From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [153]
His head felt very big and very soft to the touch and it was hard to separate the dream of last night from the reality. But he could remember distinctly that she kissed him, on the mouth. Whores do not kiss soldiers on the mouth, neither do they tell them their life story. But he could remember all the details of her story, and how when she was caught up in the telling of it the carefully educated accent and the meticulous serenity, both probably very painfully acquired, had dropped off of her revealing the real Lorene. A hard Lorene, a cold and brilliant, like a diamond; but real, very real, and alive. This was what clinched it for him. He had gotten under her shell, as men very seldom get under women’s shells, as soldiers never get under whores’ shells, and he was going back payday night, if he had to steal the money, because, he thought, in this world, any more, with things like they are, the hardest of all hard things was to know the real from the illusion, to meet one other human being breath to breath without the prefabricated sound-proofed walls of modern sanitation always in between and know in meeting that this was this human and not this human’s momentary role; in this world that was the hardest, because in this world, he thought, each bee out of his own thorax makes the wax for his own cell, to protect his own private stock of honey, but I have broken through, just once, this one time only. Or, at least, he thought, I think I have.
In fact, thinking back about it, the only thing about it all that he could not remember was the old familiar drunken revelation, the moment when he had reached out and grasped the whole of all truth and compressed it into a single sentence that was one single cure-all capsule, easy to swallow, painless to take. Of that all he could remember was that he had done it. He could not remember the sentence. But then, he thought, surely you do not expect to remember that, all your life you have been not remembering that, you should be used to that.
They pulled in home (after taking the precaution to walk the last two blocks, just in case Holmes or The Warden might be watching for them) just as the Company was going upstairs after breakfast. He was a little worried and Angelo was very worried, once they were back inside the half-forgotten confines of the Post, but Stark who did not have to stand Reveille formation was not worried at all, and not above razzing them a little.
But worrying at all was needless, this time they were lucky. Chief Choate, still their Corporal, was waiting for them on the porch. Neither Holmes nor The Warden nor S/Sgt Dhom had taken Reveille this morning, the Chief said, 2nd Lt Culpepper had taken it, and the Chief was able to report his squad all present and get by with it, since Sergeant Platoon Guide Galovitch was as stupid as he was zealous, but goddam them, where had they been.
Feeling very lucky, they both rushed upstairs, like runners who are safe on a steal at second and then got ready to steal third, and changed from their civilians straight into fatigues.
Chief Choate, his deadpan Indian stolidity showing plainly by its walnut blankness that he had not said all there was to say, patiently followed them upstairs, bloodshot-eyed but placid after his customary hard night at Choy’s.
“The uniform’s been changed,” he told them ponderously. “Sidearms and leggins.”
“Jesus whynt you tell us?” Maggio, who had thought he was all dressed,