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| read an excerpt |
1936 WINTER NEW YORK CITY
The cinema was nearly deserted, and the two girls took the best seats in the house. They opened their bags of peanuts and chocolate covered raisins, silently munching until the movie got to their favorite part.
Marigold mouthed along with the woman on the screen who spoke first. “Not because I love England, but because it will pay me better.” She continued, “The very brilliant agent of a certain foreign power on the point of obtaining a secret vital to your air defense.”
Trude whispered, “I
tracked two of his men to that music hall. Unfortunately, they recognized me.”
The two girls took bites of their candy. Trude continued, “That’s why
they’re after me now.”
Marigold smiled from ear to ear. She loved this part. “You ever heard of a thing called persecution mania?”
Trude’s eyes grew wide and she said, “You don’t believe me?” As if from nowhere, the usher came over and shushed them.
Marigold scowled at him and turned back to Trude. “Frankly I don’t.”
They had been doing this for days now. Rather than go to math class, they skipped school instead. How it was that nobody reported them must have been because they were the kind of girls who were rarely in trouble. They did well enough that their absences didn’t seem to matter. So, for two weeks running, they faithfully bought tickets for the 2:55 show and watched The 39 Steps until they knew it cold.
Afterwards, they stood by the window outside the ladies’ room, where one could see the traffic below.
Trude stopped Marigold and said, “Go and look down into the street then.” She always said this with a campy accent, like her father’s. Trude’s father was Swiss. Her late mother had been British and Marigold thought everything about Trude was glamorous in the most spectacular way.
Marigold pretended to be afraid. “Are they there?”
Trude looked terrified. “Yes. I’d hoped I’d shaken them off. I’m going to tell you something which is not very healthy to know. But now that they have followed me here, you are in it as much as I am.”
Then she grabbed Marigold’s hand and they bolted down the stairs, out through the back door gasping and chuckling on the short walk to the pharmacy.
When they arrived, Trude stopped short. “Oh, mein Gott!”
“What is it?”
“It’s Will Carrington!” Trude pointed to the counter.
“I love him.” Marigold spoke with as much gravity as she could muster. It was part of their shtick. Whenever Trude saw a boy they knew, Marigold would simply say, “I love him.”
These declarations of love always made Trude laugh, then respond by either sticking something up her nose, or putting her spectacles on sideways. Anything, anything to make Marigold laugh back and Trude look like a freak.
Silently, they went to the counter. “Oh hi, Will,” Marigold said, in her most modest, simple style. Trude looked away.
Will was blonde, handsome, an athlete. He was in the boys’ section at school, so they rarely saw him outside of class. “Hi.” He leaned past Marigold. “Hi Trude,” which didn’t surprise Marigold. All the boys were in love with Trude, who was beautiful, smart, and kind.
Trude turned to face Will. She’d stuck a raisin into each nostril, so they hung out just the smallest amount. “Will, hi!”
Will stopped short of recoiling. He paid his tab and said, “See you.” Then gestured to his own nose, discreetly, for Trude’s benefit.
She continued to smile, oblivious. “See you tomorrow.”
“Girls.” Home was on Riverside Drive, where Marigold’s mother stood in the foyer, surrounded by boxes. Some were on the floor, others stacked upon the table, which normally held only letters and an orchid. On top of the boxes were large oblong tickets indicating their contents. The tickets were stamped with round and dashed holes, like eyelet made of cardstock.
Marigold opened one of the boxes. “What are they?”
There had to be thousands inside. She passed a dozen cards over to Trude, who fanned herself with them.
“These could be dollahs, thousands of dollahs, nicht so, Schatze,” Trude said.
“Jahwohl, they could.” Marigold held up a card to the chandelier, examining the tiny square holes in the light. She held it over the face of her friend and it created dashes and dots upon Trude’s skin. She moved to look through the dashes at her mother. Cool and elegant in her grey silk dress, with her creamy colored pearls and her white, white skin.
“They’re some sort of punch cards, darling,” her mother said. “They’re for your father.”
“I love them,” Marigold said.
Trude raised an eyebrow. “Even more than Will Carrington?”
Marigold bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her mother didn’t know about her silly crushes. “Yes, even more than he.” Marigold spread the cards out upon the table. They looked vast and impersonal, like in that film. What was it? Metropolis. Oh, yes, she thought, just like Metropolis. “Say, Moms, how about I take some pictures of you and Trude with these cards?”
“Aren’t you girls supposed to be doing your algebra or something?”
“Yes, but let me take your picture first, Moms, and you should wear that dress, you know, with the print just like these cards.”
“Marigold.” She loved the way her mother folded the R in the word Marigold. It was always under the tongue with a delicate precision used by those whose English is flawless albeit foreign.
“Come on, Momsy. You’ll be the living embodiment of industry, and Trude will be the future. It’ll be fun!”
Her mother
chuckled and left the room, only to reemerge in her dress with the printed
dashes and circles just like the punch cards. In her hand was a large silk
scarf printed with the same design.
“We’ll stack them like this. Then Trude, lean on them here and look up at Momsy, like so.”
Marigold opened her camera case. She looked through the lens and adjusted the aperture. Her models struck a pose. The light in the foyer was bright, bright. Her mother was cool, aristocratic, and Trude simply brimming with life. Both of them were beautiful. Marigold wound the film and pressed the button.
“Perfect,” she said and wound the film again.
Suddenly, her mother waved an arm and the scarf fluttered outward, like a wing. Trude moved her own arms upward.
“Wonderful!” Marigold pressed the button. “Wonderful!”
She did it again, then her models adjusted their poses in varying degrees, leaning away and toward each other.
“Fabulous!”
“What are you doing? Put those down.” Marigold’s father stood in the doorway. “Don’t touch those. Put the camera down.” Suddenly, he roared, “I said put the camera down!”
“Sorry.” Marigold looked down at the ground. There was a tense silence It was the same silence which often occurred when Marigold’s parents were in the same room.
Her mother said, “She was merely experimenting.”
“Not with my cards, she’s not. Stupid girl.”
“Ta gueule, Arnold.” Her mother had been from Arlon, in Belgium. But she rarely spoke French. “Don’t talk to her so.”
Marigold watched her mother go into the kitchen as Trude gathered her coat and slipped out of the apartment.
Make amends, Marigold warned herself. “Excuse me, Dad.” She stacked the cards and returned them to their boxes. “I just thought—”
“Don’t think. They’re not for you.”
“Sorry.”
“They’re for my German clients.” He glanced at himself in the mirror, his reflection confirming his golden hair and hazel eyes were still handsome, still distinguished.
“Sorry,” she said again. “What are they used for?”
“These cards store information. Who is doing what and how much of it they’re doing. Like who’s buying how many apples, or how much money is withdrawn from a bank. Who lives where in what part of town. It’s the latest technology, Marigold. They revolutionize how records are kept. And they come from IBM. They’re the future. Not props for a childish fashion show.” With a small nod, he took a lapel pin out of his pocket. “Help me with this.” He held it out to her and Marigold obliged, fastening it behind the worsted wool as he added, “I’m going to present them at tonight’s dinner.”
She turned the pin. The black lines echoed themselves as they had when the symbol meant good fortune, in Asian religions, long, long before it was used by the German government. Marigold rotated the pin the other way, so the black lines inside the white circle with the red background appeared in a more upright position.
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