Book Read Free

An Owl's Whisper

Page 23

by Michael Smth


  Stan caught his breath. He bowed and showed Eva in. He stepped in behind her and looked around. With the rain stopped and the sky clear, the tiny room sang with sunlight. There was a small wooden table with a candle, an ashtray, and a bottle of wine and glasses. There was a bed, turned open in invitation. It was made with white sheets and pillows and a red and white checked duvet, and it had white metal frame. Between bed and table there was a handsome Jugendstil floor lamp. The walls had been papered long ago in white with blue pinstripes. Along one seam that paper had begun to peel, showing its baroque-style predecessor. Framed pictures of Parisian street cafés hung over the bed.

  Eva took both Stan’s hands in hers and leaned back, letting her blond tresses cascade down. “Oh Stanley, isn’t it the sweetest little nest? And it is all ours for these days.” She pulled herself up. “Dance with me.”

  Stan smiled at her playfulness and her beauty. “But there’s no music, hon.”

  “We have the music in our hearts.”

  Eva moved her left hand to Stan’s shoulder and she pulled herself close to him. “And so. One, two three. One, two three. One, two three.”

  They swooshed back and forth through the room’s open space. After a minute and several near misses, they bumped into the floor lamp, sending it over. Stan caught it before it crashed to the floor. He set it right and bowed in apology. “Pardon un gauche Américain, Mademoiselle.”

  Eva laughed. “Do you apologize to the lamp or to me?”

  “If I offended you, lovely young lady, please accept my regrets.”

  Eva peered into his face. “Stanley, nothing of you offends me. For me you are a prince most charming. You are my love.”

  As if the air in his lungs had frozen, Stan was unable to speak. He pulled Eva close. His mouth fell on hers like a wave breaking on the shore. He pushed back a blond tress, and his lips brushed over cheek to ear. The lobe felt hot. Stan inhaled, and the ambrosial scent of her hair overcame him. He heard her breathing quicken. Felt her body going limp in his arms. Yielding. Welcoming. Asking. He held the back of her head and kissed her ear. Then his mouth slipped back to hers. After a moment, he pulled away. Pulled away because he wanted to see her lips, to drink in their shape, their color. To see her ears, her eyes. To see her, yielding, giving. To memorize it all.

  Eva brought his lips back to hers. She kissed as if mouths were portals of the soul and a kiss might make their two souls one.

  “I want to swim,” Eva whispered. “in the fragrant water. I want to swim in the fragrant water with you. I want to become as water with you.” She moved backward, imperceptibly at first, pulling Stan along. She moved them together toward the bed.

  Stan looked at the bed over Eva’s shoulder. It was opened, welcoming, drawing them to it. He felt powerless to resist, even if he had wanted to, and the fire in his thighs and the certainty of his erection made clear that he did not.

  When they were near the bed, Eva stopped. She looked into Stan’s eyes and smiled the warmest smile he could imagine. She removed her sky blue cardigan sweater, the one he said matched her eyes. The plainness of her white cotton blouse brought out the color of autumn flax, wind-caressed and fully ripe, in her hair. She unbuttoned and slipped off the blouse and undid the button and the zipper at the side of her skirt. She let it fall.

  Stan looked at her standing before him in her slip. Her talk of water made him marvel—of all the GIs around, an ocean of them, she chose a country kid from Hooker County. She chose him. “Let me catch up,” Stan whispered. He quickly removed his jacket, his tie, his shirt, his undershirt, and his pants.

  Eva pulled the straps of her slip off of her shoulders. She purred an I’m-yours sigh and put her hands on Stan’s waist. Stan eased the slip down till it fell to the floor. He held her close and felt the hardness, the hotness of her nipples on his chest.

  Eva slid onto the bed pulling Stan along. He slipped off her underpants and his own shorts. He kissed her lips, her ear, her hair, her eyes. They made love. The first time. Stan was amazed how natural, how easy, how right it felt. Afterward, he lay next to her feeling consumed, taken up in her. As if floating in warm, buoyant, intoxicatingly-fragrant water, he drifted off to sleep.

  When he awoke, he saw Eva, wearing his shirt. She was writing at the table.

  Stan sat up in bed. “Not writin’ a good-bye note, I hope.”

  Eva looked at him. “Maybe…and maybe not.”

  Stan was glad to see her grin.

  “I’m just writing some lines about today,” she said.

  “About us, today?”

  “Maybe, and maybe not.” She grinned again. “When I’ve finished, you can see.”

  Stan lolled in the bed. Five minutes later, she brought him the paper. It bore a dozen lines with words crossed out, moved, and new ones inserted here and there. “Before this, don’t believe I ever knew somebody who wrote a real poem,” he said.

  “Mother Catherine loved poetry.” Eva gazed through the window as if seeing the sunbathed square could change the past. “She taught me.”

  He kissed her hand. “I’d like to hear the poem from your lips. Will you read it out?”

  Eva took the paper. She sat on the bed with her back to Stan and read.

  Liege, January 1945

  Mornings we strolled streets wickedly cold,

  Streets still dressed in the night’s frock of ice.

  The brisk wind screamed its screech and its scold,

  Stinging our cheeks like a razor’s quick slice.

  We set pace and path to place us à midi

  On placid Place de la République Française.

  At Madame Helene’s inn, so homey and hearty,

  Though love’s heat bests hearth’s hardy blaze.

  We devoured our bier, our frites, our crusty baguette,

  Fat with creamy mustard and pink Ardennes ham.

  Then we climbed creaking stairs to a beckoning bed,

  And lapped by fragrant water, together we swam.

  Stan said nothing.

  Eva turned to him. “It’s OK?”

  “OK? Yeah, it’s OK.” Stan put his arms around Eva and kissed her belly. “Guess maybe I do know what you mean by fragrant water.”

  Picnic

  On February third Stan got rid of the eye patch. He still had a trace of blurred vision and light sensitivity, but his progress was definite and steady. He moved from the hospital to make room for casualties arriving from the fighting in Germany.

  Pending reassignment, hospital administration billeted Stan in a boxcar converted into sleeping quarters for recovering GIs. Ninety of these boxcars were set out on rail sidings near the Guillemins train station in Liege. Each had eight double bunk beds, sixteen lockers, and a kerosene heater. There were mess cars and a shower unit with hot water. In February 1945 almost every one of the 1,440 bunks was occupied.

  One evening when Stan returned from a day spent with Eva, a visitor waited to see him. It was Sgt. Waxman from the supply depot at Lefebvre.

  Waxman was friendlier than Stan had ever seen him. “Stan, my boy, let’s go have us a drink.” They went to a small café just across from the train station.

  When they had their beers, Waxman pulled out and lit a half smoked cigar. He held the stogie under his nose and inhaled approvingly, as if the aroma were lilac.

  “So, how you doing now, kid?” Waxman asked.

  “Not bad,” Stan said. “Things OK back at the depot?”

  “Yeah, it’s real quiet now. Rumor is we’ll be moving up to Dortmund in Germany soon, but it ain’t official.”

  Stan nodded. He knew Waxman hadn’t come by to discuss unit status.

  Waxman looked around the café. He leaned toward Stan and said in a hushed voice, “Chandler, I gotta hand it to you. However you did it, you had it smack on about the Krauts and the depot.” Waxman pulled a wad of paper from his pocket—the one on which Stan had predicted the German offensive.

  Stan’s right eyelid twitched.

  W
axman continued, “On the Monday after you left, Thane Christie’s on duty, right? I’d told him to ring me if anyone he don’t know shows up.” Waxman relit the cigar. “So I gets this call from Thane. He tells me three fellas he don’t know just pulled up to the depot gate in a jeep. These jokers show him orders. They had GI unis and knew the day’s password—the challenge was Spike and the reply was Jones. Christie says they even went into singing a few bars of Spike’s song, Der Fuhrer’s Face. Laughing about it. So I comes over and asks ’em a few more questions. Most they know, a few they don’t. But it’s always one guy that’s answering. When he can’t tell me that B&D stands for Blanchard and Davis, I’d had enough. Called the security office to send up some more MPs. Next thing you know, big-time shooting busts out. Like the fuckin’ OK Corral. Christie gets the gate locked all right, but he takes a couple of slugs to the gut, poor old scottie. I held ’em off till the cavalry rides up. We kills two of ’em and wounds th’other. Corps G-2 takes him off for questioning and damned if he ain’t a Kraut commando! Shot the SOB as a spy that Thursday morning.”

  The sergeant blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Never did find out how they got the papers, the uniforms, the jeep, the passwords. A couple others pulled the same stunt at the stone bridge in Lefebvre. Thanks to your warning, they was foiled, too.”

  Waxman puffed again and moved his head even closer to Stan. “They was figuring on gassing their tanks with the depot’s fuel stocks and dashing over the bridge all the way to Antwerp. Kid, it was just like you called it.” He paused like it was Stan’s turn to talk.

  Stan looked at his hands. “Sorry Thane got shot up. Good you were on the ball, Sarge.” He fidgeted. “Look, I gotta be gettin’ back. I’m supposed to in by 2100 hours.”

  Waxman slid his chair close to Stan’s. “OK, OK. First tell me how you knew.”

  “Aw, Sarge, I didn’t know. Probably was just a lucky guess. Think I had a dream or somethin’ about a Kraut attack. It seemed so real, I had to tell someone. I figured you’d laugh, so I wrote this.” He picked up the note. “Hey, I really gotta run now. Thanks for the beer.”

  Stan pushed away from the table and was already at the door when Waxman called, “Chandler, hold on. Gimme my damn note back.”

  As he bolted through the quiet darkness, Stan’s brain raced as fast as his feet. Damn it, Waxman, don’t you think I’ve wondered, too? ’Bout how Eva knew? Well, it’s not like I can just ask. Hell, I can’t stand to even think about it. Recalling his old man saying, “Kid, don’t ask how sausage gets made,” Stan crumpled the note and threw it into a trashcan.

  Without official duties, Stan could spend his days with Eva, and he gladly let that pleasure push sticky questions about geese with teeth from his thoughts. And of them, February 14, 1945 was the most pleasant of all. Bookended by cold, wet weather, that Valentine’s Day was bright and unseasonably warm. Like school kids, Eva and Stan practically skipped the route of their morning walk, and it seemed that the whole of Liege poured outdoors to greet them. When they got to du Point de Vue, Madame Hélène had a picnic packed for the lovers.

  On the university grounds, Stan and Eva found an old bench on a grassy knoll overlooking the Meuse. Their lunch basket was stocked with sandwiches of sausage and cheese on crusty rolls, bitter salad leaves, hard-boiled eggs, and bottles of Jupiler beer. After stuffing themselves, the warmth of the sunshine was narcotic. Stan laid out his jacket for Eva to lie on. He watched her stretch like a cat and lie on her back to nap. Drowsy though he was, he had to watch her for a moment: Blond hair lolled out on OD wool. Face made mysterious by the dark glasses she wore. Arms crossed over ribs, cradling breasts. Skirt, zebra-bold black and white stripe, fanning out from her waist. He gazed at Eva until he could fight sleep no more, then he lay on his side next to her. When he held her hand and nestled his lips to her ear, Eva smiled in her sleep. Stan was smiling too as he drifted off.

  When he woke up, Stan saw Eva sitting next to him, knees pulled up against her chest, gazing over the river. Ain’t this somethin’ to wake up to? But before he said anything, before she noticed he was awake, he saw the tracks of tears on her cheek. It startled him, and he popped up on his elbow.

  Seeing Stan stir, Eva turned her head and brushed away her tears with the back of her hand. She coughed. “At last sleeping beauty awakens. I thought I might need to call a princess to kiss you back to life.”

  “Find another princess when the best one of all is here next to me?”

  Eva forced a smile. “Hardly a princess.”

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” He knew her well enough not to expect much of an answer.

  But she surprised him. “Stanley, so many bad memories live here. So much evil has happened. The war won’t let me go even after it’s moved on.” She fell silent.

  Stan felt like she was a million miles distant, and he hated it. He shuffled ideas like a dealer does cards then stood, facing her. He stood and took her hands in his, intensity etched on his face. “Eva, if it’s what you say, if bein’ here’s the problem, why don’t you come back to Hooker County with me? The war can’t touch you there.” Without releasing her hands, without breaking his gaze, Stan dropped down on one knee. “What I’m tryin’ to say is, will you marry me, honey? It’s a new land, and I’d love you forever.”

  Eva peered into his eyes. “You would, wouldn’t you?” She looked off. “A new land, a new start.” She tumbled that prospect through her mind for a moment. “But would it be fair to you?” She seemed to be asking herself the question.

  Stan’s eyes opened wide. “Fair to me? God, it would be the fairest, the best thing ever for me. Don’t you get it? You’re the most important thing in the world to me!” He raised his hands in dismay. “The only thing.”

  “But you don’t know what I really am.”

  “Whatever you were doesn’t matter. I only care what you are. What you are to me. Listen, you’re what got me through in the Ardennes. You’re my dreams, my hopes.” He held her hands and wouldn’t go on until she looked at him. “I got no future without you.”

  “But what if smoke from the past smudges that future black?”

  “Honey, I’m talking about a future—a new life—a whole world away. So far away the past can’t find it.”

  Tears filled Eva’s eyes. “Stanley my love, I want more than anything to say yes, for I too have no future without you.”

  “Then for Christ’s sake, say it!” Stan boomed.

  Eva felt like she was teetering on a log. “What if I say I would be yours as long as it is fair to you. As long as it doesn’t hurt you. But if being yours ever comes to threaten you—” Her eyes bored into his. “—then I will be gone. Could you have me on those terms?”

  “Of course I could, ’cuz I know it’ll always be fair to me.”

  “You’ll understand then, if ever I’m gone, that I had to go? Had to protect you?”

  Stan nodded.

  Eva took his hands in hers. “Say it.”

  Stan squeezed her hands. “I will understand.” He kissed them. “But I ain’t worried.”

  Eva’s resistance toppled like a spun-out top. She nestled his neck and whispered, “Okey-dokey. If you’ll have me that way, then, Stanley, I say yes.”

  Holding each other, their laughter and tears frothed up like warm champagne.

  Eva said, “Now I have two favorite English words, Okey-dokey and yes. And I got to say both in one breath.” A moment later she turned intense. She kissed Stan passionately. “Let’s return Madame Hélène’s basket. Then I want more kisses like that one.”

  The fire in her voice ignited another inside Stan. He kissed her and slid his hand under her skirt. “Kisses and maybe something else?”

  Eva grabbed his hand and looked around, giggling. “Good things come to the patient.”

  “That’s me,” said Stan. “After all, even the Army says I’m still a patient.”

  Eva jumped up, smoothed her skirt, and pulled Stan to his feet.

&n
bsp; He took her arm in his and charged ahead like the cavalry. “Allez, a du Point de Vue!”

  Eva laughed. “These French-speaking Americans, they make my knees soft!”

  Giovanna’s Sin

  With Eva’s yes, Stan petitioned the Army for permission to marry. His request had to buck up the chain of command all the way to Army Group level. He had to plug away at his desk job with hospital supply and wait. The green light came on April 19.

  Eva and Stan married in Liege’s Hôtel de Ville, a few blocks from the Place de la République Française. Madame Ducoisie attended with her cousin. Madame Hélène and four of the regulars from du Point de Vue were there, as were Stan’s doctor and two GIs. When Stan was surprised Henri hadn’t made it, Eva told him, “Uncle’s business hit some angry rocks about the time the December fighting started. He told me he’ll travel to make the repairs but no one hears from him since. Such a pity.”

  The magistrate who conducted the civil ceremony was a stooped old codger with hollow cheeks and a vulture’s beak of a nose. After the wedding, he told Madame Hélène, “Makes me ill! Americans abducting our girls like this.”

  He’d have been better off keeping his opinions to himself. Within two minutes she’d told the whole wedding party. Hearing it, Stan patted the breast pocket of his Eisenhower jacket. “Had a one-ton coal ration card in here to tip the old bird. Now I reckon it’ll just stay put.”

  Stan and Eva spent three days honeymooning at the hotel Le Relais in the resort town of Spa. Soon afterward, orders came for Stan’s return to the States for discharge. The question became how to get Eva there, too, since there was no civilian transatlantic travel that summer. With hundreds of European war brides whose GI husbands were about to ship home, this was a big problem. In May 1945 the European Command announced they would secure civilian liners for the transport of spouses of discharged US servicemen to CONUS ports of entry and from there convey to the residence of record of said serviceman. The costs of such conveyance will be borne by the War Department. The timing of Eva’s passage had not yet been set on June 6 when Stan kissed her and climbed onto a train in Liege to begin his trip home.

 

‹ Prev