Part 18 (2/2)
”Just out of curiosity, does Wilma know your only job qualifications are playing the piano and spy work?”
My eyes grew wide; I felt as if he had just slapped me. I turned to leave. Then I stopped, hand on the door, and turned my head to look back at him. ”I never used to think you and your aunt had any similarities, but lately, I'm seeing quite a family resemblance.” I slammed the door behind me.
Back in my room, I tried to read but had trouble concentrating.
After an hour or so I heard Robert come into the house, climb the stairs, and stop at my door. He gave a gentle knock, waited to hear my voice, then opened the door and poked his head in, a trace of apology in his eyes. ”I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll make a fine waitress.” He closed the door but then opened it again. ”Just stay out of the kitchen,” he added. And then he shut the door and went to his room.
If the book I was reading wasn't so heavy, I would have thrown it at the door behind him.
Robert must have told his aunt that I was leaving by the time I came downstairs for breakfast. Her face looked like she had eaten a persimmon. She poured my coffee wordlessly.
The four of us ate breakfast just like when I first arrived in Copper Springs. The only difference was William's animation. He threw words out in a steady stream and kept us all distracted from other underlying issues. I had planned to wait until later in the week to tell him that I would be leaving. I dreaded that conversation.
The week reminded me of how time ground to a halt when I first arrived at the Gordon household and tried to keep out of Miss Gordon's way. Robert and I were polite to each other, a guard against unpleasantness. Mostly, we avoided each other.
It wasn't very hard. I stayed in my room until I heard him leave in the morning. He returned to his office right after dinner each evening. And from the sixth of June on, I had one ear glued to my Christmas radio, listening to incoming reports about D-Day.
Thousands of Allied troops had landed on beaches in Normandy, France in a surprise attack so that the march to Germany, to victory, could begin.
But no sooner had that news. .h.i.t than the Germans retaliated by launching the first V-1 rocket at Britain. The 'V' came from the German word 'Vergeltungswaffen,' meaning weapons of reprisal. Weapons of revenge. Up to 100 V-1 rockets fell every hour, around the clock, mostly targeting London, indiscriminately injuring and killing thousands.
Listening to the news made me feel rea.s.sured that moving to Bisbee was a wise decision. As tragic as the reports about the V-1 rockets were, I knew more than most that the n.a.z.is retaliated when they felt threatened. To me, it was another clear indication they were losing the war. Surely, the war would be over soon.
The night before I was planning to leave, I stayed up in my room and packed. It didn't take long; I didn't come with much nor was I leaving with much. I looked around the room to see if I'd forgotten anything. There were a few theology books I had borrowed from the downstairs bookshelves that needed to be returned. Books in arms, I went down to the darkened parlor and straight to the bookshelves, looking for the places on the shelves where they belonged.
”So that's where my Scofield Reference Bible went,” a voice said.
I jumped; I hadn't realized Robert was sitting by the fireplace. ”Lieber Gott! Robert, I didn't know you were there.” I looked down at the books in my arms. ”Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't know you had been looking for it.”
”All packed up?”
”Yes.” I turned back to the bookshelves and slid the books back in their place.
”Probably helps that you never really unpacked to begin with.”
I spun around on my heels. That did it. ”I always told you I was planning to return to Germany. From the very first day, I have never wavered from that. It's always been my plan to return after the war is over. Always.”
”That's true. I can't disagree with that. That's been your plan,” he said with sarcasm.
”Then why do you sound as if that's not the right thing to do? Didn't you agree to let me live here with the understanding that I would be returning after the war?”
”Yes. Yes, I did.” He jumped to his feet. ”But things change, Louisa. Circ.u.mstances change. People change. Life doesn't always work out the way you've planned. And for someone who has been pus.h.i.+ng me to accept change from the day you arrived here, you're not even willing to consider it for yourself.”
I looked at him for a long moment. Then I went to sit on the davenport. I asked, ”Is that why you're so angry with me?”
The question seemed to hang in the air for a while. He turned toward the fireplace, lost in reflection. Finally, he spoke. ”I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with myself.”
”Whatever for?”
He walked over to the fireplace, placing one hand on the mantel. ”Because I didn't learn from my mistake.”
”What do you mean?”
”When I was away at the meeting in North Carolina, I thought about this a great deal, Louisa. It suddenly became so clear to me. I realized I had allowed myself to get emotionally involved with the same kind of woman as Ruth.” There was cold anger in his voice.
I gasped audibly. ”I am not like her,” I said, now seething. ”I am nothing like her. I can not believe you said that.”
He didn't answer me. Nor did he look at me.
”I never made a promise to you like she did. I am not abandoning you or William like she did.”
He glanced at me. ”You're both ambitious women.”
”How so? I've never asked you for anything.”
Now he looked straight at me. ”You both want something badly enough that you'll leave people who love you for it. She wanted a fine life: fortune and status; you're after more n.o.ble things. You want to ride back on your gleaming white horse and save Germany, single-handedly.”
Those words cut me to the quick. I glared at him through a blur of hot tears as a maelstrom of fury welled up within me. ”How dare you trivialize how I feel about Germany! You make it sound foolish and silly. You don't have any idea what it is like to lose your country. You sit here in the desert and think you're helping to fight a war by collecting tin cans and eating oleo on your bread. You have no idea what war is like! You have no idea how dark this evil is! Hitler's evil. And yet you say that I am the nave one!”
I tried to calm down before repeating, insistently, ”Robert, I am nothing like her.”
A long stretch of minutes pa.s.sed. He watched the fireplace while I watched him.
Then the real issue that had been avoiding so carefully spilled forth. Still looking at the fireplace, he said, ”Louisa, is there something so wrong about me that you...and Ruth...couldn't love me?”
My heart nearly melted. ”Wrong? Something so wrong about you? Oh, Robert, no. Just the opposite. There's something so right about you.”
The way he looked at me then, so unguarded, I knew I had to get upstairs fast, or I would never be able to leave tomorrow.
The next morning, I waited until I heard Robert leave for his office before going downstairs. Miss Gordon wouldn't even look at me. She went outside to hang wet laundry on the clothesline as soon as I walked into the kitchen. I still hadn't told William I was moving out. My plan was to have Mrs. Morgan help me tell him this afternoon, at his tutoring session.
I ate a silent, lonely breakfast, gathering my courage to go let Rosita cut my long dark hair into the fas.h.i.+onable bob she was so eager for. I knew how much this meant to her; I tried not to envision myself as a lamb being led to the slaughter.
I went into Rosita's beauty salon holding my Christmas coupon. She knew it was my last day. She led me to her chair, wrapping a big ap.r.o.n around me. ”At last, Louisa! We are going to make you into a Hollywood movie star. No more looking like you came from the Old World.”
After she finished, I looked in the mirror and had to bite my lip to keep from weeping.
”Bonita! S, amiga?” she asked. Rosita had the biggest heart in town but very possibly could be the worst haircutter in the state of Arizona. One side was longer than the other side. And the bottom edge was cut in a zig-zag.
Oh, well, I thought, trying to console myself. Hair grows back.
Ramon wheeled his chair over and looked aghast at my hair. ”Rosita, would you mind going to Ibsen's store and buying some of that #10 hair dye for Mrs. Wondolowski? She has an appointment this morning.”
”But Ramon, I am just about done with Louisa's bob. Un momento?”
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