Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, No. 5. Whole No. 819, November 2009

Cora, Trix, and Lien have been riding together in this compartment for years now, way at the back of the train, at the very tip of its tail. Our compartment sticks out past the far edge of the station’s roof when the train comes to a halt, as if it’s not really a part of the train, as if, should it disappear while underway, no one would even notice its absence. Each morning, the first of them to arrive at the station commandeers the compartment and holds it for the rest of us, chasing away any potential trespassers.

Although this daily journey is a long-standing habit for the rest of them, it’s less than a month since I first joined them. After they’d gotten to know me a little at work, they’d invited me to enter their sanctum, their Holy Compartment, as if it was specially reserved just for the candy-factory girls.

They bring to the compartment the ambiance, the intimacy, of a living room or a neighborhood café: Cora’s inevitable box of bonbons sits in the middle of the fold-down table by the window like a pot of coffee or a bottle of gin; Lien never stops knitting for a moment; Trix stretches her long, stockinged legs across the seat and pages through a fashion magazine or gossip rag. They share their innermost thoughts back and forth, give each other advice, each laughing the loudest at her own personal misery.

The news means less to them than the scenery that floats by outside the train’s window: World events unfold outside their ability to influence them, and although of course things are always changing, their own lives remain constant, and it’s pointless to pick apart situations you can’t do anything about.

The three older conductors who work this run call them “the girls.” Every day, Cora offers to share her candy with them, too, but, like us, they always refuse. Not without disgust, their eyes go back and forth between the box and Cora’s overblown figure, as if she is full to her fingertips with bonbons, as if it’s pure cherry liqueur that courses through her veins.

But let one of them have a cold or seem even mildly distracted by whatever, and they gladly let Cora mother them. If she makes a comment about their beer bellies, their encroaching baldness, their potency, their protestations are rote — no real offense taken.

Trix, the object of their eternal admiration, never hesitates to encourage it. The moment the door swings open, she poses for them coquettishly. The on-duty conductor’s gaze arrows straight to the alluring passenger, then, instantly ashamed, passes on to Cora, who returns it meekly.

They chatter with Lien about the weekend’s soccer scores, about skating, boxing, bike racing, depending on the season. She and her husband never miss a local sporting event, and, though her knitting needles never hesitate in their dance, she knows exactly what’s happening at every moment of every contest.

For the conductors, our compartment is an oasis of constancy in a train filled with an ever-changing population. In return, they forgive us girls our occasional trespasses — if, for example, one of us forgets to renew her monthly pass, they let it slide. Sometimes, they’ll even delay the train’s departure while Cora buys a cup of coffee from the station’s vending machine and waddles in her matronly way back to our oasis at the far end of the train.

Outside the glass panes of the garden door, the unnaturally large red tulips somehow seemed to accentuate the lecture my father was delivering. The three of us — my father, my mother, and I — sat around the oval dining table under the flyspecked shantung shade of the hanging light fixture.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, his voice ominous.

I moved my foot beneath the table, felt it bump another foot, and pulled it back abruptly.

“I have to say, it’s impressive how thoroughly you’ve managed to waste every chance you’ve been given.”

My mother turned away.

“The only thing you seem to be able to do well is talk.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Apparently you got up in front of your class and delivered a poem. You had it pinned to your skirt, so all you had to do was glance down every once in a while to make sure you got the words right.”

I snuck a furtive glance at my skirt. It wasn’t the same one, but it was the same style: yards of fabric, with three petticoats under it. One by one, Ruud had slipped them off me. His eager fingers had clawed a hole in the light yellow one.

“And all the while some gang of dirt-bikers stood outside the classroom, staring in at you, hooting and hollering.”

Illuminated by bright sunlight that glittered off their handlebars and headlights, they made fun of the school and all the idiots who taught there. Right in front, leaning casually against his bike, was Ruud, dressed all in black. The only colors in the picture he presented were the blue of his squinting eyes and the red tip of the wooden match clenched between his teeth. Every so often, he languidly brushed back his Elvis-impersonator hair with the tips of his fingers.

As if in a trance, my voice rang out:

Miss Kalmoes tapped nervously on the window and waved the bikers away. She was a powerless little mouse with her dun-colored suit and her salt-and-pepper permanent. The boys stared back at her curiously, as if she were an exotic monkey doing a crazy little dance. The classroom felt like a kennel must feel to the dogs when a new keeper comes in and rattles their cages. My classmates were practically barking. But under the teacher’s glare, I stubbornly continued with my recitation:

“You don’t care about anything,” said my father, “except the opposite sex.”

“They never marry girls like you,” my mother added softly. “They chase after you, they use you up and throw you away and wind up with a decent girl instead.”

She looked pale, bloodless. There were dark circles under her eyes.

It must be awful , I thought, to have to spend your whole life with that man. I’m already sick of him.

“We’re at the end of our rope, your mother and I,” continued my father. He pulled the watch he’d gotten in honor of his twenty-fifth anniversary as a teacher out of the inside breast pocket of his jacket, glanced at it, and put it away again. It was his bridge night, so the inquisition couldn’t go on much longer.

“First we tried you in the regular high school, and when that didn’t work out, we thought, let’s put her into Home Ec classes, at least she’ll learn to cook and sew. But that’s just turned out to be a waste of time and money.”

A fly circled his head slowly, sluggish after spending the winter inside the house.

“You know,” he said, “your father is a socialist.” He waved the fly away from his face. “Freedom, equality, and brotherhood are all high on my list. But the masses have had all the culture siphoned out of them. When they don’t have to think , they’re in their element. And it’s sad, but you’ve joined that herd. I expected better things from my daughter, but you’ve decided otherwise. Well—” he cleared his throat — “go get a job. I don’t care what: cashier, maid, factory work, janitor, whatever.”

As if she had just heard my death sentence pronounced, my mother stared at me, her gaze heavy with pity and shame. She sat there stoically, her own daughter’s victim.

I can’t , I thought.