This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ open. It did, and Sonoko, smiling, walked in with clean towels over her arm.

      "Good morning, Sonoko," said Gloria brightly, hoping to sound a good deal brighter than she felt.

      "Ohayo gozaimasu," said Sonoko. Then: "Hi, there." She always gave a bilingual morning-greeting, the first to show respect for herself and the next a genuflection to all great Americans. Walking to the opposite bed, still made-up, she pointed questioningly to its undisturbed covers.

      "Weekend trip. Far, far away," said Gloria, making vaguely distant gestures with her hands.

      "So desu ka?" said Sonoko and put the towels on the chair.

      Gloria was examining her eyebrows, which she thought looked as though they'd been trampled on. "Sonoko, be a perfect lamb and run out and see if one of the girls can spare me an aspirin. I've got a little headache." Little, my god! Her head was coming off.

      Sonoko looked at her and smiled, as though Miss Wilson had recited a poem, then went back to making up the bed.

      "Sonoko—asupirin."

      "Ah, so," hissed Sonoko, her eyes blank behind her glasses, "asupirin—I catch quick—I hubba-hubba."

      She clattered out of the room, leaving Gloria wincing first at the clatter, second at Sonoko's GI English. It always unnerved her when these people used it—which was often. It was as though the Great Buddha at Kamakura had come out with Brooklynese. She slipped her feet into sandals and went down the hall to the shower.

      In the shower she suddenly remembered whom it was she'd been out with. It had been Major Calloway, of course. From her own office. Imagine having forgotten! A gentleman of the old school. No passes, only comfortable, cozy talk of the just-you-and-me variety. Much explanation of power politics behind the command, climaxed by the revelation of who really ran the office—the Major himself. All of this interlarded with compliments to Gloria about her dress, her personality, and her soul—in that order. They talked shop for a while; then he told her how lonely he was and what a nice homebody she was. She'd used her little-girl smile and folded her hands. Receiving homage from the peasants was always fun.

      The warm water was reviving her memory more and more. They'd had steak and apple pie at the American Club, and in the sedan coming home she'd gotten kittenish and wanted to wade in the Palace moat until he told her it was eight feet deep. In front of the hotel they had kissed good-night, very decorously, using only the lips, and she'd come in and gone to bed. As simple as that! She hadn't done anything at all. Because no one had asked her. Heavens, the Major probably had honorable intentions!

      Gloria put her face under the shower. She was awake and clean. Her early-morning fears were already down the drain. She'd scrubbed her long legs and her flat stomach until they were red, and she felt much better for it. Muncie seemed just as far away as it actually was. She was in the Glamorous Orient and was one of the most glamorous things in it. The hot water gave out and put an end to further reflections for the time being.

      As she dried, she said to herself very softly: "No, not really beautiful, you know, but interesting looking, awfully interesting." She had no doubt that this was what they—the men—said about her, and she also had a fairly accurate idea of what the women said. Holding the towel, she thought of the hundreds of days she'd been in Japan. Each had begun with a shower, and almost every one had ended with a man. She couldn't even remember them all.

      "This is a rare and sober moment, Gloria," she told herself, and tried to remember all the men she'd ever known in her entire life.

      In such moments as this she'd often thought of compiling a little history. Nothing too elaborate—just the man's name, the date, and the place, if she could remember it. Single spaced. About a dozen sheets should do it. Then she could subdivide the total and cross-reference it according to the different nationalities. There was the attache at the French Mission, the nice British sergeant at the Union Jack Club, that lovely Italian correspondent. ... Then, after she had divided them, she could take percentages. Of course the Americans would win, but it would be interesting to find out by how much.

      But it was hopeless. She had forgotten too many. As she tied her robe she decided that the only immoral thing was her forgetting. This comforted her. That was her only sin, to have forgotten anyone with whom she had shared what one very earnest second lieutenant had once called "the holy happiness." He was Southern and had religion, she remembered; afterwards he'd tried to baptize her with what was left of the whisky.

      Well, she'd start a diary soon. That should help her memory. Each entry burned and the ashes stomped on and eaten as soon as written. No lurid details—just the name and her thoughts for the day. What names would not grace its pages! Who would be next?

      This was a favorite game, but the odds were hopelessly against her. It never turned out the way she hoped. That gorgeous Depot sergeant was virtuous; the dark correspondent at the War Crime Trials had gone completely Japanese; and the cute little dancer with the USO hadn't liked girls very much. Alas, one always remembered the failures best.

      The next just might be Private Richardson, also from her own office. The only trouble was that they'd built up a kidding relationship which rather well precluded their ever getting within five feet of each other. Besides, she'd heard he had a Japanese girl. Really, it was sinful the way they had become such competition. (Wonder what our brave boys would say if we started running around with Japanese men?) Oh, well, she'd just have to wait and see about Private Richardson.

      Back in her room she carefully turned her back to Sonoko and put on her pants, brassiere, and slip. The girl was plumping up the same pillow for the tenth time that morning.

      "You have a boy friend, Sonoko?" she asked.

      Sonoko giggled, covered her mouth with her hand, and said: "Nebah hoppen."

      "Oh, some day it will," said Gloria airily, zipping her dress up the side. "A nice .. . farmer."

      Sonoko giggled from across the room.

      A farmer! Gloria had never even met a farmer, not the kind with dirt under his fingernails and sweat in his armpits, that is. That was another way she could cross-file her little history: occupations. Except that it wouldn't be quite fair. Her wishes hadn't always been observed in the matter. It was the white-collar boys, the lieutenants and up that she always got tangled with. They were somehow so much easier. They spoke her own language, and they were always available, being as neurotic as she.

      How, she wondered, did one go about meeting a farmer, a truck driver, a boxer? The lower classes were always so damned suspicious. Enlisted men the same way. And, at least, you could trust an officer to keep his mouth shut, which was more than you could expect from sergeant on down. Except, perhaps, Private Richardson.

      She wondered if part of his attraction didn't come from his being Private Richardson. She tried to think of him as Major Richardson—General Richardson. Sure enough, some of the brightness faded. A part of the attraction? It was apparently the whole thing. Well, she'd just have to see. Now, when could she snare him? Tonight perhaps?

      Oh, no! She sat down on the bed, one foot in high-heels. No, not tonight. All morning long she had felt that all was not well with the world, and now she remembered why. Carried away the night before, she had said yes when Major Calloway had suggested dinner and the opera this evening. He had seemed such a dear after their dozen-odd Scotches. Now, in the merciless light of day, she saw him in his true form.

      "Not a deer, but a boar," she said to herself. But even this reminder of ready wit didn't cheer her. Here she'd gone and ruined a perfectly good Saturday night, СКАЧАТЬ