Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [129]
“Come on, out with it.”
“Looks like we’ll be pulling out soon.”
“Oh!” Those dreaded words. “How soon?”
“Couple of weeks, maybe.”
Leah came very close to him, leaned on him, and rubbed her cheek against his. It evolved into a long, deep kiss.
“I hate to see you leave,” Leah said. “Things have been real different since I met you.”
“I want to go,” he said. “Most of us feel that way. I have to get my piece of this war. It’s something that may be difficult for a woman to understand.”
“I don’t want it to be over between us.”
“Neither do I,” he said.
“I’m so glad.”
“Leah, we’ve been seeing each other for a decent amount of time. There’s something ...” He halted.
“Go on, tell me.”
“All right. Here it is. Straight. I’ve taken a room at the Belvedere Hotel for tonight. I’m not going to twist your arm to come with me. Just a simple yes or no?”
Leah’s hand automatically clutched her heart. Her instinct was to feign modesty and then go into an impassioned denial mode. Joe Kramer was no Richard Schneider, or any of her other recent beaux.
“I love you, Leah.”
There were no tactics of evasion she could employ now, and she knew it. There was either a chance of hooking Joe by consummating their affair, or the certainty of losing him by a rejection. No other choices. No games. His powerful, mournful eyes never left her.
Leah went tightly into his arms. “I’ll come with you,” she said.
As they kissed, Leah heard the unmistakably clumsy sound of Fanny flapping up the ladder from the deck below.
“Leah!” Fanny cried, grabbing her hand and leading her off as Al Singer honkered up to Joe, shyly.
“Leah, look!” Fanny cried, thrusting her ring finger out. The stone was so small, it was barely visible.
“Al just popped the question and I said yes. We’re officially engaged. He wants to get married right away, before he goes overseas.”
Leah embraced her sister, but her mind was whirling on something else.
“Then you can go to bed with him without shame,” Leah muttered strangely.
“We’ve already been doing it, Leah.”
Leah was struck with disbelief. “But why didn’t you tell me? Weren’t you ashamed? How long have you been doing it? Where?”
Fanny shrugged.
“Does Momma have any idea?”
“What’s the difference? He’s going to be my husband.”
Leah looked down the railing to where Joe was shaking Al’s hand. Leah realized she’d better not try any of her little tricks tonight if she harbored any hope that Joe Kramer would return to her. She had to go through with it. Moreover, she had to make love to him so fantastically that she and she alone would fill his thoughts in the months ahead.
THERE WAS a double wedding at B’nai Israel Synagogue underwritten by dear Uncle Hyman, the proud patriot, especially since his own son, Gilbert, had been rejected for service.
In less than a month Private Al Singer and Lieutenant Joe Kramer sailed from the port of Baltimore aboard troopships bound for France. They left behind a pair of brides in their first weeks of pregnancy.
Molly Kramer and Edith Singer were born only a few days apart at Sinai Hospital on Monument Street.
HANNAH BALABAN had mystic premonitions. High times could not go on indefinitely. How could such happiness be sustained?
Hannah was reasonably satisfied that Al Singer and Joe Kramer would not give her daughters a life of misery like that putz Moses Balaban had given her, and that was good news.
Hannah had two eynikles, a pair of beautiful, healthy grandchildren, both girls yet, and that was more good news. Finances had never been better and the war was now definitely being won by the Allies.
But nobody could go on living on such a cloud. Hard times were bound to return. She would be ready when they did.
True to her premonitions, bad news arrived by the bushel.
America’s initial war fever had been diminished by the casualty lists. A stunned public came to realize that the war wasn’t just one big happy adventure. When the first of Hannah’s adopted soldiers was killed, she went into a depression that lasted the rest of the war, for there were others killed and many wounded. It was