The Chelsea Girls(14)
“There was a miscommunication,” he said. “We gave instructions to release the German boy to the British. Either they didn’t understand or they chose not to, but instead he was released into the general population of the jail.”
My stomach lurched at the thought. A German teenager among Italian convicts.
“What happened? Is he all right?” I asked.
No. He wasn’t.
As soon as the prisoners had been herded out into the courtyard for fresh air, two of them had dragged Paul over to a far corner, the colonel told us. One by one, the others drifted over to punch, kick, or stab Paul with whatever weapons they’d hidden from the guards. Never enough movement to draw attention in the crowded enclosure, but enough to brutalize. When they were called back into their cells, Paul lay crumpled in the dirt, breathing, but barely. He died on the way to the hospital.
We saved him from one mob, but he was torn apart by another.
Hazel hasn’t stopped crying since. She paused once in her tears to wonder out loud what was it all for, why we even bothered. I didn’t respond. Because I know that it wasn’t fruitless, it just wasn’t enough.
I thought of the war still raging, and of my grandmother back home, and vowed to not stop fighting.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hazel
August 1945
By August, the heat was unbearable, and news of atomic bombs being dropped on Japan only increased everyone’s anxiety. The crush of the unknown seemed to get worse every day, as the entire camp waited to find out where the next posting would be. Hazel was still haunted by the terrible fate of Paul, but she and Maxine didn’t discuss it, as if it were an infected wound, too raw to be exposed to the air. Silence was the only way to bear whatever came next in the war and not go mad.
Every so often, though, she’d look up and catch Maxine blinking rapidly, overcome by emotion, and Hazel would step in front of her, shielding her from the view of the other girls. Once, during a show, the line “All we have is our hands and a hole in God’s earth” stopped Hazel cold. She couldn’t remember what to say next, or why she was even standing onstage, but Maxine had picked up her cue and carried on with the play. As they crossed paths center stage, Maxine had laid a hand gently on Hazel’s arm. No words were necessary between them.
“Where do you think they’ll send us next?” Betty-Lou propped herself up on her cot, fanning her face with the script for tonight’s performance, a compilation of Hazel’s soldier tales. Colonel Peterson, entranced by her stories and looking for any way to keep the men entertained during the wait, had insisted that the acting troupe read them out loud, onstage. The girls were pleased, as it meant they didn’t have to memorize anything new, just stand center stage and speak.
“I wouldn’t mind being posted to a tropical locale,” said Verna as she added next week’s shows to the calendar with a black pen. “When you’re surrounded by palm trees, the heat doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe one of the Pacific Islands.”
“I’ve had enough.” Phyllis wore only her brassiere and panties, broken up by pink rolls of flesh. She’d stripped down as soon as they’d returned from breakfast, overcome by the flies and the sun. “I want to go home. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to offer comfort and distraction. What about our comfort and distraction?”
Hazel stopped scribbling in her notebook. “We haven’t had to go out and kill people. No one’s tried to shoot at us and kill us. Think of what these soldiers have been through.”
Betty-Lou moaned. “Hazel with her halo, always doing good. Give it another few months, you’ll be complaining like the rest of us.”
Hazel took the teasing with a good-natured smile. “Yes, I’ll be moaning with the rest of you wherever they send us next, I promise.”
“I just want to be somewhere that there’s orange juice. That’s what I miss most.” Phyllis sat up. “A fresh glass of cold orange juice.”
“With bits of pulp so you get the burst of flavor,” added Betty-Lou.
Verna cried out. “Stop, you’re making my mouth water. This is so cruel. When I go home, I’m going right back to Los Angeles, where you can have an orange tree in your own backyard.”
“What are you writing, Hazel?” Maxine asked. “I thought the latest script was final.”
Hazel placed a hand over the page, not that Maxine could read it from where she was hanging laundry on the makeshift clothesline, filling the tent with the smell of wet stockings and Shalimar.
This morning, an idea for a play had come to Hazel in a rush of images. She didn’t want to have to explain it, though. “Just a letter home.”
“Ladies, mail for you!”
The artist boy, Floyd, popped in after Phyllis slid on a robe and gave him the all clear. He’d made himself the acting troupe’s little helper ever since the fancy dinner in the mess tent, surprising them with boxes of Good & Plenty candy and, once, a bottle of White Horse Scotch. His devotion had only increased when Maxine and Hazel had come across some soldiers roughhousing with Floyd one day, making fun of his “artistic ways,” and threatened to ban them from future performances if they continued the teasing.
Floyd walked over to Maxine and handed her an envelope with a grand flourish. “For you, Miss Mead.”