“You know,” she said, “I think I will have some breakfast too. My doctor does not recommend breakfast, especially with boiled cream. But we became so accustomed… it was the general’s favorite breakfast. Do you know, I try to have only men boarders. That nice Ahmad understands me very well. He understands how much I need to sit just like this, now and then, just as we are sitting, and have a cup of boiled cream.”
“Your cream is wonderfully good,” said I, not insincerely.
“Ach, Ivan.” Aunt Vaina put down her cup and fluttered her hands. “But you said that almost exactly like the major general… Strange, you even look like him. Except that his face was a bit narrower and he always had breakfast in his uniform.”
“Yes,” I said with regret, “I don’t have a uniform.”
“But there was one once,” said she coyly, shaking a finger at me. “Of course! I can see it. It’s so senseless! People nowadays have to be ashamed of their military past. Isn’t that silly? But they are always betrayed by their bearing, that very special manly carriage. You cannot hide it, Ivan!”
I made a very elaborate non-committal gesture, said, “Mm — yes,” and took another crouton.
“It’s all so out of place, isn’t that right?” continued Aunt Vaina with great animation. “How can you confuse such two opposite concepts — war and the army? We all detest war. War is awful. My mother described it to me, she was only a girl, but she remembers everything. Suddenly, without warning, there they are — the soldiers, crude, alien, speaking a foreign tongue, belching; and the officers, without any manners, laughing loudly, annoying the chambermaids, and smelling — forgive me; and that senseless commander’s meeting hour… that is war and it deserves every condemnation! But the army! That’s an altogether different affair! Surely you remember, Ivan, the troops lined up by battalion, the perfection of the line, the manliness of the faces under the helmets, shiny arms, sparkling decorations, and then the commanding officer riding in a special staff car and addressing the battalions, which respond willingly and briefly like one man.”
“No doubt,” said I, “this has impressed many people.”
“Yes! Very much indeed. We have always said that it is necessary to disarm, but did we really need to destroy the army? It is the last refuge of manhood in our time of widespread moral collapse. It’s weird and ridiculous — a government without an army….”
“It is funny,” I agreed. “You may not believe it, but I have been smiling ever since they signed the Pact.”
“Yes, I can understand that,” said Aunt Vaina. “There was nothing else for us to do, but to smile sarcastically. The Major General Tuur” — she extricated a handkerchief — “passed away with just such a sarcastic smile on his face.” She applied the handkerchief to her eyes. “He said to us: ‘My friends, I still hope to live to the day when everything will fall apart.’ A broken man, who has lost the meaning of life… he could not stand the emptiness in his heart.” Suddenly she perked up. “Here, let me show you, Ivan.”
She bustled into the next room and returned with a heavy old-fashioned photo album.
I looked at my watch at once, but Aunt Vaina did not take any notice, and sitting herself down at my side, opened the album at the very first page.
“Here is the major general.”
The major general looked quite the eagle. He had a narrow bony face and translucent eyes. His long body was spangled with medals. The biggest, a multi-pointed starburst framed in a laurel wreath, sparkled in the region of the appendix. In his left hand the general tightly pressed a pair of gloves, and his right hand rested on the hilt of a ceremonial poniard. A high collar with gold embroidery propped up his lower jaw.
“And here is the major general on maneuvers.”
Here again the general looked the eagle. He was issuing instructions to his officers, who were bent over a map spread on the frontal armor of a gigantic tank. By the shape of the treads and the streamlined appearance of the turret, I recognized it as one of the Mammoth heavy storm vehicles, which were designed for pushing through nuclear strike zones and now are successfully employed by deep-sea exploration teams.
“And here is the general on his fiftieth birthday.”
Here too, the general looked the eagle. He stood by a well-set table with a wineglass in his hand, listening to a toast in his honor. The lower left corner was occupied by a halo of light from a shiny pate; and to his side, gazing up at him with admiration, sat a very young and very pretty Aunt Vaina. I tried surreptitiously to gauge the thickness of the album by feel.
“Ah, here is the general on vacation.”
Even on vacation, the general remained an eagle. With his feet planted well apart, he stood an the beach sporting tiger-stripe trunks, as he scanned the misty horizon through a pair of binoculars. At his feet a child of three or four was digging in the sand. The general was wiry and muscular. Croutons and cream did not spoil his figure. I started to wind my watch noisily.
“And here…” began Aunt Vaina, turning the page, but at this point, a short portly man entered the room without knocking. His face and in particular his dress seemed strangely familiar.
“Good morning,” he enunciated, bending his smooth smiling face slightly sideways.
It was my erstwhile customs man, still in the same white uniform with the silver buttons and the silver braid on the shoulders.
“Ah! Pete!” said Aunt Vaina. “Here you are already. Please, let me introduce you. Ivan, this is Pete, a friend of the family.”
The customs man turned toward me without recognition, briefly inclined his head, and clicked his heels. Aunt Vaina laid the album in my lap and got up.
“Have a seat, Pete,” she said. “I will bring some cream.”
Pete clicked his heels once more and sat down by me.
“This should interest you,” I said, transferring the album to his lap. “Here is Major General Tuur. In mufti.” A strange expression appeared on the face of the customs man. “And here is the major general on maneuvers. You see? And here —”
“Thank you,” said the customs man raggedly. “Don’t exert yourself, because —”
Aunt Vaina returned with cream and croutons. From as far back as the doorway, she said, “How nice to see a man in uniform! Isn’t that right, Ivan?”
The cream for Pete was in a special cup with the monogram “T” surrounded by four stars.
“It rained last night, so it must have been cloudy. I know, because I woke up, and now there is not a cloud in the sky. Another cup, Ivan?”
I got up.
‘Thank you, I’m quite full. If you’ll excuse me, I must take my leave. I have a business appointment,”
Carefully closing the door behind me, I heard the widow say, “Don’t you find an extraordinary resemblance between him and Staff Major Polom?”
In the bedroom, I unpacked the suitcase and transferred the clothing to the wall closet, and again rang Rimeyer. Again no one answered. So I sat down at the desk and set to exploring the drawers. One contained a portable typewriter, another a set of writing paper and an empty bottle of grease for arrhythmic motors. The rest was empty, if you didn’t count bundles of crumpled receipts, a broken fountain pen, and a carelessly folded sheet of paper, decorated with doodled faces. I unfolded the sheet. Apparently it was the draft of a telegram.
“Green died while with the Fishers receive body Sunday with condolences Hugger Martha boys.” I read the writing twice, turned the sheet over and studied the faces, and read for the third time. Obviously Hugger and Martha were not informed that normal people notifying of death first of all tell how and why a person died and not whom he was with when he died. I would have written, “Green drowned while fishing.” Probably in a drunken stupor. By the way, what address did I have now?
I returned to the hall. A small boy in short pants squatted in the doorway to the landlord’s half. Clamping a long silvery tube under an armpit, he was panting and wheezing and hurriedly unwinding a tangle of string. I went up to him and said, “Hi.”
My reflexes are not what they used to be, but still I managed to duck a long black stream which whizzed by my ear and splashed against the wall. I regarded the boy with astonishment while he stared at me, lying on his side and holding the tube in front of him. His face was damp and his mouth twisted and open. I turned to look at the wall. The stuff was oozing down. I looked at the boy again. He was getting up slowly, without lowering the tube.