Beautiful Blue World

by Suzanne LaFleur

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  We found a spot we liked. Megs spread her clean handkerchief on the ground and we unpacked our lunches onto it: a winter picnic. Megs smiled, and from her pocket she pulled two of Miss Tameron’s little cakes.

  “Clever,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  I wanted so much to enjoy the cake, but my mouth felt dry.

  “Are you scared?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sad?”

  “Maybe?”

  “What can you tell me?”

  I swallowed, the closest to tears I had been since the Examiner called my name.

  Maybe I shouldn’t tell her. I had to practice not telling her things. We’d already started, a little.

  But she was Megs. My Megs.

  For just one more day.

  “They’re taking us away from each other. We can’t be friends anymore. Not even in letters.”

  “Mathilde. We will always be friends. Always. Here. Call me.” She closed her eyes.

  “What?” I almost laughed.

  “In your mind.”

  I closed my eyes. Megs?

  Megs?

  I peeked an eye open, to see she was doing the same.

  “Did you…?”

  “No. Try from here.” She leaned across our picnic, and pressed her hand to my breastbone.

  I nodded, and she pulled her hand away.

  I closed my eyes.

  I tried not to use words. I tried not to picture.

  Hundreds of walks to school, and almost as many back home. Hundreds of summer days. Splashing in the stream. Snowball fights and forts. Braids that had started chin-length and had grown past shoulders. Shared lunches. Snacks. Stories. Smiles. Secrets. Whispers. Walks. Today.

  Eyes still closed, I found the girl sitting across from me. Felt her out.

  When I opened my eyes at last, hers were still closed, leaking tears.

  But as if she knew my eyes were open, she nodded.

  I OPENED THE SUITCASE Father had given me and set my things inside: school blouses and skirts, nightclothes, new underthings, tights, and socks.

  They hardly filled the space. Not even halfway.

  The Examiner had said to bring one personal item from home. I looked around our bedroom.

  “Did you forget something?” Kammi turned to look around, too.

  “It’s empty,” Tye announced, and checked my dresser drawer. Then she opened the bottom drawer, where we kept the sheets, scooped up an armful, carried it toward me—leaving a trail of cloth stretched across the bedroom—and dropped it into the suitcase.

  I laughed and scooped them back out. “Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll need them.”

  “Won’t you have a bed?”

  “They didn’t say to bring sheets, so they must have them there for us.”

  Would we have beds and sheets? Army cots? Sleeping bags? Would we be move around a lot, or stay in one place?

  How would I sleep without my sisters nearby? I was used to their breathing, their warmth.

  And then I knew what to bring.

  They didn’t object as I took down the paper with our first set of handprints. They’d still have the ones on the walls. I dropped the pins into the corner of the suitcase, set the paper flat on top of my clothes, and snapped the suitcase shut as Father opened the door.

  “We need to go,” he said. He took my suitcase and we all went downstairs to the front door. “Kammi and Tye, give Mathilde a good hug, and go out to play.”

  Tye hugged me as if this was any afternoon: a good, quick squeeze. Then she scampered out to find her friends.

  When would she notice what it really meant that I wasn’t around? When I wasn’t home for dinner? When Kammi claimed my bed? When I hadn’t been home for a week? Two? If she noticed more meat on the table, thicker stockings to replace the hand-me-downs with holes? Would they let these things become linked in her mind?

  She wouldn’t see me again until we were grown up.

  If then.

  And she wouldn’t remember me.

  But Kammi knew. She would remember. Always. She clung to me, and I held on until Father pulled us apart. Her hair was falling out of its braid from rubbing against my sweater; her face was pink, eyes wet.

  “Go along with Tye, now,” Father said. The sister she would get to grow up with.

  She ran off without her coat, even though it was cold.

  Leaving Mother, Father, and me.

  —

  We walked slowly, one parent on either side of me, a solemn parade. Other people caught my eye on the way to the train and nodded their goodbyes. But no one tagged along.

  When soldiers left, people cheered and wished them good luck. Gave them kisses and sweets. Followed them to the station, waved from the platform.

  Mother put her hand on my back. “Remember, it’s not about you or that they think you are doing the wrong thing. They don’t know what to think, so they’re putting themselves first.”

  A lump rose in my throat. We passed my favorite bakery. When would I taste their glazed buns again? They had only plain ones in the winter, but in the summer they put raspberries in the glaze. Each bite was perfect, like heaven.

  But heaven was only an idea. Nowhere was safe and peaceful for eternity.

  Father followed my gaze, and ducked into the shop. He returned, beaming, handing me a small paper bag.

  “Thank you.” I clung to the bag as we walked.

  Megs appeared before me, her dark braids tidy, her cheeks pink in the cold, her eyes bright.

  Megs.

  She hugged me tightly, and disappeared without a word.

  Any words, all the words, must have gotten stuck in our throats.

  My parents and I walked through the doors of the train station under the great clock. A few people waited on benches. I looked up at the board.

  “Father.” I tugged his coat. He was looking around the station as if he’d never been there before, though he had. “There’s no two-thirteen on the board.”

  “Hmm.” He frowned.

  Was this the right station? Was the train canceled?

  My arms relaxed at my side. If there was no train, I would have to go back home.

  Mother said, “We’ll ask the stationmaster; he’s at his window.”

  Father nodded and led the way over.

  The stationmaster looked up at us. “Yes?”

  “My daughter was scheduled for the two-thirteen today, but there’s not one on the board.”

  “Ah. Your daughter’s name?”

  “Mathilde Joss.”

  He met my eyes. “You have identification?”

  Father took some folded papers and a little card out of his inside breast pocket and handed them to the stationmaster, who reviewed them and then studied me.

  Then he said, “Yes, I have Miss Joss scheduled on the two-thirteen, which will be arriving on track two in twenty minutes. You may wait with her there, but you will not be permitted to board the train. No exceptions.”

  “Of course,” Mother said.

  “Of course,” Father echoed.

  “I’d suggest that you let Miss Joss carry her own identification cards from now on, Mr. Joss.” And he handed the papers back to me, not to Father.

  I put them deep into my own breast pocket.

  We left the window.

  “Do you want to use the washroom?” Mother asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to sit?” Father asked.

  I looked around at the ordinary people: expecting arrivals, headed on their own travels…all hoping to see their loved ones soon.

  I couldn’t sit with them. I wasn’t like them. Not anymore.

  “No. Let’s just go up to the platform.”

  There wasn’t anybody else on track two.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a seat,” Father joked as we walked down the platform.

  The wind whistled, cold, across the raised platfo
rm.

  Father handed me an envelope.

  “You already gave me a treat.” But I lifted the flap of the envelope anyway. “You can’t give me this!”

  “Of course I can. It’s thanks to you we have it.”

  “But you need it.”

  “We have enough. If you ever need money, I would rather you have some. Keep it close. Here.” He took the envelope, opened my coat, and tucked it into the inside pocket. Then he straightened my coat and looked around cautiously, but there still wasn’t anyone there but the three of us.

  “I—” I looked into Father’s eyes, which were gazing back at me with warmth and calm and love; I turned to Mother, who looked sad, but just as resolute as Father. “I—”

  This would to be the hardest thing I ever had to say to them.

  Especially as it might also be the last thing I ever said to them.

  “I want you to go.”

  “You can’t get on the train by yourself,” Mother protested.

  Father studied me. “Of course she can. She’ll be on the train without us, she can wait for the train without us.”

  Mother bit her lip. Then she nodded, but she looked hurt.

  I lowered my eyes. “If I wait to say goodbye when the train gets here, we’ll only have a minute, and I might not get on. If we say goodbye now…”

  Father folded his arms around me tight. He smelled properly of the post office today, and I breathed in deeply to seal it in my memory.

  The last hug, the last hug…

  A lifetime and an instant later, Father let go and kissed me on the head. “Do as you’re told. Be a good girl. We’re so proud of you, Big.”

  Then Mother’s thinner arms clung to me. She moved a hand from my back to my head, pressing me against her chest. I could hear her heart beating; I closed my eyes, remembering it deep within me as the first sound I’d ever heard.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said when we broke apart.

  You’ll be all right.

  “I know.”

  Father put his arm around her.

  What was left to say?

  “Work hard,” Father said. “The sooner you can help end the war, the sooner you can be back with us. Things will be even better then, and you will have made them so.”

  I nodded.

  “I do believe this is the right thing,” Mother reminded me. “We’ll think of you every day. We love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Father gave me one last smile, and set my suitcase at my feet. Then he and Mother started down the platform toward the station. Mother looked back over her shoulder as he guided her, holding my gaze for another moment, until she had to turn to go down the stairs.

  Now we were going in different directions.

  I was really alone.

  —

  Mother and Father, walking back, arm in arm, together but lonely, their hearts aching already.

  Mother weeping.

  I shook my head.

  No. No, she wouldn’t weep. She would hold her head up. To show the neighbors she’d made the right choice. Like she’d told me.

  I sat down on my suitcase.

  The station clock read 2:13 exactly when the train came to a stop.

  A young woman in a navy uniform set just one foot onto the platform, her hand clinging to the bar in the doorway.

  “Mathilde Joss?”

  I SAT IN AN empty compartment, staring at the last views of Lykkelig as we pulled away from the station.

  I’d ridden on a train twice before.

  One summer, our family had gone north, to the seaside.

  Another summer, Megs’s father had taken just the two of us south to the mountains for a picnic day. Before he went away. Before there was no money for extra things like train fares. Before there was nothing to put in a picnic basket.

  Before the war.

  The train attendant came back. “I’ll see your papers now.”

  She read them, and smiled at me as she handed them back. She took out a ticket and punched it several times.

  “We should be there late tonight. I’ll come by to make sure you’re not asleep. There’s a washroom at the end of the corridor in each car, and there’s a dining car two cars back. I’ve punched your ticket to show you have two prepaid meals, so you can eat whatever you like.”

  “Thank you.”

  Who’d have thought joining the army would have gotten me treated like the Queen of Eilean? Two paid-for meals on the train!

  What would the food be like wherever I was going?

  Chugging along through the countryside, you might not have known there was a war. Peaceful snow laced fields of chill winter green. Gray stone steeples peeked up from between the hills. Cows huddled together along fences.

  But in cities, and just outside them, workers sifted through heaps of rubble with shovels. Blackened shells of aerials littered bombed aerstrips.

  None of these places had names. All the signage had been painted over black.

  If there was a station left to stop in, we picked up khaki-clad soldiers. Sometimes we stopped to collect them in the middle of woods or fields. How did they know to meet the train there?

  The sky grew overcast, and the gray threatened to settle inside me. I decided to go for a walk and have something to eat.

  I took my ticket and walked back a car. It was full of soldiers sitting on rows and rows of bench seats, some facing each other. I kept my eyes down as I walked through.

  I sat at an empty table in the dining car and a waiter handed me a menu with a few choices on it. Any choice was still more than I’d ever had at home. I ordered a meat patty with gravy and beans. When every bite was gone, I scraped my fork against the plate and didn’t leave a single drop of sauce.

  I made my way through the soldiers’ car again on the way back to my compartment.

  “Hey, little sister,” one of the soldiers called.

  I froze.

  Several soldiers were looking at me.

  “Aren’t many civilians traveling on this train. You lost?” the same soldier asked.

  “I’m supposed to be here. I’m in the service now, too.”

  “Are you?” The soldier leaning forward a bit, elbows lazily on his knees. “And what do you do in the service?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm…” He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “A mission so secret you don’t even know what it is?”

  I shrugged.

  “Sending little children on top-secret missions now? How did they find you, little sister?”

  “I’m nobody’s little sister.”

  “You’re everyone’s little sister. What you’re doing on this train is beyond me. Budge over, Henning,” he said to the soldier beside him, and looked back to me. “Have a seat.”

  I sat—what did I have to do for the rest of the day anyway? I might as well be friendly and get used to soldiers. Maybe I was going to the same place they were.

  “You play?” He shuffled a deck of cards.

  “No.”

  The boys started to play, and I watched for a few hands. I studied the cards they put down, and when they picked up new ones. The one called Henning would scratch his nose before selecting a new card, so I knew if he liked his hand. The one next to him would sit with his feet crossed until he knew that he liked his hand, and when he relaxed, his feet uncrossed.

  “You in?” the first soldier asked eventually.

  I nodded.

  He dealt me in, and on my first game, I won.

  “MATHILDE…MATHILDE…”

  A gentle hand shook my shoulder.

  “We’ll be arriving at your stop shortly. I’ve gotten your suitcase down for you. Here, put your coat on….”

  The train attendant held my coat behind me as if I were as young as Tye. I sleepily extended my arms to each side in turn. She pulled my braids out for me and tugged the coat closed in front of me.

  The drowsiness was hard
to shake off. For the first time in weeks, I’d fallen asleep without being afraid. Trains and their tracks and stations were often bombed, as I’d seen earlier, but I hadn’t worried about hearing sirens, about being jolted from my sleep. The train’s movement had kept me feeling safe and sleepy, and my stomach was full for the first time since I could remember. I’d had my second meal with the soldiers, and then eaten my glazed bun for dessert back in my compartment.

  “Come, stand by the door….”

  I followed her, carrying my suitcase. Out the window, the dark grass and trees racing by slowed and suddenly a platform appeared.

  When the train stopped, the attendant opened the door, looked around, and nodded to me to exit.

  “Goodbye, Mathilde.”

  “Goodbye.”

  She was already latching the door shut. As the train pulled away, I waved at the windows where the soldiers slept, cards put away and dinners eaten.

  I looked up and down the dark platform.

  A light flickered. I covered my face with my arm as it flashed into my eyes.

  A figure walked toward me: a woman.

  When she reached me, she said, “Your papers, please.”

  I handed over my papers with a steady hand, which she seemed to notice by the way her eyes and flashlight moved momentarily from my hand to my face, and she nodded her approval. She turned the flashlight to read my papers. Then she snapped the flashlight off and my eyes adjusted to the starlit night.

  The woman started to walk down the platform and I hurried to keep up, lugging my suitcase.

  “We have a bit of a carriage ride ahead of us,” she said. “No car. We’ve got a cart and pony. But maybe—you like ponies?”

  Did I like ponies?

  I didn’t answer. I hadn’t been expecting such a question.

  We came off the platform steps—no station house here—but the creature attached to the waiting cart didn’t look small enough to be a pony. I stood, gaping at him, until the woman said, “Let’s go, or we’ll have no sleep whatsoever tonight. Put your suitcase in the back and come sit with me up front.”

  I hurried to do what she asked. When I plopped down beside her, she told the giant pony to go with a shake of the reins.

  “I’m Miss Ibsen.”

  “Yes, Miss Ibsen.”

  We traveled on what seemed to be a dirt road through woods. The darkness, the lull of the turning wheels, and the pony’s clomping made me sleepy again. But there wasn’t anywhere good to lean—I would either slump sideways onto Miss Ibsen, or tumble out the open side of the cart.