MAGGIE
OAKLAND
The soccer dad good-naturedly tugged Alma’s trunk into a clear space in the laundry room.
“Hey,” he said, “what a coincidence. We’ve got about five loads of laundry to do, so you can conduct your research and run a whole bunch of laundry at the same time.”
“How convenient is that?”
With that, the boys were off, the washing machine was on load number one, and I perched on a folding camp chair to tackle the footlocker. It had lived in our family room for years, standing in for a coffee table we’d never gotten around to buying. It had been my grandmother’s going-off-to-war trunk, made of metal, scratched but barely dented, with reinforcing bands of brass. I’d always been reluctant to open it, because eau de mothballs still escaped whenever the lid was propped open. I’d tossed in scented soaps over the years, trying to fight the moths with more pleasant fragrances, but most of the time, it had just been the thing for the boys to prop their feet on while they ate popcorn during family movie nights. Later, it got exiled to the laundry room.
I wrinkled my nose and lifted the lid, expecting more stale smells to creep into the laundry room. Instead, a faint scent of lavender wafted out.
“Lavender soap,” I said out loud. “Thank you for vanquishing the mothballs.” I removed the soaps and layer by layer began deconstructing Alma’s memories. Right under the soaps was a layer of old tea towels, soft white linen with red stripes. When I lifted them off, the first thing I saw was familiar — Alma’s dress uniform, olive drab, with her captain’s bars still in place. I remembered trying on the jacket as a little girl and asking her to teach me how to march. She good-naturedly led me around her kitchen, through the living room, and out to the backyard. I followed her like a silly duckling, trying to keep up with her crisp commands. When I lost my place, we both dissolved in giggles, and then we saluted each other and marched right back to the kitchen table for lemonade and a big bowl of sweet Rainier cherries.
And here was her jacket. I held the inside of the jacket close to my face and just breathed. Beneath the old mothballs, beneath the lavender, I thought I caught a whiff of Shalimar, the perfume Alma had loved.
The washing machine spun itself to quiet. I hung Alma’s jacket on a padded hanger so it would keep me company while I continued to unpack.
Here’s what I discovered: envelopes of photographs, some of Alma and her fellow nurses in uniform, some of them on the wards, many on the hospital ships, some on trains. There was a glamour shot of Alma with a very young Morris, holding hands at a nightclub in New York. He was in uniform; she was in a full-skirted red dress, with a sweetheart neck, and a close-fitting black cocktail hat adorned with a handful of red feathers.
Some of these photos I’d seen in Papa Morris’s albums, where he had lovingly created book after book of homages to his beautiful wife.
Here was my favorite discovery: a blurry, typed document entitled “Packing Suggestions for Nurses Sailing to Europe.”
1.Trunk locker (weight limit 85 lbs). Bedding roll, not over 50 lbs. One piece of hand luggage, not more than 40 lbs. One field or musette bag. Each individual must have a duffel bag to be placed inside bedding roll. Total not to exceed 175 lbs in weight. Your musette bag will serve as an overnight bag or emergency kit.
2.When packing, consider your needs for the voyage. These are to be packed in your handbag and musette bag. These two pieces are to be taken with you aboard ship. Note: You will be toting your own bag, so bear that in mind. Your foot lockers and bedding rolls will be stowed in the hold of the ship and will not be accessible.
3.On boarding, your ship uniform will include the olive drab winter uniform, gas mask, helmet, musette bag, and pistol belt with first aid pouch and canteen. The field coat and handbag are all that will be carried, unless you have a musical instrument that you wish to take. When traveling to port, dress in full uniform and remember that you do not appear as an individual but are representing the Army Nurse Corps, and the 191st General Hospital. The public not only observes you closely but critically.
4.We will see you at the port. Remember security for both yourself and your unit. Do not say “Goodbye” as such a remark always invites questions.
“Mom, Mom, where are you?” I heard Zach call. “We’re starving!” I looked up from the list, still many pieces of advice to go.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” I shouted back, thereby breaking yet another impossible-to-keep Fiori house rule: Don’t shout between floors. I heard Michael’s low voice, issuing instructions about cleaning cleats outside and handwashing, and the sounds of the fridge opening and closing. There was life overhead in all its details, large and small, but I couldn’t quite bear the thought of tearing myself away from Alma’s footlocker.
Michael came to the top of the basement stairs. “Everything okay down there, cara? I don’t hear any washer or dryer sounds?”
“Just between loads,” I said, with a guilty look at the washer and dryer. I tossed the wet clothes into the dryer and dumped a load of sheets and towels into the washer.
I carefully smoothed Alma’s list, brought it upstairs, and listened to the soccer highlights — Zach had a “clean sheet” as keeper, with no goals scored on his watch, and Josh got a goal and was thrilled that Lexie had (a) come to the game, (b) seen him score, and (c) invited him to her game.
Michael handed me the cutting board, celery, and a knife, and I heard the rest of Josh’s recital — Lexie, Lexie, Lexie, midfield move, Lexie, Lexie, Lexie, idiot striker, and, by the way, he and Lexie were going to be just like Alex Morgan and Servando Carrasco.
Michael and I exchanged glances. “The soccer stars,” he explained, “who just got married.”
“Another victory for same-sex marriage in sports,” I observed, believing that every moment is a teachable moment.
Josh groaned. “Alex Morgan is a girl, and she was the star of the 2012 Summer Olympics. She’s a striker and she made a goal in extra time that won the game. Aced out the Canadians.”
“Oh well, another victory for women athletes.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Mom, you know, everything in the world isn’t about a life lesson.”
This was going well. “So, what about the guy — Carrasco?”
“He played for the Houston Dynamo,” said Michael, adding, sotto voce, “that’s an MLS team, not a nuclear reactor.”
“But now he plays for Sporting Kansas City and he’s a midfielder, like me,” said Josh.
“Listen, buddy,” said Michael. “I wish you and Lexie every good fortune in pursuing those big-time soccer careers. Your mother and I will be all primed to accept your offer of early retirement for us with gratitude and enthusiasm.”
Over lunch — gallons of orange juice for the soccer stars, tuna sandwiches (cut on the diagonal for Josh and as rectangles for Zach, can’t remember why), apples, and at least one giant bag of pita chips — I pulled out Alma’s list and read it aloud to Michael and the boys.
“Wow,” said Josh, “talk about a lot of rules and regulations.”
“They were sailing away from home, and there wasn’t going to be a Target or a supermarket on the ocean or once they’d landed.”
Michael was leaning over my shoulder, reading ahead. “Hey, I love this stuff. Listen to this — ‘Manicuring sets, yes, but polish brighter than Windsor is taboo in some theaters.’”
“Theaters?” asked Zach. “They were going to work in movie theaters?”
“That’s what they called areas of operations — the European theater, the Pacific theater, and so on,” I said. “It’s a kind of taxonomy, a way to organize and subdivide military operations. So, you start with the war, then go to the theater, and then to a campaign. For example, in the European Theater, where Alma was sent, there was the Western Front and the Eastern Front.”
Josh looked up. “Hey, we do that in biology — we classify organisms through taxonomy. Like kingdom, phylum, class, order, blah, blah, blah.”
“Yeah,” said Zach. “Like you’re the ruler of the Dunce Kingdom.”
I expected shoving and insult-trading to ensue. Instead, Josh patted Zach on the head. “Doesn’t matter, I’m still the ruler of something, doofus, so just get in line or I’ll exile you.”
By now, Michael had claimed possession of Alma’s list. “Here’s some more cool stuff. ‘Curtains: Colonel Martha Clements has suggested that each nurse take a few yards of some gay material with which to brighten up her quarters.’ And how about this? ‘Kotex: Take a two-month supply, part of this to go in your hand luggage. Colonel Clements’s suggestion is to have on hand four to five made of diaper material, just in case.’”
“Double gross,” said Josh. “And besides, nobody uses that stuff anymore.” I waited politely, suspecting there was more coming. “Lexie uses…oh, never mind.…” Even in our oversharing household, this was a little too much detail. Still, I would have relished overhearing the conversation between Josh and Lexie when this information was transmitted. Zach looked mildly puzzled and not particularly interested.
“Here’s my favorite, slightly cryptic item on the list,” Michael pressed on. “‘Watch: Can you depend on yours?’”
“I do love this list,” I said, clearing dishes and dispatching the boys to homework. “Finish everything up so it’s not hanging over your heads on Sunday,” I called as they clattered upstairs. “And we can have pizza and a movie night.” In an instant, the kitchen was silent.
“I know what you mean,” said Michael. “I feel as if we’re seeing a whole forgotten world unfold — and it makes me realize how much guts it took to leave behind everything familiar and set out on that journey.”
True to form, Michael was busy architecturally reorganizing the dishwasher. “Hey,” he said, “are you going back to Alma’s trunk? I could help for a while, if you like. Divide and conquer?”
“Delightful. Just remember that he who assists in the history excavation will also find himself adjacent to the dryer.”
“Good. I’m a far superior folder.”
CHAPTER 36
MAGGIE
OAKLAND
“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven.”
— Harriet Tubman
I had to give Michael credit. His lawyerly skills of discovery turned out to be quite useful. He rescued a half dozen empty banker boxes from the garage and labeled each box: Alma, Alma and Morris, Victoria, or ??
“What are the question marks?” I asked.
“We don’t know what it is yet, so you reserve extra boxes to create new categories as they become apparent. You touch each piece of paper once and decide what it is and where it goes.”
“I had no idea being a lawyer was so boring.”
“At work I have indentured servants, otherwise known as associates and interns, who do the most boring stuff. But it’s good to know how to tackle discovery in an orderly way, no matter how brilliant and important you are.”
He fished another camp chair out of the bowels of a crammed laundry room closet, and he divvied up what I’d already gone through.
“I’ve already looked through that whole stack,” I protested.
“Right,” said Michael. “But did you look at every page? And did you place everything in categories?”
I could see that accepting “assistance” had its downside.
“And to get us in the mood,” he said, punching buttons on his phone, “a new Pandora station of Southern-flavored music.”
With that, “Stars Fell on Alabama” began competing with the sounds of the washer and the dryer.
Two hours of meticulous reading and sorting, leavened by Elvis, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, the Dixie Chicks, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Kings of Leon, and the Avett Brothers, yielded tidy boxes of Alma, Alma and Morris, Alma’s recipes (which turned out to be one of the ?? categories), and only a few letters from Alma to Victoria, written onboard the hospital ship, the Charles A. Stafford.
“Your grandfather was a player in his day,” said Michael, holding up one of Alma’s letters. “Listen to this:
“Dear Morris, I hope that your excursion is going well, and I look forward to your return in a few weeks. I must thank you [I guess!] for arranging such lovely entertainment while you are away. Every single afternoon I receive an invitation under my door requesting that I dine below deck as Cookie’s personal guest. Of course, I am not foolish enough to turn down those invitations; he always has some delectable treats tucked away for his guests. I know that I had to “slide through” since I did not weigh quite the requisite one hundred pounds when I joined the Army Nurse Corps, but I do not think you need take responsibility to pile all that extra avoirdupois on me during one journey! Oh, yes, I know you are behind these invitations, and Cookie has made it clear that he has been deputized to make sure I receive his personal attention. Funny, between work and these lovely dinners, I have not had time to visit with any other officers. Surely that could not be your intention? With affection, Alma.”
“Papa Morris told me that story,” I said. “He was best buddies with the chef or the cook or whatever you call that guy who cooks on a ship, and I think he had a little black-market business on the side procuring really good steaks for his favorites — which included Papa Morris, because once in a while he let Cookie win a pool game. Anyway, Cookie had promised Morris to keep Alma very busy whenever Morris had to go ashore for a few days.”
“And he kept his word,” said Michael. “Okay, anything left in the trunk?” He peered inside, reached down to the bottom, and came up with a dark-brown velvet bag. “I’ve seen this before.”
“It’s the prayer shawl Papa Morris’s father gave to him on his bar mitzvah,” I said. “I’d lost track of it. Papa Morris wanted to make sure it went to one of the boys after he is gone.”
Michael placed the bag on my lap. “Will he mind if the great-grandson who inherits the prayer shawl has not been bar mitzvahed?”
“I asked him that,” I said, “when he was still pretty with it. He said that both the boys had good hearts and that was enough for him.”
Willie Nelson and the spin of the washer finished at the same moment. Michael got up to make the transfer. I sat with the bag on my lap, thinking about how easy it is to lose things. “Elizabeth Bishop,” I said. “She’s the poet who wrote about losing things.” I put both hands on the soft velvet, tracing the embroidered Hebrew letters I could no longer remember.
“Can I have your phone?” I asked Michael. “I need to look something up.”
He handed it over. “Hallelujah, the girl is mortal,” he announced to the laundry room.
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
faces, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”
My face was wet. “I am just an emotional shipwreck.”
Michael closed the trunk and sat on top of it. He said, “No handkerchiefs in
the laundry — but lots of cloth napkins.”
He dabbed at my face with one of my mother’s old linen napkins.
“You haven’t lost the prayer shawl,” he said. “Can I see it?”
I nodded and reached inside and pulled out the tallit. White wool spilled across my lap, and the tzitzit untangled.
“It’s in perfect condition,” said Michael.
“Put it on.”
“I don’t know. I think putting something this sacred around the shoulders of a fallen Catholic is not, well, kosher.”
He picked up the brown velvet bag, which still had a certain heft to it, and handed it to me. “There must be something else in there. Why don’t you check it out?”
Michael lifted the shawl from my lap, shook it out, and laid it on top of the dryer. I put my hand back in the bag and pulled out a small, flat wooden box. I opened it and fanned three photographs on top of the footlocker.
Michael pointed to each one. “It’s you,” he said. “And again. And again.”
The first photograph was a hand-tinted formal portrait of Jules and Victoria, she in an elegant, hoop-skirted lavender gown, he in white tie and tails. Jules was almost precisely her height, and he looked not at the camera but at her, clearly wondering at his good fortune. Victoria looked straight ahead, gazing into the camera with the carriage of a queen. I turned the photograph over. Victoria and Jules, February 14, 1867
The second was an untinted photograph of Victoria and Eli, he looking like the cat that ate the canary, with a very large serving of cream on the side, and Victoria looking solemn, with her hand tucked decorously into his arm. They were standing on the Oxford courthouse steps, squinting a little in the sun. She was in a simple narrow dress, embroidered on the bodice, and the skirt falling straight to the floor. Eli, clearly a man with a taste for style, sported a brocade vest underneath his cutaway jacket.
On the reverse of the photo, Victoria and Eli, March, 1863
Michael picked up the third photograph and handed it to me. “This is what you’ve been looking for: Victoria’s first love.” In a forest, four solemn people stared straight ahead. The bride and groom sat on a fallen log, holding hands. The bride wore a dark dress that fell in soft folds; the groom, a well-fitted coat and cravat.
The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Page 14
