A Lion in the Grass

1

A few inches of snow had fallen overnight and his boots made oval indentations in its clean, white surface during his early morning walk up Summit Avenue to Snelling. He bought a newspaper in the drugstore on the corner and walked through the Macalester campus to a diner on Grand Avenue. The waitress wasn’t beautiful but he thought she was pretty because her face was full of character. And he liked the way she leaned against the end of the counter in front of the big opening to the kitchen where the cook put up the orders when they were ready. She appeared lost in thought but he knew she was vigilant because she would be in motion toward a plate on the counter before the cook rang the bell to announce it was ready.

Today was the anniversary of the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. He’d come to the diner before morning classes since the fall of 1940. It was his routine to display the inside cover of a textbook on the table so she could see his name printed there: Raymond Hatcher. Perhaps she would take the initiative of telling him her name. But the strategy had failed. So far she hadn’t even acknowledged that he was a regular, as he’d observed her do with certain other customers. What was it that made her be distant? Raymond was young, only seventeen, which was why the clear explanation did not occur to him: that he was so much younger than the other customers, who were all at least the age of his parents. In Saint Paul, students didn’t go to the diner for breakfast. They went to the dining hall on campus. Even if one had stopped at the diner, he would always be accompanied by at least one friend. Raymond was always alone and three years younger than his classmates.

Raymond watched the waitress serve another table. She wore a similar outfit every day. It wasn’t a uniform; the diner wasn’t a place that would require one. Each of the three outfits he’d seen was a dress, fitted nicely on the top, belted at the waist and extending loosely over the hips and just covering the knees. The sleeves went halfway from the shoulder to the elbow and buttons ran down the front. There was a collar around the neck and borders on the ends of the sleeves, both the same color and different from the dress. With the light blue dress, which she wore today, the collar and sleeve ends were tan. She also had an apron the color of the dress with a border matching the collar. There wasn’t a hat, but if there was Raymond was sure that it, like the apron, would have the same color scheme. The other waitresses he’d seen from time to time were older and wore only drab, baggy outfits and hairnets.

Maybe she writes poetry and she’ll let me read some of it, he thought. It was silly and hopeless. So he returned to reading his newspaper. The news was bad, as it always was. There was a letter to the editor that was clearly written by an isolationist. Saint Paul was infested with them. It made him angry. He resolved, as he did every day, that he would lie about his age and enlist in the army. His thoughts caused him to lose track of her and he was startled when she stood next to his table, so close that her hip touched its edge. Sitting straight up in his chair, he looked into her eyes for the first time.

Maybe she writes poetry and she’ll let me read some of it,“Sorry,” she said. “I startled you.”

He was so flustered, he couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and then closed without a sound. He’d waited for years for this moment. All he could do was blush.

“You’re Raymond Hatcher. Is that right?”

He found his composure. “Yes. But I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Every day you have a text book open with you name on it.” She smiled in a way that made him think she knew what he’d been doing all along. “But we’ve met.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, blushing again. “I’ve forgotten.”

She laughed. “We were very young and I only know because my mother reminded me last night. We met at a Christmas party at your grandparents. You were visiting from Europe. My mother and your mother are old friends from school.”

“Oh,” he said, not knowing what to say. There had been several Christmas parties and many children. His parents were in the foreign service and he’d lived in Europe his whole life. When it had been possible, which wasn’t often, they’d traveled back for holidays.

She laughed again. This time it was closer to a giggle. Her hair was parted in the middle and held back behind her ears by barrettes. It was just long enough to slide across the tops of her shoulders when she moved.

“My parents were talking last night at dinner about the Hatchers being detained for five months in Germany after war was declared. I asked them, ‘Would they be related to Raymond Hatcher?’ And they said, ‘Of course. He’s their son.’ Then I told them how I saw you almost every day here at the diner, and they thought it was such a coincidence. And that it was funny.”

Her eyes were a deep blue, accented by the dark hair that was so curly it was like a picture frame around her face. His heart felt like it was being squeezed by a hand inside his chest.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asked.

“Oh no. That’s against the rules.”

“Maybe later, after work.”

“I go right to school after my shift. I’m still in high school, even though we’re the same age. My parents told me you were already in college, that you started when you were fifteen. They said you were some kind of prodigy.”

Again, he was tongue-tied. Having spent so much time in ex-pat communities and embassies, he was very good at carrying on conversations with adults. And friends from the ex-pat schools had been easy to talk to as they were all thrown together in identical circumstances. But this was new territory. She tilted her head to the left and brushed back the hair that settled on that shoulder. He suspected she was showing him she was waiting for him to speak, in the same way raising her eyebrows would have suggested she was impatient.

“It’s not so,” he said. “The schools where we lived in Europe were advanced. And I went to school twelve months a year. They had to keep me busy.”

The cook rang the bell at the counter and she had to go retrieve an order. As the time approached 8:00 a.m. the diner became busy as it always did, and their interactions were limited to eye contact and smiles. When he stood to leave for his first class, she came by and suggested he come an hour earlier the next day. She came to work at the diner’s opening at 5:00 a.m., and business did not pick up until 7:00 a.m.

Raymond was a quick study when it came to social and cultural interactions, and in only a couple of days he was conversing easily with the girl. He thought her mysterious because she told him she lived in an affluent neighborhood on Grand Avenue, not far from his grandparents, and he wondered why she was working in a diner in the early mornings before school. It was hard to get his questions answered because their conversations were sporadic, in between taking orders and delivering food. Then, just before Christmas, she came with her parents to his grandparents for a Christmas party and they sat on two chairs pulled close to the fireplace, talking as intensely as the snow flew back and forth outside the window near them. After three hours and almost as many feet of snow, he had many questions answered, but the mystery remained unsolved. She was as independent as a cat, which explained why she worked and why she had not accepted the overtures he had made with the open flap of his text book until she had discovered on her own who he was. He learned she would attend Macalester in the fall of 1943. What he couldn’t figure out was the source of her motivation, the force that propelled her to work, to achieve academic honors and, yes, to write poetry.

They became close friends, although not in the romantic sense. Raymond frequently thought that he loved her, but he worried that a declaration of love would push her away from him. He wasn’t sure whether it was practicality or independence but he believed she would not be receptive to romance. His instincts told him that their friendship would flourish if romance wasn’t involved, but he was too young to understand why that was the case. He felt he could tell her anything about himself, and he soon told her his plan to lie about his age and join the army.

“It’s just stupid,” she said. His face must have shown that the comment hurt him. “I don’t mean you’re stupid, Raymond. I mean you have not given much thought to the idea. Why not add a course in the spring and graduate early?”

He’d told her that he had enough credits to graduate in three years if he took one more course. But he hadn’t thought much more about it because he intended to quit school and join the army. “I could do that,” he said, although not convinced.

“Think about it Raymond,” she said. “You will turn eighteen next June, so you won’t have to lie. And, you’ll have a degree, which will let you get a commission and have more say in how you will serve. I know you believe the war is necessary, but you can’t be so foolish as to think you should fight in the trenches.”

“I suppose that makes sense, but, officer or not, I want to go where I can be of the most use.”

“Right,” she said and laughed. “They really need a brain like yours in the infantry. Besides, you’re going to get caught in your lie. Your grandfather is on the local draft board. Do you think he won’t find out?” She shook her head, which caused a riot to break out among her curly hair. When not at work, it was never restrained by barrettes. She was right. And her face was beautiful when she was triumphant.

He took the extra course. She also convinced him to inform his father of his plans. A frantic correspondence between Raymond and his father ensued. His father assured him he could get him a deferral of service or at least a position that would result in his remaining in the United States for the duration of the war. Raymond refused all such overtures, but finally agreed that before he enlisted he would go to Washington to meet a friend of his father’s, a Mr. Kennan, for advice on which military branch he might best serve.

Raymond met Kennan in a townhouse in Georgetown. Kennan was in a comfortable chair, his long legs on an ottoman covered with a quilt. His hands were never still. To Raymond it looked like he was in a constant struggle to keep them from grasping one of the many books piled on end tables on either side of him. They spoke for two hours before the next visitor, Kennan’s doctor, was announced. Raymond was instructed to return the next day. When he ran through their conversation in his mind that evening he struggled to understand the relevance of Kennan’s comment that American institutions were dysfunctional and bureaucratic, and, according to Kennan, the question for Raymond was where he would best triumph over the mountain of incompetence he would face. Who cares? Raymond asked himself. I’m just going to fight an enemy, not a bureaucracy. Kennan had also suggested that Raymond’s young mind had not yet mastered the application of the fine intellect he exhibited, so Raymond could confidently discuss the theories of Clausewitz, but had no clue as to their application. That comment Raymond understood, and had to agree with. But he didn’t like it.

Who cares?I’m just going to fight an enemy, not a bureaucracy.When Raymond returned to the townhouse the next day, he found that Kennan had two other guests, whom he introduced as David Bruce and referred to as “Bruce,” and an older gentleman, clearly an Englishman, whom Kennan called “Woolley.” Although they were dressed as civilians, they sat and spoke with a military presence. There was much small talk, which finally strained Raymond’s patience. His obligation to his father was met, he decided, and he was on the verge of standing to leave when David Bruce leaned forward and addressed him.

“Can you swim?” he asked.

Raymond was unnerved. “Of course I can swim.”

“Right,” Woolley chimed in. “But can you swim or just keep from drowning?”

“What?”

“There’s a difference. If I threw you off a boat, would you swim the mile to shore or just tread water until someone rescued you?”

Raymond saw that Woolley controlled his demeanor perfectly, as only the English can do. Raymond was familiar with that, and he could have been comforted, but the vague questions aggravated him.

“I played water polo when I spent a summer in England a few years ago,” he said. He sounded to himself like a querulous boy defending himself from an insult. They said nothing. “I had to swim laps to train,” he added.

“Young man,” said Woolley, “we understand from Mr. Kennan that you plan to enlist in the army, but we’re looking for a few candidates for assignments in the Pacific. We’ll have to give you some tests, but you may possess the skills we have in mind.”

“I hadn’t thought of the navy. Where would I be stationed? Would I serve on a ship?”

“Actually, you’ll be stationed on the East Coast at first, at a special facility.”

Raymond laughed and shook his head. When he saw that neither Bruce nor Woolley changed his expression, he thought perhaps he’d misunderstood. They looked at each other silently for a few moments.

“That’s not my plan,” he said. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time training, and then be deployed as an adviser. You probably think my academic credentials warrant that kind of job.”

Both Woolley and Bruce smiled. Raymond wondered if they understood what he was feeling.

“You would not be staying home,” Woolley replied. “If you’re accepted, you will be commissioned as an officer in the navy and then immediately loaned to another organization. You—”

“Loaned? How does that work?”

Loaned?Raymond looked at Kennan, who had picked up a book and was paying no attention to them. The two men were not making sense to Raymond. He regretted that he had come to see Keenan rather than proceed with his original plan.

“We can’t tell you much until we do a background check and get you a security clearance,” Woolley continued. “But I can assure you that you’ll have a combat assignment. It will be one where you’ll need your intellect as much as physical prowess. You would be a part of a small team, not a platoon. You would be deployed in the Pacific. That’s all I can tell you now.”

Raymond sat for a while looking at the two men, neither of whom seemed uncomfortable with the silence. He did not view himself as an impetuous person, but for some reason he wanted to make a decision now, get it over with, whatever it was. He thought about how meticulous his father always seemed when making a decision. But he had a hunch, suddenly, that what these guys were talking about, even if he didn’t understand it, would be much more exciting than the army.

Raymond hadn’t said anything, so Woolley added, “If you’re accepted, you’ll have to depart immediately and the training will be intense. You’ll more than likely take part in an operation before the end of the year. Going through boot camp in the army, if you went that route, would not put you in action until next spring.”

Raymond jumped to his feet. “Where do I go to apply?”