“I wasn’t looking at you,” Tony said, flustered.
“Don’t kid me,” Oliver said. “You want to disapprove of me, do it some other time. Not tonight. Understand?”
“Yes, Father,” Tony said.
“The low, slavering beast,” Oliver said obscurely, “munching on his bloody bones.” He glowered at Tony for a moment, then put out his hand and touched him, gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m feeling funny tonight. Don’t pay it any attention. The last night …” He stopped inconclusively. “Some time,” he said, “it might be a good idea if you wrote me a full report. ‘My Impressions of Father.’” He smiled. “‘Father Drunk, Sober and Mistaken.’ Something like that. Leaving out nothing. Might do us both a lot of good. Might get that strangled look off your face the next time you see me. Christ, you’re an unhappy-looking boy. Even if you had good eyes, the Army’d probably turn you down on grounds of morale. You’d infect a whole regiment with melancholy. What is it? What is it? Ah, don’t tell me. Who wants to know?” He looked around the room vaguely. “We should have gone to a musical comedy tonight. Leave the country singing and dancing. Only all the goddamn tickets’re sold out. You got anything to say?”
“No,” Tony said, hoping the people at the next table weren’t listening.
“Never anything to say,” Oliver said. “Made a big speech at the age of thirteen that astounded his listeners with its brilliance and maturity, then shut his mouth for the rest of his life. That girl is smiling at you with all two eyes …”
“What?” Tony asked, confused.
Oliver gestured obviously toward the door. “The Sergeant’s girl,” he said. “She’s on her way to the latrine and she’s signaling to you like a sailor on a mast.”
Elizabeth was standing at the door and she was smiling and gesturing to Tony with her finger. The room was L-shaped and the Sergeant was seated around the bend of the L and couldn’t see her. He was slouched in his chair, morosely eating a breadstick.
“Excuse me,” Tony said, glad of an excuse to get away from the table. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t hurry on my account,” Oliver said as Tony stood up. “We don’t sail until the wind changes.”
Tony crossed the room to Elizabeth. She chuckled as he came up to her and pulled him out into a little vestibule. “Are you prepared to be wicked?” she said.
“What about the Sergeant?” Tony asked.
“The Sergeant has bedcheck at eleven,” Elizabeth said carelessly. “Can you get away from Papa?”
“If it kills me,” Tony said grimly.
Elizabeth chuckled again. “They’re a riot,” she said. “Fathers.”
“A riot,” Tony agreed.
“He’s pretty cute, though,” said Elizabeth. “In his soldier suit.”
“That’s the word,” said Tony.
“The Village?” Elizabeth asked.
“Okay.”
“I’ll be at the bar in Number One at eleven-fifteen,” she said. “We’ll celebrate.”
“What’ll we celebrate?”
“We’ll celebrate that we’re both civilians,” Elizabeth said. She smiled and pushed him back, out of the vestibule. “Go ahead back to Papa.”
Tony went back to the table, feeling better. At least the whole evening wouldn’t be wasted.
“What time’re you meeting her?” Oliver said as he sat down.
“Tomorrow,” Tony said.
“Don’t mislead the troops,” said Oliver. He smiled mirthlessly and stared at the door through which Elizabeth had disappeared. “How old is she? Twenty?”
“Eighteen.”
“They begin earlier and earlier, don’t they?” said Oliver. “Poor sod of a Sergeant.” Oliver looked over at the Sergeant, safely behind the bend of the wall, and chuckled, without pity. “Paying five bucks a steak and losing his girl at the toilet door to the pretty young man.” Oliver leaned back in his chair and studied his son gravely, while Tony kept his mind on eleven-fifteen that night. “It’s pretty easy for you, isn’t it?” Oliver said. “I’ll bet they heave themselves at you.”
“Please, Father,” Tony said.
“Don’t be ungrateful,” Oliver said, though without heat. “Maybe the best thing in the world is to be handsome. You’re halfway up the hill to begin with. It’s unfair, but it’s not your fault, and you ought to make the most of it. I wasn’t a bad-looking young man, myself, but I didn’t have that thing. Women could constrain themselves in my presence. When you’re older, write me about it. I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like.”
“You’re drunk,” Tony said.
“Of course.” Oliver nodded agreeably. “Although it isn’t a polite thing to say to a father on his way to the wars. When I was a young man fathers were never drunk. That was before Prohibition, of course. A different world. Yes,” he said, “you’ve got what your mother has …”
“Please, Father, cut it out,” Tony said. “Have some coffee.”
“She was a beautiful woman,” Oliver said oratorically, using the past tense as though he were speaking of someone he had known fifty years before. “She couldn’t come into a room without having every head turn her way. She had a modest, apologetic way of walking into a room. It came about because she was frightened, she was trying to make as little impression as possible, but it had a funny result. Provocative. Frightened … That’s a funny thing to say about your mother, isn’t it?” He stared at Tony. “Isn’t it?” he asked, challengingly.
“I don’t know.”
“Frightened. For many years. For long, long years …” Oliver was almost chanting now and by this time the people on both sides of their table were hushing and listening to him. “Long, long years. I used to make fun of her for it. I kept telling her how beautiful she was because I wanted to give her confidence in herself. I thought I had so much myself that I could spare some, without feeling it. Confidence … Nobody has to give you any. You have it, and I’m happy for your sake. You have it and you know how you got it?” He leaned forward belligerently. “Because you hate everybody. That’s pretty good,” he said, “that’s pretty lucky—at the age of twenty to be able to hate everybody. You’ll go a long way. If they don’t bomb New York.” He looked around him fiercely and the people at the other table, who had been listening, suddenly began to talk loudly among themselves. “Wouldn’t that be a laugh,” he said. “All these fat ones sitting here, saying, ‘I’ll have it rare,’ and all of a sudden hearing the whistle and looking up and seeing the ceiling fall in on them. God, I’d like to be here to see that.” He pushed his plate away from him. “Do you want some cheese?”
“No.”
“I do,” Oliver said. “I want every damn thing I can get.” He waved to the waiter, but he wouldn’t order coffee. He insisted upon another glass of whisky.
“Father …” Tony protested. “Go easy.”
Oliver gestured at him with good-humored impatience. “Quiet, quiet,” he said. “I’ve simplified my tastes. All that crap about cocktails before dinner, two kinds of wine, brandy later … We live in a state of emergency. Streamlining is the order of the day. Even the Army’s done it. The streamlined division. Triangular. Eliminated the brigade, just the way I’ve eliminated wines and liqueurs. Great step toward winning the war. Don’t look disapproving. There are two or three things I intend to tell you before disappearing, and that’s one of them. Don’t look disapproving. It’s … it’s platitudinous.” A look of satisfaction spread over his face because he had thought of the word. “You’re too smart for stuff like that. The attempt should be in the direction of originality. Love your father. Where could you find something more original than that in this day and age? You’d be the talk of the academic world. A new phenomenon in psychological studies. Biggest thing since Vienna. The Cordelia complex.” He chuckled, pleased with his wit.