Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“I’m glad I was too young for that war,” Carroll said.

“Excuse me,” Rosemary said, standing. “I’ll be right back.” The ladies’ room was upstairs and she climbed the steps carefully, holding onto the banister, trying not to weave. In the ladies’ room she put cold water on her eyelids, small remedy against all that whiskey and all that wine and fifty beheaded soldiers. She put on some lipstick, moving her hand very precisely. Her face in the mirror was surprisingly fresh, a nice American lady tourist enjoying a night out in Paris with some of the people you’re likely to pick up in a place like Paris. If there had been another door and she could have slipped out unnoticed, she would have gone home.

“Armstead,” she said, “Brian Armstead.” That was the name of the interior decorator they had found dead in Livorno. He had done Yoga exercises every day, she remembered, and once when she had met him on the beach at Southampton she had noticed that he had a firm brown delicate body with shapely legs and small sunburned feet with polished toenails.

The lights had been turned off outside the ladies’ room and the landing was in darkness. Rosemary made her way cautiously toward the glow coming up the stairwell from the restaurant below. She stepped back with a little cry when she felt a hand touch her wrist.

“Mrs. Maclain,” a man’s voice whispered. “Don’t be frightened. I wanted to talk to you alone.” It was the young Englishman. He spoke rapidly, nervously. “I saw you were disturbed.”

“Not really,” she said. She wished she could remember his name. Robert? Ralph? No. She was having trouble with names tonight. “I’ve been around ex-soldiers before.”

“He shouldn’t really talk like that,” the young man said (Rodney, that was it, Rodney). “Eldred. It’s because you’re Americans. You and the photographer. He’s obsessed with what you’re doing in Vietnam, his rooms’re cluttered with the most dreadful photographs, he collects them. That’s how he got so friendly with Carroll. He’s a most peaceful man, Eldred, and he can’t bear the thought. But he’s too polite to argue with you openly, he’s very fond of Americans, so he keeps on about all those other horrors he went through. It’s his way of saying, Please stop, no more horror, please.”

“Vietnam?” Rosemary said stupidly. She felt foolish talking about things like this in the dark outside the ladies’ room with a nervous breathy young man who seemed frightened of her. “I’m not doing anything in Vietnam.”

“Of course not,” Rodney said hurriedly. “It’s just that—well, being American, you see.… He really is an extraordinary man, Eldred, it’s really worthwhile to get to know him and understand him, you see.”

Fags, she thought cruelly. Is that it? But then Rodney said, “May I see you home safely, Mrs. Maclain? That is, whenever you’re ready to go home, of course.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Rosemary said with dignity.

“Of course not,” Rodney said. “I do apologize if that’s the impression I … I think you’re a splendidly beautiful woman, Mrs. Maclain.”

He wouldn’t have been able to say that if the light were on and she could see his face. Splendidly . Right out of Trollope.

“That’s very kind of you, Rodney,” she said. Neither a yes nor a no. “Now I think we’d better get back to our table.”

“Of course,” Rodney said. He took her arm and guided her toward the stairwell. His hand was trembling. English education, she thought.

“There was this sergeant we called Brother Three-Iron,” Harrison was saying as they came to the table. He stood up as Rosemary sat down. Carroll made a symbolic American move in his chair, theoretically rising. “He was tall for a Jap,” Harrison went on, seating himself, “with bulging arms and shoulders and a cigarette dangling all the time from his lips. We called him Brother Three-Iron because he had got himself a golf club somewhere and was never seen without it. When he was displeased, which was often, he beat our people with it. Brother Three-Iron.” Harrison spoke fondly, as if the Japanese sergeant and he had many warm memories to share between them. “He was displeased with me more than anyone else in the camp, it seemed, although he had killed several men with the club from time to time. But more or less impersonally. In the rounds of his duty, as it were. But with me, it was a … a particular impatience with my existence. When he saw me he would smile and say, ‘Are you still alive?’ He spoke some English, in that peculiar harmless way Japanese speak the language. I think he must have overhead something I said about him before I knew he could understand. Perhaps I smiled once inadvertently. I lost count of the number of times he beat me senseless. But he was always careful not to finish me off. I believe he was waiting for me to kill myself. That would have satisfied him. It helped keep me alive, the thought of not satisfying him. But if the war had lasted another month or two I doubt that I would have lasted. One last bottle of wine, wouldn’t you say?” Harrison gestured toward the only waiter left in the empty restaurant.

“Policemen,” Anna said. “They are the same everywhere.” She pronounced it “ahverywhere.” She seemed younger than earlier in the evening, much younger. Her eyes were like the eyes of the child in the photograph.

“What happened to the sonofabitch?” Carroll asked. He was slumped in his chair, his chin resting on his chest in ruffles of dark wool from the turtleneck collar, his own bust in thin bronze. “Do you know?”

“I know,” Harrison said offhandedly. “But it’s of no importance. Mrs. Maclain, you must be terribly bored with these sorry reminiscences. I must really have had one too many to drink. I’m sure you didn’t come to Paris to hear about a war that took place so far away, when you were just a little girl learning how to read. If Bert hears about this evening he’ll be furious with me.”

If you knew what I came to Paris for, brother , Rosemary thought. She was conscious of Rodney looking at her almost imploringly. “I would like to know what happened,” she said.

She could hear Rodney exhale. Relief, she thought. I have passed a test.

“The Japanese have an admirable stoicism about death,” Harrison said, pouring the last bottle of wine. His voice was light-timbred, unemphatic. “When the war was over teams came in from our Army to try to round up war criminals. There was a section among the guards that was composed of people very much like the German SS. They were the systematic torturers and interrogators and exterminators. There were about twenty of them still in the camp and when the British team came to their quarters they were all lined up at attention in their best uniforms. Before anybody could say a word to them, they went down on their knees and bowed their heads and their commanding officer said, in passable English, to the British major in charge of the party, ‘Sir, we are war criminals. Kindly execute us immediately.’” Harrison shook his head, almost amused, almost admiring.

“Did you ever see the sergeant again?” Carroll asked.

“Brother Three-Iron? Oh, yes. Only a few days after the camp was liberated. When they let me out of hospital, I was down to ninety-eight pounds. I weighed a hundred and sixty at the beginning of the war. I was a young man then. I was called to the Camp Commandant’s office. The major in charge of the war-crimes team was there. Ellsworth, his name was. A sturdy no-nonsense type. He’d been sent out from North Africa when they closed up shop there. Seen all kinds of fighting. I never saw him smile. Brother Three-Iron was standing in front of his desk. And behind Ellsworth’s desk there was the golf club.”