A Soldier's Tale Read Online Free Page A
about the Yanks. But she didnât really talk much about herself, and all the time her eyes never left me.
It was getting dark slowlyâyou know how it was in Normandy, them long evenings and the twilight. She was cleaning up the table and I was standing by the door having a smoke when we heard the Jerry bombers coming over towards the beaches and we could see the ack-ack coming up from the ships in the bay, a proper Brockâs Benefit. Strange it was, too, because it made so little noise, at that distance.
She was standing close to me and I slipped my arm around her. She turned to me and I kissed her, but she didnât seem to rise to it. So I pulled her close andkissed her real hard. Then I turned her and gave her a little shove towards the bedroom.
(When he came to describe what happened between them Saul grew very reticent. Like most working-class people, he was careful with his speech. The newly emancipated words which a bourgeois intellectual or writer or student scatters around like verbal confetti had only a small place in his vocabulary. When he used them, they stood mostly for anger or contempt, not love or sex. And they were used mostly in speaking with men of his own class and age, not outsiders like us, nor women.
And like most working-class men he was modest about his sex life, talking about it in fairly general terms. After all, he seemed to do pretty well at it, and had no need to boast or reassure himself. In part, I suppose, itâs a rather special form of territorialityâthe animal is nowhere more at risk, more defenceless, than in the act of love. But itâs also a realization that this act, deeply serious to those involved, is an absurdity to onlookers. To watch it, even to describe it, is to impair oneâs dignity. Voyeurs are people without shame or self-respect. So, in what follows, Iâve had to guess rather more than elsewhere, following out hints and broken sentences in a wayhe might hardly have approved. In those simple un-Swedish days, he believed in taking his pleasure in the old way, the woman face up in the dark, the man leading, the woman showing proper enjoyment and appreciation.)
So with the noise of bombs and gunfire coming in gusts across the quiet and darkling countryside, they undressed and climbed into the big double bed in the inner room. He hadnât had a girl, he explained, since the night theyâd been called back to camp for the move to the concentration areas and the slow journey to the beaches. There was this ATS girl but she hadnât been all that keen. Now he was excited and confident, heâd eaten and drunk well and the Frenchwoman was new and strange.
But it wasnât going right. She lay in his arms quite passively and let him caress her, but without response. Presently he pulled back from her and said to her crossly, Youâll have to do better than this, girl, or Iâm not staying. Iâve never taken a girl that wasnât willing for it.
Still without saying anything, she pulled off the sheet and knelt over him and began to kiss and pet him. Suddenly, as he realized where her lips were going (I said that he was strait-laced, like mostworking men) he sat up and slapped her across the side of the head with a full swing of his open hand, so hard that she tumbled sideways off the bed and landed sprawling on her backside on the floor.
After the swift clap of the blow there was silence and the dying sound of guns. She was sitting up, her face and body pale smudges in the gloom.
Quâest-ce qui te prend, salaud? she cried out, hurt but dry-eyed, not weeping, and he found for the first time that her fluent English was broken up by strong feeling, whether of love or hate. Tu me prends pour une putain? She fought with herself for the words. What you want of me? You want me for a prostitute? I make a good prostitute. I do not love you but I can give you plaisir . What you want of me? Everyone want something of me. On se
It was getting dark slowlyâyou know how it was in Normandy, them long evenings and the twilight. She was cleaning up the table and I was standing by the door having a smoke when we heard the Jerry bombers coming over towards the beaches and we could see the ack-ack coming up from the ships in the bay, a proper Brockâs Benefit. Strange it was, too, because it made so little noise, at that distance.
She was standing close to me and I slipped my arm around her. She turned to me and I kissed her, but she didnât seem to rise to it. So I pulled her close andkissed her real hard. Then I turned her and gave her a little shove towards the bedroom.
(When he came to describe what happened between them Saul grew very reticent. Like most working-class people, he was careful with his speech. The newly emancipated words which a bourgeois intellectual or writer or student scatters around like verbal confetti had only a small place in his vocabulary. When he used them, they stood mostly for anger or contempt, not love or sex. And they were used mostly in speaking with men of his own class and age, not outsiders like us, nor women.
And like most working-class men he was modest about his sex life, talking about it in fairly general terms. After all, he seemed to do pretty well at it, and had no need to boast or reassure himself. In part, I suppose, itâs a rather special form of territorialityâthe animal is nowhere more at risk, more defenceless, than in the act of love. But itâs also a realization that this act, deeply serious to those involved, is an absurdity to onlookers. To watch it, even to describe it, is to impair oneâs dignity. Voyeurs are people without shame or self-respect. So, in what follows, Iâve had to guess rather more than elsewhere, following out hints and broken sentences in a wayhe might hardly have approved. In those simple un-Swedish days, he believed in taking his pleasure in the old way, the woman face up in the dark, the man leading, the woman showing proper enjoyment and appreciation.)
So with the noise of bombs and gunfire coming in gusts across the quiet and darkling countryside, they undressed and climbed into the big double bed in the inner room. He hadnât had a girl, he explained, since the night theyâd been called back to camp for the move to the concentration areas and the slow journey to the beaches. There was this ATS girl but she hadnât been all that keen. Now he was excited and confident, heâd eaten and drunk well and the Frenchwoman was new and strange.
But it wasnât going right. She lay in his arms quite passively and let him caress her, but without response. Presently he pulled back from her and said to her crossly, Youâll have to do better than this, girl, or Iâm not staying. Iâve never taken a girl that wasnât willing for it.
Still without saying anything, she pulled off the sheet and knelt over him and began to kiss and pet him. Suddenly, as he realized where her lips were going (I said that he was strait-laced, like mostworking men) he sat up and slapped her across the side of the head with a full swing of his open hand, so hard that she tumbled sideways off the bed and landed sprawling on her backside on the floor.
After the swift clap of the blow there was silence and the dying sound of guns. She was sitting up, her face and body pale smudges in the gloom.
Quâest-ce qui te prend, salaud? she cried out, hurt but dry-eyed, not weeping, and he found for the first time that her fluent English was broken up by strong feeling, whether of love or hate. Tu me prends pour une putain? She fought with herself for the words. What you want of me? You want me for a prostitute? I make a good prostitute. I do not love you but I can give you plaisir . What you want of me? Everyone want something of me. On se
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