Up in Honey's Room (21 page)

“He doesn't know I'm here?”

“I don't see how he could.”

“But you don't trust him now,” Jurgen said, showing his grin. “Because we're lovers? Talk to him, see what he's thinking about.”

“He'll ask about you, I know.”

“Lie to him, it's okay. Or tell him I'm here and I'll come out and talk to him. It's up to you.”

“He'll wonder why I'm nervous,” Honey said.

“You don't seem nervous to me. Listen,” Jurgen said, “I know what you're going through. You have a feeling for me, but I'm the enemy. My being here could be enough to put you in a
federal prison. If you want to tell Carl I'm here, do it, I'll understand.”

She wished he didn't smile at her—not a big smile, almost a sad smile, but still a smile—saying things like that to her. He went in the bedroom and closed the door. Honey put “Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You” on the Victrola, Honey letting Billie Holiday's baby-doll voice set a mood for her, and Jurgen appeared in the hallway, smiling at her.

“You're not going to tell him, are you?”

 

Carl came in wearing the dark suit she liked and stood looking at Honey looking at his dark tie on a white shirt, the white against his weathered look that she liked. He paused to listen and said, “Billie Holiday. I should've known you like blues.”

“How could you tell?”

“You're hip.”

“I don't jitterbug,” Honey said.

“I didn't think you did.”

“I like slow dancing, get in there close.”

Now he showed a smile, the same way Jurgen did.

“I believe that,” Carl said. “Did you see Jurgen last night?”

Sneaking it in, the smile gone.

“Yeah, I did.”

“You talk to him?”

“I asked him if he wanted to see you. Since you can't grab him till the FBI says it's okay.”

“Who told you that?”

“You did.”

“I did, didn't I? Will he see me?”

“He didn't say.”

“You know where he is?”

Honey shook her head.

“Are we still friends?”

“I'll make you a drink if you want.”

“But you won't tell me where he is.”

“Uh-unh.”

“You like Jurgen and don't want to be a snitch.”

“I like you too,” Honey said. “I still don't want to talk about it.”

He paused, looking at her, before saying, “You don't want to tell me what you know about an escaped German prisoner of war?”

Honey smiled. “You're serious?”

Carl had to smile.

“Let's have a drink,” Honey said.

She saw him glance at the hallway to the bedroom as they went in the kitchen. She said, “You drink beer? You never ask if I have any.”

“Do you?”

“No, you're lucky I have rye.”

She made a couple of drinks and handed him one. Honey was about to sit down. Instead, she picked up her cigarettes from the table saying, “Let's be comfortable,” and took Carl back to the living room to sit in the cushy sofa and light cigarettes, not more than a foot of space between them.

Carl said, “Honey, I'm gonna tell you something. Right now I don't give a rat's ass where Jurgen is or what he's doing. All I can think about is going to bed with you.”

The man quiet in there behind his eyes, Honey seeing him always as a
man
, before adding on
famous
and usually
married,
but not today.

“You want to take me to bed.”

“I don't think about much else,” Carl said.

“In the bedroom?”

“If that's where the bed is.”

“Or we can do it right here.”

Honey stood up. She pulled her blouse out of her skirt and unbuttoned it.

“You want to do it on your sofa?”

She took off her blouse.

“I'll put a sheet over it.”

“When you have a big bed in there?”

Honey put both hands behind her back to unhook the bra.

She said, “Carl, do you want to fuck me on the sofa or see if Jurgen's in the bedroom? One or the other.”

She unhooked the bra and let it drop.

H
oney opened her apartment door and picked up the morning
Free Press
, Thursday, April 12, and brought it to Jurgen at the kitchen table having his coffee. She said, “A hundred and forty-two thousand of you surrendered to the Reds in East Prussia,” handing the paper to him. She went to the stove to pour herself a cup. It was 8:20. They were both dressed, Honey in her black sweater and skirt that Jurgen liked.

“Your marines are engaged in savage fighting in Okinawa. Tell me, where is Okinawa?”

“I think it's the last stop before Japan,” Honey said.

“Kamikazes attacked Task Force Fifty-eight, seriously damaging the
Enterprise
, the
Essex,
and six destroyers. Meanwhile,” Jurgen said, opening the paper and looking at story headlines, “a German communiqué announces the garrison commander at Konigsberg has been sentenced to death. You know why? He allowed the Russians to take the city. And that, my dear girl, is why we're losing the fucking war. We don't hesitate to kill our own people.”

“When you're not killing other people,” Honey said, coming to the table with her coffee.

“We have to remind ourselves that we aren't enemies, you and I,” Jurgen said. “Though last night, I must tell you, I wasn't sure.”

The phone rang.

“We're all right,” Honey said.

The phone rang.

“But you weren't the same,” Jurgen said.

Honey went to the counter and picked up the phone. It was Madi, Walter's aunt, calling from the farm and looking for Jurgen.

“Can you tell me where he is?”

Honey said she didn't know. “If I happen to run into him I'll tell him you called. Okay?”

“Don't act smart with me,” Madi said. “I have a telephone number for Jurgen. From his comrade the Nazi. Are you ready?” She recited the long-distance number and Honey wrote it on the pad by the phone.

“I've got it, thanks.”

“Try to be civil when you speak to people,” Madi said and hung up.

Honey turned to Jurgen. “Did I sound uncivil to you?”

“Who was it?”

“Walter's aunt. Your comrade, the Nazi, wants you to call him. In Cleveland, the number's over there.”

Jurgen was up from the table, dialing the operator before Honey sat down.

“Who's the Nazi?”

“Otto.”

 

“Otto?”

“Hi, Jurgen? This is Aviva. Let me get Otto for you.” Chopin playing in the background,
Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise,
Jurgen wondering who the pianist was.

Otto came on saying, “Jurgen?”

“Otto, what are you doing in Cleveland?”

“I met someone. Aviva.”

“Aviva?”

“Aviva Friedman.”

Jurgen paused. “She's helping you?”

“We haven't been apart since we met at Hudson's and immediately got on her boat, a forty-foot pleasure craft.”

Jurgen said, “Aviva Friedman?”

“I have her in my power. If she doesn't obey me I turn her over to the Gestapo. Jurgen, are you all right? What are you doing? Aviva deals in fine art. Wait a minute…What? Yes, I'll tell him. Aviva wants you to come to Cleveland. You have to absolutely come when we get married. Aviva says I'm the smoothest guy she ever met, especially for a Kraut.”

“Aviva?”

“She has a bookstore that sells the wrong books, very old ones she wants to be rid of, sell the store if she can. I think I know about books. I intend to take over the store and try something new. Offer only mystery novels. Uh? What do you think?”

“I don't read mysteries.”

“Then I won't sell you any. Tell me what you're doing.”

 

“He's planning to marry a woman named Aviva Friedman.”

Honey said, “Yeah…?”

“Otto's SS and she's Jewish.”

“You'll get over it,” Honey said. She knew he wanted to talk about last night. All right, she thought, do it…and said, “Jurgen, I had way too much to drink last night.”

“I did too—”

“We hardly had anything to eat.”

“You were different, Honey, than if you were only drunk, believe me.”

“I was nervous. Being with Carl while you're hiding in the bedroom. I was exhausted, I think from the tension. I just didn't feel like doing anything last night.”

“I'm not talking about doing it or not doing it,” Jurgen said. “If you don't feel like becoming intimate in bed in the dark of night, all right, I understand. I don't feel like perpetually doing it either. Certainly not more than several times a day since I first saw you.” He waited for her to smile and she did. “No, what I'm referring to,” Jurgen said, “you were a different person after Carl left, and I wonder why.”

“I don't know why,” Honey said. “But we're all right, aren't we, you and I?”

Not wanting to make love—wasn't that different enough? Otherwise, she wasn't aware of how different she must have seemed to Jurgen last night and this morning, Honey thinking about Carl, Carlos Huntington Webster, whoever he was, watching her take her clothes off.

 

At first Carl couldn't think of anyone he could tell.

Not Kevin. Not his dad, Jesus, no, not even on the porch having shots and beers. They were drinking tequila when he told his dad about seeing Crystal Davidson from time to time before he married Louly. His dad saying, “Crystal Davidson, you don't mean to tell me. Emmett Long's gun moll? Where do you see her?” He told his dad, when she came to Tulsa to shop at the department store. His dad said, “Does she act ladylike?” Wanting to know his boy got laid with some propriety.

Carl was in the hotel coffee shop having breakfast, his eggs scrambled with onions, fried potatoes and pork sausage, all of it doused with Lea & Perrins, a few small sweet rolls and black coffee. The waitress said, “I can tell you like that Wootsa-shy, huh?”

She was colored but sounded like Narcissa Raincrow, his dad's common-law wife, bless her heart. He could tell Narcissa what happened. He'd been telling her things all his life and she'd listen without any attitudes or beliefs interfering. The way he heard their conversation:

“Here's Honey, the best-looking girl I ever met, or the second best.”

“She look like a movie star?”

“Lauren Bacall. ‘You know how to whistle, Steve?' Honey even sounds like her, her voice.”

“They call her Betty, her friends.”

“She takes off her blouse.”

“She's wearing a brassiere?”

“It's white. She puts her hands behind her back to unhook it and says…” Carl paused. “She uses an obscene word.”

The fifty-four-year-old Creek woman who looked somewhat like a heavy Dolores Del Rio said, “Which one,
fuck
?”

“Yeah.”

“It's all right, you can say it.”

“She says, ‘Carl, do you want to fuck me on the sofa—'”

“Oh my,” Narcissa said.

“‘Or see if Jurgen's in the bedroom? One or the other.' And lets the bra slip off. Drops it on the floor.”

“Oh, she's smart. All right, big boy, what would you rather do, have sexual intercourse with me or take the German swine prisoner?”

“He's not a swine, he's a good guy. But say I did choose Honey. And he hears us.”

“You make a lot of noise?”

“He's in the next room. The apartment's quiet.”

“You want to give it to her, but not in the living room? Take her to a hotel.”

“This was yesterday. I didn't take her anywhere. What do you think I did?”

“You been waiting a long time to catch the German. But there's Honey pointing her ninnies at you. She take off all her clothes?”

“She lets her skirt drop.”

“She have on undies, a girdle?”

“A pair of white panties. Her thumbs hooked in the waist.”

“Ready to step out of them.”

“She waited.”

“For you to make up your mind?”

“You understand I had forced her to where we were.”

“'Cause you wanted to get laid.”

“'Cause I knew Jurgen was in the bedroom.”

“If he wasn't you'd be in there with Honey.”

“I don't know.”

“Listen, don't tell me this story if you don't tell the truth. Did you say you wanted to go to bed with her to fuck her, or to see if the German was in there?”

“I didn't know he was, or I wasn't sure of it till she said we do it on the sofa or we don't do it.”

“So when you started out telling her of your passion, it was to get laid.”

“I guess it was,” Carl said. “But I didn't get laid, did I?”

“Didn't break your vow. You were lucky, uh?”

“I walked past the bedroom door and out of the apartment.”

“You didn't say anything to the lovely naked girl?”

“I said, ‘It doesn't look like it's gonna work out, does it?' She was smiling a little, her eyes were. She's the type, she's comfortable not having any clothes on. No, at this point she's having a good time.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“She said, ‘You give up too easily.'”

“Wait. How did she know you wouldn't look in the bedroom?”

“She gave me a choice, one or the other.”

“But you didn't jump on her.”

“I wanted to. I would've if Jurgen wasn't there. I didn't tell Honey but he saved me from breaking my word, something I've never done in my life, 'less I'm kidding when I give it and everybody, or most everybody knows I'm kidding. No, I took a vow when I got married and I haven't broken it yet. So I feel I owe Jurgen one. He wants to run and hide, stay low till the war's over, it's okay with me. He saved me from breaking my word. I'll tell my boss, W. R. Bill Hutchinson, I couldn't find the two escapees and that'll be that.”

Narcissa's voice said, “Oh, is that right? But what if you run into Honey again and no one like Jurgen is around to save your pitiful ass?”

 

He tried to get hold of Kevin to return his car, phoning from his room. The FBI voice said he was out of the office, on assignment. Carl asked if Bohdan Kravchenko had been apprehended. The voice said that information was not available for release. Carl left word for Kevin to call him at the hotel.

He phoned Louly at the marine air station in North Carolina, proud of his semiclear conscience, ready to say “I've been too busy” when she asked if he was staying out of trouble. But Louly wasn't available either. What he should do, get ready to take the train back to Tulsa.

The phone rang. He expected it to be Kevin or Louly.

It was Honey Deal.

“You want to see Jurgen?”

“Let me talk to him on the phone.”

“Carl, Vera called. She wants to stop by this evening and visit.”

“With Bohunk?”

“She doesn't know where he is. He didn't come back last night. She's worried about him.”

“I can see her wringing her hands,” Carl said. “What time she coming?”

“About eight. Stop in and say good-bye to Jurgen.”

“Where's he going?”

“He won't tell me.”

“Show him your hooters.”

“They're on ice for you, Carl. You know what happens when ice touches just the tips?”

Carl said, “You sneeze?” and said right away, “You know you're hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

“I know it,” Honey said. “But I don't feel the least bit subversive. Do you? Or you can get away with it but I can't?”

“Something like that,” Carl said.

“Listen, stop by for a drink tonight. I promise I won't show you my boobs.”

“But I'll understand,” Carl said, “if you can't help taking your clothes off.”

She said, “Wait a minute.”

He heard her lay the phone down on a hard surface and after that faint voices. Now she was back.

“Carl, turn on your radio. Roosevelt's dead.”

It was the way she said it. Not, he died; he was dead.

Carl said, “You don't think Walter…”

 

Walter heard the news in the Greyhound bus station in downtown Detroit over the public-address system. He missed the first part of the announcement, the bus-schedule voice saying, “It is our sad duty to inform you that at three thirty-five this afternoon”—Walter waiting to hear where the bus was going, though in form you that at three thirty-five this afternoon”—t, Three thirty-five? Knowing it was almost six, looked up at the clock and saw he was right. Now he listened and heard the public-address voice say:

“Death gave the sixty-three-year-old president of the United States short notice. At about one o'clock this afternoon, in the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president felt a sudden pain in the back of his head. At the time he was having his portrait sketched in preparation for a painting. At one-fifteen the president fainted, never to regain consciousness. At three thirty-five
P.M.
Franklin Roosevelt died without pain of what his doctor called a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Funeral service for the president will be held in the East Room of the White House…”

That was enough for Walter. He got up and walked over to the ticket window, the PA system sounding as though it was starting over again.

“Today, April twelfth in Warm Springs, Georgia, death took Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States, and left millions of Americans shocked and stunned.”

Walter turned in his ticket to Griffin by way of Atlanta and was given his refund. He began to wonder if any of the people at Vera's the other night, when they heard of Roosevelt's death would immediately say, “My God, was it Walter?” Or would they say, “My God, it was Walter.” Remembering his determination. Vera comes up to him. No, first Honig. She touches his face and asks in her soft voice, “Walter, how in the world did you do it?”