David's War. Herbert Kastle

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СКАЧАТЬ turned. David didn’t know whether they’d heard his words or simply his raging tone, but he decided this lunch was over.

      He walked to the street door, pausing at the bar to drain his glass. Vanessa followed him outside, face pale. ‘I know you’re a Jew. What I didn’t know was that it meant anything to you. You never spoke about going to temple or, you know, about feeling Jewish.’

      ‘You’re right,’ he said, and took her hand. It was icy cold despite the warm afternoon sun. ‘Forgive me.’ They had always treated each other with kindness, with consideration and affection. Six years of such civility and physical closeness counted for something. ‘Come to the house tonight.’

      She nodded. Tears trickled from her eyes, and he felt terrible.

      He also felt worried about tonight.

      Teddy phoned Roberta Alden, the big momma, at three thirty. Her voice shook as she gave him directions. Twenty minutes later, at her North Hollywood home, everything else she had shook as he plunged wildly between her thick white thighs.

      Afterwards, he put his head on her bulging belly and closed his eyes. And thought of Montecassino. Not that he’d had a fat woman there and not that anything here reminded him of that place of explosions, shrieks, cordite stench, human cowardice and inhuman courage. It was just that he’d been thinking of it for years now, more and more often lately. Thinking not only of the corpse-covered slopes leading to the German stronghold, but of Lieutenant Borden, ex-highschool athlete, freshman enlistee from Texas A & M, who had come to the portable kitchen where li’l black Teddy was working and said he was empowered to ‘raise a few fightin’ men from this miserable mongrel ratpack’; said it grinning as if in jest, and said it with contempt and hatred. Later, he had humiliated Teddy in a brief weapons refresher course behind the field kitchen, using some of the Southern racist shit of the day: ‘C’mon boy, let a little light into that African bone head of yourn,’ and on and on. And at last Teddy had answered back, saying that if Borden hadn’t been wearing bars he’d have been chewing on a ‘boy’s African fist.’ So Borden took off the bars and beat the hell out of l’il black Teddy.

      Teddy had planned to kill him with a hand grenade on the slopes before the ancient Italian monastery . . . though it was more fantasy than hard plan. Whether he could actually have done the job became academic when the Germans did it for him, in the first few moments of the reserve company’s assault.

      But instead of gratification he had felt anguish on learning his enemy had escaped him. As he felt anguish now, lying on the warm pillow of flesh, a fine mist of sweat between his cheek and Roberta’s stomach, mouth twisting in self-contempt. Because anguish or not, he suspected he would never have fragged his man.

      Driving back to Thomasine’s, he wondered at his pain. All right, so he hadn’t killed his enemy. So he could never kill his enemy.

      But Montecassino and Borden were thirty-seven years ago. No one suffers over something that far back. And he hadn’t begun tormenting himself until four, maybe five years ago, about the time he’d opened Thomasine’s.

      Had anything happened then; anything that had torn open that old wound?

      His mind closed down on the subject, causing him to concentrate on the traffic and on a cute chicana waiting at a bus stop. Because there was something very ugly waiting to wound Teddy Bear; wound him more deeply than he could tolerate.

      Vincent said he’d brought her to his apartment because he was a gourmet cook. ‘Wait, Rita, you’ll see.’

      She knew what she would see, but last night had been so long, so empty, and there were four more such nights to fill before she met David and could revive her hope, that she hadn’t insisted they go to a restaurant as he had promised. Besides, his voice was good; almost as soft and strong as David Howars’ and Daddy’s.

      His meal was basic: broiled steak, baked potatoes, and California burgundy, but she was hungry and ate well. And he sat close beside her and touched her hand as often as he could and she liked hand touching and holding.

      They moved to the living-room couch for coffee. He smoked, which she didn’t like.

      Still, she had decided before coming here she would spend the night with him. This was their third date and he was nice enough looking, vigorous enough for a man of sixty, she estimated, perhaps a year or two older. What he wasn’t, she now discovered, was very clever about seducing her.

      She tried several times to stop his talk. His talk disturbed her, it was so blatantly a device to get her into bed. She was always amazed at how men of mature years, who should have learned better, continued to say the same stupid things, the same obvious lies, as the men of her youth.

      ‘I’ve been looking for a serious romance,’ he said, leaning forward to stub out his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table. He straightened, turning so as to come around facing her, and took her in his arms. When he kissed her, she was repelled by the taste and smell of tobacco. Then he squeezed her breast and pushed his tongue into her mouth.

      She began to feel a little heat. His hand went to her knee, then under her skirt. Good, good, because he had stopped talking.

      He reached her crotch and she wanted to place her hand on the bulge in his trousers. But she had never been able to do that without the man moving her hand for her.

      He began talking again. ‘When a man and a woman feel for each other, sweetheart, they don’t have to wait a long time to . . . consummate, you understand?’

      What sort of an idiot did he think she was? What sort of idiot species did he think women were?

      ‘Your intelligence, your beauty . . .’ He was rising, drawing her up with him, babbling on. ‘. . . will turn my bedroom into a flowery bridal chamber . . .’

      They were in a short hallway when she pulled free and turned back. ‘Would you drive me home?’

      He stood there, staring, as she opened the front closet and got into her lightweight-wool short coat. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

      ‘I have to get up very early for a pre-class tennis game.’

      ‘The hell you do!’ It was a shout, and she shrank within herself.

      ‘Rita . . .’ He waved his hands. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t just rush away.’

      His voice was calmer, and he had waved hands, not fists. She said, carefully, ‘I wasn’t rushing away, Vincent. I was asking you to drive me home. Though it’s close enough to walk . . .’

      ‘Nonsense.’ He had her arm and was drawing her to the kitchen. ‘We’ll have a liqueur. Or a cream sherry. Then I’ll drive you.’

      ‘Well, perhaps a sherry.’

      But in the kitchen he suddenly grabbed her, one hand clutching her bottom, and panted in her ear, ‘It could be love . . . a lifetime . . . we’re both so alone . . .’

      She shoved him hard and sent him stumbling backward. ‘Act your age,’ she said and turned to leave. She would walk or take a cab.

      He was grabbing her again, from the back this time, fumbling for her breasts, saying things, ugly things about her being a ‘cock-teasing bitch’ and he would act his age, all right, ‘and so will you!’ His voice raged and she tried to conquer fear by telling СКАЧАТЬ