Always and Forever

by Cynthia Freeman

  Phil kept up their spirits, Kathy admitted to herself. He charmed everybody. Maybe not Brian, she decided after a moment. Brian was annoyed that most of the girls in their group acted as though Phil had personally liberated Paris.

  On Christmas Eve Phil came up with a bottle of champagne after a visit to the crumbling waterfront.

  “I won it in a crap game,” he reported while someone hastily unearthed a corkscrew. “A talent I developed in the army.”

  He’d also come up with a sprig of mistletoe, which he hung over the kitchen door. Kathy was startled when he reached for her beneath the mistletoe and kissed her. But all at once it wasn’t a casual “mistletoe kiss.” She was trembling when he released her.

  “We’ll have to do that again,” he whispered. “Why do you keep running away from me?”

  “I don’t,” she stammered. Nobody had ever kissed her like that. Nobody had ever really kissed her, she thought. Just awkward pecks by self-conscious students who hadn’t been drafted.

  Why hadn’t David ever kissed her?

  Chapter 4

  ALMOST OVERNIGHT, IT SEEMED to Kathy, Phil was in pursuit. He made it clear to the others that he was intrigued by her. Not Rhoda, or Claire, or the other three girls. She waited for David to show some indication of his own feelings, but he seemed to withdraw into himself. He was relieved, she tormented herself. He hadn’t wanted anything more than friendship from her. How could she have been so stupid?

  Running from her hurt at David’s withdrawal, she found solace in Phil’s attentions. At intervals the memory of those heated moments beneath the mistletoe dominated her thoughts. She was disconcerted by the physical arousal she felt in his presence. And Phil made it clear he was attracted to her.

  Despite their long working hours Phil contrived to see her alone. They sipped watery beer in a nearby tavern and held hands beneath the table. They managed brief interludes in his dreary basement flat, though only after she made Phil understand nothing would happen beyond passionate kisses and heated touching. And each time she wondered how much longer she could keep saying no to his entreaties. She didn’t really want to stop.

  Then all at once she began to worry that Phil would be leaving before the group began the search for return transportation sometime in February. He kept talking about flying to Paris. Would she ever see Phil back in New York? It was frightening to think that she might never see him again.

  Rhoda was having a hectic fling with Frank Collins, the would-be writer from Columbia’s School of Journalism.

  “Look, we’re three thousand miles from home,” she said calmly. “Why shouldn’t I play? We’re careful. I won’t get pregnant.”

  “You hope,” Kathy said grimly. So many girls played around during the, war years, and everybody just looked the other way. But she couldn’t bring herself to sleep with Phil. Her body said “yes,” but her heart said “no.”

  “I know nothing’s going to come of it. But ten or twenty years from now, when I’m teaching somewhere in Brooklyn, I’ll look back and remember this as the exciting, wild time of my life.” Her eyes were quizzical. “I can’t figure you out. I thought you and David had something real going on, and now you’re all starry-eyed over Phil. Not that everything female in this flat doesn’t feel the same way.” She giggled reminiscently. “But I’m happy settling for Frank.”

  “David is a close friend,” Kathy said self-consciously. That’s all he wanted to be. Maybe at first she was just flattered that Phil was interested in her. He made it clear right off that he thought she was attractive and exciting, and he was dying to sleep with her. He had a way of touching her—on the hand or shoulder—that shot off fireworks in her. She’d never known anybody like Phil. What was it Rhoda said the other day? “That Phil is something. Like a character in a Hollywood movie.”

  “If Phil does go to Paris, he’d better come back with six bottles of Chanel No. 5, or he’s in big trouble,” Rhoda laughed.

  Already, they learned, Brian was trying to arrange for return transportation for the group sometime in the latter part of February and encountering problems. They’d hoped that by this time not every transatlantic ship would be commandeered to return GIs to America or to ferry war brides and babies. But again, Kathy gathered, they’d sail home on something less elegant than a commercial liner.

  “I hear the Elizabeth will be back in normal business in the fall,” Brian said humorously. “But our funds will fade away by the end of next month.”

  On a cold early February night, when their coffee supply had run out, Phil arrived with a pound of Turkish coffee he had acquired at the waterfront. While Rhoda and Claire grabbed the coffee and went out to the kitchen, Phil pulled Kathy off into a corner of the living room. None of the others had arrived home from their assignments yet, but Phil and Kathy knew they’d be coming into the flat at any moment.

  “I wangled more than coffee today,” he told her with a triumphant smile. “I have plane seats for two to Paris on Saturday morning and return seats on Sunday night.”

  “This Saturday?” She felt her face grow hot. He’d said two seats.

  “Day after tomorrow,” he confirmed. “Come with me, Kathy. You can’t go home without seeing Paris.”

  “Phil, I can’t,” she stammered. “I mean, I’ll be working Saturday:”

  “Brian will give you a day off. You’ve been working harder than anybody—”

  “Phil, I can’t.” She forced herself to meet his eyes.

  “Nothing will happen,” he promised. “Not unless you want it to. We’ll take two rooms in some little pension,” he teased. “With no connecting door. How can you turn down a side trip to Paris?”

  “All right,” she said after a moment. Her heart pounding in anticipation. “But only if Brian agrees. And nothing is going to happen,” she stipulated. No more than already had.

  “Brian will agree.” He reached to pull her close. “You know you drive me nuts, Kathy.”

  The others arrived, and they all gathered around to sample Phil’s cache of Turkish coffee. Now he told them about his imminent excursion to Paris.

  “I have seats for two,” he said casually, and his eyes settled on Kathy. She saw David’s startled reaction. For a tense moment she thought he would lash out at Phil. His mouth set in a grim line, he focused on his cup of Turkish coffee. “Brian, you won’t object if Kathy takes off to go with me, will you?”

  Brian hesitated only a second.

  “Not if she wants to go,” he said. “She’s been working her butt off since the day we arrived.”

  On Saturday morning—hiding her terror as she remembered Brian’s earlier comments about the hazards of flying in winter—she left the flat with Phil while the others struggled into wakefulness. For a moment last night she thought that David was upset that she was going to Paris with Phil. But only for a moment.

  “Who can show you Paris better than a GI who helped to liberate it?” he’d said quietly. “Enjoy the trip, Kathy.”

  Kathy managed to conceal her alarm on the short flight from Hamburg to Paris.

  “My family won’t believe I’ve been up in a plane,” she told Phil, one hand in his as the pilot began the descent to the airport below. “The closest I’ve ever been to a plane is when they had one on display in the center of Penn Station when I was a little kid.”

  “It won’t be the old prewar Paris,” Phil warned. “I came over with my Dad in ’37. It was a business trip for him. I was twenty and raring to see everything. The Moulin Rouge, the Folies-Bergére, Maxim’s. And we saw it.” He grinned reminiscently.

  “Not the Paris of Fitzgerald and Hemingway,” Kathy guessed. She’d been fascinated by all she’d read of that period. Was that why she’d agreed to come? “But it’s Paris,” she said reverently. She was impressed by the knowledge that Phil had been here before the war. David, too, she remembered, had talked of school vacations in Paris. But Phil and David had lived in a different world from hers. A monied world.

  Kathy
was enthralled by everything she saw, even though this was Paris still in the shadows of World War II. The morning was gray and shrouded in mist, the trees bare. The city had suffered little damage during the war years. It rose stately and beautiful around them.

  Phil was in high spirits as they roamed through the streets. He pointed out the silhouette of Notre-Dame, the old Ile de la Cité—where the great cathedral stands—and the Eiffel Tower.

  “I know the Eiffel Tower is not exactly beautiful,” he laughed, “but it has a kind of elegant dignity rising through the mist.”

  Kathy was conscious of a grimness, a confusion in the people they passed. The Parisians had been wildly happy when they greeted the army of liberation, she understood; but now they had to deal with cold and hunger and a shortage of money. Kathy saw men with fishing poles on the bank of the Seine, and understood fishing today was not for sport but to put food on the dinner table.

  In the prestigious shops they found French perfumes but no Chanel No. 5. Mme. Chanel had closed up her huge company in 1939.

  “We’ll make do,” Kathy said blithely, though she was shocked at the prices of French perfumes even in Paris.

  “With luck we’ll be able to find a taxi to take us up the hill to Montmartre,” Phil said while they lingered over a meager lunch in a shabby bistro, dimly lit because Paris suffered from a lack of electricity. “It’s like climbing the side of a mountain.”

  Finally, they snared a taxi. The driver was amused by Phil’s college French. The Montmartre beneath the chalk-white dome of Sacré-Coeur had lost its Bohemian air of earlier days, though it was still home to the poor of Paris. A few painters had set themselves up alongside the curving, cobblestone streets to entice foreigners to buy their wares. On impulse Kathy bought a small painting of a Montmartre street to take home to her parents.

  “You know where I’d like to spend the night?” Phil said softly, an arm about her waist.

  “Where?” All at once she was tense.

  “The small house at the edge of town where Chuck and I were billeted. I don’t know who’s there now. It had been deserted when we came into the city. The owners had run off without even packing most of their clothes. They may have been collaborators, knowing what would happen to them with liberation.”

  “But it wouldn’t be deserted now,” she guessed.

  “Let’s try to find a taxi to take us there,” he said ebulliently. “Maybe we can rent it for the night. Nobody has money in Paris, the way I hear it. We’ll ask them to play innkeeper.”

  Only Phil would dream up something like this, Kathy thought dreamily when they were at last in a taxi and approaching the house. What a romantic way to spend a holiday in Paris!

  Kathy stood inspecting the cottage while Phil paid off the driver. It was probably a hundred years old, she guessed, but cared for lovingly. In another few weeks the tiny garden would be beautiful.

  People lived here. An older couple appeared at the doorway, curious about the arrival of a taxi. Phil turned from the taxi, slid an arm about her waist, and prodded her toward the couple. They were suspicious of Phil and her; Kathy interpreted, pleased that her own French was sufficient to translate.

  “Please forgive our intrusion.” Phil smiled charmingly. “I was billeted here when the Americans arrived to help in the liberation of Paris. I wanted to show my wife where I lived.” Kathy saw the woman glance at her hand and smile faintly. “I was wondering—” He hesitated, his eyes apologetic. “Would it be possible for us to rent the house? Just for one night,” he pinpointed. “We’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”

  The couple exchanged a startled glance. A pair of crazy Americans, they were thinking, Kathy surmised.

  “We have been here just a few months,” the man began. “The house belonged to my uncle, who has since died. I am not sure that he would approve of strangers—” Why was he talking so much? He paused while Phil pulled a handful of American dollars from a pocket and held them up eloquently. “But for such a fine young couple,” he continued with an expansive smile, “I think he would approve.”

  The woman indicated a small supply of food could be had if they wished; Phil dug up more American dollars.

  “I am sorry, we have no coffee or tea,” she said wistfully. “But from the man next door we could buy a bottle of decent wine for you.” Phil produced more bills. “Edouard, go fetch the wine,” she ordered.

  When they were alone in the house the older couple went off to spend the night with friends—Phil reached into the firewood stack beside the living room fireplace, pulled out a chunk of wood, and looked around for newspaper.

  “Over here,” Kathy said and reached for a sheaf of newspaper from the waiting heap. “A fire will feel great.” There was a chill in the house that told her the firewood was meted out grudgingly.

  Kathy stood and watched while Phil crumpled up the newspaper, placed it in the grate, then added the chunk of wood.

  “Bring in a pair of glasses from the kitchen,” he told Kathy while he struck a match and held it to the paper. “We’ll have some wine once the wood starts to burn. Along with those fancy English biscuits and the cheese we bought in that shop.”

  “Coming right up,” Kathy said lightly. This was like something from a Hollywood movie.

  They waited until the chunk of wood was ignited, then Phil opened the wine bottle, and filled the two glasses. Kathy was opening the box of English biscuits.

  “Close the drapes,” Phil ordered. “I want to shut out the whole world.”

  “All right.” Kathy hurried to obey. It was a lovely feeling to be alone with Phil in an ancient cottage with a fireplace lighting up the room.

  They settled themselves on the floor, using the sofa as a backrest, and gazed in contented silence at the flames while they sipped the rather decent wine and nibbled at the English biscuits and cheese.

  “You know what I said to those people about your being my wife?” Phil said softly, his eyes holding hers. “It sounded great to me.”

  “The woman didn’t believe you,” Kathy said, her voice uneven.

  “How does it sound to you?” he challenged. “Kathy, will you marry me?”

  “You’re drunk already?” she laughed, but her heart was pounding.

  “Only drunk with the pleasure of being with you.” He set down his wineglass, took her glass from her hands and put it on the floor. “Kathy, I’m not drunk.” He chuckled. “The whole bottle couldn’t make me drunk. I want to marry you. I’m not sure of what lies ahead for us; but whatever, I want to share it with you.”

  “Phil, I’m not sure. I mean, we’ve known each other only a few weeks.” But her heart was saying “Yes!”

  “I know how I feel about you. Maybe we can even get married right here in Paris—” His mouth reached for hers. His hands pulled her close.

  Kathy’s eyes fluttered shut as his hands reached beneath her sweater and crept around to unhook her bra. She abandoned herself to the passion that welled within her. No turning back now. His mouth clung to hers while his hands fondled the lush spill of her breasts.

  She was aware that he was bringing pillows to the floor from the sofa.

  “We’ll have a bed before the fireplace,” he murmured, his mouth at her ear as he manipulated her along the threadbare rug before the hearth.

  She waited, devoid of will, caught up in emotions that refused denial. With gentle impatience he helped her out of her clothes, then shucked away his own.

  “Cold?” he asked as she shivered faintly.

  “No,” she whispered.

  His mouth found hers again, and he made his way between her slender thighs. She murmured a startled protest for an instant, but her arms tightened about his shoulders in approval, everything forgotten in the joy of this meeting.

  Phil rummaged in the closet in the upstairs bedroom and returned to Kathy with a pair of shabby robes.

  “Not exactly Coco Chanel,” he said humorously, “but why bother dressing?”

  In a lit
tle while they made love again. Kathy refused to allow herself to think beyond this weekend. Had he meant that about their getting married? Or was it just a pitch to make her stop putting up barriers?

  Later, he lounged before the fireplace and listened to squeaky old records on the phonograph while she prepared a Spartan dinner.

  “Let’s eat in here,” he called to her. “It’s the only warm place in the house.”

  “They won’t be happy that we’re using so much wood,” Kathy said uneasily while she brought in a large bowl of noodles and cheese along with a pot of tea.

  “I hear most of the French can’t stand the sight of noodles,” Phil said. “That’s what they’ve been eating for years. And where did you find tea? I thought the old broad said they had no tea or coffee.”

  “I always keep a couple of tea bags in my wallet,” she told him.

  “Don’t tell me. I’m acquiring a shrewd little wife.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.” Her eyes glowed. He’d meant it about their getting married. “Three months ago I didn’t know you existed.”

  “I don’t suppose we could get married here in Paris this weekend,” he said wryly. “I have reservations about being married in Germany.”

  “I’d hate a cold civil ceremony.” Kathy flinched in distaste. “I want my parents and Aunt Sophie there—and your parents and your sisters.”

  “Oh God, I can just hear my father and mother going at it again,” Phil said groaning. “When my sisters got married, you’d think they were planning a royal wedding.”

  “We’ll insist on something quiet. Just family,” Kathy decreed. “And let’s don’t say anything to the others. Not until we’re on our way home.”

  “I should have reservations for myself in eight days,” he told her and her eyes widened in surprise. “The magazine is arranging it,” he explained. “I’ll be waiting for you in New York. But don’t keep me waiting too long.”

  Phil lay naked beneath the pile of comforters on the bed. He listened to the faint sound of Kathy’s regular breathing. Yeah, she was asleep, he told himself confidently. Hell, she ought to be, the way they’d made love. He felt a smug approval that she had been so responsive.