“You don't have to. I know. And it isn't wrong. We need each other right now. Maybe we have for a long time.”
“And when we go back?” She was groping to understand, but he shook his head, watching her eyes.
“We don't have to think about that now. Right now, we live here. With these people on the ship. We've all survived. It's something to celebrate, to make us love each other more. We don't have to look further than that.” And somehow she knew he was right. He kissed her gently on the mouth, and she let her hands wander up and down his back, his arms, his thighs. She knew that she wanted him again, and wondered if that was wrong or if it was only their way of confirming life. She asked him no more questions then as they made love again, and then regretfully she got up and began to wash in the room's tiny sink as he watched. It was as though they had been lovers for years, and there was no shame or modesty between them. They had watched death together only hours before, and now this was far more natural and something they shared. It was life. “I'll go check on the girls while you dress.” He smiled at her, and felt happier than he had in years. Side by side, they had helped to save almost two hundred lives, and now they had a right to this … two more. “And then I'll see if I can find an empty shower somewhere. I'll meet you upstairs for a cup of coffee before we go back to work.”
“Okay.” She smiled openly at him, not the least embarrassed at having him see her like that. She kissed him once more before he left, and as thoughts of Armand threatened to make her question it all, she forced them from her mind. That would do her no good here. Later she and Nick would have to sort it all out. But not yet. They had not yet really survived, and they were less than halfway home. It was too soon for anything but living what they felt, day to day, hour by hour. For the first time in a long time she was grateful that she was alive.
She met him outside the galley with the girls. They looked as bedraggled as everyone else by now, but they seemed perfectly happy with Nick. They told her about the hours they had spent on the bridge, explained to her about the radio, and were apparently on first-name terms with the cook, who had brought out a small cake from God knew where and given it to the girls the day before. In remarkable fashion they had adjusted to this strange new life, and they didn't seem afraid. They told Liane about sleeping under the stars, and then they went back to the bridge again as Nick and Liane went slowly downstairs. They had shared a large steaming mug of coffee and a piece of toast, and she looked at him as they reached the first room filled with the men that had been saved. She touched Nick's hand before they went in and looked into the deep-green eyes.
“Do you suppose we've all gone mad?”
But he shook his head, and he didn't look crazy at all. “No. People are strange beasts, Liane. They adjust to almost anything. Strong people cannot be defeated.” And he was not embarrassed to add, “You and I are very strong. I knew that the first day we met and I loved it about you then.”
“How can you say a thing like that?” She spoke in whispers so no one would hear. “I've had everything I've wanted all my life. I've been comfortable, pampered, loved. I don't even know myself if I'm strong or not.”
“Think back over what you've lived through in the last year. Doubt, fear, loneliness, the first months of a war. And I know even without having seen you then, that you didn't even waver once. And I put my son on a ship not knowing if it'd be sunk or not. I let him go because I knew that even with the risks, he would be safer at home, if he got home all right. I've lived through years of loneliness with my wife … and I've survived, and so have you. We survived what we went through the other night, and neither of us had ever seen anything like it before.” He looked down at Liane. “We'll make it through the rest, my love.” And then he added softly, “We have each other now.” And then they walked into the room, and Liane almost had to hold her breath, the stench was so great, of sweat and bodies, and vomit and blood, and burns. But they worked on, side by side, for hours, and did everything the doctors told them to as they made their frequent rounds, and when they met with the other passengers to divide their rations on the deck, a kind of camaraderie and humorous toughness had been born. It did not make them immune to the tragedies they saw, but it let them put the sorrows aside and laugh at the little things. It gave Liane new patience with the girls when she saw them later on for a while, and it filled her with a fresh passion for Nick she had never known herself capable of. She had never been so in love with a man, and had never felt quite so strong and young. Her life with Armand had been part of a different world. She loved him, respected him, looked up to him, and yet she had found something different now, a man with whom she seemed to move with a powerful force, each one stronger from knowing that the other was at his side. It was not unlike what she had with Armand, and yet it was something more.
Liane and Nick shared a shift that night from nine o'clock until one, and then they went back to the room she was using. The girls were in Nick's hammock again, having begged him to let them sleep there, and now he and Liane fell into her bed, and made love as never before. They slept peacefully in each other's arms and then woke again, and made love, and then snuck into a shower together before the others got up, and went outside on deck to watch the dawn.
“This will sound crazy to you”—she looked at Nick with a smile—”but I've never been this happy before. It's almost sinful to say that with all the suffering on this ship … but that's how I feel.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “That's how I feel too.” It was as though this was the life for which they had been born. And she no longer asked what would come next. She no longer wanted to know.
For the next six days they shared the same shifts, working with the ailing men, took their meals with the girls, and at night made love in her borrowed room. Their life fell into a comfortable routine and it came as a shock to both of them when the captain made a quiet announcement the next day that they would reach New York in two days. The journey so far had taken thirteen days. Now they looked at each other and said not a word. They moved as skillfully as they had before as they made their rounds, but when they went back to their room that night, Liane looked at him with big sad eyes. They both knew that the end was near, and it was important that the wounded men get home soon, and yet she wished that the crossing could go on, and she saw the same wish in his eyes as she looked at him. She sighed as she sat down in the familiar darkness of the room. It had become their home in the past week. And she didn't want to ask him now what they would do, but he heard her words without her saying them.
“I've thought about it a lot, Liane.”
“So have I. And the answers don't come. Not the ones I want.” She wanted to have met him before ever meeting Armand, but fate hadn't arranged things like that, and she had her life with Armand to think of now. She could not simply brush him away. Yet how could she forget Nick? She felt as though she was committed to him now. And what was more, she needed him. He had woven himself into the very fiber of her being. And now what to tell Armand? Or should she say anything at all? All their life together, she had been totally honest with him. She knew what she owed Armand, yet she couldn't bring herself to give up Nick. It was an impossible decision. Yet Nick seemed to have already made up his mind.
He looked soberly at Liane now and spoke in a calm voice. “I'm going to divorce Hillary. I should have done it years ago.”
“And John? Will you be able to live with yourself if you leave him?”
“I don't think I have a choice.”
“That's not what you thought when this ship set sail. You were determined to go home and get him back from his grandmother. Could you be really happy, Nick, only seeing him a few times a month, and knowing that he's being neglected by Hillary?” There was sorrow in her eyes as she asked, and she saw the same pain in his but he struggled to answer her.
“It's his life or mine. Ours.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad.
“Is that a choice you can make?”
“What are you telling me?”
“What I know you feel deep inside. If you divorce your wife to be with me, a part of you will never forgive yourself. Every time you look at Elisabeth and Marie-Ange, you're going to think of John and what you gave up to be with me. I can't ask you to do that. And to tell you the truth, I'm not ready to make a decision myself. I don't know what to do. I've tried not to think about that for the last week. I've always been honest with Armand. And now suddenly I can't. When I think of telling him … or writing to him … or waiting until after the war to tell him … something inside me shouts, I cringe at what it would do to him, and the girls.” She looked sadly at the man she had come to love on the ship. “He believes in me, Nick. I have never betrayed him before and I cannot do so now.” Tears filled her eyes and she grew hoarse. “But I cannot leave you.”
“I love you, Liane. With all my heart.” Nick's voice was distraught.
“I love you too, if that's what you want to know.” Her eyes never left his. “But I love Armand too. I believe in the vows we made eleven years ago. I never thought that I would be unfaithful to him. And the funny thing is that I don't feel I have been. I opened a door and there you were, and now you're someone I love. I want to be with you … but I don't know what to do about him. If I told him now, it might kill him, Nick. It might make him careless about himself in France. We are going back to peace. He stayed to fight a war. What right do I have to walk away? Is that what I promised to do eleven years ago? To get out when I'd had enough? It isn't fair.”
“Life never is. And one of the things I've always loved about you is that you are. But there's no way to be fair about this. Whatever we do, someone gets hurt, we give something up, there's someone who'll lose … Johnny, or Armand, or you and I.”
“That's an impossible choice to make.” Her voice sounded strained. “It's like standing with a gun and deciding who to kill.” He nodded and took her hand and they both sat lost in their own thoughts for a long time, and then, putting the others out of their heads, they made love again. They reached no resolution that night, or the next day, as they took their shifts and made their rounds, and when they went to bed they held each other tighter than before. It was their last night on the ship, and they both knew that nothing would ever be quite the same again. If they chose to make a life of it together, they would have to climb over the obstacles that lay ahead, causing themselves and other people pain, and if they chose to let each other go, there would be a sense of irreparable loss. Only tonight, for this one last night, could they love each other as before.
It was almost morning when they spoke of it again, and it was Liane who brought it up this time. She sat up in bed and touched his face, kissed his lips, and looked down at him as she would a child. She had been putting the moment off for hours, but it couldn't wait much longer now. They would leave the ship in a few hours, and some decision had to be made. But she had made hers, and by doing so, she had also made the decision for Nick.
“You know what we have to do, don't you?”
He looked up at her and for a long time neither spoke.
“You have to go back to your son. You would never be happy with us, without him.”
“And if I fight for custody?”
“Would you win?”
He was as honest with her as she was with him. “Probably not. But I could try.”
“And tear the child in half. You couldn't live with yourself, and you know it as well as I do. No more than I could live with myself if I left Armand. We're decent people, you and I. We have consciences and responsibilities, and other people we love. It's different for people who aren't like us, Nick. They can walk off and wave good-bye. We can't. I know you can't, and neither can I. If you didn't care about Johnny so much, you'd have left your wife years ago. But you didn't. And I can't let you do that now, for us.” He nodded. And she sighed softly. “Besides, it's not that simple for me.” Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “I still love Armand.” Tears filled her eyes, and she looked away as Nick watched her.
“What will you do now, Liane?” He took her hand and stroked her arm, his eyes locked in hers. He almost wished that they could turn the ship around and start again, but he knew it couldn't be done. They had to move ahead, no matter how painful it was. “What happens to you?”
“I wait for the war to end.”
“Alone?” He ached for her. She was a woman who needed a man, to give all the love she had to give, and there was so much love in him that he wanted to give her.
“Of course alone.” She smiled.
“Do you suppose …” An idea crossed his mind. It had occurred to him before in the past few days, but he hadn't known how she would react. But almost as soon as she heard his opening words, she shook her head.
“I couldn't do that. If we let this go on for a long time, we would never be able to let go. It's only been less than two weeks and I can barely let go now.” She could already feel her flesh and soul being torn from his and it was more than she could bear as she held on to his hand tightly. “In a year or two it would be worse, unbearable.” She sighed as she looked at him. “I think, my friend, that the time has come for us to be strong, as strong as you say we are. We have no choice. We fell in love. We've had two weeks. A miracle … a lifetime in itself that I will remember all my life, but there can't be more, for either one of us.” Her voice began to crack and tears slowly filled her eyes. “And when we leave the ship today, my love, we must look ahead, and never look back … except to remember how much we loved each other and to wish each other well. …”
There were tears in his eyes now too. “Could I call you from time to time?”
She shook her head no and then with a sob that flew from her like a small injured bird, she threw herself into his arms, and he held her that way for an hour, fighting back his own tears as he lay awash with hers. There was simply no other way to do what had to be done. The bond they'd formed had to be cut, and it would be as painful for them as it had been for the man they had watched in the dining room a week before, when the doctors had cut off his hand.
hey left each other in her room shortly after eight o'clock with a last kiss and eyes filled with pain. He sent the girls back down to her, and she helped them dress. The three of them looked like vagabonds now, as did everyone else on the ship, as they gathered on the deck. The captain told them that they would reach New York by noon. He had long since radioed ahead for help, ambulances to collect the wounded from the rescue at sea. Another three had died from infections of their burns, but the Deauville was returning victoriously with the surviving 190. There was a jubilant atmosphere on the deck as the ship moved ahead, and everyone spoke animatedly. The girls had made friends with all the original passengers aboard and the crew, and the walking wounded were on deck now too to watch the ship come in. Everyone was too excited to eat or drink, and one would have thought that they had been together for a year as they stood side by side at the rails, calling to each other by name. Only Nick and Liane seemed to stand slightly apart from it all. He wore a dazed look, and she hovered over the girls, and now and then their eyes met and held, and once when the girls went downstairs to get their dolls, he held her close for just an instant, and she left her hand in his. Neither could imagine how they would survive the rest of their lives, and yet they had no choice. As intransigently as the Deauville steamed ahead, so too were they being forced out of their dream and back to real life. The moments on the ship were about to end, and they had to go their separate ways, wondering if they would ever meet again. He wondered if one day, on another ship, he would run into Armand and Liane again. The war would be over, and the girls grown, and he would still be married to Hillary, for the sake of their son. For a second, but no more than that, he almost hated Johnny. But it wasn't the boy's fault, any more than it was Armand's. They wanted something they couldn't have, and now they had to face what they owed, to themselves as well as Armand and John. He knew Liane was right, but as they fi
nally glimpsed the skyline of New York ahead, Nick knew that in all his life, he had never felt greater pain. He was barely able to keep his mind on his son. It was the only thing he had to cling to now. And yet for these last few moments all he wanted was to cling to Liane.
There were shouts of joy on the deck as the Statue of Liberty appeared, the sun glinting on her torch on a hot July day, and shortly after that, the tugboats came to the Deauville's side and they sailed into the harbor of New York. Fireboats joined the procession they made and shot streams of water in the air, and when they reached the dock, the ambulances were lined up in rows to take the wounded off the ship. Immigration proceedings had been waived, and the Deauville tied up at the dock as cameras flashed and journalists attempted to interview anyone they could.
Liane seemed to know almost each survivor by name, and a camera went off in her face as she bent to kiss one man on the cheek. The rest of the passengers seemed almost reluctant to leave, and they hugged each other and exchanged home addresses, slapped each other on the back, and congratulated the captain and the crew for getting them across, and then at last, one by one, they took their bags and left the ship. Liane and Nick and the girls were almost the last to leave, and when they finally reached the dock, they looked at each other in disbelief.
“Well, we're home.” Nick looked at Liane over the girls' heads, both of them were unable to rejoice, and all she wanted was to reach out to him.
“It doesn't feel like home yet.” She still had to get the girls to Grand Central Station, to take the train to Washington, D.C.
“It will.” He sounded calmer than he felt, and he insisted on hailing a cab for them, and accompanying them to the train, and suddenly, as they stepped inside, Liane began to laugh and Nick grinned. “We must look like a bunch of tramps.” He looked down at the borrowed clothes he still wore, and it was the first time he could remember that he hadn't left a ship by limousine.
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