The Hours Count

by Jillian Cantor

  And then there is a hand on my shoulder. Not the big, rough hand of an officer but a familiar, gentle hand.

  I hear his voice. “What are you doing here?”

  Jake.

  And everything else suddenly turns still and silent. Jake is here, just like I knew he would be. I close my eyes and see if I can smell the familiar scent of him, the pines, the cabin in the woods. But all I smell is smoke from the flares burning off to the side of the road. “Millie,” he says. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  1948

  7

  The air hung heavy in Ethel’s apartment, filled with cigarette smoke and excited voices. About a dozen people were crowded in, far too many for the small space. Julius, Ed, and the other men talked loudly—yelling, really—but there were so many voices that I caught only a few pieces of conversation. They disliked President Truman and they felt Wallace would do a better job. I didn’t mind Truman myself, despite his silly loyalty oath. Ed and I had listened to his State of the Union address on the radio last winter and I had found it inspiring, all the goals President Truman had for the country. But I could hear Ed’s voice cutting clearly across all the others now: “Freedom and equality . . .” His voice curled on the words, and Julius clapped him on the back, while another man laughed and nodded in agreement.

  Ed worked for Julius at Pitt Machine Products now, Julius’s reorganized business, so Julius was not only Ed’s friend and our neighbor but also his boss. But I hadn’t seen Ethel much lately since the new baby came. David and I had stopped over here a few times for the children to play and for Ethel and me to share a cup of coffee. Ethel always seemed so exhausted, overwhelmed. Her back and her low blood pressure had been giving her trouble and on some days kept her in bed all day. I’d thought maybe I should try to find another friend for us in Knickerbocker Village. Yet none of the other mothers at the playground were friendly to me or David, who was turning out to be tall for a three-year-old and who still wasn’t talking. David and I had taken a few desperate day trips on the train to see Susan and the twins, but that had made me feel even worse, to watch her beautiful, whole girls, their voices ringing clear with the word Auntie now. They had just turned two. And I felt besieged by all of Susan’s inquiries about why David wasn’t speaking yet. What was wrong with him?

  Then yesterday, out of nowhere, Ethel had shown up at my door, inviting us all to come to the get-together tonight. “It’s been so long since I’ve been to a political meeting,” I said, unwilling to admit that I’d only ever gone to that one with Addie. “I’m not sure I’ll know what to say to everyone.” Ed had gone to meetings often when we were first married, and I would ask him about them when he came home. But he never wanted to discuss them with me and he would only say that they were fine. Over the years, his meetings had become fewer and farther between, and as I had David to worry about, I’d stopped bothering to even ask him about them. But suddenly I felt ashamed that I hadn’t asked more questions or had more knowledge. I was afraid that I would appear hopelessly out of it at the Rosenbergs’ get-together.

  Ethel laughed. “Nonsense,” she said. “It’s more of a party anyway. The men can talk politics, if they want, and you and I can catch up.” She had a lightness in her voice that I hadn’t heard from her yet and I wondered if, underneath, that was truly her. Ethel the woman, not Ethel the frazzled mother.

  So now Ethel and I were crammed into her tiny kitchen, pouring glasses of kosher wine into wide goblets. I poured with one hand and held on to a very tired David with the other hand. Frank Sinatra came suddenly from the phonograph, drowning out the voices of the men. The phonograph was controlled by a restless John, up far past his bedtime, but I preferred Sinatra’s smooth singing voice to that of my husband’s.

  “You can put him in my bedroom, if you want,” Ethel said, interrupting my thoughts and pointing to David. Her Richie was a quiet, gentle boy, in nearly every way the opposite of John, and he was already asleep in his crib.

  I hesitated, wondering if David would get upset if I put him down in Ethel’s unfamiliar bedroom. But he yawned and shoved his thumb in his mouth, and I thanked Ethel and followed her to their dark back bedroom to get him settled on the bed.

  “There,” Ethel said, putting a hand on my arm. “Now you can join the land of adults again. Come on, have some wine. I want to introduce you to my brother, David, and his wife.”

  “I’ll be out in a moment,” I said. “I just want to make sure he’ll be okay in here.”

  Ethel nodded and walked back out toward the front room. The apartment was tiny enough that I could hear all the loud voices of the men still talking about Truman and Wallace and the sounds coming from John’s phonograph. One of the men asked him to turn it down, but then it seemed he turned it up in response.

  Frank Sinatra seemed to be shouting, his voice at odds with the voices of the gravelly sounding men in Ethel’s living room. David’s eyes were closed, but he stirred a little on the bed, restless, and I stared at him hard, willing him to settle himself so that I might have some time alone in the company of adults. After a few moments, he was motionless, and he looked peaceful and perfect, lying there in the darkness, just like any other three-year-old boy, like a boy you would expect to open his eyes and call for you, and sometimes I thought maybe David would. That the words would just come to him one day magically, seemingly out of nowhere.

  I heard footsteps behind me. “I’m coming, Ethel,” I said softly so as not to wake David.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” an unfamiliar man’s voice answered and I jumped and turned around. I could make out only his shadow in the darkness of the bedroom, but I could see he was tall, with a thin frame. “I was looking for the bathroom,” he said.

  “I’ll show you,” I told him.

  I touched David’s soft cheek one last time, listening for the sound of his even breathing, and then I walked into the light. Outside the bedroom, I adjusted my eyes to see if I recognized the man. But I supposed he had blended in with all the others I didn’t know when I’d walked in, and I looked at him now for the first time. He had pale skin, with dark brown, curly hair, and dark brown eyes to match. “I don’t think we’ve met,” I said.

  He smiled at me and his eyes softened. “I’m Jacob Gold.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gold,” I said.

  “Actually, it’s Dr. Gold,” he said, and I immediately thought he seemed much too young to be a doctor, and nothing at all like the stodgy Dr. Greenberg, who I had not been back to since he’d suggested that maybe David would be better off somewhere else, not with me. “But you can just call me Jake,” he added.

  “I’m Millie Stein,” I told him.

  “Ed’s wife?” he asked, and I nodded, realizing that that was how I’d be defined here among Ed’s friends. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stein.” He held out his hand to shake.

  “Please,” I told him, “call me Millie.” I took his hand and it was solid, his grip firm, wrapped around mine. He smiled and let go of my hand.

  “Oh, there you are.” Ethel grabbed my arm, and I turned around to find her pulling me back toward the front room. “I’ve finally gotten John to lie down, too. He was exhausted. He fell asleep on the couch in the middle of everything.” She laughed. “But you and I are free for a while. Let’s have fun, shall we?”

  I noticed the absence of the shouting phonograph, and the room felt calmer now—the men spoke in lower tones as if they were afraid to wake a sleeping John. Some nights I could hear the phonograph in my apartment. John was playing it so loud, so late, and more than once Ed threatened to go complain, though we both knew he wouldn’t. Julius had been Ed’s friend first, but now he was also his boss, and though Ed said he was not making as much money as he was before, he didn’t complain, not about the job anyway. Only about what he called my frivolous spending when I asked him for money for clothes and shoes for a quickly growing David. “Where does he go?” Ed asked,
disgusted. “What should he need new things for?”

  I noticed Ethel was humming now as she held on to my arm. She appeared lighter without her children—happy, even. She grabbed a bright red hat from the hook on the wall and fashioned it atop her curls. “It’s like I can pretend I’m young again.” She laughed.

  “You are young,” I told her.

  She laughed again and waved her hand in the air. “Did I ever tell you how I wanted to be on Broadway?” she asked. “I really thought I’d do it, too.”

  I tried to imagine it, the small, motherly Ethel as a big stage star. Maybe that explained the piano, which I’d never heard anyone play for real.

  “In high school my class voted me most likely to be America’s leading actress by 1950,” she said.

  “You still have a few years,” I told her.

  She swatted me lightly on the arm and smiled. “Oh, Millie, the dreams of a young girl . . . I’m a mother now. But, anyway, I can’t say I’m sorry.”

  I saw Julius catch her eye from across the room, and he smiled at her. I first met Julius last summer just after Richie was born when I’d come over to see the baby and bring Ethel a casserole. Julius was not as tall as Ed, though he towered over Ethel, and he was quite slender, with an oval face, dark hair and a mustache, and round wire-rimmed glasses. He was holding the baby when I’d come by that day last summer, rocking Richie in a gentle way that had put him to sleep. “Ethel is resting. But I know she’ll appreciate your kindness,” he’d said in a hushed voice, trying so ardently not to wake her or the baby. I’d been immediately taken with—and, I’ll admit, a bit jealous of—his sweetness and obvious love for his family.

  Since then, I’d seen Julius from time to time, getting on or off the elevator on his way to and from work, but always dressed in a suit, walking briskly, and looking quite serious. Now his face appeared softer again, and he seemed kinder and gentler, the way he’d looked that first time I met him.

  Ethel smiled back at him and dropped my arm to walk toward him through the crowd of men. Ethel leaned in and gave him a big kiss squarely on the lips. I could suddenly see them as a young couple deeply in love, holding on to dreams of bigness and life together. And it seemed that this tiny apartment in Knickerbocker Village, even with the elevator and the steam heat, was not enough for them now, not what they had hoped for once. I could imagine the two of them and their boys running across a green lawn in New Jersey just like Susan’s.

  I walked toward them and Ethel pulled away from Julius for a moment and introduced me to the other people standing nearby. A man named Mortie Sobell, who waved with a friendly smile, and Ethel’s younger brother, David Greenglass, a round man smoking a cigarette who simply nodded at me, and his wife, Ruth, a pretty woman with a serious expression who was the only woman tucked in among the men, talking politics with them. Ruth looked me over once quickly and then took a drag on her cigarette and jumped back into the conversation. They were talking about Elizabeth Bentley, and I remembered reading about her in the paper, a quite pretty woman who’d claimed to be a spy for Russia who’d now turned back to our side and wanted to help keep the United States safe. She’d testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities over the summer.

  “Oh, she’ll say anything,” Ruth said, blowing a ring of smoke in front of her. “Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.”

  “Can you blame her?” David said. “She’s trying to save herself.”

  I wanted to jump into the conversation, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt I didn’t know enough about Elizabeth Bentley to make a comment, so instead I said, “Are you all members of the Communist Party with my husband?”

  Ruth exchanged a look with David and took another drag on her cigarette. “We’re Democrats now,” she said. “Davey only wanted to come tonight because he likes his sister’s baking so much.” She motioned to a tray of cookies resting on the coffee table. “And because we needed a night out with adults.” She laughed.

  “You have a child?” I asked, relieved that I could ask about something relatable.

  “Yes,” Ruth said. “A two-year-old boy. We left him with my sister.” She leaned into her husband and put her head on his shoulder. “Just you and I tonight, dearest. Just like when we were young and in New Mexico.”

  “God-awful desert,” David chimed in, though he pulled Ruth closer and kissed the top of her head.

  I was about to ask why they were in New Mexico when I heard Ed’s voice, and it startled me. “There is my Mildred.” He’d snuck up on me. Ed’s words were too loud and slurred. He was already drunk, and the room seemed to get quieter, everyone staring at him now. He grabbed my arm roughly, holding on too tight, the way the vodka made him do sometimes.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to yank away and feeling embarrassed that Ruth and David and Mortie were all seeing this after I’d only just met them. But Ed pulled me closer to him, not letting go. I could feel the eyes of the others—all watching me. “I should want to give my wife a kiss,” he said, his breath hot against my neck. “Is that so wrong?” He pulled my face close to his and pressed his lips against mine. He smelled of vodka, kosher wine, and cigar smoke.

  “Stop it,” I whispered, trying to pull back but unable to get out of his grip. “Not here.”

  “I know what you’ve been doing.” He said the words so quietly that it took a moment for them to register. And then he let go of me so quickly that I stumbled a little, and grabbed on to the edge of the console table to catch my balance.

  I looked up and saw Ethel staring at me now, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “I’m going to go downstairs, outside, for a bit,” I said, trying not to cry. “Will you keep an eye on David?”

  “Now?” she said. “Millie, it’s late.”

  I glanced at Ed, who was already talking to Mortie Sobell as if I weren’t even here, as if he hadn’t just grabbed me. How could he possibly know? “I just need some air,” I said.

  “But . . .” She hesitated, and I guessed there was more she wanted to say but she stopped herself and then said instead, “Take as long as you need.”

  OUT ON THE sidewalk below, the air was much too cold for early September, and I’d not stopped by my apartment for my coat. I shivered, and pulled at the sleeves of my gray dress, but I could not go back inside, up the elevator, to Ethel’s. And Ed.

  I had the urge to walk, to go up the street and get on the subway and ride it somewhere. Anywhere. But I didn’t even have my purse with me. And besides, where would I go now at this hour? And even if I should ever want to leave here, I couldn’t go alone. I would never leave David behind.

  I could still feel the impression of Ed’s fingertips on my wrist. I looked down and saw slight purple marks. I could also feel his lips against mine and I reached up and touched my mouth as if to brush the memory away. I know what you’ve been doing, he’d said. I shivered again and wondered if it was possible, if he’d finally figured out about the diaphragm.

  I hoped he was talking about something else, some imagined ill I’d committed against him. The more time that passed without me finding myself with a child, the more distant and angrier Ed became.

  But I knew if he had discovered my secret now, there was not much I could do about it, and it terrified me to think what might become of David should we ever have another, more perfect child. It terrified me to think that maybe Dr. Greenberg was right, that it was me. My fault. And it was bad enough that I was ruining one child.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and I flinched. “I didn’t mean to startle you . . . Again . . .” I turned and there was the doctor I’d met upstairs.

  “Dr. Gold,” I said.

  “Jake,” he reminded me gently. “I was about to head home and I noticed you standing out here. Is everything all right, Mrs. Stein?”

  “Millie,” I corrected him, too, and he smiled at me. “Yes, of course. Everythin
g is fine.” I shook his hand away from my shoulder and forced a smile. “I just wanted some fresh air. That’s all. It was quite loud in there. And very smoky. Is the party over?” I wondered if everyone had left Ethel’s. If Ed had noticed I was gone. If David was still sleeping.

  “Not yet,” he said, and I wondered why he was leaving early but didn’t ask. “Can I walk you back up before I go?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. I live here, too, so I think I can find my way.” My words came out sounding short and angry, and I felt a little bad for being rude to this man who was practically a stranger and trying to be kind. “Thank you,” I added. “But really, I’ll be okay.”

  He pulled a card from his coat pocket. “Here,” he said, “take this. If you ever want to talk . . .”

  My hands were shaking with cold, but I held up the card to the streetlamp to read it as Jake walked away.

  Dr. Jacob Gold, it read. Doctor of Psychotherapy.

  8

  The next morning, I didn’t wake up until after Ed had left for work, a rare day when David slept past the first moments of sun slanting in through the tiny bedroom window, and Ed had moved carefully enough around the apartment so I hadn’t even heard him leave.

  I awoke disoriented at first, David so still that I thought he wasn’t here at all until I saw him sleeping heavily on the mattress across the room. I remembered Ed’s ominous whisper in Ethel’s living room last night and I looked down to my wrist, where the purpling imprint of his fingers seemed singed into my skin.

  When I had finally ridden the elevator back up to Ethel’s apartment last night, Ed had already left. I’d assured Ethel that everything was okay and I’d carried a sleeping David back home to find Ed passed out and snoring in our bed. It felt like a gift not to have to talk to him then, or this morning either, a momentary reprieve where I could gather my thoughts and figure out what to do next if he had, in fact, discovered my secret.