Into the Darkest Day

“The Americans,” Sophie said now, almost dreamily, turning her cigarette over between her fingers. “Do you know, I’ve never actually met one of the doughboys properly?”

“Haven’t you?” Lily slipped out of her dress and into her nightgown as quickly as she could. Wherever the cold air touched her bared flesh, goosebumps rippled in its wake. Sophie, lying half out the window, in only her blouse and skirt, seemed indifferent to the freezing temperature.

“I’ve seen them, of course. They’re everywhere nowadays, swaggering about, aren’t they? I’ve danced with one or two, but it never went anywhere. They can be forward.” She giggled, then turned her bright hazel eyes on her sister. “Have you met one?” She didn’t wait for Lily to respond before she answered her own question. “Of course you haven’t. Who do you meet, at the Admiralty, besides some stuffy old generals snoring away at their desks?”

“There aren’t any generals in the navy,” Lily reminded her sister. It was hardly the first time she’d said such a thing. “And, in any case, it’s mainly women in the Casualties Section.”

“It’s mainly women everywhere,” Sophie answered dismissively. She flicked her cigarette butt out the window, a glimmer of orange against the endless dark of the blackout.

“Sophie,” Lily said in gentle reproof.

“There hasn’t been an air raid in over a week.”

“That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one tonight.” There had been talk about the Germans launching another bombing campaign, now that the Allies were giving Berlin a beating. It had been fairly quiet for months, but no one ever knew what next hardship or tragedy lay ahead. The future felt like a minefield, littered with dashed hopes, and, worse, dreams that might never be realized.

Sophie rose from the windowsill and Lily moved to close the curtains, staring out at the night sky for a moment, a thousand stars glittering and twinkling amidst all the black, making everything seem wonderfully serene, frosty and still, like Christmas, although that had passed nearly a fortnight ago, a scant celebration with no Christmas tree to be found, although her mother had saved enough coupons to make a Christmas cake.

If she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, she could almost be lulled to sleep by that false yet alluring sense of tranquility, peace on earth, even though there was anything but.

Already she could imagine how the still silence would be punctured by that awful insistent whine that rose in volume and frequency until it was followed by far, far worse sounds—the loud buzzing drone of planes flying low over the city, and then the thud and crackle of bombs falling as the night sky lit up like an inferno, impossible to take in, to believe it was real.

Lily shut the window and drew the blackout curtains tightly across, closing out another night. “Let’s go to bed,” she said firmly and Sophie sighed and stretched languorously before flicking on a lamp, bathing the room in a warm, yellow glow.

“I bet you wouldn’t even know what to do with an American soldier if you met him,” she tossed over her shoulder as she started to undress.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with a British one, either,” Lily quipped.

Sophie started to unbutton her blouse. “You need a boyfriend, Lil. A proper boyfriend.”

“As do you, it seems.” Lily slipped beneath the covers of her bed, wincing at how icy the sheets were. She tucked up her legs and curled her toes, fighting to keep hold of what little warmth she had.

“Don’t I ever,” Sophie drawled. Neither of them had ever had a proper boyfriend. Lily hadn’t so much as said boo to a boy, and while Sophie had had plenty of admirers, she seemed content to preen and pet, flirt and fawn for only a brief while before she dropped them flat. He has bad breath, she’d tell Lily. Or his ears stick out, it makes him look like a monkey. Or, the most damning of all: I discovered he is simply too deadly dull.

Lily wondered if it would be different for Sophie with an American. Would a GI catch her interest for more than a moment? Long enough to last? It seemed unlikely, and in any case, she doubted their mother would approve of an American courting one of her daughters.

“Maybe I need an American,” Sophie stated, clearly thinking along the same lines. She glanced in the mirror, pouting dramatically at her reflection before she turned away with a laugh, unable to take even herself seriously. “You know what they say about them, don’t you?”

“Got any gum, chum?” Lily guessed. Although she’d never talked properly to any American soldiers, she’d seen them in the street and sometimes in the dance halls, when she’d accompanied Sophie, and stumbled her way through a jitterbug or two, before her partner inevitably found a woman who was more adept. Standing on the sidelines, sipping a glass of lukewarm lemonade, she couldn’t help but notice their smart uniforms and hear their brash accents, and see how free they were with cigarettes and chewing gum and wide, white smiles.

“No, not that,” Sophie said as she stripped off her blouse and skirt, dropping them carelessly onto a chair and standing before Lily, unabashed, in nothing but her brassiere and slip. How, Lily wondered, was she not freezing? “They say they’re overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” She giggled before shrugging out of her underclothes and then grabbed her nightgown and pulled it over her head.

“I wouldn’t know anything about any of that,” Lily said.

“Oh, don’t sound so prim.” Sophie turned off the light and jumped into bed, the mattress springs protesting at her actions.

“I can’t help it,” Lily returned with a little laugh. “I am prim.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met anyone interesting yet,” Sophie answered mischievously, her covers drawn up to her chin. “Perhaps you need to meet a GI—properly.” She imbued the innocent word with a melodramatic lasciviousness that made Lily smile, despite her tiredness.

“Perhaps,” she agreed, rolling over onto her side to present her back to her sister, not that she could see it in the dark, or if she could, that it would keep her from talking.

“Imagine having a GI as a boyfriend,” Sophie mused. “They’ve got ever so much money. Heaps and heaps.”

“And they live in America,” Lily pointed out. “Which is rather far away.”

“I wouldn’t mind living in America.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Lily couldn’t imagine living so far from her parents and Clapham, all that she knew and held dear. Yet, for a second, she imagined a GI—blond, brash, so typically American—favoring her with his smile. Asking her to dance, or to take a walk…