From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [471]
“Hello,” Karen said gaily. “How come you’re not at the office?”
“I called them and got the morning off.”
“Wheres Bella?”
“I gave her the day off.”
Karen poured herself a cup of his coffee and sat down at the table with him.
“I bet that made her happy,” she said happily. “And so now, everything’s all prepared for the show.”
“I said, I want to know where you’ve been,” Holmes said. “And with whom.”
“But I told you all that yesterday, darling,” Karen said merrily. “I was saying good-by to a very dear friend.”
“Dont call me darling.”
“All right,” Karen said cheerfully. “It was figurative.”
“You didnt tell me anything yesterday.” Holmes’s eyes were like two frantically brilliant diamonds in the dried, cracked plaster of his face. “You didnt tell me where you were meeting him, and you didnt tell me who he was.”
“I didnt say it was a him,” Karen said.
“But it was. You think I havent known about it. But I’ve known about it all along. I even tried to ignore it, as long as I could. Until it got too flagrantly open. Now I want to know where you met him and just who he is.”
“I dont think thats any of your business,” Karen said.
“I’m your husband,” Holmes said. “It is my business.”
“Not it isnt. Its my business,” Karen said. “And no one else’s. You sound like a page right out of Hemingway.”
“Maybe I’ll make it my business.”
“No,” Karen said, “I dont think you will.”
“I suppose now you want a divorce.”
“I hadnt really thought about it. One way or the other.”
“Well, I wont give you one.”
Karen sipped her coffee. She could not remember having felt so happy, so zestful, so full of just plain healthy animal spirits, since before she was married.
“You hear me? I wont give you one.”
“All right,” Karen said agreeably.
Holmes looked at her, the frantic diamonds of his eyes sparkling at her desperately out of his plaster-paris face. Even in his acute distress, he could see she was not acting.
“Maybe I’ll get the divorce,” he said, trying a frontal attack.
“All right,” Karen said agreeably.
“We might as well settle it right now,” Holmes said. “I want to get this thing settled once and for all.”
“As far as I can see, its already settled. You’re going to get the divorce.”
“Ha,” Holmes said. “Yes, you’d love that, wouldnt you? Well, I’m not. I’m not giving you any divorce. And if you try to get one, I’ll fight you through every court in the land.”
“All right,” Karen said cheerfully. “Then I guess thats settled. No divorce.”
“How does it feel to know you’ll have to live with a horror like me the rest of your life?” Holmes said contortedly.
“Not very nice,” Karen said cheerfully. “But then, on the other hand, there is the compensation of knowing you’ll have to live with me the rest of your life, too.”
“God!” Holmes said agonizingly, “how can you be so cruel? How can you sit there and smile? After what you’ve done. Didnt your responsibilities mean anything to you? Didnt the years of your marriage mean anything? Didnt your own son, our son, mean a damn thing to you? Dont you feel any shame?”
“I dont seem to,” Karen said. “Not a bit. Its odd, isnt it?”
“Well, you ought to!”
“I know,” Karen said. “But I dont. Its terrible, isnt it?”
“Terrible?” Holmes exclaimed frenziedly. “A woman of your background? and upbringing? and breeding? A happily married woman with an eight year old son? And you call it terrible?”
“I cant understand it myself,” Karen said cheerfully.
Gradually, one by one, the inviolable spears of right-mindedness were breaking themselves against this undentable armor of cheerfulness.
“Dont you know what you’ve done to me?”
“What have I done to you?”
“You’ve ruined my marriage, is all. You’ve knocked the bottom out from under my whole life. You were my wife. I trusted you.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I’m truly, genuinely, sorry. To have done that to you. But I guess it couldnt be helped.”
“Why do you think I’ve done all I have? All this,” Holmes said contortedly. He spread his arms.
“Done all what.”
“Why, worked my ass off with this goddamned miserable boxing squad that I’ve hated. Brownnosed with Col Delbert and Gen Slater. Degraded myself. Had my nose