Georgina frowned. “Kathleen, are you sure? This is all so new to you.”
“I know,” she said and laughed. “That's what makes it so exciting. When I'm through, I'll just hop in a taxi and be at the Hillshire before you've even unpacked.”
“Well, O.K.” Georgina retied the ribbon on her ponytail and pulled on her gloves. “Maybe I can get us tickets for the theater tonight. I heard the purser tell someone that Audrey Hepburn's playing on Broadway in
Gigi
. Would you like that?”
“I can't think of anything I'd rather do,” Kathleen said, and then after she waved good-bye, it was all she could do not to dance to the back of the queue.
She pulled out her special wallet filled with papersâpassport, green card, health certificate, the paraphernalia needed to gain access into the United States. She saw again her father's face. Who did these Yanks think they were, he'd wanted to know, making his daughter pass a medical exam before she was thought good enough to marry one of their precious soldiers? To appease him Kathleen had said surely foreign girls marrying British soldiers would have to undergo a similar exam. Of course, she didn't know this but at least it seemed to satisfy her dad.
The sun was warm on her back as she inched ever closer to the library door. She pulled out her compact to powder her nose and apply fresh lipstick, then made sure the seams were straight on her very last pair of nylons.
“Next.”
A uniformed official at the door beckoned her inside and pointed to a vacant chair in front of one of the five desks spaced at intervals along the library's back wall. Kathleen returned his smile, and then strode across the library floor.
The man behind the desk wasn't much older than she was and a dead ringer for Jimmy Stewart. He had the same handsome, decent face. At the table behind him was another official, his head bent over a stack of papers. He looked up as Kathleen reached the desk and nodded automatically in her direction before turning back to his work. He was plainly the senior member, the supervisor. He wore glasses and except for chewing on an unlit cigar, could easily have passed for President Truman.
She tried flashing her knock-'em-dead smile at Jimmy Stewart, whose only response was to cast a tense, sidelong glance at Harry Truman. She lowered her eyes and fiddled with the clasp of her purse, hating herself for being so forward, still flirting even though she'd been married more than three months. This man was busy, overloaded, plainly scared stiff of his boss, and had absolutely no time for banter with the likes of her.
He moved to the small table beside the desk. “Step over here, please. We need to take your fingerprints.”
He took her outstretched hand and rolled her thumb across the pad before pressing it onto the first square on the card.
Something inside her rattled. “Fingerprints? What on earth do you need my fingerprints for?”
“It's for your dossier, part of the profile we have on you.” His voice sounded jaded, weary, as though none of this was his idea. When every fingerprint was taken, he motioned to the chair in front of his desk, indicating she should sit. He looked again at her papers on the desk in front of him, then up at her.
“We have some questions to ask which you must answer as honestly and truthfully as you can. First, do you now or have you ever belonged to or been affiliated in any way with the Communist Party?”
Kathleen stared at him, waiting for him to smile. Surely he was joking. But he tapped his pen on the desk and returned her stare, waiting for her reply. The Communist Party? What business was it of theirs what her political affiliations were? Oh, she knew all about the Cold War, had heard all the talk in England. You couldn't turn on the radio, or read the papers without seeing something about it. The international clock was ticking like a time bomb, the fuse all but used up. The rest of the world could do nothing but watch from the sidelines, wait for the moment when the Soviet Union or the United States got so carried away with their paranoia of each other that one day, one of them, either some demented Russian or American, would push the button and trigger off World War III.
But what did any of that have to do with her? She wasn't a Russian. She was English, for God's sake, America's closest ally.
Along the row of desks, other passengers were showing their papers, obviously being asked the same set of questions. It was all routine. Some of the stiffness left her shoulders and she stopped clicking the clasp on her bag. Still, a little voice inside her warned she'd better tell the truth. She faked a carefree smile.
“I did go to a couple of meetings with my uncle, but that was ages ago.”
There was a jerk in her chest and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled as Harry Truman spun around to face her. He yanked his chair over to Jimmy Stewart's desk, forcing him to move to the side. The dead cigar was thrown into the trashcan beside the desk, then the man leaned toward her. As he laced his pudgy hands together, she noticed his nails were bitten down to the quick. He had darting ferret eyes, eyes trained to search out the miscreants.
Got one
, they plainly said as they glowered at her across the desk.
“You say you attended meetings of the Communist Party, not once but twice?” He was looking less like President Truman by the minute.
She cast her eyes down and prayed for a crack to open up in the floor right down to the river, something she could fall into. “It was for an essay at school,” she said. “Something to do with different cultures. You know, different philosophies, that sort of thing.”
“And what about this uncle of yours? Was he a card-carrying member?”
“Well, yes, he was, but it wasn't like you think.”
Uncle Joe had been a member of the Party for three years and peddled the
Daily
Worker
outside the Horse and Jockey pub in Chester every market day. When her dad had asked him why he was fool enough to stand for hours in all types of weather selling a paper nobody gave a damn about, Uncle Joe said anything was better than sitting at home listening to his nagging wife. It must have been true too, because after she ran off with their insurance salesman, he stopped going to meetings and never sold another
Daily Worker
.
The family had thought the story winsome and funny, but how to explain her eccentric, lovable Uncle Joe to this man, now drumming his fingers on the desk and staring at her. There wasn't one chance in a million he'd understand. He leaned toward Jimmy Stewart and whispered something, something about her luggage. With a sympathetic half smile meant only for her, and an almost imperceptible shrug, the younger man left the room.
The ferret reached for a form from the stack at the edge of the desk. “We'll need that in writing,” he said as he slid the sheet of paper toward her.
She scraped her chair back about a foot.
“I went to those meetings six years ago when I was only seventeen,” she said, cursing the quake in her voice. “I told you it was research for a school project. And as for my Uncle Joe, well he wasn't a proper Communist. There was nothing fanatical about him. Anyway, he's been dead a couple of years, so I don't see how that matters now.”
The interrogator crouched lower in his chair, a leopard out for the kill. “You don't see how that matters now? A close relative of yours was a fullyfledged member of the Communist Party, and for whatever reason, and however long ago, you yourself attended Party meetings. You'll see how much it matters when I tell you Communist ideology is unacceptable in the United States. Didn't you know that?”
His voice was tense, coiled, deliberately low, causing her to lean forward. His beady little eyes grew smaller, into tiny points of light. He was goading her all right, watching for any change of expression, something he could grab at. She hadn't thought about it before but she bet he drank. It was written all over his big red face.
She rubbed her sweaty palms along her skirt. Surely she didn't look suspicious. Still, better to play it safe. She struggled to keep the growing panic from creeping into her voice. “I've never given a thought to joining any party. Not the Conservative, Labor, Liberal, or the Communist Party.” She clasped her hands together. “Most especially not the Communist Party.”
She dredged up a weak, trembling grin. “I'm not in the least political. You won't believe this, but I don't even know the name of our local M.P.” An image of the very conservative Nigel Bartholomew-Hinde, who'd won by a landslide in the last election and who lives just a few streets away, flashed before her.
The ferret gave her a questioning look as he rubbed the side of his nose.
“M.P. That stands for Member of Parliament,” she said. A tiredness was creeping over her and she was ready to throw in the towel. “That's it. There isn't anything else I can say.”
The ferret turned as Jimmy Stewart reappeared accompanied by a middle-aged woman. “Go with her, please,” he said to Kathleen, his voice more gentle now.
“What for?”
“I'm sorry but you'll have to be searched.”
“Searched.”
Flaming heat raced up her neck. Along with the fear and unfamiliar feeling of inferiority being thrust upon her, her throat ached from the lump that had lodged itself there. If she blinked even once, tears would roll down her cheeks.
“I've never been searched in my life. I'm not carrying anything important.”
One of the ship's stewards approached the men from behind. He carried a tray of refreshments for the American officials. Clearly sensing the grilling she was undergoing, he winked at her and smiled the most encouraging smile she'd ever seen. He'd been the steward at her table. Just the sight of him was so reassuring, so normal in what had become an alien place, it was all she could do not to run to him, grab his hand, and beg him to get her out of there. She looked around the library. British people were everywhere. They wouldn't let her come to any harm. And after all, this was a British ship, a little bit of England on a faraway shore.
She turned back to the ferret and brushed away the tears with the back of her hand. “I'm sorry I can't make you see I'm only an ordinary English girl, newly married to an American soldier. But I paid passage on this ship and I'm also a British subject. I think I have the right to place a call to the British Embassy. And also, please, I'd like someone to send for the captain.”
Somehow, probably from all the movies she'd seen, she knew she was within her rights.
The ferret smirked. “You want us to send for the captain. Do you honestly think the captain of a ship such as this would come, even if we asked him?”
Kathleen started to click the clasp on her purse againâopen, close, open, close. “Yes, he'll come. You see, I know him.”
Would you call dancing with the captain at the ship's farewell party last night
knowing
him? It was a long shot, but after all, they had talked as they'd waltzed around the room. He'd asked her name and she'd questioned him all about his glamorous life at sea. Even when the dance had ended, they'd talked at least another minute, as he slowly led her back to her table. After a short speech to the cabin class passengers, he'd waved good-bye, and then made his way out the room. She'd been so flattered, she could have died. She was the only one in the whole ballroom he'd asked to dance. Surely if the interrogator sent for him, the captain would remember her. This was after all the SS Belgravia, one of the largest ships afloat. The captain of such a vessel would be no man to be trifled with. Did the ferret want to create an international incident?
She looked again at the other people patiently waiting their turn, but who were now showing much interest in what is going on in her corner.
She turned again to her interrogator. “Yes, send for the captain, please. He'll vouch for me and he's bound to ask for an explanation.”
She sensed the ferret's sudden uncertainty and almost said demand instead of ask but better not lose her edge.
He shifted in his chair, then for the next couple of minutes looked again through her papers, or pretended to. Eventually, he turned to the searcher and waved her away. He picked up the big red stamp at the side of the desk and banged it hard on every paper she had, before handing them back to her.
“If you move from the address noted, you must notify the Immigration Department immediately. Failure to do so could result in deportation.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes to sort out the bees buzzing around in her brain. She had the feeling this man had known all along she was no more a Communist than he was. Eventually she heaved herself out of the chair and didn't look at him as she picked up her papers, then turned, and headed for the door. Once outside the library, she leaned against the ship's rail and stared out at the river, waiting for the trembling to ease and the nausea to go away. Finally, she made her way to the cabin to collect the last of her things.
Half an hour later, as she walked toward the gangplank, Jimmy Stewart came out of the shadows. “Welcome to America,” he said. “I wish you well in your new life, and hope you won't judge us too harshly. We're going through a difficult time right now. Read all you can about Joseph McCarthy. You'll see what I mean.”
Almost in control again, she smiled at him. “Yes, I will. And thank you.”
“No hard feelings?”
“None whatsoever,” she said as she shook his outstretched hand.
After gliding through customs without a hitch, she stood on the wharf with her luggage beside her and took one long last look at the Belgravia. She turned her face to the sky, and let the warm sun wash over her before flinging her arms high, trying to capture the feeling of the gulls overhead. And it worked. They called out a welcome as they soared on the gentle updrafts of air, some even seeming to hang still in the almost windless sky.