by Ryan Byrnes
“When do you suppose it will snow?” Private Roberts asked, looking out the window at the frosted and shriveled countryside.
“No idea.” I shrugged. But I hope it snows soon. I mean, what’s Christmas without snow? It’s already cold as hell, so we might as well get the precipitation to match.” I put Ethyl’s letter back in the bag and pulled the drawstring tight.
He nodded and kept his eyes focused on the passing fields. With a long sigh, he rested his head on the windowsill.
“Say, you know where the loo is?” I asked. “Is there a special car for that, or do we just piss off the side?”
“Two cars down.”
“Cheers, mate.” Gripping the railing, I pulled myself to my feet, leaving the warmth of the car for the balcony outside. The ground rushed past, and I stepped over the coupler linking the two cars. The floor buckled and clanked beneath me, and I stepped into the other car, this one also stuffed full of post. I crossed the car, my bloated bladder coaxing me on. When I reached the other side, my boot landed on something soft. I looked down to see a small doll, a man in a red cloak with a white beard and a bag over his shoulder. Santa Claus. I bent down to pick it up, and before I straightened up, I heard a gasp.
“Est-ce que vous, Pére Noël?”
A tiny, high-pitched voice cut through the dull rattling of the car, followed by a few shh’s. I could’ve sworn it sounded like a little girl, like one of the kids who lived down the hall from me in that last boarding house. I could tell by the inflection of the words that she was asking a question, like Is it you, Pére Noël? Only I had no idea who Pére Noël was.
“Ce que tu lis? Ce livre—est-il un histoire?”
A shiver rushed up my spine, and goose-pimples skittered across my skin. The stacks of post sacks slanted shadows across the car. Stowaways. Refugees?
If I was a kid, where would I hide?
I stepped forward carefully. After all, if there were kids hiding in here, I didn’t want to scare them. I peered behind first one and then another mail sack until I saw her. A shivering little girl crouched there—white-haired with a little round nose, surrounded by dolls and an open suitcase stuffed with more dolls. She said something in French, and then her eyes came to rest on the pistol at my side. She pulled back into herself, obviously wary.
I held my hands up. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Two more girls poked their heads out from behind post sacks. The older one stood, reached into her skirt pocket, and pulled out a nasty, curved knife with a blade a good five inches long. It was an army knife—French, German, or British, I couldn’t tell. Once I caught a good look at it, she stowed it back into her skirts.
I realized the littlest one—she was probably about five years old—was staring at the doll in my hand. I held it out to her. “Is this yours?”
She snatched it from me and looked down at the doll and then up at me. “Pére Noël!”
“Who?”
“Pére Noël! Pére Noël!”
“All right, who is this Pére Noël? Why do you keep calling me that?”
She pointed at me and then eyed the duffel bag slung over my shoulder. I squinted at my reflection in the window—a little bit of my beard had grown back since I had last shaved, and I was tugging a bulging duffel bag over my shoulder. I studied the doll, then my own reflection. The doll. Me. The doll. Me.
“Pére Noël,” the little girl said, handing me the doll.
“God, no. Ah, no. Not at all.” I shook my head. “I’m no Santa Claus. My name is Jim Baker. Je suis appelé Jim Baker.”
“Non,” the girl shook her head.
“Non Pére Noël,” I corrected her.
I set my bag down to prove it. They gathered ’round me as I undid the buckles and dumped out the contents—a week’s worth of clothes, lots of rolled-up socks, toiletries, ammunition, cigarettes, money, and a folder full of my personal documents.
“See,” I said. “I’ve no toys. These are my supplies.”
The girls prattled amongst themselves.
“Where are you parents?” I finally asked the oldest girl. She was probably no older than ten. “Your pére and mére? Where are they?”
“Refugee,” was all she said.
What had I just walked into?
“Do you know any English?” I asked.
She nodded. “Some. A neighbor was English.” Her eyes glistened and she wiped her nose.
“Alright. What are your names?”
“Je suis appelé Celeste Moreau,” she pointed to herself. Celeste Moreau.
She nodded at the middle girl. “Adele Moreau.”
Then, the smallest sister, who obsessively clung to the Santa doll. “Bernadette Moreau.”
“Jim Baker,” I pointed at myself.
“Non,” Celeste shook her head, “Pére Noël.”
“Where are your parents?” I asked them, this time louder.
She shook her head and looked away. I didn’t press. She wouldn’t talk about her parents just because I shouted.
“Where are you from? Your home?”
“North Pole,” Celeste replied.
Suddenly, little Bernadette rushed me, throwing her arms around my waist, her silver-blond hair—frayed and dirty—draped over my arm. I tried thinking of some smart response, some way to scold her for throwing herself at a strange man with a gun. It was dangerous, foolish. But what could I say that she would understand? I stood there, dumb, and for once, I had no smart comeback, no quip to lighten the mood. My heart slowed, my chest loosened, and all of the noise in my head softened and quieted. I looked down to see her burying her face in my shirt, eyes screwed shut, as if I, Santa Claus, had the power to quell her pain. It was one of those moments that slowed time, and the only thought that occurred to me was how gentle, how vulnerable, how hopeful she was. Like a smoldering wick, the slightest breeze would blow her out. So I hugged her back and held my hand against her little head, and imagined this was how fathers felt. Get a hold of yourself, Jim.
“Hold on,” I croaked out and quickly left the car.
In the back of my mind, I felt a darkness, a fear that I’d done something wrong. I remembered when I was young, at my Aunt Lavinia’s wedding, Ethyl Brand had grabbed me by the hands and tried pulling me out onto the dance floor. We were about five, and I was so red with embarrassment that I tore my hands out of hers and hid in the bushes outside. I’d always rejected tenderness like I’d rejected fruitcake—too much sweetness made me sick. That’s what I got for growing up in a sweet shop. I thought of Mum and felt that it had something to do with her. Her and Luther. Love him sweet, she always said when trying to keep calm during one of Luther’s fits. Love Luther sweet, but give Jim the back of your hand.
Stop being maudlin, Jim!
I nodded at Private Roberts when I returned to the post car. “I’m gonna try to get some real shut-eye in the other car,” I said. “Knock first.”
He smirked.
Before I stepped back into the other car with the Moreau girls, I took a by-now, much-needed piss off the side and watched the dark countryside roll by. What kind of world was it that made refugees of little girls? What kind of world was it that sent men like Luther to war? No kind I’d ever understand.
Back in the other car, I stacked a couple of postal bags on top of each other and draped my oil cloth coat over them, creating a cozy little fort. Bernadette and Adele crawled inside with their dolls, giggling, while Celeste and I locked eyes. She watched me as I dug at the bottom of my bag and pulled out a tin of figs. I opened it and handed it to her. She pulled out her knife and stabbed one fig each, giving out precious rations to her little sisters, who each received larger portions than her. Then came a tin of peaches. After all of the fruit had been skewered, they took turns passing the tin back and forth to sip the syrup. Celeste wouldn’t take any of the syrup and instead left it for the two young ones. Then she offered some to me, but I waved it off, patting my stomach and frowning.
“Too mu
ch sweetness makes me sick.”
But she insisted, and after a few more attempts to refuse, I tipped the tin back and sucked down the last the last of the sweet syrup, feeling the tiny grains of peach dissolve on my tongue.
“Thank you,” I said. She nodded back solemnly as if the transaction was confirmation of a pact made between us.
For most of the rest of the ride, I sat on the floor next to Celeste, backs propped up against a mail sack as we watched Adele and Bernadette play in the fort with their dolls. The more I watched, the more I came to understand the plot of their make-believe story. It all began with a little girl, or several, living and playing happily. Then, a male figure appeared and threw them around. The dolls then escaped and spent a long time wandering and hiding, eventually finding a safe haven with Santa Claus, or Pére Noël, where they would live happily ever after. They repeated this plot with many variations, their brows furrowing each time the male doll came to grab them.
“You know, tomorrow is Christmas,” I said to Celeste. “Maybe Pére Noël will leave you a gift.”
“You must know,” she said, “vous êtes Pére Noël.”
“I’m not. I’m just Jim, Jim Baker.”
I sat there watching the girls for about twenty minutes and then got bored. I pulled out A Tale of Two Cities and flipped to the last scene, which I’d read dozens if not hundreds of times. The girls looked up from their dolls when I opened the book. A few minutes later, Adele and Bernadette returned to their play. Celeste kept watching me, though.
“What is the story?” she asked. “Bien?”
“It’s a good story,” I nodded. “It’s about, um, well—a man, a good man, gets arrested in France because he is related to the enemy. You understand?”
She nodded.
“So he’s a Brit—a very decent, kind Brit—trapped in France, destined to die, and another fellow who’s not so decent and kind rescues him.”
“Rescues? How?”
“Well, the two men—the good man and the bad man—they are very alike. The bad man wants to redeem himself for the bad things he’s done, and he travels all the way from England to France, which is a very dangerous journey. Finally, he finds the good man, who’s trapped—”
My throat closed.
“What? What does he do?”
“They switch places.” I smiled, forcing myself to keep a straight face. “The bad man dresses up to look like the good man. The good man gets off free, while the bad man is executed in his place. And he tells everyone, ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.’”
“This makes you sad,” she noted.
“Oh, I’m not sad,” I sniffed. “It’s just, I got this book for my brother for his birthday many years ago, but I never gave it to him. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m going to give the book to him for real this time.”
I doubt Celeste’s English was good enough to understand, but she nodded and smiled anyway.
“Your brother is in France? Is he soldier?”
“Something like that.”
Around noon, the train slowed and I woke to see Adele and Bernadette curled up inside the fort and realized Celeste was snoring softly, tucked up against my side. Outside, the engineer pulled the breaks, and the train squealed as the wheels rubbed against the steel tracks. Sparks flew, and the train slowed to a stop.
I pulled myself to my feet and gathered my things back into my bag. “I have to go,” I said. “I have work to do.”
Celeste sat up and tilted her head to look at me. “You go find your brother? To give him the book?”
My brother? It took me a moment to remember I’d told her Luther was in France. What had I been thinking, confiding in a ten-year-old refugee?
“I suggest you clear out quick. Men will come to unload the post. They’ll find you.”
The girls conversed among each other in French, sounding distressed. Uh oh. What if they started crying? What if Roberts the guard came in? What if the police found them and took them away? What would I say? What would happen to them? As a boy, I remembered hearing old man Carraway say that it’s best not to butt into the affairs of the disadvantaged unless you know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you could just end up hurting them. Like feeding a stray dog. Wow, what a terrible comparison.
But, I couldn’t worry about these three girls. There were agencies and refugee centers equipped for that. I had come all this way for Luther. That was it. Period.
APRIL, 1898
LEAMINGTON SPA, ENGLAND
~ THE VILLAGE ~
Dew beaded on streetlamps and darkened cobblestones as the seasonal thaw warmed Leamington Spa. The grey watercolors of spring bled in the sky. Tap tap tap, the rain dripped off leaves and pooled into muddy puddles.
Two boys strolled down the dirt road toward Mr. Brand’s farm, one clutching a brown paper parcel under his arm. On the tag, his mother had written, Mr. Brand, here are the Easter chocolates you requested. No need to pay; take it as a gift for your kindness. Sincerely, Constance Baker.
Mr. Brand had tracked mud across the threshold of Baker’s Sweets on Maundy Thursday, before the busy weekend of making hot cross buns and crème eggs and Simnel cakes for Easter festivities.
“I’m putting on a surprise for the family, you see, after church on Easter. It’s been a hard winter at the farm and all, and I would have them smile, yes?”
“Yes,” Constance nodded without acknowledging the pain in Mr. Brand’s eyes. But she had risen early to make the chocolates, box them, tie them with twine, and call Jim in from playing in the street to make the delivery. As usual, he had dirt on his cheeks.
“You know the Brand’s farmhouse?”
“No.”
“Yes, you jolly well do. Ethyl’s in your grade. They live off Radford Road. Her father and uncle played music at Auntie Lavinia’s wedding.”
“I said no. I don’t know it.”
“Lord, Jim, you certainly do know Ethyl. You played together when you were babes.”
Jim studied his shoes. “Don’t know her,” he declared, a bit too loudly and a bit too red faced.
“Fine, fine. Radford Road. Just follow the address.”
Jim looked up at his mother. Her eyes narrowed as if daring him to say it.
“But I don’t want to. It’s started to rain again.”
“You were just playing out in the rain, so it’s obvious you’re not going to melt.”
“But—”
“Get going or your face won’t just be red from blushing.”
As soon as Jim closed the door behind him, jumped down the stoop, and headed down the street, his friend Rodney Stoker stopped kicking his ball around, and fell in beside him.
“Where’re you off to?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the parcel for?”
“A delivery.” Jim stomped in a puddle, and a few commas of mud sprayed up on the hem of his pants—the hem his mother had asked Auntie Lavinia to repair.
“What’re you smiling for?”
“I’m just looking at the mud.”
They walked in silence a while, and then Jim stopped. “Hey, I got an idea! What do you say we go fishing?” Jim pointed over the stone wall that partitioned the field stretching off from one side of the road. “We’re not far from the river.”
“Let’s do it.”
Jim and Rodney jumped the wall and tore over the open farmland until they breached the line of trees drooping over the River Leam. Still under his arm, the box in the brown paper wrapping was now rain-speckled and smashed flat.
And then he saw her. She was there. Right there.
The girl. Ethyl Brand. He knew full well who she was. He knew her name. He knew where her desk was in the schoolroom and he knew he had pulled her braids more than once, and, one time, when the schoolmaster asked him to solve an arithmetic problem with her, he’d kicked her. He didn’t know why. He shook his head at the memory. I always mess things up. She shouldn’t be kicked. Nobody
should ever kick her! She’s … she’s what? I don’t know. A flower? A bird? An angel?
And he was supposed to be delivering the parcel of chocolates to her house. To her father. But instead he’d tried to avoid seeing her by going to the river. And now here she was.
His stomach bubbled.
She was barefoot and perched on a sandbar at the river’s edge, watching the leaves twist in the current. A tree with white bark drooped its branches over her like an umbrella, and in its branches, a red bird chirped. The whole world was green and grey and brown and damp like wet dirt. But her hair was red, like a fiery halo.
“Maybe Ethyl wants to go fishing, too,” Rodney started running, but Jim threw an arm out to stop him.
“I-I,” Jim toed the mud while he stuttered. “Let’s just leave her be. Looks like she wants to be alone, anyway. We can go fish somewhere else.”
“But—” Rodney started to protest, but Jim put his finger to his lips to shush him and then crept forward to set the box of chocolates on the crumbling, old stone wall where Ethyl had set her shoes. Where she was sure to see it. And then he tip-toed away with Rodney, leaving the gift of chocolates behind.
A few days later, Jim arrived at the schoolhouse to find another brown paper parcel on his desk, this time tied with a blue ribbon. Thank you for the chocolates, the tag read, I hope this gift makes you smile. He could feel Ethyl’s eyes trained on him from her desk in the corner, but he didn’t dare acknowledge her. When he was sure nobody else had noticed his curling grin, he pulled the ribbon loose, unwrapping the paper. Inside was a book, A Tale of Two Cities. For the rest of class that day, in between lessons about multiplication, Jim kept a hand over his mouth to conceal his smile.