Lost Among the Living(54)

Still, this was worse than any of the others. I wasn’t well, though I was trying to hide it. I was shaking with cold sweat beneath my heavy coat, my feet clammy and frozen, a fog in my head that shrouded my vision. My stomach roiled, threatening to give up the little breakfast I’d eaten. Fifteen minutes. I just had to get through them one by one.

Before this leave, he’d been gone nine months. I could recall not a single one of the days of those nine months, not one meal, not one night or morning. I could not tell you what I had done, what clothes I had worn, whether it had rained or been hot or cold. I had kept myself occupied, volunteering for soldiers’ charities, but at the moment I could not recall a single person I had met, not a name or a face.

I had tried. One must get on with things, after all, and not sit around making a cake of oneself over a man, even if that man was one’s husband. One must not live only for his letters, coming alive briefly when the thin envelopes arrived, not caring that the thick, clumsy fingers of the censor had already handled the page before I did, that a stranger’s eyes had already read my husband’s words. Not much to report from here, my Jo. We are grounded due to fog. The men are playing cards. I can hear the shelling in the distance at the Front. I am picturing you, sitting at the table in our kitchen, reading this, wearing the dress with blue and white flowers you wear so often, your hair tied back, the curls coming loose . . .

We had come to the entrance to the platform now, and there was a gray-haired man in a crisp uniform and a thick mustache looking at Alex, taking in his uniform and his ticket and giving him a respectful nod. He gave me a nod as well as we passed him, but I barely noticed it, and he was gone, swirling into the crowds behind us before I could think to turn and return the gesture. I could not have turned anyway—my neck seemed to have been soldered into my shoulders in a straight line. I touched my gloved fingers discreetly to my face and sponged the sweat from my temples.

The platform was crowded, the cold air mixing with the warmth of hundreds of bodies in a horrible miasma. I tried to cover my nose. My feet were numb with cold while sweat dripped under my arms and down my back. Someone bumped into me and I stumbled.

Alex caught me, his arm coming around my waist as naturally as breathing. “Jo?” he said.

“I’m all right.”

He turned away, kept his arm around me. “Pardon me,” he said as he arrowed through the crowd. “Make way, please. My wife is not well. Make way.”

People made way, of course—Alex never had to raise his voice to be obeyed. It was something in the tone that made you do what he asked almost before he’d finished the sentence. But people looked past him to me, alarm on their faces. A woman pulled her child away by the hand, and two girls, arm in arm, stepped back. Influenza had begun its deadly sweep, leaving piles of bodies in its wake. I tried to look normal, to meet people’s eyes and give them a nod. Not influenza, no, no. I had the presence of mind to catch one woman’s eye and discreetly pat my stomach. Immediately I saw the relief on her face.

“Make way, please. My wife is unwell.” Alex maneuvered me to a bench on the platform, that someone—whoever it was, I never saw—immediately vacated, and sat me down. He crouched in front of me, balanced on those long legs of his. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said.

Now that I was sitting and I could see all of him, I felt a little better. I had a clear view of the long, lean shape of him, the dark wool trousers I’d watched him put on that morning, his heavy boots. The hem of his winter wool coat rested on his thighs, and he’d partially unbuttoned it, so I could see the uniform he wore beneath. He set down the rucksack he’d been carrying over one shoulder and leaned in toward me, his eyes never leaving my face.

“What is it, Jo?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I didn’t feel like this until this morning. I know I haven’t been getting enough sleep.”

He spoke nearly in a whisper, to avoid alarming anyone who could overhear. “If it’s influenza, for God’s sake . . .”

“No, no.” I smiled at him. “I really do feel better now that I’m sitting down. It’s nothing like that at all.”

I hadn’t convinced him, I could tell, but his train was leaving in minutes. He glanced behind him at the track, then turned back to me. “Can you get home?”

“Yes, of course.” I blinked as pain shot up the back of my head as if I’d been speared with a knitting needle. “This is stupid. I’m here to say good-bye to you, not to make you worry. Please don’t.”

He glanced back at the train again. In one motion, he pulled off one of his heavy leather gloves and touched his fingers to my face. His skin against mine felt icy, and I realized it was because my own was burning hot. The touch was almost painful, as if my skin was swollen and thin as rice paper, but still I leaned into him as the world tilted a little.

“I can’t miss this train,” he said.

“I know,” I replied, my eyes drifting half closed. “The war awaits.”

“I want to tell the war to f*ck itself,” he said, his coarseness shocking me into a smile, as he’d intended. “I do. There’s part of me that would do it in an instant. But, Jo . . .”

I nodded and put my gloved hand over his. “I hate the war,” I said. I felt strange, disconnected, as if I were listening to someone else. My spine ached.