The Wartime Sisters

by Lynda Cohen Loigman

  She said hello to the guards, all of whom she knew, and told them she was waiting for her sister’s shift to end. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to plant myself right here,” she said, leaning against the back side of one of the pillars. “It’s the best place to stay out of this wind.”

  “Stay as long as you like, Mrs. Blum,” they told her.

  Workers streamed in and out of Federal Square; the shifts were turning over, and the street was congested. Even among the crowd, Ruth was able to spot her sister, with her forest-green coat and reddish-brown curls. Ruth expected Millie to turn left and make her way toward the child care center, but instead, she stood still, watching and waiting. After a few minutes, a man in a shabby black overcoat approached her.

  From where Ruth stood, it was impossible to see his face, so she walked through the gate to get a better view. When she finally could see his profile, she let out a gasp. It was Lenny, Millie’s husband. He was alive.

  Ruth raced down the sidewalk, dodging people on every side. “Excuse me,” she murmured, pushing past them all. Millie opened her purse and pulled something out, but Ruth barreled into her and caught her wrist in midair. Her sister was frozen in place, too shocked to speak. When Ruth looked down, Millie’s engagement ring was in her hand.

  “If it isn’t my favorite sister-in-law,” Lenny said, amused. He pulled a match from his pocket, cupped his hand to guard it from the wind, and lit a cigarette that he had plucked from behind his left ear.

  People whooshed past, wrestling for space on the sidewalk, oblivious to their dilemma and to Ruth’s racing pulse. Ruth stepped away from her brother-in-law and shoved her hand into her pocket. Through her glove, she could feel the scourge of the opal. She wished—not for the first time—that she had never seen it that day in her mother’s jewelry box.

  Ruth looked to her younger sister for some kind of explanation. The wind had whipped Millie’s curls into a mop of tangles, and tears had sent thin rivulets of mascara running down her cheeks. “I got a letter in December saying Lenny was alive,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t tell you then. Arthur had just been sent to Africa, and I didn’t want to make you any more upset—”

  Lenny coughed loudly and sputtered on his cigarette. “Art got himself shipped off to Africa? I wasn’t good enough for Uncle Sam, but they sent Arthur into action?”

  “Shut up!” Millie snapped.

  Ruth sucked in her breath. “What do you mean you weren’t good enough for Uncle Sam?”

  “Goddamned heart murmur,” he muttered. “At least that’s what the doctor said.”

  The truths Ruth thought she knew were crumbling around her. “I don’t understand,” she said to Millie. “In your letters, you wrote that Lenny was dead.”

  “I wrote that he was gone. Gone. And he was. When the army wouldn’t take him, he left us for good. And then Mr. Solomon from the hat shop heard he was in trouble. He said Murray and Lenny had probably been killed.”

  “They got Murray.” Lenny grimaced. “The old man was right about that.” He tapped at the scar on the side of his face. “I got away with this—my souvenir.”

  Ruth held her tongue, unsure of what to say. There were so many questions churning in her brain, so much she needed to discuss with her sister. “My condolences on your brother,” she said to Lenny. “But right now, I need to speak to Millie alone. Come, Millie. We’re leaving.”

  “There you go again,” he growled, “ordering everyone around.”

  “Excuse me?”

  When he answered, his voice was high pitched and mocking. “Come, Millie, we’re leaving; Lenny, propose to her; Lenny, say this; Lenny, do that. I did everything you told me, Ruth, and where did it get me? Murray was right—you’re a sneaky, selfish bitch!”

  Millie’s lower lip began to tremble. “What are you talking about?”

  Lenny’s eyes were glued to Ruth as he continued his tirade.

  “You said your parents wanted me to have that ring! They wanted me to have it so I could propose to Millie. I did what you said, and now you owe me. If you don’t hand it over now, I’ll make you wish you had!”

  “Ruth,” Millie whispered, “just give him the ring. He’ll leave us alone then. He promised he’d go.”

  But stubbornness or pride or guilt held Ruth back. Her brain began to buzz with the beginnings of a plan. She pointed behind him toward the armory’s main gate. “See those guards over there? I know every single one of them. If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to have them arrest you.”

  Lenny flicked the end of his cigarette onto a slushy patch of sidewalk and pressed it into the snow with the heel of his shoe. “You can’t arrest a guy for talking,” he said. “Go ahead and try.”

  Ruth walked toward the gate and shouted to one of the guards, waving her hand to get his attention. “Charlie! Would you mind coming over here, please?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Blum! I’ll be over in a minute!”

  Ruth’s confidence swelled. She delivered her terms to Lenny in a steely monotone. “Listen to me and do exactly as I say. Turn around, walk to the station, and get on a train. If you don’t, I’ll tell Charlie and the other guards about you—about how much you hate your country because they wouldn’t let you fight. I’m going to tell them that you’ve been asking us questions about armory business, about shipments and timetables and all the things spies like to know. Did you know there was a fire here last summer, by the way? They say it could have been sabotage, and I’m going to tell them I think it was you. After they get a look at your record, they’ll believe everything I say. You’ll be rotting in a federal prison for the rest of your life.”

  Lenny’s jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t lie like that. You don’t have any proof. You’d never get away with it.” But as the guard came closer, Lenny looked less sure of himself. Slowly, he backed away and turned toward State Street. “This isn’t over.”

  By the time the guard reached them, Lenny was gone.

  Millie

  Millie tried to wipe away her tears when the guard approached, but her cheeks were splotchy from crying, and her eyes were glazed over from the shock of what she’d just heard. Ruth, on the other hand, was eerily calm.

  Despite the guard’s youth, his presence brought order to the scene. The front of his uniform bore gleaming brass buttons, and even in the slush, his shoes kept their shine. After one glance at Millie, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Here you go,” he said softly, pressing it into her hand. “You look pretty shaken up. That friend of yours left quick. Can I do anything to help?”

  She bit her lip to keep herself from crying again. “I’m fine,” she lied. “But he wasn’t our friend.” To Ruth, she said, “I need to pick up Michael. We’ll talk later.”

  As she sped away from her sister, Millie’s breathing grew steadier. Distance brought relief; the farther away she was from Ruth, the better.

  * * *

  It wasn’t like Millie to show up unannounced on Arietta’s doorstep, but after retrieving Michael from the child care center, she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Armory Square. She stood on the steps of the small house on Walnut Street, knocking on the chipped paint and hoping her friend was inside.

  It was already past five, sunset was approaching, and Millie knew that Ruth would be wondering where she was. Let her wonder, Millie thought. I can’t stand beside her right now, pretending nothing has changed.

  It was Friday night, and Ruth would be lighting the Sabbath candles soon. In the past, she had observed the tradition haphazardly—sometimes remembering and sometimes not bothering for months at a time. But now that Arthur was gone, the ritual had become fixed. Millie found Ruth’s sudden burst of observance self-serving and insincere. If God was keeping tabs, what counted more—Ruth’s spurt of weekly prayers or the lies she had told? Millie hadn’t had enough time to piece together all that Lenny had said, but one thing at least was perfectly clear: Millie may have kept an important secret from her sister, but Ruth had been
keeping plenty of her own.

  She knocked again on the door, more forcefully this time.

  “You’re too early!” Arietta shouted from inside the house. “You can’t come in now. I’m not ready yet!”

  Millie was confused. “Arietta? It’s me.”

  The cook opened the door wearing a bulky blue bathrobe. Her hair was wrapped in curlers, and her face was covered with cold cream. “Millie! Thank goodness! I thought you were Fitz! He’s not supposed to pick me up until seven thirty.”

  Michael took one look at Arietta’s face and began to cry.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “I must look worse than I thought. Let me go wash this off.”

  By the time Arietta returned from the bathroom, Michael was calm. He sat on the living room sofa next to his mother, pointing to the comics from a newspaper he had found. There were always extra newspapers and magazines scattered around the house, left by the female boarders who rented the bedrooms upstairs. Arietta kept a large crystal bowl filled with foil-wrapped candies on the side table. “The girls go through these like locusts,” she said. She unwrapped one of the candies, handed it to Michael, and ushered Millie into the hallway so she could speak to her alone.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” the singer insisted. “And please don’t say, ‘Nothing.’”

  “Everything is fine; I just thought we’d stop by.”

  Arietta didn’t press. “Listen, I’ll make you and Michael some dinner, and you can stay as long as you like. Fitz and I can go out another night. The dance will be too crowded anyway; I heard they sold a couple of thousand tickets at least.”

  Millie clapped her hand over her mouth and groaned. “The dance! I can’t believe I forgot about it! You have to go! Please—if you cancel because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Fine, I’ll go. But we’ll eat something first.”

  “You can’t start cooking! You have to get dressed!”

  “I made a pot of lentil soup yesterday; all I have to do is put it on the stove.”

  The soup was warm and savory, and there was thick crusty bread from Mercolino’s bakery for mopping up what was left in their bowls. After they finished, Arietta wouldn’t let them leave. “Stay a little longer, will you, until Fitz picks me up? You can answer the door so I can make an entrance.”

  * * *

  Fitz declined Millie’s invitation to take a seat in the living room. He preferred standing, he said, holding his corsage box as if she might try to wrestle it from him. She had never seen anyone look so nervous. But when Arietta appeared at the top of the stairs, Fitz’s face warmed and came to life at last. His eyes sought Arietta’s with a younger man’s anticipation, as if his only desire was to love and protect her. It was the way Millie’s mother had always wanted a man to look at her.

  How could she have understood in the hastiness of her youth what those who loved her best had wanted her to know? She had been too lonely to imagine that a man could offer more than the passion and excitement that Lenny had provided. In his arms, she had found solace; in his kisses, new life. It had been unthinkable to her that it could cease to be enough.

  But if her parents had known what love was supposed to be, hadn’t Ruth—already married to Arthur—known it too? Ruth had disapproved of Lenny at first. She had thought he was wrong for her; she had said as much to Millie’s face. But that summer before their parents had died, Ruth had softened toward him. And after the accident, Ruth had sworn that their parents had as well. Papa always liked Lenny; he just never really spoke about it. Mama was tougher, but even she knew how much Lenny loved you.

  Millie had wanted to believe everything Ruth told her: that Lenny had won her parents over in the end; that before they passed away, they had recognized the goodness in him; that marrying Lenny and staying in Brooklyn was absolutely what their parents would have wanted her to do. Millie had trusted Ruth completely; she had followed her advice. Of course, the marriage hadn’t worked out happily in the end, but Millie couldn’t hold her sister responsible for that.

  Could she?

  Ruth

  Brooklyn, New York (September 1937)

  Their mother started up with Ruth again the day after Millie’s graduation. What about bringing your sister to Springfield? Did Arthur ask about the housing yet? As the summer wore on, Ruth knew she needed a plan—anything to make Millie stay in New York.

  Ruth tried to help Millie look for a job, but it was difficult to find anything she was qualified to do. Her grades were poor, and she hadn’t bothered to take the typing or stenography classes their high school offered. No one was optimistic about her securing employment anytime soon.

  With so much else to worry about, Ruth gave up on pressuring Millie to end things with Lenny. Besides, Millie was too stubborn to listen to anyone’s advice—even their parents had begun to see that. They stopped bad-mouthing the Bum when Millie was in the room, and eventually, they stopped mentioning him altogether. Their father was still confident that the romance would run its course, but their mother’s anxiety had been escalating since June. “Stop telling me how your daughter is going to get tired of him!” she shouted at her husband. “The Queen Mother must have thought the same thing about her son, and then he went crazy and gave up the throne. He was the king, Morris. The king of England! Until that Simpson woman got her hooks in him and made him break his mother’s heart!”

  When July came around, Ruth tried a new tactic—what if she began praising Lenny instead of criticizing him? She began mentioning his best qualities when Millie was in earshot—Lenny was fun-loving and exuberant; he was outgoing and affable. One Saturday, after lunch, their mother pulled Ruth into the hallway. “Why so many compliments for the Bum?” she demanded.

  “Shh. Don’t you see? If you insult him or act like he doesn’t exist, it just makes her want to be with him more. I’m doing the opposite. Why don’t you try it?”

  “And pretend that the Bum is some kind of prize? No, thank you!”

  “Suit yourself, Mama. But it might actually work. Besides, he isn’t all bad.”

  “Do you hear what you sound like?” her mother hissed. “That’s why I don’t lie. Do it enough, and you start believing your own words.”

  * * *

  When Ruth had found Lenny in the apartment the night her parents died, her chest had constricted with white-hot rage. Anyone could see how much he’d been drinking. The air all around him reeked of cheap liquor. Just who did he think he was, showing up like that?

  She should have known that Millie would fall apart after she heard the news; she should have known that she would have to be the strong one, like always. She’d allowed herself one moment—one moment—of weakness. But when Millie became hysterical, Ruth’s moment was over. When Millie fell to the floor, Ruth picked herself up off of it. It wasn’t just her sister she had to take care of; the twins were sick with fever and up every few hours. She’d woken her elderly neighbor to stay with them for a while, but Ruth couldn’t trust that the woman would be able to take care of them. Ruth had asked Millie to come back to the apartment with her, but her sister was in shock, completely unresponsive. Ruth had no choice but to leave her with Lenny. He was sober by then, and he had promised to stay.

  She wasn’t happy about it, of course, but what choice did she have? She called Millie the next morning, first thing, to check on her. Arthur stayed home with the girls, and Ruth ran to help Millie pack. Of course, Millie would have to stay with them now—where else could she go?

  Ruth decided not to tell Millie all the details of the phone call she had had with her parents before they drove home from Philadelphia. It was true that her mother hadn’t liked the hotel—she had told Ruth as much in no uncertain terms. “How do I know the sheets here are clean? I can’t sleep on a pillow other people have slept on.”

  But there had been more to the phone call that Ruth didn’t reveal. “You know,” her father had whispered so her mother wouldn’t hear. “I met a man from Chicago who knew Lenny’s brot
her.”

  “Small world,” Ruth answered. “What did he say?”

  “If it’s the same Murray Fein, he was a real shakher-makher—a wheeler-dealer—running liquor to the hotels.”

  “Are you going to tell Millie?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. When Prohibition ended, he gave up the business. Murray is in soap flakes now, just like he told us. Still, I’m not going to be sorry when your sister ends it with his brother.”

  “Do you really think she will?”

  “Ach, who knows? A few weeks ago, she asked if I thought Lenny was a good match for her.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said not to ask me. I said my opinion didn’t matter.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell her that you don’t approve of him?”

  “Sweetheart, when I have nothing nice to say, I keep my mouth shut.”

  “All right, Papa. Be careful driving home. It’s very late—don’t fall asleep.”

  “You think I sleep anymore? Ach, not me. Klaineh kinder lozen nit shlofen; groisseh kinder lozen nit ruen.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Small children don’t let you sleep; big children don’t let you rest.”

  * * *

  The funeral was a blur. As usual, it was up to Ruth to make all the decisions. Contacting the relatives, coordinating the service, selecting the caskets, purchasing the cemetery plots. She took care of it all in between caring for twin toddlers while Millie stared at old photographs and cried on the couch.

  After the burial, they went back to their parents’ apartment to sit shivah with their neighbors and the out-of-town relatives. Ruth worked frantically in the kitchen, arranging platters and making coffee so that everything would be ready. In between setting out the silverware and folding the napkins, she fielded the inevitable questions from the twins. Alice and Louise had only just turned two, but even they were old enough to know something was amiss. They wandered around the apartment calling for their grandparents, unable to understand that Bubbe and Zaide would never return.