“Henry!” Lilly ran out of the kitchen, screen door slamming, wiping her hands on her apron. Henry hugged her, catching the scent of apples and cinnamon—somehow she always smelled of warm things baking in the oven. “Ma, did you make a pie for me?”
“Of course, honey. Today’s the Fourth. You’re home. We need to celebrate.”
Henry had no present for Lilly, having given Madame’s scarf to Claudette. Outside the Louvre a man was doling out fistfuls of a fancy perfume, Chanel No. 5, to passing GIs, telling them to take it home to their girls. But Claudette had snatched the bottle away and smashed it on the ground, saying that Coco Chanel had been a collabo, living at the Ritz with an Abwehr spy, and was just trying to buy her way out of a trial by bribing Americans with perfume.
“Ma, I’m sorry,” Henry apologized to Lilly. “I was so short on money. You wouldn’t believe what food cost. So I couldn’t buy anything nice for you.” But he did plan to show her that lily of the valley he’d pressed into Madame’s book and to try to find some seeds for the flowers. Lilly would love them planted under the oaks.
“Pshaw, sugar. You’re home,” Lilly looked up into his face. “You look well and whole. What more could I want, son?”
She turned to Pierre, who was hanging on to Speed like a shield. “And,” she said, smiling her welcome, “you have brought me a new friend.” She took Pierre’s hand to shake it and said, “Bienvenue à ta nouvelle maison.” Lilly’s drawl mangled the French, but her words pulled a tiny return smile out of Pierre. She even kissed him on each cheek in proper French style.
“Ma, where’d you learn that?”
She winked. “I have my ways.”
“That the boy?” Clayton stood behind them, a bucket of eggs beside him. Gruff, as always.
Henry stiffened. “Yes, Dad, this is Pierre.” The first thing he was going to make sure of was that Clayton never referred to Pierre as “boy,” the way he’d always minimized Henry.
But Pierre seemed to understand Clayton immediately. Perhaps he reminded Pierre of his own cantankerous grandfather. “Vos oeufs sont beaux, monsieur,” he said, pointing to the bucket of eggs. “Vous devez bien prendre soin de vos poules.”
Henry laughed. Smart kid. Pierre obviously knew about catching flies with honey. Clayton would definitely respond well to a compliment about his farming.
“What did the boy say?” Clayton asked.
“Pierre said that since you have so many nice eggs, you must take good care of your hens. I told you he came from a farm, Dad.”
“Hmphf. Well, pay the cab. Welcome home, son.”
“Where’s Patsy, Ma?” he asked Lilly as they entered the house.
“She’ll be here for the picnic in just a little while, sugar. She’s working at Miller and Rhodes for the summer, in the ladies’ section. There was a big sale yesterday and she didn’t get home till late. So she’s helping her mother cook. She said to tell you that she can hardly wait to see you. She’s had good news while you were gone, Henry. She received a full scholarship to Sweet Briar College.” Lilly slipped her arm through Henry’s and said pointedly, “You know, honey, Sweet Briar is only one train stop from UVA. There’s talk about a GI bill making it easy for veterans to go to college. You promised to go on to college once you got back from the war. You’ve already been accepted, remember?”
But all Henry heard was that Patsy was going away. His heart sank. He’d always known Patsy was smart, but he hadn’t ever considered her going away to college. Henry caught himself. He could just imagine what Claudette would say to him if she knew he was surprised by a girl going to college. It’d blister his ear! He’d have to act happy for Patsy. She deserved that chance. Still, he couldn’t help worrying about what that meant for the two of them.
If only Lilly’s matchmaking could make everything right between him and Patsy. But if Henry had learned anything on this trip, it was that life was full of surprises and that he had to face up to certain things on his own.
During the picnic, Henry had two shadows, Pierre and Speed. The three of them sat wedged together on the front steps with Patsy. She and Henry held hands and smiled at one another nervously. Silently, Pierre watched them.
Henry was torn between hovering over Pierre and trying to steal a few moments alone with Patsy. He had so much to tell her. “Want to try the stilts?” Henry pointed to Patsy’s younger brothers who were walking around the lawn on the elevated sticks.
Pierre shook his head.
“Do you want some more pie, honey?” Patsy asked him. “Pie?” she pointed to the crumbs left on the plate beside Pierre and smiled encouragingly.
He shook his head.
Henry and Patsy sighed at the same time, then blushed, then laughed at each other. The jittery anticipation and energy between them could turn on a lightbulb, Henry thought.
Pierre sighed, too, trying to be part of whatever was going on between them.
Poor kid. Henry ruffled Pierre’s hair. At least dinner had gone over well. Pierre had inhaled the deviled eggs, fried drumsticks, and pie. He’d picked at the baked beans though, reminding Henry of how he’d balked at some of the French dishes he’d been given, like the moldy blue cheese. But Speed had figured out that Pierre was good for leftover scraps, so they were now buddies for life.
Still, Pierre had hardly spoken. It was going to take him a while, a few months, maybe more, to adjust. They would all need to accept that. Henry wasn’t worried about Lilly understanding. She had set up a cot for Pierre in the third bedroom that she used for sewing and farm files. She’d put him there instead of with Henry, she said, figuring Henry might wake Pierre up with…she paused…with snoring.
Henry knew what she really meant. “I’m not having those nightmares as much anymore, Ma. But even when I do, I can ease myself down. Just takes a few minutes—but I beat them back. God knows I saw a lot of things to spark nightmares over in France. I’m not ready to talk about all that today. But soon. It’ll help you and Dad understand Pierre better. And I promised someone to make sure Americans really understand what Hitler did, how he exterminated and tortured millions of people. Millions, Ma.”
Lilly nodded. “Don’t tell me anything until you are ready, honey.”
Henry wished he’d inherited Lilly’s patience. He thought he would strangle someone soon if he couldn’t get Patsy to himself. Again, he looked at her with longing and smiled.
She smiled back.
Ka-bang! Pop-pop-pop!
Patsy’s brothers set off a string of cherry bombs, whooping and hollering at the Independence Day specials. Henry jumped, startled. Deep in his mind, he heard an echo of machine-gun fire, rat-tat-tat, but it was only a momentary burst, like heat lightning and thunder of a receding storm.
Did you think I would allow you to escape?
Henry looked around at all the faces he loved best and pushed the ghost away. I beat you, you SOB. I’m home.
Henry turned to Pierre to explain the Fourth of July tradition. But then he saw the expression on Pierre’s face. Pierre was terrified, shaking all over.
“You, boys,” Clayton barked. “That’s enough. Go on home now with those noisemakers! Want to stop my hens from laying?” Henry could tell the move wasn’t Clayton’s usual fun-spoiling. He was watching Pierre as well.
Patsy stood to shoo off her brothers.
Henry put his hand on Pierre’s shoulder to help steady him. “It’s all right, Pierre. Ease down,” he spoke softly. “I know what you’re thinking. But there are no Nazis here. You’re safe. Tranquille. Look at me. Regarde-moi.”
Pierre looked. Those huge solemn eyes looked through Henry, seeing other things, other places. But slowly, the focus came to Henry’s face. Slowly, he stopped trembling.
Lilly stood in the kitchen door, watching. There were tears on her face. She nodded at Henry, knowing. “We shouldn’t take him to the fireworks,” she said. “Next year. Then he will really enjoy them.” She turned to Patsy to suggest the party should end, but Patsy was
already preparing to follow her brothers home.
Henry caught her up in a good-bye hug. She whispered in his ear, “Come over later. After we get home from watching the fireworks, okay?”
“You got it,” Henry promised.
Clayton was still watching Pierre. Squinty-eyed, he twisted his mouth around. Henry knew that look. It meant Clayton was chewing on some thought. “You play marbles, boy?”
It was the one game Clayton had ever played with Henry and the only thing Henry had ever beaten his dad at. Given the stash of marbles Henry had seen under Pierre’s bench in Paris, he’d bet good money that Pierre would take Clayton to the cleaners. What better way for Pierre to earn some respect fast from the old man?
Henry looked down at Pierre and asked him. “Joues aux billes avec mon père?”
A little glimmer came to Pierre eyes and he pulled their lucky marble from his pocket. He asked Henry if he really should.
“Oh yeah.” Henry grinned. “For sure. C’est une idée superbe!” Henry turned to Clayton. “Yes, Pierre plays marbles.”
An hour later, after Pierre had won a pile of marbles, Clayton called it quits.
Worried that being skunked by a nine-year-old would annoy Clayton, Henry softened Pierre’s victory: “It’s a lucky shooter, Dad.”
“Naw.” Clayton stuck out his lower lip, considering the match. “It was skill. Wasn’t that the shooter you won off me?”
Henry was stunned that Clayton recognized it. “You know, Dad, I carried that marble with me on my missions, for good luck. It was a way to tie me to home.”
Clayton swallowed hard, blinked, and rubbed his nose. “Yeah?” He kept looking forward.
“Yeah.”
Clayton cleared his throat. “Come on out to the barn. I’ve got something to show you.”
Henry followed Clayton, figuring he was in for a lecture about a new plow or a show-and-tell about some tractor he’d rehabilitated. An ace mechanic, Clayton could make any old piece of junk hum. He’d taught Henry a lot, he’d have to admit. Henry would try to listen.
The sun was setting, spilling rosy light along the grass. Swallows darted, swooped, climbed, pirouetted in the air chasing bugs—the prettiest hunters of the earth. A mother quail called her babies in to shelter for the night. “Bob-white,” she whistled. “Bob-bob-white,” little voices answered. It sure was good to be home.
Clayton hurled his weight against the large sliding door that opened up almost the entire wall of the barn. Henry threw his shoulder into it, too, and then stepped back, wondering what in the world needed the barn opened up that much.
He caught his breath. Inside was the Curtiss Jenny biplane that he’d wrecked. But it was fixed—ready to fly again.
He couldn’t help it. He hugged Clayton, hugged him hard and swung him around.
“Here now!” Clayton shrugged him off. But then he laughed and shook his head. “Darn fool thing, son, for me to bother with. But I figure you can crop dust to earn some money before you go on to college this fall. Time for you to go. Your mother and I will keep the boy. He looks like he knows a thing or two about farms.”
“You can’t overwork him, Dad, not like…” Henry stopped himself from criticizing Clayton for how hard he’d worked Henry. “Not like we had to do in the Depression, Dad.”
“No. He needs some healing time. Your Ma says so. You can help me harvest the corn before you go off.”
They stood silently, gazing together at the gleaming flying machine. Clayton was the one to break the silence. “You know, I kind of liked working on it. I liked the sound her struts made when the wind caught them.”
Henry grinned. Well, the old man wasn’t such a stone after all. “You want to go up with me, Dad?”
Clayton turned to Henry. “Not me, son. I get why flying means so much to you. But it’s not for me. Each man has something that keeps him aloft. For me, it’s your mother.” He crossed his arms and very slowly, making sure Henry followed his gaze, Clayton looked across the fields toward Patsy’s farm. Then he clapped Henry’s shoulder and walked back to the house, calling over his shoulder that he and Lilly would get Pierre to bed.
Laughing, lighthearted, Henry lit out across the fields. He felt his heart lift, catching the wind. He was ready to begin again, to take flight once more.
He reached Patsy’s house just as her brothers were tumbling in the door, shouting about the colors and the noise of the fireworks display. He said a quick, barely polite hello to her parents. Then Henry grabbed Patsy’s hands to pull her away, past the square of lights cast through the house windows onto the grass, where their feet kicked up the scent of twilight dew.
He handed her the only gift he’d been able to purchase, a book of postcards of paintings in the Louvre. He pointed to the one of Mona Lisa. “Her eyes do follow you around the room, Pats, just like you said.” He kissed her gently. “Just like my eyes will always follow you.” He stopped himself from adding, “if you will let me.” That kind of question, about their future together, needed to wait a little, until they were both ready. But he did have another one.
“I have something to ask you,” he said.
Patsy pulled in her breath, sharp. He could feel her hands begin to tremble ever so slightly. “Yes? I’m ready.”
“Dance the skies with me?”
For just a moment, disappointment shadowed her beautiful freckled face. That wasn’t the question she’d expected. But then a small smile slid onto Patsy’s lips and grew into a radiant grin, that tomboy grin Henry had always loved. “Wait? Are you serious? Go up in that plane your dad rigged?”
“Yeah. Wanna?”
“I’ve never been in a plane before, Henry,” she whispered, breathy, awed with the idea.
“I know. Wanna come?”
She nodded, bouncing on her tiptoes.
“Grab a sweater. It’s cold in the clouds.”
Patsy darted away and back, beaming.
Henry clasped her hand and they ran, shouting, rejoicing, falling down and pulling one another up to skip on, like children.
On laughter-silvered wings, topping the windswept heights, Henry showed Patsy how to touch the face of God.
AFTERWORD
“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night…The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.”
—Albert Camus
War ends, and the battle for peace begins.
Nations must establish true, cooperative treaties with former enemies. New governments must be formed among competing political ideologies and leaders more accustomed to fighting than negotiating. Cities, railways, ports, bridges, schools, and hospitals must be rebuilt. Farms, long neglected or destroyed, must be replanted. Banks must be replenished and reopened.
Survivors must find loved ones lost during panicked flight from oncoming armies, nurse the wounded or starved back to health, and bury their dead. Returning soldiers must ease down from battle readiness, shedding the quick-flash aggression that kept them alive under fire. They must accept what they have done and seen. War criminals must be tried in a civilized, judicial court. Lesser criminals—the weak, the passive, the followers—must be pardoned and left alone.
These are tall orders for countries and individuals alike. The hatred, suspicion, and bitter vengeance forged in the firestorms of war do not die down easily. That is especially true when a conflict is long lasting and far-flung, as was World War II.
World War II lasted six years and embroiled more than 50 nations. Death toll estimates go as high as 70 million, but the most scholarly sources estimate that a staggering 55 million people were killed, most of them civilians. In Europe alone, the Nazis methodically exterminated 14 million persons Hitler deemed “racial inferiors”: Poles, Slavs, gypsies, and six million Jews.
In France, 211,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen were lost, but so, too, were 400,000 civilians. These children, women, and men died in battle bombardments, from land mines left by Nazis, in execution
s, in massacres in retaliation for Resistance work, from deportation, and, tragically, in Allied bombings designed to liberate them. France was the largest supplier of manpower and finished goods to Hitler’s Germany. To win the war, the Allies had to destroy its production of ball bearings, tires, and other such items used for Nazi tanks, planes, and ships. No matter how careful Allied bomber crews were to drop their load “right in the pickle barrel,” the explosions often spread beyond targeted factories, supply depots, or railway junctions. In May 1944, for instance, the Allies flew 1,284 raids over France. In one two-day period, 6,000 French persons perished.
After the war ended, five million French were left displaced.” Many were homeless refugees, their towns in ruins from the village-by-village battle for liberation. In places like Caen, for instance, only 400 of its 1,800 buildings were left standing. Others struggled to return from the concentration and labor camps to which they had been deported by Nazis and fellow Frenchmen.
Rage at French collaboration with Hitler is what continued the nation’s internal strife after its liberation in late 1944. A large number of French citizens—from industrial giants to ordinary shopkeepers or small-town mayors—had willingly cooperated with the Nazis and its puppet Vichy government. Some did so because they agreed with Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism. Others cooperated because of fear or greed or a lust for power. With the help of such collaborators, 76,000 French Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. A mere 3 percent survived. Also deported were 85,000 Resistance members and “political undesirables” (socialists, communists, and other radicals). Only half returned.
Most of these victims had been reported to the Nazis and the French Milice by their neighbors or coworkers, people they knew.
In retaliation for such betrayals, collaborators were attacked as D-day armies landed. In what the French called the épuration sauvage, “the savage purge,” about 10,000 people were executed without trial. Thousands of women were shaved by mobs in punishment for their perceived romances with German soldiers. Tragically, some were maquis fighters who had befriended Germans in order to spy on them for the Resistance. They could not convince enraged crowds of the patriotism of their playacting. Vigilante-style attacks escalated in 1945 as concentration camps were liberated and a tidal wave of “absents” flooded back into France—broken, emaciated, deathly sick—carrying tales of horrifying atrocities that shocked and inflamed the country.
A Troubled Peace Page 18