Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt Page B

photographic negative, lies the vast, unapproachable America that tells us who we are not.
    One block south to Market Street. Already I can feel sweat starting on my face. The heat grips you and wrings your water out; it pulls damp spots onto the hatbands and jackets of passersby. Now I stand before the granite mass of Wanamaker’s Grand Depot. Inside, the marble floors are cool. The central atrium rises seven stories, a tower of air carved from the stone. It is home to the world’s largest pipe organ, brought from the St. Louis World’s Fair. By the console on the ground floor is a ten-foot bronze eagle, which I admire for almost an hour before Suzanne arrives.
    She is wearing a deep green skirt and has pinned her hair up. It is a more serious style, but she isn’t old enough to look serious. She just looks beautiful.
    â€œCash!” she cries as she approaches. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œI wanted to surprise you.”
    â€œWell, you did.” She throws her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. “What shall we do now?”
    Her hair smells like a summer in Maine. “I don’t have very much time.”
    Suzanne does not seem to hear me. “I know,” she says. “We’ll go up to the Crystal Room and have tea.”
    I can feel my face tightening. “I can’t. I have to go back to Washington.”
    â€œYou just got here.”
    Haynes was right, I realize. The work is important. There will be big cases. Even the certs matter; they’re my chance to help decide which cases the Court will hear. “No, you just got here. I’ve been standing around for an hour.”
    A different look comes into Suzanne’s eyes. “Well, I didn’t know that.”
    â€œWhat were you in town for, anyway?”
    â€œShopping.”
    â€œYou don’t like to shop.”
    â€œThere’s not much to do with you away.” She shakes her head. “Cash, this isn’t what was supposed to happen.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI know we’re at war, and you’re doing something important, and it’s notjust drive-ins and ice cream sodas for anyone anymore. But I miss you. I miss your voice and your hands and the way I feel in your arms. I was so scared for you, and then I was so happy, and now it seems like all this was just another way of losing you.”
    She turns away. From behind I can see her long and slender neck, a curl of hair that has escaped the bobby pins and lies, fernlike, on the nape. Suzanne dabs at her eyes and I look off to the side. Men in uniform pass in the background.
    â€œI know it’s hard,” I say. “It’s hard for me, too. But this is my chance.”
    â€œYour chance for what?”
    â€œTo do something more.”
    Suzanne turns back now. Something flickers in her green eyes. Before I can tell whether it’s pity or anger or sorrow, it is gone again. “My father said that to you,” she says. “I mean, the Judge did. But you know, Cash, everyone wants something more. It’s not what people want that makes them different. It’s what they’re willing to give up.”
    â€œI want to do something that’s mine,” I say. “That my father didn’t give me, or your father for that matter.”
    â€œSomething that’s yours.” There is an odd high note in her laugh, one I can’t recall hearing before.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe’s good.” She shakes her head. “A nameless patch of foreign ground or the Main Line rosary. I heard that speech. He practiced it on me. Working at the Court is wonderful, and I’m glad you’re doing it, but that’s not what’s yours.”
    â€œWhat is, then?”
    Suzanne hesitates a moment, her lips parted. “I am, Cash.” Now her eyes are pleading. “I’m what’s yours.”
    I don’t know what to say. Behind the face I know, I can