“Come on, honey, no time for false modesty,” Jenou says.
“There’s nothing false about my modesty. This is perfectly genuine modesty.” Rio begins to strip, stacking her clothing carefully in the box.
She feels extraordinarily exposed. And since it is a brisk day and the building is not heated she also feels cold, especially her now-bare feet on the linoleum floor.
Now she joins the line along with Jenou, who, to Rio’s quiet satisfaction, finally seems just a little abashed and uncertain.
The line shuffles forward until they reach a man in a white coat. The fact that he, too, seems bored strikes Rio as funny.
“Lots of men might enjoy this job,” she whispers to Jenou.
“Maybe he doesn’t like girls.”
“What do you mean?”
Jenou looks at her, seems to see something in her eyes and shakes her head in wonder. “You really are so sweet, Rio. Remind me someday when we’re as bored as he is and I’ll tell you all about the birds and the bees, and also the bees and the bees and the birds and the birds.”
“Step up!” the doctor snaps. “You, brunette. Have you had any disease that might affect your ability to perform your duties?”
“The other man already—”
“Yes or no?”
“No,” Rio says.
“Do you have any form of venereal disease?”
“Pardon me?”
“That’s a no. Pregnant?”
“I’m not married, as you can see!” She holds up an empty ring finger.
“Cough.”
“What?”
“Cough. Cough, cough, cough. Are you going to make me repeat every question and instruction? Cough!”
Rio coughs.
“Turn your head left. Now right. Now look at the chart on the wall behind me, cover your left eye, and read the top line.”
“E, G, R—”
“Now the other eye.”
“E, G, R, Q—”
“Quiet.” He holds a cold stethoscope to her chest. “Now prop your leg up on this stool.”
Rio does, and the doctor snaps a triangular rubber mallet against her knee, causing her leg to twitch.
“Well,” the doctor says, “at least you two are big, strapping country girls.”
“Excuse me?” Jenou demands archly.
“The Depression took a toll on the size and health of recruits. If this were 1922 instead of 1942, there wouldn’t be many females up to par. But a lot of males are undersized and under strength. If you only knew how many young men I have to reject for lack of sufficient teeth, or bowed legs, or . . .” He realizes he’s complaining to a pair of recruits, stops himself, and quickly stamps their papers.
Then it’s time to retrieve their boxes of clothing, dress, and proceed through one more door, where they merge again with the men and boys.
And there a final corporal stands waiting. As soon as twenty recruits have filled the room, he yells, “Attention!”
All twenty people in the room execute something that vaguely resembles the sort of attention they’ve seen in movies.
An officer strides into the room, barely glances up, and reads from a wrinkled and coffee-stained piece of paper.
“I, state your name.”
“I, Rio Richlin” melts into a sea of voices pronouncing names.
The oath is dry and formal but has the effect of silencing the last whispers and titters in the room.
It’s happening. Right now, it’s happening.
“Do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
The captain shoves the paper back into his blouse pocket and says, “Congratulations. You are all now members of the US Army.”
Rio turns slowly to meet Jenou’s unusually serious face.
“Just like that,” Jenou says. “We’re soldiers now.”
Rio looks past her friend and finds an even more serious expression on Strand’s face. He is at the far end of the room and has forgotten to lower his hand after taking the oath.
Then he spots her, realizes his hand is still up, lowers it, and smiles a sheepish smile.
Rio thinks, We’re soldiers now.
RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
“Women soldiers are an abomination!”
Rainy turns to look at the source. There is a group of perhaps twenty people, mostly women, holding signs reading, Eve is not Adam!!! and, 1 Timothy 2:12. Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence!!!
She doubts even the Christian Bible comes with that many exclamation points, and she toys with the idea of offering her own favorite verse from the Torah, Judges 4:21: “But Ja’el the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, till it went down into the ground . . . ” But she thinks better of it. A future in military intelligence does not begin with picking fights in train stations.
On the platform she tries to hear the garbled announcements from the public address, but it’s as noisy as a fair with farewells all around her and the hissing of steam engines and the shouts of false gaiety from nervous and excited soldiers.
She can hardly bear to look around her. So much sadness and worry from so many little family groups, so many mothers with tears, and so many fathers struggling not to reveal any emotion at all. It’s a sea of olive drab and khaki, white handkerchiefs held to red noses, pink ribbons tied around newspaper-wrapped food parcels, coral lipstick on the lips of girlfriends, but these sprinkles of color only seem to accentuate the grayness of it all, the gray coats and shabby graying dresses, and gray-green fedoras pulled low, and gray abashed faces of men who are seeing off girlfriends for the first time in history.
Girl and women soldiers are going off to war, wearing pants and boots, shouldering heavy packs and duffels. Some are at the end of their leave after basic training, heading off to deployments in places whose names will be excised from their letters home by the censors. Some are home on leave from Britain or Australia.
It can’t ever have been easy, Rainy thinks, not any war. But the rituals are different now. It has always been that the men went off and the women wept and waved. There is no blueprint for what is happening now. There is no easy reference point. People don’t know quite how to behave, and it’s worse for the men in the station who are staying behind and feel conspicuous and ashamed.
She sees belligerent, defensive looks even as men hug their uniformed sweethearts. She sees looks of dark suspicion aimed at male soldiers when they acknowledge their fellow female soldiers with a grin or a handshake or a clap on the back.
It is all worth noticing, worth considering, Rainy believes. It is all a part of this war. It’s