Electric Velocipede 26 by John Klima

Author:John Klima [Klima, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Then came the days of bombs, and blackouts, and ration cards. Mrs. Henderson went to work as an ambulance driver, and a lot of the ladies Mummy knew went to be nurses or secretaries, or take other jobs the boy didn’t quite understand. Many of the boy’s friends went away to the country, and before she left to drive the ambulance Mrs. Henderson tried to convince Mummy to send him away as well. “He’s only ten, Ma’am! He shouldn’t be here, not now. Your uncle still has that lovely house in Yorkshire, why don’t—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Henderson,” Mummy said icily, sounding unkind for one of the few times in the boy’s memory. “But that won’t be necessary. We’ll be safe here.”

Mrs. Henderson looked as if she wanted to say more, but just shook her head. She kissed the boy on the cheek and cast him a pitying look as she left with her suitcase. “Be safe, lad. Take care of your Mum.”

On the nights when the sirens went, the boy and his mother went down to the cellar and sat with their backs against the wooden door. Mummy assured him it would be safe, but she still flinched whenever they heard a bomb fall nearby. She often had dark circles under her eyes now, and the boy began to notice strands of grey in the deep brown of her hair. Even after nights when they had no sleep because of the bombs, she left for her job early in the morning. She’d been forced to take the boy with her once, when the road to his school was blocked, and he had spent a bewildering morning watching her and four other women bustle about and shuffle papers and tell people whose houses had been bombed where they would be staying now. He’d watched the line of grubby, silent people and thought of the bomb craters and piles of rubble where there had once been buildings, new ones every time he went with Mummy while she did the shopping. He wondered when he and Mummy would have to join that line of sad people.

In the years since she had shown him the Still Room, they had spoken of it only occasionally. There had been times when he had asked to see it again and she had gone down to the cellar with her key. The boy had tried to detect the slow movement of their bodies, but couldn’t be sure if anything had changed. Mummy had always indulged these requests, but never seemed to want to stay in the cellar or discuss it for very long.

Now they didn’t speak of it at all, even though they spent so many of their nights leaning against the door. At first it was because they were both too busy thinking of other things. Then, the boy realized that Mummy had always been a little frightened when she talked about it, although she hid it well; he understood that they didn’t speak of it anymore because there was too much fear already.

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