From Here to Eternity (36 page)

He lay on his back in the sweated bed listening to her and staring contentedly at the ceiling half-sleepily like after a full good rich meal, feeling the fine-boned hand that was almost transparent like Old Choy's but smooth and utterly different in kind and texture from Old Choy's fingering lightly on his chest and the high well lighted room gave them the secret and anonymous solitude that only a hotel room can give as outside the locked door he heard rug-muffled footsteps passing along the corridor and whispered voices coming to him faintly and keys rattling and doors slamming shut with secret finality, finality finality finality of finalities saith the Sergeant all is finality what profit hath a man of all his probabilities under the sun one probability passeth away and another probability cometh all things are full of probabilities man cannot utter it but finality abideth forever in a hotel room there is no remembrance of former probabilities neither shall there be anticipation of probabilities that are to come with those that come after thus spakest I the Sergeant who was king over Israel in Jerusalem where I dwelt in the valley of the shadow of a hotel room with my beloved who is the rose of Sharon and the lilies of the valley of the shadow of a hotel room where there is no inconsistency where there is no probabilities where there is finality remain remain O Shulamite remain remain that ye may give me to drink of the spiced wine of the juice of thy pomegranate in a hotel room where nothing is inconstant finality is all is one and is all and abideth for ever and ever and ever amen days without number while all the probabilities run down to the world yet the world is not full. Then he was awake again back inside himself again where there were probabilities again, where there would always be probabilities again running into the world again yet never filling the world full enough to reach finality. For a minute there you thought you had found a system that would beat the game, didnt you, Warden? Yes you did, yes you did. But without having to get up to look he could reel the old world seeping steadily under the door that he had locked but forgot to calk. The world was up almost to the mattress now. The world was carrying its sheaf of probabilities under its arm like a salesman. The world was selling insurance for the insurance business that was science. Did you know the insurance business is what gives our country its financial stability? Yes, you knew that. Did you know the insurance business which is science developed and propagated the law of probabilities? Yes, you knew. Well, didnt you know that law of probabilities had as its Justinian Code the principle that there is no finality, that there is only probabilities, that constancy is only an illusion composed and perpetuated by an infinite number of inconstancies? Yes, you knew that too, but you did not believe it. Oh, you did not believe it? Just like that. You do not choose to run. Why didnt you believe it? Probably because, he thought, that is in all probability because, you were raised as a Catholic. Oh, I say, come now, really! Well, you asked me. But you are not a Catholic any more, are you? No, you are not. You stopped being a Catholic at fourteen, when you had your first piece of ass and discovered there was nothing to confess. But you surely realize, do you not, that the Song of the Shulamite is really only a metaphor of Christ's love for the Church? The King James version tells you that explicitly; it is not a man's love for a woman or a woman's love for a man; surely you know that? Yes, you know that; but cant you see, you, that it is simply because of that that the law of probabilities/\ which states that there is no constancy and therefore no finality came into being? Unfair! Unfair! Objection overruled! Strike that out! That statement is immaterial, irrelevant, and misleading, and tends to influence the witness. Objection sustained. Time's up. Theres the bell. Take It Or Leave It gives that man Sixty-Four Dollars and we have some fine new policies against being drowned in salt water; you knew of course that salt water is much worse to drown in than fresh water? Yes; but is it better to drown in fresh water than in probabilities? We dont know about that but we know it is a hell of a lot harder. Then I'll just take ten thousand against probabilities. Sorry, we cannot insure you against that likelihood without a complete mental examination, that possibility is too great a risk for our company. Ah, then just give me my Sixty-Four Dollars and I'll go. Sorry, time's up, instead of taking it it looks like you leave it, bud. "Nobody ever loved me like you love me," Karen said snugly cozily. "Nobody?" he said. Karen laughed and it Was like honey dripping from a spoon back into the jar between you and the sunlight. "No, nobody," she said. "Not even one?" he said, jokingly. "Out of all the many men you've been loved by?" "Well," Karen said still laughingly, "that will take some figuring. Have you got a pencil? How many men do you think I've been loved by, darling?" "I wouldnt know," he joked. "Cant you even make me a rough estimate?" "Not without an adding machine," Karen said, a little less laughingly. "Do you have your adding machine with you?" "No," he joked. "I forgot to bring it." "Then I guess you wont find out, will you?" Karen said not laughingly at all. "Maybe I already know." She sat up in the bed then and looked at him demandingly, suddenly a more positive personality than he had ever seen her, more even than that first time at the house before the kid came home. "Whats the matter, Milt?" she said still looking at him. It sounded crisp and wifely, as if she had called him Milton. "Why, nothing," he grinned stiffly. "Why?" "Yes there is," she said. "What are you hinting at?" "Hinting at?" he grinned. "I wasnt hinting at anything. I was only kidding you." "No you werent," she said. "What are you upset about?" "About nothing," Warden said. "Why? Is there something I should be upset about? Is there something to hint at?" "I dont know," she said. "Maybe a lot. Or maybe you just think theres a lot. 'Tell me," Capt Holmes's wife said. "What is it? Dont you feel well? Did you eat something?" "Dont worry about my health, baby." 'Then tell me what it is. Why dont you tell me?" "Okay," he said. "Did you ever hear of a guy named Maylon Stark?" "Why, yes," Karen said distinctly. "I know Maylon Stark. He's the company mess sergeant." "Thats right. He also use to be a cook in Holmes's troop at Bliss. Maybe you knew him then too?" "Yes," Karen said looking at him. "I knew him then too." "Maybe you knew him pretty well then?" "Well enough," Karen said. "Maybe you know him even better now?" "No," Karen said looking at him. "I dont know him at all now. In fact, I havent seen him to speak to in eight years." She kept on looking at him, when he did not answer, and then she saw his hand. "You must have hit him very hard," she said. "I didnt hit him at all," Warden said. "Lets not romanticize anything. I hit the wall. Why should I hit him?" "Oh, you damn fool," she said angrily. "You crazy damn fool." She picked his hand up tenderly. "Ouch," he said. "Watch out." "What did he say to you?" she asked him, still holding his hand tenderly. Warden looked at her, then at his hand. Then he looked back at her. "He said he'd fucked you," Warden said. It spread out across the room like a shell burst and he could have bitten off the tongue that said it. In the sustained suspension of the roar he could see the glaze of shock from the concussion take hold of her. But she recovered quickly. She recovered very quickly, he thought bitterly admiringly. Probably she had known what was coming. Why are you doing this? What ever made you say a thing like that? Does it make any difference to you if she did? No, it doesn't make any difference to you. Then why are you doing it? But he had known, of course, what he was doing. He knew the first word, once uttered, led inevitably to this. It all seemed remarkably familiar like something he had done before and he was miserable because he was doing it yet he could not stop it. He had to know, when people told you things like that you couldnt just drop them, you couldnt just forget them, not when you had to live with those people every day. God damn people. "You didnt need to say that," Karen said. She laid his hand down carefully. "Oh, yes I did. You'll never know how much." "All right," she said. "Maybe you did. But not like that. You shouldnt have said it like that, Milt. Not without giving me my chance first." "He also mentioned that Champ Wilson probably had too. Thats the current story. Not to mention Jim O'Hayer. Not to mention Liddell Henderson." "So I'm the company whore now?" she said. "Well, thats what I get, I guess. I guess I laid myself open for it, didn't I? I asked for it when I first went out with you." "Nobody knows you been out with me. Nobody," Warden said. "Only you would really think I would have known, wouldnt you?" she said. "But not me. Oh no, not me. I had to convince myself you were different. I had to go and forget you were a man. And being a man, had the same rotten filthy mind the rest of them have. The same proud rooster masculinity of conquest. Oh, I bet you and Stark had a fine time I bet, talking it over, comparing notes on how good it was. Tell me, how do I stack up, anyway, with the professionals? I'm still an amateur, you know." She got out of the bed and fumblingly started gathering up her clothes. They were still strewn across the room. She had to sort them out from his. She had trouble with them. Her hair kept falling into her eyes. She had to keep brushing at her eyes with first one hand then the other. "Leaving?" Warden said. "I'm considering it. Have you any other suggestions? After all, its over, isnt it? You cant really expect it could ever be the same again, now, do you? It was a nice ride while it lasted. But I think this is where I get off." "Then I think I'll have a drink," Warden said, feeling sick, feeling castrated. Well, what did you think would happen? How is it people can never talk? Why cant they speak? How come they always say something else than what they mean? He got up and got the bottle from the dresser. "Will you have a drink?" he said. "No thank you. I'm having all I can do to keep from puking now." "Oh," he said. "It makes you sick. Dirty little Warden and his nasty little mind. Filthy men whose brains hang between their legs. Did you ever hear the old adage that where there's smoke there must be some fire?" he said viciously. As he said this viciously, he was looking at those soft tipped breasts that had the sag, the full-bodied necessary little sag of maturity that the virgins and the young stuff never had and always lacked something in not having. And as he said this viciously, he was feeling the sickness, the eunuch-making sickness, blooming and ballooning through him. "Yes," Karen said. "I've heard it. Did you ever hear the one about how every living woman dies three times? Once when she is seduced of her virginity, once when she is seduced of her freedom (I believe they call it marriage), and once when she is seduced of her husband. Did you ever hear that one?" "No," he said. "I never heard it." "Neither did I," Karen said. "I just thought of it. You might add a fourth one: when she is seduced of her lover. I ought to send it in to the Reader's Digest, dont you think? Maybe I'd get five bucks for it. But of course they'd have a man for editor." "You dont like men any better than I like women, do you?" Warden said, leaning on the dresser and not offering to help her. "Why should I? If they're like you and your filthy friends? That was a pretty rotten thing to say to me, you know. Especially since that about all those other men is a lie and isnt true." "Okay," he said. "But its true about Stark though, isnt it?" Karen turned on him, her eyes starting and blazing. "You came to my bed a virgin, didnt you?" "Then it is true," he said. "Well?" he said conversationally, "how was it? Did you like it? Did you really like it? Was he as good as I am? He looks virile enough." "Well, we've gotten awfully possessive, awfully suddenly, haven't we?" Karen said contemptuously. "What business is that of yours?" "Oh, I thought maybe I could work up some new ideas, new techniques maybe, if you werent satisfied. G Company prides itself on keeping its customers satisfied." "That is a rotten thing to say," Karen said contortedly. "But if it will ease your mind any, I hated it," she said. "I loathed it." "How do I know you're not lying?" "And just who are you? to wonder if I'm lying?" "Then why did you do it?" "You want to know why I did it? You really want to know. Maybe I'll tell you sometime. Like hell. You're getting to sound so like a typical husband, why dont you just sweat it out like a typical husband?" She laughed spitefully, and then her face suddenly seemed to crumple up. Ugly wrinkles gathered around her mouth and eyes and she was crying angrily. "You son of a bitch," she said. "You son of a bitch you son of a bitch. You dont leave a person anything, do you you son of a bitch?" "Okay," he said. "Okay. I dont blame you." She stood staring at him and crying and in her eyes was the greatest hatred he had ever seen, and he had seen some pretty fair hatreds, in his time. "No," she said. "I think.I'll just tell you now. I think now is the time. You can take it back to the barracks with you. It'll make fine conversation in the barracks." She dropped the clothes that she had had so much trouble gathering, and that she was holding protectively in front of her. She sat down on the bed and pointed at the long scar on her belly, the scar he had noticed every time before but had always been somehow reluctant to mention. "See that?" she said. "You know what that is? You never noticed that before, did you? "Well, thats a hysterectomy scar," she said. "A hysterectomy is a uterectomy. A uterectomy is an operation in which they excise the uterus. But they call it hysterectomy. You know what hysterectomy comes from, of course? From hysteria. Hysteria and womb and women are synonymous in the medical profession, you know. Thats where they get their biggest source of income, you see. You know: stupid women who weep and are very nervous and go to pieces and maybe lose their minds as they approach the change of life, but whose husbands always dutifully sorrowfully protect them and lovingly take care of them at home so that they seldom go to institutions. Look in a medical dictionary some time, - if you can ever get hold of one that is, they're very hush-hush and try to pretend they are restricted, so you'll probably have to buy one. I had to buy mine. But look up the prefix hystero- and see the words derived from it. A hysteroscope is an instrument for inspecting the uterus, did you know that? A hysterometer