Notes of a Dangling Man
Saul Bellow
N
EARLY
seven months have gone
by
since I r.,.igned my
job at the Inter American Travel Agency to answer the Army's
call for induction. I am still waiting. It is a trivial seeming
thing, a sort of bureaucratic comedy trimmed out in red tape.
At first I took that attitude toward it myself.
It
began as a
holiday, a short reprieve, last May, when I was sent home he·
cause my papers were not in order. I have lived here eighteen
years, but I am still Canadian, a British subject, and although
a friendly alien I could not be drafted without an investigation.
I waited five weeks and then I asked Mr. Mallender at Inter
American to take me back temporarily, but business had so
fallen off, he told me, that he had been obliged to lay off Mr.
Trager and Mr. Bishop in spite of their long years of service and
could not possibly help me. At the end of September I was
informed by letter that I had been investigated and approved
and again, in accordance with the regulations, I was instructed
to present myself for a second blood test. A month later I was
notified that I was in lA and told to hold myself ready. Again
I waited. Finally, when November came, I began to inquire
and found that through a new clause affecting married men my
induction had been postponed. I asked for reclassification,
pleading that I had been prevented from working. After three
weeks of explaining I was transferred to 3A. But before I
could act, in a week, to be accurate, I was summoned for a new
blood test; (each holds good for only sixty days). And so I
was shifted back. Married men without dependents were to be
taken immediately. This tedious business has not ended yet, I
am sure. Lt will drag on for another two, three, four months.
Meanwhile Iva, my wife, has been supporting me. She
claims it is no burden and that she wants me to enjoy this
liberty, to read and to do all the delightful things I will be
unable to do in the Army. About a year ago I ambitiously
began several essays, mainly biographical, on the philosophers
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