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"Must I spell it out. Jennie is your best friend's wife!"
"Yes!" I said. "So what's the fuss about?"
"Is that how you show respect?"
I sat back, flabbergasted. What happened to him? I looked at Ken. "Nothing happened between Jennie and I," I said to Ken. "We just realized that our families might have had a chance to get away from Seattle in time. They had been waiting for me there. They couldn't have been in a more ideal place for getting away." Suddenly I coughed and stopped. "Forgive me," I added quietly.
"You better calm yourself," Ken said to Harry. "You've been through so much!"
"Calm myself!" Harry replied to Ken. "Look who is speaking, the womanizer! You're worse than he is. I have eyes. I've seen you lots of times with girls of every description, dozens of them, a different one in every city: stewardesses, waitresses, office girls. The way you're carrying on is...!" He searched for words.
"Oh my God," I said to myself, "if this is a delayed response, this madness could grip me, too." I determined that it wouldn't.
Ken defended himself. "Pull yourself together, Harry," he said calmly.
"Why should I? You disgust me," Harry came back, "no decent man goes out with other people's women!"
"Why the hell not, Harry!" Ken raised his voice at him.
"Because it sickening, chasing after every skirt that crosses your way!"
"Oh, is that so? Let me tell you what is sickening! Segregation is sickening. The way you flaunted your wife, that is sickening!" Ken blew up at him. "People are not property that you own like a car. You speak of your wife like she was some piece of property, your most precious possession. It's you who's disgusting. Half the guys in the company have been invited to met the great Harry Sallinger's gorgeous blond wife, 'with the best figure you ever laid your eyes on.' Isn't that so, Harry? That is disgusting. I never said this before. I let it be. In fact the whole damn stinking society that we've become disgusts me; a bunch of slave owners that isolate their woman. It is a wonder they don't use branding irons on them!"
The conversation stopped abruptly when the flight deck door opened.
Jennie entered with a stack of trays. "Your dinner, gentlemen!" she said kindly, and handed each of us a plate of sandwiches, coffee, juice, and a glass of wine.
I asked her to come closer, and as she did, gave her a kiss. I couldn't help but glance at Harry out of the corner of an eye, to see his reaction. He looked away and shook his head.
"We have plenty of time for eating," said Harry moments later as he arranged the cutlery on his tray. He spoke in the nicest manner suddenly as if the previous moments hadn't happened. He explained that we had been rerouted to come in from the North. The best approach was from the North, because of the smoke from the fires.
Eating that fine food, mere leftovers that Jennie had found in the First Class freezer locker, created a strange feeling. Here we were, dining like kings, drinking wine and freshly brewed coffee, descending toward a burning city that we knew was absolute hell. It didn't seem right for us to even have a meal.
The tower asked us to slow our approach. We were number seven in line.
When Jennie left the flight deck to put the dishes away, Harry apologized quickly.
The landing itself was routine. From there on, however, it wasn't. It was as though we had ventured into a dragon's lair. A powerful, disorganized frenzy possessed everyone. We were at the mercy of the beast, the tower. Safety was no concern. Who cared about trivialities like that? Survival was the game! This game applied to airplanes as it did to people. We were fast learners to realize that. Since there was obviously no room anywhere, we were assigned a small spot on a grassy field beside the runway, a soft boggy patch. It was risky to stop rolling. I protested and went back onto the paved area that was terribly clogged with planes loading passengers and fuel. By some miracle I squeezed our giant crate into line. I was surprised also, to see a tank truck race across the runway, to meet us.
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Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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