Unmentionables

by Laurie Loewenstein

  But many of the townsfolk were too frail to walk or had nothing with which to haul even the smallest collection of goods. At least five of the hamlets were far off the main roads, remote dots on the horizon, and very likely knew nothing of what was happening. The director laid out what had to be done. Three women would be assigned to the roadside canteen. Everyone else would spend the rest of the evening, and on into the night, packing up the Ford truck for transport to Montdidier. All the materials vital to the unit’s functioning—the precious records, basic medical supplies—would be crammed into the truck’s cargo space along with barrels of crackers, apples, and flour. Once in Montdidier, they’d set up evacuation headquarters.

  The Gish said in a hoarse voice what everyone was thinking. “But what about our villages?”

  “I’m getting to that,” the director said, her tone more patient than usual.

  In the morning four drivers would maneuver the unit’s remaining vehicles through the chaos to coordinate the evacuation and transport the frail, the sick, and the babies in arms. The director indicated the towns with a brisk tap of the pen—two were due north of the château, towns that had been reduced to populations at the extreme ends of the life span. Well west of the menacing blue line was Chaulnes, the most remote of their charges and least likely to have any hint of the Armageddon bearing down on it. The fourth destination was Ham, barely a quarter-inch from the German advance.

  “The drivers will be racing the Germans—especially in Ham—besides dealing with panicked villagers and impassable roads. I don’t have to say how dangerous this is. That’s why I’m asking for volunteers.”

  The lodge fell silent, as if the fog had returned in full force, smothering even the smallest whimper. When a log thudded noisily into the coals, the entire unit jerked.

  The director cleared her throat. “So. Volunteers?”

  Twelve hands shot up.

  Nodding, the director quickly pointed to her selections. “Isabel, Links, Nezzie, and Marian."

  “Send me to Ham,” Marian blurted.

  The director tipped her head to one side. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m the best mechanic in case there’s a breakdown. I insist.”

  “All right then. Let’s have Isabel to Rouly le Grand, Links to Nesle, Nezzie to Chaulnes.”

  “You’re sure?” Nezzie asked Marian as the director turned to other matters. “You could be killed!”

  Marian’s voice dropped. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t stand it. It would be unbearable. I have to be the one.”

  * * *

  For the second night in a row, Marian got barely two hours of sleep. The unit spent most of the night sorting out what to take and what to leave behind. The Ford was packed and unpacked half a dozen times. The women rotated duty at the canteen and every few hours, the relieved workers trudged back up the lane with discouraging reports of dazed and disorganized soldiers, horribly maimed ambulance cases. The women tried to buck up but at one point or another almost everyone decamped to the outhouse for a cry. At dawn, Marian and Nezzie had a chance for only the briefest goodbye before driving off in opposite directions.

  In Ham, Marian found that only a few of the residents were capable of walking. The rest were loaded into Lulu with the barest of essentials and the entire town joined the massive jam of refugees, soldiers, and ambulances pouring westward. Many of the civilians were pulling carts with teetering loads of bedding, chairs, foodstuffs, and—hanging off the sides—pots and pans. Children riding on top, unaware of the danger, squealed excitedly each time the pile shifted beneath them. Marian’s own charges were subdued. In the passenger seat sat the stoic Madame Broussard, one infant napping in a nest of blankets at her feet, her ancient hands stroking the delicate head of another asleep in her lap. Squatting in the rear, on bags of foodstuffs and blankets, were twenty-eight souls.

  It took Lulu thirty-six hours to cover the twelve miles to Montdidier. Pulling past the city’s steepled convent, Marian felt the tug of exhaustion, her legs ached unmercifully. She had barely taken her foot off the pedals since leaving Ham.

  In Montdidier, Marian faced a confusing crush of people, carts, and farm animals. Luckily she spotted a volunteer trotting briskly up the street, the woman’s white headscarf with its embroidered Red Cross insignia flapping against her shoulders. The nurse directed Marian to the main square.

  As she turned into the cobbled plaza, she saw a young boy untether a nervous cow from a hitching post, apparently to lead the animal toward the town’s drinking trough. Marian quickly squeezed Lulu into the spot. Almost every inch of space in the square not occupied by animals or loaded carts was taken up by tables. Women in the traditional close-fitting white caps with strings tied snuggly under the chin, men in soft hats, and hordes of children sat patiently while volunteers moved among them with pitchers and baskets of bread.

  Marian saw a number of her own villagers at the tables who, when they spotted her, wearily dipped their heads in recognition. The passengers in the back of the truck began moving restlessly about.

  “Wait,” Marian called out. “I’ll get someone to help me with your things.”

  Beside her, Madame Broussard stooped to collect little Phillippe who was emitting fussy bleats. Marian turned to slide from the driver’s seat, placed her right foot on the cobbles, and promptly turned her ankle, the same one that she’d injured in Emporia. The pain shot up her shin.

  “Dang blam it!”

  Madame Broussard touched Marian’s sleeve worriedly. “Are you all right, madame?”

  “Yes, yes,” Marian muttered irritably. “I’ll be right back.” She hobbled into the square where two of her villagers rushed up, their faces haggard from the strain of the past two days, filled with concern. Someone untied a wooden chair strapped to the side of a cart and Marian dropped on it gratefully, feeling the pressure of fluid already ballooning above her foot. She made eye contact with The Gish who was threading her way through the crowd.

  “Are all our drivers in?” Marian cried when the girl was within shouting distance.

  The Gish wormed her way past a clutch of boys playing marbles and was at Marian’s side. “Isabel is. Was. The director sent her right out again. I don’t know about the others.”

  Marian bit her lip worriedly. “Nezzie?”

  The Gish shook her head, and it was then Marian noticed that she was clutching the unit’s prize hen to her bosom.

  “Lulu’s parked back there. I twisted my ankle before I could unload the passengers. Most of them are too crippled to climb out on their own. Could you help?”

  “Right-o,” The Gish said, handing her the fowl, who clucked indignantly, its sharp claws scrabbling to gain hold on Marian’s thighs. Suddenly the exhaustion, the silly bird’s frantic fluttering, the image she must have presented, sent Marian roaring.

  That was how the director discovered her not ten minutes later—hysterical, hobbled, clumsily clutching the affronted hen.

  “I was going to send you out to pick up stragglers coming into town but . . .” she bent down and poked the swollen skin of Marian’s ankle, “. . . with that you can’t possibly operate the truck.”

  Marian sobered up immediately, levering the hen’s bottom down with a firm hand. “Nonsense. Of course I can drive, just give me an hour. What about Nezzie and Links?”

  The director’s hair, normally drawn upward into a severe chignon, was a ragged garden of wispy sprouts.

  “We’ll have a nurse look at that foot. We’ve managed to set up temporary sick rooms in the hotel over there.” She pointed to a redbrick structure at the far side of the square. “Links is down at the rail station. The French government has left the work of feeding the refugees and getting them on trains entirely to us.”

  “What about Nezzie?”

  “No word yet.”

  “But it’s been two days. Has someone been sent to look for her?”

  A large hog, directed from behind by an elderly woman whose lips were sun
ken against toothless gums, broke between them. “Excusez-moi,” the woman said daintily.

  The director shook her head. The anxious voices of the people, the mooing and squawking, almost drowned out her words. “We’re overwhelmed just coping with this right now.” She gestured at the bundles of clothing, the overburdened carts and wheelbarrows.

  “I’m going to find her,” Marian declared, starting to push herself up from the chair.

  The director pressed her down firmly. “No, you’re not. After the nurse checks you, I’ll decide where I need you most.” She squeezed back through the crowd, clipboard pressed closely to her chest.

  Fuming, Marian lifted her leg to examine the damage. It was the same throbbing roast beef that had been propped on Tula’s day bed. How could so much have changed and yet she was back to this?

  The Gish returned from her mission and Marian threw one of her arms over her friend’s narrow shoulders so they could make their way to the hotel. The nurse, an Englishwoman with the moist coloring of a grub and the personality to match, pronounced that the ankle was badly sprained—and wrapped it securely with a strip of what might have once been a sleeve. After some argument with The Gish, Marian was persuaded to lie down on a cot for a short nap. She planned to make her way back to Lulu and drive out in search of Nezzie, but exhaustion overtook her.

  She didn’t wake until the next morning, sitting up abruptly and cursing herself. Through the hotel’s tall windows, the creaking of carts and subdued calls told her the town square was still filling with evacuees. Maybe it was a caravan from Ham, maybe Nezzie had finally arrived! Marian swung her legs over the edge of the cot and tested her foot. It seemed able to hold her. She slowly rose, blood surging painfully into the tissues. She hobbled through the maze of cots. The hotel’s umbrella stand stood unmolested by the front door and she plucked out a man’s umbrella with a thick blackthorn handle. She emerged into the same frightened bustle of yesterday. None of the refugees, many still asleep on their bundles, looked like the villagers from Chaulnes, Nezzie’s assignment, and there was no sign of the Dodge touring car. At the plaza’s center, where a statue of the Virgin Mary presided from a pedestal, Ruth and Links were ladling out milk. As she made her way toward them, Marian was approached by the director who seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

  “Any word from Nezzie?”

  The director shook her head. Marian’s gut twisted beneath her belt.

  “I want you to relieve Links at the milk station. Lulu’s needed to scour for stragglers.”

  Marian jumped. “I can go. See, no problem.” She rotated her foot for the director, biting hard into her lower lip.

  “Yes, there is a problem. You are not capable of operating that truck. You are, however, capable of ladling out milk.”

  Marian sullenly took her place beside the milk cans. A line of young mothers stretched in front of her, swaying sleepily on their feet and clutching swaddled infants. As Links handed Marian the ladle, she whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll find her. I’ll drive behind the German lines if I have to.”

  Marian felt the prick of tears behind her eyes and smiled weakly. She watched the girl’s gangly body move into the crowd. The sky was now pearly gray. Marian dipped the ladle into the foamy milk. She thought of Deuce and their day at the Sayre farm when they’d discovered the milk bottles sitting in dirty water. Thanks to Deuce’s reporting, Emporia’s infants would be healthy. Let me do the same here, she thought.

  Rose, one of the unit’s regular customers at the château, was next in line. “Madame Marian, you are here!” Her round, peony face lit up, despite the hollows of fatigue beneath her eyes.

  “And you and little Robert. I am so very, very glad.” Her eyes brimming, Marian ducked her head and busied herself pouring milk into the bottle Rose had handed over.

  Through the next hours Marian distributed milk to women who, just last week, she had delivered bolsters and shared coffee with. Each time, there was a burst of pleasure on both sides. By noon, the milk ran out. Links—and Nezzie—had not returned. At the hotel, the director, whose face was so desiccated that Marian felt a pang of sympathy, called the women together. She announced that the unit was to pull out of Montdidier. The French Mission was taking over the remainder of the evacuation. The Fielding women were to report to Amiens, where they were needed at a temporary hospital. More American forces were expected to arrive in early summer, and until the Allies pushed back, the unit would fill in at Red Cross canteens and clinics behind the lines. The resettlement work among their villages would not resume until the Germans were permanently cleared of Picardy.

  “I am deploying you individually on the westbound trains so that you can accompany our villagers for at least part of their journey. Disembark in Amiens and someone from the Red Cross will meet you. Go and collect your things,” she said, holding her clipboard aloft. “You’re listed in order of departure here.”

  The women crowded around and Marian saw that her name was first. She opened her mouth to protest but the director looked so haggard, she remained silent. With a heavy heart she located her satchel and joined the throngs heading toward the station, leaning heavily on the umbrella and telling herself that since Montdidier was being evacuated, Nezzie would now be directed to Amiens as well.

  The station was another scene of confusion, howling babies, and heaps of baggage. Near the tracks, The Gish, wearing the basket hat, was attempting to organize the passengers into orderly lines. She grinned and waved as Marian stumped over.

  “Any sign of Links or Nezzie?”

  The Gish shook her head.

  “I’m to get on this train,” Marian said desolately.

  “I know. I have the list.” The Gish’s saucer eyes glistened. “We’ll all be together again in Amiens. And if not there, after our boys beat the Germans, we’ll go back to our villages and build them all over again.”

  Marian pressed her lips together, not wanting to break down in front of the refugees who were losing so much more than she was. The train gave a sooty blast, and Marian put her good foot on the iron step of the nearest car. She scanned the crowd for the face she wanted most to see. As the train jerked forward, Links appeared in the distance. Marian gestured frantically and Links pushed toward her. The train picked up steam. Links was still about a yard away. She shouted but the noise of the engine was too great. Marian gripped the handrail, swinging out as far as she could, feeling as if her arm would be wrenched from its socket.

  “Nezzie—” was all Marian could make out.

  Then, inexplicably, the train slowed enough for Links to grab the handrail and swing herself up beside Marian.

  “There was an accident. Her car flipped!” Links shouted breathlessly.

  “Is she all right?”

  Links paused, then shook her head. “Didn’t make it.”

  Marian let out an anguished howl. Suddenly Links was gone, jumping down to the platform as the train pulled away. Marian watched as the figure became smaller and smaller. When the train rounded a bend and the station was no longer in view, she collapsed with a moan on the floor of the vestibule. Beneath her, the couplings banged as if they were being forcefully torn apart. And not many miles to the east, Picardy’s villages were occupied, once again, by German soldiers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SETTIN’ UP

  Excuse the scribble, but the Germans are making their big push to the west and our unit’s headquarters will shortly be overtaken. We are evacuating our villages within the hour. Along the front, the guns pound ceaselessly; I can hardly think straight through the noise. There is no more time, so the act of sending you this letter must stand in for the words I intended to write.

  “NOW, LET’S SEE IF THIS BABY RUNS,” Deuce muttered to himself, slipping the last of the freshly greased bearings into place. Grunting, he rose from his knees. Here goes nothing. He flipped the switch of the job press. The thing started up just fine, as it had for the past three hours. But just as before, the screech of met
al rubbing against metal quickly sounded and Deuce promptly snapped it off in disgust. Probably keeping the whole street awake, he thought. He consulted his watch. Almost a quarter to eleven. He’d been at it since about seven, when he’d tried to run a quick set of business cards for Dr. Jack and the press had started acting up. Since Marian’s letter came, with its dire news about the Hun offensive, Deuce had found it hard to sleep and often worked late on nights such as this. He’d replaced the belts and greased the bearings twice already. No go. Disgusted, he dropped into his desk chair and poured out a jigger of whiskey. He stretched out his legs, unconsciously seeking Jupiter’s soft belly, even though the dog had been dead more than three months.

  Deuce caught the low whistle of a train. Two blocks away, Simon Maxwell, who was dozing in his Model T, Emporia’s only public conveyance, heard it too. He climbed out to crank the engine and puttered down State Street. He parked in front of the station just as the engine was pulling in. Two women debarked from the passenger coach, blinking in the light thrown by the station lamps. Further down, intentionally overlooked by the Negro porter, a slender figure hopped from a baggage car and trotted into the shadows at the end of the platform.

  Only when he was a block away did Emmett Shang pause to brush the dust from the khaki tunic and puttees of his uniform. The brass buttons on the army epaulets glinted in the dim light. It was hard to swallow, coming into town this way, on leave from the Official US of A Army and having to jump a baggage car, Emmett thought. No colored coaches on this run, boy. The courthouse clock sounded eleven. Goddamn, only five hours, then back on the train. But it was worth it. When Captain Frank had announced they’d be shipping out to Newport News in five days and, after that, on to France, he knew he had to get home one last time. It took some begging, but he’d gotten leave.

  Trotting down Main Street, his mind was already home. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, greens, dumplings, and biscuits with flaky sides, like golden gills. He chewed his lips in anticipation. Everything swimming in gravy.