A D.l STANT
VIC
T 0 R Y
is it not, and the thirty or maybe more musicians sit upon a bceg
stage at one end...."
"In a big flower," I said, "a stage built like a big, purple flower."
"How is that?" His face was puzzled, then it lightened. "Ahhh,
yes, a very beautiful flower."
"A flower," I repeated. "It's made out of painted beaverboard."
"And the girls? Will they not be very beautiful for you? White
hair that is shining which they will fix with things which they buy
in the drugstores, I know this, but it is very beautiful
all
the same.
In California. . . . "
"Sluts," I said wearily.
"What is this? What does it mean?" His face darkened in be–
wilderment before he grasped the meaning of the word by the tone
of my voice. "In California," he pleaded. "Miss McKinsey," and
his voice took on the irritating little pedantic quality, "the army nurse
who is very good·friend of mine when I work for the dispensary of
the army-! have told you of this- would speak to me much about
the young girls in the States. In this now I am not speaking of
beetches!" The way in which he said
bitch-it
was sexless in refer–
ence-was a crevice opening into a part of himself corrupt and
sophisticated I had not thought existed.
He dug into his dungaree pocket and brought out in his slender
palm a gold locket. "It is a gift to me from Miss McKinsey," he
explained, and I pondered a moment how he had stolen it. Inside
the locket was a miniature picture of an attractive, middle-aged
woman in a trim nurse's uniform. "She would tell me many times
about the dates she had in the States," he explained, then furtively:
"I have gone many times to her tent in the evenings when she
would show me the pictures in her photograph book. It is not allowed
that men go into the nurses' tents, did you know this?" He glanced
slyly into my face, his features set in an unbelievable innocence, and
my mind played rapidly over all possibilities of this weird and per–
verted situation at which he had hinted.
"Miss McKinsey is a very kind person, very kind and beautiful,
do you not think, and she told me when she left, 'Ernie, you promise
me now and be sure to write me.' "
"Did you?"
"No, I am very busy and I only write to my seesters in Baguio.
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