Stories by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online

companionship of men to be spoiled, even for a week, on account of the silly charm of women. They were roaring with laughter at some joke. Or, rather, Herr Scholtz was roaring, a good stomach laugh from depths of lusty enjoyment. Captain Forster’s laugh was slightly nervous, emitted from the back of his throat, and suggested that Herr Scholtz’s warm Bavarian geniality was all very well, but that there were always reservations in any relationship.
    It soon transpired that during the war—the First War, be it understood—they had been enemies on the same sector of the front at the same time. Herr Scholtz had been wounded in his arm. He bared it now, holding it forward under the Captain’s nose to show the long white scar. Who knew but that it was the Captain who had dealt that blow—indirectly, of course—thirty-five years before? Nor was this all. During the Second War Captain Forster had very nearly been sent to North Africa, where he would certainly have had the pleasure of fighting Herr, then Oberstleutnant, Scholtz. As it happened, the fortunes of war had sent him to India instead. While these happy coincidences were being established, it was with the greatest amity on both sides; and if the Captain’s laugh tended to follow Herr Scholtz’s just a moment late, it could easily be accounted for by those unavoidable differences of temperament. Before half an hour was out, Rosa was despatched for a second flask of the deep crimson wine.
    When she returned with it, she placed the glasses so, the flasks so, and was about to turn away when she glanced at the Captain and was arrested. The look on his face certainly invited comment. Herr Scholtz was just remarking, with that familiar smiling geniality, how much he regretted that the “accidents of history”—a phrase that caused the Captain’s face to tighten very slightly—had made it necessary for them to be enemies in the past. In the future, he hoped, they would fight side by side, comrades in arms against the only possiblefoe for either…. But now Herr Scholtz stopped, glanced swiftly at the Captain, and after the briefest possible pause, and without a change of tone, went on to say that as for himself he was a man of peace, a man of creation: he caused innumerable tubes of toothpaste to reach the bathrooms of his country, and he demanded nothing more of life than to be allowed to continue to do so. Besides, had he not dropped his war title, the Oberstleutnant, in proof of his fundamentally civilian character?
    Here, as Rosa still remained before them, contemplating them with a look that can only be described as ambiguous, Herr Scholtz blandly enquired what she wanted. But Rosa wanted nothing. Having enquired if that was all she could do for the gentlemen, she passed to the end of the terrace and leaned against the balustrade there, looking down into the street where the handsome young man might pass.
    Now there was a pause. The eyes of both men were drawn painfully towards her. Equally painful was the effort to withdraw them. Then, as if reminded that any personal differences were far more dangerous than the national ones, they plunged determinedly into gallant reminiscences. How pleasant, said that hearty masculine laughter—how pleasant to sit here in snug happy little Switzerland, comfortable in easy friendship, and after such fighting, such obviously meaningless hostilities! Citizens of the world they were, no less, human beings enjoying civilised friendship on equal terms. And each time Herr Scholtz or the Captain succumbed to that fatal attraction and glanced towards the end of the terrace, he as quickly withdrew his eyes and, as it were, set his teeth to offer another gauge of friendship across the table.
    But fate did not intend this harmony to continue.
    Cruelly, the knife was turned again. The young man appeared at the bottom of the street and, smiling, waved towards Rosa. Rosa leaned forward, arms on the balustrade, the picture of bashful coquetry,