It was not the same as charging down a machine-gun nest armed only with a Bowie knife, or strapping in to the tail-gunner seat of a four-engined heavy bomber. And no one else would ever know, since one did not get a medal for letting go of a woman’s hand on a gray Saturday morning in the middle of a European war. But to have faith—that a lover would be constant and life clement—this did require courage in a city more disposed to beginnings than safe continuations.
