Romeo Blue (8 page)

Yes, when you live among a family of intelligence agents, everything is hazy and yet a word or a picture can come up out of that haze in spite of itself and can hang before your eyes at night when you should be sleeping. The blank letter to a woman in Cape Elizabeth seemed to swirl before my eyes. Why would someone stamp and address an envelope with a blank piece of paper in it?

I also knew I had to ask Auntie about her favorite type of ring and I didn’t know how to begin. I didn’t want to give away Mr. Henley’s surprise. It made me feel awfully nervous and important at the same time. I wondered if other children, age twelve, had any of the same problems I had. I rather guessed not. I wondered too if any other children had a mother and father missing in France. It was hard to even say those words. Were they missing or were they just out of contact? We hadn’t had a coded letter from them for almost a year. The Gram kept telling me they had gone underground. It made me think of rabbits or foxes or groundhogs, but not people, not parents. Parents didn’t go underground. Oh, how I missed my mother especially. To want your mother as I did was like living with a river that ran under everything that happened. That river flowed on behind
everything, with its ice-cold, freezing, uncaring waters. And soon my new father was going off to the war as well. Were there other children out there, beyond our blackout curtains, beyond our wind and salt spray, beyond our point and peninsula, who felt as I did?

“Auntie,” I said into the darkness of our bedroom, guessing she hadn’t fallen asleep yet either. “What do you think of
old
things?”

“Well, like this house, you mean?” she said from across the room, in her bed.

“Well, yes, sort of,” I said.

“Oh, I would like to give this house a big face-lift. I should like to steam off all the old wallpaper and put up something with some pizzazz, like big, bright daisies in the dining room. Now, how would you feel getting up in the morning to big, bright daisies?”

“I rather like the house the way it is,” I said. “I like Captain Bathburn’s daughters.”

“I think they are a dreary bunch, clutching their whalebone combs,” she said.

“But I like the whalebone dominoes in the parlor, carved by one of the shipmates of Captain Bathburn on his voyage to India. Don’t you? Mr. Bathtub told us in class that Captain Bathburn’s cargo, on the way to India in 1855, was ice. Ice! Great blocks of it wrapped in sawdust and hay, stored down in the hold. That way, after three months, the ice only melted a little bit. Ice was like gold in India. It fetched huge prices. After all, they
couldn’t keep iceboxes there without ships bringing ice to them from places with winter and icy rivers like we have here in Maine.”

“Flissy, you are a card. You’re always running around like a little ladybug all wound up, even when going to sleep at night. When do you slow down, sweetest?” said Aunt Miami.

“Um, well, if you don’t like old houses, is there anything old you do like?” I said.

“Hmmm, I like The Gram,” said Auntie.

I felt a bit discouraged after that and so I changed the subject. “Auntie,” I said quietly, “have you ever seen a letter arriving with an address and a stamp and simply nothing on the letter?”

“Well, either the person forgot to write something or they’ve used invisible ink, which is a subject Gideon would know all about. Speaking of my brother Gideon, you know, I think he rather enjoys intrigue and danger as much as Danny. I wish he’d get on with it and forget Winnie. Sorry, sweetest. I know you adore Winnie and I’m sure she’s lovely. It’s just that Gideon is wasting his life pining over a woman who ran off and married his brother.”

“How do you make invisible ink visible?” I said.

“Oh, I think there are several different kinds that respond to different things. I believe the Germans are experts at it. Some types of invisible ink must be treated with chemicals, while others can be ironed, I believe.”

“You mean, ironed like a pillowcase or a napkin?” I said.

“Yes,” said Auntie, yawning. “Shall we go to sleep, sweetest? Oh, little ladybug, with all your questions. Flissy McBee, you are such a card.”

I wondered if ladybugs went to sleep at night or did they stare at the ceiling for hours as I did. Did little insects go to sleep? I knew they drank water because I had seen them at our birdbath, perching delicately on the edge, leaning over to drink. Being restless tonight was not my fault. The sea was quite rambunctious and noisy and I couldn’t wait to tell Derek about invisible ink. I wanted to write a letter to Winnie and Danny with invisible ink. I could say anything I pleased because most people knew nothing about invisible ink. But Winnie and Danny would know. The letter would say, completely invisibly:

Dear Winnie and Danny,

I have grown weary of missing you. Every night I still cry for you. Do you hear me when I cry? And do you know that I truly love Derek Blakely? It’s rather painful and seems to get worse every day. We are practicing dancing together and we are getting to be very good. Even Gideon says so. He called Derek “a good hoofer.” I wish you could see us. I shall wait for you forever. I shall never stop waiting. Please be safe and if you did go underground, I hope you will soon surface. And when you do, I shall finally stop longing and smile gladly again.

Love,
Your Felicity, waiting. Waiting.

I didn’t say a word about Brie and the dance coming up. It was such a lovely letter without it, all invisible the way it was. I wrote to all sorts of people in my mind that night with invisible ink. And in the morning, I am afraid to say that I was bit cross. I hardly slept at all and I was late getting downstairs for breakfast. I missed helping Uncle Gideon feed Sir William Percy. That seagull had been trained to sit on Uncle Gideon’s knee and squawk. It was quite my favorite way to start out the morning, but today everyone was ready to leave when I finally got downstairs.

Mr. Bathtub had on his macintosh and Derek was all set for school, wearing a little cap with a bill that his father had given him.

Mr. Bathtub did say, “Is that a new hat, Derek?”

And Derek said, “Not really, I just haven’t worn it before.” Of course in my loyalty to Derek, I would never say a word. If he needed to see his father in peace, then I would stand by him.

I had to eat cold toast in the car and I didn’t have a chance to tell Derek about invisible ink on the way to school because Mr. Bathtub was driving. He was singing a song called “Lily Marlene,” which he said was a favorite among the German soldiers.

“Outside the barracks by the corner light,

I’ll always stand and wait for you at night.

We will create a world for two.

I’ll wait for you the whole night through,

For you, Lily Marlene,

For you, Lily Marlene.”

“That’s a very pretty song, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes, it is,” said Gideon. “Soldiers on both sides suffer. They are cold. They’re hungry. They all want to go home. War is a terrible thing.”

“When we are marching in the mud and cold

And when my pack seems more than I can hold,

My love for you renews my might,

I’m warm again, my pack is light.

It’s you, Lily Marlene,

It’s you, Lily Marlene.”

Then my father sang the song in German. Looking out the window as we drove along the road to school, I felt a strange worry ripple through me. We passed the salt marshes and I saw a last great blue heron and flocks of gathering ducks preparing to set off on long journeys. Autumn was slowly opening up like a great papery orange flower and I marveled at it, in spite of the darkness that seemed to loom at the edge of my vision.

Gideon took me and Derek to the movies on that Saturday and so we did not have a chance to iron the letter. At the intermission we saw Bugs Bunny cartoons. (After that my father did a great imitation of Bugs Bunny chewing his carrot and saying, “Eh, what’s up, doc?” Later at school the first graders adored it and flocked round him as he chewed his invisible carrot.)

We also saw a newsreel about Eleanor Roosevelt and her trip to Great Britain to visit Prime Minister Churchill. The newsreel showed her visiting the American soldiers stationed there too. I heard she said that our soldiers had blisters from tight cotton socks and that they needed nice wool socks.

All through the end of the movie I was feeling antsy and itchy. I was hoping we would have a chance to go into the laundry room later at home and do some ironing. Just to try it. Just to see. And, in fact, when we got home, The Gram and Auntie had gone off in a carpool to visit Miss Elkin. My father went on one of his long walks, leaving Derek and me alone in the house.

“Perhaps now is a good time to see if we can iron that letter,” I said.

Derek nodded at me. I jumped up and we headed for the little laundry room next to the larder and kitchen.

The room still smelled of fresh, damp, ironed sheets and pillowcases because Aunt Miami had been in there working earlier. There was a lovely, white, lacy cotton nightdress hanging on the wall. It had been Ella Bathburn’s. Her name was written under the collar. Auntie had washed and ironed the nightdress carefully. And she told me she planned to wear it on her wedding night. I had been quite relieved, actually. That proved to me Miami did like old things after all and I had already reported my findings to Mr. Henley, who had turned lobster red in the cheeks and smiled.

Now I plugged in the small, heavy iron with its black-and-white argyle cloth cord. And Derek got out the envelope addressed to Louise Mack, Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Inside was the blank piece of paper. “Fliss, you really know your onions,” Derek said, looking at me in a close sort of way as we waited for the iron to heat up.

We soon placed the hot iron on the corner of the paper. We moved it across the page carefully. A strange chemical smell filled the air and then we pulled the iron back. Soon, in the heat, faint, blocky letters began to appear on the page. A few letters didn’t come in at all but we were able to make out the sentence. It read,
The Gray Moth will have an identifying mark on his forehead.

Everything now was troubling. Nothing seemed as it truly was. The days that followed were sunny and airy but I had something new gnawing at me, something new fluttering and dodging in front of me. It was the Gray Moth. It fluttered here and it fluttered there in my mind, always casting a dark, winged shadow.

“Derek, shouldn’t we tell Gideon about this?” I whispered as we passed in the hallway upstairs.

“No,” said Derek, “because then he’ll want to know where we found it and he’ll have to know I was at my father’s hotel. And then he’ll find out I’ve seen my dad and I don’t want that yet. Please?”

“Can’t we just show him the letter and say we found it somewhere else?” I said.

“No. Then we’ll get tripped up and have to say really where we found it. No,” Derek started to shout. He slammed the door to his room. Then he opened the door and softened his voice. “Please, Fliss,” he called.