“Do you know this song?” he asked Monroe.
“Course I do. ‘Night and Day.’ And this here is the first slow dance I’ve ever seen on The Hill.”
A sweet sadness had filled the room, almost like nostalgia. Couples paused their canoodling to watch the dancers. The drinkers stopped talking. And the dancers held their partners close, swaying in time.
“Lord,” Monroe said. “I about could bust out crying.”
Charlie felt it, too, surprised by the tender melancholy that Willy brought to the song. He was playing it with his eyes closed.
It was over in minutes. The dancers parted slowly, everyone giving strong but sober applause. Someone came pushing through the crowd, Charlie could not see who.
“Is that Oppie?” Monroe asked. “Why’s the boss here?”
They were the only ones close enough to see Oppenheimer grab the musician’s arm and speak through clenched teeth. “What in hell are you doing?”
Willy blinked a moment. “A slow number, sir. No harm in it.”
Oppenheimer shook his head hard, as if trying to fling water from his face. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again.”
Already people had gone for their hats, their jackets, the moonlit walk home. Oppenheimer spun on his heel and hurried off. Willy remained onstage with the accordion against his chest. “What did I do?” he asked, but everyone had turned away.
Monroe muttered to Charlie. “See what I’m talking about?”
They spoke little on the walk back. It was a quiet night, the air calm beneath a high fat moon. Charlie imagined Brenda in Chicago, under that same moon. Behind the barracks a bonfire burned low, coals glowing and a few boys gathered. They heard Giles’s laugh like a siren call.
Monroe paused outside the barracks. “Mister Charlie, what if we make this thing, and it works, and it’s like Sebring said in his lecture. The big pop.”
Charlie held the door open. “Hitler has killed countless innocent people.”
“But are you and me killers too?”
“Shut that damn door, will you?” someone yelled from inside. “Mosquitoes.”
They hurried in, easing the door shut so it did not slam. Most of the barracks was dark, a few guys reading or chatting, writing letters. Not the rowdiest Saturday night.
“Have you been going to the debates?” Charlie said in a hush.
“All of ’em. You?”
“No.” He rubbed his face. “It may seem hypocritical. But I feel like my job is to build one small part of this incredibly complicated Gadget, and hope the war ends before the rest is ready.”
“But what if it don’t end?” Monroe leaned closer, his voice urgent. “What if old Hitler keeps on fighting? And here we have this great big thing, and we up and use it—Munich, bang, Berlin, bang—and slaughter lord only knows how many souls. What are we then? Seems a hell of a lot worse than plain old soldiers, taking plain old orders.”
Charlie brushed his hair back with both hands. “I don’t have an answer.”
“You and me both.”
They ambled down the aisle between the beds, reaching Charlie’s first. They both stopped when they saw the envelope on his cot.
“That from your girl?”
Charlie picked it up. His name in Brenda’s handwriting. “It certainly is.”
“Been a while.”
Charlie nodded. He sat on the bunk and stared at the envelope.
“Ain’t you gonna open it?”
“Not quite yet. Not tonight.”
“You been pining on her for months now. Why in the world would you wait?”
“Because.” He lay back, the envelope on his chest. “We don’t know what it says.”
“So?”
“So what’s the harm in being hopeful for one more night?”
“No harm in hoping,” Monroe answered. “G’nite, Mister Charlie.”
He ambled down the row to his bunk, and sat on it, thinking for a while. He heard the thunk of Charlie’s shoes hitting the floor, then the purr of the cat that had joined him on the cot. Boys drifted off all around, while Monroe lay there, open-eyed in the dark, until Charlie had fallen asleep.
31.
The last time I felt that nervous, Charlie was late for our first date. This time I was awake before the sun. There was no point in dressing yet, or doing my hair. I lay in bed, listening to girls across the back lot getting ready for work. My stomach felt like a beehive, but the clock was in no hurry. At around seven, Lizzie poked her head in.
“Hey, kid. What time’s his bus?”
“Ten. He wrote me ten.”
“I’m fetching my paycheck at the hospital. Do you need anything?”
“For three hours to pass?”
“They will.” Lizzie finished buttoning her shirt. By then I’d seen her undergarments many times, she was casual about skin and lace. For me, those things made me shy as a dormouse. “Do you think you’ll tell the boy?”
“Tell him what?”
“Tell him what?” she chirped. “Whatever your secret is, kid.”
My stomach tightened its knot. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Which hurts more? Being honest or deceiving?”
“He has to suspect anyhow,” I said. “I’ve been here for months, and this is the first we’re seeing each other. I am terrible.”
“Everyone is terrible,” Lizzie said. “Also, everyone is trying their best.”
“Is there anything you’ll need to tell your husband when he gets home?”
Lizzie checked her lowest button. “Only the naughty thoughts I have about him all the time.”
I smiled. “You have a dirty mind.”
She smoothed down her shirt front. “Every chance I get.”
At breakfast I waited till Reverend Morris finished grace before drinking any coffee. Mrs. Morris marched in and out of the kitchen.
“Did you see the mail?” he asked her. “I’m amazed it keeps up after all these months.” He was loud as a bullhorn, and his neck did that odd tic of stretching his chin. Though I had no idea what he was talking about, he shook a stack of envelopes at me. “Pleasantly amazed, of course.”
Mrs. Morris returned with eggs and bread for me, and I thanked her profusely. Which made her pause by my chair. “You’re welcome, Miss Dubie.”
So, my new demotion: I was no longer Brenda. Any other day, I would have been offended. Or wondered what I did wrong. Not that day. I needed to clean up, choose the right dress, prepare myself for Charlie. Silly old wimpy Charlie Fish. I was terrified.
He’d sent me an address to meet on East Palace Avenue, between the plaza and the cathedral. Even with dawdling I arrived early, so I meandered over to the big, two-steepled church. I was thinking I might sneak in to see its organ, but a funeral was beginning. Mourners in black lined the walk. Pallbearers carried a wooden casket up the steps. Not an omen, I told myself, just coincidence. In Cathedral Park I sat on a bench, good posture and my ankles crossed, until ten o’clock rang in the steeple.
At East Palace, a drab green bus was belching black smoke as it pulled away. A crowd of local Latinos clustered by an iron gate, people in bright-colored ponchos murmuring adios before dispersing. They parted almost like a curtain, and there he stood, his back to me as his eyes searched the street.