Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

Lazarus said that he wanted to find a hotel room out south, near Thirty-first.

"You're an optimist-hard enough to find one downtown. But we'll try. Drop these other gentlemen first, maybe?"

Eventually he wound up near Thirty-first and Main-"Permanent and Transient-all rooms & apts. with bath." The driver said, "This joint costs too much-but it's this or go back downtown. No, keep your money till we see if they can take you. You about to go overseas?"

"So I hear."

"So your fare is a dollar; I don't take no tips from a man about to go over-I got a boy 'Over There.' Le'me talk to that clerk."

Ten minutes later Lazarus was luxuriating in the first tub bath he had had since April 6, 1917. Then he slept three hours. When his inner alarm woke him, he dressed in clean clothes from skin out, his best uniform-the breeches he had retailored for a smarter peg at the knee. He went down to the lobby and telephoned his family's home.

Carol answered and squealed. "Oh! Mama, it's Uncle Ted!"

Maureen Smith's voice was serenely warm. "Where are you, Sergeant Theodore? Brian Junior wants to go fetch you home."

"Please tell him thanks, Mrs. Smith, but I'm in a hotel at the Thirty-first Street car line; I'll be there before he could get here-if I'm welcome."

"'Welcome'? What a way for our adopted soldier to talk. You don't belong in a hotel; you must stay here. Brian-my husband, I mean, the Captain-told us to expect you and that you were to stay with us. Did he not tell you so?"

"Ma'am, I've seen the Captain just once, three weeks ago. So far as I know, he doesn't know I'm on leave." Lazarus added, "I don't want to put you out."

"Pish and tush, Sergeant Theodore, let's have no more of that. At the beginning of the war we changed the maid's room downstairs-my sewing room, where you played chess with Woodrow-into a guest room, so that the Captain could bring a brother officer home on a weekend. Must I tell my husband that you refused to sleep there?"

(Maureen my love, that's putting the cat too close to the canary! I won't sleep; I'll lie awake thinking about you upstairs-surrounded by kids and Gramp.) "Mrs. Captain generous hostess ma'am, I'll be utterly delighted to sleep in your sewing room."

"That's better, Sergeant. For a moment I thought Mama was going to have to spank."

Brian Junior was waiting at, the Benton car stop, with George as footman, and with Carol and Marie in the back seat. George grabbed the grip and took charge of it; Marie shrilled, "My, doesn't Uncle Ted look pretty!" and Carol corrected her:

"Handsome, Marie. Soldiers look handsome and smart, not 'pretty.' Isn't that right, Uncle Ted?"

Lazarus picked the smaller girl up by her elbows and kissed her cheek, set her down. "Technically correct, Carol-but 'pretty' suits me just fine if Marie thinks I am. Quite a welcoming committee-do I run along behind?"

"You sit in the tonneau with the girls," Brian Junior ruled. "But look at this first!" He pointed. "A foot throttle! Isn't that bully?"

Lazarus agreed, then took a few moments to inspect the car-in better shape than he had left it, shining and clean from spokes to top and with several new items besides the foot accelerator: a dressy radiator cap, rubber nonskids for the pedals, a tire holder on the rear with a patent-leather cover for a spare tire, a robe rail in the rear compartment with a lap robe folded neatly, and-finishing touch-a cut-glass bud vase with a single rose. "Is the engine kept as beautifully as the rest?"

George opened the hood. Lazarus looked and nodded approvingly. "It could take a white-glove inspection."

"That's exactly what Grandpa gives it," Brian declared. "He says if we don't take care of it, we can't use it."

"You do take care of it."

Lazarus arrived in royal splendor, one arm around a big little girl, the other around a small little girl. Gramp was waiting on the front porch, came down the walk to meet him, and Lazarus suddenly revised his mental image: The old soldier was in uniform and seemed a foot taller and ramrod straight-ribbons on his chest, chevrons on his sleeves, puttees most carefully rolled, campaign hat perched high and turned up slightly behind.

As Lazarus turned from handing Carol out, Marie having danced ahead, Gramp paused and threw Lazarus a sweeping Throckmartin salute. "Welcome home, Sergeant!"

Lazarus returned it as flamboyantly. "Thank you, Sergeant; I'm glad to be here." He added, "Mr. Johnson, you didn't tell me you were a supply sergeant."

"Somebody has to count the socks. I agreed to take-"

The rest was lost to Woodie's explosive arrival. "Hey, Uncle Sergeant! You're going to play chess with me!"

"Sure, Sport," Lazarus agreed, his attention distracted by two other things: Mrs. Smith at the open door, and a service flag in the parlor window. Three stars- Three?

Then Gramp was urging him in with something about this being a drill night so supper would be early. Nancy kissed him, openly and without glancing first for her mother's approval-then Dickie had to be picked up and kissed, and Baby Ethel (walking!), and at last Maureen gave him her slender hand, drew him to her, and brushed his cheek with her lips. "Sergeant Theodore...it is so good to have you home."

Supper was a noisy, well-run circus, with Gramp presiding in lieu of his son-in-law, while his daughter ran things with serene dignity from the other end and did not get up once Lazarus placed her chair under her and took his seat of honor on her right. Her three oldest daughters did all that was necessary. Ethel sat in a highchair on her mother's left with George helping her-Lazarus learned that this duty rotated among the five eldest.

It was a lavish meal for wartime, with hot, golden cornbread replacing white bread, this being a wheatless day-and firmest discipline (administered by Nancy and Brian Junior) requircd that every morsel accepted must be eaten, with admonitions about hungry Belgians. Lazarus did not care what he ate but remembered to compliment the cooks (three), and tried to answer all that was said to him-nearly impossible as Brian and George wanted to tell about their troop's drive to collect walnut shells and peach pits and how many it took for each gas mask, and Marie had to be allowed to boast that she could knit just as well as George could and she did not either drop stitches!-and how many squares it took to make a blanket, while Gramp wanted to talk shop with Lazarus and had to be stern to get a word in edgewise.

Maureen Smith seemed to find it unnecessary to talk. She smiled and looked happy, but it seemed to Lazarus that there was tension under her self-control-the ages-old strain of Penelope. (For me, darling? No, of course not. I wish I could tell you that Pop will come back, unharmed. But how could I make you believe that I know? You're going to ,have to sweat it out the way Penelope did. I'm sorry, my love.) "Excuse me, Carol- I missed that."

"I said it's perfectly horrid that you have to go back so soon! When you're just about to go 'Over There.'"

"But it's quite a lot, Carol, in wartime. It's just that getting here and getting back eats up so much time. I'm not entitled to special privileges; I don't know that I am about to ship out."

There was silence around the table, and the older boys exchanged glances.

Ira Johnson broke it by saying gently, "Sergeant, the children know what a pass in the middle of the week means. But they don't talk; they are disciplined. My son-in-law decided-wisely, I think-not to keep things from them unnecessarily."

"But, Grandpa, when Papa has leave, he doesn't go back next day. It's not fair."

"That's because," Brian Junior said wisely, "Papa usually rides with Captain Bozell in that big ol' Marmon Six and they burn up the road. Staff Sergeant Uncle Ted, I could drive' you back to camp. Then you wouldn't have to leave till later tomorrow night."