The War I Finally Won

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  • • •

  When the weather became cold enough, Mr. Elliston slaughtered our pig club pig. He cut it up into pieces and salted down the bacon and ham. I expected Jamie to be sad, but he wasn’t; he helped with the butchering, saying he needed to learn how to do it. Mr. Elliston loved teaching Jamie.

  On Pig Day, Susan roasted pork chops and invited everyone from the farm to the feast. We roasted potatoes too, and parsnips and carrots; we made rich gravy from the pork fat in the pan. Ruth, of course, didn’t eat pork, but Mrs. Elliston brought her a piece of lamb, and Susan roasted it for her in a separate pan.

  • • •

  In between the pig feast and Christmas was Jamie’s eighth birthday. I went to the shops with my shillings but didn’t find anything I wanted to buy him, so I saved my sugar and butter rations and made him some toffee. Fred gave him a spade and Lady Thorton a book. Susan pulled off the best gift. She’d found a pair of actual rubber boots—secondhand, but still sound. New rubber boots weren’t being made because of the war. No more cold, wet feet for Jamie.

  “Farmers’ boots!” he said when he saw them. “Proper farmers’ boots!” They were a little too big, but that was good; Susan stuffed the toes with rags and said if we were lucky he’d wear them for a few years. I doubted we would be. Jamie grew faster than the piglets.

  • • •

  One night in early December, we switched on the radio as usual for the nine o’clock news. The announcer was always vague about anything to do with the war, because of course Nazi spies listened to the broadcast. He’d say things like, “Bombs fell in parts of London today,” or “A mid-sized city was hit by bombs.”

  This time he said specifically that Japan had attacked the United States at a place called Pearl Harbor. They had also attacked a British colony called Singapore. The United States and Britain had declared war on Japan.

  I handed Susan the book of maps Lady Thorton had brought over from Thorton House. “Show me,” I said.

  Pearl Harbor was in Hawaii, a group of islands far out in the ocean. Singapore was an island near Japan. It was hard to imagine that such small islands were worth fighting for. “England is a small island,” Susan said.

  Germany and Japan were allies, so Germany declared war on the United States. The United States declared war right back. Unimpressed, Susan shook her head. “Might be useful,” she said, “having the Yanks on our side.”

  Lady Thorton sniffed. “One hardly supposes they were going to side with Hitler. Did you think we’d win this war without the Americans? I didn’t.”

  Jamie’s eyes lit up. “So now we win?”

  Susan said, “Not yet.”

  Chapter 46

  Christmas was coming. I dreaded it. I asked Susan, “Can’t we go somewhere?”

  We were chopping veg for stew. She looked up at me in amazement. “Where?” she said. “How?”

  No one was supposed to travel for fun, because of the war. Big posters at the train stations read: “Is Your Trip Really Necessary?”

  “Anywhere,” I said. “Away from here.” The cottage was full of gloom and darkness and memories of Jonathan. “Maybe we could visit your family,” I suggested. “Your brothers and your dad.” It would be a little like having cousins. Cousins and a grandfather.

  Susan shuddered. “Not on your life. I wish that was a good idea, but it’s actually a very bad one.” She set down her knife. “I know you don’t understand,” she said, “but I think someday you will. My family truly hates me for things that I can’t change. I wish they didn’t, but they do.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re not a cripple. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  Susan said, “My family has the problem. Not me. Them.”

  I said, “But they’re wrong.”

  Now Susan looked me directly in the eye. “Yes,” she said. “My mother’s dead, you know that. My father is wrong. He should love me. He doesn’t. I can’t fix it. That’s hard, but it’s the truth.”

  Like Mam.

  I’d never thought of Susan’s family as being like Mam.

  I could still hear Mam in my head. Who’d want you? Nobody, that’s who. I sat down at the table and buried my head in my arms.

  Jamie barged through the back door. “I’m gonna kill Persnickety for Christmas dinner,” he announced, “since she’s too old to lay eggs. Ada, why’re you crying?”

  I lifted my head half an inch. I said, “Because Susan’s father doesn’t love her. And our mother didn’t love us.”

  Jamie snorted. “Course she does,” he said. He slung his arm around Susan’s neck. “You do love us,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  Susan kissed him. “I do,” Susan said. “I love you both very much.”

  That was the second time she’d said she loved us. It made me cry harder, though I’d no idea why.

  • • •

  The next morning, instead of doing my schoolwork, I drew myself a different kind of map. I started on the left side, with a dark box and a girl trapped inside. Then a train. Butter. Susan’s old house. The cottage where we lived now. Maggie and Ruth and Lady Thorton. Jamie hanging from a tree with two good arms. Above us, dragons circling in the sky. In the center, Susan, brave like St. Margaret, a gleaming sword in her hand.

  “What comes next?” Susan said when she saw the drawing. “That’s your map of the past. What’s in the map of your future?”

  I stared at her. “What do you want?” she persisted.

  I had no idea. When I’d first been evacuated I’d wanted to be like the girl riding the pony, racing the train. Now I was. Parts of me were still jumbled—but maybe that girl had been jumbled too. I’d only seen her from the outside.

  “I want to go places,” I said. “I want to travel. I want to see Dresden.”

  Susan put her arm around me. “When the war is over, you will.”

  “What do you want in the future?” I asked Jamie.

  He looked thoughtful. “More hens.”

  Chapter 47

  Maggie came home for Christmas. She looked wretched.

  “Last year we ate Christmas dinner together inside Thorton House,” I told Ruth. “Jonathan was nice to me and Jamie. He was nice to everyone.”

  Ruth nodded. “When I went to see my mother for High Holy Days, all we could think about were past celebrations, with all our family in our home in Dresden.”

  “What did you do to feel better?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” said Ruth. “We were miserable.” She took a deep breath. “Better to be miserable together than miserable apart. I suppose.”

  • • •

  I supposed too. We tried to be cheerful. Maggie and Jamie and I cut down a lovely Christmas tree—much bigger than the ragged one I’d cut the year before. We trimmed its bottom branches and used the clippings to decorate the fireplace mantel. I’d saved up colored paper over the year and we made strings of colored paper rings, and shiny paper stars. Maggie and I rummaged in the attic of Thorton House and found electric lights and glass ornaments like Susan once had. The tree looked beautiful. None of us really cared.

  “It still feels like a cave in this house,” Maggie said.

  “It is a cave,” said Jamie.

  I said, “It’s less gloomy than it used to be.”

  Maggie shook her head. “If only the blackout didn’t have to be black.”

  “It doesn’t,” I said, in sudden realization. “Not on the inside.”

  Maggie actually smiled. “You’re right!”

  Our blackout screens were heavy black cloth stretched over wooden frames, exactly sized to cover the windows. Maggie dug up some paints in the attic of Thorton House, and over the next two days we painted the insides of the screens with what we saw when the blackout wasn’t up. The trees, with sun shining through their branches. Jamie’s bicycle. Mrs. Roche
ster’s shed and pen. The garden asleep in the winter, mounds of straw heaped over the earth. The Anderson shelter beside the house. The new chickens and the rooster.

  Ruth took the blackout screen from her bedroom, painted its inside allover white, then took a pencil and sketched and erased until she was satisfied. Then she painted what she’d drawn: a stone path, flowering trees, and a bed of tulips bursting with color. “My home in the spring,” she said. “The home I used to have.” She smiled at me. “Silly to do so much work for only a short time.” Ruth had passed her entrance exams; she was leaving for Oxford at the new year. “But it pleases me to see this view again.”

  “We’ll keep it,” I said to her. “You’ll visit.”

  We tried hard to be cheerful, but it didn’t take. I felt sad and anxious. Maggie was twitchy, and Lady Thorton and Susan sank into gloom. Lady Thorton’s head cold didn’t help.

  We skipped church Christmas Eve. Lady Thorton said she didn’t feel up to it. Susan, who never liked church anyhow, decided to stay home with her, and Maggie wanted to meet Lord Thorton’s train, which was supposed to arrive the same time the service started. He’d have to walk to the house; the village didn’t have a taxi anymore.

  “You can go to church, Ada, Jamie,” Susan said.

  “I’m staying with Mum,” Jamie said.

  She was not our mum.

  I decided to walk with Maggie to the station. Ruth came too. “This house feels horrible,” she said, pulling her scarf around her face. “I’m glad I’m Jewish, if this is Christmas.”

  “This isn’t Christmas,” Maggie said.

  Ruth slid her arm around Maggie. She said, “I know.”

  Trains usually ran late in the war, but this one arrived early. We got to the station just in time to see Lord Thorton, tall and wide in his thick overcoat, step out of the carriage. Another man, equally muffled, came after him, and then a woman in a heavy black coat and headscarf.

  Ruth screeched. She threw herself at the man and woman. She clung to them and actually sobbed.

  The woman pressed Ruth to her bosom, murmuring words I didn’t understand. The man put his arms around them both.

  German words. They were her mother and father.

  I watched the three of them hug and kiss each other. No one I knew hugged or kissed with such enthusiasm. Lord Thorton embraced Maggie and me, but he seemed incredibly sad. Even when he smiled at Ruth he looked tired. Not that Ruth noticed. She chattered away in German. She pulled her mother over to me, put her hand on my arm and said something that made her mother beam at me and kiss me square on the lips before I could duck.

  “My mother says thank you,” Ruth said.

  Thank you for what? I didn’t know how to respond. A total stranger kissing me! I looked at Ruth. “What’s German for ‘you’re welcome’?” I asked.

  “Bitte,” Ruth said, smiling.

  “Bitte,” I repeated. Ruth’s mother smiled and kissed me again.

  “Why is she thanking me?” I asked.

  Ruth said, “I told her all about you.”

  That could mean anything. Still, given the kissing, it didn’t seem like it could be bad.

  We went home. Ruth held both her parents’ hands. Lord Thorton and Maggie and I walked a few steps behind.

  “So they let Ruth’s mother out of prison,” I said.

  “British internment camps aren’t prison,” Lord Thorton said, “but yes. Her father’s been working with me for some time and we’ve finally managed to get her mother released. She’ll be able to live with Herr Schmidt and Ruth.”

  “Ruth’s going to Oxford,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Do you work near Oxford, then?” We’d always wanted to know what war work Lord Thorton did. He couldn’t say, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t try to ferret it out of him.

  He gave me a look down the side of his nose and didn’t answer.

  Nuts.

  • • •

  Ruth’s father spoke a bit of English, her mother less. She said long sentences in German to Lady Thorton and to Susan, bowing and smiling, and Lady Thorton and Susan bowed and smiled back as though they understood.

  “What did she say?” I asked Susan.

  Susan looked at me. “You understood her as well as I did.”

  The funny thing was, I did understand her. Frau Schmidt was telling us how happy she was we’d taken care of Ruth, and how glad she was to meet the women who’d given Ruth a home. I couldn’t translate the words, but I knew their meaning.

  Lady Thorton had been a grudging host to Ruth, but she was gracious now. Despite her head cold and her grief, she smiled at the Schmidts. She said kind things to them. She hung up their coats and directed Jamie to carry their luggage upstairs. She went into the scullery and came back with a bottle of wine, and all the grown-ups drank a glass, toasting each other. It was remarkably civilized. Ruth beamed from ear to ear.

  That moment ended up being the best part of Christmas.

  We hung our stockings on the fireplace, even Ruth at Jamie’s insistence, although she sniffed about it. In the morning, each held a piece of candy and a shilling. We ate a month’s worth of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast while listening to carols on the radio. We kept the fire bright, dancing off the ornaments on the Christmas tree. The sun shone, and it would have been a glorious day, except for the ghost of Jonathan.

  Last year Jonathan had been with us. He’d made jokes at the table and been so funny and kind.

  Memories of Jonathan felt like dragons, like real, imaginary fierce creatures with wings. Memories of Mam felt like rocks, or coals. I tried to recall a single happy memory of my mother. If Mam had come to live with us, at Susan’s house, could she have learned to be happy? Could anything have made her better? I would never know.

  “Breathe,” Susan said, her arm around me. “Just take one breath at a time. We’ll get through it.”

  Susan, Ruth’s mother, and Lady Thorton started dinner. Lord Thorton and Ruth’s father played backgammon. Maggie, Ruth, Jamie, and I went to help Fred with the stable chores and bring Fred back for dinner.

  We ate dinner and we opened presents. That’s when I got the surprise.

  Chapter 48

  Susan gave me a book and a sweater she’d knit herself. She gave Jamie a sweater and a new toy airplane. I gave everyone—even Lord Thorton and Ruth, but not Ruth’s parents, as I hadn’t expected them—hand-knitted hats.

  I started to feel a sort of energy coming from Lord and Lady Thorton. It made me nervous. It was a bit like the energy Mam gave off before she started walloping people—friendlier, but still like that. I shifted closer to Susan, who looked as puzzled as I did when Lord Thorton set a wrapped box onto my lap.

  “Wait,” he said as I picked it up. “I want to read something first.” He drew an envelope out of his waistcoat pocket and took from the envelope a letter. It was worn and creased, as though it had been folded and unfolded over and over again.

  Lord Thorton cleared his throat. Then he paused, swallowed, and cleared his throat again. When he first spoke his voice trembled.

  “Dear Lord Thorton,” he read.

  “I should have written earlier, I know, but it’s been a bit—well, I won’t make excuses. I should have written earlier. I’m sorry. Your son Jon was a close friend of mine. He was a good pilot and a brave man.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the story of our last little adventure but I thought I’d tell you how it looked from my side.

  “Being a pilot gets pretty hard after a while, going up night after night, and always some planes not making it back. You start to think you’re next, every night, and that wears at you, starts to eat away at your insides. It’s not fear exactly, it’s more like you can’t bear the waiting.

  “Anyhow, one night Jonnie came to find me pretty late. We were both off that night, and w
e should have been sleeping, but sometimes you can’t sleep no matter how tired you are. Jonnie said was I ready for an adventure, and I said sure. He’d borrowed a couple of motorbikes. He said he wanted to keep a promise he’d made, and he thought he’d better do it while he had the chance. So we set off through the night, pitch dark, colder than it should have been—anyway, in a couple of hours we pulled up near this cottage on a big estate. I didn’t realize at first that the estate was your home. Jon didn’t talk about stuff like that.

  “He snuck around back and threw pebbles at one of the windows. Next thing I know, out come these schoolgirls rubbing sleep from their eyes. Jon’s sister looked like him, of course. Then there were two dark-haired girls who might have been sisters, one younger, one older.

  “We all piled onto the bikes and went along to the back of the big house, where the stables were. Jon asked did I ride. I said, never in my life, mate. I grew up in Liverpool city, not many horses there. So he told me to follow along on the bike, but keep quiet, he didn’t want to wake the old groom.

  “The girls came out with some horses, and Jon got out one, and next thing he was tossing the smaller dark-haired girl into the saddle of the biggest horse. Her eyes shone—I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on that thing, it looked snorty and fierce to me, but this kid was so excited, I knew this was the promise Jon had made.

  “They went off down the fields, me following. Then something startled the big horse, and away it ran, fast and furious, like it’d been shot out of a cannon. The little girl bounced around for a moment—honest, I thought she was going to be hurt—and next thing she’s up in her stirrups like a jockey running in the Grand National. She’s flying across the fields with the others chasing but not catching her, and me following thinking an ambulance was going to be required.

  “Eventually the horse quit running. The girl on his back looked over her shoulder. Her hair had all come loose around her head, and her cheeks were bright pink, and she was laughing. She wasn’t afraid, not one tiny bit. She said, ‘That was wonderful, Jonathan! Oh, thank you!’