Finally, Major Lindholm looked at the wall clock, which read ten till nine. He pushed back from the table. “Well. We should be getting on.”
Nathaniel jumped to his feet. “Thank you for breakfast, Mrs. Lindholm.”
“My pleasure.” She kissed her husband on the cheek. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to instead of the back side of a newspaper.”
He laughed, and it was easy to see why she’d fallen in love with him. “What do you ladies have planned for the day?”
“Well…” She picked up his plate and Nathaniel’s. “I thought I’d take Mrs. York in town to go shopping.”
“Shopping?” I picked up the other plates, following her to the counter. “I’d been planning on going in with Nathaniel.”
She tilted her head and stared at me as if I’d suddenly spoken Greek. “But you both need new clothes. I washed yours, but they really can’t be salvaged for anything, except maybe yard work.”
Nathaniel must have seen my stricken look, but didn’t understand it. I wasn’t worried about money. The world had just ended and I was being sent shopping. “It’s all right, Elma. Colonel Parker gave us a clothing allowance until we get my employment status sorted. So take the day and go shopping. There’s nothing you can do at the base, anyway.”
And that was the problem. There was nothing I could do.
* * *
Mrs. Lindholm pulled her Oldsmobile to a stop in front of a store in downtown Dayton. The awning over the storefront had a rip in it, and the windows of the shop had a thin grit coating them. They framed a display of smart dresses in vivid jewel tones. I got out of the car and looked down the street at the people going about their lives, as if nothing had happened yesterday.
No—that wasn’t quite true. The little clusters of people in conversation seemed to stand closer to each other than might be normal. The flag over the barbershop next door stood at half-mast. And the same grit that clung to the store window dusted everything. I shivered and looked up at the odd ochre haze in the sky.
Mrs. Lindholm saw my shiver and misinterpreted it. “Let’s get inside before you catch your death.”
“Oh, I’m getting good at outrunning death.”
Mrs. Lindholm’s face blanched. “I’m so sorry! I forgot about what you went through.”
Sometimes my humor doesn’t work to diffuse a situation. This was one of those cases. “No, really. It’s fine. It’s just … I’m the one who should apologize. That joke was in poor taste.”
“No, it’s my fault.”
“Really—no. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I was being thoughtless.”
“I—” I stopped and narrowed my gaze. “I should remind you that I’m Southern, and you’ll never win a politeness battle with me.”
She laughed, and people down the sidewalk turned to glare as if she had begun cursing in public. “Truce?”
“Absolutely.” I gestured to the door. “Shall we go in?”
Still laughing, she pushed the door open and set the shop bells to tinkling. The saleslady, a black woman in her late sixties with pristine white hair, stood next to a radio, listening intently. At the sound of the bells, she looked around, though her gaze lingered on the radio.
“… the fires from the Meteor strike yesterday have spread to cover three hundred and fifty square miles…”
She smiled, as if she’d just remembered how to do it. “May I help you?” Then her gaze rested on me. Her frown was not obvious—just a tensing of her smile.
All the ground-in dirt that no amount of washing could remove from my sweater grew to cover me. I must look homeless. Mama would be ashamed of me. I swallowed. I wanted to go back out to the car, but that would inconvenience Mrs. Lindholm, so I just stood, paralyzed, by the door.
Mrs. Lindholm gestured to me. “My friend was in the East yesterday.”
In the East. At the euphemism, the saleslady’s eyes widened and her brows peaked with pity. “Oh—you poor dear.” And then curiosity followed, like a predator drawn to blood. “Where were you?”
“The Poconos.”
Mrs. Lindholm pulled out a navy blue dress from the rack and held it up. “She doesn’t have anything except the clothes on her back.”
A middle-aged white woman appeared from between the racks of clothing. “You were really there? You saw the meteor?”
“Meteorite. A meteor breaks up before impact.” As if anyone cared about scientific accuracy. I think this might have been the last time I corrected someone. “Meteorite,” for whatever quirk of the English language, sounded almost cute. “But no, we were three hundred miles away.”
She stared at my face as if the cuts and bruises would give her a map to my specific location. “I have family back east.”
“So did I.” I snatched a dress from the rack and fled to the changing room. The louvered door shut behind me, shielding me from their view, but not from their hearing. I sank onto the little padded bench and pressed both hands over my mouth. Every breath hurt, fighting to be given sound. 3.14159265 …
“She and her husband flew in last night. Lost everyone except a brother, I understand.”
“That’s horrible.”
… 35897932384 … Everyone would know someone “back east.” I was not the only person who had lost family.
The saleslady said, “I heard on the news that we should expect a lot more meteor refugees, on account of Wright-Patterson.”
Meteor refugee. That’s what I was. It’s just that I was the first refugee that anyone had seen here. Of all the times for the tears to finally hit, it had to happen in a dress store?
“That’s what my husband was saying.” Mrs. Lindholm seemed to be just outside the door to my dressing room. “I’m going to go by the base hospital to volunteer later today.”
“That’s so good of you.”
Volunteer. I could do that. I could volunteer to fly refugees back from the East, or wrap bandages, or something. I’d done it during the war, and there was no reason not to pull myself together and do it again.
“Is that the CBS you’ve got on the radio now?”
I wiped my eyes and stood, reaching for the dress I’d snatched. It was a polka-dot number in a size better suited for a pencil than for me.
“Mm-hm … They were just saying that they’d found a surviving cabinet member. Let me turn it up, if you ladies don’t mind.”
In the mirror, it looked as though a ghoul had come to shop. I’d thought I looked homeless, but really, I looked as if I hadn’t truly survived the impact. Both of my eyes were blackened. I had tiny cuts all over my face and arms. Something had hit me, right below my hairline, and left a scrape. But I was alive.
“… and those tidal waves have also swamped the Caribbean, leaving many nations there without water or electricity. The devastation is said to number in the hundreds of thousands…”
I opened the door of the dressing room and tried to tune out the radio. “Silly me. It’s the wrong size.”
The saleslady came over to help me and we consulted on sizes and current fashion while the news continued in the background. It was like playing the fiddle while Rome burned around us.
SIX
INDIANS OFFER AID TO MRS. ROOSEVELT
Questions by Press Underscore the Growing Friendship for U.S.
The Times.
NEW DELHI, India, 4 March 1952—Questions put to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt by Indian newspapermen at a Delhi press association luncheon for the former president’s widow today underscored the significant wide and growing devastation in the United States after a meteorite struck earlier this week. Initially intended as a hospitality meeting, talks focused on offers of aid for the United States.
The sky was a high, silver overcast, as Mrs. Lindholm dropped me off at HQ. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home and rest, dear?”
“Thank you, but I really do feel better when I’m active.”
Her mouth turned down in disappointment, but, to her cr
edit, she didn’t argue with me anymore. “Well, I’ll be over at the base hospital, if you need me. Don’t forget to eat something.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I waved as she drove off. Shopping was all well and good—and, yes, I’ll grant that I felt better with clean clothes and makeup to hide the worst of the bruis ing, but I’d spent the entire time we were out feeling like I was playing make-believe. In every store, a radio or television had been tuned to the news. Delaware basically didn’t exist anymore, and the only surviving cabinet member they’d found so far was the secretary of agriculture.
But there were still refugees that needed to be transported. I knew how to fly. So, I brushed off my new polka-dotted navy blue dress, straightened its bright red belt, and headed inside to find Colonel Parker. He would not have been my first choice, mind you, but at least he knew my record of flying.
I knocked on his door, which stood open. He sat at his desk, head bent over a memo. I swear his lips moved as he read. He’d developed a bald spot at the back of his head about the size of a half-dollar. Wonder if he knew about it yet.
He looked up, but didn’t stand. “Mrs. York?”
“I saw on the news that the Air Force was mobilizing to deal with refugees.” I came in and sat down without being asked. I mean, I didn’t want to make him look bad about leaving a lady standing.
“That’s right. But don’t worry, your husband won’t be sent out.”
“Since he’s not active service and was never Air Force, this does not surprise me.” I breathed out, trying to let my irritation go with it. “But I was wondering if I might help. With so many of our men still in Korea, I thought having an extra pilot might be useful.”
“Well, now. … that’s very kind of you, but this really isn’t the place for a lady.”
“There are plenty of women among the refugees. And since I have firsthand experience—”
He held up his hand to stop me. “I appreciate your zeal, but it isn’t necessary. General Eisenhower is recalling our troops, and there’s an influx of UN aide.”
“What about Korea?”
“Cease-fire.” He shuffled the papers on his desk. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Still, until they are home, you’ll have a shortage of pilots.”
“Are you proposing to join the Air Force? Because, if not, I can’t let you fly one of our planes.” He made a mockery of regret. “And since your plane was damaged … I’m afraid there’s really nothing for you to do here.”
“Well.” I stood. He did not. “Thank you for your time.”
“Of course.” He looked back down at the memo. “You might try nursing. I understand that’s a good occupation for women.”
“Aren’t you just so clever. Thank you ever so much, Colonel Parker.” What truly aggravated me was that he was right. I wanted to help, but the skills I had were largely useless. Without a plane, what was I supposed to do? Math the problem to death?
* * *
My timing, when I arrived at the base hospital, couldn’t have been worse—or better, depending on how you looked at it. A plane of refugees had just landed and swamped the hospital. Tents had been set up as a waiting area, filled with people who had been outside for the last two days. Burns, dehydration, lacerations, broken bones, and simple shock.
I was handed a tray of paper cups filled with electrolytes and told to distribute them. It wasn’t much, but it was something useful.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The blond woman took a paper cup and looked down the rows of chairs to the doctors. “Do you know what’s going to happen to us next?”
The elderly man next to her shifted in his seat. His blackened eye was swollen nearly shut, and the blood crusted around his nose made it clear that he’d had a doozy of a nose bleed at some point. “Send us to camps, I reckon. I would’ve been better off staying where I was than sitting here.”
Camps had a grisly connotation, and that sort of talk was not going to help anyone. I held my tray of paper cups out to the old man. “Drink, sir? It will help restore some strength.” God. That was my mother’s doctor voice. Kind and brisk.
He snorted and crossed his arms, but he winced when he did. “You’re not a nurse. Not in that getup.”
He had a point. Still, I smiled at him. “You’re right. I’m just helping out.”
He snorted, and blood bubbled in one nostril. Then a gusher started. “Oh, hell.”
“Tilt your head back.” I looked around for something to use to stop the blood. The young woman took the tray of water. “Pinch the bridge of you—”
“I know. Ain’t my first one.” But he still did as I said.
A pasty man across the aisle, in tattered business attire, pulled his tie off and handed it to me. The lens of his glasses was cracked, and his eyes were more than a little glazed.
“Thank you.” I pressed the silk against the old man’s nose. “This is the finest bandage I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.”
The old man took it from me and glared at the ceiling. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“That I am.” I leaned forward to examine his eyes. “What would you like to talk about?”
He pursed his lips. “You been here … so you must know things. How bad is it?”
“I think…” I looked around at the battered people surrounding us. “I think that this is perhaps not the best time for that discussion. I’ll just say that you are in a better position than many. Another topic?”
“All right.” He grinned a little, and I got the sense that he was enjoying his cantankerous role. “What do you think of Charles F. Brannan?”
“Who?”
“Secretary of agriculture.” He turned the tie to a clean spot. “Way I hear it, he was in Kansas on a farm tour when the Meteor hit. Unless they find someone else in the line of succession, looks like he’s the new president.”
The businessman who’d given us the tie said, “Acting president.”
“Well, now that’s a subject for debate, isn’t it.” The old man was still glaring at the ceiling. “Constitutional scholars spend a whole heckuva lot of time talking about what exactly that means.”
Under all of that grime, the old man was wearing a tweed jacket, complete with bona fide leather patches at the elbows. “Where did you teach?”
“The Citadel.”
“Charleston?” My voice was too loud. People had turned to stare. I swallowed and tried again. “You were in Charleston?”
The old man lowered his head a little and studied me out of his good eye. “You got people there?”
“Hometown.”
“I’m sorry…” He shook his head. “I was out on a hike with cadets. Way inland. When we got back … well. I’m real sorry.”
I nodded, clenching my jaw against the truth of what I already knew. The blast radius of the meteorite, followed by the tidal waves, meant there’d been little chance. But if I didn’t know, then I could still hope. And hope would kill me.
* * *
It took walking up the stairs of the synagogue to realize that entering that door meant admitting that my family was dead.
The thought stopped me on the stairs, and I gripped the dusty metal railing. My family was dead. I had come to the synagogue because I needed to begin the mourning rites.
Daddy was never going to pick up his trumpet again. Mama’s giant cross-stitched bedspread would never be finished, and was so much ash.
My eyes closed of their own volition, blocking out the brick exterior and the scrubby little yew trees that flanked the stairs. Beneath the dark shield of my lids, my eyes burned. The grit under my hands was the same ash that drifted through most of the town. Ejecta from D.C.
“Are you all right?” An older man’s voice, with a hint of German to it, came from slightly behind me.
I opened my eyes and turned with a smile, even though my eyes must be red. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to block the way.”
The man, who stood a step down, was not older than I was, or if he
was, it wasn’t by much. His face, though, had a remnant of gauntness to it that I recognized. A Holocaust survivor.
“You … had family?”
God. Spare me from the kindness of strangers. I stared at the horizon, an amber haze over the Ohio plains. “Yes. So—I need to go in to talk to the rabbi.”
He nodded and slipped past me to hold the door. “I, myself, am here for the same reason.”
“Oh—oh. I am so sorry.” I was such a self-centered schlub. I was hardly the only one with Jewish family in Charleston. And the damage to New York sounded extensive, and then D.C., and … How many of us had died leaving no one behind to light the yahrzeit candles and recite the Kaddish prayer?
His shrug was small and sad as he gestured me through the door. I stepped into the foyer. Through the open doors I could just make out the comforting light of the eternal flame hanging in front of the ark as a reminder.
This man … he must have escaped Germany, only to have this happen when he thought he was safe. And yet, he had survived. As had I.
That’s what we did. We survived.
And we remembered.
* * *
It is hard to sit shiva in a gentile’s home. I compromised with myself and called our bedroom “home” because I did not feel up to explaining to Mrs. Lindholm why I wanted to sit on low stools, or cover the mirrors.
Nathaniel walked in to find me sitting on the floor of our bedroom, pinning a torn ribbon to my shirt. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tear the shirt itself, not because the grief wasn’t there, but to avoid the conversation about why I’d torn something we had just bought.
He stopped, and his gaze went to the jagged tear in the ribbon. His shoulders sagged, as if the fact that I had performed kriah alone let all the grief back in.
My husband came over to sit on the floor beside me, pulling me into an embrace. The custom against speaking to someone in mourning until they spoke first had never made so much sense. I could not have spoken if I had tried. And, I suspect, neither could he.
The Calculating Stars Page 5
