Dusk and Other Stories

“You, too.”

Hilmo seemed not to hear. “Where are you living?” he said.

“Rosemont. Rosemont, New Jersey. It’s where my wife’s family’s from,” Reemstma said. He spoke with a strange intensity. He had always been odd. Everyone wondered how he had ever made it through. He did all right in class but the image that lasted was of someone bewildered by close order drill which he seemed to master only after two years and then with the stiffness of a cat trying to swim. He had full lips which were the source of an unflattering nickname. He was also known as To The Rear March because of the disasters he caused at the command.

He was handed a used paper cup. “Whose bottle is this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Hilmo said. “Here.”

“Are a lot of people coming?”

“Boy, you’re full of questions,” Hilmo said.

Reemstma fell silent. For half an hour they told stories. He sat by the window, sometimes looking in his cup. Outside, the clock with its black numerals began to brighten. West Point lay majestic in the early evening, its dignified foliage still. Below, the river was silent, mysterious islands floating in the dusk. Near the corner of the library a military policeman, his arm moving with precision, directed traffic past a sign for the reunion of 1960, a class on which Vietnam had fallen as stars fell on 1915 and 1931. In the distance was the faint sound of a train.

It was almost time for di

“Hey,” someone said unexpectedly, “what the hell is that thing you’re wearing?”

Reemstma looked down. It was a necktie of red, flowered cloth. His wife had made it. He changed it before going out.

“Hello, there.”

Walking calmly alone was a white-haired figure with an armband that read 1930.

“What class are you?”

“Nineteen-sixty,” Reemstma said.

“I was just thinking as I walked along, I was wondering what finally happened to everybody. It’s hard to believe but when I was here we had men who simply packed up after a few weeks and went home without a word to anyone. Ever hear of anything like that? Nineteen-sixty, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You ever hear of Frank Kissner? I was his chief of staff. He was a tough guy. Regimental commander in Italy. One day Mark Clark drove up and said, Frank, come here a minute, I want to talk to you. Haven’t got time, I’m too busy, Frank said.”

“Really?”

“Mark Clark said, Frank, I want to make you a B.G. I’ve got time, Frank said.”

The mess hall, in which the alumni di

There were those with the definite look of success, like Hilmo who wore a gray summer suit with a metallic sheen and to whom everyone liked to talk although he was given to abrupt silences, and there were also the unfading heroes, those who had been cadet officers, come to life again. Early form had not always held. Among those now of high rank were men who in their schooldays had been relatively undistinguished. Reemstma, who had been out of touch, was somewhat surprised by this. For him the hierarchy had never been altered.

A terrifying face blotched with red suddenly appeared. It was Cramner, who had lived down the hall.

“Hey, Eddie, how’s it going?”

He was holding two drinks. He had just retired a year ago, Cramner said. He was working for a law firm in Reading.

“Are you a lawyer?”

“I run the office,” Cramner said. “You married? Is your wife here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She couldn’t come,” Reemstma said.

His wife had met him when he was thirty. Why would she want to go, she had asked? In a way he was glad she hadn’t. She knew no one and given the chance she would often turn the conversation to religion. There would be two weird people instead of one. Of course, he did not really think of himself as weird, it was only in their eyes. Perhaps not even. He was being greeted, talked to. The women, especially, unaware of established judgments, were friendly. He found himself talking to the lively wife of a classmate he vaguely remembered, R. C. Walker, a lean man with a somewhat sardonic smile.

“You’re a what?” she said in astonishment. “A painter? You mean an artist?” She had thick, naturally curly blond hair and a pleasant softness to her cheeks. Her chin had a slight double fold. “I think that’s fabulous!” She called to a friend, “Nita, you have to meet someone. It’s Ed, isn’t it?”

“Ed Reemstma.”

“He’s a painter,” Kit Walker said exuberantly.

Reemstma was dazed by the attention. When they learned that he actually sold things they were even more interested.

“Do you make a living at it?”

“Well, I have a waiting list for paintings.”

“You do!”

He began to describe the color and light—he painted landscapes—of the countryside near the Delaware, the shape of the earth, its furrows, hedges, how things changed slightly from year to year, little things, how hard it was to do the sky. He described the beautiful, glinting green of a hummingbird his wife had brought to him. She had found it in the garage; it was dead, of course.

“Dead?” Nita said.

“The eyes were closed. Except for that, you wouldn’t have known.”

He had an almost wistful smile. Nita nodded warily.

Later there was dancing. Reemstma would have liked to go on talking but people drifted away. Tables broke up after di

“Bye for now,” Kit Walker said.

He saw her talking to Hilmo, who gave him a brief wave. He wandered about for a while. They were playing “Army Blue.” A wave of sadness went through him, memories of parades, the end of dances, Christmas leave. Four years of it, the classes ahead leaving in pride and excitement, unknown faces filling in behind. It was finished, but no one turns his back on it completely. The life he might have led came back to him, almost whole.

Outside barracks, late at night, five or six figures were sitting on the steps, drinking and talking. Reemstma sat near them, not speaking, not wanting to break the spell. He was one of them again, as he had been on frantic evenings when they cleaned rifles and polished their shoes to a mirrorlike gleam. The haze of June lay over the great expanse that separated him from those endless tasks of years before. How deeply he had immersed himself in them. How ardently he had believed in the image of a soldier. He had known it as a faith, he had clung to it dumbly, as a cripple clings to God.

In the morning Hilmo trotted down the stairs, te

“I don’t know. Who?” Hilmo said.

Empty morning. As usual, except for sports there was little to do. Shortly after ten they formed up to march to a memorial ceremony at the corner of the Plain. Before a statue of Sylvanus Thayer they stood at attention, one tall maverick head in a cowboy hat, while the choir sang “The Corps.” The thrilling voices, the solemn, staggered parts rose through the air. Behind Reemstma someone said quietly, “You know, the best friends I ever had or ever will have are the ones I had here.”

Afterward they walked out to take their places on the parade ground. The superintendent, a trim lieutenant general, stood not far off with his staff and the oldest living graduate, who was in a wheelchair.