578
PARTISAN REVIEW
you been stationed in Mainz, when will you be going back home, do the peace
demonstrations worryyou, is it difficult being in Germany or do youfind it
. . .
challenging? The German people are basically friendly to Americans, aren't
they?
(Cecilia takes on, not quite consciously, the voice and manner
of her Aunt Edie, of St. Joachim, Pennsylvania: the woman's air of
feckless Christian generosity, her frank smiling solicitude . In the
early fifties this remarkable woman had helped to organize a Planned
Parenthood clinic in St . Joachim, had endured a good deal of abuse ,
even threats against her life; but she'd remained faithful to her task.
Even after the clinic was burned down she hadn't given up .)
So it happens that Cecilia Heath talks with the soldiers for
perhaps fifteen , twenty minutes . Cecilia in her dove-gray linen
blazer, her white silk English blouse, her gabardine skirt, her smart
Italian sandals. Cecilia carrying a leather bag over her shoulder, a
little breathless , shyly aggressive , damp-eyed, her hair windblown, a
fading red streaked with silver. (She wonders afterward how old she
seemed to them, how odd, how "attractive." They were so taken by
surprise they hadn't even time to glance at one another, to exchange
appraising looks.) She introduces herself, she shakes their hands, she
makes her cheery inquiries, she can well imagine Philip Schoen's
disapproval; but of course Philip need not know of the episode .
Harold is the most courteous, calling her Ma'am repeatedly,
smiling broadly, giving her childlike answers as if reciting for a
school teacher (he's from New York City yeh he likes the Army okay
yeh he likes Germany okay there's lots of places worse yeh he's going
home for Christmas furlough yeh ma'am it sure is a long way off),
Bo is the youngest, short and spunky, ebony-skinned, brash (No
ma'am them Germans demonstratin an shootin off their mouths
don't worry
him-howcome
she's askin, do they worry
her),
Cash, or
"Kesh," asks excitedly if she is a newspaper reporter and would she
maybe be taking their pictures... ? They talk at the same time ,
interrupting one another, showing off for Cecilia and for anyone in
the pub who happens to be listening; they make loud comments
about Mainz, about the Germans, about the food, the beer (they in–
sist upon buying Cecilia a tankard of beer though it was her inten–
tion to treat them to a round); but two others whose names she hasn't
quite caught- Arnie, Ernie?-Shelton?-regard her with sullen ex–
pressions . Their faces are black fists, clenched . Their lives appear
clenched as well, not to be pried open by a white woman whose only
