The Four Winds(98)

ELSA WOKE TO SUNSHINE coming through glass windows and it made her miss the farmhouse in Lonesome Tree. She would write about that in her journal later, about the simple joy of seeing sunshine through clean glass, golden, pure as the gaze of God, and how it could lift one’s spirit.

It was better than writing about the new and terrifying truth of life: their money was gone.

Their belongings, their tent, their stove, their food. Gone.

Still, someone had left a pale blue dress and a red sweater hanging over the dresser. Small blessings.

Moving slowly—everything hurt after last night—she slipped into the new clothes and still-muddy galoshes and went to the room next door to find her children. When no one answered her knock on the door, she went downstairs.

The street in front of the hotel was cordoned off to traffic. The Red Cross had set up a tent, as had the Salvation Army and a local Presbyterian church. She saw Ant and Loreda handing out food on trays. The sight of them helping others when they themselves had lost everything made her proud. After all they’d suffered—the hardship, the loss, the disappointment—there they were, smiling and handing out food. Helping people. It gave her hope for the future.

Jack stood in a nearby tent, talking to a woman in a beret. Elsa headed toward him.

He gave her a smile. “Coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

He pulled out a chair for her. She saw stacks of flyers on the table around him. Unionize Now! Communism Is the New Americanism. Some of the flyers were in Spanish. A sign-up sheet asked for people to join the Workers Alliance. There was one name on it: Loreda’s.

“Offering a little radical ideology with the coffee?” she said, crumpling the sign-up sheet into a ball. “My daughter is not signing this.”

He sat down near her, scooted closer. “Loreda has been following me around like a bird dog on the scent.”

“She’s thirteen.” Elsa glanced at the people gathered in the street. “She could get in trouble just talking to you, let alone joining the Communist Party. The growers don’t want unions.”

“A sad comment on the times. This is America, after all.”

“Not the America I know.” She turned to him. “Why communism?”

“Why not? I’ve done my time in the fields. I know how hard life is for migrant workers. Big growers helped elect FDR. He’s beholden to them. Ever wonder why his policies help almost all workers except farmworkers? I want to make it better.”

He looked at her. “I have a feeling you know struggle. Maybe you can tell me why most of the folks coming into the state don’t want to unionize?”

“We’re proud,” she said. “We believe in hard work and a fair chance. Not one for all and all for one.”

“Don’t you think a little all-for-one might help your folks?”

“I think what you want will cause trouble.” Elsa finished her coffee and handed him her empty cup. As he took it from her, she noticed his ratty wristwatch, which didn’t tell the right time. It surprised her, that small insight. She’d never known a man who didn’t care about time. “I appreciate your help, Jack. Truly. Your people were the first to help us, but . . .”

“But what?”

“I don’t have time for communism. I need to find a place for us to live.”

“You think I don’t understand, Mrs. Martinelli, but I do. Better than you can imagine.”

The way he said her surname surprised her somehow; he made it sound exotic almost, tinged with an accent she didn’t recognize. “Call me Elsa, please.”

“Will you let me do one thing for you?”

“What?”

“Will you trust me?”

“Why?”

“There’s no why to trust. It either is or isn’t. Will you trust me?”

Elsa stared at him, looked deeply into his dark eyes. There was in him an intensity that unnerved her; maybe she would have found him frightening in her life before all of this. She remembered the day she’d seen him proselytizing in the town square and getting punched by the police, and the bruises she’d seen on his face when she saw him outside the police station. He and his ideas came with violence, there was no doubt about that.

But he’d saved her children and given them a place to stay. And, strangely, beneath the fierceness she saw in him, she sensed pain. Not loneliness, exactly, but an aloneness she recognized.

Elsa stood. “Okay,” she said, her gaze steady.

He led her to the Red Cross tent, where Loreda and Ant were handing out sandwiches.

“Mommy!” Ant cried out at the sight of her.

Elsa couldn’t help smiling. What in the world was more restorative than a child’s love?

“You should see how good I’ve been at food, Mommy,” Ant said, grinning. “And I didn’t eat every donut.”

Elsa ruffled his clean hair. “I’m proud of you. And now Mr. Valen promises to show us something interesting. Explorers Club outing?”

“Yay!”

Loreda said, “Let me get our new stuff.” She ran back to the Communist tent and returned with a box full of clothes and bedding and food.

Jack touched Elsa’s arm gently. When she looked up at him, she saw a surprising understanding in his eyes, as if he knew how it felt to lose everything, or maybe just to have nothing to lose.