Bachelor Girl

by Kim van Alkemade

  But it did, and he hadn’t. As the cast came onstage to take a bow, I wished I could skip the socializing and go in search of him, but everyone involved in the production had invited guests to the dress rehearsal. As the producer, I was obliged to meet them all: the wives of carpenters and electricians, the costume designer’s mother, the set designer’s husband, the friends and family of every actor and actress. Bernice introduced me to her parents, who I’d been curious to meet. Her mother was obviously colored, but her father was so light-skinned he could have been mistaken for Cuban. If Bernice had decided to pass as white to the point of marriage, like the woman in that novel Clarence had given me, she could have easily had children who would never have known there was a trace of Africa in their blood. Choosing Clarence, though, guaranteed her children would be seen as black. I’d wondered, when Bernice told me she’d accepted his proposal, if that was a compromise on her part or part of the attraction.

  “The play is splendid, Helen,” Bernice said. “Don’t you think it’s splendid, Clarence?”

  “I do. It took a lot of courage for you to stage it, Helen.” He held out his hand. I was tempted to spit into my palm before taking it. “Congratulations, the rehearsal went perfectly.”

  “Too perfectly.” Harrison’s deep voice vibrated in my ear. Clarence and Bernice started talking to my mother as he tugged me aside. “It’s a bad omen for opening night, Helen.”

  Impatiently I said, “I could call in a favor and have you kneecapped.”

  For a moment he looked at me with complete sincerity, as if weighing the benefits of my suggestion. Then he broke into a laugh and threw his arm over my shoulders. “If it comes to that, I’ll sacrifice myself for the good of the play. Come backstage, we’ve got a bucket full of ice and a gallon of gin. If we’re lucky, some stagehand will fall down drunk and crack his skull.”

  “You all go ahead. I’m not staying.”

  “You can’t leave, Helen. I need to talk to you.” He pulled me out of the aisle, our knees knocking together as we dropped into seats in the middle of a row. “I’ve been thinking about the scene when the doctor examines the girl. From the back of the house I couldn’t see a thing. The way her father holds up her dressing gown, it’s like a screen. Gilpin might as well have been checking his watch as palpating her stomach. I’m going to move the father upstage and let the gown fall open so the audience can see the doctor is simply doing his best to diagnose her.”

  “She’ll be up there in nothing but her nightgown.”

  “The girl’s covered head to toe in satin, there’s nothing indecent about it.”

  I tried to imagine how it would look staged as Harrison described it, but I was too distracted. “You’re the director, it’s up to you. I’ve got to go.”

  I found my mother in the lobby and told her I was going to Albert’s and to call me there if she heard anything. At the brownstone, I mounted the stoop and let myself in without bothering to ring his bell. I hoped his landlady was sound asleep—she was used to me visiting during the day, but she complained if she caught me staying too late. The lights were off in his apartment but the curtains were open, the streetlamp casting a ghostly glow over the empty living room. His wallet and keys, which he always set on the small table by the door, were gone, but his coat and hat hung on the rack despite the snow flurrying outside. He must have rushed out in response to some emergency. Perhaps his mother had called with news that his grandmother had finally died. But no, he’d have found a way to let me know if he was taking a train to Pittsburgh. Maybe there’d been some crisis at the stadium, or perhaps Albert had been sent to bail Babe Ruth out of jail again. Whatever had happened, I decided to wait there for his return.

  I put up a pot of coffee, listening to the wheeze and sigh of the percolator as I sleuthed through Albert’s things. I stuck my hands in his coat pockets: matches, cigarettes, a capped pen. I opened drawers: city directory, subway tokens, a hammer. I lifted the lid of a box on the mantel: cuff links, tie clips, a brass button stamped with an eagle. None of it gave me a clue as to his whereabouts. If he’d been injured or killed, the police would never know to notify me. I wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t even his fiancée, as Harrison had reminded me. Cradling my coffee on the couch, I realized it wasn’t enough for Albert and I to love each other. We needed, somehow, to be bound together.

  I remembered reading that book Albert had mentioned, about sexual inverts. Dr. Havelock Ellis claimed the condition was an “inborn perversion of the sexual instinct, rendering the individual organically abnormal.” But among the many case studies of men whose only desire was for others of their own sex, there were some accounts of inverts who had married women, their paternal instincts providing the motivation to engage their wives in intercourse. Perhaps the prospect of children would have motivated Albert, too, but I didn’t have that incentive to offer. I’d skipped to the end of the book, looking for words of hope regarding some cure. My blood ran cold at the discussion of castration which, Dr. Ellis concluded, was as useless a treatment as large doses of alcohol, the manipulations of prostitutes, prolonged hypnosis, or even psychoanalysis. In the end, I’d put the book aside. Albert was no more damaged than I was. I loved him as he was, and he loved me in every way he could, and that was all that mattered.

  The telephone rang. I lunged for it, certain it would be his voice I’d hear as I lifted the earpiece. “Has there been any word, Helen?”

  “No, Mom, nothing.” She offered to call Jake, but I told her she’d just wake up Mr. Nakamura. “If Jake heard of anything happening to Albert he’d let us know. You might as well go to bed, Mom. I’m going to stay here.”

  I poured another cup of coffee, kicked off my shoes, switched off the light, and curled up on the couch. I thought back to Harrison’s question. Why shouldn’t Albert and I be engaged? I was in no hurry to give up being a Bachelor Girl, and I knew Jake preferred his secretary to be a bachelor, too. But Albert wouldn’t be a secretary forever. One day we could make a home of our own, buy rugs and furniture for ourselves rather than purchasing them on Jake’s behalf. I remembered Mr. Stern saying an orphanage wouldn’t give a baby to a single woman, but if Albert and I were married, we could adopt the way Babe Ruth and his wife had adopted their daughter, Dorothy. They’d tried to keep the adoption a secret, but the press, which followed Babe like hounds after a fox, had finally sniffed the story out. It must have been hard on Mrs. Ruth to admit so publicly to being barren, but adopting a child was a noble thing to do, everyone said so.

  The hours crept by. Outside, streetlights punctured the deep black of early morning. I used Albert’s bathroom, drying my face with his towel. The pillows on his bed were dented with the impression of his head and I stretched myself out on his sheets, pulling up the blanket. Perhaps we could share a bed, I thought, nuzzling his pillow for the scent of his hair. What difference did his condition make in the end? That he couldn’t complete the act of sex, that’s all. How many nights did most married couples sleep peacefully side by side? Albert had arms. He could hold me. He had a heart behind his ribs. I could rest my head on his chest and listen to it beating.

  Chapter 29

  I was already running late for Helen’s rehearsal when the telephone rang. Figuring she was calling to ask where I was, I decided it would be faster to simply knot my necktie and head out the door than stop to talk with her. The Colonel had kept me at the stadium until dark, critiquing every detail, as if we weren’t already scrambling to finish on time after a winter of challenges on the construction site. The railway strike put the delivery of steel a month behind schedule, freezing temperatures slowed the pouring of concrete, and a slew of change orders delayed progress and pushed costs well over the million-dollar mark. There were so many disputes with the contractors the whole project was put into arbitration, and the Colonel’s constant interference didn’t help matters. In October he’d insisted on relocating the club rooms and offices from the first to the third base side of the field over the strenuous objecti
ons of White Construction, Osborn Engineering, and Tillinghast Huston. On our walk-through today, when he’d discovered that the window sashes in the club room were blocked, he insisted the radiators be removed and replaced by shorter ones, even though that meant getting the pipe fitters back on-site. Then, as we were leaving, he decided he wanted the offices repainted, as the color on the walls was not to his liking. I had to wonder if he did these things deliberately to aggravate Huston, who was so fed up with the stadium project he’d finally taken up the Colonel’s offer to buy out his ownership stake before opening day.

  The telephone just wouldn’t stop ringing. Sometimes I wished Helen could just leave me in peace. I’d told her I’d be there for the rehearsal and she had to know I was doing my best. In my haste, my fingers caught in the knot of my tie and pulled it out again. Frustrated, I yanked the thing from around my neck, stuffed it in my pocket, and answered the call.

  “Albert, finally, thank God. It’s been ringing for hours.” Paul’s voice had an edge to it that put me on alert. I imagined him in jail, needing to get bailed out—but no, that wasn’t it. “Something’s happened to Jack. He was at Antonio’s trying out a new number when he just, I don’t know, collapsed. Toni called me. I got here fast as I could, but he’s asking for you, Albert.”

  “You’re still at Antonio’s? Haven’t you called a doctor?”

  “He doesn’t want a doctor, Albert. He wants you.”

  I was concerned, of course I was, but I didn’t know what I could do for Jack. “I’ve got to go to the theater, it’s the dress rehearsal for Helen’s play. Why don’t you take him home? I’ll come down after and visit.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Albert, you’re at that woman’s beck and call every hour of the day. Can’t she make it through one night on her own?” I opened my mouth to object, but there was some truth to Paul’s words and they stung. “You know Jack doesn’t have any family but us. You wouldn’t let him die alone, would you?”

  “My God, Paul, no, of course not. Tell him to hang on. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “You’d better hurry, Albert. I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to last.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m on my way.” I rushed out with my coat left hanging on the rack and my jacket flapping open. I flagged the first taxi I saw and jumped in, offering the driver double his fare to get me downtown as fast as he could. Running my hand nervously through my hair, I realized I’d left my hat at home. We’d picked up Broadway before it occurred to me I should have telephoned the Olde Playhouse to let Helen know I might not make it. But it was only the rehearsal, after all. It wasn’t as if I were missing opening night. She’d understand, I was sure. Though they’d never met, she knew Jack was my oldest friend in the city. The thought of him on the floor at Antonio’s, clutching his heart and gasping out my name, brought me to tears. I supposed he must be dolled up for his act, embarrassed to be taken to the hospital in rouge and mascara, but that shouldn’t matter if his life was at stake. I’d call an ambulance as soon as I got there, even if Jack objected. I could phone Helen from the hospital, once I knew Jack was out of danger.

  The taxi got caught up in traffic around Washington Square, coming to a standstill at the Arch. “Never mind,” I told the driver, “I’ll get out here.” I dashed across the park, oblivious to the cold. I didn’t come down to the Village as often as I used to, and I hoped this wouldn’t be one of those nights where I lost my way. But no, there it was, Antonio’s, just ahead. I slowed a bit to steady my heart. Out of habit, I shook my hair loose before going inside.

  Paul was waiting for me at the door. “Prepare yourself, Albert, it’s going to be quite a shock.”

  I’d imagined the place cleared out for Jack’s sake, but it was crowded as ever on a Friday night. I raised myself on tiptoes to look for him through the crowd, hoping they’d at least brought him upstairs. Then I heard a trill from the piano as a voice rose up in song. It was Jack, performing from the stage. But how could he have recovered in the time it took me to get downtown? “You said he was dying. Was it a false alarm?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about Jack, he’s fine. Forgive me, darling, but I couldn’t think how else to get you here.”

  It took me a moment to realize Paul had played me for a fool. Picturing Helen at the theater, anxious about my absence, I grabbed him by the arm. “What the hell is going on?”

  A pair of large hands closed over my eyes as a man came up behind me. “Guess who?”

  I would have thought it was Jack if I hadn’t heard his voice coming from the stage. Was it Toni? But no, despite his short hair and trousers, Toni’s hands were small as a woman’s. “I don’t have time for this nonsense tonight, Paul.”

  “Be a sport, Albert. Try to guess.”

  I reached up, searching the hands with my fingertips. No rings or cuff links, so not Paul’s benefactor (who, at any rate, was not nearly as tall). The jacket sleeves were wool, the fabric stiff and thick. I felt the buttons sewn to the cuffs, traced out the pattern stamped into the brass. An eagle, wings outspread—but that couldn’t be. “I give up.”

  “Hast du deinen Ritter in glänzender Rüstung vergessen?”

  My heart forgot to beat while my brain translated the words. No, even after all these years, I hadn’t forgotten my knight in shining armor. “King?”

  He stepped back and came round to face me. My obligations for the evening were forgotten as I filled my eyes with the sight of King Arthur, still in uniform, his chest now decorated with ribbons. What dim light there was in the smoky air caught in his hair and shone.

  “I told you he’d remember, didn’t I?” Paul said. “As soon as I clapped eyes on King here, I knew he must be the one.” He squeezed my hand. “We didn’t mean to frighten you, Albert, but Jack and I wanted it to be a surprise. Wasn’t it worth it?”

  “It wasn’t my idea, Albert. I only just found out what Paul here told you.” King’s voice had a strange lilt to it that reminded me, weirdly, of the Colonel’s accent. Had he always talked this way? But we’d only spoken that one time, while the war was still on and he was about to fight in it. Hearing his voice made the years between that night and this disappear like a dove in the folds of a magician’s cape.

  Edith put a trio of setups on the bar. Paul mixed us all drinks from a flask as he explained how King had come into Antonio’s that evening, asking for me. He and Jack, remembering my long-ago story about being detained by a soldier, had hatched their plan.

  “No hard feelings, I hope.” King extended his hand. I remembered how it had engulfed the Colonel’s after that baseball game at the Polo Grounds. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Paul said.

  “You’re going?” I felt ridiculously nervous all of a sudden.

  “I’ve got a performance tonight, and Geneviève can’t very well lift herself, can she?” Before walking away, Paul whispered in my ear, “You’re welcome, sweet prince.”

  I turned to King, intending to say something smart and gay. Instead I blurted out, “How did you know to look for me here?”

  The blue of his eyes knocked me back against the bar as he lifted his glass. “A knight can always find his damsel in distress.”

  How had he known I was in distress? I hadn’t known it myself until that very second. If I’d been asked that morning, I’d have said all was well with my life. For two years, Helen had been my boon companion, healing and sheltering my fragile heart. With her by my side, I’d gotten over Felix and steered clear of new entanglements. There were entire weeks when I forgot about the difference that set me apart from normal men. I felt it now, though, under the spotlight of King’s gaze. It was like being recognized at a masquerade by someone who knows you so well no disguise can fool them.

  We slid into a booth near the door where it was quiet enough to hear each other speak. King had gone by my old place on Washington Square, he explained, but not seeing my name next to a doorbell, he recalled me saying so
mething about meeting up with friends at Antonio’s.

  “I can’t believe you still remembered where I used to live.”

  He extracted a well-worn rectangle of paper from his pocket and held it out to me. I recognized it as one of the Colonel’s business cards. On the back was my old address, and Helen’s, too. Helen. The dress rehearsal must be half over by now. I should have excused myself, made a call, let her know not to expect me. But I was unable to tear myself away, even for a minute.

  “I’ve kept that card close to my chest all these years.” King plucked it from my fingers and put it away.

  “Even in the trenches?”

  “I didn’t see too many of them, I’m ashamed to say.” We finished our drinks as he filled me in on his war years. He’d been tapped as a translator soon after landing in France and spent the conflict far from the front lines. Then, after the armistice, he worked for the Americans negotiating the peace treaty with Germany. By the time that got settled in 1921, he’d grown fond of Berlin. King gave a glance around Antonio’s that suggested he saw it as a dingy little dive. “You can’t imagine what life is like for us there. We’ve got our own restaurants and bars and coffee shops. We can buy our magazines out in the open at the newsstand. Men like Jack and women like Toni can walk down the street in the middle of the day with no fear of arrest. There’s even a scientific institute advocating for our legal rights.”

  I couldn’t quite grasp what King was describing. It had seemed to me no place could be more accommodating of queers than New York City, but even so we had to be careful how we dressed and where we gathered. I remembered Jack teaching me never to go out with my identification on me, so I could give a false name to the police if necessary. The thought brought my hand to my jacket pocket, where my wallet was tucked, my name—and the Colonel’s—on a dozen pieces of paper.