by John Smolens
“Would you two leave us be for a spell?” Shelby asked.
“Certainly,” I said. I was so confused at that moment I’d almost said certamente.
Claire got up from the table, wiping her hands on a towel. I opened the kitchen door and we went outside. We didn’t speak as we crossed the yard to the bunkhouse. It was beginning to snow, and then I realized that it wasn’t just snow, but sleet. In the bunkhouse I put kindling in the stove. Claire sat at the small table by the window, her arms folded against the cold.
“We should leave,” she said.
I rolled old newspapers up and stuffed them beneath the kindling. “Where are we going to go?” I opened the box of matches, lit one, and held it beneath the newspapers, which caught fire quickly. “And how are we going to get there? Walk? How far can we get before someone stops us?” I added a log to the fire, closed the stove door, and went over to Claire. I removed my jacket—it had been her father’s—and put it around her shoulders. “It’ll warm up soon.” I got one of the blankets off the mattresses on the floor and draped it over her legs. “You should go back to Munising. They catch me, I’ll go back to that camp, I guess. But these people don’t know who you are, where you’re from. You could hitchhike home—isn’t that what you call it?”
“I am not going anywhere,” she said. “Not without you.”
“Anyone asks you, just say I forced you to go with me. They’ll believe that.”
She got up from the table, holding the jacket around her shoulders with one hand, carrying the blanket with the other. She lay down on the mattresses, her feet toward the stove. I knelt down and spread the other blankets over her. Her eyes were already closed, and I’d never seen her look so weary before; her face held a suggestion of the woman she would become, and in some ways the lines that formed around her full mouth and the dark skin beneath her eyes made her even more beautiful. I put my hand on her forehead, and she smiled faintly, her eyes still closed. “I have not been cutting trees like you. I scrubbed floors and killed three chickens today. It’s exhausting work.” Then she turned on her side and curled up.
The stove’s heat was already starting to fill the room. I sat at the table and stared out the window. The land was so different from the Upper Peninsula, so flat that I could see a stand of barren trees that was on the far side of an enormous field. The sleet was heavier now, and the gusting wind hurled small beads of ice against the windowpanes.
13.
I must have dozed off, because I was awakened by the sound of footsteps crunching on the ice-covered ground, followed by a soft knock at the door. Claire was fast asleep and didn’t stir. I got up from the table, went to the door, and opened it; Shelby stood in the sleet, his shoulders hunched, his collar turned up.
I stepped outside into the cold. “She’s asleep.”
“Come.” He turned and led me to the side door of the barn. Inside there was a workbench covered with tools and half-finished projects—some reglazed windows, a disassembled fence gate. He pointed to several overcoats hanging from a series of pegs on the wall. “You two will need them.”
I took one coat, brown corduroy with a sheepskin collar, and pulled it on; it was heavy and smelled faintly of straw and manure. There was a hat in one pocket, a wool hat called a Stormy Kromer, which was a baseball cap with ear flaps. I’d seen Americans wear these in the Upper Peninsula; I put this one on and was thankful for its warmth.
Shelby reached up to a shelf above the workbench, pushed aside some paint cans, and took down a bottle; the label said Old Mr. Boston. There were two coffee cups on the shelf also, and he put these on the bench and poured some whiskey in each. Handing me one of the cups, he sat on the only stool at the bench. There was a scarred church pew along the wall, and I sat down and sipped the whiskey. The last time I had tasted anything like it was in Commander Dalrymple’s office. It went down hard, but I could feel my face flush with its heat.
Shelby took a pack of cigarettes from inside his coat—Lucky Strikes. He tapped one out, lit it with the matches tucked beneath the cellophane, and then tossed me the pack. We both smoked and sipped from our cups; it was dark in the barn, and though there was a light bulb hanging above the bench, he didn’t bother to turn it on. We could hear the cows, chewing, rubbing themselves against their stalls, urinating; occasionally one would give out a long, baleful moan.
“Use to be six or seven of us working this farm,” he said. “More during harvest. War changed all that. I can see you ain’t no German Nazi. Vera, well, something happened that . . .” He poured a little more Old Mr. Boston into our cups, and then said, “You ain’t the enemy. You two can stay here until you can get your car back, and then you go on. I know about them work camps—they have ’em down here too and I’ve heard stories. Sending you back there to get killed ain’t going to win us the war.” He threw back the rest of his whiskey and got up off the stool. He went to the door and, as he opened it, he said, “Now you go and wake up that little girl of yours. Dinner’ll be on in no time.”
I finished what was in my cup. Much of what Americans said seemed curious to me. I thought about no time and then went to the bunkhouse, where Claire was just getting up from the mattress. I said, “Dinner’ll be on in no time.”
The routine at the farm started every morning before dawn, and every night Claire and I would crawl under the blankets in front of the stove by eight o’clock. Usually we would fall asleep, exhausted, and wake up several hours later, the room cold as the fire had died down. I’d add wood to the stove, and we’d make love so that we’d have to throw off the blankets.
It was a Friday when Moose Van Voorst stopped by in his tow truck. He nearly shouted, even though he and Shelby and I were standing in the yard with nothing but chickens pecking the hard ground around us. “Them parts,” he hollered. “They ain’t got the right ones in Grayling. They have to be sent up from Detroit.” He pronounced it Detrowit. “Won’t get here till middle of next week anyways.”
“I see,” I said.
He turned to Shelby and said, “You coming into town tonight for the basketball game? They’re playing West Branch. Got this center, boy’s six-eight and they say he can jump over a cow without no running start.”
“Maybe,” Shelby said. “Depends on whether Vera wants to visit with Marjorie.”
Moose climbed back up into the cab of his tow truck. “Okay, but remember it’s your turn to bring the paper bag.”
We watched him pull out into the road and head toward town. We could hear him shift gears for half a mile, then we walked back toward the barn.
“Shelby, you mind my asking how he got to be mayor?”
“Nobody else wanted the job.” He spit juice on the ground. “Ever been to a basketball game?”
“No. And I’ve only seen one man who was that tall. He was in Africa and he was dead, burned head to toe. We stopped and looked at him, lying on the side of the road. He had to be seven feet.”
“Well, you and the missus can come along if you want.”
The word “missus” seemed strange. “Thank you, but I think we should just keep out of sight.”
“Up to you. It’s a free country.” Then he chuckled. “For some of us, anyway. Just as well. Your English ain’t too bad, but your accent. I suspect most people would think you were from someplace like Quebec where they got a lot of them Frenchie Canadians.”
“I assure you I have never been mistaken for a Frenchman.”
“See, it’s pretty much all the same round here. There’s us and there’s for-ners.”
We ate early that night, and then Shelby and Vera went into town. Claire and I stayed on in the kitchen and cleaned the dishes. We had the radio on, and when “Moonlight Serenade” came on we turned the light out and danced, our feet shuffling on the linoleum floor.
When the song ended, Claire took me by the hand and said, “I want you to see something.” We went through the living room to a small den at the front corner of the house, where Claire turned on a lam
p on a desk. I’d never been anywhere in the house other than the kitchen, but she had spent a lot of time helping Vera clean every room. There was a cabinet with some old china, and on the top shelf there was a photograph of an American sailor. He was wearing a white uniform, his hat tucked under his arm. There was a harbor in the background, with palm trees.
“You see the resemblance?” Claire said.
“It could be Shelby twenty years ago.”
“Vera saw me looking at it, but she didn’t say anything, so I didn’t ask.”
“Maybe it’s her brother, or it could be her father,” I said.
“I think it has to do with what made Vera cry today.”
I shrugged.
“I’ve seen no other photographs that might be family in the house.”
Just then a set of headlights swung into the yard and Barney began barking in his pen. We looked out the window and watched the sedan stop in the yard. The official-looking emblem on the door was difficult to see. We left the den and went into the dark living room, but the shades weren’t drawn, so Claire led me up the stairs and into a small room where Vera did her sewing. When we heard the car door shut, we looked down through the lace curtains as the agent climbed the porch steps, but he didn’t knock at the front door. Though the dog continued to bark, we could hear the agent’s footsteps on the floorboards as he moved along the front of the house. He would pause occasionally, probably to look in windows.
Then he came down off the porch and we watched him cross the yard to the dog pen. As he squatted before the gate, he took something from his coat pocket and put his hand up to the chicken wire, causing Barney to stop barking. The agent stood up and walked on to the bunkhouse. He opened the door and went inside. After a couple of minutes he came out and returned to the porch. Claire took my hand and led me into a closet, which smelled of camphor. We heard the kitchen door open, and the agent’s shoes made a tapping sound on the linoleum. He came into the living room, where the floor creaked beneath him, and entered the den, which was directly beneath us. There was silence, followed by a sound I couldn’t identify at first. Claire stared up at me, and then I made a motion with my hand as though I were sliding open a desk drawer. He opened each one, and closed it with a clap. He was unhurried, and once I could hear the rustle of paper.
He left the den and stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Dogs can always be bribed,” he said. His voice was deep, rich, but absurdly playful. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” As he climbed the stairs, he began to whistle.
At the top of the stairs he paused, and we could hear him breathing, the low wheeze of someone who takes little exercise. There were four rooms upstairs, and he went into the one across the hall from ours, his shoes knocking on the hardwood floors. Again, drawers were slid open and shut, and something—I suspected an article of clothing—was dropped on the floor. “Oh, Vera.” His voice was almost gleeful now. “I loved to slide these panties down your thighs.” Louder, as if to someone else, he said, “It was in the summertime, you know. We were two years out of high school. Lorraine and I had to get married, of course, and she reeked of breast milk all the time. Vera and I liked to use the barn out there. It was a long summer, no rain.”
Abruptly he came into the hall and stood for a moment just outside the room we were in, and then he descended the stairs slowly. “But I’ll be back, and we’ll meet at a more opportune moment.”
He went through the living room to the kitchen, where he stopped, and we listened to the silence for a good half minute. I began to worry that he was somehow coming back through the house and up the stairs without being heard. I wondered if he could do that if he removed his shoes. But then there was a trickling sound, which grew more forceful as he urinated on the linoleum floor. When he was finished, he said, “It’s too cold out there tonight. Don’t want the little fella to catch a chill, do we?”
The door opened again, and he went out onto the porch and crossed the yard to his car. This time Barney didn’t bark, but he whined a couple of times, as if he expected more of what the agent fed him. The agent’s footsteps crunched on the glaze of ice in the yard. I left the closet, and Claire followed me to the window, where we peeked out through the curtain. He opened the door and got in the car, but he sat there for at least a minute before starting the engine. The car moved in a slow, lazy circle in the yard, turned out into the road, and headed south. We watched until its taillights disappeared.
Claire went out into the hall to the room where he had been; I followed and found her picking up various women’s undergarments and putting them back in the dresser. I went downstairs to the kitchen. The floor tilted toward the center of the house, and the puddle had run to the corner by the icebox. I found several towels in a drawer and began to wipe up the floor.
Neither of us slept well until early morning. When I heard Shelby swing open the barn door, I got up and dressed quietly. Through the window I could see him walking across the yard to the house. I went over to the kitchen, where Vera had brewed a strong pot of coffee. She must have seen me coming because there were three cups and saucers on the table.
She sat across from Shelby and gestured toward the empty chair. “What is it?”
“That government agent was back last night,” I said as I sat down.
Vera’s eyes were like I’d never seen them before: startled, frightened, and yet also seemingly vindicated. “I knew he wouldn’t stay away,” she said.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Roy Ferris,” she said.
“You went to high school together.”
She leaned back in her chair. “What happened?”
I looked over toward the icebox. “He urinated on your floor. I cleaned it up with a couple of towels. They’re out in the barn. I was going to wash them and not tell you, but I’ve slept on it and I think you should know.” Neither of them moved. “He was in your room, too,” I said to Vera. “Went through your dresser.”
For a moment I could see anger in her eyes, the set of her mouth, but then it passed into something else, some recognition, perhaps even acceptance.
“Did he see you?” Shelby asked.
“We hid in a closet. There’s something about him—don’t you say a person is ‘odd’?”
Vera fingers worried the edge of her apron.
“I must leave, now,” I said. “Can you help Claire go home and keep her out of this?”
“Leave?” Shelby asked. “What, you going to walk?”
“I will what you call hitchhike. South, to Detroit.”
We drank our coffee, and when Shelby got out his pack of Lucky Strikes and offered me one, I took it. I’d never seen him smoke in the house before and was sure this was forbidden, but Vera was so preoccupied that she didn’t seem to notice the blue smoke gathering about us, until she removed the saucer from beneath her cup and placed it in the center of the table to serve as an ashtray.
“I have to ask,” I said, but I couldn’t go on. I felt it would be getting too near something that these good people did not want to face any longer, something that their daily routines were designed to avoid.
Vera appeared to come up out of a reverie. “You want to know why?”
“Yes. Most Americans would turn me in.”
“Some would shoot you on sight,” Shelby said.
“I won’t go back to the camp,” I said. “My friend, Adino, he was sent back to Italy. I doubt he’ll ever walk again.”
“The Germans?” Vera said.
“Cut his Achilles tendons. They held a trial and I was sentenced to death.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “I must go before she wakes up.” They looked at me in a way that caused me to wonder if I’d spoken Italian by mistake. “Please, if you could help Claire in some way.” I went to the door, but paused and said, “You are very even people.”
As I crossed the yard, Barney poked his head through the kennel gate. He didn’t bark, just wagged his tail. I hurried down to the paved two-lane road, the sou
th wind coming straight at me, so I tucked my chin inside the upturned coat collar. It took me at least twenty minutes to get out of sight of the farmhouse. In that time not one vehicle passed, and that was just as well because I wanted to get away from the farm so no one would think Vera and Shelby had anything to do with me. Eventually, sleet began to come in on the wind. When I heard the sound of tires on the road behind me, I turned around and stuck my thumb out.
It was Shelby’s truck. He stopped and rolled down the passenger-side window, and Barney stuck his head out, pleased to see me. “Vera has watched from the kitchen window since you left,” Shelby said. “It could be hours before somebody drives by here. Come on back now.”
“How far is it to Detroit?”
“A ways.”
“What’s ‘a ways’?”
“You’ll never get there on foot.”
I climbed up into the cab and Barney nestled in my lap. As Shelby turned the truck around, he offered me his pack of Lucky Strikes, and my hands shook as I tapped out a cigarette. “Claire, did she wake up?”
“Not before I left. Vera will just say you and I are doing errands.”
After I lit my cigarette, the truck smelled pleasantly of tobacco and wet dog. “Can I ask you about something? You and Vera . . .” I hesitated.
“We’re cousins. We were raised together on the farm after her parents died in a fire. That’s why Vera sent me after you—she’s always willing to take someone in, man or beast.” He glanced at Barney. “We found him abandoned in the fields, with a broken leg. Probably thrown from a car. But she’s made it clear you have to leave once your car’s fixed.”