“The longer the train stays here, the more time Papa has to change his mind.”
Their reflections, overlapping in the glass, were a study in contrasts. Eddie, a head taller, was a lanky, green-eyed blonde, while Rachel had curves in all the right places with eyes the color of chestnuts that turned anthracite hard when she got angry. But beneath their surfaces, they were alike. Eddie sensed Rachel’s heart thudding in time with her own. They wanted to be gone, gone, gone.
Together, their fathers watched them from the depot platform. Their shadows reached downhill to the train as if to hold their daughters in Saltville.
The rest of their lives depended on the next few moments. Had the train broken down? Would they be forced to stay?
Too much tension, Sturm und Drang in German, Eddie’s college minor. At one time, German had comforted her, but that was before Hitler. Now she seldom spoke her grandmother’s language, except to Rachel.
“Don’t look at your father,” she told Rachel. “If we look, we turn into salt like Lot’s wife and get stuck in Saltville forever.”
An old joke between them, but Rachel didn’t smile. Instead, she rubbed her silver heart-shaped locket, “go, go, go,” her incantation.
Out the edge of her eye, Eddie saw that the shorter shadow on the platform disappear, and she tensed. “Rachel, I think your father’s coming down to the train.”
Rachel linked her arm through Eddie’s. “I’m going with you, no matter what he says.”
“Of course,” Eddie said as if she was certain.
Months ago, Rachel told Eddie about her nightmares the Nazis had invaded Saltville and were coming for her because she was Jewish. Eddie had promised to hide her on Smith land so deep in the mountains no one would ever find her.
Yet at this moment, Eddie wasn’t sure she could protect Rachel from her father, Moses Margolis, owner of Margolis Department Store, a powerful man in Saltville. If he’d changed his mind about Rachel working in Washington, she would have to get off the train.
A knock on the glass startled them. “Lower the window, Rachel,” Mr. Margolis called. His voice carried as if he was on the loudspeaker at his store calling for a clerk to come to house-wares.
Rachel fiddled with the window latch. “Sorry Papa, it won’t budge.”
“Call me tonight. Understand? Tonight. Reverse the charges. I need to know you arrived safely. Do you still have the paper I gave you?”
Rachel took an envelope from her alligator purse and pressed it to the glass.
“Our cousin’s address and phone number,” he said. “And his factory’s address. I told him you would come for Shabbat so—-”
The train let out a shrill whistle and chuffed forward, slowly then faster, faster. The most beautiful sound Eddie had ever heard. Rachel’s face opened in an astonished grin, her dimples deep with delight. Mr. Margolis yelled more instructions lost in the noise and smoke.
Once they left him behind, they hugged hard, silenced by joy. In one swift motion, they peeled off their gloves, unpinned their hats, and smoothed each other’s hair. Like monkeys, Eddie thought, deliriously happy monkeys.
Rachel ripped the envelope in two and was about to rip further.
“Don’t.” Eddie grabbed the pieces, still large enough to read. “You’re going to have to visit your cousin eventually.”
“I’m tired of being under Papa’s thumb. And I wish we didn’t have to stay with your aunt. The last thing we need is some old biddy watching and reporting on what we do.”
“True.” But the only way Eddie convinced her father to let her go was to agree that she and Rachel would live on Georgia Avenue with his stepsister, Viola Trundle.
Aunt Viola was living up to her reputation as a cheapskate. In her letter, she informed Eddie she would charge each girl ten dollars a month for the room they would share and insisted they send her a month’s rent in advance. And for housing government girls, Aunt Viola would get extra ration coupons from the Office of Price Administration.
“Hide me,” Rachel said. “I want to change shoes.”
Eddie held her sweater wide like a curtain, so no one could see Rachel reach under her dress and tug down her woolen hose. Rachel pushed off her saddle shoes and slipped on white anklets and high heels, sexy ones she’d used all her shoe coupons to buy.
“Hello, ladies.” A dark-eyed soldier leaned over them. “How would you two like to have cocktails with us in the club car?” The blond soldier behind him said, “I second that.”
Ah, temptations already, liquor and men. Eddie laughed inside. This train, the Crescent out of New Orleans, was packed with military men traveling north from bases all over the South. Able-bodied men had been scarce in southwest Virginia. Under her father’s gaze, Eddie had ignored the men aboard, but at this moment, she felt as if she’d landed in a candy factory.
Still she said, “No, thank you.” She needed to sit and feel the miles grow between her and Saltville. This was the greatest day of her life. Even when she went to college, she didn’t leave home. She went to Emory and Henry seven miles from Saltville. While life on campus was another world, every night she hurried to board the bus, relieved when they rounded the corner into town and she saw their house was still standing, that Mama hadn’t set it on fire.
“Is there a piano in the club car?” Rachel asked Private Dark Eyes.
“Yep, there is.” He winked. “What’s your favorite song, honey?”
“Rachel.” Eddie had promised Mr. Margolis she would look after Rachel, a recent graduate of Saltville High, where Eddie had been a teacher. Because a friendship between a teacher and student wasn’t allowed, they had kept theirs a secret.
“You’re barking up the wrong trees with them two,” a female voice called behind them. “They’re snooty as all get out.”
“Says who?” Rachel got on her knees and turned backward to look into the seat behind them. Eddie rose to see who was speaking.
“Pearl Ballou, that’s who. Remember me, Miss Smith?” Pearl sat in near darkness, her window shade pulled down. A kerchief covered her hair and obscured her face.
At the sight of her former student, Eddie groaned inside. “Hello Pearl. Where are you traveling to?” Pearl, a bony redhead, had been in Eddie’s remedial English class last fall until she dropped out because she was pregnant. Pregnancy was also not allowed at Saltville High.
“To Washington City.” Pearl lifted her chin. “Gonna be a government girl.”
Eddie wondered who was caring for Pearl’s baby, not that this was any of her business. “We’re going there, too, Pearl. We took the Department of the Army’s test two months ago at the bank. I don’t recall seeing you there.”
Pearl’s expression soured. “You always did put a lot of store in tests, Miss Smith. Not ever body has to take one. If I need testing, they’ll do it when I git up there.”
Eddie had learned not to trust anything
