The Christmas Train

by Rexanne Becnel

  Tom got there first. When Anna reached the room he was kneeling over Miss Eva, who lay on the floor.

  She was moaning, which was good because that meant she was still alive, not dead like Nana Rose. But it sounded like she was in a lot of pain.

  “Miss Eva, be still.” Her father bent over her, his hands on her arms. “Give me a pillow,” he said to Anna, sounding all calm, like this was no big deal. But it felt like a big deal to Anna. She could hardly breathe, she was so scared. “Anna. The pillow.”

  Scrambling over the bed, she thrust a pillow at him, then knelt on all fours at the edge of the mattress, staring down at Miss Eva. She lay halfway on her side, her eyes closed. But she wasn’t bleeding or anything. Her face was creased in pain, though.

  “Karl,” she cried in a broken voice. “Karl!”

  “We gotta find her brother,” Anna said, her voice shaking. “Maybe he’s in the phone book.”

  Her father ignored her. “Eva? Eva,” he repeated as he eased the pillow between Miss Eva’s back and the side of the bed. “Tell me where you hurt.”

  “Karl?” Miss Eva’s eyes blinked then slowly focused on Tom. “Oh, Karl.” That’s when she began to cry. Only they weren’t tears of pain, Anna knew. Miss Eva was crying for happiness because she still thought Tom was her brother.

  “Yes, Eva,” he answered, so gently Anna knew he understood Miss Eva, too. “Yes, you’re here and you’re safe. Only tell me if you hurt yourself when you fell.”

  “Mein Karl. Mein Brüder.” Then she closed her eyes and smiled, even as the tears leaked from beneath her lashes.

  “Shouldn’t we put her back in bed?” Anna whispered. “We can’t leave her on the floor.”

  “I don’t know.” Tom looked up at Anna. “If she hurt her back or broke her hip or something else, we shouldn’t try to move her. We better call 911.”

  THE paramedics were nice and very gentle with Miss Eva. After her father explained about Miss Eva, about how come she was at his house and how she thought he was her brother from a long time ago, the lady paramedic looked through Miss Eva’s purse and suitcase.

  “You said she has a son?” the woman asked Anna.

  “Uh-huh. His name is Paulie. Paul Jr. I guess. Miss Eva said he’s in the Air Force.”

  “Probably overseas,” she said, thumbing through a bunch of cards from Miss Eva’s wallet. “Aha.” She pulled out one of the cards. “An emergency health card with all her medicines and doctors listed, and an emergency contact number for a Major Paul Stephens.”

  “That’s it. Paul. That’s Miss Eva’s son. Are you gonna call him?”

  “Someone at the hospital will. Thanks for your help, sweetie. I can tell you really like Miss Eva.”

  Anna nodded. “I like her a lot, even though I haven’t known her very long.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “She reminds me of my Nana Rose.”

  “Do you want to tell her good-bye before we take her to the hospital?”

  “Can’t we come, too?”

  “That’s up to your dad.”

  A quick glance at her father, and Anna knew he didn’t want to go to the hospital. But when she asked him, adding, “Please, please, please. Just for a little while. So she won’t be scared,” he only hesitated a moment before agreeing.

  “Get dressed and, um . . . brush your teeth first. Yeah. Then we can go.”

  Once the paramedics had Miss Eva up on the stretcher, all covered up against the cold, Anna edged up beside her. “Don’t worry, Miss Eva. You’ll be okay.”

  Only Anna wasn’t so sure about that. Because when Miss Eva looked at her, and even when she smiled and murmured, “Schöne Mädchen. Such a pretty girl,” Anna could tell Miss Eva didn’t remember her. She’d forgotten her and their long train trip together.

  But when her father came up behind her and put one hand on Anna’s shoulder, and the other over Miss Eva’s hand, Miss Eva’s pale, lined face lit up with recognition and joy. “Karl. Oh, Karl. You are home at last. Is so good. Is so good.”

  Across the stretcher the lady paramedic smiled in understanding. “Don’t worry. The social worker at the hospital will find her son. And if this Karl is still around, she’ll find him, too. You did good looking out for her. Especially you, sweetie.” She winked at Anna. Then they were gone.

  After all the hubbub, the apartment felt horribly quiet. So much had happened and it was barely light outside. Eight twenty-three the clock on the microwave said. By the time they were both dressed and on the way to the hospital, it was barely nine.

  “Do you think the real Karl lives here?” Anna finally asked the question circling in her mind.

  “Karl? I doubt it.” Her father glanced over at her. “There was no Karl Hess listed in the phone book. From what you told me about your conversations with her, I’m thinking he passed away, maybe a long time ago, like in the war.”

  Anna fiddled with the ends of her knitted scarf, lining the fringed ends up, then reversing and lining them up again. “What if her son, you know, what if he isn’t real either?”

  “He was listed in Miss Eva’s wallet. They’ll find him, sweetheart. Don’t worry about that.”

  Sweetheart.

  Anna’s hands stilled on her scarf. She didn’t think she was ready to have him call her sweetheart, or honey, or my little pumpkin, like Nana Rose always did. Or even button, which her mother occasionally did when she was in a good mood.

  “Just ’cause you say not to worry, that doesn’t mean I can stop worrying just like that.” She snapped her finger at him.

  She could tell he was looking over at her, but she refused to meet his gaze, until finally he had to look back at the road to keep driving.

  “No. I suppose not,” he murmured.

  In the emergency room one of the nurses let them sit with Miss Eva in a little curtained-off room. But Miss Eva was asleep and didn’t know they were there. They’d put some tubes under her nose, for oxygen, her father explained. Anna could tell he didn’t want to be there. He’d already called his girlfriend and filled her in. Now he sat there, staring mostly at Anna. Every time she caught him he gave her a little smile then looked away.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “There’s a cafeteria at the front of the hospital.”

  “Can’t we eat in here?”

  “I don’t know.” Then, “Tell me, Anna. What grade are you in?”

  “I’m in fifth. But I’m in the accelerated group.” She gave him a quick sideways look. “I get very good grades. Straight A’s except for a B in history. And that’s only because Mr. Middleton didn’t give us good review notes.”

  “Wow. Straight A’s.”

  “Except for a B in history.”

  “Right. I guess you’re nervous about changing schools.”

  Again she glanced at him then away. Once more she lined up the edges of her scarf, flipping them back and forth. “I’m nervous about . . . about everything.” Finally she looked straight at him. “Am I gonna live with you in your apartment?”

  “Of course you are.”

  Tom answered his daughter’s question with far more confidence than he felt. How was he going to pull this off, fixing up a bedroom for her, finding her a school? And what about after school? And on holidays? And then the whole summer break?

  He could feel himself starting to sweat, especially when he saw a glint of moisture in her eyes. If she started crying again, he didn’t know what he would do. She blinked real fast, though, and the glint went away. But that only pointed out another huge problem. If push came to shove, he could take care of all the logistical things. The real problem was that he didn’t have a clue about little girls and their emotional needs. How was he supposed to understand what Anna needed and then figure out how to provide it?

  On impulse, he stood up and reached f
or his phone. He needed to call his mother. He’d planned to tell his parents at the same time, face-to-face. But he was so far out of his comfort zone—

  “Okay.” A stocky woman with a chart in her hand flung open the curtain. “What do we have here?”

  Tom snapped his phone shut. “She fell out of bed, we think. I found her on the floor. It’s carpeted,” he added.

  “Well, that’s good, I guess. Hi, Mrs. Stephens.” She patted Miss Eva’s arm, then smiled down at her when she jerked awake. “I’m Dr. Abbott. I hear you were jumping up and down on the bed and fell out. How’re you feeling?”

  For a moment Miss Eva stared at the doctor as if she didn’t understand what she’d said. Then her eyes shifted to Tom and brightened.

  Tom squelched a grimace. Karl again.

  “I feel gut. So happy,” she added, gasping a little for breath. And if the words weren’t adequate to her frame of mind, the smile she fastened on Tom was. “I find my brother. You see?” She fought again for breath. “I find him and now we have another Christmas—” She broke off in a fit of coughing.

  With a deft move the doctor pressed a button to raise the head of the bed. “Let me have a little listen,” she said, whipping out her stethoscope once the coughing eased.

  “Are you her son?” she asked once she finished a cursory physical exam.

  “No.” Tom signaled the doctor to turn away from the bed. “No relative at all. But she thinks I’m her long-lost brother, Karl Hess.”

  “I see. And how did she end up in your care?”

  “She traveled here with my daughter on the train. She’s confused, though. She says she was coming to her brother’s house, only there’s nobody by that name in the phone book. So I took her home with us from the train depot last night. Then this morning she fell. The paramedics said your social worker would try to locate her son.”

  The doctor nodded. “So she thinks you’re her brother. Did you try to explain otherwise?”

  “Not really. I mean, at first I did. But it was late when I picked them up, and she was obviously exhausted. So I just let her believe whatever she wanted. It seemed to make her so happy.”

  “Yes, I see that.” She turned her attention back to Miss Eva. “So, Mrs. Stephens. You’re having shortness of breath and your heart’s marching to a different drummer. I saw the list of your meds and we’ll be tweaking them just a little. We’re also going to keep you on oxygen for a while. So you just rest here while I see about getting you admitted, at least until we get you stabilized. Okay?”

  “Can I go home now?” Miss Eva asked as if she hadn’t heard a word the doctor said.

  “No. Not just yet.”

  “It’s okay, Eva.” Tom bent over her. “They’ll take good care of you.”

  “No, Karl. No!” Her faded eyes filled with tears and she reached a shaky hand out to him. “Don’t go away. Not ever again do you leave me und Mutti.”

  “Is she German?” Dr. Abbott asked.

  “Yeah. My daughter says that sometimes Eva thinks it’s still the war. You know, World War Two. We’re pretty sure she thought she was going home to Germany to spend Christmas with her family.”

  The doctor thought a moment. “If she lived through World War Two in Europe, it could be that the attacks in New York and Washington triggered her confusion. I’d better get a neurological consult, then. Somebody who deals with geriatric patients. Meanwhile, let me get on with having her admitted and moved to a room.” She paused. “Could you possibly stay with her until she’s settled in a room? I’m thinking she’ll be a lot calmer with you here.”

  “We can stay,” Anna piped up.

  Tom’s heart sank. All he wanted was to get Miss Eva turned over to the responsible parties and then get on with his own problems. But Anna looked up at him so hopefully . . .

  There was no way he could say no. “Sure. We can stay awhile.”

  “Good enough,” the doctor said on her way out.

  Tom rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Now what?

  As if Anna read his thoughts, she leaned on the bed’s side rail. “Miss Eva, where did Karl go when he left you and your mother?”

  Miss Eva’s eyes veered to Anna’s earnest face. “He goes to the war. Right, Karl?” Her eyes returned to his. “The Nazis want him to fight, but we are half Polish.” Each short phrase was bracketed by hard-fought breaths. “And he wants to defend Poland from the German army and the Russian one, too. When they find out he has joined the Resistance fighters, then we all become the enemy. Me und Mutti und Karl.”

  Tom pulled a chair nearer. She was half Polish? If he remembered his European history, the Nazis eventually treated the Polish people almost as harshly as they did the Jews. “What happened to your—our—parents?”

  Eva shook her head. “You remember. Papa, they make him go to fight before you left. But in the German army. Then when the Nazis find you are gone to the Polish Resistance, they come for us.” She struggled for breath. “Mutti tells me to run. Is all I can do.”

  “When was this? Where did you run to?”

  She closed her eyes as if it hurt to remember. “I leave in November. I remember because it is cold.”

  “November. What year?”

  She opened her eyes. “Nineteen forty, of course. I write you and tell you all this.”

  Tom glanced at Anna, who was following their conversation with wide eyes. It felt wrong, pretending to be Karl. But maybe he could get enough information to help the social worker help Eva. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees. “I’m afraid I never got that letter.”

  “No?” She sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

  “So, tell me where you went.”

  “Here, Miss Eva,” Anna said, holding a glass and a straw up to her. “Do you want some water?”

  Though weak, the old woman drank thirstily from the straw. “Das ist gut.” She closed her eyes then, and Tom thought she had fallen asleep until she reached for his hand. “I leave through the window with one bag and I run to the graveyard, to the shed where old Egbert keeps his shovels. You remember?”

  Tom nodded and glanced at Anna before answering. “I remember.”

  “I stay until very dark. And then I go west. That is all I know to do: go west. I walk at night and hide in the day. I eat what I can find. Eggs I steal from a hen house. Carrots in the ground—” She broke off, gasping for air. The cords on her neck strained with every breath. “It is cold, the coldest winter I ever remember. And the snow, it comes and comes.”

  She shivered. “My boots . . .” Tears leaked from beneath her white eyelashes. “For so many days I walk. Twice I can ride a train. Across the Elbe. I try to go to Switzerland but . . . is not safe that way. So I keep going.” She struggled to breathe. “I cross almost the whole of Germany, almost to Belgium. I am hungry all the time. All the time so hungry.”

  Tom leaned forward, listening hard. She might not be clear about the present, but he had no doubt every bit of this tale was accurate. “Were you alone?”

  “Ja. I travel alone, though sometimes I have help. But you remember how bad it is. Everyone is afraid to help. They are afraid of the Nazis. And of the Madman. To help the enemy is to become the enemy.” She opened her eyes. “There is no Christmas that winter.” With trembling lips she smiled up at him. “But now I am back and you are here and we have Christmas like before. A Tannenbaum und maybe a Yule log.”

  Her smile, so pure and childlike, made him squirm. Every time she looked at him with such love in her eyes, so much joy glowing in her face, he felt like a fraud. Even though this deception was not of his doing, it felt like one more gigantic lie he was trapped in.

  This sweet old woman wanted so desperately to find her family, she’d embarked on a journey across six decades and an ocean just to be reunited with her brother. She might be confused about time and place, but she d
idn’t lack for love, courage, or determination.

  Which cast his own behavior in an even worse light.

  He’d spent the past decade ignoring the fact that he had a daughter not even a thousand miles away. Eva treasured her family above all else, while he . . . he’d just shrugged his off.

  In his eyes he felt an unfamiliar burn. Tears? Surely not.

  But when he swallowed, trying to beat down the uncomfortable sensation, a knot of emotions clogged his throat. Guilt and . . . and sorrow. Sorrow for Anna and the unsettled life that had been thrust on her, and sorrow for all the years he’d missed, the years he could have been a part of her life, but wasn’t.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Eva,” Anna piped up, sparing him the pain of speaking. “We’ll have a very good Christmas this year. Won’t we . . . Karl?” she added.

  They stared at each other across the hospital bed, and for the first time since Carrie’s call, Tom felt like maybe he wasn’t a total jackass. Anna, his daughter Anna, obviously approved of this charade he was playing. She wanted him to be Karl for Miss Eva.

  Their eyes held a long, steady moment, until he recovered his ability to speak. “Yes. We will have a very good Christmas.”

  TOM received four phone calls but he didn’t take any of them. By the time the orderlies brought Miss Eva to a regular hospital room and got her settled comfortably in the bed, she was so tired she’d fallen into a heavy sleep. The social worker came in to say she’d begun the search for Major Paul Stephens Jr., and though she hadn’t located him yet, she had a military contact on the case and was certain she’d get a call very soon.

  “The doctor ordered something to help her relax, so she’ll be okay if you leave,” the woman assured him. “You’ve been awfully nice to her, considering she’s a stranger.”

  “She’s not a stranger to me,” Anna put in. “She’s my friend.”

  Tom smiled at Anna, impressed again by her loyalty. “Miss Eva was very good to my daughter.” And when Anna looked up at him, she smiled back. Their very first shared smile, Tom realized.

  After the social worker left he asked, “Are you hungry?”