Salinger novel

Are you in France?

After eating half a can of meat and a few egg yolks, the boy lay down in a low-lying field with water. He jerked his head out of his helmet—a little painfully—closed his eyes, emptied his brain as if he were putting water from a thousand small openings, and fell asleep almost immediately. When he woke up, it was almost ten o'clock—it was a combative, crazy, non-belonging time—and the wet, cold French sky began to darken. He lay down and opened his eyes, and some tiny opposite thoughts flowed slowly and unquestionably back to the brain, such as not being able to ignore the cold, and some thoughts that could not disappear gratefully. When his brain was filled with all kinds of unpleasantness, a dull, nightly thought rose to become his greatest wish: to find a place to sleep. Stand up! Roll up your blanket! You can't sleep here.

He straightened up his dirty, smelly, and tired upper body, and turned from sitting to standing up, his eyes not resting in any place. He staggered down to pick up his helmet and put it on, staggered back to the truck with the blanket, and pulled his own one from the pile of rolled up blankets. He tucked the light, unheated blanket under his left arm and walked along the perimeter of the field covered with bushes. As he passed by Hu Jin, Hu Jin was sweating profusely digging a scattered soldier pit. Neither of them was interested in glancing at each other. He stopped where Yves was digging the pit and said, "You're going to keep doing it until tonight, Ews?" ”

Ives looked up and said, "Hmm. A drop of sweat hung from the tip of his Vermont long nose and shone brightly.

The boy said to Eves, "Wake me up, if anything gets hot or..." Eves replied, "How do I know where you were then?" The boy told him, "I'll call you when I get there." ”

I won't dig anymore tonight, the boy thought as he walked. I'm never going to dig and dig and dig with this damn insignificant tool again. I'm not going to get beaten, don't let me get beaten again, boss. Tomorrow night I'll dig a great hole, and I swear I will. But tonight, now, when everything is bad, let me find a place to rest. Just then the boy found a scattered pit, German-style, no doubt dug by the Germans at noon—a long, annoying noon.

The boy's aching legs moved a little faster and he walked toward the pit. As he approached, he looked down and saw a dirty field coat that looked like an American soldier neatly stacked at the bottom of the hole, and at this moment it could be said that his whole body and mind were sobbing. He kept going.

I saw a German pit again! He ran awkwardly. He saw a gray German wool blanket lying on the damp ground, half folded and half open. A German once lay on this blanket and bled or even died.

The boy threw his blanket on the ground at the edge of the pit and removed his rifle, gas mask and helmet. Then he bent down, his kneeling knees moved to the edge of the pit, and he leaned into the pit to pull out the heavy, bloody, unforgived German blanket. Then he rolled the blanket into a mess and threw it into the thick hedge behind the pit. He looked into the pit again. The garbage that had previously been scattered on the blanket was now scattered all over the mud floor. The boy took the digging tool from his bag, went down to the pit step by step, and began to slowly dig the damaged part of the pit.

When he was done he climbed out of the pit step by step, opened his blanket and spread it flat on the ground, one on top of the other, folded like a blanket, and then folded in half, he lifted the blanket from the place corresponding to the ridge, carefully lifted it to the mouth of the pit and lowered it, making it disappear from sight.

He watched as the little lumps of mud rolled onto the folded blanket. Then he picked up the rifle, gas mask and helmet and placed it on the ground next to the pit.

The boy lifted the top two layers of the blanket and walked up to his "bed" wearing mud-stained shoes. He stood and took off his field coat, kneaded his clothes into a ball, and lay down on the "bed" he had set up for tonight. The pit was too short, and he could only bend his knees as much as possible. He pulled a blanket over his body and rested his head on his scruffy coat. He looked up at the darkening sky and felt some nasty little dirt slip into his collar, some stopping there, some continuing to slide down to his back, and he didn't move.

Suddenly, without hesitation, a red ant took a bite on his leg— just above the leggings. He tucked his hand under the blanket and tried to kill the worm, but the movement made him gasp in pain, unable to move, and then he remembered and felt again that the fingernail cover of one finger had fallen off completely, which had happened in the morning.

He immediately raised his sore twitching fingers to his eyes and observed them in the dim light. Then with the other hand, the injured hand is placed under the blanket with great care, as if lifting a sick person rather than a sore finger. He chanted the incantation as an American soldier often did in combat.

"If I pull my hand out from under the blanket," he thought, "my nails will grow back and my hands will be clean." My body is also clean. I would wear clean shorts, a clean tank top, a snow-white shirt, a big blue polka-dot tie, and a gray striped suit. I'll be at home, I'll bolt in. I'll put some coffee in the pot, I'll listen to music, I'll latch the door. I'll open the window, I'll invite in a nice and quiet girl —not Francis, not anyone I know—and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read a few poems by Emily Dickinson—no map*; I'll ask her to read a few of William Blake's poems—made by the Little Lamb*. She has an American accent, she doesn't ask me if I have gum or candy, and I latch on the door. ”

The boy jerked his aching hand out, expecting, but nothing happened, no magic. So he opened his sweat-stained, mud-stained shirt pocket and pulled out a stack of wet newspaper clippings. He placed them on his chest, picked up the top one, and held it above his eyes. Above was a joint Broadway column, and in the dim light he began to read:

"Last night — come up and shoot me, dude — I visited Waldorf and met Genie Bowles, a young actress who came here for the premiere of her latest film, Red Light of the Rocket. (Don't miss this movie, it's a big deal.) We asked this muscular Iowa beauty who she had met when she first came here in her lovely life, and what she wanted to do most when she first arrived here. "Well," said Beauty to the Beast, "on the train I came to, I decided that my greatest expectation in New York was to date a true, pure American soldier. Guess what happened? On the afternoon I arrived, in the front hall of Waldorf, I collided with Bubi Bimi! He now majors in public relations, right in New York! How lucky? ”...... Your reporters didn't say much. Lucky Bimi, I thought..."

The boy lying in the pit kneaded the pieces of paper into a wet ball, picked up some of the remaining newspaper clippings, and threw them on the ground outside the pit.

He looked up again at the sky, the sky of France, no doubt the sky of France, not the sky of America. He cried out, half laughing and half crying, "Ulala! ”

Suddenly, in a hurry, he drew a dirty and old envelope from his pocket and quickly took it out of it, which he had probably read for about the thirtieth time:

New jersey

Manasque

June 5, 1944

Dear Babe,

Mom thinks you're still in England, but I think you're in France. Are you in France? Dad told Mom he thought you were still in England, but I think he actually thought you were in France. Are you in France?

Bensons came to the beach early this summer, and Jackie stayed upstairs at her house. Mom brought your book with her, and she thought you would be back this summer. Jechi wants to borrow your book about Russian ladies, the pile of books you've been on your desk before, and she wants to borrow one too. She promised never to bend corners or break the book, so I lent it to her. Mom said Jackie had gone too far in smoking and that she was now about to quit. She was sunburned before we came. She likes you very much and she may also turn into a freak.

I saw Francis as I rode away from home and I called out to her, but she didn't hear it. She's arrogant and Jackie isn't, and Jackie's hair is better looking.

There were more girls than boys on the beach this year, and not a single boy had seen it. The girls often played cards or smeared a lot of sunscreen on each other's backs and lay in the sun, but they also went into the water more often than ever. Virginia Hope and Barbara Giuse got into a fight for some reason, and they never sat together again on the beach. Lester Brogan was killed on the battlefield against the Japanese. Mrs. Brogan never came to the beach again except for a sunday appearance with her husband. Mr. Brogan didn't go out of the water anymore and just sat with his wife, but you know how well he swam! I remember that you and Lester used to take me for a raft, and now I'm going by myself. Diana Schultz married a soldier in the sea Girt, she followed him to California, and a week later, he was gone and she returned. Now Diana was lying alone on the beach.

Before we could go home, Mr. Ollinger died. Brother Tim went to his shop to fix his bike, only to find him lying behind the counter. The Tim brothers went to court crying all the way, and Mr. Tim kept talking to the jury and others. The brothers ran and shouted that Their father, Mr. Olinger, was dead!

I also cleaned your car for you before I got home. That trip to Canada left the car full of maps. I put them in your desk. There was also a girl's comb in the car, I guess it was Francis's, and it was also in the desk. Are you in France?

Love you

Mathilde

PS: Can I go to Canada with you next time? I'm not going to be rambling, I'll help you light a cigarette, I won't actually smoke it myself.

Your loyal

I miss you, hurry home!

Love you and kiss you

The boy carefully put the letter back into the worn-out envelope and put it back in his shirt pocket.

Then he braced himself and shouted, "Hey, Ews! I am here! “

Eves on the other end of the field saw him and nodded to him.

The boy lay down again and said loudly to the void, "Hurry up and go home!" ”

Then he bent his legs and went to sleep.