Nine Stories

Nine Stories Page 10

by J. D. Salinger

  He opened the package without any interest, without even looking at the return address. He opened it by burning the string with a lighted match. He was more interested in watching a string burn all the way down than in opening the package, but he opened it, finally.

  Inside the box, a note, written in ink, lay on top of a small object wrapped in tissue paper. He picked out the note and read it.

  17, ----ROAD, -----DEVON JUNE 7, 1944 DEAR SERGEANT X, I hope you will forgive me for having taken 38 days to begin our correspondence but, I have been extremely busy as my aunt has undergone streptococcus of the throat and nearly perished and I have been justifiably saddled with one responsibility after another. However I have thought of you frequently and of the extremely pleasant afternoon we spent in each other's company on April 30, 1944 between 3:45 and 4:15 P. M. in case it slipped your mind.

  We are all tremendously excited and overawed about D Day and only hope that it will bring about the swift termination of the war and a method of existence that is ridiculous to say the least. Charles and I are both quite concerned about you; we hope you were not among those who made the first initial assault upon the Cotentin Peninsula. Were you? Please reply as speedily as possible. My warmest regards to your wife.

  Sincerely yours, ESMA P. S. I am taking the liberty of enclosing my wristwatch which you may keep in your possession for the duration of the conflict. I did not observe whether you were wearing one during our brief association, but this one is extremely water-proof and shockproof as well as having many other virtues among which one can tell at what velocity one is walking if one wishes. I am quite certain that you will use it to greater advantage in these difficult days than I ever can and that you will accept it as a lucky talisman.

  Charles, whom I am teaching to read and write and whom I am finding an extremely intelligent novice, wishes to add a few words. Please write as soon as you have the time and inclination.

  HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO LOVE AND KISSES CHALES It was a long time before X could set the note aside, let alone lift Esme's father's wristwatch out of the box. When he did finally lift it out, he saw that its crystal had been broken in transit. He wondered if the watch was otherwise undamaged, but he hadn't the courage to wind it and find out. He just sat with it in his hand for another long period. Then, suddenly, almost ecstatically, he felt sleepy.

  You take a really sleepy man, Esme, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac-with all his f-a-c-u-1-t-i-e-s intact.

  Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes

  WHEN the phone rang, the grayhaired man asked the girl, with quite some little deference, if she would rather for any reason he didn't answer it. The girl heard him as if from a distance, and turned her face toward him, one eye--on the side of the light--closed tight, her open eye very, however disingenuously, large, and so blue as to appear almost violet. The grayhaired man asked her to hurry up, and she raised up on her right forearm just quickly enough so that the movement didn't quite look perfunctory.

  She cleared her hair back from her forehead with her left hand and said, <<>> The grayhaired man said he didn't see that it made a helluva lot of difference one way or the other, and slipped his left hand under the girl's supporting arm, above the elbow, working his fingers up, making room for them between the warm surfaces of her upper arm and chest wall. He reached for the phone with his right hand. To reach it without groping, he had to raise himself somewhat higher, which caused the back of his head to graze a comer of the lampshade. In that instant, the light was particularly, if rather vividly, flattering to his gray, mostly white, hair. Though in disarrangement at that moment, it had obviously been freshly cut-or, rather, freshly maintained. The neckline and temples had been trimmed conventionally close, but the sides and top had been left rather more than just longish, and were, in fact, a trifle <<>> <<>> he said resonantly into the phone. The girl stayed propped up on her forearm and watched him. Her eyes, more just open than alert or speculative, reflected chiefly their own size and color.

  A man's voice--stone dead, yet somehow rudely, almost obscenely quickened for the occasion--came through at the other end: <<>>

  The grayhaired man glanced briefly left, at the girl. <<>> he asked. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  The grayhaired man looked left again, but high this time, away from the girl, who was now watching him rather like a young, blue-eyed Irish policeman. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> the grayhaired man asked.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> the grayhaired man asked. <<>>

  <<>>

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  <<>>

  <<>> said the grayhaired man. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<
  <<>>

  <<Arthur," the grayhaired man said. Absently, he took his left hand out from between the girl's upper arm and chest wall. <<>> he said. He took the telephone cord between his fingers, just under the transmitter. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> the grayhaired man said. <<>>

  <<>>

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  <<>>

  <<
  He glanced abruptly to his right, where a cigarette, lighted some time earlier in the evening, was balanced on an ashtray. It obviously had gone out, though, and he didn't pick it up. <<
  Would you like me to tell you what you do? You go out of your way--I mean this, now--you actually go out of your way to torture yourself. As a matter of fact, you actually inspire Joanie->>> He broke off. <<>>

  <<>>

  The grayhaired man, his nostrils dilating, appeared to take a fairly deep breath.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> asked the grayhaired man, sounding annoyed.

  <<>>

  <<>> He straightened his back so that the girl could reach behind him for the cigarettes. <<>>

  <<>> He took a lighted cigarette from the girl. She had lit two. <<
  he said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> the grayhaired man repeated. <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>> asked the grayhaired man, taking another drag on his cigarette.

  <<>>

  The grayhaired man turned his head to see what the girl was doing. She had picked up the ashtray and was putting it between them. <<>> he said into the phone.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  With his left hand, the grayhaired man shaped the ash of his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. <<
  <<
  You know how long we've handled those three bloody hotels? Old man Shanley himself started the whole-->>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  The grayhaired man turned his head again toward the girl, perhaps to show her how forbearing, even stoic, his countenance was. But the girl missed seeing it. She had just overturned the ashtray with her knee and was rapidly, with her fingers, brushing the spilled ashes into a little pick-up pile; her eyes looked up at him a second too late. <<
  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<idn't?>>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

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  <<
  the grayhaired man said. <<>>

  <<
  That's what she needs. I'm too goddam weak for her. I knew it when we got married--I swear to God I did. I mean you're a smart bastard, you've never been married, but every now and then, before anybody gets married, they get these flashes of what it's going to be like after they're married. I ignored 'em. I ignored all my goddam flashes. I'm weak.

  That's the whole thing in a nutshell.>>>

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