Bliss, Remembered Read online

  He told me that one day he took him aside & told him, flat out, “Jimmy, we need new blood here on the Shore. Now, when’s your tour up?”

  “’Bout 2 more yrs, sir. July of ’42.”

  “Well, I speak not only for myself but for Trixie’s mother as well when I say that we both hope you marry Trixie then & settle down here.”

  “Sir, I wanted to marry Sydney the day I set eyes on her. I’ve just never had 2 nickels to rub together.”

  “Times’ll get better. Thank God we’re not going to let ourselves get involved in that mess in Europe, so that’ll only make the U.S. stronger while the damn Europeans go at it hammer & tong & never even mind what all those billions of Japs and Chinese are up to over that way.”

  “I certainly hope so, Mr. Parsons. If there’s trouble, they’ve told us: the Marines will be the lst to go.”

  Mr. Parsons let that unlikely possibility pass. “Now, I don’t know if Trixie has told you, but, at long last, my divorce is going to be final, & as soon as that happens I’m going to make an honest woman out of Marian. However, as you know, my practice is in Centreville, so it doesn’t make any sense to keep the place by the river.”

  “Mrs. Stringfellow will sell it?”

  “Well, that’s the plan. I mean, poor Trixie is out there by herself, rolling around like a marble in that big place. But . . . & this is a big but, Jimmy, if you’re coming here to settle down, then that’s where Trixie should live & raise her family.”

  “That’s what I’d like, sir, w/ all my heart.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Now, have you thought what you’d like to do when you’re out of the Marines?”

  “Yes, sir, I have. I got into banking when I was in B’lyn, & I seemed to have an aptitude for it. I’m good w/ figures, so I thought I had a future in that line.”

  Mr. Parsons took that in. “Well, Marian & I have a better idea, if you’re open to hearing it.”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  “How ’bout insurance? Talk about figures. Insurance is a lst-cousin to banking. From what I’ve seen of you, you could pass that insurance exam in jig time, you could help Trixie take over the agency, & let Marian relax & take care of me. I’m sure they’ll be the pitter-patter of little feet in your house not long after you march down that aisle, & you’ll want Trixie home as a mother. There’s no reason why you couldn’t be in charge of the office—tho Marian could pitch in to help you now & again. What do you say?”

  Well, Mr. Parsons told me, it was all Jimmy could do not to cry—& he was of that generation of men who believed that it was sissy for a man to cry. He just rubbed his eyes. “Mr. Parsons,” he said, “I never had anything drop in my lap before. Ever. I can’t believe this.”

  So Mr. Parsons patted him on the back & said, “Jimmy, welcome to the Shore.” And they had hooters of Maryland rye together to seal the deal.

  Not only that, but after a couple ryes, Mr. Parsons showed Jimmy an absolutely gorgeous diamond ring. “Wow,” Jimmy said.

  “This was my mother’s. She left it to me when she died 3 yrs ago.” Jimmy nodded, not having the foggiest where this was heading. “Now, both my boys had already been married by then. You don’t know them. They both left the Shore—damn them. Had to be hot shots, go to the city.” Jimmy shook his head, commiserating. “I was going to give this to Marian when she accepted my proposal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But she told me something. She told me that I hoped I didn’t take it the wrong way, but she wanted to keep Bob Stringfellow’s engagement ring on. And I did understand. I knew Bob, he was one fine fellow & I can’t be jealous of the wonderful yrs he & Marian had together.”

  “That’s awful nice of you, sir.”

  Mr. Parsons just shook his head, modestly.

  By then, I was very glad he was marrying Mother. He wasn’t my father. No one could be that. But he was one good man. I think a lot of men would’ve gotten their nose out of joint if their wife-to-be had wanted to keep her lst husband’s ring. But not Elliott Parsons. And then he absolutely bowled Jimmy over. “So, I want to give this to you for Trixie’s engagement ring.”

  Jimmy was flabbergasted. “Oh, no sir, I couldn’t—”

  “Bullshit, son. There’s no sense letting it sit in a safe deposit box collecting dust till hell freezes over. Besides, it’s a nice symbolic way of bringing both you & me together into this wonderful Stringfellow family w/ these 2 beautiful Stringfellow gals.”

  That’s when Jimmy did absolutely break down, crying. He was so embarrassed till Mr. Parsons grabbed the back of his neck (because he’d bowed it in shame), squeezed it & said, “On the Shore, Jimmy, we have a saying that the way you tell a gentleman is that he’ll never let himself fart in mixed company or be afraid to cry w/ good friends.” So Jimmy cried some more.

  Then Mr. Parsons asked him, now that he had a ring, when he might propose, & Jimmy said, “I actually was thinking in a few wks. See, this is on the QT, sir, but that’s when the Brigade’s leaving Quantico for maneuvers.”

  “Where you going?”

  “It’s a place in Cuba called something like Geronimo.”

  “How long you be gone?”

  “Months, I think. We’re going to start practicing amphibious landings.”

  “Well, you’re right,” Mr. Parsons said. “Just before you go—I think that’d be a good time to hand Trixie this & pop the question.”

  Of course, that Geronimo place in Cuba was Guantanamo Bay, which nobody had much heard of at that time, & on his last leave before the Brigade shipped out, Jimmy did give me that ring, which was the most beautiful thing I ever saw (& which I’ve worn to this day). It had what seemed to me to be an absolutely monstrous diamond in the middle & 2 smaller (but not that much!) teardrop diamonds on either side, so I cried & Jimmy did, too. He was getting to be a regular crybaby, but he wasn’t the least bit ashamed of that anymore.

  For her part, my mother gave Jimmy the material for him to start studying for his Md. insurance exam, which he took w/ him on the ship to Guantanamo.

  We decided we’d get married in Aug. of ’42, right after he got out of the Marines. That really wasn’t that far off, hardly more than a yr and a l/2. Of course, I’m not giving anything away to say that by the time we did get to Aug. ’42, the U.S. was fighting the Jap. Empire in the Solomon Islands at the Battle of Guadalcanal.

  II.

  Going to Guantanamo was the start of the serious business for the Brigade. It never came back to Quantico again. It relocated to Parris Island, then it went to Camp Lejeune, which is in N. Carolina. There were whole months when Jimmy couldn’t make it up to see me. Then, late in ’41, the Brigade sailed down to Culebra, which is a little island off Puerto Rico. That’s where Jimmy was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, & all of a sudden, the work the Marines had done w/ amphibious landings made all the sense in the world.

  Of course, even before Pearl Harbor I understood he wouldn’t be getting out in July, & now I realized that he’d be going to the Pacific, and sooner rather than later. I read about the Marines who had to surrender on Wake Island, & all I could think was: there but for the grace of God goes Jimmy.

  He did come back from Culebra in Jan., &, irony of ironies, the Brigade now held maneuvers on none other than Chesapeake Bay—but C’town is way to the northern end & the Marines were at Bloodsworth Island, which was far south, down by the Va. line. We knew for sure by then that he’d be shipping out for the Pacific pretty soon, so we decided to get married the next time Jimmy could get home.

  It was early in May when he got his final leave. He had 10 days. Corregidor had just fallen in the Philippines, & here he was going to war. It was a very grim time for 2 young people to get married, but that’s what we wanted—especially because I told Jimmy flat out that I wanted to try to have a baby. I was obviously very fecund (although, of course, I kept that to myself), & he said, well, if that’s what I wanted, he did too, & we would try our damndest.

>   He came up to C’town on May 9th, & the next day we took the train up to Elkton. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a little town up by the Pa. and Del. lines, which was something of a marriage mill. It was like: Take a ticket. Next. Dearly beloved . . . I do. I now pronounce you man and wife.

  But it was sweet enough for me. Elliott Parsons was Jimmy’s best man, & Carter Kincaid came up to be my matron of honor. Carter had found a nice fellow in Balt., which is what she’d always wanted. She’d been Mrs. Roger Cochran for a year now. He was in real estate, but he was going to officer’s training for the Army Air Corps. She was 6 months pregnant, so it was especially wonderful that she made the effort to come up.

  This was all the more true because it turned out to be the last time in my life that I’d ever see Carter. But we certainly didn’t know that then, & we all 5—of course, my mother was there, too—toasted our marriage w/ a bottle of champagne Carter had brought. Then we all went to the train station, & we hugged each other. The worst part of war, besides the carnage, of course, is how you’re always saying goodbye to people you love.

  Jimmy & I spent our wedding nite at my house on the river, the very house I had grown up in. How many girls get to do that? Gentry Trappe came over to congratulate us & promised me the summer’s first peaches as a wedding present. The next morning, Jimmy & I left on our honeymoon. My car was that old Ford that we’d gotten with the insurance way back in ’34 after Daddy was killed, so Mr. Parsons lent us his ’39 Buick. Gas rationing had just begun, & you were only supposed to use 3 gallons a week, but Mr. Parsons had a full tank saved up, so, with my rationing points too, we were able to drive down to Rehoboth Beach and back.

  Rehoboth is in Del. on the ocean—tho, on the Shore, we always pronounce it “ayshun.” We stayed at the fanciest hotel there, which was called the Henlopen. It’d just opened for the summer season, so there was almost no one else in the place. That was fine w/ Jimmy & me. Purposely, we didn’t buy any newspapers or listen to the radio, because we wanted to forget about the war as best we could & just have a normal honeymoon.

  The Rehoboth boardwalk wasn’t open yet, so one day we drove down to Ocean City, which is a larger resort, just over the Md. line. Back then, there wasn’t much in the way of civilization between Rehoboth & Ocean City. Just sand dunes. But along the way we noticed that every l/2-mile or so, these towers were going up right on the beach. I’d say they were about 75/80 ft. tall, made of concrete, no windows, but w/ one big slit near the top. We stopped at a filling station, & the old man who pumped gas told us that the towers were look-outs for German submarines out in the “ayshun.”

  Hearing that, I couldn’t help but right away think of Horst, just imagine that he might be in one of those U-boats out there, only a few miles offshore. After all, stranger things have happened. In fact, as we drove off, Jimmy noticed me musing. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said. I managed to smile back, but honestly, I felt a little guilty thinking about Horst on my honeymoon w/ Jimmy.

  Three days later, our idyll was over, & we drove back home. I was holding up pretty well, too, but when Jimmy actually put on his uniform to leave for good—he was a full corporal now, a squad leader—I began to babble like a baby. He had to hold me for a long time to calm me down. I just kept telling myself that at least I must be pregnant. God knows we’d put enough (pleasant) effort into that.

  When the bus came, though, I wouldn’t let myself cry because I didn’t want tears to interfere w/ our goodbye kiss. Standing there right by the bus door, I kissed Jimmy with all my heart & soul until I finally had to break away.

  People say “take care” all the time now. I think then, as a matter of fact, we tended to say “take care of yourself,” but that seemed like a foolish thing to say to someone going off to fight a war, so instead I just said, “I love you, Jimmy. I’ll love you forever.”

  He said the same & got on the bus. I waved till the bus turned the corner, but then I broke down completely, sobbing all over my mother’s shoulder.

  The lst Marines—by now it was called a “division” & not a brigade—shipped out of Norfolk 3 days later. Nobody knew it then, but it was headed for New Zealand. We only knew it was going thru the Panama Canal, somewhere into the Pacific. That was May l9th when Jimmy sailed. It was on Aug. 7th, in the morning, when they landed on Guadalcanal.

  By that time, I was very much pregnant w/ who would turn out to be my beautiful Teddy. I had decided not to tell Jimmy that in my letters, tho. I didn’t want him to worry about me, &, even better, I thought: what a wonderful surprise it would be for him out there in the middle of nowhere when the baby was born, & I could send him a picture of our gorgeous new child!

  The last page was slightly stuck to the one before—perhaps, I thought, from Mother’s tears as she’d been reading over what she’d written. But I turned the page quickly, for now I was totally confused. In her telling, it was already the summer of ’42 and Mom was happily living and working on the Eastern Shore, waiting for Dad to return from war so they could both settle down together in that place right there that my father had come to adore.

  And yet I was born just a few months later, on February 12th, 1943, in Missoula, Montana. Why such a complete change in such a short time? I could only guess that perhaps when Dad was wounded on Guadalcanal he was sent to some military hospital out West, and they fell in love with the place and decided to stay.

  In any event, I was completely hooked now (not least because I was about to be born and enter this saga). I began the next chapter.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Battle of Guadalcanal began on Aug. 7th. We weren’t engaged in the European war yet, so it was the only game in town, & the coverage was huge. Every day I read the Sun voraciously, listened to all the news on the radio. The lst Marines were trying to hold onto the airstrip they’d captured after they’d come ashore. That’s all I knew. Except:

  There were a lot of casualties. Everyone who knew me knew that, too, so no one, except perhaps my mother, dared ask me about Jimmy—even tho I knew they were looking at me as if I had “GUADALCANAL” stamped on my forehead.

  Each day I waited for a letter. The last I’d received from Jimmy was dated July 30th. He wrote that he couldn’t tell me anything, except he was safe, & they were steaming to somewhere. That somewhere, of course, would be Guadalcanal. That letter didn’t reach me till Aug. 2l.

  Then nothing more. Of course, what did I know? I didn’t know any other wives or sweethearts in the whole lst Marine. Were any of the guys allowed to write? And if they could, could the mail get out? And if it did get out, did Jimmy’s letter go down w/ one of the many Amer. ships that were sunk by the Japs (we said “Japs” then, so I think I can write that now because that’s what they were to us then)? I thought about all these things more than the other obvious possibilities, which were that Jimmy was either too wounded to write or he’d been captured or even . . . killed.

  Anyway, each day I read what news there was about goddamn Guadalcanal, & each day there was no news from dear Jimmy. It was excrutiating. I was glad for Sundays, because there was no mail to worry about NOT getting then, & the same for Mon., Sept. 7, which was Labor Day.

  Mom & Mr. Parsons had gone to Atlantic City for a week’s vacation, so I was alone. Mom had Gentry Trappe drop by to check on me, & he promised he’d come back w/ a few of the last ears of the summer’s corn. I was almost 4 months along in my pregnancy, but I had only barely begun to show, & really I felt fine, so that afternoon I went down to the river & swam awhile, then lay some in the sun, mostly simultaneously wondering about Jimmy & trying not to wonder about what might be happening to him.

  Afterwards, I put on a ratty old housecoat. I certainly wasn’t taking any care with my appearance because I wasn’t expecting any company, when all of a sudden, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a car coming down the driveway. It was a C’town Taxi. I couldn’t even remember the last time anybody had come to the house in a taxi.

  I watched from be
hind the curtains in the front parlor. I knew the driver, Mr. Remley, & I could make out that he was taking the fare from the person in the back seat. I could tell the passenger was a man & see, when he got out the far side of the car, that he had on a hat & was dressed in a suit. But that was all. Only when Mr. Remley’s cab pulled away could I see clearly—him just standing there, holding a valise.

  It was Horst.

  I was completely discombobulated—as I think anyone in my place would be. It didn’t even occur to me right away that he was a German & we were fighting a war against the Germans & here he was arriving at my house in C’town, Md., in a taxicab. I just was so amazed that it was him. After 6 long yrs.

  I don’t remember leaving the window & going to the front door & pushing the screen open & stepping out on the porch, but I must have, because, in my mind’s eye, even now, I can see myself standing there by the front steps, dazed, looking out at him.

  He stood there, waiting in the driveway as Mr. Remley drove off & then, when he saw me come out, he took off his hat &, just like it’d been only the day before yesterday he’d seen me on Cross St., he said, “Hello, Sydney.”

  And you know what I said? The first thing? I said, “Horst, I have to change.” I knew I looked awful.

  I heard him call to me, “No, no, it’s OK,” but I was already back inside, rushing up to my room, where I put on a white blouse & a green striped chambray skirt that I loved. I also tried to quickly fix my hair & put on some lipstick. Then I came back downstairs, a part of me thinking this must’ve been a dream, that Horst really wasn’t there. But, of course, he was. He’d come up the steps & was leaning back up against the porch railing, waiting for me—that same way I remembered him leaning up against his Opel—casual & poised & (just so there’s no mistake) every bit as handsome as ever.