The French War Bride

by Robin Wells

  The attendant watched her, too, his cigarette dangling from his lips as he unscrewed the gas cap on her Buick and fitted the nozzle into the tank. Minxy had disappeared, but he kept his eyes on the open door and watched for her reappearance.

  Something about the scene struck me as wrong. My stomach clenched with primal foreboding. My gaze latched on the glow at the end of his cigarette. As I watched, some ashes dropped.

  There was a loud whooshing sound, and then an explosion and a blinding flash.

  Oh, mon Dieu! It was the French farmhouse all over again! But this time, I knew what to do. I jumped to my feet.

  “What’s happening?” the woman asked.

  I thrust Elise into her arms. “Take the baby and go inside.”

  I dashed across the street. The gas pump was an inferno, and fire was snaking across the pavement, toward the building. But my attention was riveted on the attendant. The right shirtsleeve and pant leg of his gabardine uniform were ablaze. He ran in circles, flapping his flaming arm, screaming.

  I tackled him and knocked him to the ground, only a few yards from the fire. I rolled him over, smothering the flames. We rolled right into a big mud puddle. I heard the hissing of his burning clothes—and maybe his burning skin—being extinguished.

  I jumped to my feet and yanked him up by the back of his jacket. Where I found the strength, I do not know. “Across the street,” I ordered. “Go!”

  He was in a daze. He stared at me. “Go!” I roughly shoved him. “Cross the street. Now!”

  He staggered off in that direction.

  The fire was leaping high. Minxy’s car was ablaze, as well as an oil drum beside the pump. The wind carried the flames to both the Chevrolet and to the wooden shingle roof of the station.

  I dashed inside and found the woman trying to pull her child out from under a tabletop display of motor oil. Her skirt was too tight to allow her to kneel down. “My car,” she said, her voice shrill with panic. “I’ve got to get my car out of here!”

  “No. There’s no time.” I crawled under the table and grabbed her child.

  “Hey!” She tried to pull her child from my arms, but I straightened and headed for the door. She trotted alongside me as I hurried outside, away from her car, to the grass at the side of the building.

  Another explosion rent the air. I pushed the woman to the ground and fell on top of her, the little boy between us. Glass and metal rained down around us. After a moment, I got up, and pulled both of them to their feet. “Run across the street. Now!”

  The woman lifted her wailing child into her shaking arms and staggered away from the fire, toward the bus station.

  I turned around and surveyed the situation. The woman’s car had just exploded. The gas station itself was now ablaze and Minxy was still inside.

  I pulled off my overcoat, dunked it in a puddle, and headed back into the building. One of the explosions had blown out the glass, and flames were leaping inside around the display of motor oil cans.

  The coat over my head, I ran to the back, and to the left. I could hardly see through the smoke. I pounded on the restroom door.

  “Wait your turn!” Minxy yelled.

  “Fire!” I bellowed. I tried the door. It was, of course, locked.

  A can of motor oil exploded. Flames crawled across the floor.

  I ran to the cash register, praying that they kept extra keys to the restrooms. Thank God—there was a key with an L key fob in the drawer under the register. I ran back and unlocked the door just as Minxy was flushing the toilet.

  “How dare you!” she said, eyes flashing.

  “The building is on fire.” I took a gulp of air; the metal door to the bathroom had kept out most of the smoke. “We must leave now.”

  Her eyes grew large as she smelled the smoke and saw flames outside the door. “Oh, my God. Oh, God!”

  “Come on. We have to go.”

  “I can’t go out there! There’s a fire.”

  “You can’t stay in here. There are no windows, no exit.”

  I pulled at her. She wouldn’t budge. She was as frozen as a glacier.

  I threw my coat over her head. Like a parrot in a covered cage, the darkness seemed to calm her. “Just walk with me,” I told her. “Hold on, and walk with me.”

  It was almost too smoky to see. Holding my breath, I guided her through the garage and onto the grass, then took my coat off her head. She blinked and stared at the building. As we watched, the roof collapsed.

  “Where is my car?”

  “It exploded.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said. “It’s brand new.”

  The disconnect between what one wants and what one gets can sometimes make the brain misfire. “Come on.” I herded her across the street. As we neared the bus station, another explosion rattled my teeth.

  —

  The ticket agent was standing outside. He stepped toward me, his mouth hanging loose from the jaw. “I never saw nothin’ like that in all my live-long life, and I was in the first war.”

  “I was in the second,” I said.

  He held the door open for me, then reached out his hand. “Here, ma’am—let me take your coat.”

  I realized the overcoat I was clutching was charred, mud-soaked, and sopping wet. I handed it to him, then went indoors and took Elise from the arms of the bee woman.

  She was, thankfully, speechless. The ticket agent handed me my purse and diaper bag, which I guess he had collected from the bench outdoors. He set my suitcase beside me.

  Just then, a bus pulled into the station. The door wheezed open, and a man around thirty years of age bounded down the stairs. “What the hell’s going on across the street?”

  The woman who’d held Elise ran toward him, sobbing. He caught her in bear hug. “Hi, Mom. What’s with the fire?”

  Sirens sounded in the distance. The bus driver rose from behind the wheel and hefted himself down the stairs. He opened the storage bay on the side of the bus and quickly extracted a bag. The young man—apparently the bee woman’s son—picked it up.

  “Any passengers for Baton Rouge need to board right now,” the driver yelled. “Can’t have the bus this close to a fire.”

  “This little lady is getting on,” said the ticket agent. He put my suitcase in the bus’s storage compartment.

  “I need to take the baby carriage, too,” I said.

  “It’s too big,” the driver said. “It’s against regulations.”

  “She gets to take whatever she wants,” the ticket agent told him. “She just single-handedly saved four lives.”

  I climbed up the steps onto the bus. It was half full of people, most of whom were gaping out the windows at the blazing gas station on their right. Several, I noticed, turned and also gawked at me.

  The sirens were getting closer.

  I sat with Elise in an empty row on the left side about three seats down. Elise reached for my face and touched it. When she pulled away her hand, her palm was black.

  Oh, dear. I looked at my lap. My dress was splattered with mud, pocked with burn holes and singed at the hem. My hands were filthy. So, I noticed, were my arms—and apparently my face. I must look like I’d been rolling around in a bin of coal.

  Well, I might be filthy on the outside, but I hadn’t added to the sins of my soul. For once, the right course of action had been clear, and no lies had been required to justify it.

  I rested my head on the back of the seat, thinking it was a good thing they had headrest covers to protect the fabric. In France, they were called antimacassars, to protect furniture from the macassar oil men used on their hair at the turn of the century.

  If only, I thought, cradling Elise, there were antimacassars to protect those I loved from the consequences of my misdeeds.

  73

  KAT

  1946
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br />   Mother and I saw the smoke as we were driving back from the hospital around four in the afternoon. It was billowing toward the sky, a huge malevolent cloud, boiling and churning and spreading.

  “Merciful heavens—what’s on fire?”

  “I don’t know,” Mother said. “I hope it’s not our house.”

  But the fire was too dark, too heavy to be a house. As we neared Wedding Tree, we began to guess that it was the filling station.

  I wanted to drive down and see what was going on, but Mother wanted to get home and check the house.

  “Why? It’s fine. It’s on the opposite side of town.”

  “Yes, but I need to check. Whenever something bad happens, I have to make sure our life is unaffected.”

  Interesting words, those. I didn’t really ponder the significance until later. I walked in the house with Mother, crinkling my nose at the way the foul, oily smoke hung in the air. I fully intended to turn around and drive to the station to see what was going on, but the phone was ringing. I answered it.

  “You’ll never guess what happened!” It was Minxy, and her voice was breathless.

  “Is the gas station on fire?”

  “Yes. Yes! And I was in the ladies’ room when it happened!”

  “No! You were there? Are you all right?”

  “I lost my brand-new car. It exploded!”

  “No!”

  “Yes. And my new shoes—the red high-heeled ones—they’re ruined. And my burgundy dress—it has burn holes all over the skirt. But I walked through an inferno—an absolute inferno!—and I’m okay. And you’ll never guess who saved me.”

  “Who?”

  “The war bride.”

  I sat down on the floor, my back against the wall. “No.”

  “Yes! She saved Ernie, and Mrs. Anderson and little Lukie, and then came back for me.”

  “What was she doing at a filling station? I didn’t even know she could drive.”

  “She was waiting for a bus across the street.”

  “A bus?” None of this was making sense. “To where? Where was she going?”

  “She got on a bus to Baton Rouge.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But she was sitting there with Mrs. Palinsky, and there was a big boom, and Ernie’s clothes caught on fire. Quick as lightning, she handed her baby to Mrs. Palinsky and dashed over to help. She tackled Ernie and rolled him in a mud puddle. And then she ran into the building and got Mrs. Anderson and little Lukie. And Mrs. Anderson wanted to go to her car and drive away, but Amélie grabbed the child, and Mrs. Anderson had no choice but to follow, and then Amélie pushed them down and covered them with her body when their car exploded!”

  I switched the phone to my other ear, unable to process what I was hearing. “Wait. Amélie did all this?”

  “Yes! And then she came back in for me! I was in the bathroom. I’d heard some explosions, but I thought Ernie just had a radio program on too loud, and then I was mad when I heard someone pounding on the door, because I thought someone was being rude and trying to hurry me.”

  I switched the phone back to my right ear.

  “So she went and got the extra key and came in anyway and got me out. She threw her coat over my head—it was sopping wet and muddy and smelled all charred and awful, but thank goodness she did, because Daddy says that probably kept my hair from catching on fire. And she led me out through the garage and across the street, right before another car blew up. I don’t really remember how we got out—it was all dark and smoky, and Daddy says I must have been in shock. And then . . . well, she just took her baby and her purse and her suitcase and the baby carriage, and got on the bus!”

  My heart quickened. “She left town?” I rose to my feet. “Why?”

  “Nobody knows. I’ve been trying to reach Caroline, but I don’t get any answer.”

  74

  AMÉLIE

  1946

  I had to change buses in Baton Rouge, so when they took my suitcase and the baby carriage out of the bus’s storage bay, I put Elise in the carriage and rolled her to the restroom so I could clean up and change clothes. My face and hands were filthy, and I had burns on my hands, arms, feet, and legs. The bottom of my hair was singed on one side. I used manicure scissors and cut it into a layer, then cut a layer in the other side to match. I thought it came out surprisingly well. I was grateful, right then, to have curly hair, because curls can hide a multitude of irregularities. Could a person have a curly soul? I certainly was in need of one.

  I washed my hair in the bathroom sink, using bar soap and cupping my hands to pour water over my head. I received strange looks from women coming in and out of the restroom, but I didn’t care. I didn’t mind disdain directed at me as long as it didn’t reflect badly on someone I loved.

  It was dark when we boarded the bus for El Paso, where I was to change buses again. We rode and rode and rode. It took all night and all the next day, with stops at what seemed like a thousand little towns along the way. Elise was so cranky I feared she was getting sick again. She wanted to crawl, and there was no safe place for a baby to crawl on a bus. I stood her in the seat beside me, sang softly to her, played patty-cake, and read to her from the three picture books I had packed in her diaper bag. I fed her little bits of sandwiches and snacks I bought at the little towns along the way. A woman with a thick Texas twang sat beside us for a couple of hours, and she helped occupy Elise. Elise finally drifted off into a sound sleep as evening fell for the second night. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, as well.

  Sleep wouldn’t come, even though I was so very, very tired. I couldn’t get comfortable. My back hurt, my arms hurt, my legs hurt. I had pulled muscles in places I didn’t even know I had muscles.

  But worst of all, my heart hurt. I was heartsick over what I had done to Jack—heartsick I had hurt him, heartsick I had soiled his reputation, heartsick that, like a dab of arsenic in a well, I had poisoned his life.

  He would have been better off if he’d never met me. There was no question in my mind of that.

  And yet—God help me!—I could not entirely regret our time together, because with him, I had discovered depths of the heart I never knew existed. He had shown me that despite all I had lived through, all I had lost, and all the sins I had committed, there was still compassion and kindness and selflessness in the world. He had helped me regain my faith in God.

  The glow of streetlamps filtered through my closed eyelids. I blinked and sat up; we were driving through a city. The bus lurched to a halt at several stoplights, made a couple of turns, then pulled into a brightly lit bus station.

  The bus shuddered to a stop. The driver killed the engine, and opened the door.

  “El Paso,” he announced.

  He climbed out and opened the storage bay on the side of the bus. Out the window, I watched two men in Greyhound uniforms hoist out suitcases and set them on the pavement. I gathered up the baby’s bag and my purse, and gently lifted Elise. She was sleeping soundly now, so soundly she felt as limp as soft rags in my arms.

  Not wanting to awaken her, I waited until everyone else had disembarked, then carefully made my way up the aisle and down the steps.

  My eyes were on the baby carriage. I gently set Elise inside it, being careful not to wake her. Without lifting my head, I bent to pick up my suitcase. As I reached out, a masculine hand beat me to the handle.

  Something about that hand registered with my heart. I lifted my gaze to the arm, then the chest, then the face connected to it.

  My pulse stopped, my breath hitched, and I thought I was hallucinating. Perhaps I had inhaled a damaging amount of smoke, after all. “Jack?” My voice did not sound like my own.

  “Amélie.” He grinned at me.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came for you.”

  Oh, dear. Had I me
ssed up again? Because of me, he was missing his symposium in New Orleans. He had left his patients in Wedding Tree. He’d left his sister and mother and Dr. Thompson. My brow knitted in a frown. “Have I created another problem for you?”

  “I’ll say you have.”

  My heart sank further. “Jack, I’m so . . .”

  “If you’re going to say you’re sorry again, I’m going to turn you over my knee and spank you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an expression.”

  “Oh.” I looked at him, feeling uncertain and a little dizzy. He was smiling. It sounded a little . . . naughty. “What does it mean?”

  “It means . . .” He shook his head. “I’ll tell you later. We have more important things to discuss.” He peered in the carriage. “Elise is all right?”

  “Yes. She’s fine. She’s been terribly fussy and she just fell asleep.”

  “Well, let’s go inside and try not to wake her.”

  He put his hand on the small of my back. It was a small touch, but I felt it in my bones. I shivered.

  “You don’t have your coat.”

  “No.”

  “I heard what happened to it.” He held open the door to the terminal, and I pushed the carriage inside. He led me to a quiet corner, away from the ticket desk and waiting passengers.

  “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather stand.” As the Resistance had taught me, if you’re in a threatening situation, it’s always better to be on your feet. “How did you get here before me?”

  “I flew.”

  I was so stunned to see him that for a moment I pictured him flapping his arms like a bird. “You took a plane?”