An Owl's Whisper (13 page)

Huntress and Prey

Summer never came in 1942. Spring hung on and on, and spun smoothly into autumn. So, plates at St. Sébastien held leafy greens and boiled turnips, but little else.

One July evening, Clarisse LaCroix rehearsed her lines one last time, then shattered the dark quiet in the dormitory after lights out. “Christ, are we fucking rabbits? Every morning I rouge the sickly cast of my cheeks. God, if every green leaf in Belgium withered brown, I’d starve happily. I swear, when this shitty war is over, I’ll choke myself on bloody red meat.”

Clarisse sat still, waiting wide-eyed in the dark. The only reaction she got was silence, topped with quiet sobs. She shook her head in disgust. “My best dramatics—wasted like a fireworks show for a morgue of corpses!”

More silence. Finally Eva replied, with a voice soft as flannel, “You can’t shock saying what all of us feel, Clarisse. Especially at night when the hunger is worst.”

“Maybe you’re right, Blondie.” Clarisse flopped down on her pillow. “Damn
Boche
—can’t even light things up around here anymore.”

In August, things got worse. Belgium was being called on to surrender an increased portion of her food for shipment to the Eastern front. That made scarcity life’s constant backdrop when Mother Catherine summoned Eva to her office one afternoon in October.

Eva listened to her steps echoing down the dark hallway.
Now what does she want? Since she turned me in to uncle for walking with Johannes, snow packs the space between us. Snow too deep for summer to melt. Too cold for a smile to thaw. She can just get used to it.

Eva knocked and entered Mother’s office. When the nun looked up from her work, Eva nodded cautiously. “Yes, Mother Catherine?”

Mother put down her pen and folded her hands. “Eva, please sit. We all know first hand that food is terribly short these days and getting worse with each passing week. The generosity of your uncle, bless him, has helped us get by, but now there is less he can do. I have prayed for a solution, and perhaps my prayers have been answered.”

Eva glanced at her fingernails. “
Dieu merci
for prayers that put bread on the table.”

“Last night I fell asleep praying on the matter.” Mother got up and walked toward Eva. “I had a dream, one right out of the biblical story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. I was standing at the door to the kitchen, looking out, wondering how to feed us all, and I could think of nothing. Then I saw you approaching, and you were holding three brown rabbits by the ears, and they were swaying as you walked. You said they had come to you and offered themselves for our table, because they knew we were hungry. And Sister Martine made a stew of their sacrifice and it was thick and rich and miraculously there was plenty for the fifty-one of us—all that we could eat and even some left over—and it was delicious. Everyone seemed happy for the first time in so long. And after dinner I led the girls in a prayer of thanks for the sacrifice of the three and for you who brought them to our kitchen. And you smiled. That smile was a second miracle for me, as nourishing as the first, because I’ve missed it so.”

Eva wanted to grasp the olive branch, but pride held her back. “Everyone knows food is scarce, Mother. I doubt you’ve called me in just to tell me about dreams.”

Mother paused for a moment, then cleared her throat. “This morning at breakfast, Sister Arnaude told me she’d found Father Celion’s old shotgun and some ammunition while cleaning the stables. Before the war, he sometimes hunted on the convent property. Sister grew up in the countryside—her papa managed the game and the grounds of a large estate. With no brothers, she often accompanied him on hunting forays. She practiced and eventually became a huntress
cordon bleu
. Sister wishes she could hunt the convent grounds to supplement our larder, but heavy as she is, that’s not possible. I mentioned my dream, and she said, ‘Eva is at home outdoors. If she’s willing, I could teach her how to hunt, and she could be our savior.’ My dream and sister’s discovery coming together like this—I can only see it as God’s hand opening a door. You’re the only girl up to this challenge, Eva. Could you do it?”

Eva swallowed hard. “Is it even allowed under the regulations?”

“It seems to be, my dear.
Monsieur
Tellier down the road hunts his orchard grounds. What I’m asking is, could you bring yourself to shoot one of God’s creatures?”

Eva thought about Françoise’s legs, now spindly as a stork’s. And the way the others were wasting, too. She had no choice. Eva squared her shoulders like a soldier coming to attention. “St. Sébastien is my family. It’s the truest cowardice not to kill, when necessary to save one’s family.” Eva glanced at the ceiling, already planning. “I do see rabbits and quail on my walks, but Caspie likes to chase them. I’ll have to leave him here.”

Mother fumbled with papers on her desk. “Yes, Sister Arnaude mentioned Caspar. Just having him here probably keeps some of the smaller game away, Sister thinks. As another mouth to feed, he’s been in my thoughts as well. He doesn’t require much I’ll grant, but—”

“But what?” Eva sizzled. “Caspar’s one of us, so there’s nothing to talk about.”

That afternoon Sister Arnaude showed Eva how to load and handle Fr. Celion’s single-barreled shotgun. Eva discharged it twice, hitting an empty meat tin hung by a white string from a branch of an old oak—the one the Owls called
The Morel Tree
because of its shape.

Eva and Sister Arnaude went out early the next morning. Sister Arnaude waited in the orchard, watching her pupil move through the meadow to the thicket and woods across the stream that bisected the convent grounds. She heard five pops spread over the next thirty minutes. Finally, Eva emerged from the thicket. As she crossed the meadow, Sister Arnaude was encouraged the apparent heft to the burlap bag Eva carried in her left hand.

As Eva drew near, the nun called, “I heard the shots. Did you bag anything?”

“Two quail and a rabbit.” Eva tried to look nonchalant. “Probably beginner’s luck.”

“Quail,” Sister said reverently, “and rabbit.” She crossed herself. “God be praised.” The nun closed her fleshy eyelids, already tasting the evening’s fare.

After the study hour that afternoon, just before dinner, the students went to wash up. Most of the girls scrubbed their hands with lye soap and tepid water. Clarisse LaCroix sat on the cold radiator next to a cracked-open window and smoked a cigarette.

Dani rushed in from kitchen duty. Her eyes were wild. “Guess what, everybody!”

“By the look on your face, l’Hôpital,” Camille said, “I’d say you have to pee.”

“No.” Dani looked annoyed. “Guess what we’re eating tonight. Guess!”

Simone groaned from a toilet stall, “Like yesterday and the day before—turnips.”

Dani replied, “No, No. Much more savory and exotic.”

Eva quietly slipped out the door.

Clarisse blew a smoke ring. “Savory and exotic, eh? Then my guess is shit soup. Troutsie, you should flush twice—it’s a long way to the kitchen.”

Half of the girls giggled, and half of them groaned.

Dani said, “Because of your mouth, Clarisse, I’m not telling.”

Clarisse mimed wiping tears from her eyes. “Boo hoo hoo. I’m so sorry for infecting your virgin ears, Danielle. Please, pretty please, won’t you tell us?”

“No, I won’t, and you’re to blame, you toad.” Dani bit her lip. “Well, maybe I’ll give you a clue. It involves M, E, A, and T!”

Girls squealed, and all at once, they jostled for the door. They scurried down the corridor to the dining hall like a coursing avalanche. The mob slowed only when they passed Sister Eusebia in the hallway. As they moved by the kitchen, the wonderful aroma of game stew got every tongue wagging, even Clarisse’s. Each girl raced to her place, and the dining room buzzed.

The giddy noise stopped with Mother Catherine’s first step into the room. With all eyes on her, she glided to her place at the head of the center table and stood behind her chair. Mother waited a dignified moment. “My flowers, tonight we enjoy a meal made special, I should say possible, by the bounty of the Lord, by the hand of Sister Martine, and by the sharp eye of Eva Messiaen. A lovely hunter’s stew of quail and rabbit, carrot and turnip.” Applause and squeals rippled through the dining room, chased by Clarisse’s piercing whistle. “In honor of the occasion, I brought three bottles of wine up from the chapel vault, just as on Christmas and Easter. Each of you may have a sip. Now rise and join me in singing our grace.”

This was a meal that St. Sébastien girls talked about for years afterward, even long after the war had ended, when they were grown with children of their own. And those children could never understand how a meal, especially one that seemed meager by the standards of the day, could hold memories their mothers cherished so dearly.

Eva had the game-finding instincts of a pointer. She moved quietly as a cat. And her shot flew with the accuracy of an owl’s talon. For the first few weeks she usually came home with several quail, rabbits, or squirrels—enough to fortify the soup. She let herself dream of coming onto a deer or a boar, though she never did. But soon there was an obvious drop off in her game bag’s heft. In the eighth week, Eva came back from her excursion empty-handed for the first time. Soon after, it happened again. By mid-November, she counted it a good day when she came back with anything at all.

With the chill of winter setting in and food sources dwindling, the outlook in December 1942 for those at St. Sébastien became bleaker than ever. It was in that month, just ten days before Christmas, that Caspar disappeared. Eva came to the barn that morning and was surprised when he didn’t race out to meet her. She called, but there was no sign of him. Eva spent thirty minutes whistling for him and running to places like the door to Sister Martine’s kitchen where he might be. It was as if the earth had swallowed him up. She raced back to the dormitory. No one had seen Caspar. She went to Mother Catherine’s office. Sister Eusebia was there alone.

“I have to speak to Mother,” Eva said. “Is she about?”

“No, I haven’t seen her since early today. Dr. Humbert came by this morning and she spoke with him. Outside.” She shrugged. “You might try the chapel.”

Eva found Mother there, kneeling in front of the statue of Mary, the one in which the Virgin gazes placidly skyward while she crushes the head of a serpent with her bare feet. The nun’s frame sagged, as if anvils hung from her shoulders.

Eva approached, unobserved. “Mother, excuse the intrusion. I can’t find Caspie.”

The nun jerked erect, like a jumble of beads snapped linear as their string is pulled taut. “My dear, dog sometimes go off after a rabbit. If so, perhaps he’ll be back.”

“No, Mother. He never leaves without me. Something has happened.”

“Child, you saw the poor thing’s ribs.” Mother’s look was a plea for understanding. “Hunger may drive a creature to desperation.”

Eva’s gaze narrowed. As if she suddenly did understand. Everything. And Mother took on the look of prey in the huntress’ sights. Prey longing for the peace that follows the blow.

“Hunger may drive even a human being to desperate acts, unless character stays her hand.” Eva’s voice was velvet on steel. “And if not character, then perhaps Our Lord. For surely He, Who watches over even the smallest wren, knows what Caspar means to me. Knows he is my life. Knows that she who takes him
kills
me.” Her eyes glistened. “The righteous Lord won’t let such sin go unpunished.” Eva clenched her fists. “
Nor will I
.” She inhaled slowly. “You will include Caspar’s safe return in your prayers, won’t you, Mother Catherine?” Eva turned away before the nun could reply.

Caspar didn’t return that day. Or the next. Or the next. Or ever.

Voices in the Vault

As a six-year old, baby-faced Nathalie lost her thumb in a streetcar accident. Since then, she’d never been the center of attention—until a chilly February morning in 1943.