Читать книгу The Last Government Girl - Ellen Herbert - Страница 9

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Sunday, May 28, 1944

Saltville, Virginia

“Sir, why haven’t we left yet?” Eddie asked the conductor, who hurried down the aisle without answering.

The world awaited 300 miles north in Washington, D.C. Eddie felt its pull, a force strong as gravity. What was the hold up? Why were they still here?

Rachel sat next to the window in an emerald dress drenched in sunlight, her curly black hair tamed into victory rolls on top, the rest of her hair cascading down her back. “The longer the train stays here, the more time Papa has to change his mind.”

Their reflections, overlapping in the glass, were a study in contrasts. Eddie, a head taller, was a lanky, green-eyed blonde, while Rachel had curves in all the right places with eyes the color of chestnuts that turned anthracite hard when she got angry. But beneath their surfaces, they were alike. Eddie sensed Rachel’s heart thudding in time with her own. They wanted to be gone, gone, gone.

Together, their fathers watched them from the depot platform. Their shadows reached downhill to the train as if to hold their daughters in Saltville.

The rest of their lives depended on the next few moments. Had the train broken down? Would they be forced to stay?

Too much tension, Sturm und Drang in German, Eddie’s college minor. At one time, German had comforted her, but that was before Hitler. Now she seldom spoke her grandmother’s language, except to Rachel.

“Don’t look at your father,” she told Rachel. “If we look, we turn into salt like Lot’s wife and get stuck in Saltville forever.”

An old joke between them, but Rachel didn’t smile. Instead, she rubbed her silver heart-shaped locket, “go, go, go,” her incantation.

Out the edge of her eye, Eddie saw that the shorter shadow on the platform disappear, and she tensed. “Rachel, I think your father’s coming down to the train.”

Rachel linked her arm through Eddie’s. “I’m going with you, no matter what he says.”

“Of course,” Eddie said as if she was certain.

Months ago, Rachel told Eddie about her nightmares the Nazis had invaded Saltville and were coming for her because she was Jewish. Eddie had promised to hide her on Smith land so deep in the mountains no one would ever find her.

Yet at this moment, Eddie wasn’t sure she could protect Rachel from her father, Moses Margolis, owner of Margolis Department Store, a powerful man in Saltville. If he’d changed his mind about Rachel working in Washington, she would have to get off the train.

A knock on the glass startled them. “Lower the window, Rachel,” Mr. Margolis called. His voice carried as if he was on the loudspeaker at his store calling for a clerk to come to house-wares.

Rachel fiddled with the window latch. “Sorry Papa, it won’t budge.”

“Call me tonight. Understand? Tonight. Reverse the charges. I need to know you arrived safely. Do you still have the paper I gave you?”

Rachel took an envelope from her alligator purse and pressed it to the glass.

“Our cousin’s address and phone number,” he said. “And his factory’s address. I told him you would come for Shabbat so—-”

The train let out a shrill whistle and chuffed forward, slowly then faster, faster. The most beautiful sound Eddie had ever heard. Rachel’s face opened in an astonished grin, her dimples deep with delight. Mr. Margolis yelled more instructions lost in the noise and smoke.

Once they left him behind, they hugged hard, silenced by joy. In one swift motion, they peeled off their gloves, unpinned their hats, and smoothed each other’s hair. Like monkeys, Eddie thought, deliriously happy monkeys.

Rachel ripped the envelope in two and was about to rip further.

“Don’t.” Eddie grabbed the pieces, still large enough to read. “You’re going to have to visit your cousin eventually.”

“I’m tired of being under Papa’s thumb. And I wish we didn’t have to stay with your aunt. The last thing we need is some old biddy watching and reporting on what we do.”

“True.” But the only way Eddie convinced her father to let her go was to agree that she and Rachel would live on Georgia Avenue with his stepsister, Viola Trundle.

Aunt Viola was living up to her reputation as a cheapskate. In her letter, she informed Eddie she would charge each girl ten dollars a month for the room they would share and insisted they send her a month’s rent in advance. And for housing government girls, Aunt Viola would get extra ration coupons from the Office of Price Administration.

“Hide me,” Rachel said. “I want to change shoes.”

Eddie held her sweater wide like a curtain, so no one could see Rachel reach under her dress and tug down her woolen hose. Rachel pushed off her saddle shoes and slipped on white anklets and high heels, sexy ones she’d used all her shoe coupons to buy.

“Hello, ladies.” A dark-eyed soldier leaned over them. “How would you two like to have cocktails with us in the club car?” The blond soldier behind him said, “I second that.”

Ah, temptations already, liquor and men. Eddie laughed inside. This train, the Crescent out of New Orleans, was packed with military men traveling north from bases all over the South. Able-bodied men had been scarce in southwest Virginia. Under her father’s gaze, Eddie had ignored the men aboard, but at this moment, she felt as if she’d landed in a candy factory.

Still she said, “No, thank you.” She needed to sit and feel the miles grow between her and Saltville. This was the greatest day of her life. Even when she went to college, she didn’t leave home. She went to Emory and Henry seven miles from Saltville. While life on campus was another world, every night she hurried to board the bus, relieved when they rounded the corner into town and she saw their house was still standing, that Mama hadn’t set it on fire.

“Is there a piano in the club car?” Rachel asked Private Dark Eyes.

“Yep, there is.” He winked. “What’s your favorite song, honey?”

“Rachel.” Eddie had promised Mr. Margolis she would look after Rachel, a recent graduate of Saltville High, where Eddie had been a teacher. Because a friendship between a teacher and student wasn’t allowed, they had kept theirs a secret.

“You’re barking up the wrong trees with them two,” a female voice called behind them. “They’re snooty as all get out.”

“Says who?” Rachel got on her knees and turned backward to look into the seat behind them. Eddie rose to see who was speaking.

“Pearl Ballou, that’s who. Remember me, Miss Smith?” Pearl sat in near darkness, her window shade pulled down. A kerchief covered her hair and obscured her face.

At the sight of her former student, Eddie groaned inside. “Hello Pearl. Where are you traveling to?” Pearl, a bony redhead, had been in Eddie’s remedial English class last fall until she dropped out because she was pregnant. Pregnancy was also not allowed at Saltville High.

“To Washington City.” Pearl lifted her chin. “Gonna be a government girl.”

Eddie wondered who was caring for Pearl’s baby, not that this was any of her business. “We’re going there, too, Pearl. We took the Department of the Army’s test two months ago at the bank. I don’t recall seeing you there.”

Pearl’s expression soured. “You always did put a lot of store in tests, Miss Smith. Not ever body has to take one. If I need testing, they’ll do it when I git up there.”

Eddie had learned not to trust anything Pearl said, but Pearl was no longer her student—hurrah. No need to argue. “We’re not in school anymore, Pearl. Call me, Eddie.”

“Okay, Eddie.” When Pearl untied the kerchief, her faded blouse rode up showing a thick cloth pouch tied around her middle. What was it?

And where had Pearl gotten the money for a train ticket to Washington? Eddie remembered Pearl sneaking into the pool in summer and into Saltville’s movie theater through the exit door. At school, she ate from other students’ lunch pails. Pearl had been raised by a bootlegger uncle who never gave her anything except his daughter’s hand-me-downs. Eddie felt sorry for her.

But if Pearl had sneaked onto the train, she was about to get caught.

“Ladies,” the conductor gestured to Rachel and Eddie, “sit in your seats. Ticket, please,” he said to Pearl.

Eddie listened intently. His ticket punch clicked, meaning Pearl had a ticket.

After he punched their tickets, Rachel said, “I’m making one of your dreams come true this evening, Eddie. I’m treating you to dinner in the dining car.”

Eddie had told Rachel about her nights spent watching trains, longing to be on the inside, looking out the dining car’s window. “Thank you,” she said and felt the pull of tears.

“Don’t cry, Bubula.” Rachel’s dimples appeared. “Our real lives started…” she checked her watch, “seventeen minutes ago. Nothing but blue skies ahead for us.”

She lowered the window, so they could feel the wind in their faces.

For fun, they played a word game Eddie had made up. “Aufregend,” Eddie said and waited for Rachel to give her a synonym in German. Rachel had been Eddie’s only advanced German student. While Eddie helped Rachel write in German and translate Goethe, Rachel taught Eddie some Yiddish, a language akin to German, but more fun.

Once a silver twilight descended, Rachel said, “Our reservation is for six. Let’s go.”

Eddie turned in her seat. “Pearl, I brought fried chicken for our dinner. Since we’re eating in the dining car, I hate for this to go to waste.” She offered the box over the seat.

“Happy to oblige, Eddie.” Pearl brought the box to her nose. “Saltville folks say your mama’s a right good cook.”

Eddie let this pass. Her mother was in the asylum at Kingsport again. Months before the rest of the family knew, Eddie sensed Mama’s mood turning blue. She tasted it in her mother’s heavy biscuits and felt it in the buttons she broke in the wringer washing machine. By the time Mama did nothing but rock on the porch, sometimes in her nightgown, all of Saltville knew. At the asylum, she would be given electric shock treatments that left her hollow-eyed but eventually more like her former self when she would return home, and the whole cycle began again.

Only this time, Eddie wouldn’t be there. The idea left her shaky with relief and fear.

In the dining car, a colored waiter in an elegant burgundy uniform showed them to a table covered with a white tablecloth, decorated by a single rose in a bud vase. The splendor of it all rushed at her. This was a day of firsts.

The car was filled with well-dressed diners, their voices rising in a pleasant babble accompanied by the silvery clink of knives and forks. The light above their table shone down as if they were on stage.

“Here I am on the inside looking out,” Eddie whispered. “My luftschloss come true.”

“Our sky castle, you mean.” Rachel adjusted the green ribbon holding back her long hair. “We did it, Bubula. We left Saltville.”Rachel shook salt from the shaker onto her palm and tossed it over her shoulder.

Eddie did the same. After the waiter brought their dinner, Eddie said, “To us, Schatzi.” They touched glasses of lemonade and sipped.

“You look like Veronica Lake.” Rachel lowered her voice. “Here we are Veronica and Elizabeth Taylor dining together. I hope some snoopy photographer doesn’t spoil things by snapping our picture for Photoplay.” She tilted her head, posing.

Eddie giggled in a way she hadn’t since girlhood, taking in her reflection in the window. She had released her thick blonde hair from its roll, and it fell into a perfect page boy. “We’re the only women in here not wearing hats.” She wanted to be modern, not improper.

“And the only women under forty.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “I meant to ask Pearl if she would be working for the Department of the Army, too.”

Eddie cut into her chicken pie, steam escaping its crust. “Rachel, I need to warn you about Pearl.” She set her fork down. “I doubt she has a job in Washington.”

Rachel arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you ever trust people, Eddie?” Her voice had an edge. “Pearl wouldn’t say she had a job in Washington if she didn’t.”

“Yes, she would. When Pearl was my student, I caught her in plenty of lies. And she was impossible to teach.” Pearl had made jokes behind Eddie’s back, which got the other students laughing at their nervous young teacher.

Rachel leaned forward, her fingers rubbing her locket. One side of the heart contained Eddie’s photo, the other Rachel’s mother, who died four years ago. “You say you don’t want to be judgmental like your father. So don’t be.” Rachel’s voice gentled. “You’ve hurried through life, Eddie, finishing high school when there were only eleven grades, going through college in the wartime accelerated program. You’re only twenty. Slow down, have fun, and stop doubting everyone.”

Her words fell on fertile ground. Eddie was tired of being a mother to her seventeen-year-old twin sisters, a housekeeper for her father, and worst of all, her mother’s caretaker.

“You’re right. Off with mean Miss Smith, schoolmarm.” Eddie scrunched her features and pretended to toss away a mask. “From now on, I’m Eddie Smith sunny government girl.”

“That’s the spirit.” Rachel hummed along with music drifting from the club car. “Let’s join them once we finish.”

In the packed club car, the soldiers, sailors, and marines around the piano made room for them. They were singing a Rachel favorite, a silly song about mares and does eating oats.

To Eddie’s surprise, Pearl stood on the opposite side of the piano, singing, her pointed chin lifted, bliss on her freckled elf face. Eddie’s embroidered blue sweater was buttoned over Pearl’s blouse. Rachel gave Eddie a pointed look and glanced down at Pearl’s feet. Pearl wore the saddle shoes Rachel had kicked off.

Pearl glanced from Eddie to Rachel, as if she was afraid they would take their things. Eddie tried out a sunny, no-worry smile. After all, Pearl would be going her own way once they got to Washington. And good luck to her.

Pearl came from a family of notorious bootleggers, who lived far out in the woods so their stills wouldn’t be discovered. Pearl must need to escape Saltville, too.

Pearl shifted to stand next to Rachel, who rested an arm on Pearl’s shoulder and joined in the chorus. Eddie added her voice to theirs, and the three stood together singing as if they were the Andrews Sisters.

“A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead,” a soldier said. “I must be in heaven.”

With darkness pressing at the windows, they sang the miles away, really belting out Cole Porter’s, “Don’t Fence Me In,” their escape from Saltville anthem.

As they sang, “I’ll be seeing you in all those old familiar places…” Rachel’s smile slipped. Eddie knew Rachel still grieved her mother. They both mourned their mothers, though Eddie’s was still alive.

When a waiter presented them with a tray of Coca-Colas, Eddie looked around for who ever had sent them. Food and drinks were expensive on the train.

A blond officer, tanned and broad-shouldered, sat smoking at a nearby table. On his uniform collar, twin silver bars. He raised his glass of amber liquid to her questioning eyes. She lifted her bottle and mouthed thank you.

They were singing about swinging on a star, carrying moonbeams in a jar when the conductor called, “Union Station, Washington, D.C., fifteen minutes.”

The singers let out a collective groan. The journey was over too soon. Eddie feared the whole summer would pass like their journey, and they’d be on their way back to Saltville and their old lives. The idea filled her with verzagen, despair.

Before leaving the club car, she glanced around to the man at the table. He crooked his finger at her, his battleship gray eyes hypnotic. Without a conscious decision to do so, she changed course and threaded her way through the crowd to him.

He set down his cigarette with its long worm of ash and pushed a small leather-bound notebook and an expensive fountain pen across the table to her. “Your name and telephone number, please, Miss.”

Her insides turned to jelly, a reminder she was not the wunderkind Saltville folks said she was. She was a fraud. People always remarked on her maturity, her intelligence, but she was no valedictorian when it came to men.

In her best penmanship, she wrote what he’d asked.

On her way back to her seat, in a vestibule between cars, the Washington Monument appeared in a rain-flecked window. “Hello Washington,” she whispered and placed her palm on the glass as if to embrace this city she loved already.

Yet cold dread crept up her spine, and she shivered at a danger she couldn’t name. Washington must have its salt flats, too, dangers that could suck you under. And unlike Saltville, she didn’t know where these were.

Beside Rachel again, she said, “I’ve become a floozy already. I gave my name and phone number to a man I don’t know.”

“You mean the handsome Marine Corps captain, who only had eyes for you?” Rachel winked. “If you didn’t give him your number, how would you see him again?”