Manhattan Beach

by Jennifer Egan

  “You need to make that decision now. Today,” Brianne said. “Those two choices lead in opposite directions.”

  If she was going to give the baby up, it was simply a matter of deciding where to have it. Brianne knew several places, all with nuns. “Prepare to gorge yourself on crow,” she said. “Followed by fat slices of humble pie. Confess, repent. Confess, repent. They’ll make your head spin.”

  “How do you know?”

  There was a pause. “Everyone knows,” Brianne said.

  If she wanted to keep the baby, she would need to marry immediately. This notion wrested a laugh from Anna. “Who would want to marry me, Auntie?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Brianne said. The most common motive was unrequited love. “A man who wouldn’t have a chance if it weren’t for your trouble might be willing to raise another man’s child as the price of having you.”

  When Anna assured her aunt that no such suitor existed, Brianne introduced a second possibility, this one involving men who were “different.” “That can work quite well,” she said. “And a kind of love can develop over time between husband and wife.”

  “Different?”

  “Homosexual. You know, pansies.”

  Anna did know of such things, but only by hearsay. “How on earth would I find a man like that?”

  “There are more around than you might think.”

  Anna frowned, shaking her head, but an image of Charlie Voss floated inadvertently to mind. Was it possible? Or was desperation making her reach?

  “I might know one,” she said. “But what if I’m wrong?”

  “Do you like him? Does he like you?”

  “Very much.”

  “Bingo. There’s your answer. Assuming he has a decent job.”

  “But how would it happen?”

  “Prospects, rather. Everyone has a job right now.”

  “I can’t just come out and ask.”

  “You’ll see him tomorrow morning, urgently. Seek his council over your predicament and leave it to him to make the offer, if he’s so moved.”

  “And then?”

  “You marry immediately, privately. Normally, you would go away together to cloud the time line, but with this stupid war, you’ll have to leave the marriage date and the child’s birthday vague and fix them later on. Your child—children if you have more—will have a father. That’s the main thing: they’ll be legitimate.”

  “Do people really live that way?”

  “I know several couples. Usually in the suburbs, Long Island or New Jersey. The man commutes to the city, rents a pied-à-terre, and stays over for work a couple of nights each week. Separate bedrooms. It’s like living with a girlfriend, except it happens to be your husband.”

  “It sounds so grim,” Anna said.

  “Grim? Look at you now.”

  “I’d rather be alone than live like that.”

  Brianne placed her cigarette on the silver stand and gathered herself into an icy tower of rebuke. “Oh, you’ll be alone, all right,” she said. “ ‘Outcast’ would be a better word, and your child branded as a bastard. Let me tell you something, dearie: the world is a closed door to an unwed mother and her illegitimate child. If you have that baby and fail to marry, you’ll lead the life of a shadow, and so will the brat. Why you didn’t come to me when we could have fixed this, I’ll never know, but you’re too smart to be stupid, Anna. Think about your homosexual friend—possibly homosexual friend. If you’re lucky enough to get a proposal out of him, it may be your best chance at happiness. If you want to keep the baby.”

  Anna saw that she must give the baby up. She would have to go away, but afterward she could resume her present life. She took a quick inventory of what would await her: a rented room; a job she would lose when the war ended. Friends who would scatter. Nothing, in other words. Her life was a war life; the war was her life. There had been another life before that—her family, the neighborhood—but everyone from that time had died, or moved, or grown up. Its last vestige had been the odd dark magic of her father’s death.

  “I need to walk,” Anna said, standing suddenly. “I need to think. I need to be alone.”

  “Oh, no,” Brianne said, rising from the chaise with a groan. “You’ve been alone too long, that’s quite clear. We don’t have to say a word, but I’m not leaving your side until we’ve a clear plan.”

  They walked east on Emmons Avenue. The sun had set, rinsing the sky in pink. Anna smelled the bay, its oily piers. Clusters of seagulls hopped at the shore like white rabbits.

  “Papa is alive,” Anna said, breaking a long silence.

  Her aunt glanced at her. “You thought otherwise?”

  “I’ve had a letter. He’s been sailing with the merchant marine.” When Brianne failed to evince amazement at this unlikely turn, Anna whirled on her. “You knew about this?”

  “I’d an inkling.” Then, preempting Anna’s explosion, she said, “How else do you think I’ve had the money to help you and your mother? Working at that greasy spoon?”

  “But . . . the Lobster King.”

  “There is no Lobster King. Oh, come now, don’t look so flabbergasted—that story was phony as a three-dollar bill. An old bag like me with a fancy man? I’m flattered you believed it.”

  Anna was beset with rage. She stopped walking and shrieked at her aunt, causing passersby to turn and peer at them. “You never told him about Lydia! He thinks she’s still alive!”

  “I’ve never had an address,” her aunt said mildly. “Not even a postal box. He sent a money order twice each year, told me to spend a bit on myself, and give the rest to Agnes.”

  “I wish he was dead,” Anna shouted. “I liked it better.”

  “If wishing could make men die, there’d be nary a live one left.”

  As suddenly as it had gathered, Anna’s anger shrank into disgust. “Do you hate him, too?” she asked when they were walking again.

  Brianne heaved a sigh. “He’s my only brother,” she said. “Who knows, the war may knock some sense into him. Wars have been known to do that.”

  “You said the war was a joke. Boys poking each other with sticks.”

  “The men who make the wars, yes. But the ones who fight, those beautiful kids . . . they’re innocents.”

  “Papa isn’t a soldier, Auntie—he’s with the merchant marine!”

  “And they’re not soldiers, too?” Brianne countered hotly. “They take every risk without a hope of glory: no medals, no five-gun salutes. In the end they’re just merchant seamen, hardly more than bums, from the world’s point of view. They’re the real heroes, I say.”

  There was no mistaking the tremor in her aunt’s voice. Heroism, apparently, was the one thing Brianne didn’t find ridiculous.

  “Papa is a hero? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Brianne said nothing. Anna thought of her father’s letter: the torpedo, the raft, the hospital. She would tell her aunt, but not now. Her mind was finally beginning to work, as if rage had scorched a path through her thoughts.

  They had reached a part of the waterfront blocked by military fencing, and turned back. Neither said a word the whole way. When they’d climbed the stairs to Brianne’s room and hung up their jackets, Anna asked, “How much is left of the money Papa sent?”

  “Two hundred dollars, more or less. Why?”

  “I’ve a plan.”

  Her aunt poured a glass of Four Roses and offered it to Anna, who declined—even now, she couldn’t bring herself to drink in front of her aunt. They returned to the chaise, and Brianne lit a cigarette and twirled the whiskey in her glass.

  “I’m going to take a train to California,” Anna said. “On the way, I’ll put on a wedding ring and a black dress. I’ll arrive a war widow and move near the Mare Island Shipyard and work there as a diver. I think I can get a transfer from the Brooklyn Yard.”

  Brianne snorted. “You realize a Pullman sleeper to California costs a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “I’v
e five hundred forty-two in the bank and three hundred twenty-eight in war bonds. And I’ll ride coach.”

  “Not in your condition!”

  “Auntie, I’ve been welding under thirty feet of water!”

  “You’ll be poor,” Brianne said. “Destitute.”

  “I can sell my war bonds.”

  “You’ll wind up on the streets.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Who can you depend on? Who do you know in California?”

  Anna laughed harshly. “Well, if I’m desperate, I suppose I could write to Papa,” she said. “I understand he’s a hero nowadays.”

  After “Shore Dinners” at Lundy’s famous restaurant, followed by slices of huckleberry pie, Anna changed into an old satin negligee of her aunt’s, stained under the arms. Brianne arrayed herself in a matronly housecoat of brushed rayon, buttoned to the neck. They lay together in her four-poster, buffeted by gusts of Saturday-night revelry from the Swain. Anna remained wide awake, staring at the ceiling fixture with its base of sculpted plaster roses. She was electrified by her plan—by the relief of finally having made one. She assumed her aunt had fallen asleep and so was caught unawares by her voice in the dark.

  “About the father . . .”

  “No, Auntie.”

  “One question.”

  “No.”

  “You needn’t answer. I’ll know just by asking.”

  “You won’t know anything.”

  “Was he a soldier?”

  Anna said nothing.

  “Those uniforms,” her aunt said, with a chuckle. “Who can resist?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  * * *

  “A letter won’t do a goddamn thing, I’m afraid,” Lieutenant Axel said. “Should, but it won’t.”

  “It’s supposed to act as a transfer,” Anna explained. “From the Brooklyn Naval Yard to Mare Island.”

  “A transfer is bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French. It’ll take forever to come through, like everything in this stumblebum place. What I’ll do—” He peered up at her across his desk. “I’ll telephone long-distance and speak with the man in charge.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “I’m likely to know him already, if he’s done any real diving.” He wore his bad-news face, but without the elfin pleasure that normally twinkled at its edges. “Sit down, Kerrigan.”

  Anna sat, nervous. Now that her every move was aimed at propelling herself to California with reputation intact, the fear of discovery hounded her.

  “There’s an unfortunate fact you’ve been protected from, working for me. But I can’t protect you out in California.” He took a long breath and leaned toward her confidingly. “Many of the old boys are—are backward in their thinking. They won’t want a girl in their diving program. Might snigger at the very idea.”

  He regarded her gravely, and Anna grew confused. Could the lieutenant be kidding? Engaging in uncharacteristic self-mockery? Or was it possible he’d forgotten their beginning?

  “Of course, you aren’t like most girls,” he said. “We both know that.”

  “It’s hard to know what most girls are like,” Anna murmured.

  “Point is, I’ll need to have the conversation man-to-man: Hire this girl. She’ll work like two fellows. If I send you out there with just a letter, he’ll assume I’ve low motives for writing it. That’s an ugly truth that I’m sorry to be the bearer of, Kerrigan, but it’s how their minds work.”

  Anna listened in wonderment. “I see.”

  “Man-to-man: This ain’t some dizzy blonde who likes to chum it up with the lads, because that’s what they’ll think. You’re shocked, I see that, but the world can be an ugly place. She’s the best goddamn diver in my unit, so wipe that smirk off your map and put her on the payroll, for Pete’s sake.” His cheeks flamed as he faced off against the base suppositions of his imagined interlocutor. “We’ve a war to win, goddamn it! We need the very best men out there—uh, people. I’ve a Negro working for me, Mr. Marle. Happens to be my best welder. Do I mind that he’s a Negro? Hell, I’d take a giraffe if they sent me one that could weld underwater like he can.”

  His vehemence bent Anna’s memory. Had she exaggerated the lieutenant’s harshness early on? Been oversensitive? She could no longer recall. “Do you think you’ll persuade them?” she asked.

  “I’ve an idea of their language, I suppose, the way their minds work. Enough to communicate.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He was quiet a moment, observing his folded hands on the desk. “That’s the first thing,” he resumed more calmly. “And the second is: the Pacific is lousy with sharks. I’m told you can watch great whites gobbling seals in the Frisco Bay like candy dots. May I ask what you intend to do about it?”

  * * *

  Just twelve days elapsed between Anna’s announcement that she must join her mother in California and her departure. During that time—or rather, after work and during her one day off in that time—she gave notice to her landlord, boxed and mailed her mother’s clothing and linens, put the furniture into storage, closed her account at Williamsburgh Savings, and sent her balance by telegraph wire to the Bank of America in Vallejo, California. She visited Lydia’s grave, promising to send for her sister when she was situated. Bascombe, Marle, Ruby, and Rose (whose family was bereft at the prospect of Anna’s going) all offered to help, but she couldn’t risk accepting. A more radical tale had been required to explain her departure to her mother and neighbors: after a two-week courtship, she’d been whirled off her feet straight to the altar and now was following her new husband to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. She bought a wedding band at a pawnbroker’s and slipped it on each time she entered her old block. The fabrication required a giddy, breathless delivery that exhausted Anna more than any amount of packing or lifting. Even writing it out in letters to Stella, Lillian, her mother, and the neighborhood boys in the service drained her. She doused the stationery in rose-scented toilet water and strewed exclamation points. Lying to her mother was hardest, but it was only temporary—a way of establishing the story for her family in Minnesota. Anna would tell her the truth when they saw each other.

  She named her husband Charlie. Lieutenant Charlie Smith!!!!!!

  Sustaining two incompatible falsehoods required not just vigilant precision in the donning and doffing of her wedding band but the enforcement of an absolute separation between her old life—her mother and neighborhood—and her present one at the Naval Yard. It meant not saying goodbye to Charlie Voss, whom Anna doubted she could lie to, face-to-face. She would write him from California.

  Over a final round of beers at the Oval Bar, she gave her friends the address of the Charles Hotel in Vallejo. She promised to kiss the Pacific shore for Bascombe and mail a palm frond to Ruby. For Marle, who hoped to move to California after the war, she promised to find out which places were friendliest to Negroes. Then she hugged Ruby, shook the hands of sixteen divers, and walked to the Flushing Avenue streetcar for a final supper with Rose and her family.

  Brianne arrived by taxi at noon the next day. Rose and her father had left for work, so Rose’s mother saw Anna off, exclaiming at the quantity of luggage already in the taxi: two cartons, a valise, an overnight case, a cosmetics case, and a large trunk—all Brianne’s. Her aunt’s involvement in Anna’s move had escalated from promising to see her off at the station, to accompanying her as far as Chicago, to going with her to California on her way to visit friends in Hollywood, to staying in Vallejo long enough to help her settle in, to remaining through the birth because who could leave a girl at such a time, to a revelation that had wakened Brianne from deep sleep (by her own report) and jettisoned her from her four-poster bed: she was sick to death of New York, pining for California weather, and long overdue for a permanent move there. She had stored her furniture alongside Anna’s.

  Rose’s mother held up little Melvin, and they waved together as the taxi pulled away. Anna saw that she was weeping. The silvery trees
along Clinton Avenue shook in a coal-scented breeze tinged with chocolate. When they were out of sight, Anna leaned back against the taxi seat and shut her eyes. An unnatural energy had propelled her through the many steps leading up to this departure. Now that those steps were complete, her excitement collapsed into emptiness. She had never wanted to leave and didn’t now.

  Brianne wagged a hand-painted Chinese fan, liberating an odor of stale powder from inside her dress. Anna felt a throe of revulsion. She didn’t want to go—especially not with this musty old woman for a companion. She rolled down her window and let the breeze box her face. The cabbie took a left on Flushing and drove west alongside the Naval Yard—past Building 77, from whose high windows Anna had looked down at the ships in dry dock; past the Cumberland gate and the officers’ mansions with tennis courts behind them. On a hill above the smokestacks, she glimpsed the gabled yellow commandant’s house.

  The driver turned right at Navy Street, and they passed the Sands Street gate and Building 4, where Nell had worked. Anna felt physical pain in her chest and throat as they approached the Yard’s extreme northwest edge. Building 569 was just across that wall! An ordinary day, perfect diving weather! She felt as if she, too, were across the wall, lugging equipment onto the barge with her friends and, at the same time, driving away from them forever. The separation was violent—a rending expulsion. Anna seized upon landmarks as if clawing a hillside to stop her slide: the Woolworth Building! The old Seaport piers! The harplike spokes of the Brooklyn Bridge!

  Across the East River, the Naval Yard became visible again, the Missouri’s dark shape looming through the building ways. The battleship was ahead of schedule; already people were machinating about which seats they would try to get for her launching. The most coveted spots were inside the building ways, and Charlie Voss had promised Anna one of these. She wondered if she might somehow return to Brooklyn for the Missouri’s launching; to miss that would be like not having been at the Naval Yard at all.