Read Women's Barracks for Free Online

part of everything.
    "… and what a conne!" Ginette ended her tale.
    "What does that mean, conne?" Mickey asked, opening wide her large blue eyes.
    There was a roar of laughter, and one of the women undertook an explanation.
    That day, too, we were assigned to house cleaning.
    Toward evening, a truck unloaded straw for mattresses —and also a batch of five new recruits, who were immediately sent off to peel vegetables in the kitchen. Ursula and I had just finished cleaning the three bathrooms. She had been chattering rather easily most of the day, and I had begun to feel that I understood this frail girl, who nevertheless was streaked through with decided, even passionate elements of character.
    As we came out on the stairway we noticed one of the newcomers crossing the hall, laden with a huge pile of straw. It was a lady. A lady such as one saw in films. At first glance, the lady appeared fairly young—thirty or thirty-two. But on closer scrutiny one saw that she was somewhat older.
    Ursula stood still and murmured, "Isn't she beautiful?"
    The woman was tall and extremely blonde—a peroxide blonde. Her hair curled in ringlets over her forehead and fell in waves alongside her face. Her nose was fairly long, but quite narrow and very slightly arched, giving her an air of distinction. She was heavily made up. Ursula stood stock-still, a wisp of a girl wrapped in her long beige smock, watching the passage of this beautiful creature. The woman had such a marvelous scent! And in passing she threw Ursula a smile that was as perfumed as the woman herself.
    At that moment our sergeant-cook appeared, roaring, "Hey, you there, the new one—Claude! What are you doing with that straw? You're supposed to be in the kitchen!"
    To our astonishment, we beheld the one called Claude raise a snarling face over her pile of straw, and from her beautifully made-up mouth there came forth one of the most violent replies that I had ever heard. As for Ursula, she stood agape. "You can go to hell!" the lady spat at the sergeant. "Just because you're a sergeant, don't think you can get away with anything! First, I'm going to fix my bed, and when I'm through, I'll come and peel your potatoes, and if you don't like it you can kiss my behind!"
    The sergeant-cook must have realized that this was no little girl from Brittany, for she went away without saying a word.
    Now Claude turned toward us. "Can you imagine, talking to me in such a tone of voice! What does she take me for—her servant? More likely, she'd be mine! I volunteered out of patriotism, and not to be treated like an inferior by a conne like that!"
    It was strange, but the coarse words with which her speech was peppered seemed to lose their vulgarity when they were spoken by Claude. She had a very beautiful voice, cultured and modulated, the sort that could permit itself the use of slang.
    "Can you tell me where to find the switchboard room?" Claude then asked. "That’s where I'm to bunk. I've got to take charge of the telephone."
    An assignment of this sort seemed prodigiously important to us. Full of respect for Claude, we showed her the little room near the entrance that had been set aside for the telephone operator.
    Claude dropped the straw on the floor, went to the window, opened it, and leaned on her elbows, looking out into the street.
    Facing our barracks was a large hotel, and in front of the hotel entrance stood the doorman, very tall, very thin, with graying hair and thin lips. His cheeks were highly rouged, his eyelids were painted a bright blue, and he bowed with feminine grace before every man who entered the hotel. Then he resumed his haughty nonchalant stance, staring directly before him at the windows of our barracks.
    "You could take him for the ambassador of Peru," murmured Claude. We had no idea why "ambassador" and why "Peru," but the phrase enchanted Ursula and she started to laugh.
    "How old are you, child?" Claude asked her.
    This time Ursula replied, "Seventeen,"