Victory Over Japan Read Online Free PDF

have that.”
    â€œThey’re a quarter,” the woman said, reaching behind herself to take the package down and lay it on the counter, not smiling, but not being unkind either.
    â€œThank you,” Rhoda said, laying the quarter down on the counter. “Do you have any matches?”
    â€œSure,” the woman said, holding out a box of kitchen matches. Rhoda took a few, letting her eyes leave the woman’s face and come to rest on the jars of Oreos. They looked wonderful and light, as though they had been there a long time and grown soft around the edges.
    The woman was smiling now. “You want one of those cookies?” she said. “You want one, you go on and have one. It’s free.”
    â€œOh, no thank you,” Rhoda said. “I’m on a diet. Look, do you have a ladies’ room I can use?”
    â€œIt’s out back,” the woman said. “You can have one of them cookies if you want it. Like I said, it won’t cost you nothing.”
    â€œI guess I’d better get going,” Rhoda said. “My dad’s in a hurry. But thank you anyway. And thanks for the matches.” Rhoda hurried down the aisle, slipped out the back door and leaned up against the back of the store, tearing the paper off the cigarettes. She pulled one out, lit it, and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out in front of her, watching it rise up into the air, casting a veil over the hills that rose up behind and to the left of her. She had never been in such a strange country. It looked as though no one ever did anything to their yards or roads or fences. It looked as though there might not be a clock for miles.
    She inhaled again, feeling dizzy and full. She had just taken the cigarette out of her mouth when her father came bursting out of the door and grabbed both of her wrists in his hands.
    â€œLet go of me,” she said. “Let go of me this minute.” She struggled to free herself, ready to kick or claw or bite, ready for a real fight, but he held her off. “Drop the cigarette, Rhoda,” he said. “Drop it on the ground.”
    â€œI’ll kill you,” she said. “As soon as I get away I’m running away to Florida. Let go of me, Daddy. Do you hear me?”
    â€œI hear you,” he said. The veins were standing out on his forehead. His face was so close Rhoda could see his freckles and the line where his false front tooth was joined to what was left of the real one. He had lost the tooth in a baseball game the day Rhoda was born. That was how he told the story. “I lost that tooth the day Rhoda was born,” he would say. “I was playing left field against Memphis in the old Crump Stadium. I slid into second and the second baseman got me with his shoe.”
    â€œYou can smoke all you want to when you get down to Florida,” he was saying now. “But you’re not smoking on this trip. So you might as well calm down before I drive off and leave you here.”
    â€œI don’t care,” she said. “Go on and leave. I’ll just call up Mother and she’ll come and get me.” She was struggling to free her wrists but she could not move them inside his hands. “Let go of me, you big bully,” she added.
    â€œWill you calm down and give me the cigarettes?”
    â€œAll right,” she said, but the minute he let go of her hands she turned and began to hit him on the shoulders, pounding her fists up and down on his back, not daring to put any real force behind the blows. He pretended to cower under the assault. She caught his eye and saw that he was laughing at her and she had to fight the desire to laugh with him.
    â€œI’m getting in the car,” she said. “I’m sick of this place.” She walked grandly around to the front of the store, got into the car, tore open the lunch and began to devour it, tearing the chicken off the bones with her teeth, swallowing great hunks without