—
the proposition he's been hiding behind his gentlemanly mask. If he really means what he said, about being in love with me… that's hopeless. People in love get married… unless the people concerned are a Russian refugee with a Nansen passport and an officer in the United States Corps of Marines. For them marriage simply is not possible
.
Milla got very little sleep that night, as she ran the possibilities through her head over and over again. None of them was appealing.
What she would do, she finally decided, was speak to him the next day when he showed up for his lesson. She would tell him that under the circumstances it would be better all around if he found someone else to help him perfect his Chinese.
But when he appeared next day at her door, she was suddenly struck dumb. All she could do was smile—carefully not looking at him—and motion him into her living room. Their conversation session was perfectly routine. Afterward, all she could remember was that he was wearing an aftershave lotion that smelled like limes. When the time was up, he stood up and offered her his hand. Touching it made her feel very strange in her middle.
«Thank you,» he said.
«Don't be silly,» she said.
«And thank you for not being offended by my call last night.»
«Were you drinking?» Milla asked.
«Not then, except for the wine we had at dinner. Afterward. Yeah.»
He let go of her hand and walked to the door.
Milla suddenly knew what she wanted to do. Had to do. No matter what the ultimate cost.
«Just a minute, please, Ed,» Milla said.
«What?»
«It won't take a minute,» she said, then walked into her bedroom and closed the door.
And then she stared at the closed door and glanced around the room.
It was, of course, insane.
Her eyes fell on a faded photograph of her father.
»
Life is a gamble, Milla
,» the former Lieutenant General Count Vasily Ivanovich Zhivkov had told her many times. «
Sometimes, if you want something very much, it is necessary to put all your chips on the table, and wait to see where the wheel stops. If you understand that the ball will probably not fall into your hole, you will know, when it does not, that you at least tried. It is better to risk everything and lose than not to take the chance
.»
Looking at herself in the faded mirror of her dressing table, she unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it and let it fall to the floor. Then she slipped out of her skirt and underwear and leaned over to pick up her only—and nearly empty— bottle of perfume. She dabbed perfume behind her ears and between her breasts and then—embarrassed, averting her eyes from her reflection—between her legs.
Then she threw the cover off her bed, crawled in, and pulled the sheet up under her chin.
She called his name. She didn't seem to have control of her voice. She wondered if he had heard her through the closed door.
«What?»
«Would you come in here, please?» she called.
He opened the door, and asked «What?» again when he saw her in the bed.
When she didn't reply, he said her name, «Milla?» and she saw that he was having trouble with his voice, too.
«I have been in love with you from the moment I saw you drive up in your car,» she said.
And then she threw the sheet away from her body and held out her arms to him.
«Oh, Jesus H. Christ, Milla!» Ed said softly, and then got in bed with her and put his arms around her.
She had, she knew, just put her last chip on the table.
note 1
«I got a cable from my father today,» Captain Ed Banning announced a week later.
They were in his apartment. He was on his back, his hands folded under his head. She was on her stomach, her face on his chest, her right leg on top of his. Their coupling had been intense, and he had been sweating. Even though she could smell his underarms, she didn't mind that at all, but worried—because she'd been sweating, too—that her own odor might offend him.
«Is something wrong?»
«No, as a matter of fact, things are looking up.»
«I have no idea what you're talking about.»
«First things first,» he said. «Will you marry me, Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov? Will you promise to love, cherish, and obey me, in sickness and in health, et cetera, et cetera, so long as we both shall live?»
She felt the tears come.
«Don't do this to me, Ed,» she said softly.
«What is that, a no? After I spent all that money—it's twenty-two cents a word—cabling my father about you?»
«You cabled your father about me?»
«Uh-huh.»
«What did you tell him?»
«Not much. I told you, it's twenty-two cents a word, but I did tell him that if he wants to be a grandfather, he'd better go see good
ol'
Uncle Zach and ask him to pass a special law allowing the future mother of his grandchild into the States.»
«Ed, I have no idea what you're talking about.»
«You haven't answered the question,» Ed said. «Let's start with that.»
«What question?»
«Will you marry me, Milla? Would you rather I got out of bed and got on my knees?»
«We can't get married; you know that as well as I do.»
«Well, for the sake of argument, if you could, would you?»
«Ed, for the love of God, don't start saying things you don't mean, or making promises you won't be able to keep,» Milla said. «Please.»
«I never do,» he said, a little indignantly. «Answer the question.»
«Oh, Ed, if it were possible, I would try very hard to be a good wife to you.»
«I didn't detect a whole hell of a lot of enthusiasm.»
«How can I be enthusiastic about something both of us know will never happen?
«You don't seem to understand, Milla,» he said. «I'm trying to tell you that the Marines have landed, and the situation is well in hand.»
«Damn you! Stop this. I don't think it's funny. It's cruel. It's perverse!»
«Before I cabled my father,» Ed said. «I went down to the legation and asked the consul general some questions.» He caught her eye. «He's a nice guy and won't run off at the mouth about that.»
«Questions about us?»
«About you,» he said. «Your Nansen status. Specifically, I asked him how I can get you into the United States.»
«And he told you that that's impossible. I'm surprised you don't know that. You can't immigrate to the United States on a Nansen passport.»
«Unless you get a special law passed by Congress, is what he told me.»
«What do you mean, a 'special law'?»
«The Congress of the United States in solemn assembly passes a law stating that so much of the applicable laws pertaining are waived in the case of Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov, and the Attorney General is hereby directed to forthwith issue to the said Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov an immigration visa.»
«That's possible?» she asked incredulously.
«We can't get married here. I'd need permission, and the Colonel would never grant it. And I can't resign from the Corps now. Resignations have been suspended for what they call 'The Emergency.' «