The Pieces We Keep

by Kristina McMorris

  And then it all changed.

  48

  Vivian startled from her semi-conscious haze. A rapping on wood. Her bedroom door. She was about to plead for Luanne to answer but recalled her roommate’s absence, out for a late appointment at the beauty salon.

  “Miss James?” The voice of the landlady.

  “One moment.” Vivian maneuvered herself upright on her bed, noting her nightstand clock. Nearly six. After work she had dozed off while resting her head, which continued to throb from three weeks of harbored worries-over not only the FBI’s case but also her maddening indiscretion. With such compromised morals, she had needed no other reason to decline joining the WAAC.

  Her one saving grace was the military assignment that had kept Gene out of town, hopping between bases. The separation should have enabled her to unsnarl her mesh of feelings. But how could she even begin without an update on Isaak’s case?

  “Miss James.”

  “Yes, I’m coming!” Vivian called out, rising to her feet.

  “A gentleman is on the phone for you.”

  Vivian halted.

  Agent Gerard. The call she had been expecting all week.

  In an instant, the haze dissipated. She scrambled into the hall, bid her thanks, and flew down the stairs. The man had repeatedly affirmed that the Hemel family had been moved to a safe, undisclosed location before all eight spies were apprehended. But there were no developments regarding Isaak. Only that visitors were prohibited until legal formalities were complete. Growing antsy, Vivian had recently left numerous messages at the New York Field Office, where a slew of meetings, according to the receptionist, had occupied the agent’s schedule.

  At the entry table, praying for good news, Vivian snatched up the handset. “Hello? This is Vivian. Hello?”

  “Hi ya, twinkle toes.”

  Her chest constricted, stealing her breath. Her lungs refused to function.

  “Sweetheart? You there?”

  “Gene.” She hefted a smile into her tone. “You surprised me.”

  “I know. Didn’t think I’d have a chance to ring you till this weekend. They got me running so ragged here. But turns out, I had time to spare and the phone was free. So, how have you been? You get my last letter?”

  “Letter? Oh, yes. A couple of days ago.” She couldn’t bring herself to read more than half of it. She didn’t deserve his kind and doting words. “I’m sorry I haven’t written back. It’s been terribly busy around here too.”

  “Sure thing. Not to worry. I just wanted to-” He stopped.

  “Vivi, hold on.” He spoke off the phone, muffled, and returned with a groan. “Sorry about that. Looks like they need the line already.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “Ah, doll. It’s swell to hear your voice anyhow. I hate that I can’t be there for the holiday.”

  Vivian had nearly forgotten. Tomorrow was the Fourth of July. With gunpowder needed for the war, she doubted it would feel much like a celebration.

  “At any rate,” he said, “should be just two more weeks. After that, how about I treat my girl to a fancy night on the town? Even kick our heels up if you want. What do you say?”

  She swallowed down the shame, the turmoil, rising in her throat. “Marvelous.”

  “It’s a date, then. I’ll call again when I can.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh, and Vivi?”

  “Yes?”

  His voice dropped to a hush. “I love you.”

  It was the first time he had verbalized the phrase. Her chest tightened even more. The reverent words formed a vice inside her, each crank the result of another deception.

  That’s when she realized: With the saboteurs in custody, she could at last tell Gene the truth. How much he could bear to hear she didn’t know. Considering what Luanne had said about his former steady’s betrayal, the odds of his forgiveness were slim, the chances of hurting him guaranteed.

  “Vivian?” He sounded tentative, fretting over her silence.

  The confession gathered on her tongue. Like a cluster of pepper, it stung her senses and begged for release. Yet she couldn’t. Not over the cold, impersonal wires of a telephone. No matter how daunting it was, she owed him the admission in person.

  “Me too,” she heard herself say, and detected his easement in a small breath.

  Soon the line went dead, but the handset stayed in her grasp. A pair of female tenants entered the house and tossed out greetings in passing. They carried bags and hatboxes from an array of department stores. Sunshine had brightened their noses with rosy hues of summer.

  Envy for such normalcy swept over Vivian. Good or bad, she needed to know where matters stood. Anything was better than this state of uncertainty.

  On the phone, she summoned the operator and requested the FBI. The receptionist, even at this hour, cited a meeting for Agent Gerard.

  “Would you care to leave another message, Miss James?” Vivian refrained from her standard agreement. “That won’t be necessary,” she decided.

  After all, there was no need to leave a message when she could confront the man in person.

  49

  His eyes stared back from the grainy pixels of a black-and-white photograph. At the top of the page, halfway into Jack’s journal, was a Nazi commander in uniform. A flag bearing a swastika hung in the backdrop. None of this, in particular, was the cause of Audra’s angst. It was the caption beneath the picture.

  Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, delivering a speech.

  Not Himmel. Not Hemel.

  Himmler.

  The entire collage represented World War Two. Prominently displayed was another disturbing image: a bomber plane diving toward the ocean with smoke pluming from its tail.

  Audra rolled off of her knees to sit on Jack’s bedroom floor. She needed a solid foundation before turning the page. A snippet of an article appeared on white paper, like the various Web pages he had printed during computer class. Except this one was educational in a much darker way. It featured the account of Nazi spies who were caught on the East Coast and sentenced to the electric chair.

  Audra had barely digested this when she plodded onward and found a Rose Festival calendar. Upcoming Events on Memorial Day. Included in the listing were small head shots of the soldiers being honored—including PFC Sean Malloy.

  The journal slipped from her hands as she tried to make sense of it. Jack had checked the book out in March, months before the night terrors began.

  From a place deep in her memory came the scene of a movie. The title eluded her, but she could see the actor’s face. It was Kevin Spacey, playing a character who was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. In an office at the police station, he recounted his life to an investigating detective. But the story he told wasn’t real. He had made it all up by combining photos and fliers and names that surrounded him. And the detective had swallowed it whole. Why? Because he was so hungry for resolution he would have believed anything.

  Audra glanced around her. She saw the model planes suspended from the ceiling. She saw Captain America, the hero on the poster, his face on Jack’s backpack. She saw the toy plane on his nightstand, its paint rubbed thin from ... deception? Confusion? Desperation?

  As the old saying went, the simplest answer was typically the right one.

  Perhaps Jack, in his seclusion, had invented a fantasy world aided by his collage. And those images, embodying the darkness of wartime, had gained a realism that now consumed his days and nights.

  She had questioned him on every element; always he’d replied with a shrug or I don’t know. After all, if he’d admitted the source of his knowledge—of the people or words or pictures—it would have meant confessing to a journal crafted from a vandalized book. More than that, his imaginary realm would be over.

  Which it was, from this minute on.

  Audra marched to the kitchen, grabbed a trash bag, and returned to do what she should have long ago. She blamed herself more than Jack for
creating this disaster, for seeing things that weren’t actually there.

  In his drawings, the people falling from the plane were her and Jack. Nobody else. The photo from the library book, of the bomber in a fatal dive, must have left him terrified to fly. It was no different from a child watching Jaws and becoming fearful of the ocean.

  Sure, while half asleep he’d responded to being called Jakob. Swap out a few letters and the name would be Jack. As for the inscription, a few German words from a TV program would have sounded close enough to convince a poor combat vet that the puzzle of his own past could be solved.

  In other words, there was never some spiritual message in need of decoding, no unsettled soul seeking a reunion. But Audra had bought into everything—perhaps unconsciously craving her own fantasy world—and dragged others down with her.

  Enraged at herself, she stood on a chair and yanked down Jack’s model planes. She shoved them into the trash bag and added the poster from the wall. Next she grabbed his backpack, emptied its contents on the bed, and threw the casing away. She would replace them all with better ones. Harmless and normal, they would feature robots and athletes and dinosaurs. Things that didn’t drive her and Jack to the brink of insanity or deplete their family savings. They wouldn’t draw policemen to the front door or pry open an elderly woman’s tomb of memories.

  Most important, they wouldn’t jeopardize Audra’s right to keep her son.

  Her hands trembled as she pitched the toy plane into the trash. She scoured his desk for anything more and found the submarine from Dr. Shaw.

  No surprise that the hypnosis had failed. If the man were astute enough, he would have known why. Jack needed someone who recognized what this was from the beginning.

  That someone should have been her.

  It wasn’t too late. She would start over and do it right. Together they would clear out mistakes of the past. To that end, she picked up the journal, its pages splayed in her hands. She would take Jack to the store and let him pick out a new one, any design of his choice. A journal that couldn’t be used as evidence of what a gullible mother she had been.

  “What are you doing?”

  Audra swung toward the doorway. Jack stood there in front of Tess and Grace. He scanned the room in a panic, over the bare wall and ceiling, and halted at the open journal in her hand. The look he gave was of sheer betrayal.

  In defense, she reminded herself what had driven her here. This wasn’t all of her doing. “I found the library book you destroyed, the pages all cut up. Jack, why would you do that?”

  He stared at her, not answering.

  “Jack? Tell me why.”

  Still he was silent.

  “Please, say something,” she demanded. Frustration returned and her eyes pricked with tears. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done to us?”

  “Audra,” Tess broke in. “I think that’s enough.”

  Jack curled his fingers, his chin crinkling, fighting back his own tears. The sight was a stab to Audra’s heart. She was trying to protect him, and all she was doing was making things worse.

  “Baby ... I didn’t mean that.” She moved toward him, but he vehemently shook his head. He pushed past Tess and ran toward the front door. Audra instinctively went to follow, but Tess touched her arm.

  “You stay, I’ll go.”

  It was either a kind gesture from an experienced mother or a message that Audra had done enough damage. Whichever the case—perhaps it was both—Audra managed to nod. When Tess hurried off, Grace followed.

  Alone, Audra surveyed the room. In the aftermath of an explosion that she had largely created, she couldn’t deny that if it were up to her, if she were the judge at this very moment, there wasn’t a chance she would rule in her own favor.

  50

  Encircling Foley Square in Lower Manhattan were tangible, solid structures of age-old justice. A granite pediment, Corinthian colonnades, and broad, sweeping steps adorned a trio of courthouses. The relevance of this symbolism was not lost on Vivian as she approached the FBI’s office.

  She had a block to go when two suited men exited the building, one with a briefcase, the other with a cigarette. Brimmed hats shaded their features from the early evening light. From this distance either one could be Agent Gerard. If not, they just might know his whereabouts.

  “Pardon me!” Vivian called out. Though they continued on, she tried again over the motors of passing cars. “Agent Gerard!”

  They turned to her, exposing their faces, and rewarded her attempt; the gentleman smoking was indeed the one she sought. He uttered something to his companion, sending him off, before meeting Vivian halfway.

  “Miss James–”

  “I’m sorry to come unannounced, but I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “Yes, I know.... I was going to call when I had more information.”

  “When is Isaak going to be released? Are they allowing him to defect, or will he be sent back? Please, I need to know what’s happening.”

  Agent Gerard pitched his cigarette at the pavement, ground it beneath his shoe. He appeared to hold his breath even as he replied, “There’s been a trial.”

  A trial?

  She shook her head, certain she had misheard. “When you talked about legal formalities ... that’s what you were referring to?”

  “When we started, it was just a possibility. But FDR pushed for a military tribunal.”

  “What is-what does that mean?”

  “It’s an armed services court of law. Closed-door. No press, no jury. Just seven generals on a panel.”

  She visualized the daunting scene. “You never said anything about this.”

  “It’s not the usual. They haven’t convened one since the Civil War. But the President wanted to move things along, keep it out of the media. Plus, with a war on, he didn’t want civilian rights getting in the way.” At this, the agent gazed toward the street with a slight look of distaste.

  “So you’re saying the trial is over,” she realized, still trying to process the update. It didn’t seem possible in the span of a few weeks. She fought to keep her voice level. “What was the ruling?”

  When he didn’t respond, she followed his attention to the string of courthouses. Their grand colonnades suddenly resembled the bars of a trap.

  “Agent Gerard. What was the verdict?”

  He dragged his eyes back to her. “Isaak wanted proof about his family, that they’d been relocated safely. When we coughed up documents, he was convinced they were fake. He refused to give us any details about the operation. As a result, he was found guilty of treason and espionage.”

  “That-no-that can’t be right.”

  “One of the others, a guy named George Dasch, called our office a day after arriving near Amagansett. The next week, he coordinated a meeting in DC, where he handed over a bag of eighty-four grand. He provided all the intel we needed to arrest his three buddies, along with four others who came ashore near Jacksonville. That’s how we ended up getting all eight.”

  “But Isaak surrendered first,” she insisted.

  “He was still considered an enemy spy.”

  She went to argue the point when she recalled Isaak’s clothes. He was captured out of uniform. Oh, God. He had listened to her when he shouldn’t have.

  She would fix this. She would explain.

  “It’s my fault he wasn’t wearing his uniform. I didn’t think it would matter, once he came forward.”

  “His clothes weren’t the issue.”

  “But–I should speak to someone to be sure.”

  “I’m sorry,” Agent Gerard said, “but it’s too late.”

  “It’s no such thing,” she burst out. “It can’t be. All of this just happened. Now, tell me whom to speak with.”

  “Miss James.” He spoke with such solemnity she wanted to scream. “This was a military tribunal. Which means there are no appeals. The judgments are final.” He reached into the breast pocket of his suit and produced an envelope. “Isaak
asked me to give you this.”

  The familiar script of her name wrenched her stomach. She brought herself to accept the offering but had no intention of reading its contents. Isaak could convey the message in person, when they met to discuss his options.

  This time, she would go to anyone, including her father, for help.

  “I have to see Isaak. Where is he?”

  “The past few days, I did everything I could. Meeting after meeting, trying to help.” Agent Gerard removed his hat. He held it to his middle, as one might offer condolences. “The other eight are going to be tried by a military commission in DC next week. FDR wants to make an example of them all, so the Germans won’t send over more–”

  “I don’t care about that!” She was far beyond logic, beyond compassion. “Tell me where they’re keeping him. Or I’ll ... I’ll march through those doors over there and find out on my own.”

  He parted his lips, giving way to an interminable pause. Did he think she was bluffing?

  Vivian started off toward the building.

  Only then did the agent yield: “This morning, just after eleven, Jakob Isaak Hemel was put to death.”

  She flipped back around, and stared.

  “By the time I’d heard, it was already over.” The agent held there, shook his head. “I’m very sorry. About all of this.”

  You’re lying! He’s alive and you’re lying! These were the words she wanted to yell, but all she could do was stand there.

  “Rest assured, since we helped his family before he backed out, the FBI will want to keep a pretty tight lid on your friend’s case. So no one will ever know about your involvement.” Finally he said, “Listen, why don’t I take you home?”

  She watched his hand settle on her arm, bare below the sleeve of her dress. Yet she couldn’t feel the contact. She couldn’t feel anything at all, except panic and a budding of anger. With scarcely a voice, she said, “How did he die?”

  “Miss James, let’s just–”

  “How?”

  He released her and answered in a quiet tone. “The electric chair. Then they put him to rest in a cemetery.”