Night Soldiers

docks. The two women were volunteers for the USO, the organization which, among other things, greeted servicemen returning from overseas on troop transports, serving them coffee and doughnuts as they disembarked. In most cases, the transports carried hundreds of troops and the doughnuts were trucked in from commercial bakeries in Long Island City.

But Muriel Friedman had been telephoned the night before by her USO supervisor and told that the next day’s arrival, the Skogstaad, would be disembarking only four or five passengers, to go ahead and buy a few boxes of doughnuts at the store, for which she would be reimbursed. She could have gone up to Gristede’s and bought box doughnuts, but she had decided to do something a little grander than that and absorb the cost herself. The money didn’t matter. Vanity Frocks, her husband Mort’s company, was once again manufacturing dresses, having spent most of the war producing uniforms for the army. A jelly doughnut baked that morning was a much friendlier greeting to a returning serviceman than a plain old box doughnut and, in Muriel Friedman’s view of the world, such small gestures were important.

The Skogstaad was an old Norwegian freighter caught by the outbreak of the war in the Spanish port of Algeciris and used as a Liberty ship thereafter, successfully making the convoy run from American harbors to Murmansk-the chief supply port of the Soviet Union-many times during the war. Now she was nearing the end of her days. She’d carried a cargo of Jeeps and medical supplies from Baltimore to Athens, then called at Istanbul for a load of jute destined for rope factories in the southern United States, stopping at several ports on the way home to take on a few military passengers as well as sixty coffins-fallen American servicemen whose families had requested they be re-interred in military cemeteries in their homeland.

In the back of the cab, Estelle Kleinman glanced at the two Cake Masters boxes tied with string and lifted an eyebrow. “Cake Masters?” she said.

“A few jelly doughnuts,” Muriel said. “The world won’t end.”

Estelle’s disapproval was silent, but Muriel didn’t care whether she liked the idea or not. Estelle Kleinman disapproved of almost everything, and it was much too nice a morning for an argument. Riding down West End Avenue, Muriel could see it was the first real day of autumn, the sky was bright and blue and the wind off the Hudson River made the city streets seem clean and fresh. When the driver took them up on the elevated West Side Highway they could see the river, sun sparkling on the water, surface ruffled by the wind.

They paid off the cab at Pier 48 and busied themselves in the USO office with a large coffee urn that had to be coaxed into action. A bridge table was carried out to the street entrance of the pier by a burly longshoreman with U.S. Navy tattoos on his forearms. He pinched his finger setting the thing up and swore under his breath, then declined the quarter Muriel offered. The jelly doughnuts were laid out on paper napkins in front of the coffee urn and the two women waited patiently for the ship, sharing a few bits of gossip about friends in the neighborhood.

At 12:30, the Skogstaad was just docking, the river tugs that had hauled her up past the Statue of Liberty nudging her gently against the old wooden pier. There was a pause, perhaps a half hour, while customs officials boarded the ship, then, at 1:15, the handful of passengers began to appear. A naval ensign exclaimed over the jelly doughnuts, and both Muriel and Estelle flirted with him in their own particular way while he sipped a mug of coffee and kept an eye on the street, apparently waiting for someone. Two businessmen, perhaps Turkish, declined the jelly doughnuts with elaborate courtesy, then hurried off toward the rank of taxicabs that waited at the docks. An army major ran right past them, swept up in the arms of a blond woman and an old man- wife and father, Muriel thought. Then, finally, one last passenger appeared, walking slowly from the great dark structure that covered the pier and blinking at the bright sunlight.

There was something different about this one, Muriel thought. He had black hair set off by pale skin, and deep blue eyes over high cheekbones. Striking, she thought, if you liked that Slavic type. He walked slowly, with a slight limp, and once touched a place on his left side as though it hurt him. Wounded, she realized. Wounded in the war, and now coming home.

Or was it home? He appeared to be very nervous, stopping at the pier entrance and tugging at the jacket of the light gray suit he wore. With dark blue shirt and yellow tie he was clearly what Muriel would call a “greenhorn,” a newcomer, an immigrant. She could see it in his eyes-how he looked and looked, trying to take in everything at once, struck with fear and joy and excitement over finally setting foot in America. Well, she thought, he would learn what it was, he would find his place in it. They all had. When her father had come to Ellis Island from Latvia in 1902 he must have looked something like this. Overwhelmed, for the moment, as the dream turned into reality before his eyes.

The passenger in the gray suit never noticed the coffee and jelly doughnuts on the bridge table with the USO sign tacked to its edge. Estelle started to call out to him, but Muriel put a restraining hand on her arm, and for once in her life she had the sense to shut up. The moment was too private for intrusion. Let him be with his thoughts. For a few seconds Muriel shared his feelings, seeing it all for the first time, taking the first step along with him as he moved from the shadow of the pier.

Then, from across the street, a young woman appeared, climbing out of a cab and walking briskly toward the entrance to the pier. She had short, chestnut-colored hair and green eyes. Jewish, Muriel thought. Wearing a very good wool dress from-Saks? Lord amp; Taylor? Was she perhaps meeting this immigrant? Maybe he was not so alone and friendless as he appeared.

Her eyes searched the crowd, then the young man in the gray suit waved his hand and called out “Faye!” and her face lit up with pleasure. Muriel watched carefully as they approached each other and shook hands. So formal? she thought. All the way from God only knows where, by what means she could not even imagine, to be greeted by a handshake? She found herself vaguely disappointed and started to turn away.

But then, as they crossed toward the waiting taxicab, sidestepping the honking trucks and cars that filled the busy street that served the docks, she took his arm. There, Muriel thought, that’s better.