Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (4 page)

Mila reached up and grasped her mother’s fingers. “Momma, give me my ticket.”

“I don’t have it.”

They were moving too quickly now. I ran to catch up, spellbound by the macabre drama.

Ilona looked at me and yelled, “Take her home. It’s too late!”

“Why?” Mila cried.

Ilona glared at me and then at Mila.

“Tell her Ilona! Tell her!” I shouted. “There never were more than two tickets!”

The wind whipped the hair across Mila’s twelve-year-old face as it crumbled in anguish. “Momma don’t leave me.”

Ilona’s face was pained but defiant. My stomach churned with shame. Was this my younger sister? Was she raised in the same house as Anna and me? She looked at her daughter and then closed the window and turned away.

Mila stopped. Her arms fell to her sides. She stood helplessly watching the train gathering speed. “But Momma, I love you.”

Once upon a time, in a future far away, seventy years after the end of the War…

The old woma
n
dropped the unopened package onto the edge of the sofa. Pausing for a moment, she looked around the room, at the opulent mahogany armoire and card table, the tall windows whose heavy brocade curtains always stood open so that she could enjoy what little light came into the room. She was glad that she would soon leave the weight of it behind forever.

At the front door, she put on her coat and wound a red cashmere scarf around her neck. She closed the door behind her, locked it, and then waited patiently for the elevator as she tugged on her black leather gloves.

“Good evening, Mrs. Tuesday,” the elevator operator said as the steel doors rolled shut in front of them. “How are you this evening?” He thought she looked a bit pale, thinner through the cheeks.

“I’m well, Patrick,” Mrs. Tuesday said as she watched the numbers descend.

“Watch your step, Ma’am,” said Patrick as she stepped out and into the lobby.

The gilt mirrors on opposite walls were still trimmed with Christmas garland and adorned with red velvet bows that matched the camel back sofas beneath. Her heels clicked and echoed as she crossed the lobby’s black and white marble tiles. She rarely saw any of her neighbors, though the building was large, with two or three apartments on each floor. Quietly elegant, she’d heard a realtor call the building,
old money
, she heard her whisper when she thought Mrs. Tuesday was out of range. This comment made Mrs. Tuesday chuckle since the money belonged to her late husband, and the only thing old about it was her age.

“Good evening,” she said to the doorman who held open the front door.

“Good evening, Mrs. Tuesday, on your way to Mass?”

She smiled and nodded at the young man dressed in the same maroon wool uniform that all of the building staff wore. He was new; she peered at his nametag. She tugged a red felt beret halfway down her forehead and over the tops of her ears. “Thank you, Joseph.”

“Let me get you a taxi,” he said, taking her elbow as she stepped out onto the icy sidewalk. “You shouldn’t walk in this weather.”

Mrs. Tuesday shook her head, “The church is only four blocks away, I’ll be fine.”

“You wait right here,” Joseph said, already turning back toward the door. “I’ll grab my coat and walk you there.”

“You’ll get in trouble.”

Joseph laughed, “I won’t. I’ve made a sign just for these occasions.”

I rushed to
Mila’s
side, my heart pierced by the vacant, questioning look on her face. I gathered her into my arms. Her body was limp, cold, weighted against mine. Over the top of her head I saw Anna standing in the midst of the crowd, holding our suitcase. Our eyes met and she shook her head. I wondered, and then knew from the look in her eyes, that despite her bouts of delusion, she understood what had just happened.

I buried my face in the sweet tangled mass of Mila’s hair. We stood together, crying as the station continued to pulse and swarm around us. I knew everything had changed. I knew things would get worse before they got better.

The train had been my last hope of getting Mila to safety. I looked at the empty track and knew that I would never see Ilona again.

“Why did she leave without me?” Mila whispered.

We swam agains
t
the current, along the train platform, up the stairs to the main hall. We pushed our way through the crowds still encamped in the terminal. Our heads down, we climbed the steps leading from this particular level of Dante’s hell and pressed through the heavy doors leading out onto the street.

The sun broke through the clouds and we shielded our eyes. It was the first real sunlight we’d seen in weeks. The brightness seemed surreal. We walked for a few blocks, regaining our bearings. Mila’s breathing steadied, though she continued to stumble along, head down, allowing us to guide her. Under the pressure of my hand on the back of her coat, I could feel the sobs that had racked her chest subside. Anna was silent.

Within a few blocks of the station, we managed to shove our way onto a crowded tram. The steamed windows made it impossible to see the familiar blocks as we re-traced our path toward home. I leaned over to put our bags on the floor by my feet and a stout woman next to me shoved me back with a curse. I realized how little our concerns mattered to anyone else.

I knew why earlier generations once believed that the sun circled the earth. Because, in our limited imaginations, that is how we lived our lives. I understood how crimes could be committed in plain view. That myopia, I feared, would be our downfall.

We got of
f
the tram a block from our building and trundled up the steps to our apartment. The door stood open, as if awaiting our return.

The light eerily slanting through the windows and across the floor highlighted the broken relief of the shattered plates in the kitchen.

Walking down the hall to Mila’s room, I glanced into my study remembering the events of last night.

What could I have done differently?

Last night it seemed so certain.

Now, Mila stoo
d
with her arms at her side as I took her coat off and unbuttoned her sweater. I had failed her. With all my precautions, I had not counted on a mother choosing to save her husband rather than her daughter.

“Put on your nightgown and get into bed,” I said.

Anna tilted her head and nodded, smoothing Mila’s hair. “It’s the best place to cry.”

Mila turned and looked at us. The briefest of smiles crossed her face and then dissolved. I closed the shutters on each window to darken the room against the mid-day sunlight. I hoped she would sleep for a while, escape to a world of dreams. Anna and I left her room, gently closing the door behind us.

Anna followed m
e
down the hall to the kitchen. We stood in the doorway and surveyed the damage. The cabinet doors were open, the shelves empty. The window over the sink flooded the room with dusty afternoon light and cast shadows across the kitchen table where a solitary jar of pickled beets still stood next to the empty pots for cream and sugar and dirty cups containing the dregs of last night’s coffee.

“Who left the kitchen in such a state?” Anna asked. “Mother will be furious.”

I looked at her and then at the wreckage. No use explaining that our mother had been dead for more than fifteen years. The events of this morning, I hoped, were just as forgotten. I stepped into the room and began to sweep the shards of broken crockery into a pile.

This morning I’d been jolted from my sleep by the sound of dishes splintering the silence of the apartment. Like a battle scene in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Bela’s baritone answered Anna’s bewildered scream. From the darkness of my room, I rushed into a wall of light, squinting as I ran down the hallway toward the sound of my sister’s voice.

Anna stood in the center of the kitchen wearing my late husband’s faded woolen robe, so ridiculously large for her thin frame that she appeared to be a child playing dress up.

“It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.” Anna cried. “The maid told me she would draw my bath before dinner.”

“The maid’s gone and it’s morning you crazy woman,” Bela roared.

“Who will run my bath?” My sister’s arms waved uselessly at her sides. “I’m going to be late, Natalie.” Her blonde hair, tangled about her face, all but obscured the red-rimmed eyes that pleaded with me to explain.

“Get out of here,” Bela yelled. “We’re not going to wait for you.”

Anna froze in her tracks oblivious to the threats.

Bela pulled tins off the shelves looking through them, tossing them away in frustration. “Where did you put the money?”

“I gave you all the money I had.”

“I know you keep a stash hidden somewhere around here.”

My throat knotted as I pushed my way past him. My slippers crackled over shards of dishes. My sister’s feet were bare, a small pool of blood formed halos around her toes like the petals of peonies. I winced as if the pain were mine.

When I looked at her, I saw myself, deranged, helpless, and lost. “I’m here, Anna.”

“My bath’s not ready.” My sister rocked back and forth in time to a slow baleful moan rising from her chest. The slivers of plate cutting into her feet drew no reaction on her face.

“Damn it,” Bela, hollered, He elbowed us aside and went to the counter and began shoving food into a knapsack. “Get that bitch out of my way.”

“Natalie, why won’t he leave?” Anna looked at me reproachfully. “Deliveries are supposed to be made before noon.”

“Here, put on my slippers,” I whispered, sliding them off. Anna looked at me and then at her own bloodied feet and her moaning rose to a piercing wail.

“Who cut my feet?” She wiped her feet back and forth in the blood smearing it in a wide circle. “Who cut me?”

“My God!” Ilona stood in the doorway clutching an over-stuffed suitcase. “We’re going to miss the train.”

Bela turned and held out his hand, silencing her. “Nothing will make us miss the train, Ilona. I promise.”

“She’ll get blood on the food,” Ilona screeched.

“The blood is on the floor, not on the food!” I brushed the shards from the soles of Anna’s feet and slipped my shoes on her.

“Ilona put your case next to the door and wait there.” Turning to me, Bela snapped, “You’ll have to pack your own food. This knapsack will only hold enough for Ilona and me.”

I straightened up and looked at Bela. “Just don’t forget to find space in that bag for Mila’s portion.”

“Mila can pack her own bag. She’s old enough to do that.”

“So is your wife.”

He shrugged and shoved another container of tinned meat into the knapsack. “She needs more help than Mila.”

I watched him
,
mesmerized by his greed and single-mindedness. It was clear that he planned to take as much food as possible in a sack he had no intention of sharing. “For God’s sake Bela, there are other people in this family.”

A jar of pickles crashed to the floor, its pungent liquid creating a morbid watercolor as it washed over the splotches of blood. Anna cringed. I put my arm around her shoulders as she buried her head against my chest.

Bela grabbed the knapsack and pushed past us with a parting shot. “We’re leaving.”

Silence fell. I surveyed the damage and fought the compulsion to clean up the mess. Carefully I made my way across the room, guiding my sister, wincing as shards of porcelain cut into the soles of my feet.

“Nana?” Mila appeared in the doorway.

“Mila, come and pack your food.” I lifted a sack toward her, and gestured toward the cupboards.

“I did, last night.” She stepped forward and took the sack from my hands. “I’ll pack some food for you.”

“Take your bag to the door. Your parents are getting ready to leave.”

Mila reached for Anna. “Let me help you.”

“Take Anna to her room and see if you can get her to change into her street clothes. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Looking at the shelves, I saw what I already knew. There was little food left to pack. Bela had taken the coffee, sugar, bread and salami, and anything else he could stuff into his knapsack. There was almost nothing left. I could do no more than take a tin of sardines and a jar of pickled cabbage. I pulled them off the shelf and shoved them into a paper sack. Perhaps if we were lucky we’d be able to find food to buy on the train, or a village along the rail.

“Nana!” Mila’s voice echoed down the hallway.

I grabbed th
e
meager bag of food and hurried to Anna’s bedroom. My sister sat on the edge of her bed wearing a navy blue silk ball gown that I hadn’t seen in years. The buttons on the back of the dress were open, the outline of Anna’s spine and ribs pushed against her translucent skin like the teeth of a gaping zipper. Bunched around her waist were the bottoms of her flannel pajamas, incongruously forming a pink and white rosebud against the silk of the gown. Mila looked up helplessly from where she crouched on the floor, vainly attempting to wrestle stockings and boots onto Anna’s feet.