Jane Smiley - Some Luck

THE FIRST GENERAL Frank saw who he thought had any sense was General Devers, and part of the reason Frank liked him was that he oversaw Frank’s removal to the south of France. But first they had to gather in Corsica. Corsica was mountainous — as mountainous as Monte Cassino — but there were no Jerries trenched into the peaks and ridges, and at the foot of the mountains were beaches and blue sea. So far, in his war, Frank hadn’t cared much for water; every crossing since the one from New York had been harrowing. From Tunisia to Sicily, storms of wind and waves had had him huddling against the side of the transport, trying not to die. The rivers by Monte Cassino were the wildest he had ever seen (but, then, he had only seen the Iowa, which sometimes rose in the spring, only to spread very gently over adjacent fields). The Rapido had been bad enough; the Garigliano, he had been told by troops in the Thirty-sixth Infantry, made the Rapido look like a trout stream in Wisconsin.

The roads overlooking the beaches on Corsica were very elegant and edged by sedate palm trees, under which, in the cool of the evening, whores congregated before their night’s work.

Italian whores looked rather different from Illinois whores — younger, older, more desperate, more jaded, and more frightened — and it was a long time before Frank made up his mind to go home with one. They seemed not to live respectably in brothels, but to have rooms and work for themselves. As always, the whores liked him. He was tall, he had put on muscle, and maybe he didn’t look twenty-four. Maybe he looked older than that now. He could see in the mirror when he shaved that his eyes were more deeply sunk and bluer, and his cheekbones were more prominent. His nose, too, had changed — had beaked a little. When he walked down the street under the palms, some of the whores shouted, “Hey! Signor Flynn, Look this way! Hey, hey!” He hadn’t thought he looked like Errol Flynn — Minnie had said Joel McCrae (and Eunice had said the devil himself). You weren’t supposed to be flattered by whores, but he was.

Still, he didn’t get around to taking up with one until a few days before they were to set out for Saint-Tropez. Why this girl and not any of the others, why tonight and not any of the previous nights — well, there was no reason for any of it. He had money in his pocket, and an unopened pack of cigarettes, and there was a tall dark-haired girl lounging on the parapet by herself, and he just went over to her and made a gesture with his fingers to his lips, as if he were looking for a smoke. She shook her head, then shrugged and made a sad face. She said, “No, don’t got. Sorry.”

Frank put his hand inside his jacket and brought out the fags. She smiled and nodded, so he ripped off the cellophane and handed her the packet. She tapped its edge on the parapet, took one for herself, and offered him one. He said, “No, don’t smoke,” and made a face. “You keep them.” Now she laughed. Cigarettes were worth money. She put her arm in his and led him down the promenade. Looking at her face against the background of the bright water and the fading sky, he guessed she was his age. At the end of the promenade, she turned down a side street and then led him to a door. When she opened it, he held back, and she said, “No, you come. You come, Signor Flynn.”

Her room was hardly a closet — maybe it wasn’t the room she actually lived in. There was only a sink, a bed, a very small window, and a coat rack. She took his hand and drew him through the doorway, then closed the door. She said, “Parli italiano? Parlez-vous français?”

Frank shook his head.

She said, “Okay. Okay!” Then she patted his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and threw some money on the bed. She looked at it for a moment, then extracted the ten-dollar bill. She said, “Okay?” Frank nodded, and picked up the rest of the money. When he put his wallet back in his pocket, she put her hand on his cock, which had not yet hardened, but at her touch it began to. She rubbed it a couple of times, and it swelled some more. Frank felt his face get hot. He couldn’t help thinking of Eunice. Eunice was the last girl he’d fucked. At the end of the Africa campaign, they’d had leave in Tunis, but they had been sternly warned to stay away from the women in Tunis — the whores, they were told, all had the clap, and the other women all had male relatives, “which is worse than the clap.” Since Sicily, there had been no opportunities, and hardly any days off. Once again, for the millionth time, he ordered Eunice out of his head. He looked out the tiny window, and sure enough, there was no room for Eunice against the stone walls or athwart the strip of sky, sea, and mountain that was visible. He let out the breath he had been holding in.

He said, “Nome?” He knew that was the word for “name.”

“Ah,” she said, “Missss Joan!” She pronounced the “J” like “ch.” Frank said, “Joan Fontaine?” and the whore nodded. Frank said, “Rebecca?”

“Non.”

“Gunga Din?”

“Sì!”

“So — we are Errol Flynn and Joan Fontaine?”

The whore nodded eagerly. Frank laughed and said, “Well, let’s make a movie.” Then she did something Frank knew that whores never did: she traced his lips with her fingertip, and kissed him. It was a kind gesture, and made his cock go limp at once.

But she was good-natured, if not terribly pretty, and he was beginning to feel comfortable. He took off his shoes and sat down on the bed, then leaned back against the wall, which was painted a blue color that coordinated with the sky, and put his hands behind his head. He took another deep breath. The whore pulled out the pack of cigarettes, counted them, took out a second one, and lit it. She sat down on the end of the bed. Frank watched her smoke the cigarette — she seemed to enjoy it very much, taking the smoke deep into her lungs, and then breathing it out through her nose. Yes, she was thin. Her blouse hung on her shoulders, and the waist of her skirt gapped, but her breasts were full, and her calves, too. She wasn’t wearing hose; she had drawn seams up the backs of her legs. Frank wondered how many cigarettes equaled a meal. She took another drag. It was a pleasure to watch her. He wiggled his toes, and then she put her hand around his left foot and began stroking the instep with her thumb. Frank had never felt such a thing before. Her thumb moved forward to the ball of his foot, then to the toes. It was relaxing. It almost made him forget what he was there for. His eyes closed.

He felt her weight on the end of the bed shift, and he heard her stub out her cigarette. Only then did her hand begin to move up his ankle, underneath the cuff of his pants. She pushed down the ribbing of his sock, and tickled his ankle, then moved upward to the base of his calf for a minute or two, until his pant leg prevented her from going further. Then she started on the other foot, but she took his sock off first. Frank kept his eyes closed. His cock lay quiet, uninterested. As soon as he noticed his cock, he ordered Eunice to get away from him. He kept his eyes closed. His right leg was now as relaxed as his left. The bed was small. The room was small, the building was small. The town was small. The island was small, and divided from the torture of Europe and the pillage of Africa by a deep sea. In American schools, in Iowa schools, they didn’t study Corsica. He knew nothing about Corsica except what he had seen, and that wasn’t much. He was Errol Flynn. She was Joan Fontaine. That was maybe the essence of his relaxation.

Frank didn’t know that he had fallen asleep until he woke up suddenly. The sun was gone from the window, meaning that hours had passed. The room was cool, too. The first thing he did, in something of a panic, was reach for his wallet. It wasn’t there. He opened his eyes with a groan, only to see the whore sitting on the bed beside him. She held out his wallet. He took it and opened it. All the money was there. Frank licked his lips, a little ashamed of his suspicions, and the girl smiled, and then lay down next to him. She stretched her body along his, foot to foot, hip to hip, torso to torso. The top of her head came to about his nose, and she rested it on his chest. She undid his fly. There it was again, so unresponsive, his cock. And yet it was. She tickled it and then stroked it, and it popped, and the moment he realized that he wanted her, she knelt up beside him, slipped a condom over his erection, lifted her skirt, and sat down on him. Her hands were on his shoulders. She began to move, and then she began to undo the buttons of her blouse.