Chapter 3 The Welcoming Committee
THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE
New York, New York
How my heart leapt at sight of Joe! He wasn’t the tallest man here, or the most handsome—his nose was too beaky for that, his cheekbones too pronounced, his frame too angular—but his face was more dear to me than anybody’s in the world.
I thought, I’m with my husband again. I’m here to stay, and this is only the beginning of our new life, and tried to believe it.
He had to fight his way through to me, for the crowd was enormous. The women, the infants, the toddlers, the waiting GIs—they swarmed like bees around me, but I saw only Joe.
He stopped in front of me and didn’t take me in his arms. I was confused for a minute, because there was something odd about his expression. Finally, he spoke. “Marguerite. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Pardon?” I blinked at him stupidly. Why wasn’t he kissing me? The other men were kissing their wives. Did he not want me anymore? Not possible. This was Joe.
“Marguerite,” he said. “The baby.”
“Oh!” I jumped a little, then laughed. “I forgot I was holding him. He’s somebody else’s, of course. See, he belongs to Sadie, just there. She was kissing her husband, so …”
At that moment, the brunette beside me turned, smiled radiantly, and said, “Cheers, love. Look, Harry, here’s Harry Junior. Isn’t he the loveliest baby?”
Harry Jr. was not, in fact, particularly lovely, bearing a marked resemblance to Winston Churchill, scowl, jowls, and all, but Harry Senior said, “Boy, oh, boy, he’s a pip, all right,” and looked pleased as punch as he took the baby gingerly from me and held him awkwardly.
Junior started to fuss, but they’d soon get that sorted.
Joe said, “Oh. I thought—”
“That would have been quite the surprise,” I agreed.
“A bit much for you to adjust to on the first day, no?” We both laughed, then he did take me in his arms and kiss me—he lifted me off my feet, in fact, and twirled me—and I wrapped my arms around his neck and felt—I can’t even say what I felt. Thrilled. Joyous. Whole.
He put me down at last, though I could tell he didn’t want to.
His entire face was a smile, but there was intensity in his eyes, too, and he still had his hand at my waist as if he couldn’t let go.
I thought, Did you get a hotel room? and then, I can’t ask that.
Then remembered, He’s my husband, which was when I buried my face in his neck and breathed in his familiar scent, like clean cotton on the washing line, but with something darker and more thrilling underneath.
I could have closed my eyes and known it was Joe anywhere.
I asked, “Did you get a hotel room? Please say yes,” possibly rather breathlessly, and watched his brown eyes darken and a flush start on his neck.
Somebody was staring at me. Disapprovingly, I was sure.
A middle-aged woman, her dark hair expertly styled and topped by an elegant flat black hat with a fluffy bit on top.
The hat went perfectly with the black wool coat that swung to mid-calf as if she’d never heard of a clothing coupon.
She’d heard me, it was clear, and disapproved, but why?
Was that so bad for a wife to say? The man beside her was equally dapper, and Joe, too, I realized belatedly, looked more stylish than I’d ever seen him.
All of them—nearly everyone on the pier—looked like that.
Well fed, well groomed, well clothed. And I was practically a ragamuffin.
That was probably why she was staring at me this way.
Which was when she said, “Introduce us, please, Joe.”
“Right!” Joe laughed a little, kept his hand on my waist, and said, “My mother, Lena Stark, and my father, Jacob Stark. The welcoming committee. Mom and Dad, this is my wife.” His smile reached all the way to his eyes. “Marguerite Glucksburg Stark. I sure do like the sound of that name.”
“Mrs. Stark.” I put out my hand in proper German fashion.
“How do you do. And Mr. Stark.” Another quick, firm handshake.
“I’m so pleased to meet you. But you’ve all come such a long way!
I told Joe that I could easily come on the train by myself and meet him in California.
I’m used to traveling, and it’s quite safe, I hear.
One is taken to Grand Central Station and put on the correct train, and of course, your railroads run very well.
Not like the German ones, which are still in a dreadful state.
” I ran down, because, first, I was chattering and I knew it, and second, Mrs. Stark’s face wasn’t getting any friendlier.
Joe said, “How about if Dad and I go collect your luggage? You and Mom can meet us in the terminal, under the big clock. We don’t catch the train west until tomorrow night, so we’ve got some time for me to show you New York before we get into that Pullman car for your coast-to-coast tour.
Not that I know much about the city. I had exactly two days here before I shipped out.
We’ll explore together, how’s that?” He grinned and was my dear, familiar Joe again, despite the gray suit, soft hat, and wool overcoat that made him look so businesslike and prosperous.
“Yes,” I said, hugging his arm. “Yes, please.”
Mrs. Stark said, “Come with me, then, dear.” The “dear” wasn’t the most affectionate thing I’d ever heard.
Through the crowds again, then, buffeted this way and that.
Excited husbands, glowing wives, more crying babies, and that sharp wind blowing my fine blonde hair to bits.
I was wearing a black wool beret that I’d bought from a man in a stall in Southampton—the luxury of owning a hat that one could tilt in slightly stylish fashion!
—but it wasn’t much proof against the wind, and I had to put my hand on it to keep it from blowing away as we hurried to the shelter of the terminal.
Mrs. Stark said, “Ladies’ room first, I think.” Rather bossily, which was odd, perhaps? I didn’t know anything about American manners, though, and she was my mother-in-law, so I followed her meekly enough.
When we were washing our hands side by side—after a long wait in a queue, because this had been a female-intensive ship—she said, “Perhaps you’d rather wash off your makeup, too.”
I looked at her, confused. “Do women here not wear this type, then? It looks like—well, the women here are quite smart, aren’t they, with their hair and makeup and so forth? You look most stylish.”
If I’d thought I’d win her over, I was wrong. She said, “Have a look at yourself, dear.”
I looked in the mirror. Well, yes, the red lipstick with which Paula had bedecked me was oddly bright.
Also smeared—Joe had been enthusiastic—while the pancake foundation, powder, rouge, mascara, and eyebrow pencil weren’t what I was used to seeing on my face, but …
“How have I gone wrong?” I asked in confusion.
“Paula—one of my shipmates—said I was too pale. Washed out, she said. We had no makeup in Germany, you see, and it was very hard to find in England, too. I could have bought it at the PX in Nuremberg once Joe and I were married, but I was unused to wearing it, and I’m German, of course, and—” I cut myself off.
Chattering once more. “I’m dreadfully ignorant about such things, I’m afraid,” I finished.
“It’s rather harsh, isn’t it?” Mrs. Stark said. “Some of the women on the ship looked—well, a bit hard. I suppose that’s the type who marries a soldier. If one of them made you up, I can understand. You’d best wash it off now, though.”
I did. It was a bit humiliating, though, and my temper, always my weak spot, was rising despite every effort to control myself.
“There,” I said when I was patting my face dry again—a face that looked like me again, and not a china doll.
“But most of the other girls were lovely, you know, and very much in love. You must realize how many young men died in the war, or were terribly wounded. England, France, Poland, Hungary … and Germany, of course. So many died in Germany. There are few husbands to be had in Europe, I’m afraid.
The war was very hard, too, everywhere. Is it such a wonderful thing that a young woman would be hoping for a gayer time, a …
a normal time, now? And the Americans are so—” I stopped again, because Mrs. Stark’s mouth was pressed into a tight line.
“What are they, exactly?” she asked rather frostily. We left the toilet—the queue was even longer now—and headed over to wait under a huge clock, along with about a hundred other women.
I considered. I was as nervous as a cat, but determined not to be.
She loved Joe. I loved Joe. What was there to divide us?
All right, many things divided us, but they didn’t have to, did they?
“Americans are … newer,” I said slowly. “More expressive. Friendlier. More generous—how kind they are to the children!—and more open, certainly. The way they drive … you see them in their Jeeps, and they always have an arm hanging over the side and their legs sprawling. Casual, I suppose. Germans are not casual. The English are not casual, either, at least the—” I stopped.
“At least the what?” Mrs. Stark asked.
“Well, the upper classes, I suppose. Some of the British girls on the boat were like that—more reserved—but others were very cheerful indeed. More like Americans, perhaps, though I haven’t known many American women.
They were mostly lovely girls, though, and very kind.
Look, there’s a seat on that bench. You must take it. ”
“No, thank you.” Her voice was frostier than ever. “Can you tell me—look me in the eyes and tell me—that they didn’t marry those Americans for their money?”