A Pledge of Silence (4 page)

They made it home with minutes to spare before curfew.

Standing on the sidewalk, a cold wind whipping their coats, Evelyn instructed, “Take some deep breaths. Pick a point on the front of the desk and don’t take your eyes off it. Just walk. Try not to wobble. Can you do it?”

Margie took a deep breath. “I think so.”

“Okay. No giggling. Here we go.”

Sober-faced, they walked through the door straight to the desk. Miss Anita glanced up, but the telephone rang and diverted her attention. Signing their names, and the time, 9:55 p.m., they tottered through the double doors and up two flights of stairs to their room, where they fell on their beds and giggled until Margie almost peed her pants.

She spent the night with her head in the toilet. Headachy and queasy the next day, she mulled over the evening before—drunk! The things Evelyn got her into! And who was that old man?

So she asked. “Why the old guys?”

Evelyn smiled. “They’re a little dangerous. Doesn’t that excite you?”

A little dangerous?
Margie found the response chilling.

Margie had an aptitude for math and tutored Evelyn through bacteriology—“Just remember the little buggers multiply exponentially.” Evelyn instructed Margie in the art of giving comfort with a smile, a warm blanket, and a sympathetic ear. Margie taught Evelyn how to knit a scarf, and Evelyn showed Margie how to smoke like a lady.

They worked and studied long hours under harsh instructors, enduring difficult patients and arrogant doctors. In the evening, they complained with their friends about their horrid days. Soon, what started as bitch sessions changed into a monthly rite of catharsis—Salem’s Revenge, a ritual burning of the witches.

Evelyn locked the door as Margie lit a candle and placed it on the floor. Diane switched off the lights. Sitting cross-legged in a circle, six girls watched the flickering flame.

“I’ll start,” Diane said. Finger-waves rippled her blond hair, and a diamond ring sparkled in the candlelight, her grandmother’s ring, she claimed, a treasured memento, but she had confided to Margie that she was engaged—
don’t tell! I’d be expelled!
“I nominate Miss Denver for Salem’s Revenge. My first day on the surgical ward, that woman rode my ass because an old bag complained I didn’t answer her call bell. I had three new admits and a vomiting patient. I told Denver that. She said it was my
duty
to answer call bells, no matter what! Now, the old bag thinks I’m her personal maid. She had me fetching crackers when I had two patients who had bled through their dressings.”

Incensed, wide-hipped Verna added, “I had Denver on
my
back too.” She waggled her head from side to side and her voice went to singsong. “ ‘You didn’t make the bed tight enough!’ ” She grunted. “For God’s sake! Who cares about a stupid bed? I had a patient in pain, and I wanted to give him a back rub, but she kept yakking at me about a bed.”

Gertie’s gruff voice reflected her manner. “I nominate Miss Crystal for that balled-up chemistry test. The average score was 54 percent. That woman will flunk the whole freshman class.”

“She couldn’t do that. We do the dirty work! Who’d clean and polish the bedpans?”

“And urinals?”

“Or mop the floor?”

“Not them! That’s for sure!”

“Cleaning the spittoons is the worst,” Verna said, sticking out her tongue and making a gagging sound. Then, looking wistful, she said, “I want to work with the babies.”

Brown-eyed Harriet said, “I nominate old lady McCarthy. She scheduled me
four
weekends in a row. It’s slave labor! Isn’t there a law?”

“Damn right! Slave labor. You bet there’ll be more weekends. I heard the hospital’s cutting staff again.”

The girls took turns airing their gripes and indignities before taking a vote, sentencing Miss Denver to Salem’s Revenge, the ceremonial burning of the witch.

Gertie sketched a caricature of Eileen Denver, exaggerating her jowls and big butt. Passing the drawing around, each girl added a wart, a mole, buckteeth, and pointed ears. Evelyn waved the picture over the candle flame, saying, “Eileen Denver, you have been sentenced to Salem’s Revenge. Within this circle of friends, you are extinct. Henceforth, your likeness will be known as … ”

The girls leaned in.

“Eileen Dover,” Evelyn said, lighting a corner of the picture and watching it flare before dropping it into a pan. “Up in smoke.”

“Up in smoke,” the girls chanted together.

Diane and Gertie hooted, and Margie cackled. Tears of glee rolled down Harriet’s cheeks. “Eileen Dover,” Verna gasped. “Evelyn! How do you think up those names?”

Evelyn blew out the candle. “They just pop into my head.”

The girls were done, sated, having burned off their fury. They switched on the lights, opened the window, and lit cigarettes, small fires for peace and calm. Margie turned on the radio, and Benny Goodman blasted “Goody, Goody.”

Through a puff of smoke, Harriet said, “I got dibs on the new intern. Dr. Shoemaker. Alex P. Shoemaker. Age 27, Chicago born and bred, U of I School of Medicine. You’ll know him when you see him, curly hair, green eyes, cute as a button.”

“You can have him,” Gertie grunted. “I heard he’s a fanny grabber. He’d better keep his mitts off me!”

Margie jotted notes of the night in her diary. In previous months, other instructors fell victim to Salem’s Revenge. The ditzy Penny Breadon became P. Brain. The demanding Faith Kent was renamed Fay Kinnit, and callous Frances Trask was forever known as Fran Tick. The names stuck the entire three years she studied at Grand Arbor Hospital.

By senior year, the girls dropped the ritual. Woes over unyielding instructors and long hours were replaced by concerns about the bad economy and the lack of available nursing jobs. Many hospitals had closed their doors, while others staffed their wards with senior-year students.

Margie fretted; the applications she sent out were being rejected or ignored. Private duty nursing, she heard, required experience and contacts, of which she had neither. Some of her friends opted to stay in school to specialize in midwifery or psychiatric nursing, but she cringed at the thought.

Evelyn said, “Come with me, kiddo. We’ll join the navy together. My uncle will get you in.”

“He’d do that for me?”

“Of course. You’re my best friend.”

The thought exhilarated the girls. Together they composed a letter to Evelyn’s uncle, but his reply dashed their hopes. He was sorry, the rear admiral wrote, but the few available spots had already been filled, please try again next year.

Margie attended a reception held by the American Red Cross, which was compiling a roster of nurses for the army and navy to draw upon in times of war or local disaster. Intrigued by the prospect of an adventure and maybe a job, she filled out an application for a reserve nurse position. A letter of acceptance arrived in the mail, but with more than 22,000 nurses in the pool, she didn’t expect anything to come of it.

Chapter 4

Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 1939

Hallelujah
! rang through the dorm and Margie rejoiced, the label
student nurse
no longer her burden to bear. Prominently pinned on the collar of her graduation uniform was the school’s gold and onyx pin inscribed with her name and the year, 1939. Her nursing cap sported a wide, black velvet ribbon signifying her graduate status. She checked her watch. Her parents would be arriving shortly for the ceremony.

The room was a mess, closets and drawers emptied into half-filled boxes and overflowing suitcases. She worked quickly to finish the job, dumping the contents of her desk drawer into a carton when a packet of Abe’s letters slowed her momentum.

At Christmas he had pleaded with her to set a date for their wedding soon after her graduation. He was sick and tired of going to school and living at home with his parents; he wanted a new life. She had argued that at least one of them needed a job first; how would they live otherwise?

Since then, the situation changed. After a blowup with his dad, Abe joined the army. She shuffled through the letters and selected one to read.

Fort Sam Houston, Texas

January 30, 1939

My Dearest,

I think I made a horrible mistake by joining the army. I feel like I’m in prison. All around me is a high wire fence, and my world consists of a chow hall, a store, a head, a drill hall, and two dozen oversized doghouses called barracks, a.k.a. home. My days are all the same. Up at 5:30 a.m., to the drill field for P.T. (physical torment), then to breakfast, inspection, and Colors, followed by military training and lectures. I’m becoming proficient at hand grenades,
bayonet drills, and saluting.

Part of every day includes policing the grounds, cleaning the heads, washing, drying, and rolling clothes, and shining shoes. Evening is free time for letter writing and such. Then Taps, the highlight of my day, when I can check out of this hell for a few hours. I’ve never been so tired and sore. The food is vile, and the water is putrid. To add more misery, I’m being inoculated against tropical diseases, and the shots make me feel sick for several hours.

I took a series of tests for flight training school. I have to make the cut. I’m having nightmares about being assigned to the infantry with a sadistic sergeant who finds my background in art and design offensive. There are some real bozos here, Margie. Hicks, hobos, and psychos. One good old boy won’t shower, and another saves his cigarette butts in a can under his cot. The smell of those two makes me gag.

I’m sorry about this Sad Sack letter. Wish me luck and please write. Your letters are the only bright spots in my days right now.

Love you forever,

Abe

Poor Abe, but things had improved since he made the cut and got posted to flight training school at Randolph Field in Texas. She kissed his signature and whispered, “Love you forever, too, my flyboy.”

The auditorium at Grand Arbor Hospital hushed as Miss Denver stood to welcome families and guests to the graduation ceremony and introduce the speaker, Dr. Herbert P. Steele, Director of Medical Services at the University of Michigan.

He kept his speech blessedly short. The graduates, he said, had sacrificed the freedom of their young lives to prepare to enter one of life’s noblest professions. He counseled them on faithfulness, sympathy, tact, and cheerfulness, and then warned them of the undesirability of gossip. He advised them to minister to their own needs by reading good literature, taking walks in the open air, and spending a jolly evening with friends.

The auditorium was stifling hot, and Margie, struggling to stay awake, snapped alert when she heard, “May I close by wishing you Godspeed.” The audience applauded. She stifled a yawn, wondering what century the old guy came from.

At the lively reception, people milled about and joyous cries announced when families connected. Standing on tiptoes, Margie searched the crowd for her parents.

“Hey, beautiful,” she heard.

Turning, she was face-to-chest with an army uniform. “Abe!” she cried as she clutched him in a bear hug. Pushing him back, she looked into his face, the best sight she had seen all day. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to squeeze you,” he said, lifting her off her feet and whirling her around. “My leave coincided with your graduation. I thought I’d surprise you.” He kissed her lightly. “Are you surprised?”

“Dumbstruck,” she whispered, returning his kiss.

Her mother waved from across the room. She wore a royal-blue dress and a hat with a feather that swayed as she approached. Margie saw a loveliness in her mom she had never noticed before: her creamy skin, dark curly hair, and a slim but curvy figure. Mama glided through the crowd, smiling, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Where did this handsome soldier come from? You get better looking every time I see you, Abe.” She bussed his cheek, leaving a smidgen of red. She admired Margie’s class pin and touched the brim of her nurse’s cap. “It’s official now, dear. You’re all grown up. I’m so proud of you! I don’t know where the years have gone.”

Rimless glasses framed Dad’s eyes, something Margie didn’t like to see, but his hug felt as hearty as always. He pecked at her forehead. “Margie, I couldn’t be happier.”

Frank, standing to one side, stood taller than Dad, and Margie took notice of the stubble on his chin. “Come here for a hug,” she said. “When did you get so tall?”

“About the time you started shrinking,” he retorted. “Bet you can’t guess Dad’s surprise.”

“Hush up, Frank!” Dad glowered at his son. He shook Abe’s hand. “How’s the army treating you, young man?”

Abe’s demeanor became gleeful as he related his experiences in primary flight school, mostly the theory of aerodynamics, meteorology, navigation, and flight radio. “I learned basic maneuvers in an open cockpit, two-seater biplane we called the Yellow Peril. It’s a bugger on the ground. Too sharp of a turn sends it into a nose-over. That happened to a buddy. It wasn’t pretty.”

Dad guffawed. A generation ago he’d served as an army mechanic, when all the planes were biplanes. Margie detected envy in his voice when he asked, “What’s waiting for you when you get back?”

Abe revved again. “Ten weeks in Bakersfield, California, to learn flying in formation, at different altitudes, and nighttime flying. The trainer’s faster, heavier, and more complex—a BT-13 Valiant, a single wing. The guys named it the Vibrator.”

Dad nodded, nostalgia flickering in his smile.

Frank looked on admiringly.

The level of noise in the room continued to rise, the music too loud, and people shouting to be heard. A contentious voice pierced the air: “Hitler that son of a —” Heads turned, seeking the source.