by Frank Deford
“You see, the irony was that as far as the future was concerned, the only part of that whole beautiful evening that’d ever mean anything was the end. ‘Sieg heil, unserem führer, sieg heil.’ The rest was just cotton candy. But who knew? Pass the cotton candy. Oh my, Teddy, what a glorious time it was for a girl to be in love with a boy.”
She let a big smile play across her face and then, after a moment, reached over and picked up the purple acetate folder and handed it to me. “Now, take this home with you, and after you read it, if you can still stand me, call me.”
“Stand you?”
“If you can.”
I let that pass. “Okay, Mom. I will.” I took the folder and stood up, then leaned back down and kissed her on the forehead, just as Horst must have done that night at the stadium.
I was almost to the door when she called to me, waving for me to come back. She held out her hand, and I gave the purple acetate folder back to her. She unsnapped it, reached inside and pulled out the swatch she’d saved from the magenta gown with the trapunto cording. Without another word, she handed the folder back, and after softly fondling the swatch, she placed it on the table next to her bed. By the time I reached the door she’d already turned out the light.
Part Three
JIMMY
Could Mother possibly think that I would simply put that purple acetate folder in my suitcase, not to pick it up and read it until, oh, a week or so later when I had some spare time? I’m quite sure she knew exactly what I would do, which was to immediately sit down there in her living room and begin to read.
I slipped the pages out. There was one handwritten page on foolscap on top. It said simply: “HOW MUCH WILL YOU DO FOR LOVE?”—which was, of course, that curiously strained philosophical question Mother had posed a few days before.
I put that aside and found two other pages, typewritten. They were held by a large paper clip to the cover of an old seventy-eight record album (the edges cut a bit so that it could fit into the folder). It was an album of songs of Vera Lynn. The pages were dated fairly recently, May 7, 2003—my father’s birthday—and it read:
Jimmy & I loved listening to Vera Lynn (now, of course, Dame Vera Lynn—& she is still alive & kicking!) during the war. I suppose people would think her songs were very sappy now. There was even one entitled “Be Like A Kettle and Sing.” Cheer up! Like that, most of her songs looked forward to the end of that awful war—or at least tried to put the best face on things, e.g. “When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)” & “Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye” & “Goodnight Children Everywhere” & several others we’d play on the old 78 record player. (Did we still call them gramophones then? I can’t remember.)
Anyway, our favorite was called “There’s A Land Of Begin Again.” I think you could call that our song. I don’t know who wrote it, & it’s certainly not the sort of song people like anymore, but I think it’d be an apt title for our story. And, if anybody cares, here are the words:
When all your troubles just surround you
And around you skies are grey
If you can only keep your eyes on
The horizon, not so far away.
There’s a land of begin again
On the other side of the hill
Where we learn to live & love again
When the world is quiet & still.
There’s a land of begin again
And there’s not a cloud in the sky
Where we’ll never have to grieve again
And we’ll never say goodbye.
And then Mom began her story. Accustomed to neat, clean twenty-first-century word-processor copy, I had to adjust to her old typewritten words on onion-skin paper. While it was not a terribly messy draft, words—sometimes whole sentences—were crossed out, with corrections made by pen. It was clear that Mom had just wanted to get this down, on the record, and wasn’t worried so much about neatness so as to take the time to type whole pages over.
More to my surprise was the date she had typed at the top: August 9, 1984—and then, on the next line, in parentheses, she had added, “upon our return from the Los Angeles Olympics.”
I remember when Mom and Dad had gone there. That Olympics obviously must’ve brought back memories of ’36 and Berlin, inspiring her to tackle this when she got home. And, indeed, she began by explaining:
I am 66 yrs old now & have thought for a long time that I should write this “memoir,” since I am at an age when death is certainly a real possibility from now on. I do not want Jimmy to see this, should he outlive me, so I will not place it in the safe deposit box, but leave it with my “effects” for Teddy &/or Helen. Perhaps if I grow more courageous I will give it to one of them while I am still upright &, as they say, being of sound mind & body. Or mind anyway.
At that point, Mom began writing her story out, much as she had told it to me. I skimmed through the pages until I found her at the end of the Olympics and began reading there, which was her Chapter Five, Part I.
CHAPTER FIVE
I.
I returned home on the good ship SS President Roosevelt with many other Olympians. I roomed in 3rd class w/ Mary Lou Petty. She was going to meet her fiance in N.Y. A fine pair of moonstruck gals we were. Mary Lou was just counting the hours till we docked, while I was bemoaning the hours since we left. I wrote Horst a love letter every day, but as we neared N.Y. I realized I was carrying coals to Newcastle, & so I took the whole batch & excerpted the best parts & boiled it down into one absolutely fantastic love letter.
When we arrived in N.Y. there was no one to meet me, but by now I felt quite comfortable in Gotham (nobody called it “the Big Apple” back then). So I got a taxi at the pier & asked the cabbie to lst take me to a post office, then to Penn Station, so I could get a train to Wilmington (& connect to the “Bullet”).
Luckily (!), the main p.o. in Manhattan was right across the street from Penn Station, so I took that as a good omen & mailed the letter to Horst, then got a train very quickly.
The amazing thing was that I was only home for 2 days when I got a letter from Horst. How? Well, he had managed to get it on the Hindenburg, the great dirigible, which would explode a year or 2 later. I took that letter, held it to my heart & went down to the dock & read it there alone, crying all the while for happiness, worried that my expressions of love that I had written him had not attained the heights he had achieved. Among his other many good attributes, Horst was a wonderful romantic. Oh, what letters. They verged on poetry. Well, certainly I thought that at the time.
I wrote him back, that obviously neither English or German was his lst language. No: the language of love was.
(Forgive me the excess, but was I a goner!)
So, right away, I was irritated again. I had been foolish enough to think that once Mother left Germany, the rest of her story would be Horst-free, but here she was, decades later, still prattling on, still completely infatuated by this teen-age heartthrob. I had to keep telling myself that how ever much her young swain had meant to her way back then, I had been an actual living, breathing witness to so many years of the wonderful marriage my parents had together. I could take comfort that the evident reality of that true love—day after day, year after year, decade after decade—overwhelmed even the most romantic memories of that brief summer’s interlude of youthful infatuation.
Satisfied that I was upholding the honor of my dear, late father, I turned the page:
It was still every bit my intention, after a month or 2, to pull up stakes & move to N.Y. to join the Women’s Swimming Association. But the best laid plans . . .
When I missed my period, I thought to myself “uh oh,” & then I began to get ill in the a.m., & altho at lst I simply refused to believe what had happened, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to tell me what the score was—especially when my 2nd period was also gone w/ the wind. I cried a great deal & simply could not believe that I’d let myself get into this situation that only happened to stupid, vulnerable girls in b
ad cautionary novels. On one rare occasion when I could laugh, I asked myself: would Nancy Drew get knocked up?
But, so it seemed, was I.
I shifted uncomfortably on the sofa as I read this, and while I didn’t yet know the outcome of what certainly was my mother’s teen-age pregnancy, I wanted to cry for her that she had been feeling guilty about this for all these years, sufficient to write it all out as a confessional. Not “stand you,” Mother, simply because you got pregnant? Come on, Mom.
But, of course, I was now absolutely furious at that sonuvabitch, that silver-tongued German dastard who had done this to her. Surely, at last, she would see him for the flawed and thoughtless predator that he was. And so, enraged, I read on:
Of course, it would’ve helped if I could blame Horst & feel sorry for myself, but without going into detail, let me simply say that I knew exactly when this must’ve happened & that it was my responsibility altogether. (Well, for the most part. It takes 2 to tango.) Yes: the wages of sin!
Okay, so I gave up. The rotter Horst Gerhardt could still do nothing wrong in my mother’s blind eyes.
Against all odds, I kept hoping that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t pregnant, but I was terrified to go to my family dr. & have him be privy to my situation. So I went to see Gentry Trappe, that dear old black man who lived in the tenant’s house on our property.
I felt very ashamed about my predicament, so I approached him gingerly, inquiring if there might be a “colored” dr. I could see, because it involved a “delicate” matter.
Notwithstanding how circumspect I was, I believe the old gentleman got my drift. Uneducated tho he might’ve been, Mr. Trappe was nobody’s fool. “Miss Trixie,” he said, trodding on very careful ground, “would this involve a, uh, woman’s thing?”
“Yes, in fact it would,” I replied, as if I was shocked he’d made such a good wild guess. Mr. Trappe suggested I might see a lady named Miss Victoria, who, altho not an actual MD, expertly handled these female matters which were ever such a mystery to men. I suppose she was a midwife.
The next day, Mr. Trappe insisted that he personally drive me to see Miss Victoria, because, of course, she resided in the black area of town, & he did not believe I should venture there on my own. He said, “Your father, God rest his soul, wanted me to live in the old house so’s to keep an eye on you & your mother, & Mr. Stringfellow would be upset w/ me if I didn’t escort you myself.”
So he took me there, &, of course, once I described my symptoms to Miss Victoria & she examined me, she immediately officially confirmed what I already knew, that I was, yes, as the expression goes, more than a little bit pregnant. I thought I was prepared for this news, but actually hearing the finality of the diagnosis was sufficient to cause me to break down.
Miss Victoria hugged me to her, rocking me some, as if I was more a baby than somebody having one. How especially comforting it was, in this 2nd worse moment of my life (the 1st being when I heard my father had been killed), that this stranger was so caring. We are so lucky sometimes that people who know us might succor us in distress, & here this nice lady, who had never set eyes on me before, was my angel of mercy—plus: we 2, of different races, different worlds. I’ve never forgotten that kindness after all these yrs.
I finally stopped sobbing. Miss Victoria had, of course, seen that no wedding ring adorned my finger, and w/o drawing attention to that, she simply said, “What are you gonna do now, child?”
I just shook my head and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Miss Victoria said, “let the Good Lord guide you.” Which was probably the best advice anybody could have proferred at that particular moment.
I pulled myself together then, as best I could, all but forced a dollar upon Miss Victoria as fair payment for her services, & managed to put a brave face on things all the way home w/ Mr. Trappe. Since he had been the beneficiary of my father’s largesse—that made me think about Daddy & how disappointed he would be in me for being stupid or loose or both at the same time.
I went down to the dock & sat there, w/ my arms wrapped round my knees. There, I assessed my situation, & decided that I had 3 alternatives, which was whistling past the proverbial graveyard, because only 2 were valid. The one that wasn’t was getting Horst to marry me. Obviously, given where he was, that was entirely out of the question. I didn’t even see any sense in revealing my condition to him. So I actually had only 2 alternatives, & here they were: I could either tell my mother, then go discreetly away somewhere, have the baby & put it up for adoption. Or I could get an abortion.
When I got back to my room, I wrote Carter Kincaid at Towson St. Teachers, down near Baltimore, & told her I was “in trouble,” & maybe she could help me. Dear Carter! The instant she got my letter, she called me long distance, person-to-person, given the private nature of the matter, & told me that another girl in her dormitory had also found herself in the family way, as we referred to that circumstance then, & so she knew she could arrange for my predicament to be safely & expeditiously resolved.
When I told my mother that I was going to visit Carter for a few days she got a little cross at me. She said, “Trixie, you’ve been home 2 months, & as far as I know, for all your talk about going to live in N.Y. to practice with that swimming club, I haven’t heard boo from you recently on that subject.”
Well, obviously, finding myself pregnant had, shall we say, put everything else on the back burner. Nonetheless, I had received a letter from L. deB. Hadley, who always wrote his name that way. People in swimming even called him L. deB—you know, like: Eldeebee. He was the famous coach of the Women’s Swimming Assoc., often referred to as “the father of women’s swimming.” He had practically invented the freestyle stroke, or at least, the correct breathing part for it. In his letter, which he had carbon-copied to Eleanor Holm, L. deB. officially invited me to come to N.Y. & be a member of the WSA.
Normally, of course, that would have put me over the moon, but given my being great (or, shall I say: soon to be great) w/ child, it didn’t mean beans to me.
Nonetheless, I fished the letter out now & showed it to Mother. “Well,” she said, “the least you could’ve done was mentioned this to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just that everything had been so exciting, that I just had to calm down &, you know, find my bearings. So I thought I would put off N.Y. till the spring.”
“Well, that’s fine, honey, but I’m not having you just lollygagging around till the flowers bloom again.”
“Oh no, Mother, I understand that. I was going to talk to you about this.”
And I was. But now, the rubber had hit the road, so I broached my idea. That was: that I would work in the insurance office as what we used to call a “chief cook and bottle washer.” Or a Gal Friday, some would call it. A factotum, others.
“Well,” Mom said, “that’s fine w/ me.”
“I could practice my typing, too, which would help me get a better job in N.Y. And you wouldn’t have to pay me anything, Mom, just give me my old allowance.”
Instead, she said she would pay me $8 a week, plus dry cleaning money, inasmuch as I would have to look correct & neat every day in the office. We agreed that, #l, I would write L. deB. & fib a little, tell him that because of a family matter I’d be unable to come to N.Y. till the spring (that would be ’37) &, #2, that I would start working regularly at the insurance office as soon as I returned from visiting Carter. As I started to leave the room, however, Mother called back to me. “Yes, ma’am?”
She sat down on the sofa & patted the seat next to her. “Trixie, take a load off for a second.” When I was settled, she began: “Now this good-looking German boy . . .” And my heart sank, because I thought she must’ve somehow put 2 + 2 together, what with my a.m. sickness & general mopey attitude, but, happily, no. Instead, she said, “Listen, honey, we all know what it’s like to have your lst real romance. And, you know, somehow summer romances are the most, well . . . romantic. I met your father in Nov., but there w
as a boy named Mike Carey from Fairlee I’d fallen head over heels in love w/ the summer before that, & somehow that all seems so much more vivid—altho it was over by Labor Day, & I was married to your dear father for l8 wonderful yrs.
“But I can so remember the songs Mike Carey & I used to dance to & kiss to & whatnot. I can remember those better than the songs that were popular when your father & I really fell in love. Summer songs, Trixie. You remember them. That’s the way it is with summer romances.” She paused. “That, & it’s hot,” she added.