Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

But she was here now, with her nails, his uncle said, not worn down from smithing but scraped down to get them clean (and whether his uncle added it or not: feminine) again, with no more ships to rivet, and that really dramatic white plume collapsed in gallantry across her skull, with all the dragons dead. Only, even blacksmithing hadn’t been enough. What he meant was, she wasn’t any older. No, that wasn’t what he meant: not just older. Something had happened to him during the three-plus years between December ‘41 and April ‘45 or at least he hoped it had or at least what had seemed suffering and enduring to him at least met the standards of suffering and enduring enough to enrich his spiritual and moral development whether it did anything for the human race or not, and if it had purified his soul it must show on his outside too or at least he hoped it did. But she hadn’t changed at all, least of all the white streak in her hair which it seemed that some women did deliberately to themselves. When he finally—All right, finally. So what if he did spend the better part of his first three days at home at least hoping he didn’t look like he was hanging around the Square in case she did cross it or enter it. There were towns bigger than Jefferson that didn’t have a girl—woman—in it that the second you saw her eight years ago getting out of an airplane you were already wondering what she would look like with her clothes off except that she was too old for you, the wrong type for you, except that that was exactly backward, you were too young for her, the wrong type for her and so only your uncle that you had even spent some of the ten months in the Nazi stalag wondering if he ever got them off before he got married to Aunt Melisandre or maybe even after and if he didn’t, what happened, what was wrong. Because his uncle would never tell him himself whether he ever did or not but maybe after three years and a bit he could tell by looking at her, that maybe a woman really couldn’t hide that from another man who was … call it simpatico. Except that when he finally saw her on the street on the third day there was nothing at all, she had not changed at all, except for the white streak which didn’t count anyway—the same one that on that day eight years ago when he and his uncle had driven up to the Memphis airport to get her, was at that first look a little too tall and a little too thin for his type so that in that same second he was saying Well thats one anyway that wont have to take her clothes off on my account and then almost before he could get it out, something else was already saying Okay, buster, who suggested she was going to? and he had been right: not her for him, but rather not him for her: a lot more might still happen to him in his life yet (he hoped) but removing that particular skirt wouldn’t be one even if when you got the clothes off the too tall too thin ones sometimes they surprised you. And just as well; evidently his soul or whatever it was had improved some in the three years and a bit; anyway he knew now that if such had been his fate to get this particular one off, what would happen to him might, probably would, have several names but none of them would be surprise.

With no more ships to rivet now, and what was worse: no need any more for ships to rivet. So not just he, Charles, but all the town in time sooner or later would see her—or be told about it by the ones who had—walking, striding, most of the time dressed in what they presumed was the same army-surplus khaki she had probably riveted the ships in, through the back streets and alleys of the town or the highways and lanes and farm roads and even the fields and woods themselves within two or three miles of town, alone, walking not fast so much as just hard, as if she were walking off insomnia or perhaps even a hangover. “Maybe that’s what it is,” Charles said. Again his uncle looked up, a little impatiently, from the brief.

“What?” he said.

“You said maybe she has insomnia. Maybe it’s hangover she’s walking off.”

“Oh,” his uncle said. “All right.” He went back to the brief. Charles watched him.

“Why dont you walk with her?” he said.

This time his uncle didn’t look up. “Why dont you? Two ex-soldiers, you could talk about war.”

“She couldn’t hear me. I wouldn’t have time to write on a pad while we were walking.”

“That’s what I mean,” his uncle said. “My experience has been that the last thing two ex-soldiers under fifty years old want to talk about is war. You two even cant.”

“Oh,” he said. His uncle read the brief. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. His uncle read the brief. “Is it all right with you if I try to lay her?” His uncle didn’t move. Then he closed the brief and sat back in the chair.

“Certainly,” he said.

“So you think I cant,” Charles said.