The Young Lions

He leaned over the small glass chimney that guarded the candle and Hope bent over the one on her side of the table. Their heads touched as they blew, together, and in the sudden darkness, Hope said, "Forgive me. I am the meanest female in the whole world."

Then it was all right. They sat side by side, in the swing, looking up at the darkening sky with the summer stars begi

Hope said, "No, we shouldn't" and "I'm afraid, afraid…" and "Darling, darling," and Noah was shy and triumphant and dazzled and humble, and after it was over they lay there crushed and subdued by the wilderness of feeling through which they had blundered, and Noah was afraid that now that it was done she would hate him for it, and every moment of her silence seemed more and more foreboding, and then she said, "See…" and she chuckled. "It wasn't too hot. Not too hot at all."

Much later, when it was time for him to go home, they went inside. They blinked in the light, and didn't quite look at each other. Noah bent over to turn the radio on because it gave him something to do.

They were playing Tchaikovsky, the piano concerto, and the music sounded rich and mournful, as though it had been specially composed and played for them, two people barely out of childhood, who had just loved each other for the first time. Hope came over and kissed the back of his neck as he stood above the radio. He turned to kiss her, when the music stopped, and a matter-of-fact voice said, "Special Bulletin from the Associated Press. The German advance is continuing along the Russian border at all points. Many new armoured divisions have struck on a line extending from Finland to the Black Sea."

"What?" Hope said.

"The Germans," Noah said, thinking how often you say that word, how well known they've made themselves. "They've gone into Russia. That must have been what the newsboys were yelling…"

"Turn it off." Hope reached over and turned the radio off herself. "Tonight."

He held her, feeling her heart beating with sudden fierceness against him. All this afternoon, he thought, while we were at the wedding and walking down that street, and all this evening, in the garden, it was happening, the guns going, the men dying. From Finland to the Black Sea. His mind made no comment on it. It merely recorded the thought, like a poster on the side of the road which you read automatically as you speed by in a car.

They sat down on the worn couch in the quiet room. Outside, it was very dark and the newsboys crying on the distant streets were remote and inconsequential. "What's the day?" Hope asked.

"Sunday." He smiled. "The day of rest."

"I don't mean that," she said. "I know that. The date."

"June," he said, "June 22nd."

"June 22nd," the girl whispered. "I'm going to remember that date. The first time you made love to me."

Roger was still up when Noah got home. Standing outside the doorway, in the dark house, trying to compose his face so that it would show nothing of what had gone on that night, Noah heard the piano being softly played within. It was a sad jazz tune, hesitant and blue, and Roger was improvising on it so that it was difficult to recognize the melody. Noah listened for two or three minutes in the little hallway before he opened the door and went in. Roger waved to him with one hand, without looking round, and continued playing. There was only one lamp lit, in the corner, and the room looked large and mysterious as Noah sank slowly into the battered leather chair near the window. Outside, the city was sleeping. At the open window the curtains moved in the soft wind. Noah closed his eyes, listening to the ru

In the middle of a passage Roger stopped. He sat at the piano with his long hands resting on the keyboard, staring at the scratched and polished old wood. Then he swung round.

"The house is yours," he said.

"What?" Noah opened his eyes.

"I'm going in tomorrow," Roger said. He spoke as though he were continuing a conversation with himself he had been conducting for hours.

"What?" Noah looked closely at his friend to see if he had been drinking.

"The Army. The party's over. Now they begin to collect the civilians."

Noah felt dazed, as though he couldn't quite understand the words Roger was using. Another night, he felt, and I could understand. But too much has happened tonight.

"I suppose," Roger said, "the news has reached Brooklyn."

"You mean about the Russians?"

"I mean about the Russians."

"Yes."

"I am going to spring to the aid of the Russians," Roger said.

"What?" Noah asked, puzzledly. "Are you going to join the Russian Army?"

Roger laughed and walked over to the window. He stood there, holding on to the curtain, staring out. "Not exactly," he said. "The Army of the United States."

"I'll go in with you," Noah said suddenly.

"Thanks," said Roger. "Don't be silly. Wait until they call you."

"They haven't called you," said Noah.

"Not yet. But I'm in a hurry." Roger tied a knot reflectively in the curtain, then untied it. "I'm older than you. Wait until they come for you. It'll be soon enough."

"Don't sound as though you're eighty years old."

Roger laughed and turned round. "Forgive me, Son," he said. Then he grew more serious. "I ignored it just about as long as it could be ignored," he said. "Today, when I heard it over the radio, I knew I couldn't ignore it any more. From now on the only way I can make any sense to myself is with a rifle in my hand. From Finland to the Black Sea," he said, and Noah remembered the voice on the radio. "From Finland to the Black Sea to the Hudson River to Roger Ca

"Do you think it'll do any good?" Noah said.

Roger gri

"Of course not," Noah said dully. He's going to die, a voice seemed to be saying; Roger is going to die, they're going to kill him.

Roger sat down at the piano once more and placed his hands reflectively on the keys. He played something Noah had never heard before.

"Anyway," said Roger above the music, "I'm glad to see you and the girl finally went and did it…"

"What?" Noah asked, hazily trying to remember if he had said anything. "What're you talking about?"

"It was sticking out all over your face," Roger said, gri

"Like an electric sign." He played a long passage in the bass.

Roger disappeared into the Army the next day. He wouldn't let Noah go down to the recruiting station with him, and he left him all his belongings, all the furniture, all the books, and even all his clothes, although they were much too large for Noah. "I won't need any of this stuff," Roger said, looking around critically at the accumulation of the baggage of his twenty-six years. "It's just junk anyway." He stuffed a copy of the New Republic into his pocket to read on the subway ride down to Whitehall Street, smiling and saying, "Oh, what frail weapon I have here," and waved at Noah and jammed his hat at his own private angle on the lean, close-cropped head, and once and for all left the room in which he had lived for five years. Noah watched him go, with a choked feeling in his throat, and a premonition that he would never have a friend again and that the best days of his life were past.