But another American repeated, ‘Isn’t it true you have a lot of suicides?’
Britta threw her cloth on the floor and turned on her tormentors. Lately she had been badgered at least once a day about Sweden’s high rate of suicide. She now came to me and asked pleadingly, ‘Explain to these barbarians that Sweden is a civilized place.’
‘We know it’s civilized,’ the first soldier said. ‘What we want to know is why it’s so degenerate.’
I knew that many Americans accepted this judgment, so I suggested that they take out pieces of paper and jot down some numbers which had impressed me years ago and which, more than any other evidence I had ever heard, kept me from making damnfool statements about other nations and other cultures.
‘I remember the report very well,’ I said. ‘It came out about 1950 and showed that Sicily had more murders per capita than anywhere else in the world. Everybody got into the act and wrote essays about how the Sicilians were natural criminals. Some fanciful theories were developed and widely circulated. Sicilians were shown to be the worst people in the world, and we had the figures to prove it.
‘A couple of years later another research team made a similar study about suicides in Sweden. Very high. Definite proof that Sweden had more suicides than any other nation, and again we had a whole raft of ingenious theories about why Sweden was so corrupt. It had to do with socialism and lack of individual challenge, and that’s where President Eisenhower got into the act. In a speech he proved that Sweden was pretty degenerate.
‘At this point we had figures showing that Sicilians killed one another and that Swedes killed themselves. So some bright young man compared these figures and found that the percentages were almost identical. On this clue he assembled all the available statistics, and I think you’d be interested in what he found.
‘Draw three columns. Label one Country, the second Murders, and the third Suicides.’
When the soldiers had done this, I recited some index figures which I vaguely remembered; whether any particular one was accurate, I couldn’t say, but I will guarantee the relationships. When finished, the tables looked like this:
Country Murders Suicides
Sicily 22 0
United States 16 6
England 11 11
Germany 6 16
Sweden 0 22
‘What it means,’ I concluded, ‘is that in all societies we find a constant index of violence, but how that violence manifests itself is determined by local custom. In Sicily a man cannot survive in his society if he refuses to murder the man who betrays his sister. His aunts and uncles, the corner café, the pool hall insist that he murder the man and thus restore his family’s good name. In Sweden such a course would be unthinkable. You stay home and brood about it, and when winter comes with its interminable nights you kill not the other fellow but yourself.’
Monica, who had just wandered in, looked over my shoulder as I pointed to the figures. ‘Good old England!’ she cried. ‘Always on an even keel.’
‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘When murders and suicides balance, it indicates a healthy population.’
‘There’s one mistake,’ Joe said from the bar. ‘I think you’ll find that today in many parts of the United States our murder rate approaches Sicily’s, and in other parts our suicide rate is close to Sweden’s. We’re the violent country, not Sicily.’
‘That’s only because we’re so diverse,’ I said. Somewhere I’d seen recent figures which proved that murders with gunfire were greater in Texas than in Sicily, while in Vermont suicides were frequent. ‘There’s probably some geographical factor operating in these figures,’ I said. ‘In the north you commit sucide. In the south, murder.’
‘Good!’ Britta cried to her soldier critics. ‘While I go out back and cut my throat, you Dixie men can shoot each other. But don’t give me any more of that stuff about Sweden.’
Her soldier opponent was not so easily deflated. ‘That takes care of the suicides, but what about the degenerate part? Don’t they teach sex in schools?’
Britta looked as if she was mulling over three or four arguments with which to refute him, but apparently she decided to discard them, certain they would accomplish nothing. Instead she smiled at the soldier and said, ‘Yes, they do teach us about sex. And that eighth-grade course is a real knee-slapper.’ But even this riposte did not satisfy her, for she told the soldiers, ‘You clowns remind me of what happened in Tromsø. We were so far north of the Arctic Circle that tourists who got off the boat expected to see polar bears in the streets. We tried telling them that Tromsø was a civilized place, but they still wanted to see polar bears. So what did we do? One of the stores bought a stuffed polar bear and put it on the sidewalk and told the tourists, “We shot it at city hall last winter,” and they went away satisfied. You know what I got behind the bar? A polar bear.’
Turning to me, she said, ‘Tell them about skid row.’
The soldiers looked at me, so I repeated a story I had told her: ‘Friend of mine conducted surveys of skid row in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Found them very similar, but one fact stood out. Of the men who were lost in skid row—the real down-and-outers—ninety-two per cent were Irish and Catholic. Negroes aren’t found there. They stay with the mob and work things out. Quakers and Jews don’t wind up on skid row, either. It’s a phenomenon that grows out of heavy drinking and the delayed marriages in Irish communities. My friend found that almost ninety per cent of skid-row men had never experienced a sustained relationship with a woman. This isn’t a condemnation of the Irish or the Catholic. It simply means that this is the social disease to which they’re susceptible.’
‘In Sweden it’s suicides,’ Britta called from the bar. ‘What is it in Dixie?’
It was night when I started back to my penthouse, and as I approached the Brandenburger, I noticed again the yellow Volkswagen from which the German had dismissed me earlier in the day. It now showed a light, and from the aperture in the room came the sound of someone playing a musical instrument, so on the spur of the moment I turned aside, went to the station wagon, and knocked on the door. A girl responded in German, ‘Who’s there?’
As I started to mumble some explanation, the door opened and I saw standing in the dim light a handsome young woman in shorts holding a guitar. It was Gretchen Cole, and at the same time that I recognized her, she realized who I was, tossed the guitar on the bed, and threw herself into my arms.
‘Oh,’ she cried with her face against my shirt, ‘am I glad to see you!’
Continuing to hold her by her shoulders, I pushed her back, looked at her grave, familiar face, and asked, “How’d you get down here?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it.’
‘I’ve been to Besançon. Yes, with your father.’
‘How’d he know I was in Besançon?’
‘The bank. Newspapers never know. Neither do private detectives. Banks always do, because we have to write for money.’
‘I wonder where I’ll be writing from next time?’ She laughed at the sententiousness of this question.
‘What happened to you after I left Boston?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t Father tell your
‘He said …’
‘Yes?’ she asked sternly. ‘What did he say?’ She sat on her bed and indicated that I was to take the folding chair, but before I could do so, there was heavy knocking on the door and a voice asking in German, ‘Are you all right, Fräulein?’
Gretchen pushed open the door and replied to the crop-headed German who had accosted me before, ‘Everything’s all right, Herr Kleinschmidt. This is my uncle.’
Herr Kleinschmidt stared at me menacingly and said, ‘We think a great deal of this young lady.’
‘So do we all,’ I said.
When he retreated into the night, Gretchen turned to me with a faint smile. ‘They’ve been so good to me at the German hotel.’ Suddenly she jumped from her bed, ran to the door, and called, ‘Herr Kleinschmidt! Wait a
minute!’
She reached down, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out after her. We ran a few steps to where the German waited. ‘Let’s go over to the bierstube and have a brew.’ Linking one arm in his, the other in mine, she led the way to the Brandenburger, where we found a table and sat drinking German beer while various patrons who had gotten to know Gretchen stopped by to speak with her. Only then did I realize that Gretchen had brought me here so that she could delay talking about herself; the social ease that she was displaying with her German friends bore no relationship to the uncertainty she seemed to feel about herself.
After a half hour of forced camaraderie, an exhibition directed at me, I felt sure, we walked back to the pop-top, and when we were inside I said, ‘Now tell me what happened,’ and in a sudden flood of self-revelation she told me of Chicago. I noticed that even at this distance, nine months after the events in the Patrick Henry police station, she did not have those ugly incidents under control; they still possessed her on their terms, so when she was finished with her narrative, I took her two hands and said, ‘Gretchen, I’ve met a delightful group of young people at a bar in town … three of them I knew before. Anyway, you and I are going there. Yes, right now.’ When she started to protest the lateness of the hour, I said, ‘It’s important that you meet them … that you break out of the misery …’
‘Who says I’m miserable?’ She jerked her hands away and said defiantly, ‘I have all those friends at the hotel.’
‘I say you’re miserable. Come along.’
I dragged her from the pop-top, but again she broke away. ‘I have to lock up,’ she said, and as we started back into town she called to someone on the lawn of the German hotel, ‘Look after the Volkswagen while I’m gone,’ and in German a deep voice replied, ‘We’ll keep an eye on it.’
When we had progressed about halfway to town, she asked, ‘Where are we going?’ and I said, ‘Just a small bar … an American one,’ and she said, ‘Oh, you mean the Alamo. I’ve been there.’ She said this not disparagingly but with a certain lilt of expectancy, so I said, ‘Maybe you’ve already met my friends,’ and she said, ‘I saw a good many American soldiers from the base at Sevilla, but the only person I remember was a young black.’
‘Named Cato Jackson?’ I asked.
‘The one who shot up the church … yes.’
I started to say that he hadn’t really shot up the church, but she interrupted me, ‘I’d enjoy seeing him again. He had something to contribute,’ and I said, ‘The others are equally good,’ and she grabbed my arm and began walking faster, exactly as a young woman should who hears that she is about to meet interesting people her own age.
When we reached the bar, Cato and Monica were missing, but the other three were lounging about; it was nearly one o’clock in the morning and business was not lively, for only one table of soldiers remained. I introduced Gretchen to Britta, and the two girls liked each other immediately. Britta then took Gretchen to meet Yigal, who was English-proper, but when they came to Joe, he nodded rather formally and said, ‘We had dinner together in Boston.’ She looked at him carefully, and it was obvious that she could not differentiate him from the many longhaired draft evaders she had helped get to Canada, but when he added, ‘I told you that night I was heading for Torremolinos,’ she cried, ‘Of course! That’s where I heard the name!’
About two in the morning the door banged open and Cato slammed his way in with Monica on his arm. They had been drinking heavily and probably smoking pot, for their eyes were dilated and extra bright.
‘What news!’ Cato cried. ‘Paxton Fell invites us all up on the hill tomorrow night for a real gas. We’re all to go, and he’s sending a car down to pick us up.’
He then saw Gretchen and came over to her. ‘I know you! You’re that chick from Boston. You’re all right.’ He brought Monica up and introduced her, and as the conversation began to flow in broad and easy forms, I appreciated how much Cato added to any group. He was a catalyst.
It was Britta, however, who comprehended why I had brought Gretchen to the bar. She said, ‘But if you have your own pop-top, and it’s parked on the beach … well, why don’t you park it outside our house … you could use our bath.’
The idea seemed so sensible that the group adopted it as official policy and insisted that it be implemented at once. ‘You want to close up the bar?’ Joe asked one of the soldiers, who agreed.
‘Target for tonight,’ Cato cried. ‘One pop-top.’ At his use of the phrase target for tonight, which the police at Patrick Henry had used so offensively, Gretchen shuddered, and on the noisy hike back to her car she kept close to me.
When the gang saw the yellow pop-top they cheered, and lights started to go on in various rooms throughout the Brandenburger. ‘It’s all right,’ Cato shouted. ‘Just a friendly gang-rape.’
‘You all right, Fräulein?’ a hoarse voice cried in German.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Gretchen called back as Yigal started the car. ‘I’m moving to a new location.’
‘Oh, Fräulein!’ several voices protested.
‘I’ll be back,’ she promised, but within a few minutes Herr Kleinschmidt was among us in his night clothes, carrying a flashlight.
‘You sure you’re all right?’ he asked solicitously, and after we had piled into the Volkswagen he remained on the beach, his flashlight glowing.
As we approached Jean-Victor’s apartment I found something I had not noticed on my previous visit: beside the house stood a small open space into which the pop-top could be backed, and when this was done Gretchen had a better camping place than she had enjoyed at the beach, for she was protected on each side and had the convenience of a bathroom a few steps away.
But when the pop-top was tucked away, Cato studied the sleeping arrangements and asked, ‘Which of us fellows shares the bed with you?’ And she replied, with no sense of humor, ‘That’s my prerogative,’ and Cato said, ‘If I knew what that word meant, I’d know whether I’d been insulted or not,’ and she said, ‘You were.’
When we moved indoors and Gretchen saw the posters of the Pope and W. C. Fields she burst into laughter, and I think it was then that she first felt that with this group she was going to have fun. She took Britta by the hand and said, ‘You had a great idea.’ Then, with her Boston frankness, she pointed to the bed guarded over by the Pope and asked, ‘You girls sleep here?’ and Monica broke in to say, ‘You have the wrong idea,’ and by some gesture which I didn’t catch she indicated that she and Cato shared the Papal bed while Joe and Britta kept to the one guarded over by Fields.
It was then that Gretchen saw the tartan sleeping bag by the door. ‘Is that where you bunk?’ she asked Yigal, and he nodded, whereupon Monica said, ‘You see, Gretchen, it would be so much more convenient if Yigal slept with you,’ and Gretchen said, ‘Convenient for Yigal but not necessarily for me.’ Monica interpreted this as a challenge, and recalling her schooldays, she proposed a similar bet. ‘I’ll wager you five British pounds that one of these three men is sleeping with you in that pop-top within thirty days.’ ‘If I had five pounds,’ Gretchen said, ‘you’d lose.’
It was in the succeeding days that life in Torremolinos stabilized itself. Inside the apartment Joe and Britta kept to their bed, Cato and Monica to theirs. Yigal found that he didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, and although he continued deeply in love with Britta, there was nothing he could do about it. Once or twice at the Arc de Triomphe he found a girl, generally from France, eager to share the sleeping bag with him, so that on the following morning the newcomer would meet with Britta and Monica and Gretchen and compare notes, using a wild variety of languages to do so, but none of his attachments lasted, a fact about which Monica teased him: ‘What’s wrong? You the original One-Time Charley? Girl never comes back for a replay?’
‘I’m looking,’ he said.
Monica knew well what he was looking for, but about this delicate subject she did not joke. Like all of us, she respected Yigal and approve
d of his sober approach; if he was infatuated with Britta, he was handling himself well.
Gretchen posed a different problem. By her manner she warned young men that she was not interested in their approaches, and if someone did try to pick her up in a restaurant or bar, she denied him permission to walk home with her, so that there would be no problem of keeping hopeful lovers out of the pop-top. With the three men in the apartment she was proper, more inclined to listen than to talk. She would sit on one of the beds for hours and encourage Cato or Yigal to tell her of his experiences. Joe, of course, said little, and she made no serious effort to pierce his reserve.
I wondered then, as I have often wondered since, why at my age I bothered with this curious group. At the time I reasoned that it was because the recalcitrant Greeks were keeping me imprisoned in Torremolinos: If it weren’t for the Greeks, I’d be out of here in a shot. But looking back on the matter, I doubt that I would have. Certainly the fact that later in the summer I dug up excuses to visit them in various places betrayed a desire on my part to keep close—to see what would happen to them.
But deeper than that was the unspoken feeling that at my age of sixty-one, this would be the last young group I would ever associate with; my own son was lost to me through bitter misunderstandings and I felt the need of comprehending what the youth of this age were up to. I saw in them the only hope for the future, the vitality of our society, and I approved of much they were attempting. When I thought of the dreadful loneliness I had known as a young wanderer through Europe—how fearful a place Antwerp could be for a young man from the University of Virginia who judged himself shy and unprepared—I much preferred the present mode which enabled a chap like Yigal to go to the Arc de Triomphe and find himself any number of lively young ladies prepared to make love in Belgian, Dutch, Italian or Danish, with sometimes no words needed in any language. This was preferable.
As for the young people, I discovered one afternoon at the bar what they thought of my presence. I was in the back room helping check a delivery of orange soda when I heard a soldier ask Monica, ‘Why do you bother with that old geezer?’ and she said, ‘Fairbanks? He’s a harmless old fart.’ From the serving counter Britta said, ‘He’s dreadfully square but he doesn’t hurt anybody.’ Cato volunteered, ‘You’ve got to say this for him. Not once has he mentioned the depression,’ to which Monica added, ‘We put up with him because … well, you have a feeling that if somebody had got to him early enough, he could have been saved.’