The Other Side of Midnight

I must be wrong, she thought. Maybe he's been promoted. That's what we're celebrating. Or he's had some good news about the war. Catherine told herself this but she did not believe it. She studied herself in the mirror, trying to be objective. While she would not give Ingrid Bergman any sleepless nights, she was, she decided dispassionately, attractive. Her figure was good, full of provocative curves. You're intelligent, cheerful, courteous, kind and a sex pot, she told herself. Why would any normal red-blooded male be dying to leave you so that he could go off to war and try to get himself killed?

At seven o'clock Catherine walked into the dining room of the Willard Hotel. Larry had

not arrived yet, and the maitre d' escorted her to a table. She said no she would not have a drink, then nervously changed her mind and ordered a martini.

When the waiter brought it and Catherine started to pick it up, she found that her hands were shaking. She looked up and saw Larry moving toward her. He threaded his way between the tables, acknowledging greetings along the way. He carried with him that incredible vitality, that aura that made every eye turn in his direction. Catherine watched him, remembering the day he had come to her table at the MGM commissary in Hollywood. She realized how little she had known him then, and she wondered how well she knew him now. He reached the table and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Sorry I'm late, Cathy," he apologized. "The Base has been a madhouse all day." He sat down, greeted the captain by name and ordered a martini. If he noticed that Catherine was drinking, he made no comment.

Catherine's mind was screaming out: Tell me your surprise. Tell me what we're celebrating. But she said nothing. There was an old Hungarian proverb: "Only a fool rushes bad news." She took another sip of her martini. Well maybe it wasn't an old Hungarian proverb. Maybe it was a new Catherine Douglas proverb designed to be worn over thin skins for protection. Maybe the martini was making her a little drunk. If her premonition was right, before this night was over she was going to get very drunk. But looking at Larry now, his face filled with love, Catherine knew that she had to be wrong. Larry could not bear to leave her any more than she could bear to leave him. She had been building up a nightmare out of whole cloth. From the happy expression on his face she knew that he had some really good news to tell her.

Larry was leaning toward her, smiling his boyish smile, taking her hand in his.

"You'll never guess what's happened, Cathy. I'm going overseas."

It was as though a filmy curtain descended, giving everything an unreal, hazy look. Larry was sitting next to her, his lips moving, but his face was going in and out of focus and Catherine could not hear any words. She looked over his shoulder and the walls of the restaurant were moving together and receding. She watched, fascinated.

"Catherine!" Larry was shaking her arm and slowly her eyes focused on him and everything came back to normal. "Are you all right?"

Catherine nodded, swallowed and said, shakily, "Great. Good news always does that to me."

"You understand that I have to do this, don't you?"

"Yes, I understand." The truth is, I wouldn't understand if I lived to be a million years old, my darling. But if I told you that, you'd hate me, wouldn't you? Who needs a nagging wife? Heroes' wives should send their men off smiling.

Larry was watching, concerned. "You're crying."

"I am not," Catherine said indignantly and found to her horror that she was. "I--I just have to get used to the idea."

"They're giving me my own squadron," Larry said.

"Are they really?" Catherine tried to pump pride into her voice. His own squadron. When he was a small boy, he probably had had his own set of trains to play with. And now that he was a tall boy, they had given him his own squadron to play with. And these were real toys, guaranteed to get shot down and bleed and die. "I'd like another drink," she said.

"Of course."

"When--when will you have to leave?"

"Not until next month."

He made it sound as though he were eager to get away. It was terrifying, feeling the whole fabric of her marriage being torn apart. On the bandstand a singer was crooning, "A trip to the moon on gossamer wings..." Gossamer, she thought. That's what my marriage is made of: gossamer. That Cole Porter knew everything.

"We'll have plenty of time before I leave," Larry was saying.

Plenty of time for what? Catherine wondered bitterly. Plenty of time to raise a family, to take our children skiing in Vermont, to grow old together?

"What would you like to do tonight?" Larry asked.

I'd like to go down to the County Hospital and have one of your toes removed. Or have one of your ear drums pierced. Aloud, Catherine said, "Let's go home and make love." And there was a fierce, desperate urgency in her.

The next four weeks melted away. The clocks raced forward in a Kafka-ish nightmare that turned days into hours and hours into minutes, and then incredibly it was Larry's last day. Catherine drove him to the airport. He was talkative and happy and gay and she was somber and quiet and miserable. The last few minutes became a kaleidoscope of reporting in...a hurried good-bye kiss...Larry entering the plane that was to take him away from her...a last farewell wave. Catherine stood on the field watching his plane dwindle to a small speck in the sky and finally disappear. She stood there for an hour, and finally when it got dark she turned and drove back into town to her empty apartment.

In the first year following the attack on Pearl Harbor, ten great sea and air battles were fought against the Japanese. The Allies won only three, but two of them were decisive: Midway and the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Catherine read word for word the newspaper reports of every battle and then asked William Fraser to get her further details. She wrote to Larry daily, but it was eight weeks before she received his first letter. It was optimistic and full of excitement. The letter had been heavily censored so Catherine had no idea where he had been or what he was doing. Whatever it was she had a feeling that he seemed to be enjoying it, and in the long lonely hours of the night Catherine lay in bed puzzling over that, trying to figure out what it was in Larry that made him respond to the challenge of war and death. It was not that he had a death wish, for Catherine had never known anyone more alive and vital; but perhaps that was simply the other side of the coin, that what made the life-sense so keen was constantly honing it against death.

She had lunch with William Fraser. Catherine knew that he had tried to enlist and had been told by the White House that he could do more good by staying at his post. He had been bitterly disappointed. He had never mentioned it to Catherine, however. Now as Fraser sat across from Catherine at the luncheon table, he asked:

"Have you heard from Larry?"