Authors: Noëlle Sickels
The Medium (11 page)
Enemy now in sight above the Palisades. Fiveâfive great machines. First one is crossing the river.
Helen imagined the Martian machines tall as the George Washington Bridge, similar in structure, but gruesomely animated. She thought of Terence and Teresa. Could they see the black smoke advancing over the skyscrapers as the announcer was describing? Everything was happening so fast. Only a short time ago, Carl Phillips was contemplating a strange object in a farmer's field, and now Carl Phillips was a charred corpse in a Trenton morgue. And what of Trenton's population? Were they all either dead or running? Helen wondered wildly which would be worse, to die by fire or by gas.
Walter took his and Emilie's coats and hats and the flashlight from Helen. He, Helen, and her grandmother put on their things, then went to the kitchen to get Emilie, and out the back door. While Walter ran to the garage to get the car, the others went to the front.
In the middle of the street, two cars had collided. Both drivers had come out of their drives at high speed, one going forward, one backing up, neither bothering to watch for traffic. Now the two men, standing beside their interlocked bumpers, were shouting at each other and seemed close to blows. One
man's wife, a woman who played cards sometimes with Emilie and Ursula, was trying to pull him away. Tears were coursing down her face. Her little boy, also crying, had the hem of her skirt bunched up in his hand so tightly her garters were showing.
man's wife, a woman who played cards sometimes with Emilie and Ursula, was trying to pull him away. Tears were coursing down her face. Her little boy, also crying, had the hem of her skirt bunched up in his hand so tightly her garters were showing.
“How do you expect us to get away now?” her husband was shouting at the other driver. “We need a tow truck to pull these cars apart.”
“You're the damn fool drove right through your own garage door,” countered his opponent.
“Well, we won't be needing the garage door anymore, but we damn well need a working car.”
Mr. Steltman rushed across his yard and put himself between the angry men.
“Gus, Sam, it's too late to leave now, anyway,” he said. “Go back inside. Stuff wet towels around your doors and windows to keep out the gas. Take your families into the basement. In the morning, if the coast is clear, we can get together as a neighborhood and make a plan.”
The men scowled at him, but they backed away from each other.
“Got no time to argue,” one said. “Me and mine'll just walk out. Keep to the woods by the river. Radio says the roads are jammed, anyway.” He pulled a shotgun out of the trunk of his disabled car and strode off down the street, his wife and three children scooting after him.
Walter pulled the car to the curb and got out, his motor idling. Mr. Steltman had moved on to other neighbors who were loading cars or standing in their doorways looking up fearfully at the sky. He advised them all to the same course of action he'd urged on the disputing motorists. Most shook their heads and turned away. Elderly Mrs. McMahon nodded at him and went back into her house. Living alone, without an
automobile, she had little choice.
automobile, she had little choice.
Mr. Steltman was making his speech to Walter when a neighbor from the end of the block arrived. Helen knew his name, Mr. Collins, but his children were older than she, and the two families had only a nodding acquaintance.
“Steltman,” Mr. Collins said, “you're wasting your time.”
Mr. Steltman was gathering himself up to respond when Mr. Collins continued.
“Ain't no Martians.”
He looked around at his neighbors, some still scurrying around, some pausing to think over Mr. Steltman's ideas. Now the Mackeys were out in the street, too. Mrs. Mackey and her sons each carried pillowcases stuffed with objects. Barbara held Linda by one hand and their dog on a leash by the other. Billy spotted Helen and came up to her.
“I'm going to ask your father to take my mother and baby sister,” he said.
“What will the rest of you do?”
“We'll get Barbara in a car somehow. Me and Lloyd, too, if we can. If not, he and I'll lay low, like Mr. Steltman says.”
Billy moved closer to where Walter was standing, near Mr. Steltman and Mr. Collins.
“Hey, all of you,” Mr. Collins said, raising his voice. “Ain't no Martians.”
“Have you heard something new on the radio?” a woman asked.
“Nope. Same as you.”
“When I was closing our door,” Billy said, “there was a short wave guy on the radio trying to call New York, but nobody was answering. Nobody.”
“Sonny,” Mr. Collins said, “they can't raise up anybody in New York 'cause the Krauts have cut the lines. It's not Martians done all this. It's Nazis. That goddamn Hitler's invaded, see,
and just fooling us about Martians so's we'll give up without a fight. That meteor thing was a zeppelin in disguise, I figure, and the gas, well, the Germans used gas in the Great War, didn't they?”
and just fooling us about Martians so's we'll give up without a fight. That meteor thing was a zeppelin in disguise, I figure, and the gas, well, the Germans used gas in the Great War, didn't they?”
Helen saw the Dohrmanns, on the edge of the small crowd, turn and walk away.
“Could be Japanese,” someone suggested. “They're crafty devils, you know.”
“Get in the car,” Walter said, and Helen and her mother and grandmother complied without comment.
“Mr. Collins,” Walter was saying, “the radio said Martians. The Secretary of the Interior was on, and Army people, and reporters. We heard some of those people die, for God's sake.”
“You expect us to put stock in what
you
have to say?” Collins said ominously.
you
have to say?” Collins said ominously.
“Hell, no,” someone said. Concurring mumbles came from some of the men.
In the backseat of the Ford, Ursula leaned over to whisper in Helen's ear.
“Are you picking up anything?”
Helen just stared at her.
“Take a moment. Listen,” Ursula said. “All those deaths. Everything else. Do you feel anyone? A message?”
Helen didn't want to do it, but she closed her eyes, and for the first time in nearly a year, she deliberately let her mind fall open to whatever might come. She didn't go so far as to call on Iris, but she drew her attention inward, found a placid hollow in the midst of the fear and stayed there patiently waiting.
Nothing came. No visions, no words, no physical sensations. Only a hazy impression of being clogged, as if she had a bad head cold. She was sorry she could be no help to the terror-stricken people around her, but at the same time, she was elated. If she couldn't pick up anything in as dire a situation as this,
she must finally have conquered her tendencies. If this really were the end of the world, her victory was of little import, but it pleased her nonetheless.
she must finally have conquered her tendencies. If this really were the end of the world, her victory was of little import, but it pleased her nonetheless.
“Nothing,” she said to her grandmother.
“Not me, either,” the old lady replied, and for the first time since Walter had tuned the radio dial to the alarming story of invaders from Mars, her voice was ordinary.
Walter opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat.
“That's right,” a man at the back of the crowd called out. “You go. They probably told you where to hide out to be safe.”
Collins turned to the milling neighbors. “If any of you still want to run away, maybe you oughta follow the Krauts,” he said. “'Course, then, you just might end up prisoners.”
“Hey, hey, everybody!” Mr. Goldberg from four houses over was running down the middle of the street shouting. His doughy wife, in a wrapper and bedroom slippers, ran behind him, puffing hard in her attempt to keep up.
“It was a play!” he shouted. “A play! Mercury Theater of the Air. We just heard.
The War of the Worlds.
For Halloween, get it?” He stopped beside the Schneiders' car because the most folks were collected there. Mr. Goldberg was smiling sheepishly. “Scared the pants off me, I'll tell you.”
The War of the Worlds.
For Halloween, get it?” He stopped beside the Schneiders' car because the most folks were collected there. Mr. Goldberg was smiling sheepishly. “Scared the pants off me, I'll tell you.”
Slowly, the neighbors headed back to their houses. Some loitered to review the broadcast, which details had convinced them of its truth, which details, in retrospect, pointed to fiction. Walter waited for the space around the car to clear of people, then he drove it into the garage.
Ursula made cocoa. No one told Helen it was past her bedtime. No one said anything at all. While they drank their cocoa seated around the kitchen table, Helen looked from one adult face to the other. In each one, anxiety lingered, plain to see.
JULY 1939
“Teresa, show Helen our official guidebook,” Marie said as the family was waiting at Penn Station for the train to the World's Fair. “It says the Fair is the most stupendous, gigantic, super-magnificent show on earth, and they're right! We should go straight to the Trylon and Perisphere first.”
“That is customary,” Franz pontificated, “but the view of the Trylon and Perisphere from the Lagoon of Nations is much finer, in my opinion.”
“Oh, he's right,” Marie told Emilie. “I do wish that had been our first sight of them. That's what's so nice about going to the Fair more than once. You get to do everything, and you get to do it right.”
Normally, Helen would have resented the lording air her aunt and uncle were assuming, but today their attitude didn't bother her. Let them guide. Let them crow. By tonight, she, too, would be a Fair veteran, with her own memories and favorites. This would be her only visit, an early fifteenth birthday gift from her father, and she wasn't going to let anything mar it.
Helen's cousins were pulling the guidebook back and forth between them in their eagerness to display different pages. The twins were sharing their knowledge of the Fair not as tutors but as comrades.
“They've got a whole Swiss village,” Teresa said, “with real snow and yodeling.”
“We gotta do the Parachute Jump,” Terence declared.
“It scared me too much,” Teresa said, shaking her head. “Let's go to the Aquacade instead.”
“Futurama's the best,” Terence told Helen excitedly. “You go to 1960, when there's gonna be fourteen-lane superhighways across the country, and cars will only cost two hundred dollars, and fruit trees'll grow under glass jars, and a bunch of other stuff. At the end of the ride, they give you a button that says
I have seen the future.”
I have seen the future.”
Â
Helen had to admit that her aunt and uncle had been right about the view from the lagoon. It was spectacular. Gazing from a bridge down a long avenue of trees and statuary, they were able to see, through the mist of fountains, the Fair's symbols, a huge obelisk and sphere that glowed blindingly white in the July sun.
Leaving the adults to take the Fair bus, the young people set off jubilantly down Constitution Mall towards the Trylon and Perisphere. How could anyone bear to sit on a bus and simply pass by the myriad surprises and marvels on every sideâacres of national and commercial pavilions, lawns studded with thousands of tulips, murals, statues, bands, shows and exhibits?
“The Trylon's six hundred ten feet high,” Terence said when they reached it. “Taller than the Washington Monument.”
Terence's visits to the Fair had sparked the idea he might become an architect some day, so he was interested in dimensions and measurements, especially impressive ones. Helen smiled, remembering that only two years ago his future plans had centered on becoming the next Green Lantern.
The three companions boarded an escalator that ascended as steeply as a roller coaster into the sphere. They stepped onto a slowly rotating balcony that passed through a tunnel and carried them out into a great space. Helen gasped. All around them, awestruck people were exclaiming, “Look, look!” A colossal,
blue-lit dome arced high above them, while below sprawled a model American city in the year 2039. “Democracity” and its suburbs fanned out in concentric half circles from one central skyscraper. None of the city's streets intersected.
blue-lit dome arced high above them, while below sprawled a model American city in the year 2039. “Democracity” and its suburbs fanned out in concentric half circles from one central skyscraper. None of the city's streets intersected.
“No auto accidents,” Terence pointed out.
As the balcony revolved, the dome darkened and stars emerged. Lights went on all over Democracity. The majestic sound of a choir welled up. Projected images of workers appeared on the dome, marching closer and closerâteachers with books, miners with headlamps, engineers with blueprints, farmers with hoes and pails, factory men with wrenches.
The cousins exited down a spiral ramp to a plaza graced by a sculpture called
The Astronomer,
a male nude staring upwards. Helen thought he looked worried. It was a strange expression for a statue, especially one standing beside the splendid promise of Democracity.
The Astronomer,
a male nude staring upwards. Helen thought he looked worried. It was a strange expression for a statue, especially one standing beside the splendid promise of Democracity.
As arranged, the adults were waiting for them near
The Astronomer,
Emilie waved as they approached, but no one else acknowledged their arrival.
The Astronomer,
Emilie waved as they approached, but no one else acknowledged their arrival.
“No, Walter, I don't agree,” Franz was saying. “Herr Hitler is willing to let the Jews go, but no one is willing to take them in. The Poles sent thousands back. Boatloads have been turned away from Argentina, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Egypt, Turkey. The British have quotas in Palestine to keep the Arabs calm. There are quotas here, too. It's easy to criticize Germany, but what the critics actually
do
doesn't add up.”
do
doesn't add up.”
Walter sighed in frustration. Helen could see he didn't like conceding a point to her uncle.
The family began strolling, and the conversation resumed.
“It's still not right, Franz, for the Nazis to put them in camps,” Walter persisted. “Or to use the threat of camps to force them to leave. The nations that turn their backs are wrong, yes, but it's Germany who's causing the problem.”
“German civilization is one of the highest in history,” Marie objected. “Didn't the Führer give Richard Strauss a lavish birthday luncheon in Vienna just last month? He is a man of culture, and he can be relied on to behave as one in state matters, too, I think.”
“I don't know about that, Marie,” Emilie said. “The little bit of news out of Germany is often troubling.”
“Which news?”
“Did you see the newspaper photos of the Italian Minister of Culture inspecting Jews at Sachsenhausen concentration camp? They looked so grim, so sad.”
“Pooh,” Marie said. “So would anyone with a shaved head and wearing those baggy striped uniforms. They're prisoners, after all. I expect the food is not good. They're probably at hard labor.”
“I've read much worse than that happens in those camps. Terrible cruelties. Every month, hundreds of people commit suicide by throwing themselves into the Danube rather than be taken.”
“Who knows what to believe and what's propaganda? We don't hear the whole story, I'm sure.”
“You're probably right there,” Emilie admitted.
“What about the
St. Louis?”
Ursula said.
St. Louis?”
Ursula said.
The adults all turned to look at her, as if they'd forgotten she was there.
Helen remembered well the story of the Hamburg-Amerika liner. Her grandmother had told her about it in May. It had made a deep impression on Ursula.
“More than nine hundred Jews on it,” Ursula said now. “Whole families. All approved for the United States, going to Cuba to wait. That was all. Only to wait until the entry numbers came up. Round-trip tickets they had to buy, though no one planned to return.”
“The
St. Louis,”
Walter jumped in. “There's a case in point. While they were at sea, the President of Cuba decreed that they'd need more money to enter, plus additional documents. It was only a trick to keep them out. The ship circled the Caribbean for weeks before finally heading back to Germany.”
St. Louis,”
Walter jumped in. “There's a case in point. While they were at sea, the President of Cuba decreed that they'd need more money to enter, plus additional documents. It was only a trick to keep them out. The ship circled the Caribbean for weeks before finally heading back to Germany.”
“I remember,” Emilie said. “The Coast Guard followed them when they were near Florida so no one would try to swim ashore.”
“Cuba already has nine thousand refugee Jews,” Franz said. “Why should they take more if they don't want to?”
“But Franz, while the
St. Louis
was at sea, tens of thousands of Jews in Germany were given notice to leave the country within weeks or sometimes hours, or face internment. How could anyone send them back into that?”
St. Louis
was at sea, tens of thousands of Jews in Germany were given notice to leave the country within weeks or sometimes hours, or face internment. How could anyone send them back into that?”
“The Jews have made their bed, now let them get out of it on their own,” Marie said. “And they're not on their own, anyway. All those countries you fault for turning some away, Walter, they've taken thousands of them in, too.”
“Most of the
St. Louis
Jews ended up in England and France, and in Belgium and Holland,” Franz added.
St. Louis
Jews ended up in England and France, and in Belgium and Holland,” Franz added.
“Because the League of Nations twisted some arms,” Walter said.
“The newspapers helped,” Franz said, seeming to complain. “âCargo of despair,' the
New York Times
called them. I don't know why those Jews got singled out for special attention.”
New York Times
called them. I don't know why those Jews got singled out for special attention.”
“Lucky for them they did,” said Walter.
“They say sometimes,” Emilie put in, “if a captain can't land anywhere, he just dumps them on an island in the Mediterranean or at some remote spot along the Palestine coast. I guess they have to fend for themselves then.”
“As I said earlier,” Marie sniffed. “But come now,” she added in a cheerier tone. “What dark talk on such a lovely day. And with the children probably hungry, no?”
She looked appealingly to Helen and the twins. Terence nodded.
“It's like being on a mountain here,” she went on, “looking at what this great country has achieved and the even better life it will bring us all.”
She linked arms with her husband. He smiled affectionately at her.
“This is a good spot,” he said, pointing to a restaurant at the Court of Railways. Helen could see that her father was reluctant to drop the debate, but that he was going to do so anyway. Her mother, too, was rearranging her expression to one of conviviality.
“When the ship was in Havana harbor,” Ursula said, “a man cut his wrists. A man with a wife and children.”
“Nanny, please,” Marie began, but the old woman scowled at her, so she didn't go on.
“They took him to a hospital. But they would not let his family on shore. The ship left, and they were parted.”
These were the kinds of details Helen could understand. She didn't know what happened in the concentration camps in Germany. She couldn't comprehend how the Jews could be so dangerous that all of them, all ages and occupations, had to be regulated and watched. But she could imagine the pain of leaving home and losing loved ones. That's what her grandmother had wanted the odyssey of the
St. Louis
to explain to her.
St. Louis
to explain to her.
“And when the ship left Havana,” Ursula continued, “out into the harbor came many little boats, with the aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and brothers on them. The little boats went alongside the big one and kept company until the sea was too wide and rough. There was sobbing on the big ship and sobbing on the small boats. And they all were calling
auf Wiedersehen,
back and forth, again and again.”
auf Wiedersehen,
back and forth, again and again.”
They entered the restaurant and ordered. Marie leafed
through the guidebook, making suggestions for the afternoon, asking Franz's advice, Emilie's preferences. She succeeded in drawing Walter out by blathering on about the RCA exhibit and then letting him correct her on how television broadcasting actually worked. Ursula was quiet. They had all had their say. No one was going to change anyone's mind.
through the guidebook, making suggestions for the afternoon, asking Franz's advice, Emilie's preferences. She succeeded in drawing Walter out by blathering on about the RCA exhibit and then letting him correct her on how television broadcasting actually worked. Ursula was quiet. They had all had their say. No one was going to change anyone's mind.
The world was at peace at present, and everyone had their fingers crossed that it would hold. In March, the Civil War in Spain had ended, and Hitler had annexed the areas of Czecho-Slovakia that hadn't been already given to him by France and England the previous September. It was hoped he'd be satisfied with that.
The whole Fair was keyed to the world of tomorrow, and to the conviction that in the decades to come, technology and hard work and democracy were going to make a better life for everyone. But in many homes in Europe, Helen considered as she listened to the careful cordiality of the adults and thought again about the plight of the
St. Louis,
tomorrow didn't mean 2039 or 1960 or even, perhaps, 1940. Tomorrow there meant the very next day and queasy speculations on what it might bring.
St. Louis,
tomorrow didn't mean 2039 or 1960 or even, perhaps, 1940. Tomorrow there meant the very next day and queasy speculations on what it might bring.
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