Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [213]
But the plane flew over the spiky buildings of Manhattan in a violet-and-pearl dawn, and Willie woke and his heart revived as he-peered through the round little window. New York was the most beautiful place on earth. It was more than that. It was the Garden of Eden, it was the lost island of sweet golden springtime, it was the place where he had loved May Wynn. The plane tilted, and glided downward. The gold-white sun appeared above the eastern clouds, brightening the air with slant rays. As the plane wheeled Willie saw Manhattan again, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Radio City, their lean shafts suddenly rosy above the purple haze which still veiled the city. There came into his mind’s eye the beach of Kwajalein, the wide blue vacancy of the South Pacific, the orange puffs of shore batteries on the green hills of Saipan, and the pitching drenched wheelhouse of the Caine in the shrieking typhoon. In that instant, Willie understood the war.
“Half an hour late,” grumbled the literary agent beside him, rasping shut the zipper of his portfolio.
When Willie stepped out of the plane to the gangway he was astounded by the feel of the frigid wind, cutting on his face, cutting in his lungs when he breathed it. He had forgotten what winter air was; and New York from the plane had looked deceptively spring-like. He shivered inside his heavy bridge coat and pulled his white silk muffler closer around his throat. Coming down the steps, his breath smoking, he saw his mother waving gaily to him from behind a window of a waiting room. He ran across the strip of windy airfield. In a moment he was being violently kissed and hugged in the steam-heated room. “Willie, Willie, Willie! Oh, my dear, it’s so good to feel you close again!”
Willie’s first thought was, “How gray she is!” He was not sure whether it had happened in his absence, or imperceptibly before the war, and he was only now able to see it. Her red hair had dimmed to a nondescript grayish brown. “You look wonderful, Mother.”
“Thank you, darling! Let me take a good look at you-” Holding his arms, she leaned back and scrutinized him, her face alight with joy. She was both disturbed and pleased at what she saw. Her son had suffered a sea change. The sunburned face, with its flat cheeks, prominent nose, and heavy jaw, was half alien. It was Willie of course, her Willie, and the boyish bow of the mouth she thought was the same; but “You’ve become a man, Willie.”
“Not quite, Mother,” said her son with a weary smile.
“You look so trim! How long can you stay?”
“I’m flying back Sunday morning.”
She hugged him again. “Five days! Never mind. I’ll enjoy it more than any five years I’ve ever lived.”
Willie told her very little during the drive homeward. He found himself minimizing the dangers of war and exaggerating the boredom, like all good tight-mouthed Americans in the movies. The more his mother pressed him for details the vaguer were his answers. He saw she wanted to be told that he had been snatched from the jaws of death innumerable times, and perversely he insisted that he had never been close to any real action. He was, in truth, a little disappointed at the absence of hair-raising escapes, or killings, or woundings, in his war record, now, that he was back in the civilian world. It irritated him to be cross-examined. His natural impulse was to play up the true moments of danger, but an obscure shame prevented him from doing so. Taciturnity was a subtler and quite respectable form of boasting, and he made good use of it.
He had expected to enjoy real fireworks of nostalgia when he caught the first glimpse of his home; but the car turned into the driveway and rattled on the gravel up to the front door, and he merely stared stupidly at the brown