B401 Glory Road Sec1

I know a place where there is no smog and no parking problem and no population explosion . . . no Cold War and no H-bombs and no television commercials . . . no Summit Conferences, no Foreign Aid, no hidden taxes–no income tax. The climate is the sort that Florida and California claim (and neither
has), the land is lovely, the people are friendly and hospitable to strangers, the women are beautiful and amazingly anxious to please-

I could go back. I could-

It was an election year with the customary theme of anything you can do I can do better, to a background of beeping sputniks. I was twenty-one but couldn’t figure out which party to vote against.

Instead I phoned my draft board and told them to send me that notice.

I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it’s not his choice. Nevertheless I love my country. Yes, I do, despite propaganda all through school about how patriotism is obsolete. One of my great-grandfathers died at Gettysburg and my father made that long
walk back from Chosen Reservoir, so I didn’t buy this new idea. I argued against it in class–until it got me a “D,” in Social Studies, then I shut up and passed the course.

But I didn’t change my opinions to match those of a teacher who didn’t know Little Round Top from Seminary Ridge.

Are you of my generation? If not, do you know why we turned out so wrong-headed? Or did you just write us off as “juvenile delinquents?”

I could write a book. Brother! But I’ll note one key fact: After you’ve spent years and years trying to knock the patriotism out of a boy, don’t expect him to cheer when he gets a notice reading:

Talk about a “Lost Generation!” I’ve read that post-World-War-One jazz–Fitzgerald and Hemingway and so on–and it strikes me that all they had to worry about was wood alcohol in bootleg liquor. They had the world by the tail–so why were they crying?

Sure, they had Hitler and the Depression ahead of them. But they didn’t know that. We had Khrushchev and the H-bomb and we certainly did know.

But we were not a “Lost Generation.” We were worse; we were the “Safe Generation.” Not beatniks. The Beats were never more than a few hundred out of millions. Oh, we talked beatnik jive and dug cool sounds in stereo and disagreed with Playboy’s poll of jazz musicians just as earnestly as if it mattered. We
read Salinger and Kerouac and used language that shocked our parents and dressed (sometimes) in beatnik fashion. But we didn’t think that bongo drums and a beard compared with money in the bank. We weren’t rebels. We were as conformist as army worms. “Security” was our unspoken watchword.

Most of our watchwords were unspoken but we followed them as compulsively as a baby duck takes to water. “Don’t fight City Hall.” “Get it while the getting is good.” “Don’t get caught.” High goals, these, great moral values, and they all mean “Security.” “Going steady” (my generation’s contribution to the American Dream) was based on security; it insured that Saturday night could never be the loneliest night for the weak. If you went steady, competition was eliminated.

But we had ambitions. Yes, sir! Stall off your draft board and get through college. Get married and get her pregnant, with both families helping you to stay on as a draft-immune student. Line up a job well thought of by draft boards, say with some missile firm. Better yet, take postgraduate work if your folks (or hers) could afford it and have another kid and get safely beyond the draft–besides, a doctor’s degree was a union card, for promotion and pay and retirement.

Short of a pregnant wife with well-to-do parents the greatest security lay in being 4-F. Punctured eardrums were good but an allergy was best. One of my neighbors had a terrible asthma that lasted till his twenty-sixth birthday. No fake–he was allergic to draft boards. Another escape was to convince an army psychiatrist that your interests were more suited to the State Department than to the Army. More than half of my generation were “unfit for military service.”

I don’t find this surprising. There is an old picture of a people traveling by sleigh through deep woods–pursued by wolves. Every now and then they grab one of their number and toss him to the wolves. That’s conscription even if you call it “selective service” and pretty it up with USOs and “veterans’ benefits”–it’s tossing a minority to the wolves while the rest go on with that single-minded pursuit of the three-car garage, the swimming pool, and the safe & secure retirement benefits.

I am not being holier-than-thou; I was after that same three-car garage myself.

However, my folks could not put me through college. My stepfather was an Air Force warrant officer with all he could handle to buy shoes for his own lads. When he was transferred to Germany just before my high school senior year and I was invited to move in with my father’s sister and her husband, both of
us were relieved.

I was no better off financially as my uncle-in-law was supporting a first wife–under California law much like being an Alabama field hand before the Civil War. But I had $35 a month as a “surviving dependent of a deceased veteran.” (Not “war orphan,” which is another deal that pays more.) My mother
was certain that Dad’s death had resulted from wounds but the Veterans Administration thought differently, so I was just a “surviving dependent.”

$35 a month did not fill the hole I put in their groceries and it was understood that when I graduated I would root for myself. By doing my military time, no doubt–But I had my own plan; I played football and finished senior year season with the California Central Valley secondary school record for yards gained and a broken nose–and started in at the local State College the next fall with a job “sweeping the gym” at $10 more a month than that pension, plus fees.

I couldn’t see the end out my plan was clear: Hang on, teeth and toenails, and get an engineering degree. Avoid the draft and marriage. On graduation get a deferred-status job. Save money and pick up a law degree, too–because, back in Homestead, Florida, a teacher had pointed out that, while engineers made money, the big money and boss jobs went to lawyers. So I was going to beat the game, yes, sir! Be a Horatio Alger hero. I would have headed straight for that law degree but for the fact that the college did not offer law.

At the end of the season my sophomore year they deemphasized football.

We had had a perfect season–no wins. “Flash” Gordon (that’s me–in the sports write-ups) stood one in yardage and points; nevertheless Coach and I were out of jobs. Oh, I “swept the gym” the rest of that year on basketball, fencing, and track, but the alumnus who picked up the tab wasn’t interested in a basketball player who was only six feet one. I spent that summer pushing an idiot stick and trying to line up a deal elsewhere. I turned twenty-one that summer, which chopped that $35/month, too. Shortly after Labor Day I fell back on a previously prepared position, i.e., I made that phone call to my draft board.

I had in mind a year in the Air Force, then win a competitive appointment to the Air Force Academy–be an astronaut and famous, instead of rich.

Well, we can’t all be astronauts. The Air Force had its quota or something. I was in the Army so fast I hardly had time to pack.

So I set out to be the best chaplain’s clerk in the Army; I made sure that “typing” was listed as one of my skills. If I had anything to say about it, I was going to do my time at Fort Carson, typing neat copies while going to night school on the side.

I didn’t have anything to say about it. Ever been in Southeast Asia? It makes Florida look like a desert. Wherever you step it squishes. Instead of tractors they use water buffaloes. The bushes are filled with insects and natives who shoot at you. It wasn’t a war–not even a “Police Action.” We were “Military Advisers.” But a Military Adviser who has been dead four days in that heat smells the same way
a corpse does in a real war.

I was promoted to corporal. I was promoted seven times. To corporal.

I didn’t have the right attitude. So my company commander said. My daddy had been a Marine and my stepfather was Air Force; my only Army ambition had been to be a chaplain’s clerk Stateside. I didn’t like the Army. My company commander didn’t like the Army either; he was a first lieutenant who hadn’t
made captain and every time he got to brooding Corporal Gordon lost his stripes.

I lost them the last time for telling him that I was writing to my Congressman to find out why I was the only man in Southeast Asia who was going to be retired for old age instead of going home when his time was up–and that made him so mad he not only busted me but went out and was a hero, and then he was dead. And that’s how I got this scar across my broken nose because I was a hero, too, and should have received the Medal of Honor, only nobody was looking.

While I was recovering, they decided to send me home.

Major Ian Hay, back in the “War to End War,” described the structure of military organizations: Regardless of T.O., all military bureaucracies consist of a Surprise Party Department, a Practical Joke Department, and a Fairy Godmother Department. The first two process most matters as the third is very small; the Fairy Godmother Department is one elderly female GS-5 clerk usually out on sick leave.

But when she is at her desk, she sometimes puts down her knitting and picks a name passing across her desk and does something nice. You have seen how I was whipsawed by the Surprise Party and Practical Joke Departments; this time the Fairy Godmother Department picked Pfc. Gordon.

Like this–When I knew that I was going home as soon as my face healed (little brown brother hadn’t sterilized his bolo), I put in a request to be discharged in Wiesbaden, where my family was, rather than California, home of record. I am not criticizing little brown brother; he hadn’t intended me to heal at all–and he would have managed it if he hadn’t been killing my company commander and too hurried to do a good job on me. I hadn’t sterilized my bayonet but he didn’t complain, he just sighed and came apart, like a doll with its sawdust cut. I felt grateful to him; he not only had rigged the dice so that I got out of the Army, he also gave me a great idea.

He and the Ward surgeon–The Surgeon had said, “You’re going to get well, son. But you’ll be scarred like a Heidelberg student.”

Which got me thinking–You couldn’t get a decent job without a degree, any more than you could be a plasterer without being a son or nephew of somebody in the plasterers’ union. But there are degrees and degrees. Sir Isaac Newton, with a degree from a cow college such as mine, would wash bottles for Joe Thumbfingers–if Joe had a degree from a European university.

Why not Heidelberg? I intended to milk my G.I. benefits; I had that in mind when I put in that too hasty call to my draft board.

According to my mother everything was cheaper in Germany. Maybe I could stretch those benefits

into a doctor’s degree. Herr Doktor Gordon, mit scars on der face from Heidelberg yet!–that would rate an extra $3,000 a year from any missile firm.

Hell, I would fight a couple of student duels and add real Heidelberg scars to back up the dandy I had. Fencing was a sport I really enjoyed (though the one that counted least toward “sweeping the gym”). Some people cannot stand knives, swords, bayonets, anything sharp; psychiatrists have a word for it:
aichmophobia. Idiots who drive cars a hundred miles an hour on fifty-mile-an-hour roads will nevertheless panic at the sight of a bare blade.

I’ve never been bothered that way and that’s why I’m alive and one reason why I kept being bucked back to corporal. A “Military Adviser” can’t afford to be afraid of knives, bayonets, and such; he must cope with them. I’ve never been afraid of them because I’m always sure I can do unto another what he is planning to do unto me.

I’ve always been right, except that time I made the mistake of being a hero, and that wasn’t too bad a mistake. If I had tried to bug out instead of staying to disembowel him, he would have chopped my spine in two. As it was, he never got a proper swing at me; his jungle cutter just slashed my face as he came
apart–leaving me with a nasty wound that was infected long before the helicopters came. But I never felt it. Presently I got dizzy and sat down in the mud and when I woke up, a medic was giving me plasma.

I rather looked forward to trying a Heidelberg duel. They pad your body and arm and neck and put a steel guard on your eyes and nose and across your ears–this is not like encountering a pragmatic Marxist in the jungle. I once handled one of those swords they use in Heidelberg; it was a light, straight saber, sharp on the edge, sharp a few inches on the back–but a blunt point! A toy, suited only to make pretty scars for girls to admire.

I got a map and whaddayuh know!–Heidelberg is just down the road from Wiesbaden. So I requested my discharge in Wiesbaden.

The ward surgeon said, “You’re an optimist, son,” but initialed it. The medical sergeant in charge of paperwork said, “Out of the question, Soldier.” I won’t say money changed hands but the endorsement the hospital’s C.O. signed read FORWARDED. The ward agreed that I was bucking for a psycho; Uncle Sugar does not give free trips around the world to Pfcs.

I was already so far around that I was as close to Hoboken as to San Francisco–and closer to Wiesbaden. However, policy called for shipping returnees back via the Pacific. Military policy is like cancer: Nobody knows where it comes from but it can’t be ignored.

The Fairy Godmother Department woke up and touched me with its wand.

I was about to climb aboard a bucket called the General Jones bound for Manila, Taipei, Yokohama, Pearl, and Seattle when a dispatch came granting my USAREUR, Heidelberg, Germany, by available military transportation, for discharge, at own request see reference foxtrot. Accumulated leave could be
taken or paid, see reference bravo. Subject man was authorized to return to Zone Interior (the States) any time within twelve months of separation, via available military transportation at no further expense to the government. Unquote.

The paper-work sergeant called me in and showed me this, his face glowing with innocent glee. “Only there ain’t no ‘available transportation,’ Soldier–so haul ass aboard the General Jones. You’re going to Seattle, like I said.”

I knew what he meant: The only transport going west in a long, long time had sailed for Singapore thirty-six hours earlier. I stared at that dispatch, thinking about boiling oil and wondering if he had held it back just long enough to keep me from sailing under it.

I shook my head. “I’m going to catch the General Smith in Singapore. Be a real human type, Sarge, and cut me a set of orders for it.”

“Your orders are cut. For the Jones. For Seattle.”

“Gosh,” I said thoughtfully. “I guess I had better go cry on the chaplain.” I faded out fast but I didn’t see the chaplain; I went to the airfield. It took five minutes to find that no commercial nor U.S. military flight was headed for Singapore in time to do me any good.

But there was an Australian military transport headed for Singapore that night. Aussies weren’t even “military advisers” out often were around, as “military observers.” I found the planes skipper, a flight leftenant, and put the situation to him. He grinned and said, “Always room for one more bloke. Wheels up shortly after tea, likely. If the old girl will fly.”

I knew it would fly; it was a Gooney Bird, a C-47, mostly patches and God knows how many millions of miles. It would get to Singapore on one engine if asked. I knew my luck was in as soon as I saw that grand old collection of masking tape and glue sitting on the field.

Four hours later I was in her and wheels up.

I checked in aboard USMTS General Smith the next morning, rather wet–the Pride of Tasmania had flown through storms the night before and a Gooney Birds one weakness is that they leak. But who minds clean rain after jungle mud? The ship was sailing that evening which was grand news.

Singapore is like Hong Kong only flat; one afternoon was enough. I had a drink in the old Raffles, another in the Adelphi, got rained on in the Great World amusement peak walked through Change Alley with a hand on my money and the other on my orders–and bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket.

I don’t gamble, if you will concede that poker is a game of skill. However this was a tribute to the goddess of fortune, thanks for a long run of luck. If she chose to answer with $140,000 US, I wouldn’t throw it in her face. If she didn’t . . . well, the tickets face value was one pound, $2.80 US; I paid $9.00 Singapore, or $3.00 US–a small gesture from a man who had just won a free trip around the world–not
to mention coming out of the jungle still breathing.

But I got my three dollars’ worth at once, as I fled out of Change Alley to avoid two dozen other walking banks anxious to sell me more tickets, Singapore dollars, any sort of money–or my hat if I let go of it–reached the street, hailed a cab, and told the driver to take me to the boat landing. This was a victory of spirit over flesh because I had been debating whether to snatch the chance to ease enormous biological back pressure. Good old Scarface Gordon had been an Eagle Scout awfully long and Singapore is one of the Seven Sinful Cities where anything may be had.

I am not implying that I had remained faithful to the Girl Next Door. The young lady back home who had taught me most about the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, with an amazing send-off the night before I was inducted, had “Dear-Johnned” me in basic training; I felt gratitude but no loyalty. She got married
soon after, now has two children, neither of them mine.

The real cause of my biological unease was geographical. Those little brown brothers I had been fitting, with and against, all had little brown sisters, many of whom could be had for a price, or even pour l’amour ou pour le sport.

But that had been all the local talent for a long time. Nurses? Nurses are officers–and the rare USO entertainer who got that far from Stateside was even more thoroughly blocked off than were nurses.

I did not object to little brown sisters because they were brown. I was as brown as they were, in my face, except for a long pink scar. I drew the line because they were little.

I was a hundred and ninety pounds of muscle and no fat, and I could never convince myself that a female four feet ten inches tall and weighing less than ninety pounds and looking twelve years old is in fact a freely consenting adult. To me it felt like a grim sort of statutory rape and produced psychic impotence.

Singapore looked like the place to find a big girl. But when I escaped from Change Alley, I suddenly didn’t like people, big or little, male or female, and headed for the ship–and probably saved myself from pox, Cupid’s catarrh, soft chancre, Chinese rot, saltwater itch, and athletes foot–the wisest decision I
had made since, at fourteen, I had declined to wrestle a medium-sized alligator.

I told the driver in English what landing I wanted, repeated it in memorized Cantonese (not too well; its a nine-toned language, and French and German are all I had in school), and showed him a map with the landing marked and its name printed in English and drawn in Chinese.

Everybody who left the ship was given one of these maps. In Asia every cab driver speaks enough English to take you to the Red Light district and to shops where you buy “bargains.” But be is never able to find your dock or boat landing.

My cabbie listened, glanced at the map, and said, “Okay, Mac. I dig it,” and took off and rounded a corner with tires squealing while shouting at peddle cabs, coolies, children, dogs. I relaxed, happy at having found this cabbie among thousands.

Suddenly I sat up and shouted for him to stop.

I must explain something; I can’t get lost.

Call it a “psi” talent, like that study they study at Duke. Mother used to say that sonny had a “bump of direction.” Call it what you will, I was six or seven before I realized that other people could get lost. I always know which way is north, the direction of the point where I started and how far away it is. I can
head straight back or retrace my steps, even in dark and jungle. This was the main reason why I was always promoted back to corporal and usually shoved into a sergeant’s job. Patrols I headed always came back–the survivors, I mean. This was comforting to city boys who didn’t want to be in that jungle anyhow.

I had shouted because the driver had swung right when he should have swung left and was about to cut back across his own trade

He speeded up.

I yelled again. He no longer dug English.

It was another mile and several tunas later when he had to stop because of a traffic jam. I got out and he jumped out and started screaming in Cantonese and pointing at the meter in his cab. We were surrounded by Chinese adding to the din and smaller ones plucking at my clothes. I kept my hand on my
money and was happy indeed to spot a cop. I yelled and caught his eye.

He came through the crowd brandishing a long staff. He was a Hindu; I said to him, “Do you speak English?”

“Certainly. And I understand American.” I explained my trouble, showed him the map, and said that the driver had picked me up at Chaise Alley and been driving in aides.

The cop nodded and talked with the driver in a third language–Malayan, I suppose. At last the cop said, “He doesn’t understand English. He thought you said to drive to Johore.”

The bridge to Johore is as far as you can get from the anchorage and still be on the Island of Singapore. I said angrily, “The hell he doesn’t understand English!”

The cap shrugged. “You hired him, you must pay what is on the taximeter. Then I will explain to him where you wish to go and arrange a fixed fee.”

“I’ll see him in hell first!”

“That is possible. The distance is quite short–in this neighborhood. I suggest that you pay. The waiting time is mounting up.”

There comes a time when a man must stand up for his rights, or he can’t bear to look at himself in a mirror to shave. I had already shaved, so I paid–$18.50 Sing., for wasting an hour and ending up farther from the landing. The driver wanted a tip but the cop shut him up and then let me walk with him.

Using both hands I hung onto my orders and money, and the Sweepstakes ticket folded in with the money. But my pen disappeared and cigarettes and handkerchief and a Ronson lighter. When I felt ghost fingers at the strap of my watch, I agreed to the cops suggestion that he had a cousin, an honest man,
who would drive me to my landing for a fixed–and moderate–fee.

The “cousin” turned out to be just coming down the street; half an hour later I was aboard ship. I shall never forget Singapore, a most educational city.

Two months later on the French Riviera. The Fairy Godmother Department watched over me across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, and clear to Napoli. I lived a healthy life, exercising and getting tan every morning, sleeping afternoons, playing poker at night. There are many people who do not. Know
the odds (poor, but computable) for improving a poker hand in the draw, but are anxious to learn. When we got to Italy I had a beautiful tan and a sizable nest egg.

Early in the voyage someone went broke and wanted to put a Sweepstakes ticket into the game. After some argument Sweepstakes tickets were made valuta at a discount, $2.00 USA per ticket. I finished the trip with fifty-three tickets.

Hitching a flight from Napoli to Frankfurt took only hours. Then the Fairy Godmother Department handed me back to the Surprise Party and Practical Joke Departments.

Before going to Heidelberg I ducked over to Wiesbaden to see my mother, my stepfather and the kids–and found that they had just left for the States, on their way to Elmendorf AFB in Alaska.

So I went to Heidelberg to be processed, and looked the town over while the led tape unwound.

Lovely town–Handsome castle, good beer, and big girls with rosy cheeks and shapes like Coca-Cola bottles–Yes, this looked like a nice place to get a degree. I started inquiring into rooms and such, and met a young kraut wearing a studenten cap and some face scars as ugly as mine–things were looking up.

I discussed my plans with the first sergeant of the transient company.

He shook his head. “Oh, you poor boy!”

Why? No G.I. benefits for Gordon–I wasn’t a veteran.

Never mind that scar. Never mind that I had killed more men in combat than you could crowd into a–well, never mind. That thing was not a “war” and Congress had not passed a bill providing educational benefits for us “Military Advisers.”

I suppose this was my own fault. All my life there had been “G.I. benefits”–why, I had shared a bench in chem lab with a veteran who was going to school on the G.I. Bill.

This fatherly sergeant said, “Don’t take it hard, son. Go home, get a job, wait a year. They’ll pass it and date it bade, almost certainly. You’re young.”

So here I was on the Riviera, a civilian, enjoying a taste of Europe before using that transportation home. Heidelberg was out of the question. Oh, the pay I hadn’t been able to spend in the jungle, plus accumulated leave, plus my winnings at poker, added up to a sum which would have kept me a year in
Heidelberg. But it would never stretch enough for a degree. I had been counting on that mythical “G.I. Bill” for eating money and on my cash as a cushion.

My (revised) plan was obvious. Grab that top home before my year was up–grab it before school opened. Use the cash I had to pay board to Aunt and Uncle, work next summer and see what turned up. With the draft no longer hanging over me I could find some way to sweat out that last year even if I couldn’t be “Heir Doktor Gordon.”

However, school didn’t open until fall and here it was spring. I was damn well going to see a little of Europe before I applied nose to grindstone; another such chance might never come.

There was another reason for waiting; those Sweepstakes tickets. The drawing for horses was coming up.

The Irish Sweepstakes starts as a lottery. First they sell enough tickets to paper Grand Central Station. The Irish hospitals get 25 percent and are the only sure winners. Shortly before the race they draw for horses. Let’s say twenty horses are entered. If your ticket fails to draw a horse, its wastepaper. (Oh, there are minor consolation prizes.)

But if you do draw a horse, you still haven’t won. Some horses won’t start. Of those that do, most of them chase the other horses. However, any ticket that draws any horse at all, even a goat that can barely walk to the paddock, that ticket suddenly acquires a value of thousands of dollars between the drawing
and the race. Just how much depends on how good the horse is. But prizes are high and the worst horse in the field has been known to win.

I had fifty-three tickets. If one of them drew a horse, I could sell that ticket for enough to put me through Heidelberg.

So I stayed and waited for the drawings.

Europe needn’t be expensive. A youth hostel is luxury to a man who has come out of the boondocks of Southeast Asia and even the French Riviera isn’t expensive if you approach it from underneath. I didn’t stay on La Promenade des Anglais; I had a tiny room four floors up and two kilometers back, and the shared use of some plumbing. There are wonderful night clubs in, Nice but you need not patronize them as the floor show at the beaches is as good . . . and free. I never appreciated what a high art the fan dance can be until the first time I watched a French girl get out of her clothes and into her bikini in plain sight of citizens, tourists, gendarmes, dogs–and me–all without quite violating the lenient French mores concerning “indecent exposure.” Or only momentarily.

Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money.

The beaches are terrible. Rocks. But rocks are better than jungle mud and I put on trunks and enjoyed the floor show and added to my tan. It was spring, before the tourist season and not crowded, but it was warm and summery and dry. I lay in the sun and was happy and my only luxury was a deposit box with
American Egress and the Paris edition of the N.Y. Herald Tribune and The Star’s & Stripes. These I would glance over to see how the Powers-that-be were mismanaging the world, then look for what was new in the unWar I had just been let out of (usually no mention, although we had been told that we were
“saving civilization”), then get down to important matters, i.e., news of the Irish Sweepstakes, plus the possibility that The Stars & Stripes might announce that it had all been a hideous dream and I was entitled to educational benefits after all.

Then came crossword puzzles and “Personal” ads. I always read “Personals”; they are a naked look into private lives. Things like: ‘M.L. phone R.S. before noon. Money.’ Makes you wonder who did what to whom, and who got paid?

Presently I found a still cheaper way to live with an even better floor show. Have you heard of l’Il du Levant? It is an island off the Riviera between Marseilles and Nice, and is much like Catalina. It has a village at one end and the French Navy has blocked off the other for guided missiles; the rest of it is hills and beaches and grottoes. There are no automobiles, nor even bicycles. The people who go there don’t want to be reminded of the outside world.

For ten dollars a day you can enjoy luxury equal to forty dollars a day in Nice. Or you can pay five cents a dry for camping and live on a dollar a day–which I did–and there are good cheap restaurants anytime you get tired of cooking.

It is a place that seems to have no rules of any sort. Wait a minute; there is one. Outside the village, Heliopolis, is a sign: LE NU INTEGRAL EST FORMELLEMENT INTERDIT. (“Complete nakedness is strictly forbidden.”)

This means that everyone, man or woman, must put on a little triangle of cloth, a cache-sexe, a G-string, before going inside the village.

Elsewhere, on beaches and in camping grounds and around the island, you don’t have to wear a damned thing and nobody does.

Save for the absence of automobiles and clothes, the Isle of the Levant is like any other bit of back-country France. There is a shortage of fresh water, but the French don’t drink water and you bathe in the Mediterranean and for a franc you can buy enough fresh water for half a dozen sponge baths to rinse cm the salt. Take the train from Nice or Marseilles, get off at Toulon and take a bus to Lavandou, then by boat (an hour and a few minutes) to l’Ile du Levant–then chuck away your cares with your clothes.

I found I could buy the Herald-Trib, a day old, in the village, at the same place (“Au Minimum,” Mme. Alexandre) where I rented a tent and camping gear. I bought groceries at La Brise Marine and camped above La Plage des Grottes, close to the village, and settled down and let my nerves relax while I enjoyed the floor show.

Some people disparage the female form divine. Sex is too good for them; they should have been oysters. All gals are good to look at (including little brown sisters even though they scared me); the only difference is that some look better than others. Some were fat and some were skinny and some were old
and some were young. Some looked as if they had stepped straight out of Les Folies Bergeres. I got acquainted with one of those and I wasn’t far off; she was a Swedish girl who was a “nue” in another Paris revue. She practiced English on me and I practiced French on her, and she promised to cook me a Swedish dinner if I was ever in Stockholm and I cooked her a dinner over an alcohol lamp and we got giggly on vin ordinaire, and she wanted to know how I had acquired my scar and I told some lies. Marjatta was good for an old soldiers nerves and I was sad when she had to leave.

But the floor show went on. Three days later I was sitting on Grotto Beach, leaning against a rock and working the crossword puzzle, when suddenly I got cross-eyed trying not to stare at the most stare-able woman I have ever seen in my life.

Woman, girl–I couldn’t be sure. At first glance I thought she was eighteen, maybe twenty; later when I was able to look her square in her face she still looked eighteen but could have been forty. Or a hundred and forty. She had the agelessness of perfect beauty. Like Helen or Troy, or Cleopatra. It seemed
possible that she was Helen of Troy but I knew she wasn’t Cleopatra because she was not a redhead; she was a natural blonde. She was a tawny toast color allover without a hint of bikini marks and her hair was the same shade two tones litter. It flowed, unconfined, in graceful waves down her back and seemed never to have been cut.

She was tall, not much shorter than I am, and not too much litter in weight. Not fat, not fat at all save for that graceful padding that smoothes the feminine form, shading the muscles underneath–I was sure there were muscles underneath; she carried herself with the relaxed power of a lioness.

Her shoulders were broad for a woman, as broad as her very female hips; her waist might have seemed thick on a lesser woman, on her it was deliciously slender. Her belly did not sag at all but carried the lovely double-domed curve of perfect muscle tone. Her breasts–only her big rib cage could carry such
large ones without appearing too much of a good thing, they jutted firmly out and moved only a trifle when she moved, and they were crowned with rosy brown confections that were frankly nipples, womanly and not virginal.

Her navel was that jewel the Persian poets praised.

Her legs were long for her height; her hands and feet were not small but were slender, graceful. She was graceful in all ways; it was impossible to think of her in a pose ungraceful. Yet she was so lithe and limber that, like a cat, she could have twisted herself into any position.

Her face–How do you describe perfect beauty except to say that when you see it you can’t mistake it? Her lips were full and her mouth rather wide. It was faintly curved in the ghost of a smile even when her features were at rest. Her lips were red but if she was wearing makeup of any sort it had been applied so skillfully that I could not detect it–and that alone would have made her stand out, for that was a year all other females were wearing “Continental” makeup, as artificial as a corset and as bold as a doxy’s smile.

Her nose was straight and large enough for her face, no button. Her eyes-

She caught me staring at her. Certainly women expect to be locked at and expect it unclothed quite as much as when dressed for the ball. But it is rude to stare openly. I had given up the fight in the first ten seconds and was trying to memorize her, every line, every curve.

Her eyes locked with mine and she stared back and I began to blush but couldn’t look away. Her eyes were so deep a blue that they were dark, darker than my own brown eyes.

I said huskily, “Pardonnez-moi, ma’m’selle,” and managed to tear my eyes away.

She answered, in English, “Oh, I don’t mind. Look all you please,” and looked me up and down as carefully as I had inspected her. Her voice was a warm, fall contralto, surprisingly deep in its lowest register.

She took two steps toward me and almost stood over me. I started to get up and she motioned me to stay seated, with a gesture mat assumed obedience as if she were very used to giving orders. “Rest where you are,” she said. The breeze carried her fragrance to me and I got goose flesh all over. “You are American.”

“Yes.” I was certain she was not, yet I was equally certain she was not French. Not only did she have no trace of French accent but also–well, French women are at least slightly provocative at all times; they can’t help it, it’s ingrained in the French culture. There was nothing provocative about this woman–except that she was an incitement to riot just by existing.

But, without being provocative, she had that rare gift for immediate intimacy; she spoke to me as a very old friend might speak, friends who knew each other’s smallest foibles and were utterly easy tete-a-tete. She asked me questions about myself, some of them quite personal, and I answered all of them, honestly, and it never occurred to me that she had no right to quiz me. She never asked my name, nor I hers–nor any question of her.

At last she stopped and looked me over again, carefully and soberly. Then she said thoughtfully, “You are very beautiful,” and added, “Au ‘voir”–turned and walked down the beach into the water and swam away.

I was too stunned to move. Nobody had ever called me “handsome” even before I broke my nose. As for “beautiful!”

But I don’t think it would have done me any good to have chased her, even if I had thought of it in time. That gal could swim.

I stayed at the plager until sundown, waiting for her to come back. Then I made a hurried supper of bread and cheese and wine, got dressed in my G-string and walked into town. There I prowled bars and restaurants and did not find her, meanwhile window-peeping into cottages wherever shades were not drawn. When the bistros started shutting down, I gave up, went back to my tent, cursed myself for eight kinds of fool– (why couldn’t I have said, “What’s your name and where do you live and where are you staying here?”)–sacked in and went to sleep.

I was up at dawn and checked the plage, ate breakfast, checked the plage again, got “dressed” and went into the village, checked the shops and post office, and bought my Herald-Trib.

Then I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of my life: I had drawn a horse.

I wasn’t certain at first, as I did not have those fifty-three serial numbers memorized. I had to run back to my tent, dig out a memorandum and check–and I had! It was a number that had stuck in mind because of its pattern: #XDY 34555. I had a horse!

Which meant several thousand dollars, just how much I didn’t know. But enough to put me through Heidelberg . . . if I cashed in on it at once. The Herald-Trib was always a day late there, which meant the drawing had taken place at least two days earlier–and in the meantime that dog could break a leg or be scratched nine other ways. My ticket was important money only as long as “Lucky Star” was listed as a starter.

I had to get to Nice in a hurry and find out where and how you got the best price for a lucky ticket. Dig the ticket out of my deposit box and sell it!

But how about “Helen of Troy”?

Shylock with his soul-torn cry of “Oh, my daughter! Oh, my ducats!” was no more split than I.

I compromised. I wrote a painful note, identifying myself, telling her that I had been suddenly called away and pleading with her either to wait until I returned tomorrow, or at the very least, to leave a note telling me how to find her. I left it with the postmistress along with a description–blond, so tall, hair this long, magnificent poitrine–and twenty francs with a promise of twice that much if she delivered it and got an answer. The postmistress said that she had never seen her but if cette grande blonde ever set foot in the village the note would be delivered.

That left me just time to rush back, dress in off-island clothes, dump my gear with Mme. Alexandre, and catch the boat. Then I had three hours of travel time to worry through.

The trouble was that Lucky Star wasn’t really a dog. My horse rated no farther down than fifth or sixth, no matter who was figuring form. So? Stop while I was ahead and take my profit?

Or go for broke?

It wasn’t easy. Let’s suppose I could sell the ticket for $10,000. Even if I didn’t try any fancy footwork on taxes, I would still keep most of it and get through school.

But I was going to get through school anyway–and did I really want to go to Heidelberg? That student with the dueling scars had been a slob, with his phony pride in scars from fake danger.

Suppose I hung on and grabbed the big one, ￡50,000, or $140,000-

Do you know how much tax a bachelor pays on $140,000 in the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free?

$103,000, that’s what he pays. That leaves him $37,000.

Did I want to bet about $10,000 against the chance of winning $37,000–with the odds at least 15 to 1 against me?

Brother, that is drawing to an inside straight. The principle is the same whether it’s 37 grand, or jacks-or-better with a two-bit limit.

But suppose I wangled some way to beat the tax, thus betting $10,000 to win $140,000? That made the potential profit match the odds–and $140,000 was not just eating money for college but a fortune that could bring in four or five thousand a year forever.

I wouldn’t be “cheating” Uncle Sugar; the USA had no more moral claim on that money (if I won) than I had on the Holy Roman Empire. What had Uncle Sugar done for me? He had clobbered my father’s life with two wars, one of which we weren’t allowed to win–and thereby made it tough for me to get through college quite aside from what a father may be worth in spiritual intangibles to his son (I didn’t know, I never would know!)–then he had grabbed me out of college and had sent me to fight another unWar and damned near killed me and lost me my sweet girlish laughter.

So how is Uncle Sugar entitled to clip $103,000 and leave me the short end? So he can “lend” it to Poland? Or give it to Brazil? Oh, my back!

There was a way to keep it all (if I won) legal as marriage. Go live in little old tax-free Monaco for a year. Then take it anywhere.

New Zealand, maybe. The Herald-Trib had had the usual headlines, only more so. It looked as if the boys (just big playful boys!) who run this planet were about to hold that major war, the one with ICBMs and H-bombs, any time now.

If a man went as far south as New Zealand there might be something left after the fallout fell out.

New Zealand is supposed to be very pretty and they say that a fisherman there regards a five-pound trout as too small to take home.

I had caught a two-pound trout once.

About then I made a horrible discovery. I didn’t want to go back to school, win, lose, or draw. I no longer gave a damn about three-car garages and swimming pools, nor any other status symbol or “security.” There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be.

Somewhere back in the jungle I had shucked off all ambition of that sort. I had been shot at too many times and had lost interest in supermarkets and exurban subdivisions and tonight is the PTA supper don’t forget dear you promised.

Oh, I wasn’t about to hole up in a monastery. I still wanted-

What did I want?

I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break
some lances, Then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur–I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilling of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be–instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

I had had one chance–for ten minutes yesterday afternoon. Helen of Troy, whatever your true name may be–And I had known it . . . aha I had let it slip away.

Maybe one chance is all you ever get.

The train pulled into Nice.

In the American Express office I went to the banking department and to my deposit box, found the ticket and checked the number against the Herald-Trib–XDY 34555, yes! To stop my trembling, I checked the other tickets and they were wastepaper, just as I thought. I shoved them back into the DOX and asked to see the manager.

I had a money problem and American Express is a bank, not just a travel bureau. I was ushered into the manager’s office and we exchanged names. “I need advice,” I said. “You see, I hold one of the winning Sweepstakes tickets.”

He broke into a grin. “Congratulations! You’re the first person in a long time who has come in here with good news rather than a complaint.”

“Thanks. Uh, my problem is this. I know that a ticket that draws a horse is worth quite a bit up until the race. Depending on the horse, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “What horse did you draw?”

“A fairly good one. Lucky Star–and that’s what makes it tough. If I had drawn H-Bomb, or any of the three favorites–Well, you see how it is. I don’t know whether to sell or hang on, because I don’t know how to figure the odds. Do you know what is being offered for Lucky Star?”

He fitted his finger tips together. “Mr. Gordon, American Express does not give tips on horse races, nor broker the resale of Sweepstakes tickets. However–Do you have the ticket with you?”

I got it out and handed it to him. It had been through poker games and was sweat-marked and crumpled. But that lucky number was unmistakable.

He looked at it. “Do you have your receipt?”

“Not with me.” I started to explain that I had given my stepfathers address–and that my mail had been forwarded to Alaska. He cut me off. “That’s all right.” He touched a switch. “Alice, will you ask M’sieur Renault to step in?”

I was wondering if it really was all right. I had had the savvy to get names and new billets from the original ticket holders and each had promised to send his receipt to me when he got it–but no receipts had reached me. Maybe in Alaska–I had checked on this ticket while at the lockbox; it had been bought by a sergeant now in Stuttgart. Maybe I would have to pay him something or maybe I would have to break his arms.

M. Renault looked like a tired schoolteacher. “M’sieur Renault is our expert on this sort of thing,” the manager explained. “Will you let him examine your ticket, please?” The Frenchman looked at it, then his eyes lit up and be reached into a pocket, produced a jeweler’s loupe, screwed it into his eye. “Excellent!” he said approvingly. “One of the best. Hong Kong, perhaps?

“I bought it in Singapore.”

He nodded and smiled. “That follows.”

The manager was not smiling. He reached into his desk and brought out another Sweepstakes ticket and handed it to me. “Mr. Gordon, this one I bought at Monte Carlo. Will you compare it?”

They looked alike to me, except for serial numbers and the fact that his was crisp and clean. “What am I supposed to look for?”

“Perhaps this will help.” He offered me a large reading glass.

A Sweepstakes ticket is printed on special paper and has an engraved portrait on it and is done in several colors. It is a better job of engraving and printing than many countries use for paper money.

I learned long ago that you can’t change a deuce into an ace by staring at it. I handed back his ticket. “Mine is counterfeit.”

“I didn’t say so, Mr. Gordon. I suggest you get an outside opinion. Say at the office of the Bank of France.”

“I can see it. The engraving lines aren’t sharp and even on mine. They’re broken, some places. Under the glass the print job looks smeared.” I turned. “Right, M’sieur Renault?”

The expert gave a shrug of commiseration. “It is beautiful work, of its sort.”

I thanked them and got out. I checked with the Bank of France, not because I doubted the verdict but because you don’t have a. leg cut off, nor chuck away $140,000, without a second opinion. Their expert didn’t bother with a loupe. “Contrefait” he announced. “Worthless.”

It was impossible to get back to l’Ile du Levant that night. I had dinner and then looked up my former landlady. My broom closet was empty and she let me have it overnight. I didn’t lie awake long.

I was not as depressed as I thought I should be. I felt relaxed, almost relieved. For a while I had had the wonderful sensation of being rich–and I had had its complement, the worries of being rich–and both sensations were interesting and I didn’t care to repeat them, not right away.

Now I had no worries. The only thing to settle was when to go home, and with living so cheap on the island there was no hurry. The only thing that fretted me was that rushing off to Nice might have caused me to miss “Helen of Troy,” cette grande blonde! Si grande . . . si belle . . . si majestueuse! I fell asleep thinking of her.

I had intended to catch the early train, then the first boat. But the day before had used up most of the money on me and I had goofed by failing to get cash while at American Express. Besides, I had not asked for mail. I didn’t expect any, other than from my mother and possibly my aunt–the only close friend I had had in the Army had been killed six months back. Still, I might as well pick up mail as long as I had to wait for money.

So I treated myself to a luxury breakfast. The French think that a man can face the day with chicory and milk, and a croissant, which probably accounts for their unstable politics. I picked a sidewalk cafe by a big kiosk, the only one in Nice that stocked The Stars & Stripes and where the Herald-Trib would be on sale as soon as it was in; ordered a melon, cafe complet for TWO, and an omelette aux herbes fines; and sat back to enjoy life.

When the Herald-Trib arrived, it detracted from my sybaritic pleasure. The headlines were worse than ever and reminded me that I was still going to have to cope with the world; I couldn’t stay on l’Ile du Levant forever.

But why not stay there as long as possible? I still did not want to go to school, and that three-car-garage ambition was as dead as that Sweepstakes ticket. If World War III was about to shift to a rolling boil, there was no point in being an engineer at six or eight thousand a year in Santa Monica only to be caught in the fire storm.

It would be better to live it up, gather ye rosebuds, carpe that old diem, with dollars and days at hand, then–Well, join the Marine Corps maybe, like my dad.

I refolded the paper to the “Personals” column.

They were pretty good. Besides the usual offers of psychic readings and how to learn yoga and the veiled messages from one set of initials to another there were several that were novel. Such as-

REWARD!! Are you contemplating suicide? Assign to me the lease on your apartment and I will make your last clays lavish. Box 323, H-T

Or: Hindu gentleman, non-vegetarian, wishes to meet cultured European, African, or Asian lady owning sports car. Object: improving international relations. Box 107

How do you do that in a sports car?

One was ominous–Hermaphrodites of the World, Arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains. Tel. Opera 59-09

The next one started: ARE YOU A COWARD?

Well, yes, certainly. If possible. If allowed a free choice. I read on:

ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, 17, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, appt. D.

I read that requirement about face and figure with strong relief. For a giddy moment it had seemed as if someone with a skewed sense of humor had aimed a shaggy joke right at me. Somebody who knew my habit of reading the “Personals.”

That address was only a hundred yards from where I was sitting. I read the ad again.

Then I paid the addition, left a careful tip, went to the kiosk and bought The Stars & Stripes, walked to American Express, got money and picked up my mail, and on to the railroad station. It was over an hour until the next train to Toulon, so I went into the bar, ordered a beer and sat down to read.

Mother was sorry I had missed them in Wiesbaden. Her letter itemized the children’s illnesses, the high prices in Alaska, and expressed regret that they had ever had to leave Germany. I shoved it into my pocket and picked up The Stars & Stripes.

Presently I was reading: ARE YOU A COWARD?–same ad, right to the end.

I threw the paper down with a growl.

There were three other letters. One invited me to contribute to the athletic association of my ex-college; the second offered to advise me in the selection of my investments at a special rate of only $48 a year; the last was a plain envelope without a stamp, evidently handed in at American Express.

It contained only a newspaper clipping, starting: ARE You A COWARD?

It was the same as the other two ads except that in the last sentence one word had been underlined: You must apply in person-

I splurged on a cab to rue Dante. If I hurried, there was time to untangle this hopscotch and still catch the Toulon train. No. 17 was a walk-up; I ran up and, as I approached suite D, I met a young man coming out. He was six feet tall, handsome of face and figure, and looked as if he might be a hermaphrodite.

The lettering on the door read: DR. BALSAMO–HOURS BY APPOINTMENT, in both French and English. The name sounded familiar and vaguely phony out I did not stop to figure it out; I pushed on in.

The office inside was cluttered in a fashion known only to old French lawyers and pack rats. Behind the desk was a gnome-like character with a merry smile, hard eyes, the pinkest face and scalp I’ve ever seen, and a fringe of untidy white hair. He looked at me and giggled. “Welcome! So you are a hero?” Suddenly he whipped out a revolver half as long as he was and just as heavy and pointed it at me. You could have driven a Volkswagen down its snout.

“I’m not a hero,” I said nastily. “I’m a coward. I just came here to find out what the joke is.” I moved sideways while slapping that monstrous piece of ordnance the other way, chopped his wrist, and caught it. Then I handed it back to him. “Don’t play with that thing, or I’ll shove it up your deposition. I’m in a hurry. You’re Doctor Balsamo? You ran that ad?”

“Tut, tut,” he said, not at all annoyed. “Impetuous youth. No, Doctor Balsamo is in there.” He pointed his eyebrows at two doors on the left waft, then pushed a bell button on his desk–the only thing in the room later than Napoleon. “Go in. She’s expecting you.”

” ‘She’? Which door?”

“Ah, the Lady or the Tiger? Does it matter? In the long run? A hero will know. A coward will choose the wrong one, being sure that I lie. Allez-y! Vite, vite! Schnell! Get the lead out, Mac.”

I snorted and jerked open the right-hand door.

The doctor was standing with her back to me at some apparatus against the far wall and she was wearing one of those white, high-collared jackets favored by medical men. On my left was a surgeon’s examining table, on my right a Swedish-modern couch; there were stainless-steel and glass cabinets, and some framed certificates; the whole place was as up-to-date at the outer room was not.

As I closed the door she turned and looked at me and said quietly, “I am very glad that you have come.” Then she smiled and said softly, “You are beautiful,” and came into my arms.

About a minute and forty seconds and several centuries later “Dr. Balsamo-Helen of Troy” pulled her mouth an inch back from mine and said, “Let me go, please, then undress and lie on the examining table.” I felt as if I had had nine hours of sleep, a needle shower, and three slugs of ice-cold akvavit on an empty stomach. Anything she wanted to do, I wanted to do. But the situation seemed to call for witty repartee. “Huh?” I said.

“Please. You are the one, but nevertheless I must examine you.”

“Well . . . all right,” I agreed. “You’re the doctor,” I added and started to unbutton my shirt. “You are a doctor? Of medicine, I mean.” “Yes. Among other things.”

I kicked out of my shoes. “But why do you want to examine me?”

“For witches’ marks, perhaps. Oh, I shan’t find any, I know. But I must search for other things, too. To protect you.”

That table was cold against my skin. Why don’t they pad those things? “Your name is Balsamo?”

“One of my names,” she said absently while gentle fingers touched me here and there. “A family name, that is.”

“Wait a minute. Count Cagliostro!”

“One of my uncles. Yes, he used that name. Though it isn’t truly his, no more than Balsamo. Uncle Joseph is a very naughty man and quite untruthful.” She touched an old, small scar. “Your appendix has been removed.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Let me see your teeth.”

I opened wide. My face may not be much but I could rent my teeth to advertise Pepsodent. Presently she nodded. “Fluoride marks. Good. Now I must have your blood.”

She could have bitten me in the neck for it and I wouldn’t have minded. Nor been much surprised. But she did it the ordinary way, taking ten cc. from the vein inside my left elbow. She took the sample and put it in that apparatus against the wall. It chirred and whirred and she came back to me. “Listen,

Princess,” I said.

“I am not a princess.”

“Well . . . I don’t know your first name, and you inferred that your last name isn’t really ‘Balsamo’–and I don’t want to call you ‘Doc.’ ” I certainly did not want to call her “Doc”–not the most beautiful girl I had ever seen or hoped to see . . . not after a kiss that had wiped out of memory every other kiss I had ever received. No.

She considered it. “I have many names. What would you like to call me?”

“Is one of them ‘Helen’?”

She smiled like sunshine and I learned that she had dimples. She looked sixteen and in her first party

dress. “You are very gracious. No, she’s not even a relative. That was many, many years ago.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Would you like to call me ‘Ettarre’?”

“Is that one of your names?”

“It is much like one of them, allowing for different spelling and accent. Or it could be ‘Esther’ just as closely. Or ‘Aster.’ Or even ‘Estrellita.’ ”

” ‘Aster,’ ” I repeated. “Star. Lucky Star!”

“I hope that I will be your lucky star,” she said earnestly. “As you will. But what shall I call you?”

I thought about it. I certainly was not going to dig up “Flash–I am not a comic strip. The Army nickname I had held longest was entirely unfit to hand to a lady. At that I preferred it to my given name. My daddy had been proud of a couple of his ancestors–but is that any excuse for hanging “Evelyn Cyril” on a male child? It had forced me to Team to fight before I learned to read.

The name I had picked up in the hospital ward would do. I shrugged. “Oh, Scar is a good enough name.”

” ‘Oscar,’ ” she repeated, broadening the “O” into “Aw,” and stressing both syllables. “A noble name. A hero’s name. Oscar.” She caressed it with her voice.

“No, no! Not ‘Oscar’–‘Scar.’ ‘Scarface.’ For this.”

“Oscar is your name,” she said firmly. “Oscar and Aster. Scar and Star.” She barely touched the scar. “Do you dislike your hero’s mark? Shall I remove it?”

“En? Oh, no. I’m used to it now. It lets me know who it is when I see myself in a mirror.”

“Good. I like it, you wore it when I first saw you. But if you change your mind, let me know.” The gear against the wall went whush, chunk! She turned and took a long strip from it, then whistled softly while she studied it.

“This won’t take long,” she said cheerfully and wheeled the apparatus over to the table. “Hold still while the protector is connected with you, quite still and breathe shallowly.” She made half a dozen connections of tubes to me; they stuck where she placed them. She put over her head what I thought was a fancy stethoscope but after she got it on, it covered her eyes.

She chuckled. “You’re pretty inside, too, Oscar. No, don’t talk.” She kept one hand on my forearm and I waited.

Five minutes later she lifted her hand and stripped off the connections. “That’s all,” she said cheerfully. “No more colds for you, my hero, and you won’t be bothered again by that flux you picked up in the jungle. Now we move to the other room.”

I got off the table and grabbed at my clothes. Star said, “You won’t need them where we are going. Full kit and weapons will be provided.”

I stopped with shoes in one hand and drawers in the other. “Star–”

“Yes, Oscar?”

“What is this all about? Did you run that ad? Was it meant for me? Did you really want to hire me for something?”

She took a deep breath and said soberly, “I advertised. It was meant for you and you only. Yes, there is a job to do . . . as my champion. There will be great adventure . . . and greater treasure . . . and even greater danger–and I fear very much that neither one of us will live through it.” She looked me in the eyes. “Well, sir?”

I wondered how long they had had me in the locked ward. But I didn’t tell her so, because, if that was where I was, she wasn’t there at all. And I wanted her to be there, more than I had ever wanted anything. I said, “Princess . . . you’ve hired yourself a boy.”

She caught her breath. “Come quickly. Time is short.” She led me through a door beyond the Swedish modern couch, unbuttoning her jacket, unzipping her skirt, as she went, and letting garments fall anywhere. Almost at once she was as I had first seen her at the plage.

This room had dark walls and no windows and a soft light from nowhere. There were two tow couches side by side, black they were and looking like biers, and no other furniture. As soon as the door was dosed behind us I was suddenly aware that the room was aching, painfully anechoic; the bare walls gave back no sound.

The couches were in the center of a circle which was part of a large design, in chalk, or white paint, on bare floor. We entered the pattern; she turned and squatted down and completed one line, closing it–and ft was true; she was unable to be awkward, even hunkered down, even with her breasts drooping
as she leaned over.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A map to take us where we are going.”

“It looks more like a pentagram.”

She shrugged. “All right, it is a pentacle of power. A schematic circuit diagram would be a better tag. But, my hero, I can’t stop to explain it. Lie down, please, at once.”

I took the right-hand couch as she signed me, but I couldn’t let ft be. “Star, are you a witch?”

“If you like. Please, no talking now.” She lay down, stretched out her hand. “And join hands with me, my lord; it is necessary.”

Her hand was soft and warm and very strong. Presently the light faded to red, then died away. I slept.

I woke to singing birds.

Her hand was still in mine. I turned my head and she smiled at me. “Good morning, my lord.”

“Good morning. Princess.” I glanced around. We were still lying on those black couches but they were outdoors, in a grassy dell, a clearing in trees beside a softly chuckling stream–a place so casually beautiful that it looked as if it had been put together leaf by leaf by old and unhurried Japanese gardeners.

Warm sunshine splashed through leaves and dappled her golden body. I glanced up at the sun and back at her. “Is it morning?” It had been noonish or later and that sun ought to DC–seemed to be–setting, not rising-

“It is again morning, here.”

Suddenly my bump of direction spun like a top and I felt dizzy. Disoriented–a feeling new to me and very unpleasant. I couldn’t find north.

Then things steadied down. North was that way, upstream–and the sun was rising, maybe nine in the morning, and would pass across the north sky. Southern Hemisphere. No sweat.

No trick at all–Just give the kook a shot of dope while examining him, lug him aboard a 707 and jet him to New Zealand, replenishing the Mickey Finn as needed. Wake him up when you want him.

Only I didn’t say this and never did think it. And it wasn’t true.

She sat up. “Are you hungry?”

I suddenly realized that an omelet some hours ago–how many? –was not enough for a growing boy. I sat up and swung my feet to the grass. “I could eat a horse.”
She grinned. “The shop of La Societe Anonyme de Hippopnage is closed I’m afraid. Will you settle for trout? We must wait a bit, so we might as well eat. And don’t worry, this place is defended.”

” ‘Defended’?”

“Safe.”

“All right. Uh, how about a rod and hooks?”

“I’ll show you.” What she showed me was not fishing tackle but how to tickle fish. But I knew how. We waded into that lovely stream, just pleasantly cool, moving as quietly as possible, and picked a place under a bulging rock, a place where trout like to gather and think–the fishy equivalent of a gentlemen’s club.

You tickle trout by gaining their confidence and then abusing it. In about two minutes I got one, between two and three pounds, and tossed it onto the bank, and Star had one almost as large. “How much can you eat?” she asked.

“Climb out and get dry,” I said. “I’ll get another one.”

“Make it two or three,” she amended. “Rufo will be along.” She waded quietly out.

“Who?”

“Your groom.”

I didn’t argue. I was ready to believe seven impossible things before breakfast, so I went on catching breakfast. I let it go with two more as the last was the biggest trout I’ve ever seen. Those beggars fairly queued up to be grabbed.

By then Star had a fire going and was cleaning fish with a sharp rock. Shucks, any Girl Scout or witch can make fire without matches. I could myself, given several hours and plenty of luck, just by rubbing two dry cliches together. But I noticed that the two short biers were gone. Well, I hadn’t ordered them. I
squatted down and took over cleaning the trout.

Star came back shortly with fruits that were apple-like but deep purple in color and with quantities of button mushrooms. She was carrying the plunder on a broad leaf, like canna or ti, only bigger. More like banana leaves.

My mouth started to water. “If only we had salt!”

“I’ll fetch it. It will be rather gritty. I’m afraid.”

Star broiled the fish two ways, over the fire on a forked green stick, and on hot flat limestone where he fire had been–she kept brushing the fire along as she fed it and placed fish and mushrooms sizing where it had been. That way was best, I thought. Little fine grasses turned out to be chives, local style, and tiny clover tasted and looked like sheep sorrel. That, with the salt (which was gritty and coarse and may have been licked by animals before we got it–not that I cared) made the trout the best I’ve ever tasted. Well, weather and scenery and company had much to do with it, too, especially the company.

I was trying to think of a really poetic way of saying, “How about you and me shacking up right here for the next ten thousand years? Either legal or informal–are you married?” when we were interrupted. Which was a shame, for I had thought up some pretty language, all new, for the oldest and most practical
suggestion in the world.

Old baldy, the gnome with the oversized six-shooter, was standing behind me and cursing.

I was sure it was cursing although the language was new to me. Star turned her head, spoke in quiet reproval in the same language, made room for him and offered him a trout. He took it and ate quite a bit of it before he said, in English, “Next time I won’t pay him anything. You’ll see.”

“You shouldn’t try to cheat him, Rufo. Have some mushrooms. Where’s the baggage? I want to get dressed.”

“Over there.” He went back to wolfing fish. Rufo was proof that some people should wear clothes. He was pink all over and somewhat potbellied. However, he was amazingly well muscled, which I had never suspected, else I would have been more cautious about taking that cannon away from him. I decided that
if he wanted to Indian-wrestle, I would cheat.

He glanced at me past a pound and a half of trout and said, “Is it your wish to be outfitted now, my lord?”

“Huh? Finish your breakfast. And what’s this ‘my lord’ routine? Last time I saw you you were waving a gun in my face.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. But She said to do it . . . and what She says must be done. You understand.”

“That suits me perfectly. Somebody has to drive. But call me ‘Oscar.’ ”

Rufo glanced at Star, she nodded. He grinned. “Okay, Oscar. No hard feelings?”

“Not a bit.”

He put down the fish, wiped his hand on his thigh, and stuck it out. “Swell! You knock em down, I’ll stomp on ’em.”

We shook hands and each of us tried for the knuckle-cracking grip. I think I got a little the better of it, but I decided he might have been a blacksmith at some time.

Star looked very pleased and showed dimples again She had been lounging by the fire; looking line a hamadryad on her coffee break; now she suddenly reached out and placed her strong, slender hand over our clasped fists. “My stout friends,” she said earnestly. “My good boys. Rufo, it will be well.”

“You have a Sight?” he said eagerly.

“No, just a feeling. But I am no longer worried.”

“We can’t do a thing,” Rufo said moodily, “until we deal with Igli.”

“Oscar will dicker with Igli.” Then she was on her feet in one smooth motion. “Stuff that fish in your face and unpack. I need clothes.” She suddenly looked very eager.

Star was more different women than a platoon of WACs–which is only mildly a figure of speech. Right then she was every woman from Eve deciding between two fig leaves to a modern woman whose ambition is to be turned loose in Nieman-Marcus, naked with a checkbook. When I first met her, she had seemed rather a sobersides and no more interested in clothes than I was. I’d never had a chance to be interested in clothes. Being a member of the sloppy generation was a boon to my budget at college, where blue jeans were au fait and a dirty sweat shirt was stylish.

The second time I saw her she had been dressed, but in that lab smock and tailored skirt she had been both a professional woman and a warm friend. But today–this morning whenever that was–she was increasingly full of Bubbles. She had delighted so in catching fish that she had had to smother squeals of glee. And she had then been the perfect Girl Scout, with soot smudged on her cheek and her hair pushed back out of hazard of the fire while she cooked.

Now she was the woman of all ages who just has to get her hands on new clothes. I felt that dressing Star was like putting a paint job on the crown jewels–but I was forced to admit that, if we were not to do the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” bit right in that dell from then on till death do us part, then clothes of some sort, if only to keep her perfect skin from getting scratched by brambles, were needed.

Rufo’s baggage turned out to be a little black box about the size and shape of a portable typewriter. He opened it.

And opened it again.

And Kept on opening it–And kept right on unfolding its sides and letting them down until the durn thing was the size of a small moving van and even more packed. Since I was nicknamed “Truthful James” as soon as I learned to talk and am widely known to have won the hatchet every February 22nd all through school, you must now conclude that I was the victim of an illusion caused by hypnosis and/or drugs.

Me, I’m not sure. Anyone who has studied math knows that the inside does not have to be smaller than the outside, in theory, and anyone who has had the doubtful privilege of seeing a fat woman get in or out of a tight girdle knows that this is true in practice, too. Rufo’s baggage just carried the principle further.

The first thing he dragged out was a big teakwood chest. Star opened it and started pulling out filmy lovelies.

“Oscar, what do you think of this one?” She was holding a long, green dress against her with the skirt draped over one hip to display it. “Like it?”

Of course I liked it. If it was an original–and somehow I knew that Star never wore copies–I didn’t want to think about what it must have cost. “It’s a mighty pretty gown,” I told her. “But–Look, are we going to be traveling?”

“Right away.”

“I don’t see any taxicabs. Aren’t you likely to get that torn?”

“It doesn’t tear. However, I didn’t mean to wear it; I just meant to show it to you. Isn’t it lovely? Shall I model it for you? Rufo, I want those high-heeled sandals with the emeralds.”

Rufo answered in that language he had been cursing in when he arrived. Star shrugged and said, “Don’t be impatient, Rufo; Igli will wait. Anyhow, we can’t talk to Igli earlier than tomorrow morning; milord Oscar must learn the language first.” But she put the green gorgeousness back in the chest.

“Now here is a little number,” she went on, holding it up, “which is just plain naughty: it has no other purpose.”

I could see why. It was mostly skirt, with a little bodice that supported without concealing–a style favored in ancient Crete, I hear, and still popular in the Overseas Weekly, Playboy, and many night clubs. A style that turns droopers into bulgers. Not that Star needed it.

Rufo tapped me on the shoulder. “Boss? Want to look over the ordnance and pick out what you need?”

Star said reprovingly, “Rufo, life is to be savored, not hurried.”

“We’ll have a lot more life to savor if Oscar picks out what he can use best.”

“He won’t need weapons until after we reach a settlement with Igli.” But she didn’t insist on showing more clothes and, while I enjoyed looking at Star, I like to check over weapons, too, especially when I might have to use them, as apparently the job called for.

While I had been watching Star’s style show, Rufo had laid out a collection that looked like a cross between an army-surplus store and a museum–swords, pistols, a lance that must have been twenty feet long, a flame-thrower, two bazookas flanking a Tommy gun, brass knucks, a machete, grenades, bows and arrows, a misericorde-

“You didn’t bring a slingshot,” I said accusingly.

He looked smug. “Which kind do you like, Oscar? The forked sort? Or a real sling?”

“Sorry I mentioned it. I can’t hit the floor with either sort.” I picked up the Tommy chopper, checked that it was empty, started stripping it. It seemed almost new, just fired enough to let the moving parts work in. A Tommy isn’t much more accurate than a pitched baseball and hasn’t much greater effective range. But it does have virtues–you hit a man with it, he goes down and stays down. It is short and not too heavy and has a lot of firepower for a short time. It is a bush weapon, or for any other sort of close-quarters work.

But I like something with a bayonet on the end, in case the party gets intimate–and I like that something to be accurate at long range in case the neighbors get unfriendly from a distance. I put it down and picked up a Springfield–Rock Island Arsenal, as I saw by its serial number, but still a Springfield. I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design.

I opened the bolt, stuck my thumbnail in the chamber, looked down the muzzle. The barrel was bright and the lands were unworn–and the muzzle had that tiny star on it; it was a match weapon!

“Rufo, what sort of country will we be going through? Like this around us?”

“Today, yes. But–” He apologetically took the rifle out of my hands. “It is forbidden to use firearms here. Swords, Knives, arrows–anything that cuts or stabs or mauls by your own muscle power. No guns.”

“Who says so?”

He shivered. “Better ask Her.”

“If we can’t use them, why bring them? And I don’t see any ammunition around anyhow.”

“Plenty of ammunition. Later on we will be at–another place–where guns may be used. If we live that long. I was just showing you what we have. What do you like of the lawful weapons? Are you a bowman?”

“I don’t know. Show me how.” He started to say something, then shrugged and selected a bow, slipped a leather guard over his left forearm, picked out an arrow. “That tree,” he said, “the one with the white rock at the foot of it. I’ll try for about as high off the ground as a man’s heart.”

He nocked the shaft, raised and bent and let fly, all in one smooth motion.

The arrow quivered in the tree trunk about four feet off the ground.

Rufo grinned. “Care to match that?”

I didn’t answer. I knew I could not, except by accident. I had once owned a bow, a birthday present. I hadn’t hit much with it and soon the arrows were lost. Nevertheless I made a production out of selecting a bow, and picked the longest and heaviest.

Rufo cleared his throat apologetically. “If I may make a suggestion, that one will pull quite hard–for a beginner.”

I strung it. “Find me a leather.”

The leather slipped on as if it had been made for me and perhaps it had. I picked an arrow to match, barely looked at it as they all seemed straight and true. I didn’t have any hope of hitting that bloody tree; it was fifty yards away and not over a foot thick. I simply intended to sight a bit high up on the trunk and hope that so heavy a bow would give me a flattish trajectory. Mostly I wanted to nock, bend, and loose all in one motion as Rufo had done–to look like Robin Hood even though I was not.

But as I raised and bent that bow and felt the power of it, I felt a surge of exultance–this tool was right for me! We fitted.

I let fly without thinking.

My shaft thudded a hand’s breadth from his.

“Well shot!” Star called out.

Rufo looked at the tree and blinked, then looked reproachfully at Star. She looked haughtily back. “I did not,” she stated. “You know I would not do that. It was a fair trial . . . and a credit to you both.”

Rufo looked thoughtfully at me. “Hmm–Would you care to make a small bet–you name the odds–that you can do that again?”

“I won’t bet,” I said. “I’m chicken.” But I picked up another arrow and nocked it. I liked that bow, I even liked the way the string whanged at the guard on my forearm; I wanted to try it, feel married to it, again.

I loosed it.

The third arrow grew out of a spot between the first two, but closer to his. “Nice bow,” I said. “I’ll keep it. Fetch the shafts.”

Rufo trotted away without speaking. I unstrung the bow, then started looking over the cutlery. I hoped that I would never again have to shoot an arrow; a gambler can’t expect to draw a pat hand every deal–my next shot would likely turn around like a boomerang.

There was too much wealth of edges and points, from a two-handed broadsword suitable for chopping down trees to a little dagger meant for a lady’s stocking. But I picked up and balanced them all . . . and found there the blade that suited me the way Excalibur suited Arthur.

I’ve never seen one quite like it so I don’t know what to call it. A saber, I suppose, as the blade was faintly curved and razor sharp on the edge and sharp rather far back on the back. But it had a point as deadly as a rapier and the curve was not enough to keep it from being used for thrust and counter quite as well as chopping away meat-axe style. The guard was a bell curved back around the knuckles into a semi-basket but cut away enough to permit full moulinet from any guard.

It balanced in the forte less than two inches from the guard, yet the blade was heavy enough to chop bone. It was the sort of sword that feels as if it were an extension of your body.

The grip was honest sharkskin, molded to my hand. There was a motto chased onto the blade but it was so buried in curlicues that I did not take time to study it out. This girl was mine, we fitted! I returned it and buckled belt and scabbard to my bare waist, wanting the touch of it and feeling like Captain John
Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, and the Gascon and his three friends all in one.

“Will you not dress, milord Oscar?” Star asked.

“Eh? Oh, certainly–I was just trying it on for size. But–Did Rufo fetch my clothes?”

“Did you, Rufo?”

“His clothes? He wouldn’t want those things he was wearing in Nice!”

“What’s wrong with wearing Lederhosen with an aloha shirt?” I demanded.

“What? Oh, nothing at all, milord Oscar,” Rufo answered hastily. “Live and let live I always say. I knew a man once who wore–never mind. Let me show you what I fetched for you.”

I had my choice of everything from a plastic raincoat to full armor. I found the latter depressing because its presence implied that it might be needed. Except for an Army helmet I had never worn armor, didn’t want to, didn’t know how–and didn’t care to mix with rude company that made such protection desirable.

Besides, I didn’t see a horse around, say a Percheron or a Clydesdale, and I couldn’t see myself hiking in one of those tin suits. I’d be slow as crutches, noisy as a subway, and hot as a phone booth. Sweat off ten pounds in five miles. The quilted longjohns that go under that ironmongery would have been too much
alone for such beautiful weather; steel on top would turn me into a walking oven and leave me too weak and clumsy to fight my way out of a traffic ticket.

“Star, you said that–” I stopped. She had finished dressing and hadn’t overdone it. Soft leather hiking shoes–buskins really–brown tights, and a short green upper garment halfway between a jacket and a skating dress. This was topped by a perky little hat and the whole costume made her look like a musical corner version of an airline hostess, smart, cute, wholesome, and sexy.

Or maybe Maid Marian, as she had added a double-curve bow about half the size of mine, a quiver, and a dagger. “You,” I said, “look like why the riot started.”

She dimpled and curtsied. (Star never pretended. She knew she was female, she knew she looked good, she liked it that way.) “You said something earlier,” I continued, “about my not needing weapons just yet. Is there any reason why I should wear one of these space suits? They don’t look comfortable.”

“I don’t expect any great danger today,” she said slowly. “But this is not a place where one can call the police. You must decide what you need.”

“But–Damn it. Princess, you know this place and I don’t. I need advice.”

She didn’t answer. I turned to Rufo. He was carefully studying a treetop. I said, “Rufo, get dressed.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Milord Oscar?”

“Schnell! Vite, vite! Get the lead out.”

“Okay.” He dressed quickly, in an outfit that was a man’s version of what Star had selected, with shorts instead of tights.

“Arm yourself,” I said, and started to dress the same way, except that I intended to wear field boots. However, there was a pair of those buskins that appeared to be my size, so I tried them on. They snuggled to my feet like gloves and, anyway, my soles were so hardened by a month barefooted on l’Ile du Levant that I didn’t need heavy boots.

They were not as medieval as they looked; they zipped up the front and were marked inside Fabrique en France.

Pops Rufo had taken the bow he had used before, selected a sword, and had added a dagger. Instead of a dagger I picked out a Solingen hunting knife. I looked longingly at a service .45, but didn’t touch it. If “they,” whoever they were, had a local Sullivan Act, I would go along with the gag.

Star told Rufo to pack, then squatted down with me at a sandy place by the stream and drew a sketch map–route south, dropping downgrade and following the stream except for short cuts, until we reached the Singing Waters. There we would camp for the night.

I got it in my head. “Okay. Anything to warn me about? Do we shoot first? Or wait for them to bomb us?”

“Nothing that I expect, today. Oh, there’s a carnivore about three times the size of a lion. But it is a great coward; it won’t attack a moving man.”

“A fellow after my own heart. All right, we’ll keep moving.”

“If we do see human beings–I don’t expect it–it might be well to nock a shaft . . . but not raise your bow until you feel it is necessary. But I’m not telling you what to do, Oscar; you must decide. Nor will Rufo let fly unless he sees you about to do so.”

Rufo had finished packing. “Okay, let’s go,” I said. We set out. Rufo’s little black box was now rigged as a knapsack and I did not stop to wonder how he could carry a couple of tons on his shoulders. An anti-grav device like Buck Rogers, maybe. Chinese coolie blood. Black magic. Hell, that teakwood chest alone could not have fitted into that backpack by a factor of 30 to I, not to mention the arsenal and assorted oddments.

There is no reason to wonder why I didn’t quiz Star as to where we were, why we were there, how we had got there, what we were going to do, and the details of these dangers I was expected to face. Look, Mac, when you are having the most gorgeous dream of your life and just getting to the point, do you stop to tell yourself that it is logically impossible for that particular babe to be in the hay with you–and thereby wake yourself up? I knew, logically, that everything that had happened since I read that silly ad had been impossible.

So I chucked logic.

Logic is a feeble reed, friend. “Logic” proved that airplanes can’t fly and that H-bombs wont work and that stones don’t fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn’t happen yesterday won’t happen tomorrow.

I liked the situation. I didn’t want to wake up, whether in bed, or in a headshrinker ward. Most especially I did not want to wake up still back in that jungle, maybe with that face wound still fresh and no helicopter. Maybe little brown brother had done a full job on me and sent me to Valhalla. Okay, I
liked Valhalla.

I was swinging along with a sweet sword knocking against my thigh and a much sweeter girl matching my strides and a slave-serf-groom-something sweating along behind us, doing the carrying and being our “eyes-behind.” Birds were singing and the landscape had been planned by master landscape architects
and the air smelled sweet and good. If I never dodged a taxi nor read a headline again, that suited me.

That longbow was a nuisance–but so is an M-l. Star had her little bow slung, shoulder to hip. I tried that, but it tended to catch on things. Also, it made me nervous not to have it ready since she had admitted a chance of needing it. So I unslung it and carried it in my left hand, strung and ready.

We had one alarum on the morning hike. I heard Rufo’s bowstring go thwung! –and I whirled and had my own bow ready, arrow nocked, before I saw what was up.

Or down, rather. A bird like a dusky grouse but larger. Rufo had picked it off a branch, right through the neck. I made note not to compete with him again in archery, and to get him to coach me in the fine points.

He smacked his lips and grinned. “Supper!” For the next mile he plucked it as we walked, then hung it from his belt.

We stopped for lunch one o’clockish at a picnic spot that Star assured me was defended, and Rufo opened his box to suitcase size, and served us lunch: cola cuts, crumbly Provencal cheese, crusty French bread, pears, and two bottles of Chablis. After lunch Star suggested a siesta. The idea was appealing; I had eaten heartily and shared only crumbs with the birds, but I was surprised. “Shouldn’t we push on?”

“You must have a language lesson, Oscar.”

I must tell them at Ponce de Leon High School the better way to study languages. You lie down on soft grass near a chuckling stream on a perfect day, and the most beautiful woman in any world bends over you and looks you in the eyes. She starts speaking softly in a language you do not understand.

After a bit her big eyes get bigger and bigger . . . and bigger . . . and you sink into them.

Then, a long time later, Rufo says, “Erbas, Oscar, ‘t knila voorsht.”

“Okay,” I answered, “I am getting up. Don’t rush me.”

That is the last word I am going to set down in a language that doesn’t fit our alphabet. I had several more lessons, and won’t mention them either, and from then on we spoke this lingo, except when I was forced to span gaps by asking in English. It is a language rich in profanity and in words for making love, and richer than English in some technical subjects–but with surprising holes in it. There is no word for “lawyer” for example.

About an hour before sundown we came to the Singing Waters.

We had been traveling over a high, wooded plateau. The brook where we had caught the trout had been joined by other streams and was now a big creek. Below us, at a place we hadn’t reached yet, it would plunge over high cliffs in a super-Yosemite fall. But here, where we stopped to camp, the water had cut a notch into the plateau, forming cascades, before it took that dive.

“Cascades” is a weak word. Upstream, downstream, everywhere you looked, you saw waterfalls–big ones thirty or fifty feet high, little ones a mouse could have jumped up, every size in between. Terraces and staircases of them there were, smooth water green from rich foliage overhead and water white as whipped cream as it splashed into dense foam.

And you heard them. Tiny falls tinkled in silvery soprano, big falls rumbled in basso profundo. On the grassy alp where we camped it was an ever-present chorale; in the middle of the falls you had to snout to make yourself heard.

Coleridge was there in one of his dope dreams:

Coleridge must have followed that route and reached the Singing Waters. No wonder he felt like killing that “person from Porlock” who broke in on his best dream. When I am dying, lay me beside the Singing Waters and let them be the last I hear and see.

We stopped on a lawn terrace, flat as a promise and soft as a Kiss, and I helped Rufo unpack. I wanted to learn how he did that trick with the box. I didn’t find out. Each side opened as naturally and reasonably as opening up an ironing board–and then when it opened again that was natural and reasonable, too.

First we pitched a tent for Star–no army-surplus job, this; it was a dainty pavilion of embroidered silk and the rug we spread as a floor must have used up three generations of Bukhara artists. Rufo said to me, “Do you want a tent, Oscar?”

I looked up at the sky and over at the not-yet-setting sun. The air was milk warm and I couldn’t believe that it would rain. I don’t like to be in a tent if there is the least chance of surprise attack. “Are you going to use a tent?”

“Me? Oh, no! But She has to have a tent, always. Then, more likely than not. She’ll decade to sleep out on the grass.”

“I won’t need a tent.” (Let’s see, does a “champion” sleep across the door of his lady’s chamber, weapons at hand? I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of such things; they were never mentioned in “Social Studies.”)

She returned then and said to Rufo, “Defended. The wards were all in place.”

“Recharged?” he fretted.

She tweaked his ear. “I am not senile.” She added, “Soap, Rufo. And come along, Oscar; that’s Rufo’s work.”

Rufo dug a cake of Lux out of that caravan load and gave it to her, then looked at me thoughtfully and handed me a bar of Life Buoy.

The Singing Waters are the best bath ever, in endless variety. Still pools from footbath size to plunges you could swim in, sitz baths that tingled your skin, shower baths from just a trickle up to free-springing jets that would beat your brains in if you stood under them too long.

And you could pick your temperature. Above the cascade we used, a hot spring added itself to the main stream and at the base of this cascade a hidden spring welled out icy cold. No need to fool with taps, just move one way or the other for the temperature you like–or move downstream where it evened out to temperature as gently warm as a mother’s kiss.

We played for a while, with Star squealing and giggling when I splashed her, and answering it by ducking me. We both acted like kids; I felt like one, she looked like one, and she played rough, with muscles of steel under velvet.

Presently I fetched the soap and we scrubbed. When she started shampooing her hair, I came up behind her and helped. She let me, she needed help with the lavish mop, six times as much as most gals bother with these days.

That would have been a wonderful time (with Rufo busy and out of the way) to grab her and hug her, then proceed ruggedly to other matters. Nor am I sure that she would nave made even a token protest; she might have cooperated heartily.

Hell, I know she would not have made a “token” protest. She would either have put me in my place with a cold word or a clout in the ear–or cooperated.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even start.

I don’t know why. My intentions toward Star had oscillated from dishonorable to honorable and back again, but had always been practical from the moment I laid eyes on her. No, let me put it this way: My intentions were strictly dishonorable always, but with utter willingness to convert them to honorable, later, as soon as we could dig up a justice of the peace.

Yet I found I couldn’t lay a finger on her other than to help her scrub the soap out of her hair.

While I was puzzling over this, both hands buried in heavy blond hair and wondering what was stopping me from putting my arms around that slender-strong waist only inches away from me, I heard a piercing whistle and my name–my new name. I looked around.

Rufo, dressed in his unlovely skin and with towels over his shoulder, was standing on the bank ten feet away and trying to cut through the roar of water to get my attention.

I moved a few feet toward him. “How’s that again?” I didn’t quite snarl.

“I said, ‘Do you want a shave?’ Or are you growing a beard?”

I had been uneasily aware of my face cactus while I was debating whether or not to attempt criminal assault, and that unease had helped to stop me–Gillette, Aqua Velva, Burma Shave, et al., have made the browbeaten American male, namely me, timid about attempting seduction and/or rape unless freshly planed off. And I had a two-day growth.

“I don’t have a razor,” I called back.

He answered by holding up a straight razor.

Star moved up beside me. She reached up and tried my chin between thumb and forefinger. “You would be majestic in a beard,” she said. “Perhaps a Van Dyke, with sneering mustachios.”

I thought so too, if she thought so. Besides, it would cover most of that scar. “Whatever you say. Princess.”

“But I would rather that you stayed as I first saw you. Rufo is a good barber.” She turned toward him. “A hand, Rufo. And my towel.”

Star walked back toward the camp, toweling herself dry–I would have been glad to help, if asked. Rufo said tiredly, “Why didn’t you assert yourself? But She says to shave you, so now I’ve got to–and rush through my own bath, too, so She won’t be kept waiting.”

“If you’ve got a mirror, I’ll do it myself.”

“Ever used a straight razor?”

“No, but I can learn.”

“You’d cut your throat, and She wouldn’t like that. Over here on the bank where I can stand in the warm water. No, no! Don’t sit on it, lie down with your head at the edge. I can’t shave a man who’s sitting up.” He started working lather into my chin.

“You know why? I learned how on corpses, that’s why, making them pretty so that their loved ones would be proud of them. Hold still! You almost lost an ear. I like to shave corpses; they can’t complain, they don’t make suggestions, they don’t talk back–and they always hold still. Best job I ever had. But now you take this job–” He stopped with the blade against my Adam’s apple and started counting his troubles.

“Do I get Saturday off? Hell, I don t even get Sunday off! And look at the hours! Why, I read just the other day that some outfit in New York–You’ve been in New York?”

“I’ve been in New York. And get that guillotine away from my neck while you’re waving your hands like that.”

“You keep talking, you’re bound to get a little nick now and then. This outfit signed a contract for a twenty-five hour week. Week! I’d like to settle for a twenty-five hour day. You know how long I’ve been on the go, right this minute?”

I said I didn’t.

“There, you talked again. More than seventy hours or I’m a liar! And for what? Glory? Is there glory in a little heap of whitened bones? Wealth? Oscar, I’m telling you the truth; I’ve laid out more corpses than a sultan has concubines and never a one of them cared a soggy pretzel whether they were bedecked in rubies the size of your nose and twice as red . . . or rags. What use is wealth to a dead man? Tell me, Oscar, man to man while She can’t hear: Why did you ever let Her talk you into this?”

“I’m enjoying it, so far.”

He sniffed. “That’s what the man said as be passed the fiftieth floor of the Empire State Building. But the sidewalk was waiting for him, just the same. However,” he added darkly, “until you settle with Igli, it’s not a problem. If I had my kit, I could cover that scar so perfectly that everybody would say, ‘Doesn’t he look natural?’ ”

“Never mind. She likes that scar.” (Damn it, he had me doing it!)

“She would. What I’m trying to get over is, if you walk the Glory Road, you are certain to find mostly rocks. But I never chose to walk it. My idea of a nice way to live would be a quiet little parlor, the only one in town, with a selection of caskets, all prices, and a markup that allowed a little leeway to show
generosity to the bereaved. Installment plans for those with the foresight to do their planning in advance–for we all have to die, Oscar, we all have to die, and a sensible man might as well sit down over a friendly glass of beer and make his plans with a well-established firm he can trust.”

He leaned confidentially over me. “Look, milord Oscar . . . if by any miracle we get through this alive, you could put in a good word for me with Her. Make Her see that I’m too old for the Glory Road. I can do a lot to make your remaining days comfortable and pleasant . . . if your intentions toward me are comradely.”

“Didn’t we shake on it?”

“Ah, yes, so we did.” He sighed. “One for all and all for one, and Pikes Peak or Bust. You’re done.”

It was still light and Star was in her tent when we got back–and my clothes were laid out. I started to object when I saw them but Rufo said firmly, “She said ‘informal’ and that means black tie.”

I managed everything, even the studs (which were amazing big black pearls), and that tuxedo either had been tailored for me or it had been bought off the rack by someone who knew my height, weight, shoulders, and waist. The label inside the jacket read The English House, Copenhagen.

But the tie whipped me. Rufo showed up while I was struggling with it, had me lie down (I didn’t ask why) and tied it in a jiffy. “Do you want your watch, Oscar?”

“My watch?” So far as I knew it was in a doctors examining room in Nice. “You have it?”

“Yes, sir. I fetched everything of yours but your”–he shuddered–“clothes.”

He was not exaggerating. Everything was there, not only the contents of my pockets but the contents of my American Express deposit box: cash, passport, I.D., et cetera, even those Change Alley Sweepstakes tickets.

I started to ask how he had gotten into my lockbox but decided not to. He had had the key and it might have been something as simple as a fake letter of authority. Or as complex as his magical black box. I thanked him and he went back to his cooking.

I started to throw that stuff away, all but cash and passport. But one can’t be a litterbug in a place as beautiful as the Singing Waters. My sword belt had a leather pouch on it; I stuffed it in there, even the watch, which had stopped.

Rufo had set up a table in front of Star’s dainty tent and rigged a light from a tree over it and set candles on the table. It was dark before she came out . . . and waited. I finally realized that she was waiting for my arm. I led her to her place and seated her and Rufo seated me. He was dressed in a plum-colored footman’s uniform.

The wait for Star had been worth it; she was dressed in the green gown she had offered to model for me earlier. I still don’t know that she used cosmetics but she looked not at all like the lusty Undine who had been ducking me an hour earlier. She looked as if she should be kept under glass. She looked like Liza Doolittle at the Ball.

“Dinner in Rio” started to play, blending with the Singing Waters.

White wine with fish, rose wine with fowl, red wine with roast–Star chatted and smiled and was witty. Once Rufo, while bending over to me to serve, whispered, “The condemned ate heartily.” I told him to go to hell out of the corner of my mouth.

Champagne with the sweet and Rufo solemnly presented the bottle for my approval. I nodded. What would he have done if I had turned it down? Offered another vintage? Napolean with coffee. And cigarettes.

I had been thinking about cigarettes all day. These were Benson & Hedges No. 5 . . . and I had been smoking those black French things to save money.

While we were smoking, Star congratulated Rufo on the dinner and he accepted her compliments gravely and I seconded them. I still don’t know who cooked that hedonistic meal. Rufo did much of it but Star may have done the hard parts while I was being shaved.

After an unhurried happy time, sitting over coffee and brandy with the overhead light doused and only a single candle gleamed on her jewels and lighting her face. Star made a slight movement back from the table and I got up quickly and showed her to her tent. She stopped at its entrance. “Milord Oscar–”

So I kissed her and followed her in-

Like hell I did! I was so damned hypnotized that I bowed over her hand and kissed it. And that was hat.

That left me with nothing to do but get out of that borrowed monkey suit, hand it back to Rufo, and get a blanket from him. He had picked a spot to sleep at one side of her tent, so I picked one on the other and stretched out. It was still so pleasantly warm that even one blanket wasn’t needed.

But I didn’t go to sleep. The truth is, I’ve got a monkey on my back, a habit worse than marijuana though not as expensive as heroin. I can stiff it out and get to sleep anyway–but it wasn’t helping that I could see light in Stars tent and a silhouette that was no longer troubled by a dress.

The fact is I am a compulsive reader. Thirty-five cents’ worth of Gold Medal Original will put me right to sleep. Or Perry Mason. But I’ll read the ads in an old Paris-Match that has been used to wrap herring before I’ll do without.

I got up and went around the tent. “Psst! Rufo.”

“Yes, milord.” He was up fast, a dagger in his hand.

“Look, is there anything to read around this dump?”

“What sort of thing?”

“Anything, just anything. Words in a row.”

“Just a moment.” He was gone a while, using a flashlight around that beachhead dump of plunder. He came back and offered me a book and a small camp lamp. I thanked him, went back, and lay down.

It was an interesting book, written by Albertus Magnus and apparently stolen from the British Museum. Albert offered a long list of recipes for doing unlikely things: how to pacify storms and fly over clouds, how to overcome enemies, how to make a woman be true to you-

Here’s that last one: “If thou wilt that a woman bee not visions nor desire men, take the private members of a Woolfe, and the haires which doe grow on the cheekes, or the eye-brows of him, and the hairs which bee under his beard, and burne it all, and give it to her to drinke, when she knowethe not, and she shal desire no other man.”

This should annoy the “Woolfe.” And if I were the gal, it would annoy me, too; it sounds like a nauseous mixture. But that’s the exact formula, spelling and all, so if you are having trouble keeping her in line and have a “Woolfe” handy, try it. Let me know the results. By mail, not in person.

There were several recipes for making a woman love you who does not but a “Woolfe” was by far the simplest ingredient. Presently I put the book down and the light out and watched the moving silhouette on that translucent silk. Star was brushing her hair.

Then I quit tormenting myself and watched the stars, I’ve never learned the stars of the Southern Hemisphere; you seldom see stars in a place as wet as Southeast Asia and a man with a bump of direction doesn’t need them.

But that southern sky was gorgeous.

I was staring at one very bright star or planet (it seemed to have a disk) when suddenly I realized it was moving.

I sat up. “Hey! Star!”

She called back, “Yes, Oscar?”

“Come see! A sputnik. A big one!”

“Coming.” The light in her tent went out, she joined me quickly, and so did good old Pops Rufo, yawning and scratching his ribs. “Where, milord?” Star asked.

I pointed. “Right there! On second thought it may not be a sputnik; it might be one of our Echo series. It’s awfully big and bright.”

She glanced at me and looked away. Rufo said nothing. I stared at it a while longer, glanced at her.

She was watching me, not it. I looked again, watched it move against the backdrop of stars.

“Star,” I said, “that’s not a sputnik. Nor an Echo balloon. That’s a moon. A real moon.”

“Yes, milord Oscar.”

“Then this is not Earth.”

“That is true.”

“Hmm–” I looked back at the little moon, moving so fast among the stars, west to east.

Star said quietly, “You are not afraid, my hero?”

“Of what?”

“Of being in a strange world.”

“Seems to be a pretty nice world.”

“It is,” she agreed, “in many ways.”

“I like it,” I agreed. “But maybe it’s time I knew more about it. Where are we? How many light-years, r whatever it is, in what direction?”

She sighed. “I will try, milord. But it will not be easy; you have not studied metaphysical geometry–nor many other things. Think of the pages of a book–” I still had that cookbook of Albert the Great under my arm; she took it. “One page may resemble another very much. Or be very different. One page can be so close to another that it touches, at all points–yet have nothing to do with the page against it. We are as close to Earth–right now–as two pages in sequence in a book. And yet we are so far away that light-years cannot express it.”

“Look,” I said, “no need to get fancy about it. I used to watch ‘Twilight Zone.’ You mean another dimension. I dig it.”

She looked troubled “That’s somewhat the idea but–”

Rufo interrupted. “There’s still Igli in the morning.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “If we have to talk to Igli in the morning, maybe we need some sleep. I’m sorry. By the way, who is Igli?”

“You’ll find out,” said Rufo.

I looked up at that hurtling moon. “No doubt. Well, I’m sorry I disturbed you all with a silly mistake. Good night, folks.”

So I crawled back into my sleeping sills, like a proper hero (all muscles and no gonads, usually), and they sacked in too. She didn’t put the light back on, so I had nothing to look at but the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I had fallen into a book.

Well, I hoped it was a success and that the writer would keep me alive for lots of sequels. It was a pretty nice deal for the hero, up to this chapter at least. There was Dejah Thoris, curled up in her sleeping silks not twenty feet away.

I thought seriously of creeping up to the flap of her tent and whispering to her that I wanted to ask a few questions about metaphysical geometry and like matters. Love spells, maybe. Or maybe just tell her that it was cold outside and could I come in?

But I didn’t. Good old faithful Rufo was curled up just the other side of that tent and he had a disconcerting habit of coming awake fast with a dagger in his hand. And he liked to shave corpses. As I’ve said, given a choice. I’m chicken.

I watched the hurtling moons of Barsoom and fell asleep.