The Chaperone (25 page)

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She purchased postcards
with sepia-toned pictures of famous landmarks. She wrote Alan and the boys and Viola that the city was even bigger than she had imagined, and that there was so much to see in such a short time. That was true. Then again, the idea of spending even one more week in so much solitude, going hours without speaking to anyone except to say “thank you” and “excuse me” and “one ticket, please,” filled her with a heavy dread.

There was still no reply from Massachusetts, though enough days had passed that a reply was possible. Every afternoon when they returned from dance class, Cora checked the little locked mailbox on the first floor of their building. Louise got a letter from Theo, but nothing, Cora noticed, from either of her parents. Cora herself got a nice letter from Alan, saying that she was missed, but that Wichita in July was Wichita in July, and that she wasn’t missing much. He wrote that he’d driven over to Winfield to visit the boys, and he could report that they were still in good health, though they both seemed a little disenchanted with farm life, and they were both looking forward to starting their more sedentary studies in the fall. They sent their love to her through him, he wrote, and hoped she would understand that they didn’t write only because they worked right up until sunset, and fell asleep the moment they could.
They both seemed to know your young charge,
he added.
They said Louise B. was a real “looker,” and that everyone knew who she was. But they doubted she would know of them, since she seemed bored with every boy in school. Can you imagine that? A cheeky freshman ignoring even our wonderful boys? I’m sure you have your work cut out for you, as they say. I can only send you my best wishes.

And money, of course. He’d wired a good amount to a Western Union, and told her she should go claim it at once. He hoped she would buy herself something pretty, he wrote, something she could show off when she came home.

She supposed she should have been excited. She’d gone walking past the big department stores on Broadway, and she’d seen so many beautiful things in the window displays: afternoon dresses of crepe de chine, and hats trimmed in taffeta bows or smart feathers. There were many times at home when just the feel of new silk or a pretty shoe had brought her real comfort, and there was the satisfaction in usually being able, with the assistance of a good corset, to fasten a button on a narrow waist. But now the idea of shopping for clothes, even expensive New York clothes, only depressed her. She was irritated by the way he had written his suggestion. She wasn’t sure if it was the
show off
or the
home
that made her feel tired, even of taffeta and silk. She never knew when a gift was just a gift, truly given in caring, or just part of the charade.

In any case, she had a better idea.

“You’re back,”
the German said. He looked happy to see her, and surprised. But he blocked the doorway as he glanced at his watch. “Mass is almost over,” he whispered. “The sisters will come down very soon.”

She nodded. She’d timed it exactly right. “I know,” she said. “I have a different mission today.”

He waited, looking at her pleasantly. For a moment, she forgot what she’d planned to say.

“The radio,” she said. “I wondered if you were able to fix the radio.” She kept her face businesslike.

“No. It was… kaput. Why?”

“Well, I was thinking you were right, that it would be nice for the girls to have one. And I just happened upon a little extra money. I was thinking I would buy one for them.”

He tilted his head. “They are expensive.”

She nodded. “I passed a place that sold them a few blocks away. They had one with a single-tube receiver that seemed good.” She pointed vaguely behind her. “But they didn’t seem keen on delivery.”

He raised his brows and laughed. “I am not surprised.”

She was relieved. In truth, she hadn’t asked about delivery. “Well, if you do think the girls would still like a radio, I’d be happy to go buy one now. But it’ll be heavy, of course. I was hoping you could come with me and help me carry it back.”

His gaze was as steady on her face as it had been the other day. She focused on the truth, which was that she really did want to get a radio for the girls. That was part of it.

“I am Joseph Schmidt,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Oh.” She smiled, and in her nervousness, shook hands as if she were a man, her hand vertical, her grip tight. “I’m Cora.” There was no need to give him a last name.

Even after she loosened her grip, he held on longer than he might have, his callused thumb rough against her palm. “Cora,” he said, with careful pronunciation, as if learning a new word for something familiar. “I will get my cap.”

He brought
an old baby buggy to carry the radio. A Chelsea Model-T, he called it, because almost everyone in the neighborhood used one to get things from here to there. His buggy had a torn green sunshade and a wobbly tire, but the radio fit inside it just fine. They got a bit of a laugh, with him pushing it down the street, both of them smiling at passersby like proud new parents. “He’s got your eyes,” she said, feeling bold, and when this made him laugh, she went light in the head, but in a good way, as if she were breathing differently, and taking in more oxygen than usual. He steered the buggy over sidewalk cracks and past chattering Italians, or maybe Greeks, and around gangs of children, going slowly enough that she could keep up in her heels, and the whole time she was giddy with the idea that during this little holiday, she was not Cora Kaufmann or Cora Carlisle or even Cora X. She was only Cora in the neighborhood where she used to live and where, now, no one knew her. She could act as she liked without any consequence or anyone from home even finding out, providing she did no real harm or get herself arrested.

“What’s the sweet smell?” she asked, holding her hat down against the breeze. She liked walking with a man her height, not always having to look up. “It always smells like baking treats around here.”

“That is National Biscuit.” He looked at her, then away, then back. “Nabisco? You eat the Fig Newtons? They are made here.”

She had to laugh. How many packages of Fig Newtons had she bought over the years? She bought them for the boys and Alan, and to serve at tea parties, and she’d eaten quite a few herself, with no idea they’d been baked within sniffing distance of the New York Home for Friendless Girls. Her street in Kansas, with its wide lawns and shade trees, seemed a separate world from this crowded Babel of a neighborhood, with no possibility for overlap, and yet for years, without her knowledge, mere cookies had passed between them.

“What’s that ya got in there?” A damp and shoeless boy pushed past Cora to look into the buggy. “That’s a radio. Does it work?” Cora turned to see more boys, all wet-haired and dirty-looking, some with shoes, some without, crowding them from behind, trying to see into the buggy. It was confusing to be afraid of them. The oldest was twelve at the most, but there were six of them, and then seven, and they were fanning out, coming around to the buggy from the sides, hands quick and reaching in. All around on the sidewalk, other adults kept walking by as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

“Get away!” Joseph crouched and put his arm across the buggy. “I know what you do!” The boys backed away, but only a few steps, as if only waiting for another chance to pounce. Cora didn’t know what to do. The boys were so dirty, and they smelled foul, but they had sweet, little-boy faces and the scrawniest legs, and one reminded Cora of Howard as a boy, with apple cheeks and eyes that seemed to give off their own light. She was thinking how sad it was that a boy who looked like Howard could be so bone thin and dirty when she felt a hard tug on her purse. She turned fast to find an even younger boy, no older than five, smiling up at her even as he was still tugging. She held tight, and told him to get away.

“Okay, okay, there you go.” Joseph brought a fist out of his pocket. “Pennies, okay? And one nickel for who gets it.” He turned away from the buggy and rolled a handful of change down the sidewalk. The boys whooped and ran after the coins.

“Walk fast.” He took Cora by the arm, his other hand on the buggy’s push bar. They hurried around a corner, one wheel of the buggy squeaking. When they were halfway down the street, he let go of her arm, but she could still feel where his hand had been, the pressure of his fingers through her sleeve.

“They got a few coins out of you,” she said. “How often do you have to do that?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they will get something to eat. They will probably buy candy, though.”

Cora looked down at her purse. She didn’t have much in it, now that they’d bought the radio. But she wished she would have thought to reach in and throw down some coins herself. “Why were they all in wet clothes?”

He eyed her strangely, as if she’d asked a trick question. “They swim,” he said. “The river is just down there. They jump off the docks and go up and down, from one street to the next.”

“Well, that’s nice, that they can cool off, at least.”

He made a face. “The water is filthy. They have to breaststroke to push away the garbage.” He pantomimed this for Cora, one hand pushing away, the other covering his mouth and nose. “They all go in, though, to cool off. Except for our girls. The nuns do not let them swim in the river. They walk them to the public baths once a week, and that is it.”

Cora was quiet. A bath once a week, in this heat. And they were the lucky ones. She’d known she was lucky, even as a child. The nuns provided steady shelter and enough to eat—nothing tasty, but enough for health—and that was no small thing.

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“She is Greta.”

“Does she go to school? It’s the law now, isn’t it?”

“The nuns give lessons in the home. They don’t want the girls at a public school. They have to work around the laundry schedule, too.” He paused to ease the buggy over a curb. “I have been saving, though, for an apartment. Maybe next year, and I can go to work while she goes to the public school. Right now, she just hangs clothes on the roof. But they will have her in the laundry soon if we do not go. I know the sisters have to do the laundry, to keep the home with money. But I don’t want Greta working so hard, not when she is so young.”

Cora remembered seeing the older girls’ hands, the burns from the boiling water. Her own hands, under her gloves, were unscarred and soft. “What will you do for a job?”

“Anything. I already work extra around the neighborhood, fixing things. People know me.” He took a hand off the push bar and pointed at his mouth. “But my accent makes it hard.” He smiled with resignation. “I am the Hun.”

“Why don’t you go back?” She kept her voice soft, so quiet that even she could barely hear herself over the squeaking tire and the cars in the street. She was really just asking, wanting to know, not making a rude suggestion.

“To Germany? No. Things are bad with inflation, and the reparations. We would have more trouble there.” He shook his head. “And it is more than that. I have been in America from when I was nineteen. And before that, all I wanted was to come here.” He looked out at the street, the rumbling cars. “I like this country, the idea of it. I was thinking to enlist when they sent me to Oglethorpe.”

Cora almost pointed out that if he’d just made these statements at the beginning of the war, to whomever demanded an answer, and gone ahead and knelt to kiss the flag, he might not have been sent to Oglethorpe in the first place. But of course there was a difference between loving a country, truly loving what it stood for, and letting someone tell you to get on your knees and prove it.

“Ah, look at this,” he said, slowing the buggy. “It is our old place.”

Cora looked up. They were in front of the drugstore where they’d had the orange drinks. Cora could see the older Italian woman behind the counter inside.

“Since you bought the girls the expensive present, I will at least buy you an orange drink.” He watched her eyes. “Do you have time?”

She hesitated. It was just another soda. But he was poor, saving everything he could, and she hated to think of him spending even a nickel on her. Still, it was likely a point of pride for him. And he was looking at her with such affection, as if they were already great friends. She didn’t want to leave him just yet.

She was quiet as they waited by the counter, even though the Italian woman, her hands no longer stained, recognized her and smiled, and pointed at the buggy and made a joke about their radio
bambino
. Joseph explained to her that it was Cora who had purchased the radio for the girls in the orphanage, and the woman nodded, though it was unclear if she really understood him. Cora watched him talk. He’d taken off his cap when they came in, and she considered that his face had strong bones—he didn’t really need a full head of hair. He paid the Italian woman and gave Cora a smile, sincere and open. She followed him, wondering about his dead wife, how young she’d been, how pretty.

“Tell me about your life in Kansas,” he said. He sat in the adjacent chair, one elbow on the table, the other on the back of his chair. “You know all things about me, and I know not much about you.”

She looked down, pretending to be overwhelmed by the task of unbuttoning her gloves. She didn’t want to answer. She would have been glad to just keep hearing about him, or the orphanage, or the neighborhood, all the while feeling a little intoxicated by his focused attention, the gold streak in his eye, the pleasing lowness of his voice. But the vacation was over. He’d asked. And she didn’t have it in her to actively lie, to kill off her family, even in word.

“I’m married,” she said. “We have two sons, twins. They’ll leave for college in the fall.”

His brows went low behind the silver frames. He didn’t seem angry, but she could guess what he was thinking, what opinions he was forming of her now. He was in no position to accuse her of withholding information. She’d only been friendly, she could say, and this was the first time he’d asked about her life. But she’d known very well how he was looking at her. And now he thought her dishonest and careless, a married woman with no ring. It was so unfair. He wouldn’t know what this afternoon had meant to her, these few hours of not being herself, stepping out of her life. Perhaps she could just be honest. She’d never told anyone about Alan. She couldn’t risk it, with even the closest friend. But Joseph Schmidt had a thoughtful face, and she would never see him again. He didn’t know her last name, or even what city she was from. He could do Alan no harm. And what a relief it would be to say the words aloud, to have someone else in the world truly know her.