PARTISAN REVIEW
441
Even after the holocaust. Dangling forever from dark Uncle Tom's
rod.
"Sir!" the sergeant cries. "Please. Put your head down."
The sergeant, Warren, and Edith are slightly lower than I am,
their heads snuggled into the roadside bed. Eyes down, bodies taut,
like children determined to hold their breath until they turn blue.
Hugging the earth - the skin-soft side of the ditch.
SCREE-E-E-E ...... BOOOMP!
I pull my head down and listen to the sounds of tearing-apart
around us. The ripping and flinging and screeching falls. Until,
although I can still hear the resonance of the din within my head, I
realize that it has stopped. The earth has ceased its quaking and, as
before a storm, the air is still. I peer over the side of the road toward
my fish. It is still on the line. Still.
Camera Two
Ellis Hospital was not far from our quarters. I drove there,
guided by a map which the sergeant had left us. When I reached
my destination, however, the sign in front of the building read
ELLIS SERVICE STATION.
It
was the right name, Ellis, and pictured beneath it, I recog–
nized the staff with the wings on top and the snakes entwined
around it as on the medical caduceus. But I was puzzled, for it
should have been a hospital.
The building itself was an old, single-storied structure, built on
stilts. Its immense length made up for its lack of height as it extended
parallel to the road for a distance of about three football fields.
I entered the building via the main entrance and turned into
the first office on the left. I must have startled the little WAG who
was tending the desk for she quickly straightened up in her chair and
tried to hide a paperback book by covering it with her left arm.
Then she looked up. She was one of the few American Negroes
who are absolutely black. Her skin was as smooth as ivory. And her
teeth white and perfect when she smiled. Which she did when she
saw me. And she relaxed, and sat back in her chair, revealing the
book she had been reading. It was Flaubert's
Sentimental Education.
In translation. She couldn't have been more than eighteen years old.
"I'm Lieutenant Klinger."
"Oh, Jacob. Klinger. We've been expecting you. One second,
