Mare's War (19 page)

I laugh at her and look for Annie again. Annie’s just got word from her folks that her friend is alive and well, a prisoner of war somewhere behind enemy lines. She’s got the iron in her now. Annie Brown is like a leopard that changed its spots. She is up first thing in our barracks and she works hard—writing letters to her newspaper at home, volunteering for extra guard duty as an MP, working as a clerk—and she’s got me working with her, too. When we’re not on duty at the post office, we’re in the Red Cross building—writing letters to the boys in the field, making up packages, and donating blood. Annie doesn’t have time to clown and spy on officers anymore, and she can’t be bothered about going dancing and such. It takes all I’ve got just to drag her out to the beauty shop.

Annie is mad clear through at the Nazis. She call them “Krauts,” and she got nothing good to say about them nor the “dagos” in Italy or the “Japs,” neither. I don’t hate none of them. I don’t know as I have even ever seen any of the dagos before, or even any Germans back in Bay Slough; they all just look white to me. Annie hasn’t seen none of them, neither, but she says she would beat the tar out of ’em if she met any.

Most of the time, it seems the
Post Gazette
says we are winning the war. The Allied troops are winning, they say, and they tell us the bombs we hear mean the German army’s on the run, but it doesn’t always feel like winning. Not when someone personal gets on the casualty list; then it doesn’t feel like winning at all.

When a bomb hits in Birmingham, you can’t tell too much by the next day. The English folks sweep up the glass and the rocks and smooth out the road. Broken windows are boarded up, scorched paint is painted over, and as soon as possible, it is all like nothing has happened. First time I heard one of those V-1 bombs, I was scared spitless. And every time, I still get scared; we all of us do. But we don’t show it. There are WAC girls all over England—and some in London—who have got to live with this every single day and night. The lieutenant say if the folks who live in Birmingham, the English, can take it, then the U.S. Women’s Army Corps can take it, too.

Annie finally comes out from the barracks, tying up her scarf, and we walk across the square to the beauty shop, trying to enjoy that little bit of weak sun coming down on us. The jam-eating girl is standing across the road in her yard now. I just nod to her and keep on going, like I used to do to Feen. Little kids will talk to you
all
day if you let them.

Some of the girls want to go home and eat dinner with the English folks they’ve met and gotten friendly with, and Lieutenant Scott says that’s okay with her as long as we make
curfew. Now, I don’t know about eating with these folks—they can’t make no kind of coffee, and I don’t know about that tea, either. And Peaches says they eat kidneys for breakfast, and she doesn’t mean beans. I have got enough problems with Spam and soybean sausages for just about every meal. I can’t believe that Ina White says she likes ’em.

The bell rings as we go in the door of the shop. Peaches, Annie, and me have been getting our hair done regularly on our mornings off. Nobody but Sister Dials and Mama ever did my hair back home, so to sit in a beauty parlor, even one like this one with electric cords and chairs all jammed together in a little room, makes me feel like I’m grown.

WACs don’t wear those fancy pin curls and updos, not in this wet and fog. Every time I go to the beauty shop, I remember Lieutenant Hundley way back in basic hollering at us girls for having our hair past our collars and wearing too much jewelry. When my turn comes, I choose a side part and roll the rest on my neck nice and neat. One of these days, I am going to go out on the town and get myself one of those pompadours I saw Lena Horne wearing in
Life
magazine. I am going to put flowers in my hair. I am going to step out!

When I catch myself thinkin’ that, I know I have been in this cold and fog too long. Where would I be going all dolled up like that? And with who?

I shake my head at myself, then Peaches comes in, smiling. “Hey, girls, guess what? I’m going to be in a magazine,” she says, and sits down next to me.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“I just talked to a lady reporter from
Life
magazine,” she tell me.

I roll my eyes, and Annie just clicks her tongue and sighs. “Peaches,” she says, “you’ve got to find something better to do with your time.”

That starts them off arguing, as usual. Me, I’m not trying to talk to no reporters. For one thing, Peaches is still helping me talk like a city girl, and I don’t need to forget and say “ain’t” with any newspaperman listening. For another thing, those reporters sure don’t tell the truth. Phillipa’s been down at the mouth since one of her aunties sent her the colored paper from Cleveland. Seems like they’re telling the folks back home that we don’t know what we are doing out here. Even worse, Lieutenant Scott says now we have got to watch what we say and how we carry ourselves ’cause the reporters have been reporting that most of us are out here whoring and the rest have found a soldier somewhere to get us pregnant. You could’ve knocked me down when I saw it. They wrote that in the paper, in bold black and white like it’s the gospel truth!

Peaches thinks she can change folks’ minds about what goes on here, but I know better. Folks always do believe what they want to believe about everything. You can tell them the truth, then tell ’em again, but they just don’t always want to hear. Anyway, our CO says that we’d best not pay the papers no mind and get on with our business.

Later, we walk on to the base post office for work. It is fine out, so we take our time. Hardly anybody has cars around
here, and there’s not much gasoline—or “petrol,” like they call it—and only a few buses anymore, so we are walking smack in the middle of the road, arms linked, feeling fine with our sharp uniforms and our fancy hair. Peaches has got fancy hair anyway.

We hear planes growling far off in the blue sky. Then the bus comes and moves away wheezing and sighing, letting off a cloud of black smoke. Folks are all heading home to pick up rations to fix their dinner—or “tea,” which is how they call it. I still don’t know how “tea” could be two things, but they don’t make no kind of sense to me anyway.

I am not surprised to see that little girl tagging round after us again; this time, she’s got herself a doll, and she is marching, her little skinny legs going up one-two-one-two, her arms down at her sides, straight. Two or three other little girls are hanging around, watching her clowning while she walks along behind us. The grown folks act like they don’t see her, trying to hide their smiles.

“Hey, little miss,” I say to her over my shoulder. “What you doing back—” Then I notice the quiet. I stop my mouth and listen.

I hear a crack, and then it sounds like thunder over Bay Slough. We hear that every day, five and six times a day, but this time, it is so close the ground shakes. Everything is still while that growling carries on louder and louder. Even the wind don’t make a sound as it pushes past my face, real soft.

“Helmet.” Annie only says the one word, and Peaches groans. “Why is it always just after I get my hair done?”

“My heart bleeds for you, Peaches Carter. Don’t be a fool.” Annie looks at me.

Miss Annie Brown doesn’t have to say a thing to me. I already got my helmet off my arm and buckled down under my chin. I look around for the little girl. She is backed up to the side of the road, flattened up against a house. She is looking up. The other girls have run indoors.

The grown folks have stopped where they are. Some of them are looking up. Some of them are looking for a place to hide. One lady takes off her scarf, which is a faded red, and stuffs it into the pocket of her old wool coat, like she scared them Nazis gonna see a little bit of color from way up high. A man squats on his heels, shading his eyes with his hand, watching.

“You get along home, too, miss,” I tell the little girl, but she acts like she can’t hear me.

I click my tongue. If that were Feen, I’d give her a piece of my mind and a swat on her behind. “Scram, girl!” I say again, and her eyes roll toward me, then back up at the sky. Poor thing’s so scared she can’t move.

Annie, Peaches, and I crouch in front of a house, craning our necks to see if we can see something. As long as you can hear that little motor on that buzz bomb whine, you know you’re all right—it’s still flying. Everybody ducks when the motor stops, though. Those bombs glide down in perfect silence—you don’t know where they will land. Sometimes we don’t hear any explosion at all. Those times, the bomb may not have gone off; it maybe just fell somewhere and is lying in a field.

We wait.

Somebody’s baby start to crying, and they hush it.

We wait.

A door opens and we hear a voice shout, “Victoria!” The little girl starts sidling along the houses till we can’t see her no more.

The door slams.

We wait.

We wait, we wait, we wait.

The times when we hear nothing, we go on, just thankful it didn’t hit here. Today, we don’t hear a thing, and after a while, the squatting man clears his throat and stands up.

“Not today, hmm?” he says in his funny, fast way, and then it’s like everybody thaws. We all straighten up, move, stretch. The lady puts her scarf back on. The world gets started again.

It doesn’t take much time for us to get to talking again, it happens so often. Peaches unstraps her helmet and swings it over her arm, fluffing up her hair. By the time we walk on to the post office, we hear engines growling again. I rub my eyes. “It’s going to be dark tonight,” I say, and Annie nods.

“Hate those blackout shades.” She sighs. We strain our eyes trying to read the names on the packages, but there’s nothing we can do about it. After dark, everybody in Birmingham has on blackout shades so we don’t give off light to the enemy flying overhead.

When a siren goes off later on that night, we just put on our helmets and keep working. I stand to pick up a package, and I almost fall as the ground shakes. Dust sifts from the
walls as the bricks shift. I grab a table to keep my balance, and everybody looks around, smiling kind of nervous.

We have had a hit.

When the chips are down, we do our duty. I pick up my package and listen to the girl next to me muttering. She is saying the rosary, still working, reading off serial numbers and slotting her packages in the right piles. I remember to say my prayers, too.