LITMIR.BIZ

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is an important book because it tells a story that had never been truly told—the story of women in war.

      Women’s Barracks

      That day, too, we were assigned to housecleaning.

      To ward evening, a truck unloaded straw for mattresses—and also a batch of five new recruits, who were immediately sent off to peel vegetables in the kitchen. Ursula and I had just finished cleaning the three bathrooms. She had been chattering rather easily most of the day and I had begun to feel that I understood this frail girl who nevertheless was streaked through with decided, even passionate elements of character.

      As we came out on the stairway we noticed one of the newcomers crossing the hall, laden with a huge pile of straw. It was a lady. A lady such as one saw in films. At first glance, the lady appeared fairly young—thirty or thirty-two. But on closer scrutiny one saw that she was somewhat older.

      Ursula stood still and murmured, “Isn’t she beautiful?”

      The woman was tall and extremely blonde—a peroxide blonde. Her hair curled in ringlets over her forehead and fell in waves alongside her face. Her nose was fairly long, but quite narrow and very slightly arched, giving her an air of distinction. She was heavily made up. Ursula stood stock-still, a wisp of a girl wrapped in her long beige smock, watching the passage of this beautiful creature. The woman had such a marvelous scent! And in passing, she threw Ursula a smile that was as perfumed as the woman herself.

      At that moment our sergeant-cook appeared, roaring, “Hey, you there, the new one—Claude! What are you doing with that straw? You’re supposed to be in the kitchen!”

      To our astonishment, we beheld the one called Claude raise a snarling face over her pile of straw, and from her artfully made-up mouth there came forth one of the most violent replies that I had ever heard. As for Ursula, she stood agape. “You can go to hell!” the lady spat at the sergeant. “Just because you’re a sergeant, don’t think you can get away with anything! First, I’m going to fix my bed and when I’m through, I’ll come and peel your potatoes, and if you don’t like it you can kiss my behind!”

      The sergeant-cook must have realized that this was no little girl from Brittany, for she went away without saying a word.

      Now Claude turned toward us. “Can you imagine, talking to me in such a tone of voice! What does she take me for—her servant? More likely, she’d be mine! I volunteered out of patriotism, and not to be treated like an inferior by a conne like that!”

      It was strange, but the coarse words with which her speech was peppered seemed to lose their vulgarity when they were spoken by Claude. She had a very beautiful voice, cultured and modulated, the sort that could permit itself the use of slang.

      “Can you tell me where to find the switchboard room?” Claude then asked. “That’s where I’m to bunk. I’ve got to take charge of the telephone.”

      An assignment of this sort seemed prodigiously important to us. Full of respect for Claude, we showed her the little room near the entrance that had been set aside for the telephone operator.

      Claude dropped the straw on the floor, went to the window, opened it, and leaned on her elbows, looking out into the street.

      Facing our barracks was a large hotel, and in front of the hotel entrance stood the doorman, very tall, very thin, with graying hair and thin lips. His cheeks were highly rouged, his eyelids were painted a bright blue, and he bowed with feminine grace before every man who entered the hotel. Then he resumed his haughty nonchalant stance, staring directly before him at the windows of our barracks.

      “You could take him for the ambassador of Peru,” murmured Claude. We had no idea why “ambassador” and why “Peru,” but the phrase enchanted Ursula and she started to laugh.

      “How old are you, child?” Claude asked her.

      This time Ursula replied, “Seventeen,” without hesitation.

      Claude placed her hand on Ursula’s head and stroked her soft hair. I felt as though I were intruding. “You have the air of a tiny little girl, and you’re ravishing—you’re like a little bird,” Claude said.

      It was obvious that this was the first time anyone had told Ursula she was ravishing. And yet, because it was said in another person’s presence—mine—it was quite normal, almost a conventional remark.

      Ursula never forgot her feelings at this first meeting. When she spoke about it to me later she said that Claude’s voice was so gentle, Claude’s hand was so soft that she wanted to reply, “Oh, and you are so beautiful!” but she didn’t dare, and she uttered the first banality that came to her. “I’ve been here since yesterday. I’m from Paris. Where are you from?”

      Claude was about to answer when a corporal appeared—a third one. We seemed surrounded by corporals. This was a large girl, rather gentle and reserved, she had charge of the office. She had some forms in her hand and she gave them to Claude to fill out.

      Ursula tugged at me, and we left.

      Our aristocratic Jacqueline was the first to receive a secretarial post. She would always be first everywhere, with her enchanting face and her air of being owed the best, and yet this was so natural to her that we could not resent her manner. She returned at noon, absolutely delighted with her office. Her lieutenant was a man of excellent family, she announced to us, highly cultured. And he had already invited her to have lunch with him tomorrow. Of course, he had a wife and children in France.

      Soon most of us were assigned to work in various offices at GHQ. I became, for the time being, a file clerk and the operator of a mimeograph machine in the Information Bureau. But the Captain had no idea what to do with Ursula. Most of us could type, at least; Ann could drive a car; but Ursula had no accomplishments. Finally the Captain put her down as sentry for the barracks.

      Ursula remained seated all day long at a little table by the entrance, keeping a registry book in which she noted down all of our comings and goings. Opposite her was the switchboard room, where Claude was stationed. Through the half-open door she could glimpse Claude’s glistening blonde hair. From time to time, Claude came out of the little room for a chat. She still wore that same wonderful perfume. But with tender dismay one night Ursula asked me if I had noticed that Claude had little creases at the sides of her mouth, and white hairs mingled with the blonde. Indeed, Claude could have been her mother. And in those first days I felt that this was what drew Ursula to Claude, the wish that she had had a mother as gay and amusing as this woman, with her inexhaustible store of gossip about all the celebrities in Paris.

      But soon the stories Ursula brought back from Claude were less innocent. Ursula was fascinated and yet a little puzzled by the ease with which Claude related her bedroom experiences; she had slept with most of the currently fashionable actors and writers of the capital, and she kept up a continuous stream of intimate chatter about her lovers to the girl. Ursula would repeat Claude’s gossip, somewhat in awe, and somewhat as though wanting reassurance that there was nothing wrong in her adoration of Claude. Claude would tell her, “I absolutely adored that boy, and then suddenly I had enough of him. My only love was always my husband, but he’s a dog. He drinks too much, and he’s a fairy, damn him! As soon as we’re together, we fight. Luckily, I had Jacques. He was my great consolation. He was still a child, a high-school boy. He used to come to me after school. I trained him. I made him my best lover.”

      Ursula couldn’t get over her astonishment at this woman who adored her homosexual husband but fought with him, and who had so many lovers, and who was so much at ease about it all. The world of grownups had always seemed distant and mysterious to Ursula. With Claude, that world became even more distant, and all the values that Ursula had so painfully established for herself were overturned.

      But one thing was certain: Ursula felt that the one person who really cared about her was Claude. Big Ann was pleasant and sometimes brusque;

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