The Boy Grew Older

It was a June night in the fourth year of the war when Peter saw Maria Algarez. He was walking up the Avenue de l'Opera when a woman cut across in front of him, turning into a side street. The street was crowded with soldiers and women, sauntering and peering, but this woman was walking fast. She almost bumped into Peter. They were under a shaded light which fell on her face as she looked up. Peter looked at her without much curiosity. He did not want to invite friendliness. Hospitality had been hurled at him all the way down the avenue. He knew instantly that it was Maria. When she left him she had seemed a child. After seventeen years there was the same youthful quality in her face. The only change was, it was much more tired. And there was paint.

"Hello," said Peter.

Maria smiled at him without obvious recognition, but made no answer.

"I'm Peter Neale."

Maria's smile grew broader. "I thought I have made a conquest," she said, "and it is a husband."

She held out her hand. Peter took it, but his eager surprise at seeing her was chilled by a sudden thought.

"You're not – ," he said, but he could not phrase it. He tried again. "You're not walking here alone?"

Maria's smile became a laugh. "And what then?" she asked.

"Good God!" said Peter in horror. And then almost to himself, "And it might have been any other soldier on the avenue."

"There, there," said Maria, checking her laughter and patting him on the arm. "It is not right for me to laugh at you. I should not forget to remember that you are the worrier. You think that maybe it is my living to walk in L'avenue de L'Opera and to look for the good-looking soldier. It should please that it is you I have selected, Peter. But no, there, it is not so. Come with me. My car it is around the corner. Do not let us stand here where maybe you will be compromised. We will drive to my studio. There we can talk."

Peter followed Maria around the corner where a limousine was waiting and got in.

"How do you manage to have a car in war time?" he asked.

"It is because I am the important person. Yes, that is true. You have not heard of me, Peter? Really? That is so extraordinary. You do not know that I am the singer?"

"Well," said Peter, "of course I heard that phonograph record you sent for Pat but that was fifteen years ago. I never heard from you again. Sometimes I went to the shops and asked if they had records of Maria Algarez but none of them had ever heard of you."

"Pooh," said Maria, "in America you do not know anything. But here in Paris do you never hear anybody speak of Maria Algarez?"

Peter shook his head. "I've been with the American army almost all the time. What would I know if I had heard? What do they say about you?"

"Maybe it is better that I should say it myself," answered Maria. "The others might not make it enough. When I send the phonograph record so long ago I say in my letter to you 'the voice is magnificent.' That is true. It is much more than that. Peter, sometimes it makes me sad that I cannot sit off a little way and hear the voice. The phonograph, it is not the same thing. That is the pity of it, I alone of everybody in Europe cannot truly hear Maria Algarez sing. It has been the great voice in the world. It is still the great voice."

"Oh," said Peter, "and that is what anybody would have told me if I asked."

Maria shook her head. "People, they are not so smart. You remember when I was a dancer they did not know about me all that you and I, we knew. It is the same now. They do not know. A little, yes, but not all."

"But they realize it enough to give you a job, don't they?"

"The job, pooh! Yes, the job. First I sing in Comique. I sing in Russia and Spain and for the seven, eight years I am the leading soprano of the Paris opera house. Where is it that you hide yourself that all this you do not know?"

"In mud in Flanders, I guess."

"Yes, it is not your fault. The war, it is so loud in all the world there is no other noise. That is why I go away. I have the contract to sing in Argentine."

The limousine drew up in front of an apartment and Maria took Peter up to a studio on the top floor. They went into a big room with one great window of glass covering an entire wall. Through it Peter could see the defense of Paris aviators moving across the skyline like high riding fireflies.

"It's a nice place for air raids," suggested Peter.

"The Boche – the German – he comes sometime but I am not afraid. You know, Peter, now I know that there is the God. It is something. I cannot tell you just what. But he is smart. When the others did not know about the voice it was that I remembered. He would know. If there was nobody else he would be smart enough. He is not silly. Nothing can happen to Maria Algarez."

"Gosh," said Peter, abashed and puzzled by this outburst, "I hope he feels the same way about me. Most of the last three years I've been needing him more than you do."

Maria's rapt expression faded. "I am the pig. All the time I talk about myself. And you, you, Peter, what is it you do? You are the officer, that I know, but captain, colonel, general that I do not know."

"I see I've got a kick coming, too. Where have you been hiding? I'm not an officer. I'm a war correspondent. If you can say it I guess I can. Any way I will. I'm the best war correspondent in the world," Peter grinned. "That's not such a joke either. Maybe I am. Didn't you ever hear of my book – 'Lafayette, Nous Voila?' All the rest of it's English. It means 'Lafayette, We're Here.' I forgot you'd know that. They've sold seventy-five thousand copies. Didn't you ever hear of it?"

"No, I have not heard. I think you are still the newspaper man."

"Well, a war correspondent's a sort of a newspaper man, only more so. I'm still on the Bulletin. That was my paper years ago when – when we knew each other."

Maria was almost startled. "The boy," she said suddenly. "Your boy, how is he? He is well? He is big? What is it that you call him?"

"Yes," said Peter, "bigger than I know, I guess. I haven't seen him for almost three years. His name is Peter Neale, Jr."

"But you hear from him? He writes? What is it he says?"

"Well, as a matter of fact I just got a letter from him today. There isn't anything much in it. I don't know whether you'd be interested. It's just about stuff he's doing in school."

"Yes, I want to know what it is he learns. Here, let me see?"

Peter fumbled in his pocket and found Pat's letter.

"Maybe I'd better read it you. Handwriting is one of the things they haven't taught him. I don't believe you could make out his writing."

He picked up the letter and began, "'Dear Peter – '

"'Peter,' it is so he calls you?"

"Yes 'father' sounds terribly formal to me and I don't want to be 'pop' or 'dad' or anything like that. 'Peter' seems closer. Before this war Pat and I were pretty chummy."

Maria settled back and Peter went on with the letter.

"'Perhaps, I didn't tell you about my joining the fraternity here last month. It's called Alpha Kappa Phi. The letters stand for Greek words which are secret and mean friends and brothers or maybe it's brothers and friends. And of course the initiation is secret, but I guess it won't be any harm if I tell you about it. I had to report at the fraternity house in the afternoon and they took me down in the cellar and put me in a coffin. It wasn't really a coffin, but a big packing case but we tell the fellows that come in that it's a coffin and that scares the life out of some of them. I wasn't scared any, but it got pretty tiresome lying around all afternoon. In the evening they took me out and told me they were going to put the initials of the fraternity on my chest. They pretended to be heating up an iron. There was a long speech which went with this and it is quite beautiful. While they were pretending to heat up the irons they burned something, meat I guess, and it made an awful smell. They did make me a little nervous but when they got around to cutting the initials in my chest it was just an electric battery they had and they ran the current over my chest. It hurt a little, but I knew they weren't really cutting initials and so I didn't mind. After that they took a chemical called lunar caustic and traced out Alpha Kappa Phi on my chest. It didn't do anything just then, but the next day it turned all black. Every time I took a shower in the gym all the younger kids stared at me. One asked me what I got on my chest and I said maybe I fell down in some mud. After I was branded they took me up some stairs and down some more. I was still blindfolded, you know. They said to me, "You must jump the last fifteen steps." Well, I jumped and it was just one step and it nearly ruined me. Then there were some more things like having to stand on your head and sing the first verse of the school song. They helped you a little by holding up your feet. And you had to get down on the floor and scramble like an egg. Then there was something very impressive. They took the bandage off and I was standing just in front of a skull. A man all in white read out about the secrets of the society. It was quite beautiful but I can't remember enough to tell you. Just when he came where it said what would happen to any neophyte who divulged aught on the sacred scroll of Alpha Kappa Phi, a great big tongue of flame shot out of the mouth of the skull. They do it by pinching the end of a piece of gas pipe and putting it in the mouth of the skull and when you turn on the gas the thing shoots out. That was about all except all of us being stood up against a wall and hitting us in the tail with tennis balls. Of course there was supper finally and I shook hands with all the brothers and they said most of them get scared a lot more than I did. We've put in a couple of lots since I got in and I certainly got square with them for what they did to me. I suppose you read in the paper about my kicking a goal from the thirty-three yard line and winning the game from the Columbia freshmen.'"

There was a good deal more about the game, almost a complete play by play account, but Peter, peeking over the edge of the letter saw that Maria was yawning. He just put in a "With love – Pat," and stopped in the middle of a paragraph.

"He is nice. I think he is like you," she said. "How old is he, Peter?"

"Just about seventeen."

"Like you he will be the writer for the Bulletin? Is it so that you want it?"

"Yes, I've set my heart on that."

"It is good. He knows about the baseball that you know and all your sport. Is he big too like you, Peter?"

"I guess he must be by now. He sent me a picture. It's an enlargement of a snapshot. Just a head like one of these motion picture closeups."