Umnak, 16 November 1944 -- "it was strange the effect of seeing women"

My Nunny…

We had another movie in the rec hut last night: “Saratoga Trunk” with our Ingrid and Gary Cooper. You have to see it, of course, but it is really too bad to give her parts like that—the illegitimate daughter of a New Orleans creole who comes back to the old home town from Paris bent on humiliating her legitimate half-sister and, after doing it, falls in love with a Texan whom she spurns because he is not rich but finally marries after he gets a million. You’ve seen it all before with Ida Lupino, Luise Rainer and Bette Davis, and the idea seemed to be to show that Bergman could do anything they could and be healthier looking too. 

Cooper and Bergman

She did, too. The trouble was that with Gary Cooper in there it was like having a relay team with Jesse Owens running leadoff and Sidney Greenstreet second. Every time the camera shifted from Bergman to Cooper it was like going from Steinbeck to Kathleen Norris. And for a long time it disobeyed what George Jean Nathan says is the primary requirement for a movie: it should move.

In emphasis on realism and accurate background recent movies often run into trouble keeping the camera on the characters. There are times, of course, when the off-scene shot can point out the meaning of the whole show. But when the meaning is an obvious as it is in this one, or when as is more often the case there is no meaning at all, this extracurricular camera work simply serves to stretch an 80 minute movie into a two-hour epic.

One thing I have noticed about the audience reaction here. While the pattern of the regulation war picture (hero does not know what he is fighting for, sees someone killed, realizes war aims, then either dies or loses limb) is recognized  and laughed at as a stereotype, the boy meets girl, l.g., g.g, theme never raises any protest. On the other hand any strong variation in characterization often offends a large section of the audience. “People just don’t act like that.”

Bergman plays the part of a manic-depressive, a girl who spun from hysterical depression to calculated animation in her chase for a millionaire. Those who did not like the show objected that this was unnatural behavior or, granting that such aberrations were possible argued that “You don’t go to a movie to see nuts.”

 

One other rather strange thing was that several of the fellows commented about Bergman’s aristocratic manners, when actually she was doing a magnificent job of showing the overstrained grace of the adventuress…One screamed comment when Bergman first appeared on the screen: “Voted the woman we’d most like to commit adultery with.”

…

About the USO show. I haven’t seen it, but yesterday when I came into the operations hut after dinner, I almost trampled a tall, nice-looking, unbeautiful girl who was sending a telegram. Another girl was in the hut watching the machinery in action. It was strange the effect of seeing women: one of the fellows’ hands shook so much he could not punch the teletype keys. Another later had to repeat a wireless message he was punching, at least that is what everyone now claims. My own reaction was one of uncomprehending acceptance followed by a strong desire to say something to them. (I did: I censored the wire and asked the sender something about the address.) and then a profound depression at being away from you. Every nice thing I see makes me miss you more. 

And every nice letter I get. There were two from you yesterday and they were surpassing sweet. The idea of you and Haj combining in the retraining of a spoiled dog appeals particularly. Haj, I suppose, gives instruction in all the things a spoiled dog must not do, like sleeping on the chenille spread, eating the windowsill, or proudly paddling into the lake after ducks. 

Yesterday I wrote to Phyllis and Otto, Jack Martin (from whom I had a first letter yesterday) and Howard Daniel. So while I did not get much done on the Day of the Dead, I feel very virtuous. Now I only owe letters to the Wirsigs, Howard Lewis, Vic [Murray’s half-brother, Victor Morgan, was a naval chaplain in the South Pacific], Bill and Carmen [Fett], Pederson, and Bill James. Oh yes, I also wrote Harri, who subscribed to the Portland Oregonian pony edition for me. 

The election results in your letter of the 10^th were interesting and have been studied by most of the Washingtonians, but be sure to send up a clipping with the final count as those were for only about half the precincts.

…

M

Umnak, 13 November 1944 -- "he reads with a dictionary at hand"

My little stalk of celery…

 

First, three requests:

a.   Send me a picture of myself as soon as possible. The Guggenheim people ask that a small, recent picture be sent with the request and I cannot trust local talent to make me look enough unlike myself.

b.   Please please please tell me whether you shipped up the Belgrade hat. That stuff Craig taught us about the wind is all too true and if my super earwarmer is not en route I will try to buy something up here. Please answer this right away and mail the letter the same day.

c.   Do you want me to put in that subscription for Otto and Phyllis or have you something else in mind for them for Christmas.  And have you found out yet whether kleine Goldschmids are on the way?

 

That covers the action part of the letter and now for whatever information there may be.

I am currently in the process of changing shifts, going from the graveyard trick, my favorite, to the swing shift which nobody likes. As this is a middle of the month change I don’t know if I will be going back to the old nocturnal regime in December or January.

On this shift I drew the “long break,” being off from 8 a.m. on Sunday morning until 4 p.m. today, Monday. I did not make very full use of my time. Sunday I stayed up and went to the library with Durtschi, a newcomer from Idaho with whom I have recently skirmished in several mild political bull sessions. He is a tall farmerish kid from back of beyond in Idaho, who interests me because he reads with a dictionary at hand, industriously looking up the many new words he encounters. No Martin, he is nevertheless a mildly interesting companion. He was exceptionally good yesterday for the weather was very bad and he liked to walk through it. I always wonder at the scarcity of people who appreciate walking in the rain.

At the library I picked out a couple of histories of Alaska. Since the Guggenheim people seem very anxious for a complete outline of the projected work, I want to be able to sound very authoritative in my outline, giving a rough idea of the geologic background of the chain and outlining several branches in which research could be profitably pursued. Frankly, my little lover, I doubt we have much of a chance of landing it. My background in creative writing is hardly what a bevy of bearded doctors would consider inspiring, and my background in the field is rather rudimentary. But it is worth giving it a whirl. And, as real effort on my part has failed to unearth any book devoted entirely to this area, it seems to me that work would fill a need. In fact, if the Guggenheim business does not work out, it might be worth a few months to whip out one on our own hook.

But there is time enough to think of that when Angel gets done with his wandering around Lake Patzcuaro. At present he and one of the Sinarquistas are in a stalled outboard in the middle of the lake, en route to the little island with the house on it. It occurs to me that if I don’t change a few place names I will be liable for libel before this book [Day of the Dead] is done. Which, I still think, will be very soon.

Since I started this the afternoon mail has come and in it was your Election Day letter, a thing of great shortness but great charm. The vote for Norman Thomas was only mildly extravagant, especially in the sound of the radio broadcast now on. Ely, the Federal Communications Commission head and about the last real New Dealer left in the government except for Ickes, has resigned and his resignation was accepted. FDR hinted he would keep him working on radio, probably as U.S. representative on an international commission. Which means merely that he will be kicked upstairs and out of the way at the very moment someone like him is most needed to see that a decent division is made of the Frequency Modulation channels. Now, I suppose, the soap opera purveyors will get all the channels and the idea of a national network, to be operated something like TVA—as a yardstick to show what is possible in educational and informative programs, will be doomed.

…

Last Saturday I closed my letter with the word that I had just heard there was mail waiting for me. There was a nice letter from Dad saying you had been in Tacoma and enthusing about the way Bill eats, although it seems a strange subject for anyone but a grocery to appreciate. There were the Guggenheim forms, and two letters from you. That Jack is now in Seattle and may be there for some time pleases me a great deal. Roger Shaw, whom you mention is much like Mastrude, we met before. He is the one who came in during one of our first days at Myrtle and Bill’s and, after spending the entire evening—hour after drunken hour—in a corner rubbing noses with Jean staggered over to me on his way out and mumbled about how much he had appreciated our conversation. Jack met him in Fairbanks, I believe, and was attracted by his resemblance to Rajah, who is his prime hero.

Mentioning Myrtle reminds me that you said she was planning to join Bill when she had the money saved. How does she expect to overcome the other (official) obstacles. Do tell.

Your second letter of Saturday was the sad sad story of all the things which can go wrong in make-up and final printing of a reasonably well-planned little paper. And, though it probably will seem unsympathetic, I read it with howls of laughter, because every one of those frustrating foul-ups was so superbly typical of the bitches I use to belabor you with that it seemed impossible the woe should flow upstream.

Well now. Quite I while back I started to tell you about my long break.  I got as far as the library and books on Alaska, then did a Morgan and meandered rather far afield. I took three books, Alaska Challenge, The Valley of 10,000 Smokes, and the History of Alaska Under U.S. Rule. The first is the incredible story of a couple who walked up to Alaska by way of the Liard Trail and Telegraph Trail, then built a boat and made it down the Yukon. Four years and two kids later they accepted a job teaching Eskimos at a settlement on the Bering Straits and put in a good eight months doing much for community before it was discovered they did not have the Civil Service qualifications for the job they were performing capably. I know all this because I read the book through in one sitting, which accounted for my hours this morning.

But before I made the mistake of picking it up to look at the excellent photographs, I had walked home from the library, eaten dinner, and listened to our Sunday symphony (Beethoven’s Seventh and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto). After that it was seven. I had not been to bed for about 24 hours, but I was just a little sleepy. I thought I’d take and nap and get up at midnight and write for a while. I lay down on top of the bed and woke, my clothes still on, twelve hours later. That was when I reached out and picked up Alaska Challenge. Bingo! Another day out of the way and nothing done on Day of the Dead.

Ruth and Bill Albee, who walked to Alaska, really had a wonderful time and again convinced me of our old theory that there is no point in ever doing work you consider uninteresting except as a means of doing something very interesting which is worth the sacrifice of a little time. Incidentally they had a rather nice story about the Eskimo attitude toward work. Albee had been in charge of the village and when a government bulkhead was put in he hired the laborers, shovelmen at fifty cents an hour and carpenters at seventy-five. When the checks came in a few months later the carpenters came to the schoolhouse to protest. Albee explained that he had given what he thought a fair price, whereupon their spokesman explained that “after all, a man was only a man. They demanded that I cut their wages to fifty cents an hour like the others.”

I have another Eskimo story to tell. I comes from Al Hesse. When he was coming up here there was a full-blooded Eskimo on the boat. He had been going to school in Spokane and when the war started he was drafted. Now on this boat full of groaning GIs on their way to duty in the Aleutians he alone was really happy. For he was on furlough and going to St. Paul Island to spend his vacation!

Have I told you about the master sergeant who is temporarily in our hut: a huge Irishman, bulky, granitefaced, who spends most of his time lying in his bunk and reading Ranchland Romances? Or about the chinook we had a while back after a snow storm, which left the area soggy and made every walk between huts like a canoe landing at Lom? Or that all our sparrows now have a winter coat of white? Or that I found one last yarrow in bloom after the first big snow melted? Or that Al, who has written a short story he intends to send the SatEvePost is worried lest they beat him out of the movie rights? (It will bounce back faster than a check by Meyer Rappaport.) Or that I love you? Very very much?

….

M

Umnak, 9 November 1944--"everything conspires to make me homesick"

Happy Birthday, Nunny… [Rosa’s 26^th]

Everything conspires to make me homesick for our many homes. On Monday I saw the short “Birth of a Volcano,” which is far more about Patzcuaro than about Paracutín. Then on Tuesday there was the election and the memory of that wild, weird night four years ago when Koski and the porcine butcher were passed out in the corner, RVM [Russell Mack] was writing incoherent leads about his defeat by Martin Smith, and we were racing around in the Ford (water dripping through the ventilator onto your legs), picking up results at the outlying schools and basement polling places. And now as I write, on Wednesday night-Thursday morning, Radio Calcutta, of all places is playing the intermezzo from Hari Janos, the Hungarian opera, and I can almost smell the warm soft smell of the Danube and feel the cool of the night on Margaretan Island [in the Danube at Budapest]. Last night we tuned in on Radio Tokyo to see what they had to say about the election and got instead the Fantastic Symphony. 

About the election. Because of the time differential, it was only two when the polls closed in most of the eastern states. We began getting the results over shortwave from San Francisco. The United Network—the shortwave stations in San Francisco which we used to listen to from Mexcio—had a system worked out which divided the time between the networks. About every quarter hour they switched from Blue to National to CBS to Mutual, but before long CBS and National were so far ahead in adding up the results that most of the time they stayed with them. CBS was an unprejudiced best, mainly because all the National broadcasters got so interested in describing the elaborate procedure they had evolved for getting the results fast that they forgot to say what the results were. 

I caught only a couple of hours sleep in the in the early afternoon. My alarm was set for three, and when it went off I put on the tea, turned on the radio and settled down for the day. In our hut we were largely pro-democratic. (In the hut next to ours Col. McCormic would feel at home. They burn tapers for [Westbrook] Pegler on Labor Day.) Of those not on duty when the broadcasts began, everyone in our hut was pro-Roosevelt, with the exception of one kid from Alaska, who could not vote for President anyway. (We kid him about being a second-class citizen). Consequently we enjoyed the listening greatly.

Listening to the returns

By five o’clock, when it was time for dinner, there was no decision yet. I could not bring myself to take time out for dinner, partly because I wanted to keep on listening and partly, I suppose, it was a subconscious reaction based on my desire to be in a newspaper office with a partly filled dummy spread on the desk, the stacks of teletyped news piling up around me and the backshop boss clamoring for copy. If I could not have the type of confusion I wanted I would not take the confusion of the mess hall. So I missed a chicken dinner. But I got it cold at midnight, which was even better.

By six o’clock it was dark enough outside so that we could pick up the domestic band stations and I alternated between KNX Hollywood and KOL Seattle. MNX is CBS, and the only drawback was that it had no returns from Washington. As a matter of fact the Congressional results in Washington still haven’t come in, except for the good news that we still have Coffee in the House and that DeLacy is to be, as your friend put it, broadened. [Rep. John Coffee’s resolution to allow live radio broadcasts of the House of Representatives proceedings, though not fully implemented before he was defeated by Thor Tollefson of Tacoma in 1946, eventually paved the way for C-SPAN]

Once Dewey had made his nice little speech, tardily, I went over to see if there was any mail. I had two letters from my one love, one of which was written on the Muni News report. Reading that I felt really sorry for Lorin [Peterson]. The oblique attack on the P.U.D. bill without mentioning the Pacific Power and Light Co., and the listing “Identified with left wing bloc” always matched with “Intelligent. Respected in his community” for his opponent.

If the Washington local elections followed the national election, however, and the only time I can think of that they didn’t was in the 1940 election of Langlie; and since Wallgren got it—thank Tao—I think it isn’t too much to hope that the Third District got rid of its sad specimen in the House. I find myself unenthused by the election of [Warren] Magnuson, but he was the lesser evil.

Today the Republicans, especially the noisy ones, are having a rather rough time. A couple of them did not show up for breakfast. And one of them got so mad he stomped out without eating his eggs. Many of the comments were considerably below the level set by Dewey and Bricker. The Corsican [Enrico Traina], for instance, blamed the results on “the niggers and the Jews.” And one of the men claimed it was the WPA votes, which shows how deep habit runs in politics.
 

As for the people next to you at the symphony, my sweet, I have often had the same reaction, although up here we did not get very steamed up about the election.

One thing about the election which I wonder if you could find out for me. One of the most wrapt Republicans here claimed that he heard a radio announcement on Monday night in which Stalin asked for Roosevelt’s re-election. Now I am quite sure that Stalin would be all for it, for obvious reasons, but I cannot conceive of his pulling a political boner like that. Was there anything about it in the U.S. papers?

 

Janitzio, in Lake Patzcuaro, from http://www.lakepatzcuaro.org/DayOfDead.html

About the picture of Patzcuaro and Paracutín. It had a lot of pictures of the island, in very good Technicolor, and shot of the west end of the lake, in which I thought I could catch the white of the Ford’s house. I recognized several of the Indians, and the parts of Janitzio looked so familiar I almost smelled the pescado blanco cooking. While the show left me horribly lonesome for you, it has made writing on the novel much easier. Details come to me so much easier. This month should see the end of the novel, thank god. After that I think I will do a couple of short stories and then either work on the Guggenheim preliminary stuff, if that seems warranted, or perhaps go back to “And Shadows Fall.”

 

In her last letter Carmen said that she and Myrtle were going to have a party for you this afternoon, plikka. So I will sort of sit in on it with you from seven o’clock on. I can think of very few things I would not give to be with you today…

 

M

Umnak Island, 6 November 1944--"my comely chipmunk"

My darling…

I wrote you just a few hours ago, but although it was a long letter I forgot several things I was going to say.

I have been reading Thames Williamson’s “Far North Country,” and it is good. In a bit about the culture of the Eskimos, he mentions that “The Eskimo believed in no central divine being, and he did not believe or practice prayer as we know it; he had decided that all natural phenomena are controlled by spirits, and to save his own sanity he reasoned further that all spirits could in turn be controlled by charm and formula. Working from this premise, the Eskimo managed to keep his nose above the flood of terror which the supernatural engenders.”

It seems to me that this is a very valid point, and it brings into question the accepted belief of Christian monotheists that monotheism is superior to a religious system based on belief in multiple gods. And does it not anticipate the pluralistic interpretation of the universe which American philosophers claim as their greatest contribution to world thought? 

Somewhat on the same line is this quote taken from Orville Prescott’s review of “The Dream of Phillip II” in the times. “Phillip, according to Mr. Maass, represented the medieval concept of unity, one religion and one church, in conflict with the individualism and materialism of the Renaissance and Reformation. He stood for faith and for the dignity of man as an immortal spirit soon to face eternal judgment. According to his own lights and according to the prevailing ethics of the time, he resembled a saint like Ignatius Loyola more than he did the bloodthirsty tyrant he seems to many of us today…” It would seem that many sins can be excused under the name of unity—including the Inquisition.

Of the clippings I’m sending along today, there is little to say. The Dutch picture is another version of one I sent you earlier. The story that accompanied the excellent shot of Clare Luce was PM poor. The ballet reviews add to my homesickness. It occurs to me that the Ballet Theatre usually swings though the northwest in late spring, so I may be back for their 1945 visit. I would sort of like to take you to Pretruchka, my comely chipmunk.  …

M

Umnak, Sunday, 5 November 1944 -- Snow

Cartoon by Don L. Miller, from the pamphlet Windblown and Dripping, assembled on Adak by Dashiell Hammett, and later reprinted by Jeanne Culbertson. Born in Jamaica, Miller studied at Cooper Union before the war and became a well-known commercial artist. He created the main mural at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington, D.C.

Happy Birthday, little nunny…

 

At least I hope this gets to you on your birthday. The present I had intended to send (and the one I would most like to get down your way except, of course, me) is Day of the Dead. I had hoped to finish it in time to mail in on your birthday, but try as I have in the past few weeks I cannot step up page production high enough to make it, I fear. Not unless I find a bottle of tequila somewhere and sail through the final three chapters in one day, as I did with Thunder Down Under. And remembering the Ziff-Davis critics' remarks about the last three chapters of that one, I suppose even that would not be worthwhile.

…

We are not having canoeing weather up here. When I came out after work this morning the day was clear with the sharpness and simplicity of a good Thanksgiving poster: black soil showing through a powdering of snow, the grass a high yellow, the sea grey and the sky a strong blue, just regaining strength from an overdose of pastels. I woke at two in the afternoon to find the sky grey, our mountain hidden, a fox standing wet and miserable just outside the door, the grass bending before a rising wind, only a narrow strip of the Bering visible and it rising like a wall on the close horizon. I decided against going for a walk and went to clipping some recent Times and PMs. (I could not work on the novel as some of the fellows were sleeping.) About four I noticed a strange murmuring which seemed to run through the drum-like hut in a rising rhythm. At first I thought I was imagining it, but when it continued I stepped outside to see if something was scraping against the roof. Snow. And already the area looks fantastically beautiful, and the men when they come in stamp their feet and beat their arms, and the first snowball missed me a foot.

I hope the snow does not keep me from going to the movie tomorrow afternoon. There is a show at the Downtown theatre and while “They Made Me a Criminal” with Ann Sheridan and John Garfield does not sound particularly attractive, there is a short feature called “Birth of a Volcano” and what could that be but our personal Paracutín?

…

About this afternoon’s clipping. I am sending them along, but I can’t resist the temptation to quote from the Ickes speech about Dewey’s friends. The insults are superlative. Ickes suggested that Dewey named Col. McCormick of the Trib to his cabinet and Secretary of War. He brought up that old letter McCormick wrote to a friend saying that he had introduced into the Army the ROTC, machine guns, mechanization, automatic rifles, serial artillery-fire control and the acquisition of Atlantic bases, but had not been able to get the navy out of the far Pacific. Then Ickes said, “The letter does not say in so many words, but it is fair to assume that one the seventh day the colonel rested."

There also was a letter to the sports editor of the Times which will bring back memories of happy days and night in the left field bleachers. The subject under discussion is not Big Mike but Babe Herman. However he was once a Seattle first baseman, so the similarity is complete:

“When a high fly was hit the Babe often took off in a loping, confident glide for two or three steps. Then he would stop, gaze dubiously into the sun, take a big chaw—or rather shift his chaw from one cheek to the other and you could actually see the bulge disappear from one side to reappear on the other--and stand motionless for what seemed like a full second. At this stage a community groan would go up in the stands that meant: ‘Oh well, Herman’s lost it in the sun again.’ However, like a man deciding he has time for a quick one before the train pulls out, Herman would feint again in a different wrong direction and then gallop like Ty Cobb back the way he had come in the beginning. Oddly enough he usually caught the ball--but the wear and tear on the fans was severe.”

…

The other night I heard one of the fellows telling a story that I thought might be possible to revise into an Esquire short. Here it is, in more or less the original form. 

 

I heard it in the kitchen, about four a.m. Half a dozen of the fellows were sitting around on the tabletops, drinking greenish GI coffee or strong black tea. When I came down the steps, Howard Holt, a tall, blond, rather simple son from Eastern Washington was talking.

“When I hit Seattle on my furlough,” he said, “I was sort of eager. I had an eighteen-month backlog of passion. So the first thing after clearing with the front office in the Federal Building, I went looking for a girl.

 

“I started up Marion, headed for the Rathskeller. Right in front of that building at Second and Marion that used to be a bank there was a classy looking girl. She had on a sort of fuzzy sweater which was pretty tight, the sort of thing you like to see on someone else’s wife. And she really was stacked. She just stood there, sort of looking around, as though maybe she had been stood up. She didn’t look like a pick-up but what the hell, I’d been up there eighteen months and I didn’t give a damn. So I sort of whistled and said, ‘Hello, Betty.’

“And she turned on a real nice smile and said real warm-like, ‘Jim, you’re back.’ And I said ‘Yeah, I’m back. Surprised?’ And she said, ‘No. I knew you’d come.’ And she put her hand in mine and said, ‘Isn’t there someplace we can go?’

 

“I said, ‘I was just going to the Rathskeller, let’s have few.’ She looked at me sort of funny but said ‘Well, all right.’ We had a few beers and I told her about the Interior and about the fighting on Attu – well, all right, what if I wasn’t there – and we got on pretty good. I was beginning to wonder about shacking up with this little number and how to go about it when she said, ‘Now let’s go out to the house and see Daddy.’

 

“Well, now. That sounded a bit funny, but I had begun to wonder if maybe this wasn’t the classiest looking pro I had ever run into. I was sort of dough heavy and hell, I didn’t care what it would cost. So I said sure, Let’s go.

 

“We took a taxi and went someplace out in West Seattle, looking down on the Sound. There was a nice little house set back on a big lawn and couple of big fir trees sticking up behind it. Altogether, I thought, the classiest cathouse I ever saw. I paid the taxi and she said, ‘It will be fun seeing Daddy, won’t it?’ I said, ‘It sure will.’

 

“Well, now. She did have a Daddy. We went inside and she called, ‘Daddy.’ And a voice answered, ‘Yes, Betty?’ And she says, ‘Jim’s back.’ And he says, ‘No, really?’

“There is a pounding on the steps and a big old guy with white hair and a face full of lather and a razor in one hand comes down the steps. He said, ‘Hello Jim.’ And I said, ‘Hello sir.’ But boy I was scared, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell.

 

“He sort of circled around me and then he patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘You changed some, Jim, but it’s been a long time and I’d know you anywhere.’ I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just sort of shut up. And Betty says, ‘I want to wash up’ and runs out of the room.

“Well, the old man looks at me awhile and I look at everything else in the place. And finally he says, ‘Soldier, what do you look so scared about?’ And I gulped and said, ‘Sir, I think there’s a mistake somewhere.’ And he said, ‘Good, boy. I wondered what you’d say. My daughter has you puzzled. Is that it?’ And I said it was.

“The old boy looks at me kind of sideways and says, ‘Now don’t scared, but she is not quite normal. Not dangerous or anything like that but she has hallucinations. She was married two years ago and her husband went right off to war. He was a Marine, and he was killed the first day on Guadalcanal. The shock was too much for her. She just can’t accept it that he is dead, and she keeps thinking he has come back. Now you aren’t the first soldier she has brought here. The first time it happened I told her she had made a mistake and so did the soldier. And she was sick for weeks. The doctor said we had done wrong, that it would have been best to let her pretend. Sooner or later, he says, this will wear off and she will forget all her imaginings. But now to have time taken away from her might result in some other kind of a breakdown. So will you sort of stay for diner and then take her dancing or something like that. Sometime during the evening her hallucination will wear off and then you can duck out and everything will be all right.’

 

“Well now. That was a fine mess. Stuck with a weird widow on my first night. But there wasn’t anything I could do, so I said sure. Betty cooked dinner, and it was good. And right after dinner her old man says, ‘I have to go over to Joe’s to see about some drawings he is making for the new machine. I’ll walk. You two can have the car.’ We had decided to go to The Ranch and I said fine.

“The old man went out and Betty said, ‘Just a minute, while I change.’ She went into her room and in a minute she said, ‘Come in a minute, Jim.’ Well I went in, and there she was in a grey lace thing you could see right through, and boy, she really had ‘em. I said, ‘You can’t go dancing in that.’ And she said, ‘It’s been a long time, Jim.’ And I felt sort of prickly and hot all over, and some of the time I thought about what I could see and some of the time I thought about her husband being dead and her being nuts. She came over and put her arms around me and sort of pressed up against me, and I kept trying to think what I ought to do and then trying to tell myself I shouldn’t do it. And then I thought, Well if I don’t it will sure make her suspicious and her old man said the doctor said nothing should disturb her.

“So I saw there was nothing else to do, and I decided to do it. There was a big bow on the front of that negligee and I started to fumble with it. And just then….” Holt looked up and everyone in the place sort of leaned toward him. “Yeah?”

“I woke up.”