Front Lines

by Michael Grant

  His nose healed but not perfectly, and the slight crook that twists it gives a touch of character to his movie star looks. Rainy doesn’t mean to idolize him, it’s not normally her way, but she can’t help it.

  “I’ve just spent thirteen weeks being shouted at by people with stripes on their shoulders,” she says. “I’ve had to learn to—”

  “Accept criticism?” Aryeh offers lightly.

  “Who’s criticizing me?” Rainy snaps before realizing he’s playing with her. “You think I’m crazy too, don’t you?”

  “A little bit,” he admits. “But not crazy enough to be a marine.”

  Rainy laughs and affectionately messes his unmessably short hair. Then she’s serious. “I can’t sit this out, Ary. I have to be part of it.”

  “They’re scared is all, Mom and Dad.”

  “They want grandchildren.”

  “I think they want a daughter,” he says softly. “You know you’re their favorite. You got the brains in the family, and that’s what they care about.” He doesn’t mean to sound resentful.

  “And all you got is the looks? Poor baby.”

  They sip their tea and look out across the city they both love.

  “So how long does this intelligence school last?”

  “Eight weeks,” she says.

  “Spy stuff?”

  “Cloak and dagger,” she jokes. “They picked me because I speak German.”

  “You speak everything.”

  “Not true. Just German. And some Italian. A little French. Yiddish, of course.”

  “Are there other languages?” He likes playing dumb with his brilliant little sister.

  “One or two. I don’t speak Japanese, though, so I guess we won’t be running into each other out there.” She waves a hand, meaning to encompass the world, not just New York.

  “Nope. Looks like we marines’ll be killing Japs on our own, no army help needed.”

  This is too much for her. Far away the Japanese are having similar conversations, full of bold talk about slaughtering American marines.

  “Stop,” he says, seeing the worry in her eyes. “I’ll be fine. You know me. Aren’t I always fine?”

  But tears are welling up now, and when she looks at him her eyes glisten. “If you get hurt, I’ll kill you.”

  “I’m supposed to meet up with some buddies. We’re going to go down to the USO club, see if there are any girls who want to dance with big, bad, bold marines. Why don’t you come?”

  “Right, that’s what you need before you ship out: your little sister tagging along.”

  He doesn’t argue; he knows she’ll say no.

  “I wish you hadn’t joined the marines,” she says after a long silence. “There are safer jobs in the army.”

  “I don’t think anyone wanted me for intelligence work,” he says, making a joke of it.

  “Do you know where they’re sending you?”

  “To California by train, then a nice little boat trip to Hawaii where I will lie on the beach and soak up the sun.”

  “And then?”

  “Come on, Rainy, don’t do that.”

  She puts her arms around him and squeezes him tightly. He strokes her head and says “come on” again. And then again.

  Then she pushes him away and wipes the tears from her cheeks. There are small wet marks on the chest of his uniform.

  “This tea is terrible.”

  “Hey, I made it myself,” Aryeh protests.

  “That, I could guess.”

  “Listen . . .” He sighs. “I lied a little. Not about making the tea. I’m not going to the club to meet girls. I mean, I am going to the club with some buddies. But I’m not meeting girls. Just a girl.”

  This is news, and Rainy’s eyebrows rise. “A girl? Singular? Just one girl? You?”

  “I kind of like her. Jane. But not plain Jane, very pretty Jane.” His tone is light and carefree and doesn’t fool Rainy for a minute.

  “Are you in love? I’m amazed. Have you actually fallen for someone?”

  He blows out a long breath. “I may have asked her to marry me.”

  That freezes Rainy solid for a full minute. “There’s a problem, isn’t there?”

  “See, that’s exactly why you’ll be good at the spying game. Right away you glom onto—”

  “Don’t try to distract me with flattery, Ary.” She searches his face intently, as if he’s written the answer there. And maybe he has, because she begins to sense the reason for his caution. “What’s her last name? Her family name.”

  “Jane? Oh, it’s Jane Meehan.”

  “Meehan?” She sees guilt in the averted gaze. “Meehan? That doesn’t sound like a Jewish name.” His silence is confirmation. “Good lord. Good lord, Ary. Are you serious? You want to marry a shiksa?”

  “Don’t you start in with that.”

  “Look at me, Ary. Do you think I’m the one you need to worry about? Have you told Mother and Father? No, of course not, I would have heard the explosion. The whole city would have heard the explosion! The building would be flattened!”

  “I thought maybe you could help me find a way to explain it to them.”

  Her eyebrows achieve their maximum height. “Explain it? Explain to our parents that their grandchildren will not be Jewish? I could more easily explain the general theory of relativity!”

  “General who?”

  She puts her hands against the side of her face and looks at him, amazed, and, she has to admit, with disapproval. “You can’t marry outside. What are you thinking?”

  He shrugs. “I guess I’m thinking I love her, and I don’t see where it’s so all-fired important whether she believes in a single God or a God with a Son.”

  “If you say that to Mother or Father, I won’t have to worry about a Jap killing you. They’ll do the job.”

  “Which is why I need your help. Because, see, I’m going to marry her before I ship out. So she’ll have the insurance if . . . And so that . . . Um . . . Well, it should have a name.”

  And now the full weight of the truth comes crashing down. “No. Don’t tell me she’s pregnant, this girl.”

  Aryeh fidgets and suddenly looks panicky. He’s been hiding this earth-shattering truth.

  “I’m not leaving her in the lurch,” he says. And now the tears are threatening to fill his eyes, and that, Rainy knows, will humiliate him. But his humiliation can wait. First . . .

  She slaps him hard on the cheek. It makes a satisfyingly loud crack, so she does it again.

  “I thought you would—”

  “You thought? You didn’t think. Or at least you thought with the wrong part of your body!” The fact that Rainy’s tone is an almost perfect reflection of her mother’s voice is not lost on Rainy, but she pushes past that moment of realization.

  Aryeh’s miserable but defiant as well. “I love her, Rainy. I mean, it’s the real thing, and she’s pregnant, and I’m going off to . . . to maybe. . . . And she’ll be all alone.” And then adds, “And broke.”

  “Ah. Here it comes. The final shoe.”

  “We’re getting married tomorrow. I can give her my allotment, but it won’t be enough, not in this city. She’ll need more.”

  “You want me to help.”

  “It’s a lot to ask.”

  “It can’t be a lot because I don’t have a lot. A PFC stationed overseas earns $597.60 a year.”

  “You’ll be a corporal in no time,” he says with a winning grin.

  “Like hell,” Rainy snaps. “I’ll be a sergeant in no time.” She shakes her head in a show of disappointment, but of course she’s already decided to help, and her brother knows it.

  “You’re the best, Sis. Just don’t tell . . . you know.”

  “So you want money and discretion. Swell. Anything else?”

  “You’ll help.”

  “Of course I’ll help. You’re my brother. How can I not help?”

  “Lots of sisters wouldn’t,” he says.

  She goes on
shaking her head woefully, face grim, sending him the message that this is serious, sending him the message that he had better not screw up anymore. But he’s Aryeh, so most likely he will.

  “If it’s a girl we’ll name it after you.”

  “I’m going to slap you again.”

  “I have it coming,” Aryeh says.

  6

  FRANGIE MARR—TULSA, OKLAHOMA, USA

  “So, tell me: what is on your mind, Frangie girl?”

  The question comes from Pastor John M’Dale, the spiritual leader of Frangie’s family. He’s a middle-aged man, a serious man, a thoughtful man, a scholar even, cursed (or blessed) with a round, cherubic face. His office is all dark wood, books, dust, a big globe on a three-legged stand, a small stuffed pheasant, and various symbols of his faith and position. The chair Frangie occupies is cracked leather and feels vast. She resists the urge to swivel it back and forth.

  “I’m signing up, I guess,” Frangie says. “So I wanted to tell you I won’t be singing in the choir anymore for a while.”

  M’Dale sits back and takes a long, deep breath, nodding and looking closely at Frangie. “Your daddy still out of work?”

  “Don’t imagine he’ll be working ever again, Pastor M.”

  He nods. It’s not the first time he’s heard a story like this. “You think you want to fight in this war of white men killing Japanese or else killing other white men?”

  “I don’t aim to kill anyone. I aim to try out for medic.”

  “Well, that is honorable work, Frangie. But even if all you’re doing is patching up hurt boys, you’d still be part of it all.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She gives in to the urge to swing the chair left to right and back, just a small motion but comforting. She looks down, finding his gaze too challenging. There’s a small feather, like a crow’s pinfeather, on the rug, and it’s drifting in the breeze of her chair’s motion.

  “I can tell you what the Bible says about that.” He’s forming a tent out of his fingers, sticking the tips up under his ample chin. “First, love. You know that, you know that if you pay attention during my sermons.” He winks at her. “You do pay attention now, don’t you?”

  She welcomes his bantering tone. “I memorize every word, Pastor M.”

  He laughs. When he laughs, he shakes, and that makes Frangie smile.

  “First, love. Love above all. Love for the ones who love you, love for the ones who hate you. That’s pretty hard to follow if you’re in a war.”

  “Were you ever?”

  The question takes M’Dale by surprise. He sits farther back still and drops his hands to his lap. “No, young Miss Marr, I have not. But I have counseled many men who did go to the last war.”

  “Yes, sir,” Frangie prompts.

  “Well, they talk about the horrors. But they do also talk about the brotherhood with other black soldiers. I’ve only ever spoken with one who acknowledges taking a life. He says it was either shoot that other man, or be shot himself.”

  “I guess that’s what war is,” Frangie says. “But it’s also patching a fellow up after he’s been shot.”

  “Our friends of the Jewish faith say that he who saves a single life saves the world entire,” M’Dale says. “I may not have that quotation quite right, but the sense of it is there. That’s not from scripture, but I believe our Lord would agree with the sentiment. But real life can be more complicated than that. You heal a soldier in a war, and he goes off next thing to take a man’s life. How then do you avoid responsibility for that death?”

  “Sometimes you have to fight,” Frangie says.

  “Sometimes you do. Sadly, yes, sometimes you do. And what would you be fighting for, Frangie Marr?”

  “Fighting for?”

  The question overwhelms her and she has to think about it, and as she thinks she looks down at the feather, more like down, really, it’s so light. Its little feathery fate rests on the next breeze.

  “Should I not go, Pastor?” It will be easier if he forbids it. If he forbids it then she’ll have to find some other way to support her mother and father. Some other way to make her own life better than her mother’s life.

  “I can’t tell you go or don’t go,” M’Dale says at last. “I can tell you what the scriptures say. They say to love and not to harm. They say to turn the other cheek. But each of us faces a path with many forks and turns, and that which guides us on that path must be our own conscience, as reflecting the light of Jesus.”

  Frangie makes a shaky sigh. She’s just gotten permission, however reluctant.

  I am not a feather. I will not be blown this way or that. Not from now on.

  M’Dale sees all this. “You pray on it, little Frangie. You’re a good girl. You’re a faithful daughter to your parents and to this church. You pray on it, and if your conscience says go, then you go, and take with you the love and prayers of this congregation.”

  Now tears fill Frangie’s eyes, and she cannot speak.

  M’Dale waits until she has mastered her emotions.

  “Will you add me to the prayers, Pastor?”

  He gets up from his seat and comes around to her. He opens his arms and she stands, and he practically absorbs her in his large frame. “Little girl, we will pray for you at every service until you come home safe to us.”

  Frangie spills tears onto his collar and knows these are not the first tears to stain his coat, and won’t be the last.

  He pushes her away, holds her at arm’s length, and says, “When you’re ready you let me know, and I’ll send a couple of my deacons with you. Some of the white folk don’t much like our kind enlisting. You’d do best to have company.”

  She nods, wipes away the tears, and says, “Then I guess you best send for them.”

  It’s an eight-block walk to the nearest enlistment center, eight blocks during which humanity around her grows steadily lighter in color. At first Frangie and the two solemn, elderly deacons are just part of the passing scenery, but whites had begun to encroach on what had been an all-black neighborhood before the riots, and the abandoned Mason Hall that has been made over as an induction center is now in a fringe area.

  A line of black recruits—mostly male—extends from the propped-open doorway out onto the sidewalk. The line seems to be moving, though slowly. But a white crowd has gathered, young men in school letter jackets or blazers, others in white T-shirts and jeans. They smoke cigarettes and make loud, braying laughs, and amuse themselves by flicking lighted matches at those waiting.

  A white cop at the end of the street looks on tolerantly, ready—perhaps—to step in if any of the white folks turn nasty. Ready—very definitely—to step in if any of the colored folks object to being mocked.

  So boys and men and some women who will soon be at war dodge flying matches and hold their dignity tight to them as the insults fly.

  Frangie hesitates. The two deacons slow as she slows, following her lead. Perhaps if she comes back later the line will be shorter and she can go right inside. Or perhaps the crowd of white trash will grow bored and find something better to do.

  “We can’t start trouble with them white boys,” one of the deacons advises her.

  “Yes, sir, I know that,” she says.

  They have come to a stop half a block away. It will be Frangie’s decision whether to go ahead. Bile rises in her throat, a barely suppressed rage at being put in this position. She doesn’t even want to do this. She’s only doing it to help her family. Why would these crackers feel they need to make it all still worse?

  She’s angry too at the deacons, though she knows it’s unfair. Pastor M’Dale insisted they keep her company, but what good are they? Old black men, old men who were here when the buildings burned and black women were raped and the Tulsa police—the police!—flew a rickety plane over Greenwood throwing gasoline bombs on black businesses and homes.

  Helpless then, helpless now.

  “I made it here,” Frangie says, her voice tight and low in h
er throat. “You did your duties. Go tell Pastor M that I made it safely.”

  “Now, Miss Frangie—”

  “No. You know what happens if the three of us go stand in that line. I’m just a little thing, they won’t start trouble, not too much trouble, anyway. But if I have bodyguards . . .”

  The deacons did not take too much convincing. They knew she was right, and they knew they were weak and useless in her eyes, as they were in their own.

  Frangie walked the last half block. The crowd of whites noticed her immediately.

  “Well, look at this, boys. It’s a sweet little colored girl come to sign up to shoot Japs.”

  “Nigra bint lookin’ for a government check, more like.”

  “Now I know we’re going to lose if that pickaninny is who’s fighting.”

  She joins the line behind a young man who stands so stiff she wonders how he breathes. He ignores her, focusing on his own self-control.

  “Hey, want a light?” One of the white men flicks a match at her. It spins, hits her shoulder, and falls extinguished. She does not look at him. Will not look at him.

  “Must want to be raped by some of them Japs, yeah, that’s what she wants.”

  Frangie hears it, but she’s heard that and worse. Still, it churns her insides.

  “You think Japs ever tasted brown sugar?”

  “Hell, Dwayne, that’s the only kind of pussy you’ve ever had.”

  This remark is not taken well, and a scuffle breaks out between two of the white men that provides distraction until Frangie is safely inside.

  An hour later she is Recruit Frangie Marr, of the army of the United States of America. She is to report to the bus station the following morning.

  She has forgotten to pray for guidance, and now it’s too late. She has followed life’s path lit only by her own conscience, without consulting either scripture or the God that inspired it.

  Her own conscience . . . and the promise of a paycheck to keep the lights on at home.

  She had arrived at the enlistment center in her painful church shoes. She walks home barefoot, with her shoes in one hand. The new army boots she’d been hoping for won’t be hers until she arrives at the aptly titled “boot camp.”