Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions

The woman looked thoughtfully at Christian for a moment. She had large, cold, grey eyes, well set in her head, but too deliberate, Christian thought, too full of calculation and judgment. Then she decided to smile.

"Ah," she said, and her voice was very warm. "I know who you are. The serious one on the steps of the Opera."

"What?" Christian asked, puzzled.

"The photograph," the woman said. "The day Paris fell."

"Oh, yes." Christian remembered. He smiled at her.

"Come in, come in…" She took his arm and pulled at it.

"Bring your bag. It's so nice of you to come. Come in, come in…"

The living-room was large. A huge plate-glass window looked out over the surrounding roofs. The room was in a profound state of clutter at the moment, bottles, glasses, cigar and cigarette butts on the floor, a broken wine-glass on a table, items of women's clothing strewn around on the chairs. Mrs Hardenburg looked at it and shook her head.

"God," she said, "isn't it awful? You just can't keep a maid these days." She moved a bottle from one table to another and emptied an ash-tray into the fireplace. Then she surveyed the room once more in despair. "I can't," she said, "I just can't." She sank into a deep chair, her long legs bare as they stuck out in front of her, her feet encased in high-heeled red fur mules.

"Sit down, Sergeant," she said, "and forgive the way this room looks. It's the war, I tell myself." She laughed. "After the war, I will remake my entire life. I will become a tremendous housekeeper. Every pin in place. But for the present…" She waved at the disorder. "We must try to survive. Tell me about the Lieutenant."

"Well," said Christian, trying to remember some noble or amusing fact about Hardenburg, and trying to remember not to tell his wife that he had two girls in Rennes or that he was one of the leading black-market profiteers in Brittany, "Well, he is very dissatisfied, as you know, with…"

"Oh." She sat up and leaned over towards him, her face excited and lively. "The gift. The gift. Where is it?"

Christian laughed self-consciously. He bent over to his bag and got out the package. While he was bending over his bag he was aware of Mrs Hardenburg's measuring stare. When he turned back to her she did not drop her eyes, but kept them fixed on him, directly and embarrassingly. He walked over to her and handed her the package. She didn't look at it but stared coolly into his eyes, a slight, equivocal smile on her lips. She looks like an Indian, Christian thought, a wild American Indian.

"Thank you," she said, finally. She turned then and ripped open the paper of the package. Her movements were nervous and sharp, her long, red-tipped fingers tearing in flickering movements over the wrinkled brown paper. "Ah," she said flatly.

"Lace. What widow did he steal this from?"

"What?"

Mrs Hardenburg laughed. She touched Christian's shoulder in a gesture of apology. "Nothing," she said. "I don't want to disillusion my husband's troops." She put the lace over her hair. It fell in soft black lines over the straight pale hair. "How does it look?" she asked. She tilted her head, close to Christian, and there was an expression on her face that Christian was too old not to recognize. He took a step towards her. She lifted her arms and he kissed her.

She pulled away. She turned without looking at him again and walked before him into the bedroom, the lace trailing down her back to her swinging waist. There's no doubt about it, Christian thought as he slowly followed her, this is better than Corinne.

She lifted a bottle. "Vodka," she said. "A friend of mine brought me three bottles from Poland."

He sat on the edge of the bed holding the glasses while she poured out two large drinks. She placed the bottle down without putting the cork back. The drink tasted searing and rich as it flowed down his throat. The woman downed hers with one swift gulp. "Ah," she said, "now we're alive." She leaned over and brought the bottle up again and silently poured for them both. "You took so long," she said, touching his glass with hers, "getting to Berlin."

"I was a fool," Christian said, grinning. "I didn't know." They drank. The woman dropped her glass to the floor. She reached up and pulled him down on her. "I have an hour," she said, "before I have to go."

Later, still in bed, they finished the bottle and Christian got up and found another in a cupboard stocked with vodka from Poland and Russia, Scotch that had been captured at British Headquarters in 1940, champagnes and brandies and fine Burgundies in straw covers, slivovitz from Hungary, aquavit, chartreuse, sherry, Benedictine and white Bordeaux. He opened the bottle and put it down on the floor, convenient to the woman's hand. He stood over her, wavering a little, looking at the outstretched, savage body, slender but full-breasted. She stared gravely up at him, her eyes half-surrendering, half-hating. That was the most exciting thing about her, he decided suddenly, that look. As he dropped to the bed beside her he thought: At last the war has brought me something good.

"How long," she said, in her deep voice, "how long are you going to stay?"

"In bed?" he asked.

She laughed. "In Berlin, Sergeant."

"I…" he began. He was going to tell her that his plan was to stay a week and then go home to Austria for the second week of his leave. "I," he said, "I'm staying two weeks."

"Good," she said dreamily. "But not good enough." She ran her hand lightly over his belly. "Perhaps I will talk to certain friends of mine in the War Office. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have you stationed in Berlin. What do you think of that?"

"I think," said Christian slowly, "it's a marvellous idea."

"And now," she said, "we have another drink. If it weren't for the war," her voice came softly over the sound of the liquor pouring into the glass, "if it weren't for the war, I'd never have discovered vodka." She laughed and poured out another drink for him.

"Tonight," she said, "after twelve. All right?"

"Yes."

"You haven't got another girl in Berlin?"

"No, I haven't another girl anywhere."

"Poor Sergeant. Poor lying Sergeant. I have a Lieutenant in Leipzig, a Colonel in Libya, a Captain in Abbeville, another Captain in Prague, a Major in Athens, a Brigadier-General in the Ukraine. That is not taking into account my husband, the Lieutenant, in Rennes. He has some queer tastes, my husband."

"Yes."

"A girl's men friends scattered in a war. You're the first Sergeant I've known since the war, though. Aren't you proud?"

"Ridiculous."

The woman giggled. "I'm going out with a full Colonel tonight and he is giving me a sable coat he brought back from Russia. Can you imagine what his face would be like if I told him I was coming home to a little Sergeant?"

"Don't tell him."

"I'll hint. That's all. Just a little hint. After the coat's on my back. Tiny little dirty hint. I think I'll have you made a Lieutenant. Man with your ability." She giggled again. "You laugh. I can do it. Simplest thing in the world. Let's drink to Lieutenant Diestl." They drank to Lieutenant Diestl.

"What're you going to do this afternoon?" the woman asked.

"Nothing much," said Christian. "Walk around, wait for midnight."

"Waste of time. Buy me a little present." She got out of bed and went over to the table where she had dropped the lace. She draped the lace over her head. "A little pin," she said, holding the lace together under her throat, "a little brooch for here would be very nice, don't you think?"

"Yes."

"Marvellous shop," the woman said, "on Tauentzienstrasse corner Kurfurstendamm. They have a little garnet pin that might be very useful. You might go there."

"I'll go there."

"Good." The woman smiled at him and came slowly in her sliding naked walk over to the bed. She dropped down on one knee and kissed his throat. "It was very nice of the Lieutenant," she said whispering into the crease of Christian's throat, "very nice to send that lace. I must write him and tell him it was delivered safely."