ALL MEN ARE
351
at obstacles, as tenacious as an ant confronted with an impossibility.
She asked the lieutenant whether he would lend one of our vehicles
for transporting textiles. "Our cloth comes from Chemnitz. But we
cannot go through your lines. And the trains do not run." There
were a good many other things that didn't run.
The lieutenant cursed her ignorance. He sketched out the war
in graphic idiom. The krauts were making soap out of the world.
Germany was a giant factory that rendered men into commercial
products. "A man doesn't sell. But when he's soap, that's a product
you can buy. I know your goddam kraut minds. Just keep the old
factory going. Well, there's not going to be any factory going in
Gelbe while I'm boss. You just sit on your tail and wait. Don't
come around me."
"I do not make soap, lieutenant. Only clothes."
"You're not making a goddam thing. Period. Get that straight."
She disdained him as an idiot unable to grasp elementary fact.
"Our factory has been here before you came.
It
will be here when
you are gone. We are not soldiers. We have nothing to do with
the war. We make clothes."
Smitty found her sneaking a ham from the cellar. She had
wrapped it in a skirt, disguised as a bundle of clothes. He jerked
the bundle from her hands, unfurled the skirt, and rolled the ham
on the ground. He kicked it into the garden that surrounded the
yard. He held
his
rifle at his hip, aimed it at her, clicked off the
safety. "I got every right to kill you for that, lady. I got every right
to kill you for sneaking across our lines. You tell me why I shouldn't
kill you? I've heard you talk. I know you're a smart lady and you
speak English and you got snooty manners. You're no better than
a million others who been killed. I don't like you and I'd like to
kill you and I got reason."
She glanced quickly at the ham, nested like a boulder among
a clump of tomato plants. She had a contemptuous way of frank
inspection before she addressed anyone. I suppose that came from
being the boss. "Is it also an American practice to kill unarmed
women? Is it all lies what we have been told about the gallantry of
the American soldier? Then I have made a mistake. And for that
mistake I will die. Shoot me then, Mr. American," she suggested,
amused.
