A Piece of the World(22)
When one of the soldiers knocks on the door and asks if I’m aware of any “suspicious activity,” I ask him what on earth he means.
“Reports of enemy ships in the area,” he says darkly. “The Cushing waterfront has been declared unsafe.”
I think of the villainous pirates in Treasure Island and their telltale black flag with skull and crossbones. Our enemy—if one is lurking around—probably doesn’t announce itself so plainly. “Well, I’ve seen a lot of activity out there lately. More than usual. But I wouldn’t know if it’s friend or foe.”
“Just keep your eyes open, ma’am.”
Soon enough Cushing is subjected to intermittent blackouts and rationing. “This is worse than the Depression,” Fred’s wife, Lora, exclaims. “There’s barely enough gasoline to do my errands.”
“Cottage cheese is a sorry substitute for ground beef. I can’t for the life of me get Sam to eat it,” says my other sister-in-law, Mary.
None of it affects Al and me much. A poster on the wall in the post office instructs citizens to “Use it up—wear it out—make it do!” But that’s the way we’ve always lived. We’ve never had electricity, so blackouts are nothing new. (They happen every night when we extinguish the oil lamps.) And though we’ve come to rely on the Fales store for milk and flour and butter, most of what we eat comes from the fields and the orchard and the chicken coops. We still store root vegetables and apples in the cellar and perishables in an icebox under the floorboards in the pantry. Al does his butchering. I boil and crank the laundry as I’ve always done and hang it in the wind to dry.
It’s a cool September day when my nephew John, the oldest son of Sam and Mary, pulls up a chair in my kitchen. A lanky, mild-mannered boy with a lopsided grin, John has been my favorite nephew since he was born in this house twenty years ago.
“I have something to tell you, Aunt Christina.” He clasps my hand. “I hitched a ride to Portland yesterday and enlisted in the navy.”
“Oh.” I feel stricken. “Do you have to? Aren’t you needed on the farm?”
“I knew I’d be called up sooner or later. If I’d waited any longer, I’d’ve been drafted by the army into the infantry. I’d rather do it on my own terms.”
“What do your parents have to say about it?”
“They knew it was only a matter of time.”
I pause for a moment, absorbing this. “When do you leave?”
“In a week.”
“A week!”
He squeezes my hand. “Once you sign on the dotted line, Aunt Christina, you’re as good as gone.”
For the first time, the war feels starkly real. I put my other hand over his. “Promise you’ll write.”
“You know I will.”
True to his word, every ten days or so a postcard or a pale blue onionskin letter from John arrives at the post office in Cushing. After six long weeks of basic training in Newport, Rhode Island, he is assigned to the USS Nelson, a destroyer that escorts aircraft carriers and patrols for enemy ships and submarines. After that the postmarks become larger and more colorful: Hawaii, Casablanca, Trinidad, Dakar, France . . .
Our seafaring ancestors! Mamey would be pleased.
Sam and Mary erect a flagpole in their yard and hang a crisp new American flag for all to see. They are proud of John for serving his country. Mary coordinates scrap-iron drives to collect copper and brass for use in artillery shells and organizes get-togethers with other wives and mothers of servicemen to knit socks and scarves to send to the troops. “Our boy will come back a man,” Sam says.
I join Lora’s knitting circle and go around the house and barn gathering bits and pieces of metal to send to the war effort. But with John overseas, I sleep fitfully. All I want is for him to come home.
I READ ONCE that the act of observing changes the nature of what is observed. This is certainly true for Al and me. We are more attuned to the beauty of this old house, with its familiar corners, when Andy is here. More appreciative of the view down the yellow fields to the water, constant and yet ever changing, the black crows on the barn roof, the hawk circling overhead. A grain bag, a dented pail, a rope hanging from a rafter: these ordinary objects and implements are transformed by Andy’s brush into something timeless and otherworldly.
Sitting at the kitchen window early one morning, I notice that the sweet peas I planted years ago have flourished beyond all reason in their sunny spot beside the back door. Taking a paring knife from the utility drawer and a straw basket from the counter, I make my way to the vine and clip the fragrant blossoms, cream and pink and salmon, letting them tumble into the basket. In the pantry I take Mother’s tiny dust-covered crystal vases from a high shelf and wash them in the sink, then fill them with sprigs. I find spots for the vases all over the ground floor: on the kitchen counter, the mantel in the Shell Room, a windowsill in the dining room, even in the four-hole privy in the shed. I set the last vase at the foot of the stairs for Andy to take upstairs.
When he shows up several hours later, I hold my breath as he steps into the hall.
“What’s this?” he exclaims. “How glorious!” As he trudges up the stairs, he calls, “It’s going to be a good day, Christina, a very good day indeed.”
ONE HOT AFTERNOON I hear Andy pad down the stairs and out the front door. From the window in the kitchen I watch him pacing around barefoot in the grass. Hands on hips, he stares out at the sea. Then he walks slowly back to the house and materializes in the kitchen.