That's My Baby

by Frances Itani

  There was a dance in the evening at the local hall, and Tobe’s friends would be there. He wanted to introduce her around. After meeting her at the train, Tobe took her to Jack and Evelyn’s house, but momentarily, to drop off the hickory-brown suitcase, the same she’d borrowed from him when she sailed on the Champlain. They walked hand in hand, the air warm on her bare arms. She had thrown an open cardigan over her shoulders, thinking she’d need it later. She wore her hair long, partly rolled across her forehead, the ends curling up from her shoulders because of the tight pincurls she’d worn under her turban at work earlier in the day. As they neared the hall, she saw that the place was overcrowded and dancing was under way. Men and women were trying to squeeze through the main entrance. Tobe told her that the band was local, made up of older men, along with a female singer. They knew how to play what everyone wanted to hear: Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman. Music from America had arrived. The dancers knew every piece and shouted out the titles.

  Tobe led her by the hand to a corner where two small square tables had been pushed together by a group too large to fit around them. His buddies had been expecting them and let out a cheer. “Red! Over here, Red.” Everyone knew who she was, and she allowed herself to be called Red—though she’d never put up with the nickname before. The room was heavy with noise, the dance floor crowded, swirling with bodies. The throb of music, foot tapping from the sides, the quick beat, the warmth in the room from body heat. Eyes toward the musicians. Almost every man was in uniform, except the older men from the village. The intimacy between her and Tobe, the intensity. She began to understand, intuitively and with certainty, that nothing would be like this again. Every second she and Tobe spent together was fraught with happiness and foreboding intertwined. When she’d first seen him from the window of the train, when he’d reached for her hand as she stepped off, even then she had known that they would not be able to protect or defend what they shared or who they were together, as one. She pushed back her darkest thoughts. She did not discuss them with Tobe because he would already know. But during the moments they had in the present, the hours, they permitted nothing to come between them. Others greeted her heartily, shook her hand, hugged her, pulled her up and onto the dance floor, but she always knew where he was. She also understood, from that evening forward, that Tobe now had two loves: his love for her, and his love for the Regiment, his commitment to the boys he worked and trained alongside. Different kinds of love, but there all the same. All evening, she fought off sadness, even when she was so entirely happy.

  The music was coming at her from all sides. The band struck up “In the Mood.” Another cheer. She danced with Tobe. Heard his voice expressing concern about her staying on in London, but that was nothing new. He’d been telling her that for the past two years. During the Blitz, the bombing had been relentless; so far, she had survived. When bombs rained down upon the city, she did not believe she would escape death; rather, she believed that because others stayed, she, too, could stay. She helped when help was needed. She carried on with her work at the canteen during the day. Fixed her long hair into pincurls. Wore the turban and took the pins out at night and watched her red hair curl up at the edges. Wore a smock overtop her jumper. Many children in the city had been relocated to the countryside, but many stayed because they had nowhere else to go. The children needed to be fed. At the canteen they were sure to receive a nourishing hot meal. Some families who had been bombed out of their houses went to the British Restaurants instead of the canteens. These were set up by the Ministry of Food and were known as Community Feeding Centres—until Churchill changed the name.

  Hanora could have worked at any of those locations, but she decided to stay with the canteen because she considered herself part of a team. By now, she was accustomed to following recipes meant to satisfy one hundred ravenous appetites at a time. She stirred five pounds of macaroni into huge pots of boiling water, added mustard, added cheese, tried to make cheese sauce from what was in the kitchen that day or from what was rationed. She’d been shown how to stretch the ingredients with a bit more flour, a bit more water instead of milk. Some days, hunger was sated with repeated helpings of potatoes and gravy. Meat was often available, but never in huge quantities, and never minced. The kitchen crew made stews and pies; occasionally there were roasts. Sausage was a mainstay—sausage and mash—but only a tenth of any sausage was meat; fillers had to be added, often bread or flour or oats. They did have a supply of carrots, parsnips, cauliflower. Every menu depended upon what could be obtained, what could be stored, supplies on hand, seasonal foods from allotments. Eggs, butter, sugar, tea, jams, marmalades, cheeses were all rationed. To make bread, it was her job to rub in the fat, cream the yeast with tiny amounts of rationed sugar, add warm water. She learned to test loaves fresh from the oven by ensuring that they gave off a hollow sound when knocked. She thought she would gag if she had to look at another hundred portions of bread pudding. And then another hundred, and another.

  But she knew how to make the children laugh when they arrived for their meal. The children could make her laugh, in return. Many, like her, were high-spirited. They soothed one another’s fears. She looked out for the children who had lost their parents to bombs. Orphans who were living with relatives or had been taken in by neighbours.

  At night there were other things she could do. She assisted families in the Underground shelters. Bodies curled against one another between track and curve of wall. Cups were held out for water she poured from watering cans. There were children to be settled, to be cheered, to be made less afraid. She carried a notebook in her bag, and a pencil, and she made notes and reminders to herself. Some mornings when she emerged from the Underground, the damage was so extensive, she was astonished that any structure in the city remained standing. A double-decker bus nose-down in a giant hole in the road; houses collapsed at the end of her street, across the park, at the corner. Tumbled stone and brick, fractured beams, fires, glass crunching underfoot, pillows and tangled mattresses pierced by metal and wood. The dead.

  Children combed through rubble and came up with a dartboard, a mangled chair. Girls and boys picked up pieces of metal for trade, hoping to find a scrap with German markings, which would ensure value for the purposes of barter at school. When Hanora was in her own room, she wrote. She wrote everything. Described scenes, individuals, families, children she encountered daily. She did not want to self-censor, but was aware of the tight controls over wartime press. She worked at ensuring that her writing was muscular, stronger, concrete. Now that the Americans had declared war, the demand was greater from US publications. The articles she wrote were published as fast as she could file them, even though anything sent by cable was also censored. Her name was becoming known to readers of at least a few magazines. The editors wanted human-interest stories, stories that would help families at home learn of the hardships, the tragedies and the joys experienced by a population much closer to enemy action.

  From time to time, readers’ letters were forwarded by editors. The letters asked if she could find out about a particular person, asked about the fate of some loved one who hadn’t been heard from in a long while.

  The bombings in her own area had become less frequent. And Tobe would be leaving soon.

  He was speaking about the Regiment, the men desperate to involve themselves outside of England. The Hasty Ps were tired of waiting and preparing, the methods of training changing constantly as war progressed elsewhere. The longer the men remained in England, the more dissatisfied they became. Current rumour was that they would finally be sent somewhere, perhaps North Africa or the Middle East. There was no end to the confusion of tangled information. He declared that he and Hanora should marry before he left. He added that with an emphasis unusual for him. And was silent for a moment, while she considered.

  “It makes sense,” he went on. “Everything about us makes absolute and perfectly good intelligent, logical and crazy sense. Who could love anyone more than we love
each other? No one.” While she was in his arms on the dance floor, she had to agree. But quietly, to herself.

  They were on their way back to the borrowed house. Trying to make their way through the blackest of nights. Tobe had a small electric torch and switched it on for a second, shining the tiniest cone of light ahead of Hanora’s feet. She tripped, and tripped again, which started them both laughing. She felt as if she’d been drinking wine, but she had not. She’d had nothing but some sort of sticky-sweet punch at the hall.

  The leather strap on one of her sandals had partly torn while she was dancing, and now, on the way to the house, it separated completely and flapped at her ankle. She removed the sandal and carried it, tightening her grip on Tobe’s arm to steady herself. She was glad she had packed a second pair of shoes into the hickory-brown suitcase. Sensible shoes to wear home on the train. The road was uneven, and Tobe offered to carry her. Which made them laugh uproariously again. She wondered if he had had something to drink. Several men she’d met that evening had flasks tucked into pockets. Many of them had disappeared outside for a while and returned.

  “Not far now,” he said, but his usually sure voice sounded doubtful, as if they might wander the village the remainder of the night. He did, finally, recognize the house by the overhang of its oddly shaped roof, and they went round the back and entered from the garden path, both stumbling now, into unlit rooms. The people who lived at the front of the house must have been in bed; everything was quiet, still.

  Tobe went from window to window and pulled the curtains tight, having forgotten to do this before they left. The electricity had been working when Hanora first arrived, but was out now. This must have happened frequently, because Jack and Evelyn had left candles beside a deep stone sink. Tobe lit two, and set them into wax dripped onto saucers. He had brought wine to the house, and now began a search for glasses. On the kitchen counter were a few bowls and a milk jug with a square of muslin stretched overtop, tiny beads hanging down to weight the muslin.

  She heard him curse, reach for something on a kitchen shelf. She watched as he picked up a small glass elephant. Candle in one hand, elephant in the other. The ornament was green and had an opening at the top; perhaps it was a miniature planter, though there was nothing growing inside. Tobe opened the top drawer beneath the counter, shoved the elephant out of sight, shut the drawer.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “An elephant with trunk down is bad luck. Trunk up is fine, but I don’t see any of those around.”

  “Your mother’s, on the sill,” she said. “Those trunks were up. But I don’t remember you being superstitious. You’re like my aunt Grania.”

  “Maybe I’ve become that way since becoming a soldier. Anyway, I heard enough superstition from the Irish in town when I was growing up. And so did you.” He turned his back to the closed drawer, found two pewter goblets, poured the wine with care, deep purple pooling beneath the rims.

  Their portion of the house had no bath, but there was a shallow sink in an alcove beyond the bedroom, with a curtain pulled round a semicircular track to afford privacy. Jack and Evelyn must have negotiated an arrangement to use the bath in the other section of the house, perhaps at weekends.

  The bedroom was immediately off the kitchen. The fireplace in the bedroom was unlit, coal scuttle at the ready. But the fireplace wasn’t needed this August night.

  Tobe had taken a candle and moved on to the sitting room to check out the gramophone. He put his finger under the thorn needle, which he declared to be unfit. He quickly removed the thorn and took a few moments to sharpen it against a sandpaper strip kept handy. Hanora watched his long, thin fingers, the way his skin glowed in the small circle of light offered up by the candle. His profile was distinct inside the circle, his body in darkness. He moved and an enormous shadow flickered, like a threat, across the ceiling and the blackout curtains. A momentary shadow, momentary threat. He moved the candle again and peered into the arm of the gramophone to ensure that the thorn was secure. “We have choice,” he said. “There are half a dozen recordings here. How about Shaw’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’? That would be appropriate. Or Duke and ‘Jitterbug’s Lullaby’—how about that? I don’t think I know it.”

  “Let’s start with Duke. That was recorded the year before I met him on the ship.”

  He wound the gramophone and placed the thorn at the outer edge of the record. She took the second candle through to the bedroom and went to the alcove to change into her robe. From the bedroom, the kitchen was an open doorway leading to blackness. The outside door was locked. The music was playing softly when she returned, barefoot. He restarted the recording from the beginning. Volume low, the room dark except for the flickering of two flames. She blew out her own candle, leaving one.

  “Johnny Hodges, listen,” she said. “He’s brilliant.” The sax had put out its solo call and was circling the room. Drum soft in the background, mood slow and lazy, sax echoing from the dark corners of the room. A shiver of vibration followed, muted trumpet, trombone, Duke subtle on keyboard, drums always present, never intrusive but pushing forward with a low, slow, steady beat. Tobe held her and they danced, Hanora naked under her robe, arms around his neck, listening as each musician faded to the next, and then Hodges circled back for the final solo. Music from afar. From another world now.

  She stopped. A long, full moment of stillness, pressed against Tobe. He stayed with the pause, did not attempt to move until she spoke.

  “Aunt Zel,” she said. “Advice she sent in a letter. About storing. About pausing to store important moments.”

  He returned to the gramophone and set the thorn again.

  “I need you with me,” he said. “I meant that when I wrote to you, Hanora. And I mean it now.”

  “I am with you. I’m here. I’m always with you. You know that. But I need time, just a little—to find out more. Someone knows something, I’m sure of that. I just haven’t figured out who the person is. And I cannot—absolutely cannot—go back to my parents to ask. If I haven’t found out who I am by the end of the war, I’ll marry you then. Anyway, we’re together more now than if I were at home waiting for you to return. And I’m not going back without you.” She realized, as she spoke, that she meant those words; she had no intention of going back without him. “Who else do you think I’d marry? There’s no one in my life but you. What difference does it make if we’re married or not married?”

  “We’ll talk this through again,” he said. “We’ll talk about what you’ve found so far—which isn’t much, I grant you. But sometimes the answer you seek is right under your nose. And if a new clue turns up, you’ll be off on another search. I’ll help you. But you will marry me. As soon as we can arrange it.”

  “When the war is over, of course we’ll marry. I’ll be here. I’m just thankful that you understand. I only want to know who I am. Only.” She wasn’t able to make light of this. “And I’m not feeling sorry for myself. It’s because . . . it’s because I feel as if part of me is missing. If you suddenly found yourself in this situation, you’d want to know, too.”

  He had stilled again.

  “I keep sending out letters. Now I’m trying to get more information about the locket. A jeweller in London told me he’s almost certain it’s from 1850s Vienna.” She felt for it around her neck. It had aged gently, beautifully. For almost a century it had been worn and loved and cared for, and now it was hers to own and wear. It pleased her to think that Vienna was in her background. But how? She thought of writing to Aunt Zel about the locket. Aunt Zel had tentacles out in the community and had always been honest with her. And Aunt Zel travelled to Toronto from time to time. But how could anyone track a locket that had travelled from Vienna to Toronto in an unknown period? Given the influx of immigrants to the country during the nineteenth century, it could have belonged to anyone. A treasured family heirloom.

  Inside the locket, Tobe’s picture faced her own. The photo of the two of them had been taken by Kenan in the bac
kyard, the day she left home. One day before she sailed on the Champlain. Tress had watched from the step; Tobe’s parents walked over from their yard to say goodbye. This was months before Tobe joined up. Before war. Kenan mailed the photo as soon as Hanora was able to send the address of her bedsit in London. When she came in from work at the canteen one afternoon, she found the envelope in her mail slot inside the front entrance. She had cut around the faces and inserted them into the locket. The expressions on the faces told a story of believing anything was possible. Anything and everything. Tobe had smiled when she’d opened the locket to show him.

  She wondered what Kenan would have written as a caption. Or if he had made a copy for his own album. The photo he sent to London was unmarked, and she assumed that this was deliberate, leaving space for her to write her own note on the back. But she had not. She’d cut the images into oval shapes to fit the sides of the locket.

  Tobe led her to the bedroom, set his candle on the bedside table, went back for the wine. He rewound the gramophone, reset the thorn on the same recording. Pulled off his clothes and crawled in beside Hanora and they clinked glasses and drank. They lowered themselves down under the covers of the narrow bed. Tobe’s feet were partly over the end of the mattress. They laughed and curled round each other. His body heat.

  “I can tell you who you are,” he said. “I know in the finest detail who you are.”

  She ignored this, smoothed her hand down his side.

  “Is the music too mournful?”

  “Not mournful,” she said. “Duke called this a lullaby. Languorous, maybe. Perfect for dancing in a dark room in a stranger’s house in a village that may or may not be bombed. Perfect for lying in bed by the light of a single candle with a man named Tobias.”

  “And a woman named Red. Who has freckles sprinkled across her nose as if someone shook them over her, like cayenne pepper.”