A Farewell To Arms

 

War literature has never been my thing but it’s Hemingway so why not? I read a heavily annotated copy that was once a literature student’s. Some of it reminded me of Catch 22. Look at the part where a herniating soldier is portrayed. 

‘“What’s the matter?”

He looked at me, then stood up. 

“I’m going on.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“----- the war.”

“What’s wrong with your leg?”

“It’s not my leg. I got a rupture.”

“Why don’t you ride with the transport?” I asked. “Why don’t you go to the hospital?”

“They won’t let me. The lieutenant said I slipped the truss on purpose.”

“Let me feel it.”

“It’s way out.”

“Which side is it on?”

“Here.”

I felt it. 

“Cough,” I said.

“I’m afraid it will make it bigger. It’s twice as big as it was this morning.”

“Sit down,” I said. “As soon as I get the papers on these wounded I’ll take you along the road and drop you with your medical officers.”

“He’ll say I did it on purpose.”

“They can’t do anything,” I said. “It’s not a wound. You’ve had it before, haven’t you?”

“But I lost the truss.”

“They’ll send you to a hospital.”

“Can’t I stay here, Tenente?”

“No, I haven’t any papers for you.”

The driver came out of the door with the papers for the wounded in the car.

…

“You speak English?” he asked. 

“Sure.”

“How do you like this goddam war?”

“Rotten.”

“I say it’s rotten. Jesus Christ. I say it’s rotten.”

“Were you in the States?”

…

“Listen, lootenant. Do you have to take me to that regiment?”

“Yes.”

“Because the captain doctor knew I had this rupture. I threw away the goddam truss so it would get bad and I wouldn’t have to go to the line again.”

…

“Listen,” I said. “You get out and fall down by the road and get a bump on your head and I’ll pick you up our way back and take you to a hospital. We’ll stop by the road here, Also.” We stopped at the side of the road. I helped him down. 

“I’ll be right here, lieutenant,” he said. 

“So long,” I said. We went on and passed the regiment about a mile ahead, then crossed the river, cloudy with snow-water and running fast through the spiles of the bridge, to ride along the road across the plain and deliver the wounded at the two hospitals. I drove coming back and went fast with the empty car to find the man from Pittsburg. First we passed the regiment, hotter and slower than ever: then the stragglers. Then we saw a horse ambulance stopped by the road. Two men were lifting the hernia man to put him in. They had come back for him. He shook his head at me. His helmet was off and his forehead was bleeding below the hairline. His nose was skinned and there was dust on the body patch and dust in his hair. 

“Look at the bump, lieutenant!” he shouted. “Nothing to do. They come back for me.”’

This kind of coldness and matter of fact tone is what i, and perhaps everyone, love about Hemingway. The part where Frederic shoots two sergeants hits like a truck. It is that abrupt. 

‘... The thing to do now was to dig out in front of the wheels, put in brush so that the chains could grip, and then push until the car was on the road. We were all down on the road around the car. The two sergeants looked at the car and examined the wheels. Then they started off down the road without a word. I went after them. 

“Come on,” I said. “Cut some brush.”

“We have to go,” one said. 

“Get busy,” I said, “and cut brush.”

“We have to go,” one said. The other said nothing. They were in a hurry to start. They would not look at me. 

“I order you to come back to the car and cut brush.” I said. The one sergeant turned. “We have to go on. In a little while you will be cut off. You can’t order us. You’re not our officer.”

“I order you to cut brush,” I said. They turned and started down the road. 

“Halt,” I said. They kept on down the muddy road, the hedge on either side. “I order you to halt,” I called. They went a little faster. I opened up my holster, took the pistol, aimed at the one who had talked the most, and fired. I missed and they both started to run. I shot three times and dropped one. The  other went through the hedge and was out  of sight. I fired at him through the hedge as he ran across the field. 

The pistol clicked empty and I put in another clip. I saw it was too far to shoot at the second sergeant. He was far across the field, running, his head held low. I commenced to reload the empty clip. Bonello came up. 

“Let me go finish him,” he said. I handed him the pistol and he walked down to where the srgeant of engineers lay face down across the road. Bonello leaned over, put the pistol against the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The pistol did not fire. 

“You have to cock it,” I said. He cocked it and fired twice. He took hold of the sergeant’s legs and pulled him to the side of the road so he lay beside the hedge. He came back and handed me the pistol. 

“The son of a bitch,” he said…’

The part that follows this incident where they try to get the jeep out of the mud and fail is thrilling. The desperation sinks in. I was reminded of ‘The Wages of Fear.’ By the time they are caught by the Battle Police, you are at the edge of your seat. You don’t have any idea about what is going to happen to them. At least people like me who are unaware of the workings of the war don’t. So you are taken by surprise by the behaviour of the Battle Police. 

 

‘... No one was talking. They were all trying to get across as soon as they could: thinking oly of that. We were almost across. At the far end of the bridge there were officers and carabinieri standing on both sides flashing lights. I saw them silhouetted against the sky-line. As we came close to them I saw one of the officers point to a man in the column. A carabiniere went in after him and came out holding the man by the arm. He took him away from the road. We came almost opposite them. The officers were scrutinizing every one in the column, sometimes speaking to each other, going forward to flash a light in some one’s face. They took some one else out just before we came opposite. I saw the man. He was a lieutenant-colonel. I saw the stars in the box on his sleeve as they flashed a light on him…’

 

One by one the soldiers are picked and taken aside. We don’t know what is going to happen to them though we do have a bad feeling about it. It is going to be Frederic’s turn any time now.

‘...As we came opposite I saw one or two of them look at me. Then one pointed at me and spoke to a carabiniere. I saw the carabiniere start for me, come through the edge of the column toward me, then felt him take me by the collar.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said and hit him in the face. I saw his face under the hat, upturned mustaches and blood coming down his cheek. Another dove in toward us…’ 

I was so scared at this point. Why did he hit the officer? What if they shoot him?

‘“What’s the matter with you?” I said. He did not answer. He was watching a chance to grab me. I put my arm behind me to loosen my pistol. 

“Don’t you know you can’t touch an officer?”

The other one grabbed me from behind and pulled my arm up so that it twisted in the socket. I turned with him and the other one grabbed me around the neck. I kicked his shins and got my left knee into his groin. 

“Shoot him if he resists,” I heard someone say.

The tension keeps building as other officers are questioned in front of Frederic, and he sees them being sent to be shot. 

‘“Abandoned his troops, ordered to be shot,” he said. 

Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabiniere on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were questioning some one else. This officer too was separated from his troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it.’

Imagine witnessing this, knowing you are next in line for questioning. How abruptly the short sentences fall on us. Hit us. ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ is another work by the same author where he portrays death chasing the protagonist. He senses it where the vultures circle, the hyena slinks past, and in the weight descending on his chest. However, that is another kind of death. It is not inflicted by another human being. This is the reason why it is invisible and abstract in Kilimanjaro but very much concrete in A Farewell. We can hear the shots being fired. It is literal.

Another thrilling episode is Frederic’s and Catherine’s escapade to Switzerland by boat. It starts when the barperson tips Frederic off that he is going to be arrested the next day. A fast paced escapade commences. The barperson gives his boat away. An act of kindness in return for the pipe tobacco he never received. In the boat, we get a glimpse into Catherine’s thoughts regarding the pregnancy. 

“Tell me when you’re tired,” I said. Then a little later, “watch out the oar doesn’t pop you in the tummy.”

“If it did” -  Catherine said between strokes- “life might be much simpler.”

More on war.

‘“We won’t talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain.”

I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.’

‘... I had on wool stockings but Passini wore puttees. All the drivers wore puttees but Passini had only one leg. I unwound the puttee and while I was doing it I saw there was no need to try and make a tourniquet because he was dead already. I made sure he was dead…’

‘... I looked back. Aymo lay in the mud with the angle of the embankment. He was quite small and his arms were by his side, his puttee-wrapped legs and muddy boots together, his cap over his face. He looked very dead. It was raining. I had his papers in my pocket and would write to his family…’

[Emphasis mine.]

The long exchange between the Priest and Frederic is similarly cold and ruthless. I was always on Frederic’s side but in the end, i did end up feeling bad for the priest. I ended up feeling bad for the people in the war. What terrible times humankind went through. 

‘“You love the Abruzzi?”

“Yes, I love it very much.”

“You ought to go there then.”

“I would be too happy. If I could live there and love God and serve Him.”

“And be respected,” I said. 

“Yes and be respected. Why not?”

“No reason not. You should be respected.”

“It does not matter. But there in my country it is understood that a man may love God. It is not a dirty joke.”

“I understand.”

He looked at me and smiled.

“You understand but you do not love God.”

“No.”

“You do not love Him at all?” he asked. 

“I am afraid of him in the night sometimes.” 

“You should love Him.”

“I don’t love much.”

“Yes,” he said. “You do. What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”

“I don’t love.”

“You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.”

“I’m happy. I’ve always been happy.”

“It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it.”

“Well,” I said. “If I ever get  it I will tell you.”

“I stay too long and talk too much.” He was worried that he really did. 

“No. Don’t go. How about loving women? If I really loved some woman would it be like that?”

“I don’t know about that. I never loved any woman.”

“What about your mother?”

“Yes, I must have loved my mother.”

“Did you always love God?”

“Ever since I was a little boy.”

“Well,” I said. I did not know what to say. “You are a fine boy,” I said. 

“I am a boy,” he said. “But you call me father.”

“That’s politeness.”

He smiled. 

Look at this beautiful comparison that is thrown at us where we least expect it because there has hardly been any such in the whole book. This is after Frederic’s escape from the Battle Police. 

‘... The barman asked me some questions. 

“Don’t talk about the war,” I said. The war was a long way away. Maybe there wasn’t any war. There was no war here. Then I realized it was over for me. But I did not have the feeling that it was really over. I had the feeling of a boy who thinks of what is happening at a certain hour at the schoolhouse from which he has played truant.’

[Emphasis mine]

Descriptions i liked

‘... I saw a market-place and an open wine shop with a girl sweeping out. They were watering the street and it smelled of the early morning.’

‘They carried me down a long hallway and into a room with drawn blinds. It smelled of new furniture.’

‘Men were sleeping on the floor all down the corridor. Others stood holding on to the window rods or leaning against the doors. That train was always crowded.’

I am sure all Malayalees would have thought of Thoovanathumbikal when they read the part about the sex workers and their matron and learned that she was called the ‘Mother Superior.’ Wonder if Padmarajan had taken it from here. 

Hemingway’s love. Terse as usual but love nevertheless.

‘“Hello,” I said. When I saw her I was in love with her.’

‘I love her very much and she loved me.’

Catherine says,

‘“Oh, you’re so sweet. And maybe I’d look lovely, darling, and be so thin and exciting to you and you’ll fall in love with me all over again.”

“Hell,” I said, “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?”

“Yes, I want to ruin you.”

“Good,” I said, “that’s what I want too.”’

Towards the end of the book, the reader gets tired of all the running. The lovers are constantly on the run and it seems as though there is no end to it. Will they even get to stop to catch their breath? That is precisely when Frederic, as though he read our minds, says, 

‘“I wish we did not always have to live like criminals,” I said.’ 

This is how Hemingway evokes sentimentality in his readers. It is not through moving descriptions or touching memories. It is through succinct sentences as these, which echo the desperation of not just the character but of the reader as well. It is only after they reach Switzerland and find lodging that we breathe a sigh of relief and yet towards the end of their lovely days there, the urgency returns, as seen below. 

‘...We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together.’ 

It seems these unfortunate lovers have either the war or biology following them all the time.

The exchange between Frederic and Count Greffi is in sharp contrast with the one he had with the priest. Greffi is perhaps the only person who is not affected by the war. Frederic says to him,

‘“You are wise.”

“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”

“Perhaps that is wisdom.” 

“It is a very unattractive wisdom. What do you value most?”

“Someone I love.”’

Frederic says. 

Here is that ‘someone he loved’ towards the end of the book. 

‘“You’re all right, Cat,” I said. “You’re going to be all right.”

“I’m going to die,” she said; then waited and said, “I hate it.”’

Barely Surviving

I had two terrible dreams and i don't need to be Freud to decode them. 

One featured Dee, a married guy with whom I had an affair last year. In the dream, Fay, the only person i call a friend in its true sense, and i are in a beautiful cottage somewhere. She and i are by a glass window, laughing and chatting, when i glance outside and see three figures in raincoats walking on a concrete pathway. One of them looks at me. I can only see his eyes. I am almost certain it is Dee. I am scared. 

It's morning. I am just waking up. I realise i am being smothered with a pillow. It's Dee. He is sitting on top of me. Fay is nowhere in sight so i assume she is in the bathroom. I am hopeful she will come out any moment and see what Dee is doing, and finally realise what i have been trying to convey to her about him for a long time now. I also feel i might not get killed by Dee because he doesn't know i am with Fay. He hadn't seen her when he looked at me through the glass window the previous day. I struggle with all my might against him and manage to overthrow him. I pin him to me with my legs and call out for Fay so that she can see for herself what i have been talking about all this time. She comes out of the bathroom and sees me and Dee. 

I tell her how he tried to murder me. She says, 'but i just saw that you have trapped him with your legs.' The familiar fear rises in me. Of being told that i am not to be believed. I tell her he was trying to murder me just a while ago. That i overpowered him. I am now hoping Dee has escaped so that he wouldn't hear the doubt in Fay's tone. He will get to know that i have no one on my side. He will feel triumphant. Fay believes me, but only reluctantly, i feel. I can tell that she thinks i am reporting everything wrong. The dream ends. 

 

For some months now, i have been trying to get back the money i lent Dee. There was no response from him even after repeated requests. I had to send a legal notice to him after which he promptly called the lawyer and told her that the majority of the amount i was asking back was his remuneration for edit work he did with me. I had already explained to the lawyer that he had made the claim in the past too and that it was not correct. I had added his name to the credit list not because he did the work to earn it but because of my feelings for him at the time. It was an unprofessional act. Fay told me that i had sunk low in the cesspool of my actions of the time. It is true. If this particular act was unprofessional, the rest betrayed feminism. Dee's friend refused to believe me when i told him that Dee had not done the work, pointing to the fact that i never contradicted Dee when he claimed otherwise, and stating my memory issues. He said that i had agreed to pay him for the work when we were together. I told him that Dee had later told me he would return the amount. Fay told me it could be because Dee felt insulted when i later went back on my payment promise. She too, pointed out earlier instances of my memory issues.

 

The incident triggered me endlessly. It brought back every little incident in that relationship where i was humiliated and lied to by Dee and i failed to question it because i was so emotionally entwined. It was easy for everyone to state that i never contradicted him when he made claims regarding edit work. It's natural too, as i am known for calling out people and confronting them quickly. However, I avoided confronting Dee on numerous occasions in that relationship, not just regarding edit. In fact, i went to great lengths to claim that he did the edit with me so that people, especially my teammates, would respect him. He was always complaining that they didn't consider him worthy of me because of his lack of higher education and complaints of discrimination by a female teammate. I avoided confronting him regarding his lies not just in front of others but even when i was alone with him. Whenever i dared to confront him, it would result in lengthy disrespectful debates at the end of which he would withdraw love and affection for days. He was especially touchy regarding money.

 

His withdrawal of love at will was my perennial fear in that relationship. It started when he started exhibiting a pattern of showering me with love for a brief period and quickly withdrawing it for long periods (called 'love bombing' and 'bread crumbing' in today's lingo). I would cling on to the spurts of love and would be grateful for it. It's only very recently that i even broke out of my emotional attachment to him and this is when i was finally able to analyse the incidents that transpired. This does not justify my favouring him and adding his name to the credit list when he did not deserve it but i now know why i put up with his lies about it and many other things. Why i tried my best to not hurt his ego.   

 

Fay told me that i would be among the people who called my actions sexual harassment if Dee was a female and if a complaint was made. That's true too. In my case, i do think that the power he had over me, which arose from the pattern of showing and withdrawing love, overrode the power i had over him due to professional hierarchy. In fact, after the relationship and the pattern commenced, i was unable to even reprimand him on more than one occasion when he committed dereliction of duty. He would just brush it aside and not take accountability. I now even suspect that some of his love showering spurts were strategically placed to coincide with other personal events in my life. If, despite this, it really is sexual harassment, i do think Dee should file a complaint. After all, at the point when the relationship started, the only power equation that existed was the professional one. It's only when it progressed that the emotional equations emerged. The law now permits men to make complaints. I was, in fact, one of the people who lauded the amendment. 

It will take much more time for me to get over the fact that he has 'chosen' not to return me my money. That he 'chose' not to respond when i asked it back. Even without the amount he now claims is his remuneration, he owes me. People have asked me to let go of it as it is a small amount. It was not a small amount when he borrowed it. Neither for me nor for him. The fact that i was not respected in that relationship makes it worse for me. 

The second dream featured an ex-professor of SRFTI. Following complaints of sexual harassment from female students including me, this professor was found guilty by the ICC and was dismissed from service. He and another professor who received the same punishment challenged the order in Calcutta High Court. The court ruled in their favour recently. We appealed against the order but don't have the emotional energy to follow the case up and have lost hope. They might return to teaching any day. During our fight against these professors, we were hounded by the administration and fellow students both. The students especially were very violent. 

I was recently contacted by some students there regarding ongoing cases of sexual harassment. The current ICC is treating complainants with utmost contempt and functioning illegally. 

In the dream, this professor is teaching us. It's an outdoor class. We are all going to be tested. I am excited. I want to be the topper. One of my classmates is a male student who turned out to be a gigantic hypocrite during my time there and whom me and my roommate used to call 'fuckrum.' I badly want to beat him in the test. 

The professor and i get along very well. I am enamored by him. I see that he is slightly flirting with me with his glances. I don't object. When the test is explained, two of the male students, including the hypocrite try out a video game which is somehow related to the test. They already know how to play it. I see that i don't. 

The test begins. It is not a video game but something like a pinball game. I have to use hand controls to bounce six or so balls into their places on pegs - all inside a glass case. Not only do i win, i beat others by a huge margin. I am ecstatic. Some of my classmates also celebrate with me. I look at the professor. He looks happy, eager and proud. I feel a butterflies in my stomach. 

It's night. We students have a bonfire in the lawn behind the old hostel. The professor comes up to me and says 'i love you.' I am disappointed. I didn't want him to hit on me. I think of making a complaint but feel that no one will believe me because I was openly in awe of him earlier. I am guilty of having butterflies in my stomach when i looked at him. This is what Fay talks about, isn't it? She would say that i initiated it? And if she says so, it would mean it's true? The dream ends. 

'I love you' was the professor's words to me all those years ago while i was a student. He said it over the phone, after saying, 'it is what it is.' He made repeated advances at me even after i told him on that call that i wasn't interested in him. Once at a party, he laid his hands on my waist, slapped me when i commented on a salad he had prepared. When i protested, he apologised and said i should go straight to the police for the mistake he made. He made comments on my body. 

I had been in awe of him when he started teaching. I knew he was slightly flirtatious with me with his glances. I had tried to impress him. Had tried to get him to notice me. From childhood, I always tried to impress my teachers, especially if i liked them. I used to pluck flowers from the garden and take it to my favourite teachers every day. 

I am constantly accused of forgetting things. I do have memory issues - a little more than most people. Someone could tell me their name and i would forget it in less than a minute. I don't remember faces. My brain subconsciously deletes entire episodes that it deems irrelevant. Certain memories associated with trauma are deleted. I believe this happens in a lot of people. Are we not to believe them at all? It really hurts when i am not believed even when i recall something vividly, when i am certain of what happened. 

 

I hit my lowest low this year. Depressed, constantly considering suicide, i am certain that my future is doomed. The weight of my terrible mistakes pull me down into dark and unknown depths of despair.