Joseph Heller - Closing Time

"Wo kommst Du her?"

One was from Munich. I'd never heard of the other place. I was speaking with authority, and I could see they were anxious. They didn't outrank me. None could be officers if they'd been put to work, not even noncommissioned, not unless they had lied, as I had done, just to get out of the last prison camp and go somewhere to work. "Warum lachst Du wenn Du siehst Lady hier? You too." I pointed at the other one. "Why were you laughing just now when you looked at the lady here, and what did you say to him about her that made him laugh some more?"

I forgot to say that in German and spoke in English. They knew what I was talking about, all right, but were not too sure of the words. I didn't mind. This was a hard one to put into another language, but I knew they would get it if I put my mind to it.

"Warum hast Du gelacht wenn Du siehst mein girlfriend here?"

Now we all knew they understood, because they did not want to answer. The guard with the gun did not understand what was going on or know what to do about it. He looked more scared of me than of them. I knew that I wasn't even allowed to talk to them. Claire would have wanted me to stop. I wasn't going to. Nothing could have made me. A young officer with campaign ribbons who'd come up quickly halted when he saw my face.

"Better keep back," I heard Claire warn him.

I had campaign ribbons on too, including a Bronze Star I'd won in France for knocking out a Tiger tank with a guy named David Craig. I think that officer was reading my mind and was smart enough to keep out of my way. I seemed official and talked tough as hell. My German threw all of them off, and I made sure to speak it loudly.

"Antworte!" I said. "Du verstehst was ich sage?"

"Ich verstehe nicht."

"Wir haben nicht gelacht."

"Keiner hat gelacht."

"Otto, you are a liar," I told him in German. "You do understand and you did laugh. "Gustav, sag mir, Gustav, was Du sagen"-I pointed to Claire-"über meine Frau hier? Beide lachen, was ist so komisch?" We weren't married yet, but I didn't mind throwing in that she was my wife, just to tighten the screws a little more. "She is my wife," I repeated, in English, for the officer to hear. "What nasty thing did you say about her?"

"Ich babe nichts gesagt. Keiner hat gelacht."

"Sag mir!" I commanded.

"Ich babe es vergessen. Ich weiss nicht."

"Gustav, Du bist auch ein Lügner, und Du wirst gehen zu Hölle für Deine Lüge. To hell you will both go for your lie and for your dirty words about this young lady, if I have to put you there myself. Now. Schaufeln hinlegen!"

I pointed. They laid down their shovels tamely and waited. I waited too.

"Schaufeln aufheben!" I said, with no smile.

They looked about miserably. They picked up the shovels and stdod without knowing what to do with them. j "Dein Name ist Gustav?" I said after another half a minute. "Dein Name ist Otto? Jawohl? Du bist von München? Und Du bist von amp; Acb wo!" I didn't really care where the hell he was from. "Mein Name ist Rabinowitz. Lewis Rabinowitz. Icb bin Lewis Rabinowitz, from Coney Island, on West Twenty-fifth Street, between Railroad Avenue and Mermaid Avenue, bei Karussell, the merry-go-round on the boardwalk." I could feel the pulses in my thumbs beating too when I took out my dog tags to make them look at that letter J, to make extra sure that they knew what I was saying when I told them next in Yiddish: "Und ich bin ein Yid." And then in German: "Ich bin Jude, judisch. Verstehst Du jetzt?" They weren't so bronze anymore, and didn't look so powerful. I felt peaceful as can be, and never more sure of myself as LR, Louie Rabinowitz from Coney Island. There was no more need to fight with them. I spoke with my hateful smile that Claire says looks worse than a skeleton's and like a deadly grimace. "Jetzt amp; noch einmal." They put down the shovels when I told them to and picked them back up as though I had trained them perfectly. I indicated Claire. "Hast Du schlecht gesagt wie als er hat gesagt wie Du gesehen Dame hier?"

"Nein, mein Herr."

"Hast Du mitgelacht als er hat gesagt schlecht?"

"Nein, mein Herr."

"You are lying again, both of you, and it's lucky that you are because I might break both your backs if you told me you did laugh at her or said something bad. Geh zur Arbeit." I turned away from them with disgust. "Corporal, they're yours again. Thanks for the chance."

"Lew, that wasn't nice," Claire said first.

Then the officer spoke. "Sergeant, you're not allowed that. You're not allowed to talk to them that way."

I saluted respectfully. "I know the rules of the Geneva Convention, Captain. I was a prisoner of war there, sir."

"What was it all about?"

"They looked at my fiancée, sir, and said something dirty. I'm only just back. I'm not right in the head yet."

"Lew, you're not right in the head." Claire started in the minute we were alone. "Suppose they didn't do what you told them to?"

"Calm down, little girl. They did do what I told them. They had to."

"Why? Suppose the guard made you stop? Or that officer?"

"They couldn't."

"How did you know?"

"Just understand."

"Why couldn't they?"

"I tell you and you must believe me. Certain things happen the way I say they will. Don't ask me why. To me it's simple. They insulted you, and they insulted me by doing that, and I had to let them know they couldn't do that. They're not allowed to do that." We were already engaged. "You're my fiancée, nest-ce pas? My Frdulein. I would get mad at anyone who looked at you and made a smutty remark, and so would my father and my brothers, if they saw any other guy ever snicker at you like that, or at one of my sisters. Enough chitchat, my dear. Let's go back to the hospital now. Let's go say good-bye to Herman the German."

"Lew, it's enough with Herman already. I'll wait downstairs and have a soda if you feel you have to go through that with him again. I don't find it funny."

"You still won't believe it, baby, but I don't find it funny either. That's not why I do it to him."

The problem with Claire then, as Sammy and Winkler saw and let me know, was that she did have big tits. And the trouble with me was that I got jealous fast and felt ready to just about kill any other guy who noticed them, Sammy and Winkler too.

So four of us went down to enlist that day and all four of us came back. But Irving Kaiser from the apartment house next door was killed by artillery fire in Italy and I never saw him again, and Sonny Ball was killed the same way there too. Freddy Rosenbaum lost a leg, and Manny Schwartz still walks around with hooks on an artificial hand and is not so good-humored about it anymore, and Solly Moss was shot in the head and hasn't been able to hear or see too clearly since, and as Sammy mentioned once when looking back, that seems to have been a lot of casualties for just a couple of blocks in a pretty small section of a pretty small neighborhood, so a lot of others everywhere must have been killed or wounded also. I thought so too. But the day the four of us went off we didn't think there'd really be danger or casualties.

We were going to war and we didn't know what it was.

Most of us married young. And none of us knew from divorce then. That was for the Gentiles, for the rich people we used to read about in the newspapers who went to Reno, Nevada, for six weeks because it was easier there. And for someone like Sammy's Glenda and her roving first husband who liked to play around a lot and just didn't seem to give a shit who knew it. Now even one of my own daughters has got her divorce. When I first heard about that marriage breaking up I wanted to set right out after my ex-son-in-law and work out the property settlement with my bare hands. Claire shut me up and took me back to the Caribbean to cool off instead. Sammy Singer was the only one I know of who waited, and then he married his shiksa with three children and the light-brown hair that was almost blonde. But Sammy Singer was always a little bit different, short and different, quiet, thinking a lot. He was strange and went to college. I was smart enough and also had the GI Bill of Rights to pay for it, but was already married, and I had better things to do than go to school some more, and I was in a bigger hurry to get somewhere. That's another reason I never liked John Kennedy or anyone around him when he jumped into the limelight and began to act like an actor having too good a time. I could recognize a man in a hurry. I blinked once when he was shot, said too bad, and went back to work the same day, and got ready to begin disliking Lyndon Johnson, when I wanted to take the time. I don't like bullshitters and people who talk a lot, and that's what Presidents do. I hardly read newspapers anymore. Even back then I couldn't figure out why a guy with brains like Sammy Singer would want to go to college just to study things like English literature, which he could read in his spare time.