The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [163]
"I'm familiar with the type." Cummings stretched. Now the other question while Hearn was unready for it. "Have you ever wondered, Robert, why we're fighting this war?"
"Do you want a serious answer, sir?"
"Yes."
Hearn kneaded his thighs with his large hands. "I don't know, I'm not sure. With all the contradictions, I suppose there's an objective right on our side. That is, in Europe. Over here, as far as I'm concerned, it's the imperialism tossup. Either we louse up Asia or Japan does. And I imagine our methods will be a little less drastic."
"Is that your contribution?"
"I don't pretend to read history in advance. I'll be able to give you the real answer in a century probably." He shrugged. "I'm surprised that you want my opinion, General." His eyes had become lazy again, studiedly indifferent. Hearn had poise. That was undeniable.
"It seems to me, Robert, you can do a little better than that."
"All right, I can. There's an osmosis in war, call it what you will, but the victors always tend to assume the. . . the, eh, trappings of the lower. We might easily go Fascist after we win, and then the answer's really a problem." He puffed at his cigarette. "I don't go in for the long views. For want of a better idea I just assume it's a bad thing when millions of people are killed because one joker has to get some things out of his system."
"Not that you really care, Robert."
"Probably not. But until you show me some other idea to replace it, I'll hold to this one."
Cummings grinned at him. His anger had subsided to a cold effective resolve. Hearn was fumbling now, he had noticed that in him. Whenever Hearn had to search his ideas he was obviously uncomfortable, obviously trying to avoid the other conclusions.
Hearn seemed absorbed for just a moment. "We're moving toward greater organization, and I don't see how the left can win that battle in America. There're times when I think it's Gandhi who's right."
Cummings laughed out loud. "You know you couldn't have picked a more unperceptive man. Passive resistance, eh. You'd be good in that role. You and Clellan and Gandhi."
Hearn sat up a little straighter in his chair. The noon sun, harsh now that the overcast had blown away, glinted cruelly over the bivouac, threw into bold relief the shadows under the flaps of the tent. About a hundred yards away, on a downhill slope through the sparse foliage, Cummings watched the chow line, two hundred and fifty men long, trudge slowly forward.
"It seems to me," Hearn said, "Clellan's more in your line. And while we're on that you might tell him that the flowers are your idea." Cummings laughed again. That had taken effect then. He opened his eyes widely, conscious of the effect their bald white surfaces would give, and then he slapped his thigh in a facsimile of mirth. "Are you getting enough liquor, Robert?" Of course, that was why he had crushed the cigarette on the floor.
Hearn made no answer, but his jaws quivered just perceptibly.
Cummings sat back, enjoying himself. "We're wandering a little far afield. I was going to explain the war to you."
"Yes, if you would." Hearn's sharp voice, slightly unpleasant, was exhibiting the least bit of irritation.
"I like to call it a process of historical energy. There are countries which have latent powers, latent resources, they are full of potential energy, so to speak. And there are great concepts which can unlock that, express it. As kinetic energy a country is organization, co-ordinated effort, your epithet, fascism." He moved his chair slightly. "Historically the purpose of this war is to translate America's potential into kinetic energy. The concept of fascism, far sounder than communism if you consider it, for it's grounded firmly in men's actual natures, merely started in the wrong country, in a country which did not have enough intrinsic potential power to develop completely. In Germany with that basic frustration of limited physical means there were bound to be excesses. But the dream, the concept was sound enough." Cummings wiped his mouth. "As you put it,