A Troubled Peace

by L. M. Elliott

  Henry wondered if the deportees noticed the hotel’s symbols of calm waters and good harvests. He wondered if they could feel that their journey through the hurricane of human hatred and cruelty was coming to an end in a safe port. He wondered if they had nightmares, too. How long would it take for them to feel saved? A year? A lifetime?

  Henry popped up and paced. Sat down. Paced again. This was as bad as sitting on the runway all prepped for mission takeoff, only to be held back for hours because of cloud cover.

  Finally, one of Madame Zlatin’s assistants approached, her shadow stretching long across the floor’s scrubbed zigzags of gray and white marble rectangles. She was crying. It was unusual for one of the workers to weep, surrounded even as they were by tears.

  Henry felt cold. “Where is Madame Zlatin?”

  “She mourns,” the assistant told him, her voice trembling. “A man has recognized her husband’s photograph on the boards. They were together as slave laborers at a Nazi ammunition factory. When the Russians neared, some prisoners were told they would chop wood that day. The Nazis shot them in the forest. Madame Zlatin’s husband was among them.” She covered her eyes with her apron. “Pardon, monsieur,” she mumbled through the fabric. “Give me a moment.”

  Workers gathered around her, shaking their heads as they heard the news. Henry felt terrible. After all she had done for others, couldn’t Madame Zlatin have the good fortune of her husband surviving? But fate wasn’t fair-minded, was it? If it were, Pierre would be safe in the Vercors with his mother now. In return for all they had suffered, these “absents” should return to awaiting, intact, healthy families. But that wasn’t how it worked. With irritation and some despair, Henry thought again of the plight of Sisyphus in Madame’s book. Were they all doomed to such a bleak reality—struggling to overcome only to be knocked back time and time again? Henry couldn’t stand for life to be that meaningless.

  He also couldn’t bear waiting any longer to locate Pierre. On tiptoe, he snuck down the hall to the ballroom where nurses examined the arriving deportees.

  It was the smell that hit him first—the odor of woolen clothes repeatedly soaked by rain and starting to rot, shoes caked with mud and manure, bodies wracked with dysentery that had not been washed away. The smell and the anxious what-do-they-want-from-me-now silence stopped him short. He watched a woman stroke the seat of an elegant brocade armchair before gently, slowly, lowering her ragged self into it for a nurse to listen to her chest with a stethoscope. The woman looked straight ahead, enduring yet another inspection. But her hand kept brushing the embroidered fabric of the seat. Her face was full of memory. Henry wondered if she had once been a guest of the hotel, beautiful, clean, happy.

  He took a deep breath and approached the line of women to explain whom he sought. “Pardonnez-moi, je cherche une dame qui connaît Madame Dubois?” he said slowly and carefully.

  One after another shook their head. Then one answered, “I knew Madeleine Dubois.”

  Henry turned. It was the woman in the brocade chair. “Oh, madame, I—”

  The nurse held up her hand, stopping him. She slipped the stethoscope along the woman’s back and listened; slid it again, listened, and again. Henry’s heart pounded as he waited.

  “Pas de tuberculose. Sortez par là s’il vous plait.” The nurse motioned for the woman to move on. She was free of tuberculosis. She called the next absent to approach.

  The woman stood and joined a line waiting for towels and directions to the showers. Henry began again. “Madame, I am trying to find…”

  “I know. You seek Madeleine Dubois. I knew her well.”

  Knew.

  “Did she survive?” Henry asked in a hushed voice, already sensing death.

  Sorrowfully, the woman shook her head. “The guards were lazy one day, joking and laughing. Madeleine thought she saw a chance to escape. She whispered to me that she had to return home to her son. It was madness. I tried to stop her. But she ran. The guards shot her.”

  Henry felt dizzy. Even though he’d had a feeling all along that Pierre’s young mother had not survived, he was sick with shock and guilt. She had only been a few years older than Henry. She had died because of sheltering him. Henry could see their pretty stone cottage wrapped in climbing flowers, taste the rabbit stew and potato fritter she had fixed for him, hear her explain why she worked with the maquis, risking everything: Free French air for her son, no Nazi enslavement.

  Well, she had won that for Pierre. But at such a price.

  Henry and his pilot friends had always seen themselves as liberators. But Pierre’s mother had fought just as bravely as they did—more so, perhaps, because she did her part alone, without the roar of a hundred airplane engines and guns. Henry remembered watching Pierre run to his mother, holding wildflowers he’d picked for her; she caught him up and whirled him around and around in a tight hug. Just as Lilly and he had done countless times.

  Poor Pierre. He had nothing left—no family, no farm, no hometown even. All gone. Did he know?

  “Madame, I think Mrs. Dubois’s son may have been in the crowd outside this morning. Did a young boy approach you?”

  “Oui.” Her eyes clouded with tears. “I am so angry with myself. What was I thinking? A child was calling out, asking for Madeleine Dubois. Without thinking I answered that she was dead. I am so sorry. The boy ran.”

  Henry groaned and cursed loudly enough that everyone around him stopped talking and eyed him nervously. He turned on his heel.

  “Monsieur, wait, please.” The woman reached out and grabbed his jacket, flinching as she did.

  Henry glanced down at the delicate hand that held on to him and gasped a little himself. Her fingertips were swollen and red, tender. They had no nails. They’d been ripped out, probably during interrogation.

  He looked up into the woman’s face. It was thin but triumphant, knowing what he recognized. “It is all right, monsieur. They will grow back. I did not betray my friends when the Gestapo found me. Madeleine did not either. I live because of her. When I fell on our marches, she lifted me up. When she found crusts of bread in the garbage, she shared them with me. If you find her son, please tell him about the courage of his mother. Please. Perhaps bring him back to see me, Madame Latour.” She let go of Henry’s arm and stepped back self-consciously. “I will be clean then.”

  She took a towel and stepped in line for the showers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Henry bolted out of the Lutetia, into the park, looking for the marbles hustler. Surely the boy would have some idea where Pierre might hide to survive the nights. Henry didn’t care if he scared him. He’d make up for it with some of those Kraft cheese slices. Heck, he’d give the boy the whole Red Cross box of provisions if he pointed Henry to Pierre. “Please, Lord,” Henry prayed to himself, “help me now with my stupid French. Help me make this kid understand.”

  At the gate, Henry could see children playing jacks under a gum tree in the far corner of the park. He charged in, scattering them the way a dog racing into a barnyard sends panicking chickens into squawking flutters. Amid their shrieking, Henry set his targets for the hustler.

  Scooping up his jacks, the boy didn’t make a run for it until Henry was almost on him. He dodged to the left, to the right, and to the left again, eluding Henry’s grab. Henry heard him laugh as he darted past.

  A voice like Clayton’s came out of Henry. “Laugh at me, will ya?” He sprinted. Henry had run track. He was lithe and quick. He reassured himself that the boy couldn’t possibly outrun him.

  But the hustler was fast, making it out of the park and down the street before Henry could nab him.

  Henry ran harder, realizing the boy was half a block ahead of him and could turn a corner and disappear before Henry made the street. The boy could also shimmy in between people clogging the sidewalk, while Henry, as an adult, kept knocking into them.

  “Pardonnez-moi. Pardon. Va! MOVE!” Henry shouted. The boy was expanding his lead.

 
; Henry stretched his legs longer. Pumped his arms harder. He took in deep breaths to ease the stitch he was getting in his side from his bad rib.

  “Please. Out of my way!” Henry craned his neck to keep his quarry in view. He was losing him.

  The boy raced up a large boulevard and then, way in the distance, veered onto a smaller street.

  I saw that, kid. Can’t outfox me. Henry made note of the sign in case he had to double back—rue d’Assas.

  Fewer people jammed this street. Henry opened up. He was getting closer. He could see the boy checking back over his shoulder. Just a few more yards, he’d get him. Then Henry realized the hustler was heading into an enormous park, thick with hedgerows. The boy could slip into that forest of bushes and disappear, like a rabbit went underground back to safety when chased. He’d lose the boy for sure.

  Henry threw himself forward, his feet skidding on the pebbled walkways. “Stop! Arrête!”

  The boy dove into a thicket of huge rhododendron bushes, sending the magnolia-like blossoms flying. Henry hurled himself in as well, swimming through branches, just grabbing ankle. “Gotcha!” Henry cried triumphantly.

  The boy kicked Henry in the face.

  Hell’s bells! Henry saw stars.

  The boy winnowed through more branches, then snaked along the ground underneath them. Henry was too big to squirm through the openings the boy was squirting through. In a few seconds, the boy would be on the other side of the shrubs, running, while Henry would be stuck up in the branches.

  Henry closed his eyes against the sharp sticks and lunged. Crack, crack, crack. He crashed through the bushes, landing on top of the boy. He wrapped his arms around the boy’s calves like a football tackle.

  “I won’t hurt you. Je ne te fais pas mal.” Henry hung on as the boy thrashed. “I need your help. J’ai besoin de ton aide. Pierre. Je cherche Pierre Dubois. The boy with the marble. Hold still! Tiens!”

  The boy punched and kicked. Pretty soon he’d break loose. “Please, I need your help,” Henry pleaded. “Where is the boy with the marble? Où est le garçon avec la bille?”

  Still, the boy bucked. Henry was losing his grip.

  “Hershey bars,” he said in desperation. “K-rations. Lots of them. Pour toi. Beaucoup.”

  The boy stopped squirming. Just stopped dead. “Oui?” He sat up. “Pour moi?” He cocked his head. “Combien?”

  So that’s how it was. Henry shook his head. He should have thought about bribes before. “Big box, kid,” he said, making the outline of a box in the air. “Très beaucoup, if”—he held up his pointer finger—“if you”—he pointed to the boy and then to himself—“help me. Aide-moi. Find Pierre. Trouve Pierre.”

  “D’accord.” The boy nodded nonchalantly, as if the chase had never happened. He stood. He didn’t ask why Henry searched for Pierre. Clearly he felt no need to protect Pierre from possible trouble.

  Henry hoped Pierre didn’t count on this boy for anything, as glad as he was to have struck the deal. “We go to find Pierre now?” He held up the marble to remind the boy of who Pierre was.

  The boy pointed at Henry. “Stuff first,” he answered.

  The boy did not talk to Henry as they walked from the gardens, over the Seine River, to the Hotel Scribe. In fact, he carefully stayed a few steps behind, clearly not wanting to be seen in Henry’s company. He refused to come into the Scribe and waited behind a tree across the street as Henry collected his box of food. Henry was terrified that when he came back out the boy would be gone, so he didn’t take time to sort out any food tins for himself. He just grabbed the box and darted back outside with everything he had—just in time to see the boy nail a pigeon with a rock and slingshot. He stuffed the carcass in his pocket, feet sticking out.

  Even with the bird in his coat, the boy looked like he’d been given a Thanksgiving dinner when Henry showed him the American cans and packages.

  “Deal? Show me where Pierre is?” Henry pushed to make sure the boy knew what Henry expected of him.

  “Deeeeel,” the boy answered.

  Henry was smart enough to hang onto the carton, knowing that the instant he gave the boy the food, he’d be gone. But he handed him a box of raisins. Within a minute it was empty.

  This time the boy led. When Henry tailed him too closely, he’d stop and frown, pointing back. Henry kept himself about six paces behind. Several times the boy paused in front of tailor shops, peering into the window and then backing up to stare some more. He pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil nub to write down the addresses. Henry figured the boy was already planning some purchase with the money he’d make selling the food. But he could do that on his own time. “Hey kid, I am in a hurry. Vite!”

  The boy looked at him with sass and dawdled extra long in front of that store. When he started walking again it was definitely at a slower pace. “Okay, okay, I get it—your way or no way,” Henry muttered.

  The boy didn’t pick up the pace again until they came to the Louvre. There, he looked all around before pulling up some leeks planted thickly within the outlines of what clearly were usually formal flower gardens. He stuffed the vegetables into his pants pockets and took off at a jog, hissing “Vite!” at Henry. Remembering the man jailed in Lyon for picking his neighbor’s carrots, Henry ran, jostling the contents of his box around noisily. He only vaguely wondered to whom the leeks rightfully belonged. Henry realized with some dismay how trivial the right-and-wrong of small things was becoming to him in France. That was something that would have to stop once he returned home.

  They crossed back over the Seine by Notre Dame and descended to a cobblestone promenade that ran alongside the gray-green waters. It hadn’t rained—Henry knew the French were worrying a drought would worsen their food situation—so the river was low, slow, and full of bad smells. Passing men fishing, Henry wondered about the safety of the catch they might eat from those waters. Two boys were very excited by the boot they’d managed to fish out.

  They passed ramshackle houseboats—flat barges, covered with laundry and barking dogs. From one, a man with a reddish, blousy shirt and shaggy black hair shouted at the boy, “Où étais-tu?” The boy waved him off and gestured at Henry. Since he was concerned where the boy had been, perhaps the man was his father, or a guardian of some kind. Henry made note of the boat in case he needed to find the boy again.

  Finally, after going under a bridge where a number of hobos slept on bundles, they came to a narrow strip of green beside the river. Between the street lamps ran a row of double benches, back to back. The peaks between several of them were covered with cardboard and newspapers, creating a shelter just big enough for a child.

  “Voilà!” The boy waved at the benches and grabbed at the box. Henry held on to it for a moment longer. He told the boy his name, “Je m’appelle Henri Forester,” in case he ever needed help. He asked the boy his name: “Comment t’appelles-tu?”

  The boy eyed him suspiciously and then grinned. “Charles de Gaulle.” He yanked the box out of Henry’s grasp and hurried away.

  Henry watched him go. Sure, kid, General de Gaulle. Then, heart pounding, Henry crept close to the first little house of cards.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Two pairs of feet in shoes cut open so that toes could grow poked out from under the cardboard. Silently, barely breathing, Henry inched toward the open edge of the hut. Inside he could see blond curls over two virtually identical young faces pressed close together, brother and sister, like kittens asleep in a shoe box.

  He tiptoed to the next teepee. Empty.

  The last one smelled of cigarette smoke. Henry peeped in and caught a young teen mid-drag. “Zut!” The youth scrambled out the other end.

  This time Henry anticipated the dash. He grabbed the youth by the collar. He couldn’t understand the flood of French the youth hurled at him, it was so fast and full of foul-sounding slang. He let him go. Given this boy’s attitude and the experience Henry had just had with the marbles hustler, he knew he wasn’t going
to get anything worthwhile out of him. The youth ran off making a rude gesture. Henry would have laughed if the youth’s poverty and isolation had not been so painfully obvious.

  Henry went back to the middle hut and looked in. There was a pile of marbles and a candy bar cradled in a nest of crumpled newspapers. The bedding reminded Henry of how Pierre had lined the hole in his barn wall with a blanket, a pillow, and an old rag doll to reassure the fliers he hid there. His gut told Henry this was Pierre’s shelter.

  But where was Pierre? Would he come back? It was strange that he hadn’t taken the treasures he’d obviously won in marble games with him. Could that mean he’d given up and left the city? Or what if he had done something awful after learning his mother was dead?

  Henry was overwhelmed with disappointment and worry. He buckled beside the little cardboard house and covered his face. He’d failed. For all he knew Pierre could be at the bottom of the Seine by now. American bombers had hit the Nazi ammunition factory in which Pierre’s father had been forced to work and killed him. Henry’s presence had probably led the Milice right to Pierre’s mother. Pierre’s grandfather was shot during her arrest and his mother died at Ravensbruck. Pierre’s losses, his desolation, were Henry’s fault.

  Henry sank into a gully of regret, guilt, and frustrated tears. He had absolutely no idea what to do. He felt as lost as when he had fallen out of the sky onto Nazi-controlled France.

  “Monsieur?” A gentle voice and a small hand on his shoulder made Henry jump and jerk up his head, wiping his face in embarassment. There stood a fragile and extremely fair boy with tufts of golden hair—one of the slumbering children.

  “Ne vous inquiètez pas.” The child spoke reassuringly and patted him. “Vos parents reviendront.”