by Evan Balkan
After supper, Mrs. Panski sat in her chair in the front room, flipping through a magazine. It was well past the kids’ bedtimes, but she said nothing, and neither of the children questioned it. Sam sat on the carpet working in a coloring book and trying to ignore Beautiful pawing at him. Finally he looked up and Beautiful flopped on her back for a belly rub. The radio played in the background.
“And so we bid goodbye to 1952 and welcome a new year. President Truman will celebrate in Washington, D.C. with a small ceremony at the White House before heading to Missouri for a presidential vacation. Due to the estrangement between President Truman and the man who will succeed him in the presidency in twenty days, General Dwight David Eisenhower, the two have spoken little about transitional matters. Perhaps in the new year.”
Downtown, the department stores tried to outdo one another. They decked their street windows with elaborate Christmas displays designed to draw customers inside. And there were plenty of customers. Caroline’s dad had explained to her about the post-World War II economic boom and when she, Sam, and her mother walked amidst the throngs on Charles and St. Paul, Howard and North streets, it appeared everything was still booming. War, it seemed, could mean jobs and a humming economy. Her dad had even said that job security was one of the reasons he joined the army. But if she had a vote, Caroline would choose tough times and no war. She’d choose to have her dad back.
Neighborhood churches also did a brisk business. Packed to the gills with congregants, some of the old-timers and more fervent among them sniffed with indignation at the sudden appearance of those who only showed up at Christmas and Easter.
In the Panskis’ neighborhood, rowhomes were festooned with festive lights, and passersby could see tall, gaily decorated trees through the front bow windows of most of the houses. And from the outside, Caroline’s house looked no different from any of the others on the street. They had strung no lights, that was true (that had always been Mr. Panski’s job), but they had a tree and, though without much chatter and with suppressed enthusiasm, had decorated it with ornaments and tinsel.
On Christmas morning, the Panskis made a courageous show of it, but it was a decidedly uncheerful Christmas. There was no way around it. From the mantel, a framed picture of David Panski looked down upon them. They exchanged modest gifts and smiled when they opened them, but a palpable sadness pervaded everything. Several times Mrs. Panski wiped her eyes with a tissue and then smiled bravely for the benefit of the kids. But they weren’t fooled.
After they’d exchanged presents, Caroline went outside. She walked down the sidewalk, her skates over her shoulder. She’d try it. Skate a bit. Maybe that would make her feel better. There was no one else outside. It seemed the entire population of the city was cloistered inside their homes.
There was something pleasing about the solitude. Caroline walked briskly, managing to feel a little less glum with every step. As she passed a narrow break between rows of homes, an odd hissing sound startled her:
“Pssst.”
Caroline yelped, jumped, and turned toward the sound, all at once. There was Joseph, emerging from the shadows.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Caroline asked, her heart pounding in her chest. “You scared me half to death.”
“Figured you weren’t scared of anything.”
“What would make you say that?”
“The way you stood up to those boys.”
Caroline smiled in spite of herself. “They deserved it.”
“I don’t disagree with that. Look, I’m sorry. I should have helped you.”
“It’s okay. But, why didn’t you help?”
“I told you. I can’t. I just have to take it.”
“And do nothing?”
Joseph nodded.
“You ever think of quitting?”
“I can’t do that either.”
“Why not?”
“Because my Granny would kill me for one thing.”
Caroline smiled. “So, what are you doing here anyway? I thought you told me you live up Preston way.”
“I do.”
“Say, you here looking for me?”
Joseph didn’t say anything. He looked away. But before he did, Caroline could clearly see the blood rising in his cheeks. Despite the cold, he looked, suddenly, rather overheated.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. There followed a long awkward silence. “Shouldn’t you be at home? It’s Christmas,” she added, trying to change the subject to spare him any more embarrassment.
“My Granny is a Jehovah’s witness,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not even sure I can explain it right. But I do know that we don’t celebrate Christmas on account of it.”
“You’re not Christian?”
“We are. Jehovah’s witnesses are Christians. They just don’t celebrate Christmas is all. And in my house, what Granny says goes.”
Caroline looked up and down the streets. “You sure you should be here?”
“I’m not scared. I got you to protect me.”
Caroline smiled again. So did Joseph. “So you’re not still mad at me?”
Joseph shook his head. “Never said I was mad. Are you mad at me?”
“Nope.”
For a fleeting moment, their eyes locked before they both quickly looked away.
When Caroline looked back up, she saw that Joseph was freezing, his arms wrapped around his chest. He blew into his bare hands.
“Where’s your jacket?”
Joseph plucked the sides of his thin cover.
“That’s no winter jacket.”
“It’s what I have.”
“You must be freezing.”
Joseph shrugged. “I’m all right.”
“You wanna see the rink?” Caroline asked.
“What’s that?”
“Where you play hockey, silly. Course, it’s not a real rink. Just a froze-over pond down the way.”
“I’ve never seen hockey. Never heard of it until you told me.”
Caroline shook her head, mystified.
“I like football.”
“Football’s okay. But hockey is even better. Fastest thing on skates. My mom used to play.”
“Your mother?”
Caroline nodded, smiled, and grabbed Joseph by the hand—mitten on skin—and dragged him down the street.
When Caroline and Joseph arrived at the edge of the pond, Joseph just stood there and gawked, as if it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on something so amazing, like the pond was the ocean or the Grand Canyon or something equally immense and impressive.
Caroline studied him. “You’ve never seen ice before?”
“Not this big.”
“There’s no ice in South Carolina?”
“Unh-uh. Not like this.”
Caroline gently pushed Joseph out onto the slick surface. But even a gentle push proved too much. He slid and slipped and then fell flat.
Caroline laughed through her mittens. “You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Caroline offered her hand. Joseph took it and she helped him up. Except that he kept slipping and eventually pulled her to the ice next to him. They both laughed.
She saw that his teeth were chattering. “Here,” she said. “Take this.” She handed him her scarf.
“I don’t need it.”
She wrapped it around his neck anyway.
“Thanks.”
“Now watch how it’s done. It’s easy.”
Caroline laced up her skates and took off for the far edge of the pond. For once, she forgot about hockey. This was figure skating—good figure skating. Caroline skated in tight circles, lifted a leg, outstretched her arms, across the ice and back again—putting on quite a graceful show.
Joseph watched her as she made her way across the ice, a big, wide smile plastered across his face.
It was late afternoon and there was still light in the sky as Joseph and Caroline walked toward her house.
Every now and again, she looked up and around, both ways down the street as if something discomfited her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
“It’s on account of me being colored.”
“No—”
“If my Granny knew I was here, she’d take a switch to my hide.”
“Sounds like she’s real protective of you. I guess that means she loves you a lot.”
“She’s just mean is all.” Caroline laughed, and Joseph did, too. “I guess it means she loves me, too. But she can be mean.”
“I used to think that about my mama, but really she’s nice. Just doing her job, I guess.”
“That’s what mamas are born to do. You going to be one someday?”
Caroline shrugged.
“I bet you’d be a good one.”
She blushed, looking away up the street again, and saw a man staggering toward them. He was dressed atrociously with his hat askew and threatening to slip from his head, his coat a mess of rips and tears, his pants shredded at the bottom so much that they looked tasseled. He tottered too close to Joseph and Caroline, swaying just near them. The two kids stepped back, stunned, unable to run, or unsure what they should do.
The man smiled, a grin at first beatific but suddenly cold, cruel, and mocking.
“Little lady,” he said, his breath ripe with the smell of some very strong liquor, “Whatcha doin’ with this here nigger?” The man turned an accusing finger toward Joseph. “Nigger boy, whatcha doin’ with this here white girl? Your kind been lynched for such offenses.”
The man produced a bottle wrapped in newspaper from the pocket of his filthy coat, took a deep swig, and turned to Caroline. He grabbed her elbow. “Come on, missy. I’ll take you home. Nigger boy, you best go on back where’s you came from unless you want to invite a lynching.”
Caroline twisted her arm away from the man, but his grip tightened.
“Mister, you best let go a her.”
“Or else what, boy?”
Joseph kicked the man in his shin, hard, grabbed Caroline’s hand, and the two of them took off down the street.
“Here, this way,” Caroline said, steering Joseph toward an alley that she knew was a short cut.
Just before they entered the alley, she looked back to see the man sitting in a filthy puddle in the street, kneading his shin and shouting curses.
When they emerged on the other side of the alley, they stopped, taking in deep gulps of air, their fears turning into nervous titters as they collected themselves.
“Thank you,” Caroline said.
“He had a hold of you. I couldn’t just stand there. You would have done the same for me.”
Caroline nodded. After another moment, they continued on, in silence.
A stew churned inside Caroline, as if the world was moving too quickly for her, each moment presenting one more thing she couldn’t hope to understand. Everything suddenly looked unfamiliar. It was the same old sky, same old street, same old stoop, except it all looked different, as if some giant hand had come along and smudged the edges of everything.
When Caroline and Joseph approached the Panski house, they stopped short of the front steps.
“This is me here,” Caroline said.
Joseph appraised the house. “It’s nice.”
Caroline shrugged. “You sure you’re going to be okay heading home?”
“I know the safe routes now. Besides, you and me are the only ones out except that old crazy man.”
“Please be careful.”
“If he came round again, I’d kick him in his other shin.”
Caroline didn’t laugh. “I’m serious.”
“I’d run. He’d never catch me. Not with all that liquor sloshing round his gut.”
“That’s a way better plan.” Caroline looked to her house, back to Joseph, and to the house again. “Well, Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
“I guess I’ll see you in school.”
“Yeah. See you next year.”
Caroline started up the steps, then hesitated, turned, ran back down, planted a kiss on Joseph’s cheek, and then sprinted back up, leaving Joseph glowing on the sidewalk, his fingers touching the spot where Caroline kissed him.
Before Caroline could get to the door, though, it flew open. Joseph took off down the street, Caroline’s scarf still wrapped around his neck.
“Get in here!” Mrs. Panski growled.
Caroline’s stomach did somersaults as she stepped inside. She knew she’d done wrong and her will to fight, for the moment, left her completely.
“Sit!” her mother commanded.
Caroline sat. She felt small and vulnerable, huddled in a chair as Mrs. Panski paced before her. Beautiful, curled on the rug nearby, raised her head to watch.
“Where do you know that boy from?” Mrs. Panski demanded.
“That’s Joseph, from school. I told you, we’re friends.”
“I saw what you did. Do you not think I didn’t see you? Do you not think that the whole street couldn’t see you?”
“There was nobody out on the street. And besides, I’m allowed to give my friend a goodbye kiss on the cheek.”
“You are? Says who?”
Beautiful, suddenly spooked by the loud voices and tension, ran into another room.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Caroline, do you hear yourself? You were kissing a Negro boy in the middle of the street, in the wide open, and you’re telling me it doesn’t mean anything? Just where do you think you live? Who do you think you are?”
Caroline fought back tears. “I don’t care if he’s a Negro—”
“It’s not natural,” Mrs. Panski interrupted. Then she softened her tone, searching for the right way to explain. “People should stick with their own kind. You understand that, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t understand that at all.” She stood up and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He’s a sweet boy. I like him, and I want him to be my friend.”
“Oh, Caroline. What am I to do with you?” Mrs. Panksi watched as her daughter ran up the stairs, bolting past Sam who’d been listening from the landing the whole time.
The sound of a slamming door followed.
“She’s sure in trouble, isn’t she, Mama?” Sam asked, smiling at the prospect.
“Hush your mouth, Samuel Panski.”
WHY DID THE WORLD have to be this way? Why couldn’t she just be friends with who she wanted to be friends with? Unfortunately for Caroline, whenever she got into these states before bed, it was almost inevitable that her dreams that evening would follow a predictable pattern. It would only be a matter of time before images of her father would overcome all her defenses and dominate her dreamscape.
So, as she had before on many occasions, she battled against sleep, knowing her brain was overloaded with everything she knew of her dad and Korea, from the newsreels and the radio broadcasts, and from the letters he wrote.
She couldn’t help herself. When she thought of him, despite what cheery things he wrote in his letters to her, she couldn’t help but picture the worst—the strange, bleak landscape, the cold, the loneliness. She knew he had the family photograph with him, the one with Caroline’s mom in her summer dress, that beautiful smile of hers, and Sam and Caroline, his adoring children. She’d picture his grimy fingers holding it and imagined that he’d probably want to stare at it all day if he could. But she knew also that there were other soldiers around and they’d probably be constantly interrupting him. He’d written to her about his two best friends, Lundeberg and Wysocki, and how they loved hockey, too, just like she did.
“What do you think about that?” he wrote to her. “I told them my daughter could probably kill ’em out on the ice.”
She wondered if he knew that her mom had told her that she used to play. She wondered also if he told Lundeberg and Wysocki that, too, or if maybe he’d be embarrassed
by that, that they’d think she was some kind of monster or something. Of course, he’d only have to show them the picture and they’d see that wasn’t true. Her mom was beautiful.
Her eyes closed against her will. She snapped her head up, trying to keep herself awake, but it wouldn’t take. Eventually she’d have to fall asleep. The tide of it was coming on strong, and her lids were drooping until she couldn’t fight it any longer.
Caroline had good reason to be wary for it was a terrible dream. Her dad was in that same place, with the mountains and the cold and the foxhole. In the far distance came the sound of explosions. Then loud booms echoed across the skies, louder and louder, coming closer and closer until WHUMP! A massive crater kicked up close to where her dad and the other men stood.
He had to get in his foxhole. He grabbed his gun, readied, and started firing. Even in the dream it was loud, so loud you couldn’t think. The enemy came in great swarms. It looked like someone had stepped on an anthill and sent a million of them scurrying in every direction.
The coils of ammunition were wrapped across her father’s shoulders and chest and they rapidly disappeared as the bullets fed into his machine gun. No matter how much he fired, there was a new wave of enemy soldiers bearing down on him. They just kept coming. And they had their guns and they were firing away, too. And all of that firing, with its whizzes and whistles and booms and cracks, created a smoke-filled sky, so thick no one could see a thing.
Caroline’s father tried to fire more, but his gun jammed. Frantic, he tried to fix it, but he couldn’t get it to work. He peered out of his hole. There, just off to his right, were six of his fellow soldiers, hugging the ridge line, firing away and fighting for their lives. One of them was crouched, holding his hands on the side of his head, fingers plugged into his ears. The smoke enveloped them, the guns’ long spent cylinders stacked along the hillside.
And then Caroline’s father stopped. Stopped firing, stopped yelling. Just stopped. He looked out over the far hills, where the smoke had miraculously cleared, and a feeling of peace came over the whole scene. It was beautiful, if you looked at it right. The trees had no leaves, not with winter and weapons stealing them. But they were left with long slender branches that shook and shuddered in the heat of war and, somehow, were beautiful.