The Heart's War (7 page)

Then that moment of release came again. Jeff went rigid beneath me as he emptied himself into me for a second time. I rode him harder as my own body fell away into that murky storm of my climax.

Even the cool relief flooding into me couldn’t keep a sudden shard of fear from stabbing into me. It was over. I couldn’t make it last forever. And soon, Jeff would be gone. And I would be here, in Kitchener, without him.

The fear led to anger. He couldn’t leave now! Not when we’d just discovered being together in this way.

“How could you…?” I said, beating my fists against his chest while I struggled to disentangle myself from him.

“What? How could I what, Ellie?” Jeff said, grabbing my wrists. He was so strong. But was he strong enough to come back?

Finding my underwear, I hastily pulled them back on and tried to straighten myself out. It wouldn’t do to show up at home looking this way. Mother would suspect something.

“How could you show me how wonderful it is to be together,
then leave me stranded?” I said, hurrying towards the door.

He couldn’t catch me before I made it out to the porch. The cold night air felt especially chilly against my sweat-slicked skin. Before I could make it down the stairs, Jeff grabbed me, spun me around, and hugged me close. I noticed how his shirttails hung out of his pants. I could smell his sweat, and heat seemed to radiate from his body. Despite my anger, it felt nice.

“I’m sorry, Ellie. But I’ll be back. Trust me.”

“You can’t know that.”

“But I do. I know it deep inside, in the same place I know that I love you.”

“You’d better be right,” I said, burying my face in his chest and hugging him tightly. He hugged back, and planted a kiss on my forehead.

“I am,” he said, “I love you.”

When I didn’t respond, he let go of me, looked at me for a few moments, and then went back inside.

So, with the warmth of Jeff's kiss on my brow lingering, I went down the steps and went back to my home on Weber street.

Chapter 6

The next day at work I pricked my finger on the sewing machine. I couldn't concentrate at all.

A thousand questions and concerns raced through my mind as I sat there, running the machine with one foot, feeding the cotton uniform pieces through. The entire floor of the Bauer building was filled with women working in long rows.

Some of them chatted to each other, their voices a low drone over the hum of the sewing machines. Fresh cotton left the room smelling almost nice. It nearly covered the sharp scent of sweat.

"Ouch!" I said, biting back a "Damn it!" Some of the older women would give me the eye if I swore, and I'd hear of nothing but that at church, or during lunch, about how uncouth I'd been.

I put my finger in my mouth, the blood metallic against my tongue. Luckily, I hadn't gotten any on the shirt I'd been putting together.

How far was Jeff? Had he reached Kingston yet? I hadn't thought to ask when his train would be arriving in Quebec. I'd have to remember to check later with Marie after supper. She'd also have to give me his address so that I could write him.

***

I had supper twice a week with Marie for the few weeks that Jeff was in training. Even though I'd initially dreaded seeing her, for fear of thinking so much about Jeff, I found it a relief to visit her comfortable townhouse. And she seemed to enjoy having me over, too.

Things had changed at home with mother. Ever since Jeff put his foot down, she'd completely changed her mind about this business in Europe. She spoke constantly of the evils of the Kaiser and of Germany's ill-fated imperialism.

She'd even taken out an old photo of my father, using a smaller frame and folding the image to hide a dark splotch in the upper corner. It was one he'd had taken over in Africa on his Boer campaign. She hung it beside the front door so that every time I came in, I had to see him in his uniform with his tall cap, holding his rifle as he stared forward without a smile on his sharp face. Mother said I had his features, but I didn't see it; his face had been pointed, aquiline almost. And his dark hair had gone high up his forehead.

I'd taken to coming in through the back to keep from looking at it. My memories of him consisted mostly of his drunken rants, and of his terrible screams that shocked me from my sleep in the middle of the night.

Just the thought of Jeff ending up like him was enough to squeeze the appetite from my stomach and give me nightmares that left me cold and sweating.

I received two letters in the mail from Jeff. Both were brief, telling me about the excited mood of the base. He had some trouble with all the yelling. He'd never been much for getting screamed at. And the lack of sleep troubled him, as well. But he remained optimistic. In the second letter, he even mentioned how with the extra money he'd be getting, he'd be able to afford a better ring.

These letters stayed hidden in the pockets of an old coat hanging at the back of my closet. I didn't need to add any more fuel to the growing fires of my mother's patriotism.

Chapter 7

Then came the day that Jeff was to finish training.
He'd be given no leave, and instead be sent directly by train with the rest of his fellows to Halifax to board a liner for the trans-Atlantic journey.

Since he couldn't come home, Marie had sent me a polite letter inviting me to join her again for dinner. I responded quickly that I would be glad to.

It rained outside that day, the sky a uniform grey with the clouds an impermeable damp blanket hanging over Kitchener. The humidity played havoc with my hair, frizzing it.

Everything felt wet, sickly, and miserable. The horses clopping down Weber Street moved with their heads low, and the city seemed to retreat in on itself, unable to shake its malaise.

I sat at lunch with mother at the small table in the kitchen. She nibbled on a sandwich, bits of the brown crust flaking off and landing gently on her plate. Her fingers were long and bony, the knuckles like knots tied in a length of rope. She'd pulled her hair back in a tight bun at the back of her head. The silver streaks shot through the bunched hair like lightning bolts across a pitch-colored sky.

I took a bite of my own sandwich. The bread had begun to turn, and the bit of mustard she'd spread over it had made the inside soggy. Not wanting to eat anymore, I put it down and dabbed at the corners of my mouth with a white linen serviette.

"Eat up! We're having company, dear," mother said.

I had wondered why she'd put on that nice dress. It was an even ivory color, the high neck exposing as little skin as possible. The type of dress you might wear to a church picnic to impress the priest with your modesty.

"Oh? Who's coming?" I asked.

It was probably another of my father's friends. Since mother had caught the war fever, she'd done her best to get in touch with as many of them as possible. She'd even made the trip up to Toronto to visit with a retired English colonel.

I had no interest in hanging around the living room as some cigar-puffing man regaled mother with tales of fighting.

For one, I found her sudden acute interest disturbing. Hadn't she seen poor Shelley Clarkson in church? She'd certainly clucked her tongue and put on a sad expression when the news about Clarkson's brother had come through. She saw the casualty lists. Were they just numbers to her?

For two, as the older men talked about the boom and bluster of cannons, and the volleys of rifle fire, the sounds narrated terrible visions of Jeff. He'd be standing in the line of fire, or raising his rifle to shoot some German boy before he got shot in return.

"How nice, mother. I think I'll go over to Victoria Park and see if the swans are in. I probably won't be back until the evening; I'm going to see Marie for dinner again. Jeff's done training today, and he can't come down on account of the need for men, so I thought it would be nice to see her."

My toes curled in my flats under the table. He'd be in Halifax soon, then out of the country with an entire ocean separating us. Marie and I would have to console each other, and together renew our faith that he'd come back home alive.

Mother dropped her sandwich on her plate. The dish clattered, and I jerked back at the sudden noise.

"Oh! He's done already? Wonderful, that training is, isn't it! Yes, the ladies will be glad to know they've had an impact on the young men in the area."

"Yes, mother," I said, pushing back from the table, thinking only of walking around the park for the few hours until dinner. But then I actually heard what she'd said.

"What ladies, mother? What are you talking about?"

Mother picked up the brown crumbs from her crust between her thumb and index finger and ate them. She'd painted her lips, and some of the rouge stuck to her fingernails.

"You know them, Eleanor! They're war wives from Toronto. They're the ones that have been taking the train down here to hand out the feathers. Did you know they told me that Kitchener has one of the worst recruitment rates in the province? They say it's because of all the German families around here..."

"Mother!"

I slapped my hands down on the table, rattling our plates again. Mother jerked back, her big, wide eyes shocked at my display. I couldn't help myself. She was inviting the very women who'd called Jeff a coward into our home for tea and a chat! How could she? That feather had been the proverbial straw. If he hadn't come to dinner that night looking all sullen and upset, clutching those feathers, I might have been able to sway him into fighting the draft letter.

"What's gotten into you, Eleanor? You should be happy. Those women are patriots!"

"I won't have them in this house! It's their fault that Jeff's on his way over there right this very moment!"

Mother pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that the lids wrinkled. She took a deep breath, held it,
then slowly breathed it out. She acted as though she were the long-suffering parent of a spoiled child, and had just reached the breaking point in her tolerance.

Things had long been coming to a head, and I knew that.
Her nostalgia for father, her fervor for the war. They clashed with my own feelings. But she'd just kept on going, inviting those veterans over, talking to me about how nice it would be to have a soldier as her son in law. She'd carried on as though thinking that sheer attrition of will would convert me over to her way of thinking.

But this was too much. I wouldn't let her do this; I couldn't. The catcalls of "coward" that they'd thrown at him on the day we'd walked past them that day, so long ago it seemed, still stung.

"They're not coming into this house," I said, the words moving past my gritted teeth.

When she let go of her nose, her fingertips left two little round pressure marks. A small dot of rose-red rouge had smudged her skin as well. She didn't seem to notice.

She smiled up at me, her lips pulled so tightly that it looked more like a snarl.

"Sit down and finish your sandwich," she said, trying to brush the argument under the rug like some bothersome dust she'd been ignoring.

"No, mother. You don't understand. They can't come in here. I won't have it!"

Mother stood, tugging angrily at the waist of her dress to rid it of the wrinkles from sitting. Her face flushed almost to the color of that spot of rouge, and a large, dark vein poked out against the skin on her forehead.

I knew I couldn't look much better. It felt like a hundred degrees in that kitchen, and I had to take long, deep breaths to satisfy my body's sudden need for more air.

"You won't have it? Is your name the one on the deed for the house?"

It wasn't. Father had, of course, left the home to mother in his will. But I paid my own board, giving her a large portion of my small salary each month for my groceries. And I helped with the cleaning and cooking.

But I wouldn't let her have this. Those women had cost me too much already, and having them over was like having it all flung in my face.

Mother pressed her attack when she sensed my hesitation.

"That's right; it isn't! You may be an adult, but while you're living with me under my roof, you do what I tell you to. Not the other way around. Do you understand? Why, what do you think your father would say about all this?"

"He'd be too drunk to care, and you know it! Father was a miserable husk of a man, so stop glorifying him! Maybe if he were around, it would be better. Those awful witches would see what war really does to a man!"

Mother took two quick steps around the table and slapped me across the face. It stung right away, twisting my head around to the side. I clutched at my cheek, my jaw dropping. She'd never hit me before.
Never. What had become of my mother? She was a different person.

"Don't you dare speak about your father like that ever
again. Those women are coming over whether you like it or not, you petulant child. Run away to your park, or hide up in your room for all I care.”

I rubbed at my cheek, shaking. Everything seemed to be coming apart. Why was she choosing strangers over me? Couldn't she see how this hurt me, how deeply her words cut into me? I had to try. They couldn't step foot in that house so long as I called it home.