The Last Green Valley - Mark Sullivan (black female authors .txt) 📗

their boxcar and the boxcars behind them were now crowded with people trying to get safely seated before the train began to move.

A minute later, it did, belching smoke from its ancient stack, groaning, whining, and then slowly picking up speed. They left the protection of the station’s canopy. The sun beat down mercilessly on them as they rolled past German soldiers and artillery pieces chained to flatbed cars in the rail yard.

Leaving the yard, the train looped southwest through the city and then north, roughly paralleling the Danube River while slowly gathering speed. The wind blew the locomotive smoke away from them, allowing Adeline to catch thrilling glimpses of the bridges that spanned the Danube and, high on a hill, the ancient and grand fortress of the Hungarian kings.

Rese began to sing an old drinking song about a soulful wanderer in search of love, and Adeline and Malia and many other people atop the boxcar joined in with her. For a few moments, Adeline felt her spirits lifted, elated almost and yet easy, and she wondered whether this was what freedom felt like.

By the time they’d cleared the Budapest city limits, Adeline had decided that the locomotive was either very old or very damaged, because it tended to belch thick whips of dark smoke and seemed incapable of traveling very fast. But at top speed and as long as you weren’t straight downwind of the smokestack, the wind made the powerful sun more than bearable. It was . . . well, nice, pleasant. Almost freedom, she decided.

“I like riding up here, Mama,” Will said, grinning.

“I do, too,” Adeline said, smiling and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

Walt leaned his chest against the railing to peer forward up the track. “Here comes a tunnel!”

They swung into the darkness, which made the speed seem faster. Will screamed for joy at the top of his lungs, which made them all laugh. In the next tunnel, Rese joined Will, and soon they were all doing it, screaming for joy every time they hurtled from light to darkness to light once more.

At one point, Rese grinned and laughed as she looked over at Adeline and the boys all anticipating the next tunnel. “This is the best I’ve felt since we left home. I can’t remember being this happy ever, Adeline.”

“We’re on an adventure,” Walt said.

“We are, aren’t we?” Rese said, looking in love with that idea.

“Yes,” Will said, “because you never know how things are going to turn out.”

Five hours into their journey, nearing the Hungarian town of Tata, the train came to another stop above a grassy opening that sloped down to a small lake that was settled at the other end. One of the engineers came out of the locomotive along with Major Haussmann, who walked past them, shouting that there would be a half-hour delay here while military trains passed ahead. While they were all free to get off to relieve themselves or have a cigarette, Haussmann also told them to stay close to the train.

The sun was intense again now that they were no longer moving.

“Pretty lake,” Malia said. “Looks good enough to swim in.”

“I’m game,” Rese said, grinning and putting on her shoes.

“You’re not,” Adeline said.

“Watch me,” Rese said, standing up.

Malia clapped and laughed. “What if Karoline catches you?”

“Oh, what if she does?” Rese said, winking at the boys as she started to climb down the ladder. “I know how to swim, and she doesn’t.”

“I want to go in the water, Mama,” Will said. “It’s hot.”

“Me, too, Papa,” Walt said to Emil, who had climbed up at the last stop.

“None of us knows how to swim,” Emil said. “And I don’t want you to drown.”

Rese, meanwhile, jumped off the bottom rung of the ladder, and with a wave at them all, she started to trot down through the lush spring grass toward the lake a hundred meters off. Other people were exiting their boxcars, some smoking, some going off to piss. But no one headed toward the water except Rese. She reached shore, turned back toward the train, and waved wildly at them, before pivoting and stepping out into the water. She took another awkward step and a third before losing her balance, crashing forward, and submerging.

Rese did not come up.

And she did not come up.

Adeline felt a ball in her throat start to build before Rese’s head suddenly popped out of the lake. She blew out a stream of water, threw back her head, and shrieked with delight before diving under again.

“How did she learn to swim like that?” Malia asked.

“At school in Pervomaisk,” Emil said. “When she was a little girl, she took to it like a fish and—”

The train whistle blew. Major Haussmann came hurrying back up the side of the train, shouting, “Back aboard! The track has cleared ahead. Back aboard or you’ll be left behind!”

Down in the lake, Rese surfaced again. Emil cupped his mouth with both palms and shouted at her, “We’re leaving, Rese!”

She didn’t hear him at first. They all started screaming and waving to her. “Come back to the train! We’re leaving!”

Adeline could tell Rese didn’t believe them at first. They were supposed to be there thirty minutes, after all. But then the train whistle blew a second time and Rese started swimming as fast as she could toward shore. She came up out of the water, held her soaking skirts high, and started running up the hill, following her own path back up through the long grass.

“Come on, Rese!” Malia yelled.

And now they were all hooting at her and calling encouragement. Rese’s grin got bigger and bigger the closer she got to them. She was soaking wet, her clothes had grass all over them, and yet it all made Adeline realize that she’d never known someone quite like her sister-in-law. Rese was pretty and smart and very funny. She did not care what other people thought of her when she did crazy things like this. She was