Bliss, Remembered (40 page)

I was thinking fast. There was no more I could tell him. The ball was in his court now. So I reached back into my pocketbook &, very carefully, pulled out my driver’s license & the little purse that held my money. I put them in my lap. Then I tried to think: was there anything else in that pocketbook that could identify me?

“Hey, Bobby,” Mr. Anderson said on the phone. He whirled his chair around, to get the full blast of the fan, so that now he was pretty much facing away from me. “Ralph Anderson. Could you check out a name for me? Thanks.” And then he read him Goldstein’s name & address & phone #.

Then I remembered. I still had the 2nd half of my roundtrip bus ticket to Annapolis in the pocketbook. And, of course: my keys. Mr. Anderson was still more or less looking away, reveling in the breeze from the fan, as he talked to whoever Bobby was. I reached back into my purse & started fishing around. I grabbed the keys, & put them on my lap, too. They jangled a little, but Mr. Anderson was still talking so he didn’t pay any attention. “Just find out if we have anything at all on this fellow.” And he chatted a little more about how awful the Wash. Senators baseball team was.

My fingers came across the bus ticket. Gingerly, I pulled it out, & when I was sure Mr. Anderson wasn’t looking at me, I stuffed it down my front. I put the pocketbook right back on his desk & waited for him to get off the phone. After a few seconds more, he hung up & whirled back toward me. “Okay, you heard that,” he said. “We’ll just see if there’s anything in our files on this Goldstein character.”

“I don’t think there will be,” I said. “I think he lives a very respectable life.”

“Double life?”

“Yes. There’s a Mrs. Goldstein, too.”

“She’s also a spy?”

“Probably. But I don’t know. I mean, she lives with him.” I reached into my lap, then, & w/ one hand I palmed the purse & driver’s license & w/ the other, the keys.

“Okay,” he went on. “So, let me get this straight—”

Suddenly I put a pained expression on my face. “Mr. Anderson,” I said, “excuse me, just a second. I, uh—”

“Yes? You all right?”

“Well, yes, but, well, I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And, I’m sorry, but I just HAVE to go to the ladies’ room.”

He looked distressed. Men don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant, so it’s a wild card you can always play. I stood up, grimacing, holding the keys & the purse tightly. I made no effort to reach for my pocketbook. It sat smack on his desk, waiting for me to return. “Please, you understand.”

He was solicitous. “Of course, Mrs. Gunther,” he said. “It’s that way, right down the hall.”

“Thank you,” I said, acting all the more uncomfortable. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” he said, & he lit up another Chesterfield.

I smiled a thank you at him, then left his office, heading down the hall. When I got to the door of the ladies’ room, I glanced back, just to see if he might be watching. He wasn’t.

So I kept walking a few more steps, then turned down the stairs, hurrying now. In the lobby I resumed a casual pace. Going past the check-in desk, I smiled sweetly at Charlie & whispered a big thank you, as if he’d been a tremendous help. But I never slowed. I simply kept walking, trying to appear normal. Outside, I turned up 10th St. It was hardly a minute or 2 since I’d left Mr. Anderson’s office, & my heart was still racing. Up the st., there was a Rexall drugstore on the corner, so I turned in to catch my breath.

In those days, if you’ll remember, drugstores had fountains. I sat down & ordered a vanilla phosphate.

Another minute or so & Mr. Anderson was going to start to get curious. But my pocketbook was on his desk. He’d wait longer. Women DON’T leave their pocketbooks. But finally he’d have to get some secretary to go into the ladies’ room. Then he’d check my pocketbook, but all he’d find, besides my lipstick, compact, etc., would be the letter I’d addressed to J. Edgar Hoover himself, which included the invitation to Goebbels’ party. That was the piece de resistance, I knew. That was surely going to make him sit up & take notice. It was better than a foreign word—it was an authentic foreign artifact. Then he was going to call downstairs to the desk to find out if anybody had seen me leave. All that was going to take a few more minutes, so I sat there at the counter, sipping my vanilla phosphate, plotting the rest of my escape.

OK, I thought, just retrace your steps: grab a cab back to the Greyhound station, take the bus to Annapolis, pick up my car, drive to the ferry & go home. Safe. But then I thought: I’d told Mr. Anderson I’d come in from Hagerstown on the bus. Wouldn’t the bus to Hagerstown & the bus to Annapolis leave from the same station? Probably. Wouldn’t that be the obvious place for them to look for me? Probably.

Time was passing. I’d drained the phosphate. Maybe by now the secretary had gone into the ladies’ room & discovered I’d gone. I really cogitated. Then I got up, went outside & hailed a taxi. “Union Station,” I told the cabbie. That’s the train station.

I bought a ticket to Baltimore, & when I got off there, I took a cab to the Balt. bus station & took the bus to Annapolis. Then: into my car, the ferry across the bay, home. Safe & sound.

I can only describe myself as excited. I felt like a master spy—master spyess? I’d accomplished exactly what I’d set out to do, outwitting the mighty FBI in the process. Surely, they’d send the pages over to be de-coded now, & they’d go right after Goldstein, & even if he’d gotten scared & taken off, they’d find him. And Horst was not only safe and sound somewhere, but his mission was accomplished. When he called, I’d tell him what I’d done. He’d be so proud that his efforts had been successful.

I only kept thinking: was there anything in that pocketbook I’d forgotten that might reveal who I was? You know the stuff every woman sticks in her pocketbook. Then you forget. But try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything that’d be incriminating. Still . . . ?

I tried to sleep, but even tho I was tired, I was still so keyed up. I just wanted Horst to call me. I knew it’d take him a couple days to get settled, but I could hardly wait to tell him all about my adventure. I lay there in bed, thinking about him. I thought about Jimmy, too. No, I didn’t. I didn’t think about Jimmy. I only wondered about Jimmy, & that is different, & that made me wonder about myself & what sort of a woman I was. What sort of a wife.

IV.

I went back to the office the next day. It rained all morning, which was good, because we needed that on the Shore, even if most of the crops were in. But what w/ Labor Day & then missing work yesterday, I had a lot to catch up on, so I threw myself into it, barely stopping to eat the sandwich I’d brought for lunch.

My mother called long distance from Atlantic City. It turned out that the Miss America contest was on that weekend, so she and Elliott were going to extend their vacation a couple days & watch the finals at Convention Hall, which was one of the largest auditoriums around at that time—quite the marvel to see. Otherwise, the day proceeded apace. The rain finally stopped, & it was steamy. My clothes clung to me, so I wanted to go home & get out of them & go swimming.

At 1/4 past 3, Gentry Trappe called. That was very unusual, so right off the bat I asked him if everything was all right. No, indeed, he said, everything was fine, but he just wanted to tell me that Western Union had come by w/ a telegram & that he’d signed for it.

My heart leapt. Obviously, it was Horst, contacting me from wherever he’d gone to. It was all I could do not to leave the office right away.

Now, this was still only ’42, the start of the war, & I didn’t know yet that the government sent out telegrams to next of kin. And so, when I did get home & picked up the telegram where Mr. Trappe had left it & rushed out onto the porch & sat down there & ripped it open, I had no preparation whatsoever. I was just certain that it was from Horst. Who else would be sending me a telegram?

But there it was. It isn’t hard to remember. It was pithy & to the point:

That’s all it said.

I let the telegram drop into my lap. I didn’t cry right away. I was too shocked, I guess. I just sat there. Finally, I got up. I started taking my clothes off as soon as I got into the house. I was so clammy. They were sticking to me. I took everything off, letting them lay, one by one, wherever they fell as I climbed up the stairs. By the time I got to the top of the stairs I didn’t have a stitch on, & I just walked into the shower. I stayed there forever, letting the water run on & on, all over me. Then I came out, still dripping wet, & I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, stood sideways, staring at myself. You couldn’t really see the little swelling in my belly when I had any clothes on, but it was obvious now when I was naked.

All I could think was: there’s Jimmy’s baby, & he’s gone forever & he didn’t even know he was going to be a father. I didn’t see my face or my legs or my arms or my hair or my breasts or anything. I just saw that little swelling. This is what I thought: that’s all in this world that’s left of Jimmy Branch. A little bump.

And that’s when I started to cry—not just cry, but those great wracking sobs, so much so that I just sank to my knees & held my head & said Jimmy’s name over & over till I finally could get up & get dressed. I walked down by the river. I thought I would cry some more, but there were no more tears left w/in me.