The Blackbirder (4 page)

The porter stepped outside again. She said, “Will you call me in the morning, please?” and then she locked herself into the small safe cubicle for the night. She undressed rapidly. With care she opened her handbag, took out the little black book. It had a smell. She dampened the corner of a Pullman towel, scrubbed at the leather, kneading the rough linen over and over on those covers. It wouldn't smell again. She fingered the pages slowly. Unfamiliar names. Girls’ names. Manhattan telephone numbers. And then Santa Fe numbers, street names in Spanish. Suddenly five letters crackled on the page:
Popin.
It couldn't be the same. It must be the same. Popin.
Tesuque 043J3.

Popin had smuggled Fran's letter into Mexico from the internment camp. Fran had been afraid to write where he was; she knew only it was somewhere in the United States. Tesuque, Mexico? She was on her way to New Mexico. She replaced the book in her purse, laid it under her pillow, her fingers and her mind clinging to it. She felt stronger now, more certain. There was some connection between Popin and New Mexico. Her flight in this direction was inspired. If she could locate him, make arrangements with him, he could send Fran to her quickly. She didn't know him; he was no more than a name in Fran's letter. But someone in New Mexico must know of Popin.

She felt the purse again as she climbed into the narrow bed. Her fingers pressed against the hard lump. She had forgotten the Guille diamonds. She slid from bed, opened her week-end case, took out the canvas money belt. One of her purchases of the day. She folded the larger bills into it, threaded the necklace beside them, and buttoned the flap. The money belt she fastened about her, beneath her nightclothes. Again she climbed into the bed. This time she pushed the purse under the covers, touching her knees. A hand might reach under a pillow without disturbing a sleeper. But if covers were disarranged, one would wake. She had learned that from a woman wise in her trade, a woman who had helped her escape from an unknown village in Nazi-ridden France and no questions asked.

Julie extinguished the bed light, closed her eyes. The train's motion rocked her quickly to sleep.

Morning was gray; the entrance to Chicago shoddy, grim. She followed the redcap up the dirty walk into the shabby station. There was a dismal lunchroom and she had her bags carried there. She hadn't had time for breakfast on the train. She bought a Chicago paper at the cashier's desk, sat at the counter, ordered orange juice and coffee. After the other passengers had gone their separate ways, she would make inquiries about trains farther west.

Someone brushed her paper, took the stool beside her. She glanced over. It was the man who had mistaken her compartment for his, the gray man. He would have spoken but her face balked that. She kept her shoulder turned, studied the paper while she breakfasted. Nothing about Maxl here. The Chicago press must consider it a second-rate murder, a minor affair. Not a line.

She felt the gray man pass her, saw his gray legs as he stopped at the cashier's cage. She kept her face in the paper; before stirring, she lowered it to look through the plate glass. As far as she could tell, the man was gone. He wasn't following her. But he'd used up fifteen minutes of her time.

She paid her check, went into the soiled, cavernous lobby. It might not be necessary but it might be wise. It was what an innocent person would do without thinking. She bought two postcards, two for five, and two one-cent stamps. She would take a few minutes to write them. The women's waiting-room was like the station, old and tired, soiled despite constant scrubbings. It might once have been grandeur; now it sat in decayed, obsolescent doom. There was no pen or ink. She used her pencil.

She had noted the apartment manager's name, scrawled on rent receipts. She had seen him only when she rented the apartment and when she paid monthly. There was no lease required in that shabby house, her rent had about ten days to run. Of Mr. Something-like Tolfre she could recall only shrunken skin, a drooping mustache, and a basement look. She wondered what he could recall of her. She had given her name, Miss Marlebone, on that first day, but he didn't address her when she paid her rent, the first of each month in advance. She had been there but three months. She didn't know a single inhabitant of the place by sight.

She wrote in a simple schoolgirl hand, one she had never used before.
Dear Mr. Tolfre— I have a job in—

Milwaukee. On the railroad folders it lay north of Chicago. She knew it was a largish city.

— Milwaukee. My uncle came for me and I had to leave at once. W hen
I have the money I will send for my other things.

Two cheap dresses, a pair of shoes, underthings, a few books, comb and brush. Ten-cent store toiletries. A cheap umbrella and heelless rubbers. No letters. Nothing with a name.

Will you please keep them for me until then?

Very truly yours, Juliet Marlebone.

She made the signature as illegible as possible. It might have been better to scrawl the whole but a schoolgirl's hand looked innocent. If the police questioned about a dark girl on West 78th Street, Mr. Tolfre would have this to show. They couldn't locate her in Milwaukee; she wouldn't be there.

The other card she addressed to Mme. Durel at the Free French Relief office. Her handwriting was unknown there, her work had been filing, placement.

Dear Madame Durel— I am on my way to Milwaukee where my uncle has found work for me. I am sorry not to bid you goodby but it was necessary to leave at once. Thank you for your kindness. Juliet Marlebone.

They would not miss her there. So many refugees needed work even for the small sum. If by any chance the police did draw these two ends together, the postcards would tally. Mme. Durel had been kind. Perhaps she had suspected that Juliet's entrance into the States hadn't been legal. She had not pried. She knew nothing save that Juliet Marlebone had lived in Paris before the war, that her parents were dead, and that she needed help. An uncle might be a surprise to Mme. Durel. “I am all alone,” Juliet had told her. Perhaps in kindness she would think that Juliet's uncle hadn't wanted her on his hands until he had a job for her. Perhaps she might suspect that it wasn't an uncle with whom Juliet had gone to Milwaukee. But she wouldn't pry. She was a busy woman,

She went out into the lobby, mailed the cards. Goodby to New York. Goodby for the present to Juliet Marlebone. Julie Guille walked with certainty to the ticket office. She learned there that she couldn't take a train from here to Santa Fe. She had to go to the Dearborn Street Station.

A cab again, dodging through grimy streets under the pall of the elevated. The La Salle Street Station had been large and grim; this one was small and more grim, more soiled. She said, “I'd like a compartment to Santa Fe on the next train.”

The wasted old clerk looked at her as if she were slumming. He said, “I can give you an upper on the Grand Canyon Limited. Leaves at ten-thirty.”

She looked back at him as if he were deliberately subversive. She stated, “But I said I'd like a compartment.” Julie Guille would have said it that way three years ago.

“War rulings.” His voice sounded like a wet twig. His eyes were faded behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. But they resented her; they would remember her. “No compartment. You're lucky to get a berth at all.”

She didn't say, “I had a compartment from New York.” New York was a turned page, forgotten. And it would make no difference; this mouse man ruled here.

He said, “Do you want the upper or don't you?” as if there were a line of eager travelers behind her. There was no on in the gritty room but the two of them. “It's the last one. You can get a lower by next Friday if a priority doesn't come up.”

She said, “I want it.” There were only minutes to spare.

He did things to the slip of paper. “Change at Belen for Albuquerque.”

She seemed exasperated, but within she was wary. “I don't want to go there. I want to go to Santa Fe.”

“Trains don't go to Santa Fe,” he said unpleasantly. “Change at Belen for Albuquerque. Bus to Santa Fe.”

The minutes were moving. He wasn't a Gestapo agent hired to return her to Paul; she was in America. She paid, took the ticket, and examining it, walked slowly into the station proper. It was like a depot at a neglected way station. The grayness, the grimness, belonged in a bad dream. The tracks ran to the gates; the trains, hideous dragons, pawed there. Their snuffings made speech a shout. The redcap who had met the taxi stood by her bags. She shouted, “I'm leaving on the Grand Canyon Limited.” He started to the gate.

And she saw the gray man. In the uniform-crowded depot, she saw only the gray man. He was seated on a stool at the soda counter, right. She controlled flight. She was Julie Guille. He didn't know her. As long as she remained Julie Guille he couldn't know her. Julie Guille was a pampered, luxurious refugee from Paris. Not Paris. From a vague, large, overrun France. Julie Guille had always had everything material for which she wished; if it were sunshine in March, she would have sunshine. She went the few steps to the newsstand, bought magazines by size and shape, this large one, this medium, these small. Reading matter.

She paid for the magazines, and her fingers with the change pushed the black-covered notebook deeper into her bag. The stains didn't smell now; they weren't there any more. Popin's name was talisman: It brought Fran's actuality to her. Rapidly she followed the redcap through the gates. He found her seat for her, arranged her bags, left, still disinterested, with her tip.

Opposite her was a woman with frizzy, too-brown hair in some official-appearing uniform like that of a policewoman. The woman looked her over, didn't approve, returned her gaze to the ugly train yard. Julie sat there waiting for the man in gray. She didn't wait long. He passed her without a glance, took his place across and up two sections. He too had an upper. Had he not known where he was heading when he left for Chicago? Had he followed her from the La Salle Street Station? His destination must be the same as hers to be in the same car. Belen. A spot on a timetable. She wouldn't be there until 10:15 tomorrow night, another waste hour from there to Albuquerque. From Albuquerque someone would tell her how to reach Santa Fe.

She applied herself to her magazines. She read until lunch was called. She would have to pass the man in gray. She walked by without a glance, covered the three cars to the diner. It was already crowded, mostly with uniforms. She was seated at a table for four. Two oldish officers were opposite each other by the windows. That left an empty chair across from her. She was resigned to its occupancy. It was like a day when your fingers were buttered, one broken ornament followed another in succession. A private first class took the seat.

Impossible to kill time in a crowded diner. The waiters were adept at fast service. From under her eyelids she saw the seating of the gray man, the uniformed woman beside him. They were oblivious to each other. But when she swayed down the narrow aisle leaving the car, both of them raised their eyes and looked at her.

In her seat she read magazines until the print jumbled; she studied the timetable until she knew it by rote; she looked out of the window until small farms, small mid-west towns, were an endless blur on her retinas. And always, no matter where her eyes faltered, they saw the back of the blond head, bisected with gray, two seats ahead and across the aisle. She closed her eyes. Arrive Kansas City 9:00 p.m., leave 11:00 p.m. Two hours. She could disappear in two hours but to what avail? Waynola 8:30 a.m. Could she sleep in an airless upper later than that? Canadian, m25 a.m. That would be lunch time. Amarillo, 2:15 p.m., and still more than eight hours to Belen. How could she endure it? Clovis, 4 :45 p.m., leave Clovis 4:15 p.m. A time change. Endless, endless hours. Without knowledge. She might be in a void. She wouldn't go to bed until after Kansas City, 9:00 p.m. She could get the papers there, find out something.

She opened her eyes just as the gray man was passing toward the water cooler. His glance met hers alertly. She knew that look, the willing-to-make-conversation-with-a-pretty-girl look. She was familiar with it in Paris. After that, wanting more than conversation. The gray man wouldn't want what others had. He had passed by before she shivered.

The uniformed woman asked, “Cold?”

Julie smiled automatically. “A little.”

“That's the trouble with air-conditioning. Either too cold or too hot.” The woman settled that by a brusque nod of her head, added patriotically but resentfully, “It's the war. I'm willing to take a slow train but I don't see why the schedule is so long. And we're already late. The last time I went to Albuquerque it took me only from five one afternoon to the next. That was El Capitan, a fast train. I couldn't get a reseryation this time. I have a daughter in Albuquerque. She's married to a professor at the University. I wouldn't be traveling if it weren't for my daughter. She's going to have a baby. Her first.” She broke off her confidences as the gray man brushed by again. Had a look been telegraphed between them? Julie didn't know. She had seen only the back of his head this time. The woman leaned across, lowered her voice. Her drawn brows were suspicious. “Do you know that man?”

“No.”

“He looks at you as if he knows you.”

Julie gave a light laugh but her voice was quiet. “He couldn't. I don't know him.”

The woman settled that with another brusque nod. “A masher.” She boded him no good. “He should be wearing a uniform.”

Julie said, “He limps,” and wondered why she should offer the defense.

The woman ignored it. “Every able-bodied man should be in uniform. They won't take my son-in-law. He's had T. B., has a scar on his lung.” She pointed to the
Reader's Digest.
“Could I have a look at that?”

“Certainly.” Julie passed it across. “I think I'll go have a smoke.”

“No club car. It's the war.” Her teeth clicked. “I say everything we give up is the least we can do for our boys.” But she resented it.

Julie swayed back to the washroom. It was empty. She sat on the plush wall couch, lighted a cigarette. She wondered if that woman and the gray man would communicate now that she was absent. Did they know each other? The woman's sudden entrance into conversation could have been at a signal from him.