A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [206]
Lee!
Where was Lee now?
He had sailed away to France on a transport just like the one she now saw slipping out of the harbor—a long boat with its swirls of camouflage and the silent white faces of its thousand soldier passengers, looking from where she stood like so many white-headed pins in a long awkward pin cushion.
(“Francie, I’m afraid…so afraid. I’m afraid that if I go away I’ll lose you…never see you again. Tell me not to go….”)
(“I guess that it’s right that you see your mother once more before…I don’t know….”)
He was with the Rainbow Division—the Division even now pushing into the Argonne Woods. Was he even now lying dead in France under a plain white cross? Who would tell her if he died? Not the woman in Pennsylvania.
(“Elizabeth Rhynor [Mrs.]”)
Anita had left months ago to work somewhere else and had left no address. No one to ask…no one to tell her.
Fiercely she wished he were dead so that the woman in Pennsylvania could never have him. In the next breath she prayed, “Oh God, don’t let him be killed and I won’t complain no matter who has him. Please…Please!”
Oh time…time, pass so that I forget!
(“You’ll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget.”)
Mother was wrong. She had to be wrong. Francie wanted to forget. It was four months since she had known him but she couldn’t forget. (“Happy again…but you’ll never forget.”) How could she be happy again if she couldn’t forget?
Oh Time, Great Healer, pass over me and let me forget.
(“Everytime you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.”)
Ben had the same slow smile. But she had thought she was in love with Ben last year—long before she had seen Lee. So that didn’t work out.
Lee, Lee!
The recreation period was over and a new bunch of girls came in. It was their recreation period now. They flocked around the piano and started on a sequence of “Smile” songs. Francie knew what would come.
Run, run, you fool, before the waves of hurt start breaking.
But she couldn’t move.
They did Ted Lewis’s song: “For When My Baby Smiles at Me.” From that it was inevitable that they go into “There Are Smiles That Make You Happy.”
And then it came.
Smile the while
You kiss me sad adieu….
(“…think of me every time you hear it. Think of me….”) She ran out of the room. She snatched her gray hat and her new gray purse and gloves from her locker. She ran for the elevator.
She looked up and down the canyonlike street. It was dark and deserted. A tall man in uniform stood in the shadowed doorway of the next building. He walked out of the dark and came towards her with a shy lonely smile.
She closed her eyes. Granma had said that the Rommely women had the power of seeing the ghosts of their beloved dead. Francie had never believed it because she had never seen Papa. But now…now….
“Hello, Francie.”
She opened her eyes. No, he wasn’t a ghost.
“I had an idea that you’d feel blue—your last night on the job—so I came to take you home. Surprised?”
“No. I thought you’d come,” she said.
“Hungry?”
“Starved!”
“Where do you want to go? Want to get some coffee at the Automat or would you like chop suey?”
“No! No!”
“Child’s?”
“Yes. Let’s go to Child’s and have buttercakes and coffee.”
He took her hand and drew her arm through his.
“Francie, you seem so strange tonight. You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No.”
“Glad I came?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s good to see you, Ben.”
56
SATURDAY! THE LAST SATURDAY IN THEIR OLD HOME. THE NEXT day was Katie’s wedding day and they were going straight to their new home from the church. The movers were coming Monday morning for their stuff. They were leaving most of their furniture for the new janitress. They were taking only their personal belongings and the front-room furniture. Francie wanted the green carpet