U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [221]
Ed Schuyler, who knew French on account of having
been to boarding school in Switzerland, shook his head as he was cleaning his teeth at the washstand and spluttered out through his toothbrush, "C'est la guerre.""Wel , the first five years 'l be the hardest," said Dick, laughing. Fred Summers was an automobile mechanic from Kansas. He was sitting up in bed in his wool y underwear. "Fel--97-lers," he said, solemnly looking from one to the other,
"This ain't a war. . . . It's a goddam whorehouse." In the morning they were up early and hurried through their coffee and rol s and rushed out hot and cold with excitement to the rue François Premier to report. They were told where to get their uniforms and cautioned to keep away from wine and women and told to come back in the afternoon. In the afternoon they were told to come back next morning for their identity cards. The identity cards took another day's waiting around. In between they drove around the Bois in horsecabs, went to see Nôtre Dame and the Conciérgerie and the Sainte Chapel e and out on the street car to Malmaison. Dick was furbishing up his prepschool French and would sit in the mild sun-light among theshabby white statues in the Tuileries Gar-dens reading Les Dieux Ont Soif and L'Ile des Pinguins. He and Ed Schuyler and Fred stuck together and after dining exceeding wel every night for fear it might be their last chance at a Paris meal, took a turn around the boule-vards in the crowded horizonblue dusk; they'd gotten to the point of talking to the girls now and kidding them along a little. Fred Summers had bought himself a prophy-lactic kit and a set of smutty postalcards. He said the last night before they left he was going to tear loose. When they got to the front he might get kil ed and then what?
Dick said he liked talking to the girls but that the whole business was too commercial and turned his stomach. Ed Schuyler, who'd been nicknamed* Frenchie and was getting very continental in his ways, said that the street girls were too naïve. The last night before they left was bright moonlight, so the Gothas came over. They were eating in a little res-taurant in Montmartre. The cashlady and the waiter made them al go down into the cel ar when the sirens started wailing for the second time. There they met up with three youngish women named Suzette, Minette and Annette.
-98-When the little honking fireengine went by to announce that the raid was over it was already closing time and they couldn't get any more drinks at the bar; so the girls took them to a closely shuttered house where they were ushered into a big room with livercolored wal paper that had green roses on it. An old man in a green baize apron brought up champagne and the girls began to sit on knees and ruffle up hair. Summers got the prettiest girl and hauled her right into the alcove where the bed was with a big mirror above the whole length of it. Then he pul ed the curtain. Dick found himself stuck with the fattest and oldest one and got disgusted. Her flesh felt like rubber. He gave her ten francs and left.
Hurrying down the black sloping street outside he ran into some Australian officers who gave him a drink of whiskey out of a bottle and took him into another house where they tried to get a show put on, but the madam said the girls were al busy and the Australians were too drunk to pay attention anyway and started to wreck the place. Dick just managed to slip out before the gendarmes came. He was walking in the general direction of the hotel when there was another alerte and he found himself being yanked down into a subway by a lot of Belgians. There was a girl down there who was very pretty and Dick