UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

• • Inquisthon

SHE came into the detachment office and stood there, rather drab and pathetic, with the look of one who expects the world to kick her and has never been disappointed up to now. She hesitated in the doorway and smiled shyly first at me, then at the gendarme. Hofmeyer. Her face was gentle, hopeless and might once have been quite pretty.

Turning, she called down the stairs: " Shall I go in here ? "

Ned was following her up with a box of rations. He replied : " All right, go in. I'll be along in a minute." As he passed he put his head round the door. " New interpretess," he said to me, and to the gendarme, " Dolmetscherin." He pulled a long face and went on his way to the kitchen whistling " Buttons and Bows." Soon he was to be heard flirting lasciviously with the cook.

The interpretess stood in the middle of the room—slightly uncertain. Hofmeyer asked a question or two, gently—as one might speak to a child. Grey-eyed, serene, efficient, he had been an officer in the cavalry. Defeated, he became a one-star gendarme in a police-force where intelligence, probity and a former commission were held against him. Sometimes he made me feel very ashamed.

" Are you coming here to live ? " he asked. " Oh yes ! My case is in the hall."

He caught my eye and drew down the corners of his mouth in a gesture of disapproval. He did not like women on the detachment. He had cause. He asked her name. Rosa Pernersdorfer. Where was she from ? Linz. Ah yes, he had passed through Linz once in 1942 on his way to join his unit. They commented on Linz.

I offered a chair. It was right by her, but she had not dared to sit down. Ned came in, and immediately she stood up again. She called him " sergeant."

" Ned'll do," he said curtly.

" Thank you," she replied and smiled.

Apparently she had got under his skin. It was the smile as much as anything—a smile that was exasperating, inverte- brate, apologetic.

Ned sent her to her room to take off her coat. Then she came back to the office and just stood, still smiling. Ned made an effort. " Now then, Rosa, if you'll take a seat—there's ten minutes till dinner and there's some questions I've got to ask you. Routine. It's not important."

,`,` Certainly," she said, laughed nervously and sat on the edge of the chair, a smile still flitting round her lips, but a vague look of apprehension in her eyes.

Name ? Last address ? Date of birth ? Nationality ? Former occupation ? It went mechanically, as always. The questioner had asked the questions a hundred times before; the questioned had answered them as often. Time and time again the performance had been repeated—like a typewriter running from one margin to the other, then back to the begin- ning and start all over again. Sometimes, however, the machine goes wrong.

" Married ? "

" Yes."

" Husband's full name ? "

" Perhaps I should tell you now—he is dead. He tied three years ago." The husband's particulars were taken down as if there were no distinction between the quick and the dead. " They'll have to check up," explained Ned. " I know," said Rosa. She seemed anxious to delay further inquisition. She went on: " No one ever believes you, do they ? Before, they have always checked too ! " She repeated more or less the same in German to Hofmeyer, who knew no English.

He nodded. " Unfortunately that is to. be expected," he said and went on studying a booklet of gendarmerie regulations. Then the telephone rang. Corporal Wood wanted to know: Had we got his rations ? Ned, blasphemous and impatient, explained that we had not. He rang off, and at that moment the cook's shrill voice screeched from the kitchen: " Essen kommen ! "

" It is lunchtime," said Rosa and stood up.

" Here ! Just a minute ! Let's get this finished."

She sat down again. She seemed stiff, tense.

" Children '? " " Yes—one."

" Name ? " " Ingeborg."

" Age ? "

" Look, I have photographs." She pulled a little packet of tattered prints out of her hag. " Look, sergeant, isn't she sweet ? Look—her little hands, her little toes."

" Yeah, very sweet, how old is she now ? "

" Now ? Now ? Six months."

A slight still pause. I see. You've married She did not reply; she looked at Ned, waiting.

" Your second husband's name ? " His voice carried no conviction.

There—there is none—no second--" " None ? " Ned's voice hardened. " So the kid's —" She bent forward slightly, begging for mercy. In vain. He had to put it into words. " The kid's a b— . . . illegitimate ? "

Rosa seemed to cave in, to crumple.

" All right ! " said Ned harshly. " No good making a fuss. I couldn't really care less. All I want are the details."

She buried her face in her hands in a gigantic effort to control herself. Then her body began to shake like a rubber hot-water bottle being emptied. It seemed as if her tight threadbare clothes would burst. The tears seeped between her lingers and, falling, were absorbed by the dust on the floor. A sort of wail came from her throat. It rose and fell like a dog howling in the distance. Hofmeyer was watching, a strained expression on his face. He seemed to have grasped what was happening. Suddenly he got up and walked out. Ned sat for a minute— his face set—then violently.threw down his pencil, pushed back his chair, and made for the door.

" All the same, these blasted women ! All whores ! "

As he flung out of the door Hofmeyer, returning, stood back to let him past. The gendarme came in with a glass of water. He gave it to Rosa, who was wiping her eyes. Looking at me, he shook his head slowly, sadly. And we stood there, one on either side of the woman, silent, as she sipped her water and prepared to face the world again.