This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ you know. Nothing run-of-the-mill ever happens to our Dorothy. And all of this would be told in her low, modest, little-girl voice, the one that doubtless sent her husband into ecstasies....

      Dorothy broke into Gloria's thoughts, saying: "You know, dear, we're rather alike. I mean, we really do seem a bit similar. Don't you think?"

      Gloria looked at her, noticing with some satisfaction that Dorothy was getting a bit saggy. If she was a singer, her diaphragm looked pretty unprofessional. She always kept her profile high too. That was so the extra chin wouldn't show. But, there was no doubt about it, she was quite beautiful in that brittle, china-doll way that men unaccountably seem to find so attractive.

      Gloria decided they weren't at all alike and, as coldly as possible, said: "In what way?"

      "Oh, I don't know. We seem to have found ourselves out here—in Japan, I mean."

      "What have you found?" asked Gloria, whose head was beginning to ache again. Sonoko hadn't brought the aspirin, and eight-o'clock solemnities with Dottie Ainsley were just too much.

      "Well, for one thing, a husband," said Dorothy seriously. "They're necessary, you know. All girls should be married." She suddenly smiled, as though what she was saying could not possibly have any personal reference. Nor did she try to explain the illogical sequence of her thoughts from their being alike to husbands.

      Gloria stared at her in mild disbelief. Just what did she think she was doing? Gratuitous insults were a bit coarse, even for Dottie.

      "Well, Mrs. Ainsley," she finally said, "we can't all be as fortunate in our choice of husbands as you were."

      "Don't misunderstand me, dear. I mean, if a girl has a chance of marrying these days, she ought—no if's, and's, or but's about it. She really should. What she does is her own business, but she ought to have a husband, first."

      "Your meaning is awfully subtle," said Gloria, "but I think I'm catching on."

      Dorothy began sipping her coffee daintily, and Gloria's oatmeal arrived to fill the gap in their conversation. As she ate it she decided that Dorothy's meaning actually was rather subtle. Either Dorothy guessed that other people knew about her, and hence the girls-will-be-girls kind of talk, or else ... or else she wanted Gloria to get married for reasons best known to herself. At any rate, she had looked uncommonly honest when she spoke, just as now, sipping her cold coffee with a pinkie in the air, she looked uncommonly uncomfortable.

      The silence after their orgy of intimacy was getting a bit heavy, Gloria thought. She was about to ask whether the plates' willow pattern was Chinese or Japanese when Dorothy, apparently feeling the same, gave a little scream and bent under the table.

      "Oh, my, what pretty shoes! Where did you get them?"

      Gloria stretched out her legs so Dorothy could see the shoes without disappearing completely under the table. "The PX," she said.

      "Don't tell me you get your clothes there! Why, I haven't been near the place for years. Not since I was what they call a 'vocalist'—whatever that is—with the USO and all that, you know. And that—well, just between us, it's been ages ago. No, after I met Dave (he made me over, you know) I started buying from New York—by mail, natch (and it takes just forever getting here!) and then, of course, there's that wonderful little tailor in Hong Kong. But those shoes you have there—they rather interest me. Any other sizes?"

      Now, this is our old Dorothy, thought Gloria. It feels good to be back in a mutual understanding again—the understanding that we loathe each other. "I don't think so," she said. "If they do, they're larger."

      "Larger? Oh, not really!" Dorothy sipped her coffee and tried again to pretend, somewhat less succesfully, that she had meant nothing personal. "Why, my little feet couldn't begin to fill those up."

      You're asking for it, thought Gloria. She'd known girls like Dottie before. Real bitches. Just couldn't stand not tearing in with their little claws. Anything that would hold still was fair game, no matter what. Her poor husband must be just a mass of tangled ribbons by this time. She was the kind of healthy American girl who would write a four-letter word on the upturned lid of the ladies' john in lipstick—backwards. Then stick around and watch the fun when the next occupant, in a cool white blouse, walked out. She'd heard men's cans were all scribbled up. They should see the ladies'—after a crowd of Dottie's type had gotten through with them.

      Gloria looked at her shoes. "Well, they're comfortable."

      Dottie had apparently expected to get clawed back. She looked disappointed. "Oh, I can see. They're just lovely—exquisite." She sighed shortly. "I only wish I could get things like that." She smiled, her just-between-us smile, which wrinkled up her nose and never failed to infuriate Gloria.

      "Oh, you might be able to," said Gloria smoothly. "Perhaps one of the officers you know is in the Quartermaster Corps, or Procurement, or even the PX for all I know. If you really can't bear to go near the PX's yourself, perhaps you could get one of them to scout for you. Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya—you know."

      "Well... but I really don't know any officers that well," said Dottie after hesitating just a second too long.

      She was such a bad liar. Goodness knows it was difficult enough to be a good one. Gloria was a good one, but even she forgot her lies eventually and got into trouble. So she decided to be charitable and say nothing more.

      Dottie gave her a hard little glance, disagreeable over her cup. She put it down with a tiny clatter, then softened almost at once and became again feather-brained and flighty:

      "Well, I must run. Dave will be furious. You coming?"

      "Yes, I'm off to work."

      "You're lucky, you know," she said, turning her head whimsically. "I wish I was a career girl again. But I'm not. Just a drudge—a regular Hausfrau type. I bet I couldn't even hit a high C any more. And, you know, my range used to be four octaves. I forget who it was called me the Lily Pons of the Occupation. Silly, but fun." She laughed. "Know what Dave used to say about my range? No? He used to say that I was composed of a bass, a tenor, and a small boy who got pinched. Cute, huh?"

      Gloria gave a sick smile, and Dottie rattled on: "Oh, hell, I just remembered—tomorrow's a big Japanese party. They're picking us up. That means I've got to get the servants busy cleaning the house—four of them and not a brain in the lot."

      "Real Japanese party—or just Japanese-style American?"

      "Oh, the real thing. Ex-zaibatsu or the Imperial family or something. Dave's business. On the paper, you know. Tatami, hashi, the works—all-night deal."

      "Well, that might be pleasant."

      "Pleasant? You ever had a Jap breakfast?"

      "Often," lied Gloria.

      "Well, you're a better woman than I am then."

      Gloria wisely said nothing to this.

      "Oh, by the way, did you hear what happened to Lady Briton last night?" asked Dottie, somehow seeming to want to delay the moment of parting they both wanted so badly.

      Gloria groaned. Not Lady Briton again! Gloria bet that at any given moment of Tokyo's social life the antics of Lady Briton would be on a dozen tongues. She was the wife of one of the Australian Mission people, a big horsy woman who was attempting to establish a Society for the Protection СКАЧАТЬ