Attu, 7 April 1945 -- "we've been outrageously lucky"

In the first week of April 1945 the German army was defeated in Bratislava and Hainburg on the Danube and Heilbronn on the Neckar, all places Murray and Rosa had been via kayak in 1939. Like many an American, especially one from the West Coast, Murray had not seen beloved places turned into war zones. That sense of the fragility of peace and beauty stayed with him.

 

My incredibly loved infant...

The place names in the news shake me with memories, my Nunny. 

Bratislava...Heilbronn...Hainburg, all on the same day, and I think of Big Paul talking quietly, Little Paul asking abut the big apple and outlining his ambition to burn a thousand crown note and wondering if the Technocrats would win the 1940 election in the US, and Mr. Foldi explaining his theory about coffee for hot days, ice cream for winter, and then reminding us to speak softly for the Gestapo might be at the next table....  I think of Mrs. Hahn's "Do you eat meat?" and my enthusiastic "Oh boy, yes!" and her quiet "We don't." Of the drive in the country and the quiet hill which I suppose became someone's observation post...But most of all I remember Hainburg, with the big arched gate, the hunt to find a place to spend our remaining marks, the wine shop and the unparalleled Reisling -- green and cool and fullbodied, and the final meeting with Major Raven-Hart. We have been outrageously lucky, little lover, to know a world that had more beauty than ugliness.

With only 23 days left to go, time seems to have had a stop. I try to keep as busy as possible and not to watch the kettle, but whenever I count the days it seems as if the water is freezing rather than boiling. So very slow they go.

Those Aleutians [working title of Bridge to Russia] progresses steadily under the drive of my discontent. I've skipped, temporarily, the account of the Attu and Kiska campaigns, and am writing the section about the Future. When that is done it will leave only about seven short sketches to be done and the first draft is finished. We'll be able to wrap it up together when I get down. 

Last night, after working afterhours every night for a week, I decided I was going stale. There wasn't a movie I cared to see, so Gene and I sat in our bunks and drank beer and read. Gene is reading "Tom Jones," which I started in Mexico and did not finish. I read, and with much gusto, Tolstoy's short novel The Cossacks. It is one mentioned in "Green Hills of Africa," and it is truly wonderful. The translation seems stiff at times, especially in regards to conversation, but the people are true and the background as real as anything in literature. Mac is currently reading Cannery Row and enjoys it very much; like me he feels the comparisons to Saroyan are unjust. This morning Mac was reminiscing about a hitch-hiking trip he took with a girl from Whitman: they hitched a ride on a boat down the Nespelem river, which seems an attractive idea. 

I must set to work now, my darling. Only three more weeks and two more days. How I love you, 

M