The Game of Love and Death

by Martha Brockenbrough

  Death adjusted her hat and allowed a smile to stretch her lips. The ground crew waved the ship off, so the captain turned it sharply toward the sinking sun. The man’s emotions spilled down on her just as surely as the shadow of his ship. He was on edge. Her smile now had teeth.

  Four minutes later, he renewed his approach. Death dropped her gloves into her handbag. She gestured, bare fingered, and the wind shifted. None of the humans standing near her noticed the way her hands trembled, or the slight sheen that developed below the brim of her hat.

  The captain, fighting the wind, turned the dirigible away from the swiftly fading daylight. Death held out her hands, palms facing upward. The crew dropped massive quantities of water, first six hundred pounds, then another six hundred, and finally more than a thousand, to right the listing beast. Liquid crashed down, sounding like a falling sky. No one on the ground spoke as the mist settled against shoulders and faces and hands, mixing with sweat and dust.

  For a moment, the strategy appeared to have worked. The airship held steady, limned by the last filtered light of the sun. Two mooring lines dropped, tumbling nearly three hundred feet to the ground. Workers would attach these to a winch that would bring the Hindenburg down.

  The first line was secured. The ship bounced on it, and the ground crew raced for the second line. The air shivered, and overhead, the cloud-bruised sky continued to darken. Then, on the upper edge of the great ship, the chemical-soaked cotton cloth that had been stretched over the zeppelin’s aluminum frame fluttered. The movement was small enough that it might have been some trick of the failing light.

  It was anything but. And in the helter-skelter thirty seconds that followed, the ship was gone, swallowed by a mouth of fire that ate its skin and turned its metal skeleton into a pile of twisted, glimmering red bones. Lashed to the ground, the wounded ship writhed. The screaming from all quarters was intense. Death watched the ravenous flame, another for Love to get sentimental over, no doubt.

  Death plucked the rising souls like flowers, decorating her mind with the residue of human experience while the fire lit and warmed her face. Hungry, she searched for the captain through the smoke and flame. His life’s essence would be infinitely satisfying at a time when she needed all the strength and comfort she could get.

  She walked the length of the scene looking for him, worrying he’d been consumed too quickly to be noticed. As she turned to leave, disappointed, she sensed something behind her. She stopped walking and peered over her shoulder, which was dusted with still-warm ash. And there he was, the burnt skin on his face smoking in the glow of the fire. He was trying to go back on board so that he might save a few more hopeless souls.

  It would taste splendid to kiss that face directly, to feel the heat and ash on her lips, to inhale the heartbroken entirety of him. She was about to set upon him when his first officer lurched forward and pulled the captain away from the wreckage. He struggled and then collapsed on the ground. Alive! He would be scarred inside and out. But he could live, so she let him.

  She would catch up to the captain later; she preferred to, in fact, when he would be seasoned in the bittersweet brine of survival.

  Meanwhile, she had a train to catch.

  FLORA was cooking breakfast when her grandmother held up the morning paper.

  “My merciful heavens,” Nana said. “Did you see this?”

  Flora glanced at the headline. HINDENBURG BURNS: 35 PERISH.

  “May I?” Reading over Nana’s shoulder as sausage sizzled in the pan, Flora read about the accident that had occurred two days earlier. No one was certain what caused it, although several commenters were happy to suggest it was God objecting to human incursions into the heavens. She doubted that. Sometimes, bad things happened for no reason. The deaths of her parents, for example.

  A photo of the zeppelin the moment after it caught fire sickened her, though. It was no stretch for Flora to imagine the terror people must have felt with flames racing toward them as they hung some fifty feet in the air, suspended by an explosive gas.

  “I worry about you in the sky like that.” Nana accepted the plate Flora offered. It was Saturday morning and she was still in her housecoat, as was her tradition. So was their breakfast of cinnamon French toast and fried sausage.

  “I’m not flying a zeppelin,” Flora said. She bit into a sausage. “I stick to the airplanes.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Nana said. “Airplanes, blimps. All the same thing, taking over God’s blue sky.”

  Flora swallowed. “If God felt that way about the sky, we wouldn’t have all those birds.”

  “God put birds in the sky,” Nana said. “He did not put man there. Or girls. What if this article is right? What if God doesn’t want you to do what you’re doing?”

  “If God didn’t want me to fly,” Flora said, reaching for her coffee, “why on earth would God have made me want to fly so much?” She took a sip of coffee and it felt fantastic on her throat, soothing and invigorating at the same time. She was so glad Nana had finally given her permission to drink it. “I’m not going to die in a plane, Nana. I promise.”

  Nana pushed herself away from the table, tipping her nose up the way she did when she was feeling ignored. “Those are not the kinds of promises a girl can rightly make, Flora. You keep your humility about you or it will kill me from worry.”

  “I’m sorry, Nana,” Flora said. She held out her hand and Nana took it, giving her three squeezes. I love you. Flora returned four squeezes. I love you more. “I’ll wash the dishes, Nana. You sit down. Put your feet up.”

  She couldn’t help but worry; her grandmother was getting shorter of breath every day, it seemed. And she was forever rubbing her swollen ankles. She never complained, but Flora could tell they gave her pain.

  “We’ll wash up together,” Nana said. “Many hands make light work.”

  “Sit, Nana. Please,” Flora said. “I can’t eat if you’re not resting.”

  “Just a minute.” Nana opened a cabinet and pulled out a canister marked SUGAR. She reached inside and pulled out a wad of bills, mostly small denominations that had obviously been saved over a long span of time.

  “Do you really want to fly?” she said.

  “More than anything.”

  “Then here. Let me help you. I know it’s not all you need, but I do believe a girl needs to follow her heart.”

  Flora interrupted. “No, no. That’s your money, Nana. You might need it.”

  Nana sat and Flora could hear the wheeze in her lungs. “It’s for your dreams. Those are what I live for.” She set the money on the table. “That is all I have to say about it.”

  The look she gave made it clear she’d brook no argument. Flora surrendered. She’d accept the money to make Nana feel better, but she’d never use it. She’d slip it back into the canister later, when Nana wasn’t looking. As much as she wanted to fly, she wouldn’t take a cent from her grandmother. She couldn’t. This wouldn’t be enough, anyway. She could hardly bear the thought of the many things that stood between her and her dream of flying around the world. First, she’d need enough money to enter the Bendix. Then, she’d need to persuade Captain Girard to lend her a plane. After that, she’d need to win, and even when she did, the purse still wouldn’t be enough money for a plane of her own, let alone fuel and a navigator’s salary for the grand trip. It was enough to make Flora want to yank out her own hair. She ate a few bites of breakfast, though she no longer had much stomach for it. Then she led Nana to a comfortable seat in the parlor, as far from the dishes as she could get.

  “Bring me my quilt, lamb. I am so close to finishing,” Nana said.

  While her grandmother hummed and sewed, Flora cleaned the kitchen. As she did, she remembered something she hadn’t thought of in years: that day Charles Lindbergh came to town. That boy who almost hit her with his bicycle. As she scrubbed the pan, she wondered wh
at became of him. There was something so likable about the boy who’d walked her home when he didn’t need to, who was so happy to eat Nana’s gingerbread. And he was so eager to tell her what it was like to shake Mr. Lindbergh’s hand; it had given her the feeling that she’d done it too.

  Though this boy was still a child in her memory, he’d be almost grown now. She tried to imagine what he’d look like, and the face that came to mind was Henry’s. No doubt because he’d watched her perform so often at the club, he was fresh in her mind. A bit irritated by his intrusion into the quiet of her mind, she turned her thoughts to other things: a thousand errands to run, a million things to do before work that evening.

  She bathed and dressed, and on her way out, she took one last look at the ball of flame that had once been the biggest thing to ride the clouds — and then she put it out of her thoughts. It was a tragedy, but it was all the way across the country. Such a disaster wasn’t in the cards for her. She saw no reason to waste energy on worry.

  AN apple. An apple that has been plundered by a worm. That’s what Ethan’s cousin Helen Strong thought of herself. There was something wrong with her, something on the inside. How had everyone else grown up clean and pure? she wondered. How dare they? This bewildering resentment made her prone to lash out at everyone around her. She did not want to be like this, but she could not figure out any other way to be.

  And it had been a bad couple of weeks. Helen didn’t regret the incident at the debutante ball. Jarvis Bick deserved to be kneed in a certain trouser seam, particularly when he told her no one would marry her after he walked in on her kissing Myra Tompkins in the coat closet — just when the getting had started getting good. (Myra had the sweetest mouth. Like fresh cherries.)

  Helen had never wanted to be married in the first place, but how dare he say such a thing. It was his fault she was being shipped west to be dangled like a piece of chocolate in front of icky old Ethan. Let’s just say there was a reason she’d intended to be blind drunk and irredeemably late for her train. She’d wait in the Kissing Room beneath the Biltmore Hotel in Grand Central Terminal until the last possible moment and see what happened.

  “I’d rather be dead than doing this,” she muttered. She glanced up. Someone who looked exactly like her, right down to the polka-dot travel suit, looking altogether too pleased to see her. Helen took a drink from a pewter flask she kept in her pocketbook. She squinted and tried to fix whatever was wrong with her eyes.

  Her second self didn’t scram like a good little hallucination. Instead, she sat next to Helen, removed her gloves, and held Helen’s hand. Something flowed out of her. Something heavy and awful she was glad to be rid of.

  “Follow me,” the Other Helen said.

  Helen was delighted to. It felt good, what had just happened. What had been troubling her before? She could not remember. They walked beneath Grand Central’s soaring turquoise ceiling with its strange backward constellations. A lone helium balloon pressed against the stars. The women approached the track, and the rumble of the approaching train shook the ground beneath their feet. It pushed a gust of cool wind toward them, stirring their hair, lifting their hems. Helen put a hand on her forehead and stumbled. Other Helen wrapped an arm around Helen’s waist.

  “This,” Helen said. “I don’t … what?” It was all so confusing.

  They stood at the edge of the track. The wheels of the oncoming train squealed in the distance. The woman turned to face her. It was strange, seeing herself in someone else like this. But it was also wonderful, almost as if she might finally be understood. She extended her hand to touch her reflection. They stood, palm to palm. Helen’s knees buckled and the woman, her eyes white, held her gaze. Helen felt her life drain away; she saw scenes from her own past travel through the eyes of this strange other.

  And then she stood on the platform in numb confusion as a woman who looked like someone she ought to know boarded the train.

  The girl — what was her name? — could not remember what she was doing there. Where she had meant to be going. She remembered nothing of her future plans, but also none of her past sorrows. Not even the look of her own face.

  People came for her, people who put her in a white room in a quiet hospital with barred windows. They whispered that someone so finely dressed would have family searching for her. But for the longest time, no one came for this girl. Not until it was far too late.

  WHEN the train pulled into the King Street Station five days later, screaming and billowing steam, Death could barely contain herself. She could have traveled back to Seattle instantaneously, but she did not wish to face Love so full of souls from the Hindenburg, or so charged with what she’d consumed of Helen’s life. She rode west on the train as a human would, drinking tea and eating stale sandwiches, looking at a crowd of souls through their flesh cases, pretending they held no appeal, making conversation whenever she was called to.

  Her self-control was not aided by the fact that the station in Seattle had been modeled after the Campanile in Venice, reminding her that the Game would end where it began. What’s more, it was just blocks from the Domino, and not much farther from the Thorne mansion, where she would be living, or the small green house she’d first visited so long ago. Every element was gathering in the neck of an hourglass, and it would not be long before the ground opened up for the final plunge.

  She stepped out of the train, one delicate shoe at a time. Henry and Ethan were there, waiting, and ready to welcome her into their home.

  “Kiss kiss,” Death said.

  Ethan put his hands on her shoulders and faked a peck on her cheeks.

  “Don’t look too happy to see me or anything, cousin,” she said.

  Behind them, the huge train breathed steam on their hands and faces.

  “I’m always happy to see you, Helen,” Ethan said. “Shin-kicking, name-calling, things done with spiders in the middle of the night. You’re a treat. I can’t believe so many years have passed since your last visit.”

  “We were children,” Death replied. The name Helen had long held significance for her, and Love had never forgiven her for the whole business with the thousand ships. How was she to know the war would last ten years and kill a demigod? “We’re all grown up now.”

  “That’s an awful lot of luggage you brought,” Ethan said. “Just how long are you planning to stay?”

  “As long as it takes,” Death replied. Then she looked toward Henry and gave him her most seductive smile. “Who’s your friend?”

  Death was happy to devour Henry with her eyes. He wasn’t movie-star pretty, like Ethan. But there was something about him she liked even better, from the slight gap between his front teeth to the way his dark hair refused to obey a comb. She liked the curve of his cheekbones and the square of his jaw, all the better to envision the skull beneath the skin.

  Taking her time, she removed an enameled compact from her bag. She snapped it open and appraised the face in the mirror from a variety of angles. It was a face she’d grown to like. She powdered her nose, applied a swipe of red lipstick. Then she reached for Henry’s arm and readied herself. She was nearly home.

  The Thornes no longer had a houseboy due to the changing nature of the times, just a maid and a cook, so Ethan and Henry carried Helen’s luggage upstairs to her suite of rooms. When they finished, Helen and Mrs. Thorne were standing at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. Thorne held a basket of cut tulips.

  “Yes, those are divine,” Helen said. “Very fresh. Almost as if they’re unaware they’ve been cut.” She smiled coyly at Henry. “I’m just going to dash upstairs and change.”

  “Ethan, dear,” Mrs. Thorne said. She shoved the basket of flowers at him. “I’ll need you to hold these while I make arrangements. Helen is changing into her tennis garb. She said she’d so love to play. I thought Henry —”

  As Helen glided up the steps, Ethan held his hands behind his back, as a soldi
er might stand at ease. His mood was anything but. “You know what Father would say if he saw me arranging flowers with you.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Thorne replied, too irritated even to get out a sentence.

  “I’ll help,” Henry said. He reached for the basket. Mrs. Thorne held tight.

  “I’d rather play tennis,” Ethan said. “Even with Helen.”

  “Ethan,” she said. “How rude.”

  “I’d love to help.” Henry held out his hands once more, and Mrs. Thorne reluctantly set the basket in them. Helen reappeared at the top of the steps, dressed in a white skirt and sleeveless blouse.

  “Who’s up for a match?” she said. “I’d kill for some fresh air.” She looked pointedly at Henry.

  He shrugged and held up the tulips. “I’m afraid I have my hands full.”

  “On second thought, I can surely manage this myself,” Mrs. Thorne said. She picked up a leaded glass vase and nodded toward the flowers. “Just set them on the console, Henry.”

  “I’ll play,” Ethan said. “Give me a moment.”

  “You too, Henry,” Mrs. Thorne said. “I insist.”

  “After we’re finished here,” Henry said. The truth was, Helen made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But he wasn’t inclined to spend any more time with her than he had to.

  “Do you ever wonder,” Helen said, walking down the stairs toward him, “if flowers feel pain when someone cuts them?” She lifted one from the basket. “Does it look like it suffered?”

  “Oh, Helen,” Mrs. Thorne said, “what a curious thing to say. I’m sure Henry has thought no such thing.”

  It was true. But, he realized, he would not be able to look at a flower again without wondering whether it had suffered, and whether anyone had cared.

  A minute later, Ethan bounded down the stairs holding two racquets and a fresh box of Slazenger tennis balls.