Four Freedoms

by John Crowley

  ing ship going off into the unknown.

  She clamped the theodolite and took the reading down. She was

  returning to the station to phone in her report—Little Tom Field was

  too little even to have a Teletype, it was just a few acres of prairie out-

  lined in lights—when she began to feel something. Later she’d say “hear

  something,” but in that first moment it seemed to be something she felt.

  Tootie felt it too, and barked at it, whatever or wherever it was.

  Muriel was used to some strange weather. She’d been knocked over

  by a fireball rolling through the station, and ached for a week; when a

  downpour followed hard on a dust storm, she called in a report of

  “flying mud balls,” which they didn’t like but which she was just then

  seeing smack the windows as though thrown by bad boys. So what was

  this coming?

  Not weather, no. A sound: now it was certainly a sound, a big sound

  aloft, and she could start to think it was likely an aircraft of some kind

  though no lights were visible yet. It sometimes happened that lost air-

  craft would come in to Little Tom Field, or planes would land that

  didn’t like the weather—once even a DC-2, the pilot had wanted to fly

  under the cloud cover (he told her), but company rules wouldn’t let him

  fly that low. There was a dit-da transmitter in the station that sent out

  a signal all the time, just an International Code “A” for identification,

  but you could ride in on it if you had to, a little footpath in the sky.

  Bigger than a DC-2. The high cloud cover was shredding as she

  expected it to and a full moon overhead glowed through. Whatever it

  was came closer, the felt sound growing into an awful, awesome noise.

  It was coming in way too low for its size and coming in fast. She felt

  like running away, but which way? Then there it was, good Christ,

  blotting out a huge swath of sky, its running lights out but streams of

  flame trailing out behind its wings. She’d never seen anything that big

  aloft. It lowered itself toward the field, which was almost smaller than

  itself, and it seemed just then to realize how hopeless a hope it was, this

  field it had come upon in its troubles, and it leveled off, not rising

  though but skimming between the earth and the clouds. It had six

  engines she could now see, and three of them were on fire and two of

  the other props were revolving in a halting hopeless way and they were

  all attached to the wrong side of the wing. It was passing overhead, lit

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  by the field’s lights, vast belly passing right over her and causing her,

  foolishly, to duck.

  What was it, was this prairie under attack from some new Jap or

  German war machine we’d brought down? It had gone beyond the

  field’s lights, but she could still feel its roar and still see, like the candle

  of the weather balloon, the sparkle of the fires coming from those

  engines. Out there where it went there were only low hills and woods.

  She waited, looking into that darkness, almost knowing what she

  would see, and yet seized with a huge shudder when not two minutes

  later she saw it, a bloom of flame-light that reflected from the clouds;

  then the dull thunder following after. Muriel was already headed for

  the shack and the telephone.

  At about the same hour by the clock (though two hours later by the

  sun) Henry Van Damme was awakened in his bedroom that looked out

  to the Pacific over the city. It was his brother, who alone knew this

  telephone number. The silken body beside Henry in the wide bed

  stirred also at the sound, and Henry got up, bringing the phone with

  him on its long cord, and pulled on a dressing gown while he listened.

  “I’m securing the site,” Julius said. “The weather observer who saw

  it asked if it was an enemy bomber, she’d never seen the like.”

  “Crew?” Henry asked.

  “Lost. Ship had lost power and they were too low to ditch when the

  fires started.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It’s the cylinder heads overheating,” Julius said. “The cowl flaps

  need to be shortened. Ship was on its way to the coast for the modifica-

  tions.”

  “Won’t be enough,” Henry said. “My guess.”

  Julius said nothing. They both knew the problem: that the B-30 was

  being designed, prototyped, tested, debugged, retested, built, and deployed

  all at the same time, and by ten or fifteen different companies, suppliers,

  builders, their old competitors, the government. How could it not keep

  going wrong in little ways, little ways that added up to big ways.

  “Get everybody together as soon as we can,” Henry said, though of

  course Julius would have already begun doing that.

  “We’ll ground the ships that are coming off the line now,” Julius

  said. “Till we know what modifications work.”

  F O U R F R E E D O M S / 247

  On the bejeweled map of the city outside Henry’s wide plate-glass

  windows, lines of light like airstrips, not so bright as before the war,

  ran toward the sea, yellow, bluish, white. In the dark room a clock

  glowed, and beside its face a little window showed the date, white tiles

  that turned every twenty-four hours with a soft clack. The fourteenth

  of April 1944. No one would forget it.

  “I’ll call the families,” Henry said. “Get me the names.”

  In the morning Connie and her son got breakfast in the dorm cafeteria,

  the women gathering around to see a child and touch him and marvel

  at him spooning oatmeal into his mouth with a big spoon. The desk

  found out where Bunce was, a house in Henryville, not far they said,

  and the shop roster said he was on the Swing Shift, so he might be

  there now.

  Now.

  The address they gave her didn’t seem even to look like one—8–19-

  N? What did it mean? But they pointed her the way and she set out into

  the little town, vanishing and gray in the morning light, down the wide

  street (wasn’t it too wide, and the houses too low, she thought for a

  minute it wasn’t real, like those fake towns you heard were built above

  factories to hide them from bombers). Adolph walked a little, then had

  to be picked up and carried. Day came on, sweet and cool, the gray

  burned off, the town was real, people came out of some houses and

  waved to her and smiled. Each of the houses bore a number like the

  one written on her paper. At last she came upon a woman watering a

  window box of geraniums with a coffeepot and hailed her.

  “Howdy,” the woman answered. Connie didn’t think people who

  weren’t in the movies or in radio comedies really said Howdy, but the

  woman seemed to mean it. She had a huge paper or silk geranium, or

  maybe it was a rose, in her curled hair.

  “Oh sure,” she said when Connie showed her paper. “That’s number

  eight on block nineteen of N Street. This-here’s J Street, block fifteen,

  so y’all’s got four blocks to go down and K, L, M, to go over, left. All

  right?”

  “Yes, all right, thanks.” They regarded each other for a moment.

  “Pretty flowers.”

>   248 / J O H N C R O W L E Y

  The woman touched the one in her hair, and turned back to her

  watering. For some reason Connie found her unsettling, her good

  cheer, her strange speech, her being at home here. She kept on, feeling

  excluded. When she approached the right block, Adolph had grown

  insupportably heavy, like baby Jesus in the Saint Christopher story,

  and her armpits were damp. That would be it. No it wasn’t: a small

  plump woman, a bottle blonde, just then came out of it, turned to wave

  good-bye to someone inside, then closed the door behind her and set

  out, smiling and pulling straight her girdle. Was it across the street?

  Odd numbers on one side, even on the other. The last house was 9. His

  was 8. Connie went on to the next block. Some blocks had no number

  or letter signs, never put up or fallen off.

  “Mommy.”

  “Yes, bunny.”

  “Mommy I’m hot.”

  “Okay, hon.”

  She turned back. The houses were so identical. It must be that one,

  but wasn’t that the one the blond woman had come out of? Now she

  wasn’t sure. But it had to be it. She went up the path, just a couple of

  feet, and knocked at the door, thinking nothing now but that she wanted

  to be somewhere inside where she could put Adolph down, and almost

  instantly, as though he’d been standing just behind it, Bunce opened it.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He said nothing. He was in his underwear, a singlet and wrinkled

  shorts. Just seeing him a torrent of warm gratitude filled her, her son

  grew lighter, she knew she’d done the right thing, it’d been hard and

  she’d never been sure and now she was. “Here’s Adolph,” she said.

  “Connie, what the hell.” He looked from her to his son as though

  trying to remember them and then suddenly remembering. A great grin

  broke over his face, he took the boy from her and lifted him high.

  Adolph squealed in delight at Bunce’s delight and at the heave Bunce

  had given him, but looked away, toward nothing or for something. His

  father lifting him in his big hands, his hands.

  “I didn’t write to tell you,” she said. “I thought you’d tell me not to come.”

  There was almost nothing in the house, an unmade bed, a kitchen

  F O U R F R E E D O M S / 249

  table and chairs, another smaller bare bed in another room; a new

  refrigerator; a big bamboo chair, with a floor lamp beside it; and some

  kind of box or crate with rope handles used for a table, covered with

  stuff, an apple core, a root beer bottle, papers and comic books. Bunce

  liked comic books.

  “Why would I tell you not to come?” He wasn’t looking at her but

  at Adolph, who was trying to balance standing on Bunce’s thighs where

  he sat in the bamboo chair. Their eyes were locked together, as though

  a current passed between them. “Who wouldn’t want a visit from his

  wife? His son?”

  Connie sat on a straight-backed kitchen chair. She hadn’t taken her

  coat off. “Well, I guess,” she said. “Sure.”

  “Daddy,” said Bunce. “Daddy. Say Daddy.”

  Adolph laughed in that funny way he had, as though he didn’t actu-

  ally believe you, but he said nothing.

  “So how,” Bunce said. “How’d you, I mean, the train and all. I

  mean I’ve sent you what I could.”

  “I bought the tickets. One way.”

  Bunce still smiling turned to her. “With what?”

  “I had the money.” This had gone a way she’d known she’d have to

  go, but faster than she’d been ready for. “Well,” she said again. “You

  won’t believe it. I got a job.”

  Now Bunce pulled Adolph’s exploring hands away from his face. “A

  job? Connie.”

  “You know everybody’s working now. I thought I could help.”

  “Did you ask me whether I thought you ought to get a job? Did you

  even tell me you had this in mind?”

  He’d put Adolph down and stood, looming over her a little. She

  knew better than to answer right off, that these weren’t actual ques-

  tions but statements to be listened to without expression.

  “Jesus, Connie. What the hell.”

  “Bunce,” she cautioned him in a whisper, pointing to Adolph. He

  turned away from both of them and seemed suddenly to realize he

  wasn’t dressed. He went into the bedroom and from the floor picked

  up a pair of trousers and began furiously pulling them on. Why was

  this house such a mess? He hated mess.

  “So where was this job?” he said. “By the way.”

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  “Well that’s the crazy part,” Connie said, willing a big smile. “It

  was at the Bull plant. That’s where I was sent. How do you like that.”

  So that was said, and he didn’t blow up, just went into the bath-

  room and stood for a minute looking in the little mirror over the sink,

  then turned on both faucets, cupped his hands, splashed water on his

  face and neck, and took a towel from a hook to rub himself. Then he

  stood looking into the mirror a long time.

  “You know you made a liar out of me, Connie?” he said.

  “What?” she said, feeling a stab of panic.

  “Maybe a criminal too,” he said, still looking only in the mirror. “My

  draft registration. It says I do necessary war work, and that I’m the sole

  support of my family.” He turned to her at last. “You think of that?”

  “Well you could have maybe changed it,” she said softly.

  “Sure. And lost my deferment maybe too,” he said. He tossed away

  the towel. “Okay. You’re gonna quit.”

  “I don’t need to quit,” she said. “That’s the next crazy part. They

  went out of business.”

  “What?”

  “The whole plant. There were marshals and everything. They threw

  us all out.”

  “What the heck. Where was the union? They can’t do that.”

  Connie explained what she’d seen, what she knew, what the papers

  had said, hadn’t he seen it in the papers? Hadn’t his mom and Buster

  told him?

  “Goddam profiteers,” Bunce said. “Serves them right.” He aimed

  this darkly right at Connie, as though she were one of them, or it was

  her fault. Then, in sudden realization that time had gone on while she’d

  unfolded these things before him, he said to no one or to himself: “Man

  I’ve got to go, got to get to work.”

  “I couldn’t figure out why,” Connie said.

  “Why what? Why they closed? Cause they’re dopes. Crooks. Just

  out to take from the working man.”

  “No, but why? What did they do so badly?”

  “What’s it have to do with you? You don’t have to worry about that

  stuff.”

  Connie lowered her eyes, catching up with herself. “I was just won-

  dering,” she said.

  F O U R F R E E D O M S / 251

  “So it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, and came to kneel by her

  chair, where Adolph stood to look up at her. “That’s good.”

  “So I came,” she said.

  “Uh.”

  “I just wanted us to be together again. The three of us staying

  together.”

  He
disengaged from their embrace. “Not here,” he said.

  “Well I just thought . . .”

  “Connie. Our home’s not here. When all this is over . . .”

  “My mom’s watching out for the apartment. It’s all all right. I had

  the gas turned off and the electricity. She can send the furniture any-

  time, Railway Express, it won’t cost that much. I have the money.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have said that last part. He’d risen away from

  her now with a look that made Adolph start to cry, she’d cry too if she

  didn’t keep up her courage. Why’d she just blurt all that out?

  “That’s swell, Connie,” he said, not loud. “That’s just swell. You

  don’t ask me a damn thing, you just decide we’re not living in our own

  damn house anymore, that you’re a working girl, that you— Shut up!”

  He shot that at Adolph, who only cried louder, and Bunce picked him

  up and held him.

  “I read about this place here,” she said. “It was at your mom’s.”

  Tears were leaking from her eyes, she tried to just keep on. “It seemed

  so wonderful. That you could help, that you could be a help and be

  useful, and still have a good life, a family life. You could have what you

  needed.”

  “You’re going back,” he said, his words soothing in sound for

  Adolph’s sake but not in import.

  “I saw the pictures of the nursery in the plant, and the part about

  the free clinics, the way everything was thought of.” She thought of

  telling him about Mrs. Freundlich but stopped herself. She wiped her

  eyes with her wrists. “I just wanted to help.”

  Bunce holding Adolph put his hand in Connie’s hair.

  “Well you’re not working here,” he said, grinning as at an impossi-

  bility, but not actually amused. “Honey no.”

  “Oh Bunce.”

  He lifted her up and by the hand and led her to the broad bamboo

  chair. He sat, drawing both of them into his lap. “Connie,” he said,

  252 / J O H N C R O W L E Y

  and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Baby. You think I

  want to see you every day on that floor in a pair of trousers? What are

  we going to do, head out for work together every day with our tool-

  boxes?”

  “Women do. People do.”

  He pressed his face against her neck, his sweet lips. “Sure they

  work. Till they get enough money to get their fur coat. Then they quit.