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While the men on the truck talk about home, where they come from, and what they did before the war, Vincent experiences a series of flashbacks. He sees himself at the 1939 World’s Fair with his sister Phoebe as they visit the Bell Telephone exhibit. When they come out, they find Holden standing there. Holden asks Phoebe for her autograph, and Phoebe playfully punches him in the stomach, “happy to see him, happy he was her brother.”38 Amid the background conversation on the truck, Vincent’s mind keeps leaping back to Holden. He sees him at Pentey Prep,* on the tennis court, and sitting on the porch at Cape Cod. How can Holden possibly be missing? Vincent refuses to believe that he is.

When the lieutenant arrives he is visibly annoyed. When he asks about the situation, Vincent feigns ignorance and pretends to count heads, all the while mentally scoffing at the lieutenant, the other men, and himself. He offers a movie to anyone willing to forgo the dance. Two soldiers skulk off into the night, but Vincent still has two men too many. Finally he makes a decision and orders the last two men to the left to leave the truck. One soldier dismounts and slips off. Vincent waits and finally notices another body emerge. As the figure enters the light, the image of a young boy is revealed. All eyes are fixed upon him as he stands in the drenching downpour. “I was on the list,” the boy mutters, almost in tears. Vincent says nothing. In the end it is the lieutenant who orders the boy back into the truck and arranges for an extra girl at the party to match the extra man.

As the story ends, the men are on their way to the dance and Vincent is again lost in his thoughts of Holden. Overwhelmed, he pleads to his missing brother: “Just go up to somebody—and tell them you’re Here—not Missing, not dead, not anything but Here.”

A major thrust of “This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise” is Vincent’s inability to connect with either himself or those around him. The cause of Caulfield’s disconnection is his refusal to take the extra step necessary to change it.

The boy’s appearance is the climax of the story. Until that moment, readers are faced with a confusing juxtaposition of dialogue and events occurring simultaneously. Only when the boy emerges from the shadows is the reader’s attention drawn to one solitary character. The only moment when the background dialogue ceases is when the reader is focused on the boy standing in the rain. The moment is surreal. Salinger reinforces the sensation by casting it slowly. After traveling through Vincent’s mental snapshots of his young brother, readers are naturally struck by this boy’s image. A figure that appears from the darkness, he is vulnerable and distressed, seeking someone to guide him. He is the spirit of Holden Caulfield, a test to his brother. Vincent must take a step to make him complete. He must connect with this boy and recognize his brother within him. He must put his own pain aside and do a simple but symbolic thing: he must give up his spot on the truck.

He reaches out and turns up the boy’s collar to protect him from the rain but then remains silent and does nothing. Moments later, the boy is gone from the scene and Vincent, aboard the truck once again, is completely submerged by his loss. He mentally babbles to Holden, telling him to stop whistling, stop wearing his robe to the beach, and sit up straight at the table.

If actually written during the closing months of 1944, during the weeks that encompassed Schnee Eifel and Hürtgen, “Mayonnaise” casts a particular light on its author. Grappling to deal with death, Salinger casts himself as Vincent Caulfield, who, mirroring his creator, remained torn between repressing his feelings and admitting the reality in which he was embroiled.

• • •

On New Year’s Day 1945, Jerry Salinger turned twenty-six. Just a year before, he had been at Fort Holabird, awaiting deployment overseas. Now, from his camp in Luxembourg, before him lay the Sauer River and Germany beyond, the same boundary he had crossed three and a half months before