Kopp Sisters on the March

by Amy Stewart

  She came to love the sound, too. It had terrified her at first, recalling as it did that awful night with Henry Clay, but after the first time, she wanted to hear it again, and again.

  It was the decisiveness of a gunshot that satisfied Beulah. A bullet had the power to end something when nothing else would. She gave herself over to the fantasy of being in brutal, terrifying command for just a moment. She swam around inside of that dream, and imagined how it would feel to be the one who had the final say.

  Fleurette didn’t notice the way Beulah drifted off—she never did notice when her audience had stopped listening, or perhaps she didn’t care—and went right on chatting. “You also missed Hack telling Norma, right to her face, that pigeons couldn’t be counted upon to reliably transmit military communications.”

  “He didn’t,” Beulah said in mock outrage, trying to keep up with the conversation.

  “He did, and now he owes me five pigeons,” Norma said. “If I’d known he wasn’t willing to believe his own eyes, I never would’ve released them.”

  “Well, it’s over now,” Constance said briskly. They’d obviously rehashed this incident more than once already.

  Norma wasn’t finished, though. “He had the nerve to tell me that even though the telephone lines are abysmal in France, the soldiers prefer them, because at least they get to talk to a girl every now and then.”

  “That’s exactly what Jack says,” Sarah put in, happy to be back in correspondence with her brother, whose earlier letters might’ve been sunk by the Germans, but who remained unscathed himself, “except that he says he wishes they’d send some American girls over to work the switchboards. The French operators don’t even make an effort to say hello in English.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” Norma said, as if she knew all about French telephone operators.

  “We might find out soon enough,” Sarah said. “Clarence told me they mustered a thousand men to the Armory in New York last night.”

  “Why did they want them on such short notice?” Norma asked.

  “Nobody knows. They were sent home and told to return at eight this morning. But he also heard that an order’s been given to enlist another six thousand men in the Navy.”

  “They’re going to need more than six thousand, for all the ships they’re building,” Norma said. “We could be at war within a matter of weeks at this rate.”

  Fleurette rolled off her cot and went to stand over Beulah’s. “I made some posters for May Ward’s show,” she said, and unfurled a sheaf of papers. They were surprisingly well-done: carefully lettered in black ink, with a border of stars around the edge in gold paint. Plenty of bills pasted up on the street in New York were only half as good.

  “Come and help me put them up,” Fleurette said. She held out her hand with absolute certainty that it would be accepted, and Beulah could think of no good reason not to.

  32

  THE NEWS THAT Constance had decided to put a stop to the late-night drills was met with strenuous objection by her band of soldiers-in-training. To a woman they were indignant, and insisted upon a fuller explanation. To that end, the six of them met one more time in the woods: Constance, Sarah, Margaret, Fern, Bernice, and Hilda. Fleurette and Roxie weren’t invited along and wouldn’t have been interested regardless, with all the preparations for May Ward’s performance under way.

  It was a dark night, with low heavy clouds and no moon. There was a muggy kind of warmth in the air that foretold an early-morning storm, the kind that could send trickles of rainwater down the tent poles and make them all grateful to be sleeping atop a wooden platform—a luxury not afforded to the men in the trenches, as Norma liked to remind them every time they awoke to find themselves high and dry atop a mud puddle.

  In every way their suffering was nothing like that of the men in the trenches. Only that afternoon, Sarah had another letter from Jack, remarking—but never complaining, he didn’t complain—on the endless chill in France, and the way they had all learned to stuff their uniforms with newspaper for insulation. “We fight over every issue of Stars & Stripes,” he’d written. “Wraps right around the legs, lasts a week or more in dry weather.”

  Sarah was passing the letter around when Constance arrived at their meeting place, just after curfew. “He’s sleeping in what remains of an old kitchen,” she told Constance, “the roof half gone and a crumbling brick oven for fire. These villages hadn’t much to begin with, and now they’re entirely wrecked. There isn’t one intact house to be had for miles, so they bed down in any promising pile of rubble.”

  “It’s unfathomable,” Constance said, looking over Sarah’s shoulder and deciphering his faint pencil scratch. Ink was impossible to come by at the front.

  “What’s unfathomable,” Margaret said, “is the idea that we can’t so much as shoot at a target, when Jack has the Boche firing on him every night.”

  “Not every night,” Sarah said, quaking a little at the thought.

  “We simply can’t take a chance,” Constance said. “We’ve been overheard already. We’re sure to be found out, and that was our warning.”

  “It doesn’t matter if we’re found out. I’m not afraid of a girl complaining to her mother,” Margaret said.

  “It matters to me. I must do as I’ve promised and conduct this camp according to the program set forth,” Constance said. “I shouldn’t have let it go this far.” What she didn’t say was that she shouldn’t have allowed herself to be swept up in the excitement of it. To have her own militia, to teach them something of use . . . it had suited her so perfectly. She’d felt like her old self again, on those nights. But her duty was to the entire camp, not to the five of them.

  “Then we’ll practice on our own,” Margaret said.

  “With wooden rifles, you’re free to do as you like,” Constance said. “I’ve already told Hack and Clarence to put the guns away, and to keep a closer eye on their keys this time.”

  “Oh, I could put my hands on those keys,” Bernice said, a little wickedly.

  “Don’t you dare,” Sarah said. “If you haven’t learned to follow orders, you’ve learned nothing. Jack takes his orders without complaint, and without the benefit of a full explanation and an opportunity to offer up objections.”

  It warmed Constance to have Sarah on her side. “I’m as sorry as you all are to see it come to an end, but I’ve bent the rules as far as they’ll go without breaking.”

  Her troops showed little appreciation for how far the rules had been bent already. “I don’t see why we couldn’t go deeper into the woods,” groused Hilda.

  “It would take us half the night,” Bernice said. “I’m not getting my sleep as it is.”

  “You won’t get any sleep at the front,” Fern interjected, to laughter from the others. She did a fair imitation of Norma, answering any complaint with dire warnings of worse conditions overseas.

  Their protestations were of no use: Constance was adamant. It occurred to her, in that moment, to think back on all the times Sheriff Heath had stood by the rule of law, the strictures placed upon him by county charter, and his obligations to the public. She used to plead with him for an exception—for her inmates, for the cause of justice beyond what any courtroom could deliver—but more often than not, he stood firm. To the extent that she ever defied him—and she did, more than once—she now regretted it. She was out of a job, and so was he, for that matter. What cause did that serve?

  It made her sink a little in her boots to turn her attention back to the duties of chaperone and overseer of camp activities. There were bandages to be rolled, and carrots to be scraped into soups for the convalescent. It all sounded so dreary compared to their late-night target practice. But no one promised that war work would be exciting, or that anything more than a warmed-over vaudeville show would ever be offered up to relieve the tedium.

  33

  OVER THE NEXT few days, Fleurette stayed busy with her rehearsals, but Beulah begged off.

  “Why don’t you
want to come out at night?” Fleurette asked, pleading her case. “It’s so dull here otherwise.”

  “I’m enjoying staying in for once,” Beulah said, and added, with a bit of her society girl weariness, “There is such a thing as too many gay affairs.”

  Fleurette raised her eyebrows to indicate that she hadn’t yet had her fill of gay affairs, but said nothing.

  Beulah thought it best to keep her distance from the rehearsals. Tizzy had come too close to guessing the truth. Memories were like ashes in a coal stove: sometimes they flickered back to life, just when they seemed to have gone cold. Seeing Beulah in that bonnet might’ve been just the spark Tizzy’s memory required.

  But it hadn’t been enough to summon the name Beulah Binford to mind, had it? Wasn’t that all that mattered? She kept reminding herself that six years had passed since her picture appeared in the papers. Tizzy, like so many of the other girls at camp, had been only fourteen or fifteen during the murder trial. How many other faces, reproduced in black-and-white at two inches tall, had flown past her gaze since then?

  In fact, Beulah couldn’t be entirely sure, looking back on it, that Tizzy had even looked at her so pointedly, or meant anything at all by her remark about the bonnet. For too many years she’d lived with the feeling that every eye cast upon her was suspicious. She couldn’t bear anyone’s gaze. She took any remark, however innocent, the wrong way. Everywhere she went, with everyone she met, the same two words haunted her: They know.

  Now, at camp, They Know might as well be written across the sky. She cringed when her Virginian accent slipped through. Even worse were those moments when the girls from New York noticed that she couldn’t possibly have come from the same world they inhabited: she didn’t know any of the dressmakers and florists they did, or the restaurants and theaters, or even the songs and dances.

  If they didn’t know, they suspected. How could they not? Her saving grace was that no one, not even Tizzy, seemed sufficiently interested in her to probe further. Best to keep it that way by staying away from the rehearsals and avoiding gatherings of any kind outside of the classes she was required to attend. The less anyone noticed her, the better. She was determined to be the dullest girl at camp.

  Constance kept a close eye on her, and there was no avoiding her gaze. A distraction was required. Beulah found that if she made a great show of studying in the evenings, Constance would merely nod her approval and leave her alone. She practiced her stitchery until she reached a middling level of competence. She studied the Red Cross diagrams until she could fold bandages according to the instructions. She pored over the wireless and telegraphy manual and found that she could read most of it, if she pointed at the words and sounded them out. It began as a charade, but she found that as she persisted, she made some progress. Perhaps she’d learn something of use after all, and in that way prove herself worthy of passage to France.

  She was, in measured steps, trying to pull herself together. She might even manage to put the past back to bed, where it belonged. Meemaw, Claudia, her long-vanished mother, Henry Clay, and the little baby she had lost—all of them were like children who could be tucked under the covers, and the lights turned out. If she could keep very quiet, they would not awaken and demand her attention. She’d allowed them to sleep for years back in New York, and she could do it again.

  They could sleep forever, as far as she was concerned—even the ones she’d loved.

  Come to think of it, she’d once loved all of them.

  CLASSES ENDED EARLY on the afternoon of May Ward’s concert because so many girls were either performing in the chorus, helping to decorate the stage, or setting up the mess hall for theater-style seating. May Ward herself was to arrive at four o’clock for a short rehearsal, but her train was delayed and it was nearly six before she turned up.

  Fleurette had been pressing Beulah to drop by the rehearsal and meet Mrs. Ward before the audience was seated. It was obvious that Fleurette wanted Beulah to see how friendly she was with the vaudeville star. Beulah was touched by the idea that it mattered to Fleurette at all what she thought of her, or that any sort of proximity to a stage actress would raise Beulah’s esteem for her.

  Beulah was ready and waiting at the appointed hour, but when it became clear that there had been some sort of delay, she went back to her tent. “I’ll hear the commotion when she arrives,” she assured Fleurette, “and I’ll be right over.”

  But Beulah did not hear the commotion, because by the time Mrs. Ward turned up, the campers were in the middle of collecting their cold suppers on trays, which they were to eat in their tents while the mess hall was converted to a theater. Beulah wasn’t much interested in the supper: it was nothing but sliced ham and rolls left over from lunch, cold potatoes that had probably been boiled the night before, and a mealy apple. She was picking at the roll when Constance stopped in and told her that Fleurette was looking for her.

  “There’s a little changing-room tent behind the mess hall,” Constance said, “and Mrs. Ward is waiting there with Fleurette. She’s asking if you’ll come and say hello.”

  Beulah tucked the last corner of a roll in her mouth. “The great May Ward. If only I’d brought my autograph book.”

  “Fleurette adores her,” Constance said, as they walked together to the tent. “She used to buy all of May Ward’s sheet music, and insisted that we go to see her perform whenever she came through Paterson.”

  “Did you and Norma bring Fleurette up by yourselves?” Beulah asked. She’d nearly given up on asking the Kopp sisters about their lives back home, because they were so rarely forthcoming. It was also true that she’d stopped asking anyone about their past, for fear that they might reciprocate.

  “Our mother died a few years ago,” Constance said. “Fleurette was sixteen at the time. She was mostly grown.”

  “She still is,” Beulah said.

  Constance smiled at that. “Mostly grown? She wouldn’t like that. She’s nearly twenty.”

  It was April by then, and light later in the evening, so that the camp had more of the air of a summer retreat about it, with games of lawn croquet set up between the tents, and canvas chairs propped up outside like rocking chairs on a porch.

  The campers were starting to emerge from their tents, still in their uniforms, but just a little more dolled up for the evening. Gauzy scarves appeared around collars, hairstyles were more elaborate, and there was the pleasing fragrance of smuggled perfume and face powder in the air. Constance didn’t seem to notice: Beulah had the impression that she’d decided to relax the rules for the occasion.

  They arrived at the mess hall just as the doors were opening. It had been transformed with some success into a theater, with Fleurette’s posters wheat-pasted to the wooden posts on either side of the door, and a row of lanterns illuminating the entrance. Through the doorway Beulah saw Clarence at his piano, playing a few warm-up pieces, but the music was nearly drowned out by the audience’s light, bubbly laughter.

  “She’s just around here,” Constance called, above the noise. Beulah found herself unaccountably happy to follow along, and to be admitted backstage as if she were a visitor of importance.

  The dressing-room tent sat just behind the mess hall. It was the same size as the ones they all slept in: large enough for five campers, or one vaudeville actress. Constance pulled the flap aside and Beulah stepped in.

  It was as elegantly furnished as Fleurette could manage. Lanterns glowed from every corner, bright bits of fabric hung from the ceiling, chairs and cots were scattered about like settees in a salon, and a table and mirror had been placed in the center. May Ward was seated in front of the mirror, with Fleurette behind her arranging her hair.

  The actress was chatting gaily with Fleurette as Beulah walked in. “Everyone’s trying to get into films,” she was saying, “but I missed the stage. There’s nothing like a full house. Give me an audience over a camera any day. And now, with the war coming, we want to be of service to the men going off to fight, d
on’t we, dear?”

  “Mrs. Ward,” Constance said, “pardon the interruption, but I’d like to present Miss Roxanna Collins.”

  Fleurette patted Mrs. Ward’s hair into place and stood back. “This is the girl I told you about! Roxie claims she can’t sing a note, or she’d be on stage tonight with us.”

  May Ward turned around, not so much to greet Beulah as to accept her compliments. She was older than Beulah had expected, and wore an overly bright expression of false merriment. She’d once been a freckle-faced young woman, but she’d faded somewhat, and her fine, thin features now only looked pinched. The vivid stage paint on her lips and cheeks didn’t help: she looked garish in close quarters.

  Beulah felt an urge to curtsy, but thought that wasn’t quite right. She did make some awkward little bow, nodded, and said, “Pleased to meet you, Miss Ward. I hope—”

  “Oh, don’t call me Miss. I’m married, whether I like it or not. I had a husband around here a minute ago. What’s become of Freeman?”

  Freeman? Beulah froze. Surely not.

  Then she heard his voice behind her.

  “Just stepped out for a cigar, dear, and to have a peek at the audience. You’ll have a full house. If we could only charge them a dollar each, we’d really have something. Now, who’s this?”

  She couldn’t keep her back to him forever. Everyone else had turned around to face him. What could she do, but spin around and look him in the eye?

  There he was: the same old Freeman Bernstein. He’d grown a little more jowly, and he’d lost some hair, but he was in every other way the same showman who’d turned up at the Richmond jail all those years ago.

  Who’d had the nerve to turn up at the Richmond jail.

  He’d been grinning behind his stub of a cigar, but when he and Beulah were face to face, the smile faded. A look of panic crossed his eyes. He was remembering, and calculating.