Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Instead, the college was gloomy and tentative. The institution and everyone associated with it were feeling their way, confident that Harvard would endure, yet not quite sure how, confident they would personally survive the war, while conscious that not all of them would.

His classes were not difficult. He was enrolled in an English class, which was really a class in English literature; a mathematics class, where the subject was calculus; a class in the history of Europe beginning with the Renaissance; a class in French, advanced; and a philosophy class, in which the entire first semester was devoted to the study of Plato's Republic . Except for the last, his courses covered nothing he had not studied before. When he took his first exams, the college decided it had a prodigy.

He was also required to take a class in physical education, and in order to avoid the strange American games of football and basketball, he concentrated on swimming and learned to play tennis. His coaches were pleased, though they knew they would have him for only one year.

The swimming coach had great difficulty finding boys willing to compete in the butterfly. It was, guys said, a "hairshirt" way to swim. To Jonas, who had first learned to swim at Culver, all the competitive strokes but freestyle seemed unnatural, no one any more so than any other. When the coach asked him to swim the butterfly, he agreed. Within a few weeks he was the freshman butterfly man. He won the intramural competition, then won a war-diminished inter-mural competition. He sent his blue ribbons to Cordoba.

He received two letters a week from his mother, one a month from his grandfather, an occasional letter from his stepfather, and one occasionally from his half brothers and sisters, usually writing together. He wrote to his mother in English, the other letters in Spanish. His roommate marveled over his ability to write easily in two languages. In truth, Jonas could have written in French or German almost as easily.

His roommate's name was Jerome Rabin, a Jew from Brooklyn and the first Jew he had ever met. Jerry was in the same situation as Jonas. He would be draft-eligible early in 1944.

They talked about it. "I'm going to apply for a naval officer's commission," said Jerry. "What they call the ninety-day-wonder program. Ninety days after I enlist I'll be an ensign. But, say, do you have to go at all? You're Mexican."

"I am a citizen of the United States," Jonas said soberly. "My father is a citizen, which makes me a citizen. It is important to me to keep my citizenship."

"They can't take it away from you," said Jerry.

"But I don't want to be known later in life as one who evaded his military obligation. That could become a great impediment."

"You've thought this through," Jerry remarked dryly.

"And discussed it with my mother and my stepfather and my grandfather."

"With your father?"

"I've never met him."

"I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean to pry."

"I am not offended."

"Well — Let's change the subject," said Jerry. "Since both of us will be going away next year, we have only this year to get our wicks dipped."

"I ... don't understand."

Jerry Rabin grinned. He was a lighthearted boy who would later confide to Jonas that when they first met he found his roommate formidably solemn. He was not as tall as Jonas and was slight of build. His features were delicate. Girls envied his dark eyes. He had a Mediterranean complexion.

He opened a drawer in one of the two small desks in the room and pulled out a quart bottle and two small glasses. He poured and handed one glass to Jonas. "A shot of rye," he said. "It will put us in a better mood to plan our campaign."

Jonas sipped cautiously. It was his first taste of distilled spirits. He had drunk wine with dinner since he was ten years old, but his stepfather and grandfather had never invited him to share in their after-dinner brandy — nor, for that matter, to smoke cigars with them. The rye whiskey tasted terrible. He swallowed it with difficulty.

"Your English is perfect," said Jerry. "Apparently, though, somebody neglected to tell you a few words. Do you know what 'fuck' means?"

Jonas nodded. "Yes." His attention was focused on the rye remaining in his glass. He did not want to seem unappreciative; neither did he want Jerry to guess this was his first taste of whiskey.

"Have you ever done it?"

"No."

"Well, neither have I, and wouldn't it be a tragedy if we went off to war, maybe even got killed, and hadn't ever done it? That's why we've got to plan a campaign to get girls up to this room. And, incidentally, getting your wick dipped is a politer way of saying fuck. We have all kinds of ways to avoid using the word. Don't ever use it. You'll shock the eyeteeth out of people. We say" — he raised his voice a register and spoke through pursed lips — "we say, 'have sexual intercourse.' We say, 'make love.' We say, 'go to bed.' Or we say, 'get our rocks off.' Anything to avoid saying 'fuck.' "

Jonas grinned. "I've been denied an essential element of my education," he said — although it wasn't true, because he had heard much talk of this kind at Culver. He tipped his glass and finished his drink. "I will be grateful to you for more instruction."

Jerry refilled their shot glasses. "What's between our legs is a penis. Isn't that a terrible word? Guys call it 'cock' or 'peter' or 'dick.' What girls have is a vagina, another terrible clinical word. Guys call it a 'cunt,' chiefly. But don't ever use any of these words, the polite ones or the other ones, to girls. They'll go ga-ga. In fact, don't talk about these things at all. Except to guys."

Jonas laughed. "We have all these funny words and can't use them."

"Anyway," said Jerry, "we're virgins. I don't know about you, but I intend to remedy that as soon as I can."

"Why didn't you remedy it before?"

"The family. The neighborhood. Why didn't you?"

"The same, I suppose. Actually, I don't even know very many girls."

"Well, tell me, what did you put down on your card as your religion?"

"I wrote nothing. It was optional."

Jerry clapped his hand to his forehead in mock grief. "Why couldn't you have put down Catholic? Then you'd have been invited to a church and a Catholic youth club, where you could have met not only girls but naive girls."

Jonas shrugged. He had begun to learn something of what rye whiskey did to a person.

" Girls , Jonas! Nooky. Poontang. Don't you enjoy seeing their tight little asses twitch when they walk?"

"Well ... I haven't watched ... that much."

" Start watching! Start looking. Look at asses. Look at boobs. Concentrate on the job at hand, which is get our wicks dipped before we have to go into uniform."

When Jerry learned that Jonas could not go home for Christmas break — the journey was too far, and wartime restrictions on transportation might have made it impossible — he invited Jonas to come home with him. Jonas accepted the invitation, went home with Jerry Rabin, and lived for two weeks with a Jewish family in Brooklyn. It was a rewarding experience. He even learned a bit of another language: Yiddish.

Neither Jonas nor Jerry had by then gotten his wick dipped. They remained virgins. But at Jerry's prompting Jonas had begun to look more closely at girls: appreciatively, speculatively. Ironically, he looked that way at Jerry's sister, Susan. He noticed the size of her breasts. He studied the way her backside twitched when she walked. He studied that so closely he realized he had to be careful not to be so obvious. Lying in his bed in the guest room, he fantasized a faint knock on the door, then Susan coming in, undressing, slipping into his bed. In real fact, he would not have touched her. She was his friend's sister! But he found the fantasy delicious.