Free When the War Is Over by Stephen Becker Page A

what did you learn?” Phelan sipped whiskey; his eyes roved. He was not listening much.
    But then Catto, also sipping whiskey, was not talking to be heard. “I can read and write, and spell pretty well, and multiply and divide. I know where babies come from and I know where the continents are. I know some Latin words like amicus amici and omnis morris. The orphanage taught me all that, also to be on time for meals.”
    â€œEven Australia?”
    â€œEspecially Australia.”
    â€œThat’s not bad. You see there is something to be said for institutions.”
    â€œYeh.” Catto drank again and was suddenly, almost miraculously, calm. Slightly amused. After all. Just whores. And that Stanley is only a pimp and this mansion is only a fancy house.
    The whiskey stung merrily inside him, and life took on a certain clarity. There were eighteen several candles in this room. He had been shot twice and had killed eleven times for sure. He had no living kin that he knew of. He was handsome, with light brown hair, now and again reddish, and brown eyes and a ruddy face and a bushy mustache and a handsome, almost hooked, highland nose. Not merely handsome but handsome in a notably healthy way; not like a pale handsome Frenchman. But there must be red-faced Frenchmen too. “Horgan. Bring us some apples.”
    â€œGood God.”
    â€œI like apples. Leave me be.”
    He was mercurial and sanguinary, as the almanacs had it, of noble port, and demeaned himself well in society. At the moment he was in the pink in all respects, and had washed with soap. With the war over, for most purposes, and apples arriving for his private tooth. He began—it lasted only a moment—to grope toward honest thought: always this man was within me, and what I was was the beginning of what I am, and someone else is still in the making here, with the rules and patterns already laid out.
    It was almost inevitable that he would someday be a general, and wear a purfled hat. “Some day,” he said, and stopped. Horgan had come to set a dish of apples upon the grainy table.
    â€œSome day what?”
    â€œNothing. You’re quiet tonight.”
    â€œI am not here to entertain lieutenants,” Phelan said. “I was thinking of maggots and my own wisdom.”
    â€œAh. Surgeons know everything.”
    â€œSurgeons know nothing,” Phelan began. He saw Catto’s eyes then, and turned.
    The door had opened and two ladies were entering. Good God, Catto thought, as he was burned alive. These are beautiful . These are not just whores. These are lady whores.
    He proved to be perfectly right. The one with black hair glared. “Hodja do,” she enunciated. “Do you not rise?”
    Some hours later Catto whispered, “Listen,” low and urgent, “help me. Please. Teach me things.”
    â€œOh you great bull,” she breathed in retail delight, “oh you hot lover,” and he grinned in the dark and judged himself a devilish sly fellow, though uncomfortably breathless and scared silly of sin.

IV
    Often that winter they saw Thomas Martin on a mule, the brainless beast (“But horses are dumber,” the boy said) shuffling through the snow at dusk, slipping here and there on the hard-packed company streets. The boy was usually in a wool cap, a heavy sweater under the blue blouse, knit gloves, whiter blue trousers, stout half-boots. He knew his way about, even outside the city, and delivered promptly: messages, small parcels, incidental greetings, once a sack of mail (“That’s illegal,” he said, almost proudly). And confidential intelligence: turning a corner one December day, his mule almost ran Catto down, but the boy hauled up with a grin and chirruped, “Hey, Lieutenant! How’s your shoulder?”
    â€œGood as new,” Catto assured him. “How’s yourself?”
    â€œVery good. Got a steady job with the general. I eat right and I sleep