Israel (65 page)

He left the engine running and returned to Sergeant-major Foster. He took the man's revolver, a .38-caliber Webley, and his money. Then he went around to all the other dead men and collected their money as well.

Herschel knew what he was going to do. The way Raziel had died—handcuffed—was what decided him. With money and a gun he could try to make his way back to Palestine. Lemon's car would get him part of the way there, and when it gave out, Herschel would trust his boyhood training at Degania to survive the rigors of the Transjordan. There were villages and towns too small to
be on the map where money or a gun would get him clothing, food, transportation.

Perhaps he would stop and see his mother and Yol. Then he could make his way along the coast and look up an lrgun or Lehi cell.

Perhaps he would be accosted by a British patrol. In that case he would be shot before he allowed another sergeant-major to chain him like a dog.

Becky Herodetzky's second anniversary behind the handbag counter at Pickman's convinced her that she would have to do something more than her job if she wanted to succeed in retailing. Her abilities were not exactly going unrecognized or unappreciated, for her department's finicky merchandise manager had recently commended her for moving some atrocious wartime excuses for leather handbags. Every six months like clockwork she'd received her merit salary raise. For all that, she was still exactly where she'd started.

If Becky had learned anything working for her father on Cherry Street, it was patience. If it were not for two occurrences she would have patience now and never dream of rocking the boat.

First there was Grace Turner's rapid rise. Grace was a woman her own age, a tall, attractive, dizzy debutante with enormous green eyes and silky blond hair. She was the daughter of a stockbroker and enjoyed the advantages of finishing school and a college education. Grace had had a princess' upbringing in Westchester, which she left for a
share in a roomy apartment on the East Side, where two other young ladies of similar breeding were her roommates.

Grace had started at Pickman's nine months ago. Becky was her trainer on the sales floor, and despite the dissimilarity of their backgrounds they had become friends, exchanging sandwich halves in the employee's cafeteria and giggling together about all sorts of things, not the least of which was their immediate superior, Winston Kelly, the prissy tyrant who was their department's merchandise manager.

Becky wasn't seeing so much of Grace lately. Now they were taking their lunch breaks on different schedules and Grace was spending only half-days on the sales floor. She'd been promoted into the buyer-trainee program.

Becky wasn't surprised. Grace Turner was who she was. Some people were just born blessed; opportunity came to them on bended knee, like a starry-eyed suitor. Others, like Becky herself, had to do the proposing if opportunity was to pay them any mind.

Besides, Grace deserved to be a buyer. The finer things in life were second nature to her. She was also generous and sweet. Upon her promotion she invited Becky out for a celebration. They went to a wonderful French restaurant where Grace gaily chatted with the obsequious headwaiter in his own language—and they ordered champagne. When Becky confessed that it was her first taste of it, Grace laughed with her, not at her. Becky didn't know how to eat escargots and Grace discreetly showed her. Later, when Becky discovered what escargots actually were, Grace comforted her and they laughed until they cried.

The fact that Becky was poor and Jewish didn't matter at all. Becky was happy for her friend's success. She just wanted to be happy for herself as well. Grace Turner's rapid rise spurred Becky, but not nearly as much as the specter of the war, which overshadowed everything.

The war transformed Pickman's, along with its
competitors, from post-Depression emporiums of plenty into shadows of their former selves. Pickman's major-appliance department was now a large empty space. The walls were bare where once shiny toasters and irons gleamed beneath the lights. The apparel departments were in tatters. Not selling in the least were men's so-called victory suits, pricey, shapeless garments cut with narrow lapels and no cuffs or vests. Ladies' fashion was paralyzed both by the fall of Paris and by government regulations strictly limiting the amount of fabric the manufacturers might use. Whiskey, glassware, stockings, hairbrushes, alarm clocks—everything once taken for granted was now in short supply. Why, even on Cherry Street the line for cigarettes extended out the door when they grew scarce, as happened from time to time. The one advantage to the grocery store—
her
store—was that she was assured of a steady supply of cigarettes. It was Grace Turner's promotion, but especially the dangers and deprivations of the war, that instilled Becky with her sense of urgency.

Reluctantly she began to give up her dream of being a buyer, a useless position while the war was on. In any event she'd begun to realize her disadvantage in trying to compete with women like Grace for the few available positions.

What Becky set her sights on was a niche on the sixth floor as Millie's assistant. Millie Kirby was secretary to both Carl Pickman, the president, and Philip Cooper, the vice president and general manager of the store. Millie was an overweight grey-haired spinster who had devoted her life to Pickman's.

Messrs. Pickman and Cooper were undoubtedly the brains of the operation, but Millie was its heart. There was nothing she didn't know about the day-to-day workings of the store. Most of the sixth floor was taken up with bookkeeping and accounting, but no information reached Pickman or Cooper without reaching Millie.

Just outside Millie's office were a desk and typewriter, vacant for the last few months, since Millie's old assistant joined the WACS. This was the job Becky wanted.

She considered it common sense to make friends with a person like Millie and had done so during her first year at Pickman's by letting her know whenever particularly nice purses were in stock. Millie for her part, was careful to let Becky know she knew she was being soft-soaped. Nevertheless, today Millie went out of her way to repay Becky's small favors.

Today the executive assistant made a rare sojourn from the sixth floor to track Becky to the employees' lunchroom. “I've finally convinced them that I need some help,” she confided. “Interviews will begin next week.” Becky understood that Millie's personally delivering the information was her way of encouraging Becky to try for the job.

“It will entail scads of typing and filing,” Millie warned, “but whoever is chosen will be in a position to learn what makes Pickman's tick. Now, before you get too excited, Becky, I've got to warn you that choosing my assistant is not up to me. Mr. Cooper will be interviewing, and I'm sorry to say he's got a bug about picking a Phi Beta Kappa.” With that Millie wheeled her large bulk around and sailed out of the lunchroom, leaving Becky to wrestle with the obstacles in her path.

Belonging to an elite scholastic fraternity was quite an obstacle indeed for someone who had never finished high school. Mr. Cooper's fascination with Phi Beta Kappa members likely stemmed from the success of advertising director Bernice Fitz-Gibbon over at archrival Gimbels, for it was well-known that she considered only such women.

Advertising, she thought, pushing aside her uneaten lunch. Pickman's advertising was stuck back in the twenties and consisted of dreary, unillustrated full-page newspaper
spreads filled with simpering pledges to uphold “our long tradition of egalitarian service.”

Egalitarian, really. Becky took the time to go to the library and look up the word, but she was willing to bet a week's salary that not one in ten of her fellow New Yorkers ever had or ever would.

And it was not just in advertising that Pickman's was losing ground. Even prior to the wartime shortages the store's inventory was—well—dowdy. It was not that Pickman's had changed, but that the world had. The sturdy, utilitarian goods that had enthralled Becky's immigrant mother were not the sort of merchandise that could set her own heart afire. Younger shoppers were less and less in evidence at Pickman's, and the corresponding shortage of profits had begun to affect upkeep. Becky had seen it all before on Cherry Street. When there were no customers there was no money to replace a cracked window, and a cracked window drove away customers.

Pickman's, due to its plain goods, its yellowing walls and often dusty, fingerprint-marred display counters, had turned into an old women's store. The problem was that in 1942 even the elderly had the sense of style to prefer Macy's and Gimbels.

The shame of it was that Pickman's had plenty to sell: it just didn't know how to go about it. Her friend Joey in Shipping and Receiving had told her about the enormous inventory of nylon stockings, Scotch and even major appliances and furniture languishing in the warehouses. Carl Pickman had amassed the stock before the war, tying up a fortune in the inventory, and now Becky surmised that he didn't know how to sell it without appearing to be a black-market profiteer.

Becky left the lunchroom obsessed with the problem of proving herself worthy of being Millie's assistant. Whatever she came up with, she had to do it fast. Her one
chance rested on winning the position before Mr. Cooper had the opportunity to interview those college graduates.

So Becky went directly from work to the main branch of the New York Public Library. She combed the old newspaper files; she hadn't forgotten the magic Pickman's had created for the public back when she was little. Perhaps in the past she could find the key to the store's potential in the present. She especially studied the newspapers during the First World War. Wars—and people—were different, but they were also very much the same.

By closing time she had her idea.

She passed a restless night staring up at her bedroom ceiling and rehearsing her lines. The next morning she wore the crepe blouse with the drawstring waist that Grace had made her buy and she tried to remember the makeup and hairstyle tips Grace had given her.

At work she made sure that her glass-topped counter was immaculate, then settled down to wait for Mr. Cooper to make his daily rounds, as he did every morning before the store opened. She could see him coming, pausing to chat with the staff in millinery. She caught a glimpse of him among the mirrors and faceless white forms on which were displayed military-inspired berets and caps and those newly fashionable coolie hats. He was laughing; he seemed to be in a good mood. Becky crossed her fingers.
Please make him be in a good mood
.

Philip Cooper might have been Grace Turner's brother. He had the same silky blond hair and blue eyes: he was baby-faced, youthful and blessed with a light beard. He was in his forties, Becky guessed, and always behaved in a courtly manner. He was never angry, but at the most disappointed, and no matter what, he never raised his voice.

“Good morning, Miss Herodetsky,” Philip Cooper said as he strolled past her counter without pausing. “I see
everything is in order, as usual. You're looking lovely today.” He headed off toward Ladies Handkerchiefs.

“Mr. Cooper,” Becky called out.

“Yes?”

“I've got—” Becky took a deep breath—“an idea.”

There was no hint of mockery in Cooper's smile. “Go on.” His blue eyes sparkled behind his tortoise-shell glasses. “I'm always ready to listen to my troops on the front line.”

“It's about those goods in the warehouse. I've figured out a way to sell that merchandise and still keep us gung-ho with the war effort.”

“What?” Cooper's normally pink, baby-smooth cheeks were turning a mottled, angry-looking red. “What?”

Becky felt sick at her stomach. Why was he glaring at her like that? “The washing machines and Scotch and stuff,” she babbled, forgetting her carefully memorized lines in her nervousness at Cooper's reaction. “I've got an idea for a newspaper ad to—”

Cooper was muttering unintelligibly. He began to say something to her, but then he noticed a few curious stares and changed his mind. He hurried away.

Becky commanded herself not to faint no matter how awful she felt. She entered into a numb, heartsick daze, waiting on customers pleasantly and politely even as her humiliation festered.

How could she ever again face Mr. Cooper? As it turned out, she didn't have to wait very long to find out the answer to that question.

“You've been summoned upstairs,” Winston Kelly stonily informed her at the midmorning lull. The merchandise manager was a soberly dressed, fat little fussbudget of an Irishman. When he stood in his favorite pose—pudgy manicured hands on wide hips—he looked exactly like a sugar bowl.

“Sixth floor,” Kelly fumed. “I'll cover for you down
here. Whatever did you do? I hear Mr. Cooper is acting positively stricken.”

Becky wanted to journey to the sixth floor, but not like this, not in disgrace. She glumly made her way upstairs and through the warrens of the accounting department to present herself before Millie Kirby, who only shrugged off her questions, pressing a switch on her desk intercom. “She's here.”

Cooper's voice came faint and tinny. “Send her in.”

Millie jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “To the lions.”

“Am I going to be fired?”

“Through the glass doors, then the door on your right—”

“Come on, Mil.”

Millie shrugged. “I'll tell you one thing, you made one hell of an impression.” She smiled. “I had a talk with him and put in a good word for you. He knows you want the job. What he thinks about it I can't say. Now scoot. Keeping him waiting isn't going to help matters. Make sure you knock on the right-hand door. The ones on the left go to Mr. Pickman's office.”

The glass doors swung shut behind her. The clicking and clacking of the accounting department just beyond Millie's station did not reach this lush carpeted corridor. She glanced at the oaken double doors on the left.