From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [355]
“We are just alike,” Karen said. “We’re just alike.”
“And I wouldnt trade a minute of it,” he said.
“Oh, Milt,” Karen said. “I dont want to be bait, Milt. I love you, Milt. I want to help you, not hurt you.”
“Listen,” Warden said enthusiastically. “I’ve got a 30-day re-up furlough coming to me that I’ve been putting off ever since I got in this Company. And I’ve got $600 downtown in the bank. You and me are going to take that furlough, to anyplace in the Islands you want to go, and we’re going to have us a time none of them will ever be able to take away from us, war or no war, hell or high water.”
“Oh, Milt,” she said softly, and in the saying of it made him feel finer than he could remember ever having felt in his life, “that would be wonderful. Imagine it, just the two of us, with no hiding and no acts to put on. Wouldnt it be wonderful.”
“It will be wonderful,” he corrected.
“Oh, if we only could.”
“We not only can; we will. Whats to stop us?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing except ourselves.”
“Okay then.”
“Oh, dont you see, Milt? I couldn’t leave for that long. Its a wonderful dream, and I love you for it, but we couldnt do it. I couldnt leave Junior for that long.”
“Why not? You’re going to leave him for good someday,” he said doggedly. “Aint you?”
“Of course I am,” Karen said helplessly, “but thats different. Until I make the break I have a responsibility to him that I cant just shrug off. The poor little devil will have a hard enough time of it as it is, with the life he’s had all picked out for him. I owe him at least that much.
“Oh, Milt, dont you see? Its a dream. We couldnt get by with it. How would I explain my being gone for a whole month? Dana suspects something now, and if—”
“Let him suspect, the son of a bitch. He’s been true to you, hasnt he?”
“But we cant do that. We have to keep it a secret until you’ve gotten a commission and are out of his Company, the whole thing depends on that. Dont you see?”
“I’ve never liked hiding from him,” Warden said stubbornly, “who the hell is he I should hide from him?”
“Its not who he is, its what he is. You know that, Milt. And if I were to be gone for a month just at the same time you took your furlough . . .”
“I know it,” Warden said sullenly. “Its just that sometimes it gets my goat and I get sick of it.”
“Dont you think I get sick of it, too? I’m trying to set it up for us. How could I explain it?”
“You’ve got a cousin living in Lihue, haven’t you?” Warden said, cursing himself for grasping at straws. “Tell him you’re going to take a month with your cousin and have him send your mail there. You Southerners do that all the time. He wouldnt think anything about that.”
“But that would mean taking her in on it!”
“Okay, so what?”
“Milt!!”
“Well? In the game we play you got to utilize everything.”
“You dont know her. I couldnt do that. I just couldnt!”
“All right then, you wouldnt have to,” he said stubbornly, looking with wonder at her who could be so spine-chillingly calculating about that it frightened him. Gag at a gnat and swallow a camel. “Just write her and have her forward your mail. She wouldnt have to know who you were with, or if you were with anybody. Let her think it was a family row. She’d keep her mouth shut if she thought it was a fight with Dana, wouldnt she?”
“Of course she would,” Karen said loyally. “She doesnt like Dana any better than I do. But we couldn’t get by with it, Milt. Dont you see? Not for thirty days. Maybe for ten. I could probably get away for ten days. But not thirty. You could take y