There was a stream on the border of a wheat field, and on the other side of
that stream a hill covered with all sorts of trees. I had been walking on the
riverbank when I met this young soldier, and he stopped and stood there
looking back at me, so I stood completely still, and he came back, and I
asked—Did you see our play yesterday? Yeah, it was good. Then he told
me that I looked a lot like his girl. Really? How nice. Shall I show you her
picture? Won’t she be angry with you? Nah. Say—can you jump this river?
Of course I can’t jump it. I’m a woman. All right then, I’ll carry you across.
Oh no—really! It was sometime in May, at the beginning of twilight. He
carried me across the stream on his back, and we hid under those trees, in
the shadow of the leaves. He wanted to show me the picture of his
girlfriend. No doubt he wanted to look at my face for a while. I didn’t think
that the young woman in his tiny little photograph looked like me at all.
But I didn’t tell him that. He talked about various things, and then he put
his arm around my shoulder and drew me closer to him, and tried to sit me
on his lap. I figured he’d probably realize I was a man if I sat on his lap, so
I grabbed his shoulder from the side.”
“I see.”
“Are you a virgin? That’s what he asked me. For a moment my heart
pounded. I’m a man, of course, and ‘Are you a virgin?’ isn’t a question one
asks actors in traveling troupes—it’s the sort of thing that might have made
me burst out laughing, but I was so startled that my voice wouldn’t come. I
shook my head slowly. I certainly couldn’t nod and so I shook my head—
but how did he interpret that? I see—he said, stroking my shoulder gently.
Even afterward I couldn’t figure out which he thought I had meant. Aren’t
you frightened by these terrible air raids— every day at every airfield? Yes,
I’m frightened.
When I said that tears came to my eyes and I threw myself down on his
lap and cried. Maybe he thought I had shaken my head unwillingly, and so
he found me pretty. He was just a student, pure and unsophisticated. He
