House of Ghosts (11 page)

“Paul Rothstein, you’re an ingrate,” Dave yelled.

Paul returned with two ice-cold bottles of Coke, handing one to Sarah. “How come we haven’t met before?” Sarah flirted, dressed in a navy blue skirt and light gray sweater that accentuated her figure.

“The answer is simple, I’m a
putz,”
Paul stammered. Turning serious, he continued, “Chamberlain is in Munich to talk to Hitler again.”

Dave grabbed his copy of the
Times.
“There’s no mention of a trip in today’s paper.”

Paul told them what transpired in Roth’s Deli. The topic of conversation became the grand sellout of the Czech democracy. Their heads were turned by the sound of a crash made by a garbage can slamming into a window.

“Does anyone know what is happening with this storm?” Sarah asked. “This morning, the radio said there was a chance of rain. It looks like we’re having a hurricane.”

“The wind gusts must be 75-100 miles per hour,” Dave said. The rain pounded the windows. “We don’t need anymore water. The paper says we’ve already
had four inches this month.”

“This is Dean Lyman,” broke from the public address system. “A hurricane is moving up the coast. Long Island is going to bear the brunt of the storm before it turns toward New England. Local news is reporting power outages and street flooding. Classes for the remainder of the day are cancelled. Buildings will remain open for both faculty and students if travel is deemed too hazardous.”

Despite the downpour, Paul, Dave and Sarah decided to go home. The subway system was inviolate; it always ran. They made the trek through the park, stepping around tree limbs strewn along the walkways. Water cascaded down the steps to the subway. People climbing up the staircase told them that the tracks were flooded. The trio continued downward, wanting to see for themselves. Three feet of standing water occupied the tracks. The token booth cashier announced the entire system was shut down.

With many of the streets under water, bus service was, for all practical purposes, non-existent. There really was only one choice, return to the student union center and wait out the storm.

The entrance to the center was deserted but for a maintenance man mopping the floor. Wind driven rain had found its way under the double doors and fanned across the marble floor.

“I thought we’d have to elbow our way in,” Dave said as he scouted the hall leading to the cafeteria.

Sarah slipped on the wet floor and was stopped short of landing on her rear end by Paul who caught her by the waist. “It’s like an ice skating rink,” he said, helping Sarah stand up.

“Thanks for saving my
tuchas,”
she said with a laugh as she locked eyes momentarily with Paul who still had his hands on her waist.

“The place is deserted,” Dave called out, drawing their attention. “Let’s go to the lounge.”

Paul awkwardly removed his hands from Sarah’s waist. Embarrassed, he changed the subject. “He runs ahead on the subway too.”

Fifty feet past the entrance to the cafeteria, Dave made a right and disappeared. Paul and Sarah peeked into the cafeteria. “Are we the smart ones for staying or the chickens that did?” Paul asked. The maximum occupancy was three hundred. There were four very unhappy faces congregating around the Coke machine.

Sarah didn’t answer. Instead, she slipped her arm under Paul’s. Benny Goodman’s
Sing Sing Sing
came loud and clear through the opened door. The lounge, half the size of the cafeteria, afforded a collection of armchairs, sofas, a
billiards table and a juke box that rarely worked.

Four males known to spend more time in a pool hall off Washington Square than in class were attempting to play a game of eight ball. A stream of curses and laughs drifted from the far left hand corner of the lounge as balls encountered the ripped and shredded green felt on the playing surface.

Paul counted twelve others spread around the room either sleeping or reading. The music wasn’t coming from the jukebox. “Mr. Rothstein and Miss Greenbaum!” rang out.

Paul and Sarah froze. The voice belonged to their political science professor. To the right of the entrance, two green plaid sofas positioned in an “L” arrangement were complimented with a pair of wingback armchairs covered in a haphazard floral pattern. A walnut coffee table completed the ensemble. Dave was nestled into one of the armchairs directly across from Dr. Allan Shaw who had taken over a sofa. The radio was on the counter of a refreshment kiosk. Its wire snaked between two large urns.

“Grab a cup of coffee or tea. It’s on the house,” Shaw said, holding up a steaming mug. His class was the most requested section in
PoliSci I.
In his mid-forties, Shaw walked with a pronounced limp of his right leg. A jagged facial scar running from under his chin to his right ear added an element of intrigue to his husky voice and chiseled features. Lectures peppered with jokes and an occasional four-letter word assured full attendance.

Dave looked uncomfortable, his Brooklyn bravado evaporated with Shaw’s beckoning to have a seat with the wave of his ever-present bent briar pipe. The day before, Shaw peppered him with questions that the future lawyer couldn’t answer. Dave nervously ran a finger around the lip of his coffee cup. The new arrivals removed their jackets and draped them over the arms of a nearby sofa. “Fire Island has been leveled,” Dave said, turning to Shaw.

Shaw nodded in the affirmative as he tamped the smoldering pipe tobacco with his finger. “A few minutes ago, NBC reported there are widespread power and phone outages throughout the region. One hundred fifty three of the one hundred seventy nine houses on the beach at Westhampton, Long Island were swept away. Fire Island wasn’t as lucky. Every structure is gone.”

“How many dead?” Paul asked.

Shaw sighed deeply. “Twenty-nine. Have to be scores more.”

“What’s going on in Brooklyn near Sheepshead Bay?” Paul asked. “I’m going to call home.”

“Forget it,” Dave said, “The phones are dead.”

“I’ve got to call home, my parents are going to be crazy,” Sarah said.

Dave shook his head. “Can’t get through to the Bronx either. I tried my cousin who lives near Yankee stadium.”

“Get a cup of coffee and relax,” Shaw said, pointing his pipe to the coffee urns. “The train tunnels out to New Jersey are flooded. I’ll be spending the night here.”

“Dr. Shaw!” boomed from one of the miscreants at the pool table. “Want to play a rack?”

“Maybe later,” Shaw answered with a wave of his pipe. He was one of the few faculty members who ventured into the student union. His ability to handle a cue stick against the ivory balls as well as to the side of a human skull was honed in the hardscrabble section of Manhattan known as Hell’s Kitchen, “when I get the urge to whip your ass.”

Paul and Sarah helped themselves to coffee and settled down on the unoccupied sofa to Shaw’s left. Sarah, shivering in her wet clothes, sipped the hot coffee. She removed her only pair of dress pumps. “Dr. Shaw, are you finished reading the paper?” she asked. A disheveled edition of
The Daily News
lay on the couch next to the professor.

“Not mine,” Shaw said, wrinkling his nose at the notion that he’d read the tabloid. He handed her the paper.

Sarah stuffed two sheets of newspaper into each shoe in an attempt to dry them out.

It was 2:15, and it was obvious that the storm had developed into a hurricane of a magnitude not seen in the history of the United States Weather Bureau. Shaw flinched and turned ghostly pale as a metal trashcan slammed into the brick façade above the lounge windows overlooking a small courtyard. The few trees growing in the courtyard were pruned of their branches by the howling winds.

The storm played havoc with reception as static drowned out the NBC announcer. After a few minutes, NBC went off the air. Shaw tuned the radio to CBS. “CBS put up an experimental antenna on top of the Empire State Building,” he explained. The announcer came in loud and clear. “The other stations coming out of the Jersey meadowlands must be swamped.”

A couple of the snoozers and readers ventured over to listen to the storm updates. The hurricane moving northward had killed 250 in Connecticut. The death toll from the killer storm was expected to rise to 700. Thousands were injured, more than 63,000 left homeless with property damage estimated at $382 million.

“And that’s the good news,” Shaw said as he limped to the kiosk to pour another cup of coffee. “Ed Murrow and Bill Shirer will be on the air from Europe. I hope we’ll be able to hear them.”

All eyes followed Shaw as he walked back to the couch. “There’s a storm blowing
through our neck of the woods now,” he said in a controlled bellow, “but a storm is ready to move through Europe, a storm that will affect the continent and work its way to the United States.”

Shirer reported from Prague that a deal had been brokered by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: The Germans would occupy the Sudeten part of the country the next day. The mood in the city was one of utter disbelief. The man on the street couldn’t fathom how the British had capitulated on the issue, and the French followed suit. It came as no surprise. Three days prior, Chamberlain said, “If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than this.”

From London, Murrow reported that Chamberlain proclaimed the pact with Hitler was “a peace with honor, I believe it is peace for our time.”

The room fell into silence as Shaw limped to the kiosk with his coffee cup and shut off the radio. He rested an elbow on the counter. “Mr. Cohen. What do you think about the British and French giving Germany a free hand?”

Staring at the floor, Dave looked up. “Hitler judged the French and the British correctly. They didn’t act two years ago when he occupied the Ruhr.”

“You Americans don’t appreciate the European experience,” a voice from behind them said in a British accent.

Shaw took a sip from his cup as he looked at the tall and lanky Britt with fire engine red hair. “Don’t be a stranger.” He pointed to empty seats on either side of Paul and Dave. “Mr.?”

“Lyle Richardson,” he answered as he gathered a black leather book bag and an expensive looking tweed sport jacket from a bistro table. Richardson loped around the sofa where Paul and Sarah sat and eased into the vacant armchair. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“We welcome your input,” Shaw said. “Please continue.”

“The horror of the Great War is seen in the casualty figures that are in the millions. There isn’t an English town or village that doesn’t have an amputee or a gas victim. In one respect, I understand Mr. Chamberlain’s attempt to avoid military action, but I also hear Mr. Churchill who said today that this is the beginning of the day of reckoning.”

“You…,” Shaw began to say.

“I have one more thing to add,” Richardson interrupted. “You Americans came into the fray after the bulk of the massacre had already taken place. Yes, you took casualties, but you emerged from the war as heroes, the saviors of democracy. War to you is Teddy Roosevelt and his charge up San Juan Hill, a jolly good time. America doesn’t appreciate the other side.”

Shaw banged the cup on the counter. He returned to the sofa. Without a word,
he rolled up his right pant leg and removed his artificial limb. A white stump sock covered his knee. Shaw stood the prosthesis on the coffee table. “Belleau Wood—June 1, 1918. My leg and my face. Do you want to go over it again Mr. Richardson, how war is abstract to Americans?”

The embarrassed Englishman didn’t answer. Sarah joined the discussion. “I have a cousin who lives in Hamburg and is pregnant with her first baby. The Nazis have decreed by their Nuremberg Laws what names can be used for Jewish children. The Nazis have made it against the law for Jews to work or own property, dooming the Jewish community to groveling and begging. What a world to bring a child into.” She began to cry and reached into her bag for a handkerchief.

Sarah struck a nerve. Those following the discussion looked away. The lounge took on an eerie silence but for the rain hitting the windows.

Shaw put his prosthesis back on and re-lit his pipe, “Mr. Rothstein, in the month we have been in class, you’ve been almost silent. I have the feeling something is waiting to jump out.”

“Maybe the accounts of Nazi persecution are too remote, coming from over thirty-five hundred miles away,” Paul said, leaning forward on the sofa. “The Japanese have been killing Chinese for years, and what has the United States done? Sell them more scrap iron to make bombs and bullets. I’m afraid that it will take the killing of Americans for the isolationists to pull their collective heads out of the sand.”

Shaw drummed his fingers on the table. “Paul, do you have any idea how the plight of the German Jews can be made tangible for the majority of Americans?”

Paul contemplated the question for a few moments. “I hate to say it, but the fate of the German Jew is out of our hands. They’re finished.”

The driving rain began to slacken as the fast moving storm left the area. It was almost 6:30. Into the lounge walked Jake, wearing the waterproof suit he used on the docks. “Are you ready to come home, little brother?” he asked.

“There’s flooding everywhere. How did you get here?” Paul asked

Jake stood with his hands on his hips. “Yeah, the roads are flooded, but you can get around.”

“Can we give Sarah a lift to the Bronx?” Paul asked.

Jake looked at the shapely co-ed sitting next to his brother. “I bet she’s a Yankee fan,” he said with a wink. “I’ll give her a break on account of the weather.”

THE CAMPUS WAS ABUZZ with the morning announcement of a brokered agreement between the university and the Student Debate Council. Preston’s afternoon composition course ended early, allowing the few minutes walk from the McCosh lecture complex to Whig Hall, where the details of the agreement were being discussed.

Whig Hall housed the American Whig Society and the Cliosophic Society. The two debating clubs formed an alliance and were in discussion with the University Committee for Public Lectures. With the news out of Europe becoming more dramatic every day, the students wanted a say in the selection of outside speakers for the yearly lecture series.