Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

by Rebecca Rotert

  She cocks her head at him. He steps in front of her and she stands up straighter. I sometimes think they’re just going to start punching each other.

  Someone needs to know what you’re doing, he whispers. I mean, you don’t.

  Mother takes a quick breath like she’s going to say something terrible but then she looks over at me.

  CHAPTER 5

  JIM KISSES MY head and tells me good-bye at the club and Mother is quiet on the walk home. I think she’s still angry with me, though her feelings tend to spill out past the little boundary of us. Mother’s feelings are the curb I walk, trying to keep my balance, and I get tired of it, being careful, and mad at her at the same time. But then she takes my hand and smiles at me.

  You’re my favorite, she says. And suddenly I’m on solid footing again, struck smooth, the moment perfect, our life perfect, and me, perfectly loved.

  We live in an old hotel not too far from the club. Mother says it used to be a very fancy place. She says it’s ideal for us because it’s so close to work.

  There is a seat built into our living room window. I perch there on top of a folded blanket, and if I sit just right, I can see a sliver of lake between two buildings, and if I sit long enough, I might see a fishing boat pass by the sliver, its lantern swinging. There is a whole world out there that has nothing to do with us. I write fishing boats in the front of my Big Chief tablet.

  Let’s tuck you in, kitten, says Mother.

  She puts me in my nightgown and into bed.

  Jim was mad, I say.

  She touches my hair and looks at my face. It’s okay.

  Is he going to come back?

  Of course, darling. He never stays sore for long.

  He said he’d help me with my list. I need help with my list.

  Shhh, shhh, she says. Enough with the talking now.

  She gets up to leave.

  Sing to me, I ask.

  I’ve been singing all night.

  But just to me.

  She sings. “The water is wide. I cannot get over. And neither have I wings to fly. Give me a boat that can carry two and both shall row, my love and I.”

  When she notices me, all the times she doesn’t notice me get erased. Like I imagined them.

  I can hear the tired in her voice. I pretend to be asleep so she can leave.

  She’s very quiet as she gets ready for him but her trying to be quiet is so loud. It’s like sitting on the floor of the orchestra pit, her quiet. I fall asleep in all her noise, thinking about her and me alone in a boat.

  The next morning I go quietly into Mother’s room, certain A-5 is there, but she is alone, asleep on top of the covers in her peach satin gown.

  She wakes. Come here, she says, waving me onto the bed.

  I lie down in front of her and she holds me from behind.

  I memorize this feeling, her smell—hairspray and worn-out perfume. Nothing else in the world but us. She breathes slowly like she’s still asleep but I can hear her thoughts whirring around.

  You’ll come to Hilda’s with me today?

  Yes, I say.

  She pulls off her clip earrings and tosses them on the nightstand.

  Did you think that man was going to come over last night? This comes out of my mouth before I really think about it.

  Yes. I thought he’d come.

  What’s his name?

  She’s quiet for a long time. David.

  We take a taxi to Hilda’s. The El rattles overhead and I stare at Mother’s face. When she thinks no one is looking at her, her mouth moves a little, like she’s talking to someone she’s mad at.

  Stop staring. You’re worse than Jim, she says, like she’s just very tired of everyone looking at her all the time.

  Hilda is dressed in her church clothes when we arrive at her shop.

  Come in, come in. She flips on the lights, bends over the radiator, and turns it on. It hisses and moans.

  She pulls her pincushion strap over her wrist and waves Mother forward. Mother removes her coat and trousers and blouse like she’s alone in her room.

  I sit down on a little bench and write sewing machine in my notebook.

  Hilda pulls the beginnings of a dress over Mother’s head and turns her this way and that by the hips. You’re distracted, she says.

  Mother ignores her.

  A new lover? says Hilda. She pins several darts around Mother’s waist and Mother has her arms up in the air like she’s surrendering. I know there is someone. Hilda knows. You’re not talking? She’s the only person I know who is allowed to scold Mother, handle her, and I like to watch.

  Hilda sighs. It’s nice to sing. You are young still. But soon you must settle down. For her, she says.

  I have plans for myself, Hilda. Big plans. Why should I settle down?

  Not just you. You have the child. You forget you have the child, I think.

  I most certainly do not, says Mother. And besides, she’s perfectly happy. She’s fine.

  Hilda bends over and pins the hem, mumbling something in Polish.

  I sit down at a sewing machine and turn the bobbin and pump it with my foot. The thread is trapped between the spool and the needle. I can tell that today Mother feels stuck with me, like I’m a chore she’s trying to get out of. Sometimes it stays like this for weeks. I hook the thread with my finger and pull it a little; I pull too hard. It snaps and I take a deep breath.

  What are you doing? says Hilda, rushing toward me. She speaks angrily in Polish and shakes her head.

  I’m sorry.

  She bends over me and pets my head. The child needs attention.

  Hilda, says Mother, come back. Come make me beautiful. Mother’s voice is hot coffee. Hilda is cream in it, dissolving. Like all of us.

  After all the pinning and turning, Mother changes back into her regular clothes and we start home, her quiet.

  I wish I had a brother or a sister, I say.

  Why’s that?

  To play with. You had brothers and sisters.

  And do you see me playing with them?

  What were they like? I ask.

  You know I’m not going to discuss this with you.

  Why?

  Someday, she says.

  No, you’re not. You never tell me anything, I say to her, louder than I’d meant to.

  Where is this coming from, this outburst?

  I imagine this big family someplace far away and Mother walking away from them because they’re not good enough for her or beautiful enough and if she left them behind she’ll leave me behind. I start to tell her all this but stop right away because I don’t want to give her any ideas.

  Well? says Mother, waiting. I’m going home. You can stand there with your mouth open all day if you like.

  She walks quickly then. I catch up to her, but by the time I do, she has gone someplace else in her mind. Someplace that doesn’t involve me one iota.

  Wait for me, I say, but Mother is walking ahead and doesn’t hear me or maybe she doesn’t want to.

  Naomi

  CHAPTER 6

  KANSAS, 1951

  I WAS TEN WHEN Papa came home from Germany with a bullet in his shoulder and a shock of gray hair, and I was eleven when Mama had those twins. All I can tell you about them was that one was big and fat and the other was a runt with teeny raccoon fingers who lasted only a week. I didn’t want Mama to have more babies and I thought the little one died because of me. We buried him behind the orchard, the wind trying to shred our ugly dresses while Daddy said a prayer, and then told us not to breathe a word. After that happened, Mama’s mouth was set. I tried to make her laugh with my little made-up songs but she didn’t.

  There were seven of us. Thomas, the oldest, and then girls, girls, girls. We always had something to eat, we had shoes most of the time, we got baths on Saturday, girls first. By the time it was Thomas’s turn, he just stared at that bathwater like it was slop. I heard Papa say to him once, That water so filthy you be cleaner by staying out of it, and th
ey laughed with their heads touching because Papa loved Thomas more than anything.

  People who live in Kansas will tell you how beautiful it is but all I can say is that in Kansas, the wind blows everything down or away, and if it can’t do one of those two things, it just beats the shit out of it.

  When I walked the long dirt road to school, I felt like a very small thing pushing my way along the edge of the world. The others walked in a huddle, hand in hand, but I stayed up ahead, not wanting to walk with them, not wanting to belong to them. I sometimes hoped the wind would carry them away. I walked as fast as I could. It’s not that I was a cruel girl, I swear. I just had this feeling that our time together would be short.

  By the time we reached the schoolhouse, we were stiff and quiet and warming up hurt worse than getting cold. I stood facing the stove, and when Sister Therese told me to sit down, I pretended not to hear her. So she grabbed my ears and bent down so our noses were almost touching. Your sisters are good, she said. And Thomas is an angel. What’s the matter with you? Answer me!

  David Miller stood nearby with firewood in his arms. He interrupted her. I’m going to put this in the stove.

  Sister let go of me and said, Well, you’re not going to stand there holding it all day.

  Don’t pay her any mind, he said as he passed me. He was the oldest boy in school and tall as two of me. Dark-haired and dark-eyed. Already shaving.

  I looked at my sisters as I walked back to my seat and they looked at their books.

  David’s sister, Laura, was wearing another dress I hadn’t seen before and her long black ringlets were so soft her ribbon slid right out of her hair. I dropped my pencil, and when I bent to fetch it, I took the ribbon and kept it. The girl sitting next to me saw me and raised her eyebrows, so I showed her my fist.

  Laura absentmindedly touched her hair, and when she noticed the ribbon was gone, looked for it on the bench and the floor. Then she looked back at me. She had large brown eyes that looked sad even though she had nothing to be sad about. We stared at each other for a minute, and then she turned back around.

  Every day like clockwork Sister Therese ran around the schoolhouse opening all the windows even though it was getting cold. She stood in front of one for several minutes, fanning herself with her lesson book. When she turned back to us, her face was flushed and damp. Once I heard her whispering to herself, It will pass, it will pass.

  When Father Eugene appeared in the doorway we stood quickly and greeted him in unison. He smiled and stomped his boots, speaking with Sister Therese quietly, their backs to us, glancing a few times at Thomas.

  On the way home it was Thomas walking far ahead. I caught up to him and could tell he’d been crying.

  Go on, he said, and started making longer strides.

  Tell me what they said, I yelled.

  They’re taking me away. To become a priest.

  I laughed at him. He wiped his face.

  What the devil are you talking about? You’re fifteen years old!

  Well, that’s when they take you, barked Thomas. I realized he was telling the truth and was scared to death.

  I wish they’d take me, I said.

  Easy for you to say.

  The whole family was happy and proud about Thomas. Father Thomas, Murielle whispered to me in bed that night. Won’t that be something?

  It’s horrible.

  I don’t think so, she said. Special people can come from nowhere. Why, General Eisenhower was from right over in Abilene.

  A week later, Thomas was taken away empty-handed. He kissed me with his doll face.

  You don’t have to, I whispered to him. We can run away.

  But all he did was blink.

  After Thomas left, Papa took the older girls out of school to work on the farm. But not me. Mama told him I was too mean and lazy to be of any use there. Let the nuns deal with her, she had said.

  My sisters became strong and lean, darker than me, and it was not hard to imagine them stuck in that filthy, tired life until they were like old swaybacked mares.

  CHAPTER 7

  WHILE SISTER THERESE was having one of her fever moments at an open window, I stole an arrowhead from the Land of Kansas diorama. She turned around just in time to catch me and put me in the corner for a week. The Monday my punishment was to end I went to school early with the head of an old hammer and a fistful of nails in my skirt pocket, and I angled the nails into every last window. Laura and David, because they were always the first ones to school, saw me doing this and smiled at each other. I raised the hammer up in the air, shook it like Sister did with her ruler, and they laughed again. Standing in front of them like that, their eyes on me, made me feel like I belonged to them, like I was one of them, like I was worth something—and I loved it so. I had stumbled upon the key to my happiness.

  That afternoon when Sister Therese went hot and ran for the window, she couldn’t get it open. So she tried the next one and then the next one until she finally said, I am fed up with this! and ran out of the schoolhouse.

  Laura turned around to look at me with those big eyes and I said, Yes?

  She continued to stare at me for the longest time, barely smiling. You are terrible, she whispered.

  I wished I had something clever to say but I went blank, her face so close to mine. I learned two things that day: one, you ought not let yourself love a person until they’ve seen just how bad you are, and two, I loved Laura Miller.

  Sister Therese’s replacement was a novice all the way from Atchison.

  Hello, children, she said, standing in front of the class. She had a large mouth and puffy green eyes, like she’d been crying or was just very tired.

  Where’s Sister Therese? asked Laura.

  God needs her for other things right now, said the new nun.

  I made a noise. Not a laugh exactly.

  What does God want from you? said the new nun, looking right at me. That will be our question, she said, turning to the rest of the class.

  She flipped through Sister Therese’s lesson books and asked us where we were. We looked at one another. The older kids had a lot to say about what the younger ones were learning and then they argued about what they were studying. Laura and I didn’t say anything because everyone was already talking at once. The conversation made the new nun rub her fingers under her coif where it seemed to be squeezing her forehead.

  Maybe we should draw, she said as she pulled out a roll of brown paper and colored chalks. We covered our long tables with the paper and began to draw.

  Laura was working very hard on a small drawing of a house when I reached forward and slid my finger into one of her long curls. It felt so soft as I dipped it very gently into my inkwell. The ink dripped on my hands and my desk and then onto her dress.

  When she noticed she spun around and looked at me, hurt. The girl sitting next to us told on me and the new nun approached, looking down at us with her arms crossed.

  You must be Naomi, she said. I looked down at my drawing, which was every color combined to make brown, and waited for her to strike me or send me to the corner.

  She reached her hand toward me; I braced myself.

  I’m Idalia. Sister Idalia, she said, and waited for me to shake her hand.

  I slowly lifted my hand toward hers. She shook it gently. Her hand was rough and cold. I tried to pull my hand away but she pulled it toward her and then bent over it. She turned my fingers this way and that. They were stained black.

  She moved my hand so that it was in front of my face.

  You’re not very good at this, you know, she said.

  The whole class was turned and staring.

  So, I said.

  SO you might not have much of an aptitude for naughtiness. That’s all I’m saying.

  Then she looked at Laura and smiled, taking her by the hand. I looked at their hands holding and felt my bones clamp down on themselves, tightening like a spring.

  Let’s get you cleaned up, she said to Laura as they wa
lked away. I feared I’d lost Laura for good.

  The next day we spent practicing music for Mass. Sister separated us into several parts and began to teach us about harmony. Then she put her hands together in front of her chest and closed her eyes. Lord Jesus, please bring us a piano. Surely someone has one they’re not using. Then she clapped her hands and said, Let’s go back to Attende Domine.

  We sang: “O Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi,” which meant “Have mercy on us, oh God, for we have sinned against You,” or something like that.

  When we were done one of the boys asked, What are we saying?

  Sister Idalia thought about this. She smiled and said, It’s Latin for “I am a child of God. I am loved. I am perfect just as I am,” and then she kept on smiling like she was proud of something. It was a giant smile and she had a gap between her front teeth. I liked her so much already and I liked singing, and I loved Laura. All of these things in combination made me feel untethered, unable to protect myself, or worried that I’d forgotten how.

  I leaned in behind Laura. How come your brother hasn’t been in school? I asked.

  He’s working with my father at the bank, she said.

  I tried to imagine David with his hair combed, counting dollars.

  He is really good at numbers, I said.

  He loves arithmetic more than anything, she said.

  I was close enough to smell her breath. It smelled like hard candy.

  I hate arithmetic, I said.

  Laura giggled. I noticed.

  The fire went low, so one of the boys got up to fetch some wood. He was small and wiry. I stuck my foot out and tripped him. He scrambled back up and looked at me but he was little and too afraid to say anything.

  Are you all right, Clyde? said Sister Idalia. He nodded and ran off.

  Naomi, she said, come sit by me.

  I stared at her and walked slowly to her desk, keeping my arms folded across my chest as I often did because I had breasts and the other girls my age didn’t have them yet. I wanted to explain myself to Sister. All of the feelings were right there under my skin but I didn’t have the words for them. I sat down next to her on her little bench. There we go, she said.