Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

Bill won’t believe me — he’s really being horid about this. That forces me to give you the real reason, although I never wanted to. The truth is that Bill has always been after me and when you sailed off he got to be a real problem. I slaped his face hard and he’s never forgiven me. Now he’s trying to get even by making you hate me. Paul, darling, I know you won’t believe him. What we have together …

Paul couldn’t read any more. He didn’t trust her and he didn’t trust his brother. The only thing he was sure of at that moment was that he wanted to get drunk, drunker than old Mowrey had ever been. Cramming his letters into his pocket, he walked out of his cabin. Nathan, who was trying to bring order to the arrival of more mail sacks, saw him run across the well deck and jump ashore. After one glimpse of his face, Nathan followed him. He caught up with him on the road that led from the wharf to the officers’ club, where Paul was slowing to a fast walk.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a drink.”

“Mind if I come with you?”

“Christ, let me alone!”

There was such a look on Paul’s face that Nathan fell back, but he still followed him to the club at a discreet distance, then stood at the other end of the crowded bar. He saw Paul order a scotch, toss it off and order another. After Paul had downed four drinks as fast as he could get them he sat bent over his glass. Nathan walked over and sat next to him. Paul gave no sign of noticing him. At the other end of the bar a group of men started to sing, “You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine …”

“Give me another scotch,” Paul suddenly called to the bartender, his voice oddly shrill.

After eyeing him coldly for a moment, the bartender poured him another drink.

“I’ll have one too,” Nathan said, going to his side.

Paul turned and stared at him for a moment, almost as though Nathan were a stranger.

“So something bad happened,” Nathan said. “Whatever it is, believe it or not, it’s really not the end of the world.”

Paul stared at him. He mumbled, “Not the end of the world.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Paul thought about that for a few seconds before putting his hand in his pocket and handing him the crumpled letters. “Letters from home …”

Nathan read the letters. The lines in his mournful face seemed to deepen.

“Ah, shit,” he said, finally. “You don’t deserve this.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I do. It’s crazy. I guess she hasn’t done anything I haven’t done, but I still want to kill somebody. I want to take my damn pistol and go home and wipe them both out.”

“You won’t feel that way long.”

“What will I do?”

“You’ll try to understand whatever happened and eventually you will—”

“I already understand this … I never want to see those people again. I want to begin over with somebody else—”

“That would be one solution—”

“What do you think I should do? Go home and try to patch everything up with the little wife?”

“I don’t know if that would be possible. I just know that anger like yours doesn’t do much good …”

“You’re lucky, you can be angry at the Germans and you’ve already helped to kill a few—”

“I was angry at my wife too. I didn’t want her to go back to Poland to get her parents. I thought it was crazy and I told her so. We had a fight, we had lots of fights. Maybe that’s the real reason she went off.”

“But what happened wasn’t your fault.”

“Which doesn’t help much. Guilt or innocence — sometimes in the long run they don’t much count.”

“What does?”

Nathan shrugged. “Survival for one thing, and I guess kindness when possible … you’re too good a man to let this sour you for long …”

Paul felt embarrassed. “I don’t know, for the first time in my life I’ve no idea what to do.”

“For a while, how about nothing? Let the days go by.”

“I don’t know what I’ll say when I see her. I don’t know what I should write.”

“Write nothing, say nothing. Just let the days go by.”

“I don’t want to go home. Do you think I could get transferred to a ship that’s going to stay here?”

“Probably GreenPat would arrange that for you, but this isn’t a time to make decisions …”

“Yeah, I’m tired of making decisions, I’ve never been more tired in my goddamn life.”

They had more drinks. Then Nathan called the motor pool and was able to get a jeep to take them back to the ship. Paul staggered up the steps to his cabin, grabbing at the rails the way Mowrey used to do. Nathan helped him into his bunk and took off his shoes.

“The truth is,” Paul said with startling clarity, “the truth is, I loved her for no damn good reason I could understand. And now I don’t love her, not anymore, even though she’s probably no worse than I am. That isn’t reasonable, is it? There’s nothing about it that makes sense.”

“Who always makes sense?”

“I never want to see her again. I don’t want to hurt her, I just never want to see her again.”

“Just let the days go by,” Nathan said. “Do nothing as long as you can. It’s what you need.”

The next day Paul felt calmer, in spite of his hangover, but he still hated the thought of going back to Boston to see his wife and brother. He seriously considered asking GreenPat to transfer him to a ship that was going anywhere else in the world, but Nathan talked him out of it.

“Damn it, I’m not ready yet to take the Arluk on a long voyage alone,” he said. “Anyway, GreenPat will think you’re ice-happy if you tell him you don’t want to go home. He’d probably be afraid to give you another command. You’re liable to end up as exec under some other crazy bastard like Mowrey …”

So Paul stayed aboard the Arluk and helped to get her ready for the long voyage home. The winter weather on the North Atlantic was even worse than usual that year, but by this time Paul had enormous confidence in the old trawler, her men and in himself as a sailor. He spent hours on the flying bridge as the ship drove before a full gale, and there were moments when he felt a kind of serenity not like anything he’d known before. At such times he felt himself freed from anger at Sylvia, his brother and even himself. He realized that he didn’t really know what had happened, what Sylvia and Bill had done or not done. Probably he never would know for sure and he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to find out. He had no desire to ask a lot of questions and play detective. Sylvia was Sylvia — he had rarely been able to be sure she was telling the truth, and maybe that was why he could no longer love her. Maybe lying was the worst part of infidelity. Brit at least had never gone in for that. Maybe his love for Sylvia had always been a little crazy, as everyone in his family had kept telling him. Maybe the Arctic seas, Greenland, Brit and Nathan had helped him become sane, to grow up, and he would finally escape Sylvia, but there was no reason to do it with a lot of fireworks. Ashore or at sea, dramatic — melodramatic — action was usually a mistake, and when things were worst it was most important to stay almost casual, as though nothing was happening at all. There was no reason to attack Sylvia for being whatever she was. He would visit her in the hospital, if that’s where she still was, try not to increase her pain and leave as soon as possible. If he had to see his brother, he would say little, listen for as short a time as possible and get out. Soon he would be given another assignment, a much bigger ship, perhaps, and that was good to think about. The war would go on, God knew how many years, and when it was over, if he was still alive, he could make up his mind whether to go back to Sylvia. As Nathan had said, sometimes it’s wise not to make decisions … he’d let events make them for him. For now, anyway.