Stage Door Canteen (10 page)

A hush enveloped the crowd. A bus went by, shooting a cloud of blue-black diesel smoke. The MC paused until it had passed. While they were waiting Lt. McElsmore studied the faces of the survivors of the Cincy Gal’s crew. Navy secrecy had locked up most information on Midway, so to a large extent the air force could only testify to what it knew about its own part in the battle. But U.S. dive bombers had made the hits on the Jap aircraft carrier Hiryu that day, not the Flying Fortresses from Midway Island. MacElsmore felt he’d done his best with the material the PIO in Washington had passed on to him, rewriting it so that an audience like this one, standing on a sidewalk, could make the most sense of it. According to the official army air force report the Cincy Gal had engine trouble almost from the moment it left Midway, forcing it to come in comparatively low to drop its bombs. Which, as with the rest of the B-17s, hit nothing. Air force command, though, hadn’t thought it good policy to emphasize the bomber’s engine failures as this sort of detail supposedly hurt home front morale; the public didn’t need to hear about equipment problems.

The MC was saying, “The fight continued until the remaining Japanese planes exhausted their ammunition and turned back. With two engines gone and the plane practically out of control, our American bomber returned to its base after dark and made an emergency landing. Their mission had been accomplished. The Cincy Gal had played its part that day. Like the rest of our gallant fighting forces, it stopped cold the Japanese advance across the Pacific. We honor all of them, these men, especially the pilot, Captain Joseph Van Dorndt of Baltimore, Maryland. Capt. Van Dorndt is still in the hospital recovering from his injuries, but he and the crew of the Cincy Gal have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by a grateful nation. Folks, these wonderful, brave men are here before you today!”

He stopped for a moment, waiting for the applause to die down. The leader of the drum and bugle corps gave the signal for a long drum roll.

“Navigator Sgt. Thomas Weathersley of Chicago, Illinois,” the MC intoned. “Tail Gunner Sgt. Walter Pettit of San Leandro, California!” The B-17 crew stepped forward one by one to stand at the edge of the stage. “Bombardier Sgt. William LeTourneau of Haversham, Massachusetts! Ball Turret Gunner Sgt. Eugene Struhbeck of Midland, Texas!”

They hate this, Lt. MacElsmore couldn’t help thinking, watching their faces. Although he had to admit that in the weeks he had traveled with them he had never heard the Cincy Gal’s crew refer to, much less complain about, having to put themselves on display or having to listen over and over to the description of their part in the Midway air battle. Or even, for that matter, hearing them mention the crew members who had been killed. He personally thought it was odd, but then he hadn’t been around any other decorated war heroes. He found the bomber crew a singularly tight knit group. If you hadn’t been a part of it, their attitude said, if you hadn’t been a part of that particular hell that day at Midway, then you were for them an everlasting outsider.

The post commander stepped forward to center stage with the American flag, gold-tasseled, crowned with an eagle. The four uniformed air force men flanked him, standing at attention, the lively wind buffeting the War Bonds banner above their heads.

The drum and bugle corps began a measured, drum-filled rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. “Oh, say can you see....”

At once the crew of the Cincy Gal snapped to a salute.

It happened every time, MacElsmore thought. With the opening bars of The Star Spangled banner there was, to him, a rather alarming vacuum-like pause in time, like some airless dome descending, capturing the red, white and blue stage, the wind-whipped American flag, the sunshine, the bright, stalwart images of young fighting men. A universal moment played over and over again, a heart-tugging vision. People passing in and out of Alexander’s department store saw the men in uniform on the platform and heard the music of the national anthem and slowed, then stopped. Once stopped they stood there, watching silently.

“By the dawn’s early light....”

The blaring drum and bugle corps made it hard to detect them, but a few voices were already singing. MacElsmore felt the hair on the back of his head begin to prickle. Out of the corner of his eye he could see women brushing away tears. He realized he was uncomfortable with his own reluctant response to this patriotic display that, week in and week out, he couldn’t escape.

“What so proudly we see....”

The woman next to him wore an enameled bar pin on her coat collar with two blue stars indicating two members of her family, probably her sons, were in the service. Beyond her, two teenage girls clasped hands, tears rolling down their cheeks. The Cincy Gal’s crew on the platform saluted the flag, as rock-steady as statues.

“The rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air....”

Most of the crowd was singing now. A gust of autumn wind pulled the beautiful banner out in the air and it billowed and flapped, challenging the efforts of the American Legion flag bearer to keep it braced in his belt socket. The Home News reporter was midway in the crowd, photographing everything.

“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave....”

MacElsmore gave in to an irrepressible surge of emotion. After all, he was as patriotic as the next one. He saw the flag, the moment of the salute, the tears, every week. But at the bottom of it all, he had to admit, was that the country was at war. It had been attacked by despicable enemies. It was fighting for its life. Forget the day-to-day grind of public relations that eventually made one jaundiced and a bit cynical. When you came right down to it, this was one’s country!

He licked his lips, looking around. All eyes were on the men on the platform, the whipping, sunlit flag. The song built to the famous unsingable high note. “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave....”

Then voices faded away. It was over.

The crowd stood still. The crew of the Cincy Gal dropped their hands to their sides. A second later, led by the American Legion flag bearer, the bomb crew turned as one, marched across the stage, and descended the four wooden steps. They disappeared at ground level behind the drum and bugle corps.

A small, reluctant sigh seemed to ripple through the crowd. Yes, it was over. The master of ceremonies climbed onstage and disconnected the standing microphone and carried it off. People began to move away, a sizable number going over to the card tables to sign up to buy war bonds. Lt. MacElsmore looked for the B-17 crew and found them behind the stage signing autographs for the kids from the drum and bugle corps. The Bronx Home News reporter finished taking pictures, and Lt. MacElsmore thanked him for covering the War Bond rally, checking to make sure he had the official biographies of Weathersley, Pettit, LeTourneau and Struhbeck. Then he started the crew on their way to the First Army staff car waiting at curbside. A sizable number of teen-age girls followed the crewmen right to the car door, looking disappointed when they piled in without a backward look.

Lt. MacElsmore settled into the front seat beside the driver. The two gunners took the jump seats. Pettit reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Camels and offered them to Gene Struhbeck, who took one. Weathersley didn’t smoke. Le Tourneau got out a small brown cigar. Pettit passed around a light.

The corporal from First Army HQ started the engine. Lt. MacElsmore turned in his seat to look in the back. They had time to stop and get something to eat, since it was past lunchtime, but as MacElsmore regarded the Cincy Gal’s crew he decided against it. Pettit the tail gunner and Struhbeck smoked their cigarettes held between thumb and forefinger, staring into space. The navigator, Weathersley, looked out the window. LeTourneau dragged on his little Cuban cigarillo, eyes half-closed.

Lt. MacElsmore turned around in his seat. “Take us home,” he said to the driver.

Elise Ginsberg glimpsed the war bond rally in front of Alexander’s department from the window of the Fordham Road bus. The next stop on the far corner of the intersection was hers, and she got off and crossed at the light and started to walk north on the Grand Concourse past the awninged apartment buildings and a line of small dress shops. Although it was across four lanes of traffic, the band in front of the department store could clearly be heard playing the soaring notes of the The Star Spangled Banner. It was a beautiful October day, if a little gusty, and the sidewalks were crowded. Some few people stopped when they heard the national anthem. An older man paused and took off his hat and held it across his chest, over his heart.

Elise kept on walking. She told herself she should shop for some things for dinner but she was not really in the mood. It was early; she could come back to the grocery stores later. People passing by looked at her. She had taken off her red beret and the wind blew her straight, dark hair. She wore her best clothes: the coat with the marten fur collar, a green wool dress, black stockings in the French style, low heeled black shoes. She held the large manila envelope against her chest as she walked.

She was trying to tell herself there was nothing to be done, it was just another failure, and failures were usual now. Although she dreaded telling her father. She dreaded telling Max. Especially Max. In Elise’s mind one had to be worse than the other, but she was unable to decide. Her father, probably. Max believed that eventually everything was inconsequential: life, love, death, love. Except that Elise remembered these very things had still been important to Max when he went to fight in Spain. He’d sent a string of artificial pearls made in Majorca back to her. At age twelve, she had nearly died of love.

She turned east down Kingsbridge Road where the concrete and brick apartment buildings were less ornate than those on the Grand Concourse. A few brownstones survived. Their elderly tenants sat on the stoops in the sunshine, bundled against the wind. Half-grown boys played stickball in the street. A small park surrounded by an iron fence was full of baby carriages.

There were more baby carriages in the lobby of her apartment building. The mostly Jewish neighborhood was still safe enough to leave them there for the janitor to oversee. The elevator had cracked mirrors, peeling leatherette panels and a sign: Out of Order. The elevator was out of order most of the time, a casualty of wartime maintenance. Elise opened the door of the fire stairs and walked up three flights, and let herself in the back door. She could hear the radio going in Max’s room.

She put the manila envelope down on the stove and went to the sink and drew a glass of water. The wind had made her throat dry. She looked up when Max came to the doorway.

His curly black hair stood on end from running his hands through it. The apartment was chilly, but he wore only canvas hiking shorts and an underwear shirt. He said in German, “Don’t put that on the stove, it will catch fire.”

Elise drank the glass of water, looking at him, not saying anything. He went over and picked up the manila envelope and took it over to the kitchen table and put it down among the breakfast dishes.

“You ought to get dressed up more, Liesl. You look very pretty.”

“Please don’t open that.” She hurried to put the glass in the sink, but he had already taken out the documents. “Leave them alone. What are you trying to do, anyway? You’ve seen them all.”

He spread the black and white prints out across the table, moving the dirty dishes to one side. “Where did you go this morning? Did Foster send you to another political journal at some college again?”

“Academic journals don’t publish photographs. At least most of them don’t.” She stood beside him, watching him study each photograph, then put it down carefully. “I went to a small magazine. It is only published twice a year, it’s supported by a liberal millionaire, they don’t tell his name. Fabian Socialists. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes.” He held a photograph up to the light. “Pansy Brits. I think Chamberlain belonged to them.”

Elise sat down at the table, not taking off her coat. She was tired, the morning had been another failure, and she was not in a good mood. “Why are you looking at them? Why do you keep doing that? You know they are unbearable to look at.”

He didn’t look up. “Nothing is unbearable. I am memorizing the face of anti-Semitism.”

“There are other people there, not just Jews. When we were still in Brussels the Brachsmanns told us the Gestapo carried hundreds of Gypsies away in boxcars. Also a Catholic priest.”

“I know dead Jews when I see them.” He put the last photo down on top of the others. “You are cold. I will fix you some coffee.”

Elise shook her head. “I don’t know why they won’t do anything. Foster says the Americans and the British already know about all this. Allied intelligence has already told them what is going on, but they won’t release the reports. And these editors I got to always say the same thing, ‘Where did you get these?’ Then I say that they came out of Poland through the Underground. Then they say, ‘Oh, is there an Underground in Poland? That’s very interesting.’ I don’t tell them that their own government flies planes in and bring in spies and pick up spies, because they don’t believe it. When I say that they smile and tell me I have a good imagination. My God, Max, these people are not interested in the rest of the world! Until the Japanese attacked them at Pearl Harbor they were saying that even if Hitler swallowed all of Europe it had nothing to do with them!”

He sat down opposite her and began putting the photos back into the big envelope. “What else did the editors say?”