Friday, September 23, 1949
She had dreaded this day. They had left her alone for more than a year, but in the back of her mind she had known that the time would come when they would want to make use of her. Now, without any warning, she had been summoned.
The phone call came at nine o’clock that morning, just after she had finished her second cup of tea. When she answered, a man’s voice, muffled, asked whether she was expecting a special delivery. She realized at once that it was the recognition code. She collected herself and responded as she had been instructed: “Not today, I believe that it’s scheduled for tomorrow.”
The voice—calm, deliberate, emotionless—slowly recited the time and place for a meeting. Then the phone line clicked dead, breaking the connection. She could feel her heart racing, and she tried to calm herself and focus on what she had to do next.
She got up from her desk, slightly dazed, and found her coat and umbrella. She made her way through the lobby to the women’s room. She was lucky: it was empty. She felt a choking wave of nausea and she reached the stall in time to vomit her breakfast into the toilet.
She went to the sink and washed her hands and face with lukewarm water. When she looked in the mirror, she was startled by her sudden paleness. She pinched her cheeks roughly until they showed some color. She did not want to draw any attention when she left the Center. She gathered her coat and umbrella. Her watch showed 9:15, which gave her thirty minutes to reach the meeting place, Straus Park, three city blocks north.
On her way through the lobby, she greeted an older couple from Budapest with a quick nod and a forced smile, not trusting herself to stop and talk. She glanced over at the large wall map of the United States, dotted with colored pushpins marking every community where the Center had relocated a displaced person. She had helped many of the refugees find homes in their new homeland and she envied them for the safe harbor they had reached. That same outcome awaited the latest batch of DPs now crowded into the Hotel Marseilles, the shabby Upper West Side way station that had become a temporary home for the Center and its seemingly endless stream of refugees. It would not be true for her.
For a moment, she thought of running. She could stop at her apartment, collect her clothing and her $300 in cash savings, take a taxi to Grand Central, and catch the first train west. She could find some obscure place, perhaps one of the pushpins on the map, and hide as best she could. Yet it was not time to panic, she told herself. Once she learned what they wanted from her, she could decide whether to stay or to flee. When she accepted their help she had known that there would be a price. Now it appeared that the bill had come due and she needed to know what it might cost.
Herald Square on Amazon US
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