Exodus - Leon Uris [7]
“I ought to break your damned neck for not answering my letters,” Mark said.
“Hello, Mark,” she whispered.
They fell into each other’s arms and clung to each other. Then for the first hour they spoke little but contented themselves with looking at each other, with quick smiles, occasional pressing of hands, and affectionate kisses on the cheek.
At dinner they made small talk, mostly of Mark’s adventures as a foreign correspondent. Then Mark became aware that Kitty was steering all the conversation away from any talk of herself.
The final dish of cheeses came. Mark poured the last of his Keo beer and another of the many awkward silent periods followed. Now Kitty was obviously growing uncomfortable under his questioning stare.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s take a walk to the harbor.”
“I’ll get my stole,” she said.
They walked silently along the quay lined with white buildings and onto the sea wall and out to the lighthouse which stood at the narrow opening of the harbor. It was cloudy and they could see but dim outlines of the little boats resting at anchor. They watched the lighthouse blink out to sea, guiding a trawler toward the shelter of the harbor. A soft wind blew through Kitty’s golden hair. She tightened the stole over her shoulders. Mark lit a cigarette and sat on the wall. It was deathly still.
“I’ve made you very unhappy by coming here,” he said, “I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said. She looked away out to the sea. “I don’t know how I felt when I received your cable. It opened the door on a lot of memories that I have tried awfully hard to bury. Yet I knew that one day this minute would come ... in a way I’ve dreaded it ... in a way, I’m glad it’s here.”
“It’s been four years since Tom got killed. Aren’t you ever going to shake this?”
“Women lose husbands in war,” she whispered. “I cried for Tom. We were very much in love, but I knew I would go on living. I don’t even know how he died.”
“There wasn’t much to it,” Mark said. “Tom was a marine and he went in to take a beach with ten thousand other marines. A bullet hit him and he died. No hero, no medals ... no time to say, ‘tell Kitty I love her.’ Just got hit by a bullet and died ... that’s it.”
The blood drained from her face. Mark lit a cigarette and handed it to her. “Why did Sandra die? Why did my baby have to die too?”
“I’m not God. I can’t answer that.”
She sat beside Mark on the sea wall and rested her head on his shoulder and sighed unevenly. “I guess there is no place left for me to run,” she said.
“Why don’t you tell me about it.”
“I can’t ...”
“I think it’s about time that you did.”
A half dozen times Kitty tried to speak, but her voice held only short disconnected whispers. The years of terror were locked deep in her. She threw the cigarette into the water and looked at Mark. He was right and he was the only one in the world she could confide in.
“It was pretty terrible,” she said, “when I got the telegram about Tom, I loved him so. Just ... just two months after that Sandra died of polio. I ... I don’t remember too much. My parents took me away to Vermont and put me in a home.”
“Asylum?”
“No ... that’s the name they give it for poor people ... they called mine a rest home for a breakdown. I don’t know how many months passed there. I couldn’t remember everything. I was in a complete fog day and night. Melancholia, they call it.”
Suddenly Kitty’s voice became steady. The door had opened and the torment was finding its way out. “One day the veil over my mind lifted and I remembered that Tom and Sandra were dead. A pain clung to me. Everything every minute of the day reminded me of them. Every time I heard a song, every time I heard laughter ... every time I saw a child. Every breath I took hurt me. I prayed ... I prayed, Mark that the fog would fall on me again. Yes, I prayed I’d go insane so I couldn’t remember.”
She stood up tall and straight and the tears streamed down her cheeks. “I ran away to New York. Tried to bury myself in the throngs. I had four walls,