“Santa! It was Santa!” cried Tommy as he grabbed Ray’s elbows. “Did you see him?”
“Told you, Tommy. I told you he was real,” Ray said as Tommy’s face became illuminated in the cold. He could see all three of them clearly now, their faces a mix of thrill and joy. Faces he’d only seen on summer afternoons on that very street after they hit one of his dad’s home run pitches.
“Look! He came back!” Tommy yelled as he pointed behind Ray.
Ray turned around and saw another light, only it was accompanied by the two white headlights of a police car. Ray winced as soon as he heard the thick Irish brogue.
“Have you kids lost your minds?” he cried out before the door even slammed shut. Officer Boland was so fit to be tied he was asking and answering his own questions. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what are you doing out in this storm? Looking to get all your gifts taken back before Christmas, I reckon. Tommy Goldsmith, do you know how mad your mother is going to be? I’ll tell you. She’s going to be madder than two dogs with one turkey leg…”
“We saw Santa!” Tommy cried out.
“You’ll be seeing your mother in about two minutes. I’ll be seeing your mother in two minutes. Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Officer Boland said as he ushered the excited kids into the shelter of the police car’s backseat.
The only person who shared Officer Boland’s concern for Mrs. Goldsmith’s impending fit of rage was Ray. Ray thought he would be able to get Tommy back without her noticing. Now they were going to be escorted into her house by a police officer during her Christmas party. She would certainly notice now. If Mrs. Goldsmith didn’t pluck and baste him in boiling butter like a Christmas goose, his mother certainly would.
Officer Boland pulled into the Goldsmith’s driveway still muttering to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and any available saint to save the kids’ hide from a nightmarish Christmas death at the hands of Mrs. Goldsmith. As soon as the car stopped he took a deep breath and turned around.
“All you kids, out of the car and into the house to warm up.”
“I’d like to stay in the car,” Ray said with his chin tucked into his chest.
“Would you now? Me, too. Get out,” he ordered as he opened the door.
Tommy was already jumping up the front steps by the time Ray stepped out of the car. Tommy flung the door open, excited and unafraid about the trouble they were all in. The rest of the gang cautiously stepped into the grand foyer as the crowd of guests turned their heads and lowered their punch glasses. Their “Go Tell it on the Mountain” faded into a whisper that wouldn’t have even made it over an anthill. Officer Boland took off his hat and began to wring it in his hands.
By the time Ray stepped into the room, Mrs. Goldsmith’s arms had enveloped Tommy in its folds, smothering his excited cries of Santa. She stared down at Ray with utter distain. She took a deep breath between every word that came out so she would not faint before finishing her sentence.
“Why. Was. My child. Outside. In. A storm?” she said through clenched teeth as she struggled to hold Tommy close.
“Anta! Anta!” Tommy yelled into Mrs. Goldsmith’s bosom. She released him but kept him at arm’s length. “Santa!” Tommy cried. “Ray said he’d show me Santa Claus and he did! We saw Santa!”
The guests clutched their drinks to their chests and laughed nervously. Mr. Goldsmith walked over to Officer Boland and handed him a glass of punch.
“I’ll call their parents,” Mr. Goldsmith said softly before ducking out of the room. Officer Boland sniffed his drink then discreetly poured it into the tree stand. Tommy, however, wouldn’t let Ray answer the question. He broke free from his mother’s grip.
“Mom! Didn’t you hear me? We saw Santa!” he yelled. “Didn’t we guys?”
“We sure did,” Olive said boldly, tugging at Paley’s sleeve. “Right, Paley? Didn’t we see Santa and his reindeer?” Paley, who couldn’t stop rocking and smiling, just clapped his hands joyfully. He didn’t need to answer Mrs. Goldsmith. His excitement was affirmation enough.
Mrs. Goldsmith’s attention, however, did not veer from Ray. Her seething stare, flared nostrils, and heavy breathing seemed to bring the storm that raged outside, in. Tommy remained oblivious to his mother’s anger. He ripped off his hat as he slapped his head with both hands.
“My gosh, I gotta get to bed! He won’t stop here if I’m awake. Everyone go home! He won’t come if you’re here!”
The crowd erupted in laughter as Tommy threw his coat on the floor and ran towards the stairs. Before heading up, he ran back to Ray and flung his arms around him, pinning Ray’s arms to his sides. Tommy closed his eyes as he gave Ray the biggest bear hug.
“This is the best Christmas ever, Ray. I’ll never forget it. Even when I’m a hundred years old, I won’t ever, never forget it.”
Ray smiled as Tommy released him and dashed towards the stairs. His feet and hands slapped the steps as he took them two by two up the winding staircase.
Ray turned his head slowly towards the crowd. Mrs. Goldsmith stood in the center as someone handed her a cup of punch. She put her hand up and wouldn’t take it.
“Wait here one minute,” she ordered as she turned on her heel and disappeared into the kitchen. Ray was happy Officer Boland was standing there. He didn’t know what weapon Mrs. Goldsmith would emerge with.
The kitchen door swung open as she appeared with a silver square. She walked over to Ray and thrust it out with both hands.
“For your mother. It’s my fruitcake,” she said as she handed it to Ray.
Ray took it from her but almost dropped it from its weight. Like Oscar’s pillow, the loaf looked far heavier than it appeared. “And tell her I will drive you home from school after the break. They said it will be a stormy winter. You shouldn’t be out in this cold.”
Ray could not seem to make his face relax as he looked up at her in mid-wince. “Thank…you. Merry Christmas?”
“Merry Christmas, Raymond,” Mrs. Goldsmith said cautiously. The music started back up and swelled around her as Officer Boland ushered the kids outside and into the police car. As soon as the driver side door closed Ray heard Officer Boland let out a sigh of relief. The sound of the engine starting up pushed the noises of the storm away and made the crowd fade as they began to belt it out again, over the hills and everywhere.
“Did she fill it with coal?” Olive asked, lifting the fruitcake above her knees.
“Not sure,” Ray answered as they pulled into the Mott’s driveway. He could see his mother and Mrs. Mott standing on the front porch, arms tightly crossed in front of their chests. Ray didn’t know what to expect. If his mother would be angry, relieved or both. This time, Officer Boland stood back from the three as they stomped up the Mott’s porch. Ray’s mother pulled him close but did not hug him. Mrs. Mott grabbed Paley by the shoulders and examined his face for clues. Still in her nightgown, she spoke to him in measured tones, the way Ray only heard people speak when they were gearing up to cry.
“Paley? What were you doing outside? Tell me.”
“I saw them. In the woods,” he said, staring up in the air as the smile still clung to his face.
“Who? Who did you see in the woods?”
Paley laughed and put his hands over his mouth. “Santa. It was Santa.” Joy radiated from every corner of his face.
“Tommy Goldsmith was spouting the same nonsen…thing too,” Officer Boland chimed in before taking another step back. Ray looked at Olive, who stood with her mitten to her mouth in thought.
Mrs. Mott shook her head in confusion as she looked at Olive for a better explanation. Only Ray seemed to notice Olive switching gears.
“Mom, something was out there. Honest. Ray tried to get Paley back inside but Paley wouldn’t go. He really saw something. We all saw something,” Olive pleaded. She straightened up her little frame and nodded the facts. “I think it mi
ght have been Santa Claus.”
Mrs. Mott put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Olive Marie Mott, you know better.”
“Santa!” It was Santa!” Paley cried as he bolted past her into the house. Mrs. Mott ran after him, leaving Olive on the porch. Olive looked at Ray and shrugged her shoulders. Although she was speaking to Ray, her words were not for him.
“Thanks for trying to help me bring Paley back in, Ray,” she said smiling.
Ray tried to hide his thankful grin as he pulled his coat collar up above his mouth. He wasn’t sure it would work but he wanted to hug her for the effort. Olive ran into the house and slammed the door behind her, leaving Ray out in the cold and in hot water with his mother. Ray did not move but his eyes drifted up to his mother. Her arms were still crossed, either for warmth or in an attempt to hold in her rage.
“Fruitcake?” Ray said, handing the loaf out like an olive branch to his mother. She studied him with her eyebrow raised and her mouth jilted to the side as she took the silver brick. Ray knew his mother always believed Olive but this time she didn’t appear to be too sure. Her gaze broke from Ray as she turned to thank Officer Boland for her son’s safe return and to wish him a Merry Christmas. She then put her arm around Ray’s shoulders as she led him back to the lights of their home.
“If Mrs. Goldsmith let you live, I guess I can too. It is Christmas, after all.”
CHAPTER 31
The Most Magical Day – Saarlautern, Germany, 1944
Hal Kozak pulled out the dog tags tucked underneath his field jacket and ran his thumb over the raised letters of his last name. Kozak. Seeing the word made him feel all the memories that came with it. His brothers, his wife, and his son. For some reason, he missed them intensely that morning, more than any other day, although he wasn’t sure why. It was no one’s birthday or anniversary. School had already started and baseball was ending. Hal searched his brain as he walked in lock step with the others. They had formed two large lines as they marched through woods and past small villages to the next bombed out town. His squad had grown quiet in the walk, lost in their respective thoughts and various states of alertness. When he would see a town sitting peaceful in the distance or a tree untouched by bullets or blood, he let his mind fall back to the woods behind his house where he would see Ray and the neighborhood kids building forts. This day, the town of Saarlautern loomed in the distance. He knew it would not be peaceful when they arrived but from their view along the path, it looked like it could be another Tuesday in a town where people busied themselves with going to work, fixing cars, building clocks, making pies, learning their math lessons. A busy town on a sunny day. He wondered if it were sunny in Southold. He couldn’t take out a picture of his Estelle and Raymond that he had tucked up inside the straps of his helmet. Taking off your helmet was suicide. He just pulled the shiny silver nubbed cord of his dog tags and looked down at the name. For now, just looking at the name they all shared would have to do.
“Can you fix this, old man?” asked Private Donner as he turned and passed him an old rusted headlamp. “I can’t get it to work. Sometimes it turns on. Sometimes not.”
Hal looked down at the miner’s headgear. He pulled the switch that turned on the lamp. The white light did not come on. He heard a laugh from two soldiers up in line.
“It’s the switch that reads ‘on,’ Donner. If you turn the arrow to that, it usually works,” chimed Sergeant Carrig. Hal could hear the smile through his teasing.
“Thanks for the tip, Fancy Feet. I know how a headlamp works.”
“That’s Sergeant Fancy Feet to you,” Sergeant Carrig said as he turned and flashed a gleaming white smile. No one knew how his teeth looked so white despite weeks of spotty hygiene. A dance instructor before he enlisted, Sergeant Carrig looked as if he just floated off a USO dance floor with a swooning woman instead of trudging through a German forest with a bunch of tough guys from the 9th Infantry.
Private Lonergan, a wiry blond fellow from Connecticut, tapped Hal on his shoulder.
“Actually, I think it’s one of those models where you need to give it a good idea. That’s when the light comes on,” he joked. Another laugh erupted from the men around him.
“It’s Donner’s so it probably stopped working years ago,” added Asher, shouting from the back of the line.
“Hey now, it’s my dad’s,” Donner said, ignoring the jokes falling in around him. “It’s perfect. Just tired of shining, is all,” he said, kicking up a cloud of dirt from the path.
Donner was a coal miner’s son from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. No one knew how he snuck the light past the higher-ups as Donner wasn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch but if anyone had a problem with Donner carrying his dad’s old headlamp, they never said. Donner held on to it like a pacifier. He was far younger than the age of enlistment. The family bible had him at seventeen though most of the men swore he was not a day older than fifteen. Donner was by far the most picked on member of their squad. The rest of the men figured that for the amount grief they gave him about his Pennsylvanian accent, how he pronounced “iron” like “urn,” he deserved a small comfort from home.
“You know what I’m tired of?” a voice boomed out. “C-rations and listening to you all yap,” Captain Pickett yelled as he marched back to the group. He stood two hands taller than everyone except Carrig. “More walking. Less talking. Except for you, Puddy. If he ever speaks a word other than ‘Yes, sir’ in English, someone come get me.”
Hal smiled. He liked Pickett, or Captain Lightning, as he liked to be called. A chain-smoking, three hundred and seventy-pound giant, he earned his nickname beating the youngest and most athletic men in the company at random foot races. Pickett said if anyone could beat him he would give them his cigarette rations for a month. Hal saw many foot races but never saw Pickett without an Old Gold sticking out of his mouth. Loud, large, and loyal to death to the men who worked for him, Pickett reminded Hal of Mick from the shop. And like Mick, Pickett kept Hal close and his opinions in high regard.
After Pickett left the group for his rightful place at the head of the line, Donner turned back around and whispered to Hal.
“Please tell me it ain’t broke.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” soothed Hal. “Just needs a little cleaning. I’ll get it working again. Don’t you worry.”
After spending much of the day marching through the tall dark woods, the group headed toward the outskirts of the small German town. Most secretly hoped they could steal food as Pickett wasn’t the only one tired of the C-rations. But as they came up to the village they soon realized there would be plenty more meat unit cans in their future.
The smell was the first thing that grabbed Hal. It was as if a something unholy came from deep underground to herald death’s approach or departure. It was war’s smell. The smell of gunpowder and buildings turned inside out. On this street, frames of houses and stores were the only things left standing. An open door banged against a house where the owner once planted lilies. A shell that was once a Sonderklasse automobile rested half on the street and half on the empty sidewalk. The people had vanished. Roads were carved up like a rudder through water with debris in its wake from the aftermath of an air strike. Hal shuddered and thought the same thing he did upon every village they passed. What if this had this been Southold? How would it look deserted? With grocers and garages flattened by bombs? Hal shook his head. Regardless of the outcome, the people of this town lost this war.
Hal saw the explosion before he even heard it. Something shot ash and rock high in the air only two blocks up from the men. They all scattered to the side of the road, their backs plastered to the outside of a brick wall. Pickett barked orders as the men pulled their M1s from behind their backs and held them close to their chest. It could have been a leftover bomb or a fresh attack. Pickett waved Rancer and Puddy from the squad to head up the road with him to investig
ate as the rest remained with their backs to the wall.
Hal faced Donner on the wall. Donner’s eyes were not fixed on Hal but rather on something in the distance over Hal’s head. His expression twisted in confusion.
“He shouldn’t be there?” Donner uttered before standing up.
“Donner get down,” Hal urged. Donner crouched down but kept popping his head up over Hal.
“It’s…just…” Donner said standing up. “He shouldn’t be standing there.”
Hal turned around and followed Donner’s eye line. From the fourth floor of a bombed out building he saw what puzzled Donner. It was a boy. A small boy standing up in what was left of a window. He didn’t notice the soldiers looking up at him. Instead, he stared at the same black cloud of ash that caused them to take cover. Hal crawled from behind the wall to get a better view. His stomach dropped open once he saw between the buildings. Standing in the windows one floor below the boy were children. All were staring out through the paneless windows at the smoke billowing down the street.
“How many you reckon?” asked Donner from behind Hal.
Hal counted quietly. “That’s about twenty kids.”
Carrig and Lonergan ran up to the other two. Carrig took out a set of binoculars and counted. “Twenty-three to be exact.”
“Don’t they know to hide? Or at least get away from the window?” Lonergan asked.
“There must be no adults. If there were then…” Carrig began to say before another explosion rang out. This time on the floor underneath the children.
A collective high-pitched wail came from the building that sounded like kids on a roller coaster. And same as that switch on a headlamp, something clicked on in Hal and in the other men. Something similar to when he would see Ray in the path of Fluffles. Something instinctual. Not from a soldier but as a father. He pushed the gun around towards his back as the adrenaline grabbed his legs. He was off towards the building, his squad at his heels.
The Light in the Woods Page 19