WHEN HE GOT OFF THE TRAIN, THE VAGUE FEELING OF APPREHENSION that had followed him all the way from camp turned into an acute, embarrassed terror; he stood on the station platform wondering where he could turn and run to, and someone passed him, looked at him curiously, and said, “Back again, Bert?” Then he knew it was too late, and without thinking he started down toward his home.
He passed the candy store and wondered briefly if it would be worthwhile taking her a box of toffee, but then, feeling the bulk of the bracelet in his pocket, he thought, No, that’s enough, maybe I’ll get her something else later. Within a block of his home he met his ten-year-old brother-in-law, and the kid grinned and said, “Hi, Bert, what you doing home?”
“Just back for a day or two,” Bert said uncomfortably, hurrying past; the kid would certainly tell the whole town he was back.
“She ain’t home; her and Ella’s down at the Paradise,” his brother-in-law bawled after him as he reached his front gate; he opened it and went up the steps two at a time. The door was unlocked. As he pushed it shut behind him, he said tentatively, “Gladys?”
There was mail on the dining room table, put down hastily: a letter for her from his mother, a couple of bills. Bert turned his mother’s letter over in his hands for a minute and then put it down again; he knew what it said. He went into the kitchen; she had had a cup of coffee that afternoon; the coffeepot was still faintly warm under his hand. There was a package of bacon in the refrigerator, and a couple of eggs. Breakfast, he thought, and went on into the bedroom. The bed was mussed, and a magazine lay facedown, with half a chocolate bar on its cover. Her housecoat was on the floor of the closet. He left the bedroom and walked back through the kitchen, stopping to look into the bathroom (her powder box still open and a bath towel on the floor), and then into the living room again. “Gladys?” he called softly once more, his hand on the front door. Then he went out into the street again, walking quickly and lightly, his small feet moving with certainty along the familiar sidewalk.
The Paradise was far enough away so that by the time Bert had walked there he was quieted, and his hands were no longer shaking. He lit a cigarette, standing outside the double door, and then he went in. It was an orderly place, well swept and dark, with a bar at the front and booths in the back. It was nearly deserted by now; the respectable people who drank here had gone home to their dinners, and the unrespectable people had gone on to livelier, brighter places. He stood for a minute to get used to the darkness, and heard Gladys’s voice clearly: “But I’m not hungry.”
She was near the back, sitting in a booth with her sister, Ella, and Ella’s friend Frank, and a man Bert didn’t know. Bert walked softly back and stood at the entrance of the booth, looking at them for a minute before Ella recognized him in the near dark. “It’s Bertie,” she shrieked. “Bertie’s home again.”
“Hey, soldier,” Frank said cheerfully, “the war’s over. Didn’t they tell you out there in the sticks?” He reached out his foot and pulled a chair to the table. “Sit down, Corporal,” he said. “Let’s get you a beer.”
They were all drinking beer. Bert looked at Gladys, and she said, “Hello, Bertie,” and smiled. The man sitting next to her looked at him and said, “Hi.”
“How come you’re back?” Frank asked. “What you doing home again so quick? They can’t stand him around that Army,” he told Ella. “They keep sending him home.”
“I don’t blame them,” Ella said, and giggled.
“You didn’t write,” Gladys said to him. “I would have known you were coming if you wrote me.”
“Well, it’s good to see you,” Frank said. “You know Walter, here?” He pointed to the strange man.
“Hi,” Walter said.
“Look, Gladys,” Bert said, “why don’t we go on home? I got a lot to talk to you about.”
The corners of Gladys’s mouth turned down, and she put her head back and drew up her shoulders. “I can’t,” she said. “I want to stay here.”
“You’re not going to start that again, are you, Bert?” Ella demanded. “Because if you are, I’m leaving. Frank and I’ll go someplace else where we don’t have to listen.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Bert said. “I just want to talk to my wife, is all.”
“I don’t want to talk,” Gladys said. “I want to stay here.”
“And that’s that,” Frank said. “Have a beer, Bert.”
“He hasn’t any right,” Ella was saying to Walter. “He just can’t stand seeing anyone have a nice time.”
“Bert isn’t going to be mean anymore,” Gladys said. “Listen, Bert, you go along home and I’ll be there in …” She thought. “In an hour.”
“Why should he go home?” Frank put his hand affectionately on Bert’s arm. “Let him stick around and have a drink.”
“Go on up to Mom’s,” Ella said. “She’ll give you something to eat.”
“I saw your brother,” Bert said to Gladys. “He told me where you were.”
“He followed us,” Gladys said. “Walter gave him a dollar.” She laughed. “Like in the comics.”
The waiter brought a glass of beer and put it on the table in front of Bert, and Frank paid for it. “I’m buying you a beer, Corporal,” he said.
Bert hesitated for a minute, then sat down wearily. “Look, Gladys,” he said, “I’m just here for a couple of days. You ought to listen to what I have to say.”
“I’m listening,” Gladys said. She leaned forward, her chin on her hands. “See?” she said.
“All right, dammit,” Bert said. He put his hands on the table and looked at them through the glass of beer; he had small hands, hardly larger than Gladys’s. That’s why I don’t knock one of these guys down, he thought. I’m not scared; it’s just that I’m not much bigger than Gladys. He looked at her and saw that she was winking at Ella. “I guess I’m going to get a divorce,” he said. “My mother thinks I ought to divorce you.”
“What for?” Gladys asked blankly. When all the excitement went out of her face it was little and pale, like a rabbit’s, or like the face of some small, staring fish.
“Divorce Gladys?” Ella said. “What would she do?”
“She could go back and work in the factory,” Bert said. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with me anymore.”
“That’s no way to talk,” Frank said. “You’re not being fair to Gladys.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Gladys said.
Bert looked down at his hands again instead of looking at Gladys, and he spoke very slowly and carefully so that nobody would make any mistakes about him. “My mother says our getting married was a mistake, and that when I’m out of the Army you won’t settle down and we shouldn’t try to stay married. And we were only married for a few days before I left, so it isn’t as though …” He stopped helplessly, then began again: “So they gave me an emergency furlough.” He looked at Gladys. “That means trouble at home. You think I like chasing you into every bar in town?” he finished desperately.
Gladys’s lip trembled. “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I write you every single week, and I tell you every single thing I’ve been doing. It’s not nice to talk like that.”
“Why don’t we go someplace else?” Walter asked suddenly. “I want to eat.”
Ella began to talk across the table to Walter again. “You know what people are going to say about a girl Gladys’s age who gets divorced by her husband, and it isn’t very nice to think of people talking like that about your own sister.”
“You see why I wanted to go home?” Bert said. “This is no place to talk about something serious.”
“Seventeen,” Ella went on, her voice rising. “Only seventeen years old, my sister is. And what are people going to say?”
Walter stood up and reached for his coat on the rack. “I’m going someplace and eat,” he said. Dragging his coat after him, he started for the door.
“Let’s all go,” Ella said. “We can talk later.” She shoved impatiently at Frank to get him to let her out of the booth, and Gladys slid along the seat on her side to get out. Bert caught her by the arm. “Listen, Gladys,” he said softly. “Let them go wherever they want to. We’ll go home.”
She pulled her arm away, not looking at him, and he said desperately, “I’ll be gone by tomorrow night.”
“Come on, Gladys,” Ella said. “You can bring Bert.”
“Look,” Bert said to Gladys, “I thought we could go to the hotel for dinner. It’s Saturday; we could dance, too, for a while.”
Gladys looked at him. “I don’t want to,” she said.
“I brought you a bracelet,” Bert said. “I didn’t want to give it to you with all of them watching.” He touched her arm again. “Listen, Gladys,” he said, “I’m just going to be here for one night.”
“Wait a minute, then,” Gladys said ungraciously, and hurried to catch Ella. They talked for a minute while Walter waited impatiently at the door, and then Gladys said, “See you Monday, at my place,” and came back to Bert.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Ella doesn’t mind. They’ll get someone else for Walter.”
He took her coat down and held it for her to put on. “You’ll like it down at the hotel.”
She turned the corners of her mouth down again. “You said …” she began.
“Okay, okay,” Bert said quickly.
When they got out to the street it was dark, and Ella and Frank and Walter were already out of sight. Gladys started walking toward the brighter part of town, toward the hotel, and Bert caught up with her. “We’ve got to talk about this, though, seriously,” he said insistently.
She looked up at him and smiled. Then, as they walked along, she curled her hand under his arm and leaned up against him affectionately.
“Nice old Bert,” she said.