LOST TO THE WORLD

by Libby Sternberg

  “I want a soda pop,” Daniel said, coming out and following him into the kitchen on the back of the house. “I want to watch telebision. But Robby says it hurts his eyes.”

  “We don’t have any soda, Danny. Why don’t you go in the bedroom and get a blanket for your brother? That’s a good boy. We’ll watch something later.” The television had been an extravagant purchase last year, something he’d bought on credit to cheer up Mary. He was still making payments. He gave Danny an encouraging nudge toward the hallway and watched him clatter away, glad to be useful.

  In the kitchen, Sean set the tea kettle on and made the sad discovery that his cupboard was bare. He had meant to stop at the store on the way home. Damn. Peanut butter, crackers, a can of beans, and a tin of sardines, which the boys wouldn’t eat, sat on the shelves. Maybe the doctor could stay a minute longer while he ran out? No. And the little store up the street would close at four and stopped deliveries at two because they were looking for an afternoon delivery boy. He reached for the phone on the kitchen wall to call Mrs. Buchanan.

  “…no, that wasn’t Ava Gardner, honey, it was Rita Hayworth….” A familiar woman’s voice came across the party line. Sean would have to wait.

  He looked at his watch. If he hurried, he could be back in less than ten minutes. Two minutes up the street, five at the store, another two back. He turned off the tea kettle and walked back to the living room.

  “Danny, I’m going to go outside for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. To that store up the corner. Won’t take me long at all.” Danny was at his brother’s side, glad to be of help, tucking the blanket around Robby’s feet and legs.

  “Can I come?” Danny asked.

  “No, you have to be a big boy and watch after your brother.” Sean grabbed his coat and pulled out his keys. Ten minutes. Less than that. He knew exactly what he’d buy and where on the shelves it was located. “You stay here with Robby. Don’t you leave the house.” He took off his watch and handed it to Danny.

  “See that big hand? When it moves from the two to the four, I’ll be back.”

  Danny took the watch and stared at it, his mouth hanging open. He looked up at his dad with a mixture of fear and surprise. He was happy to have the watch, but unsure of its price.

  “Danny, I’ll be back by the time it reaches the four!” Sean sprinted out the door, trying to give the impression it was a race against time, a game they’d both enjoy.

  ***

  Sean made it back in seven minutes, laden with canned soup, a loaf of bread, butter, milk, soda pop, and two Hershey bars.

  When he came in the door, Dr. Spencer was kneeling by Robby’s side, stethoscope at his ears, listening to the boy’s chest. Danny was nowhere to be seen, and for one panicked moment, Sean feared the boy had run off.

  “Daddy!” Daniel careened around the corner from the hallway toward Sean. “I was hiding, Daddy!” Sean nodded to the doctor, patted Daniel’s head and took the groceries into the kitchen.

  “Take these out of the bag for me, all right, son?” Sean chucked Danny under the chin and noticed his face was red. He had been crying. “What’s the matter?” he asked, bending down to the boy’s level.

  “Nuthin’.” Danny sniffled. “I forgot what you told me about the watch, that’s all.”

  Sean hugged him, imagining the boy’s fright when Dr. Spencer came to the door. “There’s a treat in the bag for you. See if you can find it.”

  In the living room a second later, Sean stood near the sofa and waited for Dr. Spencer’s verdict. He had a question he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to interrupt the man’s examination.

  “Looks like he might have a touch of strep,” the doctor said, putting his instruments away. “I don’t like the looks of those tonsils, though. You might want to consider having them out.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  The doctor stared over the tops of thick glasses. Dr. Spencer was in his fifties with thin graying hair, each strand of which seemed glued in place on his head. He wore a suit the color of his hair, and a rumpled rain coat was draped over the chair by the front door.

  “It would avoid these sore throats.” He bent over his bag, pulled out a medicine bottle. “Two tablespoons a day—one in the morning, one at night.” He handed the bottle to Sean. “I don’t imagine you have time to run to the pharmacy.”

  “You’re sure it’s nothing worse?”

  “I’m positive. Seen it a hundred times before.” Dr. Spencer straightened. Sean waited for him to offer a scolding about leaving the boys alone, but Dr. Spencer remained mute on that topic.

  “Doctor, I have a question before you go.” Sean handed the doctor his coat and helped him into it. “I’m working on a new case. And it’s down at the Hopkins lab that is doing some of the work on the polio cure—”

  “Not a cure. A vaccine,” Dr. Spencer corrected him.

  “There wouldn’t be any risk of me bringing home any…any polio…”

  “Germs?” Dr. Spencer finished for him. “Only if you came into contact with the actual virus and even then…” He rubbed his chin with his hand. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know.” He laughed softly at his own lack of confidence. “Every time I turn around seems they have a new theory as to how it spreads. In the water. In the air. Years ago they even thought cats were carriers.” He shook his head. “Thousands of ’em were thrown into rivers by angry parents.”

  He looked at Sean’s worried face and changed his tone. “I’m sure it’s safe. It’s Hopkins, after all. They don’t do shoddy work. But if it worries you, why don’t you ask one of the researchers or their assistants?” He patted Sean on the arm. “You’re a good father to worry about that.” Sean knew he was telling him he didn’t hold it against him that he hadn’t been there earlier.

  Sean saw him to the door, but the doctor stopped and asked him a question.

  “What’s the case, if I might ask?”

  “One of the doctors. Suspicious death.”

  “Oh my. Who was the victim?”

  Sean saw no harm in telling him. It was probably already in the evening paper. “A Dr. Myron Lowenstein.”

  Dr. Spencer’s eyes widened. “My goodness, I knew him in New York! A wonderful professor—so kind and generous. Everyone loved him. An amazing teacher—there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know. Brilliant, and he was young—at the time!” He tsk-tsked and shook his head. “I hadn’t realized he was in Baltimore. What a tragedy. I’m sorry to hear of it.”’

  ***

  Later that evening, after the boys were tucked in bed, Sean made two phone calls.

  The first was to Sal’s sister, to take care of the favor he’d promised his partner.

  Sean dug through his pocket, found the paper with her info on it and quickly dialed the number before his party line phoner had a chance to get on the wire. It barely rang once before a mellow woman’s voice came over the line.

  “Is this Brigitta?” He struggled to read his handwriting and the last name he’d scribbled in a hurry.

  “Yes,” she said, sounding wary.

  “This is Detective Sean Reilly. I work with your brother, Sal.” Now that he had her on the line, he realized he wasn’t sure how this should go. Oh hell. Just be direct. “I was wondering if you’d like to have a cup of coffee or something some time.”

  He heard the smile in her voice when she answered. “My brother is playing matchmaker, is he?”

  Sean chuckled, relieved to have her state the obvious. “I guess he is.”

  “Did he force you to call?” She didn’t sound annoyed. Just amused.

  “No. No, he didn’t. I was quite happy to ring you up.” He liked the way she sounded. Comfortable and undemanding.

  “All right. Then I’ll let you buy me a cup of coffee, officer. And we can tell Sal he did good.”

  They set a time and place—noon the next day at a lunchroom downtown—but Sean didn’t make much conversation because he was eager to move on to his next call. Brigitta didn�
��t seem disappointed when he told her had to go.

  The next number he dialed was Susan Schlager’s, Lowenstein’s secretary.

  She answered, sniffling, after five rings. He introduced himself, and before he had a chance to ask any questions, she started sobbing.

  “I—I just heard the news.” She gulped in air. In the background, Sean heard a radio and a man’s voice, like someone talking to a neighbor.

  “Did you work for Dr. Lowenstein long?” he asked.

  “Just three years,” she said, her voice low and scared. The man in the background called to her, and she must have put her hand over the receiver to answer, but Sean could still hear her say, “It’s about my boss. I have to take it.” The man’s response was unintelligible but rancorous. When Susan came back on the line, she was almost whispering. “Before that, he used whoever was available to type his stuff and all.”

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  “I don’t think so. He was a quiet man.”

  Sean thought of what Dr. Spencer had said about him. “Was he well-liked?”

  She laughed, but it was nervous, as if she were putting on a show for the man in the background. “I—I don’t really know. He was very private,” she said. “I didn’t know much about him. Beyond his work.”

  “How about his friends?”

  “He didn’t have any that I knew of—or that he let on. Like I said, he was—”

  “Private,” he filled in. Was she really this ignorant of the man’s personal life or was she hiding something? He tried a different tack.

  “Did anything happen in the past few weeks that left you uneasy? Troubled?”

  She paused, and he heard the man in the background clearly now, telling her he was hungry and he didn’t want to wait.

  “I can’t remember anything.” But she said it so quickly that Sean wondered if she just wanted to get off the phone.

  “Thank you, Miss Schlager,” Sean said.

  “Mrs…” He heard her telling someone she’d be right there, and the man yelling something back at her. “It’s Mrs. Schlager,” she said to Sean in a rushed voice. “And I have to go—”

  Before she had a chance to say goodbye, the phone went dead.

  Chapter Four

  “LET YOUR VATER TAKE YOU in to work. You’ve had the terrible shock.” Elise Marie Dell’s watery eyes stared at Julia from behind round spectacles. Julia’s mother sat at the kitchen table, light glinting on her reddish hair, now darkened by age, secured by pins into a tidy bun on the back of her head. She spoke with a slight German accent, one that had rendered her all but mute during the war years. Now that that terrible time was over, she still acted and spoke in small increments, as if being too bold would draw unwanted attention.

  Julia poured herself a cup of coffee from the electric percolator on the table while her sister Helen concentrated on making some breakfast specialty she’d read about in a magazine the day before. Helen was a thinner version of Julia with lighter hair that in brilliant sun sparkled with reddish highlights. Like Julia, she kept it short and curled in a style that looked carefree but required sleepless nights in hard curlers preceded by chemical permanent wave sets administered in the family kitchen by their mother.

  Today Helen wore a belted robin’s egg blue dress with bolero sleeves in shantung silk, its collar turned up to frame her perfectly made-up face. Julia knew Helen had just finished sewing the dress using a special “high fashion” pattern she’d bought on sale at Woolworth’s. She might work in a dress shop, but Helen aspired to a higher sense of couture. To protect her creation, Helen had tied a starched white apron with two-inch ruffled hem around her waist. She had whipped eggs and other things in a bowl and was heating a cast iron skillet. Now she dashed a droplet of water onto the hot surface, its hiss indicating it was ready.

  “I’m not that hungry,” Julia said as she hobbled to the chair across from her mother.

  Helen didn’t look at her. “They’re French crepes. Sort of like pancakes, except more elegant.” Helen shot her a quick smile and Julia felt like hugging her. Helen was so…delicate…ever since the end of the war. Even though she was four years older than Julia, Helen seemed as if she’d stopped growing in 1945, the year she’d turned twenty, the year the war ended. What a celebration that had been—when victory was declared in Europe. Her father had even bought a bottle of champagne. Her mother had been equally happy—now she’d find out the fate of her sisters and brothers—and they’d all shared a giddy evening drinking together and laughing, her mother telling stories about her family she’d not felt free to share again until they were no longer her adopted country’s enemies. They’d gone to church together that evening, talked with neighbors and friends, huddled around the radio, laughing, planning. Helen had talked about how she wanted to use the silk from her fiance’s parachute to make a wedding veil.

  Then, just three weeks later, Helen had received the phone call from her fiance’s mother, giving her the bad news.

  Helen had stopped at that moment. She seemed to be stuck preparing for things. Preparing for her own life as a wife. Preparing for her own household. Preparing for—

  “Here, try this.” Helen brandished a plate in front of Julia. Two delicately-rolled pancakes dusted with powdered sugar nestled near a dollop of strawberry jam.

  Julia smiled at her sister. “Mmm…smells great!” She wasn’t pretending. Now that food was in front of her, she was hungry. She grabbed a fork and started eating, thinking for the hundredth time that Helen’s culinary adventures were going to add ten pounds to her figure in no time if she wasn’t careful. She complimented her sister on the new dish as her father entered the room.

  “How’s my girls?” he asked, kissing Helen on the cheek while she worked.

  Howard Louis Dell was a stocky man no taller than his daughters. His thick salt-and-pepper hair stood up in a short bristle-brush style around a face carved with deep wrinkles from the smiles he beamed on the world. As was his custom, he sat at the table and opened the paper while patting his shirt pocket for his Camels. Elise recognized her cue and stood to fetch his coffee as he lit a smoke with a slim silvery lighter, a Christmas present from Helen and Julia, who’d pooled their money this past holiday. Their oldest sister, Beth, had embroidered him some handkerchiefs. With three children and a fourth on the way, Beth didn’t have a lot of money to spare, so Julia and Helen hadn’t even asked her to go in on the gift, something Beth had resented, to the younger girls’ dismay.

  After Elise put the coffee in front of her husband, she touched him on the shoulder and kissed him on the forehead before sitting down herself. Helen served her father, then went back to cooking, this time for her mother.

  “I’m going to make a cake this morning, Jules,” Helen said without turning from the skillet. “Red velvet it’s called.” She looked at Julia and winked. “With frosting.”

  Julia responded with a close-mouthed smile to the private joke—their mother, whose culinary skills were slight, only made one kind of cake, yellow, with no frosting. All three girls had giggled over this as they’d grown older, recounting to each other the moment they’d discovered—usually at a friend’s house for a meal—that other mothers made cakes with creamy icings or other fancy toppings.

  “Don’t you have to work this morning, Helen?” Julia asked.

  “Mr. Montague said I should come in at noon and work until seven. He’s keeping the store open one night a week now.” Helen worked at Montague Fashions, a ladies wear shop on Belair Road.

  “You will be walking home at dark,” Elise said, pronouncing her “w’s” like “v’s.”

  “I’ll pick her up,” Howie said, putting his paper down, stubbing out his cigarette and diving into his breakfast.

  The walk home would be perfectly safe, but the Dell household now seemed to operate on the principle that disaster waited around the next corner. Their mother went to Mass every morning, Julia knew, as part of a deal she’d made with God when Julia had first
fallen ill. And her father left nothing to chance as far as his girls were concerned.

  Julia believed the polio had changed them. They hadn’t paid much attention to the threat, hadn’t taken some of the zealous precautions of other families, using antiseptic on hands, avoiding crowds, and especially swimming pools. But no one knew really where it came from. A thousand hypotheses circulated. Contaminated milk, insects, exhaust from cars, sewers—one fantastic theory from years ago had it that poisonous gases from the first war in Europe carried the germs, which were breathed in by sharks, who then breathed them out again on America’s shores.

  Neither Julia nor her family knew how she’d contracted the disease. One day she’d been happy and healthy, kissed by summer’s joy, and the next she’d been knocked down to humiliating dependence by “the summer plague.” If they’d paid more attention, would they have been able to prevent it? The question haunted her parents, she knew. And she felt guilty about knowing.

  Julia scraped back her chair, using the opportunity to escape. “I’ll take the bus. You shouldn’t have to chauffeur us all over the place, Dad.” She grabbed her plate and took it to the sink. Helen, who had just finished cooking her own plate of crepes, sat at the table in Julia’s spot. Helen didn’t protest their father’s offer to pick her up even though the store was only a mere five blocks away. Oh, Helen, thought Julia, worry lines creasing her forehead.

  For months now, both Julia and her sister Beth had been nudging Helen to learn to drive. For Julia, it was out of the question. But Beth had learned and enjoyed its liberating effect tremendously. Both sisters thought that if Helen drove, it might unstick something and push her out of herself. Helen, however, resisted.

  Elise looked from daughter to daughter and then to her husband, trying to decide whether to prompt him to drive both girls. Before Elise could speak, Julia hurried down the front hall to the coat closet. If she rushed she could just make the eight o’clock bus into town. As she pulled her cloth coat and scarf from the hanger, her mother appeared behind her, wiping her hands on her floral cotton apron.