Twenty Plus Two

Chapter 22

In the 1920’s it had been a modest hotel for tourists of limited means. As it became older and shabbier it lost its tourist patronage and degenerated into a third-rate hotel for seamen, Chinese, and indigents of all nationalities and shades of color. It acquired a bad reputation. Raids were frequent and police pounded the corridors and the locked doors on many an occasion. Suicides were found in the room. Brawls, knifings were common and even murder was not unknown.

For two years the hotel was closed. Then it was leased by Carrie Goddard. A restaurant was installed on the street floor and the upstairs thoroughly refurbished. No floodlights announced the opening of the business upstairs. There were no advertisements in the Honolulu Advertiser, but prospective patrons knew of it.

It was a good house. There was a distinctively furnished lounge and bar. There were tables and low lights. Food was excellent, the liquor was uncut and champagne was freely bought and freely drunk.

The twenty girls who were with Carrie at the première were all new girls from the mainland, fresh faces and bodies that had not been exposed before in Honolulu.

Carrie knew her trade and her establishment prospered. Girls who deteriorated too rapidly were turned adrift or sent to other islands in the Pacific and replaced from the mainland.

Among the early contingents of girls was Marty Brown. She was only sixteen, a strikingly attractive brunette.

Her flawless white skin, contrasting with her dark hair, gave her the appearance of a European, an exotic beauty from one of the Slavic countries. It was Carrie who suggested to Marty that she change her name to Helga Kossoff. Her fee was raised to twenty-five dollars. Very expensive for prewar Honolulu. In spite of the high fee, she worked as much as any of the cheaper girls.

Helga was aloof. Men bought her and came back. Sometimes too often. They talked about her and they thought about her and sometimes, when they returned, they became savage. They were not satisfied.

Pearl Harbor was attacked and the world changed overnight. Carrie Goddard became exceedingly prosperous. Her clients now wore uniforms. A civilian was a rare sight. Because of her higher prices, the quality of her food, her liquors, her girls, the patronage was largely officers. There was no class barrier, but it cost money to spend an evening at Carrie’s.

Helga Kossoff’s price increased to fifty dollars. In 1944, she was twenty-two. Her beauty was breathtaking.

She came into the lounge one evening and looked around. She wore a satin green gown that was cut very low, but not too low. Her hair was piled high on her head in a coiffure that made her look like — like men wished all women would look. Her hazel eyes were clear and when she looked at a man it seemed to him that she was as much aware of him as he was of her. Her features were classic, her skin as white and flawless as it had been at sixteen.

A full colonel got up from a table and stared at her. Helga returned his look and walked past him. She heard his hoarse breathing. Carrie Goddard, exchanging pleasantries with a navy lieutenant, watched Helga sizing up the colonel. A faint smile flitted across her features as Helga continued on to the bar.

A lean young officer sat on a padded stool. There was a glass of untasted whisky in his hand. He was staring at the backbar mirror, but saw nothing in it. He was no more than twenty-five, but had twin silver bars on each shoulder. Had he been an aviator the rank for one so young would not have been exceptionable, but the young captain wore the crossed rifles of the infantryman on his lapels.

Helga stopped beside the infantry officer. She leaned her back against the bar, let her eyes roam around the room. The full colonel came forward. He had been drinking heavily and his eyes were beady.

“All right, beautiful,” he said, “you’ve got yourself a pigeon.”

“A chicken,” retorted Helga. “A chicken colonel.”

The colonel reached out and gripped her bare arm. “I’ll buy you a drink first.”

“Thank you,” said Helga, “but I’m not available.”

“Reserved, eh? Well, he ain’t here. Time he comes we can be done.”

“A fast man.”

“Fast and good,” said the colonel.

“I’m not available.”

She looked down pointedly at the colonel’s hand gripping her arm. He removed it, but he turned ugly. “Look,” he said, “the lucky man — he’s a soldier?”

“Yes,”

“What’s his rank?”

“Rank? What’s that?”

“He’s a lieutenant, captain — major? I probably out-rank him. I don’t see any generals around here.”

Helga reached out her left hand, placed it on the arm of the captain beside her. He still did not look at her, did not even seem to be aware that she had put her hand on his arm.

The colonel scowled at the captain, who was completely oblivious of him. “A captain, a lousy, goddam captain!”

Helga said, “Get lost, Colonel!”

Perspiration was on the colonel’s face. The veins on his red neck stood out. His mouth opened to make an issue of it. But he was not yet drunk enough. A drink or two more and he would forget that he was a full colonel and a gentleman. He would remember only that he was a colonel. He said hoarsely, “I’ll catch you next time around.”

He reeled away.

Helga said to the captain, “Thank you.”

He made no reply. He continued to stare sightlessly at the backbar mirror.

Helga lifted her hand from his arm, looked at him, then made a pass with the hand in front of his face. He did not blink.

“I heard you,” he said.

“Will you hear me if I ask you to buy me a drink?”

The faintest of sighs escaped his slightly parted lips and his eyes finally came to rest upon her.

“Yes,” he said.

She gestured to the bartender, who was watching. He began to pour into a champagne glass.

“You’re not drunk,” she said to the captain.

“I’d like to be,” he replied.

The bartender brought the champagne glass to her. She picked it up. “Well, shall we get drunk?”

“You can’t — on ginger ale.”

“You’re paying for champagne.”

“But you’re not drinking champagne.”

“Look, Buster,” she said, “or Captain Buster, if you like that better, you know what this place is?”

“I could make an awfully good guess.”

“Let’s go on from there. You came here for one reason only. For someone like me.”

He nodded. “But you just refused the colonel.”

“I haven’t refused you.”

She sipped a little ginger ale, looking at him over the glass. Then she said, “I cost fifty dollars, Captain. I hope you’ve got it.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “I have.”

“But you don’t think I’m worth it? Well, look at me, look at me good!”

He appraised her thoughtfully, unemotionally, and she did not like it.

“I get all the screwballs,” she said angrily and set down the glass.

His hand reached out and touched her arm. “All right.”

“You’re sure you can spare the money?”

He said, “Where do we go?”

She searched his face, then suddenly inclined her head in assent. He stepped down from the bar stool and followed her. She went through a door, down a carpeted corridor, then up a staircase, heavily carpeted in a flowery rose pattern.

On the third floor she looked over her shoulder to make sure he was still following and then continued on to the last room on the right. She opened the door and switched on the light inside.

He followed her into the room. She did not notice that he was breathing heavily — and that his face was oddly pale.

It was an attractively furnished room, the bed the chief piece of furniture. There was no spread on it. The covering was a plain sheet turned down. A bathroom was beyond the bed. The door was open.

There were many books in the room, scattered about, piled high on a dresser. There were two fairly high stacks of them in the closet.

She closed the door, shooting the bolt.

He reached into his pocket and brought out a thick packet of bills, which he handed to her. She riffled the bills.

“There’s a lot of money here, Captain.”

“Back pay.”

“Where’ve you been — marooned on a desert island?” She extracted a bill from the packet, stepped to the dresser and dropped the bill on it. Then she turned and gave him back the rest of his money. “Did you hand me this — so I would see how much you had and try for more than the fifty?”

“Let’s go back,” he suggested, “to when you put your hand on my arm downstairs. You wanted to get rid of the colonel, but the way you touched my arm — well, it felt as if you were claiming me.”

She bristled. “He was drunk. Don’t make any more out of it than that.”

“That was the only difference — I was sober?”

She looked at him a moment. “No,” she said, “I saw you when I came in. I liked your looks. Shall I take off my dress?”

“Yes, although it’s a very attractive dress. It looks extremely well on you and you fill it very nicely.” He took her arm and pulled her closer to him.

She did not resist, but did not come willingly. “The price doesn’t include romance. Just — business.”

He released her. “Sorry.”

She reached behind her back, pulled down the zipper and slipped the dress off. She stepped out of it, got a hanger and hung up the dress on the back of the open closet door.

She came back to him. She wore a silken slip but it was obvious that she did not have on a brassiere or panties. Her breasts were beautifully round, in spite of the slenderness of her body.

He said, “You’re a very beautiful woman — girl.”

“I’m a woman.”

“You’re probably all of twenty-one.”

“Twenty-two. And you’re about three years older than I am.”

He nodded.

She went on: “You’re really not very good at this, are you? I guess I should help you.” She came in to him, put her arms about him and raised her face to his. “I shouldn’t have said that — about romance. You can — if you want to.”

He put his arms about her loosely. “Is there a time limit for the fifty dollars?”

She moved away from him, stared into his eyes. A faint glow of color appeared in her cheeks. “Captain, you’re not a—?” She did not use the word.

He shook his head. “I’m tired. I didn’t realize just how tired. Would you mind if I just sat down awhile — and looked at you?”

“I really pick them!” She moved back to the bed and seated herself on the edge of it. “Look... look, fifty dollars’ worth.”

He dropped heavily into the armchair, facing her and stretched out his legs. “I’ve been sick.”

“I should have known! Your color—”

“I’m still in the hospital.”

She frowned. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t—”

“I’m not that sick. I would like to. After a while.”

She got up. “Why don’t you lie down here?”

He thought it over for a moment, then got up. He started to unbutton his jacket. She helped him. He loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top button of his khaki shirt. Then he sat down and slipped off his shoes.

He stretched out on the bed. She looked down at him a moment, then pulled the chair closer to the bed and seated herself. He turned his head so he could see her.

She said, “It’s all right, Captain. Don’t worry about it and — don’t feel ashamed. It... it doesn’t bother me to have you look. You’re rather nice to look at yourself.” She studied him a moment. “Your eyes — they’ve got the look of an eagle in them — the fierceness of an eagle, the defiance, and yet there’s a loneliness, too. I guess an eagle has that loneliness when he looks down from his eyrie.”

“Would you mind,” he said, “lying down beside me?”

She hesitated, then got up. “I think I would like it.”

He moved over a few inches and she stretched out beside him.

He said, “Perhaps there’s some of that eagle in you.”

“The loneliness?”

His left hand moved a little at the same time that her right hand moved. The hands touched — and stopped. He was very much aware of her proximity and she was of his.

His hand closed over hers. She did not try to pull away. They lay absolutely still for a long moment, then his face turned toward hers. She turned her face to his and they looked into each other’s eyes.

There was the tiniest spontaneous hand pressure from each — and his free hand came up, went behind her shoulders. He pulled her to him and their faces touched. She averted her mouth, but she did not try to draw away from him.

He asked, very gently, “You... you don’t mind?”

She replied by kissing him. Her lips were very warm and soft and she did not withdraw them too quickly. Then she said, in a very low tone, “Would you like to take off your clothes? You — you might be more comfortable.”

He kissed her and sat up. He slipped off his olive drab trousers, tossed them over her to the chair. He dropped back.

“What about your shirt?”

“I’ll keep it on.”

She raised up, said half mischievously, “It scratches.” She reached out and started to unbutton the shirt. His hands came up to stop her, but did not. She exclaimed poignantly, “You’ve been wounded!”

He unbuttoned the last two buttons, opened the shirt. She stared at his body. There were scars on his chest, his shoulders and his stomach. There were many, many of them, small scars, large ones. Some were white, where the wounds had completely healed, two or three were still red.

“That’s why you have all that back pay! You’ve been in the hospital for — months?”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know. You... you looked as if you’d been sick, but I didn’t guess — this.”

“I’m all right,” he said. “Actually, I’m leaving the hospital tomorrow. That’s... that’s why I came here tonight. I’m going back.”

“A last fling, a woman—”

He put his hand on her mouth, stopping the words. He pulled her to him, put both arms about her. She moved tightly against him. “I’m sorry, I won’t — be sarcastic again. I don’t want to be.”

“Do you mind the scars?”

She gasped a little. “Oh, no!”

His mouth found hers.

He lay on his back, looking at the flowered wallpaper ceiling. She pulled the sheet partly over him and got up from the bed. Going to the dresser she got a cigarette and lit it for him. She carried the cigarette to him and lay down beside him.

He said, “Why don’t you get under the sheet?”

She did and her hand sought his. “Talk, Captain, it’ll help.”

He inhaled smoke, let it sift out of his nostrils and his mouth.

“The girl, Captain! I’ve seen the wounds on your body, but I can’t see the one inside you — and that’s the serious one. What was her name?”

“Linda.”

“Linda. That means beautiful in Spanish. Was she beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“More beautiful than I? No — don’t answer that. The comparison isn’t a fair one.”

“I think it is. Her body, as I remember it, was almost as beautiful as yours. Her face, no.”

“Tell me about her. How old was she?”

“She’d be twenty-one now.”

“How did you meet her?”

“I met her in the registration office of the University. U.C.L.A., in Los Angeles. She was entering as a freshman.”

“And you?”

“I was signing up for the law course. It was four years ago.”

“Four years ago you were twenty-one.”

“Linda was seventeen then. We saw each other on the school campus. We dated.”

“Did you — were you intimate with her?”

She reached to the bedstand for an ashtray for him.

“Yes,” he said, “we were intimate. We were going to be married when I completed law school, but when we had known each other a little over a year, it was December, 1941.”

“You enlisted.”

“Of course. I was at Camp Ord and I saw her on weekends. Sometimes I went down to Los Angeles and sometimes she came up to see me. Or we met in San Francisco. In June of 1942 my regiment came to Hawaii.”

“I was here then,” she said. “I came out in ’38.”

“When you were sixteen?”

“It’s your life we’re talking about, Captain. Do I have to keep calling you Captain? It’s... it’s a little unusual, lying here in bed — and not knowing each other’s names.”

“Tom Alder.”

“Tom. I like it. My name is Helga.”

Her hand found his again. “You were in love with her, so you didn’t come to — to places like this. She wrote to you regularly.”

“For two years. Then I got her last letter.”

“Dear John.” There was mockery in the way she said it. His hand tightened about hers.

“I won’t ask you about the war,” Helga continued. “I don’t think you would tell me, anyway. You were wounded on some island and they brought you here to the hospital. That’s about as much as you’ll tell me, because you are still in love with her.”

“She’s married,” he said, then was silent a moment. “I suppose I will always love her.”

“Of course. You’re that kind of a man. Would you like to sleep a while?”

“Would you mind — very much?”

“I think I would like it very much if you slept a little while. I... I won’t go away.”

The pressure of the hand that held hers increased a little. But soon it relaxed. She turned to look at his face. His eyes were closed, his breathing was deep, regular.

She remained beside him for more than a half hour, her eyes never once leaving his face. Then she slipped quietly out of bed. He did not move. She sat down in the armchair. After a moment, she brought her feet up on the edge of the chair. She locked her arms about her knees and resting her chin on the knees, studied him.

Once her head lifted and she looked at the fifty dollars on the dresser.

She returned her eyes to him, again rested her chin on her knees.

After long moments her mouth opened a little. She said so softly that he could not have heard her, even if he had been awake, “This is the man!”

She got up and moved quietly into bed beside him. He stirred a little and her arms went around him. He did not awaken. After a long time, she slept too.

When he opened his eyes in the morning, she was seated in the chair, wearing a padded kimono of raw Chinese silk. Their eyes met. He smiled a little.

“Hello.”

“You look better,” she said. “Rested.”

“It’s the best sleep I’ve had since—”

“Since you got the letter.”

He regarded her steadily. “It’s morning, but that doesn’t mean that I am different, or that you are.”

She got to her feet and looked down at him. “I’m giving you your chance.”

“Do you think I would take it?”

She sat down on the bed, but did not touch him. His hand reached to her, went under her kimono. She said, “Tom, I really don’t know as much about things as I — as I should. I’m saying that wrong. I think I know, but — is it just that with you?”

“If I said it was?”

“Why, I guess it would be all right, because I — like you and—”

“You like me?”

She lay down beside him. His arms went about her and he pulled her close. “Is like the word you want to say?”

“No,” she whispered, “I know the word but I’m afraid to use it. I don’t know how. I... I never have.”

He was quiet for a moment, then he said gently, “Helga, I’m as awkward as you are. I’ll try to tell you how I feel and maybe it’ll help us both. You’re a beautiful and very desirable girl. I’m a normal man and my desires are very normal. When I look at you and touch you I feel warm toward you — and passionate. But also I feel a tenderness and affection.” He paused. “Do you feel any of that?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “I do, and — that is what confuses me... because I never have before.” Her mouth found his. Her arms went about his head, held him tightly. And after awhile she was able to say the words she wanted to say. And he said them to her.

At eight o’clock the next evening, Helga, wearing her evening gown once more, entered the lounge. Her eyes searched the room for a moment, held on a girl and a sailor at the far side of the room, then moved swiftly to the bar.

He was there.

She went to him at once. “You came!”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I wanted you to come.” Her hand touched his arm. He took it and they went to her room.

She locked the door and turned to him. He took off his jacket, his eyes on her. She unzipped her dress and slipped it off. He kicked off his shoes and loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

He stretched out on the bed and she lay down beside him. She took his hand and finally spoke the first words since they had come into the room.

“Would you like to smoke?”

“Not now.”

They were silent again for a long moment. Then he said, “I thought of you today, Helga. I thought of you a great deal.”

“And I thought of you.”

“What did you think about me?”

She considered her words before she answered him. Then, “I’m terribly confused, Tom, and I... I don’t want to say the wrong things. Will you... will you help me?”

His hand tightened over hers. “There’s a shell around you, Helga, a protective shell and there’s steel inside of you.”

“It’s in you too, that steel.”

“I know. We’re very much alike. That’s why we find it so difficult to talk.”

“Couldn’t we just — love each other? Must we talk?”

“We’ve got to, Helga, because tomorrow...”

“You’re leaving!”

“My plane takes off at six o’clock.”

“So you only have until—”

“Five o’clock.”

“Then we mustn’t make any mistakes during these... these few hours.”

“Yes, Helga. There are things I have to tell you — things I have to ask you — and we mustn’t either of us resent anything the other says — or does.”

She turned to him. “It would help if you held me.”

“Not yet, Helga. We wouldn’t talk clearly enough. I can’t touch you — and keep a clear mind.”

“You’ve got to have a clear mind?”

“Tonight, yes. Last night, I told you about myself. I thought about it — all day, when the sun was very bright, when it was daylight and everything was real. And I know what I wasn’t sure about last night. It will be all right with me. Maybe I’ll have some bad moments once in a while, but in time it will be all right. I know it will, Helga. Linda will not haunt you.”

“No,” she said, “I thought of her too, and Linda will not be the problem.”

“You’re trying to say something?”

“Yes, Tom. You’re... you’re going to ask me questions. Please don’t.”

“But why not, Helga? It’ll only be this once and we can forget them then. I want to know you, that’s all. The questions — and the answers won’t change things between us.”

She was silent. After a moment, he turned his face toward her.

“There are questions you wouldn’t answer?”

“There are questions I will not answer.”

He released her hand and propped himself up on his left elbow and then he saw the bleakness of her face and he knew that it was terribly important. To her and to him.

He said, wonderingly, “If I called you darling and if I held you, you still wouldn’t answer the questions?”

A slow sigh escaped from her lips. Her eyes — her beautiful hazel eyes, showed anguish — but no tears.

She said, “It’s the wrong time for us, Tom, the wrong time and the wrong world. I would rather tear out my tongue than say it, but I have to... to stop you.”

He cried out softly, “Why do you have to stop me?”

“Please, my dear. Love me — love me, if you can. Do anything you want to do to me, but don’t, don’t talk, Tom. Don’t — ask — questions!”

She lay beside him in abject misery. He stared at her in utter disbelief. He took her in his arms. She clung to him as if her very life depended on it. She pressed herself to him, kissed him. But there were no tears in her eyes, no sobs shook her body.

“It is that bad, Helga?”

She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and for a long moment strained against him. Then she said, “Yes!”

Later, when she lay quietly beside him, her hand in his, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I know that you are the only man I will ever want, and I think we could work it out in another world. But not in this one, Tom.”

“What you have done, Helga, the men you have known... would not matter.”

“You know that they have meant nothing. I lay here with you last night, darling. I watched you while you slept and held you in my arms and I knew that I loved you and that we were right for each other. But it is six years too late.”

“You will not tell me why?”

“I will tell you this, my dear, and if you wish, I will tell you again in the morning before you leave. You will meet another girl, Tom, and you will love her. You will marry her and she will be the luckiest woman alive. I will never see her face but I will think of her through the years, and perhaps, on the day I die, the God who knows what I cannot tell you, will let me cry. Then I will know why I lived.”

She was silent for a moment, then she went on. “It would help if I could cry, my dear. But I can’t. A thousand nights I sobbed myself to sleep and then at last there were no tears left in me. There are none now.”

He took her in his arms and held her very close. After a while she said, “You may die, Tom, on the next island, but I do not think so. You’ll have the scars to remember and there’ll always be the scars inside of you — one, for me.”

“Yes, Helga,” he said soberly, “one for you.”

“You’re a strong man, my darling,” she went on. “You will be whatever you want to be and I... I think I will hear of you through the years. But I will never see you after five o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“It has to be that way, Helga?”

She took his hand in both of hers, brought it to her face and laid it gently on her cheek.

In the morning he got dressed and at two minutes to five he turned to her.

She said, “Don’t say goodbye. Just hold me once more, kiss me — and go!”

He put his arms about her and held her close. Then they kissed and he went out. She stood, looking at the closed door for a long moment. Her lips moved.

“Goodbye, my dear,” she said softly.

This was Doris Delaney, in June of 1944.