Part 8
words "Dear God, life is hell." Nothing led up to or away from it. Alone on the page, and
in the sickly stillness of the room, the words appeared to have the stature of an
uncontestable, even classic indictment. X stared at the page for several minutes, trying,
against heavy odds, not to be taken in. Then, with far more zeal than he had done
anything in weeks, he picked up a pencil stub and wrote down under the inscription, in
English, "Fathers and teachers, I ponder `What is hell?' I maintain that it is the
suffering of being unable to love." He started to write Dostoevski's name under the
inscription, but saw--with fright that ran through his whole body--that what he had
written was almost entirely illegible. He shut the book.
He quickly picked up something else from the table, a letter from his older brother in
Albany. It had been on his table even before he had checked into the hospital. He
opened the envelope, loosely resolved to read the letter straight through, but read only
the top half of the first page. He stopped after the words "Now that the g.d. war is over
and you probably have a lot of time over there, how about sending the kids a couple of
bayonets or swastikas . . ." After he'd torn it up, he looked down at the pieces as they
lay in the wastebasket. He saw that he had overlooked an enclosed snapshot. He could
make out somebody's feet standing on a lawn somewhere.
He put his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He ached from head to
foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a Christmas tree
whose lights, wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb is defective.
The door banged open, without having been rapped on. X raised his head, turned it,
and saw Corporal Z standing in the door. Corporal Z had been X's jeep partner and
constant companion from D Day straight through five campaigns of the war. He lived on
the first floor and he usually came up to see X when he had a few rumors or gripes to
unload. He was a huge, photogenic young man of twenty-four. During the war, a
national magazine had photographed him in Hurtgen Forest; he had posed, more than
just obligingly, with a Thanksgiving turkey in each hand. "Ya writin' letters?" he asked
X. "It's spooky in here, for Chrissake." He preferred always to enter a room that had the
overhead light on.
X turned around in his chair and asked him to come in, and to be careful not to step
on the dog.
"The what?"
"Alvin. He's right under your feet, Clay. How 'bout turning on the goddam light?"
Clay found the overhead-light switch, flicked it on, then stepped across the puny,
servant's-size room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing his host. His brick-red
hair, just combed, was dripping with the amount of water he required for satisfactory
grooming. A comb with a fountain-pen clip protruded, familiarly, from the right-hand
pocket of his olive-drab shirt. Over the left-hand pocket he was wearing the Combat
Infantrymen's Badge (which, technically, he wasn't authorized to wear), the European
Theatre ribbon, with five bronze battle stars in it (instead of a lone silver one, which was
the equivalent of five bronze ones), and the pre-Pearl Harbor service ribbon. He sighed
heavily and said, "Christ almighty." It meant nothing; it was Army. He took a pack of
cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, then put away the pack and
rebuttoned the pocket flap. Smoking, he looked vacuously around the room. His look
finally settled on the radio. "Hey," he said. "They got this terrific show comin' on the
radio in a coupla minutes. Bob Hope, and everybody."
X, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, said he had just turned the radio off.
Undarkened, Clay watched X trying to get a cigarette lit. "Jesus," he said, with
spectator's enthusiasm, "you oughta see your goddam hands. Boy, have you got the
shakes. Ya know that?"
X got his cigarette lit, nodded, and said Clay had a real eye for detail.
"No kidding, hey. I goddam near fainted when I saw you at the hospital. You looked
like a goddam corpse. How much weight ya lose? How many pounds? Ya know?"
"I don't know. How was your mail when I was gone? You heard from Loretta?"
Loretta was Clay's girl. They intended to get married at their earliest convenience. She
wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and
inaccurate observations. All through the war, Clay had read all Loretta's letters aloud to
words "Dear God, life is hell." Nothing led up to or away from it. Alone on the page, and
in the sickly stillness of the room, the words appeared to have the stature of an
uncontestable, even classic indictment. X stared at the page for several minutes, trying,
against heavy odds, not to be taken in. Then, with far more zeal than he had done
anything in weeks, he picked up a pencil stub and wrote down under the inscription, in
English, "Fathers and teachers, I ponder `What is hell?' I maintain that it is the
suffering of being unable to love." He started to write Dostoevski's name under the
inscription, but saw--with fright that ran through his whole body--that what he had
written was almost entirely illegible. He shut the book.
He quickly picked up something else from the table, a letter from his older brother in
Albany. It had been on his table even before he had checked into the hospital. He
opened the envelope, loosely resolved to read the letter straight through, but read only
the top half of the first page. He stopped after the words "Now that the g.d. war is over
and you probably have a lot of time over there, how about sending the kids a couple of
bayonets or swastikas . . ." After he'd torn it up, he looked down at the pieces as they
lay in the wastebasket. He saw that he had overlooked an enclosed snapshot. He could
make out somebody's feet standing on a lawn somewhere.
He put his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He ached from head to
foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a Christmas tree
whose lights, wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb is defective.
The door banged open, without having been rapped on. X raised his head, turned it,
and saw Corporal Z standing in the door. Corporal Z had been X's jeep partner and
constant companion from D Day straight through five campaigns of the war. He lived on
the first floor and he usually came up to see X when he had a few rumors or gripes to
unload. He was a huge, photogenic young man of twenty-four. During the war, a
national magazine had photographed him in Hurtgen Forest; he had posed, more than
just obligingly, with a Thanksgiving turkey in each hand. "Ya writin' letters?" he asked
X. "It's spooky in here, for Chrissake." He preferred always to enter a room that had the
overhead light on.
X turned around in his chair and asked him to come in, and to be careful not to step
on the dog.
"The what?"
"Alvin. He's right under your feet, Clay. How 'bout turning on the goddam light?"
Clay found the overhead-light switch, flicked it on, then stepped across the puny,
servant's-size room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing his host. His brick-red
hair, just combed, was dripping with the amount of water he required for satisfactory
grooming. A comb with a fountain-pen clip protruded, familiarly, from the right-hand
pocket of his olive-drab shirt. Over the left-hand pocket he was wearing the Combat
Infantrymen's Badge (which, technically, he wasn't authorized to wear), the European
Theatre ribbon, with five bronze battle stars in it (instead of a lone silver one, which was
the equivalent of five bronze ones), and the pre-Pearl Harbor service ribbon. He sighed
heavily and said, "Christ almighty." It meant nothing; it was Army. He took a pack of
cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, then put away the pack and
rebuttoned the pocket flap. Smoking, he looked vacuously around the room. His look
finally settled on the radio. "Hey," he said. "They got this terrific show comin' on the
radio in a coupla minutes. Bob Hope, and everybody."
X, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, said he had just turned the radio off.
Undarkened, Clay watched X trying to get a cigarette lit. "Jesus," he said, with
spectator's enthusiasm, "you oughta see your goddam hands. Boy, have you got the
shakes. Ya know that?"
X got his cigarette lit, nodded, and said Clay had a real eye for detail.
"No kidding, hey. I goddam near fainted when I saw you at the hospital. You looked
like a goddam corpse. How much weight ya lose? How many pounds? Ya know?"
"I don't know. How was your mail when I was gone? You heard from Loretta?"
Loretta was Clay's girl. They intended to get married at their earliest convenience. She
wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and
inaccurate observations. All through the war, Clay had read all Loretta's letters aloud to
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