The Enormous Room, E. E. Cummings [beautiful books to read txt] 📗

thankfully testified to the bad character of B. and (wishing very naturally to get rid of both of us at once) had further averred that we were always together and that consequently I might properly be regarded as a suspicious character. Whereupon they had received instructions to hold us at the section until Noyon could arrive and take charge⁠—hence our failure to obtain our long-overdue permission.

“Your friend,” said Monsieur in English, “is here a short while ago. I ask him if he is up in the aeroplane flying over Germans will he drop the bombs on Germans and he say no, he will not drop any bombs on Germans.”

By this falsehood (such it happened to be) I confess that I was nonplussed. In the first place, I was at the time innocent of third-degree methods. Secondly, I remembered that, a week or so since, B., myself and another American in the section had written a letter⁠—which, on the advice of the sous-lieutenant who accompanied Vingt-et-Un as translator, we had addressed to the Undersecretary of State in French Aviation⁠—asking that inasmuch as the American Government was about to take over the Red Cross (which meant that all the Sanitary Sections would be affiliated with the American, and no longer with the French, Army) we three at any rate might be allowed to continue our association with the French by enlisting in l’Esquadrille Lafayette. One of the “dirty Frenchmen” had written the letter for us in the finest language imaginable, from data supplied by ourselves.

“You write a letter, your friend and you, for French aviation?”

Here I corrected him: there were three of us; and why didn’t he have the third culprit arrested, might I ask? But he ignored this little digression, and wanted to know: Why not American aviation?⁠—to which I answered: “Ah, but as my friend has so often said to me, the French are after all the finest people in the world.”

This double-blow stopped Noyon dead, but only for a second.

“Did your friend write this letter?”⁠—“No,” I answered truthfully.⁠—“Who did write it?”⁠—“One of the Frenchmen attached to the section.”⁠—“What is his name?”⁠—“I’m sure I don’t know,” I answered; mentally swearing that, whatever might happen to me the scribe should not suffer. “At my urgent request,” I added.

Relapsing into French, Monsieur asked me if I would have any hesitation in dropping bombs on Germans? I said no, I wouldn’t. And why did I suppose I was fitted to become aviator? Because, I told him, I weighed 135 pounds and could drive any kind of auto or motorcycle. (I hoped he would make me prove this assertion, in which case I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop till I got to Munich; but no.)

“Do you mean to say that my friend was not only trying to avoid serving in the American Army but was contemplating treason as well?” I asked.

“Well, that would be it, would it not?” he answered coolly. Then, leaning forward once more, he fired at me: “Why did you write to an official so high?”

At this I laughed outright. “Because the excellent sous-lieutenant who translated when Mr. Lieutenant A. couldn’t understand advised us to do so.”

Following up this sortie, I addressed the mustache: “Write this down in the testimony⁠—that I, here present, refuse utterly to believe that my friend is not as sincere a lover of France and the French people as any man living!⁠—Tell him to write it,” I commanded Noyon stonily. But Noyon shook his head, saying: “We have the very best reason for supposing your friend to be no friend of France.” I answered: “That is not my affair. I want my opinion of my friend written in; do you see?” “That’s reasonable,” the rosette murmured; and the moustache wrote it down.

“Why do you think we volunteered?” I asked sarcastically, when the testimony was complete.

Monsieur le Ministre was evidently rather uncomfortable. He writhed a little in his chair, and tweaked his chin three or four times. The rosette and the moustache were exchanging animated phrases. At last Noyon, motioning for silence and speaking in an almost desperate tone, demanded:

“Est-ce-que vous détestez les boches?”

I had won my own case. The question was purely perfunctory. To walk out of the room a free man I had merely to say yes. My examiners were sure of my answer. The rosette was leaning forward and smiling encouragingly. The moustache was making little ouis in the air with his pen. And Noyon had given up all hope of making me out a criminal. I might be rash, but I was innocent; the dupe of a superior and malign intelligence. I would probably be admonished to choose my friends more carefully next time and that would be all.⁠ ⁠…

Deliberately, I framed the answer:

“Non. J’aime beaucoup les français.”

Agile as a weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: “It is impossible to love Frenchmen and not to hate Germans.”

I did not mind his triumph in the least. The discomfiture of the rosette merely amused me. The surprise of the moustache I found very pleasant.

Poor rosette! He kept murmuring desperately: “Fond of his friend, quite right. Mistaken of course, too bad, meant well.”

With a supremely disagreeable expression on his immaculate face the victorious minister of security pressed his victim with regained assurance: “But you are doubtless aware of the atrocities committed by the boches?”

“I have read about them,” I replied very cheerfully.

“You do not believe?”

“Ça se peut.”

“And if they are so, which of course they are” (tone of profound conviction) “you do not detest the Germans?”

“Oh, in that case, of course anyone must detest them,” I averred with perfect politeness.

And my case was lost, forever lost. I breathed freely once more. All my nervousness was gone. The attempt of the three gentlemen sitting before me to endow my friend and myself with different fates had irrevocably failed.

At the conclusion of a short conference I was told by Monsieur:

“I