Page 131 of Hell to Pay
“At the counter only. Because they needed me. Herr Adelberg is doing the baking, though. I’m sure he’ll improve. He’s probably just out of practice.”
“Serve them right if they lose all their customers,” Joe said.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve had some uncharitable thoughts myself.” We both smiled at that. “But I must ask—I have to ask—do we get to be friends again now? Is that why you came here again after so long? I don’t understand the—the rules about breaking up. I only know from films and books.”
“Well, no,” Joe said, and my heart sank again. He was still smiling, though. What didthatmean? Joe could never be cruel. “I guess I’m back here exactly as soon as I could possibly get here because I’m hoping to talk you out of the breaking-up idea.”
“But—” I was staring at him now. “You’ve been gone two weeks.”
“Yeah,” he said, “because we left two days after Christmas on a sort of atrocity tour. The only thing worse than driving to Czechoslovakia in a Jeep in December is drivingbackfrom Czechoslovakia in January with a fresh load of atrocities on your mind. It’s been …” He blew out a long breath. “It’s been a mighty tough time, with that and the idea that I’d just thrown away the greatest girl I’d ever met. I’m not too easy to keep on the mat, though, so here I am again, looking for another shot. I brought food with me, too. Bribery might not be the most high-minded tactic, but whatever works."
I was eating the banana along with the ham. It was an odd combination, but it tasted so delicious at that moment, I wanted to bury my face in the plate. The feeling suffusing me, though, was so much more than that. “So you didn’t want to leave me?”
“I thought I just made that pretty clear,” Joe said. “I’m nervous about saying all that, though, and I’d sure appreciate an answer.”
“Oh.” My smile was foolish, I was sure. “I’m still seventeen, though.”
“Yep.” Joe ate a slice of bread with ham and cheese andpickle and began fixing another one. “Too bad, because I’m in love with you anyway. I figure that can be our secret. Ours, and the Professor’s. You’re also a princess, but again?—”
“The title is ersatz,” I said. “Like German coffee. Who cares?” Bubbles of happiness were rising in me like champagne. “But you’re also still Jewish, and I’m not.” That was a sobering thought. “Your parents. All your family. Dr. Becker was married to an Aryan, but he felt more German than Jewish, I believe. I don’t think that’s true of your family, and I must tell you—I don’t think I can stop being a Catholic. It’s—it’s who I am.”
“Did you want to live with my family?” Joe asked.
“What?” I stared at him. Why was he asking that? “If that’s usual in America, I suppose I?—”
“Well, too bad,” he said, “because we’re not doing it. They can get used to us being married, or they can decide not to. I don’t see how anybody meets you and doesn’t think I’m the luckiest guy in the world, so I have high hopes.”
“But—but children. I told you, my condition?—”
“You said that your father’s burns made your mother love him even more deeply, because his scars were his strength. You said that her condition did the same thing for him. Your parents had you anyway, and look how lucky they were. They got you.”
The warmth was filling me, but I still had to say this. “They had two sons also. They both died. It broke their hearts.”
Joe had been about to eat his slice of bread. Now, he set it down and took my hand again. “One thing I’ve learned over here,” he said, “is that if you wait for the world to be perfect before you’re happy, you’ll never be happy at all. Life’s full of hard things, from what I’ve seen of it, and sometimes they’re the hardest things. It’s not about whether we ever fall down, though. It’s about whether we can help each other back up. And one reason I love you—” His voice wasn’t steadyanymore. “Is the way you keep going through everything. Sure, you were privileged. Sure, you had a palace and jewels and all of that. But what you have at the bottom of you is so much more than that. The best soldiers aren’t necessarily the guys who finish the obstacle course first in boot camp. They’re the guys who turn around and help somebody else over the top. That’s the kind of husband I want to be, and that’s the kind of wife I want, too. And that’s you.”
I couldn’t speak for a whole minute. There was too much in my heart. Joe must have known, because he was holding me again. “I’ve got one year of college,” he said against my hair, “and no idea what the future holds after all of this. But there’s nobody I trust more than you to walk into the unknown with. So I’m going to ask you again. Will you marry me?”
“I have the jewels,” I said, “and I can sell them. Iwillsell them. But I don’t have anything else except my … myself, I suppose. My character. I know how to work, and I know how to survive. And you’re the best man I’ve ever known. Well, except for my father.” We both laughed a little at that, and then I pulled back, put a hand on his dear, bony face, and said, “I don’t know how to be in love. I’d never want you to think I married you out of desperation, but honestly? I don’t know how to tell whether that’s true.”
“Hey,” Joe said. “You just said that you know how to survive.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I did. So it must not be desperation, do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “It matters whatyouthink.”
I had to stop and ponder that a minute, and he didn’t rush me. He waited, and finally, I said, “I’ve been more unhappy these past weeks than I have since—well, since I lost my family. That was a great—a great rent in my heart, and this was the same. I came to realize how much you mean to me,and it’s hurt so much to lose you. So—yes. I want to leap into the unknown with you, the same way my mother did with my father.” I smiled, now, though I was close to tears again. “Every story is different, though, isn’t it? We can write our own story, you and I. And look—we’ve already begun.”
55
WAR BRIDES
It was evening by the time I finished my tale. Time for dinner, but I couldn’t manage dinner. We’d come back up to my suite after lunch, and I was in the most comfortable chair, but all the same, I was hit by a wall of fatigue from talking all day. Or maybe that was loss.
“Oma,” Alix said, “are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said. “Merely—merely tired. I believe I’ll have dinner in the suite tonight.”
“Cool,” Ashleigh said. “We can order it, and you can tell us about the wedding and all that.”
