The Book of Knowledge (28 page)

‘How is your mother?'

‘The same as ever. Full of complaints about him, about everyone and everything. Money, weather, the stores in Brooklyn, my infrequent visits, what I wear when I do come home, my haircut. Everything. She takes the war personally. Every new regulation she thinks is directed at her. She rails against gas rationing even though they have no car. But it
has
cut down on my uncle's ability to drive them to Florida for their usual month's winter vacation, and
that
affects her.'

‘That's too bad. I remember her as sort of young and very pleasant.'

Roslyn shook her head. ‘'Twenty-nine changed everything for my parents. And yours too, of course. I remember your father as good-looking and a lot of fun. And did you hear that Caleb and Kate Flowers' mother died last year? I remember
her
as a very nice woman.'

‘Er, no. I didn't hear about that.'

‘I saw a little notice in the paper.'

‘I missed it,' said Lionel.

At the station they shook hands, no longer compelled by surprise to embrace each other as they had been by their first encounter.

‘Good luck in your next assignment.'

‘And you, in your job.'

‘Did I mention I was thinking about joining the Navy?'

‘
Really?
Why?'

‘Something new and different to do, I suppose. And maybe interesting. They're looking for women who have worked in journalism to fill some desk jobs, to “release men for active duty,” the flier I picked up says.'

‘Well, then, the next time we meet maybe you'll be in uniform too.'

‘It would be fun. Take care of yourself, Lion.'

Lionel laughed. ‘I haven't been called that in a long time.'

‘It was great to see you again,' said Roslyn. ‘I really loved the movie. Ingrid Bergman is a wonderful actress. She looked great in that haircut. Thanks for the ticket.'

‘It
was
good. I liked Gary Cooper. He's not much of an actor, but he's nice to look at.'

‘Goodbye,' they said to each other at the same time.

They shook hands again. Lionel disappeared into the stream of uniformed men heading for trains to take them back to their posts. Roslyn walked on toward Third Avenue, thinking about the movie, Ingrid Bergman, seeing Lionel Schwartz in uniform with his soft, charming manner, thinking about getting to work on time today (it was almost two o'clock, she had noted on the station clock), thinking about the pleasure she would feel if she told her boss she was leaving, thinking about a new job, a new life closer to the bellicose heart of things, thinking, as she turned the corner at Second Avenue, about wearing a uniform.

In wartime, San Francisco belonged to the Navy. Sailors filled the sidewalks, the bars, and the restaurants, their caps at a rakish, almost celebratory angle, their wide-bottomed trousers whipping around their legs with the constant breezes from the Bay. Naval personnel hung from the sides of cable cars which made their arduous way up the city's hills and then came down with noisy, lighthearted abandon.

Roslyn's new station was on the sixth floor of an office building on New Montgomery Street. Almost from the July day she had reported for duty, wearing her spotless, pressed ‘whites,' and gloves despite the heat, she knew she had been too optimistic about the promising interest of her assignment. Since her commissioning, she had served in two capacities on two posts. Both assignments were minor, pedestrian, and dull; she realized very quickly that the WAVES, an adjunct to the regular Navy, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service authorized the year before by Congress (to the loudly expressed objection of regular naval officers and enlisted men), were to be assigned work that resembled, in most ways, exactly what the civilian world had to offer.

The Twelfth Naval District assignment came unexpectedly, and Roslyn arrived in San Francisco feeling very hopeful. She had been told it was a post attached to the Office of War Information and involved some sort of censorship work, Roslyn was not sure exactly what. On the day she arrived, she was introduced to the captain of the ‘station,' ever after, she had been instructed, to be called the ‘ship.' His tidy office looked out over downtown San Francisco and the bright blue bay, and was referred to as his quarters.

Roslyn went through the ritual of saluting Captain Ayres and presenting her orders. He looked at them briefly and then returned her salute and welcomed her aboard. Dutifully, she expressed her pleasure at being aboard. Then the officer of the day led her to a large room, almost like the newsroom of a newspaper, she thought, where twenty or so ensigns and lieutenants were seated in rows. He approached a desk at the far end of the room. Roslyn was two steps behind.

The officer of the day said: ‘Lieutenant DeMarco, this is your replacement, Ensign Hellman. Lewis, Roslyn.'

A heavyset, swarthy lieutenant looked up from the newspaper he was reading, stared at Roslyn, and then stood up. It seemed to her that he rose very slowly and saluted her with some reluctance. One of his black eyes had a strange cast to it, as if he had damaged the cornea in some way. She returned his salute. The three officers stood awkwardly, saying nothing, suggesting they had nothing more of importance or interest to add to what appeared to Roslyn to be an unwelcome introduction.

At last, breaking the silence, Lieutenant DeMarco said:

‘Well, Replacement, I suppose I should greet you with open arms and welcome you aboard and all that sort of thing.'

‘Not at all,' said Roslyn. ‘I can understand that you're not delighted to see me. Why should you be?'

At this point the officer of the day decided to interrupt the heavy air of unpleasantness.

‘It's almost twelve. Would you both like to have some lunch down the street? My guests.'

‘I think not,' said Lieutenant DeMarco.

Simultaneously Roslyn said: ‘Thank you, no. I've got to move my gear into the room I've found.'

Lieutenant DeMarco sat down and returned to his paper.

Clearly annoyed, the officer of the day said to him: ‘Your orders will be ready tomorrow, about four bells.'

Without looking up, DeMarco said: ‘Whenever the hell
that
is. I'll clear out my desk this afternoon.'

‘Good.'

The officer of the day, making no reference to Lieutenant DeMarco's behavior, walked with Roslyn to the elevator. ‘We use it to abandon ship in case of fire,' he said. ‘The captain takes his command very seriously.'

‘Yes. I can see that. Well, I'll report early in the morning. Thank you for showing me around.'

‘Not at all. It's part of my duty. See you then.'

When Roslyn got to DeMarco's desk the next day it was almost empty. In one drawer she found the burnt-out stub of a Camel cigarette, and in another half a Nabisco cookie. She sat in his seat and spent the day reading the handbook of censorship regulations. When her shift was over, she lined up at the elevator as she had been instructed, in full uniform, her hat squared on her head, her sweaty hands in her white gloves, her blue tie buttoned tightly under her collar. As she rode down in the company of three other officers similarly attired, one of them, a lieutenant junior grade, said to her:

‘I'm Judy Bowes. Care to come along for a drink before you go home? I'm going up to the Fairmont for the usual before dinner.'

‘I'm Roslyn Hellman.' They shook hands. ‘Very nice of you to ask. I would like that.'

Roslyn was delighted by the invitation, thinking how nice it would be to spend the evening with this handsome and hospitable WAVE officer, to escape her loneliness and the return to her shabby rooming house. She might even be able to share with another woman (a fellow sufferer, maybe?) her thoughts about the oppressive misogyny of the regular Navy. Perhaps (was it remotely possible?) they might have more than that in common. …

At the Fairmont bar, Ensign Hellman decided that Lieutenant Bowes had taken pity on her, the new girl on the station in a strange city. It was not only that. Judy Bowes was a large, hearty, generous-minded woman who thought of the service as a kind of family party to which everyone was invited. She had been born in Atlanta and had about her the warm inclusiveness of her region. ‘Y'all come' sounded in her broad Southern accent even if she did not say those words.

Waiting for her at the bar, with a stool reserved by his hat, was a burly, smiling naval aviator. He spotted her at once, smiled as he stood up, and gestured to the empty seat. Judy Bowes introduced Roslyn to ‘my friend Lieutenant Commander Owen Hayes.' He invited Roslyn to take his stool and stood gallantly between the two women at the bar.

A tight row of navy-blue-clad shoulders pushed against each other as waiters tried to insert themselves between customers to give orders to the barman. Roslyn was pressed against the aviator on one side and a strange officer on the other, feeling, pleasantly, part of a great and noble whole, a phalanx of similarly destined persons laughing and joking together in the face of approaching danger. She remembered having felt this concord when they had all lined up at the flagpole, patriotic intermediate campers in their uniform bloomers, pledging allegiance with their hands over their hearts, the only moments in that traumatic summer years ago when she had felt part of anything.

The three officers downed their Scotch and sodas, one after another, until close to seven o'clock. It was too noisy to carry on any sort of conversation, so they sat looking ahead at their mirrored selves, sinking deeper into the solitude that often accompanies persons in a large crowd. Other officers and WAVES, straight from their stations, it seemed, came in to replace those who had left to go on duty.

‘They're changing guard at the Fairmont Hotel,' Roslyn said, and Judy smiled.

‘Christopher Robin went down with Alice,' she added.

‘A soldier's life is terrible hard,' said Owen, and they all laughed, pleased with their common childhood memory.

Roslyn shared a cab with them until it reached Van Ness Avenue.

‘I'll get out here,' she told them. ‘I'm just up this street. Thanks for the nice evening.'

‘Not at all,' said Judy in her sweet Southern drawl. ‘See you at seven, God help us all. Bye.'

Roslyn walked up the hill to her rooming house, feeling the inevitable depression of the solitary person who knows the others have gone on to a companionable night. Her earlier mood, compounded of drinks and the proximity of young, uniformed society, fell abruptly. In her room she could hear the footsteps of two persons on the floor above her, the light heels of a woman, the heavy rubber-heeled tread of a man.

‘Couples, always couples,' she thought, ‘couples everywhere but in this room.' Not for the first time, it occurred to her that she had spent much of her life alone in the company of others, and that she had made little progress toward changing her singularity. Marriage had never been an option to her, perhaps because she had never sought it, and certainly because it had never been suggested to her, she thought grimly, taking off her too-tight tie and her low, uncomfortable pumps. She felt no affinity for men, and the friendships with women she wanted had never been offered to her. After all the drinks, and the peanuts at the bar, she decided not to go out again for dinner. She took off her uniform and hung it carefully on a wire hanger, and lay down on the bed to consider her case: in exile once again, in a strange place, needing friends and doing work that would probably turn out to be routine, like all the other assignments in her disappointing life.

Six months later, settled into her job on New Montgomery Street, Roslyn learned that Lieutenant DeMarco had shipped out on a cruiser, the
Helena
, on its way to the Solomon Islands. Two weeks after that, Judy Bowes brought a cable to her desk.

‘See this? Did you get a copy?'

‘No, I don't think so. I've been working on press stuff.'

‘Wasn't Lewis DeMarco on the
Helena?
'

‘I think so, yes. Why?'

‘This says the cruiser
Helena
was sunk day before last at Kula Gulf. All hands reported lost.'

‘My God.'

After Judy left, Roslyn sat at DeMarco's desk, as she was to think of it now, her head in her hands, her eyes closed to hold back her unmilitary tears. For the next three days she felt she was working surrounded by an impenetrable fog invisible to everyone else on the station, sunk in the unshared misery that a catastrophe bestows upon the individual sufferer.

She had begun to recover, to accept the sinking of the
Helena
as part of the common condition of war, when she looked up at the end of her shift to find a young woman standing at her desk. She was carelessly dressed, as if her clothes had been thrown over her very thin body. Her short red hair did not fit under the cloche jammed down on her head, but stood out at all sides. Her eyes were wet and red.

In a voice so rough and loud that everyone nearby turned to see what was happening, she shouted at Roslyn: ‘Now do you know what you have done?'

A terrible realization of who this angry and disheveled woman must be swept over Roslyn, but she said: ‘No. What have I done?'

‘You've made me a widow, you goddamn WAVE, and my child an orphan. That's what you've done.'

Roslyn stood up and tried to touch Mrs. DeMarco's shoulder, but she jerked herself away.

‘Lew would still be here, sitting right here, if you hadn't …'

She lowered her head and wiped her eyes with a man's handkerchief she had pulled from her pocket. A yellow paper fell to the floor at the same time. She snatched it up and threw it at Roslyn.

‘There. That's for you. You can read it over and over, like I have. Put it in with your medals and show it to your children. It's for you to keep.'

Roslyn was speechless before the force of the woman's furious grief. She caught the telegram and read that it began: ‘The Department of the Navy regrets to inform you …' She did not read the rest but saw the signature: ‘Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy.'