David Westheimer's Magic Mystery Honeymoon

Newly home from the Stalag,
I am ill in bed from a surfeit of seafood.
My best friend comes visiting,
Bringing with him, under protest,
The girl I used to like
Who had written to me in the Stalag
Though, I thought, she was married.
Now I know she is a war widow.
When she steps through the door, a vision,
I know I am done for.
My plans to make up
For all the complaisant girls
I'd missed in shards.
It is July.
In October we are married.

Yeah, I know other peoples' honeymoon is not a topic of great interest to married couples who have their own memories of their post-nuptial expedition but I think my wife's and mine has a bizarre, almost dreamlike quality that lifts it out of the ordinary.

It is October 1945. I am less than six months out of a Luftwaffe POW camp and my bride is coming out of more than a year of mourning for her first husband, a tank commander killed in action in Belgium who never saw their baby son. We have known each other forever.

We were never introduced. She was the bratty little girl who was around when I visited her slightly older brother and sister. Her Uncle Louie wants to give us a honeymoon for a wedding present. Two weeks in New York, where I had never been.

There is one little problem. The newspapers are publishing stories that say, If you don't have a hotel reservation, don't come to New York. It's jammed. There are no rooms.

Walter Winchell says the same thing on his radio show.   And even with reservations a hotel stay is limited to five days. I tell my bride's Uncle Louie, But we don't have reservations.

And he says, Don't worry about it. You get to New York, you take a cab to the Waldorf-Astoria, you go up to the cigar counter and ask for Joe.   He'll take care of it.

I do not like the sound of this. I have spent too many months not taking chances. But my bride says, My Uncle Louie says it will be all right. We'll go to New York. We have only been married one day but already I am learning to heel.

So we get on a train for New York. We climb aboard behind two old ladies. They must be over fifty. They beam when they learn we are on our honeymoon.

Dody's sister is on the platform with my bride's almost-two-year-old little boy in her arms. He is a little doll in his gray flannel suit, blue shirt and white shoes.   My bride is afraid he is going to cry when he sees his mama leave.   He doesn't even look at her. He is too fascinated by the steam squirting out from under our car. The old ladies are standing with us. They want to know who that darling little boy is. My bride says, "Ours." The old ladies are shocked. Only moments before, we have told them we are on our honeymoon.

We have a little compartment all to ourselves, courtesy of Uncle Louie.

Though in a cloud of connubial bliss I worry. We're going to get to New York and not have a place to lay our heads.

When we get to New York we take a taxi to the Waldorf. I almost ask the driver to wait because I know we are not going to get in. A doorman carries our luggage in and we go to the cigar stand. Feeling stupid, I ask for Joe. The man I ask is Joe. I introduce myself.

He has been expecting us!

Joe guides us toward the reservations desk.   There are lines of prosperous looking men haranguing desk clerks, most of them being turned away.   I know my bride and I are in trouble. But Joe doesn't take us to the desk. He takes us to an office next to it and introduces us to an assistant manager sitting behind a desk. The assistant manager registers us and asks how long we'll be staying.

Say five days, Joe prompts.

I say five days though I know we want two weeks.

A bellboy takes us and our luggage up to a door marked Pennsylvania Society and conducts us to a handsome room. I am so relieved I tip him 50 cents a bag, for which he appears grateful. We have a room in New York at the Waldorf. For five days, anyway.

My bride's Uncle Louie has given us a name, Hugo, and Hugo's phone number.

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David Westheimer's Magic Mystery Honeymoon

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