Authors: Noëlle Sickels
The Medium (13 page)
DECEMBER 1941
On tiptoes near the top rung of a tall ladder, Helen reached above her head to fasten a strand of silver garland looping from the corners of the high school gymnasium to the center of its ceiling. The ladder wobbled.
“Hey!” she called to the girl below who was supposed to be steadying it.
“Huh?” Madeline Darby turned her gaze dreamily up at Helen. She'd been absorbed in watching a group of boys assemble a bandstand. A Victrola was playing the hit
Take the A Train,
and one of the boys had stopped working to dance extravagantly across the unfinished stage, evoking raucous complaints from his comrades.
Take the A Train,
and one of the boys had stopped working to dance extravagantly across the unfinished stage, evoking raucous complaints from his comrades.
“Never mind them,” Helen scolded. “Hold the ladder still.”
“Javohl,”
Madeline said sarcastically. “But don't take all day about it, would you?”
Madeline said sarcastically. “But don't take all day about it, would you?”
A number of retorts sprang to Helen's mind, but she didn't utter any of them. It had been like this most of the school year, veiled and not-so-veiled rudeness. From Madeline and a few others. Not from everyone, not even from a majority of the students, but you never knew who might throw out a biting comment or when. In Civics, Jeff Keller had declared that Germans as a race were bloodthirsty and heartless, citing as examples not only the armies of the Kaiser and the Third Reich but also Bruno Hauptmann, who'd been convicted of murdering the Lindbergh baby several years ago. Not even a gangster
would be so cruel, Jeff had said, and the teacher hadn't contradicted him.
would be so cruel, Jeff had said, and the teacher hadn't contradicted him.
Helen tried not to provide any cause for criticism. That meant holding her tongue when she would have liked to speak, pretending not to hear certain remarks. It meant she felt constrained from doing anything as public as running for Student Council or trying out for Color Guard.
Helen knew from her grandmother's stories that the situation wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been during the Great War, when it was illegal to teach German, or to speak it on the street or on the phone. Books about German history and literature were taken out of schools and libraries. In some places, German churches were burned down, German men forced to kneel and kiss the American flag. There'd been lynchings in Illinois, floggings in Texas, imprisonments in Georgia. It was having lived through all that that had made Ursula so disturbed by the passage of the Alien Registration Act last month, which meant she'd have to go to the post office to be photographed and fingerprinted.
“Like the common criminal,” she'd said indignantly.
“The government files fingerprints on upright people, too,” Emilie had said, trying to soothe her. “Policemen, civil servants ⦠Even J. Edgar Hoover has been fingerprinted.”
“I will obey the law,” Ursula said, unappeased, “but I will not believe it is fair or harmless.”
She'd made Helen accompany her to the post office. Pretending not to know English, she wouldn't deign to speak to the officials.
The occasional barbs and snubs at school were blemishing Helen's senior year, but no one could truly feel carefree this year. The start of school in September had coincided with the beginning of the German siege of Leningrad, now in its fourth month. News was scant and all badâpeople freezing and starving,
dying of simple illnesses in the cold and dark. The use of convoys had diminished the success of U-boats in the Atlantic, but the stealthy submarines were still making lethal strikes, including sinking two American destroyers that were escorting British supply ships. The Japanese, too, had launched a fleet of subs. The Americas seemed a huge island surrounded by bloodshed and misery.
dying of simple illnesses in the cold and dark. The use of convoys had diminished the success of U-boats in the Atlantic, but the stealthy submarines were still making lethal strikes, including sinking two American destroyers that were escorting British supply ships. The Japanese, too, had launched a fleet of subs. The Americas seemed a huge island surrounded by bloodshed and misery.
Madeline walked away when Helen was only halfway down the ladder, leaving her to drag the heavy thing to the custodian's closet on her own.
As Helen walked home, the bright afternoon lifted her spirits. It was warm enough to leave her coat unbuttoned. The snow of last week was melting. Drips glistened from tree branches, black against the azure sky.
The shops on West Main Street were decked out for Christmas. Helen walked by leisurely, thinking about what gifts she might get her parents and grandmother.
She stopped in front of McCutcheon's Gift Shop to consider an arrangement of cut-glass bowls and goblets. Sunlight was slanting into the window, and the glassware refracted it against the shelves lined with shiny blue and green foil paper. Helen squinted against the glare. It seemed, then, that she was looking down on a glimmering sea from a great height.
The street sounds around her ebbed, replaced by a dull drone that became louder and louder, burgeoning into a roar. Helen turned around, expecting to find other pedestrians stunned by the awful noise and searching apprehensively for the arrival of whatever massive machine could be making it. But as soon as she looked away from the shop window, the sound stopped. She met only the familiar Saturday street busy with unfazed citizens and ordinary automobiles.
Oh, Lord, Helen thought, it's happened again. Though this was a new variation, a set of sensations inserted into normal
surroundings like a joker slipped into a deck of cards. Her heart was glutted with foreboding. What could the innocuous vision of the sea and the deafening noise mean? Unlike the specific knowledge that had come from the
Life
photo, this experience resisted quick interpretation.
surroundings like a joker slipped into a deck of cards. Her heart was glutted with foreboding. What could the innocuous vision of the sea and the deafening noise mean? Unlike the specific knowledge that had come from the
Life
photo, this experience resisted quick interpretation.
Just because she couldn't decipher the sea scene didn't mean it had no significance. Was someone going to drown? It was December, for heaven's sake. Who went swimming in New Jersey in December? Billy had talked about taking a life-saving course at the Y in February. Should she stop him? Would he listen? And what about the noise? That had been the frightening part. She'd had a quick sense of expectancy when she'd seen the sea, but the noise had felt like a dire threat. Maybe Billy or his father was going to have an accident with some machinery at the engine factory.
Absorbed in her ruminations, Helen didn't hear running feet behind her and was startled when someone whizzed by and snatched her crocheted hat from her head.
Billy skidded to a stop on the slushy sidewalk five yards ahead of her, laughing and waving her hat in his hand.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he called. “They must be deep ones.”
“How much for my hat?” she answered, as she came up to him.
“I'll give it back only if you promise not to put it on.”
“You dislike it that much?”
He handed her the hat.
“It's all right, I guess, if you don't mind looking like an acorn. It's warm enough, anyway, don't you think?”
Helen stuffed the hat into a pocket. They walked side by side, turning off the commercial street onto a residential one.
“I told old man Benson he ought to put out some beach umbrellas next to the snow shovels, but he didn't go for it,”
Billy went on. “Where you coming from?”
Billy went on. “Where you coming from?”
“We were getting the gym ready for the winter dance tonight.”
“You going?”
“I have to. I'm on the decorations committee. I already told you.”
“Right. Guess I forgot.”
A chilly breeze had kicked up. Helen took her hat out of her pocket and pulled it down over her ears, buttoned up her coat. They turned onto their block. The breeze had brought in wispy clouds. The houses, white clapboard on brick foundations fronted by flat yards patched with muddy snow, had an air of desertion about them. It was an effect of the paling of the sun, and the emptiness of the sidewalks. The quiet neighborhood, like the featureless sea in Helen's vision, seemed poised for some momentous change.
“Billy,” she said meditatively, “what could change the sea?”
“Change it?”
“What could happen to make it different?”
“The sea's too big to change. Unless you mean a typhoon or something. You could say that changes the sea for a while. Bigger waves, high winds, lightningâthings like that.”
“And thunder?”
“Yeah, sure, thunder. But thunder doesn't do anything. It's just noise.”
She nodded, unsatisfied. Billy started up the walk of his house, and Helen went on to her own.
“Say,” he called, “I'll come over tomorrow, and you can tell me how the dance was, okay?”
Â
The next day, Helen stood at the sink washing luncheon dishes while Billy and her father listened in the living room to a Giants football game being broadcast from the Polo Grounds in New York. Her mother and grandmother were at the church sewing
circle knitting scarves and socks for “Bundles for Britain.” Helen was daydreaming at her task, once more turning over the ordeal she'd been through in front of McCutcheon's window display. She still could make no sense of it. But a feeling of dread lingered.
circle knitting scarves and socks for “Bundles for Britain.” Helen was daydreaming at her task, once more turning over the ordeal she'd been through in front of McCutcheon's window display. She still could make no sense of it. But a feeling of dread lingered.
When shouts came from the living room, her skittish heart leapt.
“Good grief,” she chided herself, “it's only a touchdown.”
In the next instant, the swinging door slammed open. She turned to admonish Billy, but the look on his face checked her.
“Helen, come quick,” he said excitedly.
She rushed across the room, fearing her father had been stricken in some way. Billy followed close on her heels.
“We've been attacked,” he was saying behind her. “We've been attacked by Japan.”
At the threshold of the living room, she spied her father standing safe and sound by the radio. Belatedly, Billy's incredible announcement hit her.
“What?” she said.
“At Pearl Harbor.”
“Where's that?”
“Be quiet!” Walter commanded.
Helen and Billy went to stand beside him. There were easy chairs on either side of the big Philips, but none of them made a move to sit down. As they listened in horror to garbled reports of bomb strikes on American bases in Hawaii and Guam that morning, Billy put his arm around Helen's shoulders. She leaned against him. Never before had they been so demonstrative in front of her father. Walter said nothing, not noticing or not caring. He kept staring at the radio, shaking his head. His rigid jawline showed how tightly he was clenching his pipe.
The newscaster was describing a scene of devastation and chaos. Fires raging. Dead and wounded sailors floating in the
harbor. Hawaiian boys swimming through flaming oil slicks to pull them out. Civilian casualties in Honolulu, from both enemy strafing and Navy shells gone astray. Helen's stomach churned.
harbor. Hawaiian boys swimming through flaming oil slicks to pull them out. Civilian casualties in Honolulu, from both enemy strafing and Navy shells gone astray. Helen's stomach churned.
“Dirty Jap rats,” Billy said, his voice breaking.
The reporter repeated again and again how the Japanese warplanes had swarmed in, some so low people on the ground were able to see the faces of the pilots and rear gunners. They had attacked in waves, first torpedo bombers, then dive bombers and high-level bombers. In two blistering hours, they had sunk or badly damaged eighteen ships, destroyed hundreds of planes, and killed thousands of Americans. Marines were being sent to look for Jap paratroopers in the island valleys. It was feared that California cities would be hit tonight. Parents in San Francisco were being advised to give their children identification tags in case of separation.
Helen began to cry quietly, tears sliding down her cheeks.
A local reporter came on to say that although President Roosevelt would not address Congress until tomorrow at noon, New York City and the nearby New Jersey cities of Bayonne, Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson were already on a war footing. Mayor LaGuardia had confined Japanese nationals to their homes and closed their social clubs and other meeting places.
“We're in it now,” Walter said, reaching over and turning the volume down. “God help us, we're in it now.”
“I'd better get home,” Billy said.
“I'm going to the church for my wife and mother-in-law. I'd appreciate it, Billy, if you'd keep Helen with you until I get back.”
“Of course, sir.”
Even as the two men conspired to watch over her, Helen felt oddly shunted aside, as if she were watching them through a closed window. They had somehow formed an indivisible unit, indivisible, at least, by her. She was glad not to be left at home
alone, but she sensed that if she had wanted to be, they wouldn't have allowed it.
alone, but she sensed that if she had wanted to be, they wouldn't have allowed it.
But advice was what she needed more than protection. She was filled with fear, shock, and a strange kind of guilt, and no amount of comforting could make a dent in those feelings. Wait, she wanted to say to them. I have things to tell you. I heard the Jap planes coming yesterday.
Yesterday.
Thousands of miles from Hawaii. I saw the Pacific, though I didn't know that's what it was, and the reflections of sunshine on the sea. And I think I could have found out more. If I'd tried. Ought I to try now? But she could discover in their mobilization and unity no chink through which to insert her revelations and questions.
Yesterday.
Thousands of miles from Hawaii. I saw the Pacific, though I didn't know that's what it was, and the reflections of sunshine on the sea. And I think I could have found out more. If I'd tried. Ought I to try now? But she could discover in their mobilization and unity no chink through which to insert her revelations and questions.
Next door, Mr. Mackey and Lloyd were sitting in the living room, leaning forward in tense conversation. They stopped talking when Billy and Helen came in. Nevertheless, their agitation was obvious, and Helen thought she detected something close to exhilaration as well. The radio was on, redelivering the same terrible news.
Other books
Pirate Code by Helen Hollick
Blood Colony by Tananarive Due
I Pledge Allegiance by Pat Mora
The Cowboy Takes a Bride by Debra Clopton
Love by Beth Boyd
Tying Down The Lion by Joanna Campbell
Do Not Disturb 2 by Violet Williams
Water Lessons by Chadwick Wall
Cowboy Candy by C C Blaze
Anna Markland - Viking Roots Medieval Romance Saga 01 by The Rover Bold