“And that hundreds of Allied merchantmen have been torpedoed since the war began, with more going down each day?”
“We’re losing fewer ships than before, and building more,” she said quietly, having read this in the Times just recently. “Kaiser shipyard built a Liberty ship in ten days last month.”
It sounded egregiously fresh, and Anna waited for the blow to fall. But Mr. Voss merely said after a pause, “I notice you don’t bring a lunch. I presume you live at home?”
“Yes, I do,” Anna said. “But my mother and I are awfully busy caring for my sister. She’s badly crippled.”
This was true. But also untrue. Her mother made breakfast and dinner for Anna; she easily could have packed a lunch, and had offered to. Anna had slipped into the unguarded manner she often found herself assuming with strangers, or virtual strangers. Her reward was a faint disturbance of surprise in Mr. Voss’s face.
“Now, that’s a shame,” he said. “Can’t your father help?”
“He’s gone.” She almost never revealed this fact, and hadn’t planned to.
“In the service?” He looked dubious; surely a man with a nineteen-year-old daughter would be too old.
“Just—gone.”
“He abandoned your family?”
“Five years ago.”
Had Anna felt any emotion at this disclosure, she would have concealed it. But she did not. Her father had left the apartment as he would have on any day—she couldn’t even recall it. The truth had arrived gradually, like nightfall: a recognition, when she caught herself awaiting his return, that she’d waited days, then weeks, then months—and he’d still not come. She was fourteen, then fifteen. Hope became the memory of hope: a numb, dead patch. She no longer could picture him clearly.
Mr. Voss took a long breath. “Well, that is difficult,” he said. “Very difficult for you and your mother.”
“And my sister,” she said reflexively.
The silence that opened around them was uncomfortable but not unpleasant. It was a change. Mr. Voss’s shirtsleeves were rolled; she noticed the blond hairs on his hands and strong rectangular wrists. Anna sensed his sympathy, but the tight aperture of their discourse afforded no channel through which sentiment might flow. And sympathy was not what she wanted. She wanted to go out at lunchtime.
The bustle of the shift change had settled; the night inspectors must be at work on their trays. Anna found herself recalling the girl on the bicycle. Nell—the name came to her suddenly, from the newspaper caption.
“Miss Kerrigan,” Mr. Voss said at last. “You may go out for lunch, if you will carefully mind the time and work to your full capacity.”
“Thank you,” Anna cried, leaping to her feet. Mr. Voss looked startled, then stood as well. He smiled, something she hadn’t seen before. It changed him, that smile, as if all the severity he displayed on the inspection floor were a hiding place from which this amiable man had just waved hello. Only his voice was the same.
“I expect your mother will be needing you at home,” he said. “Good evening.”
*
The next morning, Anna spotted Nell’s pale froth of curls among the roil of hats and caps that flooded the Sands Street gate at a quarter to eight, barely in time to punch in before the cutoff. Once it had gone eight o’clock in your shop, you were docked an hour’s pay whether you were late by thirty seconds or thirty minutes. There were dozens of sailors outside, dressed in the tailored skintight uniforms they bought for shore leave. Anna had heard there were zippers installed in the sides of the trousers so the boys could get them on and off. Judging by their ashen, squeamish looks, most of these sailors had spent their liberty in all-night benders. Two had lurched away from the crush and were leaning against the perimeter wall with greenish faces.
Nell was in line for Hardy, the middle marine. His line was always shortest because his nose had been seen to drip into thermoses he opened to check for alcohol. The marine guards opened packages, too, untying strings and prying apart layers of paper, checking for bombs. German spies and saboteurs would love to get inside the Naval Yard. And while the idea seemed far-fetched (Anna knew plenty of the fellows around her by sight), it was a fact that there were German spies at large in American cities. Thirty-three had gone to prison last January for telling the Reich the sailing date of an American merchant ship, the SS Robin Moor. The ship was sunk by torpedo off the coast of Africa.
Three men passed through the turnstile between Nell and Anna, but Nell’s perfume lingered even as Anna showed her ID badge and opened her pocketbook for Hardy to look inside. Nell was not a married. Anna knew that just by the way she paused self-consciously beyond the gate to consult her wristwatch, and by the sculpted slant of her fingernails. Her hair looked done; this was a girl who’d slept in pins, which meant she must have a date after work, since the curls—which had to be covered inside the shops—would serve no purpose otherwise. Anna was not a flirt, but she didn’t mind flirts the way some girls did. She rather enjoyed watching them take charge of men, even as the men believed they were in charge. Anna would have liked to flirt, but she was no good at it; her directness got in the way.
“You’re Nell,” she said, catching up. The girl nodded, as if being recognized were something she was well accustomed to. “I’m Anna.” She put out her hand and they shook hurriedly, still walking. Anna caught irritation and bemusement in Nell’s expression; like most flirts, she saw no reason to know other girls. Girls were either competitors or hangers-on, and Anna supposed Nell must be wondering which she was likely to be. “I saw you fall off the bicycle yesterday.”
“Oh. That.” Nell rolled her eyes, but Anna had her attention.
“Is it yours?”
“No, Roger’s. He works in my shop.”
“Do you think he might lend it to me?” Anna asked.
Nell glanced at her. “He’ll lend it to me. I’ll lend it to you.”
Now that their talk had settled into Anna wanting something and Nell helping her acquire it, she seemed more at ease. As they hurried along Second Street, Anna asked, “Are there many girls in your shop?”
“A few with me in the mold loft, but they’re drips.”
“Married?”
“You said it. Most of the single girls are welders, but that’s dirty work. I’d never do it.”
“What happens in the mold loft?”
“We . . . we make molds,” Nell said, the complexity of the topic apparently having exceeded her interest in explaining it.
“Of ships?”
“No, ice cream trucks. Don’t be a boob.”
Anna was glad they’d reached Nell’s shop; she liked her less the longer they talked. “How can I get the bicycle?”
“Meet me at the entrance to Building 4 right after the whistle,” Nell said. “I’ll bring it.”
“Your supervisor doesn’t mind you going out?”