THE STRANGER


	THE STRANGER by J. D. Salinger (Collier's, December 5, 1945)

The maid at the apartment door was young and snippy and she had a
part-time look about her. "Who'd ya wanna see?" she asked the young man
hostily.

The young man said, "Mrs. Polk" He had told her four times over the
squawky house phone whom he wanted to see.

He should have come on a day when there wouldn't be any idiots to
answer house phones and doors. He should have come on a day when he
didn't feel like gouging his eyes out, to rid himself forever of hay
fever. He should have come - he shouldn't have come at all. He should
have taken his sister Mattie straight to her beloved, greasy chop suey
joint, then straight to a matinee, then straight to the train - without
stopping once to take out his messy emotions, without forcing them on
strangers. Hey! Maybe it wasn't too late to laugh like a moron, lie and
leave.

The maid stepped back out of the way, mumbling something dreary about
maybe she was out of the tub and maybe not, and the young man with the
red eyes and the leggy little girl with him entered the apartment.

It was an ugly, expensive little New York apartment, the kind which
seems to rent mostly to newly married couples - possibly because the
bride's feet began to kill her at the last renting agent, or because
she loves to distraction the way her new husband wears his wrist watch.

The living room, in which the young man and the little girl were
ordered to wait, had one Morris chair too many, and it looked as though
the reading lamps had been breeding at night. Ah but over the crazy
artificial fireplace there were some fine books.

The young man wondered who owned and cared about Rainer Maria Rilke and
The Beautiful and Dammed and A High Wind in Jamaica, for instance. Did
they belong to Vincent's girl or to Vincent's girl's husband?

He sneezed, and walked over to an interesting, messy stack of
phonograph records, and picked up the top record. It was an old
Blakewell Howard - before Howard had gone commercial - playing Fat Boy.
Who owned it? Vincent's girl or Vincent's girl's husband? He turned the
record over, and through his leaky eyes he looked at a patch of dirty
white adhesive tape fastened to the title sticker. Printed on the tape
in green ink were the identification and warning: Helen Beebers - Room
202, Rudenweg - Stop Thief!

The young man grabbed his hip pocket handkerchief and sneezed again;
then he turned the record back to the Fat Boy side. His mind began to
hear the old Bakewell Howard's rough, fine horn playing. Then he began
to hear the music of the unrecoverable years; the little unhistorical,
pretty good years when all the dead boys in the 12th Regiment had been
living and cutting in on other dead boys on lost dance floors; the
years when no one who could dance worth a damn had ever heard of
Cherbourg or Saint Lô, or Hürtgen Forest or Luxembourg.

He listened to this music until behind him his little sister started
practicing belching, then he turned around and said, "Cut it out,
Mattie."

At that instant a grown girl's harsh, childish, acutely lovely voice
came into the room, followed by the girl herself.

"Hey," she said. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I'm Mrs. Polk. I don't
know how you're going to get them in this room. The windows are all
funny. But I can't stand looking at that dirty old building across the
wuddaya-call-it." She caught sight of the little girl, who was sitting
in one of the extra Morris chairs with her legs crossed. "Oh!" she
cried ecstatically. "Who's this? Your little girl? Pussy cat!"

The young man had to make an emergency snatch at his pocket
handkerchief, and he sneezed four times before he could reply. "That's
my sister Mattie," he told Vincent's girl. "I'm not the window man, if
that's-"

"You aren't the curtain man? What's the matter with your eyes?"

"I have hay fever. My name is Babe Gladwaller. I was in the Army with
Vincent Caulfield." He sneezed, "We were very good friends. Don't stare
at me when I sneeze, please. Mattie and I came in town to have lunch
and see a show, and I thought I'd drop by to see you, take a chance on
your being in. I should have telephoned or something." He sneezed
again, and when he looked up, Vincent's girl was staring at him. She
looked fine. She probably could have lighted up a cigar and looked
fine.

"Hey" she said, quietly for her; she was a shouter. "This room is dark
as glop. Let's go in my room." She turned around and started to lead
the way. With her back turned she said, "You're in the letter he wrote
me. You live in a place beginning with a "V".

"Valdosta, New York."

They entered a lighter, better room; obviously Vincent's girl's and her
husband's room.

"Listen. I hate that living room. Sit in the chair. Just throw that
glop on the floor. Pussy cat, baby, you sit there on the bed with me -
oh, sweetie, what a beautiful dress! Oh, why did you come to see me?
No, I'm glad. Go ahead, I won't look at you when you sneeze."

There was never a way, even back in the beginning, that a man could
condition himself against the lethal size and shape and melody of
beauty by chance. Vincent could have warned him. Vincent had warned
him. Sure he had.

Babe said, "Well, I thought-"

"Listen, why aren't you in the Army?" Vincent's girl said. "Aren't you
in the Army? Hey! Are you out on that new points thing?"

"He had a hundred and seven points." Mattie said. "He has five battle
stars, but you only wear a little silver one if you have five. You
can't get five of the little gold ones on the ribbon thing. Five would
look better. They'd look more. But he doesn't wear his uniform any
more, anyway. I got it. I got it in a box."

Babe crossed his long legs as most tall men do, laying the ankle on the
knee. "I'm out. I got out." he said. He looked at the clock in his
sock, one of the most unfamiliar things in the new, combat-bootless
world, then up at Vincent's girl. Was she real? "I got out last week,"
he said.

"Gee, that's swell."

She didn't care much one way or the other. Why should she? So Babe just
nodded, and said, "You, uh....You know Vincent's — you know he was
killed, don't you?"

"Yes."

Babe nodded again, and reversed the position of his legs, laying the
other ankle on the other knee.

"His father phoned and told me," Vincent's girl said; "when it
happened. He called me Miss Uhhh. He's known me all my life and he
couldn't think of my first name. Just that I loved Vincent and that I
was Howie Beeber's daughter. He thought we were still engaged, I guess.
Vincent and I."

She put her hand on the back of Mattie's neck, and stared at Mattie's
right arm, which was nearest her. Not that there was anything the matter with Mattie's right arm. It was just bare and brown and young.

"l thought you might want to know a little about it all," Babe said,
and sneezed about six times. When he put away his handkerchief,
Vincent's girl was looking at him, but she didn't say anything. Very
confusing and annoying. Maybe she wanted him to quit his introductions
he thought, and said, "I can't tell you he was happy or anything when
he died. I'm sorry- I can't think of anything good- Yet I want to tell
you the whole business."

"Don't lie to me at all. I want to know," Vincent's girl said. She let
go of Mattie's neck. then she just sat and didn't especially look at,
or do, anything. "Uh. He died in the morning. He and four other G.I.s
and I were standing around a fire we made. In Hürtgen Forest. Some
mortar dropped in suddenly - it doesn't whistle or anything - and it
hit Vincent and three of the other men. he died in the medics' CP tent
about thirty yards away, not more than about three minutes after he was
hit." Babe had to sneeze several times at that point. he went on, "I
think he had too much pain in too large an area of his body to have
realized anything but blackness. I don't think it hurt. I swear I
don't. His eyes were open. I think he recognized me and heard me when I
spoke to him, but he didn't say anything at all. The last thing he said
was about one of us was going to have to get some wood for the lousy
fire - preferably one of the younger men, he said— you know how he
talked." Babe stopped there because Vincent's girl was crying and he
didn't know what to do about it.

Mattie spoke up, telling Vincent's girl: "He was a witty guy. He was at
our house. Gee!"

Vincent's girl went on crying with her face in one hand, but she heard
Mattie. Babe looked at the low-cut shoe on his foot, and waited for
something quiet and sensible and easier to happen - such as Vincent's
girl, Vincent's swell girl, not crying any more.

When that happened — and it happened quickly, too — he talked again.
"You're married and I didn't come here to torture you. I just thought, from stuff Vincent told me, that you used to love him a lot and that you'd want to hear this stuff. I'm sorry I have to be a stranger with
hay fever and on my way to lunch and a matinee. It seems lousy. Everything seems lousy. I didn't think it would be any good, but I came anyway. I don't know what's wrong with me since I'm back."

Vincent's girl said, "What's a mortar? Like a cannon?"

How could you ever tell what girls were going to say or do? "Well. Sort of. The shell drops in without whistling, I'm sorry." He was apologizing too much, but he wanted to apologize to every girl in the world whose lover had been hit by mortar fragments because the mortars hadn't whistled. He was very afraid now, that he had told Vincent's girl too much too coldly. The hay fever, the dirty hay fever, certainly was no help. But the telling that was really terrible was the way your mind wanted to tell civilians these things - that was much more terrible than what your voice said.

Your mind, your soldier's mind, wanted accuracy above all else. So far
as details went, you wanted to be the bull's-eye kid: Don't let any
civilian leave you, when the story's over, with any comfortable lies.
Shoot down all the lies. Don't let Vincent's girl think that Vincent
asked for a cigarette before he died. Don't let her think he grinned
gamely, or said a few choice last words.

These things didn't happen. these things weren't done outside movies
and books except by a very, very few guys who were unable to fasten
their last thoughts to the depleting joy of being alive. Don't let
Vincent's girl fool herself about Vincent, no matter how much she loved
him. Get your sight picture on the nearest, biggest lie. That's why
you're back, that's why you were lucky. don't let anybody good down.
Fire! Fire, buddy! Now!

Babe uncrossed his legs, briefly squeezed his forehead with the heels
of his hands, then he sneezed about a dozen times. He used a fourth,
fresh handkerchief on his burning watery eyes, put it away, and said,
"Vincent loved you something terrific. I don't know exactly why you
broke up, but I do know it wasn't anybody's fault. I got that feeling
about it when he talked about you - that your breaking up wasn't
anybody's fault. Was it anybody's fault? I oughtn't to ask you that.
Your being married. Was it anybody's fault?"

"It was his fault."

"How come you married Mr. Polk then?" Mattie demanded.

"It was his fault. Listen. I loved Vincent. I loved his house and I
loved his brothers and I loved his mother and father. I loved
everything. Listen, Babe. Vincent didn't believe anything. If it was
summer he didn't believe it, if it was winter he didn't believe it. He
didn't believe anything from the time little Kenneth Caulfield died.
His brother."

"That the little one, the younger one he was so crazy about?"

"Yes. I loved everything. I swear to you," Vincent's girl said,
touching Mattie's arm almost vaguely.

Babe nodded. Without sneezing first, he reached into his inside coat
pocket and took out something "Uh," he said to Vincent's girl.
"This is a poem he wrote. No kidding. I borrowed some air-mail
envelopes from him and it was written on one of the backs. You can have
it if you want it." He reached his long arm forward, unable to avoid
being fascinated by the shiny links in his shirt cuffs, and handed her
a mud-dirty G.I. air-mail envelope. It was folded once the short way,
and slightly torn.

Vincent's girl looked at the face of it, and read the title with her
lips moving. She looked at Babe. "Oh, Lord! Miss Beebers! He called me
Miss Beebers!"

She looked down at the poem again, and read it through to herself,
moving her lips. She shook her head when she reached the end, but not
as though she were denying anything. Then she read the poem through
again. Then she folded the poem into a very small size, as though
concealment was necessary. She put her hand with the poem in it into
her jacket pocket and left it there.

"Miss Beebers," she said, looking up as if someone had come into the
room.

Babe, who had his legs crossed again, uncrossed them, as a overture to
getting up. "Well," he said. "The poem, is all." He stood up and so did
Mattie. Then Vincent's girl stood up.

Babe extended his hand, which Vincent's girl duly clasped. "I probably
shouldn't have come," he said. "I had the best and worst motives I'm
acting very peculiarly. I don't know what's the matter. good-bye."

"I'm very glad you came, Babe."

That made him cry and he turned around and walked quickly out of the
room toward the front door. Mattie went behind him. and Vincent's girl
slowly followed when he turned around in the hall outside the
apartment, he was all right again.

"Can we get a cab or something?" he asked Vincent's girl.
"Are there cabs running? I didn't even notice."

"Maybe you can get one. It's a good time."

"Would you like to go to lunch and theater with us?" he asked her.

"I can't. I have to - I can't. Ring the 'Up' bell. Mattie. The 'Down'
one doesn't work."

Babe took her hand again. "Good-bye, Helen," he said, and released it.
He walked over and stood beside Mattie in front of the closed elevator
doors.

"What are you going to do now?" Vincent's girl almost shouted at him.

"I told you, we're going - "

"I mean now that you're back."

"Oh!" He sneezed. "I don't know. Is there something to do? No, I'm
kidding. I'll do something. I'll probably get an M.A. and teach. My
father's a teacher."

"Hey. Go see some girl dance with a big bubble or something tonight,
huh?"

"I don't know any girls who dance with big bubbles. Ring the bell
again, Mattie."

"Listen, Babe," Vincent's girl said intensely. "Call me sometime,
willya? Please. I'm in the book."

"I know some girls." Babe said.

"I know, but we could have lunch or something and see a show.
Wuddaya-call-it can get tickets to anything. Bob. My husband. Or come
to dinner."

He shook his head and rang the elevator bell himself.

"Please."

"I'm all right. don't be that way. I'm just not used to things yet."

The elevator doors slammed open, Mattie hollered "Good-bye," and
followed her brother into the elevator. The door slammed shut.

THERE weren't any taxis down in the street. They both walked west,
toward the Park. The three long blocks between Lexington and Fifth were
dull and noonish, as only that stretch can be in late August. A fat
apartment-house doorman, cupping a cigarette in his hand, was walking a
wire-haired along the curb between Park and Madison.

Babe figured that during the whole time of the Bulge, the guy had
walked that dog on this street ever day. He couldn't believe it. He
could believe it, but it was still impossible. He felt Mattie put her
hand in his. She was talking a blue streak.

"Mamma said we ought to see that play, Harvey. She said you like Frank
Fay. It's about this man talks to a rabbit. When he's drunk and
everything, he talks to this rabbit. Or Oklahoma! Mamma said you'd like
Oklahoma! too. Roberta Cochran saw it and she said it was swell. She
said-"

"Who saw it?"

"Roberta Cochran. She's in my class. She's a dancer. Her father thinks
he's a funny guy. I was over at her house and he tries to make a lot of
wisecracks. He's a dope." Mattie was quiet for a second. "Babe," she
said.

"What?"

"Are you glad to be home?"

'Yes, baby."

"Ow! You're hurting my hand."

He relaxed his grip. "Why do you ask me that?"

"I don't know. Let's sit on top of the bus. An open one-"

"All right."

The sun was brilliant and hot as they crossed over to the Park side of
Fifth Avenue. At the bus stop, Babe lighted a cigarette and took off
his hat. A tall blond girl carrying a hatbox walked zippily along the
other side of the street. In the middle of the broad avenue a small boy
in a blue suit was trying to get his small, relaxed dog, probably named
Theodore or Waggy, to get up and finish walking across the street like
someone named Rex or Prince or Jim.

"I can eat with chopsticks," Mattie said. "This guy showed me. Vera
Weber's father. I'll show you."

The sun was full warm on Babe's pale face "Kiddo," he said to Mattie,
tapping her on the shoulder, "that's something I'll have to see."

"Okay. You'll see," said Mattie. With her feet together she made the
little jump from the curb to the street surface, then back again. Why
was it such a beautiful thing to see?

     

     Copyright (C)  J. D. Salinger