Amy Bloom - Lucky Us

GUS HERDED THE THREE elderly Altmanns and Greta and Carolyn and Anna in and out of the cellars six times in two days, with small bombs falling and small planes flying low overhead. Gus asked Greta to ask Klaus if this was how Dresden had started. Klaus said no — Dresden had started with a bang, and Gus and Klaus laughed in the cellar.

After the first round of bombs, Gus and Klaus and Herr Altmann drove the old truck around parts of Pforzheim to view the damage and see if there was anything they could do. They saw half-buildings, walls with window spaces, transoms without doors beneath them. A church spire lay in the street, leaning up against the library, closing off the road. A nurse ran under it. At one house, flames were still running up and down the house like imps, having blown out the windows and opened the roof.

They drove home, and the bombs fell as they got out of the truck. Girls, into the cellar, Gus yelled. Greta, mach hinne ! He felt the fire roll down the steps, old wood or dirt steps, into the cellar, right behind him and the girls. Jars of cherry preserves exploded. The cellar lights blinked and flared up and then snapped into darkness. The bombs stopped and Anna stood up and stamped her feet, to get out. Klaus said, Sometimes when people run to get out of the cellar, they burn their hands and arms on the metal hasps. Gus wrapped his hand in his coat and pushed the door open, just two inches. He found the world on fire. Light rained down. It lit up the sky like the town had done on New Year’s and the light pooled, still bright and burning, on the cold ground. Blood-orange flames spread through their yard and through their iron fence.

For three days, ashes fell like snow. Gus kept the girls in and they watched the flakes coming down and drifting up. All the German women Gus knew collected something; his mother and his grandmother collected snowbabies, Schneebabies. His mother had loved the ones with a prickly white bisque all over them, only their pink, smooth china cheeks and dark eyes visible. Schneeflocken. Snow-covered. Everything around what was left of the house was schneeflocken. There was one last series of bombs, for most of a day. His family lay in the cellar for hours, on the dirt, their coats on top of the broken glass, as the sky thundered and the rest of the house blew apart and the floor above them rolled up, like an old rug. When Gus came to, all three of the Altmanns lay dead, side by side, near the cellar steps. Anna and Carolyn had died next to Gus, arms and legs out wide, like starfish. He couldn’t find Greta’s body.

Afterward, people said more died in Dresden than in Pforzheim. More died in Tokyo than in Dresden, Gus said, and who cares. Before he left Pforzheim, Gus walked to his friend Hans’s house. Hans’s body was still in his yard, his arms around his mother. The four wagon wheels lay on them like wreaths.

I HAD BEEN GONE FROM THE SALON FOR WEEKS. I WAS BROKE again and couldn’t borrow from anyone. As my father would have said, if he could talk, One should only take advantage of those who can afford it. I told Danny he had to start taking the bus home, and I went back to work. When I finished reading the cards for Mrs. Russo and her never-returning husband and made contact with Mrs. Rubio’s son, lost at sea, Bea said, Stay for a drink. Francisco came into the salon with a box of cookies. Bea said, Looky here. We love you. That Danny is a nice little boy. He’s funny, Carnie said. Guess what, she said. Bea, here, got married last week. She and that Artie eloped, like a couple of kids.

I said that was a wonderful surprise, and then Carnie said, You could say that — she’s got a miracle bun in the oven. Oh, I’ll look like a beached whale by Thanksgiving, Bea said. And did Carnie tell you? She’s being chased all over East Brooklyn by a dentist with a little girl. Dead wife, not divorced. He’s nice, Carnie said. Rabinowitz.

I said I was glad for both of them. I said they’d done plenty for us and no one could have done more. That card table, I said. You set me up in business. You and Mrs. Vandor. We still don’t know what had happened to Mrs. Vandor, Carnie said. Life’s a mystery. I think she ran off with her piano teacher, Mr. Shmottlach. Bea nodded. That’s what we think. Good-looking guy. Foreign.

Can I keep reading cards here? I said. They looked embarrassed. Of course, Carnie said. No one’s throwing you out. We’re just saying things have changed, so we can’t take the two of you in and we wish we could.

Francisco would — he loves you like a daughter (You know what she means, Carnie said) and he really likes Danny — but he has his hands full. I understand, I said. Bea and Carnie made big eyes and they looked over at Francisco and shook their heads. He has his hands full, they both said, with setting up a new barbershop in Penn Station, with a manicurist and a shoeshine stand. (Inside the shop, Bea said. You know he’s smart.)

I said that was great and Francisco said his sisters had been generous in backing him and they both thanked him for thanking them and then everyone looked around and we all had some cookies.

This is where you want someone, a Mrs. Vandor or a Charlotte Acton, to grab the plate of cookies and say, Aren’t these marvelous?

Also, Bea said, Francisco’s got his hands full at home too. Carnie looked like she wanted to cry. I have a boy staying with me, Francisco said. He’s straight from Mexico, he’s a hard worker, and he’s staying with me until he gets on his feet. Your little taco de ojo , Carnie said, and they were off and running in Mexican but quietly, until Francisco slammed his hand on the table and the sisters shut up. It’s just for a while, Francisco said. Believe me, I know what you know, he said to his sisters. I’m teaching him English. Carnie said, You’re cooking for him. I am, Francisco said. I cook for him and I play conquian with him. Yes, Encarnación, we do play cards. It’s shocking, I know. He sleeps on the couch. Jorge is a beautiful boy, Francisco said. He’s beautiful and I’m not a fool. He starts night school in two weeks.

Carnie rolled her eyes and said, We’ll see. And we did see. Jorge went to night school and he met an Anglo girl named Gracie Shreve from Long Island City and he brought her to Francisco for his blessing. They married and Francisco went to the wedding and hung pictures of Gracie and Jorge slicing the cake, of Francisco and the Shreves lifting their glasses, of Francisco waltzing with the bride. Gracie sent a card every Christmas, with a picture of her and Jorge and their two little boys, all looking very well, and Francisco put them up on the mirrors of the barbershop, near the framed photographs of Francisco and Mayors La Guardia and O’Dwyer.

Francisco sighed and put his hand on my shoulder. I’ve got something for you in my car, he said. Before you go. In the car, he rummaged around and found a brush-and-comb set with fire trucks on it for Danny and some rhinestone combs for his sisters. We went back into the salon, and Bea and Carnie were sitting still, arms flung on my tarot table like they’d been shot in the back.

“It’s the president,” Carnie said. “He’s dead.”

“In Warm Springs,” Bea said. “Ah, he’s dead. Who killed him? Our president.”

Francisco pulled me onto the dirty velvet couch. I cried in his arms and Bea and Carnie cried in each other’s arms and we all sat around the table and wept and listened to the radio, which reported every detail of the president’s aneurism and his collapse and the moment he said, “I’m afraid I have a terrific headache.” We could all imagine him saying it, that plummy, patrician voice that managed to be the voice of people who never spoke that way, never dressed that way, never went to a single place Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ever been, and he spoke for the three of us.