The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  “Maybe you don’t want to,” he said.

  “Would you? If he were someone you had known?”

  Doug shrugged again, sipped his coffee. “Christ, this stuff is awful. You’d think they could at least do that right.”

  “Those photographs have caused you a lot of heartache, haven’t they?” Tobin said in a mild voice.

  “Yeah,” said Sally, “all of them. I wish, though, she had been able to get his face. I wish I knew for sure.”

  “Oh, speaking of photographs,” Doug said, pulling a letter out of his pocket. He handed it to Sally. It was from Life magazine and it was addressed to Sally, in care of the unit hospital. “Sergeant Dolan asked me to give it to you.”

  “It must be about her pictures?” Sally said.

  “Maybe they want to buy them.” After a discussion with Mala, via the translator, the unit, that is, Sally, had sent a few of her photographs to David Wohl, care of Life magazine. She hadn’t said much in the letter, not knowing if David was still at the magazine or if he would be in a position to help.

  In all the years between that afternoon when Sally had said good-bye to him at the train station and this letter, she had seen him just once. It had been during the bad days in Los Angeles and she and David had drunk the night away. He had been divorced and a father and although his dark hair was graying, it was still curly and disheveled. After that meeting, they had written on and off, but that had petered out after Sally’s return to Palo Alto.

  When she was well again, she had followed his career, keeping track of him through the news of his award and his work as a broadcaster. She had even heard him on the radio, reporting from the Soviet Union before the German invasion, his sharp New York voice reaching her across the thousands of miles that separated them.

  “Open the letter, Sally,” said Max.

  A check fell out. Sally picked it up. “Oh, God, look at this,” and handed it to Doug. “This is great. She’ll be so proud. I’ll bet she never sold any before.” She read the letter. It was short and well typed:

  Hey, kid: Imagine hearing from you, after all this time. And from Berlin of all places. Hear the Adlon’s a hole in the ground. Listen, the photos are great stuff. Are there any more? My pal, the photo ed., agrees and we shook a check loose for the girl. They’ll want to know more about her. Meanwhile, maybe I’ll see you one of these days. Love,

  And he had added his signature in pen. Sally felt pleased to hear from him and with such fantastic results for Mala. Maybe she would see him again one of these days.

  “That’s why she brought them to us,” Tobin said, looking over Finkelstein’s shoulder at the check. “Terrific.”

  “Here,” Finkelstein said, handing Sally back the check. “You can get her address in Zurich from Sergeant Dolan.” Both men watched her put it back in the envelope and tuck it away in her purse. “So, Sal, you going to the Thanksgiving wingding? I hear there’s going to be a live band.”

  “No. Are you?”

  “Sure. How ’bout you, Max?”

  “Too old to jitterbug. I’ll go for the dinner, though. I hear they’re importing turkey and all the trimmings.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Doug.

  “Nope. Carl, the supply sergeant over at the Officer’s Club, told me.

  “God, I’d love some real mashed potatoes,” Doug mused. “With real butter.”

  “I’d like two real scrambled eggs,” said Max. They laughed and enjoyed a torturous fifteen-minute conversation about food.

  Later that day, Nelson Armbrewster knocked on Sally’s office door and when invited in, asked her to the Thanksgiving party.

  “I’m not a bad dancer,” he said. “And I look rather good in my dress-up. Oh, which reminds me, you do have a dress, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Nelson, I do have a dress. And I’d love to see you all dolled up.”

  “Good. I’ll even pick you up at that convent you live in.”

  SALLY LOOKED AT herself in the little mirror over her sink. She had brought one dress with her, black velvet with a halter-top and low back. It was pre-war and had a full skirt. She wore elbow-length black lace gloves with it. Afraid that she looked pale, she put on some bright-red lipstick. There. That was better.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have a dress coat and had to wear her camel’s hair, but then so did everyone else. The halls of the “convent,” as Nelson had called it, were noisy with women getting dressed, and Sally smiled at the female confusion, the voices calling out to borrow earrings, or stockings, the smell of treasured bath soap and perfume and the glimpses of colored dresses, pinks and blues and lavenders, instead of the usual olive drab, dark brown, and nurse’s white.

  Nelson was waiting for her in the foyer, looking distinguished in his dress uniform. She kissed his cheek and told him so.

  “Thanks, old girl,” he said. “You look pretty stunning yourself. Smell good, too.”

  They could hear the band as they pulled up outside the Officer’s Club. There was a traffic jam in front of the club, as guests arrived, so Sally and Nelson left the car with the enlisted man who was acting as valet.

  As they walked down the stairs into the main room, which was decorated with brown and orange crepe-paper streamers and three precious yellow chrysanthemums on each table, the music, noise, and perfumed air hit them. Sally laughed. Nelson lifted an eyebrow.

  “Oh, Nelson,” she said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm. “It’s so nice.”

  “It looks rather like a school gym to me,” he said.

  “It does. It does, but isn’t it wonderful? So normal. The flowers. Oh, I love it. Thank you for asking me. I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t date for charity, Sally.”

  “I know, but Doug put you up to it, didn’t he?” She smiled at him when he didn’t answer. “That’s okay. I just hope you’re not going to disappoint some other girl.”

  “She wouldn’t be able to attend.”

  “A Fraulein?”

  “Yes. Actually, a countess.”

  “Of course she is. Well, we’ll have a good time, Nelson, and you can tell her about it and laugh at the hokey decorations.”

  He patted her hand, and led her into the room to find their table.

  “Hey, guys, over here,” cried Doug, standing up and waving at them. He was sitting with the pretty redheaded nurse, Margie, whom he introduced to Sally and Armbrewster.

  “I know Margie,” said Sally, “we share a bathroom. I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

  As they chatted, Sally was relieved to note that there were only four places at their table. If Tim was there, at least they wouldn’t have to sit together. But she couldn’t help looking for him.

  The band stopped playing and the leader made an announcement that they would return after dinner.

  “Oh, good,” said Doug, rubbing his hands together, “turkey time.”

  AN HOUR OR so later, as the waiters cleared the tables, the band returned and launched into In the Mood.

  “C’mon, Margie,” Doug said, standing up and holding his hand out to his date. “Time to cut a rug.”

  “Would you like to?” offered Nelson.

  “I think we have to,” laughed Sally. “Although I must warn you I haven’t danced in years.”

  “Who has, my dear? Who has?”

  Sally danced for hours. She hardly sat down, except hurriedly to gulp some champagne, before someone else asked her to dance. She danced with strangers, with Doug and Nelson, and even two dances with Colonel Eiger, who, surprisingly, was a great dancer, smooth and surefooted. He was just inches taller than Sally, and he held her close so that they danced cheek to cheek. She didn’t mind. She loved moving to the music and the smells of perfume and aftershave and the happy crowd of people in their best civvies. It was so different from the everyday world they inhabited. In here, with no outside distractions, they could forget the bombed city and the hungry conquered people. So she just stopped thinking and let herself dance, as t
hough she were in a crepe-paper-hung dream.

  I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time came to an end and she leaned back to smile at the colonel.

  “Where’d you learn to dance like that?” she asked dreamily.

  He was about to answer, when someone came up behind Sally. She saw Eiger’s eyes register the new arrival just as the band started into the first long, low, sensuous chords of Moonlight Seranade. The colonel let go of her and stepped back as Sally turned to face her new partner.

  It was, of course, Tim.

  They stood and looked at each other for a long moment, as the dance floor filled with dancers, drawn by the seductive, nostalgic music.

  “Want to dance?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered and went into his arms. He folded their hands together on his chest. She could feel his cheek against her hair, his heartbeat under her hand, and closing her eyes, she let him lead, happy to move as he directed, the music swirling around them.

  “We’ve never danced together,” he said.

  “No.” She kept her face against his shoulder.

  “I thought we should.” Sally nodded. “Sally?” His voice sounded husky. She leaned back in his arms so that she could see his face. “I’ve . . . how have you been?”

  “All right. And you?”

  “Fine. Fine.” He gently pulled her back against him. They danced a few moments before he spoke again. “Actually, I’ve been lousy.” She waited. “I miss you.”

  Sally stopped moving, separating them. “Tim, I didn’t mean . . . I’ve been so worried.”

  “Sal, stop. I’m all right. I overreacted.”

  “No, you didn’t. You were perfectly right. What I did was—”

  “It was just a mistake.”

  “But it was cruel. I hurt you. Timmy, I didn’t mean to.”

  “Hey,” he said, putting his arms around her, drawing her close, “you’re not crying, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good, because this is supposed to be a party.” When the music stopped, he held her a moment longer, then let her go. “You want to have dinner with me some night?”

  “Some night?” she asked.

  He smiled and touched her face. “After I get back from Nuremberg? My place?” Sally nodded. Taking her hand, Tim led her back to her table.

  “Hello, Hastings,” said Doug. “Sit with us.”

  “Thanks, can’t,” Tim replied, pulling out the chair for Sally. “Have to get back to my date.” He waved one hand vaguely.

  “Oh? Who is she?” Doug stood halfway up, craning his neck to look.

  “Nobody you know, don’t worry,” Tim said. “Good night, all.”

  “Night, Hastings,” said Nelson.

  “Night, Sal. Thanks for the dance. See you.” Tim’s hand landed for a moment on her back, then he was gone. She’d see him next Friday and the anticipation bubbled through her. She didn’t even care that he had brought someone else tonight. They’d be together next Friday.

  IT SEEMED TO Sally, as she stood and looked out the rain-splattered window of her office on Monday morning, that it had been raining forever. Here it was almost December and no sign of Christian. But she’d see Tim this Friday and she closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the feel of his arms around her.

  What if she were to telephone him right now and ask him to come by her office? Sally ducked her head, laughing at herself, at her hunger. Her eyes fell on the carton of photographs Mavis had left her.

  They had come to rest there, under her window, weeks ago. She had meant to do something with them, but had been unable to force herself to open the flaps again. And she had been busy.

  Just last week, Sally had received a letter from Mavis, now in Washington, D.C., and a member of the brand-new United Nations agency for refugee relief, asking about the photographs. She had enclosed an address of a refugee center where Sally could send the photographs.

  She’d pack it all up, the list and the photographs, and send everything to the center, Sally decided. Someone there would have the time and someone there wouldn’t be so spooked by the pictures as she was.

  Pulling Mavis’s list out from under a pile of papers, she went over to the box and dragged it away from the wall. The pictures were nearly to the top of the box and she could see that they’d need to be more carefully packed if they were going to survive the mails. Maybe she could find a stronger box.

  Absently, she picked up a photograph and turned it over. Nothing. How impossible this would be! She put it back into the box and picked up another one. This one had something written on the back but in nearly illegible writing and the ink had faded. Impossible without the proper equipment and staff. She tossed the picture back and started to fold up the flaps again.

  A face looked up at her and she stopped. Huge eyes peeked up from behind the picture she had just thrown back into the box. Gingerly, she pushed the top picture with a finger so that she could see more clearly what had caught her attention.

  It was a snapshot of a girl, probably about seven years old, in a sweater and skirt, her light hair cut in a chin-length bob, one side held back with a big bow. She looked mischievously at the camera and her cocky expression made Sally smile. She turned the photograph over. In clear, precise writing it read: Katrina van der Lee, and underneath, 3/5/35. There were some more words, in Dutch, Sally presumed, since she could recognize the word “Amsterdam.” Katrina was a little Dutch girl.

  Sally turned the photograph back. The little girl stood, arms akimbo, head cocked to one side in a garden so sunny that light glared from the photograph, obscuring much of the background detail.

  March of 1935. Perhaps it had been her birthday; perhaps her father had cajoled her into the garden for a photograph. March of 1935. Wasn’t that . . . Sally sat back on her heels. That was the month her child should have been born.

  She tensed, waiting for the familiar rush of pain that always accompanied thoughts of the loss of her unborn baby, but instead of the sharp stab, she felt a soft sadness. When had that happened?

  She looked at the picture of little Katrina van der Lee. Maybe the girl’s mother or father had carried the photograph onto the train, maybe Katrina, who would be almost an adult now, was still in Amsterdam. Or maybe she had been forced onto the train with her parents . . . maybe she had survived. Maybe. There were happy endings. There were. Not everyone had died. The Nazis and the war had not killed all the children.

  Sally stood up and walked to her desk, carrying the photograph, which she propped against the lamp. Katrina’s face that March day so long ago was full of life and self-confidence, the self- confidence that comes to children when they are secure in a loving family.

  What would it be like to make a child look like that? To raise an energetic daughter like Katrina? Maybe, Sally thought, it was time to forget old pain, maybe it was time to . . .

  The telephone rang.

  She picked up the receiver.

  “Sergeant Sanchez, Lieutenant.” Sergeant Sanchez had replaced Sergeant Taveggia at the front desk.

  “What’s up, Sergeant?”

  “There’s a cable for you, Lieutenant.”

  “A cable?” There is no one left to die, was her first thought.

  “From Manila.”

  “From Manila, in the Philippines, Sergeant?” Something, a thought, a feeling, pinged way off in the distance. She became very still, as though she were trying to hear the sound, identify the feeling. Was it pain? Anticipation?

  “Seems to be, Lieutenant,” answered Sanchez. “Where my people were from.”

  “Oh,” said Sally, “I didn’t realize that.” Manila. Someone might be alive! She dropped the phone on her desk and ran from her office.

  Standing in front of the sergeant’s desk, Sally ripped open the cable with shaking hands. It was from the Army Command in Manila. She read the message, then reread it, her brain refusing to understand what her eyes saw. Someone was left alive.

  Eddie.

&nb
sp; Eddie, her brother, was alive.

  “Bad news, Lieutenant?” asked Sergeant Sanchez.

  “Oh, no, good—very good—news,” said Sally, grinning at him, tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. She rubbed her face with the back of her arm.

  Tim.

  And she ran across the room, surprising the sergeant, startling the German secretary, practically knocking over a major on the other side of the door to the hall.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Sally, saluting quickly, not stopping. She ran down the hall, skidding around the corner. The door to Tim’s office was open. He was sitting at his desk, his feet up on an open drawer.

  Sally stopped in front of him. She stood, gasping for breath, holding out the crumpled cable.

  “Timmy, Timmy, look,” she said, and laid the cable on the blotter, smoothing it out.

  “What?” Startled, he dropped his feet and sat up.

  “Read it, read it,” Sally ordered.

  He let out a whoop and was up and around his desk before Sally could move, enfolding her into a hug. She burst into tears, crying and laughing and saying over and over, “Eddie. He’s alive. He’s alive, Tim.” Tim held her and laughed with her, and wiped her tears away. He reached behind her to push his door shut, then led her to his chair, pulling her onto his lap.

  She sighed, her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.

  “I’m happy for you, Sal.”

  “It’s a miracle.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know beyond what’s in the cable.” She reached out and picked it up off the desk. “He’s in a naval hospital.”

  “I’ve heard stories of guys being saved by guerrillas. Maybe that’s what happened.”

  “He’s alive. He didn’t die on that road. He didn’t die. It makes me feel so . . . so . . .” She searched for the word.

  “Hopeful,” he offered, his cheek against her hair.

  “Yes. Hopeful. And, you, Tim?” She moved so that she could see his face. She touched his mustache as though to make sure it was in place.