Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [49]
Stupidly, perhaps, I blinked back at them. “They’re coming over here!” I said excitedly, helplessly.
The major and the captain walked in, each looking down at a blue pamphlet, which I gathered contained Czech phrases. The big captain seemed self-conscious, and I sensed that the red-headed major was a little belligerent.
The captain ran his finger down the margin of a page, and shook his head dispiritedly. “‘Machine gun, mortar, motorcycle…tank, tourniquet, trench.’ Nothing about filing cabinets, desks, or chairs.”
“What the hell you expect?” said the major. “It’s a book for soldiers, not a bunch of pansy clerks.” He scowled at the pamphlet, said something completely unintelligible, and looked up at me expectantly. “There’s one hell of a swell book,” he said. “Says that’s the way to ask for an interpreter, and the old man acts like it was Ubangi poetry.”
“Gentlemen, I speak English,” I said, “and my daughter, Marta, too.”
“By God, he really does,” said the major. “Good for you, Pop.” He made me feel like a small dog, who had cleverly—for a small dog—fetched him a rubber ball.
I held out my hand to the major, and told him my name. He looked down at my hand superciliously, and kept his hands in his pockets. I felt myself reddening.
“My name is Captain Paul Donnini,” said the other man quickly, “and this is Major Lawson Evans.” He shook my hand. “Sir,” he said to me—his voice was paternal and deep—“the Russians—”
The major used an epithet that made my jaw drop, and amazed Marta, who has heard soldiers talk for the better part of her life.
Captain Donnini was embarrassed. “They haven’t left a stick of furniture,” he continued, “and I’m wondering if you could let us have some of the pieces in your shop here.”
“I was going to offer you them,” I said. “It’s a tragedy they smashed everything. They confiscated the most beautiful furniture in Beda.” I smiled and shook my head. “Aaaaah, those enemies of capitalists—they had their quarters fixed up like a little Versailles.”
“We saw the wreckage,” said the captain.
“And then, when they couldn’t have the treasures anymore, then no one could have them.” I made a motion like a man swinging an axe. “And the world becomes a little duller for us all—for there being fewer treasures. Bourgeois treasures, maybe, but those who can’t afford beautiful things love the idea of there being such things somewhere.”
The captain nodded pleasantly, but, to my surprise, I saw that my words had somehow irritated Major Evans.
“Well, anyway,” I said, “I want you to take whatever you need. It will be an honor to help you.” I was wondering if now was the opportune time to offer the Scotch. Things weren’t going quite as I’d expected.
“He’s real smart, Pop is,” said the major acidly.
I suddenly realized what it was the major had been implying. It was a shock. He was telling me that I was one of the enemy. He meant that I should cooperate because I was afraid; he wanted me to be afraid.
For an instant, I was physically sick. Once, as a much younger and more Christian man, I liked to say that men who depended on fear to get things done were sick and pathetic and pitifully alone. Later, after having seen whole armies of such men in action, I saw that I was the kind that was alone—and maybe sick and pathetic, too, but I would have killed myself rather than admit that.
I had to be wrong about the new commandant. I told myself I’d been suspicious and—now that I’m old, I can say it—afraid too long. But Marta felt the threat, the fear in the air, too, I could tell. She was hiding her warmth, as she had hidden it for years, behind a dull, prim mask.
“Yes,” I said, “you are welcome to anything you can use.”
The major pushed open the door of the back room, where I sleep and do my work. I was through being host. I sank back down in my chair by the window. Captain Donnini, ill at ease, stayed