A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin

  “How did you become so strong, Helen?”

  “I had to be strong to stand up to my father. I only wish I would have stood up to him sooner…. I know you’re all dying to ask me why I never married. I don’t hate men, even though it must sound like it sometimes. I was engaged once. But Albert was my father’s choice, and I didn’t love him. Love is important in a marriage, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, very important,” Ginny said quietly. She felt all of her fears slowly rising up inside, choking her. She needed to pour them out to someone. “Things have been a little better between Harold and me lately. And he says he still loves me…. But every time he travels, I start worrying again that he’ll have an affair. I’m trying to become more independent in case he does decide to leave me, so learning to drive is another preparation for that day. I want to be ready in case it happens. Remember the speech Eleanor Roosevelt gave after Pearl Harbor? She said we should always be prepared—”

  Ginny paused, struggling to hold back tears. “But I think it will still destroy me if Harold leaves, no matter how much I prepare for it.”

  Helen was silent for a long moment. “I have no idea what to say, Ginny.”

  “That’s okay. Me either.” She drew a deep breath and raised her chin. “Anyway. On with the lesson.”

  “You’re a lot stronger than the Ginny Mitchell who started working a year ago,” Helen said. “If the worst does happen, and your husband does find someone else, you’ll make it on your own…. Although I think Harold Mitchell would be a fool to leave you.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Now. Push in the clutch and start the engine.”

  Ginny practiced depressing the clutch pedal and shifting the gears for a few minutes before lurching out of the parking lot. The car hopped like a drunken rabbit, pitching poor Helen forward and backward as Ginny struggled with the clutch.

  The driving lessons consisted of traveling to and from work at first, and the hardest thing for Ginny to learn was releasing the clutch and shifting smoothly without grinding the gears or stalling. As she began to improve, they took excursions into town to practice parallel parking, then drove out of town on country roads to build up speed.

  “You’re ready,” Helen announced one Thursday afternoon in December. “You should take the driving test now before the snow flies. We’ve been lucky so far. We haven’t had snow and icy roads yet. But you don’t want to wait until spring.”

  “Oh, Helen, I don’t know—”

  “I telephoned the licensing office and learned that they stay open an hour later on Fridays. We should go tomorrow after work. Before you have too much time to think about it and talk yourself out of it.”

  “But what if—”

  “You’ll need to make arrangements for your boys after school. We’ll go there straight from work.”

  “Are you sure that—?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Ginny felt frightened and unprepared, but she was grateful for Helen’s insistence. All the girls at work knew how indecisive Ginny was, but Helen wasn’t allowing her any room to back out. They drove to the testing site immediately after work the next day.

  “Now, listen to me, Ginny. If something goes wrong and you don’t pass the first time, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll practice some more and you can retake the test.”

  Ginny realized she was holding her breath. She let it out. “Okay.”

  “And Ginny—one more word of advice, if I may. You’re a lovely woman. A little flirting goes a long way. You’ve seen how well it works for Rosa.”

  Ginny stared at her, surprised that Helen of all people would suggest such a thing. “Are you telling me to flirt with the man who gives the test?”

  “Why not? Women have been doing whatever it takes for thousands of years.”

  Ginny laughed, and it seemed to ease her tension. Maybe that had been Helen’s plan all along.

  The examiner turned out to be a tidy, unsmiling gentleman in his sixties. He climbed into the passenger seat and instructed Ginny to pull away from the curb. She smiled at him, wiped her sweating palms on her thighs, then carefully checked her mirrors the way Helen had taught her before pulling out onto the street. She saw Helen wave to her in the rearview mirror.

  The instructor spoke curtly at first, saying little more than, “Turn left … turn right … stop here,” as he made notes on his clipboard. Parallel parking worried Ginny the most. Helen’s car was so huge. But she followed Helen’s advice and smiled sweetly at the man each time he gave her a command, and by the time they got around to parallel parking he had thawed like an ice cube on a hot stove. He chose a spot with two empty spaces to test her parking ability, and she slipped the car into it with ease. They arrived back at the licensing office in no time at all.

  “Very good, Mrs. Mitchell,” the man said as the car drew to a halt. “You passed with flying colors.” She nearly hugged him. Instead, she jumped out of the car and hugged Helen.

  “I passed! Helen, I passed!” They went inside together to pick up her brand-new license. Even Ginny’s nosy neighbor, Betty Parker, didn’t have a driver’s license! Ginny wanted to celebrate. “I can’t wait to tell Harold. He’s been away all week but he’s coming home this evening.”

  “I’m proud of you,” Helen said. “Mr. Mitchell should be, too.”

  Ginny tried to decide how to surprise Harold with the news as she scurried around the kitchen, making supper before he arrived. But the moment he walked through the door she could tell by his expression that he was in no mood to celebrate.

  “What a week,” he groaned as he dropped his suitcase and shrugged off his overcoat. “I don’t know how the government expects to win a war overseas when they can’t even solve our problems at home. This race issue is cropping up more and more, everywhere I go.”

  “What happened now?”

  “Remember I told you about that factory in Maryland where some of the workers walked off the job after a colored woman transferred to their department? Well, the War Labor Board held hearings and ruled that she could stay and that the bathrooms had to be integrated for her. Now seventy percent of the work force has gone out on strike. Seventy percent! Of course, the Negroes are willing to cross the picket lines and take over the strikers’ jobs, so the whole place is in an uproar. President Roosevelt is probably going to have to call in the National Guard to cool things down.”

  “That sounds pretty frightening. And you’re in the middle of it all?”

  “I’m supposed to make sure the government quotas are met. I’ll tell you, I have a feeling that as soon as we win the war overseas, we’re going to have a new war here at home. I fail to see how the color of a man’s skin makes any difference in his ability to do a job.”

  “Remember the colored woman at the shipyard I told you about who was all set to fill in for Rosa after she left to have her baby?”

  “Whatever happened with her?”

  “Jean and Helen had trained her and everything. But management sidestepped the issue and hired a German POW instead. Helen’s worried that the German prisoner will sabotage something. She watches him like a hawk.”

  “You’re getting quite involved with all these people, aren’t you?” He sounded irritated with her. In fact, his entire mood seemed sour, and Ginny knew he wouldn’t celebrate her good news with her. She went to bed without telling him.

  “My suit needs to be dry-cleaned,” Harold told her at breakfast the next morning. He sat at the kitchen table reading his newspaper while Ginny washed and dried the breakfast dishes. “Everyone smoked during the meetings except me. Can you take it to the dry cleaner?”

  In the past, Ginny would have walked or taken the bus to run errands in town. Today she could drive. She was barely able to suppress her excitement as she asked, “Is it okay if I take your car?”

  “My car? Take it where?”

  “May I drive it to the dry cleaner?” Harold stared at her as if she were talking gibberish. Ginny
pulled her new license from her purse and handed it to him.

  “Surprise! I learned to drive! See? Here’s my new license.”

  “What? When? … How in the world did you learn to drive?”

  “Helen Kimball gave me lessons in her father’s car. She took me to get my test yesterday, and I passed. ‘With flying colors,’ the man said.” Harold stared at her, his mouth hanging open. He looked so shocked that she couldn’t tell if he was pleased or not. “Well, say something, Harold!”

  “Good for you, Ginny.” He surprised her with a smile. Then he stood and pulled the keys from his pocket and handed them to her. “Be careful.” Ginny was so happy she wanted to sing.

  She went upstairs to get Harold’s suit and was emptying out his pockets when she found a folded piece of paper. It looked like a receipt. She unfolded it, guessing that it might be important.

  It was a receipt for flowers, dated a week ago. They hadn’t been for her.

  “Oh no …” She sank down on the bed as all the strength drained from her legs. Her breakfast rolled sickeningly inside her stomach. “Oh, Harold, no …” she whispered.

  Should she ask him about it? Confront him? He would probably try to cover it up with a lie if she did. Harold was a very skilled poker player. Besides, did she really want to know? If she did confront him, she would have so many decisions to make, and she just wasn’t ready to make them.

  Ginny folded the receipt and put it in her purse. Then she took the suit and her grocery list and walked to the bus stop. It would be impossible to drive a car with tears blurring her vision.

  CHAPTER 31

  December 1943

  “After conferring with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and

  Russian Premier Joseph Stalin, President Roosevelt expressed

  the three leaders’ determination to ‘work together in the war

  and in the peace that will follow.”’

  * Helen *

  As soon as Helen learned that Meinhard Kesler would join their crew in Rosa’s place, she climbed down from the deck of the ship they were building and went straight to Earl Seaborn’s office.

  “I am furious!” she told him. “How could they hire a Nazi instead of Thelma King?” Earl had been seated behind his desk, working his way through a stack of papers, but he rose when she entered.

  “I understand, Miss Kimball. I’m upset about it, too. I fought as hard as I could for Thelma, but—”

  “I’m not blaming you, Mr. Seaborn, but where can I go? Who can I talk to about this … this … injustice! The personnel director? The chairman of the board?”

  “You’ll be wasting your breath, I’m sorry to say.”

  She gave a strangled cry of frustration. “I feel so helpless! I worked so hard to get those Germans out of Stockton, getting all those petitions signed—and my efforts did no good at all. Now this! Jean and I worked with Thelma King, training her, encouraging her. We both know how well-qualified she is. It’s so unfair!”

  “I feel the same way you do.”

  Helen remembered the beating Earl had taken because of the Negro workers, and she knew he was telling the truth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Seaborn. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I just don’t know where else to turn. Can’t anything be done?”

  “I would be busy doing it if there were something.”

  Helen sank into the chair across from Earl’s desk, trying to rein in her temper. He sat down, too. “How can you be certain that these prisoners won’t sabotage something?” she finally asked.

  “We can’t be entirely certain. But the company is getting the prisoners’ labor for free, so they’re probably willing to take that risk in order to increase their profits.”

  “I wish I had known this was going to happen. I was offered a teaching position this fall, but I turned it down so I could help Thelma and the others. Now I wish I had accepted it. Who knows how long it will be before another vacancy opens up? And I don’t think I want to work alongside a Nazi.”

  “I’m really sorry, Miss Kimball. I would have warned you if I had known. I was certain Thelma would get the job. I think the unrest over the drinking fountain frightened all the bigwigs.”

  “Cowards! They did the easy thing instead of the right thing!”

  “Hiring prisoners offered them an easy way out, yes. But the warden assured us that Mr. Kesler isn’t a Nazi—and he is highly qualified.”

  “Just so you know, I’ll be watching his every move. I hope he gets the death penalty for sabotage if he tries anything.”

  For the first few days, Helen noticed that Jean assigned jobs to Meinhard Kesler that kept him well away from her. But she knew it was only a matter of time before she’d be forced to work more closely with him, the way she had with Rosa. At least Helen wasn’t forced to socialize with him or any of the other Germans during their breaks. A guard took the prisoners to a separate room to eat, and she was able to forget about him for a short time, at least.

  On the Monday after Ginny earned her driver’s license, Helen announced the good news to Jean as the three of them ate lunch. “Some congratulations are in order. Ginny passed her driving test.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Jean said. “I’m so proud of you, Ginny! I’ll bet your husband was, too. Did you show it to him?”

  “Yes. He said he was happy for me. He … he gave me the car keys so I could take his suit—” She couldn’t finish. Her shoulders shook as she wept.

  “Ginny, what’s wrong?” Jean quickly moved to her side to comfort her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that …” Ginny dug in her purse for a handkerchief and pulled out a folded piece of paper along with it. “I found this in his suit pocket.”

  Helen leaned across the table to look. It was a receipt from a florist shop. “I gather that the flowers weren’t for you?” she asked.

  Ginny shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’d stick that paper under his nose,” Jean said angrily, “and demand an explanation.”

  “No, I’m afraid to confront him. I’m not sure I really want to know the truth. I don’t think I’m ready to hear it. Maybe if I waited—”

  “And let it eat away at you?”

  Ginny shrugged. “Maybe it will all blow over. Maybe Harold will get this philandering out of his system and come to his senses. In the meantime, I’m … I’m just not ready to face it.”

  Helen remained silent. She had no experience in this area and could offer no advice. She would dearly love to punch Harold Mitchell in the nose for hurting his wife this way, but that wasn’t the solution, either.

  “Let me know if I can do anything,” Jean said.

  “I will.”

  Ginny didn’t talk about it again, and Helen didn’t pry. Asking nosy questions had been Rosa’s forte. It was surprising how much Helen missed Rosa. All three of them did. Her name came up at least once a day.

  Meinhard Kesler’s presence served as a constant reminder to Helen that Rosa was gone and that Thelma had been cheated out of a job. And he also reminded her of the Great War—and Jimmy. She wished she could find fault with Kesler’s work so they could get rid of him, but he was excellent at what he did. And he was also unfailingly polite and courteous. He gradually won over Ginny and Jean with his soft-spoken, gentlemanly ways, and they began conversing with him as they worked together. Helen couldn’t help overhearing that he was a widower and that he had been assigned to a mobile communications unit in the African desert. He’d been captured a year ago in Egypt after El Alamein.

  Helen refused to be taken in by him. Every time he moved within ten feet of her she would quickly step aside. She never spoke to him and would turn her back if he tried to speak to her. She watched him during breaks and after work hours when the others were distracted, but she found no evidence that he was sabotaging the ships. In fact, as they were assembling wire harnesses one morning, Kesler showed Jean a design deficiency in the schematic drawing.

  “I think there is a better w
ay to do this. Look here—wouldn’t it be easier and more efficient if we did it this way?” He sketched an alternate design on a scrap of paper. “Here, you take this to the—how do you say? To the chief electrician. He will see what I am talking about.”

  Jean studied it for a moment. “You’re right. I will show him. Thanks.” Within a few days, the boss told Helen and the others to assemble the harnesses the new way—Kesler’s way. Helen couldn’t imagine why Kesler would agree to build a ship in the first place since it would be used to attack his own country, much less help redesign it.

  As the weeks passed, Helen became aware that Kesler had begun watching her. Her continual rebuffs and the fact that she never spoke to him seemed to bother him. He made several attempts to greet her and draw her into the conversation with the others, but Helen simply turned her back on him every time and walked away. She hoped he would get the hint and stop trying—but he didn’t.

  One afternoon as Helen worked with him and the others deep inside the ship’s bulkhead, he confronted her. The whistle had blown, signaling the end of their shift, but as Helen headed toward the narrow doorway, Kesler blocked her path. Her heart sped up as she tried to go around him.

  “You are in my way,” she said coldly. “Kindly move.”

  “Wait—before you go, I … I must ask you something.” Helen lifted her chin and folded her arms, waiting. “I need to ask you to forgive me,” he said quietly.

  “For what?”

  “For whatever it is that I have done to make you hate me.”

  She was about to deny that she hated him but realized it would be pointless after her behavior the past few weeks. “Why would you ask for such a thing?” she said instead.

  “Because I am sorry for you … sorry that you are so bitter.”

  “You don’t know anything about me!”

  “I recognize this bitterness because I was once the same. When you came to our camp, you asked me where I am fighting in the first war. I am wondering if someone you love has died in that war.”