by Karen White
“In the strawberry patch, the green hazel branch protected the Holy Mother from the fatal adder’s bite. As the hazel-bush has been my protection this time, it shall in future protect others also,” he recited. “A tale of life and substance and a reminder. Evil may crawl the earth, but we are ensured more miracle branches than snakes.” Carefully, using two hands, he placed the fedora snugly back on his head. “Thank you.” He nodded. “I am quite certain our paths will cross again, Ms. Hazel Schmidt.”
Though she didn’t see how or why, she believed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Infinite thanks to my readers! From cities across the globe, Amsterdam to Santa Cruz, you championed The Baker’s Daughter. Audiences at each book event pleaded for more. I was deeply humbled and moved to pick up my pen and venture back to these characters and their story world.
Most significantly, thank you to the Lebensborn children who have come forth bravely to share. While Hazel and Cata are fictionalized, they are inspired by the tangible evidence and emotional truths of these men and women’s courageous lives. Let historical shames and fears never silence us. Every life story is worthy and honorable by virtue of God’s greater design.
Last but not least, I bow in gratitude to my brilliant Grand Central sisters in this collection: Melanie Benjamin, Jenna Blum, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, Sarah Jio, Kristina McMorris, Alyson Richman, Erika Robuck, Karen White and Kristin Hannah. An extra shout of praise to Kristina McMorris (aka my Ladybug 2), who spearheaded this WWII anthology from dream to the book we now hold in hand. I’m privileged to stand beside all of these sublime authoresses and blessed to call them truest friends. The GC band of sisters will bring down the house with our boogie-woogie bugles and maracas. I’ll be sure to bring the alpenhorns.
The Kissing Room
MELANIE BENJAMIN
The Kissing Room.
How embarrassing! She’d had to go to the information desk, right next to the USO booth, which was crowded with eager servicemen, to ask where it was. “Please, can you tell me how to get to the Kissing Room?” Marjorie had asked, unable to prevent a slow, rosy blush from burning her cheeks, even as she was very aware of how pretty she looked, because of it.
“Way on the other side of the concourse.” The bored gentleman had pointed to a distant corner. “It’s close to the platform where the Twentieth Century arrives. You can’t miss it. It’s where everyone waits.”
“All right,” Marjorie replied, unsure. She was not from the city, or at least, she wasn’t from this city. She was a proud Philadelphian, but even so, was quite cognizant of how it paled in significance to New York. Still, she was no rube, and she made herself stride purposefully into the mass of people headed in that direction, forcing herself not to stop and gape at the enormous concourse, the ceiling so high up, cavernous yet crowded with shoeshine stations, newsstands, restaurants and bars, and people, so many people! Her parents took her and her sister into Manhattan every Christmas to see a show and do some shopping. But they always detrained at Penn Station, not Grand Central.
Today, for the first time, she had come into the city alone, no longer the baby of the family, petted and cosseted by her parents and tolerated by her older sister. She had not relied on her father to buy her ticket and tip the porter; she had not blindly followed along as her parents determined the schedule to be followed, never varying: first, a taxi to the Empire State Building to gape at it (although never, ever to take the elevator to the top); then, a stroll down Fifth Avenue to window-shop; then, a matinee at Radio City Music Hall; finally, dinner at an Automat, not because it was the only thing they could afford, but simply because it was fun and novel. Marjorie and her sister, Paulina, never tired of ordering little dishes, putting the nickels into the slots, the plates or bowls full of steaming, yet somehow tasteless, food appearing as if by magic: baked beans and macaroni and cheese and limp green beans.
After this heavy, hot meal, her feet burning as if she had walked on hot coals instead of hard city pavement, her eyes scratchy and red, as if they simply couldn’t take in one more astounding image, Marjorie usually found herself nodding off on the train home, until her mother gently shook her just as they pulled into the station.
But that was then, back when she was a child. Now eighteen, Marjorie Konigsberg was in the city as an adult, as a woman. With a precious business card in her hand and an appointment to keep. In “the Kissing Room.”
Swept up in a crowd, Marjorie found herself pulled toward the other end of the concourse, where the throng divided and branched off as people hurried to different train platforms. Marjorie turned away from them then and spied a large corner room, somewhat awkwardly splaying off the main concourse, all pink marble and high-backed wooden benches and cigarette haze, full of expectant people. Women, men, small children, old ladies with ugly flowered hats; all sat patiently or impatiently, reading magazines or looking at the clock as if they could will it to move faster. In one corner of the room was an elevator, almost as if it were an afterthought. It was small and looked out of place.
“Excuse me, is this the . . . I mean to say, could this be the—Kissing Room?” Marjorie whispered to a woman seated on the corner of a bench, a crumpled, damp paper bag in her hands.
The woman stared at Marjorie as if she didn’t know what to say, and Marjorie felt that blush creeping over her cheeks again. She was about to turn, perhaps even run away, when the woman nodded briskly, then opened up her paper bag and peered inside before closing it again and rolling down the top, as if to prevent whatever was inside from escaping.
Marjorie whispered a thank-you, then walked about the room for a few minutes, calming herself. She was in the right place, and she had forty-five minutes to spare. She was in her prettiest outfit, a graduation present from her mother; it was a black-and-white-checked wool suit, nipped in at the waist so fiercely that she could scarcely draw breath, with a slight peplum. She wore new black pumps that pinched her toes but made her legs look endless. She had carefully, and stealthily, applied pancake foundation and crème rouge and a bit of mascara in the bathroom this morning, managing to hide her face from her parents as she hurried off to work.
Or so they thought.
Instead of going to her part-time job of watching Mrs. Samson’s “two little angels,” as that lady referred to them with absolutely no irony, Marjorie had taken the train from Narberth to the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where she changed to a Pennsylvania Railroad train to Penn Station, and from there she’d taken a cab to Grand Central. Ella May, her best friend who was sworn to secrecy, had agreed to watch the two little angels for the day while their mother, a new war widow, cleaned houses.
With any luck, Marjorie would be home for dinner, and her parents wouldn’t be the wiser. With any luck, the Samson angels would not rat on her to their mother, who cleaned Marjorie’s own house.
With any luck, Marjorie would sweep in the door with a movie contract in her hand. An MGM contract, to be specific.
She reached into her handbag and pulled out the card, holding it with gloved fingers, somewhat at arm’s length because she was farsighted yet refused to wear glasses. Still, she could make out the cherished words.
Abe Holmes, Talent Scout. MGM Studios, Culver City, California.
And scribbled underneath, in her own handwriting, September 21st, 12:30, Grand Central. Screen test at 1:30.
This was it; this was her ticket to the future. She knew it in her bones. Her young, tender, hopeful bones that felt pliant and supple; she bent slightly backward in front of the polished metal facade of a cigarette machine just to see how willowy she was, how young and pretty, a starlet already. No. A movie star.
Exactly like Vivien Leigh, her absolute idol. She even resembled the star of her favorite movie of all time, Gone with the Wind. Vivien Leigh was just a tad more slender, her lips just a bit thinner, her cheekbones just slightly higher. (Marjorie had spent qu
ite a lot of time locked in the bathroom with fan magazines, in the study of this matter.) But they shared the same glossy black hair, creamy white skin, green eyes, and Marjorie could say with more than a little satisfaction that her eyes were larger, more innocent looking.
Perfect for the movies.
There was a hum in the room now; the quiet, expectant air vanished, chased away by chatter and laughter and anticipatory rustlings. A train must have just arrived, for rumpled, exhausted-looking people carrying traveling bags or small suitcases were stumbling into the room, eyes blinking wearily, most just standing there, waiting to be claimed like lost luggage. And they were; now there were cries and embraces and more than a few tears. Marjorie stopped to watch, to witness, to learn. She was an actress, after all, and Mr. Carson had always told her how an actress had to stop and listen, and absorb. An actress was an observer, he had always said. You can’t become a character if you have nothing to build on.
So Marjorie watched, a benevolent, slightly superior smile on her face lending her an air of one who seemed unclaimed herself, although she didn’t know that. She only knew that she suddenly felt so very kind, so very indulgent toward the entire world; she hoped that each reunion was a happy one, for everyone in the Kissing Room deserved to be as joyful as she was this autumn day in New York, her entire future ahead of her.
Although, from the way the defeated-looking woman with the paper bag greeted the defeated-looking man in uniform who simply stood before her with no word or movement of greeting—with barely a nod, her gaze downcast—Marjorie felt that not every reunion was going to be happy. But that, too, was something to pay attention to. Even with the war over, not everyone was happy. There were bad things to be endured, sadness, wickedness even. And these were things of which Marjorie had little knowledge. She did long to follow this tired, silent couple out of the station into the street, to wherever they were headed, so that she might learn something of their tired, silent lives.
Naturally, Marjorie did not do this. She only checked the time again—half an hour left now!—and took out her compact to powder her nose. She noticed that one or two couples did not leave the Kissing Room with the masses, but instead went to that elevator, spoke quickly to the operator who asked each a question that Marjorie could not make out, and were whisked away to some mysterious destination.
She wondered where it led, that elevator. But wondering led to frowning, and that would not do; she snapped her compact shut and continued to pace around the room. She was so full of energy, so nervous yet excited; she had to get rid of it all now, before Mr. Holmes arrived. Movie stars did not pace.
Mr. Carson—Doug, he had insisted Marjorie call him after graduation—was the one who had taught her about movement. About stillness, gracefulness, repose; how to make an audience lean toward you, instead of the other way around. And Marjorie was grateful; she had already rehearsed her first Academy Award acceptance speech, in which she would thank her high school drama teacher for “all he taught me, back home in Narberth, Pennsylvania, the town that will always have my heart.”
Mr. Carson had shown up midway through Marjorie’s junior year, after the previous drama teacher, Mr. Blanchard, had been drafted. Of course, everyone expected some old doddering teacher brought out of retirement; the high school was overrun with that type, now that the war was on. But Mr. Carson was neither old nor doddering; he was young, very young in spite of his receding hairline, the only physical flaw that Marjorie and all her girlfriends who hung around backstage during lunchtime, dreamily reading scenes from plays, could detect.
No, this new drama teacher (well, to be perfectly honest, the new English teacher who directed the Drama Club after school) was about thirty, in peak physical condition with a dancer’s graceful yet athletic build. He did not even wear glasses. He didn’t have a harelip, or a limp, or a lazy eye, or terrible teeth, or any number of physical defects that would qualify him as 4-F, which he must have been. He was simply perfect, and young, and male, and out of uniform, and therefore so exotic and rare as to resemble a prized exhibit in a zoo. Even the athletes—the dumb Blutos who normally would never set foot inside the auditorium except to get their letters at the end of the year—were intrigued by him.
“I hear he’s related to Roosevelt. That’s how he’s not in uniform.”
“I hear he’s got a bad ticker. Rheumatic fever or something. He’ll probably keel over in the middle of a class.”
“I hear he’s on the lam. He’s running from the draft board. He’ll be gone by Monday.”
“No, dears, it’s none of those things,” Miss Turnberry, the librarian, whispered to Marjorie and her friends one afternoon. Miss Turnberry was writing down a request for the latest Drama Guild script, although she reminded them all that there was little chance of the Lower Merion High School Library actually ordering it. “The school board sets our budget, you know. We can’t only order plays for you girls.” But she smiled sympathetically, her gray, watery eyes blinking kindly. Miss Turnberry was not old; Marjorie’s mother had guessed her to be about thirty-two. But Miss Turnberry was still a miss, not a missus, and she didn’t even have any tragic wartime love story as an excuse. She had not been engaged only to lose her fiancé to a bullet or torpedo. She had remained firmly Miss Turnberry, unchanged and unloved since the first day she had become librarian, long before the war. Unloved, that is, in the acceptable way, by a man. She was very much loved by the serious young girls who spent their time either in the library or the auditorium, dreaming big dreams, not getting too caught up in boys and crushes and popularity, if only because they were so certain these things would come later, in their time. After the big dreams were reality, and they were in no danger of turning into the next Miss Turnberry.
“So what is it? Why isn’t Mr. Carson in uniform?” Marjorie asked as the girls draped themselves about Miss Turnberry’s desk one afternoon in 1944. Drama Club—the first Drama Club of Mr. Carson’s tenure—was about to commence. They would be auditioning for the winter play, Dulcy. Normally Marjorie, a junior, wouldn’t have a chance of landing the lead role, originated by another one of her idols, Lynn Fontanne. But with a new director, perhaps one not given to the archaic class system of awarding the leading roles only to seniors, she just might have a chance.
“He’s the only surviving son,” Miss Turnberry said with a sad shake of her neat head, her hair pulled back into a stern knot, no poofs or rolls or even a part. It was simply scraped back from her forehead. Miss Turnberry did not wear glasses, for which Marjorie was happy, as that would be too sad and predictable. But she could use some powder and rouge, and during Marjorie’s entire reign at Lower Merion High School, she looked for an opportunity to introduce the notion of cosmetics and a youthful hairstyle to the librarian, whom she did love. But no opportunity ever arose.
“An only surviving son,” Miss Turnberry repeated, for emphasis. “He lost one brother at Pearl Harbor, another at Midway. His parents petitioned the draft board. That’s why he’s not in uniform.”
Marjorie’s big eyes filled with tears. During the Drama Club meeting, she was unable to look at Mr. Carson, young, sole-surviving Mr. Carson, without her eyes brimming all over again. Needless to say, she did not get the role of Dulcy; she simply wasn’t in the mood for comedy, not after Miss Turnberry’s woeful tale.
But that was the last time she auditioned for Mr. Carson and was not rewarded with a leading role or a show-stealing supporting part. It was quickly established that Marjorie Konigsberg was Mr. Carson’s favorite, and while there were some grumblings from the seniors, for the most part the rest of her peers surrendered to the inevitable. There was always a teacher’s pet, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Of course, Marjorie fell in love with Mr. Carson. All her friends did. They all read aloud romantic scenes from plays in the privacy of their bedrooms, pretending that Mr. Carson was reading with them, and Marjorie only felt herself superior in
that she chose Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra instead of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the obvious choice.
But for some reason, none of these crushes ever lasted; after a mad period of a few weeks, during which the girl would manufacture excuses to see Mr. Carson after rehearsal for a bit of advice; during which test scores inevitably suffered and appetites waned, she would somehow find herself uninterested. It would happen gradually, no abrupt wrenching of the heart or denouncement or declaration. Just soon enough, the girl in question would find herself more interested in one of her classmates, unformed and pimpled as they were, but still emanating that strange, masculine attraction that was so puzzling—they smelled, after all!—yet so thrilling.
Even Marjorie felt her attraction to Mr. Carson waning, after a few weeks of close contact. She could never put her finger on it; she only felt her interest no longer held any physical thrill of having him accidentally lean too close, or carelessly drape his arm over her shoulder while giving her stage direction, no longer a violent, shocking jolt to her system.
She wondered if the reason for her disinterest, at least in a romantic sense, had anything to do with what she overheard her parents whispering one evening before dinner. It was a rare occasion when Marjorie had managed to rouse herself from her daydreams of a different life, different parents, different friends, and different city, and come downstairs on time, for a change.
“It’s a disease. He’s a degenerate. That’s why he’s not in uniform. They can’t allow that type in the service.”
“Oh, Jonathan, you don’t really know. Mr. Carson seems perfectly normal to me.”
“No, Paula.” And Marjorie heard her father’s voice soften with fondness and dismissal, both; he often treated her mother like an infant, and as far as Marjorie could tell, her mother seemed to enjoy being treated so. “You’re an innocent, my dear. He’s definitely that way.”
