Louise's Blunder Read Online Free
Author: Sarah R Shaber
his desk.
‘Finished?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I …’
‘Don’t say anything,’ he said, checking to make sure that I had signed the envelope across the back flap. ‘I’ll take care of it. You may go.’
I didn’t move and he looked at me impatiently.
‘I’m supposed to watch you lock it in your safe,’ I said.
‘Oh, right, of course.’
I officially observed Lewis as he placed the document in his safe and twirled the knob. Then I left. I suspected that would be the last I ever saw of Mr Wilmarth Lewis. I wondered if I’d hear from Major Wicker and OSS Security again. I was curious about Hughes. I wanted to know what OSS suspected he had done.
After the record-breaking cold of the winter of 1943, walking home in springtime was a treat. Most District residents had converted their gardens into vegetable plots but there were still nooks filled with daffodils and lilies. An occasional rosebush climbed over a picket fence and blooming redbud trees filled the pink gap emptied by the end of cherry blossom season. Being outdoors was a respite from the hours I spent bent over a desk, and I loved the exercise.
My boarding house was on ‘I’ Street, south of the fashionable addresses that began on ‘K’, and continued north to Dupont Circle. My landlady, Phoebe Holcombe, had been wealthy before the Depression. After the death of her husband she somehow still had a little money. She’d opened the doors of her home to boarders for patriotic reasons and to take her mind off her two sons who served in the Pacific. I’d been lucky to find a room here. ‘Two Trees’ was much less crowded than most boarding houses in Washington. I even had my own room and shared a bathroom with just two other women, Phoebe and another boarder, Ada Herman. Ada hailed from New York City. Formerly a music teacher, now she played clarinet in the Willard Hotel and made pots of money doing it.
Ada and I had a special bond. One night she confessed to me that she had married a German Lufthansa airline pilot before the war. He’d left her to return to Nazi Germany to join the Luftwaffe. She didn’t dare begin divorce proceedings. If anyone knew she was married to a Nazi she might well be interned. Her late nights partying, all her beaus, the dyed platinum blonde hair and wardrobe full of divine clothes disguised the terror she lived with every day. I know she prayed for her husband’s death, I heard her at night through the wall between our bedrooms. After that first conversation we had never spoken of her husband again. She trusted me to keep her secret and I would. I kept plenty more. I was beginning to think of myself as the Fort Knox of secrets!
The front door was unlocked at this time of day so I went straight into the small entry hall and hung my straw fedora on the hat stand. I pulled off my cotton gloves and tossed them and my pocketbook on to the small chair in the hall next to the table that held our telephone. The mail rested on the hall table. I flipped through the envelopes. There was nothing for me and I felt my eyes begin to sting. But I shook off my disappointment and forced the tears back. Joe couldn’t write every day, he was busy, he was doing important work. That was why he’d been transferred to the New York office of the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish organization dedicated to rescuing and finding refuge for Jewish refugees. Of course no one besides me in this house knew that was his job. Teaching Slavic languages at George Washington University had been his cover story. I’d found out his real work by accident. Supposedly Joe was in New York City to teach a class of second-generation Slavs to speak their native languages so fluently they could translate once the Allies invaded their countries. Another secret!
Following the tantalizing odor of dinner cooking I made my way back to the kitchen, Dellaphine’s domain. Sure enough she was standing at the stove barefoot, stirring a pot of simmering chicken
‘Finished?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I …’
‘Don’t say anything,’ he said, checking to make sure that I had signed the envelope across the back flap. ‘I’ll take care of it. You may go.’
I didn’t move and he looked at me impatiently.
‘I’m supposed to watch you lock it in your safe,’ I said.
‘Oh, right, of course.’
I officially observed Lewis as he placed the document in his safe and twirled the knob. Then I left. I suspected that would be the last I ever saw of Mr Wilmarth Lewis. I wondered if I’d hear from Major Wicker and OSS Security again. I was curious about Hughes. I wanted to know what OSS suspected he had done.
After the record-breaking cold of the winter of 1943, walking home in springtime was a treat. Most District residents had converted their gardens into vegetable plots but there were still nooks filled with daffodils and lilies. An occasional rosebush climbed over a picket fence and blooming redbud trees filled the pink gap emptied by the end of cherry blossom season. Being outdoors was a respite from the hours I spent bent over a desk, and I loved the exercise.
My boarding house was on ‘I’ Street, south of the fashionable addresses that began on ‘K’, and continued north to Dupont Circle. My landlady, Phoebe Holcombe, had been wealthy before the Depression. After the death of her husband she somehow still had a little money. She’d opened the doors of her home to boarders for patriotic reasons and to take her mind off her two sons who served in the Pacific. I’d been lucky to find a room here. ‘Two Trees’ was much less crowded than most boarding houses in Washington. I even had my own room and shared a bathroom with just two other women, Phoebe and another boarder, Ada Herman. Ada hailed from New York City. Formerly a music teacher, now she played clarinet in the Willard Hotel and made pots of money doing it.
Ada and I had a special bond. One night she confessed to me that she had married a German Lufthansa airline pilot before the war. He’d left her to return to Nazi Germany to join the Luftwaffe. She didn’t dare begin divorce proceedings. If anyone knew she was married to a Nazi she might well be interned. Her late nights partying, all her beaus, the dyed platinum blonde hair and wardrobe full of divine clothes disguised the terror she lived with every day. I know she prayed for her husband’s death, I heard her at night through the wall between our bedrooms. After that first conversation we had never spoken of her husband again. She trusted me to keep her secret and I would. I kept plenty more. I was beginning to think of myself as the Fort Knox of secrets!
The front door was unlocked at this time of day so I went straight into the small entry hall and hung my straw fedora on the hat stand. I pulled off my cotton gloves and tossed them and my pocketbook on to the small chair in the hall next to the table that held our telephone. The mail rested on the hall table. I flipped through the envelopes. There was nothing for me and I felt my eyes begin to sting. But I shook off my disappointment and forced the tears back. Joe couldn’t write every day, he was busy, he was doing important work. That was why he’d been transferred to the New York office of the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish organization dedicated to rescuing and finding refuge for Jewish refugees. Of course no one besides me in this house knew that was his job. Teaching Slavic languages at George Washington University had been his cover story. I’d found out his real work by accident. Supposedly Joe was in New York City to teach a class of second-generation Slavs to speak their native languages so fluently they could translate once the Allies invaded their countries. Another secret!
Following the tantalizing odor of dinner cooking I made my way back to the kitchen, Dellaphine’s domain. Sure enough she was standing at the stove barefoot, stirring a pot of simmering chicken
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