Emancipation Day by Wayne Grady Page B

his arms and say, “The war can wait.”
    She thought he wasn’t there yet, and then she saw him. He had a table, and had placed his greatcoat and cap on the chair beside him, saving a place for her. And on the table was a glass of Coke for him and a pot of tea for her. That was all it took. He was the only one in the station in a Navy uniform. He looked so young, a little boy in a sailor’s suit. He saw her and waved and she waved back. Eyes turned in her direction.
    He put his greatcoat on the table, then took it off the table and placed it on the floor under his chair, then put his cap on the table, then took it off the table and placed it on top of his greatcoat, where it fell to the floor. She picked it up and put it on her lap when she sat down. They decided on fish and chips. Jack took a flask from inside his tunic and topped up his glass of Coke. He offered to pour some into her teacup, but she said, “Thanks but no thanks.” She didn’t know anyone who drank in the middle of the day, not even her father.
    “This place gives me the creeps,” he said, looking around the crowded room.
    “Why? It’s just a train station.”
    Something had changed in him. He was uncomfortable. Shewished she’d thought of somewhere more private for their first date, even Baird’s would have been better than this.
    “Any one of these bums could be a spy,” he said, indicating the men in civilian dress. “On the Derry Run we sank this U-boat, see, then we had to stop and pick up the survivors. There weren’t many. We had to go out in boats and hook them out of the water. The brass wanted to know what ship they’d been attached to, for intelligence.” He paused and took a drink.
    “How awful,” she said.
    That mocking look had gone out of his eyes. Three long weeks at sea had taken the confidence out of him, and although she hadn’t liked his cockiness, she liked this nervousness even less.
    She wondered if the German government sent out something like the Bulletin , if there were German women sitting in their kitchens at this very moment reading of the deaths of husbands or brothers or fiancés. Men who’d died fighting for something the women didn’t believe in. Of course there were. She wanted to take his hand, to draw him closer to her, closer than the war, and stop him from speaking these horrors. But she didn’t, and he went on.
    “Some of the bodies were wearing ordinary clothes, suits, socks, ties—just like these guys. You’d think they were us, except they were German spies, going to be put ashore in Halifax or St. John’s to pose as Canadians, mingle with the sailors and GIs in the bars, get them talking, find out what their orders are. They had theatre tickets in their pockets for movies playing that week, and ration booklets, matches from St. John’s and Halifaxnightclubs. They had passports with Canadian names, home addresses in Ontario and Manitoba, letters from sweethearts, photos of wives and children.”
    “Where did they get all those things?”
    “From our guys who were shot in Europe, that’s where,” he said.
    She gasped.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Remember what I said about loose lips?” He nodded towards a group of civilians standing by the Departures sign. “They could all be spies. You can’t tell anything about a person just by the way he looks.” He looked at her for so long she thought she had missed something.
    “Not you, Jack,” she said. “You’re exactly what you look like.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right. You’re safe with me.”
    She put her hand lightly on his arm.
    “We could buy two tickets and be a thousand miles away by this time tomorrow,” he said. “The sky’s the limit. What do you say?”
    Was that a proposal? The war had brought the world to Newfoundland, to her door. Hadn’t she wanted the world? Yes, but she wanted to leave the island to see it, not have it hauled aboard like some thrashing sea creature. And now he, too, wanted to be on the