Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

  During those weeks of their first dates the “State News” carried several articles related to the war in Vietnam:

  On April 5th a news analysis headlined “Johnson bows out, but not too far” began: “President Johnson’s announcement Sunday that he will not seek re-nomination certainly will be considered one of the most startling political moves of the century.”

  On April 8th an article headlined “U.N. official shows war, racial optimism” reported: “His Excellency C.V. Narasimhan, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly Affairs of the United Nations, indicated Friday that President Johnson’s decision to de-escalate the war in Vietnam and seek meetings about an eventual case-fire is viewed as an ‘extremely hopeful development’ at the United Nations.”

  On April 11th an analysis headlined “Asians fear U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam” began: “While public support for President Johnson is on the rise in the United States following his announcement of de-escalation in Vietnam, the government of that country, and countries in the area, probably view it as an abandonment of the American commitment in Southeast Asia.”

  And then on April 23rd an article headlined “Current Vietnam stand result of policy change” detailed author David Schoenbrun’s appearance at MSU, including: “In a speech in Wells Hall, punctuated by frequent plugs for his just-published book and digs at MSU professor of political science Wesley Fishel, Schoenbrun traced the history of the conflict and called for negotiations, a cease-fire and free elections in Vietnam, accompanied by a U.S. troop withdrawal.”

  Sharon had read this entire article in a fury at the U.S.’s sending soldiers to fight in Vietnam, especially when she got to the paragraph that said Schoenbrun “received his biggest hand during the speech when he said, ‘Anything I can do to help any young man avoid fighting in this immoral, illegal and cruel war, I will do.’”

  With this article clutched in her hand she entered the student union for a pre-arranged coffee date with Robert. The intended rant against the Vietnam War died in her throat the moment she saw the bleak expression on Robert’ face.

  “What is it?” she asked as she slid into the booth opposite him.

  He looked up. “It’s Kenneth.”

  "Kenneth?"

  "My best friend in high school. An infantry officer in Vietnam."

  Sharon pressed her two hands together under the Formica table top. "What about him?"

  "Dead. Killed in an ambush near his firebase."

  Her stomach lurched. She grabbed for Robert's hands across the table. He pulled out of her reach.

  "When?"

  "I'm not sure. His parents called my parents last night. They called me."

  Robert's voice almost inaudible: "He was so gung-ho. Enlisted, went to Officers Candidate School, thrilled to be assigned infantry. He wanted to fight for his country. And he died for it!"

  Sharon said nothing.

  Robert recited:

  Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.

  Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky

  And the affrighted steed ran on alone,

  Do not weep.

  War is kind.

  Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,

  Little souls who thirst for fight,

  These men were born to drill and die.

  The unexplained glory flies above them,

  Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom –

  A field where a thousand corpses lie.

  Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.

  Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,

  Raged at his breast, gulped and died,

  Do not weep.

  War is kind.

  Swift blazing flag of the regiment,

  Eagle with crest of red and gold,

  These men were born to drill and die.

  Point for them the virtue of slaughter,

  Make plain to them the excellence of killing

  `And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

  Mother whose heart hung humble as a button

  On the bright splendid shroud of your son,

  Do not weep.

  War is kind.

  When Robert finished reciting he said nothing more.

  "Who wrote that?” Sharon asked. “I don't know it."

  "It's Stephen Crane's 'War Is Kind.'"

  Sharon dropped the clutched newspaper article onto the tabletop and ran into the women’s restroom.

  There she stared at herself in the three-way mirror. Was he referring to Kenneth? Or was Robert warning her about getting involved with him? The ultimate risk – loving someone about to go off to war? And here Sharon’s anger flared – especially going off to an “immoral, illegal and cruel war” according to David Schoenbrun.

  The perspiration drips down his face, oozing into his eyes and sliding over his mouth. He swipes at the beads dripping from his nose with the arm of his filthy fatigue shirt. "This heat is unbearable," the armor officer says to the 19-year-old enlisted man quivering beside him inside the tank. "How do the Vietnamese survive?"

  The officer pops the hatch, standing upright in the commander's seat to check the terrain. The enemy hides somewhere nearby.

  The explosion lifts his body up into the air, twisting it around before dumping it on top of the tank, his sweat-stained face turned downward as if searching for the softest place to land.

  The 19-year-old screams.

  In the student union restroom Sharon splashed water on her face. She had made a decision – she was resolved never to see Robert again.

  As she approached the booth she saw that his fingers drummed the article she had dropped. Yet when she sat down again he made no mention of the article. Instead he said, "I have one other poem I want to share with you."

  She nodded, not yet ready to say anything.

  "You'll have to read this one yourself."

  "Why?"

  He looked down at his hands as he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. "I'm embarrassed. I wrote it for you after we went out Saturday night." He handed her the paper. Under the title "Morning" she reads:

  After waking from a dream

  When the memory is sweet -

  The smell of yellow jasmine,

  The taste of scented oil –

  Returning to it

  Breaking away from the arms of light

  And penetrating the cloudy screen

  That keeps the dreams confined –

  Cannot be done.

  Only snatches

  Only dips into the haze,

  Glimpses for wishing

  Her tears baptized the paper.

  For one second she held out, held out against a future that frightened her. Then she looked up at him and said, “Will you be my date for the sorority formal?”

  “Do I have to wear a tux?” he said.

  “It’s a ‘uniform’ – not much different from your ROTC uniform,” she said.

  They both laughed, and he reached for her hands.

  Still sitting in the car following Donna’s revelation about her first husband, Sharon was gripped with the desire to drive over to Kim's, to tell her what Donna revealed, to share the pain and shock. Just this once Sharon could make an exception – she could share her fears and innermost feelings. Tracy would understand.

  Sharon wears the three-quarter-sleeve blue spring coat they bought together, a coat now splattered with droplets – tears, not rain. The rabbi’s graveside service finished, the workers lower the four coffins into the ground.

  Sharon grips the shovel's handle, dumping the dirt on the lid of Tracy's coffin. The dirt clumps thud onto the wood. The thuds mask Sharon's whisper: "I promise, Tracy. No one will ever replace you. You'll always be my best girlfriend."

  Sharing with Kim wouldn't be replacing Tracy. It would just be ...

  Sharon fingered the steering wheel, still not turning on the ignition.

  Kim was an orphan. Jim was everything to her. How could Sharon be so selfish? To
give Kim even more to worry about than she already had?

  Sharon shook her head. She wouldn’t drive over to Kim’s. It was for Donna to tell Kim and Wendy. With that decision Sharon had finally turned on the ignition and driven home from the vol indef meeting.

  Now Sharon shakes her head at herself in the bedroom mirror. That was two days ago. Unwilling to again experience the emotions generated by Donna, Sharon still hasn’t told Robert.

  Sharon glances at her watch. She’s going to be late to this meeting of the Jewish Wives’ Club. Quickly she grabs the car keys off the dresser and heads out the door.

  It doesn’t take her long to reach the housing area and find the right house. The sign next to the door reads “Captain Fred Weinstein.”

  Sharon smooths the wrinkles in her skirt and again checks her watch. Only a few minutes late. She rings the doorbell.

  A short, dark-haired woman wearing beige slacks and a white sleeveless blouse exposing pale arms opens the door. "I'm Janice Baum,” she says, gesturing Sharon to enter. “Judy's inside getting refreshments."

  The woman has a New York accent. Probably Brooklyn.

  Sharon steps into a small foyer. A wooden coat rack holds yellow rain slickers in small sizes. Umbrellas stick up from a gold-painted metal milk can perched on the polished wood floor. The house smells of cookies and floor wax. Sharon follows Janice Baum through an arch into a small living room. Above the hum of the air conditioner Sharon can hear children's shouts and laughter coming from somewhere nearby.

  Three women sit on a sofa underneath a picture window. A fourth woman – Judy Weinstein? – stands in front of the sofa placing a tray of glasses on the coffee table. All four women smile as Janice and Sharon enter the room.

  Sharon notices that one woman, wearing a rose-patterned shift over a bulging stomach, is quite pregnant. The other two seated women wear pants with matching tops and the fourth woman has on slim forest green pants and a white scooped-neck blouse.

  Sharon is overdressed. Apparently this meeting of the Jewish Wives’ Club does not fall into the required dress parameters of an official army officers’ wives’ meeting.

  Sharon also notices that the living room furniture appears not to be army issue. The sofa features a blue-toned flame-stitch pattern. The armchairs in pale blue satin have high backs shaped into what Sharon thinks of as Dumbo ears. The navy-cloth director's chair seems out of place. It's probably been pulled in from outdoors to provide extra seating. Extra seating for her, the odd one out.

  The standing woman, heralded by the unmistakable scent of Shalimar, comes towards Sharon. "I'm Judy Weinstein. So glad you could join our little group. Please sit down." Judy waves Sharon to the director’s chair.

  The others say their first names quickly. The pregnant one is Nancy; the other two are Millie and Elaine.

  "Where are you from?" Elaine asks. Her dark brown hangs straight down from a center part and her eyes, set wide apart, anchor a nose that tilts upwards.

  "I'm from Chicago," Sharon says.

  "South Side?" Nancy's auburn hair pulled back in a pony tail emphasizes the puffiness of her face.

  "North Side."

  "I'm from the South Side,” Nancy says. “Where's your husband from?"

  "Philadelphia."

  "Mine's from New York."

  Nancy is the game show host, Sharon thinks, in a game of 20 questions.

  "Is he a doctor?" Millie asks.

  A doctor? Her parents only wish.

  "He's here for Armor Officers Basic before going on to Ft. Holabird for military intelligence training."

  "And then where?" Janice cuts in.

  "We don't know. It could be ... anywhere." Sharon looks around the room. The others don't meet her eyes.

  "All our husbands are doctors, except Janice's. He's a medical technician assigned to the hospital here," Nancy says.

  Janice blushes. She says quickly, "Kenny was in the Navy. But being on a ship for six months at a time was too hard on the children. So he transferred to the army."

  "Judy got us together in an informal group," Millie says. "She's the organizer among us." Millie has short black curly hair and a wide freckled face.

  "Please have some oatmeal cookies," Judy offers. A tortoise shell plastic headband holds her medium-length fine blond hair in place and her thin face matches an equally thin body. Sharon wonders how many children Judy has and whether she has always been this thin or whether running after children accomplished this.

  "Let's begin," Judy says, "before we're interrupted by the kids."

  Elaine says, "The first order of business is to plan for the family picnic two weeks from Sunday. It's from 11 to 2." She turns to Sharon. "You and your husband are welcome." She turns back to the rest of the women. "Is everyone able to come?"

  "My husband may be on call, but I'll be there," Millie says.

  "I'm two centimeters dilated already," Nancy says, "so I'm not sure I'll be around."

  What does two centimeters dilated mean? Sharon doesn't want to ask.

  Judy laughs. "With my first my mother came to stay two weeks before the baby was due. Eight weeks later the baby finally arrived. The doctor was off by a whole month, and then the baby was two weeks late."

  "I may have a Caesarean," Nancy says. "It's a breech baby right now."

  What's breech?

  "Oh, no, Nancy. You'll be so sore afterwards," Janice says. "I had a Caesarean with my second. Kenny was at sea and a neighbor took care of my first son while I was in the hospital. I really had it hard when I came home."

  "My husband is getting me a nurse,” Nancy says. “He asked around at the hospital and found someone who does private duty."

  "I'll have to keep it in mind in eight months," Elaine says.

  "You're pregnant!" Millie says. "That's terrific! I was going to wait to tell all of you at the next meeting – I am too."

  Everyone except Sharon breaks out in a babble of happy congratulations. She's the only one here who doesn't know anything about pregnancy and childbirth. It's so unfair! These women's husbands are all safely ensconced at Ft. Knox. It's okay to be a doctor in the army, but a second lieutenant in military intelligence possibly slated for a tour of Vietnam?

  Tears moisten her eyelids and she flashes to an earlier time when she also felt the odd-man out.

  It’s the evening of the AEPhi formal at MSU and Sharon wears her high school prom dress – a simple white cotton brocade Lanz, junior size 7. Robert wears a blue tux jacket and tux black pants rented from a store on Grand River Avenue. They’ve arranged to double date with a sorority sister. Frieda and Larry are pinned – he’s a ZBT, the best Jewish fraternity on campus.

  “Robert,” Larry says as they walk their dates into the Lansing hotel location of the formal, “you should come by the house, join us in a TGIF beer night.”

  “I usually study on Friday nights,” Robert says. “With working 20 hours a week and my ROTC commitment, I don’t have much time to study.”

  “A Jewish boy in ROTC? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  To prevent Robert’s reply Sharon stumbles against Larry. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “My ankle twisted.”

  “Come on, man,” Larry continues to Robert. “Why do you want to be in ROTC?”

  “Patriotic duty. Someone has to defend our country.”

  Patriotic duty. How many times must she hear those words?

  At this moment Judy says “Sharon.”

  Sharon yanks her attention back to the moment. “Yes?”

  "You don't have any children, do you?"

  "We've only been married a few months."

  "Newlyweds," Janice says. "I can dimly remember those days."

  Millie turns to Judy before Sharon can respond. "How's your quilt coming? Are you finished yet?"

  Judy reaches into a wicker basket on the floor next to her chair. She holds up a quilt of crocheted pale blue and darker blue squares. "I've just got the fringes to add and I'm done."

  "You work
fast," Elaine says.

  Judy laughs and turns to Sharon. "It's the one thing I can do while watching my children that they can't destroy."

  "She has four children under the age of five," Nancy says to Sharon. "I don't know how she does it. I'm worried about taking care of one."

  "I let them play in the backyard all day,” Judy says. “That's why I get a lot of crocheting done."

  Elaine flutters her hands in everyone's direction. "Let's get back to the picnic plans. Who's going to bring what?"

  Sharon watches the women talk, their hands moving to emphasize their points. She certainly doesn't fit in with these women sitting here today the way she hoped she would, their concerns and hers so totally different. All mothers or mothers-to-be, they have husbands who work in a hospital, albeit an army rather than a civilian one. They're barely in the army with its emphasis on infantry, artillery, armor – war.

  The central concern of Sharon's universe – will Robert be sent to Vietnam? And the corollary, should he go vol indef to put off Vietnam for one year? And secondarily, how does she fit in as an officer's wife?

  Sharon thinks about Kim and Wendy and Donna, all facing the same concerns as she.

  Can it be that Sharon is looking for friends in all the wrong places?

  **

  That evening Peter, Paul and Mary's album "Blowin' in the Wind" plays on Sharon's stereo reacquired today. As she makes coffee for Robert and her brother Howard – just arrived from Chicago, her tears splash onto the Faberware coffeepot as the trio sings Bob Dylan's words to the title song: