“Even in matters of love?”
“No—love is the one area over which they have no control.”
We fell silent again. “I will come back,” he finally said.
“I know that,” I said. “If you survived the war, you’ll definitely survive the peace over there. The thing is: will you come back for me?”
As soon as I uttered that sentence, I hated myself for saying it.
“Will you listen to me,” I said. “I sound like I have some sort of proprietorial hold on you. I’m sorry—I’m being deeply silly.”
He held me tighter. “You’re not being deeply silly,” he said. “Just nominally silly.”
“Don’t you make light of this, Brooklyn boy,” I said, gently poking him in the chest with my finger. “I don’t give up my heart that easily.”
“Of that I am absolutely certain,” he said, kissing my face. “And, believe it or not, nor do I.”
“There’s not a girl stashed away over in Brooklyn?”
“Nope. Promise.”
“Or some Fräulein waiting for you in Munich?”
“There is no one.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll still find Europe very romantic . . .”
Silence. I felt like kicking myself for sounding so astringent. Jack smiled at me.
“Sara . . .”
“I know, I know. It’s just . . . Damn it, it’s not fair, you going away tomorrow.”
“Listen, had I met you two days ago, I would never have volunteered for this tour . . .”
“But we didn’t meet two days ago. We met tonight. And now . . .”
“We’re talking nine months, no more. September first, nineteen forty-six—I’m home.”
“But will you come looking for me?”
“Sara, I’m planning to write you every day of those nine months . . .”
“Don’t get too ambitious. Every other day will do.”
“If I want to write you every day, I’ll write you every day.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said. “And will you be here when I get back?”
“You know I will.”
“You are wonderful, Miss Smythe.”
“Ditto, Mr. Malone.”
I pushed him down against the mattress, then climbed on top of him. This time, we were less shy, less clumsy. And totally unbridled. Even though I was scared to death. Because I’d just lost my heart to a stranger . . . who was about to vanish across the ocean for nine months. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, this was going to hurt.
Night ended. Light seeped in through the blinds. I peered at the bedside clock. Seven forty. Instinctively I clutched him closer to me.
“I’ve decided something,” I said.
“What?”
“To keep you prisoner here for the next nine months.”
“And then, when you release me, the Army can keep me prisoner in some brig for the next two years.”
“At least I’d have you to myself for nine straight months.”
“Nine months from now, you’ll have me to yourself for as long as you want me.”
“I want to believe that.”
“Believe it.”
He got up and began to pick up his uniform off the floor. “I’d better make tracks.”
“I’m coming with you to the Navy Yards,” I said.
“There’s no need . . .”
“There’s every need. It gives me another hour with you.”
He reached back and took my hand.
“It’s a long subway ride,” he said. “And it is Brooklyn.”
“You might just be worth the trip to Brooklyn,” I said.
We dressed. I filled my little tin percolator with Maxwell House and put it on the stove. When brown liquid began to splash upward into its dome, I poured out two cups. We raised one each, clinking them together, but said nothing. The coffee tasted weak, anemic. It only took a minute or two to slurp it down. Jack looked at me.
“It’s time,” he said.
We left the apartment. Thanksgiving morning 1945 was cold and bright. Far too bright for two people who’d been up all night. We squinted all the way to Sheridan Square station. The train to Brooklyn was deserted. As we barreled through Lower Manhattan, we remained silent, clinging on to each other tightly. As we crossed under the East River, I said, “I don’t have your address.”
Jack pulled out two matchbooks from his pocket. He handed one to me. Then he dug out a pencil stub from the breast pocket of his uniform. Licking it, he opened his book of matches and scribbled a U.S. Army postal address on the inside cover. He gave me the matches. I clutched them in one hand, then relieved him of the pencil and scribbled my address on the inside flap of my matchbook. When I handed it back to him, he instantly put it into his shirt pocket, buttoning the flap for safekeeping.
“Don’t you dare lose that book of matches,” I said.
“They have just become my most prized possession. And you’ll write me too?”
“Constantly.”
The train continued its headlong plunge under the river and through subterranean Brooklyn. When it jerked to a halt at Borough Hall, Jack said, “We’re here.”
We climbed back up into the Thanksgiving light, emerging right near a dockyards. It was a grim industrial landscape, with half-a-dozen naval frigates and troop ships berthed in a series of docks. They were all painted battleship gray. We were not the only couple approaching the gates of the Navy Yards. There must have been six or seven others, embracing against a lamp post, or whispering final declarations of love to each other, or just looking at each other.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” I said.
“That’s the problem with Army life,” he said. “There’s never any privacy.”
We stopped walking. I turned him toward me.
“Let’s get this over with, Jack.”
“You sound like Barbara Stanwyck—the original tough dame.”
“I think it’s called—in war movie parlance—‘trying to be brave.’”
“There’s no easy way to do this, is there?”
“No, there isn’t. So kiss me. And tell me you love me.”
He kissed me. He told me he loved me. I whispered the same thing back to him. Then I yanked him by the lapels.
“One last thing,” I said. “Don’t you dare break my heart, Malone.”
I released him.
“Now go get on that ship,” I said.
“Aye-aye, sir.”
He turned and walked to the gates. I stood on the sidewalk, frozen to the spot, forcing myself to remain stoic, controlled, sensible. The guard at the gates swung them open. Jack spun around and shouted to me, “September first.”
I bit down hard on my lip and shouted back: “Yes. September first . . . without fail.”
He snapped to attention and executed a crisp salute. I managed a smile. Then he turned and marched into the Yards.
For a moment or two I couldn’t move. I simply stared ahead, until Jack vanished from view. I felt as if I was in free fall—as if I had just walked into an empty elevator shaft. Eventually, I forced myself back to the subway station, down the stairs, and onto a Manhattan-bound train. One of the women at the Navy Yards gates sat opposite me in the same car. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. As soon as the train lurched out of the station, she fell apart, her heartbreak loud and unrestrained.
Being my father’s daughter, I would never have dreamed of crying in public. Grief, affliction, heartache were all to be suffered in silence: that was the Smythe family rule. If you wanted to break down, you had to do it behind closed doors, in the privacy of your own room.
So I kept myself in check all the way back to Bedford Street. As soon as my apartment door closed behind me, I fell on the bed and let go.
I wept. And wept. And wept some more. All the time thinking: you are a fool.
EIGHT
YOU REALLY WANT my opinion?” Eric asked me.
“Of cou
rse I do,” I said.
“My completely honest opinion.”
I nodded nervously.
“Okay then, here it is: you’re an idiot.”
I gulped, reached for the bottle of wine, refilled my glass, and drank half of it in one go.
“Thank you, Eric,” I finally said.
“You asked me for an honest reaction, S.”
“Yes. That is true. And you certainly gave me one.”
I finished the glass of wine, reached again for the bottle (our second of the afternoon), and refilled my glass.
“Apologies for the bluntness, S,” he said. “But it’s still no excuse to hit the bottle.”
“Everyone occasionally deserves a glass or two more than usual. Especially when there’s something to celebrate.”
Eric looked at me with amused scepticism.
“And what are we celebrating here?”
I raised my glass.
“Thanksgiving, of course.”
“Well, Happy Thanksgiving,” he said wryly, clinking his glass against mine.
“And I’ll have you know that, on this Thanksgiving Day, I am happier than I ever have been. In fact, I am so damn happy I am delirious.”
“Yes, delirium is the operative word here.”
All right, I was feeling a little cockeyed. Not to mention emotionally overwhelmed, spent, and exhausted. Especially since, once I finally brought my crying under control, I only had an hour or so before I had to meet Eric at Luchow’s for Thanksgiving lunch. Which gave me no time to do anything restorative (like sleep). So I had a fast bath, heated up the remnants of the coffee I’d made earlier that morning, and tried not to cry when I saw the cup Jack drank from, sitting forlornly in the sink. Then, after I finished the pot of now-acidic coffee, I caught a taxi over to Luchow’s on 14th Street.
Luchow’s was a great New York institution: a vast German-American restaurant, which was allegedly modeled after the Hofbräuhaus in Munich—though, to me, it always looked like the extravagant interior of some Erich von Stroheim movie. Germanic art deco . . . and just a little over the top. I think it appealed to Eric’s sense of the absurd. He also had a soft spot (as I did) for Luchow’s schnitzels and wursts and Frankenwein . . . though the management deliberately stopped serving German-produced wine during the war.
I was a little late, so Eric was already seated at our table when I arrived. He was puffing away on a cigarette, buried in that morning’s edition of the New York Times. He looked up as I approached, and seemed a little stunned.
“Oh my God,” he said melodramatically. “Love at first sight.”
“It’s not that obvious, is it?” I said, sitting down.
“Oh no . . . not at all. Your eyes are only redder than your lipstick, and you have that postcoital glow . . .”
“Shhh,” I hissed. “People might hear you . . .”
“They don’t need to hear me. One look at you, and they’d know in a minute. You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“And where, pray tell, is your uniformed Don Giovanni now?”
“On a troopship, bound for Europe.”
“Oh, wonderful. So not only do we have love, we also have instant heartache. Perfect. Just perfect. Waiter! A bottle of something sparkling, please. We need urgent lubrication.”
Then he looked at me and said, “Okay. I’m all ears. Tell me everything.”
Fool that I am, I did—and worked my way through nearly two bottles of wine in the process. I always told Eric everything. He was the person I was closest to in the world. He knew me better than anybody. Which is why I dreaded telling him about the night with Jack. Because I knew Eric had my best interests at heart. Which meant that I also knew how he’d interpret this story. Which, in turn, was one of the reasons I was drinking far too quickly and far too much.
“You really want my opinion?” Eric asked me when I finished.
“Of course I do,” I said.
“My completely honest opinion.”
That’s when he told me I was an idiot. I drank a little more wine, and toasted Thanksgiving, and made that ludicrous comment about being deliriously happy.
“Yes, delirium is the operative word here,” Eric said.
“I know this all sounds mad. And I also know you think I’m acting like an adolescent . . .”
“This sort of thing makes everyone revert to being fifteen years old. Which makes it both wonderful and dangerous. Wonderful because . . . well, let’s face it, there is nothing more blissfully confusing than really falling for someone.”
I decided to venture into tricky territory. “Have you known that confusion?”
He reached for his cigarettes and matches. “Yes. I have.”
“Often?”
“Hardly,” he said, lighting up. “Just once or twice. And though, at first, it’s exhilarating, the big danger is the hope that there might be a life beyond this initial intoxication. That’s when you can really do yourself some damage.”
“Did you get hurt?”
“If, during the course of your life, you’ve fallen hard for someone, then you’ve undoubtedly been hurt.”
“Does it always work that way?”
He began to tap the table with his right index finger—a sure sign that he was feeling nervous.
“In my experience, yes—it does work that way.”
Then he looked up at me with an expression on his face which basically said, don’t ask me anymore. So, yet again, that section of his life was ruled off-limits to me.
“I just don’t want to see you get injured,” he said. “Especially, as . . . uh . . . I presume it was the first time . . .”
I quickly nodded my head, then added, “But say you felt so certain about this . . .”
“Excuse me for sounding pedantic, but certainty is an empirical concept. And empiricism, as you well know, isn’t rooted in theory . . . but wholly in fact. For example, there is certainty that the sun will rise in the East and set in the West. Just as there is certainty that liquid will freeze below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and that if you throw yourself out a high window, you will land on the ground. But there’s no certainty that you will be killed from that fall. Probability, yes. Certainty? Who’s to know? It’s the same with love . . .”
“You’re saying, love’s like throwing yourself out a window?”
“Come to think of it, that’s not a bad analogy. Especially when it’s a coup de foudre. You’re having a relatively normal day, romance is about the last thing on your mind, you show up somewhere you didn’t expect to be, there’s this person on the other side of the room, and . . . splat.”
“Splat? What a charming word.”
“Well, that’s always the end result of a free fall. The initial plunge is totally intoxicating. But then, inevitably, you go splat. Otherwise known as: coming back down to earth.”
“But say . . . just say . . . that this was truly meant to be?”
“Once again, we’re entering the realm of the nonempirical. You want to believe that this man is the love of your life—and that you were fated to meet. But all belief is theoretical. It’s not grounded in fact, let alone logic. There’s no empirical proof that this Jack Malone guy is the preordained man destined for you. Only the hope that he is. And in purely theoretical terms, hope is an even shakier concept than belief.”
I was about to reach for the wine bottle, but thought better of it.
“You really are a pedant, aren’t you?” I said.
“When necessary. I am also your brother who loves you. Which is why I am counseling caution here.”
“You didn’t like Jack.”
“That’s not really the issue, S . . .”
“But had you liked him, you might not be so skeptical.”
“I met him for . . . what? . . . five minutes. We had an unfortunate exchange. End of story.”
“When you get to know him . . .”
“When?”
“He’ll be back on
September first.”
“Oh my God, listen to you . . .”
“He promised he’d be back. He swore . . .”
“S, have you lost all reason? Or judgment? From what you’ve told me, this guy sounds like a total fantasist . . . and something of an operator to boot. A classic Irish combination.”
“That’s not fair . . .”
“Hear me out. He’s on shore leave, right? He crashes my party. He meets you—probably the best-educated, most elegant woman he’s ever encountered. He turns on the blarney, the mick charm. Before you can say ‘hokum,’ he’s telling you you’re the girl of his dreams: The one I knew was meant for me. But, all the time, he knows that he can say these things without commitment—because, come nine a.m. this morning, he’s out of here. And, sweetheart, unless I’ve got this all wrong, you’re not going to be hearing from him again.”
I said nothing for a very long time. I just stared down at the table. Eric tried to adopt a more comforting tone.
“At worst, chalk the whole thing up to experience. In some ways, him vanishing out of your life now is probably the best outcome. Because he will always be ‘that boy’ with whom you had one wildly romantic evening. So the shine will never go off him. Whereas if you married the guy, you’d probably discover that he likes to cut his toenails in bed, or gargles too loudly, or clears his throat through his nostrils . . .”
“Splat. You’ve brought me back down to earth.”
“What else is a brother to do? Anyway, I bet you anything that after you get a really good night’s sleep, a little perspective will sneak up on you.”
But it didn’t. Oh yes, I did sleep wonderfully that night. Nearly ten hours. But when I woke late the next morning, I was instantly consumed by thoughts of Jack. He took up residence in my mind within seconds of my eyes blinking open . . . and then refused to go away. I sat up in bed, and replayed—frame by frame—our entire night together. I had total recall—to the point where I could perfectly conjure up his voice, the contours of his face, his touch. Though I tried to heed my brother’s advice—telling myself over and over that this was nothing more than a fanciful brief encounter—my arguments didn’t sway me.
Or, to put it another way, I could see all the reasons why I should be skeptical and dubious about Jack Malone. The problem was: I didn’t want to accept any of them.
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 14
