“It’s payday.”
“She didn’t ask for anything. She rarely does. She just said she needed to talk.”
“Better take some extra cash with you tonight. If she’s anything like my girl, she’ll have a story about needing money for medicine for her sick mother, or to repair a well for clean water. It’s always something,” Satchel said, and then blew out a tune on his harmonica.
When Ozzie, Satchel, and Morgan walked through the doors of the Federal Eagle Club, Ozzie scanned the room but didn’t see Jelka anywhere. Chicago blues played, and four Negro women in uniform sat at a center table, giggling with one another. It was a rare sight to see Negro servicewomen in the bar, and Satchel and Morgan pulled chairs up to their table. Ozzie watched as they shot the breeze; he kept an eye out for Jelka while nursing a beer. He had decided that he would drink only one, maybe two beers tonight. He had Saturday-morning duty, and it was hard to take inventory hungover.
Jelka emerged from the kitchen with her hair twirled and pinned at the nape of her neck. She motioned him over with a nod. Ozzie downed his beer, then left the mug on the bar.
“Follow me,” Jelka said, pulling on his arm.
An uneasy feeling came over him. If Jelka needed money, Ozzie wished she would just ask instead of keeping him in such suspense. She led him to a back room off the side of the kitchen; it held cleaning supplies, rolls of toilet paper, hand towels, and two slop buckets that she turned over, making seats for them. Before Ozzie could speak, she dropped her head in her hands.
“What is it?” he asked. Ozzie had grown used to her easy crying. “Talk to me. Is your mother ill?”
Jelka gazed at him with her face twisted in such anguish that inthe moment, Ozzie realized he would do whatever she asked to take away her pain.
“Hey.” He ran a finger along her cheek, blotting away her tears. “Tell me what’s the matter so I can fix it.”
The black lines under her eyes had begun to smudge. “I am pregnant.”
Ozzie opened his mouth, but no words came out. After several long seconds, he managed to stutter. “I… I thought you… you were taking care of that?”
“Are you blaming me?” Her big eyes bore into him.
“No.”Yes.“How could this have happened?” he muttered under his breath.
“Well, it takes two,” she called back.
A baby. Ozzie put his hands on top of his head, and it was hard for him to breathe. A baby with a white woman on the other side of the world. His mother would whoop his ass.
“What am I supposed to do?” She raked her fingernails in her scalp, pulling loose ends from her hair twist.
What was he supposed to do?
Jelka stood and reached for him just as Ozzie started coughing. He hacked and choked and coughed until she stepped back. “Are you all right?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine. He needed some air. He was an American here on assignment. Eventually, he’d have to return home, and how could he do that with a child on the way. Ozzie’s head fogged, and he could barely make out Jelka’s voice.
“I thought we had been careful,” she said.
“I did too.”
Ozzie had made sure to use condoms, and when they didn’t have one, Jelka had told him that she knew her body and it was all right. Had she done this on purpose?
“Well, you do not have to worry about me. You can go on with your life, like all the American men do.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I have seen it in my village. The men get us pregnant and then leave us to deal with it.” Jelka wrapped her arms around her belly. “I am ruined. The government will take my meager rations and make my life hell. I was already stopped by the police and sent downtown for a VD check last weekend.”
“A venereal disease check? Why? What business is that of the law?”
She lowered her eyes. “The police officer saw me with you. Said we needed to be sure. They do it to us all the time. They get off on it.”
Anger and embarrassment flooded him. “I’m sorry you went through that because of me.”
Jelka just shrugged.
