Telegram For Mrs. Mooney

by Cate M. Ruane

  I put the telegram back on the side-table and went to find myself a snack. Maybe I’d go out to the abandoned house, come to think of it. It was a good place to begin planning my trip to Europe. My sister Mary would get home from school at any minute and she’d start pestering me. I needed somewheres quiet to let the wheels in my head spin smooth. An abandoned attic was the perfect place to do it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TREASURE HUNTERS GOT TO have a knack for observation—20/20 vision and big ears. King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered by Howard Carter’s trusted Arabian worker, who spotted a small step covered in sand—a step that for years other archeologists strolled over on the way back and forth to their tents. Down that staircase was the Egyptian Fort Knox.

  By applying powers of observation, I avoid ever coming face-to-face with my sister Mary. All five senses can be used, even though two will do the trick.

  Smell: She uses Ivory soap, which she thinks will clear up her pimples, and setting lotion to tame her frizz. Smoky house and you know she’s in the kitchen cooking.

  Hearing: She wears a charm bracelet. The Washington Memorial clinks against Sacagawea, the Indian lady who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition. If that fails, I listen for the Chrysler Building clanging against a heart locket—who gave her a heart locket is anyone’s guess.

  One night a month or more after the telegram arrived, I sat at the dinner table eating mashed potatoes with ketchup—a combination my ma said was a sin. She believed the only proper way to eat mashed potatoes, or baked potatoes for that matter, was with a dab of butter and a sprinkle of salt. Tonight I observed she wasn’t eating much at all and skipped the butter all together. The spuds sat in a big lump on Ma’s plate, and she picked at them with the prongs of her fork. She got skinny this last month—I’d say from size 16 to 12. This normally would have her boasting as she put darts in the waistbands of her skirts. Now she let the clothes hang baggy on her. Her wedding ring was loose, too. While she was washing up one night, it slipped down the drain. Da had to take apart all the plumbing to retrieve it and meanwhile flooded the whole kitchen.

  On top of that, she wasn’t applying Woolworth’s “Lustre-Cream” to her hair and she’d stopped plucking the white ones out. She stopped putting on the cameo brooch Da got her when they was courting. These were all bad signs. But the worst thing was she stopped baking cakes. I wanted more than the world to make her happy again—happy like before the telegram arrived.

  My da sat quiet at the head of the table eating his fair share of boiled cabbage, shame-faced because he’d drunk our meat money down at the Cold Stream Pub and there was no ham to go with it. He was drinking more than usual since Jack went missing. Da kept to himself, but we knew he was worried about Jack by the way he stared at the ketchup bottle. My da was what you’d call the silent type, so I wasn’t too troubled. My ma, on the other hand, had what the Irish call the gift of gab. She enjoyed telling us stories about the old country. Now all the stories had dried up in her worry.

  As far as I could tell, nothing was being done about finding my brother—nothing but a whole lot of worrying, and my ma lighting a candle every day at Saint Brendan’s Church. What was needed here was action.

  All we knew was his plane was shot down in German-occupied Belgium. The closest I’d come to that place was the Belgian Pavillion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which happened on Long Island. It seemed obvious someone had to go over to the real place, find Jack, and bring him home. Seeing my ma like this, day after day, fortified me in my plans to be the one to do it.

  On the best hand, the Belgian Resistance was hiding Jack from the Nazis. On the worse hand, he was somewheres deep inside Germany, a prisoner of war, and he’d need my help to escape. Never once did I entertain the notion that Jack was dead. Every adventure story I ever read ended happy, like in Treasure Island. If Jim Hawkins, just a boy like me, escaped fearsome pirates and got home to his mother, it stood to reason that so could Jack. Escape the Nazis, that is.

  “Tommy, help your sister clear up,” said my ma, folding her napkin into a perfect triangle and sliding back her chair. There was very crucial tasks to accomplish before bedtime, but I didn’t want to upset her, so I said, “Yes, Ma,” in my most obedient voice. I was rewarded with a shrug.

  Only one of my two sisters was home that night. My older sister Anne (who we called Nancy for a reason I never got) was working nights as a waitress at a Greek diner out on Hempstead Turnpike. Each time I visited her there, she snuck me a big piece of Boston cream pie, and I loved her for it. She was a knockout—a female version of Jack, who could be in the pictures if he wanted. My friends were all carrying a torch for Nancy and always nagging me for information about her. They wanted Nancy’s measurements, offering me a year’s worth of Cracker Jack prizes for the three numbers. I found their obsession revolting. Still—it made me proud to be blood related.

  Mary was the third child in the family, after Jack and Nancy. She was 14 and the thorn in my side, as I might’ve already said. When my ma was out of the room she bossed over me in a way made me wish aliens’d snatch her up and take her to Pluto.

  “Be careful to let the water get hot before you wash the dishes, Tommy,” she said, as she sat on her duff examining her fingernails. Them nails were sharper than a samurai sword. Plus, she was taller than any boy in her class and had five inches on me. So I went to the kitchen sink.

  One day, when I shot up tall as Jack, the tables would turn on Mary. For the time being I had to get my revenge on the sly. My da’s straight edge razor blades and erasers were my weapons of choice. The last ten pages went missing from a romance novel took her three months to get to the end of. The night before she handed it in to the teacher, several sums were changed on her arithmetic homework. Best of all, on her final paper for history class, I replaced the word Henry—as in King Henry VIII—for Harry.

  Now she was getting back at me by throwing dishes in the sink without wiping the food scraps first. “Oops,” she said, as the leftover mashed potatoes from my ma’s meal floated to the top of the soapy sink water, splashing onto the plates I’d just placed on the drying rack. I loathed her with the same intensity that people hated the Lindbergh baby kidnappers.

  “Looks like you’ll have to start all over,” she said with that smirk she perfected by watching Betty Davis films.

  “I’ll finish up without your help, thank you,” is how I solved the problem, just as she’d hoped. She went sauntering out of the kitchen, leaving me in peace to finish with the washing up, alone in my thoughts.

  While drying the dishes and stacking them in the cupboard, I mentally went down the list of supplies I still needed to gather before leaving East Hempstead for Nazi-occupied Europe. A duffel bag hidden under my bed already contained a spare pair of blue jeans, a flannel jacket, and a baseball cap. Knowing I’d have to go undercover, I removed the Brooklyn Dodger insignia from the cap—a crying shame. In the likelihood I’d need a disguise, I packed the tie and dress jacket I was forced to wear to Mass on Sunday. For the same reason, I added to the bundle a pair of aviator sunglasses. Jack gived them to me before leaving for Canada. The sunglasses were one of my prized possessions because Jack wore them during flight training. They made me look as dashing as Robert Taylor, the movie star. It was Nancy who made this observation and so it was a fact.

  But I still had to find a compass and a map of Europe. The map I’d cut from a Rand McNally World Atlas at the public library, using the same razor blade I applied to Mary’s novel. By then the blade was dull, useless as a weapon. Jack left his boxing gloves with me, but I’d need more than my two fists to duke it out with a real Nazi. There was Jack’s bow and arrow set—the one he used for shooting possums that came at night and ate our chickens. I was sharping my skills by aiming at a target drawn on the barn wall. The bulls-eye was the nose of Adolf Hitler. If I missed a little, at least got his moustache.

  I’d also bring along a pocketknife, a slingshot, seven darts, a boomerang, and
a few boxes of firecrackers and matchsticks. Mary’s nail file would go to Belgium too. If the SS had Jack locked up in chains, it would come in handy. The added bonus was knowing Mary’s nails was getting ragged. Then there was the real four-leaf clover, glued onto a card, that my grandma in the old country sent me. That was coming along for luck.

  When my da lost his job, I lost my allowance. There was only one place to get the dough needed for a journey to Europe, because banks had armed guards. I planned on confessing at a church somewhere far from Saint Brendan’s—somewheres like Brussels for example. Three Masses on Sunday worked out to three collection plates coming my way. Normally I was moaning and groaning all the way to Mass, and so people began to notice.

  My sister Nancy said, “Tommy, you’ll become a saint if you keep this up.”

  “He’s a good lad,” said my ma, who was thinking I’d become a churchgoer so’s to pray for my brother Jack. She’d attended Mass every morning since Jack went missing. She patted me on the head.

  “Patron Saint of Brats and other Wayward Youths,” said Mary in her nastiest voice. I flicked my rosary beads at her knee. “See what I mean!” she yelled out. But I’d managed the attack so nimbly, no one knew what she was going on about. I leaned back into the car seat and put on my cherub face. I felt for the wad of dollar bills I’d stuffed in my back pocket and said a Hail Mary just in case.

  My departure was scheduled for September 2, 1942, the day that the school term began. All summer I trained, not only with target practice but also by running laps around the block, doing 100 push-ups every morning, and by climbing trees more than usual.

  Mr. Fisch, our neighbor who lived in the green Tudor at the end of the street, was teaching me German. His lawn was filled with miniature dwarf statues standing under a man-made waterfall that flowed into a six-foot long river with a wooden bridge across. Mrs. Fisch said it reminded her of Germany. For more than a month I learned the lingo. Mr. Fisch emigrated from Berlin before the Great War and didn’t like Adolf Hitler no more than me. I clued him into my reasons for needing to know German and he swore to keep my plans a secret. But I suspected he didn’t take me seriously, even after I asked him to teach me to say in German, “Have you seen a downed Spitfire around here?”

  Four years of Latin class, and compared to that, German was a snap. I already knew how to say airplane three different ways: das Flugzeug, die Maschine or der Flieger. I could introduce myself in German and ask for directions. I knew how to count to 100 and how to buy a train ticket. I knew how to ask if the Gestapo was anywhere abouts—important to know, because they were the dreaded Nazi secret police: G-men with a capitol G. I made sure I learned how to say all of my favorite foods—like ketchup and marshmallow, which lucky for me turned out to be ketchup and marschmallow. Whenever I came for a lesson, Mrs. Fisch offered me macaroons from a tin she hid behind the bread box—it helped me keep up the stamina needed for my training.

  Mr. Fisch is the one first told me that the Nazis had it out for Jewish people, which included him and Mrs. Fisch. On one of my visits he handed me a book he said I’d better read, in the English edition because my German “vus leaving room for improvement.” First thing I asked is if the book had pirates.

  “Nein,” he said, in a hushed voice, “But vay many monsters.” Then he warned me not to pass it on to bullies. That got my attention big time, so I dived into that book.

  Turned out it was written by Adolf Hitler himself. Not since Professor Moriarty was there a villain like him. On the first page he’s talking about gobbling up Austria, now a done deal. Take this: “The plow will become the sword, and the wheat will be watered by the tears of war.” Meaning my ma’s tears, the stinker. Next he’s describing himself as a boy: “I had somehow become a little ringleader among my group.”

  Well, no kidding!

  I got to page two of Mein Kampf and gave up, but reckoned I’d better bring it along to Europe, being that Mr. Fisch claimed it was “Important reading if you vunts to comprehend the despicable Nazi agenda.”

  I needed somewheres to stay once I got to Europe. The only people I knew over there was in the old country. Irish people like to have big broods. I had grandparents in Ireland, plus hundreds of aunts and uncles. If I went anywhere near them, they’d give me up to the authorities—meaning my ma and da. I’d steer clear of Ireland.

  Then it came to me—there was always Daphne, the 18-year-old English girl Jack was engaged to marry. I didn’t know much about Daphne, only what I’d learned from a newspaper article, which mentioned a letter she’d written to Ma. She said, and I quote, “I’ve put away the trousseau for a while but I’ll be taking everything out again soon as I know he’ll be back.” I had no idea what a trousseau was, but she had to be keen on Jack or why marry him? I’d have to find the letter Daphne wrote to my ma. It was the only way to get her address in London without raising suspicions. For all I knew Ma burnt the letter. She went ape when Jack sent word that he was marrying an English girl. My ma wore black for a week. Still—it was worth looking for the letter. And come to think of it, this Daphne girl might even want to help me find Jack, as it might be between that and her becoming an old maid.

  Ma keeped all of Jack’s letters tied up with a ribbon in her top dresser drawer. I figured that’s where I’d also find Daphne’s letter, if it still existed. This drawer was forbidden territory, because Ma said it held her private things. I happened to know she keeped a stash of chocolate mints in there. Once when I peeked into the keyhole, I watched her sneaking one out. I’d a dickens of a time keeping myself out of that drawer once I knew what was in there.

  Unless there was hitch-ups, everything was on schedule for my departure in early September. We heard on the radio that the American B-17 Flying Fortresses were now bombing Europe. This was good news to most Americans but worrying for us. Now my brother Jack was in peril. The clock was ticking and there was no more time to waste.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 2TH, 1942, hours before breakfast, I rolled out of our driveway headed west. The wheels was spinning so fast, my sneakers had trouble gripping the pedals. Any second thoughts, I ordered to get behind number one.

  My plan was to go non-stop, but somewheres around New Hyde Park I had to untangle a shoelace that come loose and got jammed in the sprocket. Then, near the boarder of Queens County, the chain began slipping off. I stopped at an Esso gas station and the service boy helped me fix it free of charge. Wiping the motor oil from his hands he said, “Fill’er up, bub?” and we both had a good laugh. I gulped down a bottle of soda and was off again.

  It took twenty minutes to pass alongside a cemetery. There was a million tombstones and still not enough space for all the people who had immigrated to the city. What with all the Irish who’d come after the famine, they was now stacking whole families one on top of the other like bricks. That’s one of the main reasons my parents moved out to the sticks. Out on Long Island a person planted himself in his backyard if he wanted.

  When I got bored, I entertained myself by imagining the scene back home:

  “Mary Rose Mooney!” my ma yells at 6:30 AM. “Wake your brother!”

  “Yes—hiss—Mother—hiss—dear,” my sister says, while she removes a pin from a pincushion. Her hair is in curlers and her mind is bent on torture.

  Entering my room, the first thing Mary notices is that the bed is made and I ain’t in it. She knows I never make the bed except when I’m bullied: the first clue. She guesses I’m playing some sort of trick, and her back goes up as she braces for a surprise attack, but none will come—that’s the sad part. She examines the bedcover and the way all the corners are tucked under. It’s Ma’s work—once a professional maid. It means one thing: I didn’t sleep in my bed.

  Mary runs straight for Ma, hiding the pin behind her back. I almost hear Ma saying, “What are you saying, girl?” Ma puts down the sandwich she’s lovingly fixing for my lunch and begins making her way to my bedroom. All the way she’s call
ing out for me: “Darling boy! Sweetheart! Apple of my eye!”

  I’ve been known to sleep in all kinds of places—sometimes in the attic, once in the crawl space under the stairs, and lots of times in the barn—so she isn’t panicking yet, just a little annoyed. This is the first day of the new school year and she wants me there on time.

  Nancy, who worked the late shift at the diner, is woke up by Ma’s voice and steps out of her room, wrapping herself in a satin robe. “I’m trying to sleep, Ma,” she says, before joining in the search, which soon enough will prove to be a waste of time.

  “Where ever could he be?” Ma says to my sisters and to Da. By now he’s wide-awake and not too happy about it. He’d have a hangover from staying too late at the pub.

  “He’s run-off to avoid school,” Mary says. “I’ll be sure to let Sister Bridget know.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind.” I picture my ma saying this as she slaps Mary’s backside with a rolling pin. “This is none of your business you good for nothing snitch. And now get off for school yourself. And try doing better than Ds this term.”

  “I’m trying to be helpful,” Mary says. “Harrumph!”

  Once Mary leaves the kitchen my ma says, “I hate to say it but the girl might be right. What else is the explanation? He’s normally such a grand child. Maybe we should have switched him to the public school like he wanted. Tommy has a strong aversion to nuns.”