The Cape Ann (43 page)

“ONCE THE JAPS HIT
Hawaii, I wonder why they didn’t keep coming, and knock out San Francisco and LA,” Papa observed the next night at supper. “Although I don’t know if LA has much of a harbor.”

“Willie, do you have to talk like that in front of Betty?”

“Sorry.”

We were eating the fried chicken that Mama hadn’t cooked the day before. “The news took all the starch out of me,” she told Bernice McGivern. “We had bologna sandwiches and didn’t eat much of those.”

“Did you call Stan,” Papa asked Aunt Betty, “to see how they’re taking it out in California?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think you should?”

“No.”

“You know,” Papa said, changing the subject, “if they
did
take me, they’d use me in the signal corps as a telegrapher.” He poured gravy on his mashed potatoes. “I’m one of the best in the country. That’s what they tell me. They’re going to need good telegraphers to send coded messages.”

It was true. Papa had a reputation down the line as one of the best and fastest telegraphers on the railroad. He was a whiz at sending messages, tap-tapping at the key like a magician, and he could receive messages off the wire just as fast.

Sometimes I’d wander into the depot office when he was sending, and afterward I’d ask, “What’d that say?”

“It’s confidential.”

“I won’t tell.”

“It said, ‘Come at once. Stop. Grandma dead. Stop. Funeral Wednesday. Stop.’”

“Really?”

“That’s right.”

It was even more mysterious than Mama’s touch-typing.

All day Monday no one talked of anything but the war. Congress had officially declared it, and President Roosevelt had said that December seventh was a day that would live in infamy. Mama said that meant it would go down in history as an awful, tragic day.

There was a terrible excitement in the air. Everybody’s adrenaline was pumping, and people didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was very sad, of course, the lives that had been lost, but there was something about adrenaline that made people garrulous and almost merry, even when they were sad and worried.

Wednesday night we all went to see
Sergeant York
. Papa said it was our patriotic duty. Mama didn’t want me to go.

“Lark has school tomorrow, and she’s big enough to stay home by herself now,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t think this is a good show for a child to see.”

“If she’s big enough to stay home by herself, she’s big enough to know about fighting for her country,” Papa said.

“That doesn’t make any sense at all, Willie.” But Mama ended up letting me go.

Half the county had the same idea, and we ended up having to
sit near the back. Papa held me on his lap so I could see. But before the movie even got started, Mr. Belling played a record of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America.” That was something new. Everybody stood up as if it were “The Star Spangled Banner.” And some people were wiping tears from their eyes when we sat down. I was at once moved and embarrassed.

Thursday night after supper, Mama and I called on Mrs. Stillman and Hilly, only we didn’t see Hilly.

“He won’t come out of his room, even for meals,” Mrs. Still-man told us. “Not since he heard the news. I told him he doesn’t have to go to war again, but that doesn’t ease his mind. He can’t turn off the pictures, he says.”

“Did he get my letter?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I read it to him. That was after the news had come, of course. I thought he’d be happy to hear about your new house. He said, ‘There won’t be a house. They’ll bomb it.’”

“I haven’t thought what effect the war will have on the house,” Mama said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know about these things.”

Before we left, I knocked on Hilly’s door. “Take care of yourself,” I told him. “Write to me. Remember that God answers your prayers.”

That night a frightening thing began happening to me. Actually, it began the night before, after we’d seen the Movietone newsreel that accompanied the
Sergeant York
movie. It had shown Hitler’s army marching down cobblestone streets, on parade, goose-stepping and turning their heads sharply to salute the Führer.

I started hearing the sound in my head, the clock, clock, clock sound of boots on cobblestones. It was dim, as if they were a long way away, across town. But it was menacing, too, because they seemed to move ever so slightly nearer. Maybe I was becoming like Hilly, I thought, and I hadn’t even seen any real war yet, only pictures. I didn’t tell anyone. They might send me to the state hospital.

The one good thing was that I heard the sound only at night when I went to bed. When everything was quiet, was it possible to hear boots in Europe if there were enough of them? Maybe ten thousand boots marching made such a thunder that it could be heard, in the night, on the other side of the world.

Mama and Papa and Aunt Betty made no mention of hearing
the boots. Were my ears better than theirs? Did they not want to frighten me? Or was I crazy?

“Do you think the German soldiers will come here, Mama?”

“Of course not,” she said. But of course she would say that, being a mother.

Saturday morning Mama and I drove downtown to Rabel’s Meat Market to buy a roast for Sunday. It was snowing, big, soft, heavy flakes that had covered the ground and were accumulating in poufs on the fenders and hoods of parked cars.

“Do you want to come in?” Mama asked.

“Can I walk down to the Majestic and look at the coming attractions?”

“Don’t wander off.”

We parted, Mama hurrying into the market, me scuffing my galoshes through the fluffy white blanket, speculating about Christmas even though there was a war on.

I had begun studying the pictures of Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon in
How Green Was My Valley
, the next feature at the Majestic. I was thinking that Walter Pidgeon was probably as handsome as William Powell, but he didn’t have William Powell’s…

In the corner of my eye I saw Mama, leaning against the window of Rabel’s Market. She held the roast by the string wrapped around the package. It hung at her side, nearly brushing the snowy sidewalk. What was wrong?

I ran. Was she sick?

“Mama, what is it?”

She looked very small. I’d never noticed before what a diminutive woman Mama was.

“Mama.”

She looked at me and shook her head. The roast fell from her hand.

“Are the Germans coming?” I asked, bending to retrieve the roast.

She started walking away as if she’d forgotten I was there. I followed her down Main Street toward home.

A procession of two, we walked into the kitchen, paying no mind to the snow on our boots.

“What is it?” Aunt Betty whispered. “What’s happened?” She looked to me.

I shook my head.

“Arlene.” Aunt Betty shook Mama. “Tell me!”

“Hilly.” Mama’s face collapsed, and she sobbed like a child. “He’s dead.”

IT’S WORSE THAN THE
Germans marching on Harvester. That’s all I could think when Mama told us that Hilly was dead.

I took off my mittens and scarf, my coat and cap and boots, and went into the bedroom. Slipping out of my dress and petticoat, I pulled on my flannel nightie and climbed into the crib. There lay
Happy Stories for Bedtime
and
Heidi
and
The Secret Garden
, all reminding me of Hilly.

“How did he die?” Aunt Betty wanted to know.

But it was some time before Mama could talk. Aunt Betty put the kettle on for tea. I heard it clank against the burner. The thought of tea made my stomach turn over. I pulled up the quilt, gathering it over my shoulders, and faced the wall. For once I couldn’t cry, I who wept at the death of ladybugs. My body was as heavy as a locomotive, but my mind was as vacant as an empty boxcar. Nothing was worth thinking. I didn’t want to think anymore.

The phone rang. Aunt Betty answered. “This is her Aunt Betty, Beverly. Lark has gone to bed. Yes, we heard about Hilly. I’ll tell Lark you called. Thank you.”

Aunt Betty came into the bedroom. I heard her throw my coat and Mama’s across the bed, then leave again. “Sit down, Arlene,” she said. “You need a stimulant. I’ll make extra strong tea. Is there a hanky in your pocket?” Chairs slid out from the table.

Mama was trying to talk. She kept breaking down. “He … he … oh, Betty … he …”

“Here’s a cup of tea. Calm yourself.”

After a good long while, Mama blew her nose and cleared her throat. “He shot himself,” she said in a husky voice. She began to cry again. “I can’t stand to think of him so sad and scared. He went out on the landing at the top of the stairs and put the gun in his
mouth. He didn’t want blood in the house,” Mama interpreted. “It was snowing. He fell down in the snow.” Her voice became a little, squeaking mouse sound as she broke down again.

“Where did he get the gun?”

“From … from … from the war.”

“And the bullet?”

Mama blew her nose again. “She had them hid.”

“But why would she have them around?”

“She told me once she couldn’t bear to throw any of it away. He had paid such a price for it, she said. It was all he had to show for what he’d given. But she kept the bullets hid.”

“Don’t you want the tea?”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Do you want some whiskey? There’s a bottle up in the cupboard.”

“A little. Just a little to warm me. I’m cold. I’ll put it in the tea.” She coughed a bit after swallowing some whiskey tea. “She heard the shot in the middle of the night. One o’clock or so.”

“Who told you this?”

“Mrs. Wall. She was in Rabel’s. If Mrs. Wall hadn’t been there,” Mama said indignantly, “I wouldn’t even know about Hilly. Old man Rabel wouldn’t have told me. Can you believe it? Silent as a tomb. He doesn’t want people thinking about it happening outside the meat market. Goddamned money grubber. See if I ever go in there again. I’ll buy my meats at Truska’s.” The whiskey was warming her.

“Who’s Mrs. Wall?”

“You know. The constable’s wife. Somebody called him when they heard the shot in the middle of the night that way. I didn’t hear a thing, did you? I… I… I wish I had. I’d feel… like I had been … oh, I don’t know. Like I’d been with him, sort of.” She added, “He was brave.”

Brave. That was the word. All his life he had been brave.

That afternoon, while I slept, Mama called on Mrs. Stillman. When she returned, she was so angry, her voice woke me. I thought she was fighting with Papa.

“I can’t believe it,” she screamed, and threw something across the kitchen. “I can’t believe it.” She shoved a chair hard against the wall, and the flimsy panel trembled. “What is
wrong
with this
world?” she cried, lifting the chair and beating it up and down on the floor in fury.

“What’s the matter?” Aunt Betty, who was, I think, lying on the couch, came running.

“Get me a whiskey, Betty. I can’t believe this world.”

“What is it?”

Mama rarely took whiskey, and now she was having it twice in one day.

“The priest. The goddamned priest won’t bury Hilly!” Mama screamed so loud that Papa beat on the wall. I guess they could hear her in the depot office.

“Go to hell,” Mama screamed. Then, to Aunt Betty, “I’m so angry, I want to choke someone. And I’m going to start with that priest. That goddamned fair-weather-friend priest.”

“Why won’t he bury Hilly?” Aunt Betty asked, pouring whiskey.

“Because suicide is a mortal sin.” Mama was so overcome with disdain, she could barely force the words from her mouth. They marched large, separate, and distinct.

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to the Methodist minister, that’s what’s going to happen. And if he won’t bury him, I’ll go to the Lutherans and the Baptists and the Holy Rollers, and everybody else till I find somebody worthy of Hilly. What time is it?”

“Three.”

“I better get going.”

“Brush your teeth.”

“What?”

“I don’t think you should breathe whiskey on the Methodist minister.”

We were sitting down to supper when Mama came in. Her cheeks, above the turned-up coat collar, were rosy and her eyes shone with combat. “The Methodists said yes,” she announced, pulling off her boots. “Tuesday. I stopped to tell Mrs. Stillman is why I’m late. Don’t wait for me.”

The only conversation at dinner was Mama’s monologue about the Catholics not burying Hilly. Papa didn’t approve of the things she said, but he sensed that she could go off like a bomb, so he kept
quiet through most of the meal. Over the canned peaches he observed, “I doubt you’d make this much fuss if it were me.”

After dinner Mama made phone calls, lining people up for the funeral. Getting pallbearers was the hardest part. Normally the American Legionnaires could be called on for a former comrade. But Hilly being strange and blowing his brains out made them quite punctilious. However, Dr. White agreed, as did Bill McGivern, himself a veteran of the war. Bill lined up Mr. Navarin, Mr. Navarin’s son Danny, Sonny Steen, and a man from Red Berry who owed him a favor. That’s what he said. Mama said she thought Bill McGivern paid him. No matter. The man had a dark suit.

Papa refused to have anything to do with the funeral. “I always told you the man was dangerous,” he said. “Now he’s in hell. All this fuss is sacrilege.” I held my breath, waiting for Mama to throw something, but she only looked at Papa for a minute, then picked up the receiver and gave the operator Bernice McGivern’s number again.

“You’re sure you want to do that, Bernice? That’s awfully nice. Betty and I’ll bring pies and cakes and Jell-O salad. Let’s see, what else …?” They made lists and plans and arrangements, and half an hour later Mama hung up. “People are coming back to Bernice’s after the funeral,” she told Aunt Betty.

“People?” Papa asked. “How many people? You and Bernice and a couple of strays looking for a handout?”

“You’d be surprised, Willie.” Her voice was light and patient. Nothing was important just now except Hilly.

I WASN’T HUNGRY THE
next morning. Everything tasted like a cotton pillowcase.