"I’m on draft".
"Yes", said Erica. A young naval officer knocked against her left shoulder as he danced by and she said, "I’m sorry", again, without thinking, and asked, "When, Marc?"
"Some time around the last week in September".
About a month from now.
She said suddenly, "It’s the Missouri Waltz".
"I know. There are only two waltzes I really like, except the Viennese waltzes, of course, and that’s one of them".
"What’s the other?"
"’Moonlight Madonna’. It always reminds me of your-I mean, your hair isn’t really gold, it’s…"
He stopped, and she said, "That means you’re going to camp again, doesn’t it?"
"Yes, next Monday".
It was Wednesday already.
The Gatineau Rifles had gone over to Dieppe a few days before; time and again she had heard Marc say, "Reinforcements for the First Battalion overseas", but it had sounded like something which would materialize with the opening of the Second Front some time next year, and not-next Monday.
The Missouri Waltz went on and the colonel passed them again, this time with a brunette in tow. She found herself thinking that he must go through his partners a lot faster than most people, and hoped that he had come well provided, like a racing car equipped with several extra sets of spark plugs.
"Marc, you are going to Petawawa, aren’t you?"
"Yes, darling".
He could feel the breath going out of her with relief and he said, "I’m sorry, Eric, I should have told you that right away".
"I was so afraid it would be Camp Borden, and you’d be too far for me to see you".
It was better to figure things out so that you knew exactly where you stood, like collecting all your bills and adding them up when you were broke, in order to see just how broke you were. He would get one forty-eight hour leave, so what it amounted to was five days between now and Monday, then forty-eight hours and finally a week or ten days’ embarkation leave-probably a week, because they were obviously rushing it now-most of which Marc would have to spend with his parents five hundred miles away. They had already discussed that. Five days, forty-eight hours, say two days of his embarkation leave to be on the safe side, and finally a last dinner together when he was on his way through to Halifax. They could be more broke, this being August, 1942, though not much.
"It makes nine days altogether", said Marc. "That is counting from now to next Monday too, of course".
He paused and then went on hurriedly, evidently afraid that if he stopped to think how this thing ought to be said, he might not be able to say it at all, "They told me at Headquarters that I could go as soon as I’d got everything cleaned up there. I don’t think it will take more than one day-tomorrow and maybe part of Friday. If you could get off, then we’d have almost three days together. Sylvia wouldn’t mind, would she? I can get to Petawawa any time before midnight on Monday and…"
It seemed to him that he had been talking a long time without getting anywhere except back to Petawawa again. The music stopped and he stood facing her, his hands at his sides, and said, "I’m asking you to go away with me, Eric".
"Yes", said Erica, "Yes. Darling, you didn’t have to ask!"
Chapter VII
Through the open windows of the bedroom they could hear the church clock striking in the village down at the other end of the lake, and Erica said wonderingly, "It’s three o’clock". So five hours had flowed by them uncounted, into the past, for she remembered that the clock had been striking ten as they opened the door of Marc’s room. Before that, there had only been one brief interval since they had left Montreal when she had known what time it was. They had gone for a swim as soon as they arrived at the hotel, drifted for a while in a canoe, and then spent what was left of the afternoon lying in their bathing suits on the float anchored off-shore. Someone had called to them from the beach, "It’s half past seven and the dining-room closes at eight; if you want any dinner, you’d better hurry".
The lake was in a valley with the Laurentian mountains rising steeply all around the edge except at the other end where the rise began farther back, leaving enough more or less level ground for the village. The hillsides were green, and across the lake there were a lot of small houses up and down on different levels, like brightly painted toys.
Above them as they lay on the float, up a path like a stairway with broad, grassy steps, was the hotel, a long half-timbered building from which you could look down on the lake or out over the mountains, north, west and south. The hotel stood with its back to the east, and the road wound its way through the Laurentians and then down a steep slope to the back door, so that you came into a small lobby on the second floor and went downstairs to get to the front door facing the lake, and the path to the beach.
There was a stone-paved terrace with small tables under orange and yellow umbrellas where they had sat for a while after dinner drinking coffee and then a brandy, watching the sunset and the slowly moving, slowly changing reflections in the water. The lights had come on one by one in the little houses across the lake, but before the moon rose they had come upstairs. Erica had heard the village clock striking the first of the ten notes as Marc opened the door, and the last sound to reach her from the outside world was a whippoorwill calling from the bush somewhere behind the hotel. After that there was silence and she was in his arms at last.
As she lay beside him later, individuality began to return and take form; she could feel the outlines growing clearer and more firm but it was a new mold, subtly different from the old one. She wondered if you got a new one each time and was on the point of asking Marc, but it was all rather involved and difficult to explain, and instead she went to sleep.
"Hello", said Marc.
"Hello. Have I been asleep long?"
"I don’t know".
"Have you?"
He drew his arm out from under her and sat up, rubbing it. "No, I’ve just been looking at you".
Erica also sat up, asking anxiously, "Have you got a cramp?"
He shook his head. "Just stiff".
"Why didn’t you shove me off?"
"Because I didn’t want to". He paused, listening, and remarked, "Romeo and Juliet had a nightingale but all we get is a whippoorwill. Persistent, isn’t he?"
"Maybe it’s a different one".
"I don’t think so. He always goes flat on the second note".
"He may have a slight cold", said Erica. "I remember thinking he probably had when we first came up, so I guess it must be the same one". She settled back on the pillow again while Marc took two cigarettes from the table beside the bed and lit them, and finally Erica said candidly, "I don’t see how even a whippoorwill can expect to get anywhere with a voice like that. He might just as well give up and go home. Incidentally, it was a lark, not a nightingale-remember?"
She repeated softly,
"Go on", said Marc.
"What with?"
"Shakespeare".
She thought a moment, looking up at the ceiling, and then said,