Exodus - Leon Uris [8]
Kitty felt Mark behind her. His hands gripped her shoulders. Out in the water the trawler was nearing the opening between the arms of the sea wall. She brushed her cheek against Mark’s hand.
“One night I drank too much. You know me ... I’m a terrible drinker. I saw a boy in a green uniform like Tom’s. He was lonely and crew-cut and tall ... like Tom. We drank together ... I woke up in a cheap, dirty hotel room ... God knows where. I was still half drunk. I staggered to the mirror and I looked at myself. I was naked. The boy was naked too ... sprawled out on the bed.”
“Kitty, for God’s sake ...”
“It’s all right, Mark ... let me finish. I stood there looking in that mirror ... I don’t know how long. I had reached the bottom of my life. There was no place lower for me. That moment ... that second I was done. The boy was unconscious ... strange ... I don’t even remember his name. I saw his razor blades in the bathroom and the gas pipe from the ceiling and for a minute or an hour ... I don’t know how long I stood looking down ten stories over the sidewalk. The end of my life had come but I did not have the strength to take it. Then a strange thing happened, Mark. I knew that I was going to go on living without Tom and Sandra and suddenly the pain was gone.”
“Kitty, darling. I wanted so much to find you and help you.”
“I know. But it was something I had to fight out myself, I suppose. I went back to nursing, plunged into it like crazy. The minute it was over in Europe I took on this Greek orphanage ... it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. That’s what I needed of course, to work myself to the limit. Mark ... I ... I’ve started a hundred letters to you. Somehow I’ve been too terrified of this minute. I’m glad now, I’m glad it’s over.”
“I’m glad I found you,” Mark said.
She spun around and faced him. “... so that is the story of what has become of Kitty Fremont.”
Mark took her hand and they began walking back along the sea wall to the quay. From the Dome Hotel they could hear the sound of music.
Chapter Four
BRIGADIER BRUCE SUTHERLAND sat behind a big desk as military commander of Cyprus in his house on Hippocrates Street in Famagusta, some forty miles from Kyrenia. Except for small telltale traces—a slight roll around his middle and a whitening of the hair about his temples—Sutherland’s appearance belied his fifty-five years. His ramrod posture clearly identified a military man. A sharp knock sounded on the door and his aide, Major Fred Caldwell, entered.
“Good evening, Caldwell. Back from Kyrenia already? Have a chair.” Sutherland shoved the papers aside, stretched, and put his glasses on the desk. He selected a GBD pipe from the rack and dipped it into a humidor of Dunhill mix. Caldwell thanked the brigadier for a cigar and the two men soon clouded the room in smoke. The Greek houseboy appeared in answer to a buzz.
“Gin and tonic twice.”
Sutherland arose and walked into the full light. He was wearing a deep red velvet smoking jacket. He settled into a leather chair before the high shelves of books. “Did you see Mark Parker?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you think?”
Caldwell shrugged. “On the face of it we certainly can’t accuse him of anything. He is on the way to Palestine ... here to see that American nurse, Katherine Fremont.”
“Fremont? Oh yes, that lovely woman we met at the governor’s.”
“So I say, sir, it all appears quite innocent ... yet, Parker is a reporter and I can’t forget that trouble he caused us in Holland.”
“Oh, come now,” Sutherland retorted, “we all made blunders in the war. He just happened to catch one of ours. Fortunately our side won, and I don’t think there are ten people who remember.”
The gin and tonics arrived. “Cheers.”
Sutherland set his glass