The Last Embrace

by Pam Jenoff

  A bump pulled me from my thoughts and I held the railing not to be jostled as the ship came into a harbor, guided by a tugboat. A low fog swirled, obscuring the tops of the vessels around us. “We’ll be disembarking soon,” someone said. I nodded and slipped through the crowd and along the deck, suitcase already in hand. The air was a thick mixture of smoke and salt.

  Some twenty minutes later, we anchored and the gangplank lowered. “Quickly, please.” The purser’s voice sounded harried as he cast an eye warily upward. Taking in the area, I understood: Southampton, a key port city, had been a major target of the Luftwaffe. Buildings were flattened as far as I could see in either direction, as though a giant had come through, crushing the entire town under its feet. It was a thousand times worse than anything I’d seen on the newsreels back home.

  I joined the orderly queue that snaked forward from the ship, passing a military vessel unloading wounded soldiers on stretchers into ambulances. My lower stomach churned and I wondered if it was nerves or something I had eaten, or whether I was getting my period and would need to find a drugstore.

  We shuffled toward the arrivals hall, seemingly the only building that still stood whole. Inside, the immigration officer studied my passport for what seemed like ages before peering at me in disbelief. “You’re coming to London now?”

  I squirmed, suddenly sixteen again and afraid he would turn me away. “For work, yes.” I met his gaze squarely and my heart thumped. “At the Washington Post.” He looked so unimpressed I wondered if he had heard of it.

  “You’ve got a place to stay?”

  “The newspaper arranged it,” I lied. In fact, Mr. Steeves had made no reference to accommodation. The officer scribbled something on the ship’s log. Would he send me back? But he stamped my passport and handed it back to me. “Make sure you get to the city quickly and mind the curfew.”

  I exchanged some money at a kiosk and stepped from the terminal. Travelers with their luggage navigated between cars and taxis through an intersection where the traffic light listed to one side, broken. On the far side of the road, the wreckage of what had once been a pub smoldered, sending up smoke that made my throat burn. I walked toward an old man selling matches and other odd bits on top of a wooden crate. “The bus station?” I asked, wishing I could spare the money to buy something from him. I had just over sixty dollars on me, most of that from the hundred Uncle Meyer had given me for graduation, the rest from what I had earned in Washington. I needed to hold on to every penny until I was settled into my job here and figured out what things would cost.

  He shook his head. “Gone. Buses pick up from the corner.”

  Twenty minutes later I boarded a bus bound for London and paid the driver my fare. We pulled away from the devastation of the coast. Sheep grazed the withered hills, the landscape nearly untouched. But as we neared the city, I could understand why the immigration officer had been incredulous at my coming here. At home the war had been big posters in the train stations exhorting people to buy war bonds, grainy newsreels at the cinema. Aside from Todd Dennison getting killed, it had been almost unreal.

  But here the war was everywhere, inescapable. In London’s outer boroughs like Richmond and Twickenham, the devastation was more sporadic, a house crushed here or there, as though perhaps a tree had fallen on it. Amidst the wreckage, people were doing strangely ordinary things, going to work and putting out the garbage and hanging wash on the lines. Closer to the city center, the scope of the damage unfurled. Entire blocks lay smashed. Traffic slowed and the bus inched forward, following the taxis and other buses through a detour where debris had made the road ahead impassible. Then came another street like that and another, until I had lost count. Though I had read the reports of the Blitz, I had imagined London, all of England really, as one step removed from the chaos of the Continent. But this was a city at war, as surely as if the German tanks were rolling down Westminster.

  The bus pulled to a complete stop at an intersection and I studied the passersby on the street below. In front of a corner butcher shop women queued for whatever there was to be bought with the ration coupons. Though their expressions were calm, there was a weariness about them, shoulders stooped, the months of bombings having taken their toll. There was something odd about them, too, and it took me more than a minute to realize: none of them had any children, not babies in prams or toddlers shifted from hip to hip. They had all been shipped out of the city to safety with families in the countryside ahead of the Blitz, and even now that the bombing had stilled most remained in exile in case it should resume.

  As the bus moved forward, I looked back, shivering. What would it take for a mother to put her child on a train and send them away, not knowing if or when she’d ever see them again? Mamma had done just that, putting my safety ahead of her own pain. Mrs. Connally surely would have done the same to keep Robbie safe if she could have. I swallowed back the lump that had formed in my throat.

  It was nearly noon when I reached Fleet Street, having decided to use a bit of my money to take a taxi from Victoria station, rather than attempt the underground. Through the window, storied London, with its charming Victorian houses, had looked exactly as I’d expected, and at the same time not at all: coarse sandbags abutted most of the buildings and the windows that were not broken were blackened with tape or paint. “Can’t go no further,” the cabdriver said as we reached a police blockade hastily erected in the middle of the busy street. “Closed for security reasons.” Were the newspaper offices that lined the famed block some sort of target?

  I paid the driver and stepped from the cab, then paused to get my bearings. I started up Fleet Street, navigating the pavement carefully to avoid the sea of craters and debris. As I walked, my stride grew lighter. Despite the wreckage, I savored the freedom of a place I did not know at all—and where no one knew me.

  A few minutes later, I set down my small suitcase by my feet and gazed up at the massive dome of St. Paul’s silhouetted against the slate-gray sky, its dome guarding defiantly over streets and streets of buildings blown to rubble. Over the river behind the cathedral, barrage balloons floated like slow whales.

  Something bumped into me from behind, nearly sending me sprawling. It was a man who had been walking with his head drawn low beneath the wide brim of his hat, focused on the papers he held. I waited for him to apologize. “Watch where you are going,” he admonished instead, his blue eyes flashing icily.

  “Hey!” I stopped, shocked by his rudeness. He had bumped into me. But I bit my tongue; the last thing I needed now was trouble. Besides, the man was already out of earshot.

  Recovering, I inhaled deeply—the air was different here, coal-tinged and mixed with exhaust. I studied the numbers of the buildings: Number 19 Fleet Street, which housed the Post’s London office, should be just ahead.

  The ground rumbled unexpectedly beneath my feet. Panicking, I threw myself into a doorway, then eyed the sky. I’d read the news articles of the sudden bomb attacks that had come out of nowhere, destroying homes and taking lives by the dozens. But around me pedestrians carried on, unperturbed. The noise came again and listening closely, I realized it was not an air raid, but an underground train traveling below.

  Embarrassed, I straightened, catching a glimpse of my disheveled hair in the glass window of a stationer’s shop. I could not turn up at the news bureau looking like this. I turned and walked back to a café I had passed a minute earlier. Inside, a group of men clustered at the counter, smoking and arguing over lunch about something Churchill had said. I slipped past them and found the toilet and freshened up.

  When I stepped out again, the argument had reached a fever pitch. “If Chamberlain hadn’t stepped in to help Poland, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” one of the men at the counter said.

  I couldn’t help myself. “That’s exactly the kind of thinking that got Britain into trouble in the first place,” I blurted. Then me
n turned and looked at me, mouths agape. I desperately wished I could fade into the walls. But it was too far gone for that. “Appeasement was a failed policy,” I added.

  “Oh?” A head rose above the others. I stared in surprise at the familiar blue eyes—it was the man who had bumped into me on the street minutes earlier. Hat removed, his hair was blond and neatly styled beneath.

  “Yes.” I squared my shoulders, as annoyed by his rudeness as his politics. “If Britain had not declared war, we’d be right where we are now, only Hitler would be stronger.”

  “I agree. If you’d heard the first part of my statement you’d have known that.” He smiled, self-satisfied. “And that is why,” the man continued, “the American army needs to go across the Channel immediately.” He turned away dismissively. I walked from the coffee shop, cheeks burning.

  As freshened up as I could manage, I proceeded to Number 19. Inside, the reception area for the Post was small and crowded, a far cry from the stately lobby of the Washington bureau. I waited for the woman behind the desk to set down the phone. “Is Mr. Theodore White available? I’m Adelia Montforte from the Washington office.”

  The receptionist turned toward me impatiently, penciled eyebrows arched in reaction to my accent, bright red lips pursed. She wore a metal bracelet bearing her name and personal details. An identity bracelet, I realized, in case she fell victim to a bombing. “He’s out.”

  My stomach sank a bit. I had come here depending upon the job Mr. Steeves had referenced. I did not have a backup plan—or even a place to stay.

  I tried again. “I’m here about a secretarial position.”

  “So are they.” The receptionist gestured toward the waiting area of filled chairs. She eyed me skeptically, then looked down over the desk toward my feet. Most people who came for interviews did not bring a suitcase. “You have an appointment?”

  “I was sent from the Washington bureau,” I repeated. I held out Mr. Steeves’s card and the secretary’s eyes widened slightly.

  “Follow me.” I avoided the resentful stares of the girls who had been waiting as the receptionist led me up a flight of narrow, uneven stairs and into a long room. It was crowded with typists like the bureau had been back in Washington. Cigarette smoke, a universal perfume, hung high in the air above. The clattering of fingers against keys was welcoming and familiar. She ushered me to an empty typewriter. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get acclimated, then come back to administer the typing test.”

  I studied the machine in front of me, which was a different style from the typewriters back in Washington. “Hello again,” a voice behind me said. I jumped. The man who had bumped into me on the street, and with whom I had quarreled in the coffee shop, loomed now over the desk. “We didn’t get off on the right foot, did we?” His face was pleasant now, his voice a rich baritone.

  I fumbled to find a response. Had he followed me? “I’m sorry, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to have an interview.”

  “With me,” he finished. I blinked in surprise. “I’m Theodore White.” He said this as though I should have already known. So this was the awful man to whom Mr. Steeves had sent me. I could feel the curious stares of the other women around me as they stopped typing to watch and listen. Clearly, Theodore White did not normally talk to the typists, much less the applicants.

  The receptionist reappeared. “Mr. White, she hasn’t tested yet. I was just about to administer the typing exam.”

  “Never mind that.” He waved his hand, then turned to me. “Come.” I hesitated. He cut through the typing pool self-assuredly, taking in the room as though he owned everything—and everyone—in it. Inwardly, I blanched. Was it too late to back out? The last thing I wanted to do was work with this dreadful man. But I had come all this way and had no choice but to follow him.

  His office was cluttered, with a smeary window looking out at the fog-wreathed dome of St. Paul’s. He cleared a stack of papers so hurriedly from a chair that they spilled to the ground. Not bothering to pick them up, he gestured that I should sit.

  “So what can I do for you, beside almost knocking you over and correcting your misconceptions about the war?” I thought he was joking, though he did not smile. He was a few years older than me, with porcelain eyes. He was good-looking, too good-looking really, in that should-be-in-movies-not-standing-here kind of way. But there was a coldness about him that made me squirm.

  I cleared my throat. Though I did not at all like him, I needed him to like me. “I’m Adelia Montforte. I work, that is, I worked, for the Post in Washington. Mr. Steeves recommended me. He said he would send word.” He wore a puzzled expression. Perhaps Mr. Steeves had not sent the telegraph, or it had not arrived.

  “He sent a secretary all the way across the pond.” Theodore White harrumphed. “Here to keep an eye on me, most likely.”

  “Not at all.” His eyes widened. Clearly, he was not used to being contradicted, at least not by a typist. “I requested the transfer.” I hoped he would not ask why.

  “Well, the work here is pretty straightforward. Typing, and some proofreading.”

  “In Washington, I was doing the copyedits too.” I had only done copyedits a handful of times for Mr. Steeves. But I stretched the truth a bit, wanting to sound more useful than the average typist and hopeful that he could not tell the difference.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Let’s see how you do with this piece.” He passed me a paper and pencil. His fingers were long with flat nails that said he might have been an artist. They reminded me of my father’s. I tried to recall my mother’s hands, but found that I could not. The little things faded with time, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to them.

  I scanned the article about the displacement of the residents of a village in north France, making notes in the margins. “Well?” I handed it back to him and he scanned my corrections. “What else?”

  I hesitated, smelling the minty pomade in his hair as I leaned in to point. “It’s not just the grammar, see? It’s about the voice. You need to put the reader in the shoes of the people, the families and children. Make them care.” I was going beyond the copyedits, I knew, and into the substance of the piece. Overstepping my place. But he had asked and I needed this job. “There’s a reference here to this family Reimbaud—what about the children, how this affected them? How long have they lived there and where will they go? I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you should talk to the writer.”

  “You already are.”

  “Oh!” I felt my cheeks go crimson. Without realizing it, I had been criticizing his work.

  But he waved his hand, not seeming to take offense. “Not at all. You’ve found exactly what the piece was missing. I’ll take another shot at it and show it to you again.”

  “Are there photographs?”

  He nodded, then handed me an envelope. “I didn’t take these. They’re from a stringer.”

  I studied the images, which were a bit stiff and generic, capturing the scene the way a child might have drawn it. “I’m afraid the photos are all wrong, too. They’ve focused on the line, but look at the mother holding her child back from the police.” I traced it with my finger. “I would have centered here.”

  “You’re a photographer, too?”

  The word seemed somehow too big. “Just for fun. I like taking pictures.”

  “We have a darkroom here at the paper. You’re welcome to use it in the off hours, though supplies are scarce so you’d have to find your own.” Though he had not formally made me a job offer, it sounded then as though he wanted me to come to work.

  “Does that mean I can keep copyediting?”

  “Yes, you’ve got the job. Steeves would kill me if I sent you back. You’ll be working for me.” He pointed to a tiny desk in the corner of his office. “You can start tomorrow and sit there.” I had imagined myself sitting w
ith the typists like I had been in Washington, not working in such close quarters with him.

  “I did some translating for Mr. Steeves also,” I added. “Some French, but mostly Italian.”

  “You’re from Trieste,” he said, surprising me. I noticed then the telegram that sat open on his desk. So Mr. Steeves had written after all. Why couldn’t White have just said so, instead of playing games and leaving me to dangle? My annoyance at him grew.

  “Yes. My parents sent me to America as a child.”

  “Are they still in Italy?”

  I shifted uncomfortably at the question, too intrusive for someone I had only just met, and now my boss. “I don’t know. They disappeared over a year ago and there’s been no word.”

  “And you’re a Jew.” His bluntness surprised me. There was anti-Semitism here like back home, I was sure. I hadn’t mentioned my religion at the Post in Washington—my Italian surname had made it easy to avoid the subject. Mr. Steeves must have known, though, and told him. Would it would keep me from getting the job? Maybe I should deny it.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Not at all. My mum is Jewish,” Teddy said. “But I keep it quiet.” I nodded. “I’m not a bigot. I’m just surprised you’d return to Europe.” I held my breath, again waiting for him to ask why I had left Washington. He could not possibly know that, too. “It’s brave of you, coming here. Brave or stupid—the jury’s out on that one.” I looked for the smile that did not come.

  I shrugged. “It’s just London.”

  He eyed me levelly. “You think the city is safe?”

  I hadn’t thought about it before leaving. But after all I’d seen since arriving that morning, I knew that it was not. “As much as anywhere else,” I lied. Nowhere would ever feel safe to me.