DECEMBER 31, 1943
“OH MY. THIS ISN’T AT ALL what I expected.” Penny stood in the doorway of the USO lounge on New Year’s Eve, staring into a room jam-packed with soldiers and sailors and marines in uniform. She had agreed to volunteer at the dance with Sheila while Esther and Peter stayed overnight with their grandmother. Now she regretted her decision.
Lively music played somewhere inside, but the rumble of conversation and laughter nearly drowned it out. Through the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in the room like fog, she glimpsed a crowded dance floor filled with swaying couples. Several pretty girls stood behind a counter on one side of the room, serving coffee and punch. But the majority of people who had crammed into the room were servicemen from all branches of the military, outnumbering the women by at least three to one.
“Come on, follow me,” Sheila said. She grabbed Penny’s arm and towed her into the melee. There wasn’t an empty table or chair in sight and barely enough room to stand, let alone walk. Penny saw men eyeing them up and down as they inched across the room. She heard wolf whistles from some of the soldiers they passed and calls of “Hey, baby” and “Hubba hubba.”
“I don’t like this,” she told Sheila. “It’s scary being ogled this way.”
“It’s just a dance, Penny. You make it sound like such an ordeal.”
“I never went to dances in school like all the other girls.”
“You’ll be fine. All you have to do is talk to these fellas. They just want a few laughs.” Sheila halted for a moment, leaned closer to Penny, and whispered, “Some of them won’t live to see next New Year’s Eve, you know.”
Her words made Penny shudder. Not Eddie, she prayed. Please, not Eddie. He was stationed in England now, on a military base near the sea. He wasn’t allowed to say where exactly, and Esther worried constantly that he might be near London, where German bombs might fall on him. Penny worried, too. His letters all came by V-mail, which meant they weren’t his original copies at all but photographs of them, shrunk down and reproduced on special paper. Sometimes the censors blacked out words or sentences that contained restricted information. But she treasured every letter he sent her, no matter how brief or marked up it was.
Penny stood with Sheila behind the serving counter for a while, passing out coffee and doughnuts and punch. The men she served were so friendly and nice, and many of them reminded her of Roy with their easy way of talking to strangers. Penny started asking them where they were from as she filled their coffee cups and discovered that they enjoyed talking about their homes and families. She was amazed to hear that they came from cities and towns all over the country.
An hour or so later, new volunteers arrived to take Penny’s and Sheila’s places. “Go dance for a while,” they said. “Have some fun!”
“I just want to sit down and rest my weary feet,” Sheila replied.
Penny followed her friend out into the crowded room again, looking for a place to sit. As they squeezed past a tableful of men, someone snagged Penny’s arm. “Hey, ladies. How about joining us?”
“We saved you a couple of seats.” One of the sailors slid back his chair and gestured to his lap. Penny blushed. Did he really think she would sit on a stranger’s lap?
“Sure, we’ll join you,” Sheila said, “but you’ll have to give us a couple of real chairs. We’re not sitting on anyone’s lap.”
“Aw, c’mon.” The men all laughed as they made room for them around the table. Sheila did all the talking as they introduced themselves, making it clear right from the start that she was a married woman. “But my friend Penny is single,” she added.
“I-I do have a boyfriend, though.”
“A pretty girl like you? I’d be surprised if you didn’t have one.”
“We could steal you away from him, don’t you think, fellas?”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a pair of legs like Betty Grable’s?”
Penny didn’t know how to reply. Would saying thank-you sound flirtatious? “Um . . . my legs get me where I need to go,” she finally said. Everyone laughed.
The men bantered back and forth, teasing each other, showing off for her and Sheila. Penny finally got up enough courage to join the conversation and told them about her job as a bus driver and how she was taking care of Eddie’s two children while he served over in England. Then she asked them about their girlfriends and what part of the world they would be shipped off to in the New Year. She had just started to relax a little when Sheila got up to dance with one of the sailors, leaving her alone with the tableful of men. A soldier named Hank invited Penny to dance.
“No, thanks,” she replied. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“I could teach you.” Hank draped his arm around the back of her chair. He sat much too close, with his face right in front of hers. She smelled alcohol on his breath. Sheila said the soldiers weren’t allowed to drink at USO dances, but one of the men at their table took a little flask from inside his jacket, and Penny saw him pouring from it into everyone’s glass of punch. Hank offered her a sip of his drink.
“Come on, try a little. It’ll help you relax.”
“You have to celebrate the New Year, you know,” the man with the flask told her.
“In fact, why don’t we go someplace really fun,” Hank decided. “I know a nice little nightclub nearby where we can ring in the New Year in style.”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” the others agreed.
Before Penny could protest, the men at her table all pushed back their chairs and stood up. Hank took her arm and helped her to her feet. “No, thank you . . . I don’t want to go someplace else . . . I mean – ”
“Give me your hatcheck ticket, Penny, and I’ll get your coat.”
The room was so crowded that as Hank and the other men moved toward the door, they pulled Penny right along with them. She didn’t want to make a scene, but she didn’t know how else to break free. Besides, she didn’t think anyone would hear her above the noise, even if she shouted. Just as she started to panic, she saw Sheila hurrying toward her.
“Hey! Where do you fellas think you’re going?”
“We decided to find a livelier place. You should come with us, Sheila.”
“No thanks. My husband wouldn’t like that very much. Penny and I are staying right here for the evening.” Penny felt like she had narrowly escaped a disaster as Sheila pulled her from Hank’s grasp.
“Suit yourself, ladies.” They left the dance without her.
Penny nearly collapsed with relief. Sheila could fend off unwanted advances with ease, and the men didn’t try to pressure her the way they had Penny. They must have seen how inexperienced she was and that she didn’t know how to handle their unwanted attention.
“Come on, Penny. Let’s go powder our noses.” Penny followed Sheila, even though she had no idea what that meant. “It means we’re going to the ladies’ room,” Sheila said when Penny asked her. “I think it’s time to find a different group. Those fellas have been hitting the hooch.”
The lights seemed very bright in the ladies’ room after leaving the hazy dance floor. Penny squinted at her reflection in the mirror and barely recognized herself. The girl in the mirror wasn’t her, not the real Penny Goodrich. Men might think she was pretty, but she had only wanted to look nice for Eddie, no one else. She hated it here at the USO dance. She wanted to go home, far away from all of these strangers.
She waited for Sheila to come out of the stall, then gathered up her remaining courage. “Thanks for inviting me, Sheila, but I’m not comfortable here. I’d hate to ruin your fun just because I’m not having any, so I think I’ll go home.”
“You just got here. Give it another chance. Not all of the men are like that last bunch.” She pulled a makeup case out of her purse and touched up her lipstick.
“I’m sorry, but I want to go home. There’s too much cigarette smoke, and it’s making me feel sick. You can stay, though.”
Sheila planted her hands on her hips, scowling as she looked at Penny. “I thought you wanted to help boost morale?”
“I changed my mind. I’m sorry. I’ll see you at work.” She hurried away as quickly as she could in the overcrowded room and retrieved her coat from the hatcheck girl. Sheila probably wouldn’t invite Penny to go with her ever again, and that was too bad. But coming here had been a mistake. Penny never wanted to come back.
She stood outside for a moment, breathing fresh air, trying to decide whether to go back to Eddie’s apartment or to her parents’ duplex, where Esther and Peter were. She decided on the apartment. Her mother would smell the cigarette smoke on her clothes and have a conniption fit if she knew Penny had gone to a USO dance wearing makeup and floozy shoes.
She thought of Roy as she boarded the bus back to Eddie’s neighborhood, wondering how his New Year’s Eve with Sally was turning out. He had given Sally a ring for Christmas. They were officially engaged now, and Roy had been walking on air ever since.
“I only have a twenty-four hour pass for New Year’s Eve,” he had told Penny, “and I’m not sure if I can get a bus ticket with all the holiday crowds, but I’m going home to see Sally if I have to walk all the way to Pennsylvania.”
“Don’t the buses and trains give special preference to servicemen?” she had asked. “You won’t really have to walk, will you?”
“I don’t know – but I’m not even going to sleep the entire time I’m home. I want to get the most out of my pass.” Penny had laughed and wished him well.
Now she got off the bus at her usual stop and picked her way carefully along the icy sidewalks in her high heels. As she came up the front walk to Eddie’s apartment building, she noticed the outside door to the building was open and a set of keys dangled from the door lock. She hurried up the porch steps and found Mr. Mendel collapsed on the stairs in the foyer as if he could go no farther. His face looked very pale against his dark beard and clothing, with blue hollows beneath his eyes.
“Mr. Mendel, are you okay?”
“I think so . . . in a minute . . .” He wheezed whenever he exhaled, as if he had run all the way home. “I felt a little dizzy when I came in from my walk. I needed to sit down.”
Penny removed his keys and closed the front door to keep out the cold air. “Should I call a doctor?”
“No, thank you. I will be fine.”
“Are you sure? You want me to help you into your apartment?”
“Yes. That would be good.”
She used his keys to unlock his apartment door, then offered him her arm. “Here, let me help you up. Move slowly, though, and don’t try to stand up too fast. You can lean on me.”
He shuffled across the foyer, leaning against Penny. When he reached the doorway he paused for a moment to touch his fingers to his lips, then touched a little metal box on the doorpost. Penny helped him take off his coat and lower himself into the nearest chair. “Can I get you some water or maybe a cup of tea?”
“You need not bother. I will be fine in a moment.”
“It’s no bother, really.”
“Well . . . maybe a little water.”
She went into his kitchen, found a glass, and filled it with water. When she spotted a kettle sitting on the stove she decided to fill it with water and light the gas burner before returning to the living room. “Here,” she said, handing him the water. “I’m heating water for tea in case you change your mind. It might help you warm up.”
He sipped the water, pausing to cough a few times. He had taken off his hat but wore a small, round skullcap beneath it. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?” she asked after a moment. “I would be glad to call a doctor.”
“I will be fine.”
Penny didn’t believe him. He still looked very pale, and even though his breathing had slowed, he wheezed with every breath. She decided to stay with him for a few minutes. “It sounds like you caught a cold. It’s freezing outside tonight.”
“Yes, it is cold out. But ever since I breathed too much smoke on the night of the fire, I’ve had trouble with my chest.” He paused to cough again.
“You should stay inside in weather like this.” Penny sounded more like her mother than she cared to admit. “If you ever need anything from the store, the kids and I would be happy to get it for you.”
“It is not only the weather, I am sorry to say. I got upset tonight and lost my temper. My heart began to race and I am sure that my blood pressure went up, making everything worse.”
Penny sat down on the sofa, waiting for him to explain. Maybe it would help if he had someone to talk to. And she wanted to make sure he was all right, still thinking he needed a doctor.
“I have been doing a bit of detective work,” he said. “I have not told the children because I do not want to worry them, but the police suspect me of starting the fire in the shul.”
“Wait a minute . . . didn’t you go inside that night and try to save something?”
“Yes, the Torah scrolls. Nevertheless, they believe that I started the fire. I often see the two detectives who accused me hanging around outside, watching me for no reason. They do it to let me know that they still think I am guilty. I must clear my name, so tonight I went to the Italian grocery store on the next block to talk to the clerk, to see if she remembered that I bought groceries there that night. She said the store is always very busy, so many customers, and she did not recall seeing me. I became upset with her. How many Jewish men, looking as I do, have come into the shop on a Friday night, our Sabbath? Surely she must remember. When I raised my voice, the manager came.” Mr. Mendel looked down at the floor, shaking his head. “Now she will tell the two detectives that I have a bad temper.”
Penny’s heart went out to him. She didn’t know what to say. He looked up at her again after a moment and said, “I think the water is boiling in the kitchen.”
Penny heard it, too. She stood. “Tell me where you keep the tea, and I’ll make some for us.”
“You should not bother. I should not keep you here, listening to a tired old man. You look so pretty, all dressed up. Are you going out somewhere special tonight? It is New Year’s Eve, yes?”
“I’ve already been out. I was coming home for the night when I saw you in the foyer.”
“So early? It is not yet nine o’clock.”
“I know. It’s a long story, but the evening didn’t go very well. I was about to go upstairs and have a cup of tea and go to bed. The year will change to 1944 whether I stay up until midnight or not.”
Mr. Mendel braced his hands on the arms of his chair and stood. He was no longer as pale as he had been. “Come, then,” he said. “We will have our tea together.”
He led the way into the kitchen, spooned leaves into a teapot, and poured in the boiling water. Penny sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and slipped her arms from the sleeves of her coat, letting it hang from the back of her chair.
“Tea leaves are hard to come by these days, yes?” he asked.
“I can hardly find them anymore. But it’s such a treat to have a cup now and then.”
“I suppose they must come from a part of the world where there is fighting – and which part of the world is not fighting? Then there is the problem of getting the tea here to America when all of the ships are needed for the war. And so a simple cup of tea becomes a luxury.”
He sat down at the table across from her, waiting for the tea to steep. After everything Penny’s father had told her about Jewish people, she knew she shouldn’t be here in this apartment, sipping tea with this man, but she didn’t feel at all afraid of Mr. Mendel. He seemed very kind and trustworthy, certainly not a horrid “bogeyman” as her father believed all Jews to be. Perhaps it was her father who shouldn’t be trusted – the man who had lied to her all these years, never telling her that she was adopted.
“I suppose I will not be welcome in the Italian grocery store anymore,” Mr. Mendel said with a small smile. “Not after creating such a fuss.”
“No one can blame you for being upset, especially with the police suspecting you like that. Isn’t there any other way to prove you didn’t start the fire?”
“There was another witness from that night who I have been trying to find. A young man saw me going in through the front door that evening to save the scrolls, after the fire was already burning. As I unlocked the door, he called to me from across the street and said not to go in but to wait for the fire department. If I could find that person, he could tell the police that I had the bag in my hand at the time, after the fire was already burning. The bag could not contain a can of kerosene, as they insist. Every evening I take a walk through the neighborhood and look for the man who called out to me. I remember that he was about your age, very tall and thin, with thick, wavy black hair and a square chin. He could help to clear my name.”
Penny hesitated as she watched him pour the tea into two cups, then decided to say what she was thinking. “Most men who are my age are in the military, Mr. Mendel.”
He looked up at her in surprise, then closed his eyes. “Yes, of course. I did not think of that. He surely must be gone by now.” Mr. Mendel looked so discouraged that Penny regretted mentioning it.
“I can help you keep an eye out for him. I ride the bus through this neighborhood every day going to and from work. You shouldn’t go out walking in such cold weather.”
“Thank you. But as you say, the young man is probably long gone. Where are the children, by the way? Your apartment looked dark when I came home.”
“They’re with their grandmother until Sunday. Eddie arranged it so that I would have some weekends off once in a while. I was supposed go out and have fun tonight since New Year’s Eve fell on a Friday, but it didn’t work out.”
“It seems we are both having a bad night, yes?” He smiled faintly. “Would you like to tell me about your sad evening? You were kind enough to listen to mine.”
“I went with a friend to a USO dance. I don’t have any experience with dances and things like that, much less with men. My parents were very strict and never allowed me out on my own. But I went tonight because a friend talked me into it, and the dance hall was filled with servicemen from all over the country. There were so many men there, and a couple of them were trying to dance with me and flirt with me, but I just wanted to get out of there. Besides, I’m not interested in having a boyfriend, because I’m in love with – ” She stopped, wondering if she should tell him. Would he let the cat out of the bag and tell Esther and Peter?
But Mr. Mendel didn’t wait for her to decide. “You are in love with the children’s father, yes?”
“How did you know?”
“Because there is no other reason why a pretty young woman like yourself would sacrifice all of her free time to care for two rather ungrateful children unless love was involved somewhere in the equation. I have noticed how Esther treats you – like a servant rather than a friend – and so it cannot be because of your love for her. I also noticed how nice you looked on the night that Ed Shaffer came home, and how you fussed over the dinner you were making. I cooked your roast in my oven, remember?”
Penny smiled in spite of herself. “You make a very good detective, Mr. Mendel.”
“I admire you for taking on the task of caring for a home and children who are not your own. That is very unselfish of you. I hope that their father comes home safely from the war, for everyone’s sake.”
“Me too.” She had finished her tea and Mr. Mendel appeared to be well again. There was no reason to stay. “I guess I should go,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Thank you for helping me.” He stood, and as he walked with her to the door, she noticed the little brass box again.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“It is a reminder of Hashem’s commands. In His Torah it says that we must write His law on our doorposts so we will remember to obey them when we go out into the world and when we come into our homes again. There is a little scroll inside each box with words from His Law on them.”
She thought of the soldiers she had met tonight, drinking too much and pressuring her to go with them. She remembered how her married friend had danced and flirted with other men. “We could all use a little reminder of God’s laws,” she said. “Happy New Year, Mr. Mendel.”
“Yes. Let us hope it is a happy one – for the world’s sake.”