end of the stick! It's tougher staying here, sick with worry and fear. When you men die, your life is over but we're the ones who have to go on living broken lonely lives, or...”
I stood up and shook her. “Damn it, stop all this talk about glory and war! You think we were playing a game over in Korea? It was dirty, brutal, the worst lousy nightmare I.... Stop talking about it!”
We stood like that for a moment, my hands on her shoulders, excited by her nearness, and then I took her in my arms and kissed her— above the mouth, I didn't want to give her any bugs—but she moved her lips over mine in a hard, complete kiss. Then she began to struggle and I held her and she said, “Take your arms away! You think because I talk and joke about it, that I'm easy, a push-over...!”
“Mady will you stop all this silly talk? If you were deaf and dumb, never opened your trap, I'd want you. I know this is quick, but what's the point of delaying anything? Can't you see we're alike as can be? Both hurt by the war, both trying hard to get hold of something once more, both adrift. We're past the candy and flowers, the dates, all the normal stuff... we're too late for that.”
She stared at me with wet eyes, then burst into tears. I hugged her tightly, aware of the softness of her body, as she whispered in my ear, “Oh, Matt, I do like you... and it
“Forget it, I'm not Saxton.”
“I know, darling, I know,” she said, and covered my face with little kisses that drove me crazy. “You're honest and true, real, like my Billy. He....”
“Cut that too. This is all new, for both of us, starting from now. I'm nobody but Matt Ranzino, like nobody else and.... Honey, don't you think we're talking too much?”
It was early in the afternoon when we finally got around to the eggs and orange juice. I was too happy to worry about my lungs, whether all the wonderful energy I'd used up with her would hurt me. And although I didn't know why, could hardly believe it, I had a deep sense of peace and relaxation being with Madeline. She wasn't just another girl to me. Okay, I didn't believe it either, but that was it.
After we ate we went back to bed and when I was lying there, full of that happy tired feeling, she told me about Saxton.
This goon didn't know what he had in Mady—could think of her only as an easy lay, treated her like a whore... although she must have offered him a sincere love... at the start. As she whispered, “At first I liked him, he was older, steady, and I didn't have anybody to turn to. I wasn't a romantic kid, didn't think of it as love, but... we could have been good friends. Then... he made me feel dirty. It's a horrible feeling to feel ashamed of yourself. He saw me only when he wanted me, had me quit my job because he knew I'd be dependent upon him.... Would toss me a few bucks now and then, send out a couple of bottles before he'd come, so I'd be liquored up. He sent those bottles last night.”
“He was here. I threw him out,” I lied.
“He came here? I'm glad you threw him out. I don't know what came over me, why I stood it. I must have been crazy. When the murder happened, the police and the reporters bothering me made me snap out of it. I told him we were through. It all sounds so.... wrong and stupid... now, but it seemed so easy to take a few drinks and forget everything. When things became too clear, all I had to do was reach for a bottle—reality went down with the chaser. But that's over. I'll find a job, get back into the routine of living again. I'll get off the bottle...”
“Sure you will, honey, you're a long ways from being a rummy,” I said, trying to make it sound true.
“Matt, don't leave me. What I mean: I don't know if marriage is for us, but if it isn't, don't leave me for a long time. I need you. Need you to... to lean on, feel I have something worth living for... to...”
“Don't talk about it. You and me both, we'll lean all over each other,” I told her.
We slept for a while and once I remember telling her about my being a physical instructor in World War II, volunteering for Korea because I wanted to see action... told her about the Korea I knew, before the Chinese came in, before the great battles and retreats. Somehow, it was good to get it all off my chest, tell her about the leveled villages—villages which hadn't been much to start with—the burned and frozen bodies, about the almost naked people facing the fierce winter, living in caves like animals. How you saw an entire area burned black by a jelly-gasoline bomb, and American boys splattered over a rice paddy.
I tried to explain what it felt like to be surrounded on all sides by people hating you—the very people we were fighting for—without them ever asking us in. Like in all wars, it was the civilians who got the worst deal. I managed to even tell her about the time I was on the side of... of...
I was scared stiff they were infiltrating guerillas... we'd been told again and again not to take any chances.... I yelled at them.... Maybe I didn't yell loud enough, maybe they didn't hear me... and in any case they couldn't understand me. Finally I opened up with the sub-machine gun. Later, when we advanced, I passed them... two old women, a very old man with a feathery white beard and a crazy square black formal hat, and a couple of kids, a boy and a girl not over ten or eleven. I stared at their dead bullet-torn bodies and my insides turned over.
I kept thinking: I've shot down women and kids! Maybe the air boys never saw what their bombs did, but this was what
I told Mady about the doc telling me we all have the germ in us, I'd probably picked it up before the army, but under the strain of combat, the bug had eaten into my lung. She wept as I talked and I didn't tell her what the psychiatrist said at the VA hospital in the States... that I'd willed the sickness—any sickness—on myself to get out of battle. Battle was a story-book word to him, an army-manual expression—he didn't know it meant killing women and kids. I didn't tell Mady about this because I wasn't sure I really believed it myself.
It was nearly three when we got up, drank a lot of milk and ate cookies, took a shower together, like kids, and I said, “Mady, you're so tall and beautiful.”
“I'm tall, but not really pretty.”
“You are to me.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly, you're the most beautiful girl in the world to me,” I told her and we kissed under the stream of water, and then as we were drying each other with rough towels she turned my head and I saw the two of us in the bathroom mirror and she laughed, “Matt, did you ever see a homelier couple!”
“Never! That's why we each think the other is so good- looking.”
“Matt, you are... well, beautiful.” .
I burst out laughing and she said, “I mean it, you're a lot of man. Where did you get that build... those wonderful impossible shoulders?”
“I'm soft now. Should have seen me before.”
“You're lean and hard and big... like a fighter. When I was a kid I stole a picture of Max Baer from my brother Pete... was mad about his muscles.”
“I used to be a pug. Pops stopped all that. Tell you about him some day.”
“Your father?”
“Naw. I don't remember my folks. Pops was a funny old bum. Let's skip the talk... the crackers and milk didn't do a thing for me. I'm hungry enough to eat this towel.”
“But I do love your body. I'd like to take a picture of you in the nude—just as you are now.”
I laughed and kissed her. She was a wonderful kid. I said, “That's a very womanly idea,” and she laughed till she cried.... Happy warm laughter and the warmth went deep inside me. For the first time in a year I felt at ease... happy.
Mady cooked a light snack as I dressed. I took one of my pills—and my pulse and heartbeat were steady and normal, despite all the excitement I'd been through with Mady. After we ate I told her I was going into town and she asked, “Why?”
“I'm getting curious about... things. That's a good sign for me. I used to make big dough as a private dick, maybe I'll make it again. We need money.”
“I have to find a job. I'll look this afternoon while...”
“Forget that.”
“Why?” Mady asked, her eyes two warning signals.
I kissed her. “Okay, honey, you go out and be womanly and work yourself, to the bone, if you wish.” I glanced at my watch. “I'll be back about five.”
“If I'm not home, you'll know I'm out job-hunting. What do you want for supper?”
“Steak.” I put ten bucks on the table. “A big thick juicy steak... if ten bucks will buy one these days.”
We kissed again and I left and there was a bus nearing the corner and without thinking I sprinted toward it... and scared hell out of myself. But after I stopped puffing and huffing, I seemed okay.
I dropped in to see Max. He looked worried, had for—gotten to shave half his chin. I asked, “What's cooking? You look bad—developing a conscience?”
“A what? Where'd you get the shiner?”
“Forget that. Wilson murders troubling you?”
He picked at his teeth with a fingernail, said over his fingers, “That's history. My kids have a cold, kept me up all night with their coughing. Why, the Wilson case worrying you?”
“Not exactly, but Saxton gets in my hair lately. I'm living with his girl.”
Max
