From Here to Eternity (37 page)

is an instrument for measuring the uterus, did you know that? A hysterograph is an apparatus for measuring the strength of the uterine contractions in labor, did you know that? Two, perhaps three, full pages of small type: hystero-this, hystero-that. "You go in to them and they look you up and down, appraisingly, then they ask how old you are. You say I'm thirty-five. Oh, they say. They nod. They look knowing. Thirty-five, they say. Change of life coming on, you know. They soothe you. Mustnt be upset. Be calm. Happens to the best of us. They examine you. They're gynecologists and its all professional of course. Then they wash their hands and nod profoundly. Just as I thought, they say, you need a hysterectomy, thats all, just a little old hysterectomy. "God knows what the medical profession would do if it didnthaveitshysterectomies and their hystero-derivatives. Probably all go broke and vote for socialized medicine after all, I guess. At the hospital I was in they performed as many as nine hysterectomies in a morning. Surprised? Oh, you dont realize. You dont know how many women there are over thirty in this country. And its really very simple any more. Still a major operation, but they're getting the technique down better every day. Soon it'll be as minor as an appendectomy, then every woman over thirty-five can have one, cheap. "Its really quite the thing any more, a profession in itself, the excising of the uterus. When they excise the uterus, they take all the rest out with it. Its no good to you any more, with the womb gone. They take it all out, the tubes, the ovaries, all of it. Just in case theres some of the pus producing tissue left. They even take your appendix out too. They throw that in free. "But after they sew you up, you suddenly discover you're not a woman any more. Oh, the outside's still there, the part the men care about, its not at all like castration. Some doctors even intimate you'll like it better with the fear of getting pregnant gone. You still look and dress the part of woman, your skin and hair dont change, nothing like that, even your breasts dont dry up because they've got some little pills to keep the shell acting just the same as though you werent changed. Hormones, they call them. "See?" she said; she got a little square green bottle out of the overnight bag she had brought. "You take them every day. The pills you'll never be without. Its really remarkable, isnt it?" She put the bottle back. "But," she said, "you're still not a woman any more. You still go to bed, the men still get what? they want, but the purpose of it all is gone. The meaning of it is gone, too. You're not a woman and you're certainly not a man, you're not even a poor freak of a hermaphrodite. You're not anything. You're a gutted shell. What they need to make next is a pill that will give the meaning back, or at least the illusion of the meaning, then you can take two kinds of pills a day and life will be wonderful. But now - now you're still the rich ripe grape, only the meat has been ripped open and the seed plucked out. You're an empty hulk and the meaning of sex is gone, you cant have children. "Maybe," she said, "maybe thats why it is you hunt so hungrily for love, why you have to hunt for it, even though you know they all are secretly laughing at you, winking behind your idealistic romantic back - another neurotic woman at the change of life who wants to change the world and give it love, as if the world ever needed love! What would the world do with love? "But love, if you can find it, you think, might give sex meaning - and give you meaning - might even give life meaning. Love is all you've got then - if you can find it. "No," she said, "no, dont say anything. Not yet. I'm not finished yet. Let me tell it all, first. "I've never told it to anybody before, you know. Never talked about it to a living soul - except my doctor, until he wanted to find out what it was like with a woman who had her organs out, after my recuperation. "So just let me tell it all. "You know what caused my hysterectomy? I bet you couldnt guess. Gonorrhea caused this one. Gonorrhea causes most of them. Not all of them, of course, but a large majority. "And where do you think I got my dose of gonorrhea? I bet you couldnt guess that either. I got it from my husband, where most of the wives who get it get it. From Capt Dana E Holmes. Only he was still a lst/Lt then. "Dont look so shocked. I'm not being bitter. Wives also give it to their husbands, I've heard. Its not unusual, not nearly as unusual as you think. "We had been married three years then; when it happened. I had already had the baby then. The heir. The proud bearer of the line. The inheritor of society's blessing. I had already done my duty and had my son. That was lucky, wasnt it? "Of course, we hadnt been married two months before I knew he was stepping out on me. But then that was no different from the lot of other women. That was all part of being a wife. Your mother tells you that is life. Even your mother-in-law is sympathetic. I finally got used to that, fairly easily, although it wasnt quite the picture of marriage I had been brought up to expect. You see, your mother doesnt tell you all this until after it has happened to you. "Then after the baby was born he gradually stopped sleeping with me. Except on rare occasions. This was a little harder to get used to because I didn't know why. But I got used to that, too, eventually. It was almost a relief, actually, because those rare occasions were so obvious: He would come in late half drunk, all worked up because he obviously hadn't been able to make the woman he'd been out with. It was always the same; I suppose thats why men keep wives at home, isnt it; but somehow I never could get much pleasure out of it. "Then for a while he stopped altogether. It seemed natural enough to me; I supposed he was getting all he wanted elsewhere; how was I to know he was being treated for gonorrhea? Respectable women arent even supposed to know what gonorrhea is, are they? So I didn't think much about it when he came around this one particular night, a little drunker than usual. "Of course, a little later on I realized. Well, maybe he was just too drunk to remember. Or maybe he just was so worked up that he forgot. You know how those things are." "Jesus!" Warden said. He had long ago set the bottle down. "Jesus Christ!" he said. "Jesus Jesus Christ!" Karen smiled at him lividly. "I'm almost finished now," she said. "Just a little more. I want to tell you about Stark. "You see, Dana had taken me to his doctor, the one who was treating him. In town, of course. He would have been kicked out of course, if he had gone to the Post Hospital. I don't think the doctor liked him very well over it, but then he was a very scientific little man. Bald and scientific and very objective, like all true scientists, and quite rich, lately. I never knew where Dana got his name, some fellow sufferer on the Post, I imagine. Anyway, the doctor did a thriving business; Texas always was a bad place for gonorrhea. Too near the border, you know." "Listen," Warden said tensely. "Listen. Please." "No, no, let me finish. I'm almost through. Stark was after I came back. I had to go away on a trip, you see. Its harder to cure in women than in men. Almost always it entails a hysterectomy. I was gone quite a while. While I was gone Stark came in as a recruit. He was only a kid, I suppose. A regular bragging kid who made a pass at me as a matter of pride. I think he was scared half to death when I took him up on it, me being the Lieutenant's wife. But I had to do something. I had to clean myself out. I was dirty. I had been dirty for so very long and I had been trying so hard to convince myself I wasnt dirty, that it was like what all women had to go through. But quite suddenly I no longer gave a damn what other women went through or didnt go through. I knew I was dirty. Maybe they could kid themselves. I couldnt any longer. I knew. You can see what I mean, cant you?" "Listen," Warden said. "Stark was the instrument I used to clean myself, the first one that came to hand after I got back. Any instrument would have done as well. It only happened once, and it hurt me physically, and I loathed it. But afterwards I was clean. You can see, cant you, how I had to be clean?" "Yes," Warden said, "I can see how. But listen." "Thats all," Karen smiled lividly. "I'm through now. Now I'll go." She sat and looked at him and the livid smile gradually, very gradually, faded off her face and then she was just looking at him, sheer absolute nothingness that was too tired to give a damn on her face. She collapsed kind of sickly down on the bed and lay there sickly, not unconscious, not fainted, not crying, not vomiting, not anything. She was like a recently pregnant woman who has for a long time felt this thing growing and growing in her, this man-made tumor that has to be got out of her but that she is afraid of getting out of her, and then finally does get it out of her, and collapses kind of sickly with relief into sheer nothingness for a while. Warden got the bottle and took it over to her. "Listen," he said urgently. "Listen to me." "You want me to go now, dont you?" she said hollowly. "You want to get this rottenness out of your sight, dont you?" She hoisted herself up. "Well, I'll go in a minute. I just want a minute to rest first." Warden nodded. She looked at him and took the bottle out of his hand. "I believe I will have a drink, before I go. Why, Milt," she said, "you're crying." "No I'm not," Warden nodded. "You have a drink," Karen said and gave him back the bottle. Warden nodded. "I dont want you to go, see?" he said. "I'm asking you please not to go." "I dont want to go," Karen said. "I want to stay. Oh, Milt, I do want to stay, Milt." "Thats it," he said. "Listen," he said. "Oh, that son of a bitch. That miserable lousy son of a bitch." "I dont have to be back until tomorrow evening," she said vaguely. "He's going to one of Col Delbert's stags tonight, you see." "I love you," Warden said. "Oh that son of a bitch."

CHAPTER 23

CAPT HOLMES may or may not have been a son of a bitch, it all depended on your point of view, but Capt Holmes was not a stupid man. He knew his wife was having an affair. When you live with another human for twelve years you get so you sense those things. Tonight his wife had refused to cook his dinner for him. His wife never refused to cook his dinner for him. Breakfast, yes; luncheon, always; but not dinner. Cooking dinner was part of the agreement. Agreement? Capt Holmes thought. Treaty. Or perhaps armed truce would be better. This was not a typical marriage. Or was it? Rather than eat the gook maid's cooking Capt Holmes had dined, and dined well, in the Bachelor Officers' Mess with the other married officers whose wives did not cook dinner for them, and now with a comfortably full bowel he was sitting unhappily at the Payday-deserted bar of the Club Taproom watching the enlisted barman solicitously polishing glasses, while waiting for his Colonel to show up. Capt Holmes had not been on the best of terms with his Colonel lately, since the loss of the championship. In fact, when he thought about it, he had not been on the best of terms with much of anybody lately. First his Colonel, then his wife; but then, there was always his wife. Neither his 1st/ Sgt nor his Mess/Sgt seemed to like him very well. Half the men in his company hated his guts. The other half, whom he knew he had done things for, did not even seem to realize it. At times, he suspected they disliked him more than the first half. He did not know why all mis was. Apparently, he had not yet located his proper place in life. Logically, he ought to be on the best of terms with everybody because, logically, he had chosen this place in life as the only one he wanted, and he wanted to be on the best of terms with everybody. Where had it all gone? he wondered, feeling a yawning bottomlessness mat always frightened him opening up beneath his feet. Where were the ideals of the leader of men who had marched forth from the Point? Where was the gay and happy marriage, the good living, the conscientious leadership? Where was the dashing, hell-for-leather young cavalryman? He could not remember having lost them anywhere, and he knew he had not laid them down. What then had happened to it? It will be a civilian man, he thought. She is too discreet to pick an officer, and she has too much breeding and good taste to take an EM. Ergo, a civilian man, preferably a rich one. Capt Holmes had always been a believer in the efficacy of syllogistic logic. He ought to be feeling good, he told himself. Now he did not have to go home at all tonight, or any night, unless he felt like it. He was freed of the necessity of keeping up appearances with his wife in name only. Thats good, that: Wife In Name Only, I remember a book called that. It was one of those I used to hide from mother in the haymow. Who was it now? Clay. Bertha M Clay. Dear Bertha. Well, it was good to know your wife possessed sexual instincts, just like any other human. Now he had something on her. It was a sound basis for a fruitful union. Logically, he really ought to be feeling fine. He had always believed in logic, hadnt he? Deductive reasoning was an absolute necessity in a military man, wasnt it? They inculcated you with that, didnt they? Yes, but just try and apply it. Ah, if you only could apply it. To rid himself of that frightening bottomlessness Capt Holmes called for another whiskey and soda; he discussed the vagaries of life with the solicitous enlisted barman, who although bored listened solicitously; he allowed himself to wonder cynically where the hell Old Delbert was. Col Delbert, in fact, arrived a little late bringing with him as his guest a Brigadier. This Brigadier was a sort of exec officer to the Brigade, which was commanded by a Major General. But for once Capt Holmes was not even bothered, although it was a dirty trick to pull on him, without giving him warning. Col Delbert's moustache fluffed its feathers somewhat preeningly as he introduced them - informally. Even this could not cause anxiety in Capt Holmes who still felt his wife should be above such things. Mentioning that the others (the two Majors from Regiment) would be along later, Col Delbert led them out and along the slab stone dogtrot that ran across the patio that opened on the gulch that separated them from the brightly lighted Station Hospital. He led them through the deserted dining pavilion where they held the mixed dinner parties to the stairs in the deserted main lounge where the ladies usually had their bridge games. The ladies had their club luncheons under the dogtrot. The ladies took their hula lessons in the pavilion. The ladies, if they were around, seldom got upstairs. But this was Payday, and the ladies were not around. "Flatter m'self," Col Delbert told the Brigadier, "that I pulled off a tour de force this time, b' pickin' Payday." "Oh, indubitably, Colonel," the Brigadier, who was a much younger man than Col Delbert, said thinly. Capt Holmes immediately liked him. Capt Holmes had met the Brigadier before, of course. He knew who he was. But he had only met him formally. An informal party of this kind was a very different thing, with a general officer. And this Brigadier was a big man on the Post. He was newly from the States and was considered a brilliant tactician and thought to be a comer. The Rumors had it that his present unconventional position in Brigade was only a temporary expedient, until the crotchety old Major General could be eased out and retired to pasture to make room for the younger man. Capt Holmes was glad that he was young enough to see through Col Delbert. 'There'll be five of us," Col Delbert puffed as they climbed the stairs. "Six women. More excitin' that way. Eh? And these, sir, 're all dark. Two Japanese, one Chinese, two Chinese-Hawaiians, and one pure nigger - or damn' near pure: Th' say th' are no pure Hawaiians any more." "Col Delbert," said Capt Holmes, "believes in taking advantage of the locale in which he's stationed." The Brigadier laughed and glanced at him slyly. He grinned back happily cynically. "B' Gad yes," the Col puffed. "Wont be in th' Hawaiian D'pa'tm'nt all m' life life. I hope. But this full blood Hawaiian is a rare bird th'ts hard to catch." Col Delbert had, as usual, hired all three of the apartments and opened the connecting doors between, so that there were six rooms in a shotgun row. The apartments had originally been built on to provide temporary quarters for new officers or visiting officers but they were never used for that any more so that the Club Officer hit upon the idea to rent them out for private parties, in order to make the Club as near self-supporting as possible. After the idea caught on the Club was not only self-supporting but began to show a profit. "Well, sir," Col Delbert asked proudly. "What do you think of it. Eh?" There were several Haig&Haig pinchbottles and a few Old Forresters, all with unbroken seals, set artistically about. There were also three trays of syphon bottles and the long thick-bottomed highball glasses with game fowl in color on them. "Ah." The Brigadier, who was a tall man, stretched himself full out and sniffed the tired air that the open windows had not yet refreshed. "Reminds me of the old secret societies back at the Point." Col Delbert laughed solicitously. "Already have the steaks arranged for. My orderly, Jeff, takes care of it. Had him bring this stuff from home. Always been a stickler for th' proper equipment, whether in the field or in the bed. Makes all the difference. Eh? Jeff's down in the kitchen arranging for a cook and gettin' some ice." The Brigadier examined the label on a bottle and did not answer. Col Delbert spread his arms and said facetiously, "Gen'r'l Slater, we representatives of th' - th Regiment welcome you to th' haven of th' male oppressed." Capt Holmes was studying his nervous Colonel happily. The Brigadier collapsed his thin frame into an overstuffed chintz covered chair. "Sam Slater," he corrected. "Sam Slater from Sheboygan. Dont give me that rank crap, Jake. There is nobody who believes in the efficacy of rank and privilege more than me, its my bread and butter. But in the proper time and place, see? Which is not now and here." "Okay, Sam," Jake Delbert grinned uneasily, "'stand corrected. I..." "And you," Sam Slater shot at Holmes, "might as well call me Sam, too. However, if you ever do such a thing outside on the Post, I'll bust you back to a shavetail, see?" "Okay," Holmes grinned, liking him still better. "I never been good at blackmail anyway." Sam Slater look at him a moment. Then he laughed. "You know, I like your protege, Jake," he said. "He's a good boy," Jake said apprehensively. "But he's not exactly what you'd call my protege," he started to explain. Sam Slater was watching both of them speculatively, like a piano virtuoso studying the keys from which he draws his music. "Frankly," he grinned at Holmes, "when old Jake here said he had a young Captain going along on a party I thought oh balls." He looked at Jake. "But I might have known old Jake Delbert knew his onions, mightnt I?" he obviously lied. Even to Jake it was plainly a he. "I knew you'd like him though," Jake lied back stoutly. His mustache raised its little wings nervously, like a fledgling that had not quite got used to flying yet. "I'm sure he gave me quite a build up," Holmes said. "Oh, he did," Sam Slater said. "Didnt you, Jake? Told me all about you. And about how sorry he was you'd lost that championship, that by rights you really should have had." "I always try to be as honest as I can," Jake said. "I would not," Sam Slater said, "have said what I just said, about calling me Sam, to just any junior officer. Even here under these circumstances. Most of them wouldnt understand it, would they, Jake?" "No, Sam. They sure as hell wouldnt," Jake said, a little dubiously. He had been watching Holmes. He had never seen him in this irreverent mood before. Capt Holmes, who had never felt this mood with Col Delbert, felt now some subtle understanding with the Brigadier that not only drew him on but promised safety. He wanted to chuckle. It wasnt often that he got to see the Colonel on the hook and with his back against the wall and frightened. Jake was obviously relieved when S/Sgt Jefferson came in with the ice. He set him to mixing the first drinks and supervised him relentlessly, then made him bring the field glasses that were within reach on the table and, without thanking him, irritably sent him to Wahiawa for the women. "And be god damn' careful none of th' civil'ns see you drivin' them around in my official car. Or it '1 be your neck, Jeff. See?" "Yes, Sir," Jeff said impassively. You felt he should have bowed. Jake did not even turn around. He was standing carefully back from the window, adjusting the glasses on the lighted windows across the gulch that were the nurses' quarters. "Not a damn' thin'," he said disconsolately, and flung the glasses on the table. "Not even a bloody nude, b' Gad." Neither of the others answered him. Sam Slater was still talking to Holmes. He had gone from the particular into the general, concerning junior officers. "The thing that immediately struck me was you were not afraid. Most junior officers today are just like the EM - insanely afraid of their superiors. Their every thought and action is governed by this perpetual apprehensiveness of official disapproval. In fact, most senior officers are the same way. Its very seldom you can find a man amongst all of them with whom you can talk reasonably, which makes it hard for a man like myself, see?" "But its always been that way, hasnt it?" Holmes said. "Ah," Sam Slater smiled. "Thats just where you're wrong. And a little objective thinking will prove you are wrong. It hasnt always been that way. I've got quite a theory about that." "Well, lets hear it," Dynamite said enthusiastically. "I'm all ears. It isnt often I find a reasonable man to talk to either," he said happily, grinning at Jake. Jake did not grin back. He had heard this theory before and did not like it. It frightened him somehow and he could not bring himself to believe that life was really like that. Also, he considered it an injury to General Slater's dignity and to his own for the General to discuss it with a Captain, who was not even an aide but only a company commander. He nursed his drink in silence, wondering how such a brilliant man as young Slater, of whom he had always been afraid, could so unbend himself. "In the past," Sam Slater said carefully, "this fear of authority was only the negative side of a positive moral code of 'Honor, Patriotism, and Service.' In the past, men sought to achieve the positives of the code, rather than simply to avoid its negatives." He was obviously choosing his words gingerly, as if worried that they would not be understood. And as he talked, he grew still more charming than before as his enthusiasm increased. Sam Slater's enthusiasm, Holmes noticed, affected the man strangely. He did not get excited. Instead of leaning forward and talking faster, he seemed to relax and talk slower and slower, growing calmer and more cold than ever. And yet he was more charming. "But the advent of materialism and the machine age changed all that, see? We have seen the world change," he said, "in our time. The machine has destroyed the meaning of the old positive code. Obviously, you cannot make a man voluntarily chain himself to a machine because its 'Honorable.' The man knows better." Holmes nodded his agreement. It was an original idea. "All that is left, then," Sam Slater went on, "is the standardized negative side of the code as expressed in Law. The fear of authority which was once only a side issue but today is the main issue, because its the only issue left. "You cant make a man believe it is 'Honorable,' so you have no choice but to make him afraid of not chaining himself to his machine. You can do it by making him afraid of his friends' disapproval. You can shame him because he is a social drone. You can make him afraid of starving unless he works for his machine. You can threaten him with imprisonment. Or, in the highest efficiency, you can make him afraid of death by execution. "But you cant tell him it is 'Honorable' any more. You have to make him afraid." "By god!" Holmes said. He smacked his fist down into his palm excitedly. Sam Slater smiled indulgently. "Thats why, today, our junior officers (and our senior officers) have only this fear and nothing else. They are living by the only code their time allows them. In the Civil War they could still believe they fought for 'Honor.' Not any more. In the Civil War the machine won its first inevitable major victory over the individual. 'Honor' died. "Therefore, it is asinine to attempt to control men with 'Honor' any more. It leads only to inefficiency and ineffective control. And in our