Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  “You want to go to a U.S.O. dance with Sybil Simon?” My mother doesn’t only sound disbelieving. She sounds outraged.

  “But I told you, Mrs. Simon is taking us. She’s over thirty-five so she’s legally qualified to be a senior hostess. She can take anyone she likes with her. And we’re going to ask Helga to come, too.”

  “Helga’s only fourteen and you two are twelve. To be a junior hostess I hear you have to be eighteen. And I think that’s a terrible idea. I can just see some illfated romance blossoming between an eighteen-year-old girl and one of those homesick young servicemen.”

  “Well, nothing like that is going to happen with any of us. We’re too young and Mrs. Simon is too old.”

  “And married,” my mother says pointedly. “I don’t see where that woman gets so much energy. She has one day off a week from her war job and she goes to a U.S.O. dance.”

  “It’s not only a dance,” I insist. “We serve food there and see if the fellows need any sewing or mending done, or want help writing a letter home. And think of Helga,” I add, lowering my voice. “She’s been moping in our bedroom, supposedly doing homework, all afternoon. She never goes anywhere or has any fun. I’m sure Mrs…her Aunt Harriette…would approve. Why don’t you call the hospital and ask her?”

  My mother doesn’t answer or make a move to call Mrs. F., who is still in deep recovery. But the idea of volunteering at the U.S.O. club for Helga’s sake seems to turn the tide. Even my father, who’s been overhearing our conversation in the living room, while keeping his ear peeled to the radio for the war news, agrees with me.

  “Those brave young men certainly deserve everything we can do for them.” He turns to my mother. “I’m sure, Sally, that you’d want some nice motherly woman looking after Arnold when he gets shipped out to flight training school in Wyoming or wherever.”

  “Not really,” she replies. “I can mend socks for my own son myself, thank you very much.”

  The U.S.O. club near Le Grand Concours is within walking distance of our building, and it’s nothing fancy. Actually it’s an empty store that local business people have set up with help from the Salvation Army, the YMCA, and Jewish and Catholic welfare groups.

  Inside, it’s draped with American flags and big USO letters in red, white, and blue. There’s a dance floor and a jukebox. There are small tables and chairs, like in an ice-cream parlor. And there’s a food counter for coffee and soda pop, with doughnuts and cookies and some wrapped sandwiches.

  Right now, in the early evening of this late September day, there are only a few servicemen and not many volunteers. Helga scans the room, almost as though she expects to see Roy here. But there aren’t any sailors here at the moment, and I’ve found out that she hasn’t heard from Roy since his letter informing her that he was in the Pacific.

  Helga is wearing the same flowered dress that she wore that first night at Moskin’s, and she looks lovely and much older than fourteen, while Sibby and I, even though we’re dressed in new fall get-ups, still look like the petits enfants—little kids—that we are.

  Soon after we’re in the door, Sibby’s mother decides that the place needs some pepping up and she puts money in the jukebox, which comes to life with the new Hit Parade song “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” Immediately, a soldier who’s been leaning on the counter drinking a bottle of soda pop asks Mrs. Simon to dance.

  In no time, she’s up on the floor and dancing a foxtrot to the jazzy tempo. I turn to Sibby. “Your Mom’s a great dancer.”

  “Oh, sure, she used to win all kinds of prizes. Come on, let’s you and me try it.” The rhythm is infectious and Sybil and I really go at it, doing any old kind of step and pushing and pulling each other around the dance floor until Sibby’s face starts turning hot pink.

  “Look, look,” I point out to Sibby, turning her around hard. “There’s Helga. She’s dancing, too. With one of the soldiers from that table where four G.I.’s were sitting when we came in. He’s a hot dancer, don’t you think?”

  “Stop, stop,” Sibby replies. “This I’ve got to see.”

  We get off the dance floor and move to the sidelines, where a few of the other women volunteers are watching Sibby’s mother strut her stuff. These women look older and more “housewifely” than Mrs. Simon. Their hair is done up in tight permanent waves and they’re wearing aprons to serve coffee and fix food. The expressions on their faces aren’t exactly approving. But there aren’t any junior hostesses here right now and is it awful for married women, who admittedly could be their mothers, to dance with the boys?

  Sibby and I are a lot more interested in Helga and her soldier. He’s tall and blond and just a little bit gawky, but they look really good together. The music stops and the next number is a slow one, “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You (Baby).”

  Helga’s soldier asks her to dance again and she does. This time they’re actually talking to each other as they whirl around lazily, the only couple on the floor. I wish I knew what Helga was saying to him.

  Sibby’s mother has quit dancing and is behind the food counter now along with the other ladies, making up fresh ham-and-cheese sandwiches with supplies from the refrigerator.

  I pull Sybil over there with me, since I feel pretty stupid just standing around and watching Helga.

  “Can we help?”

  “You’d better,” Mrs. Simon says. “What do you think I brought you kids along with me for?”

  Pretty soon we’ve made up about a dozen sandwiches, smearing margarine on slices of white bread (butter is rationed because of the war) and slapping more cheese than ham between the slices (because meat is rationed, too). I’ve heard that coffee is going to go on the list of civilian food shortages, but I guess there will always be coffee allotted to the U.S.O. and to the troops.

  Helga joins Sibby and me and we start circling the room offering sandwiches as well as doughnuts and coffee to the G.I.’s. More have started to drift in and so have civilian volunteers, including a few junior hostesses, so it’s getting pleasantly crowded in the storefront U.S.O.

  Helga actually looks happy as she extends the tray of sandwiches across the table where the soldier she danced with is sitting with his three companions. He smiles and winks at her as he reaches up for a sandwich. “Don’t forget,” he says to Helga, “I’m keepin’ my eye on you. You owe me one more dance.”

  “Ach, ja,” Helga says softly. “but not so fast as the first one. Still I am dizzy from this song about the heart of Texas. It must be crazy in that place, but I would like so much to see it.”

  “Hey,” says the soldier sitting beside Helga’s dance partner. “Where you from, girlie?”

  Helga looks slightly alarmed at the soldier’s challenging tone and the roughness of his voice. I’m standing right next to her holding a platter of doughnuts, so I answer for her. “She’s from here, just a few blocks away, over on the Concourse. In fact, she lives in my apartment.”

  “Oh yeah, sister?” The soldier shakes his head from side to side. “Don’t tell me no lies. You sound normal. But this one’s a Fräulein. I know a Kraut when I hear one. What the hell’s she doin’ dancin’ with G.I.s in a U.S.O. club? Lookin’ for secret information about the military? That’s what she’s doin’, ain’t she? She’s spying!”

  By this time Helga’s dancing partner is on his feet, as well as the three other soldiers at the table. It’s hard to tell who started throwing punches and slapping heads, and which ones are now trying to wrestle which other ones to the floor. It seems likely, though, that Helga’s dancing partner started the fight because of the insulting accusations of his tablemate, probably a guy he hadn’t even known until this evening. Anyway, in no time at all it’s a big tangle, with other G.I.’s joining in, chairs being turned over, and the ladies in the aprons screaming, “Stop! Stop!”

  Mrs. Simon races toward us and starts pulling Helga and Sibby and me away from the brawl. Sandwiches and doughnuts are already on the floor and being trampled and squashed. It’s beginni
ng to look like the whole U.S.O. club is about to be trashed, when a shrill whistle sounds and somebody yells, “Police!”

  Everybody freezes for an instant and then in come the M.P.s—Military Police—uniformed members of the armed forces who have the power to arrest soldiers who misbehave, riot, go absent without leave, mutiny, or whatever.

  Seven or eight soldiers, including the one who danced with Helga, are dragged away and put into a military van that’s standing out in front of the U.S.O. Sibby’s mother starts cleaning up the mashed food that’s on the floor and picking up the chairs that have been toppled over, and she motions to us to do the same.

  “Finish up, girls, and let’s go,” she says hoarsely. “Where are your sweaters and jackets?”

  I find mine and Sibby’s. I look around for Helga’s, which was hanging on the next hook. But it’s gone. And so is Helga.

  Eleven

  “Stop worrying about her,” Mrs. Simon repeats over and over in response to my laments, as we hurry home through the dark, chilly streets. “And for Pete’s sake,” she adds, “stop calling me Mrs. Simon. My name’s Leona.”

  I’ve known this for a while because Sibby sometimes calls her mother by her first name. But after being yelled at for saying Mrs. F. instead of Mrs. Frankfurter, I’m forever on my guard.

  “I’m sure she headed straight for home and you’ll find her at the apartment when you get there,” Leona Simon assures me.

  I don’t happen to agree but we’ll find out soon enough.

  “What a numbskull that soldier was,” Sybil reflects, “to accuse Helga of being a spy. Insulting her by calling her a Kraut would have been enough.”

  “Fräulein I understood,” I mumble. “It’s German for a ‘Miss’. But where does Kraut come from, anyway?”

  “Oh, you’re so out of it, Izzie. It comes from sauerkraut. Pickled cabbage. They eat a lot of it in Germany. Golly, didn’t you ever have a hot dog with sauerkraut?”

  “Okay,” I say huffily. “You don’t have to get nasty about it. I just didn’t make the connection.”

  “Stop bickering, girls, and keep your eyes open for her,” Leona orders. She’s walking faster and faster and we’re all looking around for Helga. How much of a head start could she have had? Surely we’ll catch up with her before we get to the door of our building.

  When we burst through the entrance, I’m happy to see that Quincy is in the lobby. Surely he’ll have just seen Helga return and we can all take a deep breath. But, having sensed already what is wrong, Quincy shakes his head sadly. “No’m, Miss Izzie, I ain’t seen the young lady this evenin’.”

  “Come on then, kids,” says Leona determinedly. “We’ll all go up together and face the music.”

  It won’t be very musical, I think to myself. My mother will be hysterical when we tell her that we lost Helga.

  For the first few seconds, my parents receive Leona and Sybil pleasantly. Maybe my mother has been feeling a little sorry about some of her criticisms of Mrs. Simon. But it doesn’t take long for both my parents to notice that Helga isn’t with us. Nor, of course, has she come home to the apartment.

  “What do you mean she left the dance early?” my mother demands, addressing her question to me. “How could you let her walk out of there alone, Isabel? It’s dark out; she doesn’t know the neighborhood.”

  “I didn’t even see her go,” I protest. “It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that I realized she had walked out of the place. She never said a word to anyone.”

  My father has already put on his imitation bomber jacket and declared, “Ladies, stay where you are. I’ll find her.”

  “Oh,” my mother exclaims, as he rushes out the door, “how could all three of you lose her? What kind of a sense of responsibility is that? Did something happen at the U.S.O.?”

  Leona, Sybil and I exchange glances. By silent agreement we know that we aren’t going to describe the fight scene that erupted over the words the mean-talking soldier had flung at Helga.

  “I know I never should have let Helga go. And not Isabel either,” my mother rants on. “Some people take life entirely too lightly.”

  “Please calm down,” Leona advises my mother, realizing that she’s now the chief target of my mother’s wrath. “I suggest we call the police.”

  “The police!” my mother screams. “The police. That’s all we need…a scandal. No. Thank you for your wonderful suggestion. I think my husband is capable of finding her.”

  All this time, we’ve been standing in the foyer and Leona Simon hasn’t even been asked to sit down. Suddenly she brushes past my mother and sashays into the living room, where she takes a seat in one of the puffed-up easy chairs. “I take full responsibility for Helga’s safety,” Leona declares, “and I intend to remain here until she’s accounted for.”

  Sybil follows her mother, and my mother turns and goes into the kitchen with me trailing behind her.

  “It’s not our fault,” I hiss. “Didn’t you ever happen to notice that Helga has a mind of her own? Maybe you should offer Leona a cup of tea. She always treats me to refreshments when I visit Sibby.”

  “Ah,” says my mother. “So now it’s Leona. No wonder some grownups who are on a first-name basis with children behave like children themselves.”

  I’m about to launch into a defense of Leona Simon when we’re all startled by a loud banging on the apartment door…no doorbell, no turning of the key… just a fearful pounding with what sounds like a very big fist.

  I’m first at the door and, without even taking the usual precaution of looking through the peephole, I fling it wide open.

  “Brandt?” It’s a burly, red-faced New York City cop, holding by the hand a pale, shrinking Helga. Her shoulders are hunched, her eyes averted, her lightweight coat hangs limply over her flowered dress. She looks—I hate to say it—like one of those cartoon characters that have been flattened into a pancake after being run over by a steamroller.

  The moment the police officer lets go of Helga, she dashes away to our bedroom and shuts the door firmly. I look around doubtfully, wondering if I should follow her. I imagine, though, that she has collapsed in a flood of tears and ought to be left alone to work through her shame and terror at having been delivered to our door by a member of the New York City police force. Even though American cops are very different from the Nazi police, I know she’s scared stiff of authority figures in uniform.

  Instantly, we’re all cackling at the policeman, demanding to know where he found Helga and if she’s been in any sort of trouble.

  “Calm down, ladies,” he advises. “She was in the subway station wandering around on the platform, seemed pretty confused. I noticed her watching the trains, kind of nervous and not sure about getting on. I figured her for a runaway.”

  My mother throws her hands in the air in a wild gesture. “Where could she have been going, and at this time of night? To her Aunt Harriette? Harriette’s still in the hospital. She’s had a slight relapse. Helga knows that.”

  A runaway! We’re all pretty baffled. I know that Helga isn’t happy here with us. She isn’t in the right grade in school, and some of the stupid kids in our seventh-grade homeroom have started calling her “Helga Hot Dog.”

  She wasn’t even happy when we were at Shady Pines, except for Roy. And now he’s off fighting in Guadalcanal or some other Japanese-infested island in the Pacific. But for Helga to plan on running away? Where would she run to? Would she really do such a thing?

  “I’m gonna leave the girl with you, ma’am,” the policeman says to my mother. “But let me give you a word of advice. She might be a so-called refugee with the papers to prove it. But she’s a German national and we’re at war with Germany. Keep close tabs on her. There’s talk about spies getting in the country. If she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, she could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “Well, I never…” my mother begins.

  Leona Simon steps forward. “That’s good advice. We’re r
eally grateful to you, officer.”

  Sibby and I glance knowingly at each other. Thankfully, nothing has come out about the ruckus at the U.S.O., which was exactly the sort of the thing the policeman was referring to. But I’m still unclear about where Helga was intending to go when she ran down into the local subway station.

  My mother is actually serving tea to Leona, and milk and cookies to Sybil and me, when my father’s key turns in the lock and he bursts through the door like a charging bull.

  “Well, any news? What is this, a tea party? I looked everywhere within a radius of twenty blocks. The girl’s lost…lost, abducted, kidnapped into the white slave trade, who knows what! And we’re going be held responsible. Herman Frankfurter will never speak to me again. And he’ll be right, right, absolutely right….”

  All this time, my mother is waving her arms and entreating my father to put a stop to his tirade. “She’s here, here, Harold. A police officer found her and brought her home. He left not ten minutes ago. Everything is all right.”

  My father collapses into a chair. “Well, for crying out loud, why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  When I go to my room a little later I knock softly on the door first. It isn’t really my room now that Helga is sharing it, and I’m always afraid I’ll interrupt her or embarrass her—or myself—if I don’t behave formally. She’s different from somebody like Sibby; I’m sure that if we two roomed together, we would go around stripped to our panties without thinking anything of it. Everything would be, as the French say, au naturel.

  Helga is still fully dressed, sitting on her bed and looking through some school assignments. She’s been working hard on her English grammar. But I wonder how she can study at a time like this.

  “Ach, Isabel,” she says, “I am ready to go now and apologize to your parents for the terrible trouble I caused. I will explain that I came into a panic when the fighting began in the U.S.O. and I could think only that I must run away from it. Perhaps otherwise I would be arrested for being the cause of this trouble…”