Kit Carson

      Kit Carson got off the train in Paris with a 20 dollar bill in his wallet and three one hundred lire coins.  His official papers consisted of an Army ID identifying him as Carlton Carson, RA 17983201, an American passport  no. 245389, confirming the name and specifying, in bearer’s handwriting, bearer’s home address, %Mrs. Adelaide Hoosier, 142 West 4th St., Fort Wayne, Indiana, and bearer’s foreign address, %Lou Anne Phillips, 911 Via Cassini, Rome, Italy.  Two metal Army ID tags confirming name and ID were chained around his neck.  Personal effects consisted of the clothes on his back, i.e. a black cotton T-shirt, white underpants, blue jeans, black socks, brown loafers, blue Navy pea jacket.  Further personal effects contained in a brown leather made-in-Italy suitcase were a brown Shetland turtle neck sweater, one black sweater, three cotton polo shirts (two white, one black), one Army shirt, two undershirts, four underpants, five pairs of socks, two handkerchiefs, a pair of shoes, a pair of sandals, and a copy of Playboy.

          At the Gare de Lyon, Kit changed his twenty dollars into French francs, receiving four francs and ninety centimes for each dollar or ninety-nine francs eighty centimes in all after deduction of two francs commission.  At a newstand he spent one franc for a copy of the Herald Tribune with the idea that since he had read about Asylum for American Deserters  in the Rome Daily American, its Parisian equivalent might carry further information on the subject as a daily feature or something.  He carried the newspaper with him to a stand-up espresso bar where he ordered an espresso and, while waiting, leafed through the paper.

There were many paid advertisements of interest to Americans in Paris:  there were restaurants like La Broche d’Or, l'Auberge du Cerf Volant, and Le Calavados, Paris Gourmet Rendezvous, as well as nightclubs like the Casino de Paris, the Lido, the Ascot Bar, the Living Room, and Jacky’s Far West Saloon.  There were concerts like that of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, an ageing ex-Nazi soprano whose success was considerable.  There were movies on the Champs-Elyées where expensive movie theaters were located, and the classified column listed Holiday Villages in Spain and Greece with for sale or for rent  prices from 400 to 1200 dollars a month.  The Help Wanted column offered jobs to business executives, Phi Beta Kappa students, and managers and salesmen.  None of this information was of interest to an American who had quit the Army to protest against the Vietnam War by not going there with the rest of his unit.

Kit turned to the Personal column where Johnny sent birthday congratulations to Honey Bun in Rome, Mr. Hansen gave a number and asked Mr. Watts to call him, and a diaper service said Give mom a break!  Kit folded the newspaper and unfolded the slip with Glanzberg’s telephone number.  Metro Saint Michel was written underneath and the word address?  A ray of sun filtered through the dusty atmosphere of the Gare de Lyon and hit Kit’s blond hair, his forehead, his eyes.  He raised them to the sun and smiled, put the slip of paper back in his wallet, took out one franc and left it on the eighty centimes yellow slip, and grabbed a Metro to Saint Michel.

So far so good.  Big, easy to read subway map and up the stairs was a row of open phone booths. No coin slipped in the slot.  He went to the subway ticket seller and asked telephone?   She gave him a jetton saying quarante and took out forty centimes from the one franc piece he put in her cage.  He then returned to the booth where he took out his wallet, took out the folded paper, put the jetton in the slot and dialed Glanzberg’s number.  Glanzberg’s number did not answer.  The jetton came back, he put it back in his pocket, put the folded paper back in his wallet, his wallet in his back pocket on top of the jetton, and climbed out of the subway.  His thumb still hurt.

On the Boulevard Saint Michel, there were cafes, bookstores, movies, and a cop.  The cop paid no attention to him.  Hello, Paris.  When he first went AWOL in Rome, he had been making money, and he hadn’t worried much about the cops. At the end, when he wasn’t, he had.

Walking south on the Boulevard Saint Michel, he crossed the rue de la Hachette, the rue Saint Servin, the big Boulevard Saint Germain, the rue du Sommerand, the rue des Ecoles, the rue Cujas, the rue Soufflot--

At the end of the rue Soufflot was the Panthéon.  The Pantheon reminded him of Rome, and so he walked up the rue Soufflot towards it, around the corner straight into the arms of the Fifth Arrondissement Police Station, prompting him to leave the Place du Panthéon and go down the rue du Chartres to the Place de L’Estrapade, down the rue Lhomond to the rue Jean Calvin into the rue Mouffetard back to the Place de la Contrescarpe where three tramps were sitting on the pavement eating bread and drinking wine.  Kit put down his suitcase next to the tramps.  One said something and smiled.  Kit smiled back.  A cop hesitated and went on walking.  Kit picked up his suitcase and went on walking too.

He walked into the cafe and into a windowed telephone booth.  No Herald Tribune any more. Where?  The subway jetton did not fit into the cafe telephone.  He left the booth and showed the subway jetton to the cafe lady who shook her head, gave him a larger jetton and said cinquante.  Kit gave her a franc, and she gave him fifty centimes back.  But now someone else was in the phone booth, and Kit ordered a beer.  First the glass felt cool against his sore thumb, but then his thumb seemed to heat the glass, and so he shifted the glass to his other hand.

          click click click click click click. Pinball.

          A man came out of the phone booth holding Kit’s wallet.  The woman at the cash desk took it.  Kit said in Italian it was his, and she in silence gave it to him.  He smiled at her.  She shook her head and smiled back at him.

          --Grazie, he said.

Chugalugging his beer, he paid two francs for it and went back to the toilets.  When he came back, the phone booth was empty, and he went in, took out his wallet, took out Glanzberg’s number, put his wallet back in his pocket, and telephoned.  Glanzberg did not answer.  He hung up and his jetton chugalugged back to him.

Kit left the cafe with his suitcase.  Turning to his right, he crossed to the rue Blanqui, went up the rue de l’Éstrapade to the Place de L’Éstrapade, the rue des Fossés Saint Jacques and the rue Malbranche where he found a hotel for eleven francs a night and took a room.  The name of the hotel was the Hotel des Étrangers.  He forgot it immediately, as he forgot the names of the streets he passed through.  Leaving his suitcase, he went out again.  He did not want to be alone.  From the rue Malbranche he walked down the rue Saint Jacques where he stopped to look in the window of a bookstore on the corner of the rue Saint Jacques and the rue Soufflot.  He noticed there were English books.  Then he continued across the rue Cujas past the Sorbonne on the left and the Lycée Louis le Grand on the right on to the rue des Écoles, the Place Michel Bertholet on the right and the Place Paul Painlevé on the left where he turned, still lost, and continued until the movie house on the rue Cluny where a gangster movie was showing.

He tapped on the glass in front of the ticket seller and asked in English if the movie was in French or English, and in French she said it was in French.  He understood that.  On the other side of the rue des Écoles was another movie and up the rue Champollion three more.  A cowboy movie was advertised in English as My Darling Clementine.  An old movie.  All right.  To pass the time, he went in.

When he came out at four-thirty, two guys with long hair were playing guitars and singing in the street.  At the end of the rue Champollion he went on to the Place de la Sorbonne where he turned right onto the Boulevard Saint Michel which he followed, reaching the Place Edmond Rostand, and crossing over the rue Soufflot that ended in the Pantheon.  Rome again, the police station again, and a little farther on a booth where he bought a crèpe Grand Marnier before turning left on the rue Soufflot which was at a right angle to the rue Victor Cousin, itself parallel to the rue Champollion.  The Pantheon vibrated in the sunset.  His thumb throbbed.

          On the corner of the rue Soufflot was a bookshop which turned the corner into the rue Saint Jacques, making an acute angle with the rue Malbranche where, at the Hotel des Etrangers, he picked up his key, went up the stairs to his room and fell asleep, fitfully, feverishly, fully clothed.  The next morning he felt like he had a fever.  His thumb was swollen double.  He got up and went down to the corner café standing on a perpendicular formed by the rue Malbranche and the rue Gore.  He ordered a coffee with milk and went in to telephone.  His thumb hurt so much when he took his wallet out of his back pocket to extract the telephone jetton he had kept from the cafe yesterday he thought he’d faint.  With his left hand he dropped the jetton in the slot, unfolded the paper with Glanzberg’s number on it, dialed, and let it ring a long time, but no one answered.  Awkwardly he refolded the slip of paper, now pretty wrinkled, put it back in his wallet in his back left pocket and left.

Staggered.

          The narrow rue Gore was stopped by the rue Soufflot, twice its width and three times its length, at the end of which the Pantheon wavered.  A Wimpys. 

          Eat something. 

          Kit walked into Wimpys and ordered a hamburger and coffee.  Waiting, he put his hands on the counter.  His right thumb looked twice the width of his left.  The coffee came.  So did the hamburger.  It was very thin.  The coffee was thin too.  Italian coffee was stronger, and American hamburgers thicker.  He ate the French one and left.

          --Herald Tribune.

A guy in a blue windbreaker offered him a paper.  Kit tried to talk to him in English, but he was French and did not understand.  Kit got out his wallet.

          Ouch.  A franc.

He handed the franc to the newsboy who handed him a newspaper.  On the back of the windbreaker yellow letters said Herald Tribune.  But he went away before Kit could ask for help.

At the end of the rue Soufflot was the Panthéon.  Turning away from it, he crossed to the center of the Place Edmond Rostand and sat on the edge of the fountain.  The water was still, shallow, unsparkling.  Kit plunged his hand in and reflected.

Glanzberg could not be the only one helping deserters.  The Rome Daily American had said nothing about Glanzberg.  It said they were given residence permits in Paris.  Glanzberg just happened to be someone Lou Anne’s mother had met and thought might help him.  There must be other people involved.  It shouldn’t be hard to find them.

Kit got up, wiping his left hand on his pants, leaving the sore one, the right one, wet.

          Tepid.  Not like Rome.  More like Fregene where he’d cut his thumb on the can of peaches.  Quit the army and die of an infected thumb.

          --It’s not like the Trevi fountain, is it?  said a girl’s voice.

          To me?

On the other side of the fountain, two blond girls were looking in the water for coins.

          --Shall we throw a coin anyway?

          --Someone would just take it out.

Perhaps a few coins lay under the dappled water, or were shadows and cracks, cigarettes and leaves all?

          --You speak English?

The two girls glanced across the water at him.  Sunlight lit his blond hair.

          --I am English, said one.  My friend’s French.

          --That’s just what I need, said Kit.  I’m coming over.

He walked around the fountain.  The French girl sat on the right rim.  The English girl stood and waited.

          --I’m an American, he began.

          --We could tell, giggled the English girl.

          --How are you on the Vietnam War?  he asked.

The French girl looked up from the shiny surface of the water.

          --In France we are very much against it, she said.  Even the fascist groups hardly dare to speak for it.  Above all in the Latin Quarter.

She smiled and raised her hands.

          --Stand up and say Hurray for the USA and see what happens.

          --I’ve come to the right place then, said Kit.  You see, I’m an American deserter.

The French girl stood up.

          --My! said the English girl.

          --What do you think about the Vietnam War?  asked Kit.

          --To tell you the truth, I don’t know much about it, said the English girl.  In Britain people are generally against wars, but we don’t know much about this one.

          --I don’t know much about it either, said Kit.  But when they told me I had to go shoot a lot of Vietnamese, and they couldn’t tell me why--I wouldn’t do it.

          --You were perfectly right, said the French girl.

          --I certainly wouldn’t go shoot at people just because someone told me to, said the English girl.  It would be an insult to my intelligence to expect me to, wouldn’t it?

This was nice.  Kit would have liked them to go have a drink together.  But the damned Panthéon slowly floated off, wavering.  Fever.  No.  He held out his right hand.

          --I think I have an infected thumb, he said.  What should I do?

He turned to the French girl.

          --Go to Police Secours, she said promptly.  They’ll get it taken care of.

          --How much?

          --Oh, it’s free, said the English girl.  Like in Britain.

          --How did you do it?  asked the French girl.

          --I cut it on a tin can in Rome, said Kit.  Outside of Rome.

          --We’ve just come from there, said the English girl.  It’s really a beautiful city, isn’t it?

          --I love Rome, said Kit.  But they turn deserters over to the police there.  The Italian cops are real dumb, so as long as you’ve got money, you can stay.  But once you need help, you’re better off somewhere else.

          --If you don’t have any friends in France, you won’t get far either, said the French girl.

          --I read in the Rome Daily American it was okay here for deserters.

          --I wouldn’t know, said the French girl.  I don’t read that kind of paper.

          --I have an address, said Kit.

          --Why don’t you go there?

          --Actually, he explained, it’s only a telephone number.  I have to get this thumb lanced or something.  What I think I’ll do, if you’ll help me, is go to--what did she say?

          --Police Secours, said the French girl again.

          --Police Secours, and tell them who I am and see if they know who the people are who help American deserters.

          --That seems intelligent, said the Britisher.

          The French girl raised her eyebrows.

          --Is that wise? she asked.  If you’re a deserter?   

          --It’s not that I trust them or anything, said Kit.  I just want to find out from them who I should go to.  I suppose there are some Americans around.  It said in the Rome Daily American that it’s okay for American deserters to stay in France.

          --If you have such faith in the Rome Daily American, said the French girl, go ahead.

          --It’s not that, said Kit.  Only--

          --What else can he do?  asked the Britisher.

          Kit had taken his wallet out of his pocket with his left hand and, placing it gingerly on his right palm, pulled out the clipping from the Rome Daily American.

          --Your poor hand, sighed the Britisher.

          Kit smiled at her gratefully.  He had been missing human warmth.

          --The French authorities said today, he read, that a US Army deserter, sentenced to ten days in prison for vagrancy by a French court, will be allowed to remain in France.  They said Manfred Jackson, 20, of New Haven, Connecticut, would be issued a temporary residence card on his release from jail tomorrow.

          --All I want from the police is to find out where I should go, repeated Kit.

          --What exactly do you want us to do?  asked the French girl, handing him back his clipping.

          --I’d like you to interpret for me with the police, said Kit.  First, find out where I can get my thumb fixed up and then who the people are I should see.  I don’t suppose they’d let deserters stay in France if there wasn’t something set up for them.

          --D’acc, said the French girl.

          --Do we just go up to the bobby on the corner?  asked the Britisher.

          --I saw a police station near the Pantheon there, said Kit.  Maybe we could ask them.

          --How do you know it’s called the Pantheon?  asked the French girl.

          --Isn’t it?  asked Kit. That’s what it’s called in Rome.

          Together the three of them crossed the Place Edmond Rostand and walked up the rue Soufflot towards the Panthéon, leaving the rue Victor Cousin, the rue Toulouse, the rue Saint Jacques to the right, the delta of the Pantheon lapping out before them with the lighthouse of the Fifth Arrondissement Police Station, open twenty-four hours of the twenty-four, rising to one side. Five police cars, three police vans, were disposed at different angles on the mosaic paving stones of the Place.  Four policemen looked at the girls’ legs and bottoms as, flanking Kit, they passed through the entrance into the hall.

          If he could, he would have hit them, but he couldn’t.

          The smell of the police station hit him hard.

          --They never take baths, huh?

          --It is nasty, said the Britisher.

The French girl was already talking to the policeman at the desk.  Kit didn’t pay much attention, partly because his thumb was hurting, partly because he’d already been in police stations, in San Salvador, Fort Wayne, and Rome.  After the first glance, this one was like the rest, stink and all.

          --He wants to see your papers, said the French girl.

Kit walked up to the desk and put his American passport on it.

          --Why tell him you’re a deserter if you have a passport?  she asked.

          --Well, I want to find out where deserters should go.

          --I’d be surprised if they knew anything about it at all.

The cop was leafing through the pages of the passport.

          --He’s trying to pretend he knows English, said the French girl.

          --What’s your name?  Kit asked her.

          --Adresse à Paris?  asked the cop suddenly.

          --What’s your-- began the French girl.

          --Yeah, I understood that, said Kit.

He thought of his hotel around the corner, but he didn’t want them going and looking through his things there.  He knew that’s what they’d do if he said he’d only just arrived and didn’t have an address.

          --He should have an address, said the cop to the French girl in French.

          --He wants to get his thumb taken care of, answered the French girl.

          --Son pouce?

          --Show him your thumb.

Kit put his hand up on the desk.  He had confidence in this girl and felt it was all right now to do what  the cop said as long as she was there too.

          --C’est mauvais ca.  Il doit se faire soigner.

The girl said he wanted to see a doctor.

          --On l’amène á l’hosto.

          --I think it’s going to be all right, she said to Kit.  He doesn’t seem to know what to do with you, but if he turns you over to the hospital, it’s no longer his responsibility.

          --I don’t care, said Kit.  I just want to get it taken care of.

          --This is rather an odd experience, isn’t it?  said the Britisher.

The French girl was talking to the policeman again.  He was still leafing through Kit’s passport.

          --Look, she went on.  You have to regularize your situation.  So he’ll take you to the Prefecture where they’ll give you a carte de séjour  for two weeks.  Then you’re supposed to get it renewed.  You know what a carte de séjour  is?

          --Like a soggiurno?  Something saying you can stay?

          --That’s right.  Anyway, he said someone else will take you.

          --Mademoiselle!  said the new cop.

Holding Kit’s passport, he had emerged from a door and handed a white paper to Kit.  Another policeman, a certain number of whom had drifted in from outside to listen, took Kit by the arm.  Kit jerked away.

          --Tell him to let me go, he said.  I’ll come, but I don’t want to be pulled.

          The French girl turned to the policeman who said something to her in French.  She handed him her identity card.

          --You’d better go with him, she said, turning to Kit.

Kit thought it would probably be a bad idea to sock the cop.

          --And your friend?  asked the cop, gesturing at the English girl.

But he felt like it.

          --What does he want?  asked the Britisher.  I don’t go walking around with my passport in my pocket.  I might lose it.

          --She doesn’t have her papers with her, said the French girl.

          --Allez, said Kit’s cop.

Kit understood.

          --Then she’ll have to--began the other cop.

But Kit was never to know what she had to do.  The floor came up and hit him and when he woke up, he was handcuffed to a hospital bed.

                             §                                    §                                    §

A cop in uniform was standing at the foot of the bed.  The bed was in a corridor.  The corridor had a lot of doors opening into it, and there were more beds with sick people in them everywhere.  At the angle of the corridor was a small desk with a lamp and a telephone and a white table with medical things on it.  Behind the desk was a wall medicine cabinet with a red cross.

Kit’s left wrist was handcuffed to the bed, his right hand wrapped in a slightly bloody bandage.

          Boy, what a scene!  Worse than the army.

He called the cop and asked him why he was handcuffed.  The cop shook his head, he didn’t know why or didn’t know English.  Kit called to a nurse who stopped, looked, shook her head and continued.  Soon she was back with a cup of bouillon and a biscuit.

The cop still stood still there

The nurse said something to him and gestured towards Kit’s left hand, handcuffed.  Impassive cop.  The nurse shrugged angrily and marched out, marched back again with a doctor.

Tense trio of doctor, nurse and cop.

          Better than the army.

Deflated, the cop dug in his pocket and extracted small object with which he approached Carson, leant down and unlocked the handcuffs.  The doctor and nurse turned to go.

          --Hey, said Kit.  When can I get out of here?

The doctor stopped, walked back to the bed, raised slightly Kit’s bloody, bandaged hand.

          --Three days, he said in English.  If you have no fever.

Exit Doctor.

In French the cop asked the nurse when Kit would leave.

          --We don’t know, said the nurse.  Call tomorrow.

          --Because the Inspector wants to talk to him.

          --He can’t be disturbed now, said the nurse.

Exit nurse and cop.

During the next three days, Kit was moved from the corridor into a ward with three other beds.  He slept most of the time and ate everything they brought him, storing up for when he got out.  Though he didn’t like to think too much about getting out because of the hotel bill.  Tick tick tick at eleven francs a day.  Sometimes he wondered about the police, worried.  Things weren’t as simple as the Rome Daily American had given him to believe.  Whoever they were, the people helping deserters must be pretty much underground and very poorly organized.  So that left him with the problem:  like you walk into a city of four and a half million people, where do you go?  How do you find people, the right people, to help you?

On the third day, the doctor took his bandages off, looked at his hand, and told him he could go.  Along one side of his hand was a long scar.

          --Infection?

The doctor nodded

          --The police automatically consider anyone they bring in as a prisoner and handcuff him.  There was no accusation against you.

Kit nodded.  At least.  But when the nurse took him down to check out of the hospital, they were waiting for him.  Plainclothes this time.  A black cat and a white one.  The white one spoke English, the black did not.

          --Name?

          --Kit.  Carlton Carson.

          --Birth date?

          --June 25, 1947.

          --Date of arrival in France?

          --The first week of September.  I’m not exactly sure, the fourth or fifth.

          --Address in France?

          Hotel?  Eleven francs a day--Christ, they’ll put me right back in jail again for bankruptcy.

          --I don’t have one, he answered.  I was sick when I got here and went straight to the hospital.

          --Why did you come to France?

          --I told them at the police station.  I’m an American deserter against the Vietnam War.

          --What papers do you have?

          --Passport.

          --Let’s see.

Kit took out his passport, handed it over.

          --Have you been in touch with the American authorities since your arrival.

Kit shook his head.

          --What do you intend to do now?

          --Oppose the Vietnam War.

The white one said something to the black one and then both plainclothes men stared at him.

          --You must have French papers, said the white, looking at his watch.  It is now twelve o’clock.  The office at the Prefecture is closed until two.  My colleague will bring you there at two, and we will make out a carte de séjour for you.

The white one left and the black one took him to lunch at a self-service.  Cops were not like this in Rome.

          Were the cops against the Vietnam War maybe?

Kit tried to talk to him about it, but either he really did not want to or he knew absolutely no English.  Together they ate wordlessly and wordlessly went to the Prefecture where Kit was issued a two week carte de séjour sans domicile fixe.

Once free from the prefecture, he had no idea where he was.  There was a large church and in the middle of the bridge over the river, a statue of a man on horseback.  Below flowed the river.  Not the Tiber.  In a way things were better, in a way worse.  His thumb was okay, his fever was finished, but he still had no contacts, no more money, and his things were stuck in the hotel.  He’d never be able to find it again unless he ran into it by accident.  He didn’t want to get caught up in that again--wandering alone through the streets.  If Glanzberg didn’t answer the phone this time, he’d really have to sit down and figure out the next move to find this underground organization.  Maybe just ask some of these kids with long hair.  But this time when he went into the nearest café and dialed the number, wallet in left back pocket, folded piece of paper, cashier, jeton, the works, Glanzberg answered.

          --Hello, Mr. Glanzberg.  I’m a friend of Mrs. Phillips in Rome.  I’ve come up from there because, you see, I was in the American Army, on orders for Vietnam, and I left my unit and came to Paris.  Mrs. Phillips said--

          --That’s enough, cut in Glanzberg.  I understand.  Don’t say any more.  Have you a number where you are?

          --I’m in a café.

          --Listen carefully.  Go outside and ask the telephone number of the cafe, come back, give it to me, and wait for me to call you back.

          --I don’t speak French.

          --Have them write it down.

Kit laid the phone on top of a pile of directories and went outside.

          These guys must be really underground.

When he got the cafe lady to understand that he wanted her to write down the number, he went back and gave it to Glanzberg.

          --Wait there, said Glanzberg.  I’ll call back.

Kit wished he would come around.  He felt like talking to someone face to face.  Outside of the English and French girls four days ago, he hadn’t had any personal contact with anyone since he’d left Rome.  Unless you counted the nurse and doctor and all the cops. Ten minutes later Glanzberg called him back.  He still didn’t sound very friendly.

          Since he doesn’t know me, why should he be?

          But he would have liked some friendship, if possible.

          --Never use proper names on the telephone, began Glanzberg.  That was my phone you were talking on, and it might be tapped.  I am calling you from outside now, since I will have to give you specific directions.  In the future, however, there will be no need for you to call me.  Destroy my number if you have written it down.

Kit looked at the folded paper and crumbled it in his hand.

          --Write this down, said Glanzberg.

But now he had nothing left to write on.

          --Wait a minute.

Kit went out and got a pencil and paper from the lady at the cash box.  He was getting along all right with her.

          --85 Boulevard Saint Michel.  Professor Morin.

          --Wait.  It’s a little hard for me to write.

          --Do you know where that is?

          --Yes, you see I had--

He was having trouble writing with his left hand, his right hand still a little stiff.

          --Fourth floor on the left.  Remember that.  Don’t ask the concierge.

          --I wouldn’t know how to.

          --All right.  Tell them what you just told me, and they will know what to do.  All right?

          --Yeah, sure.  Thanks a lot.

          --Perfectly all right.  Forget you ever called me.

          click

          James Bond.

But anyway, he had made the connection.  All he had to do now was walk to the Boulevard Saint Michel.  He still had a little money left, so he bought a coffee from the cafe lady to thank her.

                             §                                    §                                    §

Erwin Adler looked at the three cashiers barring the exit to the Super Marché and chose the nearest.  He did his marketing at off hours when there were few people.  Since Saturday and Monday were generally crowded, he took care to get in his provisions Friday afternoon.  Eggs, coffee, bread and cheese, butter and yogurt.  He had a little cooking alcove in his hotel room.

Waiting for the woman ahead of him to pay, he glanced around to see if he was being followed.  Back between the coffee and the canned goods?  He knew the US government and the French government were interested in his activities.  Everyone knew he was writing a book A Fifty Year History of Illegal Organizations in France.  It was no secret.  He had already approached the French Communist Party for access to their archives.  So far he had not found the right person, but perhaps he would today.

          pockety pockety queep

          --Fifteen francs.

Erwin stepped forward and paid his fifteen francs. A small slight figure with wispy black hair and horn-rimmed glasses, he walked down the market street carrying his net of provisions and entered the Hotel Louisiane just in time to hear the proprietor call him to the telephone.  After listening carefully for a few minutes, he repeated an address, said he would see what he could do.  Then he slowly walked up to his room with the groceries.

The caller had identified himself as professor Morin, sociologist at the Sorbonne.  He had an American deserter and didn’t know what to do with him.  Also, he didn’t speak much English, and the deserter didn’t speak French.  Mathilde Churchill had given him Erwin’s name as an American who might help.  He and his wife couldn’t keep him indefinitely, and they needed someone to run interference between the language barriers.  Erwin said that he or someone else would get in touch with them and hung up.  He went upstairs and lay his coat on the bed before starting to put his groceries in order on a little shelf over the burner.  He hoped this activity would calm him down because he did not want to be disturbed by the deserter problem.

So far, except for one occasion, he had managed to avoid deserters in Paris.  Once, an American deserter had gotten his name from an ex-student of his at Carnegie Tech.  God knows where those two had met.  Probably picked each other up on the Boul’ Mich.  The boy had come to see him, told him he had walked away from the Army after a fight with his sergeant.  Erwin judged such an incident could have happened at any time, in any army, and was not related to the Vietnam War in particular or the American Peace Movement in general.  He had not considered himself under any particular obligation to do anything but give the boy one hundred francs and tell him to get lost.  He had.  Or if he hadn’t, at least Erwin had never seen him again.

He did not want to see this new boy either, he decided, and went downstairs to call Mathilde and suggest that she go see him herself.  He did not think it was very nice of her to push this off on him.  She was just as bilingual as he, if not more so, and there was no reason--

          ring ring ring ring

          Nobody at home.

          Erwin Adler, you now have a choice before you.  You either leave this whole problem until you see Mathilde on Monday evening at the PACS meeting, or you go over there right now and tell this boy you can’t help him and explain to the Morins that--

          The Morins.  Erwin thought of going over right away.  Mathilde had mentioned knowing people close enough to the French Communist Party to act as intermediaries in getting him permission to use their archives.  Perhaps Professor Morin was exactly the person to do this.  Erwin decided that his alacrity and efficiency in dealing with this American deserter might be in direct relation to his eventual access to the PCF files.  He went upstairs again and put on his coat and left the Hotel Louisiane and started up the rue de Seine to the Boulevard Saint Germain to the Boulevard Saint Michel and down Saint Michel to number 56.

The trees were still green on the Boulevard Saint Michel.  Number 56 was a narrow doorway beside a shoe shop.  Raphael Morin had not told him what floor, but Erwin noticed the doors had names, so he started to climb.  The lefter you are, the higher up you live, said a Paris wit.  Climbing in Paris, the necessity to climb in Paris, had never bothered him.  He was little and light and climbed easily.

Climbing, he resolved not to spend much time on this question of the deserter.  He thought again that Mathilde had taken a lot on herself to give out his name without asking his permission. After seeing the Morins, he would just ask her to get in touch with organizations that handled the problem.  The Mouvement de la Paix, for example.  He was almost sure that Pasteur Rangoon--

          Raphael Morin.

          Erwin rang the bell and a young blond woman came to the door.  She introduced herself as Chantal Morin, explained that her husband had had to leave, and invited him in.

She said that the young man was very nice and that he came from Abbé Glanzberg who was, however, not known to them personally.  They did not know how Monsieur Glanzberg had gotten their number, but they were all for American deserters and had asked the young man to come anyway and having seen that he was nice, had kept him.  However, they were short of money, and the apartment was small.  Raphael had talked it over  with Mathilde Churchill and she had said to call Erwin and so they had.  Chantal laughed.

          --He does not like to take money, she added.  He has already written home for money to repay what we have lent him--thirty-four francs to pay his hotel bill.

Erwin noted all this and asked where the young man was, and she said he was in his room reading.

          --Maybe you should just go in by yourself, she said.  Since you are an American, you will understand each other right away.

At the end of the little hall, Erwin went into a little room.  Lying on a bed looked up a very young man.  No sun from the window lit his hair, but even in the shadows of this courtyard cell, his hair was blond, his eyes blue.

          Beautiful.

But you should turn right around and leave this house forever if you know what is good for you.

Erwin drew a deep breath and re-evaluated.  There was the work at the Sorbonne, the French CP, the archives. Mathilde and the Morin’s good opinion--and the boy, above all, the boy.

          --I am an American helping in the Peace Movement over here in Europe, he said finally.  The Morins asked me to see what I could do to help you. 

          The boy broke into an amazed smile.

          --An American!

Never had Erwin thanked god so heartily for something he had always taken for granted.

          --Yes, I am an American, he said with dignity.

          --It’s nice to hear English again, said the boy.  My name is Kit Carson, by the way.

          --Erwin Adler.

Erwin Adler walked into the room and gave his hand to Kit Carson.

          --People are always shaking hands in France, said Erwin.  Much more so than in the States.

          --I’ve noticed, said Kit.

The room had a desk and a chair, night table and lamp.  Above the bed, a window in the roof let in the light.  A mansarde.  Kit crossed his legs under him and sat on his pillow, his back against the wall.  Erwin sat on the end of the bed.

          --I take it you need some orientation here in Paris, said Erwin.  Some help from someone who understands you, who quite literally speaks your language.

          --I don’t want to be any trouble to anyone, said Kit.  I want to get on my feet and be independent.  I feel bad borrowing that money from Mrs. Morin.  I needed it to pay off my hotel bill, but I’ve already written my grandmother to send it to me.

          --Did you give this address?

          --Yes.  Shouldn’t I of?

          --No, I don’t think you should have.  This is one of the details we must arrange: where you are to get your mail.

          --Will the Morins get in trouble because of it?

          --No, I don’t think so.  I believe deserters are legal in France now.

          --That’s what it said in the Rome Daily American.  That’s why I came here.

          --That is very interesting, said Erwin.  I did not know this information was being reprinted.

          --I have the clipping somewhere, said Kit. 

He picked up his wallet from the table, abstracted a clipping and handed it to Erwin:

          French authorities said today that a US Army deserter, sentenced to ten days in prison for vagrancy by a French court, will be allowed to remain in France.  They said that Manfred Jackson, 20, of New Haven, Connecticut, would be issued a temporary residence card on his release from jail tomorrow.

          --I don’t think the Morins will have any trouble, said Erwin.  They are both French citizens and they are in no way violating French law by helping an American deserter.  We Americans must be more careful and take certain precautions.  Most of us intend to return to the United States in the near future and an aiding-and-abetting charge can bring a prison sentence.

          --My god, I really am a pain in the neck to you people!

Kit looked appalled, added:  I don’t want to live off other people, believe me.

Erwin seriously felt he himself was controlling the situation, just like when he lectured, when he talked to intellectuals, to students, to people in the Peace Movement.  But this was the first time he was controlling a situation with a handsome young man from the military.

          --You won’t live off anyone, he said.  We are all willing to help you because we are all against the war.  The question is, are you willing to help us?

          --Help you?  Sure.  Anything.

          --Are you ready to be a responsible member of the Peace Movement?

          --The Peace Movement?  Sure.  What can I do?

          --Just that, said Erwin.  Be responsible.

          --I’ll try to be.

          --Too many young men in your situation, said Erwin, goof off.  Smoke, drink, won’t work--they are parasites on whatever country they find themselves in and are very bad for the Peace movement.

Kit looked serious.

          --I drink, he said.  I don’t want to be a parasite or anything--I really hate to ask people for things--but I do drink.

          -That is a problem we will have to see about, said Erwin, but he said it in a way to reassure.  I am already favorably impressed by your telling me about it.  Why do you drink?         

Kit looked at him.

          --Because then I feel nine feet tall, he said.

Erwin nodded.

          --If you’re ready to do something for the Peace Movement, he said, I am ready to do something for you.  I don’t mind telling you I am making an exception in your case.  Until now I have always been of the impression that deserters are more trouble than help to the Peace Movement.  But you are different.

Erwin had not said to anyone that he was different for a long time.

          --I’ll try to help you, said Kit.  You tell me what I can do.

          --Begin by telling me about yourself, said Erwin.

                                                         

                   §                                    §                                    §

          After leaving Kit, Erwin went to see Mathilde Churchill, who lived at 12, rue Barbet de Jouy in the 7th arrondissement.  This arrondissement was full of embassies, housed in former private mansions set well back from the narrow streets and protected by paved courtyards, iron grills and, for the French ministries, guard boxes with guards in them on twelve hour duty.

          But Mathilde lived in a modern apartment building dating from just after the Second World War.  An American in her middle sixties, she had been a heroine of the Resistance and had lived on in Paris ever since.  Erwin had met her at a PACS meeting.

          --How was your deserter?  she asked as soon as she opened the door.  I’m all agog to hear about him.

Erwin smiled modestly.

          --It does look as if he is turning out to be mine.  At least, I have agreed to try and find the proper people to look after him.

Mathilde led the way down her narrow corridor into her small sitting room.  As she walked, she explained that she was so glad because she did not know what to do about it herself--would he like some coffee?--and she knew that PACS could not do anything or would not, and when they had asked her she had thought of him.

          --Who asked         ?

          --Well, this group.  Two of them are coming now to talk to you.

          --But the Morins--where do they fit in?

          --Oh, they were just baby-sitting.  You know, helpful people.

          --Has it anything to do with the Communist Party?  asked Erwin hopefully, thinking of the archives.

          --I don’t know.  You’ll have to ask them.

          --Generally, said Erwin.  Generally, you know, I do not think the Peace Movement should bother with deserters.  There have always been deserters, I assume there always will be, but they are very rarely political.

          --Is this boy political?

          --Thank you, said Erwin.  I will have some coffee.  No, I wouldn’t say that he is political now, but given time, he may become so.

          --Oh well, that’s fine, said Mathilde.  Now, I suppose you want to know what to do with him?

          --There are certain problems.  For example, he can’t stay much longer where he is because it is very small and--

          --Yes, I know, Raphael told me all that--

The doorbell rang and Mathilde came back with a young man in his middle twenties and an older man whom she introduced as the father of the young man.  The conversation continued in French.

          --I want you to talk to Erwin Adler about what your group is doing on the deserter question, said Mathilde.  Because we have just gotten one, and he can’t stay where he is much longer.  Arthur was a deserter during the Algerian War, Erwin.

Erwin asked if the Algerian deserters--that is, the Frenchmen who deserted from the French Army to protest--had been amnestied, and Arthur’s father said they had been, and Erwin said that was very interesting and certainly something for them to work on for the American deserters, and a good question to discuss at a PACS meeting.  Mathilde repeated that she hoped PACS would do something, but she did not think it would do much besides talk, which is why she had put Erwin in the picture.

Arthur and father sat down and Mathilde gave them coffee.

Arthur did the talking.  He said that there was a large number of deserters in France, he was not at liberty to say how many, but that the present project was to send them down to Valence in the Midi where they would live communally.  Political responsible people, such as himself, when he could take the time, would take their political education in hand.  Teaching them French and farm work, and other useful activities, would, of course, be organized on a day-to-day basis so that the whole project could be self-supporting.

          --In Valence, repeated Erwin thoughtfully.

          --We have connections there, said Arthur.

Erwin thought this sounded somewhat overly mysterious.  It reminded him of various underground movements he was researching which oscillated between the mysterious and the efficient.

          --Valence is, of course, a long way from Paris, he remarked.

          --The temptations of the capital, answered Arthur firmly, should be removed from their immediate field of experience.

          --Of course, said Erwin.  But your organization will have to have at least twice as many cadres as there are deserters, I would estimate.

          --We’ll take care of that part of it, said Arthur.

Mathilde looked at Arthur’s silent father.

          --In the Resistance, of course, no one stayed in the same place for very long, she remarked.

          --The American Army is hardly the Gestapo, said Arthur’s father.

          --No, said Mathilde doubtfully.

          --But that is the attitude we want the deserters to learn, said Arthur.  All the rules of an underground network. If I give one of them an appointment for three o’clock in a cafe on the north side of the Boulevard des Batignolles, he must translate that into two forty-five in a cafe on the south side.

          --Still Boulevard des Batignolles?  asked Erwin.

          --Maybe we could work out a series of correspondences, said Arthur seriously.  Batignolles equals Louis Le Blanc, Saint Michel equals Saint Germain and so on.

          --They’ll have to learn French first, said Arthur’s father.

          --Of course, we’ll take everything step by step, said Arthur.

Erwin said that as soon as something got set up to let him know.

          --We can take your deserter with us right now, said Arthur.  That’s one of the reasons we came by.

Erwin said he had not realized that and that his deserter had gone to see about a job this afternoon.

          --What job?  asked Arthur snappily.  How can he get a job if he doesn’t have working papers?  That’s another aspect we are working on.

          --Oh, it wasn’t an official job, said Erwin.  You know, in America, it’s not at all unusual for boys to babysit.

          --The baby business, said Arthur’s father reflectively.

          --Let’s not start with Max, said Mathilde firmly.

          --Max?  repeated Erwin.  Isn’t he one of the PACS people?

          --Not really, said Mathilde.  Max is not an American citizen.

          --At any rate, he has nothing to do with the deserter movement, said Arthur.  So when your deserters come back, just send him on to me.  And I’ll be in touch with Mathilde in a few days about--what did you say his name is?

          --Tom, said Erwin.  Tom Mix.

Once Arthur and his father had left, Erwin stayed on to finish his coffee with Mathilde.

          --There really does seem to be a deserter movement, said Mathilde.  although when Max told us that at PACS, none of us believed him.

          --I wouldn’t call it a movement as yet, said Erwin.  I personally have only met two deserters here in Europe.  Of course, there may be more in Canada, though in Canada they are mostly draft resisters.

          --I think this group considers it the same thing, said Mathilde.  After all, they are all young men refusing to go to Vietnam.

          --The draft resisters are more political, said Erwin.  They have been involved in the Peace Movement from the beginning.  I wonder how many deserters he has down there in Valence?

          --I don’t know, said Mathilde.  I don’t ask.  They have to be very careful about this.

          --Five years for aiding and abetting, said Erwin.  Don’t I know!        Who did you say Max is?

But in France deserters were legal, so why was Arthur being so careful?  Americans were the ones who had to be careful, not the French.  He left Mathilde with the telephone number of one of the PACS women who knew Max, and only when he was out on the boulevard again did he remember that he had forgotten to ask her whether Morin was the proper contact to get him into the Communist Party archives.  Damn!

Richard the Lionhearted

              Max had returned from Frankfurt just in time to pick up on Kit Carson.  But while he was gone, Richard the Lionhearted had appeared, and I had been the one to interview him.  Actually, the PACS people had turned him over to me, but he was my first deserter, so to speak. His name was Richard Lyons and he was a very shy boy.  Even his introduction had begun in a whisper.  Ginetta Coryell tiptoed over to me after a PACS meeting and said softly:

          --We brought a new baby.  He’s here.  She doesn’t think we should have--

          Rosette glared over at Mrs. Jarvis, the president of the Paris Americans to Stopwar.

          --But we thought it the best thing to do.

          She glanced at a young boy standing in the corner behind the upright piano, watching several PACS members putting chairs in a line for the meeting and looking as if he would like to help but not quite sure whether he should come out from behind the piano.

          I asked Rosette if he had a place to stay that night.

          --He’s in a hotel around the corner.

          --Does he have any money?

          --He said he did.

          --I’m okay, thanks.

          Richard had come out from behind the piano and joined us.  I looked at him with approval: very short hair, brown eyes, soft voice.  We made a date to meet at his hotel the next morning and then no one spoke to him again.  Or even noticed him.  This was to fool the possible CIA agents who might be at the meeting and might not already have seen us talking to him and might not have noticed his army haircut nor know that deserters were tolerated in France.  PACS behavior was always extremely contradictory all through this period, and so, before going on to Richard, I might define this organization. 

          To begin with, it had nothing to do with the Quakers or Bert, the head of the Quaker Center, who just let us have our meetings there.  Bert himself got interested in the whole question and came to every meeting, but he was English and not a part of the organization, which, as per the title, was to show that there was another America.   Since we were a group of liberals against the Vietnam War, we were not at all politically unified.  Some members like the Coryells were all for helping deserters more or less along our lines, our being Max and me, Daisy, an art student from California, and other people, like the Franklins, who drifted in and out from the States.  Others, like Mrs. Jarvis, were selective, like all of us had been at the beginning, looking for an ideal test case, Manfred as Malcolm X, until we learned that what the French Left called the base was quite able to become the spearhead of the movement.  Mrs. Jarvis never moved far from the phoneless friends position--in fact, she worked largely with Pasteur Rangoon--that a political cadre, not a deserter but possibly a draft resister, like David Mitchell if possible, should be “in charge of” deserters.

That this was the French Communist Party position did not disturb her.  If the Communists had what she considered a workable solution, she was ready to go along with them.  She was now over seventy, and like many liberals of her generation, she had been appalled by the witch hunts of the late forties and early fifties and did not think people should be excluded from PACS because they were communists.  The other PACS members were far more timorous, and so I will open a parenthesis here to outline their positions and why Mrs. Jarvis did not want a deserter brought to the meeting.  Here too she was following the phoneless friends and eventually the SDS position—who would have been appalled at the comparison with liberals-- that, despite Manfred’s winning the right for deserters not to be turned over to the US military, they should remain discreetly out of sight.  If the CIA decided to kidnap a deserter, she said, the French government was not going to ask for him back or defend his right to be tolerated in France.  The test case had been for France, not for Manfred, defining what France would or would not do.  Whether American deserters would be treated differently than any other immigrants we would not know until Manfred’s receipt or temporary residence permit ran out and he tried to renew it.  At the moment, no one was proposing sending any of the new arrivals into the Prefecture for papers.

          Max and I had met at a PACS meeting in February 1966.  In the spring of that year, PACS had originally tried to constitute itself as a non-profit organization covered by a French law of 1901.  since the membership was by definition American, Paris Americans to Stopwar had to have an official American president, Vice-president, Secretary and Treasurer who names had to be on file at the Paris Prefecture.  In addition to their American passport, they needed official residence papers in France; that is, an identity card valid for a minimum period of three years, but preferably ten.  For various reasons this requirement was difficult to fulfill.  Manfred Jackson, for example, with an entire political campaign to support him, complete with testimonials from personal friends of De Gaulle like D’Artois de la Grange, even Manfred only got an eight day residence, eventually extended to three months.  Of course, Manfred’s individual problem as an American was that he was a deserter, but almost every liberal in PACS had an individual situation making the residence requirement difficult to fulfill.

          I, for example, had been living in Paris since 1954, almost thirteen years, but since my husband had been French, I had automatically received French nationality and therefore did not qualify for American residence papers.  All Americans marrying Frenchmen--and the contrary was not true back in 1967--automatically became French for the French authorities unless they absolutely rejected French nationality.  In my case, I intended to go on living in Paris, and so rejecting French nationality did not seem a tactful move.  As for the American Embassy, it did not care and nonchalantly let all American women married to Frenchmen have double nationality.  If an American married a French woman, she became American if she chose, but if an American man opted to become French, he lost his American nationality.  Theoretically, I should not have become a member of PACS at all, since from the point of view of the French police, I was French, but, as I said, most of PACS official situations were contradictory.  At any rate, I had an American passport and no French residence papers, and so I could not be an officer of an American non-profit organization according to the 1901 French law.

          Mrs. Jarvis had been living in France since 1919, but in that relaxed epoch she had not needed a residence permit at all;  she had never bothered to apply for one until the thirties when the European situation became menacing.  However, when she returned after the Second World War, she had not bothered to renew it.  Therefore, she became the unofficial president of PACS until one day two policemen in civilian clothes came to her door and told her they were bringing her to the Prefecture to “regularize her situation.”  Mrs. Jarvis told them she was expecting lunch guests, but that she would come down the next day, which she did, and was issued a three year identity card from the head of the department.

          --I told him he should give me ten years, she told the PACS meeting.  After all, at my age I can expect to be dead in ten years, and they’ll save themselves the trouble of renewing it.  But the Department Head, or Sousprefect or whatever he was, only smiled and said, “But Mrs. Jarvis, we like to see you every three years.”

          Anyway, she had papers and could be president of PACS.  Until then, Lincoln Purdy had been the only PACS member with a ten year residence card and had been president.  He became vice-president but the organization still needed a treasurer and never got official status in France.  Like the deserters, it was tolerated. I had thought that this similar status would have made the members more sympathetic towards their young countrymen, but it only scared them.  Henry Flowers, for example, had a three year identity card and was PACS official liaison with the Prefecture.  The two times he went down there, he gave them all the information about us that they asked for, under the impression that he was doing his duty to French legality, but they asked so many questions that he finally realized he was being interrogated and left PACS altogether.  Henry was over fifty, remembered all the American organizations witch-hunted out of existence in the McCarthy-Truman period, and was afraid PACS might be considered anti-American.  Certainly everything he told the French prefecture was sent over to the American Embassy.  I do not know how closely the French and the Americans co-operated, but since none of us was very important, the French would have no reason to withhold it.  As a result, mild paranoia was the climate in PACS at about the time Richard Lyons turned up there.

          The next morning I got Richard at the Orient Hotel, and we went to a cafe on the Place de la Croix Rouge where, at a row of tables between the bar and a noisy pinball machine, he showed me his press clippings. 

          GI  Bitter on 19th Birthday, said the Oklahoma City Times.  Pvt. Richard Lyons, RA 8971564 was celebrating his 19th birthday.  But he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it, perhaps because he is spending it in jail.  Lyons is a bitter young man.  He told this writer that after he was in the Army, he heard of alleged mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of American GI’s.  “It just got me thinking,” he said.  That might have been all right if Lyons had confined himself to thinking.  But he began talking to other soldiers about it and was finally discovered in the company of a group of “men and women Communists in a motel room full of subversive antiwar propaganda.

          His parents are New England republicans who do not endorse his stand.  “They don’t want me to ruin my future,” said Lyons.  “They’d rather me just go along with it.”

          --Communists!  said Richard bitterly, as the Oklahoma Times would put it.  I don’t know if they were communists--we were talking about the Vietnam War.  When they write Communists like that, it sounds like something you don’t mention in public.  I didn't have much time to find out all their ideas because I was thrown in the stockade right away.  One of the girls got six months in the local jail.

          --Then what happened?

          --They shipped me out.  But first I had to apologize to my sergeant.

          --My mother, said Richard.  After the court martial, she came to see me in jail, and she was all upset and crying and so I did what she wanted.  But I shouldn’t have.  Because after I apologized to the goddamn sergeant, she said I should sign a paper saying I’d been used by the Communists.  And I shouted at her, “What do you want me to do, fink out?”  And you know what she said?  She said I didn’t realize how hard it was for her back home.  She’s a nurse in a Veterans Hospital, and she was afraid--yeah, afraid for herself, losing her job, but even more scared what people were going to say in Watertown.

          --Watertown?

          --Watertown, New Hampshire.  It’s a Republican town.

          --What does your father do?

          --He’s a barber.

          --How does he feel?

          --Oh, I guess he goes along with my mother.  I didn’t get to see him before I left.

          --Left for where?

          --Germany.  They sent me to Pirmasens.  God, was that a hole!  The first Saturday night I was there, there was a riot in the EM Club.  A Black E2 came in with a German girl and some whites jumped him.  There was a big fight--they resent the fact that the Blacks get German girls easier than they do--so another white guy and me fought with the rednecks too--

          --With them?

          --You know, on the side of the Black guy.  So the next day we got beat up by the rednecks behind the mess hall.  I couldn’t take it anymore and I split.  I have a cousin lives near Heidelberg, and I got leave and went to see him.  He drove me through to Paris that night.

          --Where did you cross the border?

          --At Strasbourg.  The Kehl Bridge.

          --Did you have any trouble at the border?

          --No.  My cousin’s car has military plates.  His wife works for the Army.

          --A WAC?

          --No, she’s French.  She’s a secretary in Headquarters in Heidelberg.

          --What does your cousin do?

          --He’s a writer.

          --And he drove you across the border?

          --He drove me to Paris.

          --Then what happened?  I’m sorry to ask you all these questions, but it helps to know how people got in.

          --Well, we didn’t know where to go for help.  So we thought the Communists would help us.  I mean--

He added quickly as if to excuse himself--

          --we were sure they were against the Vietnam War.

          --Did they help you?

          --Oh no, they threw us out. Practically.  I was sort of standing there, looking at the goldfish.  They have a big reception hall with magazines and armchairs, and they had this tropical fish tank with a glass top and bubbles coming into it from outside.  I mean, I sort of looked at it as if I was just there for something else, in case they looked like they were going to take me off.  My cousin did the talking.  He said to the girl behind the desk that he was here with me, and I was an American deserter.  Boy, I thought she’d hit the ceiling.  She began shouting in French, “Go away, go away, allez!” or something like that.  I didn’t need to be told again.  I’d been scared before we even went in.

          --What were you scared of?

          --I remember all the stories I’d heard, you know?  I thought they might tie me up and take me to Moscow or something.  Anyway, I was glad to get out of there.

          --But what about your friends in Oklahoma who were communists?

          --Oh, they weren’t communists.  The girl’s boyfriend was in the Army with me.  You know how in the United States, they call everyone antiwar a communist.  But these were French.

          --Why did you go to see them in the first place then?

          --We didn’t know who else to go to.

          --So then what did you do?

          --We went to another newspaper.

          --Newspaper?

          --After Humanité threw us out.

          --Oh, I thought you went to Party Headquarters.

          --Oh no, said Richard.  We wouldn’t have known where that was.  My cousin had the idea we should buy the Communist Party paper and go there, which is what we did.

          --What was the other newspaper?

          --The Monde.  They were the ones helped us most.  My cousin knew where it was; actually it wasn’t far from where we were.  They said they couldn’t help us themselves, but they would give us a place that could.

          --Humanité?

          --Oh no.

          I smiled but Richard remained very serious.

          --Did you tell the Monde what had happened at Humanité?

          --No.  We thought the less said about that the better.

          --So where did you go?

          --They sent us to the National Vietnam committee that sent us to the Quakers.  It was closed, but my cousin took me to a hotel because he had to get right back to Germany.

          --Closed?

          --It was late already.  So I went the next day and the man there, he was the head--Bert, I think his name is--said there was an antiwar meeting that night.  Mrs. Coryell was there too, and she said we could all meet for coffee at the cafe on the corner before.  That was last night.  And I met the old lady who runs it, and then Mrs. Coryell introduced me to you.

          --What sort of papers do you have?

          --Papers?

          --Identity?

          --I have my army ID.

          --Could I see it?

          It looked genuine.  The idea sporadically occurred to us to wonder whether each new baby was genuine.  It seemed only logical to suppose that a secret service would run in a stoolie.  Max maintained that his interview technique was a safeguard against infiltration.  All Buster’s stories about Basic Training and hand grenades had come right out of Catch 22.  Of course, if either of us had bothered to read Catch 22, we would have picked this up.  If a deserter could not remember in what state he went to grammar school, he was obviously lying, said Max. This did not mean he was with the CID or CIA, but it did mean we should be sceptical of all information we got, even if we could not check it out.  Now I felt about Richard that he was too good to be untrue; someone as intelligent and sincere as he was--especially if he wasn’t--would not have been wasted in a backwater like Paris.  I thought the Secret Services would have sent him to the States to do more important infiltration.

I asked Richard to stay one more night in the Hotel Orient and to let me make photocopies of his Oklahoma times.  He had also brought a newspaper called The Bond put out by GI’s in New York, so I took that along too.  If Max didn’t show by tomorrow, I would have to see about getting him out of the hotel.

But Max rang my doorbell at three o’clock in the morning.

Three hours before most deaths are registered, I thought, when I woke from the usual deathlike sleep and remembered Chico ringing the bell to tell us of Manfred’s arrest.  But this time there was only Max, unshaven, open at the neck, bowed down by his briefcases, asking to come in.

          --I came straight here, he said, because I thought there might be cops at my house.

          --Why should there be cops at your house--any more than usual?

          --I saw a Black deserter in Frankfurt who was apparently going to the phoneless friends--at least he was going to some group in Paris, and it wasn’t us.  He just happened to come in as I was leaving Bautz’ pad.

          --Oh, Bautz.

          --He is the connection the Dutch are working with in Germany.  From the SDS.  I woke him and whoever else who was sleeping there at eight in the morning and probably seriously damaged that connection.  The SDS does not like to get up early.  Their working class position does not extend to their hour of rising.  I think the phoneless friends have contacted them since the last time I was there because they were very reluctant to let me talk to their deserter, a deserter with a diplomatic passport, no less.  I ask you!  And they’re the ones who are into security!  I wrote him down as Salisbury Steak, probably because I was hungry--SS in the second alphabet, anyway.  Which will be appropriate if he does turn out to be a fink.  Do you know why?

          --Everyone knows about the SS.

          --But very few people know what it stands for.  Do you?

          Of course I didn’t, but I didn’t feel like playing guessing games at three in the morning.

          --I’ll be nice and tell you, said Max, always put in a good humor by knowing something someone else did not.  Schutzstaffel!  The SA was the first version and--

          --If you’ll shut up, I’ll get you something to eat.

We went into the kitchen, and I made him some eggs.  Later on, due to the objections of my daughters at this servile behavior, I stopped cooking for him, but regretted it when he ate sardines out of the can and didn’t brush his teeth before coming to bed.

          --Do you think Salisbury Steak might give your name to the police?

          --I would be very surprised if they didn’t have it already, but his arrival might inspire them to come and visit me.

          --Do you want to sleep here?

          --That was the idea.  Unless it disturbs you.

          As long as I knew I was not a permanent flophouse, I  didn’t mind.  The sex was fine but not the cohabitation.  A middle class prejudice, he told me, like objecting to sardines.  Ordinarily he threw off his clothes and left them on the floor in a pile, washed himself in a cursory fashion, if at all, and jumped into bed.  If I were not already there, he lay quietly on his back, alternating with a right side reading position and book.  If I was already in bed, he gathered me in his arms, often rolling over on top of me (or pulling me on top of him if he was tired), sitting on me (if he felt playful) and, in every case, trussing and bundling us into the covers until the bed looked like a sheep pen.  Sometimes this wasn’t enough, and he trussed me for good:  hands behind my back, one hand to one foot, hands tied to my neck, and so on.  Steam roller technique of convincing.   Like many of his arguments, it convinced me all right.

          --So the SDS is not going to work with us?  I asked the next morning.  Because you woke them at eight o’clock?

          --As I said, I think the phoneless friends have been there.  Bautz did not say they wouldn’t work with us, but they certainly did not want to let me talk to Salisbury Steak.  I think they are annoyed because I gave Bautz name to a journalist.  You know, they are very against publicity.  Against Establishment Press.  I think they are starting a campaign against Springer.

          --Will they send us babies?

          --The babies will come to us and not wait to be sent by the SDS.  As for Salisbury Steak, the phoneless friends can have him.  You see, the trouble with them is--the SDS, the pf’s, PACS--they’re all on a “single solution” track.  But there is no “single solution.”  On the other hand, sometimes the SDS puts on a very good action.  A demonstration.  Do you want to hear about it?

          --If it’s important.

          --Oh it is.  Very important.  It began with a leaflet distribution several days before my arrival.  I even think they were smart enough not to refer to themselves as SDS, or students, but just people who would be at the PX Saturday afternoon to talk to any soldiers who were interested in talking about the Vietnam War.

          He paused.  Signifying.

          --The countermove by the Army was to shut down the PX.  Good or bad?

          --It depends if they put it off bounds or not.

          --I’m glad you are beginning to think of things in military terms.  Very good.  Let’s see what else you know.  What does a PX look like on Saturday afternoon?

          Determined to get it right--my alternate reaction to being exasperated--I launched into a vivid description:

          --Busy.  Family day.  Women and children.  Supplies for the week--wives pushing shopping carts, husbands in Hawaiian shirts, children wearing batman helmets, babies in those bright-colored plastic shovels--

          --All right, all right, all right.  It’s a mess.  How about the doors?

          --Control.  Very controlled.  I remember when I tried to get in and buy brownie mix--

          --Brownie mix!  Never mind, you’re doing well.  The control slows people down, the doors are crowded--what happens to the SDS students who are there to talk to the soldiers?

          --Trampled to death?

          --Ignored.  How can you talk about the war holding a baby in a shovel?  Do they really hold them in shovels?

          --They did at the Paris PX in the old days.

          --Interesting.  I wonder what Engels would have said about that?

          --Go on about the Frankfurt demonstration.  You’ve made your point that there were no gaily dressed crowds and the PX is closed.  So there are no soldiers, I suppose?

          --Not at all.  Major Polkin was very considerate.  He set everything up the best way he could to co-operate with the students.  Not only did he close the PX, but he put those moveable iron railings around it so that there was an empty space between the PX walls and the railings; the railings themselves were an excellent place for soldiers to stand and lean and hook their feet.  And the SDS students could stand and lean and hook their feet on the other side, and both could put their elbows on the top rail and talk to each other.  Right in the middle of Frankfurt where no one could block off the streets or prevent either students or soldiers from coming to the PX.

          --So it wasn’t put off bounds?

          --There was a notice sent out by Colonel Greene which Bautz showed me--one of the SDS girls works for the Army and took it off the bulletin board--suggesting no one come to town that afternoon.  But no direct orders were issued.  How could they issue direct orders?  Too many people who didn’t know anything about the SDS action were going to turn up anyway, just like they did every Saturday.

          --So the soldiers and the students talked?

          --The soldiers and the students talked, repeated Max with satisfaction.  That’s what made it a historic occasion.  The students even had sense enough to bring a lot of girls.  No students were arrested, and, I would imagine, as far as the soldiers go, the Army let it drop.

          --What about Salisbury Steak?

          --Well, I wish the phoneless friends luck.  A Black deserter with a diplomatic passport--I mean to say!

          --He’s black?

          --Didn’t I tell you?  I told Pasteur Rangoon.

          --When did you see him?

          --Last night.  Before coming here.

          --But why?  If the pf’s have already been to the SDS to badmouth you, why bother with them?

          --Because I don’t consider them the enemy.  Whatever they may think about me, we are on the same side.  Our real enemy is the United States, and if Salisbury Steak is a spy, he is our common enemy.

          --I don’t see how a spy could hurt us much.  We’re in the open.

          --Oh, rest assured; if he hurts anyone, it will be us.  The phoneless friends are too careful of themselves.  Besides, we are foreign aiders and abettors, and most of them are French.  I wish though they would realize that it was in the spirit of co-operation that I went to see Rangoon last night when I got back from Frankfurt.

          --Maybe he just didn’t appreciate being awakened at two a.m.

          --But if he had been politically responsible, he would have gotten over that.  Whereas, he threw me out.

          --How do you mean?

          --He came to the door and told me they weren’t working with me anymore and threw me out.  That’s why I came to see you.  I needed somebody.

          --Suppose I had thrown you out?

          --It would have been a bad evening.  As it was, it turned out to be a very nice one.

          --I forgot to tell you, we have a new baby.  A very political one.  He brought his newspaper clippings with him.

          Max was impressed with the clippings, particularly with The Bond.

I had almost expected him to put down Richard because he was “my deserter,” whereas his deserter, Salisbury Steak, would almost surely turn out to be a dud.

          --I wondered for a minute if Richard was not being sent in as an informer, I would up my report.  Although he is too good to be wasted on a backwater like Paris.

          --Paris is very important, said Max huffily.

          He considered any reflection on what he referred to as “the Paris base” as a reflection on himself.

          --Well, Sweden and Canada accept deserters without question.  Paris just tolerates them.

          --But what are they doing politically in Sweden?  Max asked rhetorically.  Richard Lyons has brought with him the start of an international GI movement.  The Oklahoma Times was right.  This could be the beginning of the subversion of the whole US Army, including in Vietnam.

          I hadn’t really paid much attention to the Bond.

          --Read the title, said Max.

          --The Bond.  The GI’s Newspaper.  This paper is your own property.  It cannot be legally taken from you.  So what?

          --So what?  It is simply amazing--you have the typical liberal middle class peace movement reaction.  As if the Bond was another paper like Resist or the PACS newsletter.

          --Well, it is.  It’s just written by GI’s.

          --Just!  Max rolled his eyes in horror.  You mean to say you don’t realize what that means?  An antiwar newspaper written by soldiers, active duty soldiers!

          He shook his head.

          --I can see I have to explain it to you.  All right.  Now listen: who is fighting this war?

          --I mean, I can see it’s a good development.

          --Who is fighting this war?

          --The GI’s.

          --Give the lady a banana.  Because if GI’s have begun making propaganda against the war, what does that mean?

          --It weakens the military.  Okay, I’m not that stupid.  But it’s like saying if one GI deserts, then a regiment will desert, and if a regiment deserts, than a battalion will desert, and then there will soon be no more soldiers left to fight.

          --Not at all.  It is completely different.  Look:  what is the difference between Richard and Baby A?

          --Baby A is a third generation communist and voted for Goldwater.

          --This is serious, June.  A deserter has left the machine.  To get the machine to stop, you have to be the one at the controls.  You have to resist inside.

          --Like a factory strike.

          --If you like.

          --I mean, if a few workers quit, the bosses can get other workers.  If the strikers paralyze the works, they get what they want.  Is that what you mean?

          --You’re catching on, said Max.

          He was very impressed by Richard’s material, and later by Richard himself, and together they coined the acronym RITA, Resistance Inside the Army, to be applied to all soldiers, both on base and off-base--by which he meant the deserters--who were in any way politically active against the Vietnam War.  As for the break with the phoneless friends and the SDS, Richard more than made up for it.

          --Besides, he concluded.  Our deserters are coming from places outside of Germany recently:  O’Kelly from the States, Carson from Italy, and Lyons from Pirmasens, okay, but Fort Sill, Oklahoma--that’s really something!