away from domestic affairs. But now that the housekeeping was so far beyond Mrs. Helianos' strength and competence, and Helianos had to help her more and more, and they were together morning, noon, and night as they had never been in their youth, they were like an old team of horses broken to double harness.
When Captain Kalter was at home he wanted absolute silence. Leda was naturally silent, but as for Alex, this was the hardest of those rules which the poor parents tried to enforce in order to forestall the captainâs enforcement; and it was hard for them too. They could never learn to work so as to keep a regular and accustomed division of their responsibilities; the simplest task at some point required their asking each otherâs advice, coming to each otherâs rescue. The partitions throughout the apartment were thin and one of these days, if they disturbed the captain, might he not require Mrs. Helianos to do all her work alone, without Helianos? Then how would she manage? Therefore they learned to speak without a sound if necessary, and to read each otherâs lips, indeed to communicate a good deal by mere glances, as the inmates of asylums and prisons do.
If their so commonplace wedded life had not been engulfed in misery along with everything else, their habits broken, and normal expectations aborted, they might never have learned the extent of their affection. They were middle-aged, and felt older than their years. Even the mortal blow of losing their first and best son had not quickened their old attitudes of mind and stale sentiments much. This hard everyday life together did. It was the autumn of their love no longer, but suddenly winter, when in fact, with illness and starvation and decrepitude, the coldest husbands and the bitterest wives often do find each other kinder than other people, kinder than nature, kinder than God.
To be sure, there was nothing erotic or sensual or even sensuous about it. Helianos was, or fancied that he was, impotent; and Mrs. Helianos' menopause had come early, in keeping with her poor health in general. Yet in the dead of night they pursued an extraordinary intimacy, as they lay wearily in a heap of one body almost on top of the other on the folding cot. They knew once more the double egocentricity of lovers, confusion of two in one. Everyone else and everything else in the world might have been shed away in the forgotten sky over Athens, and the dark turning of the earth toward next day, purposeless except to rock them, on the formless mattress and sagging springs.
The captain would ring and be waited on, or Helianos would start to snore and Mrs. Helianos would wake him on the captainâs account; and then they would lie awake awhile. Verbose even when half asleep, with her lips pressed to his ear like a kiss, she would whisper the things she had not dared broach during the day, pouring her poor heart into his; and he would console and admonish her to his heartâs content.
5.
I N THE SPRING OF 1943 CAPTAIN KALTER WAS GIVEN two weeks' leave to return to Germany. When he informed the Helianos' of it, they could hardly contain themselves for joy; but with his strong small eyes fixed on them, they did not even have the courage to wish him a safe journey and a good time. Then he had to wait a week for his plane-reservation. That was hard for them, with all their work and worry as usual, and the added uneasiness lest they betray their unusual excitement.
When at last the day came, and they carried his despatch-case and duffle-bags down to the sidewalkâeven breathless Mrs. Helianos insisted on carrying one bag, for was it not a sort of ceremony?âand they stood watching the army-automobile slowly start and shift gears and get up speed and turn the corner out of sight, they were afraid to rejoice, with unknown faces in the neighboring windows perhaps looking down on them. Back upstairs, they still maintained their anxious composure, as if the furniture
When Captain Kalter was at home he wanted absolute silence. Leda was naturally silent, but as for Alex, this was the hardest of those rules which the poor parents tried to enforce in order to forestall the captainâs enforcement; and it was hard for them too. They could never learn to work so as to keep a regular and accustomed division of their responsibilities; the simplest task at some point required their asking each otherâs advice, coming to each otherâs rescue. The partitions throughout the apartment were thin and one of these days, if they disturbed the captain, might he not require Mrs. Helianos to do all her work alone, without Helianos? Then how would she manage? Therefore they learned to speak without a sound if necessary, and to read each otherâs lips, indeed to communicate a good deal by mere glances, as the inmates of asylums and prisons do.
If their so commonplace wedded life had not been engulfed in misery along with everything else, their habits broken, and normal expectations aborted, they might never have learned the extent of their affection. They were middle-aged, and felt older than their years. Even the mortal blow of losing their first and best son had not quickened their old attitudes of mind and stale sentiments much. This hard everyday life together did. It was the autumn of their love no longer, but suddenly winter, when in fact, with illness and starvation and decrepitude, the coldest husbands and the bitterest wives often do find each other kinder than other people, kinder than nature, kinder than God.
To be sure, there was nothing erotic or sensual or even sensuous about it. Helianos was, or fancied that he was, impotent; and Mrs. Helianos' menopause had come early, in keeping with her poor health in general. Yet in the dead of night they pursued an extraordinary intimacy, as they lay wearily in a heap of one body almost on top of the other on the folding cot. They knew once more the double egocentricity of lovers, confusion of two in one. Everyone else and everything else in the world might have been shed away in the forgotten sky over Athens, and the dark turning of the earth toward next day, purposeless except to rock them, on the formless mattress and sagging springs.
The captain would ring and be waited on, or Helianos would start to snore and Mrs. Helianos would wake him on the captainâs account; and then they would lie awake awhile. Verbose even when half asleep, with her lips pressed to his ear like a kiss, she would whisper the things she had not dared broach during the day, pouring her poor heart into his; and he would console and admonish her to his heartâs content.
5.
I N THE SPRING OF 1943 CAPTAIN KALTER WAS GIVEN two weeks' leave to return to Germany. When he informed the Helianos' of it, they could hardly contain themselves for joy; but with his strong small eyes fixed on them, they did not even have the courage to wish him a safe journey and a good time. Then he had to wait a week for his plane-reservation. That was hard for them, with all their work and worry as usual, and the added uneasiness lest they betray their unusual excitement.
When at last the day came, and they carried his despatch-case and duffle-bags down to the sidewalkâeven breathless Mrs. Helianos insisted on carrying one bag, for was it not a sort of ceremony?âand they stood watching the army-automobile slowly start and shift gears and get up speed and turn the corner out of sight, they were afraid to rejoice, with unknown faces in the neighboring windows perhaps looking down on them. Back upstairs, they still maintained their anxious composure, as if the furniture
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