In these few short seconds, I have taken a terrific dislike to this obnoxious snob.
Without losing his superb aplomb, he goes on, “What is your name? And what does your father do?”
That’s it. He has touched a raw nerve.
“Listen, you stupid little clown’s behind, I don’t care about anybody’s clothes. I’ll talk to whom I please, and furthermore, this is what my father says to you.” I let out my favorite expletive and watch his face turn the color of an overripe tomato.
“How dare you! How vulgar. I am reporting you to the principal right now.”
“Please yourself, your excellency,” I reply.
An hour later, I am in the library when they call for Pierre Leroy, but I continue reading. It isn’t long before the principal comes into the library, calling once again for Pierre Leroy. I look around, curious to see who is in trouble.
“Aren’t you Monsieur Pierre Leroy, little gentleman?” The man in charge is standing in front of me.
“No, I am Pierre Ma—” I stop as it dawns on me. “I beg your pardon, sir, yes, that is me.”
The principal looks at me as if I have tried to escape prosecution.
“Will you please follow me to my office?” he says sternly.
I see heads turning in the room as the other boys silently watch us leave.
I settle uncomfortably into a seat in his luxurious office. The principal explains that this type of language will not be tolerated in this school, one of the finest French educational institutions.
“You are going to apologize to Robert Mayer.”
I sit up suddenly. “No! Respectfully, sir, I will not apologize to that pompous, egotistical, cruel jerk.”
“You what?”
“I will not apologize to him, sir.”
He studies me a moment from behind his large desk.
“I see. You can’t stand him, can you?” he says with a kinder tone.
“That is correct, sir.”
“One more bad word from you, and you are out of this institution. Do you understand me?”
He has given me a break, but his tone is firm. He means it.
“Yes, sir,” I reply as I am dismissed. I want to run from this building and go find Tata, but I can’t let my mother down, no matter what has happened between us.
I FIND THAT MOST of the students at the boarding school have attitudes like Robert Mayer’s. Somehow this crowd of elite upper-class, non-proletarian sons from old blue-blood money are somewhat ridiculous. There is something artificial about them; somehow they do not ring true to me. These snobbish buffoons are way too pretentious for my taste. I would rather rise early for my morning chores and eat whatever is available at the Marrot household.
Sadly, I realize I am alone in the world. I have no one, only the adventurous kindred spirits to be found within the pages of books.
When I am not in class, I spend time outside on the expansive grounds, which offer me both solitude and freedom. I take solace in my work, throwing myself into my studies and my art. Sometimes at night I lie awake wondering how Papa is doing. Is he alive? Will he return? What about Tata, Maman, Gérard, and my two grandfathers?
I start to pray, but my mind returns once more to the question: Will I ever get my name back? I have so many worries. I pray for everyone’s safety, yet I dare not ask God for my deepest desire. I dare not even speak to God about it. I fall into a fitful sleep, thinking, I am truly alone.
“PIERRE LEROY, YOU HAVE A VISITOR IN THE PARLOR.”
I have been keeping to myself for many weeks now, but I still am not used to this foreign name people call me. I hate being called by this last name. To me, I am still Pierre Matisse and do not want any part of this Leroy business.
After some confusion, I reluctantly go to the parlor.
When I see my visitor, I am overjoyed.
On this sunny day, Monsieur Jacques has come to visit me in my golden cage.
“On your mother’s orders, I am taking you from this school today,” he says with a smile. “Your mother has received word from your father. He was taken prisoner, but he has escaped.”
This is wonderful news. I knew Papa would escape if he was taken prisoner.
“Your father can’t come to the occupied zone,” Jacques explains. “For the time being, he is keeping a low profile in the nonoccupied zone somewhere between Bordeaux and Toulouse.” Papa is waiting for us to join him there.
I’m relieved that Papa is safe. He’s alive, when so many others are not. Not only alive, but he has escaped from the Nazis like a true adventurer. The idea fills me with joy, but under the present circumstances, I am mixed up inside.
Will things ever be the same again between Papa and me? My thoughts are soaring as I thank God for saving Papa. Once he returns, we can sort out this name thing. God has answered the prayer that I could never ask for.
It doesn’t take me long to pack up. As I walk out of the school with Monsieur Jacques, I glance back over my shoulder. I am freed from my prison.
FOR A MOMENT, everything is good again. We have a long walk ahead of us before we catch the bus. The trip to the Marrots’ house takes the entire afternoon.
Along the way, Jacques explains what lies ahead. “Your mother has obtained the necessary travel permits. First, we get your mother and little brother and make some quick preparations, and then we are going to meet your father.”
“He is not my father anymore,” I mumble, knowing that Monsieur Jacques surely knows about my humiliation.
“Well . . .” He ponders this for a second or two. “Take my advice, Pierre. Perhaps not legally, on paper. But in reality, all this name business is strictly academic. One’s father is one’s father.”
“I want my father like it was before the war.”
Jacques is silent, closing his eyes as if to think.
Before he can answer me, my feelings burst out. “I don’t know where I stand anymore!”
“You are too young to understand certain things,” Jacques says, giving me his most serious look.
“But I want to know everything, Monsieur Jacques,” I tell him earnestly.
“Impossible! Nobody knows everything. I do not know everything.”
“Tata knows everything,” I say. There is nothing in the entire world that Tata doesn’t know.
“If anybody in the world knows everything, yes, it would be her. You’re right.” Jacques smiles kindly. He trips on a small stone on the road, but his expression is blank. He isn’t paying attention to where he is walking. Then he mumbles, “What rubbish! Jean Matisse was there to welcome you into this world with your maman, and a very proud papa he was, at that!”
I stop dead in my tracks and stare at him.
“What did you say, Monsieur Jacques?”
I want to hear these words again. I need to hear them. Papa was proud of me.
“Nothing, Pierre, nothing. It is none of my business and wrong of me to mention it.”
I don’t ask again, but I mull over what he said. It is a burning question in my mind.
“I have a plan, and I need your help, Monsieur Jacques,” I say. “I have saved every bit of spending money that Maman has given me while I was at school. I need to stop someplace on our way to the Marrots to purchase two gifts—one for Maman and one for Papa.”
Jacques understands the seriousness of my mission. We enter a little shop that still has a few wares left after the Germans’ shopping spree. With Jacques’s approval I buy a silver pendant for my mother and a couteau a cran d’arrêt, a high-quality locking knife for Papa.
I confide to Jacques that perhaps Papa will forgive me and want me for a son again. Jacques mutters something about adults that I don’t understand before he turns away.
I hope that someday, once this war is over, I’ll have done enough penance for whatever I did wrong to become a full-fledged family member, with the same name as Papa, Maman, and Gérard. As a guest, I think it is at least proper to bring a gift to my hosts. I’m too af
raid to ask if I can call him Papa and ashamed of whatever I have done to be removed from the family. These two nicely wrapped gifts will be a token of my goodwill.
SOON JACQUES AND I arrive at the Marrots’. I am glad to be back with my mother. I give Gérard a pat on the back when I see him, and he seems happy to see me too.
Suddenly I am panic-stricken, and when I have a moment alone with Maman, I ask her to send me to Tata. I feel uneasy about my future in the Matisse family. I’m not one of them anymore. I can sense this with certainty.
“You cannot go to Tata right now. Your job, Pierre, is to help Monsieur Jacques,” Maman tells me.
Throughout Bordeaux, it is impossible for the French to find a drop of gasoline, even if one has the right authorization papers. Impossible, except for Monsieur Jacques. He does not tell me, but I suspect that he is siphoning gas from German trucks.
THE NEXT MORNING AFTER BREAKFAST, Jacques leads me outside the mansion to a bike that is leaning against the side of the building and hands me some French francs.
“Pierre, take this bicycle and go to several hardware stores. Buy five one-liter turpentine cans, one each at five different locations. It doesn’t have to be done all today, but try to finish quickly.”
The bike is a good one that I haven’t seen before. “Where did you get this bicycle, Monsieur Jacques?”
“I borrowed it. Now ride only in the eastern part of town and only for the cans.”
“Why?” A man has to know the details.
“This isn’t a bicycle to play with,” he says abruptly.
Over the next two days, I ride the bike to get the empty cans. Following Monsieur Jacques’s instructions, I keep a low profile, looking out for Nazi soldiers and avoiding other shops and groups of people as much as possible. On the first day, I buy three cans, transporting them one at a time back to the Marrots’ house. On the second day, I must ride a little farther to get the last two cans from different stores. As I am coming back with the final can, I hear a voice behind me, yelling in French. “Hey, that’s my bicycle! You, with my bicycle. Voleur! Thief! Arrest him!”
I pedal so fast I almost lose one can as I make a quick turn to get away. I reach the mansion, out of breath and exhausted, after taking numerous detours and roads to be sure I am not being followed.
As soon as I see Jacques, I say, “You stole this bicycle! Why didn’t you tell me?”
He gives me an indignant look. “Are you accusing me of being a thief?”
“Well, no. But this bicycle belongs to somebody else.”
“Stolen? In a war nobody steals . . . we only requisition,” he states, obviously offended.
“What is the difference between requisitioning and stealing?” I want to know.
He paces along the building, beside the bicycle. “We need it more than he does. So . . . we borrow it whether he likes it or not, so to speak.” Monsieur Jacques makes his explanation sound quite logical.
“Ah, okay,” I say, but my disapproval must show on my face.
“I will return his abominable bike this evening. Anyway, we don’t need it anymore; we are leaving tomorrow afternoon.” Although I completed my mission successfully, Monsieur Jacques’s tone clearly says, Whew! What a pain in the neck this kid is.
I feel better. The bike will be returned.
I DON’T SEE MONSIEUR JACQUES again until the next evening. He motions me outside, where there are two bicycles waiting. These bicycles are different from the one I used the day before. We ride along the road silently, carrying the tin cans, which now are filled with gas sloshing inside them. Monsieur Jacques’s nighttime mission has been successful. It reminds me of the nighttime adventure in Spain with my father when I was seven years old. As we ride, I cannot help but think of Papa out there somewhere . . . and of this Leroy business.
There is no doubt in my mind I have done something really bad. But what? Something sinister must be hiding somewhere in my past actions. I feel dirty, untouchable, like I have a contagious, shameful disease.
Obviously, only Tata will put up with me. For everyone else, I am an embarrassment and a burden.
Where did that Leroy name come from, anyway? I don’t dare ask Maman for fear that the story might get worse.
“Pierre, will you pay attention! You are always on the moon.” Monsieur Jacques sounds angry as he tears me away from my thoughts. He never speaks to me this way, so he must be tired. Then I hear him say, “This gas is serious business.”
We have been carrying these tin gas cans on the bicycles half the night with only the moon and stars to light our way. The tires on the dirt and gravel road are the only sound I hear.
“Where did you find these bikes, Monsieur Jacques?”
“Holy mackerel, Pierre! You don’t have to know everything, do you?” His impatience fades away immediately. Softly, he adds, “Borrowed, my boy. Honest. Not requisitioned, not stolen. Only borrowed.” His weak voice sounds suspicious to me, and I am not convinced that he is telling the truth.
“Are you afraid the gendarmes will arrest us for stealing these bikes?” Jacques asks.
“These bikes are too good to be anyone’s but a policeman’s,” I reply.
“Why mention stealing again? That’s an obsession with you. I will personally return these bicycles tomorrow to their legitimate owners, for goodness’ sake!”
We finally make it to the barn where Jacques has hidden the car. After uncovering it from piles of hay, Monsieur Jacques carries a tin to the gas tank. He pushes an old felt hat down inside the big gas funnel.
As he works in the darkness, I hear him muttering. “We’ve got to get out of Nazi France whatever way we can. I can’t stand it here anymore. I don’t even trust this Boche gas. Some of the French resistance fighters are putting sugar in it.” Leaving nothing to chance, Monsieur Jacques pours the gas through the makeshift filter in the funnel.
“What does sugar do to gasoline?” I lean down beside him to watch him work.
“Fabulous things, my boy, fabulous. It wonderfully plugs the Boches’ carburetors. Put the caps back on those empty cans tightly. We are taking them with us.”
“Did you put sugar in their gas?” This idea is a juicy one. I have to know.
“I am too busy now, but maybe one day I’ll win this sweet war with sugar.”
We both burst out laughing at the thought.
“Sugar in their planes would be nice.” I’m ready to volunteer for that assignment.
“Maybe, one day. Yes! One of these days.” I know he is thinking out loud.
In no time, everything is shipshape, the door is open wide, and we’re ready to drive out of the barn. The problem is, the car won’t start. Jacques pulls out the hand crank.
“Pierre, sit behind the wheel. When I say go, turn on the car, and apply a touch of gas.”
For a long time he turns the crank patiently without any result, not one word out of place. But through the dirty windshield, I can see his patience is being taxed to the limit.
Suddenly Monsieur Jacques tightens his fists, and he walks away from the car about three meters into the moonlight. Slowly, measuring his steps, he comes back, stopping just inches from the obstinate machine. He points a menacing finger toward the hood. Containing his rage as much as he can, he proceeds to talk to the reluctant car.
“Listen, you abominable piece of dung, I have had it with you! Now I will go directly to Number One. You’d better watch out. See!”
He raises both arms dramatically toward the spiderwebs hanging under the barn’s roof.
“Now hear me! It’s me, Jacques.” It takes me a moment to realize he’s not talking to someone in the rafters; he’s talking to Number One—God. “I have been stealing gas and bicycles for a month. I have never asked You for anything for me. Right? Good! Now I have to get two kids and their mother out of the Boches’ clutches. I gave my word, straight and true. Now today, this rotten motor will not start. Please, help me.”
End of prayer.
Mons
ieur Jacques takes hold of the crank and gives the uncooperative car another dirty look for good measure.
“Car on . . . a touch of gas,” he calls to me. His hair is so disheveled that he looks like a madman, although a very tired one.
After a few backfires and hesitations, the motor roars to life.
“Easy on the gas!” he commands, with a smile from ear to ear. I cheer from behind the wheel, careful to follow Monsieur Jacques’s instruction. As he comes to the driver’s side door, Monsieur Jacques raises his head and arm upward, shaking his head from side to side in a combination of relief and disbelief as he says, “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, merci.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “A piece of advice, Pierre. When nothing works, you try God. Sometimes that is all it takes. But do not abuse it because He is always terribly busy, especially now.”
I crawl out of the driver’s seat, listening to the engine purr. Monsieur Jacques sits on a bale of hay trying to catch his breath. He looks straight up to the roof’s spiderwebs, joins his hands together, and simply says, “Thank You.”
He looks at me. “Whether you get your request or not, never forget to say thank you. Remember, it always could be a lot worse. You say thank you, too, right now.”
I put my hands together and say, “Thank You.” It is my first real prayer of thanks and a spiritual lesson I won’t forget.
With the car full of gas and running well, Jacques turns the engine off, and we hide it once again, which is no small feat with Maman’s table still strapped to the top. Then we ride the bikes back to the Marrots’.
My mother has a few more days of frustrating finagling with the French and German authorities for the necessary permits to travel more than a hundred and fifty miles. Then Maman, Gérard, and I say good-bye to our friends at the Marrot mansion. Monsieur Jacques is ready, stolen Boche gasoline and all, for the trip to the nonoccupied zone.
Thirty-one miles from Bordeaux, after passing many German military roadblocks and enduring numerous inspections of our papers, and six miles past the roadblock at the demarcation line, we stop at a little hamlet off the main road.
The Missing Matisse Page 9