Brave Hearts

by Carolyn Hart

  She reached out eagerly for the stack of mail and skimmed through the envelopes, then saw, sickeningly, her own handwriting and the address, “Mr. John Maguire, 50 Greenwood Courts, London.” A careless hand had scrawled “Addressee Unknown.”

  The petty officer looked up. “You again?”

  Jack nodded.

  The sailor hesitated, then motioned Jack to come nearer. “Look, this is on the qt, but if you’ll show up early tomorrow I can get you aboard the Repulse”

  “Where’s she going?”

  “They say the Philippines.”

  Peggy frowned in concentration. It was so hard to type the long, detailed list of gold holdings without making any mistakes. The lists were marked over with insertions and corrections. She sighed wearily. There was list after list after list.

  “Peggy.”

  Peggy stiffened. She knew it was Catharine before she looked up. Peggy’s hands paused on the keyboard; then she forced herself to smile.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cavanaugh. Mr. Cavanaugh’s in conference with Mr. Sayre and Mr. Willoughby.”

  Peggy’s face felt stiff and unnatural when she tried to smile. Catharine Cavanaugh was as immaculately groomed and lovely as always, but today she looked strained, worse than she had during the Blitz. Peggy sensed the incongruity of it, but the thought was swept away by a rising tide of unhappiness. How could Catharine be unhappy? She was Mrs. Spencer Cavanaugh. She was so lucky, Peggy thought bitterly.

  “That’s all right,” Catharine said softly. “I’m here to see Mrs. Sayre, but would you give Spencer a message?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Cavanaugh.”

  “Remind him that tonight is the ball at the Japanese embassy. Since he usually spends the night here at the Residence, he may have forgotten.”

  Peggy looked sharply at Catharine and wondered if anyone nearby had overheard that comment, but the low hum of the air conditioner and the clatter of typewriter keys made it unlikely. What if Catharine talked to Mrs. Sayre about Spencer staying nights at the Residence? Of course, Mrs. Sayre probably wouldn’t give it any thought. A number of the State Department officers stayed in the extra rooms on occasion and certainly often did so these days.

  Peggy said woodenly, “I don’t believe he’s forgotten, Mrs. Cavanaugh, but I’ll give him the message.”

  Catharine smiled. “He’ll be irritated. He won’t want to go. No one does, the way things are now, but he must.”

  When Catharine had gone, Peggy still sat, her hands limp on the typewriter. Tonight Spencer wouldn’t be coming to her apartment. He would be dancing with Catharine, with Mrs. Spencer Cavanaugh.

  Peggy bit her lip, then angrily began to type the lists of gold.

  The long pastel dresses swirled gracefully as the women danced. Catharine thought of butterflies wheeling and turning in the sunset. White uniforms stood out in sharp contrast to the yellows and blues of the gowns. The reception was just another diplomatic party except that it forced her to remember a particular party, a reception at the German embassy in Paris in the spring of 1939. That cold and hostile evening in Paris the representatives of certain countries stood carefully on opposite sides of the ornate room. Tonight, the English diplomats stood with their American counterparts. Spencer was deep in conversation with the British military attaché. Catharine looked across the ballroom floor at the Japanese officials ranged along the opposite wall. Consul and Mrs. Yoshida stood in the center of the room in a formal reception line to greet arriving officials. Japanese serving women in bright kimonos offered tea and cakes.

  The British military attaché stood just to Catharine’s right.

  “Mark my words, Cavanaugh, it will be over in a matter of weeks if the Japs do anything foolish. Why, those little brown Johnnies are a joke as fighters. We’ll mop them up with no problem—and, of course, Singapore is impregnable.”

  “They have their hands full in China,” Spencer offered. Then he frowned and said worriedly, “But things look bad. If the Japanese commission in Washington doesn’t accept our terms, then I’m afraid . . .”

  The orchestra began to play a stately waltz. Catharine looked away from Spencer and saw a tall, slim Japanese in the uniform of a colonel walking purposefully toward their corner. Spencer and the British major stopped talking.

  The Japanese colonel ignored them, walked up to Catharine, and gave a slight bow.

  “Do you remember me, Catharine?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise; then she smiled and held out her hand. “Tom, of course I remember you.” Still smiling, she turned to Spencer. “Spencer, this is Tom Okada. He was at school with my brother, Ted, at Stanford. He often came home with Ted.” She turned back to the Japanese officer. “Tom, this is my husband, Spencer Cavanaugh.”

  Colonel Okada bowed. Spencer stiffly nodded his head.

  They didn’t shake hands.

  “I knew your wife when she was a little girl, and she was as lovely then as she is now.”

  Spencer nodded but didn’t respond.

  The colonel turned back to Catharine. “May I have this dance, Catharine?”

  She hesitated for just an instant. The Japanese and American diplomats treated each other with punctilious courtesy but no friendliness these days. This had been the norm ever since Roosevelt applied the embargo and the Japanese continued to insist upon their right to expand and the future of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

  Would it really be appropriate for her to dance with a Japanese military officer?

  But this was Ted’s friend and hers.

  Lifting her chin a little, she said quickly, “I’d love to, Tom.”

  He took her hand, and they walked out onto the dance floor. She could feel Spencer’s disapproval. As she and Tom circled the dance floor, she saw the tight, closed faces of the other Americans. Tom, of course, saw them, too. He laughed a little.

  “Consul Yoshida looks as though he’s eaten something disagreeable. Isn’t it absurd, Catharine?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.” She looked up at her old friend. “Tom, do you think there’s going to be a war?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? But there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” Briskly, he changed the subject. “Have you seen Ted recently?”

  “Yes, when we came through New York. Ted’s still with Mercantile General. He and Betty live in Scarsdale and have four children.”

  “Four!” Tom exclaimed. “It seems funny to think of Ted as a family man. When we were in school, he was a ladies’ man.” Then he looked at her quickly.

  Catharine laughed. “You don’t have to protect my brother’s reputation with me. Ted always loved and left the ladies until he met Betty, but now he’s thoroughly domesticated. How about you, Tom? Are you still a gallant bachelor?”

  He shook his head. “No. My wife and I have two sons. I suppose the years catch up with all of us.” He looked at her quizzically. “And you, Catharine, do you have any children?”

  Despite the years since they’d last met, he knew her well, and he saw the pain in her face.

  “I’m sorry, Catharine. I’ve said the wrong thing, haven’t I?”

  She shook her head quickly. “You couldn’t have known.” She steeled her voice. “We lost our little boy just past his first birthday.” She forced a smile and asked brightly, “Is your wife here in Manila with you, Tom? I’d love to meet her.”

  “No. She’s at home in Osaka. I’m not permanently stationed here. I’m on a special mission.”

  She started to say the same was true of Spencer, but caught herself. There was between them, abruptly, a constraint. He, too, didn’t seem to know what to say.

  The waltz ended, and they walked back across the floor to where Spencer and the British major waited, their faces impassive.

  Tom bent down and said softly, “I’m glad, Catharine, that you haven’t turned against your old friend.”

  She smiled and felt at ease again. “I’ll never do that, Tom.”

  “Would you like to see the consulate
garden? It is one of the loveliest in Manila.”

  Catharine could see Spencer, waiting stiffly. “I wish I could, but I’d better rejoin my husband now.”

  “Of course.” Just before they reached Spencer, he said, “Perhaps I’ll see you again before I leave Manila.”

  She gave him a quick, warm smile. “I hope so.”

  When they reached Spencer, Tom bowed formally, then turned away.

  Spencer waited a moment, then said through clenched teeth, “That was an incredible performance, Catharine.”

  “Was it?” she asked indifferently.

  “For God’s sake, Catharine. Polite but formal, that’s how the high commissioner told us to deal with the Japanese. Don’t you understand, there’s a damn good chance there’s going to be war?”

  She looked at him coolly and was somewhat surprised that his reprimand didn’t touch her at all. She wasn’t even sorry he was upset. She already hurt too much to let this petty argument cause her any pain.

  “Spencer, I am a perfectly loyal American, but until the day we are at war, I have no intention of turning against a very old and very dear friend.”

  Spencer’s anger was still evident the next morning at breakfast. He didn’t speak as Manuel served their fruit and toast.

  Catharine ignored Spencer equally and read the Manila Tribune. Headlines told of worsening relations between Washington and Tokyo. Catharine skimmed the stories, then turned to an inside page. She didn’t look up as Spencer pushed back his chair.

  “Catharine.”

  She looked up. “Yes?”

  “You are not to have anything to do with this Okada.”

  “I’ll see.”

  He hesitated and almost spoke again, but she turned back to the paper. She heard him walk across the room. He paused at the door.

  “I’ll be staying at the Residence tonight.” The door slammed behind him.

  Catharine remembered his angry face several times during the day as she went through the motions of being Mrs. Spencer Cavanaugh. She attended a luncheon at the British Club and spent the afternoon at the U.S. Residence attending a first-aid class, in part to please Amea. She watched the earnest women in their summery frocks practicing how to splint broken bones and apply tourniquets. The American women ranged in age from their early twenties to their late sixties. Catharine thought they had absolutely no inkling of what war was like. She thought of houses after a bombing raid open to the street like stage-set scenes; the terrible quiet of a heap of rubble; the slow, tenacious efforts to find survivors; the bloodied, dusty bodies carried off in mortuary vans; the death notices in the London Times, and the rank, raw, hideous smell of destruction. These pleasant-faced, confident women talked earnestly about what to do in case of attack. Her heart ached for them.

  Amea Willoughby turned to Catharine. “You’ve just come from London. What is it like to be in an air raid?”

  Catharine looked thoughtfully at Amea.

  Amea misunderstood Catharine’s silence. “Forgive me,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked. Someone told me you’d actually been bombed and lost all your things.”

  “I don’t mind answering,” Catharine said slowly, “but it’s hard to explain. I think it’s the helplessness that’s the worst.” She paused and frowned. “It’s the waiting, sitting there, night after night, waiting. You never know where the bombs will fall or what they will do. It’s so completely fortuitous.” She smiled wryly. “I suppose it’s arrogance to believe we can control our destiny. That’s the first thing you lose in a bombing raid, the sense of control and rationality. Nothing matters but chance. It’s as if you’re playing a gigantic, cosmic game of chance, and your life is the chip if you lose.”

  Amea nodded toward Catharine. “Is any of this going to help us if it happens?”

  “It can’t hurt,” Catharine said gently.

  Amea reached over suddenly and patted Catharine’s hand.

  When the meeting was over, Catharine moved ahead of the others and out of the Residence into the heavy, throbbing heat. She waved for a calesa for the journey back to downtown. She sat in the gaily painted cart pulled by a plodding pony and looked out across the glittering blue bay. The cool, fresh breeze off Manila Bay swept over her, and the sticky dampness of her dress was uncomfortably cool. When the cart stopped in front of her apartment house, she handed the driver fifty centavos. He reached up to help her step down.

  She hesitated for a moment on the sidewalk, but it was almost four o’clock. Too late, really, to go shopping. Moreover, there was nothing she needed or wanted. She stood irresolutely, then turned and walked into the lobby.

  She had nowhere to go, no one whom she cared to see, nothing to look forward to. She rode up alone in the slow, rickety elevator.

  She let herself into the quiet apartment and stood in the center of the unbearably warm living room. The heavy whirr of the overhead fan, the standard brown rental drapes, the tropical rattan furniture made her feel alone and alien. She was shaken to her core by a wave of despair.

  Catharine clenched her hands tightly. She mustn’t give way. She must not.

  But why not? Who cared?

  No one. No one anywhere in the world.

  Jack had cared, but that was over, gone, done with. She knew he was angry and hurt. She’d left him without even saying good-bye. How could he possibly be anything but bitter? He hadn’t even seen the letter she’d sent.

  The longing was sharp, painful, deep. Unendurable. Oh, God, she wanted him so much, she loved and needed him so much.

  Somehow, no matter what effort it took, she had to find him. She had, at the very least, to know where he was and that he lived. She had to know.

  The doorbell rang.

  Manuel hurried from the kitchen to the front door. He bowed and smiled to Catharine, then opened the door.

  In the hall beyond him, Catharine saw a delivery boy holding flowers.

  When Manuel brought them, she fumbled eagerly for the card. She opened it and, through tears of disappointment, read the message: “With all best wishes from your devoted friend, Tom Okada.”

  Catharine handed the flowers to Manuel. “Find a vase for them, please.”

  In a moment, he returned and placed the spray of tiny, glistening white orchids on a table by the window.

  Catharine held the card in her hand. Funny, she’d hoped for a crazy moment when she saw the delivery boy that the flowers would be from Jack. That was crazy. He didn’t know where she was, had no way of knowing her address. Besides, Jack would still be furious.

  She stood in a shaft of sunlight by the window, but it didn’t melt the sadness inside her. She looked down at the card. “Your devoted friend.” Funny. Everything was funny these days. The only warmth she’d received in this alien place came from the gentle wife of a diplomat who understood something of the horror of an air raid, and from a Japanese colonel in Manila on a special mission.

  Yes, everything was damned funny. Tears slipped down her face. If only she knew where Jack was.

  The staccato rattle of typewriter keys was punctuated every few seconds by the slam of a carriage. The noise reverberated in the small, hot room and spilled out into the dingy hall. The smell of cigar smoke hung heavily in the thick, steamy air. Catharine’s white-gloved hands tightened on the handles of her woven purse, and she stepped purposefully forward.

  The man behind the desk glanced up irritably. Then his eyes brightened and he stopped typing. “Yeah. What can I do for you?”

  “Is this the office of the International News Service?”

  “Right the very first time. Kuyk Logan at your service.”

  “I have a friend who works for INS in London. Is there a way I could send a message to him?”

  “Sure.” Logan’s light brown eyes studied her. He scribbled an address on a sheet of yellow copy paper. “This’ll get it,” and he handed it to her. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Jack Maguire. Do you know him?”

  “Maguire.
” Logan frowned. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. I don’t think he’s still with us. If you’d like, I can check and see.”

  “Would you please? I’d appreciate it.”

  “No trouble. Drop back by tomorrow.”

  Catharine returned at the same time the next day.

  Logan looked up through cigar smoke curling lazily in the still, hot air. He stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. “I checked. Maguire quit his job and nobody’s seen him since early September.”

  Catharine had been so certain she would be able to get in touch with Jack. She’d counted on it. It was as if she stood facing an abyss and had nowhere to turn.

  “Sorry.”

  “They don’t know where he went?”

  He looked at her kindly. “Not an idea. He might as well have stepped off the edge of the world.”

  It was a cruel week. Without mentioning the evening at the Japanese embassy, she and Spencer settled back into their polite, constrained pattern. He was courteous; she was passive. The long, steamy days held no focus for Catharine. At odd moments, she would hear the correspondent’s light voice, “. . . might as well have stepped off the edge of the world,” and a sickening feeling of emptiness and despair swept through Catharine. Nobody knew where Jack was; now she would never know what happened to him. She didn’t know anything of his family except they were named Maguire and lived in Chicago. She had no way of finding out his father’s first name.

  He might be anywhere in the world, but she would never see him again, never again feel his gentle and so loving body next to hers.

  She moved through the days with a distant, pleasant smile, trying to cope with the emptiness and the sorrow. Now, she had no hope. Deep in her secret self, she’d looked forward to the end of Spencer’s assignment with the hope that she would leave him then. She’d thought that even if she couldn’t go back to London because of the war, she would write Jack and offer to join him anywhere he could go, anywhere in the world. She would go anywhere and wait for however long it might take. Perhaps that had always been nothing more than a dream, but now she didn’t even have the dream.