“Let me have a drag of that?” came a voice next to me.
I looked down, and there was little Marjorie Lowtsky—all ninety-five pounds of her—wrapped up in one of those absurdly giant raccoon fur coats that fraternity boys used to wear to football games in the 1920s. On her head, a Canadian Mountie’s hat.
“I’m not giving you a cigarette,” I said. “You’re only sixteen!”
“Exactly,” she said. “I’ve already been smoking for ten years.”
Charmed, I caved in to her demands and handed over the smoke. She inhaled it with impressive expertise, and said, “This war isn’t satisfying me, Vivian.” She was gazing out at the alleyway with an air of world-weariness that I couldn’t help but find comical. “I’m displeased with it.”
“Displeased with it, are you?” I was trying not to smile. “Well, then, you should do something about it! Write a strongly worded letter to your congressman. Go talk to the president. Put this thing to an end.”
“It’s only that I’ve waited so long to grow up, but now there’s nothing worth growing up for,” she said. “Just all this fighting, fighting, fighting, and working, working, working. It makes a person weary.”
“It’ll all end soon enough,” I said—although I was not sure of that fact myself.
She took another deep drag off the cigarette and said in a very different tone, “All my relatives in Europe are in big trouble, you know. Hitler won’t rest till he’s gotten rid of every last one of them. Mama doesn’t even know where her sisters are anymore, or their kids. My father’s on the phone with embassies all day, trying to get his family over here. I have to translate for him a lot of the time. It doesn’t look like there’s any way for them to get through, though.”
“Oh, Marjorie. I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”
I didn’t know what else to say. This seemed like too serious a situation for a high school student to be facing. I wanted to hug her, but she wasn’t the sort of person who cared for hugs.
“I’m disappointed in everybody,” she said after a long silence.
“In who, exactly?” I was thinking she would say the Nazis.
“The adults,” she said. “All of them. How did they let the world get so out of control?”
“I don’t know, honey. But I’m not sure anybody out there really knows what they’re doing.”
“Apparently not,” she pronounced with theatrical disdain, flicking the spent cigarette into the alley. “And this is why I’m so eager to grow up, you see. So I won’t be at the mercy anymore of people who have no idea what they’re doing. I figure the sooner I can get full control of things, the better my life will be.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan, Marjorie,” I said. “Of course, I’ve never had a plan for my own life, so I wouldn’t know. But it sounds as though you’ve got it all sorted out.”
“You’ve never had a plan?” Marjorie looked up at me in horror. “How do you get by?”
“Gosh, Marjorie—you sound just like my mother!”
“Well, if you can’t make a plan for your own life, Vivian, then somebody needs to be your mother!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Stop lecturing me, kid. I’m old enough to be your babysitter.”
“Ha! My parents would never leave me with somebody as irresponsible as you.”
“Well, your parents would probably be right about that.”
“I’m just teasing you,” she said. “You know that, right? You know that I’ve always liked you.”
“Really? You’ve always liked me, have you? Since you were what—in eighth grade?”
“Hey, give me another cigarette, would you?” she asked. “For later?”
“I shouldn’t,” I said, but I handed her a few of them, anyhow. “Just don’t let your mother know I’m supplying you.”
“Since when do my parents need to know what I’m up to?” asked this strange little teenager. She hid the cigarettes in the folds of her enormous fur coat, and gave me a wink. “Now tell me what kind of costumes you came in for today, Vivian, and I’ll set you up with whatever you need.”
New York was a different place now than it had been my first time around.
Frivolity was dead—unless it was useful and patriotic frivolity, like dancing with soldiers and sailors at the Stage Door Canteen. The city was weighted with seriousness. At every moment, we were expecting to be attacked or invaded—certain that the Germans would bomb us into dust, just as they’d done to London. There were mandatory blackouts. There were a few nights when the authorities even turned off all the lights in Times Square, and the Great White Way became a dark clot—shining rich and black in the night, like pooled mercury. Everyone was in uniform, or ready to serve. Our own Mr. Herbert volunteered as an air-raid warden, wandering around our neighborhood in the evenings with his official city-issued white helmet and red armband. (As he headed out the door, Peg would say, “Dear Mr. Hitler: Please don’t bomb us until Mr. Herbert has finished alerting all the neighbors. Sincerely, Pegsy Buell.”)
What I most remember about the war years was an overriding sense of coarseness. We didn’t suffer in New York City like so many people across the world were suffering, but nothing was fine anymore—no butter, no pricey cuts of meat, no quality makeup, no fashions from Europe. Nothing was soft. Nothing was a delicacy. The war was a vast, starving colossus that needed everything from us—not just our time and labor, but also our cooking oil, our rubber, our metals, our paper, our coal. We were left with mere scraps. I brushed my teeth with baking soda. I treated my last pair of nylons with such care, you would have thought they were premature babies. (And when those nylons finally died in the middle of 1943, I gave up and started wearing trousers all the time.) I got so busy—and shampoo became so difficult to acquire—that I cut my hair short (very much in the style of Edna Parker Watson’s sleek bob, I must admit) and I’ve never grown it long again.
It was during the war that I became a New Yorker at last. I finally learned my way around the city. I opened a bank account and got my own library card. I had a favorite cobbler now (and I needed one, because of leather rations) and I also had my own dentist. I made friends with my coworkers at the Yard, and we would eat together at the Cumberland Diner after our shift. (I was proud to be able to chip in at the end of those meals, when Mr. Gershon would say, “Folks, let’s pass the hat.”) It was during the war, too, that I learned how to be comfortable sitting alone in a bar or restaurant. For many women, this is a strangely difficult thing to do, but eventually I mastered it. (The trick is to bring a book or newspaper, to ask for the best table nearest to the window, and to order your drink just as soon as you sit down.) Once I got the hang of it, I found that eating alone by the window in a quiet restaurant is one of life’s greatest secret pleasures.
I bought myself a bicycle for three dollars from a kid in Hell’s Kitchen, and this acquisition opened up my world considerably. Freedom of movement was everything, I was learning. I wanted to know that I could get out of New York quickly, in case of an attack. I rode my bike all over the city—it was cheap and effective for running errands—but somewhere in the back of my mind I believed that I could outride the Luftwaffe if I had to. This brought me a certain delusional sense of safety.
I became an explorer of my vast urban surroundings. I prowled the city extensively, and at such odd hours. I especially loved to walk around at night and catch glimpses through windows of strangers living their lives. So many different dinnertimes, so many different work hours. Everyone was different ages, different races. Some people were resting, some laboring, some all alone, some celebrating in boisterous company. I never tired of moving through these scenes. I relished the sensation of being one small dot of humanity in a larger ocean of souls.
When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the very center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere—wherever people are living out their lives. It’s a city with a million c
enters.
Somehow that was even more magical to know.
I didn’t pursue any men during the war.
For one thing, they were difficult to come by; most everyone was overseas. For another thing, I didn’t feel like playing around. In keeping with the new spirit of seriousness and sacrifice that blanketed New York, I more or less put my sexual desire away from 1942 until 1945—the way you might cover your good furniture with sheets while you go off on vacation. (Except I wasn’t on vacation; all I did was work.) Soon I grew accustomed to moving about town without a male companion. I forgot that you were supposed to be on a man’s arm at night, if you were a nice girl. This was a rule that seemed archaic now, and furthermore impossible to execute.
There simply weren’t enough men, Angela.
There weren’t enough arms.
One afternoon in early 1944, I was riding my bicycle through midtown when I saw my old boyfriend Anthony Roccella stepping out of an arcade. Seeing his face was a shocker, but I should have known I’d run into him someday. As any New Yorker can tell you, you will eventually run into everyone on the sidewalks of this city. For that reason, New York is a terrible town in which to have an enemy.
Anthony looked exactly the same. Hair pomaded, gum in his mouth, cocky smile on his face. He wasn’t in uniform, which was unusual for a man of his age in good health. He must have weaseled his way out of service. (Of course.) He was with a girl—short, cute, blond. My heart did a quick rumba at the sight of him. He was the first man I’d laid eyes on in years who made me feel a rush of desire—but of course, that would make sense. I screeched to a stop just a few feet from him, and stared right at him. Something in me wanted to be seen by him. But he didn’t see me. Alternatively, he saw me, but didn’t recognize me. (With my short hair and trousers, I didn’t look any more like the girl he used to know.) The final possibility, of course, is that he recognized me and elected not to pay me any mind.
That night, I burned with loneliness. I also burned with sexual longing—I will not lie about this. I took care of it myself, though. Thankfully, I had learned how to do that. (Every woman should learn how to do that.)
As for Anthony, I never saw him or heard his name again. Walter Winchell had predicted that the kid would be a movie star. But he never made it.
Or who knows. Maybe he never even bothered to try.
Only a few weeks later, I was invited by one of our actors to a benefit at the Savoy Hotel to raise money for war orphans. Harry James and His Orchestra would be playing, which was a fun enticement, so I beat down my tiredness and went to the party. I stayed for just a short while as I didn’t know anybody there, and there weren’t any interesting-looking men to dance with. I decided it would be more fun to go home and sleep. But as I was walking out of the ballroom, I bumped straight into Edna Parker Watson.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled—but in the next instant, my mind calculated that it was her.
I’d forgotten that she lived at the Savoy. I never would have gone there that night had I remembered.
She looked up at me and held my gaze. She was wearing a soft brown gabardine suit with a pert little tangerine blouse. Casually tossed over her shoulder was a gray rabbit stole. As ever, she looked immaculate.
“You are very excused,” she said, with a polite smile.
This time there could be no pretending that I had not been identified. She knew exactly who I was. I was familiar enough with Edna’s face to have caught that quick shimmer of disturbance behind her mask of adamant calm.
For almost four years, I had pondered what I would say to her, if our paths ever crossed. But now all I could do was say, “Edna,” and reach for her arm.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but I don’t believe you’re somebody I know.”
Then she walked away.
When we are young, Angela, we may fall victim to the misconception that time will heal all wounds and that eventually everything will shake itself out. But as we get older, we learn this sad truth: some things can never be fixed. Some mistakes can never be put right—not by the passage of time, and not by our most fervent wishes, either.
In my experience, this is the hardest lesson of them all.
After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain—yet somehow, still, we carry on.
TWENTY-FIVE
Now it was late 1944. I had turned twenty-four years old.
I kept working around the clock at the Navy Yard. I can’t remember ever taking a day off. I was squirreling away good money from my wartime wages, but I was exhausted, and there was nothing to spend it on anyway. I barely had the energy to play gin rummy with Peg and Olive in the evenings anymore. More than once, I fell asleep during my evening commute and woke up in Harlem.
Everyone was bone weary.
Sleep became a golden commodity that everyone longed for but nobody had.
We knew we were winning the war—there was a lot of big talk about what a bruising we were giving the Germans and the Japanese—but we didn’t know when it would all be over. Not knowing, of course, didn’t stop anyone from running their mouths nonstop, spreading fruitless gossip and speculation.
The war would end by Thanksgiving, they all said.
By Christmas, they all said.
But then 1945 rolled in, and the war wasn’t done yet.
Over at the Sammy cafeteria theater, we were still killing Hitler a dozen times a week in our propaganda shows, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down any.
Don’t worry, everyone said—it’ll all be sewn up by the end of February.
In early March, my parents got a letter from my brother on his aircraft carrier somewhere in the South Pacific, saying, “You’ll be hearing talk of surrender soon. I’m sure of it.”
That was the last we ever heard from him.
Angela, I know that you—of all people—know about the USS Franklin. But I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know the name of my brother’s ship before we got word that it had been hit by a kamikaze pilot on March 19, 1945, killing Walter and over eight hundred other men. Always the responsible one, Walter had never mentioned the name of the ship in his correspondence, in case his letters fell into enemy hands and state secrets were revealed. I knew only that he was on a large aircraft carrier somewhere in Asia, and that he had promised the war would end soon.
My mother was the one who got the notice of his death. She was riding her horse in a field next to our house when she saw an old black car with one white, non-matching door come speeding up our driveway. It raced right past her, driving far too fast for the gravel road. This was unusual; country people know better than to speed down gravel roads next to grazing horses. But the car was one she recognized. It belonged to Mike Roemer, the telegraph operator at Western Union. My mother stopped what she was doing and watched as both Mike and his wife stepped out of the car and knocked on her door.
The Roemers were not the sort of people with whom my mother socialized. There was no reason they should be knocking on the Morrises’ door except one: a telegram must have come in, and its contents were dire enough that the operator thought he should deliver the news himself—along with his wife, who had presumably come to offer womanly comfort to the grieving family.
My mother saw all of this, and she knew.
I have always wondered if Mother had an impulse in that moment to turn the horse around and ride like hell in the opposite direction—just to run straight away from that horrible news. But my mother wasn’t that sort of person. What she did, instead, was to dismount and walk very slowly toward the house, leading her horse behind her. She told me later that she didn’t think it was prudent for her to be on top of an animal at an emotional moment like this. I can just see her—choosing her steps with care, handling her horse with her typical sense of conscientiousness. She knew exactly what was waiting for her on the doorstep, and s
he was in no hurry to meet it. Until that telegram was handed over, her son was still alive.
The Roemers could wait for her. And they did.
By the time my mother reached the doorstep of our house, Mrs. Roemer—tears streaming down her face—had her arms open for an embrace.
Which my mother, needless to say, refused.
My parents didn’t even have a funeral for Walter.
First of all, there was no body to be buried. The telegram notified us that Lieutenant Walter Morris had been buried at sea with full military honors. The telegram also requested that we not divulge the name of Walter’s ship or his station to our friends and family, so as not to accidentally “give aid to the enemy”—as though our neighbors in Clinton, New York, were saboteurs and spies.
My mother didn’t want a funeral service without a body. She found it too grisly. And my father was too shattered by rage and sorrow to face his community in a state of mourning. He had railed so bitterly against America’s involvement in this war, and had fought against Walter’s enlistment, too. Now he refused to have a ceremony to honor the fact that the government had stolen from him his greatest treasure.
I went home and spent a week with them. I did what I could for my parents, but they barely spoke to me. I asked if they wanted me to stay with them in Clinton—and I would have, too—but they looked at me as though I were a stranger. What possible use could I be to them, if I stayed in Clinton? If anything, I got the sense they wanted me to leave, so I wouldn’t be staring at them all day in their grief. My presence seemed only to remind them that their son was dead.
If they ever thought that the wrong child had been taken from them—that the better and nobler child was gone while the less worthy one remained—I would forgive them for it. I sometimes had that thought myself.
Once I left, they were able to collapse back into their silence.
I probably don’t need to tell you that they were never the same again.
Walter’s death utterly shocked me.
I swear to you, Angela, I’d never considered for a minute that my brother could be harmed or killed in this war. This may seem stupid and naïve of me, but if you knew Walter, you’d have understood my confidence. He had always been so competent, so powerful. He had brilliant instincts. He’d never even been injured, in all his years of athletics. Even among his peers, he was seen as semimythical. What harm could ever befall him?
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