Unmentionables

by Laurie Loewenstein

  “The Pickle is dedicated to giving any and all ideas a respectful hearing. Tonight I’m pleased to host Red Martha, also known as Field Marshal Biegler. Fresh from an engagement on the soapbox in Bughouse Square, where she commands the respect of friend and foe. Red Martha will be arguing the point that the male is deadlier than the female.”

  There was a spurt of wild clapping and cheers. A few men booed. Someone shouted, “We’ve already heard from this coyote! Let’s get the other side!”

  Red Martha mounted the small stage. Like Marian, she was very tall but her face was plain as a sidewalk slab and her stringy dark hair was streaked with gray. She launched right into her talk, addressing the audience with her hands on her hips. As she talked, she bent at the waist to emphasize various points. “Let us agree that capitalism is the greatest evil ever invented. It pushes the lower classes further into the mud while the upper classes smell only the sweetness of the clouds. Can we agree on that?”

  She dipped, and the crowd shouted its agreement, although the coyote speaker called out, “Prove it!”

  She ignored him. “And who, I will ask, is responsible for the creation, promotion, and continuation of capitalism? The male of the species, of course.” Another dip.

  Helen slid restlessly in her seat, seeing where this was going. This sort of theoretical debate held no interest for her.

  “It is no surprise that the captains of industry are all . . .” Red Martha talked on. Helen became aware of overpowering perfume saturating the air that seemed to be coming from one row away, where a woman was whispering to an unshaven fellow, her spit curl brushing against his ear, her unbound breasts pressed against his shoulder, her hand slipping into his pants. Helen abruptly looked away, trying to focus back on Red Martha. A number of people in the crowd had joined the coyote man and were heckling her. Someone in a Stetson was mounting the stage shouting that he wanted to open up the debate to the merits of birth control.

  Helen inhaled shakily. Calm down, she thought. Louie took up her hand. She smiled stiffly at him. He abruptly shoved her fingers into his lap. She yanked her hand away and jumped up.

  “Where’re you going?” Louie asked.

  “How dare you!” she whispered fiercely.

  “Ah, come on. Don’t you want to experience free love?”

  “No, I don’t. And this place isn’t for me.”

  “Okay. Wait a minute. I’ll walk you out.”

  “Stay away from me.”

  She rushed toward the stairway past a fringe of spectators at the outer edge of the benches. A handsome Negro man had his arm around a petite woman who was speaking to him in some Slavic language. The night air was frosty. Helen ran up the alley, toward the rabbit hole. A freezing wind, heavy with snow, pushed against her as she emerged. Across the street, the opaque windows of a vacant shop stared blankly. She hurried into the shelter of its doorway. Here since August, she thought as tears filled her eyes, and I’m back where I started. Alone with nothing.

  She thought of the green-shingled house on Mt. Vernon Avenue, the familiar storefronts. But she clamped her mind shut against this assault. I’m not going back like a dog with its tail between its legs. That’s what they expect. I’m staying.

  The thick curtain of snow was parting. Flakes fell slowly past the sagging awnings, the lamp poles plastered with tattered flyers. The suffrage posters she’d seen on her way to dinner the night before suddenly flew into her mind. She swiftly searched her pockets for her mittens, and then realized she must have left them inside. She stuffed her bare hands into her sleeves and headed back to her room, to her desk with the stationery stacked neatly in the top center drawer. She’d write Marian’s suffragist friend as soon as she got in, even if it meant only getting two hours of sleep before the alarm clock rattled, even if it meant no sleep at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SPRING

  The Clarion published a full-page rotogravure section last week with photographs of American women volunteering in France. I know how foolish this sounds, but I looked for you among all the faces. I hope you don’t feel pressured by this confession. It gave me the idea to ask if you’d write a column for my weekly. I really loved the description of Canizy that you included in your last letter. From what you said, it sounds like those people are not so different from us out here. It could be a good thing to remind everyone of that.

  THE WOMEN OF THE FIELDING COLLEGE Relief Unit labored in that part of the cellar open to the sky, a spring chapel of gentian, misty with pollen from a chestnut that once shaded the château’s formal garden. Overstuffed burlap sacks were stacked against the old stone foundation and the women, Marian and Nezzie included, moved among the bags, chattering and laughing and bumping into one another. Last month, when snow still clotted the roads, the Fielding Unit had taken seed orders from its villagers. In Canizy, the grandmothers and old uncles had insisted on five varieties of spring lettuces, tapping Marian’s clipboard for emphasis, dragging Nezzie to their tilled-up plots where the greens would flourish come April. Links said it had been the same in her village, except that early-, mid-, and late-spring peas were in urgent demand. The seeds had arrived in bulk and now the unit was dedicating every spare moment to dividing the thousands of tiny grains into fifteen- and thirty-gram packages and sorting by village. They’d set a deadline of the next day, March 21. This was the final push. Every flat surface in the cellar was crammed with dishpans, pails, pots, and kettles, all stuffed with paper bags.

  Marian paused before a sack of turnip seeds, listening to the whack of a hammer echoing across the yard. The guns at the front were silent this morning. A carpenter, on loan from the Tommies, was helping Alice install the last of the shelves in the portable barrack that was to house the long-awaited library. It would serve the small schoolrooms that the unit had set up in four of the sixteen villages. Lulu, her radiator replaced, had made many trips across the greening countryside, delivering real desks and chalkboards to take the place of the rough tables and black-painted walls. The unit’s four hand-me-down vehicles, recently passed along by Anne Morgan’s well-endowed outfit, had also been pressed into service.

  “Hey, no daydreaming.” The Gish playfully thrust a sharp elbow into Marian’s upper arm, grown muscular from loading the truck. The Gish, so named because of the dark smudges under her eyes that gave her the sorrowful look of the moving picture actress, dipped her hands into the sack of turnip seeds.

  “Are your villagers planting turnips this season or not?” The Gish was wearing a hat that Marian had fashioned from a woven basket and two variegated pheasant feathers. It sat a little too far back on The Gish’s narrow head. Maybe wadded newspaper could be stuffed in the lining.

  “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle.” Marian consulted her list.

  The unit had only two battered soup ladles and a tarnished serving spoon to use as scoops, so most of the measuring was done with cupped fingers. When Marian plunged her hands in alongside The Gish’s, the dusty seeds gave off the unctuous aroma of spring violets. Marian closed her eyes, exhaling with a soft sigh. As the granules slid across her fingers, her hands brushed against The Gish’s, combining with the muffled thok of the hammer in the distance and the pollinated spring sunshine. A thick ache, that so often preceded tears, rose in Marian’s throat.

  Nezzie approached, her mouth screwed to one side as she scrutinized her list. “Does this say turnips or parsnips?”

  “You have the worst handwriting.”

  “I’m guessing turnips.” Nezzie sank her hand among the seeds, joining hers to those of Marian and The Gish. The kernels made a rat-a-tat-tat as they dropped into the paper sack she held open. “Hear the latest rumor?” Her voice was casual.

  Marian moved on to chicory. “Now what? The Red Cross has two dozen brass bedsteads for us to tote around? Our supply of toothpowder is running low and the director wants us to grind our own with mortar and pestle?”

  Nezzie emitted her barking laugh. “No. Much less important. Two Canadia
n foresters stopped at the lodge just now. Apparently some Hun deserters are making noises about a German offensive set to begin at midnight. In this sector.”

  The Gish pursed her lips derisively. “Heard that before.”

  Marian let the handful of kernels dribble into her bag and examined Nezzie’s strained expression. “Is this the real thing?”

  Nezzie shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “They can’t be marching. Not now! Just when we’re getting all the villages patched up!”

  “It’s just another rumor,” The Gish said, her voice rising a little too high.

  Marian cocked her head. “No guns.”

  The three women paused. The only sounds were the continued thok thok of the hammer and, in the distance, the strident voice of the director commanding someone to, “Come here right now!”

  “You’re right. Probably just whisper-down-alley,” Nezzie said.

  They returned to dusty bags, but the morning air had lost a bit of its glory.

  * * *

  In her camp bed that night, Marian turned restlessly onto one side, then the other, as if she were a heap of seeds pushed here and there by nervous hands. Her ears strained for the sound of guns. It was after midnight and so far nothing could be heard except the breathing of Nezzie on her left and Links on her right. Maybe it was just another rumor. The sorting marathon had continued well into the evening, and after a quick meal of rabbit stew, most of the women had flopped onto their beds, fully clothed. Across the room, The Gish slept, knees tucked up to her chest, frizzy hair splayed across the pillow.

  After a time Marian, gave up on sleep and pulled a flashlight from under her cot, along with a bulging packet of letters from Deuce. It had grown so large over the last few months that she only took a few at a time with her on the road. She drew the blanket over her head to reread his most recent letter.

  Seeing Jupiter lying there was one of the lowest points of my life. I couldn’t get out of my mind how eager he must have been for the treat. How trusting. He was just a simple creature with no bone to pick with anyone. Never did as much as snap or growl. And yet, and I don’t think I ever would have admitted this before, but maybe it’s not a good thing to be so trusting. I always thought if I tried to see the good in people, they’d like me, and treat me well too. Or at least just let me be a part. I never wanted more than to belong, but now, not so much. Sorry this letter’s turned gloomy . . .

  Tears dripped from her chin. The strain of this war is turning me into nothing more than a blubbering sentimentalist, she thought.

  She snapped off the flashlight and flopped onto her back, the blanket still covering her face, her eyelashes brushing against its coarse fibers. After a time she blew her nose wetly, setting off a small ripple of unconscious movement in the women around her. She tucked the letter back into the packet and forced her mind to designing imaginary hats until sleep finally overcame her.

  It was still dark when Marian was jolted awake by a deafening cannonade of artillery. Her bunkmates were already up, pulling skirts on over flannel petticoats, grabbing up the wrong boots in the blackness. They stumbled to the lodge where they found the others, the air thick with fear. Small groups of women huddled together, wincing at every impact. The screeching of shells coalesced into an impenetrable fortress of noise. The usual concussions from the front that Marian had grown accustomed to these last three months now seemed, in comparison, nothing more than toy firecrackers.

  Someone had started to make coffee but abandoned the task, leaving behind a heap of spilled grounds. With shaking hands, Marian brushed the mess back into the dented tin pot and set a pan to boil over the fire. She prodded the embers, feeling rather than hearing the poker clatter against the andirons. After a time the women settled uneasily onto chairs and benches, sipping the bitter coffee and shouting speculations on who was on the offensive. Even the most optimistic knew that it was the Germans, preparing to sweep out from the well-fortified Hindenberg Line as soon as the initial bombardment was over. The only question was whether the Brits, who guarded this sector, could hold the trenches. If they didn’t, all the unit’s work of the past six months would be destroyed. The villagers, who had managed to survive the initial German occupation in 1914, would be driven out of their homes. Marian patted the empty pocket over her left breast, wishing she had tucked her packet of letters in it.

  At dawn, the women peered out into a hazy landscape. Even massive Lulu, parked only feet from the lodge, was invisible in the fog. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the bombardment ceased; silence saturated the tissues of mist. Straining her eyes into the filtered whiteness, Marian imagined the British Tommies huddled in their chill trenches, her villagers trembling beneath the new iron bedsteads, waiting and listening as she was. Now the invisible orchestra of men and weapons turned from the cacophonous prelude to the main piece, the static of machine-gun fire.

  This shift in noise galvanized the unit, as if a dam had burst. They shook off their terror. Someone gathered up the dirtied coffee cups for a wash. Links dropped another log on the fire. The women speculated on whether it would be possible to make it to their villages in the thick fog (“In this pea soup? Absolutely not!” the director said). Their pleas to set up a canteen were more successful. They’d serve the Tommies coffee and chocolate down at the intersection where the château’s two-mile lane met up with the main road. In the meantime, Ruth, the most athletic of the group, was dispatched to gather information from passing troops. She was equipped with a flashlight, nearly useless in the landscape of clouds, and a walking stick to poke ahead of her like a blind person. Marian, Nezzie, and the others hurried to the pantry to take inventory for the canteen. Someone made a pot of porridge for the unit but Marian couldn’t eat. Her intestines were cinched like a drawstring.

  By early afternoon, the unit had loaded chocolate bars, apples, biscuits, and other canteen staples into three wheelbarrows. Someone remarked that the fog was thinning from chowder to consommé. Marian and Nezzie had filled empty champagne bottles, leftover from some long-ago revel, with milky coffee. Marian was tucking the last of these into the barrow when a figure stumbled out of the mist. It was Ruth, panting from exertion, yet trying to call out. Marian rushed over as the girl gasped, “They’re falling back.”

  “The Tommies? Oh Lord. Did you seem them?”

  Ruth nodded, her ribs still heaving. “Almost trampled. Gun teams heading west. Infantry. I ran.”

  “The director needs to hear this.”

  Marian put her arm around Ruth’s waist. They stepped inside and were immediately surrounded. It had taken Ruth a good hour to get to the main road in the dense fog. No one appeared at first. Then several units of Tommies passed, marching quick-step toward the front. When she’d asked who was winning, they’d answered in confident tones. “No worries, miss. We’ll push ’em back to kingdom come.” That sort of thing. Her next encounter was with Canizy’s antique postman, creaking steadily westward on his rusted bicycle. When he spotted Ruth he oversteered so that she had to jump into a drainage ditch.

  Ruth said, “His breath was rattling so I thought he’d cracked a rib. I could barely believe it when he told me he’d been cycling the countryside all morning, collecting information. He’d ridden ten miles to the east where an ambulance driver told him that five of the villages in this sector, including Terezy, had already been overrun by the Germans and many others would probably be cut off in the next several days.”

  “No!” someone shouted. Several girls began weeping. Marian pressed a hand against her mouth, Nezzie squeezed Ruth’s shoulder.

  “The postman begged us to evacuate the other towns. No one is doing anything about getting civilians out of harm’s way.”

  “We’ve got to help,” declared a voice from the back.

  “Of course we will,” the director said authoritatively. “Links, get my clipboard.”

  Marian, who discovered she was still clutching a champagne bottle, put it down on the trestle tabl
e gently, as if it were something precious. Villages shelled! The people panicked, wounded, some probably dead. She remembered one blind woman in Terezy who cared for seven children younger than five, only three of which were her own grandchildren. What had happened to them? All the beds and desks and blankets that the Fielding Unit had so painstakingly replaced, smashed.

  “I waited around a little while longer, but when I saw the Tommies retreating I made a dash for it,” Ruth said.

  The director unfolded the unit’s big colored map of Picardy on the table nearest the fire. Until this day, the director had prohibited anyone from marking it up, fussing that some remote intersection of two seldom used roads would be blotted out by a careless squib of ink. Now, in consultation with Ruth, she used her own pen to circle their precious villages. The rest of the unit crowded round in tense silence. The director drew an undulating line that cut roughly northeast to southwest. This marked the German advance, as reported by the postman. Marian saw immediately how cruelly Terezy had been separated from the unit’s protectorate, like a pullet culled from the flock. Far to the west of the blue line lay Montdidier with its zipper of rail lines heading toward Paris, promising, like Jacob’s ladder, salvation. Here the director drew a large star. All the women understood that between the advancing line of Germans and the evacuation point, chaos reigned. The main roads would be clogged with sweating, swearing British gunners pulling guns westward, their eyes seeking out high ground where they could block their wheels, point the muzzles eastward, and await orders. Crowded among them would be streams of mud-splattered Tommies, some supporting bloodied comrades, others stumbling alone. Officers would be shouting orders to unhearing ears. Within this noisy, stinking horde, the women could only hope, would be some of their villagers—those able-bodied enough to load up wheelbarrows and carts with their belongings, and flee.