Glory Road Page 3

  But the floor show went on. Three days later I was sitting on Grotto Beach, leaning against a rock and working the crossword puzzle, when suddenly I got cross-eyed trying not to stare at the most stare-able woman I have ever seen in my life.

  Woman, girl—I couldn’t be sure. At first glance I thought she was eighteen, maybe twenty; later when I was able to look her square in her face she still looked eighteen but could have been forty. Or a hundred and forty. She had the agelessness of perfect beauty. Like Helen or Troy, or Cleopatra. It seemed possible that she was Helen of Troy but I knew she wasn’t Cleopatra because she was not a redhead; she was a natural blonde. She was a tawny toast color all over without a hint of bikini marks and her hair was the same shade two tones lighter. It flowed, unconfined, in graceful waves down her back and seemed never to have been cut.

  She was tall, not much shorter than I am, and not too much lighter in weight. Not fat, not fat at all save for that graceful padding that smoothes the feminine form, shading the muscles underneath—I was sure there were muscles underneath; she carried herself with the relaxed power of a lioness.

  Her shoulders were broad for a woman, as broad as her very female hips; her waist might have seemed thick on a lesser woman, on her it was deliciously slender. Her belly did not sag at all but carried the lovely doubly-domed curve of perfect muscle tone. Her breasts—only her big rib cage could carry such large ones without appearing too much of a good thing. They jutted firmly out and moved only a trifle when she moved, and they were crowned with rosy brown confections that were frankly nipples, womanly and not virginal.

  Her navel was that jewel the Persian poets praised.

  Her legs were long for her height; her hands and feet were not small but were slender, graceful. She was graceful in all ways; it was impossible to think of her in a pose ungraceful. Yet she was so lithe and limber that, like a cat, she could have twisted herself into any position.

  Her face—how do you describe perfect beauty except to say that when you see it you can’t mistake it? Her lips were full and her mouth rather wide. It was faintly curved in the ghost of a smile even when her features were at rest. Her lips were red but if she was wearing makeup of any sort it had been applied so skillfully that I could not detect it—and that alone would have made her stand out, for that was a year all other females were wearing “Continental” makeup, as artificial as a corset and as bold as a doxy’s smile.

  Her nose was straight and large enough for her face, no button. Her eyes—

  She caught me staring at her. Certainly women expect to be locked at and expect it unclothed quite as much as when dressed for the ball. But it is rude to stare openly. I had given up the fight in the first ten seconds and was trying to memorize her, every line, every curve.

  Her eyes locked with mine and she stared back and I began to blush but couldn’t look away. Her eyes were so deep a blue that they were dark, darker than my own brown eyes.

  I said huskily, “Pardonnez-moi, ma’m’selle,” and managed to tear my eyes away.

  She answered, in English, “Oh, I don’t mind. Look all you please,” and looked me up and down as carefully as I had inspected her. Her voice was a warm, full contralto, surprisingly deep in its lowest register.

  She took two steps toward me and almost stood over me. I started to get up and she motioned me to stay seated, with a gesture that assumed obedience as if she were very used to giving orders. “Rest where you are,” she said. The breeze carried her fragrance to me and I got goose flesh all over. “You are American.”

  “Yes.” I was certain she was not, yet I was equally certain she was not French. Not only did she have no trace of French accent but also—well, French women are at least slightly provocative at all times; they can’t help it, it’s ingrained in the French culture. There was nothing provocative about this woman—except that she was an incitement to riot just by existing.

  But, without being provocative, she had that rare gift for immediate intimacy; she spoke to me as a very old friend might speak, friends who knew each other’s smallest foibles and were utterly easy tête-à-tête. She asked me questions about myself, some of them quite personal, and I answered all of them, honestly, and it never occurred to me that she had no right to quiz me. She never asked my name, nor I hers—nor any question of her.

  At last she stopped and looked me over again, carefully and soberly. Then she said thoughtfully, “You are very beautiful,” and added, “Au ’voir”—turned and walked down the beach into the water and swam away.

  I was too stunned to move. Nobody had ever called me “handsome” even before I broke my nose. As for “beautiful!”

  But I don’t think it would have done me any good to have chased her, even if I had thought of it in time. That gal could swim.

  THREE

  I stayed at the plage until sundown, waiting for her to come back. Then I made a hurried supper of bread and cheese and wine, got dressed in my G-string and walked into town. There I prowled bars and restaurants and did not find her, meanwhile window-peeping into cottages wherever shades were not drawn. When the bistros started shutting down, I gave up, went back to my tent, cursed myself for eight kinds of fool—(why couldn’t I have said, “What’s your name and where do you live and where are you staying here?”)—sacked in and went to sleep.

  I was up at dawn and checked the plage, ate breakfast, checked the plage again, got “dressed” and went into the village, checked the shops and post office, and bought my Herald-Trib.

  Then I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of my life: I had drawn a horse.

  I wasn’t certain at first, as I did not have those fifty-three serial numbers memorized. I had to run back to my tent, dig out a memorandum and check—and I had! It was a number that had stuck in mind because of its pattern: #XDY 34555. I had a horse!

  Which meant several thousand dollars, just how much I didn’t know. But enough to put me through Heidelberg…if I cashed in on it at once. The Herald-Trib was always a day late there, which meant the drawing had taken place at least two days earlier—and in the meantime that dog could break a leg or be scratched nine other ways. My ticket was important money only as long as “Lucky Star” was listed as a starter.

  I had to get to Nice in a hurry and find out where and how you got the best price for a lucky ticket. Dig the ticket out of my deposit box and sell it!

  But how about “Helen of Troy”?

  Shylock with his soul-torn cry of “Oh, my daughter! Oh, my ducats!” was no more split than I.

  I compromised. I wrote a painful note, identifying myself, telling her that I had been suddenly called away and pleading with her either to wait until I returned tomorrow, or at the very least, to leave a note telling me how to find her. I left it with the postmistress along with a description—blond, so tall, hair this long, magnificent poitrine—and twenty francs with a promise of twice that much if she delivered it and got an answer. The postmistress said that she had never seen her but if cette grande blonde ever set foot in the village the note would be delivered.

  That left me just time to rush back, dress in off-island clothes, dump my gear with Mme. Alexandre, and catch the boat. Then I had three hours of travel time to worry through.

  The trouble was that Lucky Star wasn’t really a dog. My horse rated no farther down than fifth or sixth, no matter who was figuring form. So? Stop while I was ahead and take my profit?

  Or go for broke?

  It wasn’t easy. Let’s suppose I could sell the ticket for $10,000. Even if I didn’t try any fancy footwork on taxes, I would still keep most of it and get through school.

  But I was going to get through school anyway—and did I really want to go to Heidelberg? That student with the dueling scars had been a slob, with his phony pride in scars from fake danger.

  Suppose I hung on and grabbed the big one, £50,000, or $140,000—

  Do you know how much tax a bachelor pays on $140,000 in the Land of the Brave and the Home of the
Free?

  $103,000, that’s what he pays.

  That leaves him $37,000.

  Did I want to bet about $10,000 against the chance of winning $37,000—with the odds at least 15 to 1 against me?

  Brother, that is drawing to an inside straight. The principle is the same whether it’s 37 grand, or jacks-or-better with a two-bit limit.

  But suppose I wangled some way to beat the tax, thus betting $10,000 to win $140,000? That made the potential profit match the odds—and $140,000 was not just eating money for college but a fortune that could bring in four or five thousand a year forever.

  I wouldn’t be “cheating” Uncle Sugar; the USA had no more moral claim on that money (if I won) than I had on the Holy Roman Empire. What had Uncle Sugar done for me? He had clobbered my father’s life with two wars, one of which we weren’t allowed to win—and thereby made it tough for me to get through college quite aside from what a father may be worth in spiritual intangibles to his son (I didn’t know, I never would know!)—then he had grabbed me out of college and had sent me to fight another unWar and damned near killed me and lost me my sweet girlish laughter.

  So how is Uncle Sugar entitled to clip $103,000 and leave me the short end? So he can “lend” it to Poland? Or give it to Brazil? Oh, my back!

  There was a way to keep it all (if I won) legal as marriage. Go live in little old tax-free Monaco for a year. Then take it anywhere.

  New Zealand, maybe. The Herald-Trib had had the usual headlines, only more so. It looked as if the boys (just big playful boys!) who run this planet were about to hold that major war, the one with ICBMs and H-bombs, any time now.

  If a man went as far south as New Zealand there might be something left after the fallout fell out.

  New Zealand is supposed to be very pretty and they say that a fisherman there regards a five-pound trout as too small to take home.

  I had caught a two-pound trout once.

  About then I made a horrible discovery. I didn’t want to go back to school, win, lose, or draw. I no longer gave a damn about three-car garages and swimming pools, nor any other status symbol or “security.” There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be.

  Somewhere back in the jungle I had shucked off all ambition of that sort. I had been shot at too many times and had lost interest in supermarkets and exurban subdivisions and tonight is the PTA supper don’t forget dear you promised.

  Oh, I wasn’t about to hole up in a monastery. I still wanted—

  What did I want?

  I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur—I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.

  I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

  I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be—instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

  I had had one chance—for ten minutes yesterday afternoon. Helen of Troy, whatever your true name may be—And I had known it…aha I had let it slip away.

  Maybe one chance is all you ever get.

  The train pulled into Nice.

  In the American Express office I went to the banking department and to my deposit box, found the ticket and checked the number against the Herald-Trib—XDY 34555, yes! To stop my trembling, I checked the other tickets and they were wastepaper, just as I thought. I shoved them back into the box and asked to see the manager.

  I had a money problem and American Express is a bank, not just a travel bureau. I was ushered into the manager’s office and we exchanged names. “I need advice,” I said. “You see, I hold one of the winning Sweepstakes tickets.”

  He broke into a grin. “Congratulations! You’re the first person in a long time who has come in here with good news rather than a complaint.”

  “Thanks. Uh, my problem is this. I know that a ticket that draws a horse is worth quite a bit up until the race. Depending on the horse, of course.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “What horse did you draw?”

  “A fairly good one. Lucky Star—and that’s what makes it tough. If I had drawn H-Bomb, or any of the three favorites—Well, you see how it is. I don’t know whether to sell or hang on, because I don’t know how to figure the odds. Do you know what is being offered for Lucky Star?”

  He fitted his finger tips together. “Mr. Gordon, American Express does not give tips on horse races, nor broker the resale of Sweepstakes tickets. However—Do you have the ticket with you?”

  I got it out and handed it to him. It had been through poker games and was sweat-marked and crumpled. But that lucky number was unmistakable.

  He looked at it. “Do you have your receipt?”

  “Not with me.” I started to explain that I had given my stepfather’s address—and that my mail had been forwarded to Alaska. He cut me off. “That’s all right.” He touched a switch. “Alice, will you ask M’sieur Renault to step in?”

  I was wondering if it really was all right. I had had the savvy to get names and new billets from the original ticket holders and each had promised to send his receipt to me when he got it—but no receipts had reached me. Maybe in Alaska—I had checked on this ticket while at the lockbox; it had been bought by a sergeant now in Stuttgart. Maybe I would have to pay him something or maybe I would have to break his arms.

  M. Renault looked like a tired schoolteacher. “M’sieur Renault is our expert on this sort of thing,” the manager explained. “Will you let him examine your ticket, please?”

  The Frenchman looked at it, then his eyes lit up and he reached into a pocket, produced a jeweler’s loupe, screwed it into his eye. “Excellent!” he said approvingly. “One of the best. Hong Kong, perhaps?”

  “I bought it in Singapore.”

  He nodded and smiled. “That follows.”

  The manager was not smiling. He reached into his desk and brought out another Sweepstakes ticket and handed it to me. “Mr. Gordon, this one I bought at Monte Carlo. Will you compare it?”

  They looked alike to me, except for serial numbers and the fact that his was crisp and clean. “What am I supposed to look for?”

  “Perhaps this will help.” He offered me a large reading glass.

  A Sweepstakes ticket is printed on special paper and has an engraved portrait on it and is done in several colors. It is a better job of engraving and printing than many countries use for paper money.

  I learned long ago that you can’t change a deuce into an ace by staring at it. I handed back his ticket. “Mine is counterfeit.”

  “I didn’t say so, Mr. Gordon. I suggest you get an outside opinion. Say at the office of the Bank of France.”

  “I can see it. The engraving lines aren’t sharp and even on mine. They’re broken, some places. Under the glass the print job looks smeared.” I turned. “Right, M’sieur Renault?”

  The expert gave a shrug of commiseration. “It is beautiful work, of its sort.”

  I thanked them and got out. I checked with the Bank of France, not because I doubted the verdict but because you don�
�t have a leg cut off, nor chuck away $140,000, without a second opinion. Their expert didn’t bother with a loupe. “Contrefait” he announced. “Worthless.”

  It was impossible to get back to l’Île du Levant that night. I had dinner and then looked up my former landlady. My broom closet was empty and she let me have it overnight. I didn’t lie awake long.

  I was not as depressed as I thought I should be. I felt relaxed, almost relieved. For a while I had had the wonderful sensation of being rich—and I had had its complement, the worries of being rich—and both sensations were interesting and I didn’t care to repeat them, not right away.

  Now I had no worries. The only thing to settle was when to go home, and with living so cheap on the island there was no hurry. The only thing that fretted me was that rushing off to Nice might have caused me to miss “Helen of Troy,” cette grande blonde! Si grande…si belle…si majestueuse! I fell asleep thinking of her.

  I had intended to catch the early train, then the first boat. But the day before had used up most of the money on me and I had goofed by failing to get cash while at American Express. Besides, I had not asked for mail. I didn’t expect any, other than from my mother and possibly my aunt—the only close friend I had had in the army had been killed six months back. Still, I might as well pick up mail as long as I had to wait for money.

  So I treated myself to a luxury breakfast. The French think that a man can face the day with chicory and milk, and a croissant, which probably accounts for their unstable politics. I picked a sidewalk café by a big kiosk, the only one in Nice that stocked The Stars & Stripes and where the Herald-Trib would be on sale as soon as it was in; ordered a melon, café complet for TWO, and an omelette aux herbes fines; and sat back to enjoy life.

  When the Herald-Trib arrived, it detracted from my Sybaritic pleasure. The headlines were worse than ever and reminded me that I was still going to have to cope with the world; I couldn’t stay on l’Île du Levant forever.