“Most people do,” Greer said with a wink at Anna.
Lieutenant Axel listened wincingly to Greer’s account of Anna’s achievements, then dismissed him curtly from the office. Greer tipped his cap at Anna, making her part of a conspiracy.
“Have a seat, Miss Kerrigan,” the lieutenant said.
Anna’s soaring lightness made it hard to keep from smiling, but she mastered the urge, determined not to seem smug. The lieutenant watched her a long moment, drumming his fingers on his desk. “You wore the dress,” he said, using a conciliatory tone that alarmed her. “But that isn’t the same as diving.”
“You said that was the test.”
He took a long, patient breath. “It is enormously taxing for the human body to perform underwater,” he said. “I understand that may be hard to believe; you see the pretty waves, the nice sea foam. You like to swim. But it isn’t like that underneath. Water is heavy. The pressure of that weight is something ferocious. We’ve no idea how the female body would react.”
“Let me try,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry.
“You’re a strong girl, Miss Kerrigan, you’ve proved that. But in good conscience, I can’t let you go down there any more than I would my own daughter.”
He was protective, sympathetic, sorry—unrecognizable as the snide man who had greeted her. Anna liked the first one better. With him, it seemed, she’d had a chance.
“Let me try,” she said again. “If I fail, then we’ll know.”
“Have you ever seen a man with the bends?” the lieutenant asked, leaning forward as if to share an intimacy. “The nitrogen bubbles trapped in his blood must find a way out, so they push through the soft tissues. Men bleed from their eyes and nose and ears. Or the squeeze? The entire diver—I mean to say a whole man—is squashed by the ocean’s pressure into just that helmet you wore. So when you say, If I fail, failing underneath fifty feet of water ain’t the same as failing topside.”
“Those things could happen to anyone who makes a mistake,” Anna said. “Not just a girl.” But she felt snuffed by a sense of foregone failure.
The lieutenant smiled: white teeth, tanned, beardless skin. “I like you, Miss Kerrigan,” he said. “You’re full of spirit. My advice is, go back to your shop—whatever it is you do here at the Yard—and give that work everything you have. Help us win this war so we’re not eating Wiener schnitzel and dried octopus for Sunday dinner when it’s over.”
He slapped the desk, apparently believing this to be the last word. But Anna couldn’t seem to move. She was so close. She had untied the knot! Time seemed to elongate, allowing her to consider every possible course and know its result. Anger would revolt him; tears would prompt sympathy but prove her weak; flirtation would put her back where she’d started.
He was waiting for her to go.
“Lieutenant Axel,” she said at last in a flat, neutral voice. “Everything you’ve asked me to do, I’ve done. How can you turn me away? There’s no basis for it.”
“Since we’re speaking frankly, Miss Kerrigan, I’ll tell you that there was never any chance of your diving.” Gone was the avuncular cajoler. Now he spoke in a plain, unvarnished manner much like Anna’s own. “Your Mr. Voss must be blind with love if he thought I’d put a girl underwater. I told the commandant when he telephoned that it was out of the question. Said I’d put you in the dress and give you a chance to see for yourself.”
“But I wore the dress,” Anna said. “And I walked. And I untied the knot.”
“You surprised me, I’ll admit that,” he said. “But your diving was never a possibility, so it isn’t one now. I’m sorry; I can well imagine that this is frustrating. But those are the facts.”
They regarded each other across the desk in a state of perfect understanding. Anna rose from her chair.
She found herself back outside Building 569 with no memory of having put on her coat or whether she’d seen Katz and Greer again on her way out. In the dark, she began the long walk back to the Sands Street gate. Cold wind scrubbed away the memory of the dizzy pleasure she’d felt at her victory. She passed the building ways, clusters of artificial light exaggerating the dead ships’ hulls within.
The answer was no.
Never in her life had Anna been obstructed by such naked prejudice. Those are the facts, the lieutenant had said, but there weren’t any. As Anna walked, her disappointment and wretchedness hardened into a stony opposition that partook of the hatred she’d felt earlier for Katz. The lieutenant wouldn’t break her; she would break him. He was her enemy. It seemed to Anna now that she had always wanted one.
She imagined the knot in her hands, the clenched aliveness of it. There was always a weakness, it was just a matter of finding it.
Those are the facts.
There were no facts. There was just him. One man. And not even a beard.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
In the four days that passed between agreeing to chauffeur Miss Feeney’s crippled sister to the beach and the appointed Sunday morning, Dexter’s minimal enthusiasm for the adventure dissipated entirely. His children would not be there. At Thanksgiving dinner, Beth Berringer had unveiled a plan for the entire family to attend church at Saint Monica’s, on York Avenue, as a prelude to volunteering with Bundles for Britain. Bundles was the project of a Park Avenue girl; Dexter dismissed it as society dressed up as war work. There was a lot of that going around.
The old man seemed as eager as he to dodge the proceedings, and invited Dexter instead to lunch and billiards at the Knickerbocker. This was a tempting offer, for both the gorgeous mural at the bar and the aghast looks of the Puritans who recognized him. Had Miss Feeney a telephone, he’d have deferred the appointment as a first step toward making it vanish. But she hadn’t one, and with the holiday, a letter might not arrive in time. The only way out would be not to show up at all, and whatever Dexter might be, he wasn’t a heel. So he told his father-in-law that he’d promised to drive an employee’s crippled sister to the beach that morning, and vowed to join him at the club as soon as he’d finished.
Therefore: No Tabby. No twins or Harriet. A mild day, unseasonably warm for the end of November, eliminating foul weather as an excuse. Miss Feeney’s street looked much as he’d expected, children buzzing around the Cadillac even before he’d parked it. They wouldn’t have seen a Series 62 very often, if ever. Stepping from his automobile, Dexter anchored his hat and tipped back his head, squinting into the glare. A waving hand in an upper window banished his last hope: that Miss Feeney herself might have forgotten.