Cry in the Night Read Free

his bony face itched.
    I managed to retrieve my billfold and key chain and compact, but I was just an instant too late to save my lipstick from crunching under the foot of the California museum director, who walked on with his companion, not even noticing.
    As Jeremiah Elliot and I gathered up our loose possessions, the two of us were the only ones left in the auditorium.
    Quite soon he had his precious papers all together and was closing his case.
    I couldn’t find my lucky sixpence.
    The floor was speckled gray marble that hides a multitude of sins, like mud from dirty shoes, scratches from the moving of chairs and tables, and any small objects that aren’t brightly colored.
    I am a bit nearsighted, but I only use glasses for reading. I peered at the floor and my hands patted the marble in ever-widening circles.
    He was getting up.
    “You could at least help,” I said bitterly. “I mean, if you barrel ahead, knocking down everything in your path, you should at least be willing to help pick up.”
    “What’s lost?”
    I said stiffly, “My lucky sixpence.” My tone dared him to laugh.
    He didn’t laugh. In fact, he bent down, looked carefully back and forth, back and forth, then pointed. “There it is.”
    The coin had rolled across the aisle and lodged at the end of a row of seats.
    He stepped over, picked it up, and held it out to me. “I’m sorry I bumped you,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t intend to spill your things.”
    “It’s quite all right,” I said quickly. I was surprised to find myself smiling at him. I liked him, bony face, self-absorption, and all.
    He put out his hand. “I’m Jerry Elliot.”
    I took it. “Sheila Ramsay.”
    We walked out of the auditorium and down the hall together as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
    “I did a study once, on amulets,” he offered.
    “Did you?”
    “Yes. They serve several functions, many of a magico-religious nature.”
    “Is that so?”
    “In this particular tribe, in the interior of Peru, there is an especial fondness for small, bright metal objects.” He grinned and it was a surprisingly attractive grin that creased his bony face into unexpectedly pleasant lines.
    I laughed and somehow found myself telling him all about the battered little sixpence.
    “It belonged to my mother and she truly believed it was
lucky
. You see, she was at the Café de Paris the night it was bombed. . . .”
    It turned out, of course, that he had never heard of the Café de Paris, so I told him about the London nightclub and how excited my mother had been to be asked there that Saturday night in 1941. She was nineteen and fresh to London from a country vicarage. Newly joined up in the WAAFs, she had just received her orders and this would be her last night in London. The music was bright and gay, the latest swing. Everywhere there were uniforms, but many of the girls wore chiffon and satin. Costume jewelry sparkled in the spotlights.
    There was no warning.
    She was dancing with an RAF lieutenant and she always remembered the song “Oh Johnny, Oh!” Her partner was a vigorous dancer who loped around the small floor. They had been right in front of the bandstand one moment and the next they were at the back of the floor, which was crowded with dancers. As her partner swung her about, she saw something glitter bright as a star on the floor. They stopped and she reached down.
    She could never, later, remember that actual moment of blast but is must have been just then for, when she next could see, it was smoky gray everywhere and there was a choking smell of cordite in the air and someone very near her screamed and screamed. She was looking up at her partner. He had not bent down and shards from the mirrored walls were lodged in his throat. Blood spurted everywhere and he was quite dead. As she watched, he fell slowly to the littered floor. In her hand she was clutching the bent little sixpence that had glittered on the floor.
    “I believe