The Crazyladies of Pearl Street (43 page)

The next day, Monday, Ben went downtown to enlist in the army, but the enlistment offices were packed with men eager to kick Japan's butt and afraid they wouldn't get into the scrap before it was over because—well, come on! How long could a bunch of bow-legged, slant-eyed midgets withstand the power of...?? HYPERLINK “file:///C:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Administrator\\Impostazioni%20locali\\Temp\\Rar$EX00.266\\Trevanian%20-%20The%20Crazyladies%20of%20Pearl%20Street.htm” \l “note47#note47” ??[47]?

The line stretched down the street and around the corner, and police went up and down the queue telling men there was no chance of enlisting today, so why not go home and come back later? Ben decided to try again on Tuesday, and this gave him time to consider what might happen if the army discovered that he had deserted from the navy when he was only sixteen. But when he returned to sign up, the recruiting offices were so hungry for bullet-blocking meat that they didn't look very carefully into a man's past.

In those early days of the war, the Selective Service System was so overwhelmed by men eager to fight for their country that the system couldn't immediately absorb them, so after he signed up Ben was told to go home and await orders. These didn't come until two weeks later, instructing him to take a train for Fort Dix, New Jersey, on January 2 (car and seat numbers given). So Ben passed Christmas with us after all and was a witness to Mother's reaction to my gift of the ornate tea service.

You might assume that Christmas celebrations were forced and flavorless that year because so many of the block's men were waiting to be called up, but quite the opposite was true. There was an almost desperate festivity on North Pearl Street that Christmas of 1941, and people were uncommonly solicitous of one another.

Ben appeared at our door on Christmas Eve bearing a lush, soft-bristled tree quite unlike the spindly, prickly runts that were sold on street corners. The tree was freshly cut and still bleeding sap, so we didn't ask where it came from, but it was so tall that he had to cut several inches off the bottom which, unfortunately, cost the tree some of its lushness and balance, but the ever-resourceful Ben cut branches from the stub and trimmed their ends into points, then he drilled holes here and there in the main trunk and socketed the extra branches in tightly, producing a tree that was the plumpest and fullest we had ever seen.

Ben had been putting a little money aside every week against unexpected emergencies, but he decided to splurge it all on Christmas, assuming that the United States Army would be attending to his needs for the foreseeable future. So our harvest of presents that Christmas was the richest ever. Everyone but me got toiletries of one kind or another. In addition to the 'Original Hollywood Child-Star Make-Up Kit' that Anne-Marie had been hinting about for months, she received from Ben something she hadn't dared even mention because she knew we couldn't afford them: dancing shoes with jingle taps' like Miss LaMonte's: loose taps that made half again as much noise as normal ones. She had those shoes on in a flash and was shuffle-ball-change/ball-change/ball-changing all over the place.

Ben gave me two presents that brought me years of pleasure. The first was his slide rule and a well-thumbed book of logarithms. The second and greater gift was spending all Christmas afternoon teaching me how to use the slide rule. Unlike electronic calculators, a slide rule requires adroit manipulation, predictive thinking, and the ability to conceive of numbers in terms of their multiples, their powers of ten, and their logarithms, and hold these in one's head while working at the answer. I found it all spellbinding, and for a couple of weeks I felt sure I was destined to become a rich and famous mathematician.

Anne-Marie and I had pooled our Christmas money, as we did every year, to buy Mother a pre-packaged set of her favorite toiletries, Evening in Paris, which was surprisingly affordable considering that it contained half a dozen expensive-looking bottles and boxes in deep blue like our Christmas lights. Mother must have read somewhere that Evening in Paris was 'common' (not at all the sort of thing the ritzy hoi polloi would use), but she led us to believe it was her favorite brand because it made a splendid many-packaged gift that was inexpensive yet fun to select and give. I guessed this when I was disposing of her possessions after her death and I found three boxed assortments of blue-bottled Evening in Paris cologne and blue-wrapped soap and blue-boxed bath powder that she had never used, but had saved because they were gifts from her children.

I gave Anne-Marie three presents, two she had asked for and one that was a total surprise. The anticipated two were illustrated biographies of her favorite movie stars, Shirley Temple and Deanna Durban. Each book came with a signed photograph of the star 'suitable for framing'. She unwrapped her surprise present to find a cigar box. She had done a pretty good job of feigning surprise at the movie-star books, but she frowned with genuine puzzlement as she opened the cigar box and plucked out one of the second-hand riffle books which she held out between her thumb and forefinger like something she would as soon not come into contact with. “What's this? It's not me who's nuts about riffle books. It's you.”

My eyes widened in astonishment. “Well, I'll be darned! Maybe you're right. Maybe Santa sent them to you by mistake. Pass them over.”

“Rat.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me.”

Ben surprised Mother with an engagement ring in his birthstone, an opal. She told him with what she believed was admirable frankness that she had never liked opals because they brought bad luck, but Ben said this was true only if you bought them for yourself. Given opals carry no such curse. I could tell that Mother only half believed this, and I was embarrassed by the way she didn't bother to conceal her disappointment.

Mother, Anne-Marie and I had pooled our ideas and money to buy Ben a genuine imitation leather travel bag with places for men's toiletries, so he would have them handy in the army. The most fun was filling the travel bag with products that were advertised on the radio: a bar of Ivory soap ('99.44% pure... It floats!'), a double-edged safety razor (with genuine Gillette blue-blades for a smoother shave, after shave, after shave, after shave!), a small bottle of Brylcreem ('a liddle-dab'll-do-ya'), a jar of Mum ('Even your best friends won't tell you.'), and a tube of Ipana toothpaste ('...for the smile of beauty.').

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mother's attention drift again and again to the large package behind all the others, the one wrapped in mysterious oriental paper. She had a suspicion that it was for her and was itching to know what it was, but she didn't want to seem eager. Back before I began to make money with my paper route, she had always pretended that she didn't like to receive presents. She admitted that she didn't know why she didn't like presents, but that's the way she was. I knew, of course, that this was a lie to cover for spending all our money on gifts for Anne-Marie and me.

Slyly pleased that she was consumed with curiosity, and anticipating her delight when she opened it, I dragged the moment out. It wasn't until this last present had sat alone under the tree for a quarter of an hour that she said in an offhand tone suggesting she had just noticed it, “Say, what the hell is that back there? The thing wrapped in the funny paper?”

I told her I had no idea. “Something from Santa Claus, I guess. Why don't we just leave it there and maybe open it after dinner... if we want to.”

We exchanged glances and she smiled. “All right, all right! I guess I might as well take a peek at it.”

She unwrapped it with tantalizing slowness, carefully folding up the ornate oriental paper before lifting off the lid. When she set eyes on the cobalt-blue teapot encrusted with raised figures of birds and flowers she sighed with pleasure. One by one, she took out the cups and saucers and plates and arranged them before her on the table.

“I know you don't drink tea, but...” I shrugged.

“That doesn't matter. I'll just set them out so I can look at them. You know how I love fine things. It's my French blood. And these are so pretty and delica...” She had picked up one of the small plates and was reading the bottom. Her expression froze. She looked at me. “Made in Japan?”

“Yeah, well...” Ben intervened. “The Japanese are known for their beauti...”

“They're known for sneak attacks that kill American boys, that's what they're known for!” Mother said. “Jean-Luc... how could you? What in God's name were you thinking of?”

“I didn't know it was made in Japan! I bought it more than a month ago! Long before Pearl Harbor!”

“That's no excuse!”

“What do you mean, it's no excuse? Of course it's an excuse!”

“Don't raise your voice to me, young man.”

“I'm not raising my voice. It's just that—”

“And don't contradict me! You take this Japanese crap away and do whatever you want with it. Me, I never want to set eyes on it again! No one's going to accuse me of keeping Jap stuff in my house, believe me you!”

“It's believe you me.”

“What?!”

“It's not believe me you! Believe you me! You always, always say it wrong!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about how you get lots of things wrong! It's embarrassing and stupid.”

“Are you saying your mother is embarrassing?”

“Sometimes, yes!”

“Well... I like that!”

“You don't have to like it, Mom! Just accept it.”

“Like it or lunk it, eh? Is that what you're saying?”

“Lump it, Mom.”

“What?”

“Lump it. No one says lunk it!”

“What are you talking about? Everyone says like it or lunk it. Don't they, Anne-Marie?”

“I'm reading my Deanna Durban book.”

“And anyway, what's all that got to do with giving your own mother Japanese crap for Christmas? Answer me that, Mister Know-It-All!”

“Nothing! It doesn't have anything to do with it. And I'm getting out of here!” I stormed out into the hall and down the stoop into the street, where I stood in my shirtsleeves with my back against the building, protected from the worst of the snowfall but taking grim pleasure in the big, lazy snowflakes that collected on my eyelashes. Maybe I'd get sick and die. That would teach her. After a couple of minutes Ben came out, also without a jacket, and stood beside me, his back against the wall, his hands in his pockets, looking out through the falling snow onto the empty street. We didn't speak.

After a while he cleared his throat and said, “Your Mom... she's crying in her bedroom.”

I shrugged.

“Look, Luke, I'm sorry she took on that way. She shouldn't have done that. But you understand, don't you? I mean, what with the war and all... and me having to go away and fight. Naturally, she's...” It was his turn to shrug.

After a long silence, I complained to the snowfall before us, “I get sick and tired of that French-and-Indian temper of hers! It spoils everything. Oh, I know she loves us kids and all. And she works until she's sick to give us presents. She's a great giver. She's always giving. But when it comes to receiving, she's crap!”

“You don't have to tell me, partner. She wasn't all that hot on my ring.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry about that.”

“But she's a great gal, your mom. Brave and strong and lots of fun and all that stuff. Nobody's perfect. You've got to take the rough with the smooth.” He chuckled. “I didn't think anyone but me noticed those funny things she says. Like 'believe me you'.”

“How about 'put that in your hat and smoke it'? Have you heard that one?”

He laughed. “No, it's a new one on me. Hey, I'm getting colder than.... there's a saying about the balls of a brass monkey, but your mom wouldn't like it. What do you say you and me go back inside? I'll show you how to work that slide rule.”

“All right.”

We were working at the kitchen table, our heads close together over the book of logarithms, when Mother came in and silently began to make coffee in the percolator. Her eyes were damp and red. Ben pushed my knee with his, and I got up and put my arms around her. “Sorry, Mom. I should have checked to see where those things came from.”

“It's not your fault, son. The man who sold them to you should have told you.”

When, later that evening, it occurred to me to look for it, I couldn't find the tea set anywhere. It wasn't until a month or so later that I happened upon it on the top shelf of her wardrobe, back in the excelsior-filled box that she had carefully re-wrapped in its decorative Japanese rice paper with little autumn leaves pressed into it. I knew that like the Mason jars of tomatoes, those cups would never be used in our house.

Night came and we turned off the lights except for the little blue-and-white Christmas tree bulbs that reflected a million times in strands of tinsel. Ben picked out tunes on his mandolin, and we all sang along. Mostly old songs, sad ones like 'My Buddy' and 'Sonny Boy' and 'That Old Gang of Mine' which suggested 'Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine', and that led us to 'And Let the Rest of the World Go By' and 'Me and My Shadow' and 'Maybe'. These old songs of friendship, love and loss were followed by a recent Hit Parade number that blended contemporary history with nostalgia for times past, 'The Last Time I Saw Paris', and we ended up singing hits from 1941, the year that would be history in just a week... the last year of peace.? HYPERLINK “file:///C:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Administrator\\Impostazioni%20locali\\Temp\\Rar$EX00.266\\Trevanian%20-%20The%20Crazyladies%20of%20Pearl%20Street.htm” \l “note48#note48” ??[48]? It was very late and we were all a little hoarse by the time we finally went to bed, Mother and Anne-Marie into our back bedroom, Ben up the stairs to his top-floor room. I sat up for a couple of hours, watching the snow that slanted down close to our window, the flakes tinted by the blue lights of that splendid Christmas tree.