SOME OF US remembered World War I from the vantage point of elementary school age worries—going without salt, butter, and cookies—and now as young adults we did not want to get involved.
OR WE THOUGHT about the December morning in 1941 when the Japanese—depending on who told the story—were angered by trade embargoes that restricted their purchase of oil and metals, or wanted to possess all of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. We went to Spanish Relief parties the night before Pearl Harbor with our husbands, and the next day, when the war broke out, we both decided there were more pressing crises than the Spanish cause. That was three years ago, and we had followed so much news it was hard to keep up. But we knew this: Germany’s Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini were taking over Europe. Japan’s Tojo was dominating the Pacific. We heard Japan was getting closer to their goal—they had captured Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, they had overthrown the British-ruled Singapore—and in Europe the news of German occupations gave many of us the desire to do something. The Axis and the Allies. Would it never end?
WE ARRIVED IN New Mexico and thought we had come to the end of the earth, or we thought we had come home. It was ninety-four degrees and the sun was merciless, even in the early evening. We traveled up, up, up, along switchbacks, passing the flat tops of the mesas and, as seen from high enough, their fingerlike cliffs. Down below, the Rio Grande picked up soil on the banks and made a deep red river for as far as we could see. We saw the pink flowering cholla, the red-orange flowers of the claret cup cactus, the yellow blossoms of the prickly pear. We drove through the guts of mountains—brown, yellow, pink, and gray strata stretching sky-high—cut away to make this road and cut away by centuries of water and wind.
WE STEPPED OFF trains nine months pregnant, or carrying six-week-olds in clothes baskets, or holding the hands of our two-year-olds—our Bobbys and our Margarets. Our Marcias got chicken pox along the way and were quarantined to the back of the train. We arrived at 7,200 feet above sea level dizzy, sweaty, and nauseous. We arrived short of breath in high heels, green silk blouses that tied at the collar, and blue skirts—our best outfits—damp, wrinkled, and clinging to our backs. We arrived in need of a shampoo. In gloves, in hats; as if we had never left the city. As if the sand and dirt and dust were not in our hair, in our teeth. As if we were not resentful that we did not have a choice.
WE GOT OFF at Lamy, looked around, and saw no one except a handsome woman in blue jeans. She was tall, so tall, slender, and had a police dog at her side. So this was New Mexico.
Or we were told to transfer from the train in Lamy to a bus and once we got off in Santa Fe someone would be there looking for us. No one was there waiting, and we arrived teary and red-eyed and peered into the glass case of pecan pies at the diner in Santa Fe, the only thing open and decent at that hour—five a.m., eleven p.m.—until a waitress in a starched cotton dress looked us up and down and said, Ma’am, you’re looking for 109 East Palace. Around the corner.
OR WE ARRIVED looking for the office and entered a bakery and we thought there must be a trick, that we must order a loaf of bread for access to the secret location, but we stumbled on our order because we were not given instructions on what exactly to ask for. So we said things in a tone punctuated with question marks, often requesting items that were not on the menu—Pain au chocolat? or Bagel? The bored baker interrupted, You must be looking for the office down the way. Take a left. We thanked him. We took a left.
WE WENT AROUND the corner, followed the sidewalk, and passed adobe houses, houses built with the soil surrounding them. We passed the curved corners of walls smoothed by numerous hands and houses hanging with tricolored corn and chiles. Our children asked, Where are we?
NAILED TO A white door was a metal sign, 109. Our children ran toward it, opening the screen door, which banged loudly behind us. A woman in pearls, in a pink or blue tweed suit, with an upturned nose, held two black telephone receivers to both ears and said, inaudibly, just mouthed, I’ll be right with you. A small white dog rested at her feet and opened one eye to look at us. The woman had friendly, bulbous cheeks, and when she put the receivers back on the cradles she went over the specific rules of our new home. We thought she must have encountered several like us before—tired, weary, expectant, nervous—which was true, she had.
DOROTHY TOOK OUR pictures, our fingerprints, and informed us we would be getting a new name. Some of us had been told this would happen, others were shocked, and a few were simply resigned. Though many of our husbands were celebrities among academic and physics circles, the point here, in our new home, was not to draw attention. And so, despite our thick Italian or Danish accents that would give our heritage away as soon as we spoke, we became something more all-American: Mrs. Fermi became Mrs. Farmer and Mrs. Mueller was now Mrs. Miller. We knew that we were becoming part of an entity larger than our families, larger than ourselves, and we were not necessarily happy about it. Our husbands were not around to hear our complaints, or if they were around we felt we could not bother them with our petty grievances. Our son Bill, who was almost ten, who was looking forward to the desert, announced, when the tips of our fingers were dark with ink, We are important! This was the first (though not last) time our sons exclaimed this.
COME BY IF you need anything, Dorothy said. She gave us a yellow map that marked every mile from where we were to where we were going with red pencil, all the way to our final destination, called the Hill, which was thirty-five more miles, all up. We would not have a phone. We did not have a car. How could we possibly come by if we needed anything?
OUR HUSBANDS’ FRIENDS met us with a borrowed Army car and drove us the thirty-five miles uphill. Or we got on an Army bus parked outside 109 East Palace, a large machine that released thick gray clouds of exhaust. A man tipped his hat and loaded the bus with our mops, brooms, and potted plants. We looked around to see several other tense faces, but none that were familiar. We smiled and took off our gloves. We wondered which of them would become our friends, or we decided immediately whom we thought we would like to be friends with.
AND IF WE were with our husbands, at Otowi we took a one-lane suspension bridge that was so rickety only small cars could use it. Our bodies swayed as we rounded sharp corners and our husbands sang People Will Say We’re in Love and for a moment this unknown future could be an adventure, could be almost romantic. We turned on the radio because we were too curious not to, and thankfully instead of bad news we heard that the U.S. and British forces had landed in Sicily. We felt light with hope. High up on a mountain we saw a spiral of spinning dust.
MILES LATER WE were the ones driving. We took a bend too quickly. Our children yelled, Stop! As the car slowed they flung the doors open and vomited in the middle of the gravel road.
WE ARRIVED NEWLYWEDS, or with a seven-year itch, or still great friends, or no longer in love but trying to keep it together for our children, or for ourselves. Some of us always expected disaster and kept the shades drawn low, some of us were quietly skeptical, although no one could tell, and we were nicknamed Polly. Some of us always made do and we quickly established knitting circles and book clubs. Some of us thrived on gatherings, and we created dance nights and afternoon teas and bridge clubs. Though the dance parties of the night before still lingered, we were Catholic and had Sunday service in Fuller Lodge at eight a.m., or we were Protestant and had service at ten a.m. As we walked into the lodge we smelled dank, cheap beer, and the spilled drinks made our shoes catch on the sticky wood floor.