Mila 18 - Leon Uris

But Eileen held her tongue and packed and went along.

Chris fitted in every newsmen’s bar and in the lobbies of the capitols and in the offices of prime ministers and at the scenes of the disasters. Hours of light and darkness and light and spaces of great distance had lost meaning to him when a story was involved.

They had a beautiful apartment on the Avenida Beira Mar that hugged the bay. She came to learn every corner of it and how many squares were in the marble of the entrance hall and how many different colors there were in the drapes.

She tried very, very hard to assimilate herself into that circle of diplomats who seemed to spend their entire lives holding a cocktail glass for the incoming attaché of culture or the outgoing second secretary.

Eileen got a pair of cats and stroked them and paced the floor in lounging pajamas and waited until Chris got back.

And then one day she broke. He wrote:

Dear Oscar,

I must resign this bureau for personal reasons. I should like to return to New York if you’ve a spot for me there. Otherwise, I am afraid I must quit the agency and find a job in New York.

Dear Christopher,

I understand your plight and I sympathize with it. Try to understand mine. Hold on another six or eight weeks and I’ll get things shifted around so that you can break someone in and I’ll make an opening in New York.

“Honey, why don’t you go on back to the States ahead of me? See your folks. It will do you good.”

Eileen was relieved and frightened at the same time. It was an omen, she knew it. The little flaws were turning to deepening cracks.

And Chris was worried, too, because when Eileen left he did not miss her as much as he believed he should. At first he dreaded the thought of coming back from a trip with Eileen not there. But ... it wasn’t so bad. There was always a poker game going at the press club or the Embassy, always a party in session with an open invitation to him.

Dear Chris,

I have taken a job in an advertising firm here. I know how much you are against this, but you won’t be when you see how happy I am. It won’t interfere with a moment of our being together. ... I made that clear to them. But, I just can’t keep on feeling so useless. Please, darling, don’t be angry.

Chris swallowed his pride. Why not? Eileen was too vital to be locked up in a lonely flat. She was too sensible to become a partner to a wasteland of women’s clubs. That’s one of the things he admired about her from the first. Her desire to be useful—not like his mother.

When he returned to New York there was a wonderful reunion. Oscar Pecora had given him the New York Bureau permanently! He had enough help so that he would have to make only an occasional trip to Washington. For a moment they seemed to have recaptured those first days of their marriage.

And then, the scene:

“Eileen, be reasonable, honey. The conference in Quebec is one of the most important international meetings of the year.”

“You promised and Oscar promised. No more traveling.”

“Eileen! Dan is sick. He can’t work. He’s in the hospital.”

“Then let them send someone else.”

“Swiss News is a small outfit. We haven’t got that many men.”

“You don’t need any more. Good old Christopher de Monti will always go.”

“Don’t make it so dramatic. It’s only ten days.”

“Ten days in Quebec ... ten days in Washington ... ten days in San Francisco. Do you know what it’s like alone here for ten days? I don’t ask terribly much, Chris—to work until we decide to have a home and a baby—but what’s the use of having a baby who won’t know his father! We have so much fun together when you’re here. I don’t ask much, Chris—”

“Christ! You’re making a world revolution out of this. How can you ask me to let Oscar down after all he’s done for me?”

“How about me, Chris? Haven’t I done something for you too? Do you ever think about letting me down?”

Chris didn’t answer. He went into the bedroom.

Eileen trailed in slowly. “Your things are all packed,” she said with tears falling into the corners of her mouth. “Your gray suit didn’t get back from the cleaner’s in time.”

“Eileen ... honey ...”

“Hurry, Chris. You’ll miss your plane.”

When he returned from Canada his reception was one of polite coldness. For the first time in their marriage Eileen did not want to be loved when he returned from a trip. It was doubly bad when she played out the role of the accommodating wife.

“I guess we’re in a lot of trouble,” Chris said the next morning.

Eileen’s silence was answer enough.

“I thought about it all during the time in Quebec. About us and where we are going. I’ve been pretty damned selfish. I guess I’ve done all the taking ... none of the giving.”

“That’s not true, Chris. You’ve tried. So have I. I really wanted to be the kind of woman you need.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Yes ... and I think, in your way, you love me too. But I’m kind of jealous, I guess, because what you have away from me means more to you than I ever will. It’s not your fault or mine.”

“Let’s try, Eileen, please let’s try. I know most of this has been my fault.”

“Don’t let that Italian pride of yours compound a mistake.”

“Why don’t we take a ride over to Jersey and look at some of that real estate? Then I’ll get a letter off to Oscar—”

“Chris ... Chris. I do love you, but if I take you away from that world of yours out there you’ll grow to hate me.”

Both of them tried hard to pull it together. Eileen never did buy that house in New Jersey and she was terribly cautious about having a child.

Restraint and all its murderous aspects came between them.

There were more trips—there always would be, but she never made another scene or shed another tear—and there were no more wild reunions.

For a year they drifted and grew more and more indifferent to each other.

And one day Christopher de Monti had to face that moment when a man’s pride grovels to its lowest depths. He found it out by accident, by returning home from a trip early and taking a phone call not meant for him. Eileen had begun sleeping with another man.

Chris never spoke to her about it. He waited until a weekend when she was visiting her parents, and he packed his things and left with only a brief note.

Dear Eileen,

I have learned about you and Daniels at your office. There is absolutely no use of discussing anything. For my part of the guilt, I am sorry, but it will be best for us both if I never see you again. If you will arrange the divorce as quickly and quietly as possible on some semi-civilized grounds, I would be obliged.

After a month of trying to drown his pride across every bar in England and Europe, Chris got himself steamed out and reported to Oscar Pecora in Geneva.

“That’s quite a little bar bill you’ve run up, Christopher. It’s a wonder you have a liver left,” Pecora said.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Oscar, save the sermon.”

“Tell me, Chris. Was the pain because you loved Eileen so much, or has your Italian nobility been offended?”

“I don’t know, Oscar.”

“If you still love Eileen you can have her back. She’s written to me a half dozen times. Of course you’ve got this stack of letters you’ve never opened. She’ll come to you on any condition—on her hands and knees. Now, if your love is so great, it must find forgiveness for her.”

“I don’t know if I can, Oscar. Besides, the same thing will happen again. She’s a fine woman, Oscar. She really tried. I’ve got no right to butcher her life up—”