Part 29 (2/2)
Peter stood by and let Johnny get into the car first. The inside of the car was luxuriously furnished, all velour-lined. Peter followed him into the car, then Rocco clambered in on the other side of Peter.
Johnny looked around him. ”This is cla.s.s,” he said. ”New car, Peter?”
Peter nodded proudly. ”Pierce Arrow,” he said, smiling, ”with a special custom-built body.”
”It's okay,” Johnny said.
The big car began to roll silently and smoothly. Soon they were on Fifth Avenue heading downtown. It slid to a stop in front of a large apartment house opposite Central Park.
A doorman opened the door of the car. ”Good evening, Mr. Kessler,” he said.
”Evening, Tom,” Peter replied.
They waited for Johnny to get out of the car, then they went into the building. It was a new house.
Johnny looked around him. He didn't say anything, but he was impressed. You had to have pumpkins to live in a place like this. Now he began to realize in personal terms the import of all he had seen and heard during the day.
He followed Peter into an elevator. The car took them up eleven stories and let them out into a hall that was as luxuriously furnished as the lobby had been.
Peter stopped in front of a door and rang the bell.
Johnny looked at the door and his heart began to pound strangely within him. Unconsciously he braced himself.
The door opened. Esther stood there. For a moment there was an awkward silence while they looked at each other; then she came to him and threw her arms around him. She began to cry.
Johnny stood there stiffly, afraid to take his hands from his crutches because he might fall. He stared over her shoulder as she kissed his face. Doris was in the doorway. Her face was pale and thin and her eyes were wide and dark in the glow of the hall light.
Rocco, standing behind Johnny, could see their eyes talking over her mother's shoulder. He looked at Doris. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders, framing her face into an oval mask. Her hands were clenched tightly. Her lids dropped over her eyes. It was as if someone had suddenly turned the lights off in her face. She looked toward the floor. Rocco could see the hard tears swim reluctantly toward the corner of her eyes. He saw her blink twice, trying to hold them back.
Somehow she knew then what Johnny had made up his mind to tell her. How she knew, Rocco could not determine. Not a word was spoken, but she knew. Her whole body showed that she knew it-the sudden loosening of the tense frame, the slight slumping of her shoulders.
It happened in only a moment, but Rocco knew a lifetime had pa.s.sed for her.
Esther stopped kissing Johnny, stepped back from him, and holding him by the shoulders, looked at him. ”My Johnny,” she cried softly. ”What have they done to you?”
”Mamma, don't be a fool,” Peter said gruffly. ”He's here, isn't he? What more can we ask?”
Dinner was a silent meal. They talked, but no one would speak of what was in their hearts. The silent tears were hidden behind smiling masks.
All through the meal Rocco could see Doris looking at Johnny. They were seated across the table from each other. Whenever he looked up he would see her watching him. Johnny's face was white and he spoke little. He didn't know what to say.
She had grown, matured, since he had last seen her. Then she had been a beautiful girl, but now she was a woman-a woman grown beautiful and somehow warm and gracious in a few years.
Dinner was over and they went into the living room. Johnny and Doris were last to leave; and for a moment they were alone in the dining room. She put her coffee cup down and quietly got out of her seat and went over to him. His eyes were on her as she came close to his chair.
She bent over him. Her voice was quiet, controlled. ”You didn't kiss me, Johnny.”
He didn't answer. His eyes were on hers.
Slowly she pressed her lips to his. For a moment a spark leaped between them. Johnny could feel himself drawing to her, and he held himself back. The corners of her mouth trembled against his lips. He leaned away from her.
She straightened up and looked down at him. Her voice was low, with an undercurrent of hurt running through it. ”You've changed, Johnny.”
He looked at her. Then he looked down at his leg. ”Yes,” he said bitterly, ”I've changed.”
”I don't mean that,” she said. ”You've changed inside.”
His voice was level. ”It's possible. Everything that changes a man's appearance changes him. You change if you lose a tooth. You don't smile so often.”
”But you still smile sometimes, Johnny. You don't grow cold and bitter.”
He didn't answer.
She looked at him for a moment and could feel the tears come to her eyes and was ashamed of them. She tried to hold them back. Her voice shook a little as she spoke. ”Remember when we spoke last-how we laughed and we looked at each other and you promised to bring me back a present?”
He shut his eyes. He remembered. ”Yes,” he said, knowing it would hurt her, ”I remember. You were a kid then and the war was just another adventure and I promised to bring you a souvenir when it was over.”
She winced as his words cut into her. ”Is that all it meant to you?”
He opened his eyes wide and looked at her in apparent innocence. ”That's all,” he said. ”Why? Was it supposed to mean anything else?”
He watched her turn from him and run to the door and out of the room. He struck a match with shaking fingers and lit a cigarette. He sat there for a moment before he struggled to his feet to go into the living room.
AFTERMATH.
1938.
THURSDAY.
The sound of the drapes being drawn and the windows opened wide woke me up. For a moment I lay there in bed looking up at the ceiling vacantly. The room was strange to me and then suddenly I remembered where I was. It still seemed all wrong. I was supposed to be in New York. What was I doing in Hollywood?
Then it all came flooding back to me. I suppose it had been driven from my mind by that dream again-that dream in which I was running up a street that didn't exist to a girl I couldn't see. I had had that dream ever since the war and it always ended the same way. I fell and people were laughing at me.
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