noncommissioned officers. He had never felt guilty about any of the girls. His loyalty to the ghost who sent him the dutiful V-mail letters was suspended, postponed for the duration. A war is a long time.
Leah had been divorced in 1939 (three years too late, she told Federov in Paris), and she liked him and was amused to turn down the full colonels and generals who surged after her, with the explanation that she had a date with a buck sergeant. Leah had coquetted herself into an apartment of her own from her elevated military connections, and she and Federov had made love with a great deal of satisfaction in it and Leah had talked of marriage. The idea was attractive to Federov; he had known Peggy for only three months or so and the ghost behind the V-mail envelopes was a stranger, unreal, only conventionally related to him by a hasty and almost forgotten ceremony, a pretty faded ghost who sent photographs of herself, like a shipwrecked sailor casting messages in bottles into the sea, a ghost occupied with matters that seemed piddling and unimportant to a man fighting so long for his life on another continent. The ghost had no claims on him with her news of rationing, stateside politicking in the Medical Corps, complaints about the cynicism of men who hung onto soft berths at home and who were making a good thing of the war.
After three years the professions of love were merely formal and dutiful. He himself sent no photographs home. The agony of his face was no proper adornment for the bedside table of a young girl in a white tennis dress who went to USO dances and sold silly books to clerks in uniform in Georgia.
On his side, his letters were generalized, meant to be reassuring, with no details of the massive dying of the years 1944 and 1945 which had become his daily routine. He had not known his wife long enough to tell her the truth of what he was enduring. Sometimes, when he sat down to write Peggy a letter, he had the feeling that he was writing to a friend’s child, known fleetingly a long time ago, a bright, beautiful child who naturally had to be protected from the misery of the grownup world as long as possible, a child who would grow and change so much before he saw her again that it would take a feat of memory to recognize her.
By the winter of 1945 he found it difficult to consider himself married. The years of absence outweighed too heavily the brief, interrupted months when he and Peggy had been together.
1948
H E HAD BEEN HOME from the war for three years now, but Peggy still got up and made him breakfast. He was cranky in the morning and preferred being alone to make his own breakfast and read The New York Times, his matutinal darkness of spirit reinforced by the morning’s news from all over the world. He also liked his coffee very black, but Peggy thought it was bad for his nerves and never made it strong enough for his taste. She also thought, having been coached by her father, the doctor, that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and should include a large glass of orange juice, biscuits and jam, bacon or ham and eggs, or pancakes with sausage, a glass of milk and coffee. She told Benjamin and his friends that Benjamin was working too hard and was too thin and that he drank too much and ate too little, and nothing Benjamin could say, morning after morning, could dissuade her from piling the breakfast table inordinately, decorating it with their best linen and glasses and a small vase of cut flowers, and coaxing him, in the dearest way possible, to finish his food.
Peggy had the notion, too, that a wife should look her best at all times, and she had whole outfits of lounging pajamas and embroidered nightgowns and robes in which she appeared as she brought in the platter heaped with food and drink. This was the realization of the dream he had had so many bitter nights of the war. Now he had it.
All this, plus the fact that Peggy’s job as a receptionist in an art gallery on
Leah had been divorced in 1939 (three years too late, she told Federov in Paris), and she liked him and was amused to turn down the full colonels and generals who surged after her, with the explanation that she had a date with a buck sergeant. Leah had coquetted herself into an apartment of her own from her elevated military connections, and she and Federov had made love with a great deal of satisfaction in it and Leah had talked of marriage. The idea was attractive to Federov; he had known Peggy for only three months or so and the ghost behind the V-mail envelopes was a stranger, unreal, only conventionally related to him by a hasty and almost forgotten ceremony, a pretty faded ghost who sent photographs of herself, like a shipwrecked sailor casting messages in bottles into the sea, a ghost occupied with matters that seemed piddling and unimportant to a man fighting so long for his life on another continent. The ghost had no claims on him with her news of rationing, stateside politicking in the Medical Corps, complaints about the cynicism of men who hung onto soft berths at home and who were making a good thing of the war.
After three years the professions of love were merely formal and dutiful. He himself sent no photographs home. The agony of his face was no proper adornment for the bedside table of a young girl in a white tennis dress who went to USO dances and sold silly books to clerks in uniform in Georgia.
On his side, his letters were generalized, meant to be reassuring, with no details of the massive dying of the years 1944 and 1945 which had become his daily routine. He had not known his wife long enough to tell her the truth of what he was enduring. Sometimes, when he sat down to write Peggy a letter, he had the feeling that he was writing to a friend’s child, known fleetingly a long time ago, a bright, beautiful child who naturally had to be protected from the misery of the grownup world as long as possible, a child who would grow and change so much before he saw her again that it would take a feat of memory to recognize her.
By the winter of 1945 he found it difficult to consider himself married. The years of absence outweighed too heavily the brief, interrupted months when he and Peggy had been together.
1948
H E HAD BEEN HOME from the war for three years now, but Peggy still got up and made him breakfast. He was cranky in the morning and preferred being alone to make his own breakfast and read The New York Times, his matutinal darkness of spirit reinforced by the morning’s news from all over the world. He also liked his coffee very black, but Peggy thought it was bad for his nerves and never made it strong enough for his taste. She also thought, having been coached by her father, the doctor, that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and should include a large glass of orange juice, biscuits and jam, bacon or ham and eggs, or pancakes with sausage, a glass of milk and coffee. She told Benjamin and his friends that Benjamin was working too hard and was too thin and that he drank too much and ate too little, and nothing Benjamin could say, morning after morning, could dissuade her from piling the breakfast table inordinately, decorating it with their best linen and glasses and a small vase of cut flowers, and coaxing him, in the dearest way possible, to finish his food.
Peggy had the notion, too, that a wife should look her best at all times, and she had whole outfits of lounging pajamas and embroidered nightgowns and robes in which she appeared as she brought in the platter heaped with food and drink. This was the realization of the dream he had had so many bitter nights of the war. Now he had it.
All this, plus the fact that Peggy’s job as a receptionist in an art gallery on
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