The Christmas Train (2 page)

“You going to Ennis?” she heard her mother ask.

The old lady hesitated, then nodded. “To see my family,” she finally said. It was obvious from her stiff posture that she didn't want to get sucked into a conversation with some strange woman. But Anna's mother never cared what other people wanted.

“Oh, your children. And grandchildren, too, I bet.”

“No, my brother and—”

“My girl's going to Ennis, too,” Anna's mother broke in.

Anna wrinkled her nose. Her mother never listened to people either. She just pushed and pushed and pushed until people either ran away as fast as they could, or else gave in from pure exhaustion. Anna wondered what this woman would do. She slid her gaze back to the lady, so neat and folded up just so with her ankles crossed and tucked beneath the plastic seat, and her gloved hands resting protectively across her pretty embroidered suitcase.

Her mother went on. “She's going to her father.”

The bastard
, Anna inserted. That was her mother's name for him, her father the bastard. As if he were any worse a parent than she was. He'd dumped Anna on her mother, and her mother had dumped her on Nana Rose.

“It's so important for a girl to know her father, don't you think?” Carrie went on, smiling earnestly at the old woman.

The old lady's gaze shifted and collided unexpectedly with Anna's, startling her so that she couldn't look away. “Yes,” the woman said. To Anna, not to her mother. She smiled, a mere ghost of a smile, but Anna could feel the warmth in it. “Every girl needs to know the love of her father.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Anna's mother nodded her head exuberantly. “Only I can't make the trip with her. Other obligations, you know?” She pulled out her cigarettes and tapped the hard pack against her wrist. “So I was wondering. Do you think you could keep an eye on her? You know, sit with her and make sure she gets off at the right stop? At Ennis. With you. Her father will be there,” she added. “Don't worry about that. He's expecting her.”

Anna held her breath. If the woman said no, what would her mother do? Apparently the conductors didn't let children get on the train by themselves, which was good because Anna didn't want to go live with her father. He was a complete stranger to her. She'd never even seen a picture of him. All she knew was his name, Tom Thurston.

But she hated it here, too, living with her mother.

At first Carrie had seemed okay living with Anna in Nana Rose's house in an old neighborhood in Texarkana. But once she'd collected Nana Rose's life-insurance money and sold the little house to the next-door neighbors for their son, she was ready to get back to her own life with her boyfriend, Eddie. She had big plans for her money, and obviously Anna didn't fit into those plans. That's when her mother had come up with the idea to send Anna to live with her father.

The fact was, her mother hated being stuck with Anna again after all these years. Anna could tell. She didn't like being a mother. Anna cramped her style, she'd said. One way or another her mother meant to get rid of her. If the old woman said yes, Anna would be put on the train, sent like a returned package back to someone else who didn't want her.

Neither her mother nor her father had ever wanted her.

But Nana Rose had.

Anna didn't mean to cry. She hardly ever cried, especially on account of her pitiful excuse for a mother. But she was definitely leaking tears. She turned her face away, blinking hard but refusing to swipe her wet cheek with her cuff. Maybe the old lady hadn't seen her tears. Didn't old people have bad eyes? Nana Rose wore bifocals, and she'd had cataract surgery the year before she died.

But Nana Rose had seen everything when it came to Anna: when she was sad; when she was scared. And now, when the old lady in the embroidered coat spoke—
before
she actually spoke—when she took a slow breath before the words began to come out, Anna knew she had seen the tears.

“I would be happy to have her for a traveling companion,” the woman said in a faintly accented voice, as if she used to live in another country. “Traveling alone is so . . . well, so lonely.” Then she looked straight at Anna, deep into her eyes. “Is that all right with you, child? Traveling with me?”

Anna stared back at her a long, breathless moment. There were no good choices for her here. Stay with her mother who didn't want her, or go to her father, who also did not want her. The only adult who seemed eager for her company was this old woman, a complete stranger to her.

“Of course she's good with it.” Anna's mother stood up, the unlit cigarette tight between her fingers. “Well, if that's settled, I need to get going.”

“
Nein
. You will wait one moment while I speak to your daughter.”

Anna blinked at the woman's firm tone.
Nein
. That was German, wasn't it?

She peered up at her mother, who'd frozen with the unlit cigarette halfway to her mouth. The old woman had a soft look about her, but she had a steely core. Like Nana Rose.

“No problem. No problem,” Anna's mother repeated, digging in her pocket for her lighter. “Anna, tell the nice lady. Go on, tell her you'll be a good, what did you say? Oh, yeah, a good traveling companion.”

Slowly Anna stood. The old lady stared right at her. Not unkindly. More . . . expectantly. Like she cared only about what Anna had to say, not Anna's mother.

“She's got lunch with her. I packed it myself.”

Did not.
But Anna ignored her mother, as did the old German lady.

“Well,
Liebchen
? Shall we travel together?”

Anna clutched her bulging backpack to her chest. It was all she had left in the world. That and a one-way ticket to her father's house in the company of this pleasantly smiling old woman.

She took three steps forward. For now that would have to be enough.

E
VA
trudged down the center aisle of the general-seating car, bracing herself with one hand on the seat backs. A two-story train car. She'd never heard of such a thing. She would rather have stayed on the lower level, but the child—what was her name again? Eva paused, leaning heavily on the seat back beside her, and struggled to remember. She'd noticed lately that thinking and performing a physical task were not particularly compatible.

“C'mon. C'mon,” she heard someone behind them mutter.

She was blocking someone's way. With a grimace she forced herself a few steps farther, then abruptly sat in an open aisle seat. She was out of breath. That, too, was happening more often, this sudden shortness of breath followed by a smothering blanket of fatigue, a bone-deep weariness she couldn't seem to dispel.

“Can I have the seat by the window, Miss Eva?”

Eva startled at the child's query. Before she could reply the girl squeezed past her, tucked her backpack under the forward seat, then knelt on the seat and cleared a spot on the foggy window.

Anna, the girl's name came to her. Anna. They would be traveling together to . . . to where?

Home. Home to Ennis.

As she took several deep breaths it all came back to her. She'd seen the article in the Sunday paper about the Christmas Festival of Lights in Ennis, and it had lifted her spirits as nothing had since her Paul had died. Why hadn't she thought to go home before this? But she was going now. Ever since that terrible attack in New York she'd been so afraid. Not war. Not again!

But she'd known war was inevitable. Dictators could not be allowed to force their evil on the rest of the world. This she knew. But oh, how the thought of war paralyzed her. The soldiers. The bombs. And most of all, the awful, unrelenting terror. It hung over everything—every move you made, every word you said. Who to trust? Who to fear? No matter how far she'd run or how carefully she'd hidden herself, here was war pounding at her door again.

In her chest her heart sped up, and panic rose, threatening to choke her—

“How long until we leave?”

With a start Eva looked at the little girl, who had unwound her muffler and was tugging off her stocking cap. Anna. How pretty she was. “Soon, child. As soon as all these people find their seats.”

The girl studied her with unblinking eyes. She was all pink cheeks, blue eyes, and straight blond hair. Aryan.

Eva shivered and forced herself to straighten in her seat. Being fair and pretty was no defense against the madness of the world. Only quick wits and luck helped you when the world was falling apart.

“Are you going to take off your coat?”

Again Eva flinched. “Soon. Soon.” When she offered no more, the child turned away, busy folding her muffler. Apparently displeased with its bulk, she shook it out and began again, this time neatly rolling it up like a roll of bath tissue.

Eva closed her eyes. She was so tired. But she didn't dare sleep. Too many people, and then there was the threat of war. Always war. Would it never be over?

She forced her eyes open. At least this train was clean. And so far as she could tell, all its windows still had their glass panes. She scanned the railcar front to back. Yes, it was clean and there were enough seats for everyone. No one standing, hanging on to the straps. No one huddled over their bags in the aisle.

Then the car shuddered, a ricochet of movement that convulsed the full length of the train from engine to caboose. She remembered that shudder, that feeling of being inside a living thing transporting you maybe to freedom, maybe not. It shuddered again, then jerked forward, and all at once they were under way.

At last. She sank into the seat, permitting herself her first real sigh of relief. At last she was on her way home.

“This is my first time on a train,” the little girl said from beside her. “Is it your first time, too?”

“
Nein
. No.” Eva sat up taller in her seat, conscious suddenly of her bag, heavy on her lap, and her coat, too warm for the overheated train car. She half lifted, half slid her bag to the floor between her feet and the child's, and then unwound her woven-wool scarf.

The girl watched her with large, serious eyes that seemed to take in everything. “Can I help you with your coat?”

It was on Eva's lips to say no, that she was perfectly capable of removing her own coat. Except that she didn't feel capable. She felt far too weary to do it alone.

“Thank you. That would be nice.” Eva managed a smile as she unfastened the toggles one by one. Then she grasped the seat in front of her and hauled herself up, swaying with the gathering speed of the train. The girl tugged Eva's right arm free, then knelt on the seat to free her left arm. Eva collapsed onto the seat, the coat on her lap, until she caught her breath and could start folding it. “Thank you,” she repeated.

“You're welcome.” The girl's stare held steady. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“The bathroom? I don't know . . .”

“It's just up there.” The child pointed. “See the sign? Don't worry, I'll be right back.”

Eva watched carefully as the child made her way to the bathroom. She skipped as she went. As serious as she seemed to be, the girl nonetheless skipped and hopped her way down the aisle as if she didn't have a care in the world. Didn't she know about the war? The planes that had crashed into those buildings?

Keeping her eyes on the bathroom door, Eva removed an old embroidered handkerchief from her skirt pocket and dabbed at her eyes. So many deaths. So much suffering. No child should ever know about such things. So if Anna's mother had chosen not to tell the girl about the war, it was not for Eva to do otherwise. She had only to make sure the girl got off at the right station where her father would be waiting. There were only four stops with one transfer, according to her ticket.

Her heart began to race. Where had she put her ticket? She needed her ticket!

Panicking, she fumbled in her purse.
“Gott in Himmel,”
she prayed as she dug though every pocket. Where was it? Where?

“Is this child with you?”

Eva gasped at the stern voice. A big man in a severe black uniform towered over her, one large hand gripping a little girl's shoulder. A terrified little girl. For a moment Eva couldn't respond. Her heart thundered and she struggled to catch her breath. What was the right answer? Which answer would get her into trouble? She didn't want any attention from the military police. All she wanted was to get home.

Clutching her handbag against her chest, she pressed her trembling lips together. The man was so tall, so obviously in charge. But the child . . . The child stared at her with huge blue eyes.

“
Ja
, she is with me,” Eva blurted out.

His eyes bored into hers, and Eva feared he did not believe her. Then his fingers unwound from the girl's shoulder and like a timid rabbit the girl lunged past Eva and into the window seat.

“Well, keep a close eye on her. She shouldn't be wandering around.” Then he strode off toward the back of the train car.

Eva's shoulders sagged in relief. He believed her! Pressing a hand to her chest, she coughed three times, until the irregular thump of her heart returned to normal. Beside her, the little girl knelt on the seat, staring at the man's retreating back. “That man wasn't very nice.”

Eva shook her head. “Most soldiers are mean. That's why they are soldiers.”

The child turned a serious face to Eva. “He wasn't a soldier.”

Eva glanced sharply at her. She looked familiar. Was she from Ennis, too? “Of course he was a soldier. Didn't you see his uniform?”

“Then where was his gun?”

His gun. Eva frowned, trying to remember. Had he carried a gun? But a fog, thick and impenetrable, seemed to have taken over her mind. Beside her, the girl pulled her stocking cap down on her head. “I guess my mother was right to get you to travel with me.”