Bachelor Girl

by Kim van Alkemade

  “Do you want to get some sleep?”

  “I’ve got the whole Atlantic to sleep.” He set the ashtray on the floor and put his arms around me. “You made this so nice for me. No matter what happens in France, I’ll be able to picture us in this room.” He stroked my neck with the back of his hand. “How about you, what was your first time like?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to ruin your night.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  For ten years I’d never spoken of it, but I’d dropped my defenses with King, and before I could shore them up the words came spilling out. It was because of my heart that I wasn’t allowed to participate in sports at boarding school. Still, I had to be out with all the other boys, so while they scrimmaged or tackled I walked the track, circle after circle. Sometimes they ran by me, a posse of footfalls approaching from behind, their heavy breathing getting louder and louder then fading as they passed, trailed by the smell of their sweat. That day, one of the boys kept running after the others had gone inside. He came up alongside me just as we drew even with the old equipment shed. I hardly knew what lifted me off my feet as he swept his arm around my waist and carried me into the shed. I was thirteen but small, my growth set back by the year I’d spent recovering from rheumatic fever. He said he’d been watching the way I swished around the track. He said I was a pansy. He grabbed me by the hair and pushed me to my knees. He said this was what pansies did, and if I ever told anyone, every boy at school would be lined up for it. I struggled to understand his words as I choked and gagged, tears and snot smeared across my face. If I kept quiet, he said, it would only ever be him. He was a senior, but it was only March. He didn’t graduate until June.

  The whole time I was talking, King kept his arms circled around me. I didn’t know what he must have made of my story. Perhaps he was thinking it was a good thing no one in Milwaukee had figured out what was different about him.

  “If I’d been there, I’d have killed him for you.” For the first time since we met, King sounded like a soldier.

  “Don’t be silly. You would have only been eleven years old.”

  “I shot my first deer when I was eleven.”

  A fist clenched in my chest. “Mein Ritter in glänzender Rüstung.”

  “If I’m your knight in shining armor, what does that make you?”

  “Ihre Jungfrau in Nöten?”

  “If you were a damsel,” he said, reaching for me, “I’m the one who’d be distressed.”

  Eventually we slept—at least, I did. I never heard King leave. The next thing I knew I was shocked awake by a shrill persistent ringing. I thought the house was on fire. I stumbled naked across my room to the telephone, barely taking in my empty bed, his missing boots.

  “Kramer, listen.” The Colonel’s voice was like a nail hammered into my brain. “I’m sending Schultz to drive you to that orphanage this afternoon. And I want you to take Helen Winthrope with you.”

  Chapter 9

  All night long, terrible thoughts crashed through my mind, tossing me in my sheets like a boat caught in a storm. I imagined myself etherized on a hotel bed, that so-called doctor kneeling between my spread legs, a fishhook in his dirty hand. I pictured myself on the operating table, the surgeon deciding for himself what my future would be. Who knows if it was even true, what he told my mother? Perhaps the infection wasn’t fatal. Perhaps he’d simply decided, as he wielded a knife over my unconscious body, that a girl like me didn’t deserve to breed. It was nearly dawn before my exhausted mind calmed enough for sleep to drop anchor.

  My mother appeared around noon with breakfast. I felt like an invalid all over again as I sat up in bed and accepted the tray she placed on my lap. The smell of coffee started my thoughts right back to churning. Harrison had wanted me to have a complete experience of life, but what woman’s life was complete without the experience of a child? Even the most successful Bachelor Girls eventually gave up their jobs for the chance at motherhood. I’d thought I’d have plenty of time to make my mark as an actress before exchanging my freedom for the bonds of matrimony. Yet here I was, not even a wife and already barren.

  My mother opened the curtain. Sunlight flooded the room. I sipped some coffee, the bitter liquid warming my mouth and prompting a growl from my empty stomach. “Go ahead and eat, Helen. I made the farina the way you like it, with cinnamon and raisins.”

  I swallowed a few spoonfuls, the familiar taste a comfort. She sat beside me on the bed. “You can’t punish yourself, Helen. What’s done is done.”

  “Please, let’s not talk about it.”

  She placed a gentle hand on my cheek. “We won’t ever talk about it again, if that’s what you want.” She kept me company in silence until I’d finished the farina and drained the coffee. “Feeling better?”

  Compared to what, I thought? “I suppose so.”

  “Good, because I just spoke with Jake. Mr. Kramer is coming in the limousine to pick you up on his way to the orphanage.”

  “No, Mom. You can’t expect me to do that. Not now, not today.”

  “I’m afraid so, Helen. It’s more important than ever. You know I have no savings left, and if it weren’t for Jake, the hospital bill would have bankrupted us.”

  “Why, what did he have to do with it?”

  “He paid it. Thank God the report said appendicitis. His people are Catholic, you know. It was his suggestion to hire the nurse when you developed pneumonia. He paid for that, too.”

  I was astonished. In the course of a single day, I’d gone from blaming Colonel Ruppert for my father’s death to finding out I owed him my very life. I supposed a hospital bill and a nurse’s salary were a drop in the bucket for a millionaire, but still he must have thought me ungrateful, as I sat beside him at the ballpark, not to have given him my thanks. “I guess he feels awfully guilty about Daddy to spend so much on me.”

  “I told you, Jake takes his responsibilities seriously. And now he’s gone to the trouble of arranging this visit to the orphanage for you. I’m sorry, Helen, but we’re in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  I threw back the blanket with a groan. Compliance, it seemed, was the only currency with which to repay Colonel Ruppert. “Okay, I’ll get ready.”

  “And do something about your hair. You know what happens when you sleep on it wet.”

  I washed my face and brushed my hair, but as a form of protest I put on the same yellow linen I’d worn to the ballpark without making the effort to iron it out. When she saw what I was wearing, my mother told me to take it off. Then the bell rang and she couldn’t decide which would be worse—me appearing in a wrinkled dress, or keeping Mr. Kramer waiting. In her moment of indecision, I grabbed my jacket and hat. Riding down in the elevator, I wondered how many more invitations from Colonel Ruppert I would be forced to accept before the scales between us were balanced.

  Seeing Albert Kramer in the lobby lifted a bit of the weight from my heart. It wasn’t just that he looked so handsome, hair combed back from his elegant forehead and hat dangling from his slender hand. It was something else that cut through my sadness. A feeling, when I saw him, of being a little less alone in the world.

  Albert was deep in conversation with Clarence, who seemed to be giving a speech on Negro rights. He was becoming more and more political the closer he got to shipping out—which could happen any day now. His commander had deferred his deployment until he completed his degree so that he’d be eligible for promotion if the War Department could ever be persuaded to commission black officers. Though Clarence complained about being left stateside while the 369th were seeing action at the Bois-d’Hauze, his mother, I knew, was grateful for the reprieve. For years Mrs. Weldon had taken in the tenants’ laundry, every cent she earned from washing our clothes dedicated to Clarence’s education so she could sit, proud in a new hat, to see her son receive a college diploma. He’d make a good teacher when he got back from the war, I thought, watching him lecture Albert.

  “You
see, Mr. Kramer, it isn’t that I have anything against the Germans, but I agree with Dr. Du Bois that participating in the fight to defend democracy abroad will strengthen our case for justice here at home.”

  Albert nodded thoughtfully. “I saw that Silent Protest Parade last summer. It made a deep impression on me.”

  He was about to continue his harangue when I spoke up. “Hello, Albert. I see you’ve met my friend Clarence Weldon. I hope he hasn’t talked your ear off.”

  “No, not at all. We’ve been having a most enlightening discussion.” He extended his hand. “Good luck to you in France.”

  “Thanks. Here, why don’t you take this.” Clarence grabbed the latest issue of The Crisis off his stool. “It’ll broaden your perspective. If you only read the New York Times you’d hardly know about the massacre in East St. Louis, let alone the Fort Sam Houston hangings.”

  Albert thumbed through the pages of the magazine Clarence had thrust into his hands. “Thank you, Mr. Weldon, I’m sure it will. Are you ready, Helen? Schultz is waiting.”

  Clarence held open the door, his manner softening as we came abreast. “It isn’t too much for you, Helen, going out two days in a row?”

  It is, I wanted to say. Remembering the pressure of his fingers on my wrist as he measured my pulse, I wondered if he’d be so sympathetic if he knew it was my own stupidity that had nearly cost me my life. “I’m fine, Clarence. Please don’t worry.”

  As Albert escorted me to the limousine, he asked if I’d been ill. Unwilling to elaborate, I simply said yes. Once we were settled in the back of the Packard, Albert fanned himself with his hat. I noticed the pallor of his skin and the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Aren’t you well yourself this morning, Albert?”

  “Just a headache. Not enough sleep and too much whiskey.” He gave me a weak smile. “I don’t usually work on Saturdays.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, we could do this another time, or not at all. It wasn’t my idea to tag along, you know. Colonel Ruppert arranged it, and my mother convinced me I couldn’t say no.”

  Albert snugged his hat back on his head. “The Colonel is a hard man to refuse.” We sat in awkward silence as Schultz drove up Amsterdam Avenue, Albert nursing his headache, me distracted by my thoughts. Finally, he said, “I hope you’ll enjoy visiting the orphanage at least.”

  I didn’t expect to enjoy much of anything that day. There was a question, though, that had been niggling at my brain. “Why is the Orphaned Hebrews Home coming to Colonel Ruppert for a donation? I thought Jews took care of themselves.”

  He blinked slowly, as if roused from some reverie. “I guess because they’re German, too.” The Packard made a sharp turn. I slid across the leather of the limousine’s rear seat, my hip bone pressing into Albert’s thigh.

  “Sorry, Mr. Kramer,” Schultz said, bringing the Packard to an abrupt stop. “There’s your orphanage.”

  Stepping onto the sidewalk, we craned our necks to look up at the turrets and spires of the building, its decorative ironwork bristling from the roof. The clock tower soared above our heads, and the wide windows across the front of the building were too numerous to count. “I can hardly believe that’s a home for children,” I said.

  “Over a thousand of them. That’s what Mr. Stern told me.”

  “It must be like living in a castle.”

  “Orphans only live in castles in fairy tales.” I was surprised at Albert’s harsh tone. “I’m sorry, Helen, but my father died when I was very young and my mother and I have been the poor relations ever since.”

  His eyes met mine, and I felt a spark of sympathy arc between us. “I lost my father, too, Albert. I know it’s no fairy tale.” When he said he was sorry to hear it, I had to look away to stop myself from crying. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Linking arms in solidarity, we mounted the steps and entered a spacious foyer in which a broad marble staircase doubled back on itself for three stories or more. Peering up, I couldn’t tell how far it climbed. I withdrew my arm from Albert’s, worried we might look to the children like prospective parents. It would be cruel, I thought, to get their hopes up.

  A man came toward us, hand outstretched. His dark eyes and elegant nose were attractive enough, but there was something haphazard about his appearance, what with his ill-fitting suit and crooked tie. I noticed, as the sleeve of his jacket pulled up, a gold watch from a fine maker with a badly scratched face and battered band. The dramaturge in me wondered what it signified about his character: a reckless nature, or simply a careless one?

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Kramer.” He turned to me and took my hand rather stiffly. “Mrs. Kramer, welcome.”

  “Oh no, I’m not his—”

  “—she isn’t my,” Albert interrupted, then continued. “I’m sorry, I’ve made a mess of the introductions. Miss Helen Winthrope, this is Mr. Felix Stern, a trustee of the orphanage.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Winthrope,” he said, his hand relaxing.

  “Miss Winthrope is acquainted with Colonel Ruppert. She was curious to visit the orphanage.”

  Making the best of the situation, I said, “I hear it’s the finest in the city.”

  “In the nation,” he replied. “At least, it was. When it was built, there wasn’t an institution in the country to match it.”

  “Helen, do you mind if I have a word with Mr. Stern for a moment? Just a bit of business before we begin our tour.”

  They stepped away and spoke quietly together, Albert explaining my presence, I assumed, though I doubted he understood it any better than I did. Just then a bell rang, loud as a fire alarm. I jumped out of my skin.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Mr. Stern said as he and Albert returned. “I hardly hear it anymore.” The sound was still ringing in my ears when hundreds of children began streaming down the staircase. They didn’t exactly walk in step, but it was eerie the way they moved without speaking or shoving, no bursts of laughter or calling out of names. The three of us held our places in the center of the foyer as the children flowed around us and down the corridor.

  “Let me show you around.” Mr. Stern gestured up the stairs. “We can start with the infirmary on the third floor and work our way down.”

  “I’m mostly interested in seeing the grounds,” Albert said. I thought it strange, since Colonel Ruppert was considering donating to the orphanage, that his secretary wouldn’t want to get a full tour, but I supposed Albert’s headache made him want to cut it short.

  Mr. Stern seemed disappointed. “At least let me show you the synagogue before we go outside.” He took us to an auditorium that was easily as large as the Olde Playhouse. They used the space not just for religious services, he said, but also to put on pageants and plays. I wondered who directed these theatricals. The thought brought me back to my conversation with Harrison. If I had known, as I sat beside him yesterday, the true consequences of our affair, I never could have withstood his gaze so coolly. Maybe I should have gone to him when I realized I was in trouble, but my mother was delusional to think he would have married me. Neither would he have wanted to imperil the success of his play by pulling me off the stage for the duration of a pregnancy. The decision, I’m sure, would have been the same, the accidental product of our coupling expelled from my womb. Harrison, though, with all his experience, might have placed me in a steadier pair of hands.

  “Are you coming, Helen?” Mr. Stern was leading us out of the synagogue and down a wide corridor. Along the way, we passed a library and a music room and a club room, where a group of teenagers around Rex’s age was laying out a magazine. From there we descended to the basement level, windows high in the walls letting in a slanted light. The floors in the dining hall were being washed, so Mr. Stern took us instead through an industrial kitchen. On a table next to an enormous oven, enough loaves of rye bread were stacked to feed an army.

  “Exactly how many children are living here?” I asked.

  “Last week’s count was one tho
usand two hundred and seven, if I remember correctly.”

  “Don’t any of them get adopted?” Asking the question brought home to me that adoption was now the only way I’d ever be a mother.

  “Most of them aren’t available for adoption, though there are a few.” Mr. Stern paused to scrutinize me. “Even if you were Jewish, though, Miss Winthrope, unmarried women aren’t allowed to adopt.”

  Finally, we emerged from the building onto a barren expanse of gravel the size of a city block. On it, hundreds of children were running, skipping, hopping, tossing and catching, jumping and shouting. Compared to their strange silence indoors, the cacophony was overwhelming. Albert excused himself to go walk around the property. Mr. Stern and I watched him negotiate his way through the mob of children and out a gate in the stone wall. I would have apologized for Albert’s rudeness by explaining about his headache, but it wasn’t my place to offer excuses for a man I barely knew. As if reading my thoughts, Mr. Stern asked, “Have you known Mr. Kramer long?”

  “We only met yesterday.” I gave a summary of our afternoon at the ballpark, to which he listened with polite interest while his gaze swept over the heads of the children like a lighthouse beacon. He was looking, I supposed, for Albert’s return, but I spotted him first. “There he comes, see?” Albert reentered through a gate on the opposite side of the yard, having apparently gone around the block. He raised his hand to wave, and both of us lifted our arms.

  Suddenly, a strange call went out among the children. At the sound, each child froze in place. It was frightening how their little limbs stopped moving all at once, as if a sorcerer had cast a spell over the lot of them. One child—a little boy who couldn’t have been more than five years old—hadn’t managed to stop the momentum of his last jump and was caught out as the children around him turned to stone. An older boy stepped up to him and, to my astonishment, slapped him across the face. Without thinking, I started across the gravel toward them as the older one raised his hand for another slap. Albert had seen it, too. He ran over and grabbed the boy’s wrist while it was still in the air. I knelt in front of the little one, who stood trembling, cheek ablaze and eyes dripping tears. He looked at me with quivering expectation, as if his fairy godmother had magically appeared. I asked him his name. In the silence of the statue children, his whisper was clearly audible.