“She’s serious,” said the dark-haired boy. He released Pippi’s shoulders.
The blond one slammed himself into Pippi with renewed vigor at the prospect of her backing out.
I stepped closer. “Get off her,” I said.
“Let’s go,” said the dark-haired boy.
The blond pulled himself off Pippi, grabbed his shorts from the floor, and left with his friend, both avoiding my scissors. Pippi just cried there on the mattress. I untied the bandanna from my neck and placed it on the bed.
“You can use this to clean yourself,” I said.
I left her and walked outside to make sure the boys were gone. Satisfied they were not coming back, I walked to the stream. I raised the scissors and felt for a handful of my long hair, pulled it taut, and cut. Every muscle relaxed with that release, and I continued, feeling for any stray lock, until my hair was cropped to less than a thumb’s length all around. I tossed my hair into the river and watched it travel downstream, sliding over rocks, off into the darkness.
I helped Pippi back to our cabin. With much crying, she thanked me for rescuing her and admitted she should have followed my advice. She promised to write once she got home to Cologne.
Pippi’s parents retrieved her the next day, not at all happy, if their abrupt manner was any indication. I watched her leave, as she waved through the rear window of her parents’ car, my one friend gone.
For the rest of my stay, I kept my scissors close, but in the end my self-cut hair did the trick, and boys let me be. When the sleepaway trip concluded, half of my cabin went home fingers crossed, hoping to have a baby, while I left camp happily without a fertilized egg.
1939
Once Hitler invaded Poland, mild foreboding turned to genuine panic at every New York consulate, and all hell broke loose at our office. To make things worse, Washington tightened visa restrictions, and it became almost impossible to enter the United States from Europe. France limited its visas as well. By November, people desperate to be at the head of the line braved the cold and slept the night under the stars in sleeping bags beneath my office window. Once we opened in the morning, the line of French citizens desperate to get home often snaked out from our reception area into the hallway.
My bosom friend Betty Merchant chose a gray, late November day to stop by with her donation. I heard her arrive and issue orders to Pia for hot tea that would never come. Betty forged her way into my office, dressed in an indigo bouclé Schiaparelli suit and a hat adorned with indigo and scarlet feathers, a folded newspaper under one arm. In one hand she carried an old wedding present from a New Jersey couple, a three-foot-high money tree made of sixty one-hundred-dollar bills folded into little paper fans on a wooden base. In the other she balanced a tower of nested shoe boxes.
Betty set the money tree on my blotter. “I brought this for your French babies. That should buy some tinned milk.”
It was good to see Betty, but I was behind schedule, and case folders were stacking up. In the French tradition, our office was closed for lunch from twelve-thirty to three, and I’d allocated that time to eat canned tuna at my desk and regroup for the afternoon onslaught.
“Thank you, Betty. Good to see you, but—”
“And shoe boxes, as promised. I only brought the French ones so those babies would feel at home.” Betty’s shoe habit provided the vessels for the comfort boxes I sent abroad, and I knew there’d be a steady stream to come.
Betty closed my office door. “I’m closing this on account of Miss Big Ears out there.”
“Pia?”
“She listens to everything, you know. Desperate to know where we’re lunching, of course.”
“I’m swamped and not hungry either, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t sneak in a bite? There’s nothing like a martini to stir up a lazy appetite.”
“How can I take lunch with that crowd waiting? I just had a couple from Lyon who haven’t heard from their daughter back in France since June. Both sobbing.”
“Honestly, Caroline. You’re a volunteer and you can’t even take lunch.”
“These people need me.”
“That elevator boy of yours—Cuddy?—maybe I’ll take him to ‘21.’ There’s something about a man in uniform.”
Betty looked in her compact mirror, checking herself for imperfections. Finding none, she shrugged, disappointed. Betty was often compared to Rita Hayworth,