by Michael Smth
Lucie got off in Des Moines. Through the window, Eva and Marie watched her bounce into the arms of her husband, a large man sweating in an undersized, brown woolen suit.
After Des Moines, Eva knew it would only be a few hours until the train got to Lincoln, Nebraska, where she would meet Stanley. The travel that had started over two weeks earlier had been so exciting, she felt sorry to see it end. But still, she was anxious to see her husband, to be held by him, to experience his great land, perhaps to make her own little mark on it. To start a new life. To distance herself from an old one.
Car No. 1120, Compartment Two
When the conductor came through the car calling, “Lincoln. Lincoln. Your next stop is Lincoln, Nebraska,” Marie shifted close to Eva and clutched her arm.
Eva stroked Marie’s hair. “You won’t forget to write, will you?” She put fingertips under Marie’s chin and raised her head to look into her eyes. “I’m depending on you.”
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Marie nodded.
Eva winked. “I knew a nun, the mother superior at our school. She used to say Paris girls never cry. She was Parisian and we never did see her cry, even in the Occupation’s darkest days.” She looked out the window. “If only she had cried. Things could have been so different.” She turned back and pulled Marie close. “You cry if you want. Crying’s a good thing.”
The train slowed. Outside, buildings had sprang up where moments before there were only grain fields. Eva pulled her valise off the luggage rack. She straightened the jacket of the blue linen suit she had put on an hour earlier and smoothed the skirt.
By this time Marie was composed. In fact, she was hanging out the open window as they pulled into the station. “Which one is he, Eva? The one who looks like Maurice Chevalier? No? Perhaps the distinguished fellow with the pipe?”
“No.” Eva peered down the platform, panicked for a moment when she didn’t see Stan. Then, “There! He’s there, with the maroon tie. No jacket.”
Marie craned her neck. “Where? Him? Ooh-la-la. He’s cute!” She popped her head back inside as the train halted. “I’ll remember the wrens, Eva. I’ll remember you.”
The women embraced for a moment. The next thing Eva knew, she was on the platform, flying into the arms of the man with the maroon tie. They were still kissing as, wheels clattering, the Burlington’s caboose disappeared into billows of smoke and steam.
As Eva held him, Stan shook and tears flooded his eyes. “I just can’t believe you’re here with me, honey.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I figured something, don’t know what, would go haywire. Maybe that time’d just stop. Today wouldn’t come. I sat in front of the clock last night, talkin’ its hands past the twelve. Sounds stupid now, but I whooped like a drunk injun when they made it.”
“Dieu merci—it’s thank goodness—for your resolute clock.” Eva kissed him. “This moment tells me I have no place but with you.”
Stan wanted to believe it. And when Eva pulled him close again, there on the platform, there on the day that Stan doubted would happen, there on a summer evening hot enough to fuse them into one, when she pulled him so close that the people around them faded and they were alone, he did believe.
As they walked down the platform, Eva asked, “Will we go on with a motorcar?”
Stan beamed. “Well, it’s a ways to Hooker County, nigh unto three hundred miles. Too far for the old fliver. I figured it made sense to go hog wild and celebrate our reunion by takin’ the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy’s Pullman service overnight for the trip. Married as we are. I ain’t never took a Pullman car. What do you think, hon?”
We’re discussing finances! “It’s okey-dokey, if we can afford it.” She snuggled Stan’s arm, enjoying her partnership in Chandler, Inc.
“With your voucher, it’s just a supplement for you. Mine’s the full sleeper fare, but what the heck, I’d give my last nickel for a night on the train with you.”
When they got to the ticket window, the white-haired agent looked up. “Yes sir, back again are you? And this would be your war bride, I presume?” His glasses rode low on his long, pointy nose and he peered over the lenses at Eva. She nodded to him and produced her travel voucher. Stan brought out a roll of bills and a bagful of coins and counted out the fare: a ten dollar bill, a pile of ones, a small stack of silver dollars, a tall stack of halves, four dimes and a nickel.
The agent completed the tickets in triplicate—carbon copies for his nail and for the train crew and the originals for Stan and Eva. He reviewed the tickets with Stan, circling the train number, track and departure time with a stubby pencil. “That should do it, sir. Get your compartment number from the conductor when you board. Anything else I can do you for?”
Stan scrutinized the tickets for a moment. “Number 211’s due in at 9:59. I think that’s what you said before. We just need to be here then, I guess.”
“9:59 is correct. On track number one, sir”
“Swell. Say, how’s that little silver diner down the street?
“Calandra’s? Oh, not bad. Thelma’s cherry pie’s always good.”
“Much obliged, Mister.” Stan made a bit of a salute.
Just to be safe, Stan and Eva got to the platform at 9:25. Moths fluttered around the big lights overhead and crickets chirped. Stan slipped his arm around her waist. Eva turned, placed a hand on his chest, and rising up on her tiptoes, she kissed him. Holding hands, they peered down the track, excited as kids waiting for July Fourth fireworks to start.
The train arrived nine minutes early, and before 10:00 they were checked into car number 1120, compartment two. When Stan told the beefy conductor that he was a recently discharged veteran taking his Belgian bride to their new home, the trainman looked wistful. “Served in Belgium, did ya? My boy, too.” Stan nodded. The conductor turned to the car porter. “Take good care of these passengers, hear?” He tipped his hat and closed their compartment door.
The train lugged out of the station at 10:07. Stan turned off the light in their nest and the couple sat on the bed. He put his arm around Eva, and she snuggled to his chest. They gazed silently through the window at the city creeping by, its streetlights and neon signs casting a dancing montage of color and shadow inside. As they reached Lincoln’s outskirts and the train sped up, the click-clack of wheels became excited heartbeat—a counterpoint to the drowsy landscape lolling outside in the moonlight.
Stan felt like the fire that had been smoldering inside him was suddenly a blaze. It was quite a contrast to the space around him: To the relaxed samba of the train. The compartment’s soft darkness. The pencil of moonlight caressing Eva’s cheek. The slip of air from the vent window tickling his ear. He loved the moment. He both wished it would go on forever and wanted to burn it up in a flash of carnal fire.
A knock sidetracked those thoughts. Stan turned on the light and opened the door. The porter stood at attention, a loaded stainless steel food cart before him.
“Must be someone else’s,” Stan said. “We didn’t order nothin’.”
“Sorry to disturb ya’ll. This here’s the courtesy of Conductor Larkin.” The porter wheeled the cart in and set the covered platter and a pair of bottles on the table next to the window. He removed the silver, domed cover with a flourish, revealing an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. Then he backed toward the door.
Stan fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Much obliged,” he said, pressing the coin in the man’s hand.
The porter nodded, and with a “G’night, sir and ma’am,” he was out the door.
Stan and Eva peered silently at the food. In the eye-catching center, ringing a bowl of blood-red cocktail sauce, were six pink shrimp, big around as a thumb and lounging on a bed of cracked ice. Outside the shrimp were four fans of tan saltine crackers alternating with four fans of cracker-sized slices of yellow cheese. A garnish of green pickles and orange carrots and red radishes ringed the crackers and cheese. And there were two frosty bottles of Schlitz beer,
each topped with a frosty glass, and starched linen napkins.
Pointing to the shrimp, Stan asked, “What’s that, worms or clams or something?”
Eva replied, “We call them crevette. In English I don’t know what they are. But don’t be concerned, whatever the name, they are delicious.”
A note was tucked between the beer bottles. Stan picked it up. “It’s from the conductor. He says, Folks, like I mentioned, my boy served in Belgium. He met some Belgium girl and wrote that he figured to bring her back with him. Old fool that I am, I told him, you have your fun over there but don’t go hauling no foreign floozy home. He died last December in that Bulge fighting. Lord, I’d give anything to have him back here, along with that Belgium girl of his. Good luck to you two. G. Larkin, Conductor.”
Eva ate the shrimp and Stan ate the cheese and crackers. They nibbled on the vegetables. But on that warm night, the cold beer tasted best.
Stan was quiet as they ate. Eva said, “So silent. You’re not glad to see your wife?”
Stan put his arm around her. “Sure I’m happy, honey. I’m just wonderin’ why me? Why I made it out of the Ardennes fighting, when guys like Harkin—the sarge who saved my hide—and the conductor’s kid didn’t. I know it’s just luck, but that ain’t a reason. And now I’m here with you as my wife? How’d all this plop into my lap?”
“We are lucky, Stanley. You can’t explain it. And if you ask many questions, I think you may scare it off. Anyway, for this moment, we have the luck.” Taking Stan’s wrists, Eva lay back on the bed. She slid his hands under her skirt and slip and up her bare thighs. With Stan leaning over her, she said, “Let’s make this moment forever, my love. Fill me with your life and I’ll mix it with mine to make a new one.” She pulled Stan’s mouth to hers.
After they kissed, Stan sat on the bed next to Eva. He unbuttoned his shirt and her blouse and unhooked the front closure on her brassiere. He stood and unbuckled his belt, letting his pants drop to the floor. He liked her watching him undress. He sat on the bed next to her knees and pushed up her skirt and slip. Stan gently slid her underpants down, first over the left foot and then the right. He looked at her, lying there inviting him, and paused to fix the sight in his memory.
“Now close the light and come to me,” Eva said.
Stan clicked off the light switch, leaving just a silvery spray of moonlight on her skin. He eased himself onto her. He slid a hand to the small of her back and nuzzled her throat, as Eva’s legs pulled him to her.
When they lay spent in each other’s arms, Eva purred, “Now I’m pregnant.”
“If fiery passion matters, I’m inclined to agree, hon.” He kissed her ear. “But we might oughta wait for a doc’s say-so before we go diapers shoppin’. Don’t you think?”
“A woman knows,” Eva whispered.
New Home, New Hope
By the time the sun cleared the eastern horizon, Burlington train No. 211 was in Sand Hills country. Stan was still sleeping, but Eva was awake and peering out the window. Running parallel to the rail line were long, grass-covered ridges. For Eva, the landscape features threading by outside were the lineaments of Mother Earth’s ancient face. As wrinkles reflect an elder’s age and character, so these ridges, untilled and untamed, testified to a land shaped not by man’s hand but by time’s. Elongated ridges, eons in the making. Untouched. Solitary. Different from anything she had experienced in the old country. Difference—it was what she wanted.
No. 211 pulled up to the station in tiny Mullen an hour late. The only person on the platform besides the stationmaster was a wiry man holding a tan Stetson hat. Jesse Garrity was forty-eight years old, and like the landscape, he looked his age. He wore a plaid shirt and khaki slacks tucked into fancy boots. His mustachioed, sun-browned face looked like a wrangler’s, but the image stumbled on the book under his arm.
“There’s Uncle Jess, hon,” Stan exclaimed before the train had halted. “Dang if he don’t got himself all slicked-up!”
Eva was surprised by his appearance. From what Stan had said, she expected a huge man, perhaps mounted on a rearing stallion, waving a grand sombrero. But he was physically none of that. Not huge, except for the moustache and eyebrows. In fact, slight, understated. A billy goat, not a bull. She liked the moustache—not manicured, not dashing, not fashionable. It was big and thick and spilled over the sides his mouth, like those in Great War-era photographs. And she liked the eyes, looking private and dark under the drape of those bushy brows.
Stan put on his hat. It was identical to his uncle’s. He plucked Eva’s valise from the suitcase rack and grabbed her hand. As the train shook to a stop, he hustled his wife to the back of the car. At the top of the steps to the platform, Stan stopped and took both her hands. He said, like a lawyer making full disclosure, “Uncle Jess is a good egg, no matter that he’s a cop and listens to longhair music. He talks kinda funny—poetical, he calls it—on account of that apoplexy he had in March. You’ll cotton right to Carrie, his missus. As for Miss Agatha—she’s my granny—well …” He shrugged. “…you survived the war.” Stan bounded down the stairs like a spilled Folgers can of marbles. He took Eva’s waist and lifted her to the platform.
Conductor Larkin stood by the caboose, watching them. He made eye contact with Stan and nodded, Good Luck.
Stan tipped the brim of his hat, whispering, “Here’s to that boy of yours, pardner.” When he turned back, Jess was striding toward them, head nodding with each step. Stan winked, You go on, to Eva and released her hand.
She’d never known her father, but that morning, running toward the sheriff, she felt him, too, encouraging her, releasing her. Yes, it’s time you go on, little one.
When they met, Eva threw her arms around Jess’ neck before he could speak. “Monsieur Jess, it is making me so happy to see you now, after so much that Stanley’s telling.” She kissed his cheek.
Part III Heads Is Tails
At First Sight
Sheriff Jess Garrity first set eyes on Eva Chandler on the Burlington station platform in Mullen on an August morning in 1945. He saw his nephew Stan lift her down from the Pullman. Saw her light on the platform like the landing of milkweed down. Saw her enhance the coolness, the prettiness, of the morning twilight.
When Stan turned to take the suitcase from the porter, Eva walked alone to meet Jess. She threw her arms around his neck and greeted him with a kiss. Made it seem so natural. So warm. So easy. Holding his hands, she called him Jess—she said it, Shess—with an April breeze of a voice. Just like that, like a stormy stallion stayed by a soft Shoshone song, he was eating from her palm. Easiest spill I ever took, he thought.
“We’re headin’ over to our place,” Jess said when Stan arrived. “Carrie’s serving up scrambled cackle berries for breakfast.”
Eva looked confused. “I’m not sure what is the cackle berries?”
Stan put his arm around her. “It’s just Uncle Jess’ way of sayin’ eggs—œufs.”
“I’m happy that you don’t forget your French, Stanley.”
“Least not the food words,” Stan said.
They climbed into the Jess’ sheriff’s cruiser. “I’ve never been in the car of a policeman before,” Eva said. “You won’t put me to the jail, will you?”
When they were outside of the town, Jess ran the siren as they raced up the North-South hardtop. He was thinking, Darned if I ain’t actin’ like a fool fifteen year old, tryin’ to impress a girl. Ought to be ashamed of myself. He even forgot about the barbed wire welcome waiting at the house—Miss Agatha had made it clear she was set against her grandson bringing home some Mademoiselle from Armentieres.
At the house, Jess opened the front door for Eva and Stan. Carrie burst from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her blue and white checked apron. Her short auburn hair bounced as she moved to Eva. They embraced like long-parted sisters. Jess thought, Took to Eva like a colt to carrots—but Carrie’s like that. Then he eyed his mother, across the room. She’d be another matter. Miss Ag
atha scowled, her arms folded tight. Her wild shock of white hair, the white of polished silver, looked ominously electric, and her wire spectacles had slid down her thin nose like they were running from the smolder of her eyes. Jess ambled over and nudged her to join in the welcome. Miss Agatha spat back, “It’s Youth’s due to court Age.” Jess didn’t say what he was thinking. ’Specially when Youth’s stealin’ your grandson. But a moment later he saw Miss Agatha’s gristle melt like springtime snow when Eva skipped across the room to her, kissed both her cheeks, and said how happy she was to meet the family matriarch. Jess winked at Stan when Miss Agatha pulled Eva to the breakfast table place next to hers.
Carrie served a ranch breakfast of steak and eggs, buttermilk biscuits and chokecherry relish. Miss Agatha even brought out a jar of her plum preserves and put it right in front of Eva. Jess knew that settled it: Youth had truly courted and conquered.
Eva did herself proud that morning. “It’s the most wonderful breakfast I’ve ever had.” Whether it was true or not, the way she said it, everyone at the table believed her.
After breakfast, Eva took Miss Agatha and Carrie by the arm and the three of them, three generations laughing like schoolgirls, walked together through the flower and the vegetable gardens in the front and back of the house. Jess pulled Stan to the window to show him. “Figured out your filly’s secret,” he said. “It’s touch—her kissed hello, that arm-in-arm walk, a hand placed on your wrist when you’re talkin’. Puts ya right under her spell.”
Stan nodded, “Yep, I reckon touch is Eva’s second language, and she’s fluent all right. Us Hooker County ranch folks savvy it pretty good, we just don’t speak it ourselves.”
That evening, after she’d helped clean up the supper dishes, Eva stepped out the front door to find Stan and Jess lolling on a creaking porch swing. The night air was warm and wet and still. “Hmm, which of you handsome men shall I ask to escort me for my walk?” She paused. “I think…both.” She took each man by the hand. “Come stroll the evening with me.”