The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  Sally followed Denise out of the drugstore and the two women walked all the way home to Mrs. Wallace’s without saying a word to each other. Sally started thinking again, as she had every day since she had seen them, of the photographs Frank had shown her. Those were worth crying over, howling over.

  For the great old, tired President finally going to his well-deserved rest, in a place he had known and loved, death was almost a blessing and he was not to be pitied.

  To die naked and abused under those gray eastern skies; to die cowed and confused, starving and dirty; to die and be so afraid, unimaginably afraid—those were deaths that were worth crying about.

  But crying was such an insufficient response to such overwhelming evil, and so Sally’s eyes had stayed dry. It would have helped if she could have talked to Denise about the photographs, but they were classified and she remained silent. Instead, she had started having the nightmare.

  THE DC-3 DIPPED and the cabin lights flickered. Sally hugged her overcoat around her. She could feel a rawness scratching at the back of her throat, and she wondered if she should dig out the flask of brandy from her carry-on bag under the seat. After all these death-filled years, she knew that she had not been surprised at Frank Singleton’s photographs. Shocked. Angered. Frightened. But not surprised.

  It was as though, on that July afternoon over ten years ago, when she had sat opposite Christian in her newly decorated sitting room in the house in Lichterfeld and had listened to his terrible, bloody story of the weekend, she had seen a vision of the awful future. No, she had not been surprised.

  Bending over, she scrambled around under her seat for the flask. She wanted the warm comfort of the alcohol against the cold of the cabin and the memories this trip was reviving. Her fingers brushed something in the bag and she paused.

  Gathering the bag and her shoes into her arms, she climbed over the major into the aisle. She apologized for disturbing him, but he just waved at her, too sick to care.

  Sally slipped on her shoes and stood in line for the WC. Finally, she locked the flimsy door behind her, relieved that the place had a door at all. It was noisy, cold, and even more jarring in the little cabinet than in the cabin, but it was private.

  She put her bag on the floor, sat down on the closed seat of the toilet, and pulled out two photographs, one a regular snapshot, one a five-by-seven. She sat for a long moment, the pictures loose in her hands, before she finally looked at them.

  She really had no idea why she had brought the pictures with her. Yesterday, before she left Mrs. Wallace’s boardinghouse, she had, at the last moment, dug her photograph album out of a box and found these two pictures, the larger one folded behind the other.

  Now here they were and she couldn’t throw them away, so she tucked them back into her bag, making sure they were stuck way down at the bottom.

  THE STORM FOLLOWED the plane across the Atlantic, through the stopover in Great Britain and all the way to France. There, Sally and a large group of assorted American armed forces personnel waited for sixteen hours in a Quonset hut on the airfield outside Paris for the rain and ice to lift. She had managed to wash her face and brush her teeth, but after nearly three days of flying and sitting in airports, she felt filthy. But she was too numb with fatigue and too sick, with the cold her seatmate had given her, to care.

  The Quonset hut, large enough for a regiment, was empty and drafty and poorly lit. Sally dared not go in search of aspirin or hot tea for fear of missing her Berlin flight, and so she sat glumly on a hard bench with her coat wrapped around her, sinking fast into self-pity. Her little flask of brandy was long empty. When she used to travel as a child, safe in her parents’ care, her mother had always had the proper medication handy: aspirin, tea, or whatever else was needed to provide comfort, if not instant cure. If she could not travel with her mother, she should have, at least, packed as she did. Sally searched her pocket for a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily, then lay down on the bench to try and sleep, her camel’s hair overcoat her blanket, her big leather bag her pillow.

  A door slammed somewhere and she awoke. Her cold was worse, her throat hurt, she ached all over, and she now had a nasty, hacking cough. With the thought of looking for some water, she struggled to sit up. It wasn’t worth it and she sank down again with a little self-pitying moan. Cursing the infectious major, she retreated into sleep.

  “Ma’am,” said a Midwestern voice. Sally did not move. “Lieutenant?” insisted the voice.

  “What?” she answered grumpily, swallowing against a cough.

  She sensed someone bending over her and opened her eyes, blinking against the ceiling lights. His face was in shadow, the lights a halo around his head.

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered, closing her eyes.

  “That’s a bad cold.”

  “Brilliant,” she said ungraciously, and dozed off, or thought she did, until she felt a cool hand on her forehead. It felt good, and she let it stay.

  “Fever, too.” It was the same voice. She opened her eyes. She lay on her side and the man sat down next to her head, bending over her, his hand on her forehead. She tried to sit up.

  “Don’t. It’s okay,” he said, gently pushing her back down. She closed her eyes. “Ache?”

  “All over,” she said, breathing through her mouth. “I’m so thirsty.” She rubbed her stuffed nose.

  “Hang on,” he said, patting her shoulder before he got up. Sally swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She was very cold. She dozed again.

  “Lieutenant,” said the voice. “Can you sit up and drink something?”

  She struggled to do as she was asked, inclined to trust the calm, friendly voice.

  “C’mon, you’ll feel better.” He sat beside her as she pulled herself up. “Found you this.” He tucked a worn gray blanket around her, putting his arm across her shoulders to do so.

  “What time is it?” she asked, leaning into his arm.

  “O-three-hundred,” he answered, removing his arm to lean forward and pull a tall silver thermos out of his bag. He untwisted the cap and offered it to Sally.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s tea and brandy. Perfect for what ails you. Now drink it, and here, take these. They’re aspirin. Put your hand out.” Sally complied and he put two tablets into her palm.

  “I can’t taste it,” she complained, then, as she felt the warm liquid coat her throat, said, “Oh, thank you.” She swallowed the pills, then held the cup in both her gloved hands and sipped from it.

  “Finish it.”

  She looked at him. He was watching her so seriously that she had to smile, in spite of her sore throat. He had dark-blond hair and a mustache under an almost too-large nose. His eyebrows were strong half-circles above his eyes, which were very big. He was not particularly handsome, but Sally immediately liked his face, his serious expression. He looked to be about her age. He was a captain.

  He smiled back at her and she liked even more what the smile did to him, the crinkles around his eyes, the way his mouth curved up.

  “Any temp?” the captain asked, reaching to feel her forehead. She flinched. It was instinctive and the rudeness of it made her blush. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said with a laugh. She smiled sheepishly and allowed him to cover her forehead with his big hand. “Not as bad as I thought.”

  “I notice you’re a doctor,” she said, looking at the medical symbols on his lapel.

  “Yep. Hope you don’t think I pour brandy down just anybody’s throat? Although it is a good way to meet girls.”

  “I’m not a girl,” she said seriously.

  “No?”

  “I’m a lieutenant.”

  He laughed gently at her little joke. “So you are. And about the prettiest one I’ve seen in a while.”

  “Well,” said Sally, standing up, “you must not get out much.” The captain stood and took the blanket from her. He was very tall, with broad sho
ulders, loose-limbed in his wrinkled uniform.

  “By the way” the captain held out his right hand. “Tim Hastings, Wichita.”

  She shook hands with him. “Sally Jackson, San Francisco.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sally Jackson. Ah, this must be your flight.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the scratchy PA system. Hastings had the most beautiful green eyes she had ever seen, the laugh lines around them adding to their character, and quite against her will, she wondered if he was married. She decided instantly that he was; men like him always were. But the warm eyes were obviously interested in her. Must be medical interest, she concluded and turned away from them, busying herself with gathering her things together

  “Yes. I’m going to Berlin.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really?” she said, sniffling. She dug into her bag for another handkerchief. He was going to Berlin too.

  Sally had taken care of herself for years now and was both proud and jealous of her independence, seldom asking for or accepting help. But she was sick, she told herself, as Tim Hastings took charge of her luggage, of checking them both in, and of finding them seats. She was sick, so it was all right to allow him to help. She did feel bad, and by the time she fastened her seat belt, she was exhausted. She fell asleep before the plane gained its cruising altitude.

  When she awoke, she found herself nestled against the captain’s shoulder. He was reading a thick book and as she let herself rest against him, she read a page. It was Anna Karenina. She sat up.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “I seem to have used you as a pillow.”

  “That’s okay, Lieutenant.” He closed the book, but kept his finger in his place.

  “Think I’ll go clean up,” she said, and he stood up so she could get out.“

  “Not much room for you, is there?” she said, watching him unfold himself into the aisle.

  “Just think of it as cozy,” he replied.

  “YOU REALLY FROM San Francisco?” he asked her when she got back.

  “Originally. I was in Washington—for the duration. Are you really from Kansas?”

  “A farm boy like my dad and his dad before him.”

  “I’ve never met anyone from there. Sounds exotic.”

  “Yeah, sure it is, the heartland of America.”

  “Cornfields.”

  “Wheat. Lots and lots of wheat. Real, real flat.” His voice was just as flat, and she smiled at the sound. “But I’d rather talk about the City by the Bay,” he continued. “One of my favorite places. Went to med school there.”

  “At U.C.?”

  He nodded. “Yep. I was in Hawaii for the duration, treating poor saps with shellshock, uh, battle fatigue, as we call it now. A real euphemism if there ever was one.”

  “My brother was in Hawaii before . . . before . . .” she trailed off. “What kind of a doctor are you?” she asked abruptly. He made a wry face.

  “Now I’ve torn it. You’ll never use me as a pillow again.”

  “Why?” she asked, laughing at him, at his deadpan manner, that broad, lazy voice.

  “I liked being your pillow.”

  “No, I mean, why . . . what kind of doctor are you?”

  “I’m a shrink,” he drawled, grimacing.

  “A psychiatrist? That’s okay. I’m broad-minded; I don’t care.”

  “You’re very progressive. Most people throw drinks in my face. Of course, it allows to me to gauge the depths of their neuroses, but it does hurt my feelings.”

  “You don’t look like one, that’s why,” Sally said shyly.

  “You think that’s it?” She nodded. “You know you could be right. Farm boys aren’t the shrink type, are they? Maybe I ought to cultivate a German accent.”

  “Viennese, you mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “And a beard.”

  “Especially a beard,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I could start right now. Vronsky had a beard.”

  “Vronsky?”

  “Anna Karenina.” He indicated the book in his lap.

  “Oh, yes. I read that. The ending made me mad. I threw the book across the floor. Imagine her killing herself like that.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a romantic, so don’t tell me the ending.”

  “It ends like everything ends,” she muttered and turned to look out the porthole. It was still raining. “I wonder if we’ll outrun the rain?”

  WHEN TIM HASTINGS climbed out of his seat to go clean up, Sally considered her past experience with other members of his profession. She had lied. She did care what kind of a doctor he was. Most of the psychiatrists she had met had been unpleasant men.

  She remembered the brusque young man at Los Angeles General who had failed to hide his disgust and disapproval of her. She remembered police and a woman yelling. There had been sirens and people roughly handling her. After the wild ambulance ride she had been thrust into the chaos of a Los Angeles New Year’s Eve emergency room. Happy 1936.

  She remembered the glaring lights that had burned her eyes as she tried to turn her head to escape them. She had been very weak, slipping in and out of consciousness. When she came to, she was in a small cubicle, her bandaged, aching arms on top of the sheet, which was tucked around her so tightly that it impeded her breathing. She had been very frightened and began to weep.

  That was how the young doctor found her when he snapped the curtains open. He had smiled a frozen smile at her and picked up each bandaged wrist, carefully inspected the wrappings. Then he had taken her pulse by placing two fingers under her jaw. Finally, picking up his clipboard, he told her she would be all right. But not once had he looked at her face.

  Ignoring him, she had turned her head to stare at the curtained wall. It was heavy cotton and fairly clean.

  “Got someone at home?” he asked. “Someone to take care of you?”

  She shook her head. Obviously, if she had had someone at home, someone to take care of her, she wouldn’t be here. Alone, that’s what she was. And she started to cry again.

  “Miss, we can’t let you go unless someone comes for you. It’s the law. You’ll be sent to County.” He waited for her to stop crying. She didn’t. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” Abruptly, he left the cubicle and her weeping.

  In the end, unable to stop crying, she had managed to give them Eddie’s telephone number in San Diego. She couldn’t bear the idea of either him or her father seeing her in this state, but she knew that of the two, Eddie was the better choice as a rescuer.

  He had arrived the next morning, trim and so normal looking in his naval blues. Without asking her any difficult questions, he had gotten her discharged from the hospital, had her prescriptions filled, and had even gone to her nasty little apartment in Santa Monica to settle things there. Then he had bundled her into a car and had driven her all the way home to their father’s house in Palo Alto.

  Lowell Jackson had opened the door of the Spanish-style house, but he stepped back when Sally made a move to embrace him. In his face, in his eyes, she saw and understood the fear and pain her actions had caused him. Again.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she had said, standing helplessly on the red tile steps, her bandaged wrists feeling heavy.

  Her father had reached out to pat her shoulder, but he just could not touch her and backed away as she entered the house. Both of them had retreated into formal politeness and the pretense that all was well.

  That was when she started seeing a psychiatrist. She had seen a certain logic in the situation, but had stopped going as soon as she could. The doctor was kind, but he seemed to feel she wasn’t trying hard enough, that, with some willpower, she ought to be able to overcome her little problems. Perhaps he was right, but she got tired of disappointing him as well as everyone else, so she quit.

  Neither her father nor Eddie ever got up the nerve to ask her about the incident until years later, when Eddie and Barbara were visiting
on leave before they went to their new posting in Manila. That was right before the invasion of Poland in September of ’39.

  Eddie was the one who finally broached the subject. Sally had always supposed her father and brother were too frightened by her moods, and besides, her family didn’t ask questions about such deep, emotional, troublesome subjects.

  Hell, neither one of them had ever talked to her about what happened to her in Berlin. It had been hard enough for her father to come to the hospital.

  Eddie and Sally had been doing the dishes after a fine huge meal. Barbara had gone upstairs to check on Stevie and had not come back down.

  “Listen, Sal,” Eddie said, waiting for her to hand him a plate. He was drying. “Do you mind if I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer, but I figure we might not see each other for a long time and . . . well, I have some idea of what was going on, but I’d just like to know.”

  She held the dinner plate under the running water. She knew what he was going to ask. “Okay,” she said in a small voice, watching the water run off the white-and-blue rim.

  He reached over, turned off the water, gently took the plate out of her hands, and placed it on the drainer. It was very quiet in the kitchen. There was a low whir from the fridge.

  “Did you . . . did you really try and kill yourself?”

  The phrasing of the question had struck her as funny, and she laughed harshly. “Oh, Eddie, it certainly wasn’t an accident. You just don’t pick up an old razor blade and slit your wrists open for fun.” Above the sink, her reflection in the dark window laughed back at her. She knew she had hurt him.

  “Who found you?” he asked in an even voice, staring down at the spotless sink.

  She swallowed, trying to dispel the great weight in her chest. Carefully wringing out the dishrag, she paused, then hung it over the porcelain divider between the two parts of the sink. She coughed slightly and wished for a cigarette. Finally, she answered her brother. “A man.”