Henri to Yvette.

650 Gen Tpt Coy

Letter 14. 28 March 1944

I am writing to you from our kitchen. I’ve been working here for two weeks so as to rest from the weariness of the roads. I could really not continue any more. My nerves were ruined and my health sapped. So I had to rest little….

..A year ago I had arrived in Cairo. And I still see the joy in your eyes and, a little more deeply in your eyes also, a painful indecision. (That reminded me a little of the first minute that you saw me on my first visit to your hospital.) We went to Groppi’s place. There we had a good little chat, and then —- and then, everything happened.  Everything came together, the documents, the colonel, and the marriage – at Maadi. There we had our first week. The only week where we were really together, one with the other. The world became very small and very large. There was no more war, or hospital, everything, the wounded, the sick, the dead, the rich, the miserable. There was no one but us…..It all still alive within me. That room and the terrace where we took our breakfasts. You remember? Our afternoons on the divan in the corner of the room where I told you my heart and you told me yours.” “And our nights. You often say that I have brought you to life. No, darling. I was incomplete myself without you. We are complete, that is why we are born and live. We live because we love. And we love each other as we have never loved others. You remember Maadi, darling?

2 April 1944

I was forced to interrupt this letter. Now I don’t know how to go on. T describe this week of happiness, this week of the true birth of life? I simply want to say that I am happy and peaceful because you are part of me. Because you will always remain part of me. Tell me darling, for your part, have you never even for a second regretted the 24 March 1943?  In the past week I’ve received three letters from you. I hame happy for you to go to the concert with Dov. As for the two mates from Spain (what is the commissar called?) give them my sincere good wishes and tell them that I am still not an officer, no doubt because of the dialectic. I’ll send you a little money in a few days.