Battle Cry - Leon Uris [85]
“You know I do.”
“When I found out you were coming home, I thought hard about it. What would happen? I decided, a long time ago, that when you came back…that…that I had nothing that wasn’t yours.”
Her words knifed through him. It must be hard for her to say this, think this.
“What do you think of me now, Danny?”
“I think you’re the most wonderful girl that ever lived. Kathy, if things were different, if there were no war…don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t! I only see that we love each other and in two weeks you’ll be gone and I’ll start wondering and waiting and lying awake nights.”
“We can’t, Kathy, I want to be fair to you.”
“Then be fair. You owe it to me to love me. I only want to try to make you happy.”
“Kathy, Kathy…I’m all mixed up.”
“Oh, Lord,” she cried, “I don’t know what made me talk like this. It’s only that I love you so.”
“Dammit! We’ve got to get ahold of ourselves. It isn’t right. Do you think I don’t want to? Look, honey, don’t you understand that if it were any other girl in the world…but not you, not you.”
“And what are we going to do? Hide from each other for two weeks?”
He slumped down in the seat and tried to think. She had offered herself…in Dago he had dreamed of it till he was nearly crazy. He had longed for it. Everything was out of balance—it didn’t add up to happen like this. “Suppose you have a baby?”
“Danny, you love me, the way I love you?”
“Yes, darling.”
“Then, let’s get married. Let’s get married tomorrow.”
“No no, no no!” Why didn’t he go back to San Diego? Why did he have to look at her and touch her? “I’ve got nothing, no roof, no job, nothing…what can I give you?”
“Two weeks,” she said, “that’s more than a lot of people have.”
He grabbed her shoulders tightly. “Kathy, it may be two, three, four years. Think! I might never come back…remember that. I might never come back.”
“I don’t care. You’re here now, I love you. I love you.”
“Did you ever see a girl whose husband got killed? I did, just yesterday. It tears the gut out of you. Do you want to swap a lifetime of grief for two lousy weeks?”
“And suppose you leave, Danny…and we don’t love each other, and you don’t come back? And you leave me to a lifetime of wondering. All my life I’ll say: We had two weeks, I could have loved him, I could have made him happy. Give me that, Danny, I have to have it…oh God, tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t know any more, I just don’t know.”
“Don’t look at me that way, Kathy, I didn’t start this goddam war.”
An unclimbable wall all around them. Two weeks…then years…maybe forever. He had to go back. Why? Why?
They were limp and silent from spent tension. He softly took her to him and felt her warmth. His lips touched her cheek. They held each other, their eyes closed. He was only human, there was no other way.
“Your parents are going to kick up a fuss.”
“They can’t stop us.”
“Do you realize…you’re going to be my wife?”
“Yes, Danny.”
“Sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it?”
“We won’t be sorry, Danny.”
“It’s crazy.”
“No crazier than the rest of the world. Let’s promise now. We won’t count days. We’ll just act like you’re going to stay forever. We won’t think about a thing in the world but us.”
“We’ll have our lifetime now, Kathy.”
“We can try.”
“Kathy?”
“Yes, darling.”
“As long as we’ve decided…I mean, do you think it will be all right if we find a place? A motel…”
“Yes, Danny.”
She nestled her head against his shoulder as they raced from the park toward the waterfront along Hanover Street, then over the city line to the quiet of Annapolis Boulevard.
“Mrs. Forrester,” he whispered. “It sounds so strange.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
“Are you sure,