“Don’t kid me, Hank,” she answered. “I moved here from Long Island. I know what nice is.”
“Why’d you come back to Harlem, Mary?”
“They cut production, and Johnny lost his job. We’d saved some money, and I suppose we could have held on to the house. But a friend of ours was opening a shoe store here in Harlem. He asked Johnny if he wanted to go in as a partner. Johnny thought we should. I thought so, too.” She shook her head. “It seemed like the right decision at the time.” She paused. “If we could have seen ahead, if we could have known—” She cut the sentence and lapsed into silence. He sat watching her, wondering if the initial shock had truly passed. She raised her eyes suddenly, meeting his, and they looked at each other across a wide gulf of years, and neither said anything for several moments. Then, as if struggling with an inner secret resolve, Mary said, “Would you like a drink?”
“Not if it’s any trouble. I only came to...”
“I’m a little ashamed of myself, Hank,” she said, lowering her eyes, “for the way I behaved in your office the other day. I hope—”
“Under the circumstances...”
“Yes, yes, I know, but...” She raised her eyes, meeting his directly again. “I want to apologize.”
“Mary, there’s no need to...”
“This is — you know, you never think anything like this is going to happen to you. You read about it in the newspapers all the time, but it means nothing. And suddenly, it’s happening to you. Your family. You. It... it takes a while to... to realize it. So — so please forgive me for the way I behaved. I wasn’t myself. I just...” She rose suddenly. “We only have rye and gin. Which would you like?”
“Gin would be fine,” he said softly.
“Tonic?”
“If you have some.”
“Yes, I think so.” She walked into the kitchen. He heard her open the door to the refrigerator, heard her uncapping the bottle of quinine water, heard the rattle of ice-cube trays. She came back into the living room, handed him his drink, and then sat opposite him. They did not toast. Quietly they sipped at the drinks. Down in the areaway someone clanked a garbage-can cover into place.
“It’s funny about people, isn’t it?” she said suddenly. “How two people who once knew each other so well can meet and — and be strangers.” A curious laugh of puzzlement, joyless, escaped her mouth. “It’s funny,” she said again.
“Yes.”
“I’m... I’m glad you came today, Hank.”
“I came to tell you—”
“I like to believe that people who once meant something to each other... that... that if you knew someone very well...” She struggled with the thought silently and then said simply, “You meant a lot to me, Hank.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“When we were kids, you — you did a lot for me.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Oh, yes: You see, I’d always thought of myself as very ugly until—”
“Ugly? You?”
“Yes, yes. And then you came along, and you thought I was so very beautiful, and you kept telling me so until — until I began to believe it. I’ll always be grateful to you for that, Hank.”
“Mary, of all the people in the world, you’re hardly the one to have doubted your own good looks.”
“Oh, but I did. I did.”
There was an ease now, somehow, miraculously, there was a complete relaxation of tension. At last, the barrier of years had been spanned, leaving only the ease they once had known, the familiarity with which they had discussed the very serious problems of the very young, big and small, all earth-shattering. Looking back, he felt a peculiar tenderness for the two infants who had held hands and talked together in low earnest whispers. The people here today in this tenement living room bore very little resemblance to those two of long ago — and yet he recognized them, and he felt a pleasant warmth spread through him. For the moment, he forgot why he had come to see her. For the moment, for now, it was enough that they could talk to each other again.
“You did a lot for me, too,” he said.
“I hope so, Hank.” She paused. “Hank, let me tell you what happened because — I was always a little sorry I’d sent that letter, always a little ashamed that I’d taken the coward’s way out. Do you know, do you understand — I hope you understand — that I loved you?”
“I thought so. But then your letter...”
“I used to lie awake at night and wonder what you were doing. Were they firing at you? Were you hit? Was your plane going down? Would you be captured and tortured? I used to cry at night. One night my mother came in and said, ‘Mary, Mary, what’s the matter?’ and I said, ‘He may be dead,’ and she said, ‘You damn fool, you should have married him, you should have taken whatever love you could get because love isn’t something you find on street corners.’ And I began crying again, and praying — I’ve never really been religious even though I was raised as a Catholic — but I prayed so hard for you, Hank, I prayed that you would be safe and whole and that... that you’d come back to me. And then I met Johnny.”
“Yes?” he said.
“This may sound stupid. But I wouldn’t have started seeing him if it weren’t for you. And I wouldn’t have loved him if I hadn’t loved you first. It was because of your gentleness, and your... your love for me that I was capable of loving another man. That’s why my letter was so cruel. I should never have written that letter. I should have swum to England, crawled to you to thank you, kissed your hands, Hank. I shouldn’t have sent a letter.”
“Mary, you—”
“And the other day, in your office, I was terribly unfair to a person who’s been fair all his life. I know you have a job to do. I know you’ll do it the way it has to be done. And now I respect that. I respect it the way I’ve always respected you. I could not have loved you so completely if you hadn’t been the person you were. And I don’t think that person has changed very much. You’re still Hank.”
“I’ve changed a great deal, Mary.”
“The surface? The polish? Oh, yes, you’re not the awkward young man who once picked flowers for me in the park. But I’m not the redheaded skinny young...”
“You were never skinny!” he protested.
“...girl who accepted the flowers so self-consciously. But I think we’re essentially the same, Hank. I think, when we lower the masks, we’re essentially those two silly kids who thought the world was full of dragons and shining white knights.” She paused. “Aren’t we?”
“Perhaps.”
She nodded, lost in thought. Then she said, “You’re not here to talk about Danny, are you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’d rather not. You see, I feel we’re both after the same thing. Justice. And I don’t want to mess it up with emotion. I was very wrong the other day. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“I forgave you a long time ago,” Hank said, and their eyes met for just an instant, and then Mary nodded, and sighed, and sipped at her drink, and the tenement was very still, the summer heat mushrooming silently outside the window.
“Why did you come, Hank?”
“At lunchtime today, I spoke to a reporter named Mike Barton.”
“Yes.”
“He said he’d talked to you yesterday.”
“That’s true.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that Danny was innocent.”
“I mean... about us.”
“Oh.”
“You did mention something about us?”
“Yes, I did. I said we’d known each other when we were younger.”
“How’d you happen to mention that?”
“He asked if I’d ever met the man who’s prosecuting the case? I said yes, I had, and in fact we’d known each other when we were younger.”