Mare's War

by Tanita S. Davis

  “Octavia,” Tali begins. “Just—”

  “Hush.” Mare turns stiffly. I can see she is gripping the armrest. “Leave her be.”

  We stay in the slow lane. I can feel Tali moving restlessly behind me, barely restraining impatience as cars pass us. Mare talks quietly as I drive, telling me about the lives of the Acadians in this part of Louisiana, the Cajuns from New Brunswick, Canada, some of whom still live in the Atchafalaya River Basin, still hunt and fish and can vanish into the trees. I can let my hands and my arms and my back relax as Mare spins stories from the gray-green trees all around us.

  “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.

  36.

  then

  “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 awa
y 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:

  November 30, 1945

  Dear Marey,

  I am sorry I have not written. I didn’t want to be the one to give you the shock, but Sister Dials says you have already heard that Mama is married. I see you sent word to see how I am. I am fine. Mr. Peterson smiles a lot and tries to make Mama laugh, and that is fine with me. He is nothing like the other one.

  Miss Ida asks if I would like to work for her. She needs a girl to help out around the place, and I can replace her girl who cooks, too, since money is tight. I could live in, she says, and would not have to finish school or go back to Philadelphia.

  With the war over, many GIs have returned. Will you come back soon? I am trying to figure out what I should do.

  I hope to see you.

  Your sister,

  Josey Boylen

  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.”

  “Have you got a plan, then?” Ruby knows Peaches too well to try to talk her out of anything.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Peach says. “I want to go west. How about Los Angeles?”

  “Los Angeles? Peach, are you aiming for Hollywood?”

  “I just might,” she says. “I got used to seeing the lights in Paris, and now I want to see the lights on the ocean.”

  “You can see the ocean from the deck.” I laugh. “And I’ll shine a flashlight on it for ya. You don’t need to go near any crazy movie folks for that.”

  “Well, then, I could go to San Francisco. I’ve heard there are jobs there,” Peaches says. “You could come with me, Marey Lee. First go home and see about your sister, and then come on out west.”

  “Oh, I don’t know a thing about San Francisco,” I say, but I feel a funny flutter in the pit of my stomach.

  “Bob says he has a job with Boeing in Seattle, working on airplane engines,” Ruby says. “You girls ought to come on up to Seattle.”

  “I’m going to San Francisco,” Peaches says, like she had this thought in her head all along. “I’m going to get myself a job, maybe use my GI Bill and take a few classes somewhere. I’m going to live by the ocean and …”

  “Find yourself a good man and settle down.” Ruby smiles.

  “Well, no, not quite”—Peach smiles crookedly—“but something like that, maybe. And not the ‘settle down’ bit, either, not just yet. Girls, I’ve got a lot of partying left to do.”

  Peaches Carter makes me laugh like she always does, but her words start me to thinking. What if I did go to a city like San Francisco? What if I did find a job, find Feen a school, and have some kind of life? There are colored folks in cities like that, and art and music and poets and writers. Maybe Peaches is right. Maybe I don’t have to go home and take up my job from Miss Ida. I may have to go back to Bay Slough to see about Feen, but I don’t have to stay.

  Maybe Feen and me could get a little place with Peach and invite folks to come see us. Maybe Ruby and Bob could visit, and Annie, when her young man can travel. Even Mrs. Freddie Hughes, Gloria, could come and see us as long as she didn’t think she was the lady of my house. And after a while, maybe even George …

  Don’t get crazy, Marey Lee.

  I like my San Francisco dream, but I know George Hoag won’t be coming around much longer. He may think he is sweet on me now, but nobody from a big city like Chicago wants to wait on little country Marey Lee from Bay Slough, Alabama, once he knows she’ll be dragging her little sister behind her.

  I can’t be bothered about that. I promised Feen I would take care of her. I won’t break my word. George will find somebody else, some girl who’s already been to college and all that.

  First thing I have to do is get home and see about Feen. Mama, Miss Ida, George Hoag, San Francisco, and all the rest will just have to take care of itself.

  When we reach New York Harbor, every GI on that boat lets out a holler. All of us come
out to the deck, hang on the rails, and cheer. Folks are laughing and crying, pointing to Lady Liberty holding up her torch. Posing for pictures and hugging their friends, everyone celebrates. We are home, home, home. We have just about made it.

  For just a few minutes, isn’t a soul on the ship upset. Even the craps games hold up for long enough to let folks set their eyes on the Statue of Liberty.

  America.

  Home.

  I lean out and look, trying to see freedom.

  The boat dips and bobs on the waves, and for the first time I want it to hurry up and get on. I have things to take care of and things to do.

  37.

  then

  We stay at Camp Shanks for two or three days. Most of us are sick as dogs by the time we finish twelve days on the Atlantic, and the U.S. Women’s Army Corps can’t let no ailing woman stumble on home, no sir. They feed us up, give us hot showers and clean beds till just about everyone perks up some.

  The PX at Camp Shanks makes us know for sure we are in the U.S. of A. They have all kinds of nonsense in there we suddenly can’t do without—rose-scented soap, nylon stockings, chewing gum, hand lotion, and more. Ruby picks up one of those new ballpoint pens; it costs her $12.50! But she says she wants to get something nice for Bob. It doesn’t write worth $12, but that is all right with Ruby.

  Most folks take the time to use the telephones at the telephone center in the middle of the base. I wait with Ruby and watch her rush into the booth assigned to her when they get through to Dallas. It takes only a half an hour, and when she comes out, her eyes are shiny and she is all smiles.

  “That was Mama,” she says, smiling through tears. “She let out a holler when she heard my voice and just about scared my father out of his wits.”

  “They’re coming to meet you?” I ask.

  Ruby wipes her eyes. “They are. My father and Bob are driving down together.”

  Ruby is so happy she can’t stand it. I wish I was that glad to be going home.