From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [482]
Rather awkwardly, and not without embarrassment, he asked Stark if he could fix it up with them to let Karen have a room there for one night, so he could see her before she left.
“Sure,” Stark said immediately and without hesitation. “They’ll be glad to.”
“Hadnt you better ask them first?”
“No need to. They’ll do damn near anything I ask them to. I’m helping them to pay off their FHA loan.”
“Okay,” Warden said.
“You let me know what day she’ll be there, and I’ll tell them next time I go over. I’ll show you the way over myself, so you wont get lost.”
“Okay,” Warden said.
He could not call her over the field phone, which made its connection into the public system through the Battalion Message Center, but that part was easy. The next time he had an excuse to go down to Position 17 he made the call from the home of the old couple upon whose small estate the pillboxes had been built, and who had practically adopted all the mea on the position.
The call went through perfect. Karen said immediately and without hesitation that she would come.
It was a very strange experience, in more ways than one.
As Stark brought him up the little side street that ran inland off the highway in the absolute blackness, the stocky Texan stopped and pointed out the house.
“Thats it there,” Stark said. “The beach type bungalow with the corner windows.”
Warden, looking, saw also the intensely familiar old Buick with the well-remembered, long-ago-committed-to-memory license plate.
“You can find your way back all right, cant you?” Stark said.
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll leave you here and go on back.”
“But, aint you comin in?”
“Naw,” Stark said. “I was over last night. And probly will come over again tomorrow night.”
“But she’ll want to thank you.”
“She dont need to thank me.”
“But hell, we’re running you out of your own home, practicly.”
“I’m afraid seein me would embarrass her,” Stark said. “Anyway,” he said, “I dont want to see her. I aint seen her since at least two months before Holmes left the Compny. Why should I see her now?”
“Okay,” Warden said.
“You might—” Stark said, and stopped.
“Might what?”
“Nothing,” Stark said. “I’ll see you,” he said. He walked away into the lightless blackness and became invisible. Warden listened to his quiet footsteps fade away before he went up to the door.
It was a strange experience, in a great many more ways than one.
The beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl opened the door for him with brightly luminous eyes. Then the eyes clouded.
“Didnt May-lon come?”
“He had some work to do. He said tell you he’d see you tomorrow.”
“Ahhh,” she said reproachfully, from behind the cloudy eyes. Then she smiled. “Come on in, Sergeant.”
She shut the door behind him and turned back on the lights. Her husband, in his dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath the deep mahogany face, was sitting in the dinette with the Japanese-language newspaper.
“Your friend is in there,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said broodingly, and moved her eyes toward the closed door across the room. “She is very lovely, your friend,” she said.
“Thank you,” Warden said. “And also I want to thank you for what you’ve done for us.”
“It is nothing, Sergeant. Do not speak of it. Everyone has troubles, now.
“John,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said softly, “come and meet May-lon’s First Sergeant, Mr Warden.”
The husband, in his dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath the dark mahogany face, left his Japanese-language daily paper and came and smiled and shook hands warmly.
“But you will want to see your friend,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said