There were many new recruits, and the dormitories were full. In the
Virgins’ Room, Monique, our chemistry student, finished reading a
passionately exciting chapter on enzymes, without hearing what was going
on around her. Ursula took a last look, to be sure that her bed was
properly made, and went down to her place at the little table in the
hallway. She opened the registry to write down our names as we left the
barracks.
Claude was not at the switchboard that day, as it was her day of leave,
and Ursula was glad of it. Claude had become increasingly irritable of
late, seeing nothing but enemies all about her, and it had become quite
exhausting to listen to the endless repetitions of her quarrels.
Little by little the house emptied itself. Women came to scrub the hall;
they were newcomers, passing their first weeks in taking care of the
barracks. A corporal went by, and managed to find an excuse for making
them redo the hall, which she considered badly scrubbed. One of the new
recruits objected, and the corporal pierced her with a black look and a
few well-chosen words.
Ursula recalled her first days in Down Street, three years ago, when she
had been so proud of this uniform and had felt that she was surely going
to help save France.
Did she still think so? At bottom, yes. She had not yet lost all of her
illusions. She realized that most of us no longer believed we were being
useful to our country by living in Down Street. And yet we all still
believed that after the war everything would change, that the golden age
would begin, and that there would be love between nations. The traitors
would be punished, the collaborators would receive their due, the United
Nations would be created, there would be a world government. New
leaders, utterly pure, would emerge from the resistance—that at least
was certain. Just as certain as the abundance of oranges and bananas and
eggs and milk that one would find again. Ursula closed her eyes and
deliciously recalled the distant taste of an orange. A beautiful orange,
juicy, perfumed, and sweet.
She was sitting like that with her eyes closed when she heard herself
called. “Good morning, Ursula.” She opened her eyes.
Just as on that first occasion three years ago, Michel was standing in
front of her, with his slightly astonished look, his round face, his
full mouth.
“Michel!” cried Ursula joyfully, and she jumped up, reaching her hand to
him. An immense happiness flooded her. Michel had returned. Michel was
found again.
Michel remembered everyone’s name; he asked for news of Mickey, of
Claude, of Jacqueline. As for him, he had been in Scotland all this
time; now he was stationed in London again, and the Army was giving him
free time to attend courses at the university. He was a corporal, he
informed her, showing his stripes laughingly.
“Can you come to dinner with me tonight?” Michel asked.
It seemed to Ursula that everything had become the same as before. Once
again she would ask for an eleven-thirty pass, she would go to dine in a
little restaurant in Soho with Michel, and he would talk very little.
She still knew little about him; but there was one difference—Michel had
been so often in her thoughts that he now seemed close to her, and it
was almost as though she were recovering a part of her childhood.
* * * * *
Evening came. Ursula found herself facing Michel over a little
oilcloth-covered table. Michel spoke more freely than he had before.
Suddenly Ursula too had a great deal to say. And it seemed to her now
that Michel’s replies were real replies. She asked him whether he
believed in God. Michel hesitated for a second, and then said yes. He
didn’t make any imposing speeches, he had the same soft voice, and his
eyes were as calm and sad as ever under their look of astonishment, but
it became clear that he was interested in a great number of matters
about which Ursula had never before thought him concerned.
Michel too believed in the reconstruction of the world after the war and
in the United Nations, and when it was Michel who spoke of these things
all doubt seemed truly impossible.
Ursula asked him where his parents lived now, and Michel said, “In
Palestine.” After the war, he said, he would join them there.
Ursula listened with passionate interest as Michel spoke of life in
Palestine. It was something new and strange, for she had always believed
that Jews were all either shopkeepers or intellectuals, and now it
seemed that in Palestine most of them were farmers living a communal
life. After the war, Michel said, there would be a new Jewish state in
Palestine.
When Ursula told me about all this, there was one thing that appeared to
have touched her most. Michel spoke to her as an adult, she said, as a
person with whom one could discuss anything at all, and Ursula felt
proud that so intelligent a young man should consider her worthy of
listening to all his ideas and projects. She was happy that Michel
didn’t resent her because of that other time when she had run away, and
she was glad that he didn’t speak of it.
He took her home to Down Street and said good night, lifting his black
eyes toward her, profound and filled with gentleness.
Suddenly Ursula recalled her early days in Down Street, her disgust at
all the vulgarity in the house, and she recalled her life during these
last three years, with all its sordid aspects. There was the fireside
scene with Claude and Mickey, and her experience with Philippe, and her
fear of not being normal, and there were the gray days under the demonic
smile of the Ambassador of Peru. She remembered one night when she had
come home and plunged her face in the washbasin, trying to wash
everything from it as though she could wash away all her shame of being
human, while so undeserving of humanity.
This evening, for no reason at all, it seemed to her that all that had
been effaced.