Louise's War (15 page)

I bumped into one of the mixed couples I’d noticed earlier, but retained my poise, even after I recognized Roger Austine.

‘Mrs Pearlie,’ Roger said, ‘let me introduce you to my fiancée, Marie Lebron.’ Marie was a stunning light-skinned Negress who wore her saffron silk dress with poise and style. She held out her hand to me.

‘Mrs Pearlie,’ she said, with a Caribbean accent, ‘I think you work with Roger?’

My worldliness knew no bounds. I squeezed her hand in return. ‘I do. I’m a file clerk.’

Marie rolled her eyes. ‘I expect you are more than that. I have three languages, and the men I work for speak only one, yet I am a secretary.’ She tucked a jet-black lock of hair under her turban. ‘And when we go to a party, Roger and me, we must stay, what is the English expression? Below stairs. If it weren’t for these awful Nazis, I would not live in this place.’

‘It’s not for ever, darling,’ Roger said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Wait until the war’s over, then we’ll get married and live wherever you like, Havana, or Kingston. Maybe Paris. Someplace civilized.’

Roger and Marie went looking for a cold drink, and we continued to dance. Lionel behaved like a gentleman. He kept his hands where they belonged.

Finally, hot and tired, I broke away and pulled Lionel out of the crowd. ‘I have to go,’ I said, ‘to freshen up and find my date.’ More importantly, I needed to find General Donovan.

Lionel rolled his eyes. ‘Why? Is there a law in America, that you must leave a party with the man you came with?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘But he’s my boss, too.’

‘I see.’

‘We’re just friends.’

‘Mrs Pearlie, would you be so kind as to give me your telephone number?’

I hesitated. I knew nothing about this man. He could be a spy, or an arms dealer. I only had his word that he worked for the French embassy.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘I understand,’ he said, shrugging, and pressing a calling card into my hand. ‘But if you want me for anything, you may find me at this number. I live at the Wardman Hotel apartments.’

He gripped my hand with both of his, and looked at me with sober eyes. ‘Anything at all you need, government girl, you telephone me.’

I hurried away back up the path to the McLean estate. What was that all about, I wondered. I stopped for a minute to catch my breath, and glanced at Lionel’s card. It looked authentic, but I expected that I should throw it away. I’d enjoyed being the target of attempted seduction, especially by a gentleman with a French accent, but I doubted it would be so amusing a second time. Nonetheless I tucked the tiny cardboard rectangle into my pocketbook.

Inside the mansion I refreshed myself in an opulent ladies’ restroom stocked with embroidered hand towels and perfumed soap. I didn’t look too disheveled, considering I’d jitterbugged in this heat. All the cornstarch I’d dusted all over myself before dressing must have kept perspiration at bay.

I went looking for a cold drink and found myself in a large alcove off the ballroom. It contained a table with a punchbowl full of lemonade. I drank a cup straight down, then dipped out another. When I looked up I almost knocked over the whole table, punchbowl, cups and all. Clark Gable stood across the way, alone, gazing out a window. The man was impossibly handsome in an immaculate suit, but I was taken by how dreadfully unhappy he seemed. He turned to catch me staring at him, then donned his celebrity face and smiled at me. He had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, bowing ever so slightly.

‘Hello,’ I said, stupidly holding out a cup. ‘Would you like some lemonade?’

‘No thank you,’ he said, ‘I favor something a bit stronger.’ He retrieved a highball glass half full of amber liquid from the windowsill.

My hand trembled as I dipped lemonade into my own glass, sloshing it onto the tablecloth. As I wiped at it with a napkin I bumped the table, sending the punchbowl sliding towards Gable. He stopped the slide with one hand, and held tightly to the bowl while I cleaned up the mess.

‘You must be used to rescuing yourself from star-struck fans,’ I said.

Gable gulped from his highball.

‘Oh, I suppose so,’ he said, ‘but it’s a good problem for an actor to have.’ He smiled at me again, more authentically this time. Crinkly laugh lines spread over his face. I felt myself relax.

‘And what is your name?’ he asked.

‘I’m Louise Pearlie. I work for the government.’ I was tired of using the words ‘file clerk’.

‘As do we all, these days,’ Gable said. ‘I’m here to persuade all these rich people –’ waving his glass at the crowds in the ballroom – ‘to buy war bonds instead of giving expensive parties.’

‘Is that why you’re hiding out in this alcove?’ I asked.

‘I admit to being a bit tired of being on display,’ he said. ‘I’d like to contribute more substantially to the war effort. I’m joining the Army Air Corps, but I doubt anyone will let me fly real missions. I’m too old, for one thing. But boot camp and training will keep me busy.’

We both ran out of small talk. Gable contemplated his glass for a few seconds and his shoulders slumped. Then he straightened up and seemed to rouse himself.

‘Must go make the rounds now,’ he said. ‘Duty calls.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

He squared his shoulders and made his entrance into the ballroom, attracting all eyes instantly, and left me remembering that his wife, Carole Lombard, had died a few months ago in a plane crash while touring the country promoting war bonds. I’d read that Gable had to be restrained by rescue crews from trying to reach the crash site himself.

My brief encounter with Mr Gable that night reminded me that no one, no matter how rich, how famous, how insulated from everyday life, was exempt from loss during this horrible war. Phoebe could lose one of her sons any day, as could the Roosevelts and countless others. Gerald, Rachel and little Claude might be loaded onto a filthy cattle car and shipped east to a labor camp next week, and here I was acting the merry widow, jitterbugging and drinking champagne.

I went looking for General Donovan. I scouted every room, cased the veranda, hunted among the dancing couples in the ballroom and even staked out the men’s room.

Just when I was about to give up, I heard the General’s voice. I found the OSS director, a kindly, chubby, pink-faced man, why they called him ‘Wild Bill’ I had no idea, in the billiards room drinking with a group of serious, dark-suited men.

One of the men was Don. That instantly squelched my plan. How naive could I be? Of course General Donovan wouldn’t ever be alone at a party like this, or anywhere else I might run into him, for that matter. I couldn’t possibly have a private conversation with him. My spirits sank, and with them my hopes for helping Rachel. Suddenly I had no patience for this pretentious party, the politicians and refugees jockeying for advantage, and society women weighed down by their jewels. I just wanted to go home and nurse my sick heart.

Don saw me standing in the doorway, and inclined his head toward the door to the ballroom. I nodded, slipped out, and waited for him, listening to ‘The “A” Train’, so mellow and melodic compared to the earthy music at the party next door.

‘Did you see?’ Don said, taking my arm. ‘I was talking to General Donovan. Holding my own, too.’

‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you made a good impression.’ I couldn’t have cared less, actually.

‘I hope so.’ Don glanced at his watch. ‘Are you about ready to leave? I know we haven’t spent much time together this evening, but I want to be in the office early tomorrow. Have you had any dinner?’

‘Oh, I’ve danced, and eaten,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind going now.’

On the drive home I created a wonderful fantasy to put my mind at ease. Rachel and her family had already escaped France and were living happily in Switzerland. I hadn’t received any of her letters yet because of the war. Rachel didn’t need me to help her escape; she was fine, and Claude too. I grasped on to this fictional straw and held on for dear life. What else could I do? I was out of ideas.

We necked for a while in Don’s car outside my boarding house. I was curious how I would feel about, well, you know. What a dud! I felt not a single spark, not one! I got a better tingle from hearing Joe knock on a pipe in the bedroom above me, not to mention the seismic activity I felt during his kiss on the staircase! So much for Don. I couldn’t marry him, no matter how much money he had.

Apparently I wasn’t in the market for a husband, despite my parents’ instructions. What was I in the market for, I wondered. I needed to think about that before I went out Friday night with Joe.

Once inside and upstairs I slipped into Ada’s room.

‘Ada, Ada,’ I said, shaking her awake.

‘What!’ she said. ‘Did you have a good time? Tell me everything!’

‘I met Clark Gable!’

‘You did not!’

‘I did so!’

‘Oh, my God! Did you talk to him?’

‘A little, but not before I almost tipped a punchbowl of lemonade all over him.’

‘What was he like?’

‘A hunk of heartbreak, just like in the movies.’

She jiggled my arm. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Mrs McLean did wear the Hope diamond. But I’ve got to go to sleep. Work tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything else at breakfast.’

Back in my room I hung my new dress, new for me anyway, carefully in my closet and drew my nightdress over my head. I was terribly hot, but I couldn’t run the bath or I’d wake Phoebe. I tiptoed across the hall and soaked a washcloth, lifting my nightdress to sponge myself. After brushing my teeth I slipped back into my bedroom.

Someone had placed the vase of dahlias Don brought me on my dresser. And a letter from my mother. I’d seen it when I’d gotten home from work but had been too busy to read it. I was wide awake, so I sat on my bed cross-legged and slit open the envelope. My mother’s letters didn’t vary much from week to week. The fish camp and marina, church, my brother’s children, how crowded with soldiers Wilmington had gotten. But when I opened the envelope, a rectangle of cardboard fell out.

It was a postcard from Rachel.

She was still in Marseille.

FOURTEEN

M
y heart filled my chest and my lungs seemed to stop working, like the time I fell out of a pecan tree in the back yard of my home in Wilmington, landed flat on my back and had the breath knocked out of me. After what seemed like many minutes I gasped, drew in air, light-headed with relief to know Rachel was alive, disappointed that she was still in Vichy France.

Headed ‘Marseille, June 3’, the card was postmarked in Lisbon three weeks ago. Rachel must have given it to some lucky friend with an exit visa to mail for her in Portugal.

‘Dearest Louise,’ Rachel wrote, her familiar handwriting cramped into the tiny message space. ‘No time to write a letter. Can you help us get out of Vichy? It’s very bad here now, we can’t get a visa. Love,
au revoir, Rachel.
’

‘Can you help us?’ I’ve been trying, I telegraphed my thoughts toward France, I’ve been trying.

I turned the postcard over. It was a simple tourist card, with a view of the Château d’If, the island prison off Marseille where Edmond Dantes, the hero of
The Count of Monte Cristo
, languished for so many years. I’d told Rachel that if I ever got to visit her, I wanted to see that famous island first thing. She’d laughed and teased me about being a bookworm.

I went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. My mind wandered from the McLean party – where I’d ogled the Hope diamond, been seduced by a Frenchman, eaten caviar and drunk champagne, seen two men dancing together, chatted with a colored woman who was better dressed than I and met Clark Gable – to my fears for Rachel and her family. Terrible, awful fears.

Since I’d failed to speak to General Donovan at the party I was at a loss to know what to do for Rachel next. ‘Can you help us?’ she’d written. I felt hopeless and helpless.

Finally I fell asleep. It’s not surprising that a haunting dream disturbed my rest. In the dream I searched a frozen landscape strewn with corpses, inspired I’m sure by the pictures I’d seen in
Life
magazine. Of course I was looking for the remains of Rachel and Claude, turning over the bodies of every woman and child I saw. There were so many of them. And I wasn’t alone. Phoebe and Eleanor Roosevelt, holding hands and accompanied by Fala, sought their sons. I saw Clark Gable, in an Army Air Corps uniform, carrying a shovel, hunting for his wife’s grave. None of us found what we were looking for, and at last the dream dissolved into a new day.

It was a little after ten o’clock Thursday morning when Barbara snapped. I was longing for my coffee break, since I’d gotten so little sleep the night before. Ruth was loading files onto her file cart. Betty was typing yet another report, single-spaced, with nine sheets of carbon paper squeezed between ten sheets of typing paper.

Barbara rose from her chair, lifted her typewriter and flung it with all her strength across the room. It crashed against a wall and thudded to the floor, loose keys scattering everywhere. Betty held up her arms to fend off the airborne bail, and Ruth flinched. I got up from my seat to go to Barbara, but her expression stopped me.

‘It’s no use,’ she said. With both fists she slammed the two-foot stack of newspapers in her in-box, it teetered, then collapsed, pages slithering along the office floor.

‘There’s nothing we can do here,’ she said. ‘We can’t stop them.’ She gathered up a neat pile of newly typed and alphabetized index cards and flung them in a wide arc about the room.

Ruth spoke first.

‘Dearie,’ she began.

‘What dimwit thought all this could help win the war?’ Barbara interrupted, gesturing around the room. ‘It’s just paper. I wish I were a man. Then at least I could enlist and kill Nazis.’

‘Barbara,’ I said. ‘We are all doing everything . . .’