The Medium (22 page)

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Authors: Noëlle Sickels

BOOK: The Medium
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“Wait,” Helen said. “Why don't we walk to the inn after breakfast? It's a hike, I know, but we're bundled up good, and we can surely get there by noon. The snow really is lovely.”
“Yeah, if you like disasters,” Billy said. “But what else have we got to do, right? Okay, my lady, a hike through the lovely snow it is. On one condition.”
“What's that?”
“That you marry me when I get leave after basic.”
Helen smiled at him. “With pleasure.”
 
When they got to the inn, they were wet and cold, but the long walk had been cheering, and they felt exhilarated. The desk clerk was busy with someone, so Helen and Billy decided to lounge a while in front of the fireplace in the sitting room off the lobby before conducting their business. The room was paneled in dark wood and furnished with large, overstuffed chairs. The fire was blazing. A big bowl of chrysanthemums on a piano
in the corner added a touch of luxury. The brocade drapes on a wide bay window had been pulled open to showcase the snow-laden pines and yew shrubs on the sloping white lawn.
“Let's stay here forever,” Helen joked, holding her hands out to the fire.
“You look beautiful,” Billy said, regarding her appreciatively. “Like you're shining.”
“I feel beautiful,” she answered quietly.
They settled back in their chairs and watched the flames play over the thick logs. An inn guest came in and asked if they'd mind if she played the piano. A Chopin tune was soon coiling through the warm room.
“Helen,” Billy said, leaning toward her and whispering beneath the music, “we can't stay forever, but we can spend the afternoon. We have a room.”
His long-known, beloved face stood open to her, full of desire and trepidation. She saw that however she answered would be all right. The intention that had brought them out into the storm early that morning had been the big step, the real answer. All the rest of it was simply timing.
“I know we're supposed to make our promises in front of a preacher,” Billy continued, “but even in a church full of people, it's the two of us talking right at each other that holds the meaning.” He took her left hand in his and stared into her eyes. “I take you for my lawful wife, through thick and thin, war and peace—”
“I take you for my lawful husband,” Helen interrupted, “through thick and thin, hard and easy … sunshine and snow.”
They managed to smile at each other, then he squeezed her hand and went to check in.
Helen, her heart and gut fluttering, tried to concentrate on the dancing notes of the piano piece, but it was no use. She picked up Billy's cap and gloves and held them against her face.
She closed her eyes and did what she'd sworn to herself last night she would never do. She tried to sense whether Billy was going to his death. She was flooded with images—Billy leaning on the fence between their yards, Billy absorbed in trimming tiny pieces of balsa wood for a model plane, Billy swimming in the river, his muscular arms and shoulders rising rhythmically out of the water—but these were memories. She called to Iris. But for the first time ever, Iris didn't come. Helen put down the cap and gloves.
She was glad she couldn't discover anything about Billy, relieved that prophecy wouldn't be pouncing on her. She'd have to live like any other war bride, waiting, writing letters, praying. It made their relationship more honest somehow, and more their own. He'd be glad to know that their future was out of her ken, but he wouldn't like it that she'd tried to find out. But she wasn't going to tell him. Honesty was not a coin to be spent indiscriminately.
 
She wore the blue slip. And although he laughed at her for it, she kept on her socks because her feet were still cold. They took their time. They touched each other in all the delicious ways they already knew before they flourished into the new way. It hurt some. When Helen cried out, Billy stopped moving and raised up on his elbows to peer questioningly into her face. She lifted her pelvis to him, and he continued slowly, but soon, lost to his hunger, he increased his tempo. She rode the pain rather than stop him again. When he'd finished, he lay beside her kissing her neck and stroking between her legs until splendid pleasure drenched her soreness and she cried out once more, this time in happy triumph.
It was wonderful to have a bed. They fell asleep in each other's arms, woke up, made love again. Helen's climax that time came while Billy was still inside her, and she felt like singing,
it was such a magnificent surprise. Billy went out to get them some food. Helen bathed and wrapped herself in a blanket and stood at the window studying the late-afternoon shadows on the fallen snow. It had finally stopped coming down. They ate tuna salad sandwiches and drank vanilla malteds sitting cross-legged in the center of the wide, tousled bed; made lazy, almost lackadaisical love once more; and dressed to go home. It was seven o'clock.
“So, first, we'll tell your folks we're engaged, then mine,” Helen said, reviewing their plan, “because my mother will have lots of questions about wedding plans. She'll want a church ceremony, but with us not knowing just when your leave is, she'll have to settle for having it at home.”
“You sure that's all right with you?”
“Yes, I told you. Besides, we've already had the wedding that counts.”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her galoshes. He bent over and kissed her.
“You're the top,” he said.
Helen stretched out her legs and wiggled her feet in the ugly galoshes.
“You know what?” she said. “I'm taking another ration stamp and I'm gonna get those black heels. A bride's supposed to wear something new.”
“A bride's supposed to be new,” Billy ribbed.
“Is that a complaint, mister?”
“No, ma'am! I'm a lucky guy. I get to have two wedding nights.”
JUNE 1943
After thirteen weeks of basic training at Camp Boardwalk, Billy was coming home this afternoon, Sunday. He and Helen were marrying tomorrow, then spending Tuesday together before he had to board a train to somewhere for further training.
Helen had considered going to Atlantic City for the wedding—she liked the idea of being at the seaside, even if some of the beaches were oily with spills from torpedoed tankers, and the famous boardwalk had become a drill field—but since the Army had commandeered all the hotels as barracks, only private homes were left as accommodations, and Emilie feared it would be too difficult to find enough rooms for the two families.
Helen's wedding suit had been ready for a month. It was of pale green linen, with black piping to match the black heels. Emilie had made it with the War Production Board's style dictates in mind. The rules applied to manufactured clothing—a man's suit could no longer include a vest, nor could there be cuffs on the pants, elbow patches on the jacket, or wide lapels; production of zoot suits was stopped; women's bathing suits must be two pieces, and skirts must end one inch above the knees. Emilie decided to ignore the hemline rule and cut Helen's skirt to a more modest length, but she thought that however else possible, a soldier's bride ought to follow the guidelines for conserving cloth. The suit was neatly tailored, and though it lacked soft flounces and pleats, it showed off Helen's figure prettily.
An hour before Helen was to meet Billy at the bus station, Ursula called her to her room.
“Yes, Nanny?” Helen said, a bit breathless from having run up the stairs. She'd been running all morning while helping her mother clean. Running felt like the only possible way to locomote today.
“Come in, Helen. I have something for you. For tomorrow.”
She held out a square of black velvet on the palm of her hand. Helen took it and carefully unfolded it. Inside, she found a fat, teardrop-shaped pearl on a short gold chain.
“Nanny, your pearl!”
Helen knew the story of the pearl, a gift from Ursula's husband, Oskar, on their tenth anniversary, the only such gift he, or anyone, had ever given her. Helen had only seen Ursula wear it on special occasions, but Emilie had told her that until Oskar's funeral, she'd worn it every day.
“Yours now. For your wedding. And to keep.”
“Oh, Nanny.” Helen hugged her grandmother, then rushed to the mirror over the bureau and held it up to her neck. “It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Ursula stood behind the girl and viewed the lustrous pearl against her smooth, young skin.
“It is the right place for it,” she said. “My Oskar would think so, too.”
“Helen,” Emilie called from downstairs. “Billy's on the phone.”
“Oh, dear,” Helen said, “I hope he hasn't missed his bus. There's not another one until tomorrow morning. And Reverend Wittig wanted to meet with us tonight.”
She handed the pearl to Ursula and rushed out of the room.
Billy's news was worse than a missed bus. Helen kept her hand on the receiver after she'd hung up, immobilized for the first time in days.
“What is it?” Emilie asked, coming in the front door with a large pail of garden roses. From outside came the slicing sounds of Walter's push mower.
“Billy's going to radio school in South Dakota.”
“Yes?” Emilie said, puzzled.
“He wants to fly, you know,” Helen elaborated, tears beginning to gather, “but it didn't look like they were going to let him be a pilot, so when he heard about the radio operator training, he signed up, and he has to leave right away.”
“Today?”
“This may be his only chance to get in the air, he said.”
“But his leave … The wedding …”
“He's changing trains in New York. There's an hour and a half between. I'm going to go see him there.”
Emilie put down the pail of roses and came forward, reaching for her, but Helen wiped her eyes and made a slight side step, and with those small signals held her mother off. Commiseration now would unhinge her.
“I'll have to hurry to get into the City in time,” she said, starting up the stairs.
Emilie began to follow her, then seemed to think better of it. She turned and went to the open front door.
“I'm going to tell your father,” she said. “He can drive you in. If an OPA investigator stops you to ask why your car trip is necessary, I'm sure seeing off a soldier will pass muster.”
Helen smiled gratefully at her mother and hurried to her room to change. Ursula came to the doorway and stood watching her dash back and forth between the closet and the dresser, pulling out clothes, considering them, tossing them onto the bed.
“You will be all right,” Ursula said, her intonation neither wholly question nor wholly statement.
“I will have to be,” Helen said shakily.
She put on a polka-dot sundress with wide straps and a square neckline and turned to let her grandmother pull up the zipper in back. When she turned around again, Ursula was holding out the folded velvet square.
“Still, this is for you,” she said.
“No, Nanny,” Helen said. “That should wait until my real wedding day.”
“You give your heart. That is real enough for me.”
Ursula unwrapped the necklace and laid it on the bed on top of the short-sleeved jacket that matched the sundress. Helen stroked the pearl with one finger.
“So, I let you get finished,” her grandmother said.
Helen picked up her hairbrush from the night table.
“One hundred strokes,” Ursula advised as she left. “To make it shine.”
“Yes, Nanny, I know.”
 
The heat of summer had come to roost early. During the week after Helen saw Billy off to South Dakota, the temperature and humidity climbed steadily day by day, finally stagnating at a muggy eighty-five degrees. The air in the house was close, but the dining room, well shaded by a large tree and kept shadowy by blackout curtains, held onto some of the previous night's coolness. Nevertheless, Ursula brought in two electric fans for Helen's weekly seance. She didn't want anyone fainting.
Emilie was no longer attending Helen's seances because she'd become a volunteer in the Hospital and Recreation Corps of the Red Cross. Four afternoons a week she donned a long-sleeved gray dress with white collar and cuffs and the Red Cross insignia on the bodice, and traveled to Halloran General Hospital in Staten Island. She waited until she got there to put on the gray veil and her white stockings and white shoes, to keep them fresh. At the hospital, she chatted with homesick
patients, arranged flowers, played Checkers and Bingo, wrote letters for men too injured to do it themselves, and assisted the Red Cross recreation workers in arts and crafts with patients.
Helen and Ursula were Red Cross volunteers, too, but Ursula didn't have the stamina for hospital work, and Helen was still leery of getting close to soldiers, even ones who'd been wounded badly enough to be sent home. Instead, Ursula knitted sweaters, socks, and watch caps from olive drab and navy blue wool, and Helen, who was a novice knitter, made toe socks for walking casts and caps for bandaged heads. These didn't have to meet as exact military standards as the items Ursula made, which were part of a uniform. Helen worked at the Red Cross center twice a week. She rolled bandages, did the paperwork on blood donors, assembled packages for American and Allied prisoners-of-war, and sewed the “Gift of the American People through the American Red Cross” labels into sweaters headed for European refugees. But Helen never went to the center on a seance day, nor the day after. Her seance work was as demanding on her energies as an athlete's exertions.
Ursula set the oscillating fan so that its breeze would blow across Helen's place at the table. She'd just finished arranging the fans when the first clients arrived, a couple her own age whose grandson's plane had been shot down over France as it was returning to England from a bombing raid in Germany. Other clients arrived soon after this couple, bringing the group to twelve, including Helen and Ursula and Mrs. Durkin, who had puffed up the three front steps red-faced and sweating. Ursula assigned the overweight, heat-afflicted woman the seat beside Helen so that she, too, could partake of the sweep of the oscillating fan.
As was the routine since their visit from Captain Fitzpatrick, Ursula interviewed the clients to find out what facts they possessed
about the deaths of their loved ones. She had to turn away one young woman who'd come hoping to ascertain her husband's whereabouts and condition. The woman had had no official notification that he was missing.
Mrs. Durkin served everyone lemonade while Ursula went upstairs to brief Helen so that she'd know which information she picked up was corroborative and which was new.
The clients watched closely as Ursula escorted Helen to the table. Though Helen avoided meeting anyone's gaze, she was aware of the hunger burning in their eyes. Their hopes were as strong as a lover's desire. In some of them, Helen knew, doubt lurked, too, and in a very few, scorn. They wanted to know what she heard and what she saw, but they also didn't want to know. Because what if it were not enough? What if they left the seance more bereft than when they arrived? What if she told them something that cancelled out burnished memories and comforting fantasies? Helen understood that that was how they'd see it—that she had spoiled things, that she had let them down, that she had robbed them.
“We begin with Bible words,” Ursula told the group. “The Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.”
“Amen,” said the grandfather of the boy shot down over France.
“Now we will not speak more,” Ursula said. “We listen.”
Helen, whose head had been bowed during the invocation, lifted her face and laid her hands on the table, wrists crossed. She began to breathe deeply, entering a semi-trance. Though she felt dreamily detached from everyone around her, she saw them clearly and would have heard them had they been speaking.
Sitting very still, Helen thought she felt a brief vibration in the table. She noted bewilderment in a couple of faces. Had
they, too, felt it, or were their expressions merely the jitters of first-timers? The vibration came again, lasting longer this time, undeniable. One woman gasped and pulled her hands away.
Despite the stuffy room, Helen felt enveloped in lovely coolness. Her stomach began to ache dully. A soreness asserted itself at the back of her throat, and an odd pressure.
Helen opened her mouth. A thin, white substance floated out between her lips. In the shaded room, it was difficult to tell what the substance was, or even if it really existed. It would be easy for skeptical sitters to deny later they'd seen anything at all. But Helen knew it was real because it was stinging her lips. The emanation lasted only seconds and was gone. The small discomforts were gone, too, and in her disinterested state, Helen considered the whole occurrence no more than a curiosity. She continued to sit silent and immobile.
Then she noticed that everyone's attention was trained on the center of the table. There, on a crocheted doily, a pale vapor hovered, almost indistinguishable against the white lace. Gradually, the vapor thickened until it resembled a piece of crumpled cheesecloth. The folds of material were shifting into a distinct shape.
“Lord, bless us!” exclaimed Mrs. Durkin.
The woman who had gasped when she'd felt the table vibrate reached out toward the luminous form.
“Do not touch!” Ursula said loudly.
But it was too late. The woman's fingers grasped the white shape. At the moment of contact, the object vanished, and Helen felt as if someone had punched her hard in the stomach. She cried out sharply in pain and doubled over in her chair. Over her noisy, gulping breaths, she heard people firing questions.
“What did it feel like?”
“Was it solid?”
“It was cold. Cold and clammy.”
“Was it alive?”
“Did it move?”
“
Kommen Sie heraus!
Get out! Go!” Ursula shouted.
“But there's been no reading,” a man protested.
“You do not get a guarantee,” Ursula replied angrily. “Mrs. Durkin, give who wants their money back.”
Helen felt her grandmother's hands on her arms helping her to straighten up.
“Helen.
Liebling
,” she said.
Helen looked around. The room was empty of people. She saw Mrs. Durkin in the hallway using her bulk to good advantage to herd the clients out the front door.
“What happened?”
“First,
you
must tell
me
,” Ursula said.

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