The fury drained out of him. He closed his eyes and shook his head, breathing deeply to disperse the inner tension. His fingers loosened but he didn’t release my wrist. When he opened his eyes again, his face had cleared of both bitterness and anger.
“I’d forgotten an incident I should always remember,” he said in a low normal voice. “When I was in the hospital out in the Newtons, a woman came into the ward. We were facial injuries, all of us. I was not the worst one by a long shot. There was a fighter pilot who’d had-” he broke off. “She was a good-looking woman and obviously had plenty of money. I remember she swept in with furs, smelling of fine perfume, every hair on her head in place. She was everything none of us wanted any part of. Not the way we looked. Well, she introduced herself and then proceeded to take off her hair, take out her teeth, and pass around photos of herself before and after her accident, before and after surgery.”
He swallowed, his face still. Then he looked at me. “There wasn’t a man in that ward, with the exception of that pilot, who wasn’t better off than she had been. God, her face had been sliced and mashed cruelly. And there she was, looking like a goddamned junior league virgin. She spent the whole afternoon with us, talking. She made us feel her face where the grafts had healed, showed us the tiny scars in her hairline. She told us this could be done to us, too. And she said go ahead and make any improvements we wanted, just for laughs. When that lady left, every one of us stood up and saluted her. She didn’t have to come, she didn’t have to do what she did but she came often. There’s all kinds of courage in the world.”
He picked up my wrist in both hands and gently stroked the angry marks his fingers had made.
“Thanks, Carlysle, for reminding me of her.”
“Any time,” I said lightly, because I was embarrassed and flustered by his confidence. I felt I had learned more about Major Regan Laird in the past few moments than I’d discovered in the last few days.
Merlin stirred in his sleep, his feet twitching in the urgency of some dream sequence.
“God, I’d better get him outside,” the major said, rising.
“When that’s taken care of, dinner will be ready.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Major Laird came back in, Merlin was walking stiffly beside him. Regan Laird’s face was suffused with mirth.
“The poor damn dog,” he chuckled as I looked at him questioningly. “That poor dog.” The major sat down, trying to stop laughing.
Merlin moved to his bed with what might be considered injured dignity. He paid no attention to us, curled himself around and lay down again, a deep sigh forced from his lungs as he settled. He lay with his head towards us, blinked his eyes once, and then closed them.
“That poor damn dog,” the major repeated for the third time.
“Enough’s enough,” I exclaimed for Merlin’s dignity’s sake.
“Dinner smells good,” Laird said, controlling his amusement with an effort.
“Learned this recipe from a gentle lady of good background but impoverished circumstances near Bragg,” I explained, passing him the meat. “Oh, and the lieutenant had missed baked potatoes so much.”
The major covered my hand with his, giving me a little squeeze.
“I’m just as worried as you, Carlysle, in spite of the doctor’s message. But I can’t change it by worrying about it so I don’t. Takes practice but it saves a lot of wasted time and effort.”
He cut a massive slice of meat loaf for himself. I was appalled at such liberality, being used to meatlessness.
“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow who knows?” I asked.
He nodded agreement so I helped myself to an equally huge portion, and we dug in with good appetites.
The events of the past few days had blunted quite a few sharp edges and sent several shoulder-carried chips flying. Tonight for the first time I felt at ease alone with Regan Laird and he was at ease with me. It was a nice harmonious feeling. I hoped it wouldn’t be fragile, that possibly it could last a while.
I was surprised to learn that he had a B.S. degree from Boston University in civil engineering. He had joined the army in 1939 when he couldn’t get a job.
“With typical army efficiency, they put me in infantry O.C.S.” He grinned.
He had an older sister, married and living in Texas, but she was now his only relative, their parents having died several years ago. He had been married but he’d sued for divorce in 1941. I never learned more than that.
He had joined up with the First Army in the fall of 1941. He had met Dad and liked him but it wasn’t until September of ‘43 that Dad had wangled Regan Laird’s transfer into the regiment.
“Are you going to stay in?”
“I could. Retire at forty-one with full pension? Not bad. They’ll have occupying forces for years when this is settled. Here and in the Orient.”
“That’s what Dad wrote,” I put in eagerly. “I’m majoring in government. Dad is
Dad was sure he could wangle me a job as a civilian employee in the occupation force. My German’s good and my French is fair.”
“I got your midterm marks. You’re a better student than I was,” he remarked, proud, if vicariously, of my scholarship.
“Don’t sound so patronizing,” I suggested because I’d just figured out he was only twenty-nine, not in his mid-thirties as I’d assumed.
“The prerogative of my experience and position!”
“You’re only twenty-nine.”
“Thirty in June!”
“You make yourself sound ancient.” I laughed at him.
“Of course, you are,” I added, “compared to the male population I’m used to.”
“Really?”
“There’s this math genius on the campus,” I said with some feeling, “who’s not more than fourteen. So help me! He tells the math instructors where their errors are.”
“That must endear him no end to the faculty.”
“And he loves nothing better than to matchmake at dances.”
“For you?”
I glared at my guardian. “He’s exactly my height. And his best friend, for whom he tries to make a match - is a seventeen-year-old, pimple-faced Latin scholar.”
The major’s eyes twinkled. “I think I had better get a chaperon. To protect me, from you.”
“Go mend a fire!”
He left, chuckling. I looked at the closed door, not the least bit annoyed. Rather I was extremely pleased. I felt alive again, and good, and somehow tomorrow would take care of itself. Even the terrible reality of Turtle’s arrest and the grim delight of indicting Warren. The depressions that had plagued me, the indecisions that had worried could no longer overwhelm me.
I suppose I had been so badly put down by circumstance, there was no place to go but up. I couldn’t attribute it all to having cleared the air and achieved a nice relationship with the major. But that helped. So did the curious magic of Dr. Karsh. The aura of his incredible personality seemed to linger although I couldn’t have described his face, what color his coat had been, or even whether he had been dressed in business clothes or a garage coverall. The impression he gave of immeasurable depths of kindness and understanding, for humans as well as animals, was more palpable than such details as color or texture.
I fixed some of the meat loaf for Merlin, justifying this extravagance as both reward for his heroism and a necessity for his convalescence. The smell of food under his nose roused him. As he ate, I stroked him lovingly, telling him how wonderful he was. He ate all I gave him but didn’t look greedily for more. He laid his head on my shoulder briefly and then sighed very deeply, rolling his eyes to gaze at me wistfully.