Snow came. A fine cold shake, growing thicker with the wind. When I closed my eyes, I got myself to imagining Esther and Myrle. They were behind one door or another. And the way they’d hold up their hands, ready to come home. Ray would grip me by the arm. And Nan, even Father. Didn’t think you could, they’d say. But you did it. You did.
I woke in the alley with wet cheeks, my boots soaked, jacket too. I bundled my blanket in the early light and walked. The snow fell for hours. The alley would be a cold floor by night, full of drifts. Not enough room to fit a man’s legs across. The snow glowed like fireflies against the city lights. The girls from the factories kept their eyes down. With their hoods over their foreheads and scarves tight, I couldn’t search for faces. At the factory doors, the heat let out in waves. I was cold in my throat, my ears, and walking tired. In France I’d learned to walk like that. On your feet and marching, letting your head slack. One man in front of you, one behind. You might march a mile or two and not even remember it. Now I wished I could walk to a place where the snow was gone, alleys too. My tickets turned soft as I fingered them. Still the print stayed clear. I put them quick in my pocket.
Before I left for the war, it was all of it snow. I’ll go to the office next week, I said to Father in the dugout. Sign my name. He touched my forehead. That hand of his, it was some warm. Your mother will never forgive us, he said. It was almost a whisper, his saying that. But Mother, she was the one who’d thought accidents were accidents. No matter Ray’s hand. There was no one to blame.
Father didn’t tell me don’t. He never really did. After he said his piece, he left me in the dugout alone. It was late. There was only a moon. Then the sound of footsteps by the door, but softer this time, and someone sniffling. I stepped out to get a glimpse. In the snow at my feet, the shape of my name, the words already filling. They looked carved by a mitten.
LEE DON’T GO
The moon pulled behind the clouds. The light was gone. Those words, I might never have seen them at all. Far off, the back of a black coat cut against the house. She must have run to get so far so fast. I imagined Esther’s face wet, how she’d wipe it with her sleeve. Esther had never been much for feelings. But even if I didn’t see it, I had that picture in my head. Even when I got to going the next week.
Already it was growing dark. Still the factory whistles for the night were hours off. The snow kept up and I was some cold. I was colder than that. I opened the door to a diner hoping for heat. The place wasn’t bright, but it was clean. A lamp on every table, scattered spots of light. I found a corner where I could sit with my back against the wall, my shoulder at the window, and see out. My face was scruff. I rubbed at my cheeks. The place was not so busy, but it was busy enough. The smell of eggs and biscuits. The ovens hot. My feet burned even as they warmed.
“Be right with ya,” the waitress let out.
I ordered coffee and toast, pretending at newspapers. The waitress chewed her lip. She didn’t have a pad of paper when she took my order. I wondered at that. Her hair she’d tied in a bun under a net, her nails bitten to nubs. Working here, she would smell of eggs and biscuits every night. I wondered if she had a room for herself, if she could pay for it for even a month.
“Want another?” The waitress stood at my table with her coffee pot. With a heavy head, I lifted my cup. The owner eyed me from the counter. I dropped two quarters on the table. He went to the kitchen then, and a radio sparked. A couple sat at the next table over. The woman had taken off her shoes and wrapped her foot around the table leg. “Don’t do that,” the woman said, pointing her finger at the man. “What?” he asked. She pinched the scruff on his chin and laughed. “What?” he asked again. Outside, a gaslight blinked against the glass, keeping time with the beating in my chest. The sounds in my head, they blinked too. My coffee cup was empty. The toast had gone to crumbs. I’d read the paper twice, but couldn’t make much of it. It would be quicker to find the girls if I didn’t sleep. It would be quicker without the dark. But a person shouldn’t wish for a thing like that. At home, the dark was a good place. Here it was something else. And during the war, it was worse.
Our squad, we made camp in the woods when a village wasn’t safe. In our last week, we’d camped five days. Me, Stan, Critters, and Sam Bullet. With the flu in the regiment, that’s all that was left of us. The paths in the woods were thick with mud, the sky wintry. In the daytime, it was a hard thing to find our way, and at night, a man couldn’t move save to follow the telegraph wires. All the same, those wires were ankle blades and mussed with shelling so we stayed put. “Hold your position,” staff sergeant had said. We hadn’t had a message since.
“God damn if I have to spend another night,” Critters whined.
We had a dugout in the woods, some two miles from the village. With the leaves gone, we’d lost our cover. Stan kept out of the trees, though he was lookout.
“We’re holding,” Sam Bullet said. He was squad leader, by the book he was, and as cold as his name.
The Huns still had it coming to them. That’s what Stan said. “When we hit them again, they’ll think it’s worse than the flu.” Stan was grinning with his big cheeks, his front tooth gone missing. But it wasn’t so funny. Only the month before, our runner had a letter from home. His father, a man hardy to his fingertips, gone down to a thing a person couldn’t even fight. Our runner had been a sad boy, then he’d taken to the flu too. No runner for the squad, no orders in or out.
“You’re all one for starting up again,” Critters said. “But just get me to the village. A roof and walls. Fritz will sign for peace any minute.”
“I’d keep my hat on if I were you,” Stan said. “Fritz isn’t signing anything.”
Critters sank back against the fence. He was thin to his britches, thin even in his hands. He shook when he got nervous, and he was done with being nervous now. “We’ve been on the line ten days,” he whined. Sam Bullet smacked him on the head.
It’d been a long run. Too cold and wet to take off our boots, the oil gone so we couldn’t grease our feet. Too tight at night to sleep in the hole together. But the village was worse. Not a young man in sight. Only women and old hands. Plenty of houses emptied out. Plenty chance for surprises. When the guns were down, the village was fine enough for sleeping, but it was frightful dirty and the pantries dry. So much manure in the streets, the place was rich with the stuff. On the road, we’d walked through dozens of towns just the same. Fog heavy in the hills, columns of tanks and infantry lines. Many a dead German, too. To the east, the plains of the Rhine and no mountains. Artillery sparks shone far off in the flats, the echo of guns whenever we slept. This was borderland France, but most of the people spoke German, wore wooden shoes. They drank schnapps and wine in heavy cups, and they hated the Kaiser as much as any of us.
“I’ve got to have something to stick to my ribs,” Critters said. “I’m dying here.”