The Ride to Work

Julia gripped her rifle and hopped onto a streetcar heading to the front.  Half the seats were empty, so she picked one near the back door where she could be alone.  She rested her head on the window and the Mosin between her knees.  As the car lurched forward, her hand moved down her leg to find the double-headed eagle carved into the gun’s receiver.  This symbol of a proud and dead empire was now her idle fidget.  Her eyes lost focus and her mind floated to Marie in the worker’s canteen, and the night they stole together.

They had swirled around each other for a month, two leaves caught up in a storm of zeal and death that both freed their country and tore it apart.  Each noticed the other, and neither dared believed what they felt could be real.  Marie had been shot on the second day of fighting.  A German bullet fired by a Moroccan teenager in a Spanish uniform took her right eye and confined her to working as a cook for the people.  Julia started to eat at the former brick church exclusively and complimented the bright blue scarf Marie wore to cover her missing eye as a way of breaking the ice.  Marie was self-conscious about her wound, but took the compliment and started looking for excuses to run into Julia on the street.  Their conversations were easy but guarded.  Hours passed like minutes, taking them to the edge of truth but never the last step to freedom.

The streetcar was filling up now as fighters battling hangovers climbed aboard wearing a hodgepodge of clothing and gear.  Julia was stirred from her daze when a man who reeked of vodka collapsed in the seat beside her and started singing incoherently in Russian.  She shifted away and tried to take shallow breaths.  

Marie had surprised her last night, sneaking up onto the rooftop where Julia stood watch with a leftover heel of bread and a skin of sour red wine.  They were well behind the front, so Julia put down her rifle and sat by Marie, each took long pulls off the skin and tore chunks from the bread.  Julia inched closer, feeling the wine warm her chest and flush her cheeks.  Marie took her hand and drew in a breath to speak, but a crescendoing buzz rose from the west, stealing their attention and the moment.  

Above the city, stars blinked out one by one. The Condors were coming, their bombers thundered over the city killing Madrid with detached efficiency.  The first rolling explosions jolted Julia to action.  She grabbed Marie and her rifle then hauled both downstairs in a dash to reach the shelter before the dark birds swooped overhead. They didn’t make it.  On the second floor, the bombs arrived and forced them to take refuge in an office.  Under a desk, they folded into one another.  The air filled with splinters and heat.  Part of the ceiling collapsed, slamming into their feeble cover like a giant’s angry fist.  Julia started to cry and Marie cradled her head.  

When the air raid was over, they remained frozen.  Covered in plaster and dust they spoke at the same time, letting their hearts spill forth without restraint.  When the truth was laid bare they moved at the same time, letting passion take them before falling asleep as the city around outside burned.  In the morning they crawled from their hole, reluctant to leave what it had taken them so long to find.  Julia stepped away first but Marie pulled her back.  Marie took the scarf from her head and tied it around Julia’s neck. 

The streetcar ground to a stop a block from the front.  Julia got off and started walking to the book-lined apartment above a barricade her commander called a strong point.  She reached up to Marie’s scarf, checking that her love’s totum hung just so. The staccato bark of machine-gun fire reverberated down the narrow canyon of homes, causing her to stoop a bit and quicken her pace.  Julia sighed, her world was a beautiful ruin.