by John Holt
He spoke to his neighbours, to see if there were any vacancies where they worked. There were none. It was suggested that he could try at one of the factories; they were always looking for someone. Kadowski tried them all. They didn’t actually need anyone right now, but they would keep his details on file, if that was all right. “Yes, sure, that’s fine,” Kadowski said, and left, disappointed.
A few days later he heard about vacancies at the dockyard, loading and unloading the great cargo ships. Gradually trade with the rest of the world was beginning to slowly recover. As a result there was a shortage of dockworkers. There were a number of vacancies for general labourers, and dockhands. No specific qualifications were required, and there were no age restrictions. All that was needed was reasonably good health. He enquired, and was hired straight away. “You can start in the morning, at six thirty.” Kadowski was delighted.
* * *
He began to settle back into civilian life, and never gave the military much thought. He was still in that middle range of authority. Because of his military experience a small team was put under his control. Just like being a Sergeant again. That suited him fine. He kept in touch with Bannister, and Bartelli, especially at Christmas, and Thanksgiving. He had written to Scott several times, but there had been no response.
The others kept on saying that they must meet up again, but the distance from each other didn’t help, and their plans never materialised. Kadowski dreamt of returning to Austria, and finding the gold, and becoming very rich. Emily would never need to worry again, and he could buy her all of the things that she deserved. All of the things he had promised her.
He spent hours working out a plan, then discarding it because it was impractical. He would then start working on an alternative idea. Whatever the plan it would require a lot of cash. Money he didn’t have. Every time he came to the same obstacle, and every time he came to the same conclusion. He needed money for travel; money for living expenses; equipment; transportation. He calculated that he might need as much as $5000, or more. He could never raise that kind of money. Even if he could, which was out of the question, Emily would never allow it. Too risky, she would say, forget it.
He had discussed the matter several times over the telephone, with Bartelli and Bannister. Neither of them seemed interested. I don’t even think they believe me, anyway. Not really. It’s just a pipe dream. Perhaps Bannister had believed me at one time, Kadowski thought, but then he had certainly tried very hard to dissuade me. Kadowski recalled the conversation he had with Bannister that day in Rooney’s bar. Every obstacle he could think of. Every possible difficulty he had raised. Maybe he was right. Perhaps it was foolhardy. Maybe it was impossible. Certainly those two were not going to help him. So if he were to go ahead he would be on his own. No, it wasn’t feasible. Maybe I should just tell the authorities what I know, and leave it at that. That’s what Bannister had suggested. Nonetheless, Kadowski was not too keen in telling the story of the gold to the authorities.
If he did decide to tell then he would have to tell them of all the other things. The truth about how Roberts had died. How would he explain the four dead German troopers? And lastly there was SS Major Deitrich Hartman.
There would be awkward questions to answer. Why hadn’t he told the truth earlier? Why had he deliberately misled the authorities? Why had he tried to hide the facts? No, he really did not want to tell the authorities anything about it. Of course he could just forget all about it, and not mention anything to anyone. Or maybe he could have another go at Bannister, and try to persuade him to help. If I could do that, then Bartelli would certainly fall in. Then he shook his head. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. And once again the matter was put to one side.
* * *
As time went by, gradually he thought less and less about Austria, and Nazi gold. It all became a blur, a dim memory. He knew that Emily would not agree to anything so foolhardy. Deep down he knew that he would never do anything without her support. So it seemed more and more likely that it was not going to happen.
He wanted to know about everything that his wife and daughter had done while he had been away. Every single detail, nothing was to be left out. What had happened at the school? What about Emily? What had she been doing? She had a little job working in a dressmakers shop just a few blocks away. Business wasn’t great, but it was ticking over.
Life back home, with his wife and child, was idyllic. He had a reasonable job, with good pay. The Bronx wasn’t the greatest place to be, but it wasn’t the worst either. He had many friends in the area. Once a week he would go bowling. Once a week, he and Emily would go to the cinema, or a local dance. Sometimes their daughter would join them, but usually she stayed at home. She didn’t want to be seen with her parents. Not now that she was quite grown up. She was almost nineteen. She had a few local friends, and they went to the cinema, or the local hop. There were no boyfriends, just yet. Emily knew that that would come quite soon. She was dreading it. How would she re-act? She would be constantly worried. Was he the right one for her daughter? Was he good enough?
Lucy was studying hard at evening classes. She wanted to be a journalist, and she had got a part time job on the local newspaper. Recently she had met someone at evening classes. John Ryman. He was just twenty-two years old. He was studying English, and was working for a bank. He had been in the Navy, and had served at Guadacanal.
They hadn’t met him yet, but he sounded all right. Frank was pleased, Emily still felt apprehensive. The person that takes my daughter away from me will have to be something special, she would say. Kadowski would then say no one is going to take our daughter away from us. When the right man comes along, he will be the son we never had. She would smile, she knew he was right.
Kadowski would spend hours talking to his wife and daughter. Telling them of what had happened in Italy, and Austria. Emily never wanted to talk about the gold though. She found the deaths of the four German troopers to be deeply upsetting. Yes, she knew that they had been the enemy. But there was something very sad about soldiers being killed by their own side.
She didn’t like the idea of Frank going back over there. “You’ve been once,” she said. “We missed you so much. You’re not going again.”
“But Emily, this would be different,” he would start to say.
She would hold her hand up to her mouth. “Not another word, you’re not going, and that’s that,” she would say, and quietly leave the room.
She didn’t want to talk about Scott either. Kadowski kept trying to raise the subject, but she wasn’t having any of it. She found him to be a very sad and lonely man, and very depressing. “I certainly feel sorry for him, Frank,” she would say, but nothing more. Bartelli, and Bannister, that was different. She could talk about them for hours. She would often ask when she was going to meet them.
Kadowski would always make some vague comment. “Soon, I expect.” “Not long.” “We must fix something up.”
“Tony Bartelli sounds very nice. Just right for our Lucy,” she would say. Lucy would blush, but secretly she thought that maybe Mom might be right. But there was also John Ryman. Apart from college evenings, she had been seeing a lot of him.
Chapter Thirteen
Tragedy Strikes
All of this was to change that Wednesday afternoon in July 1948. Kadowski was on late shift that day, and wasn’t due to finish until ten o’clock that evening. It was two-thirty when the foreman called him over. He had only just started work.
“Frank you’re needed back home, right now. Pack up and get going.”
That was it, nothing more. There were no further details, no explanation. What could have happened, he wondered. It was probably a problem with the plumbing, or something. A leak in the bathroom, and Emily was panicking.
He shook his head. No, Charlie’s tone suggested that it was more serious than that. Frank packed up his gear, and changed out of his overalls. He placed them in his locker, and walked out of the main gate to t
he dockyard. He hailed a cab, and twenty-five minutes later he arrived home.
Outside was an ambulance, with the blue lights swirling. Neighbours were standing around looking anxious, concerned. Frank, worried now, rushed to the house, taking the entrance steps three at a time. The door was already open. He went in. Inside Emily was lying on the floor. To one side a doctor was examining her. There were also three medics by her side. She was connected to a monitoring device checking her heart beat. Another piece of equipment was checking her breathing. One of the medics was constantly reading her blood pressure, and pulse. Frank looked around, where was Lucy? For a while he couldn’t see her. Then he noticed her standing in the corner. She was shaking quite violently, and sobbing. Frank went over to her, and put his arms around her.
“Mr Kadowski?” somebody asked behind him. “I’m Doctor Fleming. Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” Kadowski hesitated.
“All right, Frank, we’ll look after Lucy,” said one of the neighbours. “We’ll take her back with us.”
“Thanks, Dave,” Kadowski said almost automatically. He then turned to the doctor. “This way,” he said, and took him into the kitchen, closing the door after him.
“Mr Kadowski, we were called at about two o’clock, by your daughter,” the Doctor started to explain. “She had found your wife lying unconscious on the floor.”
This was all a shock to Kadowski. He wasn’t really taking everything in. He was concerned about his daughter. He wanted to go to his wife. He was overwhelmed, stress levels climbing rapidly. He grew hot, dizzy. He stumbled, grabbing hold of the kitchen table to steady himself.
“Are you all right, Mr Kadowski?” asked the doctor. “Please sit down. I’ll get you some water.”
After a few moments Kadowski began to recover, and the doctor continued. “Your wife’s breathing was very shallow. Her blood pressure was extremely low. Her pulse rate was very weak. Her temperature was 104 degrees. We have put her on a saline drip, and have managed to stabilise her. Her pulse rate is now almost back to normal, and her breathing has improved.”
“Will she be all right, doctor?” Kadowski asked.
“At present I cannot say. She is a lot better than she was. But she is still unconscious, and we have no idea what the problem is.” The doctor watched Kadowski. “We need to take her to hospital for observation, and I would like to carry out some tests.”
“Of course, yes, fine,” said Kadowski, beginning to get anxious again. “I’ll get her things together. How long do you think she’ll be away?”
“We’ll take her to City General, on Maritime Road. Do you know it?” asked the doctor. Kadowski knew the hospital. “I expect that she’ll be there for a few weeks, three at least, if not longer.”
From that time on it was one long round of specialists, hospitals, tests, this medication, that medication. But it was all to no avail. The cause of the illness was still unknown, although it was thought to be some virulent viral infection. Although she regained consciousness, her condition continued to deteriorate. Her kidneys began to fail, and she was put onto a dialysis machine once a week. Within a short time it was three times per week.
Frank gave up his job, so that he could be home with her. Lucy became a full time employee with the newspaper. Her income augmented their meagre finances. His Army pension helped. Most of the money was used to pay for medical supplies or treatment. All of Lucy’s spare time was spent tending her mother. Evening classes stopped. She no longer had any free time for John Ryman.
Emily gradually became weaker and weaker. She never complained, except to say that she was sorry to be such a trial to the family. “Leaving you and Lucy to do everything,” she would say.
“Don’t worry about us,” Frank would reply. “You’re no trouble,” and he truly meant it.
There followed more and more hospital appointments. Often she would be taken ill and rushed to hospital. She would be kept in for a few days, a week, or more. After a while she would stabilise, and she would be discharged and sent home. The trips to the hospital became more and more frequent. The hospital stays became longer and longer. Gradually it became more and more difficult to treat her at home. Two nurses would come every day, to give her a series of injections. Still the actual cause remained a mystery, and the doctors were only treating the symptoms. She would improve for a short time, but then there would be a relapse, or a new problem would arise. The medication itself was the cause of other problems. The drugs had unpleasant side effects causing sickness, and muscular pains.
Eventually she was taken into hospital, for full time care. Kadowski and his daughter would visit every day. A few weeks later she went into a coma. Frank would spend hours sitting at her bedside, talking to her. Quite often he would fall asleep in the chair next to her bed. Lucy would go in every day, after work. There was nothing that anybody could do.
They put her on to a life support machine. She remained in a coma for six months. Her kidneys had failed completely. Eventually her heart gave out. She never regained consciousness.
* * *
She had died at the beginning of 1951. Kadowski’s world collapsed. Without Emily he was completely lost. She had been his strength, his inspiration. Life had to continue though. There was still Lucy. Six months afterwards Lucy was offered a job with a local newspaper in Connecticut. Lucy had begged him to go with her, but he didn’t want to leave the house where he and Emily had been happy for all of those years. “But you go,” he had said. “I’ll be okay.” It’s not that far we can visit at weekends. It’s about time you built your own life. It’s a good job. Too good to miss, he had said. Perhaps you can get back with that John.
“Maybe,” she said, but she knew that there was no chance of that, not now. But she wasn’t bitter. She had done what she had to do – what she wanted to do. She had looked after her mother the best way she knew how. She would have done anything for her mother. Now, she would do anything for her father. Eventually though, she was persuaded to go, and reluctantly she left home.
* * *
Kadowski was now completely alone. He went back to work at the dockyard, and started to try to rebuild his life. For a while things seemed to be going well. He was given a small promotion at the docks, and started to get involved in the local union which was just getting organised. It was a new venture designed to protect the worker rights.
The dockyard wasn’t too happy about the idea. “We already treat our workers well, they said. “So we don’t see the need for such an organization.”
The union organisers replied. “If you do treat the workers well, then you have nothing to worry about, so what’s the problem?”
Eventually, the dockyard reluctantly agreed, and the union organisation proceeded.
He frequently dined at the dock clubhouse. It was subsided, and saved him the bother of cooking. It was also more sociable. He didn’t like dining alone. Perhaps he would play a game of pool after his meal, or maybe a game of cards. Maybe he would just watch television. He had made a lot of friends at the dockyard. Gradually, he began to come to terms with the death of Emily. Although he was baptised as a Catholic, he was not a churchgoer. Weddings, baptisms, funerals, that was it, the three obligatory occasions. Emily had been cremated. The local priest had said a few words that Lucy had written. Kadowski was not a religious man, by any stretch of the imagination, but he truly believed that one day they would be re-united. He didn’t know how or when, he just knew that it would happen. That gave him great comfort. Lucy rang three or four times a week and she visited every three or four weeks. He gradually settled into a routine.
* * *
Eight weeks after Emily’s funeral Kadowski knew that there was something he had to do, something that could not be put off any longer. It was a task that he did not look forward to, but it had to be done. He needed to deal with Emily’s belongings. She didn’t have many items that might be described as valuable. There were a few nice pieces of jewellery. And then there was the set of figurines, f
rom her mother. That was about it, Kadowski thought sadly. Not much to sum up a life that was bright, and warm, a life that had been full of vitality.
Kadowski slowly looked around the room. Just to his right was her chair, next to his. They would sit together in the evening listening to the radio, or just talking. She would talk for hours, and he loved to hear her. Now there was just an empty silence. He looked toward the door into the kitchen. He could see her standing there, rubbing her hands on her apron. “Dinner won’t be long,” she would say. “Set the table, Frank.” Everywhere that he looked he could see her. He could feel his eyes begin to moisten. He shook himself, and turned his gaze away.
As he did so Lucy, who was staying with him for a few days, came into the room. She could see the sadness on his face. She could feel it almost. “Can I get you anything, Dad?” she asked. He shook his head, and she turned to leave. “Okay, but if you do need anything, just give a holler,” she said.
Frank looked up, that had sounded exactly like Emily. She used to say that same phrase. “Lucy,” he called to her. “Just a moment.” She stopped at the doorway, and turned to face him. “Come over here and sit down,” he said. “There’s a few of mum’s things that we need to sort through.”
Lucy had known that this day would eventually come. She too, had been dreading it. She came over to her father. “Do we need to?” she said. “I mean, right now. Couldn’t we leave it for another time?”
Kadowski looked at her. He knew exactly what she meant. “I think it best,” he replied gently. She looked at him for a few moments. He was right, she knew that. She sat down next to him – in mum’s chair. The significance of her action was not lost on Kadowski, and he was pleased.