Christmastime 1940: A Love Story

by AGNES IRENE

  Later that night, after the boys had taken their baths and gone to bed, Lillian sat on her couch and stared into the fire. Now that she had recovered from the frenzy of the day, and had put away her worry and fear, now that Tommy was safe in his bed, only now did she allow herself to think of Mr. Drooms. She remembered the look of happiness on his face when he brought Tommy home, and how quickly she had dashed that happiness – trying to blame him for something that was her fault.

  On the coffee table, her sketch pad was open to the picture of the frozen Drooms. She leaned over the sketch and ran her fingers across the drawing of him, gazing at him intently. Then she reached under the couch and pulled out a thin box and placed it on her lap. She slipped off the red ribbon and opened the box, then lifted a burgundy wool scarf to her cheek. She had impulsively bought it for Mr. Drooms while she was out applying at the department stores. But she doubted that she would have the courage to give it to him, especially after today. She put it back and slid the box under the couch.

  She glanced over at the bookshelves, at the photograph of her and Tom on their wedding day. Tom was a sweetness from long ago that she would always cherish. But she was no longer that girl in the photo. So much had changed since then. Long lonely years had passed, during which she had struggled and survived and made a new life for herself. She was stronger, more sure of who she was, and what she wanted from life.

  She gazed into the dying fire. Its coals released a soft crackling and snapping sound and, for a few hypnotic moments, she watched the glowing coals as they changed from red to gray, from fire to ash.

  Then she stood up, took the poker, and stirred the embers into flame, feeling the increased heat as she shifted the logs. She stood near the rekindled fire and allowed the heat to warm her.

  She sat back on the couch and held up the drawing of Drooms in the snow. She briefly tried to imagine him in spring or summer, without his coat and hat, with a light breeze blowing his hair – and found that she could not. He seemed a man made for winter, born of winter – stiff, hunched, dressed in charcoal gray, like a cold chunk of charcoal that had never known flame. No wonder he was so cold.

  She took a pencil and put the pad on her lap. She started to sketch a female figure next to him – in a long robe and flowing hair. The woman held a flame in her cupped hands, offering warmth to the frozen man.

  Lillian held the drawing at a distance, and then placed it on her lap again. She animated the female figure by adding folds and curves to her robe; then she drew a few more flickering petals of flames. She looked at the couple, then closed the sketch pad, and held it to her breast.

  Chapter 10

  Drooms left his office building after working late, and walked a few blocks out of his way in order to pass by Gimbels. He wanted to see the place where Mason worked, though he had no intention of going inside. He had thought a lot about Mason lately, and for the life of him, he couldn’t reconstruct the chain of thoughts that had led him to believe that Mason was leaving him. Drooms knew him to be an honorable, trustworthy man – even considered him a friend. Though Drooms often used work as an excuse to lunch with Mason, the truth was he enjoyed his company. In all their years together, Drooms could remember nothing but kind words, encouragement, and a sense of humor in the most trying times. Mason certainly deserved better than what he had gotten all these years working for him. Far better.

  Drooms had to thread his way around the mothers and fathers with their children lined up to look at the window decorations, people listening to the carolers and street musicians on the corners, shoppers weighted down by bags, couples with their arms linked together.

  In front of Gimbels people jostled to get a better view of the window displays. Drooms stood at the back of the crowd, but over their heads, he could see a Christmas tree, heavy with tinsel and colored ornaments, set in the center of a recreated living room. At the tree’s base nestled a miniature snowy village with an electric train running around the shops, the church, the tiny houses. Next to the tree a mannequin family gathered around the family hearth, and stockings hung from the mantle.

  Standing in front of him near the window, Drooms saw what he took to be a mother and daughter with their arms linked, pointing to the wife mannequin who sat in an armchair, wearing a long green satin robe trimmed with white lace. The daughter squeezed her mother’s arm and leaned her head dreamily on her mother’s shoulder. So like his sister Kate at that age. He thought of the unopened Christmas card in his desk.

  The sound of knocking on the glass caused Drooms to look at the adjacent window where an employee was adding to the toys and games display. When the employee turned around, Drooms realized with a start that it was Mason, and stepped farther back behind the crowd. A few of the children pointed and tapped on the window, perhaps taking Mason for one of Santa’s helpers. Mason obliged the children by holding up a game of Parcheesi, a tube of Tinkertoys, a doll in a purple velvet dress.

  Drooms smiled. There was his trusted colleague of so many years, apparently enjoying work that another man might object to. But then Mason was a different kind of man, who would do anything to help his family – and do so with as much enjoyment possible. Yes, Mason was a remarkable man, in his quiet, unassuming way.

  That evening, Lillian hung up the phone, and paced in her living room, indecisive about what to do. Mrs. Kuntzman called saying she didn’t feel well and Lillian had told her she would be right over. But Gabriel had a slight fever the day before and she didn’t want to bring him outside – but she didn’t want to leave the boys alone either. Tommy was old enough, but what if something happened? She was torn between asking Mr. Drooms to look in on the boys, and leaving them alone. She regretted her unkind treatment of him when he brought Tommy back from Brooklyn; but even more she regretted that she had needed his help. She hated to ask anyone for anything, and liked to think that she was strong and in control. Now here it was, only two days later, and she needed his help again. She glanced over at Tommy and Gabriel who were in their pajamas, coloring at the kitchen table. They would be fine. Tommy could always go to Mr. Drooms if he needed anything. But what if Mr. Drooms wasn’t even at home?

  Drooms heard a knocking at his door, and with his pencil and papers still in his hand, he opened it and saw Lillian standing there. He wondered at the beating of his heart. But he quickly became concerned when he saw the hot water bottle in her hand, and glanced down the hall to where her apartment door stood open. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you. The boys are fine. It’s Mrs. Kuntzman. She’s feeling poorly and asked if I could stop by. She already called her daughter, but it could take a while for her to get here. I want to sit with her until she arrives.” She looked down, then asked, “Would you mind just looking in on the boys? Gabriel has the sniffles and I don’t want to bring him out in the night air.”

  “Of course! I’ll sit with them, if you like. I won’t leave until you get back.”

  This was more than she had expected. The worry left her face and her brow became smooth again. “They’ve had their dinner and bath. They won’t need anything.”

  Drooms saw that the boys were now peeking around their doorway. He smiled and put his hand on Lillian’s shoulder, reassuring her, and was immensely gratified by the small gesture of her leaning in towards his hand. For one moment, he thought she might rest her cheek on his hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be fine. Just a moment.” He stepped inside, put his papers down, and then came back out and closed the door behind him.

  Lillian walked back to Tommy and Gabriel and kissed them quickly on their cheeks. “Be good, boys. I’ll be back soon.” She placed her hand on Drooms’s arm. “Thank you,” she said, and then hurried down the stairs.

  “Hi, Mr. Drooms,” said Tommy. “We’re off the whole week for Christmas – no school. So we get to stay up late.”

  Gabriel led Drooms to the kitchen table and showed him their work. “We’re making pirate maps. Look.
”

  Drooms leaned over each of their drawings, murmuring praise, and then took a seat at the table. He was aware of the intimacy at being in Lillian’s home, sitting where she would sit, spending the evening in the way she would. It felt terribly personal. He glanced over the apartment, noting where she had left a book near the couch, the holiday decorations, the hallway that led to her bedroom. He wondered what her bedroom was like, and then felt his face heat up, feeling like an interloper in her home.

  When he returned his gaze to the table he saw that Gabriel was studying him. “What is it, Gabriel?”

  “Billy said you used to be a pirate. He saw the skull and bones tattoo on your arm.”

  Tommy groaned and rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a dope, Gabe. Pirates are from the olden days.” He shook his head, and continued with his drawing.

  But Gabriel persisted. “Well, were you a pirate?”

  Drooms had to chuckle. “Not a pirate. But a sailor. I was in the navy.” He rolled up his sleeve past his elbow and showed them the tattoo of the anchor he had always regretted getting.

  “I knew it!” said Gabriel. “Did you find any treasure?”

  “No,” laughed Drooms. “No treasure. But I saw some interesting places. A long time ago.”

  “In the olden days?” asked Gabriel.

  Tommy groaned again. “He’s not that old.”

  Drooms wondered if he really did look old. He had never minded when the neighborhood kids called him Old Man, but now he worried that he had actually become the thing he had just pretended to be. He sat up a little straighter in the chair.

  Tommy got up and went to the cookie jar on the counter. “Mommy lets us have cookies on special nights. Do you want some, Mr. Drooms?”

  Drooms smiled. “No thanks, Tommy.”

  Gabriel looked up from his map. “Well, I do. And some milk.”

  “I know you do. Here.” Tommy gave Gabriel a few cookies, and poured him a glass of milk. He then gave a cookie to Mr. Drooms. “Try one. Mom made them – chocolate chip.”

  Drooms took the cookie and bit into it, nodding that it was good. They sat quietly for a few moments, Gabriel humming to the Christmas songs on the radio. He lifted his head and asked Drooms, “What’s figgy pudding?”

  Drooms tried to remember if he ever knew. “I’m not really sure. I think it’s some kind of….” He let his voice trail off, failing to come up with a reasonable explanation.

  Suddenly Gabriel’s face lit up. “Hey! I know. How about you tell us a story?”

  Drooms shifted in his chair, completely disconcerted by this simple suggestion. “Oh. I don’t know any stories.”

  Tommy put some more cookies on a plate and set them in the middle of the table. “That’s okay, you can just make one up.” He folded his legs under him on the chair, and bit into a cookie.

  “I’m afraid that’s something I’m not very good at,” said Drooms.

  But Tommy pushed on. “It’s easy – Mommy showed us how. Watch. You go like this.”

  He pointed to Gabriel who began the story as he continued to color.

  “Once upon a time….” He pointed to Tommy.

  “There was a boy who….” Tommy pointed to Drooms.

  Drooms looked from Tommy to Gabriel. Their heads popped up when they didn’t hear anything; they waited for him to continue the story.

  “Who – wanted to play,” Drooms finally said.

  Gabriel smiled now that Drooms had gotten the hang of it. He whispered, “Now you have to point to me.”

  Drooms pointed to him. Gabriel opened his eyes wide and continued. “Then one day, he was walking in the deeeep, daaaark forest. And….” He pointed to Tommy.

  “And it was starting to get dark with thunder and lightning.” Tommy imitated the booming and crashing of a storm. “When all of a sudden….” He pointed to Drooms.

  Drooms was at a complete loss as to what happened next. He turned to Tommy and then to Gabriel, then back to Tommy. He opened his mouth and stuttered, “and then…and then….” He blinked at the kitchen table, waiting for something to come to his mind, but all he saw was a wide blank page stretching out before him. He stared at the whiteness of the empty page, overwhelmed that he didn’t know. Such a simple thing, and he didn’t know. Again he looked from one boy to the other. “I – I don’t know what happens.” Drooms felt himself sinking under the perplexity on their faces. “Why don’t you two finish it?”

  Tommy resumed his mapmaking. “Nah, it doesn’t work very good with just two people. We already tried that.”

  They sat quietly, Drooms feeling that he had disappointed the boys. He had a sense of being on unfirm ground, of not recognizing familiar territory.

  Tommy rummaged through the crayon box, then hit on another idea. “We could read pirate books.”

  Gabriel sat up in his seat, his eyes wide with hope. “Will you read to us?”

  Drooms nodded, relieved to have a task he was capable of performing. “We could do that.”

  Gabriel stuffed the rest of the cookie in his mouth, jumped up and ran to the living room. “Over here, Mr. Drooms. In the libary.”

  Tommy laughed at his brother. “He means the couch. That’s where Mommy always reads to us.” He walked with Drooms to the couch. “Here. You have to sit in the middle so we can see the pictures.”

  Drooms positioned himself in the middle of the couch. Gabriel sat next to him, then jumped up and ran to his bedroom, shouting, “Wait! I have to get my patch.”

  Drooms heard the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, a closet door sliding open, a bumping and tossing of objects.

  “And my hook!” Gabriel called out.

  Tommy took an umbrella from the stand near the door and peg-legged it to the hallway. “Yaargh, Blackbeard!” he called out in a pirate voice. “Hurry up! You’re taking too long!”

  Gabriel reappeared, fumbling with his eye patch and a hanger hook that protruded from his pajama sleeve. “No, I’m Cap’n Hook,” he whispered. Brandishing his hook, he called out in a raspy pirate voice, “Ahoy, maties!” He jumped on the couch next to Drooms. “You can be Blackbeard,” he said, pointing to Drooms’s shadowy cheek.

  “Blackbeard,” Drooms smiled. “Well. Here we are then.”

  The boys curled up and leaned over the book he held, just like they did with their mother. Drooms was stiff at first, but little by little he got into the reading, and at the boys’ insistence he read in the voices of pirates, scallywags, and shipwrecked sailors. The stories had obviously been read many times by the boys and at certain passages they joined in a refrain, or pointed out a detail to Drooms in the illustrations.

  As Drooms read the stories, he realized that he hadn’t felt such connection in a long, long time and marveled that it should come from such a simple act. The boys took such pleasure in the stories, had such ready access to the world of adventure and make-believe. Or, he wondered, did he feel such connection because they were her children, in her home?

  After an hour and a half, the boys were starting to nod and close their eyes. Gabriel was the first to drop off to sleep, leaning against Drooms, his hook and patch abandoned to the floor. Eventually Tommy also fell asleep, with half of the afghan pulled over him, the other half still over the back of the couch. Drooms didn’t want to wake the boys, so he sat silent and unmoving, though he did finish the last chapter to find out if the long buried gold was ever discovered, not feeling at all foolish for doing so.

  He looked around, noticing the tiny touches that made the apartment feel so different from his – the soft, feminine bits of embroidery, the lace in the windows, framed family photographs, the boys’ drawings on the shelves by the fireplace. As he leaned his head back against the afghan, he caught a faint scent of what he guessed was her perfume or bath oil – was it lilac, roses? He closed his eyes and luxuriated in the warmth and comfort of her home.

  From some deep, peaceful place he heard a noise that caught his attention, and to his surprise, he realized that
he had fallen asleep. He rubbed his face, unsure if minutes or hours had passed. He heard the key turn in the lock, and saw Lillian gently opening the door.

  When she saw Drooms, sunk in the middle of the couch with the boys sprawled all over, she couldn’t keep from laughing. “Mr. Drooms. I’m sorry it took so long. Is everything all right?”

  “Fine, fine.” He hoped he didn’t look like he had just woken up. It was highly unlike him. He never took naps or dozed off in the evenings. He watched her take off her coat and hat and hang them on the hall tree. She had such a graceful, light way of moving.

  Lillian came to the couch and helped extricate Drooms from the boys, shaking her head at the number of books they had piled up around them. Tommy woke up and walked sleepily to bed, as if it was a night like any other. “Night, Mommy. Night, Mr. Drooms.”

  Lillian carried Gabriel to bed and tucked him in. When she came out she saw that Drooms had stacked the books and placed them on the coffee table.

  “How is Mrs. Kuntzman feeling?”

  Lillian sat on the arm of the couch. “She’s resting now. It’s her rheumatism acting up. Her daughter will stay a few days. I didn’t want her to be alone.”

  “No, of course not. You did the right thing.”

  Lillian glanced down and played with the button on her sweater. “Mr. Drooms, I owe you an apology for the other day, when you brought Tommy home.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You were worried. I completely understand.”

  “No. What I said was wrong.” She was silent a few moments, then looked up. “I didn’t want you to think I was a bad mother.”

  Drooms let his mouth fall open, shocked to hear this, and even more surprised that it appeared to matter to her what he thought. “Not at all – on the contrary.” He was about to say he couldn’t imagine a more perfect mother, but instead said, “Perhaps I was out of line.”