Louise's Blunder

by Sarah R. Shaber

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen of our great nation’s capital, I am honored to be here!’ When he said the word ‘honored’ he tossed his head back and smiled, showing bright white teeth in a wide mouth. He turned to his orchestra. ‘Are you boys ready?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re ready!’ they answered in unison.

  Armstrong let go of the mike and swiveled, raising his right hand to conduct his band. The band broke into ‘Heebie Jeebies’, and if I had the rest of my life I’d never be able to describe it. It wasn’t sparse and structured like hillbilly music, not mellow and organized like swing, it was loose and happy. Every instrument spoke independently but somehow as part of a whole piece. The music felt and sounded free. From there the band played ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ and ‘Standing on the Corner’. Armstrong’s cornet was clear and true but I think I liked his singing even better. No one would say he had a good voice, nothing like Sinatra or Bing Crosby, but its raspiness gave his songs a personality no one could imitate. After he sang ‘Dinah’ with a touch of scat I didn’t see how anyone else could do it better.

  Clark reached out a hand to me. ‘Dance?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  We edged out on to the crowded floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can only foxtrot,’ Clark said.

  ‘Thank God,’ I said.

  As men and women gyrated around us Clark put his hand around my waist and took my hand. He didn’t pull me right up to him. It was all quite seemly. Clark’s foxtrot was smooth, even if it was the only dance he could do. We couldn’t talk, it was just too noisy. We stayed on the floor dancing to a few more tunes. One called ‘Potato Head Blues’ made me want to break loose from Clark’s foxtrot and lindy-hop. But I managed to restrain myself for Clark’s sake. There was a shortage of men so Sadie and Rose jitterbugged together.

  After the set ended Armstrong wiped the sweat from his face with a huge white handkerchief and said, ‘Just a little break now, y’all. Enjoy your dinner!’ He and the band left the stage to a cacophony of applause and cheers.

  ‘What a swell sound!’ Sadie said, as she took her seat again.

  ‘What do you think?’ Clark asked me.

  ‘I thought he was grand!’ I said.

  ‘He’s a great talent,’ Leach said. ‘I wish Billie Holiday was here with him tonight. Then you would hear some singing!’

  ‘You’ve seen Billie Holiday?’ I asked.

  ‘Before the war, when I lived in New York City, I used to go the Savoy Ballroom with friends all the time.’

  ‘In Harlem? What was it like?’

  ‘It reminded me of Paris. The streets were jammed with people, all kinds of people from every walk of life, enjoying life, food, music, fun. Americans can be such damn puritans.’

  Sadie leaned into the conversation and lowered her voice. ‘Don’t they let colored people and white people dance together at the Savoy?’

  ‘Yes they do,’ Clark answered. ‘Like Paris. Before the war.’ His face darkened. ‘That bastard Hitler.’

  During the heavy pause that followed a waiter brought us our dinner. A good thing, too; I’d let my friends convince me to order another Martini and my head was buzzing.

  Clark had selected four dishes for us to share. There was a fried rice dish mounded with vegetables and an egg, chicken teriyaki, chicken dumplings and a noodle dish he said was quite spicy.

  ‘Watch out for the chillies,’ Clark said, pointing out the thin red strips embedded in the noodles. Even avoiding the chillies I had to drink half of Sadie’s beer to cool my mouth.

  The food was delicious, if unfamiliar, and I ate my fair share.

  After the table was cleared Sadie and Rose convinced me to order another Martini.

  ‘There’s another set to go,’ Rose said. ‘Plenty of time for the buzz to wear off.’

  Armstrong and his band walked out on stage again and the audience stood up in unison and roared. He launched into ‘Summertime’ but instead of music I heard a distant roaring in my head and my legs trembled. My dinner began to roil in my stomach and I sat down hard. I was suddenly conscious of the wafting clouds of cigarette smoke that filled the room. It stung my eyes and made my throat ache.

  Sadie sat down next to me and took my arm. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t feel well,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s get you some water,’ Rose said.

  ‘Don’t let me faint in front of all these people,’ I said.

  In a second Clark was by my side. ‘I’ll take you outside for some air,’ he said. ‘There’s a back garden. We’ll get you some water out there.’ He pulled me up from my seat and put an arm around my waist to support me. I gripped his shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s just a few steps.’

  He guided me out a back door and into a rear garden where few of the tables were taken.

  The garden was ringed with trees strung with glowing light bulbs and the air was cool, at least compared to the air inside.

  Clark settled me in a chair. I inhaled huge gulps of air as if I’d been drowning. Clark beckoned for the waitress who served the garden.

  ‘Can you get the lady a glass of cold water?’ he asked. ‘And bring a pitcher more, with ice.’

  The waitress took one look at me and said, ‘Ma’am, would you like some Bromo-Seltzer in your glass of water?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said. Unconsciously I placed a hand on my churning stomach.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Clark said. ‘I should have been more careful ordering dinner.’

  ‘I don’t think it was the food,’ I said. ‘I blame the third Martini. Thanks for bringing me outside. If I’d collapsed in there I’d have been mortified.’

  ‘No worries. It’s lovely out here.’

  The waitress brought me my Bromo-Seltzer fizzing in a tall glass, and a pitcher of water.

  After I’d swallowed the Bromo I felt much better. I chased it with a glass of pure, cold water.

  ‘Better?’ Clark asked.

  ‘Much,’ I said. ‘Please go back inside. I don’t want you to miss the show. I’m fine out here.’

  ‘I’d rather stay with you. We can still hear the music.’

  We could. The sound rose and fell with the slight breeze that drifted through the garden.

  There were just two other couples outside. They were tables away from us.

  Clark leaned closer to me and lowered his voice. ‘No one can hear us, Louise,’ he said. ‘I believe we work for the same agency? I’ve seen you in the Registry many times.’

  I nodded. ‘I know who you are, of course.’

  ‘What’s your clearance?’ he asked.

  I waited until the waitress passed by, then answered. ‘Top Secret.’

  Clark nodded. ‘I thought so. Aren’t you the woman who—’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘That’s me. But I don’t think we should talk about it.’

  ‘You’re correct, of course. But I can tell you all about what I’m doing. It’s not one bit confidential.’

  ‘What then?’ I asked.

  ‘Every day I pick up Dr T.V. Soong from the Chinese Embassy and drive him to the Federal Reserve Building, where they’re holding the Trident Conference, and stay by his side all day. His English is excellent of course, but he likes to speak Chinese to me, and I take notes for him.’

  Soong was Foreign Minister of China and brother-in-law to both Dr Sun Yat-sen and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. He was a wealthy banker who financed the Flying Tigers before they became part of the US Air Force.

  ‘He’s the only delegate from China,’ Clark continued. He glanced around the garden to make sure no one was near. ‘And there’s no representative from the Soviet Union. Do you believe that? The Russians have withstood Stalingrad and continue to engage Germany on the Eastern Front, yet they weren’t invited to help plan the next phase of the war?’

  The next phase of the war was a future cross-channel invasion of Europe. Oh, I could chat knowledgeably about the iss
ues being discussed at Trident, but I had no intention of doing so. It was fine for Clark to expound all he wanted about politics and his work at OSS, he had the pay grade, but I was just a government girl, and I wasn’t about to engage him in policy discussions. If I took one step too far in our conversation he might take umbrage and then I would be in trouble.

  I took a sip of water. ‘Perhaps we should go back inside?’

  Clark grinned at me. ‘Smart woman,’ he said. ‘You’re right, I should be more reserved in public. Guess I had a little too much to drink myself. Do you really want to go back inside?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time, but I think I should be heading home.’

  ‘Let me take you,’ he said. ‘I have my car.’

  ‘That’s all right, I came on the bus.’

  ‘I’m taking Sadie and Rose back to their apartment; I can drop you off with no trouble.’

  ‘Are they ready to leave?’

  ‘Let me go ask them.’

  I was surprised that Clark Leach had spoken to me so freely, but there was no one within earshot and nothing he’d said was remotely secret or confidential. I took out my lipstick and compact and tried to bring a little color back into my face.

  Clark appeared with Sadie and Rose in tow.

  ‘That was fun,’ Sadie said. ‘But I’m tuckered out!’

  ‘They’ll keep partying for hours,’ Rose said. ‘Until morning probably.’

  ‘I suppose you have to work up to clubbing, like doing a hundred push-ups,’ Clark said. ‘We can get out this gate here, I think. My car should be down the street about a block.’

  Clark’s car was a roomy Buick with luscious white upholstery and a mahogany dashboard. He must have a private income; he couldn’t afford a car like that on a government salary. Most of the big men in OSS were ‘dollar a year’ men, like General Donovan and my own boss, Wilmarth Lewis. I sat in front while Sadie and Rose climbed in back.

  ‘Let’s go again next week,’ Sadie said.

  ‘I’ll have to save up,’ Rose said. ‘It’s expensive.’

  ‘That’s how they get the best clientele,’ Clark said. ‘Colored or white, a five-dollar cover charge is a lot of money.’

  ‘Thank you for the drinks, Clark,’ I said. ‘I’m not as broke as I might be otherwise.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘It was a pleasure.’

  Clark dropped Sadie and Rose off first. I was worried that he might use the opportunity to ask me out on a date. Like I thought earlier, his pay grade was way above mine. To my relief he didn’t.

  ‘Don’t come around,’ I said, opening my car door myself in front of my boarding house. I wanted to keep him at arm’s length.

  ‘Will I see you at Sadie and Rose’s next week?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. I planned to come to their ‘salon’ every Thursday as long as they’d have me. I could talk to Sadie and Rose in a way I couldn’t speak to anyone else in Washington. Plus I had to get a look at Paul Hughes, whose bout of the flu at his mother’s house had caused so much fuss.

  I told myself that I didn’t have a hangover. I had a shocking headache because of the clouds of cigarette smoke in the Club Bali, not the three Martinis I’d slurped. And my stomach lurched on account of the exotic Korean food, not because of the three Martinis either.

  I put on my glasses and staggered into the bathroom, where I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I don’t think I had ever seen my eyes bloodshot before. It did not improve my appearance. Neither did the dark circles below my eyes that made me look like a raccoon. I pulled my stringy hair back in a bun. I could smell the smoke of a hundred cigarettes still clinging to my body. I wanted desperately to bathe but I needed to put something in my stomach first.

  Back in my bedroom I dressed in jeans and my favorite blue and buff George Washington University sweatshirt. I swear I tiptoed going down the stairs to avoid the noise of my footsteps. And I gripped the stair banister as though falling was imminent. Never again, I swore. Now I knew my limit. No more than two Martinis in one evening!

  Milt must have slept late too. He sat alone at the kitchen table eating pancakes, cutting them with the edge of his fork.

  ‘’Morning,’ he said. ‘You look like you had fun last night.’

  ‘I did,’ I said. ‘I think. Who fixed the pancakes?’ Dellaphine didn’t cook breakfast or supper on Sundays. She poured all her energies into Sunday dinner when she got home from the Gethsemane Baptist Church.

  ‘Henry,’ Milt said. ‘They’re real good.’ He gestured with his fork toward the range.

  ‘Want some? There’re plenty left. Not a lot of maple syrup though. Fresh coffee too.’

  My stomach lurched and it must have shown on my face.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Milt said.

  ‘I’m going to fix some toast,’ I said. Dry toast. Washed down with plain water, with maybe some more Bromo-Seltzer in it.

  ‘Where did you go last night?’ Milt asked. ‘No, sorry, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘I don’t mind. The Club Bali.’

  Milt forked the last bite of pancake into his mouth before he spoke.

  ‘No joke! That’s in the colored part of town. “U” Street, right?’

  ‘Just around the corner. It was grand. “Satchmo” Armstrong played. And we had Korean food.’

  ‘Slant-eye food? I’m surprised the club could get away with that.’

  ‘Korean isn’t the same as Japanese.’

  Milt shrugged, laying down his fork before picking up his coffee cup.

  ‘They all look the same,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of Koreans in the Japanese Imperial Army.’

  Korea had been occupied by the Japanese and its citizens conscripted into the Japanese Army and into labor camps in Japan. Instead of arguing with Milt, who after all had lost an arm and was bound to hate the Japs and anyone who fought alongside them, I went into Dellaphine’s pantry to find the Bromo-Seltzer.

  But Milt wasn’t done. ‘They should fire that Korean cook, and throw him into an internment camp.’ He could see from my expression when I went back into the kitchen that I didn’t appreciate what he’d said. ‘Shocked?’ he said. He nodded at his empty sleeve. ‘Better yet, send the lot of them back where they came from in boxes.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your arm, Milt,’ I said. ‘Terribly sorry. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But George Kim didn’t wound you. He came to this country to escape from the Japanese.’

  Before I said anything more to Milt that I might regret later – he was my landlady’s son, after all –I went upstairs to bathe. I felt like I was washing more than smoke off myself. I’d been wrong about Milt and Henry sharing a room. It looked like they’d get along real well.

  I rose out from beneath my covers feeling like Lazarus. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a nap. My headache was gone, my stomach was quiet and I thought I would live.

  I’d fallen asleep after my bath in my underwear, wrapped up in a blanket. I recalled that I’d just planned to rest for a few minutes.

  Then I heard the pounding on my door.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, come in!’ I said. ‘There’s no reason to break the door down.’

  Ada opened the door.

  ‘You’re alive, good,’ she said. ‘I’ve been taking messages for you all afternoon. Joan has called you three times. A man called too. And you missed Sunday dinner. Don’t you think you should get up?’

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Four o’clock,’ she said.

  ‘I’m coming.’ Joan would want to know all about the Club Bali and I was starving.

  I hoped there were leftovers from Sunday dinner in the refrigerator. I could always scramble some eggs. I threw off my covers.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Ada sat on my bed to wait while I dressed. She wore black capris, a pink cable knit sweater and straw espadrilles. Her peroxide hair was swathed in a ma
tching pink turban.

  ‘Don’t you want to know about the man who called?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, pulling on the same jeans and sweatshirt I’d worn down to breakfast.

  ‘Did he leave his name?’

  ‘Clark Leach,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’ I checked my mirror. I’d slept on my wet hair. I looked like a witch. Brushing it back tight I secured it into a ponytail.

  ‘Not interested?’

  ‘He’s not calling me for a date. He’s way out of my league,’ I said. ‘He went with us to the club last night. I had too much to drink.’

  ‘He probably thinks you’re fast,’ she said, teasing me. She pulled her cigarette holder out from behind an ear. ‘I’m going to go out on the porch and have a cigarette. Please call Joan. That girl really wants to talk to you.’

  I spent fifteen minutes telling Joan everything that had happened at the Club Bali.

  ‘I was a fool not to go,’ she said.

  ‘You can come with us the next time,’ I said. ‘It will be a while for me. It’s not cheap.’

  ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Have you read the paper yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’ I was eager to get her off the line. My stomach was growling.

  ‘One of our people drowned in the Tidal Basin. Did you know him? His name was Paul Hughes.’

  FOUR

  Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination—one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibility of lawsuit but also reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

  ‘1943 Guide to Hiring Women’, Mass Transportation magazine, July 1943.

  My hunger forgotten for the time being, I rummaged through the Washington Post looking for the story on Paul Hughes’ death. I found it in the local section well below the fold. I read the story twice, trying to fit the reporter’s chronology of events into mine. Hughes’ corpse had been found Monday by a soldier patrolling the shores of the Tidal Basin. By Friday his fingerprints had identified him as Paul Hughes, a mid-level government employee. That in itself seemed odd to me – didn’t Hughes have his wallet on him? According to Hughes’ landlady, who was in tears when the reporter talked to her, Hughes had fallen ill with the flu while visiting his mother in Fredericksburg. A spokesman for Hughes’ employer, of course not identified as OSS, said that the police investigation concluded that Hughes returned by train to the District on Sunday, despite what his mother had said in her telegram. Apparently still weak from his illness, Hughes must have fainted while walking from the train station to the streetcar terminal underneath the Bureau of Engraving on the path around the Tidal Basin. The police could only speculate that he hit his head on the rocks that lined the shore of the Tidal Basin, fell in and drowned. A freak accident, they called it. Very unfortunate. He was a popular and competent employee. All sympathies to his family and friends.