From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [466]
It was a very strange experience, in more ways than one.
As Stark brought him up the little side street that ran inland off the highway in the absolute blackness, the stocky Texan stopped and pointed out the house.
“Thats it there,” Stark said. “The beach type bungalow with the corner windows.”
Warden, looking, saw also the intensely familiar old Buick with the well-remembered, long-ago-committed-to-memory license plate.
“You can find your way back all right, cant you?” Stark said.
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll leave you here and go on back.”
“But, aint you comin in?”
“Naw,” Stark said. “I was over last night. And probly will come over again tomorrow night.”
“But she’ll want to thank you.”
“She dont need to thank me.”
“But hell, we’re running you out of your own home, practicly.”
“I’m afraid seein me would embarrass her,” Stark said. “Anyway,” he said, “I dont want to see her. I aint seen her since at least two months before Holmes left the Compny. Why should I see her now?”
“Okay,” Warden said.
“You might—” Stark said, and stopped.
“Might what?”
“Nothing,” Stark said. “I’ll see you,” he said. He walked away into the lightless blackness and became invisible. Warden listened to his quiet footsteps fade away before he went up to the door.
It was a strange experience, in a great many more ways than one.
The beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl opened the door for him with brightly luminous eyes. Then the eyes clouded.
“Didnt May-lon come?”
“He had some work to do. He said tell you he’d see you tomorrow.”
“Ahhh,” she said reproachfully, from behind the cloudy eyes. Then she smiled. “Come on in, Sergeant.”
She shut the door behind him and turned back on the lights. Her husband, in his dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath the deep mahogany face, was sitting in the dinette with the Japanese-language newspaper.
“Your friend is in there,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said broodingly, and moved her eyes toward the closed door across the room. “She is very lovely, your friend,” she said.
“Thank you,” Warden said. “And also I want to thank you for what you’ve done for us.”
“It is nothing, Sergeant. Do not speak of it. Everyone has troubles, now.
“John,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said softly, “come and meet May-lon’s First Sergeant, Mr Warden.”
The husband, in his dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath the dark mahogany face, left his Japanese-language daily paper and came and smiled and shook hands warmly.
“But you will want to see your friend,” the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said sadly. “Not to stand and talk with us. I will show you.”
It was all strange, and the sense of strangeness colored everything.
Karen was sitting in a big chair by the bed under the floor lamp reading a book, as the girl closed the door behind him softly. She had her legs drawn up against the chair arm in the green skirt tucked tight under her knees. Her small bag that he remembered was sitting on the floor by the dresser. She looked completely secure and at home. She looked at peace.
“Hello, darling,” she smiled.
“Hello,” Warden said. “Hello.” He went to meet her, and she left the book on the chair arm and rose to meet him, in that same funny odd reserved way she had that he had almost forgotten.
He put his arms around her and it was not like touching a foreign object but rather, like touching your own body, the way a man will clasp his own two hands together, in the cold perhaps, to keep them warm, as he has every right to do, without asking anyone’s permission, since they are his hands.
He could not tell her yet. Not just yet.
He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Then she drew away with that funny odd reserve of hers, and he let her go watching her smile that deeper smile.
“You’ll get yourself all excited,” she smiled. “Lets talk a while. Lets sit down.”
She sat back down in the chair and drew her legs up tight against her with her arms, and smiled at him over her k