The Last Embrace (15 page)

“Follow me.” I avoided the resentful stares of the girls who had been waiting as the receptionist led me up a flight of narrow, uneven stairs and into a long room. It was crowded with typists like the bureau had been back in Washington. Cigarette smoke, a universal perfume, hung high in the air above. The clattering of fingers against keys was welcoming and familiar. She ushered me to an empty typewriter. “I'll give you a few minutes to get acclimated, then come back to administer the typing test.”

I studied the machine in front of me, which was a different style from the typewriters back in Washington. “Hello again,” a voice behind me said. I jumped. The man who had bumped into me on the street, and with whom I had quarreled in the coffee shop, loomed now over the desk. “We didn't get off on the right foot, did we?” His face was pleasant now, his voice a rich baritone.

I fumbled to find a response. Had he followed me? “I'm sorry, but if you'll excuse me, I'm about to have an interview.”

“With me,” he finished. I blinked in surprise. “I'm Theodore White.” He said this as though I should have already known. So this was the awful man to whom Mr. Steeves had sent me. I could feel the curious stares of the other women around me as they stopped typing to watch and listen. Clearly, Theodore White did not normally talk to the typists, much less the applicants.

The receptionist reappeared. “Mr. White, she hasn't tested yet. I was just about to administer the typing exam.”

“Never mind that.” He waved his hand, then turned to me. “Come.” I hesitated. He cut through the typing pool self-assuredly, taking in the room as though he owned everything—and everyone—in it. Inwardly, I blanched. Was it too late to back out? The last thing I wanted to do was work with this dreadful man. But I had come all this way and had no choice but to follow him.

His office was cluttered, with a smeary window looking out at the fog-wreathed dome of St. Paul's. He cleared a stack of papers so hurriedly from a chair that they spilled to the ground. Not bothering to pick them up, he gestured that I should sit.

“So what can I do for you, beside almost knocking you over and correcting your misconceptions about the war?” I thought he was joking, though he did not smile. He was a few years older than me, with porcelain eyes. He was good-looking, too good-looking really, in that should-be-in-movies-not-standing-here kind of way. But there was a coldness about him that made me squirm.

I cleared my throat. Though I did not at all like him, I needed him to like me. “I'm Adelia Montforte. I work, that is, I worked, for the
Post
in Washington. Mr. Steeves recommended me. He said he would send word.” He wore a puzzled expression. Perhaps Mr. Steeves had not sent the telegraph, or it had not arrived.

“He sent a secretary all the way across the pond.” Theodore White harrumphed. “Here to keep an eye on me, most likely.”

“Not at all.” His eyes widened. Clearly, he was not used to being contradicted, at least not by a typist. “I requested the transfer.” I hoped he would not ask why.

“Well, the work here is pretty straightforward. Typing, and some proofreading.”

“In Washington, I was doing the copyedits too.” I had only done copyedits a handful of times for Mr. Steeves. But I stretched the truth a bit, wanting to sound more useful than the average typist and hopeful that he could not tell the difference.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Let's see how you do with this piece.” He passed me a paper and pencil. His fingers were long with flat nails that said he might have been an artist. They reminded me of my father's. I tried to recall my mother's hands, but found that I could not. The little things faded with time, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to them.

I scanned the article about the displacement of the residents of a village in north France, making notes in the margins. “Well?” I handed it back to him and he scanned my corrections. “What else?”

I hesitated, smelling the minty pomade in his hair as I leaned in to point. “It's not just the grammar, see? It's about the voice. You need to put the reader in the shoes of the people, the families and children. Make them care.” I was going beyond the copyedits, I knew, and into the substance of the piece. Overstepping my place. But he had asked and I needed this job. “There's a reference here to this family Reimbaud—what about the children, how this affected them? How long have they lived there and where will they go? I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you should talk to the writer.”

“You already are.”

“Oh!” I felt my cheeks go crimson. Without realizing it, I had been criticizing his work.

But he waved his hand, not seeming to take offense. “Not at all. You've found exactly what the piece was missing. I'll take another shot at it and show it to you again.”

“Are there photographs?”

He nodded, then handed me an envelope. “I didn't take these. They're from a stringer.”

I studied the images, which were a bit stiff and generic, capturing the scene the way a child might have drawn it. “I'm afraid the photos are all wrong, too. They've focused on the line, but look at the mother holding her child back from the police.” I traced it with my finger. “I would have centered here.”

“You're a photographer, too?”

The word seemed somehow too big. “Just for fun. I like taking pictures.”

“We have a darkroom here at the paper. You're welcome to use it in the off hours, though supplies are scarce so you'd have to find your own.” Though he had not formally made me a job offer, it sounded then as though he wanted me to come to work.

“Does that mean I can keep copyediting?”

“Yes, you've got the job. Steeves would kill me if I sent you back. You'll be working for me.” He pointed to a tiny desk in the corner of his office. “You can start tomorrow and sit there.” I had imagined myself sitting with the typists like I had been in Washington, not working in such close quarters with him.

“I did some translating for Mr. Steeves also,” I added. “Some French, but mostly Italian.”

“You're from Trieste,” he said, surprising me. I noticed then the telegram that sat open on his desk. So Mr. Steeves had written after all. Why couldn't White have just said so, instead of playing games and leaving me to dangle? My annoyance at him grew.

“Yes. My parents sent me to America as a child.”

“Are they still in Italy?”

I shifted uncomfortably at the question, too intrusive for someone I had only just met, and now my boss. “I don't know. They disappeared over a year ago and there's been no word.”

“And you're a Jew.” His bluntness surprised me. There was anti-Semitism here like back home, I was sure. I hadn't mentioned my religion at the
Post
in Washington—my Italian surname had made it easy to avoid the subject. Mr. Steeves must have known, though, and told him. Would it would keep me from getting the job? Maybe I should deny it.

“Does that matter?”

“Not at all. My mum is Jewish,” Teddy said. “But I keep it quiet.” I nodded. “I'm not a bigot. I'm just surprised you'd return to Europe.” I held my breath, again waiting for him to ask why I had left Washington. He could not possibly know that, too. “It's brave of you, coming here. Brave or stupid—the jury's out on that one.” I looked for the smile that did not come.

I shrugged. “It's just London.”

He eyed me levelly. “You think the city is safe?”

I hadn't thought about it before leaving. But after all I'd seen since arriving that morning, I knew that it was not. “As much as anywhere else,” I lied. Nowhere would ever feel safe to me.

“There's no halfway in with this war, Adelia. Here you're in the thick of it. I was supposed to go,” he added quickly. Though we had only just met, he seemed to need to explain why he was not off fighting. “With the army, I mean. But on the third day of basic training, I broke my shoulder trying to climb a wall. It was a bad fracture and never quite healed properly.” His shoulders slumped with resignation. “Right, well, we'll give it a try,” he said, jumping abruptly back to the topic of my employment. Then he stood up and began pacing the floor. There was a restlessness to him, a constant moving and tapping of the feet, as though there was music playing, even when there wasn't. “So our work here is out in the street,” he began. A loud explosion cut him off, rattling the windows. He grabbed me and pulled me down under his desk. The sound came again, raining bits of plaster on top of my feet, which stuck out beyond the desk, exposed. This was not the train rumble I'd felt earlier on the street; it shook my insides like nothing I had ever experienced.

“All clear,” he said a minute later when the noise had stopped. He straightened and returned the teacup which had fallen to his desk. Then he walked to the window and scanned up and down the street. “Must have been that unexploded shell that hit on Whitefriars a few nights back.”

“But I thought the Blitz was over.”

“It is. But the war rages on. The raids come at any time. Still keen to stay?” he asked, testing me.

I thought back to my journey into the city, the rooftops which had been sheared off, their jagged wooden beams that pushed upward to the sky. Then I squared my shoulders. Danger came where one least expected it, on city streets lit for the holidays just blocks from home. I would not be daunted. I straightened. “Yes. More so than ever.”

“Well, that's all sorted.” His eyes crinkled a bit at the edges and a dimple appeared in his left cheek. Then his expression grew somber once more. “It's been a bloody awful year.” He did not apologize for swearing. “The people here, well, they wear a stiff upper lip but inside they're knackered.” I cocked my head at the unfamiliar term. “Shattered. Exhausted. You have a place yet?” He switched topics without warming. “There's a boardinghouse in Maida Vale where some of the girls live.” He scribbled an address down on a piece of paper. “And there's a reception tonight at the American ambassador's residence. Early, you know, because of the curfew. But we should be there.” We. I started to protest that I was only a secretary, then thought better of it. “I'll pick you up at seven.”

I had not even said yes. “Mr. White...”

“Call me Teddy.”

“Like the bear,” I blurted, instantly regretting it.

He chuckled. “I suppose. Or the president. No one has ever put it quite that way before.”

“I've only just arrived and I'm a bit weary for a party.”

“Early dinner, then.” He smiled gamely, eyes dancing, cajoling me to say yes. I stared at him, incredulous. Even after everything with Charlie, I was still that gawky girl off the boat, unwilling to believe that a man might find me attractive.

“But you just said you've got to be at the reception.” He waved his hand, dismissing the event that just seconds ago was so important. “And we've only just met,” I added.

“Not quite. We met in the coffee shop earlier and I was terribly rude. I'd like to correct that.” But the intent of his words as he looked at me with sparkly blue eyes was undoubtedly something more.

“All right,” I said, feeling my cheeks warm. I had not gone out with anyone since Charlie. In Washington, there had been dances and parties and invitations aplenty through the other girls at the paper. Despite the grimness of the war—or perhaps because of it—the thousands of workers who had come to the capital to help seemed to need the gaiety to shake off the long hours of toil. I went along when I could no longer refuse and even danced a few times. But it all felt wrong.

I wondered again if the job was a mistake. I had come here to get away from things like this and it seemed important to set the boundaries from the start. “I'm just, as you said, knackered.” We both laughed. “Another time, okay?”

“Another time, then,” he repeated. He reached out and shook my hand solemnly, his fingers warm around my own. Then he handed the refugee article back to me. “There's still a story to be rewritten though.”

“Me?” Even Mr. Steeves had not given me the chance to do substantive editing.

“Yes, deadline is six if you think you can manage it.”

“I can.” For that, I would muster the energy.

“Then it's all sorted.” An unexpected twinge of disappointment tugged at me as he released my hand and turned back to his desk. “Let's get to work.”

I sat alone at my small desk in the corner of Teddy's office, wading through correspondence that he had let accumulate and sorting it into piles: matters that needed his attention, those that could be filed and those that could be discarded (or reused, if they were not confidential, for scrap paper; nothing was to be wasted). I set down the pencil I'd been chewing on and pulled back the blackout curtains to reveal the curving edge of the dome of St. Paul's, set against the azure late morning sky, rows of broken chimneys beneath it. Smoke rose above the coal-dipped rooftops, mixing with fog and soot.

I took a sip of the Earl Grey tea before me, now too cool. Then I leaned back, my eyes drifting downward to a photo of Teddy with former Prime Minister Chamberlain that sat on the windowsill. Teddy had been gone for two days on a trip, though he wouldn't say where, just that he was following up with a lead. The office was quiet without him. I had grown accustomed to his dry humor and quick laugh, his constant movement these past several months, the way he chewed on his lip when he was concentrating, or paced back and forth when trying to get his head around an idea.

Thankfully, my initial impressions of him had not borne out; though he was impatient and stubborn, Teddy was not a jerk. But he was the subject of endless speculation among the typists, I'd quickly learned after coming to work here.

“They say he flew into occupied Poland just to get a story.”

“They say he's related to the Rockefellers.”

“He's never been seen with the same girl twice.” That last one irked me, though why I was not quite sure.

I eyed the photo of Teddy with Chamberlain once more. It was the only picture in the office and I wondered as I had before about his family and the home in Kent where he had grown up. “I went to Eton, then uni at Oxford, read English at Magdalen College,” he'd explained once when I asked, reciting facts that I already knew from the diplomas that lined the walls. “I was meant to go into banking or law. My family is aghast at what I do. To them being a correspondent is dreadfully working-class. But I love it.” Teddy was something of an odd duck at the
Post
, the lone British correspondent at the American press. He'd been with the
Times
before that, but had left under circumstances that no one seemed to know—or was willing to discuss. “They pay better here,” he'd offered airily once, but there was no force behind the explanation.

The cathedral bell chimed twelve and I set down the correspondence and put on my overcoat and scarf. I wove my way through the steno pool where the handful of typists clattered away on their machines, the BBC radio droning news of the war continuously in the background. A half dozen or so other offices lined the perimeter of the room, their lights off as the correspondents chased stories out in the field. I did not stop at the tea room where some of the other girls had surely clustered, gossiping over thin cheese sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. They'd treated me coldly in the months since I'd come. For a while I thought it was because I was the only American among the typists and other clerical staff. But they didn't seem to hold that against the American correspondents whom they admired from a distance, or the GIs who took them dancing on the weekends. More likely they resented me for coming over and being immediately put a step above them working for Teddy. I tried not to mind. They reminded me of the girls back home who went all silly over boys, in a way that I could never be after growing up in a big pile of Connallys.

I walked downstairs and stepped out onto Fleet Street, eyeing the gray late-April sky warily. The unsettled weather blew through so quickly here, clouds forming and starting a downpour seemingly from nowhere at all, then clearing again just as quickly.

Three American GIs walked shoulder to shoulder down the pavement and I stepped sideways in order to avoid bumping into one of them. London was, even more so than Washington had been, a city under occupation—by the thousands of American soldiers who were stationed here, filling the pubs and prowling the seedy nightlife at Piccadilly Circus. “Excuse me,” the soldier nearest to me said, giving me a long sideways look. I averted my eyes, not answering. I had come to London to escape Charlie, but the boys in uniform were a constant reminder. Once as I transferred from one double-decker bus to another in Trafalgar Square, I'd imagined that I'd seen him, an image so real I had disembarked, frantically searching the crowd. But it had been an illusion; Charlie, of course, was not here.

I began to walk as I did each day at lunchtime, slipping into the crowd and moving with it. I loved winding through the back streets of the city, enjoying the freedom of life here, where no one knew me or my past.

“I wish you wouldn't,” Teddy had said more than once, his mouth pulling downward. “It's dangerous.”

“I'm just as likely to get hit by a bomb here as outside,” I'd protested. But in truth I walked because of the devastation, not in spite of it. It had started one day as I made my way home from the bureau to my flat, which was just north of Hyde Park. As I reached the northern edge of the park, I'd been stunned to see a giant crater in the middle of the street, an empty bus dangling precipitously from it. Had there been passengers? It seemed unlikely, or I would have heard about it at the paper. Bombings were so commonplace that only those with large-scale casualties seemed to be making the news these days. I pulled out Uncle Meyer's camera from my bag and began snapping photos. After that, I walked every day, at lunch and on the weekends, too, wanting to capture it all in pictures. Most of all, I was struck by the ordinary life that persisted, like women queuing at the shops and the group of children (among the few that begun to return to the city) I'd seen playing soccer by a gaping patch in Notting Hill where a house once stood, so much like the games of our childhood.

It was a childhood that despite my best efforts I could not forget. It had been months since I left Washington and nearly a year since I left Philadelphia, but the assaults of the past were nonstop on my mind, despite my best attempts to block them out. The memories, when I allowed myself to have them, were always bathed in a kind of gold—sunshine soaking the yard where we'd played, lifting the flecks of Charlie's hair and magnifying them. Other times I imagined myself back on the Connallys' worn sofa in the city, wedged into the corner where I always sat beside Jack, Robbie sprawled across the three of us despite his mother's admonition to keep his feet down.

Liam popped improbably into my mind now. Though I thought often of the others—Charlie, of course, and Jack and sweet, sweet Robbie—I missed Liam, too, in a way that I probably shouldn't. It was the good Liam I saw, with his irreverent humor, before he had become so dark and troubled. He would know exactly how I felt among the other typists, as though I did not fit in at all.

I walked east, stepping over the edge of a curb that had been painted a striped black and white to make it visible during the blackouts. Then I skirted around St. Paul's churchyard, feeling my way south to the river. The street ended and I stepped into the full, cutting wind of the Thames. The air was sharply cool, winter not ready to cede to spring. I sat down on a bench to pull out my gloves. A couple walked down the pavement, holding hands. An unexpected pang of longing ran through me. Charlie appeared in my mind, large and unbidden, images cascading upon me like books falling from a shelf. I saw him now as I had at the State Department that day, tall and lovely in his uniform. Had he shipped out yet or was he still in training?

I opened my purse and pulled out a letter. It had been waiting for me when I returned home from work the previous evening, addressed in Aunt Bess's flowery script. Inside was another envelope, my name printed in what looked like Charlie's blocky writing. My breath had caught. The postmark was weeks old, though whether Aunt Bess had delayed in sending it or it had been slowed by the wartime post, I did not know. I'd held up the still-sealed envelope with trembling hands. Was Charlie begging me to come back or cursing me for having left? Dangerous thoughts, the kind I had kept at bay for so long, leapt up at me, a flicker becoming a flame. If I opened the letter, I would know the truth and be forced to respond. No, better to leave the past alone. I'd dangled the letter over the fire in the grate. Then thinking better of it, I tucked it in my bag.

I held it aloft now, edges flapping with the breeze. A bell rang out, signaling that my lunch hour was half over and so I returned the letter to my bag and began to make my way back to the bureau. Inside I scanned the office to see if Teddy had returned, and felt a mild pang of disappointment that he had not. I unwrapped the leftover toast and beans I had brought for lunch. I found English food bland, lots of breaded whitefish and shepherd's pie filled with potatoes and little else; it reminded me of my aunt's cooking back home. But thanks to Teddy, I had an extra book full of ration coupons and was able to get plenty of whatever there was to be purchased; I had no business complaining.

I walked through the typing pool, where the air now hummed with chatter. But the conversation stopped abruptly as I entered, signaling something I was not meant to hear. “Is there any post?” I asked the secretary Joan, trying to act as though nothing was amiss.

“I'm sure you can check for yourself.” She turned away.

“Is that any way to treat a coworker?” a voice behind me rebuked sharply. I turned. Teddy was back. At the sight of him, I was filled with warmth. I had grown to appreciate his flaxen blond hair and eyes that crinkled when he laughed.

But now his normally cheerful face was stormy. “No, of course not, Mr. White.” Joan turned and passed me the mail.

“You're welcome,” he said, when I had followed him into his office. He closed the door behind us. There was a heavy stubble across his cheeks and rings around his usually bright eyes. Teddy had always been a constant worker, but now the news flowed so fast even he couldn't keep up.

“I wish you wouldn't say anything,” I fretted. “Your sticking up for me just makes them hate me more.”

“Why should you care about that?'

Because in some ways I would always be that new girl at Southern, looking for a friend. But I couldn't tell him that. “You should have me sit out there with the others.”

“I need you here.” I knew from the way his mouth set stubbornly that I would not win on the point. “It's not personal to you, how the girls act,” he added. “Those girls have just been through a lot. Most of them are from the East End.” I nodded. The devastation had been so much worse in Stepney and Bethnal Green. “Midge, for example, lost almost her whole family in the Blitz.” The girls did not just resent me for my closeness to Teddy. I had not been here through the worst of the bombings, was not one of them. “And Edie's husband is missing in North Africa.” I was surprised that Teddy, who scarcely seemed to speak to the other typists, knew so much about their personal hardships.

No, simply changing the location of my desk would not make things better. But perhaps, understanding what all the other women had been through, I could try a bit harder to be friendly. I noticed then the fine coating of soot and ash on his jacket, which he had tried without success to brush off. “You've been over there, haven't you?” As he poured two glasses of water from the pitcher on the windowsill, my concern grew. I'd suspected for months that Teddy had been making secret trips across the Channel to France, trying to learn what was coming.

“Only as far as Guernsey this time. That's still Britain.”

“But it's occupied. You could have been arrested by the Germans. What were you thinking?” But I already knew: Teddy's doggedness went beyond good journalism; he was trying to prove himself. Part of him felt less than enough because he was not a soldier fighting.

He waved his hand, brushing away my concerns. “There's something coming, Adelia. I saw it, a build-up at the coast. The Americans are really going over.”

Hope rose in me that someone might finally be able to stop the Germans. “How soon?”

His brow wrinkled. “I couldn't tell. Weeks or months maybe. I need to do some more digging.”

“I wish you wouldn't.” How much farther into danger would he go next time?

“Worried about me now, aren't you?” His tone was more than a little pleased. I turned slightly away, warmth creeping up from my neck. My affection for Teddy had grown these past few months, in spite of my determination to remain unattached. “Adelia, going to the story—that's my job. I like you worrying about me, though.” His lone dimple appeared.

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. I do wish the photos were a bit better.” He had to rely on stock images from the Associated Press pool photographers.

“I could show you how to take the photos,” I offered.
Or go with you myself
, I thought, though that was out of the question.