The Wartime Sisters

by Lynda Cohen Loigman

  So, Millie clung to Arietta’s words because they made her feel secure. She stayed in the Walshes’ home not only to get away from her sister but because she wanted to believe that behind its brick walls and tall garden hedges, she and Michael would be safe.

  * * *

  “Peter! Half of my morning newspaper is missing!” Millie could hear Colonel Walsh’s booming voice all the way from the kitchen.

  Millie and Michael reached the bottom of the staircase just as Peter Walsh rushed past. Still chewing on his toast, the ten-year-old waved a section of The Springfield Republican above his head. “Morning!” he yelled. Before he shut the front door, he called over his shoulder, “Hey, Michael—wait ’til you see the new boat I made. We’ll test it on the pond this afternoon!”

  The “pond” was the fountain that sat in front of the commanding officer’s house. Round and shallow, it was the perfect place for paper boat sailing. Peter was an expert at folding the fragile vessels, but unfortunately for Colonel Walsh, he was a stickler for quality. “I can’t use yesterday’s newspaper,” he liked to tell his father. “Today’s paper is crisper. It floats better.”

  When she and Michael first moved, Millie was so intimidated by Colonel Walsh that she could barely speak when he entered the room. The fourteen-year age difference between them might as well have been forty. She found his voice too stern and his posture too straight. Plus, every day, Ruth’s parting words echoed in her head—who did Millie think she was, moving in with the commanding officer’s family?

  Over time, she grew more comfortable, not because of anything specific he said but because watching him interact with his family made her realize that no matter his title, Patrick Walsh was, first and foremost, a devoted father and husband. Their household was messy and raucous and loud. With four children to wrangle, it was rare that a morning passed without a scuffle, some spills, and a good amount of shouting. But even when he yelled, Millie could tell that Colonel Walsh was never truly angry.

  It was the colonel, after all, who taught Peter to fold the boats that required the sacrifice of his early morning newspaper. It was the colonel who showed Margaret the proper way to hit a tennis ball; the colonel who helped Thomas learn to calculate the circumference of a circle. And how many evenings had Millie seen him with Frances, their two heads pressed together over a book, discussing politics and war and a thousand other things? When Millie saw how the colonel looked at his children—the combination of amusement and awe on his face—she ached for her own son and for what she knew Michael would never have.

  The longer she lived with them, the more Colonel Walsh tried to include Millie in their family dinner conversations. She knew he only wanted to be kind, but she was reluctant to participate. Lillian would shake her head at him when he pushed too hard, and most of the time, he would back off or change the subject. But one evening after the children were excused to do their homework, he tossed his napkin on the table and looked Millie in the eye.

  “Millie,” he said, “I’m hoping you can help me with something. Can you think of anything we can do to reduce turnover in the shops? Too many women are quitting after just a few months on the job.”

  “You shouldn’t put Millie on the spot like that,” Lillian scolded. She took a sip of tea and raised her eyebrow at her husband.

  “But I could use Millie’s input.”

  “Patrick—”

  Millie didn’t want to be the cause of a tussle between them. “I don’t mind,” she answered. “I think … I think a lot of the girls start out excited, but the work can be tedious, and they feel disconnected.”

  Patrick leaned forward in his chair. “What do you mean, disconnected?”

  “I assemble the trigger mechanism, and someone else straightens a barrel. Someone else polishes the gunstock, and so on and so forth. But each one of us is completely separate from the other. I see thousands of triggers every day, but I’ve never seen all the rifle parts put together.”

  Colonel Walsh rocked in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. Had she offended him? There was no way to tell.

  “You know,” he finally said, “you raise a good point.” He stood from his chair with a smile on his face. “Both of you, come with me. I have an idea.”

  Colonel Walsh’s office was located to the right of the front door, just off the foyer and across from the living room. The door was usually closed, and though Millie had glimpsed into the room a few times, she had never been inside. A massive wooden desk stood in the center, buried under books and bulky stacks of papers. Cabinets and bookcases adorned the back wall, crafted in once gleaming mahogany that had dulled over time. Inside, the air was heavy, serious, and solemn, like the sanctuary of her old childhood synagogue in Brooklyn. It was a room full of history, a room that knew the work that accompanied war.

  Colonel Walsh walked around to the back of his desk and moved two of the highest piles of paper to the floor. Under the piles was a leather blotter, and under the blotter was a small brass key that fit one of the vertical cabinets along the back wall. Colonel Walsh opened the cabinet and pulled out an armory-made M1 Garand rifle.

  Millie had never seen him with a weapon in his hands before. She glanced over at Lillian to see if she felt the change, but the colonel’s wife was nonplussed; the firearm did not faze her.

  “So,” Colonel Walsh said, “I take it you’ve never held one of these?”

  Millie shook her head. She still remembered her mother’s words when she had first learned about Arthur’s new job at the armory. What does a nice Jewish scientist need with guns? She wondered what her mother might think if she knew Millie worked there too.

  “Let me show you something.” The colonel laid the rifle down on top of the paper piles and pulled the operating rod back to inspect the chamber. “I don’t keep it loaded,” he explained, “but I always like to check.” Then he flipped the gun over, pulled the back of the trigger guard with two fingers, and swung it upward. The next thing Millie knew, he had pulled the entire trigger housing from the bottom of the rifle.

  “Does this look familiar?” he asked, handing it to her.

  “Of course—I’ve made thousands of them.” She was amazed by the ease with which it separated from the rifle. “I didn’t realize it could all come apart like that.”

  “Well, I’ve had lots of practice. Once the trigger group is out, the stock comes free from the rest of the rifle like this.” He tapped the rear of the wooden stock on his desk to loosen it and pulled the stock free from the receiver in one swift motion. Next, he showed her how to remove the follower rod and spring. He pushed the follower arm pin out of the left side of the receiver and lifted the magazine slide and follower out of the magazine well. He flipped the receiver over and pulled out the operating rod. The last part he removed was the bolt. “That’s about as far as we usually go for cleaning,” he said. “And then we put it all back together again.”

  As Millie watched the reassembly, she couldn’t help but stare. “It’s like the different parts of a jigsaw puzzle,” she mused. “When you pull it apart that way, it’s easy to forget that it’s a weapon at all. It seems so … simple.”

  Her choice of words made Colonel Walsh laugh. “It may seem simple, but I assure you, it’s not. The best scientific and engineering minds in our country worked for years to create it.”

  “I wish the other girls could see this. They have no idea…”

  “I’m going to see what I can do about setting up some demonstrations,” Colonel Walsh said. He held the rifle out to Millie. “Would you like to hold it?”

  She reached for it without thinking. It was heavier than she had expected, but even more surprising was the way it felt in her hands: comfortable, easy, like the most ordinary thing in the world. Millie held it up to eye level and aimed at the bookcase, the way she’d seen soldiers and cowboys do in movies.

  Colonel Walsh grinned. “You look like a natural. You know, if you ever feel like getting in some practice, we happen to
have a terrific rifle club here—more than fifty members now. They meet Wednesday evenings at the Wonder Rifle Range in Indian Orchard. There are plenty of female members.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she murmured. She passed the rifle back to Colonel Walsh, but once she let go, her hands felt strangely empty.

  * * *

  A week later, one of the corporals who drove the Walsh children to school delivered a letter with the rest of the Walshes’ mail. When he gave her the wrinkled envelope, Millie’s knees began to shake. There was no mistaking the handwriting.

  The letter was short—just a few spiteful lines.

  Dear Millie,

  You probably had a good laugh after I left. But like I said before, this isn’t over. You and Michael can’t stay away from me forever. The next time I see you, I won’t be so nice.

  Lenny

  Millie felt the panic she had worked so hard to contain come rushing back to her in an instant. Her mind raced with possibilities about how to protect herself and Michael. They could leave Springfield that evening, they could move somewhere new—there were other defense plants, other factories and places where women like her might find work. Lenny wouldn’t be able to find her if she told no one where she was going. She could cut off all ties and start over again.

  But if Lenny returned and came looking for her, Ruth would have to be the one to tell him that she had gone. Ruth would never give him the ring; she would never succumb to his demands. And Lenny would not believe that Ruth didn’t know where Millie was. Who knew what he might do if Ruth made him angry enough? The idea that he might harm her sister set Millie’s temples throbbing.

  That settled it, then—she would have to stay. She would need to gather her strength for an uncertain future and for the possibility that Lenny could return. To prepare herself properly—well, Millie had an idea, one she was absolutely certain her mother wouldn’t have approved of.

  Millie Fein, a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn, was about to join the Springfield Armory Rifle Club.

  Ruth

  When Millie first came to Springfield, it seemed to Ruth that the five years they’d been apart hadn’t altered her at all. Millie’s hair, her clothes—even the ring on her finger—were exactly the same as they always had been. Michael was an addition, of course, but he looked so much like their father that even he seemed familiar.

  But now, when Ruth saw her sister from afar, Millie seemed changed. It wasn’t merely her shorter haircut or the newish dress she wore but the confidence with which she carried herself. Her composure caught Ruth entirely by surprise.

  Of course, Alice and Louise had asked a lot of questions about why their aunt and their cousin had moved out of their house. Ruth tried to answer as honestly as possible without getting into too much detail. No, Millie and Michael aren’t going back to Brooklyn. Yes, they moved to the Walshes’ house. Millie and I argued, but of course we don’t hate each other. Sometimes sisters fight—don’t the two of you know something about that?

  Despite the anger between them, Ruth and Millie agreed that the children should see each other often. Millie dropped Michael off at Ruth’s a few afternoons a week, and Alice and Louise went to the Walshes’ as well. The twins were used to the house—all of the armory children played at the Walshes’.

  Ruth and Millie were polite but distant, and Ruth assumed that her daughters were old enough to understand the subtleties of their relationship. She was wrong, of course—her daughters didn’t understand. Instead, they asked when their aunt and cousin were coming for Passover. In their innocent minds, it was all so simple: Millie and Michael were family, and families always spent the holidays together.

  * * *

  Before Ruth left Brooklyn, she had set aside the most meaningful of her parents’ possessions—all the things she didn’t trust Millie not to lose or break: the silver kiddush cup their parents had drunk from at their wedding, the leather-bound album their mother had filled with family photos, the seder plate they had used for every Passover meal she could remember. Ruth wrapped these items—plus a dozen or so more—in old sheets of newspaper and packed them in boxes. Not once did she consider asking Millie’s permission before taking them to Springfield.

  Now, as Ruth set the table for the holiday meal, the sight of the seder plate stretched her heart with a shame that was long overdue. When their parents had died, she had taken what she wanted. She had known that Millie was too distracted to notice.

  The seder plate’s hand-painted letters brought back their father’s voice, and Ruth could almost hear him recite the familiar words. This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those who are hungry, enter and eat thereof. Five years had passed since she had heard him lead the seder, five years of holidays without her mother, her father, or her sister by her side. She had thought that this year Millie would be at her table, but after their argument, she hadn’t been brave enough to suggest it.

  For the rest of the day, Ruth worked on dinner preparations, chopping apples for the haroseth and grating potatoes for her kugel. She set the stove at simmer to keep the soup warm and filled a small bowl with salt water for dipping the parsley. When everything was ready, she called the girls into the dining room.

  No matter how savory the smells that wafted in from the kitchen or how sparkling the silver was under the candlelight, it was difficult to celebrate without Arthur at the table. She and the girls made miniature sandwiches of matzo and horseradish, they recited the ten plagues and lined their dinner plates with dots of sweet purple wine. But the Passover story was somber and slow.

  “Mama?” Louise asked. “Who should read next?” They had come to the passage about the four kinds of children and the best way to teach each one about the holiday. Blessed be He whose Law speaketh distinctly of the four different characters of children: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who hath no capacity to inquire.

  When she was young, Ruth remembered, she had always insisted on reading the passage about the “wise” child. She was the older sister, after all—it made perfect sense. The ritual had continued into her adulthood, and for every Passover she could remember, she had read the same words. Millie had always been irritated by what she perceived to be the injustice of the tradition. “Where does that leave me?” she asked year after year. “Am I wicked or simple or unable to ask?”

  Ruth never answered, but depending on the year, she had different opinions. There were times she believed that Millie truly was wicked—that she intentionally flirted with Ruth’s dates just to be spiteful. Other times, she would have said that her sister was simple—too caught up in her movie magazines to read a newspaper or a book. But after their parents died, Ruth changed her mind again—Millie was too incapacitated by grief to question anything at all. And Ruth had used that to her own advantage.

  “Mama?” Louise tried to get her attention again. “Should I read the wise child, or should Alice do it?”

  The sweet wine turned sour in the pit of Ruth’s stomach. She couldn’t bear the thought of her girls arguing the way she and Millie had. She never wanted to treat one of them differently from the other. From the day the twins were born, Ruth had dressed them identically. She had fed them the same foods in the exact same amounts, and she had put them to bed at the same time every evening—even if one of them was still wide awake. She had been so intent on treating her daughters equally that she refused to spend time alone with either of them. She was afraid of separate smiles, separate laughter, separate love.

  When they were babies, it was always easy enough to manage, easy to pretend that her girls were the same. But now, at almost seven years old, they had distinct personalities, and there could be no more disguising the differences between them. Alice was the artist, always drawing and sketching, never without a pencil or a crayon in her hands. Louise was outspoken, quick-witted, and funny. She liked to take things apart, but not to put them back together. Ruth’s love for them was equal, but over time, it
became clear that her two daughters required different treatment to thrive. Alice needed encouragement and time alone to create. Louise needed guidance and steady supervision. Ruth tried her best with both of them, but she was overwhelmed by guilt. She could not bear to make the same mistakes her own mother had made. She knew all too well the power a mother might wield, the harm she might inflict in the name of protection or love.

  “Let’s skip the passage about the children,” she said. “I’m going to go open the front door for Elijah.” Holiday tradition mandated that a cup of wine be poured for the prophet Elijah and that the front door be opened to allow his spirit to enter.

  When Ruth approached the front of the house, she heard a creak on the porch. She dismissed it as the wind; it was too late for unplanned visitors. Ruth twisted the brass handle to pull the door inward, but she felt another hand turning and pushing from the outside. She stepped backward, pulse racing, drenched in sudden fear. Could Lenny have dared to return to Springfield? By the time she thought to shout, the stranger had pushed his way inside. It was too late to bar his entry, too late to keep him out.

  He looked different from the last time she had seen him—thinner and tired. His face was dark with stubble. Only his glasses were the same.

  “Arthur!” Ruth gasped. “My God, Arthur! You’re home!”

  Lillian

  Lillian had been writing and calling the men in charge of The Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands radio show for months, but they would give her no assurances. Then, without any warning, at the beginning of April, she received a telephone call with the extraordinary news: in exactly one month, Benny Goodman—the King of Swing—would be performing at the armory.