A Moment Forever

by Cat Gardiner

  Finally left alone, Lizzy’s eyes scanned the study looking for anything she may have missed that terrible, rainy night when she sat before her father, listening to his demands for her to marry George Gebhardt. That demand had continued in its repetition and pressured inevitability over the last eight weeks following the Christmas ball since that man’s unwelcome marriage proposal.

  Tired eyes glanced beyond the stack of newspapers on the footstool beside her to the old issues of Social Justice by Father Coughlin piled neatly on the end table that held absolutely no interest to her. At that moment, she only had sleep in mind—where uncomplicated imaginings of Will’s and her baby could dwell untroubled. It wasn’t long before the fireplace glowed and warmed, hypnotizing her with each crackle of the embers and dance of the flames. The soothing tea had worked its magic, quelling her nausea.

  A sudden unusual flutter in her womb caused her palm to rest upon the constraining girdle she wore to conceal her thickening middle. Her fingers couldn’t feel anything, but the tickle was there, as if butterflies beat feather light wings within. Elated, she giggled. It was the first time she had felt her baby’s life. The doctor had said that a quickening would signal hello any day now.

  She whispered, “Hello, little duckling. Mommy’s here.”

  G-d how she wished Will could be here at this incredible moment. Her eyes welled with tears at the thought that he would never know his child. Please let there be a letter from him when I get home. Please, G-d. Please may he be alive and safe. But she knew in her heart that there would be no letter forthcoming. She briefly thought of Lillian, now in England, who had not seen him or the 322nd Bombardment Group at any of the airfields she traveled to in her clubmobile.

  With both hands cupping her barely noticeable belly, she rested her head against the plush back of the sofa, displacing a few of the bobby pins holding her victory rolls. A tear rolled onto the brocade, and she closed her eyes in weariness and grief, thinking of Will and the many other children they would never have together. Believing him dead was not something she could resolve, but she had no choice.

  The comfort of familiarity in this room, where as a child she had played underfoot with Lillian when their father worked on important business matters, reached into her untapped memory. Her mind quieted as images and events long forgotten stirred in her cognitive recesses, wrested awake by the emotional upheaval of the day and the recollection of the events that transpired when she was last here.

  Swirling words came to the forefront of her conscience: Baby, marriage, Will, John, “consorting with a Jew,” pure bloodline. Somewhere beneath all those tumultuous thoughts emerged the question of where did the woman from that night go? She was sure she saw what she saw, but the woman had mysteriously vanished.

  In Lizzy’s dreamlike state, a snippet of memory played. She and Lillian, no more than four and five sat in the center of this study, playing together with their new Steiff teddy bears. Father entered the room from a hidden passageway beside the fireplace.

  Lizzy’s eyes flew open with a start, and she tossed back the coverlet, immediately looking from the roaring fire and its ornately carved wooden mantelpiece, to the decorative wall panel beside it. Rising, she moved swiftly to stand before it, feeling the heated blaze against her stocking-clad legs. She touched the surrounding frame with searching hands, looking for entrance, eventually knocking upon the center of the carved mahogany panel. Not that she knew what she was doing, but when the hollow sound echoed back to her, she recalled vividly that it was from behind this particular panel her father had emerged, that day long ago.

  She stood before a closed, secret door to a hidden space, unsure how to enter and beating back the anxiety she felt about entering. What would she find? And, further, what did she want to find? She was no longer naïve to what was going on in the world but, in some measure, she wished to remain ignorant of her father’s true political leanings, if, in fact, they were different from his (hopefully) innocuous affiliation with the America First Committee. Absolving him of wrongdoing was her mission—not convicting him before she had the facts. But the truth of the matter was that her heart and instinct told her otherwise.

  On impulse, she stroked her hand over the gilt-bronze lion’s mask at the corner of the mantelpiece then tugged at the gold ring from its nose. The narrow panel popped open.

  Immediately, she was assaulted by a musty smell of antique books, cigars, and old stone. Different from the cherished scent of antique volumes within Meercrest’s library, this wafting vulgarity was dank and putrid, as vile as her father’s filthy stogies. She gagged.

  The interior before her was pitch dark, and she hesitated, unsure and feeling unsteady with queasiness from the stench. Her hand covered her mouth to keep from vomiting and her thoughts flew to Will for his strength to proceed. She recalled their few conversations about the propaganda papers she had found as well as his opinion based on her father’s own affirmations the night of the Memorial Day party. He had explained how every word her father used was code for his anti-Semitic beliefs.

  There was no turning back now. The impetus of her actions resided within her womb. Resisting hesitation, her feet moved forward, eyes scanning into the darkness. For a moment, she feared that her heart might stop, but inside her chest, its deafening beat rapidly increased.

  Lizzy turned sideways, crossing the threshold through the panel’s narrow opening. In the pitch-dark, her hand smoothed against the stone, feeling its strange coolness considering the close proximity to the fire just beyond. Trembling fingers brushed against a cord dangling upon the wall and she pulled, dimly illuminating the stone hallway where a bronze sconce cast an eerie aura. Her cautious footsteps traversed the damp and slippery, descending incline. To keep steady, she braced herself by dragging a splayed hand against the wall, which alternated in texture from stone to plaster. It seemed illogical that her chubby father could walk through this passageway; she couldn’t help but to reflect how its narrowness was akin to his bigotry.

  The tight ingress ended at a wood door. She knocked and when no reply was forthcoming, she entered, promptly closing the door behind her.

  A flip of the electrical wall switch beside her illuminated the converted gas fixture hanging low above a desk, casting a green tint from its crystal globes. Dark wood paneled walls and recessed bookcases filled with mementos, volumes, and other varied objects lined the perimeter of the small room. Papers and books lay scattered and the heavy smell of his cigars permeated the confined space. A crystal ashtray sat filled with remnants of the habit.

  All her senses were acutely alive. Her vision, though, was the most affected—and horror-struck—when it immediately settled upon the flag of Nazi Germany proudly hanging to her left.

  She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in fright as the blood red background, white circle, and evil black swastika hung as proof of what she feared.

  Through spread fingers over trembling lips she croaked, “Oh, G-d! No. Lord, G-d this cannot be.”

  Tears instantaneously filled her eyes and, reviled, she backed away, pressing against the wall behind her where a large map of the United States marked with red circles hung. She looked upward over her shoulder, fearful of what she would see, and it was in that mille-second that any remaining hope was crushed. Confirmation, attestation, and loyalty to the Third Reich were proclaimed in her father’s fine penmanship. The handwritten title above New York read: Operation Paukenschlag/Drumbeat—Success; Operation Pastorius—Failure.

  “Oh, Father, what have you done? Who are you?”

  Lizzy bit her trembling lip, the tears now rolling freely as anger and repulsion did battle with the daughterly love that had once been in her heart. All hope for her once esteemed father had been replaced by rightful condemnation against a man she hardly knew after all. Her vision flew to the painting behind his desk—Adolf Hitler.

  Eyes scanned the room frantically, as she walked toward the bookcase: Mein Kampf, The International Jew, The Myth of the T
wentieth Century, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other volumes, their titles printed in German that she did not understand. Abruptly she turned, her vision riveted upon the strewn folders covering his messy desk, each cover stamped with the Parteiadler, the eagle emblem of the party.

  Panicked, her heart beat furiously as she shuffled through them, many written in her father’s hand with words or names she didn’t understand, until she understood one very clearly. She picked it up. In the upper corner it read—Martel Familie. The nausea came again as though her baby knew what she held, and her hand shook as she opened it. The thin, grey paper wavered, as did her entire body. The word “Juden” was stamped diagonally in vicious black letters across the first page. Inside read Will’s complete, accurate family history, including the details of his grandfather and aunt’s arrest and detention at Drancy Internment Camp in Paris followed by their deportation to a concentration camp, Auschwitz, in July by the Gestapo.

  An indiscernible, anguished cry escaped her lips, echoing against the walls. Her knees buckled. She dropped the folder and held onto the side of the desk to keep from falling to the stone below her. Her hand protectively flew to her womb, covering it as she sobbed violently, wracking in agony, her struggling breaths constricted.

  Lizzy’s eyes locked upon another file lying before her. Facing up it read, John Robertsen. She flipped open the folder as blurred, tear-filled eyes scanned furiously, and it was then that she knew she had made the right decision. The contents of the dossier confirmed it. Apparently he, too, was of superior blood and the one specifically chosen for her deleterious sister. Ingrid’s claws were determined to dig into the heir of an aviation fortune, poised for sabotage and eventual control by New Germany’s Luftwaffe in America.

  ~~*~~

  Forty-eight hours later, foregoing the pre-marital blood test, Lizzy slathered rose scented cream upon her hands before donning her new wedding gloves. Wringing fingers together to spread the lotion, she stared down feeling as if she were Lady Macbeth, wanting to cry “Out, damned spot.” With painful realization, she recognized the truth that it wasn’t an outward stain that could be washed away. It was the stain below her skin—her “pure Germanic blood” tainting and defiling Will’s baby repulsed her. A pure innocent conceived out of their love was receiving her life’s blood, which was poisoned by such malevolent genes.

  Although not visible, the outward corruption to her flesh after touching those files upon her father’s desk was too much to bear. She twisted her fingers, nearly pinching her flesh, feeling unclean—even violated as she recalled moving her grasp to the Hitler statue used as a paperweight. There was no overriding of the feeling of pollution upon her hands and eyes. Finally, she donned her gloves.

  Lizzy looked at her image in the mirror, losing herself in thought. The reflection staring back was dispirited and vacant and if not for the life developing within her, there would be no way she could marry anyone other than William Martel. A hand smoothed the hair at her forehead of its own mindless accord. For the baby’s sake, she had to move forward, even if into a future void of blissful passion and romance, into a life knowing that she came so close to complete happiness. The worst of it was the knowledge that the life of one noble, extraordinary man, who was exemplary above all other men, was cut short, along with members of his family, due in some part, perhaps entirely, to the collaboration of her own father. The loss she felt superseded grief. It now ventured into the abysmal—a black void that would never be filled. The guilt by such close association tore at her heart. She vowed to spend her future atoning for the lives ruined by this war born from evil, by saving and restoring whatever or whoever could be made whole again.

  Lizzy sighed in defeat and despair as she removed Will’s cadet pin from her dress, instead pinning it to the label within her glove, hidden, yet resting against the pulse of her wrist. The cool, gold propeller wings dug into her flesh uncomfortably, but she welcomed the feeling. It proved that she wasn’t dead after all.

  The small Bakelite clock on her vanity informed her that it was time to leave, time to face the future by becoming Mrs. Elizabeth Robertsen, wife to John, the heir to Robertsen Aviation. They were scheduled to meet at the yacht club and drive south to Elkton, Maryland for a quickie wedding where only a brief waiting period for the marriage license was required. Elopement was the only answer, and they would deal with the fallout afterward, neither looking forward to what they anticipated from both sides of the stone wall separating their family estates.

  Ingrid had been tenacious this past month, attempting to trap John, each attempt narrowly avoided but not without arguments and conflict. Even Greta pushed, pressuring John to acquiesce in marrying Ingrid, convinced that with a Renner as her sister, she would rise to even higher acceptance in the Social Register, thereby wiping away the stain of “new money.”

  As for her father and Gebhardt, the two had already chosen a wedding date in five weeks. A seamstress was scheduled to arrive at Meercrest the coming week to take measurements for a wedding gown that Lizzy was adamant she would never wear.

  She stood before the mirror, examining the simple dress she wore. Winter white by an unknown designer, and purchased off the rack at Singer’s Department Store, it hid her pregnancy girdle well. Adjusting her hat, the mother of pearl hatpin slid through the fabric below the feather. She smoothed her hand down the tiny bump and attempted a smile at her reflection. All she felt were the stays of the girdle from the outside and she desperately wished, at that moment, to feel the baby flutter again. Sighing, she wished Kitty would knock to wish her well or to bring her a miraculous letter from Will demanding a halt to the wedding or inform her of a radio news report that the war was over. She hoped even for a happy letter from Lillian about all the things she was doing and seeing, but there was nothing. Of course, there wouldn’t be. Lillian knew nothing of the events leading up to this desperate, spontaneous decision. Today she was on her own; not even Kitty knew where the Zephyr was bound.

  Her eyes filled with tears for the umpteenth time as she walked lifelessly to Will’s photograph, holding it reverently in her hands with tears dropping one after another onto the glass. Her body lurched as she contorted to hold back the noisy sobs that begged to emerge. Only a garbled whisper left her lips, “Good-bye, Ducky. … Good-bye, Pistol.”

  With a sadness the likes of which she had never known, she deposited a tender kiss upon the glass above his lips, leaving a remnant of her love in an imprint of ruby lipstick. Her gloved hand shook when she pretended to smooth an errant lock of hair below his uniform hat. Not only was she sure that her sweetheart was dead, but as the wife of another man, she would no longer be able to gaze upon Will’s face every morning. Frame in hand, she walked to her hope chest and lovingly folded this most treasured photograph within the blankets, closing the cover to what was once the future of her dreams.

  With finality and resolve, she straightened her posture and wiped her tears with a maturity brought about by heart wrenching events. “Are you ready, Elizabeth?”

  ~~*~~

  Thirty-Seven

  Yesterday’s Gardenias

  June 25, 1992

  With her back braced against the bed, Lizzy sat on the floor, surrounded by their letters. The ones that she’d opened, consumed, and digested were now carefully stacked. Others were tearstained and scattered wherever her agony left them. Each word from Will was progressively more desperate, visibly evident as his messy penmanship worsened; each word of hers clung to hope until there was none left. Many of the missives remained unopened. There were many, too many to count in her haste to devour every word Will had written, bled, upon the paper. To her left lay a protective cardboard sleeve stamped “Do Not Fold”: the U.S.O. Club Letter on a Record he had spoken of in ’49, sent to her from Suffolk. She resisted the urge to immediately run down the stairs and play it. Lord knew, she could barely get through reading his pain. Hearing that pain in his voice after all these years would be too much to bear. Beside he
r, in a pile of their own, lay letters to and from Anna Martel and one from Louie. Clearly, Kitty had been very thorough; no related correspondence had escaped her crime of interception.

  Dammit, she wanted a cigarette!—a habit long ago banished on the advice of her doctor back before Danny was born. She handled her stress in a different way now. Yoga breathing techniques usually calmed her, but not today. Who gave a damn about yoga? Once again, her world was crashing around her. Escaping the fallout was not in the cards, dealing with it head on was. Although, she never imagined this—and from Kitty, no less.

  Dabbing at her streaming eyes with yet another saturated, balled Kleenex clutched between her fingertips, Lizzy gazed about at the strewn letters. Her heart clenched, and there seemed to be no stopping the tears. Words erupted from the pages, tormenting her mind, proclaiming the truth that the great love she and Will shared had been wrenched from them by the actions of one person. Around two fingers, their daughter’s beaded baby bracelet was encircled, the tangible binding ring of the profound connection between them.

  I hope this letter reaches you, Will. I have to talk with you about something important, please write me. I miss you so much – and I missed something else as well.

  Lizzy, baby. You don’t know how worried I am about you. Please write me soon. There are rumors that the air echelon will begin leaving for the ETO in just days, and I need your love to send me into the unknown. Please, sweetheart, write to me. Have you forgotten me already?