Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut [30]
The Englishmen had known for twelve hours that American guests were on their way. They had never had guests before, and they went to work like darling elves, sweeping, mopping, cooking, baking—making mattresses of straw and burlap bags, setting tables, putting party favors at each place.
Now they were singing their welcome to their guests in the winter night. Their clothes were aromatic with the feast they had been preparing. They were dressed half for battle, half for tennis or croquet. They were so elated by their own hospitality, and by all the goodies waiting inside, that they did not take a good look at their guests while they sang. And they imagined that they were singing to fellow officers fresh from the fray.
They wrestled the Americans toward the shed door affectionately, filling the night with manly blather and brotherly rodomontades. They called them “Yank,” told them “Good show,” promised them that “Jerry was on the run,” and so on.
Billy Pilgrim wondered dimly who Jerry was.
Now he was indoors, next to an iron cookstove that was glowing cherry red. Dozens of teapots were boiling there. Some of them had whistles. And there was a witches’ cauldron full of golden soup. The soup was thick. Primeval bubbles surfaced it with lethargical majesty as Billy Pilgrim stared.
There were long tables set for a banquet. At each place was a bowl made from a can that had once contained powdered milk. A smaller can was a cup. A taller, more slender can was a tumbler. Each tumbler was filled with warm milk.
At each place was a safety razor, a washcloth, a package of razor blades, a chocolate bar, two cigars, a bar of soap, ten cigarettes, a book of matches, a pencil, and a candle.
Only the candles and the soap were of German origin. They had a ghostly, opalescent similarity. The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State.
So it goes.
The banquet hall was illuminated by candlelight. There were heaps of fresh-baked white bread on the tables, gobs of butter, pots of marmalade. There were platters of sliced beef from cans. Soup and scrambled eggs and hot marmalade pie were yet to come.
And, at the far end of the shed, Billy saw pink arches with azure draperies hanging between them, and an enormous clock, and two golden thrones, and a bucket and a mop. It was in this setting that the evening’s entertainment would take place, a musical version of Cinderella, the most popular story ever told.
Billy Pilgrim was on fire, having stood too close to the glowing stove. The hem of his little coat was burning. It was a quiet, patient sort of fire—like the burning of punk.
Billy wondered if there was a telephone somewhere. He wanted to call his mother, to tell her he was alive and well.
There was silence now, as the Englishmen looked in astonishment at the frowsy creatures they had so lustily waltzed inside. One of the Englishmen saw that Billy was on fire. “You’re on fire, lad!” he said, and he got Billy away from the stove and beat out the sparks with his hands.
When Billy made no comment on this, the Englishman asked him, “Can you talk? Can you hear?”
Billy nodded.
The Englishman touched him exploratorily here and there, filled with pity. “My God—what have they done to you, lad? This isn’t a man. It’s a broken kite.”
“Are you really an American?” said the Englishman.
“Yes,” said Billy.
“And your rank?”
“Private.”
“What became of your boots, lad?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Is that coat a joke?”
“Sir?”
“Where did you get such a thing?”
Billy had to think hard about that. “They gave it to me,” he said at last.
“Jerry gave it to you?”
“Who?”
“The Germans gave it to you?”
“Yes.”
Billy didn’t like the questions. They were fatiguing.
“Ohhhh—Yank, Yank, Yank—” said the Englishman, “that coat was an insult.”
“Sir?”
“It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate you. You mustn’t let Jerry do things like that.”
Billy Pilgrim swooned.
Billy came to on a chair facing the stage. He had somehow eaten, and now he was watching Cinderella. Some part of him had evidently been enjoying the performance for quite a while. Billy was laughing hard.