A Death in Pilsen

Pilsen: A neighborhood on the near southwest side of Chicago. During the late 19th Century, the area was settled by Czech immigrants, those hailing from the Bohemian and Moravian provinces of what was then called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They named this new home after Plzen, the fourth-largest city in what is now the Czech Republic.

Although other nationalities, including Germans, Poles, Slovaks, and Lithuanians, moved into the area, Pilsen remained a solidly Bohemian enclave until the middle of the 1950s, when Mexican immigrants began settling there. Today, Pilsen’s population of about 45,000 is nearly 90 % Hispanic.

“On January 26, 1946, the first official war bride contingent boarded the S.S. Argentina, a 20,600-ton Moore-McCormick liner which had transported over 200,000 troops during wartime. There were 452 brides, thirty of them pregnant; 173 children... The women had husbands in forty-five of the forty-eight states.”

— Description of a historic sailing out of Southampton, England, from the book “War Brides.”

Prologue

“Five Minutes More,” by Frank Sinatra of course, came from the jukebox in the hallway leading to the dank restrooms, although you could barely hear Frank’s voice above the din.

She sat halfway down the long, scarred mahogany bar, a bottle of Bohemian and a glass on a coaster in front of her. The brown bottle was empty, the clear glass half full. She crossed her right leg saucily over her left, showing all calf and almost as much thigh. Good legs, enhanced by what were probably rayon stockings, given the scarcity of nylons in these early postwar days. The stool to her left was empty. He slid in.

“Mind if I take this seat?”

“I cannot honestly claim ownership of it,” she sniffed, taking a drag on her cigarette and tossing her blonde hair in a gesture of indifference.

“You sound foreign. Like maybe... English?” He gave her what he had been told was an engaging grin.

“Well now, aren’t you ever the clever one,” she snapped, smirking. “Did you manage to work that out all by yourself?”

“I...” He didn’t expect such a reaction, especially in a neighborhood bar where a besotted conviviality was supposed to be the norm. But he had gotten rebuffed in saloons before, and he shifted to what had been successful in the past — the humble approach. “I’m sorry; I certainly didn’t mean to be insulting. I really like your... your accent, whatever it is.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear that, yes I am. One very soon gets tired of people thinking that you’re different.” The trace of a smile creased a mouth generously coated with fiery red lipstick.

“But different can be good,” he said with a deprecating nod, waving to the bartender. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Only if it would make you feel good,” she responded woodenly as ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ kicked in on the jukebox.

“Yes, it would make me feel good,” he told her as he felt the sweat begin to percolate under his arms. He had entered territory where he didn’t hold the high ground.

“The beer in this country is truly wretched,” she pronounced, wrinkling her nose. “We wouldn’t so much as touch this bilge back home.”

He started to ask about “back home,” but checked himself. One rebuff was enough for now. “What would you like?” he asked. “Name it.”

“Scotch, a good Scotch — if they even have one here.” She mashed her cigarette butt in a metal ashtray.

“What’s your best Scotch?” he asked the bony, sallow-faced bartender, who smoothly pivoted to the back of the bar, pulled down a bottle, and held it out for inspection.

She shrugged. “Suppose it will have to do. One can’t be choosy now, can one?”

He ordered Scotch on the rocks for both of them and held out his pack of Chesterfields. She took one and he lit it, noting the thin silver band on her ring finger.

“Married?”

She nodded. “Sorry to say.”

“Really? Why?”

“You don’t want to hear my life story.”

“Try me — I’m a good listener.”

She took a sip of her drink. “Life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will.”

“Huh! I could write a book on that subject.”

“You’re married?”

“Divorced,” he said, torching his own Chesterfield.

“At least you’re free now, which is more than I can say for myself.”

“What’s stopping you... from getting divorced yourself, that is? There’s all that red tape to go through, of course, but it’s not illegal to split up. Or are you Catholic?”

She shook her head. “It’s like admitting defeat. I came all the way across the bloody Atlantic for this.” She turned her palms up and spread her arms, as if this gritty little bar on West 18th Street in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood were the root of all her problems.

“What about your husband?”

She made a snorting sound. “What about him?”

“Is he treating you badly?”

“If you mean is he pinching every stinking penny we have until it squeals, yes, he damned well is. I haven’t had a new pair of shoes since I came across the pond.”

“Hey, Eddie, I gotta go now. See you tomorrow night, okay?” The speaker was a slender, chestnut-haired young woman with light blue eyes who was sitting on the other side of the blonde. He hadn’t noticed her.

“Okay, I’ll be here as usual, love,” the blonde said.

“Friend of yours?” he asked after the brunette had clicked out into the night on her high heels.

“Marge? Yes, we both are here often. She’s truly a good sort.”

“What did she call you — Eddie?”

She laughed dryly. “Don’t you go worrying yourself now, mate, I’m not a chap in ladies’ togs. The name’s Edwina. Not a common label here, but it is where I come from.”

“It sounds much better than Eddie. So, what does your husband do?”

The song on the jukebox had ended, and before she could answer the question, one of the men along the bar called out to her: “Hey, Eddie, how ’bout you give us a song?”

She waved the request away. “Aw, you’ve heard me enough in here, Len.”

“No, no,” he persisted. “Give us just one. How ’bout that ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ you do so well?” That brought cries of “Yes! Yes!” and applause from the saloon’s denizens.

Eddie smiled and said, “Okay. Only the one song, though.” She stood and started in with the familiar strains of the patriotic British World War II tune made famous by Vera Lynn:

When she had finished the full lyrics, the bar exploded in cheers. Eddie blew kisses all around and went back to her stool.

“That was wonderful,” the visitor told her, meaning it. “You sound like a professional singer.”

“I’d like to be,” she said, flushed from the adulation. “Vera Lynn, the English star, she’s my idol. I want to be able to sing that song like she does.”

“Well, it sounds absolutely swell to me. Say, before you got up to sing, I started to ask about your husband. What does he do?”

She glared at the drink on the bar in front of her. “He mainly works, works, works. Always talking about overtime, and how we need money for a down payment on a house. Never mind me sitting at home alone every miserable night with nothing except the wireless — or the radio, as you Yanks like to call it — to keep me company. But that was before I started coming in here. You might call this my freedom,” she said, spreading her arms to encompass the bar.

She had seemed attractive to him when he strode into the bar, but the longer they talked, the less appealing and the more hard-boiled she appeared to become. He figured the scowl she wore had become frozen on her face.

“Well,” he said, rising to leave, “I hope that everything works out between you and your husband.”

“Not likely, Mate,” she said over her shoulder as he turned toward the door. “I’d like to kill that bloody bastard.”