by Lila Perl
One of my dad’s cronies reminds him that the Japanese are still way ahead of the game. “So what? Have you any idea how many American prisoners of war they’ve taken? And what about those Jap air attacks and those Jap submarines in the Pacific?”
“Aahh.” My father waves his stale cigar in the air. “That’s the kind of defeatist talk that’s bad for the war effort.”
It’s a relief when I see Ruthie approaching on the lawn that slopes up toward the main house of Shady Pines, and I skip down the porch steps to meet her. I honestly don’t see how anybody can keep this war straight in their head. There are so many “fronts”…which I guess is why they call it a “World War”…the second one since the first World War. There’s the Pacific front where we’re fighting the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941. There’s Europe, where Nazi Germany has scooped up one country after another. There’s the Russian front, where the Germans are still in a fight to take over Russia and are now waging a big battle at Stalingrad. And there are also German armies fighting in North Africa to keep us from trying to invade southern Europe. I know that much from listening to my father’s pronouncements about how important it is to support the war effort (and why I’d better stop whining about having my nose fixed, or else…).
“Where’s Helga this morning?” Ruthie wants to know.
It’s been a few days now since Helga’s midnight rendezvous with Roy, about which I’ve told Ruthie and only Ruthie.
“Mrs. F. took her into town to have the doctor check on her leg.” I’m still carrying my knitting needles and my ball of yarn. I’ve got about two inches of my soldier’s muffler done, but it looks like Swiss cheese and will probably have to be ripped out when Mrs. F. gets back.
“She still hasn’t said anything about what happened that night?” Ruthie asks. “Does she ever make any sounds in her sleep?”
“How should I know?” Most of the time, I’m sleeping, too. “But I can tell you for sure that she’s mooning over him. And I know he gave her his address in the Navy so she could write to him. She probably will, too, if she hasn’t already.”
Ruthie sighs. “Well, I think it’s pretty romantic…a sort of love-at-first-sight story. Wouldn’t you want to have somebody in the war you could write to? You know, just to keep his spirits up? It wouldn’t have to be a romantic thing, even…just friendly and supportive. It must be awful for those fellows who are drafted into the Army, being ripped away from home like that.”
Ruthie can be such a sob sister, sentimental and even crying real tears about somebody she doesn’t even know. I suddenly have a strong impulse to shove my knitting at her, needles first.
“Why would I want to write letters to somebody who didn’t even care about me?” I’m not even sure I’d write to my own brother if he was drafted. Well, maybe I would. But only un très petit peu.
Speaking of Arnold, guess who’s suddenly decided to put in an appearance at Shady Pines for the weekend. When my parents tell me about my brother’s unexpected phone call announcing his arrival by train on Saturday morning, I’m sort of surprised. Arnold has been working this summer in a garment factory that converted from making men’s trousers to army uniforms, and because of the war effort he even works on Saturdays. He’s been saving money for college in the fall and he’s such a money hog that I find it strange he’d take off even one day.
But, of course, the thing that strikes me the most about my brother’s visit is that here is yet another admirer for Helga. I can already see him taking one look at her and falling head over heels. And what about Helga? How loyal will she be to Roy once she gets a look at Arnold, with his enticing blue eyes and smooth moves?
On Saturday shortly after breakfast, we pile into my father’s car to go to Harper’s Falls to meet Arnold’s train. Ruthie comes, too. She needs to make some bulk food purchases for the hotel and, these days, with gasoline and even rubber tires being rationed, everybody has to be careful not to waste wartime scarcities.
Mrs. Moskin sees us off in her floury white bandana, with last-minute instructions for Ruthie. You’d think we were all going to the moon. I settle into the back seat beside Ruthie and heave a deep sigh.
“What’s the matter?” my father inquires. “You sound like the whole world is resting on your shoulders. You don’t know how lucky you are to be living in a wonderful democracy like America.”
“That’s right,” my mother chimes in. “When I think of that poor Helga and what she’s been through. She doesn’t say much, but I can just imagine how terrified she must have been all those years by the Nazis. And from what Harriette Frankfurter tells me, things weren’t that much better during those two years in England. They weren’t that welcoming to people with German accents. And who were Jewish, no less.”
Where, I wonder, is all this coming from? I glance at Ruthie and roll my eyes. All I did was sigh.
“I’m right, Ruthie, aren’t I?” my mother says, glancing around briefly.
“Oh yes, Mrs. Brandt,” Ruthie replies solemnly.
I give her a killing look. Thankfully, it’s only a short drive to the village and we’re already there. We still have half an hour until Arnold’s train is due so my mother goes off to do some shopping and my father drives Ruthie and me around to the various hotel suppliers who stow the purchases for Shady Pines in the roomy trunk of the Packard. Then we park at the railroad station where my mother joins us with her packages.
“Where did so many soldiers suddenly come from?” my mother wants to know.
It’s true. There are young fellows in uniform milling around all over the place, waiting for a train or maybe for transportation by truck to an Army base. Most of them are in newly issued khaki-colored Army privates’ uniforms, with sharply folded overseas caps slung through their belts. There are only a few in sailors’ whites and, of course, I get a jolt when I see them because they remind me of Roy (who I’m still pretty mad at).
“Yep, the draft is really in full swing these days,” my father remarks, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Got to get at those Germans and Japs.”
Ruthie and I glance at each other silently. Some of the fellows are really cute in their new uniforms. “Looking for somebody to write letters to?” I tease Ruthie.
Just then there’s a long screaming whistle and everybody starts peering down the track. “That’ll be Arnold’s train for sure,” I mutter to Ruthie. “Just watch the way he acts toward me the minute he gets off. He doesn’t see me as anything but an annoying kid sister. He treats me like I’m chopped liver.”
Ruthie shakes her head. “Maybe he’ll be different this time. Why don’t you wait and see?” That’s Ruthie, always giving the guilty party the benefit of the doubt. Anyhow, she has a slight crush on my brother from summers past.
The train chugs into Harper’s Falls in a cloud of black smoke. My father informs us that “it’s being pulled by an old coal-fired steam locomotive” and that “the U.S. has got to get itself some new rolling stock if it really expects to win this war.” I sometimes wonder why he doesn’t just give up his insurance business in New York City and go to Washington to offer himself as a right-hand man to President Roosevelt.
The train is jammed with even more soldiers, their heads popping through the open windows like bunches of flesh-colored balloons. A lot of them get off, a lot of the waiting soldiers get on, an Army truck arrives to pick up the new arrivals and some who’ve already been waiting around, and finally Arnold’s figure swims through the crowd.
He’s easy enough to pick out because he’s dressed in civilian clothes, a blue shirt and dark trousers. My father and mother rush forward to embrace him. Even though it’s been only about a week since we left home for Shady Pines, my parents are hugging Arnold as though they haven’t seen him in months.
“So,” my mother says playfully after my brother has given me a peck on the cheek and greeted Ruthie rather absentmindedly. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? We did say you should co
me up for a little rest from work, but so soon?”
“Tell you all about it when we get to the hotel,” Arnold says, slinging his overnight bag into the trunk of the car and taking my mother’s place in the passenger seat beside my father.
From the back seat where she’s sitting directly behind Arnold, my mother leans forward and strokes the back of my brother’s head. His hair is the color of dark butterscotch and very thick. “You need a haircut, my darling. Have you been working so hard that you didn’t have time to get one?”
Arnold runs his hand over where my mother’s has just been. “I’ll get one soon. Very short.”
“Not too short,” my mother cautions with a bossy edge to her voice.
We’re back at Moskin’s in no time and my father parks outside the kitchen entrance so the busboys can bring in the hotel supplies.
“Come in, come in, everybody,” Minnie Moskin beckons. “Arnold made an early train. Surely he didn’t have breakfast.” She clears one of her well-scrubbed wooden tables and starts to fuss at the stove. Would Arnold like French toast with maple syrup, eggs, cereal, coffee? What about the rest of us? My father says he’ll have a little of whatever Arnold is having. Eating a second breakfast at Moskin’s never bothers him. My mother and I shake our heads no thanks.
It’s so homey sitting here in Mrs. Moskin’s kitchen surrounded by all the good smells of her wholesome and generous meals. I keep wondering why my family can’t be a happier one. Somebody, it seems, is always being criticized. I, of course, am the worst culprit with my demands for a nose job, for a pair of dungarees, for not appreciating what Helga has been through, and for not doing enough for the war effort.
Arnold, so far, has been told that his visit to us at Moskin’s is premature and that he needs a haircut. But then he hasn’t even been here an hour.
Mrs. Moskin brings coffee and thick slices of golden, crusty-edged French toast that she makes from leftover loaves of her home-baked bread. “So,” my father says, stirring heavy cream into his coffee, “what’s doing in the city? How’s the job? Is the factory turning out its quota of uniforms? From the looks of all those draftees at the station, they’ll soon go into overtime.”
Arnold digs into his syrup-drenched French toast. “Not me,” he says casually. “I quit the factory yesterday. Figure I’m due for a short vacation. That’s why I’m here.”
“You quit!” my father explodes. “You left your summer job working for the war effort? What kind of an American are you?”
My mother has gotten to her feet. “Now, now, Harold, calm down. I’m sure our son has a good reason for what he did. Don’t be so quick to judge.”
I remain sitting at the table, keeping an eye on Ruthie who has been lurking off in the distance where she’s helping her mother roll out dough for strudel. I’m so glad that for once this isn’t about me. It’s almost like watching a really good movie.
Arnold, too, is now standing. “Pop, if you’d just give the other fella a chance to explain once in a while. You’re going to be pleased with what I have to tell you. I’ve joined the Army Air Force. They took me into the Air Force. Is that terrific or what?”
My mother sinks immediately into her chair. “You what? Oh, my baby. You’re not even eighteen yet. You’re starting college in the fall. Why did you do that?”
My father pushes his coffee cup away, plants his elbows on the table, and jams his face between his hands. “Crazy. I have a crazy family, crazy children. You couldn’t wait for your draft number to come up? Meanwhile you could have started college, maybe—who knows—even gotten a deferment.”
Arnold sits down in dismay and, for the first time, he looks at me and something like a spark of shared sympathy passes between us. Then he goes on to explain that ever since last April when the American lieutenant colonel, James Doolittle, led a squadron of fifteen planes off the deck of an aircraft carrier to bomb Tokyo, he’s had his heart set on getting into the Air Force.
“Ah,” my father retorts. “The Doolittle raids. Do you know how dangerous that was for the pilots of those B-25s? Every one of them could have gone off that carrier straight into the water. It was a cockeyed idea to try to get back at the Japanese for bombing Pearl Harbor. But how much actual damage did it do? Almost nothing compared to the thousands they killed at Pearl Harbor. You’re too young. You’re underage. Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of it. You’ll take a rest, like you said, and in a few weeks you’ll start college.”
But my father is talking to nobody but my mother and me. Arnold has grabbed his overnight bag and dashed out of the hotel kitchen. I have a hunch that already he’s on his way to Harper’s Falls to board the next train for the city.
“Is everything all right here?” Mrs. Moskin wants to know, as she surveys the ruins of the breakfast she served, plates of half-eaten French toast and cups of cold coffee.
“Yes, yes,” my father says, rising from the table. “Perfect. Thank you so much, my dear woman.”
I start edging away from my parents to walk over to Ruthie, who’s still working on the strudel dough. But I don’t get very far. “Isabel,” my father roars in a commanding voice. “This way.”
Six
I can’t believe how quickly my mother and father and I pack our bags and get into the car to go racing home to the Bronx. Even so, we’re too late to catch Arnold at the Harper’s Falls railroad station or wherever it is he disappeared to after my father’s temper tantrum over his having joined the United States Air Force.
“I honestly don’t see why we had to leave in such a terrible rush,” I complain from the back seat. Now that Arnold is the one my parents are so mad at, I figure I can take a chance and fuss a little. “I never even had time to say a proper goodbye to Ruthie. Helga and Mrs. F. weren’t even back from the doctor’s yet. We could at least have waited a few minutes for Mrs. Moskin to make us the sandwiches she offered.”
“That’s enough, Isabel,” my father mutters ominously from behind the wheel. “When will you learn that we are a family…a family in trouble. And we have to stick together.”
I don’t see our family as sticking together when one-quarter of it has already angrily walked out on us. Nor do I understand how my super-patriotic father can justify the fact that he doesn’t want his own son to fight for his country. Isn’t there a word for that? Hypocrite? Two-faced?
“Please don’t keep calling Harriette Frankfurter Mrs. F.,” my mother chimes in. “It’s disrespectful. As for Ruthie and Helga, you can write to both of them.”
I don’t even bother to answer. I feel really miserable. I know I didn’t want to come to Shady Pines and now I’m sorry to leave it, which is stupid. Also, although I should be relieved of the burden of trying to be close friends with Helga, I feel guilty about having walked out on her.
Up front, my parents are now conversing softly with each other. I hear terms like “flat feet,” “a punctured eardrum,” “a trick knee,” “a hernia.”
“Colorblindness!” I offer, leaning forward and in a voice louder than I intended. “If you can’t tell red from green, if they both look gray to you, you can’t be in the Air Force. I know that for certain. Only I don’t think Arnold is…colorblind. So how about a heart murmur?”
“Oh, Isabel!” my mother declares. “What a terrible thing to wish on your brother.”
I curl back into my corner. There’s never any pleasing my parents. “Well, if you were hoping Arnold would be classified 4-F,” I say sulkily, “a heart murmur could have done it. Only it’s too late for all that. He’s already passed his physical. Remember?”
The closer we get to the city, the hotter the late August weather gets, so we ride with all the car windows wide open and there is too much noise for further conversation. Which is just as well as far as talking to my parents is concerned.
Now that we’re on our way home, I’m glad there are only a couple of weeks to go before I can bury myself in school in September…seventh grade at Samuel S. Singleton Junior High. I kee
p telling myself it will be practically like going to high school because there will be ninth graders roaming the halls, eighth-grade boys who will actually be older than twelve, and I’ll be taking intermediate French.
We find a temporary parking space on Le Grand Concours not too far from the entrance to our apartment building, and my parents send me into the lobby to try to find Quincy, the porter, to help bring in our suitcases. The heat rising from the sidewalk is stifling and there is also a furnace-like wind that whips old newspapers around my ankles. I’m sure that no boulevard in France looks anywhere as messy as this.
“Why, Miss Izzie, what you doing here?” Quincy greets me with his brilliant smile. “Thought you was in the country, same place as your brother went off to early this mornin’.”
I knew this was going to be embarrassing. When you live in a six-story building with eight apartments on each floor and a genial janitor-porter-handyman like Quincy, everybody knows everybody else’s business. At least, I can be sure that Arnold hasn’t returned home yet and I can relate that to my parents before Quincy follows me out to the car.
The moment we’re inside the apartment, my mother starts dashing around checking on its condition. The stovetop is greasy and has food splashes on it, the sofa cushions haven’t been plumped up in the living room, and Arnold hasn’t made his bed in the dining alcove where he sleeps.
“Leave a seventeen-year-old boy home alone for a week and look what happens,” she complains to my father. “I see now that we never should have gone up to Moskin’s this summer. It was a waste of gasoline, wear and tear on the tires, and money. It’s time to face it. There’s a war on.”
“Aah,” my father groans despairingly. “You’re telling me. What have I been saying all along? But who cares about the stove and the sofa cushions? Where is that boy? Did he run away to the Air Force already? Will he at least come say goodbye to us?”
This is all more than I can bear. It only proves that I was right in the first place. But when I complained about being dragged up to Shady Pines, I was scolded.
