This Enemy Town

CHAPTER 2

Dorothy and I arranged to meet at Mahan Hall the following Tuesday, where I would have my first opportunity to visit the auditorium, check out the sets, and see exactly what I’d gotten myself into.

Just before three o’clock, I bundled myself into a coat and scarf, pulled on a pair of boots-it had snowed overnight and the brick sidewalks were treacherous with slush-thrust my hands into my pockets and trudged down Maryland Avenue toward Gate 3, one of three heavily guarded entrances to the Naval Academy, and the one closest to my house.

After threading my way around the security barriers-none-too-subtly disguised as humongous planters-I produced my civilian ID for the earnest young Marine at the gate, who scrutinized it closely, his brown eyes flitting up and down between my face and the one pictured on the ID in his hand. His caution didn’t surprise me. I had shoulder-length hair in that prehistoric picture, and pink, chipmunk cheeks, but I must have passed muster because he returned my ID with a cheerful, “Have a nice evening, ma’am,” and glanced only briefly at my backpack before smiling and waving me through.

The Yard-what any other college would call its campus-is 330 acres of dormitories, offices, classroom buildings, state-of-the art sports facilities, officer housing, parade grounds, memorial parks, and playing fields that roll gently down to the seawall that during high water holds back the Severn River. To my right, opposite the guardhouse, was the Administration Building, where the superintendent had his offices; behind that rose the majestic dome of the Naval Academy Chapel.

Avoiding the icy patches, I hustled down the walk, passing Preble Hall, the building that housed the Naval Academy Museum and one of the finest collections of ship models to be found anywhere, until I stood within the welcoming arms of Mahan Hall, a national Historic Landmark, and, like the Officers and Faculty Club and the other buildings in the immediate vicinity, a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Beaux Arts treasure.

Named for Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Academy Class of 1859, author of the definitive book on sea power, Mahan (the building, not the man) sits at the center of the Yard, across a grassy square from Bancroft Hall, the colossal, eight-wing dormitory, constructed in a double H, that houses and feeds all 4,200 midshipmen.

Mahan itself has only two wings-Maury and Sampson, home to the Engineering and Humanities departments respectively-and rising from the center, a monumental four-faced clock tower. As I approached, the bell in the tower tolled six. Six bells in shipspeak; 1500 military time, 3:00 P.M. for landlubbers. From behind me came the answering bells of the chapel carillon, playing the Westminster chimes-the long version. I stood quietly, breathing slowly, my breath condensing like smoke before my face, enjoying the moment, waiting until the last bong had faded into the crisp late afternoon air before moving on.

I climbed the steps of Mahan and pushed through the bronze-studded oak doors that led into the lobby, which, in spite of their enormous size, opened silently and effortlessly on massive, perfectly balanced hinges.

No matter how many times I visit, it always takes my breath away to step into that magnificent foyer, with its wide expanses of black and white marble and its pair of grand interior staircases. The architect had built clerestory windows at each landing so that whatever the weather, the interior spaces would be flooded with light.

I paused in the lobby, trying to decide whether to go left or right, figured it didn’t matter-the wings were identical-and walked around to my left, up a couple of steps, and through a glass door that led to a long hallway with windows on one side and carved wooden doors leading to the auditorium where I had agreed to meet Dorothy. I opened the door nearest the stage end, slowly, so as not to disturb any rehearsal that might have been in progress, and slipped in.

As I eased along an aisle between two rows of seats, moving toward the center of the auditorium, I glanced at the stage and was relieved to see that set construction was well under way. A wooden superstructure was already in place-the bleak windows of Fogg’s Asylum stared at me blankly from the left, and to the right, a skeleton of two-by-fours outlined what was soon to be Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop with Sweeney’s tonsorial parlor just above.

The air was heavy with sound: the hum of voices punctuated by occasional shouts, the pounding of hammers, the screech and whine of a power saw emanating from somewhere nearby.

Midshipmen were scattered about the hall-singly and in groups-dressed in a variety of uniforms, depending upon where they’d just come from-class or athletic practice. Off in one corner, a trio dressed in WUBAs-working uniform blue alpha: black trousers and black, long-sleeve shirts-appeared to be practicing lines, holding their scripts behind their backs and glancing at them from time to time as if to jog their memories.

Other midshipmen in bright blue and gold track suits were sprawled in seats about the auditorium, their feet propped up on the backs of the seats in front of them, books open on their knees, studying.

I didn’t see Dorothy, so I sat down to wait.

A midshipman in gray sweats wandered onstage, carrying a hammer. He gazed upward, pointed the hammer at the lights, gestured with it to someone behind me-in the light booth, I presumed-then wandered off, stage right. What was that all about? Nothing changed about the lights-they remained a bright pinkish hue-so I figured no one in the light booth had been paying attention.

Suddenly, as if a bell had rung somewhere-this was a school, so perhaps it had-the room began to fill with midshipmen. I checked my watch: three-fifteen. The tech crew disappeared through a door at the rear of the stage, and a tall midshipman holding a sheaf of papers and looking very much in charge did an impressive, one-armed thrust and sprang onto the stage, “Listen up!” he shouted. After thirty more seconds of to-ing and fro-ing, the hammering stopped, someone pulled the plug on the power saw, the room quieted and he began passing out rehearsal schedules for the remainder of the week.

“Hannah!” Dorothy breezed in from a door on the north side of the auditorium, smelling winter-fresh, a combination of cold air and wet wool. She plopped down in the chair next to me. “Sorry I’m late,” she whispered. “I got tied up at the grocery. You wouldn’t believe the crowds. Must be because of the snow.”

“Oh, yes I would,” I whispered back. It was a mystery to me why in these parts ordinarily sane people, at the slightest hint of snow from some know-it-all on the Weather Channel, would rush out to stock up on milk, bread, bottled water, and toilet paper. Even in Annapolis, which rarely saw more than one or two inches of the white stuff, a prediction of snow turned everyone bonkers.

“Did you notice our setup out there?” She gestured with a gloved hand toward the door through which she had just entered.

“So that’s where the sawing was coming from! I wondered. I came in from the hallway on the south side, so I missed it.”

Dorothy pulled off her gloves, stuffed them in her pocket, then shrugged out of her fur-lined jacket. “There’s no scenery shop in the building,” she told me. “But we’ve got a huge workshop over in Alumni Hall. We’ll go over there tomorrow.”

I helped Dorothy arrange her jacket over the back of the chair in front of her, where it could dry out, then nodded toward the stage. Two actors in long raincoats had wandered on. “What’s up?”

Dorothy squinted at the stage for a few minutes, getting her bearings. “They’re getting set to rehearse the opening number. Those two guys are grave diggers.”

I leaned back comfortably in the cushioned seat, waiting for rehearsal to begin.

“This is a wonderful theater,” Dorothy mused. Her head rested against the back of her seat and she stared up dreamily into the impressive, sky-blue dome with its enormous, Phantom-of-the-Opera-style chandelier.

“You should have seen it a couple of years back,” I told her. “Tiny stage, no fly gallery, piss-poor sound, and a lighting system from World War Two that was always blowing fuses.” I explained how a $750,000 donation from a former thespian had allowed the Academy to restore Mahan Auditorium to its former grandeur, with enough money left over to hire a paint expert to recreate the historic polychrome painting that decorated the elaborate and unusual proscenium arch.

“And you won’t believe what they found during the renovation!” I waved my arm in an arc that took in the entire U-shaped balcony. “When the workmen pulled down the acoustical tile up there, and scraped off the adhesive, they uncovered six enormous display cases set into the walls. Inside were souvenir flags from the War of 1812 that had been lost for half a century.” I drew quotation marks in the air around “lost.”

Dorothy shaded her eyes and squinted up into the darkness, trying to see what I was talking about. “Some idiot simply tiled over the glass?”

“Yup. I’ll take you up there later for a closer look. I mean, who knew? You’d think the Navy couldn’t lose track of something that important. They were British pennants from the Battle of Lake Erie, for heaven’s sake, captured by Oliver Hazard Perry in 1813 or thereabouts. That was one of the most strategic naval battles in U.S. history. It helped secure the Northwest Territories for the United States.”

Dorothy was staring at me as if I’d grown another head.

I made a fist and poked her playfully on the arm. “That’s Paul talking, not me. He goes on and on about it. When he’s not diddling around trying to solve Reimann’s Hypothesis or some other bit of mathematical esoterica, he’s quite the history buff.”

On stage, the midshipman in charge was reaming out some hapless plebe who was making himself as small as possible in the front row. “I warned you that we’d be working through the weekend, Parker! What do you mean you have to go to your cousin’s wedding?”

“I’ll take care of it. Sir,” the plebe added glumly.

I bet Dorothy a double latte that if the kid had a cell phone, he was already on it, cancelling out on his cousin rather than seeing his Navy career shot down in flames.

Suddenly a hand went up, tracing a languid O in the air. The hand belonged to a bearded, tweedy gentleman, professorially attired in a gray wool jacket over a blue cashmere V-neck sweater that stretched gently over his modest paunch. “Move on, Mr. Lattimer, move on.”

“That’s Professor Black, the director,” Dorothy whispered. “He’s absolutely amazing.”

I was familiar with Professor Medwin Black, having read his résumé printed in the “Cast” section of every Glee Club program for each of the previous ten years. During summer vacation, Professor Black directed summer stock in upstate New York. Several of his protégés were currently on Broadway. The Academy was incredibly lucky to have him.

Dorothy leaned toward me once again. “And the guy at the piano’s the music director, Professor John Tracey. The mids call them both ‘Doc.’”

In the rosy light from the stage, Dorothy’s face looked young and unlined. I made a mental note to find out what kind of lightbulbs they were using so I could install them around my vanity at home.

“Everyone has nicknames around here,” Dorothy continued. “I imagine the mids will give you one, too, if you stick around long enough.”

“Oh, I plan to stick around,” I said. Even though the sets were well under way, it looked like a good deal more work had to be done before opening night in two and a half weeks’ time. I had never been one to give up easily. And if I’d made a promise? I’d stick to it.

“Do you have a nickname?” I asked.

Even in the subdued light I could see Dorothy blush. “They call me ‘Mom.’”

“That figures,” I chuckled. “You should be flattered.”

“Oh, I am.” Dorothy leaned toward me and pointed. “See that mid there?”

I recognized the fellow I’d seen earlier, the one in sweats who’d been gesturing at the lights with a hammer.

“He’s on the tech crew. His name is Jonathan Lyon, but they call him ‘Cher.’”

“Cher? As in Sonny and?”

Dorothy chuckled. “No, Cher, as in clueless.”

It took a moment for it to register that she was talking about Cher, the teenage heroine in the movie Clueless. I smiled. The film was a family favorite. “I see. But why Cher?”

“He looks busy, doesn’t he? But every time you need actual work done, he’s clueless. Either that or nowhere to be found.”

I was both amused and appalled. “Midshipmen take no prisoners, do they?”

“And see those two over there?” Dorothy pointed to two female midshipmen, wrestling what looked like a meat grinder the size of a washing machine up the left-hand flight of stairs, one of a pair that flanked the proscenium arch. “They’re Frick and Frack.”

We watched while Frick (or was it Frack?) tipped the contraption forward while Frack (or Frick?) seemed to be trying to set it down on the top step and got thwacked in the head by the handle for her trouble.

“Isn’t that just perfect?” Dorothy cooed.

I was confused. “Getting thwacked in the head by a giant meat grinder?”

“Nuh-uh. It’s actually a bone crusher. I found it at an antique store in Savage Mill. I couldn’t believe my luck, I mean, who has bone crushers simply lying around the house?”

I had to agree the contraption was perfect. It had an air of menace, enhanced by that giant crank handle, a wheel eighteen inches or more in diameter. And the machine was large enough to be seen from every corner of the auditorium.

Frick and Frack duck-walked Mrs. Lovett’s meat grinder across the stage and set it in place behind the curtain at stage left. As I recalled from watching the DVD, it wouldn’t be required until the second act.

“Anderson! Toreno!” This from Professor Black, clearly eager to get started. “Places! Places everyone!” He clapped his hands. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

Immediately, there was a scurrying sound, like raccoons in the attic.

I watched Professor Tracey’s long thin fingers fly over the electronic keyboard, playing arpeggios, presumably to get everyone’s attention. His wedding ring flashed as he flipped a switch on his console, and suddenly the room was filled with tortured, dissonant organ music, the lugubrious chords that Stephen Sondheim wrote to mark the opening of his remarkable opera.

Nothing else happened.

Professor Tracey leapt to his feet, upsetting the piano stool. The stage lights gleamed on the polished surfaces of both his glasses and his bald spot. “The director begins the music,” he shouted at the stage, “in the hopes that action will, in fact, commence.” He stooped to right his stool, eased his backside onto it, and, with eyes fastened on the cast members already on stage, began playing again. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, building, building, driving forward with a manic intensity that was unsettling, just as Sondheim meant it to be.

Suddenly the air was split by the piercing shriek of a factory whistle that, even though I was expecting it, made me gasp. I thought about checking my eardrums for bleeding.

The music abruptly stopped.

“Not now!” screamed Professor Black, twisting in his seat to reproach the midshipman who was in charge of the sound board at the back of the auditorium. “And turn it down, for pity’s sake!”

“From the top!” Once again, John Tracey’s hands attacked the keyboard.

“‘Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd…’” sang a young man in a ragged overcoat. He was helping another man drag a body bag onto the stage.

“‘He served a dark and an angry god…’” sang the second player.

“Yes! Yes!” Professor Black was pleased.

Actor by actor, the stage filled as the chorus arrived to lay out the background story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I watched as a disheveled woman poured ashes from an urn over the “body.” Dorothy punched my arm. “There’s Kevin!”

“Where?” I asked. She couldn’t have meant the woman with the urn.

Dorothy pointed a finger with a badly chewed nail. “The one in the ridiculous wig.” She turned to smile at me in the semidarkness. “I should talk about ridiculous wigs, shouldn’t I? Like mother, like son?”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” I said as Kevin, dressed in a long frock coat and an unruly white wig, opened his mouth.

“‘His needs were few, his room was bare…’” sang Kevin in a clear, high tenor.

“‘A lavabo and a fancy chair…’” sang another.

We watched appreciatively while Anthony and Sweeney, fresh off the boat from Australia, made their entrances. And then the beggar woman arrived sporting a remarkable petticoat under a bundle of colorful rags. “Alms, alms for a miserable woman…”

Another elbow in my ribs. “That’s Kevin’s friend, Emma.”

I squinted at the beggar woman. She looked vaguely familiar. I wondered if Kevin’s friend was “our” Emma, Emma Kirby, one of several midshipmen we’d been sponsoring since they were plebes, providing them with a “home away from home,” particularly during their difficult first, often lonely, plebe year. That pile of rags could have been Emma Kirby, I supposed, but it was hard to tell exactly what was under all that makeup.

“‘Wouldn’t you like to push me parsley?’” Emma sang, turning to Todd pathetically. After a few more naughty but hilarious measures, Todd shooed the beggar woman away, and she scuttled to the edge of the stage, sat down on the steps and peered out into the audience, such as it was, while shading her eyes with a hand wearing a tattered, fingerless glove. She waved at me. I waved back. Definitely our Emma.

Except for sporadic e-mails, I hadn’t talked to Emma since the previous May, when she left on her summer “gray hull” cruise. I wondered why she hadn’t been by to see us. We needed to catch up, and I promised myself I’d give her a call.

On stage there was a subtle lighting change. Professor Black yelled, “Where is it? Where is it? Go back and get it!” while the midshipman playing Mrs. Lovett cooled her heels, rhythmically slapping her rolling pin against her open hand. Within seconds the tech crew scurried in with a long narrow table, set it down firmly in front of Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, and scurried away again.

Now that she had her pie-making table, Mrs. Lovett launched into the intricate patter song about the worst pies in London and I was really getting into it, until I became distracted by a midshipman, costumed like an inmate of Fogg’s Asylum, who slouched down the aisle and planted herself in the seat next to Dorothy. “Hi, Mom,” she said.

This puzzled me, until I realized she was addressing Dorothy by her nickname.

“Hi, Greta,” whispered Dorothy. “You looked good up there.”

Greta sighed a long-suffering sigh. Clearly she didn’t agree. From my vantage point, Greta was a sullen piece of work, sitting with clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, mouthing Mrs. Lovett’s lines, loudly filling in missing words. Fortunately there were few, or the actress on the stage-who seemed more than capable of handling the challenging role-might have leaped off the stage and strangled her.

Then Mrs. Lovett fluffed a line.

“What a mistake they made casting her!” Greta groused. “I tried out for the part and would have been so much better in the role. Just because she thinks she can sing…” She heaved another sigh. “Professor Black is nuts.”

Professor Black didn’t seem nuts to me. He seemed extraordinarily competent, coaching quality performances out of what were, after all, young engineering students, using firmness, tempered with humor. Greta needed to take a pill.

I returned my attention to the stage, where a new scene was beginning. The actor playing Beadle Bamford entered from stage right calling, “Mrs. Lovett! Mrs. Lovett!” crossed to the plain box that would become a harmonium-one of the projects that would soon end up on my To Do list-sat down and started singing, “‘Sweet Polly Plunket lay in the grass, turned her eyes-’”

“Stop! Stop!” Professor Black flailed his arms.

All eyes turned to Beadle Bamford, whose hands remained gracefully poised over the fake keyboard.

“Midshipman Monroe, what have you done to your head?”

The midshipman caressed his glossy, hairless scalp. “I shaved it, sir.”

“Why, pray tell, did you do that?”

“Last night was Service Assignment Night, sir,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Tell me what that has to do with you showing up for rehearsal today wearing a bowling ball on your shoulders.”

“I’m going Marines, sir.”

“I see.” Medwin Black rested both hands on the back of the theater seat in front of him, bowed his head, and seemed to be consulting the toes of his brown oxford shoes. A deathlike silence fell over the auditorium until he looked up again and said, “So, you and the other jarheads went out to celebrate, I presume.”

“Yes, sir. With the senior Marine, sir.”

“And then you came back to the Hall and shaved your head.”

The midshipman playing the Beadle shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, sir.”

Professor Black sighed. “Never mind, we’ll work around it.” He waved an arm. “Continue!”

Beadle Bamford’s parlor song was interrupted once again by the arrival of box dinners. Rehearsal ground to a halt while the midshipmen launched a full-frontal assault on the food tables. Dorothy and I decided to avoid the stampede and wait until after the midshipmen had eaten before picking up our boxes.

In the meantime, Dorothy invited me up on the stage, where she spread out the sketches the set designer had made on top of Mrs. Lovett’s pie-making table and discussed with me what still needed to be done. “A lot will be taken care of by the backdrop we’re renting,” Dorothy said, to my great relief. “How would you like to be in charge of the barbershop?”

I turned and tipped my head back to get a better look at the structure. From where I stood, perhaps a dozen steps led up to the platform that would eventually be transformed into Sweeney Todd’s place of business. There was a back wall-wallpaper would cover that-but other than that, the room was open on three sides, nothing to keep me from tripping and tumbling ass over teacup onto the stage eight or nine feet below.

I shook my head. “I don’t do heights,” I explained. “I went to Paris once. At the top of the Eiffel Tower there are iron girders that still carry the impression of my fingernails.”

In the end, I volunteered to construct the oven, while Dorothy would work upstairs, concentrating on making Sweeney’s diabolical barber chair-also rented-function properly.

Suddenly I grew light-headed, whether from hunger or from the stage lights raining relentlessly down on us, it was hard to tell. Sweat prickled my scalp and gathered under the sweatshirt I wore, running down my back and between my breasts.

Dorothy noticed, and tugged at her wig. “Are you hot, too, Hannah, or is it just me?”

I managed a laugh. “My late mother always said, ‘I don’t have hot flashes. I have short, private vacations in the tropics!’” I gathered up my bag. “Let’s get out from under these lights.”

We moved to the edge of the stage, where the lighting was less ferocious, and sat down, side by side, dangling our legs over the lip. “Remember when you said you wanted me for a role model?”

Dorothy wiped her forehead with the tail end of her shirt. “Yeah.”

“Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve brought you something.” I set the bag I’d been carrying on her lap. “Open it.”

Dorothy grabbed the handles of my duffel and pulled them apart. She peered into the bag, and I watched a smile spread slowly across her face. “Hats!”

“Friends gave them to me,” I confided, “more than I could ever use. I don’t need them anymore, thank goodness. I thought you might find wearing a hat more comfortable than a wig, at least while you’re working. I know I did.”

Dorothy pulled out a blue canvas hat with Sea Song embroidered on it in white script. “Sea Song is my sister-in-law’s sailboat,” I told her. “We should go sailing sometime.”

The next hat out of the bag was one decorated with red, white, and blue sequins. Dorothy settled it over her wig. “This seems appropriate,” she announced, turning her head from side to side as if examining herself in an imaginary mirror. “How do I look?”

“Patriotic. When you get home, you can experiment with wearing it without the wig.”

Dorothy’s smile faded. She removed the bespangled hat and placed it, along with the blue canvas one, in the bag with the others. “I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “I’m not sure that Ted…” She clutched the duffel bag to her chest. “Let’s say I’ll take them home. And, thanks, Hannah. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.”

Kevin appeared-without being asked, he had fetched box dinners for his mother and me-then just as quickly, he disappeared. Dorothy and I ate passable ham and cheese sandwiches in companionable silence, cardboard boxes balanced smartly on our knees.

After rehearsal ended, Dorothy dragged me into the hallway, where the lumber, Sheetrock, and power tools were being temporarily stored. I gasped. There was enough material in the hallway to build a home for Habitat for Humanity. Maybe two or three of them.

“Let’s go,” I said with a smile. “I hope we’re not going to need all this material! Way too depressing! I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“Need a ride?”

It was after eight o’clock, but I wanted to walk. “No, that’s okay, Dorothy. Prince George is one way, so you’d have to drive the long way around. It’s shorter for me to go on foot. Really,” I added when she looked doubtful. “But I’ll walk you to your car. Where is it?”

“Out front.”

On our way to the parking lot, we noticed Kevin and Emma standing next to one of the empty coatracks at the end of the hallway. Dorothy opened her mouth to call out to her son, but I threw out an arm to restrain her. “It looks like a private conversation,” I warned.

Whatever the two young people had been discussing, the conversation was clearly over. “I’m really sorry, Kevin,” Emma was saying, her voice small and tight. “But I’m not going to do it. I’m just not!” She hoisted her book bag over one shoulder and hurried down the staircase that led to the exit on the lower level. Kevin stood in stunned silence for a moment, then ran after her, his words echoing hollowly off the marble walls. “Emma! Wait up!”

“Oh, dear, I hope there’s nothing wrong,” Kevin’s mother said, her brows drawn together in a frown. “I think he has a bit of a crush on that girl.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, you know what they say?”

“What’s that?”

“The course of true love never runs smooth.”

“So they say.”

The fact was, in the course of the past two years I had grown to know Emma Kirby fairly well. Kevin might be standing on the platform, but that train was not coming into the station for him.