by Frank Deford
L. deB. said, “If you hadn’t lost all that time w/ your wrist, Sydney, you would’ve set the record today. There’s no question in my mind that right now you’re the best backstroker in the world.”
There was, however, one little black cloud that now unexpectedly appeared on the horizon. Horst’s monthly letter didn’t arrive, as it always did, like clockwork. I knew he’d begun his training as a naval cadet, so I decided it was a difficult time for him. But another week went by, then another. I began to worry, so I wrote him again, saying that I understood how arduous military life must be, but if he could just drop me a line, I’d feel so much better.
And, sure enough, a couple wks later, my heart skipped a beat when I came back from practice & there was a letter from Horst. Clutching it to my heart, I moved to my bed & tore it open. I could see right away that it wasn’t very long. In fact, it was very short—& it certainly was to the point. Read it and weep:
Dear Sydney,
I hope this won’t come as too much of a surprise, but I’ve decided that it would be best for us to go our separate ways. It is just too difficult for us to continue this way, with me here, you a whole ocean away. Good luck, Sydney. I’ll never forget you.
Love,
Horst.
I held the letter in my lap, studying it. I think you could say I was in shock. Then, of course, that passed & I began to cry—lst only ordinary, run-of-the-mill tears, then great gulping sobs. It made no sense to me at all. “I’ll never forget you”!!! Well, then, why couldn’t we at least talk about it, Horst? It was terrible. Finally, I ran a bath & sat there till the water turned lukewarm, then even cool. I got out & took the letter & tore it up & got into bed &, yes, literally cried myself to sleep.
I think it’s fair to say: my heart was broken.
The next morning, when I came up for breakfast, Mr. S had already left. Mrs. S was walking on eggshells, I could tell. My eyes were red because I’d already cried some more, & I had a pretty good idea that Mrs. S had put 2 + 2 together, because she’d seen the envelope & knew how happy I was when Horst’s letters came. Yet, instead, here I was, a complete mess.
“I’m sorry if you got bad news, Sydney,” Mrs. S said, which was just enough to trigger another deluge of tears from me. I fell into Mrs. S’s arms & sobbed some more. When I was relatively composed, she said, “I didn’t mean to pry, but I heard you crying last nite.”
“Yes,” I said.
“So Mr. S said he didn’t want you to come to work today.”
“No, really, I—”
“No, Sydney, that’s the dr.’s orders. Go out & try to do something to keep your mind off things—even tho I know that’s probably impossible.”
Well, it was, but I did try. The whole time I’d been in N.Y., I’d never been on the Staten I. ferry or up the new Empire State Bldg, so I did both of those. But I saw nothing, enjoyed nothing. (Didn’t I tell you you saw everything when you were in love? Well, this was the reverse. In spades.) All I could see was Horst, & all I could think of was him & his letter.
This may sound goofy, tho, but after a while, I convinced myself that I wanted to believe his letter. You see, altho I was altogether new at this, I decided that there was a saving grace having the man you love tell you that he’s ditching you, but you’re still wondering exactly why.
It would be far worse to have him write & say, well, Sydney, the reason I don’t want anything to do with you anymore is because I am sleeping w/ Miss Germany, l937, who I am desperately in love w/—& she’s better than you in every which way.
But if it really was only that there was a stupid ocean between us, well, that’s just a hurdle & it only made me mad that Horst could be so easily defeated by something as simple as distance. I thought, well, I can be a linear Rapunzel & let my locks grow, then spread them out across the sea so he could catch ahold & pull himself across to me. I mean, if it’s just a case of so-&-so many miles: come on, Horst!
So that’s why I decided that I wanted to believe the letter, because then he would obviously come to his senses & we would only look back upon this as “a bump in the road.”
It was in that frame of mind that I showed up at practice. I walked all the way down from the Empire State Bldg & all the way over to the London Terrace & by the time I got there, I was loaded for bear. I mean, I swam w/ a vengeance. I was an absolute naiad, & a dorsal to boot. I could’ve beaten the best men backstrokers in the world. L. deB. couldn’t believe his eyes. “Whatever you got today, Sydney,” he said, “bottle it & pass it round to all the other gals.” I just gritted my teeth.
But then, as soon as I got outside, by myself, I started crying again. So I tried to dry them, to at least look halfway presentable, &—
I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it. But there he was. Jimmy, of course.
Mr. S had obviously spilled the beans to him. Jimmy was waiting for me outside the subway. It was early in Nov. by now, a chilly nite, & he had his overcoat all buttoned up. He had his fedora on, too, because in those days if you worked in any office you were absolutely expected to wear a hat. He was just standing there, waiting, smoking a cigarette. It made me very mad that he would try to move right in on me in my lovelorn grief.
So I walked right by him as if he wasn’t there.
“Sydney,” he said softly. “Sydney, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“Yeah, I am. I don’t like to see you hurt.”
“Well, I am, so leave me alone.”
I was striding away, leaving him in my dust. He called after me: “I just thought maybe you’d like to go to a movie.” I had to stop. I mean, I knew I was being rude. I still didn’t turn around, tho. But I heard him say, “We could go to the Roxy. I’ve never been to the Roxy, have you?”
That was the biggest movie theater in N.Y., up in Broadway. “‘Thin Ice’ is playing, w/ Tyrone Power and Sonja Henie, & it’s supposed to be real good. They have a stage show, too.” I didn’t say anything. “It might take your mind off things.”
I still didn’t speak. Except I probably made a face. He said, “Sydney, I’m not so stupid as to try to get your mind on me now. I just thought if you went to the movies, you’d get your mind off . . . you know, things.”
Well, I did turn back then. “I don’t want to talk,” I said.
“Fine. You’re not supposed to talk in a movie.”
Well . . . “OK,” I said—which I think, in fact, was the last thing I did say to him. We got on the subway, went to the Roxy & watched “Thin Ice.” Then we took the train back to B’lyn—but I just didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Well, I did say, “No, thank you,” when he asked me if I wanted anything to eat. Actually, I was starving. But I couldn’t face looking at Jimmy Branch or anybody else across a table.
When we got to B’lyn, he walked me home. Well, I wouldn’t actually say, he “walked me home.” He just walked along w/ me. I didn’t want him to, so I just sort of suffered him walking next to me.
At the Schooleys’, I started down to my room. I did say, “Thank you for the movie.”
I guess that standard bit of civility on my part gave Jimmy an opening. “Sydney . . .” I paused, sighing deeply, making it obvious that I was still only indulging him. “Sydney, I know how you must feel.”
“No, you don’t. Nobody you loved ever did this to you.”
“Well, I never really had anybody love me much, but I can imagine.” That sort of gave me pause. He was, after all, being very sweet, & I knew he was telling the truth about never having had anyone really love him. So I let him go on: “Listen, you have to talk to someone.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. And you know, Sydney, all we’ve ever done is talk, but I think we’ve done that real good together, so, if ever you do want to talk, I’d be happy to. OK?”
I just nodded, so he began walking away. I started to go in, but then I stopped, & I turned around, & softly I called after him
. “Jimmy?”
He turned back, & when he did, I walked up to him & tilted my face up. When he didn’t get it, tho (which was perfectly understandable, given the circumstances), I got up on my toes, stuck my lips out & kissed him. It surprised him so much that at lst he didn’t even think to put his arms around me, but finally he remembered that you should hold a girl close when you kiss her.
I think Jimmy knew it was mostly a kiss of revenge, that I was kissing him just because I was so mad at Horst. I think he knew it wasn’t even a very good kiss on my part. But also, I think Jimmy realized: OK, you’ve got to start somewhere, & this is a pretty darn good place to start.
V.
As opposed to how it’d been w/ Horst, it was so entirely different going out w/ Jimmy. In Berlin, it’d been such a glamorous whirlwind. Sometimes later I even had to wonder: did all that really happen? It was like Horst must’ve been a vision, that I must’ve gotten pregnant thru some kind of immaculate conception.
In B’lyn, tho, it was nice, because Jimmy was nice, but otherwise it was really very pedestrian. We pretty much only had one another, because neither of us had any $, &, if anything, things weren’t getting any better. Most people nowadays think the Depression was just one big flat line on a graph, but, in fact, it got better after the worst of it, only then that summer I moved to N.Y., the economy got worse again, & by ’38, there we were smack in a recession in the middle of the Depression.
Jimmy & I were working all day, then I was swimming. Not only that, but CCNY, which is the City College of N.Y., had opened a new branch downtown at Lex. & 23rd, & inasmuch as tuition was free, Jimmy had started taking some nite courses there. Now that he’d been promoted, he wanted to get a college degree & make something of himself in the banking world. So, when we had the time, mostly we did free stuff, like parks & museums.
If we saved up a little $, we’d do a movie, and come spring, we went to Ebbets Field once, sat in the bleachers and watched the B’lyn Dodgers play. Also, when Mom sent me $5 as an Easter present, instead of buying a new “bonnet,” we splurged & went to Coney Island, riding the great Cyclone roller coaster, the bumper cars, etc. About once a week we’d “dine” in some nice, clean—but (always) pretty cheap—little cafe. Dutch treat. I don’t think people say “Dutch treat” anymore, do they? Maybe it’s one of those things like Indian giver or French leave where the nitpickers think it might be insulting to the Dutch people.
Anyway, Jimmy was right. We did talk well together. He even told me that I was the lst person he could really talk to, so, hard as it was for him, he opened up to me about all the bad stuff he’d had to endure. Now understand, he didn’t want just to TALK all the time, but I wouldn’t go to bed w/ him. Here was the problem: Jimmy was doing a pretty good job of helping me forget Horst, but, at the same time, when I was w/ Jimmy, that would make me think about Horst. See: going out & doing stuff w/ one boy reminded me of going out & doing stuff w/ the other boy. I wish it hadn’t been that way, but it was. And, of course, it wasn’t fair to Jimmy.
Also: it wasn’t fair to me.
No, no matter how sweet Jimmy was, no matter how much I liked him, I couldn’t COMPLETELY forget Horst Gerhardt. There wasn’t a day when Mrs. S brought me a letter forwarded from my mother that I didn’t think: well, maybe this is it—maybe Horst has finally seen the light. But no, none of the letters were from him. And I wouldn’t write him, either. I wouldn’t beg.
One day, though, I fibbed & told Mr. S that I had a dr.’s appointment. Instead, I went into Manhattan, where I changed lines to get way down to Battery Place, where the German consulate was located. At the consulate, I said that I had a letter for Frau Inge Gerhardt, the wife of the ambassador to Japan, so could they please give me the address of the embassy in Tokyo.
It was certainly a simple enough request, but it threw everyone into an absolute tizzy. You could tell how sensitive the Germans were getting. All I wanted was a lousy address! I finally got to some junior officer, tho, & he believed me after I told him in detail how I’d met the Gerhardts at their home in Charlottenburg. So, finally, he gave me the address, & I wrote it on the envelope that already had my letter in it.
I may not be completely accurate in my memory, but this is approximately what I had written:
Dear Frau Gerhardt,
I think you will remember me. I came to your house with Horst one day during the Olympics. As you probably know, Horst and I have broken up, and it has been a long time since I have heard from him. But even if the romance has definitely ended, I was curious if you could tell me if he is well and how he is doing.
Thank you, and I do hope to see you and Ambassador Gerhardt in Tokyo at the l940 Olympics.
Yours truly,
Sydney Stringfellow
I read the letter over and over at the post office. I thought it was very important to put in that part about how the romance had “definitely ended.” I’m sure that just as my mother didn’t want me to be involved w/ a German boy, Horst’s mother didn’t want him having anything to do w/ an American girl, so I let her know I wasn’t trying to get my claws back into her darling son.
(This also makes me wonder why we say relationship now instead of romance. Why is that, do you suppose? I had a ROMANCE w/ Horst. “Relationship”? Excuse me, it’s such a cold word. You can have a relationship w/ your butcher or the gal at the beauty parlor, can’t you? Oh well, let me get on w/ my story.)
I tried to forget about the letter after I wrote it. It was such a long shot. Besides, as the summer approached, I was concentrating more & more on my swimming, determined as I was to set records in the backstroke at the nationals.
L. deB. was quite sure I’d break the 100-yd. record at a little meet we had scheduled the lst week in June called the “New York Inter-club.” We—that is, the WSA—were so much better than all the other clubs around that it didn’t amount to any real competition, but, if you will forgive a very bad pun, it was good for us “to get our feet wet” w/ some real races before the nationals.
Then, that Tues., out of the blue, after I returned from practice, Mrs. S had a letter waiting for me—a reply from Frau Gerhardt. I opened the envelope nervously in my room. The letter was certainly very polite, however she was not gilding any lillies.
Dear Miss Stringfellow,
Thank you for your interest in Horst. He is quite well. He is a proud member of our Führer’s Kriegsmarine. Horst has just been promoted from Fähnrich zur See to Oberfähnrich zur See.
The Ambassador and I are looking forward to seeing you swim against our German girls here in l940.
Sincerely,
Inge Gerhardt
I remembered, then, in one of Horst’s last letters, that he had told me he was training to become a Fähnrich zur See, which, he said, was the equivalent of midshipman. So now, he must have graduated into the regular navy, & I supposed his new position was like an ensign.
The letter only made me wonder more, tho, where he might be. Could he be standing (so handsome in his uniform), peering out over the bridge of some great battleship, or might he instead be crammed into one of those submarines that the Germans had used so effectively back in what we’d called the Great War? But whatever ship he was on, I knew he just wanted to get the heck out of the Kriegsmarine so he could get on w/ being an architect. OK, he’d broken my heart, but I still couldn’t wish Horst anything bad (as much as I wanted to).
The next evening we had a lite practice, because L. deB. had us tailing off for our Inter-Club meet. As a consequence, I got back to the Schooleys’ earlier than usual. But Jimmy was already sitting there on the steps that led down to my room, smoking a cigarette. I wasn’t expecting him, & for that matter, even tho he was on my steps, he seemed almost surprised to see me. “Hey,” I said.