Sunday at the airport was a day for nursing hangovers, writing letters, playing cards—or swapping women. It was the day before the liquor and cigarette ration, the end of one week and the start of another.
Charlie worked on Sunday—Tuesday was his regular day off—Benny was losing at chess in some native’s hut and Mark had gone into town to see a girl whose husband was out hunting mink with a friend. These arrangements, of course, met with Steve’s approval since it meant that the hut would be vacant for most of the day.
After dinner he walked up to the hotel and hung around waiting for the bus to arrive from Keflazik. It was ten minutes late and she was the only passenger to get off.
“Hello,” Chris said, taking his arm. “I thought I’d never get here!”
“You aren’t the only one,” he said. She glanced up at him, frowning and he squeezed her arm gently. “Want to walk? It isn’t too cold.”
“All right.”
The air was clear and cool and the ground, where they walked along the edge of the road, crunched sharply under their feet. It was still early in the afternoon, but already the dying sun began to cast shadows across the gray macadam surface.
When they reached the hut Steve lifted up the water pail, found the key and unlocked the door. The cat came out as they went in and Steve pushed the door closed.
Chris stood looking around the front room of the hut for a moment. Then she took off her parka and hung it over the back of a chair. She was wearing a dark maroon sweater that fit tight across her breasts. The zipper on her skirt seemed to be broken and Steve could see a flash of warm pink underneath.
“This looks like it’s pretty good,” she said.
“It’s all right. Only it’s pretty cold in back when the wind blows.”
“That’s because the stove is at this end,” she said.
“Sure. But if we change it around, put it back there, then the wind’ll start to blow the other way.”
She laughed.
“The men who live here—are they nice men?”
It was strange that he hadn’t ever thought about them in that way. They were just three guys who came and went. He hadn’t tried to pass judgment on them.
“They’re a good bunch,” he said. “There’s Benny who works in aircraft supply. And there’s Charlie—I guess you ought to know Charlie. He’s a cook up at the hotel.”
“He’s sort of whacky,” she said.
“And there’s Mark. He’s a hotel clerk.”
“I don’t like Mark,” she said. “He makes fun of my father.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“My father collects the garbage. A lot of people make fun of him.”
“Well, there are worse ways to make a living,” Steve said. But right at the moment he couldn’t think of one.
He crossed to the radio and turned it on. Radio Moscow came in loud and clear.
“The People’s Army of the Republic of North Korea,” the announcer said, “have just resisted a major attack launched by the capitalistic barbarians. Hurling the enemy—”
The armed forces radio was weak and fading. He tried a couple more stations, but he couldn’t get any music and he turned the radio off.
“We don’t need any music, anyway,” he said. “You wanted to write a letter.”
“There’s no hurry,” she said.
She sat down on the davenport, with one leg under her and the other stretched out in front. Her knees looked round and firm.
It was probably only for an instant that he thought about it, but his mind covered a lot of ground in that instant. He wondered if some of the things he had heard about these island girls really did apply to Chris. He hoped not. It was not a moral issue with him. If he had been a moralist he’d never have stood in line for that girl in France, or traded two cans of cold beer with the girl in Scranton for her favors in the front seat of his car—the beer, the girl had told him, was for her husband. Or he’d never have had Della, that first day, back there in his room. He wondered about Della and the other girls like her. He felt a sense of pity and astonishment for them. A girl like Della seemed to express an animal instinct that existed beyond the human mind or the human body. He thought that the lonely girl who roved Lexington Avenue nightly, seeking to pick up a few dollars in exchange for a fleeting moment in her bed, had more of a purpose. At least her objective would be just as good the next morning. Perhaps she wasn’t as interesting, but a guy always knew where he stood with a girl who sold it. On the outside.
“What kind of a letter do you want to write?” he asked Chris.
He realized that he had been staring at her and that she was uncomfortably conscious of it. He had been looking at her legs, at her small, flat stomach, at the twin points of her breasts, at her soft, red lips, into her blue eyes that seemed to offer something and yet promised nothing. He supposed that he had been undressing her with his eyes, mentally exploring her body with his big hands, seeing her there on his bed waiting for him, wanting him—wanting him for one short, desperate moment. He guessed he wouldn’t mind at all if she were like Della.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Chris said, leaning back against the davenport, gazing up at him thoughtfully. “I just want to write to some people I used to work for in the states. I want to thank them for being so nice to me when I was there.”
Steve sat down in the chair by the round table.
“You can probably write better than I can,” he said.
She shook her reddish blonde curls and it reminded him of a torn shock of sun-ripened wheat caught in a high wind.
“I can’t write very well. I know what I want to write—I mean, what I want to say—but I have trouble with spelling. These people were so nice and I want to write them a good letter.”
“How long did you work for them?”
“Almost six months.” Her smile was a trifle sad, perhaps seeing the Hudson River again, the trees along the shore, the ivy covered buildings at West Point. “I had a visitor’s permit, only good for six months, unless you can get a new one made out. I got back home nearly two months ago.”
“You like it here?”
“I hate it,” she said very earnestly, her voice far away. “I can’t see how anyone would want to come back, after being in the states. But some of the girls do—the girls who married soldiers during the war. They come back to take up where they left off.”
“What can their husbands work at here?” Steve asked. “I understand there’s nothing to do except fish.”
“Their husbands don’t come,” Chris said. “They couldn’t make a living here, unless they worked at the airport. Our government won’t allow an American to work anywhere else on the island, unless he gives up his papers. And an American—some of them are foolish, but not that foolish—won’t give up his rights just to live here.”
“I couldn’t picture a man doing that,” he admitted.
“And the American girls,” Chris said. “The ones who met the boys from the island when they were going to college in the states—I don’t know how those American girls stand it up here. They can’t even buy the food they like to eat. Instead of steak they have to cook fish heads for their husbands.”
“Now I’ve heard everything,” Steve said. “Eating fish heads!”
“Eyes and all, too. Some people like the eyes best.”
“Do—you?”
“No,” she said. “Not anymore.”
He was still looking at her legs, undressing her with his eyes again. He wished that he could stop doing that.
“How come you went to the states in the first place, Chris?”
“Well, I worked for an army major’s wife, here on the airport. I took care of their two children. When they went to the states they took me along with them. It was—oh, Steve, it was such a wonderful trip! I’ll never get over New York and all the cars on the roads and the cigarette machines you just put money in.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t stay there.”
“I had to come back. I had to get home.”
“You just said you hated the island.”
“My little girl is now three years old,” Chris said. “Nights, when I first got to the states, I thought I couldn’t stand it. We had a house near some woods, and we don’t have any trees up here. I was scared of the dark shadows at night and I was afraid for my baby. I used to cry myself to sleep, I missed her so much. When I got used to her not being there with me, it was time for me to come home. I wanted to stay—so much!—but I couldn’t get my baby down there—she couldn’t travel alone and my mother is getting too old to take care of Jona.”
“That’s your little girl’s name—Jona?”
“Yes. Jona Garysdottir.” There was a slight pause. “After her father.”
The rays of the sun climbed in through the window, washed the walls in a flaming red light.
“Chris,” he asked suddenly, “were you ever married? Or are you—married now?”
Her eyes searched his face.
“Why do you want to know, Steve?”
How could he answer that? Could he tell her that he wanted to know, just in case the husband might walk in on them, or that he was wondering if she slept around at the huts like some of the other girls, if all he had to do would be to ask her into his bedroom, and would she go willingly? There were men on the airport who would have asked her those questions, perhaps men who had already asked her. Or wasn’t it necessary to ask? Was the answer as obvious as it seemed?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s none of my business and you didn’t come here for that. You came here to write a letter. What do you say we get started at it?”
She hesitated only a moment, then smiled.
“That would be all right,” she said. Then, as he started to carry the table over to the davenport, “Some other time I’ll tell you about the rest.”
“Okay.”
He put the table down and she took her leg out from under her. He had a glimpse of white thigh.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot to bring any paper. Or a pen.”
“Here’s a pen,” he said. “I’ll get the paper.”
“Of course,” she said quietly, as he started into the bedroom, “you know that I didn’t have any to bring?”
He could only find some typing paper which he had taken from the guard’s office. The paper was very old, yellowed and thin, and had undoubtedly been stored on the island since the start of the last war. Some Republican would catch hell for being so economical, keeping stuff like that so long.
The fact that the table was round and rather small made it necessary for them to sit very close together on the davenport. She was not wearing any perfume but there was a clean odor about her that was almost electric. He wondered if they’d manage to get the letter written.
“What do you want to say to these people?”
She frowned and leaned against the back of the davenport. He tried to concentrate on the blank sheet of paper.
“Oh, I just want to tell them that I got home all right. I came by boat and I want them to know I had a nice trip.”
“Want me to start writing?”
“Just write it down, what I say.” She bent forward and he felt her hair brush his cheek. “I mean, put it down—but make sense to it. When I get home—can you let me have a sheet of that paper, please?—I’ll copy it over. It’s the spelling that bothers me, but I can copy what you’ve done.”
“Fire away,” he said, grinning at her.
“Well, now, put down about the boat, coming back by the boat. Tell them I had a nice trip—oh, I said that, didn’t I? Well, tell them that my mother is well and my baby’s fine—cute. You can say that my sister is getting married to a boy in Harvik. He works on a ship and they haven’t found a place to live yet.”
“Yes?”
“You have that written already?”
“Why, sure.”
“You write fast.”
“You haven’t told me very much,” he said.
“No.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “You might say I miss them very much. Tell them I miss the children and the wide river and—oh, yes, I miss seeing the trees.” She laughed. “The trees I used to be afraid of.”
“I’ll just say that you miss them, that you miss the states, and that you hope to visit them sometime.”
“I wonder if I will?” she asked, wistfully.
“Well, why not?”
“It costs so much. Twenty-five hundred karachi by boat.”
“One way?”
“Yes. And twice that much to go by plane.”
“Who paid your way before? The major?”
“Oh, no. You see, anyone here on the airport who has two or more children can take a maid to the states with them, passage free. Sometimes it’s worked as a racket. Sometimes a family going back to the states takes a girl along and charges her only half price. It’s not right, but it’s one way of getting there.”
“Did the major do anything like that?”
“Not the major, he was too nice.”
“Who paid your way back?”
She looked surprised.
“Well, the major did. I worked for them, didn’t I? My pay was my trip home.”
So the major and his wife had gotten almost six months’ work out of Chris for slightly more than a hundred dollars. He hoped that the major was now washing his own dishes.
“You speak English so very well,” he said, looking at Chris. “I was wondering how you picked it up so good.”
Her glance was equally direct. No doubt she had heard the statement that only the girls who were perfect bed companions for the G I’s spoke flawless English.
“I wanted to learn,” she said, simply. “And I did.”
He had the impression that there was much more to it than that, but he did not press the point. Just those few words, the quiet, definite way in which she said them, almost seemed to say that a knowledge of English had been most important to her at one time, that the need had now passed, that it was just something useful that was left.
“We ought to finish this letter,” he said.
She looked at what he had written and her body came closer to him and their hips touched. He could feel the warmth of her flesh and for an instant her hand touch his.
“That’s good,” she said. “It’s enough. I just wanted them to know I was thinking about them.”
It was suddenly very quiet in the hut and not even the wind was blowing outside, because whenever the wind blew the damper in the stove pipe banged back and forth. The cat clawed briefly at the door, cried faintly a few times and then remained silent. Steve could hear Chris’ steady breathing, saw her sweater rise and fall with each breath.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked her, then remembered that he had sold his jug to Mark.
“No,” she said. “I don’t drink. Not often, anyway.”
The davenport sagged in the middle, its ancient framework protesting against their combined weights. The cushions were old and the springs were weak and they just seemed to get closer and closer to each other. Her arm, bare a little distance above the wrist, lay against his hand; her skin was soft and the golden fuzz felt like silk under his fingers. Her hand moved and she grasped a couple of his fingers and gave them a tight squeeze.
He looked at her full and straight.
Her lips were slightly parted and her teeth were white and even. Her blonde hair was thrown back, falling down across her shoulders, revealing the pink shells of her ears. Her eyes were blue and steady and unfathomable, looking into his face, seeking something, yet betraying none of her own feelings.
“You are truly beautiful,” he told her, and meant every word of it.
“Please,” she said, and looked quickly away from him.
She made a funny little sound as he kicked the table out of his way with one foot. But she did not resist as he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her, roughly, so that she faced him. She lifted her face to him, slowly, and murmured:
“I wish you wouldn’t—Steve.”
“I wish I didn’t want to,” he said, harshly.
And then his lips were down there upon her mouth and he found it warm and soft and moist. His arms went around her and he pressed her close to him, feeling the arch of her back under his hand, the hard points of her breasts against his chest. His head started to pound and he knew that he wanted her now, right in this room. But she was struggling feebly and there was something so big and real and tragic about her efforts that he could not seek to break her will, to make her do as he wished. He took his lips away from her mouth and buried his head against the hollow of her throat.
“Please, Steve,” she said.
He looked up at her and he knew then that this had not been the result of the moment’s desire. It had started that night at the dance, it had been there with him in the taxi that night, and it had been following him ever since. He was startled and not at all sure of his voice.
“I guess I shouldn’t have done that, Chris.”
She smiled at him and she did not seem to mind that his arms were still around her.
“I wanted you to,” she said, softly. “I wanted to be kissed.”
Very gently she reached up and took his arms away, then sat there holding his hands, pressing at the brown skin with her small fingers.
“I’m glad you kissed me,” she said.
He had never had a girl tell him that before. Janey had wanted him to kiss her and he had known that, but she had never given him the satisfaction of saying so. That blonde in Sullivan County, the chippie in Scranton, the girl who had laid for the line-up in France, a few of the girls in high school, a lot more of them in college—he supposed these girls had wanted him to kiss them, but they hadn’t bothered telling him about it. And, toward the last, Janey hadn’t wanted him to kiss her so much, because she was wearing cold cream, or she had her hair net on, or her lips were sore from the wind.
He was still thinking about these things when he realized that Chris had put on her parka and that she was pulling the white furred hood down over her head.
“I have to go,” she said. “I promised to visit a friend on the base and I think I’m late now.”
“Got the letter?”
“Yes, thanks.”
He stood up.
“I’d like to see you again, Chris.”
Her face was serious and her hands stopped in the midst of tying the cord under her chin.
“I want you to.”
“Perhaps tomorrow night?”
“I work tomorrow night.”
“The next night, then?”
She finished tying the cord and pulled the hood into place.
“We’ll arrange it,” she said. “Sometime.”
She opened the door and the cat came in.
“Yes,” he said. “We’ll arrange it.”
She went out, closing the door after her, and he saw her walk past the window. She looked up and smiled and waved at him before she went around the corner of the hut and out of sight.
He stood there for a moment, not moving, and then he pushed the cat out of the way with his foot and walked into Mark’s room.
Maybe Mark had left just one drink in that bottle. If not, maybe there was some in Charlie’s room.
He hoped there was.
Right at that moment he needed it.