CHAPTER FOUR 8 DECEMBER 1941
CHAPTER
FOUR
On Monday morning, Momma shook Cora awake.
She’d overslept. That’s what came from staying up half the night worrying about war.
Or, at least, worrying about Benny and Lee and Roscoe crowing about enlisting, which was what they did as soon as Aunt Teen switched off the radio.
Thank God Jasper was a voice of reason, but still, Cora was glad to come home to keep from having to hear about it.
Up until then, it had all seemed so far away. She’d convinced herself that folks would keep arguing about America joining the fight until the whole thing was over and done with. The Japanese put an end to years of dithering.
In the kitchen, the morning papers lay on the table announcing what she already knew, Pearl Harbor Bombed, Thousands Dead and Wounded; President Roosevelt to Address Congress.
She ate a bowl of cereal and hurried out to the bus stop, where folks segregated themselves into two groups, but everyone talked about one thing.
‘If I were still young, I’d be enlisting today,’ said a white man, old but not that old.
Cora looked impatiently down the road for the bus.
‘Our boys’ll get them,’ a sour-faced, pasty woman said. ‘They’ll sink their whole island.’
Over in Cora’s cluster, two women spoke about a nephew who had already joined the navy but wasn’t at Pearl Harbor. ‘They got him out in California somewhere.’
‘Thank the Lord,’ said the other woman.
When the bus trundled up, Cora stood back, pulling her coat tighter against the morning chill.
Once the white passengers were inside, Cora’s group climbed on, passing four full rows of seats followed by three empty rows behind them.
At the back of the bus, in the colored section, every last seat was taken.
The bus started up, jostling Cora, and she held on to the seat-backs, steadying herself.
She stood with her feet planted wide for balance as they rumbled down the road, her eyes resting, the whole way, on the rows of empty seats.
Cora made it to the insurance-company offices and slotted her timecard into the punch clock on the wall with five minutes to spare.
Even with America in an uproar, Mr Griffin wasn’t likely to tolerate lateness from her or Loretta.
He’d made it clear he’d stuck his neck out to hire them and, in return, he expected them to keep their toes in line.
She strode through the spacious secretarial pool, with its large windows and whites-only coffee station smelling of fresh coffee, past the men’s cubicles and Mr Griffin’s office to a windowless closet.
Inside, a plywood table stood pushed against the wall with two folding chairs tucked beneath it, side by side.
Loretta was already there, perched on one chair, and Cora squeezed in beside her.
‘Did you hear?’ Loretta said pulling two oranges out of her bag and handing one to Cora. Orange season had started and, like every year, Loretta’s tree was bursting full. ‘They say thousands are dead. Thousands. Even civilians.’
Cora took the orange and nodded her thanks, putting it to the side for later. ‘I know,’ she said. Of course she’d heard. Everybody had.
‘They say those Japs were on a suicide mission. Just crashed those planes into us, even though they’d never survive it. Can you imagine?’
Cora threaded a page into her typewriter and pulled out the notes Mr Griffin had dictated to her at closing time on Friday that he wanted typed up first thing Monday morning.
‘And did you hear about Rick Mortimer?’ Loretta went on, peeling her orange and separating the wedges. Rick Mortimer was a tow-headed clod who collected baseball cards and brought stinky egg sandwiches for lunch.
Cora started typing, grateful for the clunk of the keys that drowned out Loretta’s words, she’d heard enough war-talk at Aunt Teen’s, but her friend leaned close so Cora couldn’t miss her news. ‘He enlisted.’
She’d never cared a fig about Rick Mortimer, but now he was the link that brought her world crashing into the one she read about in the papers.
Half the secretarial pool still hadn’t come in by mid-morning, and neither had the stalky clerk who kept the books.
At lunchtime Mr Griffin turned on the radio, waiting for the president’s broadcast. When FDR’s voice filled the room, the office gathered around the radio while Loretta and Cora hung back. Mr Griffin waved them closer.
Yesterday, President Roosevelt said through the crackling radio static, December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Linda Smith burst into tears and Sally Baker put an arm around her shoulders, looking like she might start crying any minute herself.
The president talked on, listing places the Japanese had bombed all through the night and into the morning.
Places Cora had never even heard of, like Wake Island and Guam.
Gordon Cleavers lowered himself to the floor, leaned back against the wall and put his head between his knees.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the president was saying, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
Susan Murphy hugged Gretchen Jones and Ted Williams, and then she hugged Cora standing beside them, like it was nothing at all.
Cora stood statue-still with her arms at her sides, unable to hug her back, unable to pull away, until Susan released her and threw her arms around Jeff Meadows and then Barbara Watkins.
Mr Griffin closed the office after the announcement and Cora went straight home, eager to be somewhere that felt safe and familiar.
She was surprised to find Benny already there with Roscoe, Jasper and Lee, huddled together in the living room, talking in low, urgent tones.
They fell quiet when she walked in, throwing glances at each other.
‘What are you all plotting?’ she said.
Lee rose from the couch in a fluid motion, like smoke taking shape. ‘Hey there, Cora.’ He stepped over, standing close to her.
‘Hi,’ she said, with a nervous glance at her brother.
Benny said nothing and barely looked at her, but Jasper stared at them with a strained expression until Lee led her out the door. They walked up the path to the park, where he tucked her behind the first thick-trunked tree and leaned in to rest his forehead against hers.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said. ‘Did you hear the president on the radio today?’
‘Yeah.’ She felt heavy, like her bones were weighted down by the news. ‘I’m so sick of hearing about that damn war. Let’s talk about something else. How was baseball practice?’
‘Not good.’ He leaned back with a sigh and took her hands. ‘Everyone was distracted and on edge. Just like everywhere else, I guess.’
‘It’ll be better tomorrow.’
He pulled her hands up to his mouth, kissed her fingertips and grinned. ‘I smell orange,’ he said. ‘Has Loretta been feeding you from her tree?’
Cora nodded. ‘Fresh-picked oranges.’
‘Your favorite,’ he said. ‘One day, when we get our own place, I’m going to plant you an orange tree.’
‘That sounds divine,’ she said, but her stomach fluttered in anxiety at the idea of having to first come clean to everyone. She dreaded what people would say after their date on Saturday and the church ladies’ snickers. And Momma would throw a fit and a half, with Aunt Teen egging her on.
She hadn’t noticed she’d tensed at the thought until Lee ran his hands over her arms, soothing her strain.
The hurt look that pulled at his features confirmed he’d known what she was thinking.
She wanted to kick herself for making him feel less than.
It wasn’t that she was ashamed of him: she just didn’t feel strong enough to withstand the torrent of disapproval that would rain down on her.
She knew she was being a coward, but she didn’t know how to be stronger.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Lee said. He searched her face and rubbed her arms, and the longer he took to speak, the more anxious she grew.
When he finally took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m going to enlist,’ it seemed to Cora like the whole world collapsed.
His words hung in the air like some foreign thing, as strange and incomprehensible as the far-away war.
‘No,’ she said, her breath deepening and quickening as she struggled to control a rising panic.
‘If I wait until they tell me to go fight, it won’t be the same thing. I need to do this.’ He ran his hands up and down her arms. ‘It matters that it’s my choice.’
Fear hooked into Cora’s gut and pricked its way outwards to her chest and down to her fingertips. ‘You could get yourself killed.’
‘I’m not going to be killed, Cora.’ His voice sank to a flat, dismissive tone. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Too much air made her lightheaded. ‘That’s how they fight wars, Lee. The people on one side try to kill the people on the other side. Is that what you want to go do?’
He stood back, rigid, already changing from lover to soldier. ‘I want to stand up and be counted. Show what I’m made of. Answer back for Pearl Harbor and for Hitler. For injustice.’
‘But why you, Lee?’ She came toward him, closing the gap he’d opened.
‘Maybe I have something to prove,’ Lee said, his back stiffening to stubbornness.
Her heart thundered in her chest at the thought of him rushing off to bombs and bullets. ‘What does your uncle Drew say about this?’
‘He understands.’ He reached for her, but his hands felt too heavy on her shoulders.
‘Well, I don’t,’ she said, balling his shirt in her fists. Her voice tipped into a whine, but she couldn’t help it.
‘I need to do this.’ She saw the clench of his jaw, the storm in his eyes. ‘This is my chance.’
‘Please, Lee. Stay here with me.’
‘Cora,’ he said, soft as a caress, but she heard his no in the deep, throaty vowels wrapped in a sigh.
He leaned in to kiss her but she turned her head and, with fear and heartbreak crystallizing to anger, she shoved him away from her and marched through the park, back to the house, Lee trailing close behind.
In the time they’d been gone, Momma had come home and made dinner. Black-eyed peas and corn fritters. Cora set the table, ignoring Lee’s offer to help.
Lee, Jasper and Roscoe often came by for dinner, and usually Cora loved the friendly, lively chatter, but today conversation clashed and spluttered, circling around the one thing they couldn’t stop thinking about.
‘This war is an opportunity we shouldn’t waste,’ Benny said.
‘An opportunity for what?’ Jasper huffed. ‘To get yourself killed?’
‘Every able-bodied man has a responsibility,’ Roscoe said, helping himself to more black-eyed peas.
‘And what exactly is a colored man’s responsibility to the United States of America?’ Cora said, her anger and frustration so high it thumped in her ears. ‘All of a sudden you want to risk everything for a country that’s never cared if you live or die?’
‘It’s as much our country as anybody’s,’ Roscoe said. ‘And we have the same responsibility as any citizen. I live here, don’t I?’
‘That doesn’t mean this is your fight,’ Cora said, with a side-eye to Lee. ‘I’d say you all have enough battles right here.’
‘Amen to that,’ Momma said, nodding. ‘You should be looking out for you and yours, not running off to foreign fights without a thought for folks counting on you at home.’
Benny’s leg bounced under the table as he clutched his fork like he was trying to choke the life out of it. ‘Momma, don’t you remember how mad you were when Jesse Owens won all those gold medals in Berlin and Hitler wouldn’t shake his hand? You said somebody needed to straighten him out.’
‘I remember he won those gold medals for America, and Roosevelt didn’t shake his hand either.’
‘They attacked the navy,’ Cora said. ‘But the navy won’t even let you fight for them. They only take colored cooks and stewards.’
‘That’s right,’ Momma said. ‘This ain’t your fight ’cause they won’t even let you fight. America don’t want you for a hero.’
‘Well, I’m not enlisting,’ Jasper said, glaring at the guys. ‘Because I don’t owe this country a damn thing.’ Roscoe exchanged a look with Benny and ducked his head, saying nothing.
Jasper’s father gave his blood, sweat and tears to America in the Great War and was repaid with kicks and cuffs and forced labor in a chain gang for the crime of playing dice, and after his release, a run-in with a sheriff left Jasper fatherless at six years old.
‘It’s one America for them and another for us, so let them fight for it. ’
‘Amen to that too,’ Momma said.
‘Hell, they don’t want me in their army anyways,’ he said, with a bitterness so deep it took Cora by surprise, considering he didn’t want to go in the first place.
Lee laid down his fork and spoke in a steady, even tone.
‘Well, I don’t owe anything either.’ Lee’s daddy was clubbed to death for registering Negro voters.
His momma was killed for trying to get justice.
No one ever got arrested for any of it. ‘But I’m not fighting for them.
I’m fighting for us.’ He shot a look at Cora and she glanced away.
‘I’m fighting for respect,’ he went on, ‘and because they’ll never admit this is our country if we don’t treat it like it’s our country. ’
‘What kind of fool talk is that?’ Momma said. ‘Our people have fought in every single war America ever had. Revolutionary, Indian, Civil, Mexican, Great War.’ She pointed at Jasper. ‘All of them. They’re never gonna think this is our country. You don’t need to get yourself killed to prove it.’
The black-eyed peas sat like stones in Cora’s stomach, and she was glad when dinner was over. She stayed behind to wash the dishes when the whole group went next door to listen to the evening broadcast on their neighbor’s radio. Cora was sick to death of hearing the latest news.
She’d filled the sink with soapy water when Lee slipped back inside and came up behind her, planting gentle kisses on her neck. He slid his hands around her waist.
‘Cora,’ he said, breathy and quiet. A longing. A plea.
She closed her eyes. There was so much she would give to this man, if only he would stay with her. She slid her wet hands over his and guided him up her front to her breasts. His palms cupped her as she turned her face to him. He looked raw and beautiful.
She pressed against him and reached her hand to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, kissing him. ‘Don’t go,’ she said.
She felt his arousal, heard his breathing change, opened her mouth to his probing tongue, allowed his hands to wander, dipping under her blouse.
Then he pulled away from her. He released her breasts and slid his hands down her front.
His pressing weight against her lifted. His searching mouth, gone.
He kissed her shoulder and slid his hands from her hips, like he was retracing his steps.
For a long moment he stared at her, as if to memorize her, and then he tucked his head and walked away.