Pearl Buck - The Eternal Wonder

“I’ll have to read this and talk to you again,” the general said. “I suspect with all this publicity that the pressure will be on me to look into this black-market business and come up with some answers. Where did you get your information?”

“That’s just it,” Rann explained. “I don’t have any information. All I did was look at all that was going on, and what I have written is the only logical way it could be done.”

“Well, I’ll read this and get back to you. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone about any of this. The whole damned country is buzzing as it is. Why don’t you take a few days off and go down to Pusan and lie in the sun for a while. It will give me a chance to boil this whole thing over and I’ll call you down there. There are some reporters from the local papers in the outer office now and I think the best thing to say is that you have no comment until they have had a chance to read the book. That should stall things for a while.”

IN PUSAN, THE BEACHES WERE WIDE, the sky clear above a sparkling blue sea, the soft green hills blending into the gray, rugged mountains in the background. Rann had been there for three days when the general called him.

“Well, Colfax, you’ve written quite a book. The only thing is, from the looks of it, you had to be mixed in the black market to have written it. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think you were, it just looks bad. We have to think of how to explain it.” The general waited.

“All I can do, sir, is to tell the truth,” Rann told him.

“Of course, of course,” the general agreed. “It’s a question of how and where that must be decided. Meanwhile, you had better get back up here. There is a meeting in my office tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. Most of the more important officers concerned will be here and I’d like you here for that. Maybe we can clear everything up then. By the way, Colfax, Mrs. Appleby is having a little cocktail party get-together for the officers’ wives’ club at our house tomorrow afternoon and she would like for you to come. I thought we could go directly from my office if that’s all right with you?”

“Your wife, sir?” Rann knew he could not refuse, but he felt his face flush as the memory of his anger came back to him.

“Yes, certainly, fine woman, my boy, never holds anything against anyone. You will come, of course?”

“Yes sir, of course.” Rann took the next train back to Seoul.

The general started the meeting the next day. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I don’t believe Colfax has had anything to do with all of this. I think he is just young and has a fertile imagination. However, in what he calls his logical way he just may have hit on a few things that can help us. I think we should ask him all the questions we can think of and then start a full-scale investigation before his book hits Korea. I am giving Colfax an early discharge, and I’m sending him back to the United States now. He can wait there. I don’t want the wrong people to get hold of him while he is here.”

For nearly three hours Rann answered questions as carefully and as completely as he could, being careful also each time to state that his answers were his own opinions.

“You don’t think we should keep Sergeant Colfax here, General, until this whole mess is cleared up?” one of the officers inquired.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all,” the general replied, his expression thoughtful. “I think the sergeant has told us everything he actually knows, and his suppositions are repeated in his book. I’m convinced he had no involvement in it himself, so I see no need to hold him up. It’s his first book and probably won’t be very widely read and I feel sure we can clear all of this up in a few weeks anyway. Perhaps it’s best to have him out of the way so no one can get to him. No one else knows as yet exactly what his book says, and we can hold up release for a while here until we finish our work. He should be on his way back to the States as quickly as possible. Now, gentlemen, if there are no more questions I think the ladies are waiting for us.”

The general’s bungalow had been recently repainted also and the stucco was now soft yellow, causing it to stand out from the other houses all painted apple green in the American sector called Little Scarsdale. The split-level interior was the same, however, all in rose pink. “Mrs. Appleby’s favorite color,” he had heard guests told on his former visit here.

“Well, Sergeant Colfax.” Mrs. Appleby moved across the room toward him, both hands outstretched to greet him.

She seemed to have lost some weight since Rann had last seen her, though she was still a plump woman. She wore a deep-rose hostess gown of crushed velvet that brushed the carpet, the toes of her gold slippers kicking up the front hem as she walked. She still wore too much makeup and her bleached hair was styled in tight, stiff waves that reminded Rann of a corrugated tin roof.

“You really surprised everyone but me. I knew you would do something really great and you certainly have. Girls! This is the Rann Colfax simply everyone is talking about, and just wait until you read his marvelous book and you will certainly see why everyone is talking. I just knew he was going to do something and be famous and all, and I told the general the first time I saw him he was an extra-special person and he should keep him at headquarters. But, well, you all know how jealous he always is so he transferred him right on down to Ascom supply anyway.”

“Now, Minnie,” the general interrupted. “You know you—”

“Oh, now hush, dear,” his wife scolded the general. “We all make mistakes, even you. Besides, you’re all forgiven so we don’t need to talk about it anymore. Tell me, Rann Colfax, where do you go from here?”

“Well, Mrs. Appleby, I guess I’ll go back to New York. Perhaps I’ll stop for a few days with my mother in Ohio, but only for a few days.”

“Oh, I know that, silly. The general tells me you leave in a couple of days. That’s why I simply had to have you here tonight. After all, it isn’t every day we have a celebrity born right in our midst, is it? What I mean is, where do you go in your career? Come on over and have a drink and tell us all about it. Here he is, girls. The most exciting man of the day and he is almost a civilian, so I guess we can all call him Rann. That will be all right, won’t it, Rann?”

Rann made excuses to leave as early as he could easily do so and returned to his quarters to begin packing for his journey home. Two days later he was on his way to the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO WAS A BEAUTIFUL CITY to Rann, perhaps indeed, at this point, the most beautiful he had seen outside of Paris. In some ways the city on the hill, surrounded by the San Francisco Bay and linked to its outer parts by the beautiful Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, surpassed even Paris. His entrance into the city by military transport from Tokyo had been quiet, his name appearing on no passenger lists, and his two weeks of mustering out of the service passed without difficulty.

Rann found himself in possession of considerable free time, which he spent in the museums and parks of the city learning what he could of his surroundings for the brief time he was there. He lingered an extra week in the city after his discharge, and then he began to long for the comfort of the apartment in Brooklyn and the presence of Sung. He decided to forgo the planned visit with his mother in favor of her visiting him in New York, and one clear morning he boarded a commercial jet out of San Francisco for Idlewild Airport on Long Island.

“Are you Rann Colfax, sir?” the ticket agent had asked when he had booked his flight.

“Yes, I am,” Rann answered quietly.