CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Henri, wake up. Please, open your eyes.”
Henry could hear a voice calling him. He struggled up through blackness, swimming through pain. Patsy? Where are you, Pats?
“S’il te plaît, Henri. Do not be dead. Look at me.”
Henry forced his eyes open. There was a blurred but beautiful face over his. Patsy, you still mad at me, girl? Trembling, he reached out to touch a soft cheek. It was moist with tears.
“Thank God. You live.” Claudette gathered Henry into her arms. “I could not bear to lose another. Not like André,” she murmured to herself. “No more.”
Henry struggled to place himself. André? The image of Claudette in a wheat field, sobbing, gently rocking the corpse of her beau, came to him. He concentrated on the face. Its bits and pieces slowly slid together. It was Claudette. Of course. This was France.
“Where is Pierre?” he croaked.
“Come. I must move you. Quickly.”
Henry could hear blasting whistles.
“What is that?”
“The police. Come. You must get up. Vite.”
Claudette braced herself under his arm and pushed Henry to his feet. He staggered to the door, feeling a trickle of blood going down the back of his neck. The world reeled in front of him. “I need to sit for a minute, Claudette.”
The whistle blasts were closer.
“No, Henri, you must not. We have to walk away now. Right now.”
She opened the door and propelled Henry through. He felt something brush his head and reached up to swat it away—his head hurt so much as it was.
He grabbed a shoe. Henry gasped and cried out.
“Shhhh. Keep walking, Henri.”
A body hung from the archway—the collabo had been lynched.
Henry hurried as best he could. He understood. He had to get away before the police came and thought he had something to do with the murder. Claudette half dragged him down the street and into the long gardens in front of the Louvre. She guided him to a pool ringed with statues. Dousing a handkerchief, she washed his face. She rinsed it and dabbed, rinsed and dabbed, leaving a little cloud of blood in the water each time.
After a few minutes Henry could focus his thoughts through the pounding in his head. He took her hand to stop her tending his wound. “Claudette. Where is Pierre?”
She looked away, uncharacteristically hesitant. “I lost him, Henri.”
“Damn it!” Henry slammed his hand on the marble pool, then held his head against the throbbing he’d caused.
“I am so sorry, Henri. Please, please, forgive me.” She gathered him into her arms again and refused to let go when he tried to wrench away. “Listen to me. He pulled away from me. I chased him down the street. For a moment, I had him cornered. I told him that if he came to the Hotel Lutetia tomorrow morning, we would take him to his mother.”
Henry made a face at the deception.
“I know, Henri. But I could think of no other way.”
“Do you think he believed you?”
She paused. “I think he called me a liar. He spoke so quietly, I am not sure. He looked at me with those huge, solemn eyes.” Henry remembered those eyes, like those of an old man sometimes. Claudette continued, “But he nodded before he ran away. I am sorry to not do better, Henri. I will help you to the hotel. And I will keep watch with you.”
Under the stars, in the garden across from the Lutetia, they sat through the night. Even though it was early June, the night air chilled. Henry borrowed a blanket from inside, and wrapped himself and Claudette together in it. She tucked her legs up under her skirt and rested against his chest, content, unusually quiet. His head began to clear.
“Claudette?”
“Oui?”
“I have a book by your Camus that I cannot understand. Maybe you can explain it to me, because Madame Gaulloise seemed to think it was important that I get it.”
“I will try, Henri. Camus is a great man. He rallied Paris to resist the Nazis.”
“Have you read the The Myth of Sisyphus?”
“Oui.”
“Please explain that to me. It’s so irritating—his having to push a rock up a hill for eternity.”
Claudette sat up to look at him. “You are such an American,” she teased. “Your countrymen think they can fix everything, that all battles can be won.”
Henry bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her. Hadn’t they fixed Europe? The French would still be occupied without the Allies. But then he thought about all the destruction left by American bombs, about how the French had saved his skin, and kept silent.
“Sisyphus is the absurd hero,” Claudette continued.
“Right. Is being absurd good?” he asked.
Claudette laughed. “You miss the point, Henri. There is no sun without shadow. Camus says that the greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition. Sisyphus is superior to his fate because he scorns it. Sisyphus could choose suicide because his existence is meaningless, but instead the struggle becomes his meaning. ‘The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.’” She repeated the sentence Madame Gaulloise had quoted, then swept her hand out toward the garden and the Lutetia. “Given all we survived, all that is left to do, it is a good philosophy, no?”
Slowly, Henry nodded. He understood. Madame had survived Ravensbruck because she could find within herself an impenetrable fortress of purpose, of righteous scorn for those who would seek to destroy humanity, a stubborn joie de vivre—no matter what the Nazis did to her, no matter what her fate ultimately was. She must have hoped the book would tell Henry that he had to find answers in his own soul.
Henry was struck with another recognition. Patsy had tried to tell him something like that when she said she was afraid she would not be enough for him—that she couldn’t fix things for him, that he frightened her. His mind flew home. You don’t need to be afraid now, Pats. I’m better. I’m stronger. I can fight my demons. I’ll follow the example of Madame, le patron, Claudette, and yes, even Pierre.
Finding Pierre, taking him into Henry’s home to save him just as Pierre had saved Henry, would let Henry shed much of his guilt and sorrow and begin anew. Lilly was right—helping someone else, shaking a fist at fate even, would help him stand tall again. He knew the nightmares, the regrets, would still visit him, but he would know them for what they were—scars healing slow and every once in a while breaking open again. He’d finally negotiated his peace.
Claudette snuggled back against his heart. “Henri?”
“Yes?”
“I cannot go to America with you.”
Henry caught his breath. So she had heard him earlier. He started to apologize. He wasn’t sure what he meant by it. He loved Patsy, and yet…
“We live because of one another, Henri,” Claudette stopped him. “Yet we cannot live with one another. My country is no longer your fight. It is mine.” Her voice was trailing off. “But I will always treasure you,” she murmured. “You are the handsome flier who helped me find my way.”
A few minutes later, she was asleep.
Henry dozed a little himself. Dawn woke him. He gently laid Claudette down on the bench and went to the garden’s gate to watch for Pierre. As he passed, he looked over to the statue of the three women of kindness.
He froze. From behind the carved robes of the stone mother cradling her infant peeked out a small, very dirty, human hand. Henry tiptoed closer. A boy had nested himself up against the back of the statue. Henry stood on his toes to see the face.
It was Pierre.
Henry dropped to his knees, trying to squelch his instinct to jump on Pierre and hog-tie him until he could talk some sense into him. But that wasn’t right. Pierre had to decide to come to Henry himself. But how? Pierre had not even seemed to recognize him yesterday.
Ever so quietly, Henry eased himself down on the steps beside Pierre. Seeing him on the stark white stone reminded Henry of leaving Pi
erre at the church—tucking him into the starched, bleached covers of the bed in the priest’s sparse white room. That night Henry had done the only thing he could think of to comfort Pierre. He had sung the song Lilly always put him to bed with when he was young, “You Are My Sunshine,” and then given him that lucky marble.
Henry pulled the marble from his jacket pocket. The marble had represented his ability to triumph. It had been his connection to home, to safety, when he was fighting in a burning sky over Europe. When he’d given it to Pierre almost a year ago—when Pierre’s mother was arrested and Henry had to continue on his escape—Henry had hoped that the marble would lend the boy some of Henry’s new-won strength. He wanted Pierre to have it as proof that Henry cared about him and would be there for Pierre as well—if Henry survived.
Well, he had survived. And now he was here. It was his turn to help. Henry hoped the marble would somehow remind Pierre of all that.
Henry replicated the circumstances of their good-bye as best he could. He started singing—low, soft—the ballad about how much joy one person could bring another in troubled times: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray….”
Pierre’s eyes fluttered open.
Henry kept singing and rolled the marble, that cloud of luck, toward Pierre. “Henri avec Pierre. Toujours. Wherever I go you are always with me.”
Pierre kept his cheek on the granite as the marble rolled to a stop in front of his nose.
“Henri avec Pierre,” Henry whispered again. Come on, Pierre, trust me.
“Ma bille. Mon nuage.”
Henry caught his breath at the sound of Pierre’s voice, so familiar, yet so different in its sorrow. Pierre had always had a lightness, a hope, about him, even in the middle of his country’s devastation, his family’s danger. “Yes, your marble, Pierre. Your cloud.”
“Bonne chance.”
“That’s right. Oui. It was to bring good luck.”
“Ça n’a pas marché.” Pierre answered flatly that it did not do so.
Henry winced. No, Pierre was right. The marble did not bring him good luck. In fact, the past year had brought Pierre nothing but tragedy. Henry thought a moment. “But it did bring good luck in a way, Pierre. I found you because of this marble. I don’t know that I would have without it.”
“Vous me cherchiez? Look? Me?”
“Yes, I have searched for you. Just as you looked for me on the road and took me to safety, to tranquillité.”
Tears filled Pierre’s eyes. “Ma maman est morte? Dead?”
Henry hesitated to answer the blunt question. But trust required honesty. If Pierre bolted, he’d just have to run after him and try something else. “Yes, your mother is dead.”
Pierre closed his eyes. His tears splashed on the stone.
Henry didn’t move, barely breathed, waiting.
Pierre opened his eyes again. Slowly, carefully, he reached for the marble. “Henri avec Pierre? Toujours?”
“Toujours.” Henry’s voice cracked. “Always.”
Pierre closed his hand around the marble and looked up at Henry. “Tranquille?” he whispered.
“Yes, Pierre. Safe. Tranquille avec moi. From now on.” Henry took his hand. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
JULY 4TH, 1945
“Good thing I spotted you, sir. You’d have had trouble finding another taxi. And no buses are running.”
“Is gas rationing still that bad?” Henry asked the cabbie absentmindedly. He was watching Pierre look out the window at the flat fields outside Richmond and wondering what he was thinking.
“Well, sure. They won’t lift that till we beat the Japs. And at fifteen cents a gallon, it’s hard to afford. No, I mean because of the holiday.”
Henry caught the driver’s gaze in his rearview mirror. “Holiday?”
“Independence Day, sir. How long you been gone?”
A lifetime it felt like. “A while. I lost track of the days.” Henry tapped Pierre’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, Pierre. Today is like Bastille Day. There will be fireworks. Des feus.” Henry tried to explain that America had won its independence in a battle down the river at Yorktown, because a lot of French boats sailed in at just the right time to block the Chesapeake Bay. But he got jumbled up in the translation.
“Pierre? Is the kid a Frenchie?” the cabbie asked.
Henry frowned. He hadn’t really thought about all the dumb-yokel questions Pierre might have to answer living with them. “Yeah, he’s French,” Henry corrected the driver, and turned his attention back to Pierre.
“That’s corn.” He pointed to a passing field of tufted, waist-high stalks. The American crop was something Pierre had probably never seen before. “It’s ready for picking in August. It tastes good. Goûtent bien.”
Pierre didn’t answer. He stuck his face out the window to catch the wind. It was ninety-eight degrees—a typical Tidewater summer day when the air felt like moist cotton. Pierre pulled himself back in. He looked worried.
“Pas de montagnes?”
“No. No mountains.” Richmond’s monotonous flatness would take some getting used to—the massive Vercors’s mountains had been like rampart stairs to heaven. “But our rivers are beautiful,” Henry said, trying to encourage Pierre. “Les rivières. Très belles. Patsy and I have a swimming hole in one of the creeks feeding the James, where it pools quiet. A big willow hangs over a bank of soft moss and there’s a tire swing and…” Henry realized that Pierre couldn’t follow all that. “You’ll see. La rivière est belle.”
The swimming hole was Henry’s favorite place. His happiest hours had been down there, splashing around with Patsy. It’d been where he’d first kissed her before leaving for France. His heart did a little skip as he thought of her dimpled smile.
Henry sighed, wondering if Patsy was as nervous as he was to see her again. He’d phoned from New York City when they arrived to tell Clayton and Lilly they were coming so they’d be ready for Pierre. Lilly was thrilled. Clayton had muttered that at least Henry’d be home in time to pick the string bean field. Typical. Just as long as Clayton was nice to Pierre.
But he hadn’t been able to call Patsy. Her family didn’t have a telephone. The train would get them to Richmond before a letter could arrive. So Henry had asked Lilly to tell Patsy that he was coming home to her and that someday he wanted to show her Paris. It was a beautiful city for a beautiful girl.
Hopefully, Patsy wouldn’t ask him how he arranged the boat trip home since the ship passage back had been Claudette’s doing. Henry wasn’t so sure he wanted to discuss Claudette with Patsy. Not that he had anything to hide; it was just…complicated. He and Claudette had no future together. He didn’t want one either. But what they had had was sacred and between them—they were war buddies almost, survivors of the same shipwreck.
He smiled thinking of Claudette. Although he had left her in a troubled land, Claudette was strong and ready to take on postwar France. In fact, God help anyone getting in her way! Through her UFF connections, Claudette had found them a berth on a Soviet boat to Norway. Once there, no one understood a word Henry was saying and he let his remaining money speak for him and Pierre. Henry was pretty certain that the emigration papers she came up with for Pierre were forged—since that’s what her friends had done for the Resistance.
But he wasn’t going to ask questions. The lines of right and wrong were still forming in postwar France. Given what he’d witnessed and heard of, slipping one small boy in need of a home out of it seemed small potatoes. There were so many children in need, surely no one would care that one was being helped in a less than official way. Besides, given his worry that Thurman still shadowed him somehow, Henry didn’t want to force his way through proper channels that might alert the OSS man of his taking Pierre to Virginia. That seemed just too good a piece of blackmail. If Thurman got hold of that information and push came to shove, it’d be mighty hard for Henry to not give up a name or two of h
is maquis friends. So he and Pierre left Paris as soon as they could.
Henry and Claudette said their good-byes at the Louvre. She’d taken him on the way to the train station, just as she promised. The Mona Lisa had just been put back on the wall. The curators had evacuated her and driven her around in a humidity-controlled ambulance to escape capture by Hitler. Her eyes really did follow Henry around the room, just like Patsy said.
Claudette also showed Henry some Picasso paintings. “He lives in Paris, you know. The symbolism in his cubist work is wonderful, no?” Claudette murmured more to herself than to Henry.
Picasso. Madame Gaulloise had sold her Picasso painting to finance his escape and that of some Jewish musicians. Gazing at the painted jumble of body parts and geometric figures, and then at the fiery, idealistic Claudette, Henry recognized what kindred souls she and Madame Gaulloise were; it was as if Claudette was Madame’s spiritual daughter.
Henry opened his bag and pulled out Madame’s scarf. Madame had said to give it to Lilly. But Henry could see that it should stay in France with Claudette. She would carry the flame of Madame’s compassion and courage forward with her own. As he wrapped the deep green silk around her neck, Henry told Claudette who it had belonged to and why she should have it. He added that if she ever met Picasso to tell him about Madame.
“Wear this scarf when you run for president, Claudette.”
“Henri, c’est bien la maison? Home?”
“Yes, home.” Henry was relieved for Pierre’s sake that they were arriving in early July when the house was still pretty. By the end of the month, the sun would have scorched things brown. Right now the cedars along the drive were still green and fresh. The two oaks by their Victorian farmhouse spread out a cool shade on the clover. Lilly’s nasturtiums and marigolds were bright and full—happy lines of orange, gold, and red marching from the drive to the front door.
Just like his last homecoming, the first to greet the taxi was good old Speed, wet and sloppy from the creek, wagging his entire body in a friendly hello. When Henry opened Pierre’s taxi door, Speed coaxed him out with a big, slurping dog kiss.
A Troubled Peace Page 17