by Sarah Shaber
I gripped the car door handle.
‘Let me out right now,’ I said. ‘Now.’ Forget tact, I wasn’t putting up with this.
Charles ignored me. While I boiled with anger he kept driving.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I need to talk to you. About some stuff at work. Consider this a business lunch.’
‘You know damn well we can’t talk about work in a public place.’
‘This isn’t very public. It’ll just be the two of us.’
With both hands I struggled to open my door, but it was locked. There must have been a master lock on the driver’s side of the car. As I rattled the handle Charles leaned over and grabbed at me with his right hand and dragged at my arm, tearing my hand away from the door handle. His thumb and fingers dug deep into my flesh. ‘Let go,’ he said, ‘you can’t get out. Don’t be so stuffy. We’ll have fun. I’ll cover for you with Don.’
The way he said the word ‘fun’ frightened me. The ugly word ‘rape’ crossed my mind. Surely he didn’t intend to force himself on me?
Oh God, had Charles been waiting for me at Union Station? Found out from one of my girls where I might be and loitered on the curb, with a pile of old maps in the back seat of the car as an alibi, to pick me up?
We passed the Columbia Institute for the Deaf and turned north. Brentwood Park. Tree-filled, quiet and empty on this hot day.
Charles pulled into a shady spot and stopped.
I tried again to open my door.
‘Louise,’ he said, ‘I just want to talk to you about something important. Please.’
I hauled off and slapped him with the flat of my hand. ‘You bastard,’ I said. Charles flinched, whether from the slap or my unladylike language I didn’t know.
‘Who do you think you are?’ he asked, rubbing his cheek. ‘I could get you fired in a heartbeat.’
‘Just try,’ I said. ‘By the time I get done with you, you’ll regret treating me this way. So help me!’
‘All right, all right, don’t blow your top. Christ, you can be a nasty, foul-mouthed broad. I’ll drive you back to the office.’
‘Only if you unlock this car door. Otherwise I’ll scream bloody murder as soon as I see a cop.’
‘Okay, okay. Whatever you say.’
I was still livid, and when Charles stopped for a red light a few blocks away, I flung open my door and got out, slamming it shut after me.
Charles leaned over the passenger seat.
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’ he said. ‘Get back in. I didn’t mean anything, honest. I just wanted to have a quiet chat with you.’
‘When I say no, I mean no,’ I said, and turned to find a bus stop.
The light changed, Charles shrugged and drove on by me.
I walked, fists clenched, past the nearest bus stop, a full three blocks, until I calmed down. By that time I was so hot and footsore I hailed a taxi. The cost of the taxi and the unused ticket to Newark would cripple my budget for the rest of the month, but it was worth it.
When I returned to OSS I stopped at the cafeteria for a fast lunch of milk and crackers. Joan was on her way out, in a hurry, smiling at me and waving as she passed by. It was ironic, she was rich and eligible, and desperately wanted a boyfriend, but had so much trouble finding one, and I, a drone in eyeglasses, seemed to be fending off men. It made no sense to me.
I noticed a knot of people gathered around the bulletin board where Administrative posted notices.
A sign lettered in red and blue announced an afternoon reception commemorating ‘a British–American controversy of the mid-eighteenth century. All OSS personnel will participate.’
‘If there’s free food, everyone will turn up, no worries there,’ said a clerk from Morale Ops.
I stood holding my plate and watched Don chat up a blonde secretary from the Foreign Nationalities branch. I was relieved. Much better for my career for him to move on than for me to dump him.
The OSS cafeteria bulged with staff, all of us with small paper American flags pinned to our clothing. Patriotic-themed food crowded three cafeteria tables – celery stuffed with cream cheese dyed red, vanilla-iced cookies shaped like stars, blue swizzle sticks to stir the ginger-ale punch.
Despite the President’s ban on fireworks and public gatherings, most everyone had big plans for the weekend of the Fourth, swim parties, barbecues, picnics and trips to the beach. Betty and Ruth were bound to the coast on a YWCA bus excursion, and had bought new two-piece bathing suits for the trip. They anticipated that most of the servicemen from Fort Myers would be waiting for them.
The USO was hosting parties and cookouts for all the servicemen who wouldn’t be at the beach picking up government girls. Ada’s band was playing at one.
Me, I planned to celebrate Independence Day by breaking into a foreign embassy.
To my surprise Dora appeared at my side. I must have appeared flustered, because she reacted quickly.
‘Fortunately,’ she said, ‘one doesn’t need a top-secret clearance to attend a party in the cafeteria.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be. I’m fine. At least in the Library of Congress reading room I don’t have to listen to Guy and Roger bicker.’
She caught sight of Don chatting up the blonde girl.
‘I see you’re out of the running for wife,’ Dora said, nodding at them.
‘Thank goodness,’ I answered. ‘Has he been looking long? Where was I in the queue?’
‘Since he arrived, and second. Men are odd creatures. If they don’t marry the first girl they’re stupidly smitten with, they begin to search for a mate in a most cynical fashion. Don doesn’t need money, so other qualities appealed to him. It’s odd, men seem to need a wife in order to succeed in a career, but women can’t marry and have a career both.’
‘I heard through the grapevine that Don thought I was perfect for him, what with being so reliable and all. Until I hedged when he asked me out a second time.’
‘You’re not interested in remarrying?’
‘I don’t know, I’m confused about that. My parents are pushing me to find a husband, that’s for sure. And I was happy when I was married. But I’m content now, too. Why jeopardize that? Besides, I’ve found I enjoy making my own money and my own decisions. I don’t know if I could give that up. I doubt that Don would make a modern husband.’
‘Wise of you. Tell me, dear, if you don’t think I’m being impertinent, how much education do you have?’
‘I finished junior college, a business course,’ I said, surprised.
Dora nodded, almost to herself. ‘Have you thought of getting a full college degree?’
‘No, not really. I don’t know how I would pay for it.’
‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘I’ll return to Smith after the war. If you want to go to college, come and see me. We’ll work it out.’
‘Thank you so much, I will.’ College! Me! My brain buzzed with the possibilities.
‘Louise,’ she said, interrupting my daydreams, ‘did you ever find that file you were looking for? What was the man’s name?’
‘Gerald Bloch,’ I said. ‘No, I think it’s lost for good.’
‘If you do ever locate it, would you route it to me? I’d be interested in seeing it,’ she said. ‘Just curiosity,’ she added. ‘And after I get my clearance back, of course.’
‘Of course.’
Dora was the second person in my branch today to mention Bloch’s file. I longed to ask her why, but thought it wiser to drop the subject.
A group of Dora’s friends beckoned her over to join them, and I was left munching a sugar cookie, thinking of joining Joan, who was across the room with her crowd, when the sound of men arguing rose above the background noise of the reception. As a circle around the two squabbling men gathered, I saw that Guy Danielson and Roger Austine were at its center. Guy was flushed with anger, and Roger gripped the back of a chair as if he intended to fling it at Guy any second. Don and a couple of others pulled
the two men away from each other and into opposite corners of the cafeteria. I couldn’t hear Don chewing out Roger, but I could see the grim expression on his face. Good thing General Donovan and the branch directors hadn’t arrived at the party yet.
The last person I wanted to see, Charles Burns, materialized at my elbow, holding a paper cup in ink-stained fingers. He wobbled a bit, leading me to suspect he’d added something alcoholic to his punch. I tensed, but he behaved as if nothing had happened earlier in the day, when he shanghaied me after I’d refused his ‘lunch’ invitation. I didn’t refer to it. Much as I despised the thought, much as I wanted to dump my punch over Charles’s head or kick him in the shins right there in public, I knew it was best to forget, well, pretend to forget, the whole nasty incident. Charles had an important job at OSS and I was just a file clerk.
‘Did you see that?’ Charles asked.
‘I did, what set them off?’
‘Danielson made a comment about Austine’s fiancée – about how he must prefer dark meat. She’s colored, did you know that?’
‘Barely. She’s lovely.’
‘I’m sure she is. They can’t live in this country, though.’
‘I’m sure they don’t care to.’
‘It’s politics, too. When Bob died and Don got his spot, Roger and Guy realized that Don’s a brown-noser and will go whichever way he thinks Donovan is already leaning. That will leave Guy and Roger both without much influence. At least Holman used to listen to both of them. But what do I know. I just catalog maps.’
Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington slid onto the chair and dropped a stack of folders onto the table. He realized that FBI Assistant Director Tolson had been waiting for some time, since his ashtray contained two cigarettes smoked down to their filters.
‘I apologize for being late,’ Huntington said. ‘The traffic.’
‘I understand,’ Tolson said. He dug a handful of papers out of his briefcase and stacked them opposite Huntington’s pile.
They met alone in a small stifling room on the third floor of the Post Office, off Pennsylvania Avenue. Neutral territory. Neither agency would consent to meet at the other’s offices.
‘So,’ Tolson said, ‘what have you got?’
‘We can exclude some of our suspects,’ Huntington said. ‘Mrs Louise Pearlie left the building before the coroner estimates Mr Holman died. Private Cooper, the front-door guard, saw her leave.’
Tolson put a check mark next to her name on a list.
‘Also Joan Adams, General Donovan’s secretary. She came down the back stairs and left immediately through the side door.’
‘Are you sure?’ Tolson asked. ‘The guard at the side door can’t see directly into the building.’
‘He heard her. She walked right down the stairs and out the door.’
Tolson checked off Adams’s name.
‘Danielson, Murray, Austine and Dora Bertrand were together in a meeting that didn’t break up until Mrs Holman’s wife started screaming,’ Huntington said.
Tolson looked up, smirking.
‘But Miss Bertrand did leave once. To use the ladies’ room down the hall in Mrs Pearlie’s office. Which was after Mrs Pearlie left. She would have the time and opportunity to slip into Holman’s office and kill him.’
Huntington rolled his eyes. ‘Just barely,’ he said, ‘I know she’s a favorite suspect of Director Hoover’s.’
‘Charles Burns saw her too. He was delivering maps around the building.’
‘To Holman,’ Huntington said.
‘Among others. At any rate, Holman was alive when Burns saw him. And then Miss Bertrand passed Burns in the hall.’
‘All the more reason to eliminate Miss Bertrand as a suspect.’
‘Why?’
‘Do you really think Miss Bertrand would murder Bob Holman during OSS business hours, immediately after being seen in the vicinity of his office? It’s absurd.’
‘These socialists are fanatics.’
Sometimes Huntington wondered if the FBI understood that the country was at war with Nazi Germany, not left-wing Americans.
‘Look,’ Huntington said. ‘Charles Burns and Holman’s wife had the same opportunity that Bertrand had. Private Cooper said that Mrs Holman didn’t scream for some minutes after she entered Holman’s office.’
‘She was in shock. And why would Charles Burns kill Holman? His background is flawless. He’s from an old American family, good schools.’
Huntington let that one go by without comment.
‘Look, I have no evidence that any OSS staffer killed Holman. A person’s politics and sexual orientation don’t constitute evidence. We have to start all over, sift through the facts,’ Huntington said.
Tolson shrugged. ‘If you insist.’
‘Holman’s window was wide open. Anyone could have gotten into his office. I suggest that we widen our investigation to include the soldiers bivouacked outside and other OSS staff who left the building from other exits. And talk to the Negro messengers who came into the building shortly before the end of the day. Someone may have seen something we’ve missed.’
‘Then you risk word getting out that Holman was murdered. Do you want all of Washington to know how inept OSS security is? Does General Donovan want the President to learn that one of his men was killed in his own office?’
‘General Donovan wants to find Holman’s killer.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Just a dab,’ Ada said.
I consented to two drops of Evening in Paris, one behind each ear.
‘You should be wearing shorts,’ she said. ‘Or a playsuit.’
‘We’re having dinner before the concert, and besides I’m too old to expose my thighs,’ I said. My petticoat skirt and embroidered blouse were clearly pre-war so no one would begrudge me the fabric.
‘You’d look so much prettier with a little more make-up,’ Ada said.
‘I think I look nice.’
Ada threw up her hands in resignation, and I went downstairs to meet Joe. Joe, the bearded refugee with a foreign accent, little money and plenty of secrets. Who made my heart pound and blood rise into my cheeks. I didn’t understand my attraction to him. Here I’d blown off Don, a real catch according to the girls in my office, only to be drawn to a man of mystery, like a heroine in a Gothic novel. Perhaps I liked him because he was such poor marriage material, because liking him was an adventure, an adventure that wouldn’t leave me tied to him for the rest of my life.
My family would be shocked at the way my mind worked these days.
Joe met me at the foot of the stairs, looking less threadbare than usual in pressed slacks and a crisp sports shirt. He dangled a set of keys in his right hand.
‘Mrs Knox insisted we take her automobile. I’ve not driven on the right side of the road, ever, want to navigate?’
‘Sure.’
Joe backed cautiously out of Phoebe’s garage, turned onto New Hampshire and headed west toward the Potomac River.
‘You’re doing fine,’ I said.
‘Thanks,’ Joe said.
‘You’ve never driven anywhere else other than in England?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived most of my life there, but when I was a child I spent holidays with my grandparents outside Prague.’
I managed to contain my curiosity and didn’t ask him any more questions.
‘Whoa,’ I said, ‘that’s the exit!’
Joe stopped turning into the wrong end of a one-way driveway and went on into the entrance, parking in the tiny lot of a restaurant close enough to the Potomac that I could catch a whiff of river air. Inside the restaurant was quiet and cool. White tablecloths and napkins dressed the eight tables, most of which were already occupied.
The owner greeted Joe in a Slavic language heavy with gutturals. Joe introduced us. The owner’s first name was Karel, but I didn’t catch his surname. Karel led us to an empty table in the back of the dining room, removed the ‘reserved’ sign from it and seated us
. The table, set with heavy silver and a cut-crystal vase containing a single flower, overlooked a tiny back garden.
‘I hope you like this place,’ Joe said. ‘It’s the only restaurant around where you can get Czech food. Although they make their living from Hungarian goulash.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I said. ‘It feels a thousand miles away from Washington.’
‘That’s the idea,’ he said.
‘I have no idea what any of these dishes are.’
‘If you don’t mind, let me order,’ he said.
When the waiter came Joe ordered in Czech, at least I assumed it was Czech, then translated for me. ‘Garlic soup, veal roast with wine sauce, potato dumplings and beer.’
The waiter brought us tall steins of Pilsner, so cool and refreshing I drank mine halfway down immediately. It was mealy, tart and golden, unlike any American beer I’d tasted.
‘This is wonderful,’ I said.
‘Pilsner is the national beer of Czechoslovakia. It’s aged in oak barrels. Karel saves what he has for his Czech customers. He won’t be able to import more until after the war.’
The waiter set bowls of steaming garlic soup before us. Garlic was a new experience for me. Stoically I sipped some from my spoon. I followed with a slurp.
‘This is delicious. What’s in it?’
‘I used to watch my grandmother make it. You crush salt and garlic together in a mortar and pestle and boil it with the potatoes and spices. I remember having it poured over fried bread in the bottom of a soup bowl for supper.’
I tilted my bowl to scoop up the dregs.
The veal roast with wine and potato dumplings and more beer followed.
‘Dessert?’ Joe asked.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I said.
‘How about if we walk to the Water Gate and back? We can leave the car here. Maybe we’ll have room for dessert when we get back.’
Joe took my hand as we walked along the Potomac to the concert site. I felt content and happy, although mental warnings about Joe, like little cartoon balloons hovering over my head, kept popping up, reminding me the man was a stranger. Where I grew up, everyone knew everyone else’s business, and I was used to feeling secure. I had to remind myself to be cautious.