Camouflage

I

MR. RIND was a lonely person.The longer he lived the less he understood his own generation. It could not be his fault, for he had not changed. In his youth they moulded him into a good shape, solid and valid — that of an average man with a common-sense brain, moderate virtue, moderate vice. He strode an even, rhythmical pace, calmly proceeding from cradle to tomb. For him life was a distance to cover, not a depth to plunge into.

He was a little past midway now. His contemporaries had moved forward too, but they behaved in the queerest and most unexpected way. They had deviated somewhere — Mr. Rind did not notice where it had begun — and now he and they moved farther and farther apart, beyond any reach of mutual adjustment and understanding.

Mr. Rind disapproved. He refused to become frenzied with the rest of humanity. He withstood the contagion. He strode his path alone. And the whole thing was ridiculous because, although Mr. Rind knew he was right, he could not suggest a single word of solution for the situation in which the world found itself on the late November days of 1940. Little by little Mr. Rind was shifted from the rows of the active builders of life into the crowds of passive nonresistance men. His new attitude was Oriental, old, blamed and doomed long ago — but there Mr. Rind found himself fixed.

Not that Mr. Rind was self-sufficient or cultivated the lofty attitude of selfrighteousness. No. Not at all. He was kind, and honest, and loyal. But somewhere his hour was struck, and he had to clear the stage for other actors, for another play. Who rang the bell? Fate? Life? Madness? Dream?

Mr. Rind was a practical man — meaning that he was not an idealist, that a sober word and a critical glance were always his. But materialism was, in that autumn of 1940, falling down, deflated; and an average man — hitherto plain and quiet — had either to change or to get away. For the first time Mr. Rind understood the mood in which some people of his Bible would tear their garments and throw ashes upon their dolorous heads, and curse all woebegone people and run to a desert and live alone, and take sympathy only from the black ravens.

Of course, Mr. Rind did not tell how he felt. Intelligent people never do. He did not let people even guess. And now as he walked down the famous Shanghai Bund — his face all pink, his eyes a-twinkle, his cheeks well-shaven, his hair a-curly—who would ever dare to suppose how he felt? Camouflage, Mr. Rind thought, is an important part of a civilized mind, and, although hardly anybody is deceived by it, to pretend is the best style of living. And Mr. Rind pretended with the rest, as he walked down the Shanghai Bund at ten o’clock in the morning.

It happened very quickly and quite near Mr. Rind. It rose up as a turmoil of sounds: several shots, then several cries, then a rushing of people, then a gathering of crowds, whistles of police, and honks of motor horns.

Mr. Rind behaved as others did. He gasped, rushed away — then stopped short and turned back, drawn by curiosity. The running crowd enwrapped him. He stumbled. He was jostled aside. He turned abruptly and bumped against a girl who gave a cry and would have lost her balance if Mr. Rind had not caught her in his arms. Mr. Rind came to himself at once, and completely.

He felt the girl tremble all over, her body clinging to his in the search for shelter.

Mr. Rind behaved with Cœur de Lion chivalry. He drew the girl, unharmed, into a side street. When they halted round the corner, the girl leaned against Mr. Rind’s breast. She was weak from exhaustion. Therefore he held her tightly, lest she should fall.

News travels quickly in Shanghai, and Mr. Rind heard passers-by talking about two Chinese who had been killed, in spite of the gallant fighting of their bodyguards. Those Chinese were pro-Japan, therefore doomed. No need to worry — just a daily event of the New Order.

The girl came to herself. She pushed Mr. Rind away gently, and stood, tall and slender, looking round to see where she was.

Mr. Rind had a full view of the girl. She was beautiful. But what is a beautiful woman? One who makes a man feel younger — one whose presence makes life seem easy and carefree, whose smile . . . Mr. Rind, being no poet, did not go any further. He just saw that she was blonde, her eyelashes dark and long, the features of her face fine and tender. She was beautiful.

‘How are you?’ he asked with pleasure.

‘I’m all right now, thank you,’ the girl said in English too, and then added with dismay: ‘I ought not to be so nervous.’

She wore a gray suit, and her felt hat was exactly the color of her eyes — gray too, but also very green. A white lace collar, a bunch of violets at her shoulder, made her look distinguished, noble.

‘Are you frightened?’ Mr. Rind asked with interest.

‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘I ran because everybody did — not to be trodden upon.’

Mr. Rind looked at her again and again. She was very pleasant to look at. There was a peculiar charm about her, a certain fullness of life, everything meaning something — the light of her eyes, the smile of her lips, the movement of her head, her long fingers, as if she knew more of life than people usually do but held her knowledge tightly, for herself only. But it was too overwhelming and, in spite of her will, splashed over the cup of her being. She was splendid, like a tulip in an earthen pot.

‘Are you tired?’ Mr. Rind asked with sincere compassion.

‘Yes, I am,’ she answered.

Mr. Rind invited her to the nearest café. He offered her a drink. She wanted milk.

She liked milk — really. While Mr. Rind looked at her the girl drank, one after the other, three full glasses of milk, and then, all contentment and smiles, her lips glistening with milk, she rose to go home. This was a pity — she was so pleasant to look at.

Mr. Rind offered to see her home. She thanked him and declined. He offered her a taxi. She declined. He said he was glad to see her. She thanked him.

They walked out. The girl called a rickshaw man and made a rapid bargain with him in a broken Anglo-Chinese slang.

It was a pity to let her go. Mr. Rind said that aloud.

The girl looked at him.

‘Do you live here, in Shanghai?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Mr. Rind answered. ‘I am a visitor in China. In three days I am leaving.’ And he introduced himself, expecting that the girl would do the same.

But she did not. She said: ‘Let us make a mystery out of our meeting, Mr. Rind. In Shanghai every visitor is bound to have some mystery. It would be a pity if you had none to tell afterwards at home. It would belittle the town. Have you had any?’

Mr. Rind said he had not.

‘Then here you begin. I will not tell you my name. Not that it is great, or famous, or notorious, or anything. You just will not know who I am. And, if you like, you may invite me to dinner tonight. Only choose a quiet, modest place, not too fashionable.’

They agreed to meet that evening in the lounge of a certain hotel.

When she took leave, Mr. Rind had one more full glimpse of the girl. Being a practical man, he knew there could be no perfection, even in women, upon this earth. She had to have a flaw or two. The search for imperfection is usually rewarded, and Mr. Rind decided that the girl’s bust line was a bit too heavy for the slender outline of the rest of her body and her lips were too tightly pressed, making her mouth a narrower outline than was intended by nature. Still she was very pleasant to look at.

Mr. Rind was left alone. As the girl was driven away in the rickshaw, she turned to look back at him with what he took to be a significant smile of complicity.

II

Waiting for the girl, at eight o’clock in the hotel lounge, Mr. Rind not only felt at peace with the world and himself, but experienced a light and easy mood of joy, a long-forgotten guest to his soul.

She did not make him wait long. She moved quickly toward him, radiant and fragrant. She wore a low-cut green dress of tulle, very ample in the skirt and with almost no bodice. The dress was a puff of cloud, greenish-blue, transparent, opalescent. It was moving round her, waving and curling and coiling, and — against lights — one could see a graceful, a very thin silhouette, which was she, the rest being a cloud, a haze, a mist, a fog, ready to fall down or to fly away, leaving her alone and naked.

But nothing like that happened. She just wore it, and it touched and enwrapped Mr. Rind too, at his or her every movement.

They dined and danced.

She chose very simple but substantial dishes and ate with relish. Her manners were perfect, her jokes new and witty. She refused wine. She had milk, not only after dinner but also between dances, which seemed rather funny even to the waiter, who asked twice before bringing it.

Dancing was for her a natural state, as flying high for a lark, or sweeping low for a swallow.

That evening, that fascination, that charm, slid away rapidly. At eleven the girl was ready to leave.

When, holding both her hands in both of his, Mr. Rind then insisted that he must know more about her, and did not let her go, she suddenly softened, gave in. She sat down again and told him about herself.

She was alone — here, in Shanghai, absolutely alone. Her money was about gone. She was looking for a job, but could not find one. She did not have much hope. But she would not tell him her name, and she declined all Mr. Rind’s hints of financial aid.

Now Mr. Rind was a practical man. He refused to accept the utter idealism of one so poorly equipped to meet a rude awakening to the realities of life. Did she have any plans?

Yes, she did. Plans she had: to earn money somewhere, to buy a sewing machine, and then to start a business. Simple sewing or embroidery would not do in Shanghai. Chinese cheap labor could not be competed with. She would sew only evening dresses, which do not require so much of work as of taste. The taste she had.

‘Look at this dress,’ she said and stood up before Mr. Rind. ‘It cost about five bottles of milk.’ (Mr. Rind had never heard such a system of valuation.) ‘It is made of the simplest net, with which lamps are covered in summer. Only this piece — the upper layer of the skirt — is of silk tulle, for which I paid. To make the dress beautiful, of different shades, moving, changeable, I washed the old net from lamps. I made the dress of different shades — see? — every layer coming from darker to lighter and then back again. Then I put this silk tulle over it to make it glisten and shimmer.’

Yes, there was something in all that — the girl had a sound germ of practical reasoning in her. But so far she had no sewing machine. A girl with such a talent for evening dresses — of tulle — of net . . .

Mr. Rind was a man, a gentleman. He knew life better than that helpless girl — perhaps not altogether an idealist, still helpless. She was alone against life. Mr. Rind was a man, a practical one — an almost chivalrous man.

He took her hands firmly, made her sit down again, and said, resolutely, that he would give her the money for that machine and that she had to take it.

The girl seemed tempted, but still she declined. Finally, at twelve o’clock, she said: ‘Well, I accept, but only on certain conditions. You have reproached me for being an idealist. I am. I will always remain one. Let it all be romantic. My conditions: tomorrow we meet here; we go and buy me a sewing machine; then we part — forever; we never meet again; you will never know or ask my real name. Remember, this is the chief point: you will never try to see me again. I will never try to find you and give you that money back. I accept it as a present. You will have absolutely nothing from me in return.’

Mr. Rind was silent. He hesitated. Then he said: ‘But why this insistence on the point that we never meet again?’

‘You see,’ the girl said eagerly,‘thus I shall never feel any kind of obligation. I like freedom. I will banish the memory of this moment, for it is a humiliation to accept money like that, even from one like you. Otherwise you see what happens: a young girl in need—a kind gentleman to help; first she refused, then she accepted. Oh, no! Oh, no!’ She almost cried. ‘Spare me this vulgarity — of remembering you all my life with a warm gratitude, perhaps praying for you. Oh, no!’ Abruptly she rose, ready to go.

Mr. Rind caught her hand. ‘ I accept your condition,’ he said firmly.

Then she brought her lovely face near to his and said slowly, but somehow sadly: ‘You are worthy of admiration.’

Mr. Rind could not sleep that night.

‘What is a beautiful woman?’ he was thinking again. ‘One who makes me feel younger, who makes me kind, who soothes the dissonances of life with her word or smile. There are such women . . . but there is no word to name exactly what they are, and we men call them beautiful, although, as a type, they mostly are not. Only they are ours, created for men — to bring that essence of joy ... of joy of living . . . like a tulip ... in an earthen pot. . . .’

His mind was falling asleep first, his senses after. Swimming in a wave of well-being, he relaxed for the first time in many days of anxiety and fear. And a last thought floated through his mind: ‘ Because they are not women . . . they are birds . . . they teach you to fly . . . easily . . . easily. . . .’

III

She came at ten o’clock in the morning. She brought fresh wind into the hotel lounge. She was in haste and eager to buy the sewing machine.

In a taxi they drove to a big store. Once inside, it became instantly clear that the girl knew sewing machines well. The saleswoman, a dark-skinned girl with dark, squinting eyes, seemed to know the customer too. She showed the things before she was asked, as if following a well-established rite. Her eyes seemed hostile while resting upon the girl and mocking when meeting Mr. Rind’s.

Suddenly Mr. Rind felt uneasy. His eyes grew evasive, his movements restive. He would rather have been somewhere else. But he had to go on being gentlemanly to the end. He told the girl that she might have the best possible machine with all the accessories necessary to help a good evening dress come into existence. She gave no answer, only looked at him in a greenish radiance of light. Mr. Rind felt better.

With what absorption she examined machines! She rotated the wheel — her lips tightly pressed; she changed the needle — her mouth half open; she clicked and clacked with something else — and her throat gave out deep sighs. Perhaps she was not such a rootless, groundless idealist as she seemed.

At last the machine was bought. Mr. Rind paid the bill. Then the girl asked him to wait for her outside. Mr. Rind knew she did not want him to hear her name and address.

With a light step she approached him where he stood at the corner of the noisy street. With a smile, almost tender, she raised her eyes to his. For a while she looked at him in silence. He too had nothing to say. But then she took his hand in hers — and he felt every one of her long and slender fingers. And again, as yesterday, she brought her face near to his and said in a voice perhaps too deeply emotional for such an occasion: ‘You are worthy of admiration!’ And she shut her eyes.

For a moment Mr. Rind saw another face. It was not fresh, it was not young. There was no age to that face: wrinkles round her eyes, a doleful line round her mouth, those bitterly closed lips. . . .

But instantly she opened her eyes, again all sparkling joy and radiance, and said, ‘Good-bye!’ And she turned away from Mr. Rind and walked down the street with poised and graceful steps.

IV

Mr. Rind stood it until six o’clock that evening. Then he could no longer fight off the powerful wish to see her once more. He would take her some flowers — just a greeting to her on the threshold of her new life, her new profession.

He bought roses. Then he hurried to the store where they had bought the sewing machine. The store was empty, and the dark, squinting salesgirl was just leaving. But she consented readily, almost maliciously, to accept his bribe.

She wrote the address on a slip of paper. Giving it with her two fingers to Mr. Rind, she added: ‘I have not written her name. But once in the yard of that house you ask for the Sewing Angel . . . everyone will show you.’ And she blew on her two Angers, as if they were burnt or dusty.

Mr. Rind walked away quickly. He left his flowers behind on the counter. ‘The Sewing Angel,’ he murmured, and he stopped short. ‘The Sewing Angel,’ he repeated, and began to walk again.

He found the street, he found the house, and then he understood at once. It was a secondhand shop. For sewing machines, of course —machines to buy, machines to sell, machines to mend, to rent, to pawn. He could see it written on the window, in several languages. He could see behind the window those machines themselves — from old veterans to glistening newcomers. And it seemed to Mr. Rind that at every one of them there stood a gentleman, a practical soul like himself, who had succumbed to the Sewing Angel.

He moved decisively to the door and tried to open it. It was locked. The shop was empty. It was after closing time.

Then he remembered about the yard. He looked around, saw the gate, and went through the yard toward the rear of the shop. There were steps, narrow and rotten, the wood giving under his weight, and finally a kind of small terrace. Attracted by the light, Mr. Rind stopped beside a window.

He looked into a room, big, poor, and slovenly. The electric lamp’s light revealed all the ugliness of it, shamelessly, brazenly. At the wall, on a sofa, an old woman was sitting. Her dark hair was in disorder, and a huge swollen hand with almost square fingers made the restless movement of an invalid who suffers and does not know where to find help. Aside, at a table, an old gentleman was sitting. Small in size, he was erect and spruce. He was talking animatedly. A big cup of steaming-hot tea stood before him on the table. And then Mr. Rind’s unbelieving gaze fell upon the girl, the Sewing Angel. She was seated on a low chair holding a baby — plump and pink. She was nourishing it at her breast, and the baby’s bare rosy heels softly moved to and fro in an unconscious, innocent gesture of beatitude and satisfaction. But she— the mother — looked sad and tired, with none of the glow of youth about her.

And suddenly a hot rage, an inexplicable wrath, primeval and blind, took possession of Mr. Rind’s being. Loudly, savagely, he knocked at the door.

He heard dim movements and noises inside the house, and then she — the Angel — opened the door.

Seeing Mr. Rind’s face, ugly with wrath, she stepped back. Then she said quietly, ‘Please come in’ — and Mr. Rind saw her teeth, perfectly white, small and pointed.

There was nobody in the room now. Movements and voices sounded somewhere behind the wall.

‘Sit down,’ she said.

But Mr. Rind did not want to sit down. ‘Will you kindly explain your behavior?’ he began in his most official manner. ‘So this is a kind of profession with you — swindling.’

She did not answer for a moment, but looked at him thoughtfully with those green eyes, now limpid and stony. Then she said, ‘You call it “swindling.” Granted. But remember this: you wanted to help. You did. I was swindling you into being a knight. There is no reason for anger. We both succeeded. We should not have met again.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you are mistaken. Don’t you think a legal procedure in a law court would be a better finale to our meeting?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think so. You will only be ridiculous. You can do nothing to me.’

‘Let us see.’

‘Mr. Rind,’ she said, ‘perhaps you are not worthy of admiration after all. . . . Let me explain further. And when I say “explain” I do not mean “apologize.” The fault was yours. You were looking for a good deed in a romantic setting. You found it. The rest is fruits of that eternal tree of knowledge. You could have stopped at the first day, and had one vision of me. You could have stopped at the second, and have had another. But you did not. Still you have come out of it unimpaired. Everything is still perfectly safe and sound with you. As for me — ‘

‘As for you — who are you? Are you French?’

‘No.’

‘Who are you, then?’

As if it cost her a great effort she said, ‘I am Polish.’ And she pressed her lips tightly — even the line of her jaws stepped out under her tender skin. Mr. Rind knew it hurt her. He felt that her teeth were crushing against each other. And his wish was to put his hand — his strong masculine hand — upon her shoulder and say, ‘Don’t!’ But he did not; he was too well trained to let free his best impulses. And after all this woman, however attractive, however pathetic, was not altogether respectable — not a woman one could wish to have for one’s wife, or daughter, or sister. This was Mr. Rind’s viewpoint, because for him life was a distance to cover, not a depth to plunge into.

They sat silent. It was as though they were sitting on the two opposite banks of a river, one seeing the other, but separated forever by the river, which was their moral code. Then she spoke again: —

‘We were at Warsaw when the war began . . . you read, perhaps, how it was. When the army began to give in, a call came on the radio for loyal men: “ Go eastward! Go eastward! New armies are being formed there.” Nobody knew whose voice it was that made the call — but our men went eastward. . . . Meanwhile, as we found out afterwards, the eastward roads were all the time being bombarded from the air, and there never were any armies being formed in the east of our country.’

‘Was your husband a military man?’

‘He was a musician. A composer. And he played the violin.’

‘And he went eastward?’

‘The first day he resisted. He was a nervous, delicate man. He resisted that voice the second day. On the third day he put away the violin. He said “Goodbye” and went away. . . .’

‘Perhaps —’ Mr. Rind began.

‘No. Who would let him live? Russians? Germans?’

Suddenly her eyes flashed hard and green again.

‘Mr. Rind,’ she said, ‘remember this: Poland is not altogether beaten. If Polish men are, Polish women are not. As long as a single Polish woman is alive and has a son — Poland lives too. We are a rebellious race. For centuries we perish, but we reject the humiliation of being other people’s slaves. We do it now, again and again, forever.’

She stood before Mr. Rind, erect and proud. ‘My son has never seen either his father or his country. But I will tell him how to die for the free Poland.

He will be a Polish patriot, invincible, ardent. I am living for that.’

Her face looked almost happy now ‘There is no price too high for that. You might think me a criminal, but you will not see my son a slave.’

She stopped and looked straight into Mr. Rind’s face. ‘Would you now call me a swindler?’

He took the challenge. To say ‘no’ would mean a betrayal of all he lived for and on. For him, a descendant of Puritans, an Anglo-Saxon, morals were not flexible. A sinner was a sinner to him, and for a crime he knew no other word than ‘crime.’

‘Yes,’ he said with the greatest softness, ‘you are.’

She sat erect, her face aggressively thrust forward.

‘In times when governments are dishonest and nations grow criminal, when laws become only a trap for the innocent, do you think it possible for individuals to go on being honest?’

‘They must.’

‘They cannot.’

‘They should remain honest, in spite of all.’

‘You deny any change in morals?’

‘Upward. Not downward.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you know nothing! You must not be given the right to judge. A healthy man knows nothing about illness, and a righteous man knows nothing about vice. What right have you to judge me?’

‘You asked me to answer.’

‘And you are always ready with your stone to throw. You, a rich Englishman —’

‘I am not an Englishman,’ Mr. Rind said. ‘I am an American.’

‘Are you very rich?’

‘I am not rich at all. I just manage somehow on my salary.’

A wave of dismay went over her face, then it changed swiftly as the sudden shrill cries of an infant came through the wall.

‘Stasik,’ she whispered. ‘Stasik.’

‘What is happening to him?’ He whispered, too.

‘He is hungry,’ she said. ‘You interrupted us.’

A hot wave of shyness mixed with an inexplicable feeling of close intimacy rolled over Mr. Rind — as if that child were his and hers, not hers and somebody else’s.

‘Go on in there,’ he muttered, almost pushing her toward the place where she was needed.

The baby’s voice grew wrathful with urgency.

‘Oh,’ she said, all soft and mild now, ‘we cannot part like this! Come back in an hour. We can have coffee. Please. . . . Only, Mr. Rind, in my home nobody knows how I get my sewing machines — about my “swindling,” you understand. Here is the hardest part of it — to lie. By now I am a perfect liar. Mr. Rind,’ she said simply, ‘I even enjoy my lies sometimes. I imagine I am an actress, and I play my part honestly, carefully. I even feel proud when mine is a good play. But to lie to my mother, who is dying, to my father, who has such a ridiculously strict sense of honor — ‘

She halted. Mr. Rind avoided her eyes, but pressed her hand in a quick gesture of helpless sympathy and left the house.

V

Why Mr. Rind went back he did not know. For him — a practical man, a man of common sense, an American — a sin was always a sin, and a crime was always a crime, however big the family, no matter how many babies to feed, no matter how many Polands. But he did go back, waiting for an explanation that could never be adequate, knowing motives which could never be justified. An overwhelming sadness filled his soul, for Mr. Rind had not entirely lost his soul, and in this moment he knew that these incidents were the small things of life. They could do nothing but melt in the dissolving power of sadness, a sadness which was the essence of life.

When he returned the room was tidy, the table was covered with a napkin, and a coffee set of blue china added a note of prosperity. There was a small bouquet of purple violets on the table, crowning the whole with a hint of elegance and refinement.

She met him on the threshold with a gay word of welcome. She wore the same suit she had worn when they bought the sewing machine. He saw a glass of milk on the table behind her — and suddenly she was a tulip again, in an earthen pot.