All in Bad Time

by Yvonne Montgomery

  I sat still as a statue as my mind raced. What was the man doing here? I peeked at him from the corner of my eyes, trying to make certain I'd identified him correctly. If he was the chauffeur from years before, was he still employed by Duncan's father? Had he discovered I'd come to the States? Was I in danger from him?

  Eventually I was able to tell Jane I wasn't feeling well and we left. A few days later I arranged an appointment at a salon where I had my hair changed from light brown to auburn and I asked for instruction in altering my features with makeup. Soon after I found a different apartment in uptown and let my connection with Jane fade. She'd begun a new job and it didn't take more than a few months for her to become a part of my past.

  * * *

  "Bathroom break." Brenna scooted back her chair and headed for the one across the hall. "Don't say anything important 'til I get back."

  Kerry yawned. "Do we have any brownies?" Her voice was wistful. "I need some sugar and ice water, too."

  "I'll go see what I can find." Andrea stood up and stretched her arms over her head. When Aura Lee shifted in her chair, she patted her shoulder. "Sit still. I've got it."

  Brenna came back in time to help and they fortified themselves for the next round.

  "I knew Caldicott was a strong woman," Rose said as she set the newly full coffee carafe onto the trivet. "She's gone through so many losses so far—her mother, Duncan, and the promise of Duncan as a bridge to a new life. But look at her. She gets her degree, and you can't tell me that wasn't a big deal at the time. She figures out how her enemy might be able to find her and makes countermoves to avoid it. She was a strategist, cool and on the ball."

  "It's no wonder she never wanted to talk about any of it." Strudel wandered into the kitchen and Aura Lee reached down to pet her. "Secrecy was necessary, but to me it seems as if she moved only one way and that was forward. She didn't give up or give in; she took one step after another and kept on keeping on. We haven't seen an inch of give in her approach to life."

  "You're right about that." Noreen's smile was off-center. "I miss her something awful, and reading about her earlier days makes me admire her even more than I already did." She glanced at Kerry, just finishing her brownie. "Do you want one of us to take up the reading?"

  "No, thanks, I'm good." She found her place in the journal and began to read again.

  * * *

  I had enough money to last me the rest of my life, but I couldn't openly access it without drawing attention. If the old earl was looking for me, I reasoned, his efforts would be aimed at finding a person who had no visible means of support, but also who had plenty of money. I had to present the appearance of a woman who depended upon her own efforts. David had arranged for most of the bonds to be placed in two safety deposit boxes, each one at a different bank. He'd cashed in some of them to create a foundation that would send me a check each month to cover my expenses. I was the foundation in that I alone could convert other bonds into cash to replenish my personal coffers.

  Whilst I was in school my source of support was no one's business. Now I must appear to be supporting myself. I began to look for a job in earnest, not an easy task in 1946. I'd had the good luck to finish my classes in January, gaining a small advantage over those graduating in the spring.

  My degree was in business, but I found few openings in established companies. I was a woman and my accent was a disadvantage. If I had to speculate why, I'd guess at war weariness amongst the managers I spoke with. I was a reminder of the war and no one wanted to think about it after four long years. I found myself seeking out smaller companies advertising in the classifieds.

  Most of the places I went were family businesses, and I became adept at recognizing which positions were laid with landmines. As was happening in bigger companies, soldiers were leaving the armed services, yearning for nothing more than to return to their former places in the world. Of course, no one could ever find things the same. Too many things had happened to all of us.

  I was employed at a furniture manufacturing company on the edge of Long Island, and it appeared that all would go well. The owner was a kind man and his wife went out of her way to make me feel welcome. Difficulties arose when their son was demobbed from the army. He was handsome, and intelligent as well. His return cheered his parents tremendously and after a while we were all working well together. His wife was the problem. She'd seen out the war working in a defense plant, and by the time Junior returned, she'd lost her job. Moreover, her husband had changed from the lighthearted chap described to me. Now he was determined to build his life into something that would make his sacrifices, and those of his fellow soldiers, worth what they'd cost. Many returning men felt the same way.

  Mrs. Junior wasn't happy with the man who worked twelve-hour days and talked of expanding the business. Soon she was complaining and resentful of me in particular. I was the new person there so I must be responsible for the changes in her life. Loathsome whiner. They let me go to preserve peace in the family. I never found out for certain, but I'll wager the couple divorced before the year was out.

  I was fortunate to have money, as I had no luck in finding other work for more than six months. And it was through the job I finally secured that I met Arnie Zdretzer.

  When I walked into his small storefront in Brooklyn, I felt as if I'd traveled through time to nineteenth century London. It was a bookstore lined with shelves of books, every kind, large and small, most of them used. The advertisement had been for a clerk, not the kind of job I'd ever looked for, but I was becoming nervous at being out of work so long. When I shut the door behind me the bell attached to it rang so cheerfully that I smiled and glanced back at it.

  When I turned around, I saw the old gentleman seated behind the oaken counter, nearly obscured by a large brass cash register festooned with ornamentation. "Good morning." He had a thick accent, Slavic, I thought, and I returned his greeting.

  He looked jovial, smiling and harmless with his white hair and unruly beard. But his eyes measured me carefully and one hand was out of sight beneath the counter. He made me feel nervous, and I half-turned to leave.

  "You need books?" He made a point of looking around at the full shelves. "I have them, as you see. All subjects."

  I shook my head. "I came about the job you advertised."

  He stroked his beard and looked me over more thoroughly. I noticed the yarmulke atop his head. "What is your name?"

  "Anna Collins."

  "You are British?"

  I nodded.

  "You come here after the war?"

  "Just before America got in it." I couldn't tell if my nationality was a plus to him or a sticking point. Something had caught his attention and he was pondering it.

  "I have a bachelor's degree in business," I said briskly. "Do you want me give you my work history?"

  Again he stared at me in that searching way. "Tell me this," he said after a while.

  I waited.

  "Tell me who is your favorite author."

  I looked at him in surprise. He stroked his beard and I saw his hand was missing the ring finger and pinkie. "Marcia Davenport."

  He looked down at the counter, but not before I saw interest spark in his eyes. "Indeed. Her biography of Mozart?"

  "The Valley of Decision. And her radio work on Czechoslovakia." I'd followed her work closely during the war. She was one of the few people writing who'd told the truth about what was really happening in Europe.

  "I see." He still studied the counter.

  I lost patience with him. "I have other things to do today. Do you want me to fill out an application?"

  His gaze moved over my face. "I think not."

  I was absurdly disappointed.

  I turned to go as he added, "Not necessary. You are hired. When can you begin?"

  I wheeled around. "Are you quite certain?"

  He nodded. "I have determined you are smart and you want to work. These are important things. You want the job?"

  I hes
itated. Could I trust him? Did he have ulterior motives to hire me?

  A small smile curved his lips. "Let us say we have trial period... of one month. At end of that we both decide if we want to continue. Yes?"

  What was luck if it was never tested? "Yes."

  At first I was merely a glorified clerk, but after a fortnight, Arnie began to instruct me in the inner workings of the shop: the ordering and delivery process, sometimes fiendishly complicated; the filing arrangement, and his odd accounting system. I learned he was known for his ability to obtain rare and hard to find books—in nineteen forty-six no small achievement. Many books had been lost—destroyed—during the war, and many of the people who had owned them had disappeared. Due both to an encyclopedic memory as well as his apparently prolific contacts, I suspected he was as abreast of the state of the book world as anyone living.

  It was during my third month there that I began to get clues about the other activities behind the buying and selling of books.

  * * *

  "What a name she picked," Kerry groaned. "Anna Collins? How boring can you get?"

  "How forgettable, you mean." Noreen pursed her lips, nodding wisely. "Who would ever remember a name like that?"

  Kerry shrugged. "Okay, you've got me there. It's not as though she wanted to draw attention to herself."

  Arnie Zdretzer was a widower and he lived above the bookshop, they learned. He'd been in America since the end of the First World War and was, despite the apparent modesty of his shop, a well-to-do man. Many of his clients were formerly wealthy, having escaped from Germany or Italy—or any of the smaller European countries ravaged by the war—with only their lives. As time went on, Anna discovered that some might have also had a few jewels sewn into items of clothing, or bits of gold hidden inside the heels of shoes or tamped into hatbands and hairbrush handles. Books were brought from family libraries, sometimes hidden inside larger books, and manuscripts from churches and synagogues were rolled into narrow tubes and slipped into hollow canes and suitcase handles.

  Arnie greeted the people who came to his shop with courtesy and, many times, with the names of those who would help them adjust to life in the United States. More often than not, this category of customer was given dollars in trade for the goods they'd brought and presented.

  "You're receiving smuggled goods!" I announced one morning when I arrived at the shop in time to see a throng of people lined up in front of his office. Our trial month had come and gone and I was in charge of much of the bookstore's workings. I'd had nothing to do, however, with Arnie's people business.

  He rubbed at tired eyes. "So. You have observed, but do you understand?" As the heat rose in my cheeks he smiled. "Yes, you are right. But you do not see all. I have done this for many years, have been—how do you say it—point of exchange for those who have escaped from hell."

  I didn't know what to say to him. The newspapers and newsreels had been full of the pictures from Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Dachau and Treblinka. I doubt the people who'd come to him had been in those places, but it was all too likely they knew people who had been. "I'm not condemning you."

  "That is good." His smile wasn't real but he tried. "I am using what I have and what I can get to help the ones who are left with nothing. The people you saw here are not destitute. Many of their countrymen are." He raised his hands and she wondered again about his missing fingers. "I am doing what I can."

  The year passed by and the numbers of people who came to Arnie began to dwindle. "Many are emigrating to Israel," he told me when I asked about it. "But there will always be some who seek me out. There is no homeland for the Romani."

  When he said that, I thought of the Gypsy woman who had put a protective spell on the talisman I still possessed. I suddenly realized something very important about Arnie's activities. He helped people start new lives. He could do the same for me. I had valuables and I had a nemesis. Arnie Zdretzer could help me with both.

  Chapter 6

  Eve leaned back in her desk chair and closed her eyes. Had she ever felt so worn out? Had she ever had such strange dreams? And what she'd thought would be her refuge, Wisdom Court, had become a replay of so many situations in her life. Here were numerous women who apparently didn't like her. Ever since middle school she'd had a thing about that.

  Danica rubbed against her leg, her squeaky purr filling the silent room. Eve opened her eyes and looked about the office space. This, at least, made her feel a lot better about being here. The sun cut through the window, warming the air surrounding her. Small crystal beads were strung from a dowel hanging in front of the curtain rod and the sunbeams caught the multicolored facets, sending bits of light across the wall behind her. She wondered if her predecessor—what was her name? Elizabeth somebody—had hung the little sun-catchers. The lights scattered over the books she'd unpacked that morning, and she'd taken pleasure in placing each of them with care on the empty shelves. Gazing over her collection she felt the lovely, familiar sense of wealth in having so many books. Still, there were spaces for the animal figurines she'd brought with her. She couldn't work without them.

  It was the task of a few minutes to set up her laptop and hook up the printer/scanner. She had her tools, now she'd have to actually work. A blog post was due and she needed to contact several of the websites where her stuff frequently ran. She loaded her browser and soon was answering emails. The most interesting was from her friend in Boston, who'd recently reviewed a book about the human brain and wanted to share a section suggesting a connection between meditation and autoimmune response.

  Eve smiled as Danica jumped onto the desk, then up to the printer. She turned around three times and curled up for a nap. Her noisy purr revved like a tiny motor until she fell asleep.

  Eve's fingers flew over the keyboard as the sun shifted position and the afternoon shadows lengthened. I'm so tired, she thought, but made no move to refill her coffee cup or to stop for a rest. In the distance a car horn blared, but Eve continued, the soft clicking of the keys the only other sound.

  When she awoke, she was reclining against the chair back, her arms hanging at her sides. The room was beginning to dim, the sun having slipped halfway behind the mountain, spreading shadows outside her window. Eve saw the dark screen of the computer and glanced at the printer where Danica had slept. She wasn't there.

  Pushing the chair away from the desk, Eve started to stand up, but fell back in her seat as dizziness overtook her. What's wrong with me? She let her head move forward to her chest and breathed, trying to anchor herself. Presently she looked up and saw her cat staring at her from the windowsill. "Danica?" she whispered and held out her hand. The cat hunched away from her and turned, clumsily jumping to the floor.

  "Kitty-kitty?" She clicked her tongue at the cat, but she bounded into the hall. Eve stood up, a little off-balance. The room felt different, more angular and with sharper colors. There was a sound, a fluttering of some sort. Hesitating, she took a step, looking from one side to the other to find its source.

  As she neared the door, she noticed the lights were out in the living room beyond it. Something slammed to the floor behind her. She spun round, her heart pounding wildly, and saw a thick book lying open on the wood floor. She bent toward it, glancing around to see what had caused it to fall. Picking it up by its spine, she read the title printed in gothic letters across the deep green leather cover: The Punishment of the Disbeliever. Under the words was an embossed drawing of a devil pointing a pitchfork at flames shooting from the base of an ancient tree. His mouth contorted in laughter and his tail curled in an elaborate coil.

  Eve had never seen the book before. Frozen, she stared at the tawdry illustration, mind skittering over possibilities: the book was already there (but the shelves had been empty when she put her own books away.) Someone had brought in the book while she was working—someone she hadn't heard or seen. This possibility bothered her, but she did tend to zone out while she worked. Or, the book had appeared out of thin air. At that thou
ght, she glanced up the bookshelves and found a space where it could have been, a gap in a row of books lined up like teeth. Why would someone bring it here while I slept?

  Eve carried the book into the living room and set it on the coffee table, wiping her hands along her slacks. The volume was ugly and made her feel as though she'd touched something dirty. On the thought she strode into the nearby powder room and turned on the hot water. She scrubbed her hands with lemon-scented soap and then re-soaped them. The framed picture of a prairie dog watched her from the dark green wall.

  "Creepy, creepy," she muttered as she rinsed, and turned off the faucet. Maybe the book was part of a hazing ritual or something. She thought of the Wisdom Court women she'd met and threw out the idea. They might not care for her, but they weren't likely to pull a stunt like that.

  She shook her head in resignation. All she could do for now was try to figure out what was up with her cat and go on with the day. She glanced at the darkening windows. Or evening. A drink would be nice. She turned on the lights as she went through the living room.

  From the office she heard the printer go on. The familiar whir of papers continued as her nerves tensed. There was no reason for the printer to be working.

  She forced herself to walk back to the room, pausing at the open door. The printer was spitting out page after page. She stepped close enough to pick up one.

  The words crawled across each white expanse.

  We're coming for you. We're coming for you. We're coming for you. We're coming for you...

  "What in the bloody hell?" A memory nibbled at the edge of her mind. Her hand crushed the paper as she began to recall. Last night she'd awakened from a dream. Had she seen the words then? Yes, the words flowing down the screen of her laptop.

  Evie. She could hear again the husky voice. Someone had called her Evie. No one but her mother had ever called her that. Except last night someone had.

  Had it been the first time? Was someone here pulling pranks on her? Was that what the oddball behavior at breakfast had been about? Were they already judging her, finding her wanting?