“Ja,” came Miss Eva’s curt answer. “Danke schön.”
“You’re welcome.” Then she left to help others with boarding.
Anna wanted to ask Miss Eva why she had to be so unfriendly to such a nice person, but it was pointless. Whenever Miss Eva saw a uniform she thought the person was a German soldier, and it was just too hard to try to make her believe otherwise. Anyway, in a few more hours they’d be getting off the train and going in different directions.
Anna shivered, cold with apprehension. Traveling with Miss Eva, watching over her and listening to her stories, had helped her not to think about what would happen when they got to Ennis. She stared out the window at people huddled against the vicious cold, scurrying down the platform. She hoped she spied her father before he saw her. She’d be better able to figure out what was what by the first look on his face. Except that she didn’t know what he looked like. Most likely like her, she decided, with blond hair and blue eyes because she sure didn’t look like her mother.
Would he look angry? Frustrated? Would he glare coldly at her? Even if he smiled, she would be able to tell if it was a real smile or just the fake kind. Like her mother’s.
What if he was just like her mother? Selfish and always drinking? Somebody who only thought about herself and nobody else. And why wouldn’t he be? All her mother’s other boyfriends were just like her.
Except for Hank. He’d been nice, a man who had a regular job and a nice truck, and who never got ugly drunk, just happy tipsy. While they were together her mother had been happy, too.
But it hadn’t lasted. Anna had been afraid to hope it would, because that was sure to jinx it. But a little trickle of hope had leaked out anyway. A little trickle of hope, and then a giant flood of disaster when her mother finally drove Hank away.
He’d left without telling Anna good-bye, because, of course, her mother had yanked them out of their apartment and run back to Nana Rose. That time, though, Nana Rose had finally stood up to her daughter. She would let five-year-old Anna stay, but not Carrie. No matter Carrie’s rage, and then tears, Nana Rose had refused to let her daughter live in her house again.
That was the only time Anna had ever heard Nana Rose bring up Anna’s father. She’d yelled at Carrie that she was not fit to raise a child, moving in with one man after another. Anna shivered now to remember that day, sitting on the back steps where Nana Rose had sent her, but still able to hear their ugly words. Then Nana Rose had told Carrie that if she didn’t leave Anna with her, she would search out Anna’s father and tell him to come and take her.
Anna remembered being terrified. She didn’t want to be sent away to a father she’d never seen. Didn’t Nana Rose want her either?
But Nana Rose had known what she was doing, because her words had shut her mother up. Carrie had stormed off without even telling Anna good-bye. After that, Anna lived with Nana Rose. Her life became nice and calm, and she started going to the school down the street. Her mother moved into the city, and didn’t visit much, only sometimes to get money from Nana Rose. But she never stayed with them.
It had been good, the happiest time of Anna’s life. But then, right after Anna’s birthday in October, Nana Rose had gone into the hospital. Then they’d moved her into a nursing home, and after two weeks there, she died.
Anna closed her eyes against a tidal wave of sorrow. Nana Rose was gone forever. And now Anna had been shipped off like a box of old toys, sent back to a man who never wanted her.
A harsh burst of coughing cut into her mournful thoughts.
“Are you okay?” She leaned toward Miss Eva, who was bent over her lap, coughing into her yellow-embroidered handkerchief.
After several more racking coughs the old woman straightened up, then collapsed back in her seat, obviously exhausted. “I always have the weak lungs, ever since I catch pneumonia.”
Pneumonia? Anna’s heart leaped in her chest. Nana Rose had pneumonia when she died. “How long ago since you had it?” Anna asked, more worried than ever. “Do you have any medicine for it?”
“Ah, child. No. No medicine. That was a long, long time ago.”
Anna stared at her wan face, devoid of any color. “Was that when you jumped through the window and ran away from the bad soldiers?”
Miss Eva stiffened and her eyes came into sharper focus on Anna. “How do you know about that? Who tells you?”
“You did. Remember? You said it was in the war with the Madman, and it was very, very cold. And you had on the wrong boots.”
“Oh, ja. Ja.” Like a deflating balloon she subsided into her seat and after a moment began to unbutton her fancifully embroidered coat. “Ja, that is when I am so sick. But I find a place where they fix me up.”
Anna cocked her head. “How long did it take to get from your house to there? Was it a regular hospital? Did you know anybody when you got there?” She was curious about Miss Eva’s story. She’d never known anyone who’d had to be that brave.
“How long?” Miss Eva sighed and her gaze seemed to peer back into her past. “I look on the map one time. It is five hundred fifty kilometers. In America we say three hundred and six miles.”
Anna’s mouth gaped open. “Three hundred six miles? You walked three hundred six miles in the snow, and only your ankle boots on?” Though she couldn’t exactly imagine how far three hundred six miles was, she knew it must be like walking all the way across Arkansas. “How long did it take?”
“I’m not sure. I lost track of time, you see. Over a month, I think. But it is not a hospital where I am fixed up. No, it is a farmhouse with a nice lady. I get there—” She shook her head, breathing heavily. “I am so hungry. Nearly frozen. My feet, I don’t feel them, they are so cold. I stand on a little hill, hidden in the trees, and I see this lady digging, digging. She is trying to dig, but the ground is too hard and she does not have the strength.”
A shudder ripped through her, so strong that Anna saw it. It was as if Miss Eva was on that hill again, frozen with the cold, and with fear.
“I am afraid,” she continued, her voice faint now. “But I am too hungry to stay away. And her little house, it looks so snug and warm with a big tree by the door, and smoke coming from the chimney. So I go down the hill. She doesn’t see me. But I see she is crying and still the digging.” Miss Eva gestured with both her hands. “So I ask her what is wrong? Why does she cry? And dig?
“But I know already. In my heart I know someone she loves has died and she tries to dig the grave.”
“A grave?” Anna is transfixed. “Who died?”
A ghost of a smile flits over Miss Eva’s face. “Her daughter. Her daughter who is simple, but who is all the lady had left. Her husband is dead; she tells me this later. Dead somewhere near Dijon. And now her child is gone. She wants to be dead, too. But she is alive. And she takes me in and makes me be alive again.”
“You mean she cured you of pneumonia?”
“Ja. And she tells the people in the village and on the little farms around her that I am her cousin’s daughter come from Berlin to help her with the farm. And so I stay with her until the war is over.”
“She took care of you.” Anna is so relieved that Miss Eva’s story has a happy ending.
Miss Eva nodded. “She was a good woman, Hilda, but a sad woman. When there is war, you try so hard to live, just to live until it is over. But then . . . then it is over. But it is never the same. Never the way it was before the war comes. They killed the Madman. But it didn’t make everything better. Too many people are dead. Too many places are gone, blown up or burned down and gone forever.” She paused, struggling for breath. “Hilda, too. After the war is over and we are safe at last . . . that’s when she died. I think she wanted to go, to be with her husband and her girl. She was tired of this . . . this life.”
She closed her eyes, and in her weary, sunken face Anna saw the frailty no longer disguised b
y animation. Fear stabbed through her, sharp and cold. Miss Eva was old, her brain didn’t work right anymore, and she was going to die, just like Nana Rose had, lost in the past and forgetting all about the people that were around her here in the present.
Anna turned away, fighting back sudden tears. She didn’t hardly know this lady. Why should she cry about her and what happened to her such a long, long time ago, before Anna was even born?
But she wasn’t crying just for Miss Eva, or for Nana Rose, or even because of her selfish mother and stupid father. She was crying because life wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been fair to Miss Eva and Nana Rose, to Mutti or Papa or that nice lady, Hilda. And it had never been fair to her.
She stared out the window as the train began its slow, ponderous start, straining away from the station and toward the bleak future that awaited her. She tried not to cry, to catch her tears before anyone could notice. But the tears wouldn’t stop.
It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t really need to hide her tears. Because no one was watching out to make sure she didn’t have a reason to cry. Not anymore.
MISS Eva talked in her sleep, but in German, so Anna didn’t know exactly what she was saying. But she heard the word Weihnachtsbaum. Christmas tree, she now knew. And several times the word “Ennis.”
This train wasn’t as crowded as the last one, and most everyone else was asleep. Only Anna, the conductor, and a lady holding a fussy baby were awake.
She looked over at Miss Eva, who muttered softly between even softer snores. Nana Rose used to talk Italian sometimes. Not a lot. But Anna knew mangia meant let’s eat. And there’d been this painted sign in Nana Rose’s kitchen that Anna’s mother had given her for Mother’s Day long before she’d grown up and turned so selfish. It said una mamma italiana è una benedizione di dio. Nana Rose explained that it meant an Italian mother is a blessing from God.
It had hung above the stove. But Anna didn’t know what had happened to it, or to any of Nana Rose’s stuff. Her mother had moved into the house with her for two months until the house sold. She could have kept the house. They could have lived there and Anna could have stayed at her old school. But her mother had plans for that money, and plans with her new boyfriend, Eddie. They were moving to Dallas, buying a condo, her mother said. And Anna was just in the way. That’s when her mother had decided to send her to her father. And now here she was, almost to Ennis.
She stared at the dark countryside speeding past her like she was the one standing still while the world raced on without her. It was scary—the fences, the electric poles, the distant points of light that said somebody lived out there, somebody Anna would never know. All of them whizzing by then disappearing, like they’d never existed at all.
She must have dozed off, because she awoke with a start. Just the tiniest change in the movement of the train, the first step in the slowing-down process, but it started her heart racing, and under her shirt she began to sweat.
Her father was just ahead. How would she recognize him? And what if he didn’t want to keep her? What if he had other children he loved better than her? What if he had told her mother not to send her, but she did anyway?
Anna’s worried gaze veered over to Miss Eva, asleep with her mouth a little bit open, and breathing in the heavy, hard-to-catch-your-breath way Nana Rose used to do sometimes.
Miss Eva was so happy to get back to Ennis. But what if she was confused? She grew up in Germany, not America. What if the Ennis she remembered was in Germany? After all, there was Paris, France, and Paris, Texas. And Nana Rose said there was Barcelona, Spain, and Barcelona in Sicily. What if Miss Eva was going to the wrong Ennis and her brother, Karl, wasn’t there?
Anna swallowed hard and blinked back tears, knowing they wouldn’t help her now. She had to be ready for anything, she realized. If her father didn’t want her, she would go with Miss Eva to her brother Karl’s house. Maybe he would need help taking care of his sister.
And if Miss Eva was confused and this was the wrong Ennis, then . . . then they would just go back to Miss Eva’s house in Arkansas and she would stay with Miss Eva and they would take care of each other. Just like she and Nana Rose had always done.
The train began to slow, but that only increased the thud of Anna’s heart against her ribs. The conductor’s amplified voice announced Ennis and points west. Lights began to go on above the seats of those who were disembarking at Ennis. But Anna didn’t turn on her light or nudge Miss Eva awake. Disembarking was a new word for her, one she’d learned on this trip. You disembarked from trains and planes and buses and ships. But she was also disembarking from her old life. The last time she’d disembarked from her old life with her mother, she’d at least known where she was going. She’d already loved Nana Rose, and she wanted to live with her. But this time she was disembarking into a life she didn’t know anything about.
In the row behind them a little girl began to cry. “Shh, shh,” her mother murmured. “It’s all right, my baby. You’ll be home all snug in your own bed in just a little while.”
Anna frowned. That little girl didn’t know how lucky she was.
She pushed herself upright in her seat, resentful of the effort it took. She nudged Miss Eva once, then again when she didn’t immediately wake up. Why did she have to take care of everybody? How come nobody ever took good care of her like the mom behind her was doing for her crybaby little girl?
As quickly as her resentment flared, it was doused by guilt. Nana Rose had always taken good care of her. It wasn’t her grandmother’s fault that she’d gotten old and confused and sick. And then she’d died.
Anna swallowed against the choking lump that filled her throat. I love you, Nana Rose. Silently she mouthed the words, hoping Nana Rose would hear them from up in heaven. She should have told Nana Rose she loved her more often.
“We are here?” Miss Eva’s voice sounded rusty and tired.
“Almost.” Anna bent down, feeling for her shoes, then focused on straightening her socks and pulling her shoes on. Beyond the window the world slowed. She saw a car-rental store, and two gas stations, before they began the groaning braking into a train yard.
“Ennis,” Miss Eva whispered with such reverence Anna turned to her. More and more Anna was worried that this might be the wrong Ennis for Miss Eva. And if it was, what would happen then?
That big lump clogged up her throat again, so hard she felt like it would only go away if she could cry. But she couldn’t cry. Not yet.
They both sat in silence as the train rumbled slower. Green and red Christmas lights draped over the windows of a building across the way. The old-timey train depot was also lit with white drippy lights along the eaves, and red-lit wreaths in front of each window. A faded, plastic Santa Claus lit up from the inside stood guard at the corner of the platform. Anna stared at it as it glided by.
“Fröhliche Weihnachten,” Miss Eva whispered. And when Anna looked over at her, she saw tears trickling down the old woman’s cheeks. “We are here, Liebchen,” she added, reaching out to cover Anna’s hand with her cold, bony palm. Her eyes remained riveted on the window, though, until she began to cough.
Anna reached into her pocket. “Here’s a tissue. Are you okay?”
“Ja. Is nothing.” She coughed again.
Her hard, racking cough didn’t sound like nothing to Anna. But she was just a kid. She grimaced at her reflection in the window, a transparent, almost invisible version of herself. She was just a kid, and what she thought or wanted—or didn’t want—didn’t matter to grown-ups. Somebody should be looking out for Miss Eva, just like someone was supposed to be looking out for her. But nobody was looking out for either of them.
With a resolute sigh she slid her arms into her jacket. “Let’s get your coat on, Miss Eva. It’s cold out there.”
The old woman nodded and smiled up at her. “Now is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.”
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“Oh, yeah. We talked about that in science class when we studied the solar system. The shortest day and the longest night.”
“Und now starts the path to spring and summer.”
“But first Christmas.” Anna had to force her smile, though. Kids were supposed to get all excited about Christmas, and usually she was. Right now, though, she was about to meet the man her mom said was her father. Her whole life was about to change forever. Christmas didn’t matter at all compared to that.
TOM was losing his mind. When Anna hadn’t arrived on the train yesterday, for one brief moment he’d felt like a prisoner given an unexpected reprieve. She wasn’t coming! His life was not going to hell in a handbasket. But that brief hope had dissolved in a tidal wave of panic. Where was Anna? Where was she!
Carrie’s indifferent reaction to his call had only increased his fear. The woman didn’t care. She couldn’t be bothered to find out what had happened to her own missing child.
Kind of like he’d been ten years ago. But not anymore. Only when the stationmaster had looked up from the phone, shooting Tom a thumbs-up, had his pulse begun to ease.
“So they missed their last connection and they’re waiting for the next train,” the man had said into the phone. “You’re sure it’s her?
“Right, right,” the man continued as Tom slumped in relief. “Okay, then. Thanks.” He’d grinned at Tom as he hung up the phone. “It’s all right. They missed their connection but they’re waiting for the seven fifteen. It’s scheduled to arrive here at one thirty this morning.”
Tom had been so relieved by the news it wasn’t until he’d been halfway home that he’d paused. They’d missed the connection? Who the hell was they?
Now, nearly twelve hours later, he stood outside on the windswept platform, huddled into his coat as the train eased down the track. It was two a.m., and he was exhausted and cold as a corpse even though his heart was pounding overtime. Please let her be on this train.
The Christmas Train Page 6
