Mare's War (30 page)

“You can go faster than thirty,” my sister sighs as three cars pass me one after another.

“Now, you’re doing fine, Octavia. Hush, Miss Thing.”

“I’m the one who taught her how to drive,” Tali scoffs. “All you were going to do was throw her in the water and see if she could swim.”

“That’s how I learned,” Mare says tersely.

“That’s how you taught Dad, too,” Tali reminds her. “And he says he almost drowned.”

“Well, your father”—Mare shrugs dismissively—“exaggerates. He turned out all right.”

“He also told us about the time you made him smoke a whole pack of cigarettes so he threw up.” Tali snickers. “He told us about the time you nailed shut his bedroom window because he kept sneaking out at night.”

Mare sighs. “And he wonders why I never had another child.” She glances wryly at Tali. “Just think. I might have had a daughter.”

“You did not just say that! You did not just disrespect me like that!”

Tali’s wounded dramatics finally brings what we have both been waiting for—Mare’s rattling, wheezing laughter. It seems the air in the car moves more freely as Tali continues to complain and Mare keeps smiling.

“Tali really did teach me,” I say. I can’t keep a smile from my face. “She let me practice with her. This morning.”

“Well, I hope so,” Mare says. “It’s what I did for
my
sister. Feen about wore me out, jumping and jerking, riding the brakes. George said he was going to teach her, but I got there first. By the time he got around to it, she was ready to take the exam.” Mare sounds proud.

I am thrilled that George is going to continue to be part of Mare’s story. I imagine how it must have been when he looked in on Feen. Was she impressed with her sister’s beau?

“When are you going to take the test again?” Tali interrupts my train of thought.

“When I get home, I guess,” I say.

“Do it,” my sister commands. “If we both ask, Mom and Dad might get us a car.”

“Now, you two don’t hardly need a car,” Mare says, shaking her head. “You know how old I was before I even got a driver’s license?”

“But that was back in the day, Mare,” Tali says, grinning. “Nowadays, people need to get to the mall.”

“Maybe so.” Mare sighs. “Maybe so. You young girls are fast and sassy these days, and maybe you do need a car. I don’t know.”

I look over at Mare in surprise. “Really?” It’s not like her to be so mellow.

“Watch the road!” Mare and Tali shout in unison.

“I am!”

As I straighten the car from drifting off into the ditch on the side of the highway, Mare keeps talking. “When I was your age, it was the same. You girls want cars; well, we wanted gentlemen friends and adult lives. Can’t try and get everything you want all at once, though. Most of the time, the good things are worth a wait.”

Tali groans loudly. “Is this where you tell us not to have sex?”

Mare laughs, a single harsh sound. “No. This is where I tell you if you have another drink on this trip, I will send your narrow behind back home.”

“What? I won’t,” Tali protests, a little hurt. “I’m not an alcoholic or anything. I was just … I don’t know, trying it.”

Mare sighs. “You know, your father thinks I’m a bad influence on you. I’m not too sure he’s not right.”

“He’s not right,” Tali says stubbornly. “It wasn’t like it was your idea.”

“It’s not something you would have done if your parents were here, is it?”

“No, but they don’t drink. …” Tali trails off uncomfortably. “Fine.” She sighs. “Mare, I’m sorry. What’s my punishment?”

“You’ve already got it,” Mare says easily.

“What?”

“Your sister is driving. All day today, anytime she wants to, Octavia gets to drive.”

“And?”

“And that’s it,” Mare says, and turns back to me. “Did I tell you about how your father learned to drive?”

“Didn’t he just learn in school?”

“Oh, no, he didn’t think he needed anything like driving school. He went south to work one summer, ended up in Fresno, and told them he could drive a tractor.”

“What?” I blink. Dad had a lot of nerve.

“Octavia,” Tali interrupts. “Speed
up
. Mare, don’t talk to her; she slows down.”

“Your sister’s doing just fine, Miss Thing. Hush up and take your punishment.”

“My punishment?! Oh,
no
. No! This is SO wrong!”

I can’t help it. I laugh. It bursts out of my stomach, a single, loud noise, and rattles from my throat in a staccato chortle.

The road ahead of us is long, straight, and flat, and we have miles and miles to go.

“Maryanne! Ina says we’ve got orders!”

“We’re shipping out of here?” Maryanne drops her stack of reports and balls up her fists.

“The Six-triple-eight is going home!”

Maryanne raises her arms and cheers. We knew we weren’t staying on in Paris, France, forever, and the European theater of operations will soon be closed for business for good.

Major Addams shipped out just about right after they made her lieutenant colonel. Most of the Red Cross folks settled themselves working with orphanages or moved on to the Pacific to help out the Japanese now after the surrender. The boys have been shipping out of the ETO one unit after another, and now it’s down to the Postal Directory Battalion to come on out and close the door behind us. Folks are gonna have to do without the U.S. Women’s Army Corps now.

In the lobby of the hotel, folks are talking all over each other. Somebody brought out a bottle of French champagne,
and we all get a sip. It is a party that started when the captain first posted the papers, and it will go on till we march out.

Most folks are glad to be going ’cause things have been changing. For one thing, Uncle Sam has time now to be sending out postal inspectors, and it seems our efficiency is down at the Paris postal exchange since the French folks have been helping. It also seems things have gone missing from the post, and the inspectors say we have to do searches before folks leave for the night.

Nobody likes that. We don’t like treating the French like they’re lying to us, and they get all riled up when we follow orders. And our orders are to search and seize. On the captain’s orders, we turn out pockets, dump out handbags, check up under hats and through hair, and we find every little place folks might hide something, and I do mean every little place, everywhere. And we find things, too. Tubes of scent, fountain pens, chewing gum, money, smokes. We confiscate it and send folks away. We can hardly be social with the French after that.

The weather is just as tired as we are. The streets are all slippery puddles, and it is raw cold around here. Things that were exciting to look at—the bistros where French kids drank down watered wine like they were grown, the shops where they lay out the food with no covering on it, all the dance hall shows and the cathedrals and all—none of that seems interesting anymore. Everywhere some fool writes Kilroy Was Here, somebody else scrawls Yankee, Go Home! This man’s army has just worn its welcome out.

I might have saved my time, sending that telegram. I get a letter from George a few days later, telling me he is just now getting away from the U.S. Army. He landed at Camp Shanks, then they sent him on to a “separation center” in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he got part of his mustering-out pay—they gave him a hundred dollars in cash—got the details of the GI Bill of Rights explained to him, gave up all his uniform clothes except the ones he was wearing home, and then got asked to sign up for another hitch in the service! When they finally understood that no meant no, they gave him his orders releasing him from active duty and he hopped a bus for New Orleans, where he stayed a day and a night with his relatives back there. Then he got himself directly on a train to Alabama to see after my sister. After all that, I get a letter from Feen the following week:

Feen didn’t hardly say a thing about what’s going on, and that doesn’t make my worry any less. Worrying don’t rush the U.S. Army, though. Now that we have our orders to muster out, everything is “hurry up and wait.” We have more medical checks and record and equipment checks than we know what to do with. The brass is checking and double-checking that we don’t allow any equipment that should belong to the U.S. Women’s Army Corps to get left behind. Packing up is all we do for weeks, and then it is time to board the train to Normandy, then board ship in Le Havre.

I send a telegram to Feen to let her know to expect me home. Last time it took us eleven days on ship to get here, and this time the ship is not so big and the weather is just as bad. The navy is sending colored nurses home on the same transport, so we will be bunking with strangers, but after all
we have been through getting to the ETO, just knowing we’ll find dry land at the other end is almost enough for me.

This time our bunks are down in the hold, and like the time before, they are triple decks. We hear the officers get two bunks to a room and a recreation lounge, but that is no surprise. It is stormy out on the Atlantic sea, but none of us in the Six-triple-eight are surprised by this, either. We have been through storms before.

Ruby got a bottom bunk this time, since she just about killed herself last time falling off the top. Peaches and me are above her, and all she can talk about is how Bob is coming for her at the separation center and how once she gets her orders, he is going to drive her home and meet her parents. Ina says she might sign up for another hitch, seeing as they might offer more money and another stripe on her sleeve. Maryanne thinks she will use her GI Bill of Rights money to go back to nursing school, but she says she can’t think past getting home and going to sleep in a room she don’t have to share with seven other people.

“You hear anything back about that teaching job in Atlanta?” I lean down and ask Peach.

“No,” Peaches says slowly. “I wrote them back and told them not to hold it for me.”

“Are you kidding?” Ruby leans out from her bunk. “Why not? I thought you wanted to teach.”

Peaches shrugs. “I had a good time at secretarial college, but … I don’t want to go home. Not yet anyway,” she says, and she grins. Ruby looks at Peach like she’s just said she doesn’t love her mother anymore.

“But, Peaches, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Peaches admits. “Since we’ve been in Paris, I’ve felt so free I’ve almost forgotten what home is like. In France we ate in any bistro we wanted to, shopped in any store we wanted. Atlanta won’t be like that.”

“Won’t be like that anywhere, not for colored folks,” I say. “We only won the victory in the ETO, remember? Didn’t anybody realize we wouldn’t win the war back home.”

“I got a letter from a fellow I met in London,” Peaches says. “He was a dishwasher at a café before he joined, and then he trained as a truck driver. He drove with the Red Ball and took a shot in the leg, so they discharged him. He went home to Athens, down in Georgia, and he hasn’t found a job yet.”

“That’s what George was worried about,” I say.

Peach sighs. “The GI Bill of Rights guarantees service personnel all kinds of help, but in the South, you just might be out of luck. This gent went to the U.S. Employment Service folks, but they can’t find him anything but dish washing, and he’s supporting his mama. Got turned down for unemployment pay. That’s the way it is back home, and”—Peaches shrugs—“I don’t want any part of it.”