The Major's Daughter

by J. P. Francis

  “Won’t you move over to the fire?” Estelle asked, feeling the lovely swell of alcohol pushing the day away.

  “We should go soon,” Missy Kent said, though she led the group to the hearth. “They’re doing a roast beef and they always run out.”

  “It’s damnable the way they do that,” Polly said, “as if they wanted to tempt us by what we can’t have.”

  “Still, it’s a good club,” George told the Emersons. “You can’t find a better brand of people. All the right sorts, honestly. The Duck has been an institution around here for, geez, I hardly know. I can’t remember when we didn’t have the Duck.”

  “‘Going to the Duck’ is the euphemism for getting drunk,” Polly said, his eyes bright and watery with his first drinks. “At least usually it is.”

  “We’re making it sound scandalous, but really it’s quite a welcoming place. The kids have birthday parties there . . . and the pool in the summer,” Missy said, “is really heavenly. A lot of the moms live on those lounge chairs all summer long.”

  “And the kids play together,” Polly said. “It’s all one lovely conspiracy.”

  It was interesting, Estelle realized, to hear their lives explained to newcomers. What wasn’t mentioned, of course, was the difficulty of getting into the Duck in the first place. One had to be sponsored, then vetted, then interviewed, and so on. A financial checkup, too, she imagined, although she had been a member through her family so long that she could not really recall those specific details. But one did not simply walk through the door and pull up a barstool at the men’s grill. Not at all. The golf course was in demand and the greens’ fees stiff, and George, she knew, would flash everything in front of the Emersons as if they merely had to acquire a house on Persimmon Drive to make it all happen. That was his special selling technique.

  Then it was time to go. Polly drained off his glass after calling bottoms up. The others followed suit. George lifted a fire screen in front of the spitting pine scraps while Estelle called up the stairs softly to Louisa that they were going now. Louisa appeared at the top of the stairs and nodded and whispered down that Hazel was still asleep like an angel. Estelle promised they wouldn’t be too late.

  In the car on the way to the Duck, George said he thought the Blonds were ready to bite.

  “Another triumph,” Estelle said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Dinner should close them. I hope they have enough of that damn roast beef tonight. I need to talk to the manager, what’s his name?”

  “Steve,” Estelle said.

  “Right . . . I can never remember his name. I wonder why not. I must block it. Anyway, I’ll say, Steve old boy, let’s stop being chintzy with the roast beef. If there’s one thing you can’t go cheap on at a club like the Duck . . .”

  “That would be roast beef,” Estelle couldn’t help herself from saying.

  “One of those kinds of evenings, is that right?” George asked, looking over as he navigated up the long, treelined driveway to the Duck.

  “We always have one of those evenings, George. It’s our fate.”

  “Be better if you worked with me instead of against me.”

  “I always work with you, George. I just don’t always like that I work with you.”

  “You’re too clever for me by half,” George said, and yanked the car into a slot under a chestnut tree. “Anyway, see if you can keep that Patty interested. She’s the one who will make the decision. She wants to start a family.”

  “Do I get a commission?”

  He leaned over quickly and kissed her cheek. Then he popped out of the door and came around the car—the Queen of Persimmon Drive, the Duke of the Duck Pond.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  As the German prisoners found their way to seats in the temporary theater, Major Brennan nodded to Lieutenant Peters. Every guard had been alerted; all hands had been summoned. Lieutenant Peters had seen to that, issuing the order. It was the same order, as it happened, that they had employed to announce Hitler’s suicide in the last days of April 1945. They had reported his death and the subsequent immolation of his body factually and without passion. There was a trick to handling such things, and Major Brennan believed in frankness. Lance the wound, he had told Lieutenant Peters and others after receiving news about Hitler’s death only weeks before. It served no purpose to deny or underplay these events. The worry over how the German men would react to the death of the Führer had been misplaced. If anything, the men appeared relieved, glad to have the end of the war so clearly marked. Hitler’s abiding fascination had been dispelled in a single five-minute span as Major Brennan had read calmly an account of his last hours, including Hitler’s marriage and breakfast reception with Eva Braun. The men had filed out after a few questions. Surely the conversations had continued in the barracks late into the night, but there had been no obvious repercussion, no attendant protest.

  Tonight, however, might prove to be different. When Major Brennan stepped onto the front porch of the mess hall, the German men came promptly to their feet. The Germans, Major Brennan marveled, never failed in that regard: while an American assembly might begin in a lazy, distracted manner, with men climbing to their feet in ragged order, the Germans, as always, stood rigidly alert, obviously prepared to grant a senior officer their full attention. Under other circumstances, it might almost have been humorous, but tonight Major Brennan merely made a motion with his hand and asked that the men be seated.

  The men sat. A wind pushed the makeshift movie screen that had been suspended from the front porch of the mess hall. Major Brennan heard it flap behind him. He waited a moment to make sure the men had settled. Then he turned to Collie and asked if she was ready.

  “Yes, Papa,” she answered.

  He started once, opening his mouth to begin, but then stopped. How did one start on such a topic? He braced his shoulders back and took a deep breath.

  “In the past few months,” he said in a loud voice, “we have heard reports about prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and Poland.”

  He waited while Collie translated.

  “Many of these stories have been met with skepticism, because, I think, we did not wish to believe the truth of what had transpired. Gradually, however, the nature of these camps has begun to astonish the civilized world. Our eyes see, but our minds cannot accept the evidence of our sight.”

  He waited again for Collie to translate.

  “Tonight, we have a film record of what these camps have kept hidden for several years. The film has been provided by the State Department of the United States. Copies of the film have been made and distributed throughout the United States and across all corners of Europe.”

  Collie translated. Her voice, he marveled, was steady and strong. He saw the German prisoners nod at her words.

  “You may ask yourself, why am I being shown such a film? The war is coming to a close. It is time to shut the door to such memories. But it is the position of the State Department, and of the United States of America, that German prisoners should be shown evidence of the horrors the Fatherland visited on the peoples of Europe. We do this not to shame you but to bring to light the full depravity sanctioned by the leaders of your nation. This is of the darkest character. This is the ultimate expression of human cruelty.”

  When Collie finished translating, Major Brennan raised his hand to indicate to the projectionists to run the film. Major Brennan quickly stepped out of the beam of light that flashed from the roof of the closest barracks. For a moment nothing became visible on the screen except numbers. Then gradually images began moving on the screen. A pile of skeletal bodies lay in a discarded heap, with a bulldozer slowly pushing the bodies toward a mass grave. The pictures moved without narration. Major Brennan watched the diesel smoke coming out of the exhaust vent on top of the bulldozer; it was incomprehensible that such a machine could be employ
ed to maneuver human corpses. The bodies rolled in stiff, reluctant waves, like flaccid bolts of material pushed along an earthen floor. Major Brennan lighted a cigarette and felt his hands trembling.

  The rest was a variation on the same theme: ghostly men and women with enormous eyes, malnourished, gasping, their expressions pleading. More bodies, more corpses. The camera occasionally went inside a barracks, the bright lights illuminating crowded bunks of starving people languishing in a boned silence, heads hardly able to turn at the light. Hibernacula, Major Brennan thought, watching them. Winter caves for bats.

  Major Brennan moved his eyes from the images on the screen to the men watching the film. No one made a sound. The film went on a long time. The wind occasionally pushed the screen back and forth and made the images hard to see. Then the cloth settled again and the horror returned.

  “We told you this was happening!” one man finally said, but who it was, or even what portion of the crowd had given voice, Major Brennan couldn’t say. Then another said, “No one listened! We told the officers, but no one listened!” Those voices freed the crowd of men to a degree and let them move slightly in their seats. The usual human sounds returned: a scuffed shoe, a cough, a sneeze, a match-strike.

  When the film finished, the light flicked off. Major Brennan returned to the small porch. He stood for a moment and then slowly began the words to “Our Father.” The Germans joined him, speaking their own language. “Forgive us our trespasses,” he said, his voice wavering, and “for those who trespass against us.” When he finished the prayer, he nodded to Lieutenant Peters to dismiss the men. They filed out in silence.

  • • •

  Later that same night, Collie heard August playing the piano. She knew his style immediately. Other people played the piano, some even with greater fluency than he, but none played with his quiet, elegant style. The notes came to her as she locked the office. Her father had gone off after the movie, taking two of the younger officers into Berlin for dinner. The men were being transferred back to Boston the next day. It was a good-bye dinner, strangely juxtaposed with the horrors they had witnessed during the film from the extermination camps. But that was the way with war, Collie reflected. A thousand things happened in a single day.

  She did not pretend to go anywhere but the refectory. She found August sitting at the piano in the dimness. It might have been a bit a cliché: the troubled young soldier losing himself on the piano keyboard after observing his countrymen’s depravity. But it did not feel that way. He played to find something in the music, not to lose himself, and she stood for a moment in the doorway watching him.

  She loved him. That was clear now. It was like loving her hand or face or breath. Inside of her head, she was no longer alone. She did not think only for herself but for them both, for what he might think or need or desire. She imagined she held the same place in his thoughts. When he looked up to see her, she crossed the room quickly and went into his arms. He kissed her. Then the kiss grew and built and she felt his hands on her, everywhere, and she kissed him deeper, deeper, slowly stretching across his lap. She could not resist. What was the point of resisting? She felt his strength and his urgency, and she did not try to stop him but added her own urgency to his. They might have been a fuse burning, she felt, and it was insanity to do this here, to enter this level of wantonness where so many people might surprise them, but it broke on her with quick, sudden snaps.

  She nearly drowned. She nearly lost herself entirely, but finally pushed herself away. She took two steps toward the door, then fell back into his arms, kissed him, pushed away again. She did not speak and neither did he. The room was dark except for the outside lights and the only noises she heard were sounds their bodies met sparking together.

  She shook her head no when it had all gone too far, then she crawled off him, an animal, a lost, ravaging creature, and his hands trailed after her. She felt his arousal, his determination, but she kissed him again and again, slowly pulling away, slowly easing out of his orbit. She kissed him a hundred times on his neck, his forehead, his hands. Then she turned and nearly ran, her head detached from her body, her blood slinking in warm, flushing currents through her lips, her legs, her groin. She pushed through the door and walked out, relieved, almost, to see a group of prisoners stepping along the boardwalks, the moon, half empty, swinging like a garden gate on the ridge of the Devil’s Slide.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Albee Spencer’s office smelled of cigars and bay rum, but mostly of cigars. It was a dark, dingy office, with an overhead fan twirling as if trying to screw itself out of the ceiling. Estelle could not find a comfortable place to sit, which was not to say that the chairs were uncomfortable but merely poorly placed. One straight-backed chair sat in the corner, and a vast, blue-gray couch took up the northern wall. The standard desk chair that had been put into service in front of the gunmetal desk sat on wheels and looked unsteady. Given the various options, she was not sure where she wanted to sit.

  A moment later Albee Spencer came in. He was a dense, bald man of about fifty, with extraordinarily full eyebrows and a pair of bright red braces straining to hold his pants up against a large belly. He resembled a rolling pin, Estelle thought, or a novelty bottle with maple syrup inside. She had seen those kinds of bottles at the state fair, and she had never imagined they might be modeled after someone. For all of that, however, he moved like an anxious bear, stopping midway into the doorway to shout something back at the larger office behind him. The sound of typewriters propelled him into the room. He crossed quickly to his desk and sat down. He did not shake hands or give her any better indication of why she had been asked to visit him.

  “You wrote the article on the Red Cross?” he asked, his eyes down at the papers on his desk.

  “Yes. . . .”

  “Are you going to sit or run out the door? Am I so terrifying?”

  He looked up. He had soft eyes, at least, Estelle thought. She sat on the front edge of the desk chair. It rocked a little forward and she had to balance herself.

  “Your name is . . . ?”

  “Estelle Samuels. I was Estelle Emhoff.”

  “Dr. Emhoff’s daughter?”

  Estelle nodded.

  “That explains it,” Albee Spencer said. “You write passably. We need a number of things covered. Are you interested?”

  “Covered?”

  “Yes, yes, as a reporter,” Spencer said, his temper just bubbling underneath. “Yes, covered . . . local events, school board meetings. Nothing too exciting. You’re not going to be Nellie Bly.”

  “A reporter?” Estelle asked, still trying to make sense of the request.

  “Yes, a local events reporter. This piece you did on the Red Cross . . . it’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. Right now we’re shorthanded. The war has taken away most of my reporters and the young kids . . . they think they’re going to come in here and break the story of the century. And they can’t write. I need someone steady to go around and write up the stories we need covered at the Bugle. Does that interest you?”

  “I’ve got a baby.”

  “Did I say that you didn’t? I’m not thrilled about hiring a woman, believe me, but I’m shorthanded, as I say. You seem to have the knack, and what you don’t know we can teach you. If you don’t think it’s a respectable occupation for a woman, then don’t waste either of our time. I’ve got a thousand things to do today.”

  “How much would you pay me?” Estelle asked, more to have something to say than to negotiate terms. She felt dizzy and out to sea. What was he proposing exactly? This curious little man.

  “We’ll pay you by the story. You don’t have to come into the office unless you’re submitting a story. You’ll be a freelancer . . . ever heard of that? A stringer, we could say.”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  He suddenly pushed back in his chair and reached for a cigar left on th
e edge of an enormous ashtray. The cigar had gone out. He started it again.

  “Look . . . it’s a pretty simple proposition. I need some things covered. You’re local and you write well enough and you’re probably in the area for the duration. I’m not expecting more than you can handle, believe me. Most of the events can be covered in an hour or two. Do you have a typewriter?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, so you go take notes, you write it up, then you hand it in to the copy boy. Make sure you write a lede and leave something to cut at the bottom. It’s not Gone with the Wind. It’s just local reporting. We’ll send a photographer out with you when you need him. I’ve got a school board meeting tomorrow night and a PTA meeting over in Lawrence Thursday. What do you say we start with that and see where it goes? If you can write more personal stuff . . . flower shows, family reunions, that’s all to the good. You can check with me.”

  “You’re offering me a job?” Estelle asked, still not comprehending. Or rather, she comprehended, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “Yes. A job.”

  “I’d have to talk to my husband.”

  “You do that and get back to me. Don’t sit on this, though. I’ve got to have someone.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said, rising.

  The smell of the cigar was really quite something, she reflected. She wasn’t sure how to make her exit, so she held out her hand and Mr. Spencer shook it. Then she went back outside into the general office and the swarm of typewriters.