A Star for Mrs. Blake (20 page)

“There’s our canary,” Hayes said. “Stay close.”

Denver hoisted up the big Speed Graphic camera and Hayes slid out of the banquette. Reed noticed that the newspaperman was now empty-handed.

“Tough break about your manuscript,” Reed said.

“What would you know about it?”

“You’ll send it out again, won’t you?” he said with a curl of the lip.

“Already did,” Hayes replied. “In the trash.”

“But that’s crazy, all that work—”

Hayes patted Reed condescendingly on the shoulder, as if he were the one needing sympathy.

“Don’t let it upset you, buddy.”

He pushed his photographer into the lobby, and the two of them headed for Cora.

“Excuse me,” Hayes said softly, coming up from behind. “I may be wrong—but—do you happen to be a Gold Star Mother?”

“Yes, I am.”

He mugged a surprised smile.

“But you look so young!”

“I was young.”

She noticed that his skin was baby-soft from the morning’s barbering and his mustache ruler-straight, unlike Linwood Moody, who only shaved on Sundays. The image came to her of piles of rotting lobster shells near the pier.

“We’re from the Associated Press,” Hayes said. “Do you mind talking to us?”

Cora glanced at Jim Denver, lounging nearby with a disinterested look, brogues crossed and his weight on one foot, as if he were going to stand there like a flamingo forever, the Speed Graphic hanging casually at his side. The giveaway was his operatic black hair standing every which way. It said there was a madman rattling the bars inside.

“I don’t think I mind,” she said cautiously.

“What is your name and where are you from?”

“Mrs. Cora Blake from Deer Isle, Maine.”

Hayes nodded as if this meant anything to him, and reached inside his jacket for a pencil.

“Will this be in the local paper?” Cora asked.

“Good chance of it, lady. We’re syndicated across the country. The pilgrimages are a big story back home.”

She nodded. “There were so many newspapermen asking so many questions when we left New York.”

“Pack of animals,” Hayes agreed.

Watching from the barroom, Reed noticed that the newsman was unsteady on his feet and slipped a little trying to place the pencil squarely on the pad. Reed could feel it coming at him from the back of the skull: the first pinpoint of rage.

“What is the name of your beloved?”

“Samuel Blake. My son, Sammy.”

“Sympathies for your loss, Mrs. Blake.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ve traveled a long way to see the grave of your beloved dead hero son.”

Cora looked flustered. “What do you mean?”

“It must be a terrible time for you,” Hayes pushed on. “Tell us about the grief and anguish. The trepidation about seeing your dead son’s grave.”

“His grave?”

“What’s it like to make the supreme sacrifice of motherhood?”

Cora’s face was turning red. “What’s it like?”

“When do you miss him the most? Mornings? Evenings? On his birthday?”

“What are you talking about? What about Sammy’s birthday?”

She had taken a step backward, between the palm trees, but Hayes pressed forward, growling between his teeth to Denver to get the shot.

“Tell us, how old was Sammy when he died? Don’t you miss your little boy?”

“Of course I do!” cried Cora tearfully, a hand to her throat.

Denver raised the camera, but Griffin Reed was there.

“Take a walk,” he said, stepping in front of the lens.

Denver tried to move around him. “Get out of the way.”

“The lady doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Sure she does,” said Hayes. “She said so herself.”

Reed turned to Cora. “Is this man bothering you, miss?”

Cora glanced hesitantly at the stranger who had intervened. In her emotional state, all she saw was an odd expression and an old-fashioned mustache.

“I don’t want to make any trouble,” she said.

The brass doors opened, revealing that the elevator car was jam-packed with pilgrims, many still wearing white sashes across their bosoms, pushing forward like a stampede of aging dance hall contestants. The reporter and photographer were pushed away, swamped by an unstoppable surge of women.

“Stay out of my business,” Denver warned Reed. He looked ready to fight.

“Not worth it,” Hayes advised. “The man can’t defend himself.”

“Try me,” said Reed.

“Take it easy, pal,” said Hayes. “Just trying to make a living.”

“Get lost,” said Reed as the members of Party A swarmed around Cora. Denver and his henchman knew it was over for them and took a hike.

“I’ve been waiting forever!” Cora cried. “Where have you all been?”

“We had a mix-up,” Bobbie began breathlessly, as the women looked from one to the other. “We agreed to meet in Mrs. Russell’s room—”

“We said the lobby!” insisted Minnie.

“
Some
of us thought it prudent to look in on Mrs. Russell,” Lily sighed.

“But she had gone to Mrs. Seibert’s room—”

Lieutenant Hammond was coming across the lobby, at first smiling and then making uncertain eye contact with Lily. They hadn’t spoken since yesterday, when they’d escorted the women back to the hotel after the clumsy embrace at Jacques’s.

“Good morning,” he said crisply.

“How are you, Lieutenant?” she replied.

“As well as can be expected.”

She saw his discomfort and indicated that they should step away from the mothers.

They began to say “I’m sorry,” both at the same time, and laughed self-consciously.

“You go,” he said.

“I’ve got someone at home,” Lily told him. “It’s pretty serious. I know I should have told you, but—”

“Not at all,” he said, interrupting. “I didn’t mean to offend—”

She wanted to tell Hammond that she had thought about him all night, in spite of the truth of what she’d said—that she was practically engaged to David Sawyers, M.D., a promising young pediatrician at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. They’d been seeing each other for a year and were in many ways a good match. He was dedicated to medicine but loved the outdoors as much as she, promising that when they were married they would have a cabin to escape the city, with as many pigs, chickens, dogs and cats, horses, and goats as she desired.
She loved David but also loved nursing, and knew she couldn’t have both. Hospital rules prevented married women from working; she would have to choose. She’d volunteered for the pilgrimages in order to think it out. David promised he would wait.

“I’m not at all offended,” she said, there in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel. “Don’t worry, we’re still friends. Best to just get on with it.”

“Thank you,” he said, grateful she hadn’t made a fool of him. He bucked up and waved the handkerchief over his head to get the attention of the group.

“Everybody ready to see Notre-Dame?” Hammond called. “Gloves, billfolds, room keys, umbrellas?”

“Dyin’ to go,” said Katie. “But it seems we’ve lost Mrs. Russell.”

“Over there.” Minnie pointed to the coffee table, where Mrs. Russell was stuffing her pockets with cookies.

Cora searched the lobby to thank her rescuer, but the strange man had disappeared.

The beggar with the crutch was one of the outcasts, along with hunchbacks and nuns with harelips, who gathered daily outside Notre-Dame Cathedral, kneeling with their cups in a silent multitude of suffering. Every time the army brought groups to the cathedral, the liaison officers would report on the same beggars harassing their parties from the same spots, heads bowed, striking postures of supplication, appealing to the sympathy—or horror—of the tourists streaming by. There were French veterans missing arms and legs, as well as street performers from all over the world, while from the heights of the magnificent façade the famous gargoyles kept watch over this human wreckage.

Holding his U.S. Army credentials high, Hammond led Party A past a juggler tossing crystal balls and boys in gaucho suits twirling bolos, threading between the visitors and silent panhandlers. Minnie was afraid of the looming church but not of the desperate people outside, and dropped some coins in the cup of the beggar who was half kneeling, leaning on his crutch. Katie, so excited about going inside
she was practically shaking, wanted a photograph of herself in one of the magnificent doorways of the west front beside a carved saint. She posed behind the crippled beggar as Wilhelmina looked down into a box camera, moving it this way and that. Without any warning, the man was up on both feet—miraculously cured—trying to pull the camera away, but the former tennis player was stronger than he and hung on like a terrier. They wrestled back and forth until he finally let go, picked up his crutch, and aimed it like a rifle, calling everybody, in English,
“Shit!”

“Leave him,” said Hammond. “He’s crazy.”

“Fake!” called Wilhelmina. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

The beggar shot her, machine-gun-like, with the crutch.

“Stop that now,” ordered Hammond.

The
rat-tat-tat
continued. A crowd had formed a circle as if they were part of the entertainment.

Hammond scanned the plaza. “You’d think the French would have a cop on duty. All of you, move away from that man. I’ll be right back,” he said, and trotted off to look for a police kiosk.

“Come over here, ladies.”

Lily steered them away from the incendiary scene—but an indignant well-dressed English couple had stepped up on behalf of the beggar.

“I saw what happened,” said the husband. “The poor wretch didn’t want you to take his picture.”

“Nobody took a picture,” said Lily.

“Clearly, he thought you did,” sniffed the wife.

Cora said, “So what if he thought that?”

“Well, he was humiliated.”

“Why?”

“You stole his humanity,” pronounced the Englishman.

Cora was inflamed, both hands on her hips.
“Stole?”

During this, the beggar had folded up his leg and sunk back into silence, head bowed, the crutch laid beside him, waiting for the next offering.

“Funny,” said Cora. “He looks just fine now.”

“You think that’s a fine way to live?” said the man.

“I never said that—”

Bobbie was not about to have anyone criticize anyone in her group.

“This is not your business,” she said dismissively. “The man was paid.”

“Naturally,” said the husband. “That’s what you Yanks always say—”

“Go home, ya English bastards,” Katie said from low in the throat. “Thirty years of killin’ Catholics, what’re you doing here, defacin’ our church—”

Now they were shouting all at once:

“Fix everything with money,” the Englishman barked. “The American way.”

“You know there’s a depression going on?” Minnie demanded.

“One would think our so-called English friends would be grateful,” Bobbie declared. “After bailing you out of the war.”

The man pointed a shaking finger.

“Have some respect. We lost our boy in the war.”

“So did I,” said Bobbie, breathing hard. “So did all of us. We’re American war mothers and you can go to hell.”

She opened her alligator bag and threw a handful of bills toward the beggar’s cup, causing a feeding frenzy among the nearby scroungers.

The Englishman was stammering something and his wife, outraged by Bobbie’s casual disposal of money—as though anyone could imagine there could ever be compensation for their anger and loss—lurched at the older woman as if to put hands around her neck. Cora sprang forward to pull her away from Bobbie, and the husband, trying to protect his wife, begin to swing a heavy camera on a leather strap over his head. Bobbie ducked and fell to the ground. Then Hammond came running with gendarmes, who helped her up and drew the English couple away.

“Those people don’t deserve the time of day,” Cora said breathlessly, an arm around Bobbie, who was leaning on her heavily as they stumbled away.

Lily shepherded the rest to the nearest bench while the sea of
tourists closed behind them. Minnie was still barking at the English people, calling them “stupid idiots,” until Lily convinced her to stop and come over with the rest.

“Mrs. Olsen doesn’t look good,” Wilhelmina told her flatly. The nurse pushed everyone aside to find Bobbie sitting listlessly on the bench beside Cora.

“Mrs. Olsen? Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear!” Bobbie retorted.

Lily took her pulse and appraised her pale skin.

“When was the last time you saw a doctor?” she asked.

“I had a complete physical right before we left. He said I’m fine to travel. I’m perfectly okay. No need,” Bobbie reiterated, trying to stand up.

Lily gently pushed her down. “I want you to just sit here for a moment.”

“It was those awful people,” Bobbie said.

“I know. I saw it. An unprovoked attack.”

The others hovered over her.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Minnie asked.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” Katie said.

Minnie folded her arms. “What would you suggest?”

“A shot of brandy, that’ll bring her back.”

“There’s a place across the street,” Cora offered, looking at a café.

Hammond joined them, having settled with the police. Claiming injuries, the English couple was being taken to a hospital.

“How is Mrs. Olsen?” Hammond asked Lily.

“She’s had a shock and needs to rest. There’s some bruising on her knee. You go on with the others. I’ll get a taxi and take her back to the hotel. Is that all right with you, Mrs. Olsen?”

Bobbie nodded weakly. “Notre-Dame will still be there. Of that we can be sure.”

Hammond took out a small notebook and scribbled a reminder to write in the Liaison Report:
“14:30 Incident at Notre-Dame. Group assaulted by English tourists. Mrs. Olsen feels faint. Nurse takes her back to the hotel. French police resolve dispute.”
It would turn out to be a crucial notation.

…

Clancy Hayes sat down at a table outside Les Deux Magots.

“Listen, Reed. I’m awfully sorry about this morning.”

It was late that night. Hayes wasn’t drunk anymore.

“You should get yourself a new monkey,” said Reed, who was pretty well smashed. There came a point every day when the throb of his joints and the soreness from the mask had to be addressed. Alcohol, in quantity, helped.