2.
~ "His name is Charles Howard. A lieutenant and some kind of hero, although I didn't get the whole story. He wouldn't come without that dreadfully sour American friend of his. William, I think the name was. I don't know I didn't pay much attention." Eliza was whispering quietly in the bathroom as Anna redressed. It was a let down to have to change back into normal clothes now. She longed to lounge about the apartment in her night clothes. Her reading chair, faithful as ever by the viewing window, a thick volume of romantic stories on her lap. She would have been cozy and warm, but Eliza dashed all her hopes of a relaxing day.
"It's just for tonight." Eliza insisted.
"Where will they even sleep?" Anna hisses as she pulled on a clean pair of wool stocking.
"I was hoping the lieutenant would sleep with me." Eliza whispered happily.
"Well, where will the other one sleep? Or, will you take both of them to bed?" Anna said hotly.
"He can sleep in the sitting room." Eliza offered.
"Where I sleep? No."
"No, of course not. He can sleep on the floor."
"You'll make him sleep on the floor?"
"Unless you want to share your bed?"
Anna opened her mouth to say something particularly nasty when there was a knock on the door of the little bathroom.
"Yes?" Anna barked.
"Don't mean to be a bother, ladies, but could I have a wash? Only, it's been a few days." came the voice of Lieutenant Howard.
"Oh, of course, dearest!" Eliza giggled and threw open the door just as Anna finished buttoning up her cardigan.
Eliza rushed to her Lieutenant and pulled him into the bathroom as Anna side stepped out.
"You two just make yourselves at home." Eliza cooed. "Have a bath and shave, oh good, Annie you bought new soap."
Anna rolled her eyes and tried not to let her sour disposition show.
"I'll get started on dinner. Annie, you did go to the market today, right?" Eliza said as she shut Mr. Howard in the bathroom.
"Yes." Anna sighed and remembered her chicken and the payload of eggs. These men would surely want to plunder the good food she had bought.
"Eliza?" Anna hissed and waved at her flatmate. "You didn't say anything about feeding them."
"Well of course, it's a party. It's been ages since we've had guests." Eliza whispered. "The war is over, it's high time we started acting like it."
Anna watched her flatmate almost skip across the room to the kitchen.
"Oh, Annie! Eggs! What a clever thing you are!" she shouted gleefully.
Anna caught sight of the American officer looking out their large window. A window that took up almost half the wall, and worth the loss of usable space.
"Very nice view." he said noticing her looking at him.
"It is." Anna said cooly.
The American looked towards the tiny, galley style kitchen where Eliza was now making a lot of racket. It was normally Anna who did the cooking and the cleaning. Eliza ate the food and made the messes. A mess she had grown used to, but now saw her flat as the American would see it. Full of clutter, post left to collect on the table, novels stacked carelessly around the room. Eliza's film crushes tacked to the horrid wallpaper. Anna's salvaged pictures of her family placed on the mantle in cracked frames. Haunted ghost looking over her.
She spotted the shoes she had carelessly kicked off and went to stow them in the closet. The over packed hall closet seemed to protest by unleashing the broom, hitting Anna on the head.
"I know this isn't what you were expecting." the American was saying over the sound of pans clattering in the kitchen, and brooms falling in the hallway.
"Not your fault, I just don't see where there will be room." Anna said pulling her hair back and stuffing the hall closet beyond capacity.
She suddenly wished she had make up again. During the war, the shortages were such that things like lipstick, face powder or rouge couldn't be found. She had gotten used to it and stopped caring about her looks as much. There was a war on and makeup hardly mattered when you were being bombed. Eliza, on the other hand, wouldn't let the Nazis take away her right to bright red lipstick, long spider like eye lashes and candy pink cheeks.
She was curled, colored and coifed to perfection, even during the air raids. Now, Anna looked especially plain.
"I'm used to sleeping rough." the American said. "I'll be fine. I just can't stand the snow and Howard and I are still waiting for our pay so we can go home."
"Oh." Anna said feeling a little embarrassed for not wanting to open her home to these men. "So, you were left behind?" she asked.
"In a way." the American laughed. His face lighting up briefly before returning to a bitter scowl."I was told to go home, but wasn't given any means to do so. No money, no connections. I was hoping to get on a standard troop transport that leaves in a week."
"I'm sorry to hear that, um, I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." Anna said stupidly.
"You can call me William." he said and extended his hand just like she were a man. Anna was a little surprised at this. Perhaps the war had made hand shaking acceptable for women, or perhaps it was normal where he came from.
She let him take her hand, felt how strong and callused it was, and let go.
"I'm Anna." she muttered and left her American to check on Eliza.
~ "I can't believe you found a chicken. Arn't you a doll!" her flatmate said happily as Anna buttered and salted the little hen. The American, William, had loosened some of the hardness around her heart since their arrival.
There were stories like his all over since the war ended. Men were dropped off at the nearest allied port and told to find their own way home. Most of them fresh from the battle fields and without even telling their families back home they were alive. It created a nightmarish flood of soldiers needing lodging, food and most of all transport.
Forgotten men, no parade for them at times square.
It wasn't just the men who were left behind. All over war torn Europe were relics. Jeeps, tanks and even weapons were cast aside. Too much trouble to bring them back home. They were like toys a child had grown tired of playing with.
Anna glanced at her American. He looked like the war had been unkind to him. He was too thin, his face too hardened and too ready to pull into deep lines of worry and doubt. She had seen that face so often now. Men looking older beyond their years. Their eyes haunted and troubled.
"Can't tell you what a pleasure it is to have a shower and shave!" came a happy voice from the hall way. Lieutenant Howard, in fresh clothes and looking startling handsome had finally come out of the bathroom. "The tap is a little cool, ladies."
"Well, it will be a while till dinner." Eliza cooed back at him as Anna watched her flatmate try to cook. Eliza made tea and toast for herself when Anna wasn't home. She wasn't especially gifted at the little gas range.
She wanted to mock her flatmates attempt to charm her officer by making him think she was a wizard in the kitchen. What man didn't love a woman who could cook? It was a foolish desire on Eliza's part to think she could weave a spell of love on the good looking Lieutenant. Surely he had a girl waiting at home for him.
But Anna said nothing. Only set to work at striating the kitchen and clearing off the table.
William, looked uncomfortable in the now silent flat. He was still at the window, snow now falling heavily outside, his bag still in his hands.
"Do you mind if I start a fire?" he asked nodding at the small gas powered fireplace.
"Please do." Anna said softly. She was clearing away old tea things, the post, her sewing box and a discarded hair brush of hers off the dinning table.
The girls had clearly becomes too accustomed to each other for random company. More than once they were prone to leaving their under garments to dry in front of the fire, or lounge about the flat all day in bed clothes.
These days, Anna didn't even make her bed or bother to hang up her coat. It just served as another blanket during the winter.
She quickly went to tidy up her space as her American knelt before the gas fireplace and carefully lit the pilot with a silver lighter.
"You have to be careful with gas now. All the bombings made the network unstable." he was saying as Howard sat at the table and started re-lacing his shoes while Eliza was busy pretending to be a great cook.
"Yes." Anna said a little breathlessly as she hoped he wouldn't notice her unmade bed, or her stockings draped over the curtain rod.
"They kept shutting off the gas during the blitz. Cold baths, cold tea, cold dinner for weeks on end." she sighed. "If the bombs didn't end us the lack of a good meal would have."
She sensed William smile a little even though her back was to him.
"You girls made it alright." Howard offered.
Anna, her face already hot from scurrying around the flat trying to hide the fact that they lived there, looked at him in surprise.
"Only by luck." Eliza chimed in. "Ari was bombed out of the rustic flat not far from here. She was found in the basement, the only survivor. It was dreadful. They had no place to put her and she landed with me."
Anna felt her face flush with shame. Her private life opened like an old infected wound.
She glanced at William who's eyes were trained on her.
"I… I have my gramophone." she said brightly. "I salvaged my record collection."
"Sounds grand." Howard said from his spot at the table. His shoes still undergoing shinning.
"If you don't mind." William said once the American was sure the gas line was sound and a fire was warming the room. "I'd like to have a bath."
"Sure." Anna said.
He nodded, grabbed his large, worn out pack, and went to the bathroom.
"He's a rather dull fellow." Eliza said from the kitchen as soon at the bathroom door shut. "How do you know him?"
"William?" Howard asked. "The Captain and I go way back. Always practical, always walks the line. What kept me alive at times. He is a bit of a stick in the mud though."
Eliza gave out a fake giggle that fooled no one.
"Oh, Charles, you're so funny." she said.
While her American was washing up, Anna cleaned as best she could. Despite being bombed out of house and home, she still had a great deal of things that didn't fit in the tiny flat. Her reading chair, her clothes, her gramophone, her books and even her old lamp. All of them were banged up, burned and battered, but they were hers. They were all she had left in the world. She had been especially happy when the gramophone had been pulled out of the wreckage. It had been a birthday gift from her father a few years ago. It played records and the wireless radio. It had been her constant companion during the war years. The great comforting voice of the BBC telling her the news of the war, the news of the world.
She was thankful it still worked, although there was little space for the thing in the flat she had to share. But even Eliza had to agree it played music beautifully.
Anna carefully pulled out the record collection her father left behind. The man was an opera fan and adored the Italians the most. Their music was so sad and seemed to stay in the mind forever. It coasted into her dreams and filled her with a romantic rush while doing the most mundane things.
"Very nice." Howard said as the stirring piano music glided though the air. The notes sounded lonely. As though they were lost in a storm. The accompanying harmony responded, like a mother calling her child home. But all were lost in war. Everything was lost.
"Oh that's much too melodramatic." Eliza sighed. "But on some Billie Holiday will you? We could use a festive mode."
Anna ignored her as the snow fell outside.