Fragments of Light

by Michele Phoenix

  Something that felt magical zinged in my mind. I looked at Nate and could tell he was getting caught up in it too.

  Chapter 30

  The offices of La Belle Génération were on the lower floor of a stone building in Saint-Martin-de-Varreville. We arrived mid-morning, after a breakfast of coffee and croissants.

  “Say that name three times fast,” Nate said as he maneuvered the Opel Corsa we were driving into a narrow spot beside the village church. I was still getting used to the smallness of Normandy, and this town was no exception. It featured one main road, a church, and a cluster of homes spanning several eras. Some looked like they’d been there a few hundred years, and others stood out like garish reminders that progress marches on.

  Maribeth opened the door before we reached it and greeted us warmly. She looked to be about forty, and enthusiasm radiated from her voice and smile. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, us filling her in on what we’d learned about Cal and her bemoaning the fact that she hadn’t been of more help.

  “The months before our D-Day celebrations are a blur of activity—we’re a small organization and with just three of us doing the planning for the nine World War II veterans returning this year . . .” She brought her hands to her head, where a bright-green headband held back a riot of curly, graying brown hair, and made a face. “I have no doubt that we’ll all get through this in one piece, but I could use about six more hours in every day.”

  I glanced at Nate. “And then the two of us show up to suck more time out of your schedule.”

  She brushed my concerns aside. “You are precisely the type of people for whom I’ll willingly make time. My heart is for veterans.” She motioned toward the walls of the small office space, placarded in framed pictures of elderly men in uniform saluting, shaking hands with civilians, or smiling into the lens. “I love that we’ve brought so many of them back to honor what they did. But soldiers like your Cal . . . They break my heart. I wonder if he was ever told how grateful the French are for what he sacrificed here.”

  “It might have fallen on deaf ears,” I said to Maribeth. “He was actually awarded a Silver Star, but he disappeared from his home the day he received it. Then he disappeared again a couple months later, the night before his hometown threw a parade for its veterans. I’m guessing being praised wasn’t a comfortable thing for him.”

  Maribeth nodded. “Sad, isn’t it.” She reached for the jacket hanging on the back of her desk chair. “Every year, this part of France practically shuts down to recognize people like him. The flags, the ceremonies and reenactments, the historical tours . . . Normandy lives to remember our heroes, and Cal will never know.” She pulled on her jacket and took car keys out of a pocket. “Now—shall we go see where your hero’s letters were found?”

  There was a construction van in the courtyard of the Château d’ Aubry-en-Douve. The tires of Maribeth’s Citroën crunched on the gravel as we pulled in next to it. Nate and I got out of the car and took a few steps back to take it all in. It was a noble building. Elegant towers reached toward a still-overcast sky. There were carved stone corbels along the eaves and other decorative elements under the shutter-framed windows and above an imposing front door whose peeling paint in no way took away from its grandeur. Six broad, curved, sandstone steps led up to the entrance.

  Maribeth climbed them ahead of us and poked her head in the open door, speaking in French to someone inside. Moments later, we stood in the entryway with a man dressed in filthy overalls. She explained to us that Jean-Marie spoke no English, but that he was heading up the renovation.

  “Nate is in construction too,” I said to her.

  Her eyebrows went up. “Really?” She had a brief exchange with the foreman, then turned back to Nate. “How would you like a tour of the work zone?”

  He seemed taken aback and a bit unsure. I realized how seldom I’d seen that look on him. “I don’t speak any French,” he said, lifting a hand in apology.

  The Frenchman rattled off a few words and Maribeth laughed. “He says you don’t need to speak French—you speak construction.”

  “We okay!” the man said jovially. “We okay!” Then he gave Nate a thump on the back and walked away, signaling with his head for Nate to follow him.

  “Just steer clear of talking about philosophy and religion,” I whispered to him. Nate gave me a look and Maribeth laughed.

  While the men disappeared up the stone staircase leading to the first floor, I took a moment to look around. The entryway wasn’t large, but it extended fifteen feet upward, its ceiling lined with carved molding. There were no decorations in the mid-renovation space, but the geometric design of the woodwork on the walls indicated where large pieces of art would have hung in the castle’s heyday.

  A bay window across from the front door gave out onto a lawn that extended to a lilac grove in full bloom. In the middle of the expanse, a colossal oak stood like a weathered sentinel.

  “I bet that tree has some stories to tell,” I said to Maribeth.

  “It’s an old one, for sure,” Maribeth said. “But honestly, any tree that was standing in Normandy at the time of the invasion would have untold tales to share. What our history books describe is mostly true, but it misses the graphic details of what the boys and men endured after they landed here.” She shook her head as her eyes lingered on the scenery beyond the window. “Husbands, fathers, brothers . . . Hard to imagine the chaos and carnage . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Which is why you do what you do,” I said.

  “Which is why I do what I do,” she agreed. “But you didn’t come here for a history lesson. You came to find out where those letters were found. Follow me.”

  She led me into a room to the left of the entrance hall. It was another tall space, bright with natural light. Stickers were visible on several window panes, indicating that they had been newly installed. The walls were freshly plastered but not painted yet.

  “It’s a delicate balance, remodeling these historic homes,” Maribeth said. “How much of the old to keep and how much to replace with something newer and—given the dampness of our winters—more energy-efficient. The owner here seems to have struck a bit of a compromise.” She pointed to the floor, where some strips of the old parquet had been ripped out, leaving the rest intact. “They’ll use reclaimed wood to patch it up and you’ll never know it happened by the time they’re finished.”

  “Do you know the owner?” I asked.

  “Not the new one. The previous one was a local family. They expanded their farm by taking over this one. To my knowledge, they never really remodeled or lived in the château.”

  I followed as Maribeth walked slowly toward an alcove at the back of the room. “I was driving by here on the way to a ceremony about a year ago—learning the hard way that GPS technology doesn’t always get you where you’re going on these Norman back roads—and saw the sign out front for the construction company. I’m a bit of a fanatic about these historic buildings, so I pulled over, wandered on in, and met Jean-Marie,” she said, pointing upstairs. “He’d found Cal’s letters just the day before, so I offered to help track down any descendants he might have, and . . . here we are.”

  Maribeth crouched down in the alcove, where planks of wood had been torn up, exposing bare floor joists. “There’d been water damage here at some point, and the parquet was warped beyond saving. When Jean-Marie pried up the bad planks, he found the letters I sent to you.”

  “They were down there?” I looked into the dark space and wondered who had gone to the trouble of hiding them in the floor. And why.

  Maribeth nodded. “Given their good condition, I’m guessing the water damage predated them being left here.”

  I looked from the gaping hole in the floor to the fields extending toward the horizon beyond the alcove’s windows. A stone wall bordered a space that might have once held a garden. Its gate hung askew on rusted hinges. I wondered if Cal had stood there too, admiring the untouched beauty of Norm
andy’s countryside, or if he’d been so wrapped up in the fury of war that he’d seen little more than danger all around.

  A line from Cal’s citation came back to mind. “One of the letters Cal got from the army,” I said, “the one that informed him that he was getting a Silver Star . . . It said he earned it in a place about eight miles west of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.”

  Maribeth looked up as if gauging the distance. “This would fit that description—give or take a couple kilometers.”

  “So this could be where it happened,” I murmured. “Whatever it was.”

  I looked around the room again, taking in the simple but grand lines, the arched doorways and delicate details. I tried to imagine the lives that had breathed between these walls—the children, men, and women who had lived under Nazi occupation, as all of Normandy had, for more than four years during the war.

  I tried to picture Cal—the Cal from Darlene’s baby picture—walking through the front doors on the day the Allied Forces lost thousands just like him. Had he entered as a man or a warrior? Fearful or confident? Healthy or already injured? What had he seen between the place where he’d landed and this stately living room, where the letters he cherished had inexplicably been left beneath decaying floorboards?

  Jean-Marie’s voice interrupted my musings as the two men joined us again. There was excitement on Nate’s face.

  “Looks like you had a good tour,” I said to him.

  He laughed. “Didn’t understand a word the man said, but the work he’s doing on this place is incredible. You should see how they’re replacing stones in the damaged mosaic tile.” He turned his attention to Maribeth. “Mind if I take Ceelie upstairs? We’ll only be a minute.”

  She waved us away and turned to speak to Jean-Marie.

  Nate’s steps were energetic as he climbed the stairs ahead of me, talking over his shoulder. “The amount of work this kind of place requires to bring it up to code is insane,” he said. “Plumbing, electric . . . And walls two feet deep—solid stone and mortar.”

  I smiled. “So when do you start work?”

  He smiled back. “Don’t tempt me.”

  We reached the end of a long hallway, where a circular room had been gutted and new windows installed. One of them hung open. “This is what I wanted you to see.” He leaned out, looking at a spot next to the windowsill, then motioned for me to take his place. “See there?” he said, pointing.

  I leaned out as far as I could and craned my neck. “What am I looking for?”

  “A bullet hole. Right next to the sill stone.”

  I looked down and to the left. There it was. A small hole, maybe a bit larger than a quarter, in the castle’s outer wall. “From the war?”

  He nodded, a little boy’s enthusiasm dancing in his eyes. “Jean-Marie says it still has the remnants of the bullet inside it.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Nate so animated. “War becomes you,” I said.

  “History,” he said. “It’s a real thing in these parts.”

  “If you like history that much,” Maribeth said from the bedroom’s doorway, startling us, “there’s one more thing I want you to see.”

  The castle’s newly renovated kitchen was a stylish combination of old-school charm and modern amenities. It looked to be nearing completion. At the far end was a rustic wooden door framed by what looked like ancient beams. Jean-Marie walked toward it, speaking nonstop, and Maribeth translated as we followed him. “This is the one part of the castle they’ve left exactly as it was,” she said. Jean-Marie pushed the heavy door open and stepped down onto a dirt floor. It was a low-ceilinged, circular room surrounded with rustic shelves on which a handful of old bottles and baskets still stood.

  Jean-Marie gesticulated as he spoke. “It’s the castle’s root cellar,” Maribeth translated, trying to keep up with the foreman’s explanation. “It was also a bomb shelter during the war, as it’s partly underground. Farmers back then made bundles of small branches and lined the outer walls with them to keep shrapnel from getting through.”

  “Et regardez,” Jean-Marie said, motioning for us to step into the center of the space so he could close the door. He pointed at a large metal deadbolt, tarnished by time.

  “Proof that it served as a hideaway,” Maribeth said. “They’d run in here, throw the bolt, and hope the Germans didn’t care enough to knock down the massive door.”

  “Sorry about the trouble getting away,” Maribeth said a few minutes later. “Jean-Marie’s quite the storyteller.”

  “Probably what makes him a good renovator too,” Nate mused.

  Maribeth laughed. “That’s more profound than you realize. In my line of work, we call it ‘story therapy.’ Allowing untold narratives to heal lingering wounds.”

  We drove in silence toward her office for a few minutes. I thought about Cal and the memories that haunted him. I thought about Darlene and the questions that had robbed her daughter-heart of any semblance of peace or wholeness. I thought of the storytelling my own grief might require, but got stuck itemizing the damaged and dark parts it still harbored.

  Story therapy felt like a hazardous exercise to me, no matter how maiming the untold narrative might be.

  “There’s a gathering at the American Cemetery tomorrow,” Maribeth interrupted my musing, pulling up next to our car in the church parking lot. “Nothing as formal as what you’ll see at the big events on the 6th, but all nine of my boys will be there to meet local students—it’s our big pre-D-Day event.”

  We got out of the car and she reached into the back seat for her purse, fishing around for an envelope. She took two tickets out of it. “Here—passes to get in for free. It’s nothing huge—no dignitaries or fanfare—but you’ll get to see some of those heroes we’ve been talking about.”

  Nate and I drove back to our bed-and-breakfast in silence. I put on a kettle for tea and got my Kindle from my bag. “I’m going up for a nap,” Nate said.

  It wasn’t the first time the sudden awkwardness had broadsided us. This time it felt taut with unspoken reflection. “Okay.”

  “Want to go to the cemetery tomorrow?”

  “Yep.”

  Nate dropped his head as if he was contemplating something else he wanted to say. A moment later, with a soft, “Okay then,” he turned to climb the stairs.

  Chapter 31

  The veterans arrived together at the central monument of the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer on the morning of June 4th. Maribeth, pushing an elderly marine’s wheelchair, led their walk to the place of honor where her boys, as she called them, would be greeted by the students who had helped fund their return to Normandy. There were seven of them in wheelchairs, while the other two held on to relatives’ arms as they walked.

  They wore jackets and baseball caps adorned with pins and patches that identified the branch they’d served with during the war. They smiled for the cameras of family members and onlookers and joked with each other as they made their way to the semi-circular colonnade that surrounded a breathtaking bronze statue honoring the dead.

  Nate and I edged as close as we could to the front of the crowd gathering on the raised platform and crouched low so others could see over our heads.

  The veteran directly in front of us smiled with unmistakable mischief as he high-fived the man sitting next to him. He wore a black cap with United States Army emblazoned across it in gold letters and smiled broadly at the spectators photographing the heroes’ reunion.

  “Over here, Gramps!” a woman crouching next to me called out to him.

  He found her with his eyes and smiled as she raised her camera. “Isn’t this a kick in the pants, Gina?” he said in a surprisingly vigorous voice. He sat hunched in his chair, the jowls that framed a formerly square jaw shaking a bit as he spoke. But the excitement in his eyes was the essence of youth.

  “Give me a thumbs-up!”

  He did as instructed and waited for her to snap the picture, then turned his attention t
o the official photographer who was walking up and down the row of honored veterans.

  “Looks like he’s having the time of his life,” I said to his granddaughter.

  She went from crouching to sitting on the ground and breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s having the time of his life at ninety-five, and I’m dragging myself around trying to keep up with him at twenty-nine,” she said.

  I noticed for the first time the belly she was rubbing with her free hand. “Let’s be honest, you’re dragging two of you around,” I said.

  “Right? Whose idea was it to travel to France in this condition?”

  I glanced at her grandfather. He was trading laughing commentary with the man next to him. “Based on enthusiasm alone, I’m guessing it was his,” I said.

  “Yup.” She put down her DSLR camera and reached around to her back, stretching left, then right as she took a deep breath. “Hadn’t spoken about the war for—what—seventy-four years, and all of a sudden two years ago, he goes to a reunion in San Diego. Then he comes home and tells my mom and dad that he needs to go to Normandy.”

  “And here he is.”

  “Two years, one broken hip, and three fundraisers later, here he is.”

  The crowd quieted down as a tall, elderly woman walked to the podium in front of the half circle of veterans. She wore her gray hair in a short, spiky, and somehow feminine cut and looked to me like the epitome of French class in her shimmering silver blouse and black pencil skirt. A red, impeccably knotted silk scarf completed her look.

  She took a moment to scan the attendees with a bright, welcoming smile before addressing them in French. She switched to English after that, her voice confident and warm, her expression sincere. “Ladies and gentlemen, as the Veteran Relations coordinator for the Colleville-sur-Mer American Cemetery, I welcome you here,” she said, a vague accent softening her tone. “Thank you for honoring our heroes with your presence. We must always remember what they cannot forget.”