She turned, leaned her back against the wall and watched him as he slept.
He slept for more than three hours and her eyes were seldom from him. She moved around the cabin now and then, picked up a piece of clothing and fanned it to help it dry faster before spreading it out again. Sometimes she sat on the floor near him and watched him.
When he finally moved she went swiftly to him, seated herself beside him.
A sigh escaped his lips and then his eyes opened.
“Nikki,” he said quietly.
“Yes, Tom.”
“I’m all right — not tired any more.” He did not try to sit up, however. The coat moved a little and one hand came out from under it. Her own hand went to meet it.
“Do you want to talk?” he asked.
“If you wish.”
“I think we should.”
Her hand was relaxed in his, firm. There was utter surrender in it. Not one tiny muscle resisted.
He said, “You know about me — how feel?”
“Of course. I... I knew when I got off the plane in Chicago. I didn’t look back when I started away, but with every step I took, I knew. I knew.”
He was silent a moment. Then, “A hand grenade exploded once less than six feet from me. It was like... like lightning bolts striking me from all sides at once. Before... before I slept I experienced something almost like it. Something exploded in my brain. I must know.”
“What, Tom?”
“Lie down.”
She lay down beside him. He released her hand and put both arms around her, one under her body. He drew her tightly to him.
Their mouths met and kissed. There was no wild passion in it, only understanding. Finally he moved his lips a fraction of an inch from hers.
He said. “It wasn’t a delusion. You are Helga.”
She said, “Oh, my dear, I have been waiting for you to say that. I’ve wanted to hear it. I couldn’t tell you — I couldn’t even hint. You had to know it yourself. You had to remember!”
“I didn’t want to remember. I buried the name Helga and the memory of her. I buried her in a corner of my heart, a corner so remote that I dared not look into it.”
“Yet you almost remembered, on the plane!”
“You knew me then?”
“I knew you the night before at The Tuilleries. You see, my dear, I did not try to forget. I tried to remember. When you left me, in 1944, I had nothing left to live for — except the memory of you. Without it I could not live — and I could not die.”
“You could not die,” said Alder, “because you were Doris Delaney?”
For a long moment she held her breath. Then she let it out, slowly. “When did you know?”
“Today... yesterday. Perhaps, I knew it a long time ago. After I left you in 1944, there were some very long nights on a couple of pretty dismal islands. Then I got wounded again—”
“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Nikki.
“I worked it out while I was in the hospital. That you loved me, I knew. What your secret was I didn’t know. But there had to be one — and it had to be something so dreadful that it meant more than life to you — more than death. It had to be something that you could not tell, even to me. I remember once, when I was reading a magazine — a rehash about famous disappearances. There was quite a lot about you. I got to thinking about the case. Suppose — instead of all the other things that were suggested — suppose Doris Delaney had simply run away? What had she done that she dared not return?”
Nikki was silent a moment. “You know why I couldn’t die? Because I might have been identified after death. My fingerprints. I couldn’t die, for fear of what my death would do — to the living.”
“You thought of it, that night,” said Alder, “that night when you couldn’t answer my questions.”
“Oh, I wanted to tell you, my darling. I wanted to tell you so much. But you were not yet ready. Nor was I.”
“I was ready when I returned to Honolulu after the war. But it was too late. You were gone.”
“I went to the mainland a month after you left.”
“Do you want to tell me, now? We have the time. When the rain stops...”
“How much do you want to know?”
“As much as you want to tell me.”
“I must tell you all of it, but it will take so long.”
“Why don’t I go over it briefly once and we can talk about it and fill in? You know that I will hold nothing back from you.”
“I know.”
Briefly her lips touched his, then she began: “December, 1938. I had met him in the malt shop. I went alone and he was there. We talked and I was very grown up. I was only fifteen — no, I will not hide behind anything. I knew what I was doing.”
“But you had lived in a different world.”
“Yes, I had. He was very handsome, he was charming. He was utterly unlike any of the boys I had ever known. He was a man and the others were children. By comparison with, well, my regular dates at the dances, he was — wonderful. I met him twice in the malt shop and then it was the Christmas vacation. He knew that I would be at home, but I made a date to meet him at the malt shop. He suggested a visit to his friend’s home. He wanted to show me off. We got there and his friend was not there. That is how young I was. I have thought of it a thousand hours and I have justified it. I was a child. He kissed me and we smoked a cigarette. I was not aware of the cigarette either. My life had been a sheltered one.”
“Marijuana!”
“Yes. I let him kiss me — and I kissed him — as much as the cigarette releases inhibitions. But marijuana does not exhilarate enough so that you do not object to a hand on your thigh. I fought him, then, but he struck me with his fist and — and I was suddenly terribly frightened. I stopped struggling and — he had his way. He let me leave after an hour.”
“An hour?”
“He did things to me that none of the girls in our talks late at night had ever even hinted at. Things we did not know about. I did not tell my mother, or my father. That was my mistake. I was too old to tell them, and yet not old enough.
“I went back to school. No one knew. It was all right. Until February. I found that I was pregnant. He had been in the store twice in January. Once I would not go in when I saw him through the window. The second time I tried to pass it off as if there had been nothing. But in February I went there three times to find him. On the 13th he was there. I told him enough in a quick rush of words so that he knew. ‘What did I expect?’ he demanded.
“I told him. I did not know — but he probably did. Where I could get an abortion. He said there was a doctor in his house who could do it.
“I went with him.
“That was my second mistake. I went with him to his room and he said he would bring the doctor to me. It could be done quietly, quickly. He left me there. In ten minutes he returned with the other man.
“The friend looked at me and they began to talk. It was a moment or two before I realized what they were talking about.” Nikki paused for a moment, then went on inexorably, “He wanted a hundred dollars from his friend. The friend did not want to pay that much, so he... he tore my dress to expose me. He told his friend to... to feel my breasts. He did, and then paid the hundred dollars. I tried to run. He struck me savagely in the face. I was not unconscious, but I fell to the floor. He helped to hold me still while his... his friend, his customer.” Nikki’s voice at last began to show a warmth and Alder held her a little tighter. “I must tell you, Tom! You must know everything.”
“Yes, Nikki.”
“Would you rather call me Nikki?”