Call It Treason - A Novel
Cód:
491_9781443728829
Call It Treason- a novel by George Howe. 1925-1945. Call It Treason. Look Backward The war is over, and for all one can see in the streets or news papers, or hear around the cracker barrel or campus or bartop, it is forgotten. Forgotten so well that it is ready for a repeat, as old tunes like Baby Face have to be forgotten before they can be revived; or long skirts on women. There are places and days where it is remembered: May Thirtieth, and behind some drawn curtains, and in congressmens speeches at election time and in the memoirs of generals and in Mason jars of everlast ings in country cemeteries; in the country a man has more time to remember. In Europe they think we have forgotten, as we did before. It is not forgotten there. In the European Theater the stars trip in, left wing or right, to a fortissimo of brass, and pack up at the finale till the managers call a return. The chorus stays on the job between times, and the battered scenery re mains in place. Some of the numbers are soon forgotten all around. Thus, in Combat Intelligence, after the target is reached, after the pla toon or gun is located by G-2 and destroyed by G-3, there is no need to record how it was found, or by what agent; or by 3 what trick of uniform or intonation or marksmanship he got his report through the line on time. No need to remember, for the circumstances never repeat exactly, and the lesson of one mission is not much use on the next. And none in another war. Some of the acts you forget on purpose, and some you never forget For all the erasures of time, one question stays with me, un answered but unforgotten: why does the Spy risk his life? For what compulsion, and after what torment in himself? The gun point never forced a man to loyalty, and still less to Treason, whose rewards at best are slim and distant. If the Spy wins, he is ignored; if he loses, he is hanged. Not long ago the postman dropped on my drafting board a letter with a German stamp; when I translated it the puzz
Veja mais
