My Family for the War (30 page)

Impulsively, I let out a shout of joy that chased away the last bits of fear. Gary, Mamu, Amanda, Uncle Matthew, Walter… there were so many reasons to survive this war!

For a woman in wartime, there is nothing more wonderful than to be able to meet her soldier at the train station. The melancholy record albums Amanda and I listened to every evening had convinced me of that, and I also knew just how to prepare for such an important event.

“Will you lend me a hat?” I asked my foster mother.

“Of course I’ll lend you a hat. But first you have to decide what you’ll wear, so everything goes together,” she instructed me.

I spent hours roaming back and forth between my room and hers, where there was a large mirror, as I took an increasingly hopeless inventory of my closet. That morning I made several disturbing discoveries. First, I didn’t have a single outfit that went together. Secondly, there wasn’t a single piece of clothing that genuinely looked flattering. And thirdly, I looked rather awful in general, something I had never noticed before. Amanda found me dissolved in tears, with her room and mine looking like battlefields. “You can go to the train station without me!” I wailed.

“Dear God,” she said grimly, looking around. I pushed some clothes on the floor and threw myself on her bed sobbing.

“Leave me alone!” Experience had taught me that this was usually a good tactic for getting comfort and attention. But Amanda was not her usual self today.

“Every free minute,” she said in a quaking voice, “that isn’t spent with bookkeeping and showing films and selling tickets, I’m cleaning, cooking, and washing in this damned house. I don’t expect you to help with the housework. You’re a child. BUT DAMMIT, I DO EXPECT YOU TO NOT MAKE THINGS EVEN HARDER ON ME THAN THEY ALREADY ARE!”

My jaw fell open and I stared at her. Amanda had never yelled at me before, and she had certainly never said “damn” twice in a row.

“In fifteen minutes,” she said in a shaky voice, “every single thing will be hanging in its proper place and this room will be NEAT. Do you understand me?”

I nodded silently. Amanda rushed out and was only halfway down the stairs by the time I gathered up a pile of clothes and stepped out into the hallway. Her cry as the front door opened made me drop my armful of clothing on the spot. I stormed down the stairs, but after a few steps stood still as if rooted to the spot. A marine officer in white and blue carried Amanda through the foyer to the sounds of his own triumphant cries and her muffled, halfhearted protest: “Why are you here so early? We wanted to meet you! Dad isn’t even home yet!”

The sailor set Amanda back down on her feet, and I,
watching from the stairs, was spellbound by the similarity between the two of them, which I had forgotten in the eleven months since I had last seen Gary.

“If I had known that,” he said with a grin, “of course I would have waited half the day for you at the train station, but silly me, I thought you’d be happy for every extra minute I’m at home!” It must have been the word
home
that made him look around at his surroundings for a moment, and in that moment he found me! “Hey!” he called softly. “Don’t tell me that’s my little sister!”

Just seeing him step toward the bottom of the staircase sent cold shivers down my spine. I couldn’t have said which was more wonderful, and at the same time harder to bear: looking at Gary, or noticing the way he looked at me!

He had changed a lot. His face had grown thinner, almost angular, and he seemed much older than his nineteen years. A suntan brought out his green eyes, and they had a different sheen to them than they had had before. More serious, wiser. As if no one could remain the same in this war, even my carefree, invulnerable brother.

As always, it was Gary who broke the spell and made the first step toward me. I finally jumped up and threw myself around his neck. “You came at just the right time!” I cried. “Mum and I just had a terrible row!”

I suppose I had wanted to say “
your
mum,” but I hadn’t thought about it at all. Amanda and I were both stunned to hear me say it.

But not Gary. “What was it about?” he immediately wanted to know.

“Actually,” Amanda replied as we led him into the kitchen, “it was only about a hat.”

“A hat, seriously? Look at her, Mum, she’s growing up!” Gary tossed his kit bag into the corner.

“Come sit down and have some cake,” Amanda said.

We sat across from him and watched him eat. “How is it that you’re here already?” Amanda asked.

“I didn’t take the train. A medical officer drove me and two others from Plymouth,” he explained. Amanda leaned forward to serve Gary more cake, and the odd sensation that had come over me as I listened to him intensified. Something wasn’t right. He talked a little too fast, a bit too loud, and in the moments that passed as he waited for his second slice of cake, I understood why he had eaten so quickly. His right hand trembled—just a little, but still enough to want to distract us from it. Our eyes met, and when he realized that I had seen it, he gave a slight shake of his head and asked me in an almost warning tone, “Heard anything from Walter?”

“No,” I responded, trying not to lower my gaze. “But he is doing well and I send him half my ration of sweets every week.”

“Good girl. Nothing lifts the morale like a package with sweets. Listen, please don’t be offended, but I absolutely have to smoke a cigarette and take a nap. I want to be in good shape when Dad gets home.”

He stood up without even touching his second piece of cake, drew a squashed pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and was already on his way to the kitchen door. “Gary, you can smoke inside, you don’t need…” Amanda began.

“Just let me get used to being here, Mum,” he interrupted
her, and the cheerful façade fell away in an instant, without any warning. He looked young, vulnerable, and incredibly tired. Quickly he disappeared through the door and his outline flitted past the garden window.

We practically jumped to the window to peer out. Gary wandered along the fence, smoking, gazed into our corrugated metal bunker for a long time, picked a leaf out of the hedge. “He’s so thin,” whispered Amanda, “and did you see his hand?”

“He’ll be better in a day or two! And don’t you tremble yourself sometimes when you’re tired?”

“You’re right. Heavens, just look at me.” She wiped a hand across her eyes. “A bundle of nerves—just what he needs right now. Promise that you’ll kick me if I start to act foolish.”

I put my arm around her waist and snuggled up to her. “If you do, I’ll think of something else. I’m certainly not going to kick you!”

“My sweetie! I’m so sorry about earlier.”

“Me too. It was my fault.”

“No. It’s just this damned war!”

I let go of her. “What should we cook?” I asked brightly. “I’ll put everything away upstairs, then I’ll come help you. When Gary’s rested, this will be the greatest week ever, want to bet?”

“No. Jewish people don’t make bets,” Amanda replied, and could finally laugh again, even more so when I countered: “And I’ll bet Jews don’t say ‘damn’ either.”

We could seat Gary and Uncle Matthew as far apart as we wanted, but at some point the conversation always came around to the war. While Churchill and Lord Halifax ranted
against Chamberlain and Lloyd George in the House of Commons, Gary and his father were having the same heated debate in our dining room.

Even Amanda resorted to sarcasm after a few days. “Why don’t we invite the BBC to broadcast our dinners? Then the politicians could take a vacation,” she suggested.

But it was no use. The war, which had already driven a deep gouge in the European map, now divided the Shepard house as well.

“How can anyone even seriously consider surrendering to these pigs?” Gary ranted. “And especially my own father, a Jew! Do you want to sign your own death warrant, Dad? Yours, mine, and Frances’s? Mum they’ll at least wave through, and be thrilled by her perfect Irish Catholic pedigree.”

“It’s not about surrender, it’s about reaching a peace agreement with Germany!” Uncle Matthew turned red in the face. “Our death sentence, if you dare speak of such a thing, would be the invasion. If we make a peace treaty, they won’t touch us.”

“Don’t be so naive, Dad. You can’t trust those people! They’ve broken every single treaty they’ve ever made.”

“Have you looked at a map lately? Eight countries around us are in German hands. All our heavy artillery was left in France. The only power that could still save us has decided to remain neutral. It’s not a question of wanting to, Gary, we don’t have any
choice
anymore!”

“Wrong! Roosevelt will convince Congress. It can’t be in America’s best interest to have the Nazis ruling Europe.”

“Would anyone else like another baked apple?” Amanda
asked. In reply she heard: “Congress?! The entire American public is against the war! Haven’t you heard?
We won’t sacrifice our American boys to save the Jews!
”

“Okay,” said Gary. “Let’s just imagine that we do sign a peace treaty with the Germans. Our island remains intact at first. And what happens forty miles away?”

Uncle Matthew bristled with anger. “I’ve seen what’s happening there. I was there myself, you know!”

“Which is why I can’t understand you! These tyrants have to be stopped! You may be too old to understand this, but I don’t want to live in a world where the Nazis are in charge!” With those words, Gary threw his napkin onto the table and left the room.

“Matthew,” Amanda said through gritted teeth, “in a few days our son is going back to his ship to fight! He’s lost four mates that he knew personally, and I won’t listen for one more minute while you attack him!”

Uncle Matthew turned pale. “You’re right,” he said. “I at least owe him moral support.”

“He didn’t tell me that he’s lost friends!” I muttered, after Uncle Matthew left the room.

Amanda replied: “It’s a pleasure for him to have someone he can still talk to about normal, everyday things.”

She was right. As soon as we were alone, the comfortable familiarity between Gary and me returned. For several days we even shared a new secret—though it was one I would much rather not have known about!

Happily, I handed tools to my hero while he dismantled the corrugated metal bunker in our yard. “I hope the Home
Guard is teaching Dad how to build a decent shelter,” he teased, after he had exposed the muddy hole that hadn’t been sealed off when our shelter had been built the first time. “The shovel, Frances!”

I adjusted my straw hat and moved gracefully to carry out his command. Gary’s bare upper body gleamed in the sunlight, and I admired the muscles in his shoulders and arms as he shoveled wet earth out of the hole. “You’re incredibly brown,” I commented.

“But only to here!” Gary revealed a pasty white stripe below his hips. “Without clothes on I look like someone dipped me halfway in mud.”

“So you spend all day on deck in the sunshine,” I answered wittily.

“Well, my assignments include a certain amount of scrubbing and mopping outdoors,” he replied with good humor. “But did I tell you that I’m going to be transferred to one of the brand-new battle cruisers? The
Princess of Malta
! Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“Fantastic!” I sighed. “Too bad I’m not in Tail’s End anymore. I could make them so jealous talking about you!”

Gary laughed and leaned against the shovel. “Tail’s End! How I enjoyed your letters!” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “I’m writing someone,” he added casually.

“Oh?” A sharp pang stabbed my heart. “Who is it?”

“Melissa Cole. The sister of Philip, the first of my buddies who got hit—off the coast of Iceland. I wrote to his parents, and Melissa wrote back. Here…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small photo. “What do you think of her?”

“Nice,” I lied to the round-faced blonde and sat down
slowly. The stars that flickered before my eyes, the mounting nausea… if I stood a second longer, I would have fallen onto Gary.

Gary took the picture from my hand and looked at it dreamily. “I think she looks a little bit like Mum—around the eyes,” he said, which pushed me over the edge.

“Well, I don’t think so at all,” I grumbled.

“I’ll find out soon,” Gary announced as he put the photo back in his wallet. “When I leave here I’m going to Henley for three days to visit Melissa’s family.”

My mouth hung open. He was cutting short his long-awaited visit with us to go stay with a family of total strangers? The afternoon was getting worse by the minute!

“Do your parents know about this?” I asked, outraged.

“Not yet. They know I’m leaving on Monday, but of course they think I’m going straight back to the ship. Keep it to yourself, will you? It’s bad enough if they find out on the weekend. Melissa is three years older than me,” Gary added, “and she’s not Jewish. Seems to run in the family. But of course she won’t have it nearly as hard as Mum.”

“Wait a minute. You haven’t even met Melissa!” The name turned into a hiss in my mouth.

But Gary just shrugged his shoulders. “People can get to know each other through letters too. Is there any other way during the war? Give me the tarp.”

I threw the tarp into the hole. Gary unfolded it and began to stomp it into the ground.

“You have no idea how much I’ve looked forward to seeing you again!” he said with a smile. “It’s hard to believe you just arrived last year! It seems like you’ve always been here
with us, doesn’t it? And now,” he added, “you can take the other shovel and fill in with dirt from around the edges. I’ll stamp it down firm, we’ll let it dry, then seal the floor with hot tar and put the bunker back together. Then when the bombs fall, you’ll be all cozy and comfortable in here!”

I cried for three nights. By the time it was Amanda’s turn to spill tears in secret—not because of Melissa Cole herself, but because of the three days with Gary we were cheated of—I was already feeling better, and even got a certain satisfaction from finally having someone to hate again. It was a good thing I didn’t know about voodoo, or I probably would have tried something really nasty! Instead I limited my efforts to secretly wishing that by the time Gary arrived, Melissa Cole would have an enormous pimple.