by James Jones
He could not tell her yet. Not just yet.
He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Then she drew away with that funny odd reserve of hers, and he let her go watching her smile that deeper smile.
“You’ll get yourself all excited,” she smiled. “Lets talk a while. Lets sit down.”
She sat back down in the chair and drew her legs up tight against her with her arms, and smiled at him over her knees.
Warden sat down on the bed edge.
“You dont look a bit different,” she smiled.
“I feel different,” Warden said.
“It was nice of them to let us come here.”
She said it sincerely, yet there was no gratitude in her, and no surprise, at the free use of a stranger’s house. It was like her smile, that same smile he had never seen in any other woman, at once so warmly loving and so very very far away.
“It was Stark who arranged it,” Warden said.
“I know,” she smiled. “The girl told me. She’s a very lovely girl.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s very much in love with Stark.”
“Yes.”
“Is he in love with her?”
“I dont know. I think so. Some. But not as much, and not in the same way, as she loves him.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I’ve hurt him very much.”
“No. He hurt himself.”
He did not mention the six months at Bliss. He looked at it in his mind, and watched it fade away, so that he had no need to say it.
“Oh, I do hope he can fall in love with her,” Karen burst out suddenly, “the same way she loves him.”
“Maybe he will,” Warden lied.
“Oh, I hope so. He deserves it. He’s a fine person. I’d like a chance to thank him for this, before he leaves.”
“He didnt come. He had some work to do and had to go back.”
“That isnt true,” Karen said.
“No, it isnt true. He was afraid it would embarrass you.”
Moisture welled up in her eyes, as he had seen it do before, over Prewitt, and then sank back down quietly, without ever overflowing.
“He’s a fine person,” she said, “a very fine person.”
“Yes,” Warden said.
“He deserves much more than he’s had.”
“Everyone does.”
“Maybe he’ll find it with her.”
“Maybe he will,” Warden lied again. He felt a very great tenderness, such as one feels with a beautiful child, and with it the same selfish unreasonable urge to protect it from all the things it does not know yet, not because of saving it hurt, but to keep it beautiful.
“Did you have any trouble getting away?” he asked.
“No.”
“Didnt Holmes say anything at all?”
“He forbade me to come,” she said simply.
“And you came anyway?”
“Of course, darling,” she smiled. “I love you.”
For a moment Warden thought he could not stand it, not mental agony, but purely physically, physiologically, could not stand it.
“I’ve got something I have to tell you,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Its about my appointment in the Reserve Corps.”
“I already know,” Karen smiled. “Its all they have been talking about back at Schofield for the past week.”
“And you mean you’ve known it all along? When I first came in the room?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I called you?”
“Yes.”
“And still you came anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Even when Holmes forbade you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you wanted me to come. Because I wanted to come.”
“I’m not worth it,” he said. “I’m not worth it. I’m a long way from worth it.”
She put her feet down to the floor with a startling suddenness, and leaned over and put her fingers over his mouth.
“Hush,” she said. “Dont say that. I wont have you say that.”
Warden moved her hand with an urgency that was almost savage. “I couldnt help it. I couldnt do anything else. I tried, but I couldnt.”
“I know you couldnt,” she said soothingly.
“And you knew all the time,” he said inexpressively, “even when I called you.”
“I’ve known a lot longer than that. I think I’ve known for a long time. Only I just wouldnt let myself admit it. I think thats maybe why I love you, because I knew all along you couldnt.
“Maybe we only love the things we cannot have. Maybe thats all love is. Maybe its supposed to be that way.
“I’ve hated you,” she said. “I’ve hated you bitterly, at times. All love has hate in it. Because you are tied to anyone you love, and it takes away part of your freedom and you resent it, you cant help it. And while you are resenting the less of your own freedom, you are trying to force the other to give up to you every last little bit of his own. Love cant help but make hate. As long as we’re living on this earth, love will always have hate in it. Maybe thats the reason we’re on this earth, to learn to love without hating.”
She was still leaning forward toward him, her arms on the fatless so-lovely knees, her eyes shining, her hand that Warden had moved from his mouth still in his hand.
“I tried,” he said contortedly. “Nobody’ll ever know how I tried.”
“I’ll know.”
“No you wont. But I looked at them, Ross and Culpepper and Cribbage and the rest of them, and I saw what they were—I couldnt do it.”
“Of course you couldnt. If you could have you wouldnt really be Milt Warden. And I wouldnt love you.”
“But the plans. The rest of it. All the rest of it. I’ve ruined all that.”
“It isnt important.”
“It is important.”
“I’ve owned a thousand houses that I’ve never built,” she said. “Never had the money to build. Couldnt have used if I had had the money. Never really wanted to build, maybe. But I still own the houses.”
“Live in your memories,” Warden said bitterly.
“No. Not at all,” she said clearly. “Not that at all. But I still have my houses.”
“Why does the world have to be like it is?” Warden said, letting himself go completely. “I dont know why the world has to be like it is.”
“I dont know either,” she said. “And I used to be very bitter about it. But now I know it has to be that way. Theres no other way for it to be. Whenever a menace is conquered, a new more subtle menace arises. There is no other way it could be.”
“I’ve never done anything but take from you,” Warden said contortedly. “You’ve given and given. I’ve never given. I’ve only taken.”
“No,” Karen said. “Thats not true. You’ve given me my freedom. Dana can never touch me any more. Never hurt me any more. You’ve made me know I’m attractive. You’ve made me loved.”
“Stark gave you the same thing. At Bliss.”
“What Stark gave me, he took away and nullified in the end. He made sure he destroyed all of it, before he left it.”
“Like I am doing now.”
“No. You’re not. And, really, the truth, I dont think I would have it any other way. I dont think, now, I would want to marry you. We’ve both been slowly throttling our love to death. We’ve been losing it slowly. You know we have.”
“Yes,” Warden said. “Thats true.”
“But this way we will never lose it. Love either starves to death and becomes a shadow, or else it dies young and remains a dream. The only way we could have kept love was to have never had each other. If we could have gone on here as we were, always hungering, never having, we could have kept love. But neither one of us could do that; we both were fighting that very thing, with every force we knew. To have gotten married would have been the coup de grace to a starving man. But the war has stopped that. Wars have t
heir good sides, too.”
“Karen,” Warden said, “how did you learn the things you know?”
“By living as long as I have, and seeing what I could see.”
She leaned back in the chair, her eyes still shining with that lovely light that was never in them except when she was talking about love in theory, the fragile fine-boned hands lying lax along her hips on the chair.
And then he, Milt Warden, 1st/Sgt Milt Warden, was on his knees. Beside the chair.
“I cant lose you,” he, Milt Warden, whispered. “I need you.”
He put his hands up, touching her on her bare thighs.
“Dont,” Karen said restlessly. “Please dont do that. Please dont spoil it.”
“I dont want to do it,” he, Milt Warden, lied. “I just want to touch you.”
“You’ll get all excited,” she said, almost irritably. “You know you will.”
“No I wont.”
“You always do. And I dont want that. I dont want sex. I want love.”
“I just want to touch you,” he lied. “Thats all.” He put his face down onto the solid three-dimension firmness of the long thighs under the green skirt.
“Its been so lovely, Milt. Please dont spoil it now.”
“I wont,” he promised. “I wont spoil it for you. I promise. But cant you feel me love you? Cant you feel it through my hands?”
It was a very strange experience, in a very great many more ways than one.
She submitted gradually reluctantly to his caresses, as a suspicious tame doe only submits by gradual easy stages to the petting, until finally her hands were on his hair, his face, his neck, his shoulders, down his back, and he raised himself up to the chair arm sitting half beside her half on the arm so that he might kiss her, and they were engaged in an ecstasy of sexual love that was sexless.
“I love to touch you,” Karen whispered, “to cuddle you, be fondled by you, love you. But it always leads to sex. You’ll never know the times I’ve wanted to touch you, but not done it, because it always leads to sex.”
“No it wont,” he whispered. “It wont this time.” And went on loving her.
And then finally, she whispered lovingly, “Let me turn the covers back. I dont care. Really I dont. I know you want to do it. We dont want to mess up their bed after they’ve been so nice, though.”
Up to that point, it had all happened before, many times.
But this time, when she offered, Warden refused. Maybe it was partly out of his humility and gratitude that, even knowing, she still had come down anyway. Maybe it was partly something else.
“I wont care, really,” she offered lovingly givingly. “Its different now. It wont spoil it now. And I know you want to.”
But he refused again. Apparently there were unsuspected depths of something in him that even he did not know. But the thought of doing it to her now actually offended him. Apparently he had not exorcised his Catholic moralism after all. Apparently he had not outgrown his virgin mother any more than any of the rest of the great race of American males.
“If you want to, its all right,” Karen smiled. “I wont care. I want you to know I wont care.”
“I’d rather not,” he said, at least fifty percent truthfully.
“Oh, my darling!” Karen cried, throwing her arms around him. “My darling darling!”
It was a very strange thing.
She relaxed back into the chair, her hands on his hair, his face on her breasts, and they went on making potent love to each other, touching each other, talking without hearing, saying the stupid inane words that were not even meant to be a conveying of thought but only a self-expression of emotion expressed to the self only, as a man who has been punched in the belly will grunt “Oh!” or a man hit with a bullet will cry out, “I’m hit!”
It was a love-making of a caliber and muzzle velocity he had never experienced, and a greater intensity and a higher peak than he had believed in. It was tremendously satisfying to something.
At the moment of the highest intensity, as if feeling it instinctively, he got up and left her and lay on the bed and lit a cigaret, while Karen smiled at him from the chair brimmingly. He felt exactly as if he had had an orgasm physically, except that he hadnt. He was not frustrated, nor thwarted, nor did he feel unaccomplished. He lay on the bed smoking the cigaret, relaxed, peaceful, and ready to sleep; and feeling obscurely proud of himself and triumphant, under his hunger, as if he had conquered something.
It was the most wonderful feeling he had ever had in his life, but he decided it was a little too intense for every day use.
“Now you know what love can be like,” Karen said from the chair.
They lay in the bed together the rest of the night, without sleeping, and without sexual intercourse, and they talked over many things. They talked over almost everything. He told her the last chapter and finis of Prewitt’s story. She cried over it. They were very happy. They talked until the alarm on her little clock that she always carried in her bag for him went off at four-thirty, and then Warden got up and dressed.
“It isnt good-by, darling,” Karen said from the bed.
“Of course it isnt,” Warden said.
“Two people who have meant as much to each other as we have dont fade out of each other’s lives,” Karen said.
“Of course they dont,” Warden said. “They cant.”
“It looks dark now,” Karen said. “The time will be longer, and the plans are changed. And there will be the war. But we’ll see each other again.”
“Sure we will,” Warden said. “I know that we will.”
“We’ll meet again someday. People who have been as close to each other as we have, always meet again,” Karen said. “You have my home address in Maryland?”
“Yes,” Warden said. “I’ve got it. And you can always write me to the Company. Wherever we go, the APO will stay the same.”
“Of course I can write you,” Karen said.
“You can get home all right,” he asked.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Perfectly all right.”
“You wont have any trouble with Holmes,” he asked.
“He wont bother me.”
“I love you,” Warden said.
“I love you,” she said.
“Well,” Warden said. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Kiss me once more, Milt,” she said from the bed.
After he had kissed her, he went to the door. Before he closed it, he looked back and waved once.
Karen smiled at him from the bed and waved.
Then, as the door closed, she lay back and relaxed the hard knot. With the relaxing of it everything else seemed to all come apart, too. Her mind drifted. She listened for the closing of the outer door that would mean that he was gone and when she heard it she turned over and lay on her belly with her cheek on the pillow, exhausted. It had taken everything out of her. But she was glad and happy she had been able to protect him. He needed protecting so very badly. It was hard on him. He looked so completely lost. She could not stand it, to see him look so lost. Men were so much softer than women were. She was glad she could make it easier for him. And it wasnt a lie. Maybe they would meet again someday. It didnt hurt anything to believe it. She went to sleep.
Warden, picking his way back down the side street to the highway, was thinking of the White Russian girl during his hitch in China. There had been her, and then before that the old Chinese merchant’s young wife in Manila, and before that the college girl from Chicago U when he was at Sheridan. (He was younger then), and still working backward the Protestant girl back home in Connecticut that was the reason he first enlisted.
Four.
Five, counting Karen Holmes.
Five real ones. Five that counted. Out of how many years? Out of sixteen years.
Maybe if he was lucky, if he was very lucky, there would be time enough left him for two more, three more perhaps, before he got too old. Men got old much quicker in the Army. Pete Karelsen wasn
t fifty yet.
He had that much to look forward to. Maybe.
And he had that much to look back on. For sure.
Three more, to look forward to, if he was very lucky.
But he suspected, somehow, none of them would ever measure up to this one, that had come in his early 30s. He suspected; he was afraid; that this one was going to turn out to have been the top of the hill.
Warden, working his way back toward the CP along the highway, did not think she had seen through his lie. There was no use making a thing harder on someone than it already was. Besides, someday maybe they really would meet again. So it didn’t hurt anything, if it made it easier for her, to believe it. And he was sure she hadnt seen through it.
Then, still thinking about it, he realized with a shock why she hadnt seen through it. She had been too busy concentrating on making her own convincing to him, to notice his.
He hoped she didnt have any trouble with Holmes.
Chapter 55
MAJOR HOLMES WAS WAITING for his wife when she got home the next morning.
Karen did not get there till almost eleven. The beautiful almost-unearthly-lovely Chinese-Hawaiian girl had thoughtfully been very quiet for her in the house, and she had slept till after nine. Then, when she did get up, the lovely girl cooked breakfast for them, and the two of them sat for another hour in the little dinette, over their eggs and canned ham and coffee, with the sun streaming summer-bright through the windows, two happily adulterous wives, discussing with each other in a warm friendly intimacy the fine traits of character in their lovers. The sun, the air, the whole day had the feel of a summer holiday. It was an experience Karen had never had, and would not have missed if Holmes had had to wait till four o’clock. The feeling of holiday stayed with her all the way home.
Holmes was sitting stubbornly doggedly at the kitchen table with a cup of his own coffee.
Being a Major had not changed Capt Holmes greatly. He had put off the breeches and boots and Cavalryman’s hat, in exchange for the staff officer’s slacks and low-quarters and regular Infantry hat. And now, like the rest of the staff officers in Brigade, he wore the regulation wartime uniform of OD woolen shirt and CKC slacks stuffed into leggins over field shoes. But basically, it had not changed him much. Of course, it had only been a few months.
