Stage Door Canteen (36 page)

She leaned against the counter, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d gotten drunk and done the unimaginable, the unforgivable; she could hardly face it. And there was something terrible, she couldn’t at the moment remember it, but it hung in the back of her mind.

Suddenly she knew what it was. Last night she’d kept drinking, wanting to be drunk and stay drunk. And be wanton and go to bed and have sex and forget everything. And she had. She’d forgotten her diaphragm.

NINETEEN

“I’m so glad you’ve been able to make it into the canteen this holiday week, Elise,” Ann Bennett said. “You can see tonight how much you’re needed. Look at that crowd, and there’s more outside! Even though it’s nice to have all these big bands in the Canteen, it makes it just one great big party, which is what our armed forces want. But the board didn’t expect us to be so short of hostesses like this between Christmas and New Year’s.”

Bunny Berrigan’s popular orchestra was the band for the night, and the dance floor was packed.

The director took Elise’s arm. “So many of the girls had their own holiday plans that took them away just when we needed them most. And of course a lot of the theater people are off on Christmas tours for the USO. Bob Hope has really made that the thing to do this year, to take a show overseas. They say the USO is sending their people right up to the front lines. Would you believe they say every once in a while out there in the desert while they’re entertaining the troops, enemy planes try to drop bombs on them! The entertainers? Good heavens, what has this world come to!”

They walked down the hall to the canteen office. “I don’t mind coming in,” Elise said. “I don’t observe Christmas, so I can come every night. It’s no problem.”

“I swear, every serviceman from the greater New York metropolitan area must have come to the canteen this past week, so many of them couldn’t get leave to go home. You know, the alert nobody talks about. And we’ve still got New Year’s Eve to go, that’s going to be the biggest night of all. Really, Elise, having you come in every night has been a lifesaver.” She paused before the office door. “What do you mean you don’t observe Christmas?”

She shrugged. “I’m Jewish.”

“Good heavens. Oh, my dear Elise, I completely forgot.” The director’s face turned pink. “I really don’t think of you in that way. Probably because you don’t look all that—Well, I’m sure people must have said all that to you before.”

She pushed the door open and they went into the canteen office. A tall man in a gray business suit, wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses, rose to his feet.

Still flustered, the canteen director said, “Elise, this is Mr. Campbell from the War Department. I hope you understand you have the use of the office as a courtesy to the War Department, but the Stage Door Canteen has no connection with Mr. Campbell or—er, the government. Mr. Campbell, this is the young lady you asked to see, Miss Elise Ginsberg.”

He looked amused. “That sounded very intimidating, Miss Bennett.” He shook hands with Elise. “And the last thing I want to do is intimidate Miss Ginsberg when she’s volunteering her time here making life a little brighter for Allied servicemen.”

“Yes, well, I’m going to leave you now,” Ann Bennett said. “No one will be using the office back here this evening, so you needn’t rush.”

She hurried out and the man from the War Department offered Elise a chair. He sat down, too, crossing his legs. “Wonderful place, the Stage Door Canteen. The Theater Wing does an admirable job supporting the morale of our fighting men. Have you been volunteering here long?”

Elise had been staring at his clothes. If he was a government employee he was evidently very high up in his department to afford them. “There was a notice on the bulletin board in the history department at school. I read one that said the Stage Door Canteen wanted volunteers if you were eighteen or over.”

“Ann Bennett says you act as an interpreter sometimes. You’ve been a hostess about four months?”

“Yes.” She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She didn’t know why the War Department would come to the canteen, of all places, to ask questions about her. It made her more than a little uneasy. What could be going on? The less you say the better. It applied in Germany; her father had said it over and over again, in Switzerland and France.

“Miss Ginsburg,” the War Department man said, “I represent the investigations branch of our office of public relations. People come to the War Department seeking information, and the public relations office handles their requests. I believe you spoke to Associated Press War Correspondent Ruth McGowan some days ago here in the Stage Door Canteen. Do you remember that conversation?”

Elise couldn’t speak. This could be the reason for his visit. Perhaps she had committed a grave error approaching the woman war correspondent. But how was she to know? Certainly her father or Max wouldn’t have sent her to American magazines or newspapers if there had been any real danger. What kind of danger could one expect from the Americans, anyway? “My father and I are in the United States with visas for political refugees. We—”

He interrupted her. “Yes, yes, the War department is aware of your current status, Miss Ginsberg, and your father’s. That’s not why I’m here.”

She hardly heard him. “There are people who are sponsoring us,” Elise plunged on. “We are not costing the United States any money. There are groups—”

“Miss Ginsberg, my office is advised of the organizations sponsoring you and your father. We know you are a student, and your father has been doing some academic work for universities in the New York area. An associate of your father’s, Maxmilian Kubelsky, a writer and journalist formerly employed in London and Moscow, lives with you. I want to talk to you about your conversation with the Associated Press correspondent, Miss Ruth McGowan. You do remember that you approached Miss McGowan here in the canteen?”

Elise heard what he was saying, but her mind was racing. She hadn’t done anything wrong, not according to what she’d been told about America. People could talk freely to the newspapers here, couldn’t they? But now here was a man from the United States government who had tracked her down to the canteen, who knew about the university, her father, even Max. Especially Max. She felt a wave of panic. There was a telephone on the desk. She couldn’t go through this alone; she had to call her father.

She held her hands together in her lap to keep them from trembling. She wondered if the appearance of freedom here in America, of justice for all, was an illusion. Or did—the old, familiar fear returned—people disappear, as they did in Europe, taken away mysteriously with no reason given? Were there in the United States, too, interrogation centers, camps for political prisoners, where you could be held for days, months, years, without anyone knowing where you were?

She whispered, “Are you—are you the FBI?”

“War Department, Miss Ginsberg, United States War Department. Although under the War Powers Act we can do much more than the FBI. Now, let’s get back to what we were talking about.”

He opened a cigarette case and offered her one. She shook her head. “After meeting with you here in the canteen, Miss McGowan applied to my office looking for information. I’m sorry to say we couldn’t oblige her. Not with what she was looking for, anyway. She showed us the photo you had given her, and we discussed its possible source.” He paused to light his cigarette. “It is important to remember, Miss Ginsberg, that the United States government is deeply concerned about the treatment of Jews in Germany and has been since long before the war. It is a matter of record that the US wants to cooperate with those who are committed to alleviating the Jews’ current situation in Germany and Poland. But we cannot let various groups, no matter how sincere their motivation, make policy for the United States government. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Please, my father is not trying to do anything to the United States government!” She eyed the telephone on the desk. “My father must explain that to you himself. That we are so grateful to come here, to take—um, how do you say it—” She was becoming so upset she couldn’t think. Not in English, anyway. “Shelter—yes, shelter, in this country. Away from the killings and the madness that we have known elsewhere! I didn’t say anything to that newspaperwoman, I swear it. Call my father, talk to him on the telephone. I beg you, tell him to come down here to the canteen, he is at home now. He can explain to you about the pictures.”

He stopped smiling. “My dear Miss Ginsberg, you must get hold of yourself. Good lord, don’t cry.” He pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “It wasn’t my intention to get you in such a state. Do you need a glass of water? Would that help?”

She shook her head. “What have I done? Oh, mein Gott, what are you going to do to me?”

“Hush, Miss Ginsberg, please be quiet. I’m not going to do anything to you. Do I look like the sort to—er, deliberately upset young ladies? No, certainly not. The United States government doesn’t make a practice of it, either.”

He waited while she tried to stop crying. “That’s better. Now, the photograph you gave Miss McGowan, do you know where it came from?”

“Sobibor.” She rubbed at her eyes with his handkerchief. “It is in Poland.”

“Yes, so it is. Do you know how the photograph was obtained?”

She looked up at him. “Some people inside the camp took the pictures maybe, I don’t know.” She knew she was sealing her fate. And her father’s, and probably Max’s, but she wanted this to stop. She couldn’t take anymore. “A plane, it’s called a DC-3, flew the pictures out of Poland.”

“Pictures?”

With a sigh, she told him, “There is more than one.”

“More than one.” He grimaced. “Who told you there was more than one? Your father? Mr. Arnold Foster of the Anti-Defamation League?”

“No, no, I saw them. I have them at home.”

“Ah. Do you have all the copies?”

She nodded.

“Were they given that information about the—DC-3,” he wanted to know, “by some group in Canada?”

She shook her head. “My father didn’t tell me.” Perhaps it was better to deny everything. “My father knows nothing. He doesn’t know Mr. Foster.”

He looked disapproving. “Miss Ginsberg, I am sure you are aware that the United States, which has opened its doors, and rightly so, to give you and your father—and yes, Mr. Maxmillian Kubelsky—a haven from persecution, is now engaged in a global conflict of a size and destructiveness the world has never before seen. I’m sure it does not come as any surprise to you to hear that our country’s situation is still perilous. That the United States and its Allies have not yet turned the tide of war. In fact, in many places the war seems to be going against us. So various matters that come to the government’s attention must be weighed according to their immediate relevance, and the effect they could possibly have on Allied victory. If we win, justice will be swift for the Jews as with all oppressed people, I can assure you. But right now our struggle to win the war is top priority. It cannot be diverted in any way.”

She stared at him. She understood what he was saying, she just did not know why he was saying it. “But why can’t these photographs be published? Why doesn’t anybody want to let the American people know what is happening in Nazi death camps? Jews are not the only people there. They are killing the Gypsies, also all those people who are born not mentally—ah, ah, mentally—sufficient, and—”

“Now, now.” He shook his head. “There has been considerable coverage of the plight of Jews in Germany, Miss Ginsberg. The American press has not ignored it. In fact. Mr. Kubelsky has written about that here and abroad, hasn’t he? It’s one of his favorite topics.” When she was suddenly silent he said, “Incidentally, you will be interested to know that your friend has just enlisted, as a foreign national, in the United States Army, and is no doubt undergoing processing even as we speak. The United States government certainly appreciates his noble gesture.”

For a moment the words didn’t register. “Max is in the United States Army?” That couldn’t be. “What kind of lie is that?” Her voice rose. “It can’t be! He is at the apartment, with my father!”

The government man put his fingertips together and made a steeple of his hands, peering at her over them. “Actually, Kubelsky was inducted late this morning. By now he’s probably taken the bus with the other inductees on to the center on Long Island.”

“I can’t believe it. You’re lying to me,” she cried. “What have you done with Max?”

“Nothing’s been done to him, Miss Ginsberg.” For the first time he looked something less than imperturbable. “Mr. Kubelsky’s had combat experience in the International Brigade in Spain, he’ll make an excellent soldier. Whatever unit he’s assigned to will be lucky to get him. My guess is he’ll be somewhere in the Southwest Pacific area.”

Southwest Pacific? “He never said anything about this to me!” She jumped to her feet. “I saw him this morning, it can’t be true!” She felt trapped. She was not ignorant; she knew that in the United States the men who had joined the Lincoln Brigade to fight in Spain were regarded as Communist sympathizers. The Americans called them “fellow travelers.” There had been controversy in the newspapers and the American Congress about them. About the entire International Brigade. It was the main reason Max couldn’t get a newspaper job.

She sat back down in the chair.