mother.”
Suddenly the water I had dived into was bitter cold and I asked, “You think there’s something wrong with my father?”
“Frankly, I do,” she replied. “The way he’s content to leave your mother walled up within a circle of a few close friends, there in Lancaster, while he plunges off to the wars. That isn’t good enough for me.”
I said, “We better get our feet on the ground and get some things organized.”
She accepted my suggestion. She opened the car door and stepped into the street. “Good idea,” she said.
We dismissed the chauffeur and wandered aimlessly along the streets of Kobe until we reached the waterfront where the great Inland Sea of Japan has from the most ancient times provided an anchorage for roving ships and their rich cargoes. Eileen studied one of the dark vessels and said, “I came to Japan because I wanted our marriage to start right. I’m younger than you are, Lloyd, but I’m just as smart. And I think I’m just as brave. I want to be with you…in all kinds of weather.”
“I don’t get what you’re talking about,” I pleaded.
“About us. No, I’ll be honest About you.”
“What’s about me?”
“I’ve never told you this, Lloyd, but nine months ago I visited your mother. I was driving through Pennsylvania and stopped off. I was appalled at the loneliness in which she lives…in which she’s always lived.”
I felt weak. I knew what Eileen was saying was true but nevertheless I protested, “Mother wants to live that way.”
“Nonsense! No woman wants to live anyway but body and soul with the man she loves. Your mother may be a fine sport about the way she has to live, since she has no other choice…Lloyd, tell me this. That time I followed you down to the air base in West Texas…Why were you so scared?”
“I was worried about you.”
“What about me?”
“Well…”
“You mean…my reputation?”
“Well, yes.”
“Rubbish, Lloyd! The reason you were scared stiff was that you discovered you had on your hands a girl who would insist upon sharing your full life. Well, you were right. You could never tuck me away in a corner of Lancaster.”
I felt blood rising into my throat and said dizzily, “I think I’d better take you back to the hotel.”
There was an ugly moment of silence—which I now know I should have broken with a rousing kiss—and when I did nothing Eileen said dully, “I guess you’re right. Which way is the Officers Club?” We walked in gloomy silence for a few minutes. Then she said, “Lloyd, dear. Don’t get little-boy sorehead about this. It’s of absolutely fundamental importance. Please think about it.”
“About what?” I shouted.
“Don’t lose your temper. About the fact that half a marriage isn’t good enough for either you or me. I’ve got to have a man who loves me with his whole heart. Go ahead and become the greatest general in Air Force history. But love me too.”
“Damn it, I do love you,” I protested as the lights of the hotel appeared around the corner.
“Sure you do, in a cold, partial little way. Let’s think about this for a few days.”
Suddenly I was fighting to get married and I said, “I thought you came to Japan for a wedding.”
“I did, but I’ve got to marry a complete man. Not just the shreds that are left over after he’s led the important part of his life somewhere else.”
I was infuriated, not because of what she had said, but because she had seen so clearly the kind of man my father and mother had made me. Rationally my father had decided it would be good for him to marry a general’s daughter who had a ready-made family life inLancaster. She wouldn’t be an encumbrance and she might prove to be a help. Now I was reasoning the same way. Marry Eileen because she was from a military family and would understand Air Force ropes without a lot of civilian argument. She was beautiful and, as she had proved tonight, plenty smart and courageous. She would be a
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