In the Shadow of Blackbirds(3)
“Hello, dollface,” said a burly one with light brown hair.
“Hey there, beautiful,” cooed a scrawny one in black trousers too long for his legs. “Got a kiss for a soldier?”
Others whistled until the officers snapped at them and told them to remember they were respectable members of the U.S. Army.
I felt neither flattered nor offended by the boys’ attention. Mainly, they reminded me of the way Stephen had looked the last time I saw him, with that strange mixture of bravery and terror in his brown eyes.
Through the windows, I watched the boys proceed to a line of green military trucks that waited, rumbling, alongside the curb. The recruits climbed one by one beneath the vehicles’ canvas coverings with the precision of shiny bullets being loaded into a gun. The trucks would cart them off to their training camp, which was no doubt overrun with feverish, shivering flu victims. The boys who didn’t fall ill would learn how to kill other young men who were probably arriving at a German train station in their Sunday-best clothing at that very moment.
Don’t think like that, I scolded myself. That’s why they took Dad away. You can’t afford to think like him.
I curled up my legs on the bench and leaned my head against my mother’s black bag. The depot grew empty and silent around me, save for the high-pitched wail of an ambulance screaming through the city streets.
I let myself doze.
A hazy dream about Dad cooking up a soup that smelled like San Diego tuna canneries flitted through my brain, and then I heard Aunt Eva call my name. I opened my eyes and saw a short youngish man in gray work clothes tromping across the tiles in grease-stained boots. No Aunt Eva. Her voice must have been part of my dream.
My eyes drifted shut, but again someone said, “Mary Shelley.”
I propped myself up on my elbows and blinked away my grogginess. The short man approached me with steps that echoed across the empty depot. He wore a familiar pair of bottle-cap glasses above his flu mask. Short blond hair peeked out from beneath his cap.
I jumped to my feet. “Aunt Eva?”
“I’m sorry I’m so late. They wouldn’t let me leave as early as I hoped.” She stopped a few feet away from me and wiped her grubby hands on her trousers. “I’m not going to hug you, because I’m filthy. Plus you’ve been crammed together with all those people on the train. As soon as we get you home, we’ll put you in a boiling bath to scrub any flu germs off you.”
“What are you doing dressed like that?”
“What? Didn’t I tell you I’ve been working in the shipyard since Wilfred died?”
“No. You didn’t say a word about that in your letters. Holy smoke!” I burst out laughing. “Dainty Aunt Eva is building battleships.”
“Don’t laugh—it’s good work. Clears your mind of troubles. The men all left for the war, so they rounded up us women to take over.” She hoisted my iron-bottomed trunk with such ease that there must have been some mighty biceps inside those bony arms of hers. “I hope you’re feeling fit enough to walk to my house. I’m avoiding the germy air on public transportation.”
“Don’t you breathe germy factory air?”
“I mainly work outside. Now come along. Pick up your other bag so we can leave this place and get home.”
I grabbed my black bag of treasures. “I like your hair.”
She growled through her gauze. “Don’t mention the hair. I cut it short only because the other girls said it’s easier for working. I haven’t had a single man give me a second glance since I chopped it off.” She walked ahead of me, lugging my trunk with her new brute strength.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her the lack of male attention probably had more to do with her greasy boots and sweat stink than the short hair. I plodded after her in my own boots, knowing we made quite a pair—two young women, only ten years apart in age, whose femininity had become yet another casualty of war.
Hardly a soul lingered on the streets outside the station now that the recruits were gone, just a gray-haired man in a pinstripe suit shoving his luggage into the enclosed passenger section of a black taxi. The driver smoked a cigarette through a hole poked in his gauze mask, and wafts of the smoke intermingled with the sea salt and cannery odors in the breeze. Overhead, the spotless sky beamed in an innocent baby blue.
Aunt Eva led me northward. “They’ve closed down the city to try to keep the flu from spreading. They quarantined the soldiers sooner than the rest of us, but now it’s the churches, theaters, moving-picture houses, bathhouses, and dance halls—all closed.”
“Schools?” I asked with hope in my heart.
“Closed.”
My shoulders fell. “Dad told me the flu wouldn’t be as bad in San Diego because of the warmer weather. That’s one of the reasons he wanted me here if anything happened to him.”
“It’s become catastrophic down here, too, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.” She glanced my way. “I suppose it’ll be boring for you, but it’s better than being dead. Make sure you wear your mask at all times. They’re strict here about keeping them on.”
“I wonder if surgical gauze is really doing anything besides making us look like monsters from another planet. My science teacher, Mr. Wright, wore a mask, and he’s just as dead as the people who didn’t.”