around on the chairs. Mrs. Hardenburg looked at it and shook her head.
“God,” she said, “isn’t it awful? You just can’t keep a maid these days.” She moved a bottle from one table to another and e
mptied an ashtray into the fireplace. Then she surveyed the room once more in despair. “I can’t,” she said, “I just can’t.” She sank into a deep chair, her long legs bare as they stuck out in front of her, her feet encased in high-heeled red fur mules.
“Sit down, Sergeant,” she said, “and forgive the way this room looks. It’s the war, I tell myself.” She laughed. “After the war, I will remake my entire life. I will become a tremendous housekeeper. Every pin in place. But for the present …” She waved at the disorder. “We must try to survive. Tell me about the Lieutenant.”
“Well,” said Christian, trying to remember some noble or amusing fact about Hardenburg, and trying to remember not to tell his wife that he had two girls in Rennes or that he was one of the leading black-market profiteers in Brittany, “Well, he is very dissatisfied, as you know, with …”
“Oh.” She sat up and leaned over toward him, her face excited and lively. “The gift. The gift. Where is it?”
Christian laughed self-consciously. He went over to his bag and got out the package. While he was bending over his bag he was aware of Mrs. Hardenburg’s measuring stare. When he turned back to her she did not drop her eyes, but kept them fixed on him, directly and embarrassingly. He walked over to her and handed her the package. She didn’t look at it but stared coolly into his eyes, a slight, equivocal smile on her lips. She looks like an Indian, Christian thought, a wild American Indian.
“Thanks,” she said, finally. She turned then and ripped open the paper of the package. Her movements were nervous and sharp, her long, red-tipped fingers tearing in flickering movements over the wrinkled brown paper. “Ah,” she said flatly. “Lace. What widow did he steal this from?”
“What?”
Mrs. Hardenburg laughed. She touched Christian’s shoulder in a gesture of apology. “Nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to disillusion my husband’s troops.” She put the lace over her hair. It fell in soft black lines over the straight pale hair. “How does it look?” she asked. She tilted her head, close to Christian, and there was an expression on her face that Christian was too old not to recognize. He took a step toward her. She lifted her arms and he kissed her.
She pulled away. She turned without looking at him again and walked before him into the bedroom, the lace trailing down her back to her swinging waist. There’s no doubt about it, Christian thought as he slowly followed her, this is better than Corinne.
The bed was rumpled. There were two glasses on the floor and a ridiculous picture of a naked shepherd making love to a muscular shepherdess on a hillside. But it was better than Corinne. It was better than, any other woman Christian had ever had anything to do with, better than the American schoolgirls who used to come to Austria for the skiing, better than the English ladies who used to slip out of their hotels at night after their husbands were asleep, better than the buxom virgins of his youth, better than the night-prowling ladies of the Paris cafés, better than he had known women could be. I wish, he thought with grim humor, I wish the Lieutenant could see me now.
Finally, they lay side by side, spent, looking down at their bodies in the noon light.
“Ever since I saw that photograph,” Mrs. Hardenburg said, “I have been waiting for you to appear.” She twisted in the bed and leaned over the side. She pulled back with a half-full bottle. “There are clean glasses,” she said, “in the bathroom.”
Christian got up. There was a thick smell of scented soap in the bathroom and a pile of soiled pink underthings on the floor next to the basin. He got the glasses and went back to the bed.
“Go to the door,” Mrs. Hardenburg said, “and walk back to me slowly.”
Christian grinned a little self-consciously, then went back to the bathroom door. He turned and walked across the heavy carpet, carrying the glasses, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed in his nakedness under her critical scrutiny.
“There are so many fat old Colonels in Berlin,” she said, “you forget a man can look like that.”
She lifted the bottle. “Vodka,” she said. “A friend of mine brought me three bottles from Poland.”
He sat on the edge of the bed holding the glasses while she poured two large drinks. She placed the bottle down without putting the cork back. The drink tasted roaring and rich as it flowed down his throat. The woman downed hers with one swift gulp. “Ah,” she said, “now we’re alive.” She leaned over and brought the bottle up again and silently poured for them both. “You took so long,” she said, touching his glass with hers, “getting to Berlin.”
“I was a fool,” Christian said, grinning. “I didn’t know.”
They drank. The woman dropped her glass to the floor. She reached up and pulled him down on her. “I have an hour,” she said, “before I have to go.”
Later, still in bed, they finished the bottle and Christian got up and found another in a closet stocked with vodka from Poland and Russia, Scotch that had been captured at British Headquarters in 1940, champagnes and brandies and fine Burgundies in straw covers, slivovitz from Hungary, aquavit, chartreuse, sherry, Benedictine and white Bordeaux. He opened the bottle and put it down on the floor, convenient to the woman’s hand. He stood over her, wavering a little, looking at the outstretched, savage body, slender but full-breasted. She stared gravely up at him, her eyes half-surrendering, half-hating. That was the most exciting thing about her, he decided suddenly, that look. As he dropped to the sheets beside her he thought: Finally, the war has brought me something good.
“How long,” she said, in her deep voice, “how long are you. going to stay?”
“In bed?” he asked.
She laughed. “In Berlin, Sergeant.”
“I …” He began. He was going to tell her that his plan was to stay a week and then go home to Austria for the second week of his leave. “I,” he said, “I’m staying two weeks.”
“Good,” she said dreamily. “But not good enough.” She ran her hand lightly over his belly. “Perhaps I will talk to certain friends of mine in the War Office. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have you stationed in Berlin. What do you think of that?”
“I think,” said Christian slowly, “it’s a marvelous idea.”
“And now,” she said, “we have another drink. If it weren’t for the war,” her voice came softly over the sound of the liquor pouring into the glass, “if it weren’t for the war, I’d never have discovered vodka.” She laughed and poured a drink for him.
“Tonight,” she said, “after twelve. All right?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t got another girl in Berlin?”
“No, I haven’t got another girl any place.”
“Poor Sergeant. Poor lying Sergeant. I have a Lieutenant in Leipzig, a Colonel in Libya, a Captain in Abbeville, another Captain in Prague, a Major in Athens, a Brigadier General in the Ukraine. That is not taking into account my husband, the Lieutenant, in Rennes. He has some queer tastes, my husband.”
“Yes.”
“I, too, have some queer tastes. We’ll go into that later. You … you’re all right. You’re energetic. You’re simple, but you’re energetic. You’re responsive. Promising and responsive. After midnight.”
“Yes.”
“The war. A girl’s gentlemen friends get scattered around in a war. You’re the first Sergeant I’ve known since the war, though. Aren’t you proud?”
“Ridiculous.”
The woman giggled. “I’m going out with a full Colonel tonight and he is giving me a sable coat he brought back from Russia. Can you imagine what his face would be like if I told him I was coming home to a little Sergeant?”
“Don’t tell him.”
“I’ll hint. That’s all. Just a little hint. After the coat’s on my back. Tiny little dirty hint. I think I’ll have you made a Lieutenant. Man with your ability.” She giggled again, “You laugh. I can do it. Simplest thing in the world. Let’s drink to Lieutenant Diestl.”
They drank to Lieutenant Diestl.
“What�
�re you going to do this afternoon?” the woman asked.
“Nothing much,” said Christian. “Walk around, wait for midnight.”
“Waste of time. Buy me a little present.” She got out of bed and went over to the table where she had dropped the lace. She draped the lace over her head. “A. little pin,” she said, holding the lace together under her throat, “a little brooch for here would be very nice, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“Marvelous shop,” the woman said; “on Tauentzienstrasse corner Kurfürstendamm. They have a little garnet pin that might be very useful. You might go there.”
“I’ll go there.”
“Good.” The woman smiled at him and came slowly in her sliding naked walk over to the bed. She dropped down on one knee and kissed his throat. “It was very nice of the Lieutenant,” she said whispering into the crease of Christian’s throat, “very nice to send that lace. I must write him and tell him it was delivered safely.”
Christian went to the shop on Tauentzienstrasse and bought a small garnet brooch. He held it in his hand, thinking of how it would look at Mrs. Hardenburg’s throat. He grinned as he realized he didn’t know her first name. The brooch cost 240 marks, but he could cut down on his other expenses. He found a small rooming house near the station that was very cheap and he put his bag there. It was dirty and full of soldiers. But he wouldn’t be spending much time there, anyway.
He sent a telegram to his mother, telling her that it was impossible to get home on his leave, and asking if she could lend him two hundred marks. It was the first time since he was sixteen that he had asked her for money, but he knew his family was doing very well this year, and they could spare it.