Discover Wartime Romances and Weddings: Discover the unique challenges and unusual stories of wartime romances. Can couples survive being transferred to different continents? Can a lover-by-letter romance endure? Explore the dynamics of relationships between enlisted soldiers and female officers.
I am excited to share Chapter 21, Wedding Bells, with you because it captures a significant moment in the story, blending themes of love, sacrifice, and the uncertainty of wartime. This chapter portrays both the joy and complexities of a wartime wedding, emphasizing the contrast between the desire for a normal life and the harsh realities of war. It also reveals the characters’ depth, especially Kathy’s internal reflections and growth. I believe this chapter gives a poignant glimpse into the emotional landscape of the story, highlighting the resilience and hope that underpin the characters’ experiences.
CHAPTER 21
WEDDING BELLS
Kathy returned to her quarters and contemplated her finished poem about the Angel of the Smile. It said so much but said it so inadequately. She hoped it would somehow convey the love of the angel’s smile.
Mathilda knocked at her door and danced in. “We’re going to be married. We’re going to be married! Saturday.”
Kathy hugged her. “Wonderful! Saturday! Just four days.”
“In four days, I’ll be Mrs. Hooch Novotny.” She whirled around the chair.
“Mrs. Novotny.”
Mathilda stopped at Mrs. Foster’s room to tell her too, but she was not there. She went in, stopping in front of the gilded mirror. “The wedding will be simple; our Chaplain, our chapel...” Her hands fluttered from her hair to her skirt. “My hair. How do I fix my hair? A dress. Is there time to make a wedding dress? I can’t have an olive- drab wedding—I won’t have an olive-drab wedding. Olive drab uniform. Olive drab underwear.”
“In this land of fashion, we can find a dressmaker. But, where could we get material?” asked Kathy. The quartermaster and PX wouldn’t stock wedding dress material. The 82nd Airborne and their white nylon parachutes had flown off to Germany. “The dress doesn’t make the wedding. You need only a Chaplain, a bride and a groom. Or should I hunt in Paris for material?”
“Flowers. I must carry flowers. Can you make a bouquet? A bridal bouquet? I want a pretty wedding.” She turned before the mirror. Handsome as her uniform was, it was not a bridal gown.
“Yes,” said Kathy. “I can get flowers.”
“No. There aren’t any flowers.” Mathilda ran from the mirror back into Kathy’s room and flopped dejectedly onto her olive-drab bed. “The flowers have all dried up. No wedding dresses. No flowers. I’ll be an olive drab bride.”
“Mme. Duval has white roses. And maybe some pink ones for your maid of honor.”
“Her roses are all dried up, too.”
“No. They are beautiful. She watered them with dishwater.”
“The soap would kill roses.”
“She had no soap. Her roses are fresh and beautiful.”
“Will you be my maid of honor?”
“I’ll be delighted to be your maid of honor, Mathilda.”
Vivienne came shouting down the hall. “We’re moving out. We’re moving on. Next week. South Pacific, here we come.”
Saturday was as hot as the rest of July had been, yet no one questioned that Mathilda’s wedding would be conducted in full dress uniform. Mathilda, with flushed, perspiring face, twisted her necktie and patted her hair straight. “I wish, I wish there was at least one thing dressed up for my wedding. Same shirt, same skirt that I wore yesterday.”
“You’ll have one new thing, a wedding ring.” Kathy brushed Mathilda’s woolen jacket. It didn’t need brushing, but Mathilda wanted someone to fuss over her.
Mathilda straightened her collar. “You should be able to tell the bride from the bridesmaids. How can you when we’re all dressed in olive drab?”
Vivienne gave her a reassuring smile. “You look different. Your eyes sparkle. Your cheeks are flushed rosy. You’re a beautiful blushing bride. The rest of us are all slightly green with envy, wishing we were getting a wedding ring.” She glanced at her watch. “Ready?”
Kathy took the bouquet of white roses that she had bound together with adhesive tape, wiped the drips on an olive-drab towel, and handed them to Mathilda.
She glowed happily. “Perfect. Kathy, they’re beautiful. I’m a bride.”
Kathy took her pink roses, and they walked from their barracks to the chapel in a Quonset hut.
Hooch waited at the front of the church, with Chaplain Kirkemo on one side and the Colonel as best man on the other. He looked uncomfortable, with perspiration dripping on his chin, but he managed a fond smile for Mathilda.
The organ played the wedding march. Kathy, as maid of honor, walked down the aisle. Hooch watched her, and she lowered her eyes to look at the pink roses quivering in her hands. Hooch should be watching only Mathilda. What kind of life was ahead for her, always wondering, never certain of Hooch’s love? She would want him to conform, but he would seek escape. Hooch would in fact escape right after the honeymoon, off with another unit to China, while Mathilda would return to the States. However, even if he never returned to her, she had a child to love, a better life than the empty one she had lived.
Kathy looked up again, and Hooch was smiling at Mathilda. She loved him. Mathilda’s love would reach him. With love, anything was possible. Hooch would be a good husband. At a wedding, you anticipated a good marriage. At a wedding you thought of the miracles of love.
Kathy passed Charles. His sober eyes were eloquent. This, he was thinking, is what you want.
The Chaplain spoke. “Harry Laurence Novotny, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“Love him, comfort him, honor and keep him...” No, Kathy would not catch a man, nor trap him, nor find a father-figure to hold a shotgun on her groom. She would find first a man who wanted to love, comfort and honor and keep her—and she him—who wanted the responsibilities of children. Mathilda’s wedding was fine for Mathilda, yet Kathy wanted more.
At the officers’ club, Hooch and Mathilda together cut the wedding cake. The Colonel proposed a toast in champagne. Then the bride and groom drove off in a Jeep to Paris for their honeymoon.
When they had left, Charles took off his uniform blouse and necktie. “The wedding’s over. Back to the war.”
Kathy wrapped a piece of cake in a napkin, to have to dream on. “Don’t you have something flattering to say about the cake? It had frosting! I made the figurines of mashed dehydrated potatoes. Fortunately, no one tasted them.”
“What dreams will you get on mashed potatoes—dehydrated mashed potatoes, that is? Think you’re clever, don’t you? That’s all right, you are. The cake was superb.” Charles grinned down at her, proud of her. “I say, back to the war. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“We leave the day after tomorrow, don’t we? Or have I missed something on the bulletin board again?”
“I’m not going with you. I’ve been transferred to England. You know we must...you understand this is best?”
Kathy took a deep breath and nodded in mute agreement. He must have requested the transfer.
He put his strong hand gently on her shoulder. “I leave for Paris in the morning. Can you come with me, to Paris...our last day?”
Kathy could almost look forward to saying goodbye in Paris, tomorrow. Tomorrow could always be a pleasant day, but today was harder to face.
Today she had to say goodbye to baby Sammy. Plans kept changing. Today he was being sent off to an over-crowded, under-fed orphanage. She had a PW put a case of canned milk into the Jeep that would carry Sammy away. One case of milk, twenty-four cans. Sammy, at the age of one month, would know the pain of hunger. Sooner, if the milk were shared with other children. What difference would it make to send two cases of milk?
She had to hold Sammy one last time. He looked at her, with his helpless, trusting look. “You know I would keep you if I could,” she told him. “I must first finish the war. Fight the Japanese to make the world free for you.”
When she returned to the mess, three PWs came forward to greet her, their hands behind their backs. “We had few tools,” Oscar said. His round face was pleasant and intelligent. Where were the Germans who had fought in the war, the ones that starved Sammy? Oscar smiled. “Only a hammer, a saw, and a file. We made these for you.”
Rolf brought a book rack from behind his back. It was made of a polished dark wood, a shelf along which two carved book ends slid into a grooved slot. He handed it to her. A second PW gave her a cigarette case made of hammered aluminum cut from a German plane that had crashed in a neighboring field. Inside the hinge was a spring, wound from the same aluminum, that flipped the lid open. On the lid was etched a fine dog, with deep strokes making his eyes and nose, and delicate strokes making his fur.
Oscar gave her a box made of the hard brown sheets of plastic used for electrical insulation. The corners and hinges were filed and hammered from brass shell casings into three-dimensioned curved flowers and leaves. It was an exquisite box. These men, to whom Kathy had scarcely spoken, had transformed scraps into beautiful presents for her. There was certainly something good.
That evening, Kathy and Charles said goodbye to the Duvals, thanking them for all they’d done, and promised to return. The next morning, they rode to Paris in the back of a supply truck.
They jumped from the truck and stood by the Red Cross’s sidewalk cafe-canteen. “The day is before us in Paris. Where do you want to go? Visit your artist friends? The Louvre? Tonight, the Folies or the Opera? Or just sit on a bench in the Gardens?”
“The Louvre. Mrs. Foster said they had unburied and replaced the sculptures that were returned from Hitler and Goering’s collections. She didn’t think much of them. She has no use for modern art.”
“That sounds like her. Under each person she sees murky murderous aggression and insatiable lusts.”
“She just talks that way. She acts differently.”
“She has a preoccupation with the uncontrolled, destructive id.” He took her hand. “Well, on to beauty. At least it will be cool in the Louvre.”
Inside the ancient palace, where a brilliant Matisse painting hung on Lescot’s sixteenth century wall, all centuries blended. Here, life was displayed as under the aspect of eternity.
As they looked at statues, workmen brought in a Bourdelle bronze statue that Kathy recognized. “Hercules drawing his bow against the Stymphalian birds. My mother had a replica of this and told me the mythical story. I used to believe it, that Hercules actually did shoot the huge birds with cruel beaks and sharp talons. He saved the villagers from being devoured. The statue looks so strong and realistic. Hercules balances so smoothly against the rocks and with the rocks. I can almost believe it again.”
They watched another statue being set on its pedestal. It was a Picasso, a large white confusion of masses and gyrations and empty spaces that bore no relation to anything recognizable. “There’s one I find hard to believe,” said Charles.
Kathy walked around it. “That’s the kind of art that takes time to know. It’s heavy, and yet light. It falls apart and is unified. Try to make sense of that. That’s how I see life. Two years ago, I would have preferred a nice romantic sensible statue. Now that seems too simple.”
They laughed and wandered through the ancient palace where they lost the sense of tomorrow and yesterday in the eternal beauty before them.
Finally, they returned to the entrance where reproductions were sold. Charles, stopping to look in the glass- topped display counter, said, “I want to give you something. Not just something to remember me by, but something that will keep telling you what I would if I could.” He grinned at her. “It should tell you to go right on seeing everyone as good and lovable. Go on seeing a beautiful day when it’s raining. What can I give you that will say that?”
“I don’t need anything. I’ll not forget. Anyway, nothing says that much.”
“I am going to give you something.” He leaned over the costume jewelry display. “How about that bird?”
He held the bird in the palm of his strong hand. It was a golden pin, smooth and plain except for a blue enameled eye. Its beauty was in her graceful lines and in the spirited tilt of her head.
“A nightingale?” asked Kathy.
“She might be. I had thought of her as an Egyptian falcon that perched on a royal shoulder, a symbol of courage.”
“I don’t need courage.” She had felt or seen the worst this life had to offer, and still believed life was good. “I don’t have enough sense to be afraid.”
“All right. She’s a nightingale, a nightingale who sings at night when other birds have tucked their heads under their wings.”
“OK. I’ll take your nightingale. I’ll hold my head high when I think of you.”
Charles ran his long slender fingers over the bird with a delicate touch. He had a doctor’s hands, sensitive to textures. She wanted to give him faith in himself, and hope that he could finish medical school. She picked up a pair of cuff links, a triangle imposed on a rectangle. “That is a standing star. Think of it as an ancient Egyptian symbol of faith, faith in your future. You can and you will finish medical school. You know so much already. You won’t have to study as much as others.”
“Not enough money.”
“A part-time job, plus the GI bill, would be plenty.”
“I’m too old; it would take four years.”
“How old will you be in four years if you go to medical school?”
“Thirty-four.”
“How old will you be in four years if you don’t go?”
They left the Louvre and walked along the Rue de la Paix to a sidewalk cafe. Something sharply reminded Kathy of Rocky. It was the red-and-white checkered tablecloths, and the glass vase with a single yellow rose on each table.
Charles pulled out a chair for her, and ordered a goblet of red wine. In her memories, Rocky had sat opposite Kathy at a little table like this one. Rocky had held the wine, and when Kathy hadn’t understood, he had put his hand on his throat, and his eyes had been appealing. Kathy put her hand on her neck, and rubbed it just as Rocky had done, digging with her fingers.
“Don’t do that,” said Charles.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t hold your fingers on your carotid arteries. You’ll cut off the circulation to your head and faint.”
“What did you say? Charles! You’re brilliant! One hundred and one doctors and two hundred and two psychiatrists couldn’t diagnose Rocky’s fainting! He’s not sick! He’s not neurotic! I knew it. He’s healthy!”
“Hold on. I have a suspicious mind. Do you think he knew he was knocking himself out to get out of the Army?”
“Of course not. I’ll write and tell him. Maybe that will atone for trying to take him from his wife. I can give him back his health—you gave him back his health.”
The sunlight was brilliant on the yellow rose. The war was over in Paris. Charles had finally resolved to go back to school when the war was over in the South Pacific. The day was good with dinner at the Normandie and an evening at the opera. There were happy endings.
At midnight when Charles took Kathy to the Army truck that was driving back to Suippes, there were no tears. Only a feeling that what they had had was fine, and that what was ahead would be fine.
“I don’t like sending you back alone in a truckload of men,” said Charles.
“Men are...just men. They no longer shock or frighten me. You’ll like England. And maybe I’ll see you on a tropic island. Who knows?”
They kissed a gentle goodbye. Kathy had one last thing to say. “Thank you. You picked me up when I was down—you’ve lifted up my head. Thank you.”
Kathy climbed into the truck to sit near the open back. As they drove away, she leaned out and waved. This was goodbye to Charles, to Paris, and to their quiet hospital.
Tomorrow she would leave with her hospital for the port of Marseille in southern France. From there, they would sail off to serve in the CBI, somewhere in the Pacific.
She wasn’t afraid. She could look forward to the trip.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into Kathy's world in Chapter 21 of Girls in a World at War. If you found her journey as compelling as I do, I encourage you to explore the story further. There's so much more to discover, and you can continue the adventure by picking up the book. Thank you for sharing this moment with me!
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