Was he to know Giriotte no more, like Philippe, with whom he avenged Sancha’s death? Would he never again see Petra, who had trekked so far over the Pyrenees with him, with an extra pair of espadrilles—alpargatas, he called them—slung around his neck?
Could individuals be replaced like a worn-out pair of alpargatas? It seemed for every new partisan he met, he left two others behind.
Wild geese fledglings taking their first flights ought to surround him right now, but even winged creatures forsook the stale, low-hanging smoke clouds. Domingo passed a farmyard where not even a sleepy, long-tongued dog lazed in the sun.
Since when had his pack hung so heavy? The cords of his neck hurt. His arms ached. With dust in his mouth and his teeth on edge, he reached the final descent to Ibarra land. There, below the stone fence’s outline, Aitaita’s aged weathervane caught a glint of sun from the milk house slates.
But the sheep pen lay empty. Domingo coursed the ditch, then the road ... Faster, up and over the ancient stones and down into the lane.
Filmy grey shrouded the farmyard. His heart faltered at the eerie sight.
Unnatural, unpalatable, this lack of sound. He longed for Giriotte’s noisy camaraderie, for Père Gaspard’s hand on his shoulder. And yes, for the sight of Katarin wearing his smelly old chore clothes and attempting to reason with unreasonable sheep.
He tried the barn first, whistling the secret tune Gabirel would respond to in an instant. A shiny kitten meowed and took a step toward him. He shinnied up the ladder and unlatched the granary door. Surely they hid here, where a few days ago, Katarin had sneezed when he first carried up her transmitter and arranged the wire antennae over the rafters.
But only the usual oat groats and dented, yellow corn waited inside.
Down the rungs and around the pigpen, he discovered no sign of life. What did pigs matter, anyway? He and Gabirel and Maman would find food to eat next winter somehow. But a deep swell of pure terror threatened to erupt inside him.
Là-bas—another idea occurred. Over there, possibly, in the underground storage compartment ... he would find them hunched together in that earthen space. The short door squawked open, but no eyes shone out from the darkness, only the dank, heavy odor of wintered potatoes, turnips, carrots, and damp soil. Domingo’s breathing, loud in his ears, taunted him.
Outside the house, his lungs burned. Maman, Gabirel … where have you gone? The others, Papa, Aitaita, and Ander, had left for that other world, but Maman always remained, like the lintel, the hearth, and these solid stones. She simply had to be here somewhere.
A pot lay tipped onto the table, but Maman’s scent—the unique mixture of yeast, raw buttermilk, lye soap, and a thin thread of lavender, lingered. Domingo held out his hand in this room where she spent most of her days.
His glance fell on the heavy old sideboard, painted white but chipped here and there. Maman had shrunk even more since he’d left last winter, so now she could barely reach its top shelf. He yanked the massive protrusion out from the wall. No one knew about the receded stairway except their family, not even their closest neighbor.
Faint hope wavered within Domingo. The tall old chest fought him every inch of the way, and dust swirls rose like ashes in a wind. A dried-up mouse lay behind it, a furry skeleton amid windswept papers and fallen coins. Domingo pulled the door clasp and climbed the shortened stairs to the triangular space that had fascinated him as a child, when they stored fruit and hams here.
Angular light rays from the opening behind him accentuated the stillness. Thick, merciless stillness. It was empty. Dust flecks sparkled in the dull air.
Maman. The word became a pant. The old ones in carts like bags of potatoes or onions ...
The oxcart. Had he seen it outside? Yes, the reliable contrivance sat in its usual place. Domingo stared as if its ancient wood could whisper a secret.
The garden dugout—maybe Gabirel took Maman there. The refuge lay close by, filled with rakes, hoes, pincers and tongs, a small spade. But only a rat family nested in a far corner, their beady eyes glinting.
The other small shed, under the ash tree, where they cooled the butter and milk in summer? The dark space, built a few steps into the hill, exuded the heavy intoxication of cream waiting to be churned, day-old milk, and a granite pan of lush butter. The ladle sprawled like a body on the shelf.
Domingo lifted the pan’s coarse towel covering, stuck his finger in and peeled off a mass of golden foam. But the spread, so sweet and hearty on Maman’s fresh-baked bread, left a solitary, slippery taste in his mouth. He shut the door and dropped his face into his hands.
“Maman, where are you? Mon Dieu, help me now, if ever.” His voice resonated like a stranger’s.
One place remained, the miniature fortress far back in the woods, across the creek, where he and Ander played as boys. Their closest neighbor had guided Katarin there with the sheep during an alert while she stayed here with Maman.
But first, the house beckoned to him again. Seeing an apple in a basket on the table, his stomach raged, and Domingo realized he last ate this morning. He gouged the peel with his teeth, aware of its tough, saggy texture after a winter in storage.
His eyes lit on the shelf and his throat filled. He stuck his fingers into Maman’s crockery, pulled out mere dust, and tore out toward the back pasture consumed by an even greater hunger.
The way wound in and out of pastures, and he stopped once to test the sheep droppings—yesterday’s. So, this pasture emptied then. How much warning had Gabirel been given? He visualized his brother guiding Maman, urging her to come quickly. He studied the ground for clues.
Domingo stepped down the bank to the creek, skipping through the meter-wide water to the slippery bank on the other side. Gabirel would have to carry her here. The image roiled in his mind like the burning of Terrou—impossible. How could Maman in her brown woolen skirt and shawl, her fringed scarf tied under her chin, allow her youngest son to port her like a baby?
Grass waved above Domingo’s ankles and pawed his calf muscles—far past time to turn the sheep in here. Far past time ... the words beat a rhythm with his heartbeat near a cave-like indentation beyond a rock wall. Another creek flowed here, dividing Ibarra land from Edorta’s.
Grass gave way to bare soil, a few weedy patches and tufts of bitter vegetation even the sheep refused. Then the land sloped toward the rocks. If the space lay empty ... A battle wrangled in Domingo’s chest, but he directed his feet forward.
The rough rock wall scraped his hand as he leaned into its dampness. A few steps beyond, he paused to acclimate his eyes.
“Maman … Gabirel?”
His echo mocked him. His inward parts felt like stone. His fingers traced what he knew, but could not see. Lichen, thick and soft on the boulder’s underbelly. Aitaita said in the old days, long before kings divided these Basque lands into Spain and France, worse came to worse in the fight for freedom, and the men boiled this growth for soup, or ate it raw.
Its earthy scent soothed Domingo like a sign from heaven. Even here, away from the light of day, life persisted. But where had his people gone?
He shook his head to clear his mind. So many daily joys and sorrows could not dissipate into thin air. Then he realized the worst horror of all, beyond the SS troops or Gestapo, torture, and even deportation or death.
To lose his family—to have Maman and Gabirel gone forever ... With no family on this earth, Katarin bore this depth of pain already. She had lost everyone.
Domingo staggered outside. No gentle murmur of sheep gnawing grass. Nothing to do but walk on past the creek, up the next rise onto Edorta’s land.
Time held itself distant, creating the sensation of being suspended in air. Somehow, this rich valley had suddenly gone vapid. He checked the barn, called names, while squelching a rising tide of panic that threatened to engulf him.
All is never lost—keep your senses. Aitaita taught him so, and Père Gaspard.
The wide front door of Edorta’s cotta
ge hung haphazardly on wrenched hinges. Violence had occurred here, for Edorta, above all men in the valley, cared for his buildings and his animals. The buildings still stood, but where were his sheep?
The overturned cupboard spilled flour and salt, skillets and pots, towels and matches. A single, stained apron littered the floor. Domingo’s stomach retaliated at the oval shape of the stains, dark red-black, and he fled behind the house. There, a shovel sprawled against the well. Fragile early vegetable plantings had been trampled into a wet green mass.
Onions—such a mix of bitter and sweet ... Boot prints marked the bare pigpen and the barn floor, and Edorta’s milk cow and pig had vanished.
Domingo's voice sounded hollow in his own ears. “Have you taken everything?”
His screech echoed back on the breeze. He re-entered the house, scrunching pottery shards under his feet. A single quarter of cheese hid under an overturned pot and a heel of dry bread lurked in the corner. Spying them, Domingo heard his stomach complain.
At the same time, the passion sprouting within him would not be tamed. His stomach, he could feed, but only a cleansing from outside, an epuration sauvage, a wild purification, would suffice for the agony in his throat.
He ran the full way home and grabbed whatever food he could scrounge. Stopped at the threshold. Touched his heart and placed his hand over the family insignia.
In doing so, another puce-colored stain caught his eye. He scraped it with his fingernail, held the copper scent to his nostrils.
Oh God of my fathers, God of my dear Maman.
His finger traced the cross Aitaita’s father engraved to mark their family, to protect them. Domingo searched the distance in vain—if only Père Gaspard would saunter down the road, with his unflappable trust that all would be well.
A sudden recollection from last July inundated Domingo, when Père hurried down this road with news from Rome. His Vatican contacts sent dire word—Pope Pius prayed near bodies blown from crypts in the Church of San Lorenzo.
His parents and brother were buried there, and he had his driver take him there, to commiserate with the grieving. Fifteen hundred citizens had died in the allied raid intended to stall Nazi operations in Rome.
“Thousands more are wounded, Domingo.” Père’s somber tone communicated the incident’s gravity. “If Rome suffers so, who can be safe? We must adopt constant watchfulness.”
His prophecy rode at the base of Domingo’s throat when Nazi paratroopers stormed into Rome on September eighth, surrounded the Vatican, and drew a white line on the ground. Swiss guards on one side and Nazis on the other. The Vatican itself had been placed under siege—when had evil ever been so rash? The faithful must rise to the cause.
Recalling these ominous events sent sudden fresh energy through Domingo. He had risen to the cause, blowing bridges and wiring trucks to detonate on major roads, taking his turn at cranking the generator handle for American agents up in the camp to transmit their Morse code, setting explosives between railroad ties to burst when German supply trains crushed them with their front wheels, ambushing a German truck loaded with ten tons of cheese.
All this he had accomplished, and more. But with the Allied advance across the Channel, London now required further action of the Resistance. the order had come down to engage the enemy face-to-face, in hand-to-hand fighting if need be.
Fiery purpose coursed Domingo’s spine. Indeed, he would live up to his name, la foudre, fueled by this searing pain of loss, and by furious love of country, of home, of all that was holy. On his honor, he would fight to the death.
Domingo turned a wide circle around the farmstead. So many suffering, so many already lost ... the fields themselves barren and ghostly. The question that had taunted him rose again—was the fight worth all this? And then Katarin’s face rose before his eyes. She, too, had devoted her all to this cause.
With one last wistful look at the place of his birth, he loped toward the steepest incline he could find.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’ll inquire here.” Père left Kate standing outside the St-Cere Abbey, with her head still reeling from the effects of the lorry ride. Even if only for a short time, having solid earth under her feet felt wonderful.
Under a lingering fog, the murky Dordogne flowed by, and all around the Abbey’s three-story stone buildings the town nestled, with the Abbey as its pole star. A solitary clip-clop sounded through the ghostly haze, but otherwise, this strangely quiet June day seemed surreal.
Finally, Père exited the Abbey and rounded the truck to speak with Henri. Then he beckoned to Kate to climb in. Henri goosed the engine and they headed east instead of north, until another wide river came into sight. Her qualms increased. Why would they cross the Lot River now?
“Trust.” Her answer sounded internally, as real as if Père had spoken the word.
After some distance, the old vehicle lurched across a bridge onto a cobblestone street and turned into a massive church complex. High towers and buttressed stonewalls surrounded cloistered walkways worthy of inspiring A Mighty Fortress is our God.
For the entire drive, Père’s closed eyes had warded off her questions. Kate relegated them to a crowded mental shelf established long ago, when her mother failed to return after their last good-bye and the image of her father’s face faded from memory.
After a shuddering stop, she followed Père under a carved arch, tamping down her curiosity again, and focusing instead on the tune of Aunt Alvira’s favorite hymn. A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing. Our Helper, He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
Such a strange mix, she and Père Gaspard, Catholic and Lutheran--but these days, those distinctions became irrelevant. When Martin Luther penned those words over four hundred years ago, he fought against heresies—today, everyone united to subdue evil incarnate.
A massive wooden door swung open, and with the firm swish of heavy starched linen, a strong-boned woman peered out. Her eyes glinted hazel and gold.
“Mother Hélène.” Père extended his hand. “How does today find you?”
Tall and statuesque, the matron angled her head. “We have lost no one from this life. But then, I’ve sent nearly everyone away.”
“I’ve brought an agent who must make radio transmissions tonight. The SS has rendered the St-Cere Abbey far too vulnerable.”
Deep lines crossed the aged nun’s sturdy forehead and bloody stains marked her white habit’s sleeves and skirt, but Mother Hélène stood aside to wave them in. Afternoon sun blazed through high stained-glass windows. Mother Hélène craned her neck toward one of three spires towering above, and her sigh drifted like the light rays.
“Who would have thought we would become such a haven for the clandestine?” Behind her, a series of walls jutted into each other like a child’s make-believe block village. Despite the airy sunshine outside, a closed-in sense pervaded the halls, cool and damp.
“We had a little warning before the tanks came, so I sent most of the children and several sisters to fortifications beyond Decazeville. Our faithful informants report they found safety.”
For a moment, her gaze held Kate’s. “Welcome. You may call me Mother Hélène.”
She held up her palm. “With so many victims brought in, blood is everywhere, or I would offer you my hand. Days like this should occur only once in a lifetime, but I must admit, they do show us how much we can accomplish.”
“We know what you mean.” Père scrambled out the door and returned with Kate’s bag and Henri toting the transmitter.
Heavy iron keys clattered, and Mother Hélène inserted one into a lock. She folded a long forefinger indicating they should follow, and opened a second set of doors.
Père motioned for Henri to go ahead, and Kate brought up the rear. Their guide’s voice echoed over the solid granite staircase. “The wounded rest in the main hall. Some need you, Père.”
Under a long set of arched columns, she delivered a report of S.S. movements. “Ladirot, Go
rses, Saint-Medard-Nicourby, Labathude, Mollieres, Saint Maurice-en-Query ... some lie in utter ruins ...”
The list went on, with the degree of damage to each village. The names ran together in Kate’s mind as they passed along a foyer-like space with high windows. Mother Hélène turned through a narrow hallway into a dormitory bedroom.
Père Gaspard held out his arms to Henri for the radio box, his skin ashen. “Merci, Henri. I know you have other loads to deliver.”
Mother Hélène pointed past Henri’s nose. “This way, Monsieur. These stairs take you directly to the courtyard. God go with you.”
He disappeared as she headed toward a vast oak wardrobe opposite a series of narrow iron beds. The wardrobe’s clasp gave way to a hidden doorway, and with a bit of finagling, Mother Hélène pushed her ample frame through the cramped space.
Père Gaspard’s breath came hard, and Kate had the feeling someone chased them.
In the next room, Mother Hélène tugged on a pull rope that released a set of wooden ceiling stairs. They climbed to a spacious hallway with doors on either side. At the third door down, their leader vanished into a walk-in closet and pushed aside some robes.
Like a sheep, Kate followed Père up five steps, careful of his swaying robe. Mother Hélène allowed them to pass, and gestured toward a long wide library table with a chair underneath.
“Will this do?” The room’s only window looked out on a vine-covered brick wall. Unvarnished floorboards made Kate feel at home.
Père lowered the radio and stared out at sky and rooftops. “I wonder how many have found refuge here throughout the ages?”
“Hundreds. We’ve kept the children safe for more than two years, but in recent weeks, I thought mountain hide-outs even more desirable.”
“No one can detect light from outside?”
“Only from above, and to do that, they must rappel down a high wall. But just in case, we’ll cover the window. Can you believe we’re discussing such things? But we’re in good company—I hear the brothers at Assisi take even greater risks.”
A Purpose True Page 12