The War That Saved My Life

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  I didn’t know he had a missus. “Aye,” he said, in response to my unspoken question. “She’s been dead five years. Was nurse to Miss Margaret and Master Jonathan, and before that to their mother and her brothers.”

  I squashed the bulky bag beneath my jacket to keep it out of the snow. Butter tossed his head, restless, and I let him turn for home.

  “Wait.” Fred grabbed Butter’s bridle. “When someone gives you a present,” he said, with a gentle smile, “you say ‘Thank you.’”

  Susan had taught me that, but I’d been so busy thinking about the wool the bag contained that I’d forgotten. “Thank you, Fred,” I said. “Thank you very much. I wish I could say thank you to your missus too.”

  “Ah, well.” He shook his head. “Happen she’d be glad I found her things a good home. You’re very welcome, child.”

  It was Thursday already and Christmas was Monday, so I didn’t have much time. When I got home I dumped the bag onto my bed. There were five sets of knitting needles, from thick to thin, and a handful of smaller thin sticks that were pointed on both ends. There were all sorts of oddments of wool, rolled into balls, and there were six balls of fine, white wool.

  The white wool would be best. I had plenty of it. I cast on and started to work.

  I expected Susan to be suspicious when I spent the whole afternoon in my cold bedroom, and she was. “What are you up to?” she asked at dinner.

  I ran through my options in my head. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t taking a bath. I couldn’t be listening to the radio. Stalling while I searched for a plausible excuse, I said, “Nothing.”

  To my surprise, she grinned. “Oh, really? I’ll make a bargain with you. You can have a few hours of nothing time upstairs anytime the rest of this week you like, as long as you give me the same amount of nothing time downstairs. You shout before you come down, and wait until I tell you okay. Deal?”

  I could only nod. In the days to come I could sometimes hear the whirr of her sewing machine while I knit upstairs. I took a hot water bottle with me and put a blanket around my shoulders, and I knit white wool and oddments all the next two days. Wretched Bovril started wanting to sit in my lap on top of the water bottle, until I threw him out and shut the door.

  The day before Christmas was a Sunday. When Jamie and I got up we dressed in the clothes Susan insisted we save for Sundays, Jamie in his white shirt and tweed shorts and good dark socks, me in the red dress Maggie had given me. We went down to breakfast and Susan shook her head. “Sorry, forgot. Go put your regular things on for the day. We’re going to church at night. All of us, even me. It’s Christmas Eve.”

  Because it was Christmas Eve we had bacon at breakfast. During the day I helped make biscuits. Jamie roasted chestnuts for the goose’s dressing. Susan put the radio on, and sang along to the Christmas music.

  Midafternoon she made us bathe. She brushed my hair downstairs by the fire until it was dry, and braided it in two plaits instead of one. We ate supper, and then she told Jamie to go upstairs and put on his church clothes. She told me to sit still. “I have a surprise.”

  She put a big box wrapped in paper onto my lap. Inside was a dress made of soft dark green fabric. It had puffed sleeves and a round collar, and it gathered at the waist before billowing out into a long, full skirt.

  It was so beautiful I couldn’t touch it. I just stared.

  “Come,” Susan said. “Let’s see if it fits.”

  I held perfectly still while she took off my sweater and blouse, and settled the green dress over my head. “Step out of your skirt,” Susan said, and I did. She buttoned the dress and stepped back. “There,” she said, smiling, her eyes soft and warm. “It’s perfect. Ada. You’re beautiful.”

  She was lying. She was lying, and I couldn’t bear it. I heard Mam’s voice shrieking in my head. “You ugly piece of rubbish! Filth and trash! No one wants you, with that ugly foot!” My hands started to shake. Rubbish. Filth. Trash. I could wear Maggie’s discards, or plain clothes from the shops, but not this, not this beautiful dress. I could listen to Susan say she never wanted children all day long. I couldn’t bear to hear her call me beautiful.

  “What’s the matter?” Susan asked, perplexed. “It’s a Christmas present. I made it for you. Bottle green velvet, just like I said.”

  Bottle green velvet. “I can’t wear this,” I said. I pulled at the bodice, fumbling for the buttons. “I can’t wear it. I can’t.”

  “Ada.” Susan grabbed my hands. She pulled me to the sofa and set me down hard beside her, still restraining me. “Ada. What would you say to Jamie, if I gave him something nice and he said he couldn’t have it? Think. What would you say?”

  Tears were running down my face now. I started to panic. I fought Susan’s grasp. “I’m not Jamie!” I said. “I’m different, I’ve got the ugly foot, I’m—” My throat closed over the word rubbish.

  “Ada. Ada.” I felt I could hardly hear Susan’s voice. A scream built up from somewhere inside me, came roaring out in an ocean of sound. Scream after scream—Jamie running half-dressed down the stairs, Susan pinning down my arms, holding me against her, holding me tight. Waves of panic hit me, over and over, turning me and tossing me until I thought I’d drown.

  We didn’t go to church. We ended up on the floor in front of the fire, wrapped in blankets Jamie dragged down the stairs. All of us. I don’t know how long I screamed and flailed. I don’t know how long Susan restrained me. I kicked her and scratched her and probably would have bitten her, but she held on. I don’t know what Jamie did, other than bring down the blankets. Susan wrapped me in one, rolled me up tight, and the panic started to ease. “That’s it,” Susan croaked. “Shh. Shh. You’re okay.”

  I was not okay. I would never be okay. But I was too exhausted to scream anymore.

  When I woke, the first rays of winter sunlight were coming through the window onto the little Christmas tree. The coal embers shone dully beneath a layer of ashes. Jamie slept wrapped in a blanket with Bovril’s face peeping out beneath his chin. Susan snored gently. One of her arms was flung up, under her ear; the other still rested across me. Her hair had come out of its bun and was sticking out in all directions. She had a long red furrow down one cheek from where I’d scratched her, and her blouse—her best blouse—had a rip at the shoulder and a button hanging by a thread. She looked like she’d been in a war.

  I was so completely wound in a gray blanket that I could only move my head. I turned it from side to side, looking first at Jamie, then at Susan, then at the little Christmas tree. Susan would be angry when she woke. She would be furious, because I’d screamed about the dress, because I hadn’t been grateful, because I’d messed up her plans. We hadn’t gone to church because of me.

  My stomach worked itself into a knot. She would be angry. She would hit—no. She wouldn’t hit me. She hadn’t, at least not so far. She hadn’t hit me once the night before, not even when I’d hurt her. She’d wrapped me up and held me tight.

  I didn’t know what to do. Susan was temporary. My foot was permanent. I lay in the weak sunshine and wanted to weep instead of scream. But I almost never cried. What was wrong with me now?

  Jamie stirred. He opened his eyes and smiled—smiled his beautiful smile. All of my life I would remember the sweetness of that smile. “Good morning, Ada,” Jamie said. “Merry Christmas.”

  I didn’t know what Susan had said or done to Jamie before he fell asleep, but he woke as though sleeping on the living room floor was perfectly ordinary. He sat up, rubbed Bovril’s belly, then put the cat outside to do his business and added coal to the fire.

  The rattle of the coal scuttle woke Susan. I watched her carefully as she opened her eyes and came to an awareness of where she was. She saw me, and she smiled too.

  Smiled.

  “Good morning, Ada,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

  I wanted to bury my head in my bl
ankets and weep and scream, but I didn’t. Instead I said, “I can’t get up. I can’t move my arms.”

  She sat up and untangled me. “I wasn’t trying to trap you,” she said. “It seemed to soothe you, to be bundled like that.”

  “I know,” I said. “It did.” I pointed to the rip on her blouse.

  “It’s in a seam,” she said. “I can fix it.” She brushed my loose hair back from my face. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  We got up and went upstairs and washed our faces and used the loo. At Susan’s suggestion we took off our good clothes and put on our pajamas and dressing gowns. When we came back down the stairs, there was a pile of brightly wrapped packages under the tree.

  Presents.

  “Looks like Santa Claus has been here,” Susan said gaily.

  Seemed odd that Santa Claus would stay away all night, but come while we were changing our clothes. I opened my mouth to say so, but saw Jamie’s glowing face in time and shut up fast.

  Jamie’s eyes were lit with joy. “He really did come! To us! He did!” he said. “Even though Ada was bad.” He gave me a quick guilty look. “I mean—”

  “It’s okay,” I said, slipping my arm around his shoulders. “I was bad.” I wondered if the presents were all for Jamie. Could any possibly be for me?

  “Not bad,” Susan said. She helped me down the last few steps. “Not bad, Ada. Sad. Angry. Frightened. Not bad.”

  Sad, angry, frightened were bad. It was not okay to be any of those. I couldn’t say so, though, not on that gentle morning.

  I had the gifts I’d made stuffed into the pockets of my dressing gown. I didn’t have any paper to wrap them. I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Breakfast,” Susan said. She’d put the kettle on for tea, and started a pan full of sizzling sausages. She fried us each an egg. On the table, laid across our plates, were two of our stockings, one each. They were stuffed full and knobbly. I poked mine. “You should have hung those up last night,” she said. “But I see Santa found them anyway. Have a look inside while I finish cooking.”

  An orange. A handful of walnuts. Boiled sweets. Two long hair ribbons, one green and one blue. In the toe, a shilling.

  Jamie had the same, except he had a whistle instead of hair ribbons, and an India rubber ball.

  Shiny bright girls, with ribbons in their hair. I wanted to weep all over again. I wanted to scream.

  What was wrong with me?

  I couldn’t mess up Jamie’s Christmas. I stroked the satin ribbons and went away in my head. I was on Butter, up on the hill, galloping, galloping—

  “Ada.” Susan touched my shoulder. “Come back.”

  Fried sausages on my plate. A fried egg, its yolk as bright as the sun. Toast, and strong hot tea. Jamie blew his whistle—a piercing shriek. “Save that for outside,” Susan said, ruffling his hair.

  After breakfast we opened our presents. Jamie got a toy motorcar and a set of building blocks. I got a new halter for Butter, and a pad of paper and a set of colored pencils. We each got a book. Mine was called Alice in Wonderland. Jamie’s was Peter Pan.

  Susan didn’t get anything from Santa Claus. She told Jamie grown-ups didn’t. But I pulled my gifts from my pocket. For Jamie I had a scarf made of all the oddments of yarn, different colors and kinds, in stripes. He looked at it and frowned. “I like the scarf Susan made me better,” he said. Susan poked him and he said, “Thank you,” which kept me from smacking him.

  Then I gave Susan her scarf, knit from the white wool. I’d made hers last of all my gifts, so it would be the best, because I really did get better at knitting the more I did it.

  Susan unfolded it against her knee. “Ada, it’s beautiful. This is what you’ve been doing?”

  “I got the wool from Fred,” I said quickly, so she’d know I hadn’t stolen it.

  She hugged me. “I love it. I’ll wear it every day.”

  I shrugged her away. It was too much, all this emotion. I wanted to get away. She seemed to understand even that. “Put your jods on and run out to see your pony,” she said. “Jamie’ll help me clear up, and we’ll get started on dinner.”

  Jamie’s three pilots came midafternoon. They wore their best uniforms and identical polite smiles. They gave Susan a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, and a potted plant. Susan told them she felt like she was getting the gifts of the Magi, and they laughed.

  The house smelled like roast goose. The fireplace crackled. The sun was setting already, and the living room looked warm and bright even with the blackouts up. The pilots sat awkwardly on the sofa, all in a row, but then Jamie started cutting up, running his new car over their knees and grinning and acting silly, and pretty soon one of the pilots was on the floor playing with Jamie, making towers with the building blocks and smashing into them with the car, and Susan gave the other two pilots glasses of wine and everyone seemed much more relaxed.

  I wasn’t relaxed. I was wearing the green dress.

  I’d put it on when I came in from seeing Butter, because I knew it would please Susan, and it did. She brushed my hair and let it hang loose, tying my new green ribbon around my head. “That’s an Alice ribbon,” she said. “The girl in your book, Alice, she wears her hair like that.”

  I felt like an imposter. It was worse than when I tried to talk like Maggie. Here I was, looking like Maggie. Looking like a shiny bright girl with hair ribbons. Looking like a girl with a family that loved her.

  Jamie squeezed my arm. “You look nice,” he whispered, scanning my face anxiously.

  I took a deep breath. I did have family that loved me. Jamie loved me.

  Susan called us to dinner. She’d put Christmas crackers by everyone’s plate. I’d never seen them before. They were tubes of paper; when you pulled the ends apart, they made a cracking noise and paper crowns and little toys fell out of them. We all wore our paper crowns to dinner. The pilots and Susan and Jamie laughed and talked, and I ate goose and tried to keep my insides still.

  “That’s a pretty dress,” one of the pilots said to me.

  I felt prickly all over, like my skin was too tight for my body, but I wasn’t going to let myself lose control again. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s new.” It was kind of him to mention my dress instead of my bad foot. I told myself that, over and over, and kept still.

  When they left, Susan sat me on the sofa beside her. “That was hard for you,” she said. I nodded. She pulled me against her, tight, the way she had the night before except that I wasn’t screaming. “Put the radio on, Jamie,” she said. “Ada, let’s see to your foot.” I sighed and arranged myself on the sofa, my bad foot in her lap. She pulled off my stocking and started rubbing and twisting it, the way she did every night. We were, she said, making a very small bit of progress.

  “Where’s our book?” Jamie said, and went to fetch it. We were halfway through reading Swiss Family Robinson for the second time. I understood the story better now, but I still didn’t like it. The family landed on the perfect island, where everything they needed was right in front of them. Susan pointed out that they had to work together to put the good things to use. Jamie just liked the adventures.

  “Not that,” I said. “Read mine.” I made Jamie fetch Alice in Wonderland. Between Alice’s hair ribbon and the word wonderland, I doubted I’d like it, but it was better than more Family Robinson.

  It was better. Alice chased after a rabbit who was wearing clothes and a pocket watch. He went down his hole just like the rabbits I saw when I was out on Butter, but she went after him, and fell into a place she didn’t belong, a place where absolutely nothing made sense to her.

  It was us, I thought. Jamie and me. We had fallen down a rabbit hole, fallen into Susan’s house, and nothing made sense, not at all, not anymore.

  In January rationing began. It was a way of sharing out what food there was so that rich people, like Susan, couldn’t go
hogging it and leaving poor people to starve. Rationing meant there might not be any butter or meat in the shops, and if there was you’d better get in the queue for it fast before it sold out. We all had ration books that said how much food we were allowed.

  It made Jamie nervous. Me too. Susan had always given us plenty of food, but we knew that was because she was rich, no matter what she said. I’d gotten used to eating regular.

  We tried eating less. The first time Jamie asked to be excused before he finished his dinner Susan felt his forehead. “Are you sick?” she asked. He shook his head. “Then eat. I know you can’t be full.”

  “I’ll save it for tomorrow,” he said.

  I pushed my plate away. “Me too.”

  Susan told us firmly that we were not to save our dinners. She said rationing meant we would have to eat different kinds of food, more vegetables, less meat, less butter and sweets. It did not mean there would not be enough food. There would always be enough food. She would personally see that we always had enough to eat.

  “Even if you have to get a job?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Even if I have to char.”

  Chars were the lowliest kind of cleaning lady. Some of the older girls on our lane back home were chars.

  “Why?” I asked.

  She looked at me, blank.

  “Why? You didn’t want us. You don’t even like us.”

  Jamie held perfectly still. Susan sipped her tea, the way she always did when she was stalling. “Of course I like you,” she said. “Don’t I act as though I like you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I never wanted children,” she continued, “because you can’t have children without being married, and I never wanted to be married. When I shared this home with Becky, that was the happiest I had ever been. I wouldn’t have traded that for anything, not even children.