Threadbare- The Traveling Show

by Alexandra DeMers

  Watch out for him! Please, be careful!

  “Good work, Inquestor,” one of the officers said. “This has got to be the biggest bust in history. We’ve crippled the insurrection.”

  “Don’t start counting chickens,” the Inquestor replied, making a hasty exit. “Get her to the station and throw her in with the others until I can get more agents and transport arranged to Nieuwestad. It ain’t over ‘til every one of them is in the ground.”

  The door boomed shut and hours passed before Amandine emerged, trembling, from her hiding place. Not knowing what else to do, she set about washing the bloodstains from the rug. As she scrubbed at the pitch-black spots by lamplight, Amandine realized that she had always taken a passive approach to her father’s advice. She couldn’t affect change by simply willing it to go the way she wanted; a smile and a positive attitude wouldn’t be enough to bring her mother back. Tossing frothy brown water off the back porch and into the night, Amandine knew that she had to get Caroline out.

  A few weeks later when Amandine was appraising the last few valuable trinkets in the house, the local governing administrator himself appeared at her door and complimented her magnificent house.

  Hello again, Fortune, she thought to herself, welcoming Peter Graft into the parlor. I hope you stick around a little longer this time.

  All of these events brought Amandine to where she was now, pedaling down a rugged path to recover her mother. She didn’t know what she would say when she finally reached the prison; she didn't even know how she would get there. All she knew for certain was that she had to try.

   That afternoon, she came out of the forested country to the river and saw the town of Pearisville on the other side. The old bridge had been a casualty of the civil conflict, and its burnt remains crumbled into the gushing current. Amandine searched for a place to cross and spotted a narrow, temporary bridge made of rope and chains nearby.

  She pedaled across, mindful of the irregular gaps in the scrap-wood slats. Her cloche hat narrowed her view like a horse’s blinders, so she didn’t see the delivery truck roll onto the opposite end of the bridge until she felt a rumble in her handlebars.

  “Hey!” She waved her arm and swerved to a stop. “Look out, mister!”

  The driver either didn’t see her or simply didn’t care. Amandine had no choice but to abandon her bike and scramble over the rope railing to avoid being hit. The truck knocked the bike over the edge, but Amandine managed to grab the handle of her suitcase before it fell. The twine that secured it to the back couldn’t hold and she watched in dismay as her bicycle splashed into the rushing brown waters below.

   Amandine tossed her suitcase back onto the bridge and climbed over, rubbing her chafed hands together while the truck sped away.

  Oh golly, I’ve lost my bike. How in the world am I supposed to get to Nieuwestad now?

  She squeezed her belongings to her chest.

  Keep on the sunny side, Amandine. ‘Count your blessings, name them one by one.’ One, you ain’t hurt. Two, you saved your suitcase. Three, maybe this new Mr. White can make you another cheese sandwich for supper.

  That was all she needed to collect herself, and she quickly lugged her suitcase across the bridge before another car came.

  Pearisville was recovering well, considering it had been the site of a particularly bloody conflict between the rebels and the police only a year before. Children played in the streets unsupervised, housewives did their shopping, and a cafe played patriotic music while it served its diners. Amandine let her nose guide her to the town bakery, a clean white building with lace curtains in the window and a printed pink sign that read, “CHOCOLATE CONFECTIONS! FIRST TIME SINCE THE WAR! ONLY AT WHITE’S.”

   She smiled when the door chimed, and a woman in a pink apron greeted her from behind a scrubbed countertop. “Welcome, young lady. How may I help you?”

   Amandine liked bakeries. The warm smell of bread and sugar wrapped her in an olfactory blanket of comfort and brought her back to Saturday mornings before the war, when she’d wake up to the smell of cinnamon rolls and coffee downstairs. Amandine inhaled deeply before she replied.

  “I just came from Cold River, ma’am, and I’m on my way to Nieuwestad. Mr. Clarence White there told me that I might get some work from Mr. Nathaniel White here.”

  Now that the woman knew that Amandine wasn't going to buy anything, the smile she put on for customers fell away. She paused to mull the idea over, thoughtfully touching her blonde set curls. “Did he? Well, I suppose we’ll see about that. My name is Betsy White. Nathaniel’s my husband.” She looked Amandine over. “Are you a baker?”

   “No, ma’am. I’m a tailor’s daughter.”

   The baker’s nails clicked with incredulity on the countertop. Amandine’s clothes were well-kept and neat, but decades out of fashion.

  “And where are your parents?”

  “My father was killed in action, and my mother is in the Nieuwestad Prison of War Criminals. I’m on my way to get her released,” Amandine replied.

   Mrs. White inhaled deeply. “Bless your heart.”

  Amandine cringed. She must have looked very pitiful or sounded very stupid to have earned a condescending response like that.

  “And what’s your name, sugar?”

  Amandine began to get the feeling that Mrs. White didn’t want the daughter of a tailor or an accused criminal to work for her, but she didn’t let the smile on her face falter. “My name is Amandine Stewart, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

   Mrs. White’s face moved with recognition. “Stewart, you say? Of the fabric factory in Cold River? And the design label?”

   “Yes. Well, I was.”

   “Well, I do declare!” The baker brightened. “I loved your fabrics. Never bought any of your dresses myself, but I used your material to make all of my curtains and towels before the war, and they still hold their color like new.” She paused before asking carefully, “But whatever happened? Last I heard, Mr. Stewart was commissioned by the government to make all of the servicemen’s uniforms.”

   “It’s true, but he answered the call about three years ago.” Amandine shrugged and rubbed the edge of her coat between her fingers. “Guess they needed a sailor more than a tailor. We lost him, and maman couldn’t keep the business without him.”

  “Oh, bless your heart!” This time the phrase was soft as meringue, and Mrs. White reached for Amandine’s hat. “Take this off. Hang your things and come into the kitchen. I have just the job to suit you.” She swapped her coat for an apron and led the girl into the back room. “You came at the right time. My husband is out running errands, and I was just working on a big chocolate order.”

   “Your kitchen looks very nice.” The girl admired the clean, enameled ovens and linoleum floor that had been scrubbed so much, they were beginning to show wear down to the black layer beneath. “Golly, it looks like it’s right out of a Good Housekeeping ad.”

   Mrs. White moved a wooden stool in front of a table stacked high with boxes and tissue paper. “It’s part of White's purity guarantee. While other bakeries cut their flour with plaster and baked their bricks in hollowed out oil drums, we always baked real bread in a proper kitchen. We made sure to clean everyday, even when there wasn’t a flake of soap to be found.”

   Amandine glanced at the bar of soap she had just picked up at the sink. She quickly put it back into the graniteware soapdish and lathered the residue until it bubbled between her fingers.

  “How did you manage to stay open when flour was worth its weight in gold?” She dried her hands on a towel made from a familiar pink material.

   “It was tricky for awhile. I suspect our regular supplier might have been dealing in black market flour.” Mrs. White quickly considered what she had just said before adding, “But it’s not likely. He probably had a business connection at the storehouse.”

  “Really? I hope it wasn’t the same guy my mother knew, because I t
hink that’s how she got mistaken for an insurrectionist.” Amandine sat on the stool and examined the supplies in front of her. “Hogwash! Maman loved jazz and fashion. She didn’t give a fig about politics. That was Dad’s favorite topic, and he was a favored citizen of the NAR. All of this was just a big misunderstanding which I will straighten out as soon as I get to Nieuwestad.”

  Mrs. White squinted at the odd girl for some time. When the pause began to drag on for too long, Amandine turned on the swiveling stool and chirped, “Want me to box up these chocolates, ma’am?”

   Mrs. White sighed. “Yes, sugar. Let me show you how to do it.” She arranged the treats in pretty paper cups and pink tissue paper.

   “Looks easy enough.”

   “Ah, but presentation is key.” Mrs. White tied the lid shut with a white ribbon. She set the completed box aside. “There you have it. Now, I’ll be making chocolates right behind you if you have any questions. I need ten boxes of a dozen packed for the order, plus a few more to put into the window.”

  Amandine saluted and got to work. She found that packing chocolates wasn’t too different from the more familiar task of packing garment boxes, so her eyes strayed from her hands to her surroundings. She scanned the shelves of spices, utensils, and miscellany and noticed an old radio as she knotted the bow on her first box.

   “May I turn on some music?” Amandine asked over her shoulder.

   Mrs. White pulled a face. “I don't much care for the marches. Fifteen minutes of that same old parum-pum-pum, and I start to feel like I’ve turned into a mixing machine. My husband keeps that in here to listen to the news.”

   Amandine switched on the radio. Its face glowed yellow and piccolo tweeted out a patriotic melody beneath the cheery voice of a radio personality.

  “—listening to ‘How We Are In The NAR!’ Coming up: he’s becoming such a hot topic, I’m almost afraid to touch him! Hear how everybody’s new favorite inquestor single-handedly—”

  The voice slipped into static. Twisting the tuning knob very carefully, Amandine found the signal she was looking for on a low frequency and tapped her Mary-Jane in time to the old dance record.

  Mrs. White’s mouth fell open in shock. “That’s a pirate station.”

  “This station is good,” the girl said as if she hadn’t heard her. “Maman and I listened to this after we had to turn all of our dance records in for food rations.”

  “Turn it off.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Jazz is illegal! Turn that off at once!” Mrs. White flew at the radio, but her hand stopped on the dial. She froze, listening.

  Amandine beamed, oblivious. “This one’s a swell number, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. White vanished from the bakery, lost to a summer night long ago. The air buzzed with bugs and electricity, and her new bob haircut tickled her cheeks. She swayed in time to the Twelfth Street Rag, hoping somebody would ask her for a dance when she felt a shy tap on her shoulder.

  “This song was playing at the church social where I met my husband,” she whispered, still clinging to a night when she danced until her legs ached, and the feverish kiss he stole in the choir loft tasted like lemonade. She smiled and turned the volume up ever so slightly. “It feels like a lifetime ago.”

  “It’s much more fun to work to this kind of music, don’t you think?” Amandine perched on her stool and continued packing as if she had done it her entire life. Offhandedly, she added, “Something’s burning, ma’am,” and Mrs. White dashed for the neglected pot of chocolate.

  The two continued working, driven by energetic swing until the disc jockey came on. Amandine flung a paper cup aside and clapped her hands. “It's DJMA! My absolute favorite radio host!”

  “Not Marc Antony.” Mrs. White’s gaze shifted between the front door and the open kitchen window. “We haven’t been listening to Tall-Me and Cleo’s station this whole time, have we?”

  “Shh!” Amandine fluttered her hand urgently. “This is a real treat. He almost never comes on during the day.”

  DJ Marc Antony was an irreverent radio personality with a golden, transatlantic voice. Broadcasting from wandering locations, his signal was bounced from pirate station to station, reaching his mysterious network of freedom fighters across the country.

  “Hello, everybody! My name is Marc Antony, and you are listening to the best station on the radio; the only one that will satisfy you ducky shin-crackers anymore, K-Patriot, 550!” He spoke in rapid, run-on sentences that sometimes exploded in volume without warning. “That's not true. I made it up. Watch the boys in blue and my good old friends the inquestors try to find my signal out there, anyways. You're wasting your time, Inkies, because nobody can find Marc Antony! I’m everywhere! A phantom of the airwaves! No, the only people this guy has his door open to is Tall-Me and Cleo. And guess what? They're in the news again!”

  DJMA hummed idly and rustled his papers while he searched for the article he wanted to talk about. “'Rebel Leader Cleo Goes To Trial,' it says. Ouch. The day they nabbed her was a miserable day for the movement! I was so blue, I thought about stringing myself up by my headset, but then I remembered that my sound technician would likely take up my mantle, and he doesn’t know jazz from a jingle. Don’t worry, folks, Marc Antony will persevere! I must, because who else is going to fight for the music?

  “Gotta hand it to ‘em, though. That was probably the biggest bust the inquestors ever pulled off. They got a lot of our red brothers and sisters that day, and in typical NAR fashion, they dragged in a lot of innocent bystanders, too. Poor folks that were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I bet catching Cleo and her crew got someone promoted. Oh, look! They printed an awful picture of her. Cleo is an absolute fox, ladies and gentlemen. Don't let the paper tell you otherwise. She's so smoking hot, so beautiful, so fierce and terrifying, they'd have to doctor these photos in order to make her look bad. Sorry, folks. Ol' Marc's got it bad for Cleo. Anyway, I’m going to move on before I storm the prison myself and bust her out. Next headline... 'Tall-Me Threatens To Destroy Hospital.' Oh, now I doubt that very much. I don't know Tall-Me like I know Cleo—”

  He lowered his voice to a suggestive purr, which made Amandine and Mrs. White giggle behind their wrists.

  “—But I can bet he’s not talking about St. James Infirmary. Let me see here...” he paused and mumbled as he scanned the article. “Uh-huh, thought so! The so-called hospital happens to be a disease research facility run by one of those Overcast Krauts. I know this because I have several reliable sources. 'Why, Marc Antony!’ you may say. ‘You’re holed up in a super-secret location! How reliable can your sources be?' Well, I sprung my sources out of the mad scientist's lab myself! Me and Cleo! Well, actually, it was Cleo and her crew who did the springing, while I watched the door and manned the radio. I am very good at manning the radio,” he emphasized defensively. “Anyways, at this 'hospital,' they cut into people while they're still awake, torture them, shoot them up full of disease and just when they run out of usefulness, they get propped up in a field like a bunch of leprous scarecrows and used for target practice! Tall-Me is right to make that his next priority. What kind of sicko, blue or not, could do—”

  The bell above the door to the shop chimed and Amandine reflexively flicked off the radio.

  Mrs. White wiped her hands on a towel before she picked up the extra boxes of chocolate and floated out to greet the customer.

  “Welcome! How may I help you?”

  Amandine slid off of her perch and peered into the shop where a young man with long, dark hair fumbled with something behind the counter.

  “Good afternoon, madame. I would like to buy some bread,” he said, his voice trickling out in a warm French accent. Its familiar sound reminded Amandine of her mother, and she positioned herself to get a better look at this visitor. “I know it is late in the day, but I’ll take whatever you have left. I would also like to pick up the special order for Mrs. Thatch.”

  “Of course,”
Mrs. White said cheerfully. “You are welcome to set your parcels on the counter for a moment while we select which breads you like.”

  “Thank you, madame.” He hefted several large shopping bags onto the counter and managed to get what he was after: his wallet. “I need ten loaves.”

  “Ten?” Mrs. White repeated, flashing all ten fingers. The young man spoke very clearly, but Amandine supposed that Mrs. White was the kind of person who would inadvertently imitate and belittle anybody with an accent.

  “Yes, madame. I hope it's not an imposition.”

  “No, that's good. That will clean us out for the day.” Mrs. White beckoned to Amandine, and she carried out the towering order of chocolates.

  When he saw the stack of boxes, he took a step back and blinked in surprise. “Ooh là là. That’s a lot.” He chuckled nervously. “I thought when Carmelita said a few boxes— I am sorry, I will have to return for this.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. White said, taking the cash and food permit he produced from his wallet. She stamped the permit and handed it back with his change. “My assistant here can help you.”

  “I would be grateful,” the young man said kindly.

  Their eyes met, his bright gray to her brown, and Amandine knew in that instant that she liked him very much. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it seemed like he was looking at her in the same way. He reminded her of a character from an adventure story, like a pirate or gypsy prince; lean, tanned, and scarred from hard work, and dressed in a hodgepodge of worn, foreign clothing. Despite his humble appearance, he was roguishly handsome. She had never seen anyone like him, but then again, she hadn't seen a young man her age in years either.

  “What is your name, mademoiselle?”

  “Amandine,” she replied, bagging the chocolates.