From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [486]
It was the most wonderful feeling he had ever had in his life, but he decided it was a little too intense for every day use.
“Now you know what love can be like,” Karen said from the chair.
They lay in the bed together the rest of the night, without sleeping, and without sexual intercourse, and they talked over many things. They talked over almost everything. He told her the last chapter and finis of Prewitt’s story. She cried over it. They were very happy. They talked until the alarm on her little clock that she always carried in her bag for him went off at four-thirty, and then Warden got up and dressed.
“It isnt good-by, darling,” Karen said from the bed.
“Of course it isnt,” Warden said.
“Two people who have meant as much to each other as we have dont fade out of each other’s lives,” Karen said.
“Of course they dont,” Warden said. “They cant.”
“It looks dark now,” Karen said. “The time will be longer, and the plans are changed. And there will be the war. But we’ll see each other again.”
“Sure we will,” Warden said. “I know that we will.”
“We’ll meet again someday. People who have been as close to each other as we have, always meet again,” Karen said. “You have my home address in Maryland?”
“Yes,” Warden said. “I’ve got it. And you can always write me to the Company. Wherever we go, the APO will stay the same.”
“Of course I can write you,” Karen said.
“You can get home all right,” he asked.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Perfectly all right.”
“You wont have any trouble with Holmes,” he asked.
“He wont bother me.”
“I love you,” Warden said.
“I love you,” she said.
“Well,” Warden said. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Kiss me once more, Milt,” she said from the bed.
After he had kissed her, he went to the door. Before he closed it, he looked back and waved once.
Karen smiled at him from the bed and waved.
Then, as the door closed, she lay back and relaxed the hard knot. With the relaxing of it everything else seemed to all come apart, too. Her mind drifted. She listened for the closing of the outer door that would mean that he was gone and when she heard it she turned over and lay on her belly with her cheek on the pillow, exhausted. It had taken everything out of her. But she was glad and happy she had been able to protect him. He needed protecting so very badly. It was hard on him. He looked so completely lost. She could not stand it, to see him look so lost. Men were so much softer than women were. She was glad she could make it easier for him. And it wasnt a lie. Maybe they would meet again someday. It didnt hurt anything to believe it. She went to sleep.
Warden, picking his way back down the side street to the highway, was thinking of the White Russian girl during his hitch in China. There had been her, and then before that the old Chinese merchant’s young wife in Manila, and before that the college girl from Chicago U when he was at Sheridan. (He was younger then), and still working backward the Protestant girl back home in Connecticut that was the reason he first enlisted.
Four.
Five, counting Karen Holmes.
Five real ones. Five that counted. Out of how many years? Out of sixteen years.
Maybe if he was lucky, if he was very lucky, there would be time enough left him for two more, three more perhaps, before he got too old. Men got old much quicker in the Army. Pete Karelsen wasnt fifty yet.
He had that much to look forward to. Maybe.
And he had that much to look back on. For sure.
Three more, to look forward to, if he was very lucky.
But he suspected, somehow, none of them would ever measure up to this one, that had come in his early 30s. He suspected; he was afraid; that this one was going to turn out to have been the top of the hill.
Warden, working his way back toward the CP along the highway, did not think she had seen through his lie. There was no use making a thing harder on someone than it already was. Besides, someday maybe they really would meet again. So it didn’t hurt