Under a War-Torn Sky (11 page)

On the seventh evening she chose to play a melancholy piece called the “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven. Henry was drawn from the sofa to the edge of the grand Steinway piano. While she concentrated on the music, he watched her face. It glowed with a rapt appreciation of the music, making her beauty even more intriguing. She obviously found a peace in the melody like that he found in a quiet sky. And yet he could sense it was a more intellectual, complicated joy than the instinctive pleasure Henry felt in flying. He could tell, too, that she was so engaged, so elevated by creating this moment of musical beauty, she had completely forgotten his presence, forgotten the sorrow of her imprisoned son, forgotten the danger of her clandestine work. It was as if he were witnessing a rebirth, a brand new butterfly shedding ugliness and discovering with some surprise and delight that it had wings.

Captivated, he studied her more closely. It was hard to gauge her age exactly. She had lines around her eyes, but they seemed etched more by laughter than by age. She also wore makeup beyond the simple lipstick that Patsy and his mother applied for church and special outings. Yet it was subtle, like the perfume she wore, simply accentuating a sophisticated femininity that was already there. He watched her hands lilt across the piano's bright white keys – her own fingers long and creamy, unblemished by sunburn or picking crops.

But it wasn't so much her well-preserved beauty that mesmerized him. It was a cultivated intelligence that Henry couldn't quite understand, a completely new world of arts and books and refinement that she represented. She had an aura of knowing sadness that she counterbalanced somehow with a determined generosity and hope for happiness. She seemed so unwavering. He could see why fliers followed her through checkpoints.

That was it, he told himself. It was her strength that fascinated him. Sadness had seemed to forge her, rather than leave her broken, as it had so many of the people he'd seen worn out by the Depression and its deprivations. He didn't detect any of the bitter anger that drove Clayton either.

Just then, Madame's hands began to falter. She paused to look up, the minor-key chord she had struck still resonating in the air. Henry hadn't realized until that moment that he had inched quite close to her, close enough to hear her catch her breath. Her eyes caught his. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his temple.

A slow, thoughtful smile crept onto her face. “You flatter me,
chéri
,” she whispered, and looked back down to the keyboard.

Henry waited, trembling slightly, confused, eager but afraid at the same time for something – he didn't know what – to happen.

The tantalizing silence lasted only moments, but felt like for ever.

When Madame looked back up at him, her face was masked with a slightly flirtatious, wry smile that Henry had seen as kind and warm but now recognized as anything but intimate. “Do you know American ragtime, young man? It comes from your area of the country, does it not?” And she kicked the piano into a Scott Joplin jaunt.

Henry went back to the sofa and picked up her little dog.

The next afternoon, Henry wandered the house as he was free to do as long as he never lingered in front of a window. He wanted to get another book from Madame's well-stocked library. Most of the volumes were in French, some were even in Latin, but he'd found about three dozen in English. He'd read two books and even tried making his way through his favourite Jules Verne, untranslated.

He studied the many paintings hanging in her house as he made his way to the library. He'd already discovered several spots on the wall where something had used to hang and no longer did. He speculated this was how she kept herself afloat financially – selling off family heirlooms to the Nazis down the street. The idea made him furious.

During the past week, Madame had identified many of the remaining paintings for him. “That is a Renoir,” she'd said, for instance. “My father collected the Impressionists. And this is by Morisot. She was a woman, you know. Just as good as the male Impressionists, don't you agree?”

“Impressionists?” Henry had asked, feeling like an uneducated bumpkin around her. But Madame never patronized him. She seemed to enjoy educating him. Henry sucked in the information, hungry to learn new things, realizing how much he missed school, how much he thrived on someone treating him with respect and fuelling his mind.

Running his hand along the shelves, Henry found a volume of English poetry by William Wordsworth. He cracked it open. His eyes fell on the line: “For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth; but hearing often-times the still, sad music of humanity…” The words touched him, reminding him of Madame playing the piano the previous night. Henry took the book into the drawing room, where the piano was, where it was sunniest.

When he opened the door his heart jumped. There was Madame standing in front of a painting, staring at it. It was one he'd puzzled over before. It was very odd. There was a nose here, an elbow beside it, crisscrossed eyes and legs where the head should be. She turned to look at him and her expression seemed full of regret.

“Do you know Picasso?” asked Madame.

Henry shook his head.

“I know Picasso,” she said in a low voice and with a bittersweet smile of remembrance.

Henry felt himself blush at the warmth of her voice and the obvious meaning of her comment.

Madame's throaty laugh embarrassed him further. “
Ah, chéri.
” She tucked her arm through his. “I didn't mean to shock you. You have not known a woman yet, have you?”

Henry was mortified by the question. He felt his face flame red hot. He looked at his shoes and muttered, “No, ma'am.”

She pulled him close to her and said gently, “I hope when it happens,
chéri
, it is as full of passion and love as the time I knew with Pablo. Remember to cherish your lady when you hold her. I can tell that you will love completely when you do.” She looked back up to the painting. “Pablo was a monster when he turned on a lover. But before” – she paused – “
il était superbe.
I will always have that.”

The butler entered the drawing room. Madame stepped away from Henry's side, and he felt the loss like a cold draught. “
Je dois vous parler, Madame,
” said the man.

“Stay here,
chéri
,” Madame told Henry as she glided out of the room.

That night, as Henry lay in bed, he heard voices outside his room. He peeped through the door and saw the butler ushering a man and woman into another bedroom across the hall. They lugged suitcases, several bundles, and what looked like violin cases – as if they were carrying all the possessions they possibly could. The butler re-emerged, holding two coats. On the coats were yellow stars.

Madame met the butler at the top of the stairs. “
Brule-les immédiatement,
” she told him. There was urgency in her voice.

Henry opened his door and asked, “Can I help, Madame?”

She put her fingers to her lips and signalled for him to go back into his room. She followed and closed the door behind them. “They must not know you are here,
chéri
,” she whispered. “And you must not know they have come.” She looked at him meaningfully. “
Tu comprends?
”

Henry nodded.

“The time has come to part. It is too dangerous for you here now. This evening I procured a train ticket and papers for you to travel to Grenoble. You must trust me. Someone will wait for you there. Do exactly as they say, yes?”

Henry nodded again.

She paused. “I have enjoyed our time,
chéri
. Be careful.” She kissed his cheeks and left.

Henry did not see Madame the next morning. The chauffeur waited in the foyer to lead him to the train station. Before departing the grand house, Henry took one last look into the drawing room, where he felt he'd received so much education in such a short time.

Picasso's painting was gone.

Henry followed Madame's advice and did exactly as he was told by his new Resistance escorts. They were not as pleasant, not as reassuring as Madame had been by a long shot. They barely spoke to him. As he got off the train in Grenoble, two well-dressed men materialized by his side. They nodded to him and he followed, the three of them working their way through the station crowds.

A few streets away they picked up bicycles, propped up against a World War I memorial. A stone angel with drooping wings held a limp, dead soldier. Below her were inscribed the names of soldiers killed in action. Henry noticed five boys with the same last name, listed one after another – obviously brothers, cousins, perhaps even a father and his sons – an entire generation of a family wiped out. Henry shook his head as he pushed off to pedal the bike. Such waste. Madame had told Henry that more than a million Frenchmen had died in the trenches, blown to shreds or killed by disease during that conflict. That was supposed to have been the war to end all wars, she'd said. World War II had started barely twenty years later.

Would he end up on a memorial back in Virginia, just a name on a list?

Henry struggled to keep up with the two men, who hurtled through puddles and barely missed knocking down several pedestrians. Why were they in such a rush? They whipped around the corner and Henry gasped. They were heading straight for a gate in the town wall, where stood two German guards checking papers! Were they planning to pass through there? Did Henry have the right papers? Or were these men planning to turn him over?

Instinctively, he began to brake the bicycle. One of the men looked back and hissed: “
Allez!
”

Do what they say, do what they say, Henry prodded himself. But what if…?

Don't be a coward, boy.
Clayton's voice roared in Henry's ear.
Only cowards hesitate.

Right. Do what they say. Madame said to do what they say. Henry pedalled on.

Suddenly close to ten bicyclists came from all directions, pedalling furiously. Everyone crowded the gate, waving papers, shouting, and jostling the young Germans trying to manage them. Henry rolled into the mess of people. Someone's hand and papers shot under his arm at the guard, he felt a push on his back, and Henry slid through.

They all pedalled down the road as if chased by the entire Nazi army. Within a few minutes the seemingly spontaneous crowd began to disperse. One by one, they drifted off the road down alleys or into houses. All that remained were Henry and the two men.

They biked for an hour and swung into a small farmhouse. Inside they took Henry's forged papers. He guessed that the next downed flier moved from Annecy by train would need them. They replaced the elegant city clothes Madame had given him with dirty, scratchy woollens that were far too short. He wore a knitted black hat with a tassel that tickled his ear and drove him crazy. The wooden-soled shoes didn't bend at all and pained Henry's bad foot. But he knew the costume was to make him look like a peasant of the region. The men even rubbed soot into his sandy-coloured hair to darken it and make him resemble the natives.

One of the men gave him advice, muddling English with French: “Never use
la grande avenue. Évitez les cafés. L'église… mmmm.
” He paused, searching for the right translation.

“A church?” asked Henry.

“
Oui, oui.
Church
est
safe. Do not walk in village. Someone will meet you
avant
. If not, go around. Someone will meet you after. If not, hide
jusqu'à la nuit, et
try again. Return
jamais
.”

Henry nodded. Don't double back. If he was being followed he could unwittingly lead the Germans right to the Resistance fighters.

Then the fighter, who called himself a member of “the
maquis
”, handed Henry a knife. “Like zeez,
oui?
” he said, holding the blade a few inches above Henry's throat and pulling it horizontally to show how to slice open a man's artery. Alarmed, Henry took the knife and put it in his shirt pocket, right beside his lucky marble. The man patted the pocket with a nod and a grim smile. “
Pour les Boches.
”

Outside, the man and Henry followed a small trail. At the top of a steep decline, the man stopped. He pointed down the gorge. “
Allez là-bas. Continuez à gauche.
” He held his hands up in a V and moved the left one forward.

The man's accent was very different from the Parisian pronunciation Henry had been taught and had heard Madame Gaulloise use. Henry wanted to make absolutely sure he understood. “Go left if the path forks?” He repeated the motion with his own hands. “
Gauche?
Left?”

“
Oui.
” The man nodded. He stepped back to light a cigarette.

“Wait.” Henry caught at the man's sleeve. “How will I know my contact?”

The man shook his head.

Henry repeated his question.

The man shrugged. “
Je ne comprends pas.
” Either he couldn't understand Henry, or he didn't want to answer. He pointed his gun towards the path and said gruffly, “
Allez
.”

Henry looked down the path. No village, no farm in sight. “How far?” he said. He searched his memory of high school French. “
Combien – ?
” What was the word for far? “
Distance? Combien distance?
”

The
maquis
fighter smirked. Henry realized he must have mangled the pronunciation or used the wrong word again. How was he ever going to survive in this foreign land or pass for a native?

“
Quinze, peut-être vingt kilomètres. ALLEZ!
” The man growled the command.

“
Oui, merci.
” Henry began the climb down.