If that wasn’t enough startling information, the letters and numbers on the Western Union telegram from Hughes’ ‘mother’ to Mrs Nighy had been deciphered. It had been sent from a Western Union office located a very short walk from the Tidal Basin.
I looked up from the file and took a deep breath. Dust motes floated in the strips of light that found their way through the window blinds. Fortunately I was still alone. If someone had been with me in the room I’m sure they would have noticed my reaction to the unexpected information in Hughes’ file.
Next I read Hughes’ job application to OSS. He’d earned a Masters degree in economics from Yale. OSS was packed with Yalies. General Donovan himself had gone to Yale. He recruited his staff from his cronies and old professors and their protégés. And most Yale graduates spoke a second language, unlike graduates from many other American universities.
Hughes listed four references. Two were clearly professors. The other two were Spencer Benton and Clark Leach. This surprised me at first. But it made sense. If Clark and Hughes knew each other at Yale, and had similar political ideas, then of course they might continue to meet socially once they were in OSS. This helped explain why Leach, despite his lofty rank at OSS, hobnobbed with Rose’s group. His friend Paul Hughes was already a member.
Nowhere in the few papers in Hughes’ file was a name I could identify as ‘G’.
I replaced Hughes’ file in the cabinet and went back to my desk. Now I knew why someone had stamped ‘L’ and ‘Top Secret’ on Hughes’ file. It contained explosive information. That Hughes didn’t visit his mother in Fredericksburg on the weekends. That Spencer Benton and Clark Leach knew Hughes at Yale. That the telegram to Mrs Nighy was sent from a Western Union office near the Tidal Basin.
At lunch I took a very long walk. I bought a hot dog from a cart on the street. I couldn’t finish it and tossed it to a skinny dog begging scraps from the other government girls eating their lunches on blankets in the grass. I walked for blocks. By the time I got back to work I had managed to minimize the significance of the facts I’d found. I figured that Hughes’ file had been sequestered just to keep curious staff members from looking at it. As for the so-called visits to his mother in Fredericksburg, maybe Hughes had a girlfriend he spent weekends with and didn’t want anyone to know about. Yes, that made sense. The girlfriend could have sent the telegram to Mrs Nighy, omitting her return address from the message. And if Hughes had the flu and decided to go back to his boarding house anyway, why couldn’t he have fainted and hit a damn big rock on the edge of the Tidal Basin before he fell into it and drowned? As for his empty pockets, I was stumped. But then I thought of an explanation for that too. Perhaps he was wearing a light jacket and took it off when he began to feel faint. Then it could have been stolen, along with his wallet.
But what about ‘G’?
Oh, for God’s sake! Just this minute I didn’t give a damn. I intended to give Royal all the information he asked for tomorrow morning and extricate myself from this mess!
Ada held one end of the measuring tape at the corner of Phoebe’s davenport while I read the tape at the other end. ‘Sixty-two inches,’ I said, scribbling the measurement into a notebook.
Phoebe was out of the house at a bridge party, so Ada and I were taking the opportunity to estimate how much fabric we’d need to slipcover Phoebe’s lounge set for her. The davenport and two matching club chairs were so worn in places the muslin backing showed through the upholstery.
‘OK,’ Ada said. ‘Now we need to do the back.’
She leaned over the back cushions and dangled the tape measure over the back of the davenport. I crept under the console table behind the davenport to read the tape.
‘It doesn’t need to be perfect,’ Ada said, ‘just close enough to know how much fabric we need to buy.’
‘Where did your friend say this discount fabric store is?’ I asked.
‘Just outside the District in Chevy Chase,’ Ada said. ‘We’ll have to borrow Phoebe’s car to get there – and to get back with yards of fabric. We’ll need a good excuse.’
‘We’ll think of something,’ I said.
‘I hope she likes what we pick out,’ Ada said.
‘If it’s floral and has some pink in it she’ll love it.’
The telephone in the hall rang and Dellaphine picked it up.
‘Yes ma’am,’ Dellaphine said into the receiver, ‘she’s in. But her social calendar is mighty full.’
I dropped the chair cushion I was measuring and ran out into the hall, pulling the telephone out of Dellaphine’s hand.
‘You’re a barrel of laughs,’ I said to Dellaphine.
‘I just says it like I sees it,’ she said, a wide smile splitting her usually solemn face.
‘Hello?’ I said into the receiver.
‘It’s me,’ Rose said. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to do something with me and Sadie tonight. We’re bored. We’re thinking of going to the movies.’
‘I would, but I’m in the middle of something,’ I said, glancing into the lounge, where Ada was writing figures in the notebook. She looked up at me.
‘You go on,’ Ada said. ‘I can finish this.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Ada said. ‘Go have a good time.’
‘I can come,’ I said to Rose. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘We want to see Above Suspicion over at the Capitol Theatre. With Fred MacMurray and Joan Crawford. Have you heard of it?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ve read the book.’
‘If we meet at Thompsons Cafeteria in half an hour we’ll have time to get dessert or something first.’
‘OK,’ I said, glancing at my wristwatch. ‘I’ll see you there.’
Thompsons Cafeteria had about two dozen tables ranged down the middle of the restaurant between the buffet line and the short-order counter. Though it was still early in the evening, the dinner rush was over and the restaurant was half empty. Sadie hadn’t eaten dinner yet so we got in the buffet queue. Sadie piled her plate full of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn. Rose and I pounced on the last two pieces of peach pie.
We found a table at the front of the restaurant so, as Sadie observed, we could watch interesting people pass by the front window. ‘Maybe we’ll spot some hunky soldiers,’ Sadie said.
‘They’re all children,’ Rose said.
‘Not the officers,’ Sadie said. She peered at the meatloaf on her fork. ‘I think this is mostly breadcrumbs,’ she said. She popped the piece into her mouth. ‘Oh, well, it tastes good.’
‘I guess Peggy couldn’t come?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Sadie said. ‘She’s cooking dinner for Spencer and maybe darning his socks.’
‘I’m never getting married,’ Rose said.
‘So you’ve said,’ Sadie said. ‘But you can date, can’t you? And not all husbands are like Spencer Benton.’
‘What about you, Louise?’ Rose said. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’
‘Well, I’ve been married,’ I answered, scraping up the tiny crumbs of my peach pie. I would swear there was real sugar in it. ‘My husband died of pneumonia six years ago.’
‘You dope,’ Sadie said to Rose. ‘Didn’t you notice there’s a “Mrs” before her name?’
Rose laid her head on the table and crossed her arms over it. ‘I am so terribly sorry,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘This must be my stupid day. Please forgive me.’
‘What was your husband like?’ Sadie persisted. ‘Did you like being married?’
‘Do you think you could repress your curiosity for a few seconds until I can see if Louise is mad at me?’ Rose asked, sitting back up.
‘I’m not mad at you at all; it’s been six years since Bill died,’ I said to her. ‘And yes, Sadie, I did like being married. Bill was my childhood sweetheart. He had a good job, and during the Depression only one person in a family could work. I had fun fixing up our apartment and learning to cook. W
e went out to the movies or to a fish fry at church on the weekends. I didn’t know there was anything else.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rose said again.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ I said. ‘Forget about it.’
‘Do you want to get married again?’ Sadie asked.
‘If I meet the right man, sure,’ I said. I thought about Joe. I was in love with him, but he was not the right man! I wasn’t even sure the name he was using was his real name. ‘But I don’t want to get married just for marriage’s sake. I really like working and supporting myself.’ By which I meant that I was thrilled not being dependent on my parents, not cleaning slimy fish at their fish camp, not feeling like every eye at my Baptist church was trained on me and not being introduced to every halfway presentable bachelor in Wilmington, North Carolina. Especially the elderly widowers who chewed tobacco.
I was finishing my coffee when a sudden silence fell over the restaurant. It was so palpable that our awareness of it interrupted our conversation. The eyes of everyone in the place were fixed on the door. Three black girls had entered the cafeteria and gotten into line at the buffet. The colored man serving at the first station stared at them, his eyes wide open and his spatula hovering over the meatloaf. I saw him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, looking at the girls, then over at the white manager at the cash register. He was afraid of what might happen next. The manager, a thin bald man with a dishtowel tucked into his apron pocket, came around the front of the buffet line and strode toward the girls.
Every pair of eyes in the restaurant fixed on the unfolding drama.
‘What do you girls think you are doing here?’ the manager said, his chin jutting out. He gripped the rails of the buffet line with his right hand as if he might rip a piece of the metal out and shake it at them.
‘We’re getting our dinner,’ the first girl in line said. She was older than the other two girls and looked almost masculine in black trousers, with short curly hair and no make-up.
The diners stirred then, murmuring and clattering their silverware. I looked around me. I was relieved to see that most of the people in the dining room didn’t seem hostile to the black girls. They seemed to be waiting mostly, to see what the manager would do and what would happen next. There were a few tables, though, where the restaurant patrons were quite upset. I could tell by their ugly expressions.
Sadie gripped my arm and then Rose’s. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a sit-in!’
‘A what?’ I said.
‘The girls must be Howard University students,’ Rose said. ‘There’s a campus group that organizes what they call sit-ins. They go into restaurants and try to get served.’
I’d protest too if I were those girls. In all of the downtown District there were only two places where a Negro could get a meal and use the restroom: the YWCA cafeteria on 11th and ‘K’, and Union Station.
‘Sadie, let go of me, you’re breaking my wrist,’ Rose said.
‘This is so exciting!’ Sadie said, bouncing a little in her seat. ‘What do you think is going to happen?’
‘You girls need to leave,’ the manager said again. ‘We don’t serve coloreds.’
‘Why not?’ said one of the girls, smart in a hot pink and yellow sundress with dangling pink earrings to match. ‘Our money’s as good as anyone else’s.’
‘Now you all know you can get just as good a meal up at the Y,’ the manager said.
‘It’s too far away. We’re on our way to the movies,’ said a third girl, who wore her hair in a mane curl tied back at the base of her neck, the first one I’d seen outside a fashion magazine. She’d pulled all her hair back, tied it at the base of her neck with a thick ribbon, then tucked the rest of her hair under the ribbon. I liked it.
‘It’s against the law,’ the manager said. ‘You know that.’
The manager glanced over at the front door to the restaurant, where some people had stopped at the door, noticed the scene and turned away. A few remained, their faces pressed to the plate-glass window, voyeurs eager to see what was going to happen. Most of the diners inside began to collect their belongings and head for the exit, leaving uneaten food on their plates. A few of them shot nasty looks at the girls on their way out.
Please God, I thought, no violence. No beatings. I had seen a grocer back home beat his colored boy for spilling flour on the floor of his store and I’d never forgotten it.
The older girl, the one wearing trousers, reached out her hand to shake hands with the manager. He looked at her in pure astonishment and refused her outstretched hand.
‘I’m Pauli Murray,’ she said, introducing herself anyway. ‘I’m a law student at Howard University. There are no segregation laws in the District. And you haven’t got a sign in your window saying you don’t serve Negroes.’
I saw smiles cross the faces of the colored man who served the meatloaf and the white-haired colored lady further down the buffet who dished up the vegetables.
By now most of the diners had slipped out the door. A few tables remained. One with two older couples who just kept eating. Some young servicemen leaned back in their chairs, watching as if they were at a baseball game. I was concerned about a group of three men wearing Capital Transit uniforms at a table in the center of the big dining room. They were shifting in their seats and putting out their cigarettes as if they were about to do something.
‘We have to stay,’ Rose said to Sadie and me. ‘And help them.’
I thought we should do our best to convince the colored girls to leave the cafeteria with us, but then I decided instead that we should stand our ground, no matter what happened. I doubted the protesters would leave anyway.
‘What should we do?’ I asked.
Sadie slid out of her chair.
‘I’m going to join those girls,’ she said. ‘I wish I could get hold of my reporter friend.’
‘Louise and I are coming with you,’ Rose said.
‘No,’ Sadie said, ‘you two work for the government. Best stay out of it. Mr Layman doesn’t care what messes I get into.’
Sadie marched right up to the girls, grabbed a plate and joined them in the queue.
‘What are you doing?’ the manager asked her. ‘Stay out of this!’
‘Getting some dessert to eat with my friends here,’ Sadie said.
‘Look,’ he said to her, ‘what are you, a pinko? We don’t serve coloreds here. That’s just the way it is, you know that. I’ll lose all my customers if these girls don’t leave right now.’
The crowd outside had grown, lining the front windows of the restaurant.
Then the police arrived.
‘I didn’t know the District had any colored policemen,’ Rose said.
‘I’ll bet these are all of them,’ I said.
The Negro lieutenant left two of the three colored patrolmen on guard outside and brought the third into the restaurant with him. He looked utterly careworn, his skin more grey than black.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘what’s going on here?’
‘These girls won’t leave,’ the manager answered. ‘This one here,’ he said, nodding at Pauli Murray, ‘says there ain’t no laws against them eating here. That’s not true, right?’
‘No, they’re right,’ said the police lieutenant, whose nametag identified him as E. Mosely. ‘But,’ he said, glaring with disapproval at the girls, ‘it’s accepted, and you girls know that. Move along now and get your supper at the Y.’
‘There’s no sign in the window saying colored people can’t eat here,’ Sadie piped up, waving her plate toward the buffet line for emphasis. ‘How were they supposed to know? They should be able to get their dinner here like everyone else.’
Pauli Murray moved further along the buffet line with her plate. ‘I’ll have the catfish, please,’ she said. The colored man behind the steam table lifted up a spatula piled high with fried fish.
The manager, with his eyes on the gathering crowd outside, stood between the girl and the buffet
. The Capital Transit men stood up, ready to intervene. The crowd outside murmured. The trouble they’d been hoping for had arrived.
The colored lieutenant stretched out his hands toward the manager, palms up. ‘Looky here,’ he said. ‘Let’s make a deal. You let these girls eat here this evening, tomorrow you post a sign in your window saying your place is segregated. How about that? Then all these folks can go home and no one gets hurt. You don’t want your place in the newspapers, do you?’
The manager gave in. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just this once. The dinner hour is almost over anyway. You girls go on down the line, but don’t ever come back here.’
The men in the Capital Transit uniforms moved toward the girls, but the Negro policemen stood between them. I’d had enough. I didn’t care if they beat me up too, this was too awful to just sit and watch.
I jumped up from my chair and grabbed the arm of one of the Capital Transit drivers, the one who was clearly the leader. He pulled back from me in surprise. ‘Stay out of this,’ he said.
I glanced at my watch, pointedly. ‘I believe your dinner hour is over,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you due back at your streetcars at eight? Or do you want to get thrown in jail for starting a race riot? We’ve got plenty of witnesses here to testify who started it.’
He tried to stare me down, his fists clenching and unclenching. But then one of his friends took his arm. ‘Come on, Clem, let’s go. I don’t want to get fired.’
‘OK,’ he said, then glared at Pauli Murray, who’d calmly progressed through the buffet line, adding French fries and butter beans to her fish. ‘You there,’ he said, ‘you heard what the man said, don’t ever come back here.’ She ignored him.
The Negro policeman opened the door and the drivers left, along with the crowd outside that had been waiting for the excitement to start.
‘Good work,’ Rose said, as I sat back down at our table. I’d gotten a coffee refill, figuring we needed to stay to see the colored girls leave safely. I wished it was a Martini.
Louise's Blunder Page 10
