The Missing Matisse

by Pierre H. Matisse

  Occasionally, we encounter a retreating German truck overloaded with soldiers that drives by slowly with its lights out. Thick Chest tries to flag them down, but he is waved off. No one has room for more soldiers.

  As I continue walking with Thick Chest down the road, I am glad Papa is not here tonight. I am certain that one of us would have been killed. On second thought, we might have killed the three Boches between us.

  My mind wanders back to a similar scenario at our home on l’avenue de Clamart. There was an air-raid alert, and I was on the sixth-floor balcony of the apartment with Papa. Maman and Gérard had gone to the basement shelter, but we wanted to watch the show.

  A bus full of German soldiers had stopped in front of the building, and as they got out of the bus to get inside the building for shelter, Papa threw a lit cigarette butt over the balcony, which landed close to the bus driver. The driver looked up, and Papa saluted him. The Boche driver saluted back.

  Suddenly, flak guns opened fire, and shrapnel fell all around us. The Boche driver nonchalantly looked up at us—he had no plans to run for shelter either.

  Bombs began exploding, and the building was shaking. I was shaking. Only Papa and the lone Boche driver on the avenue were not shaking. The two adversaries were in a standoff, showing each other defiance and courage, very much like me and Thick Chest. Yes! Papa would have loved this adventure tonight.

  A short burst from Thick Chest’s machine gun shakes me out of my thoughts. He has shot a volley of bullets into the air to get the attention of a truck driver. He has had enough. Exasperated to the limit, Thick Chest is standing in the middle of the road, pointing his submachine gun at the truck driver as they trade insults. Finally, Thick Chest wins the argument.

  The truck driver follows us in his vehicle to the hidden car, and I help Pumpkin and Student load the looted boxes and packages from the trunk of the car into the truck. Then Thick Chest gives me a swift kick and a less-than-complimentary good-bye. I reply in my best Italian sign language, adding, “Boches kaput!”

  I can hear Pumpkin laughing and Thick Chest firing insults back at him as the truck pulls away.

  When I arrive back home, my grandparents rush toward me, relieved that we are all still alive. As we hug one another and I sit down to catch my breath, Mathilde says, “Pierre, you fed the Boche the dog’s food!”

  We all burst out laughing.

  25

  INTERLUDE

  There are incalculable resources in the human spirit, once it has been set free.

  HUBERT H. HUMPHREY

  IT IS MID-JULY 1944, and the war continues around us, with Allied planes being shot down by German anti-aircraft guns. Sometimes we see a parachute in the sky, and other times, only the smoke pouring out behind the disabled aircraft as it plummets to the ground. German soldiers, haggard and weary, are retreating east in trucks and on foot. The nights are lit up by flares, and the sounds of the big guns of the Allies’ artillery divisions are coming closer.

  A few days after my escapade with Thick Chest, a bomb falls near the village, and the call goes out to help a woman who is trapped in her house. She had been preparing lunch on the stove when the blast caused the roof of the house to cave in, pinning her underneath the rubble.

  I join the rescue party and begin digging through the debris with everyone else. The woman is relatively calm, trying to direct us to her location. It seems like it takes hours to get her out, but in reality it is only a short time. She is badly burned on her face and arms from the stove but is grateful to be alive.

  Lately, the Boches have been arresting civilians and making them perform temporary chores—unloading or loading trucks, digging graves, or patching up the craters in the road created by bombs. Whenever the German soldiers come too close for comfort, I choose to run. They have become unpredictable ever since the invasion. I have seen some senseless murders, including that of a child in the past week. Papa has told me on numerous occasions to stay out of the Boches’ reach, and I have always placed great value in my father’s wisdom and on my neck.

  Still, I always want to know what’s going on, so I never stray too far. I am careful not to walk on the road, usually following at a distance in the field alongside it. One beautiful summer morning, the road near the house is deserted, and everything is unusually quiet when I start out. No Boches, no planes, no gunfire—just silence.

  After a while, I decide to cross the road. I drop down in the field and crawl to the ditch nearest me, checking carefully for any sign of anyone or anything. It looks safe, but as I begin to stand up to run across to the far ditch, I hear, “Stop!”

  Did he say just say “stop”—in English? I raise my arms in front of a green hedge and watch as a big gun protruding from a bush comes from behind the hedge and runs straight toward me.

  “I am a French civilian and speak English!” I scream at the running bush on wheels, which is actually a camouflaged small tank.

  The bush stops and answers me. “Have you seen any German soldiers?” Then one of His Majesty George VI’s soldiers jumps out from behind the leafy bush.

  “None since yesterday morning,” I answer.

  “How were they?”

  “Beat up, and headed toward Paris.”

  “You can put your arms down,” another soldier says, approaching me.

  “Gentlemen, I am glad to see you.”

  “Is there any German defense in the area that you know of?” The voice is clipped and authoritative.

  “Maybe in the forest near Breteuil. In this immediate area, they always move in and out fast,” I explain.

  “We are only an advance patrol. We can’t go farther than here,” a lieutenant says.

  “I hope that you aren’t going to turn back!” I exclaim in alarm.

  “Your English isn’t bad, young fellow. What is your name?” he asks.

  “Pierre.”

  I am surrounded by British soldiers now. “A cup of tea?” one of them asks.

  “With pleasure.”

  The tea is delicious and even has powdered milk and just a touch of sugar. I am literally tasting freedom. To this day, I have never tasted anything as good as this liberation day cup of tea.

  I hear a radio crackling in the rolling bush.

  “Could you do something for us?” the one in charge asks. He is dressed in a battle uniform, standing tall with dark, intense eyes that could bore right through you.

  “Anything! I’ll do anything to get the Boches out. And . . . it won’t be the first time,” I assure him.

  “Not so fast, my good fellow,” he says, laughing. “Who is the person in authority in the nearby village?”

  “Captain Vion. He’s not the mayor, but he was in World War I.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “A couple of miles away, toward the Germans.”

  “Could you go and ask him to meet us here?”

  “Yes,” I say, always up for an adventure.

  “Good! You are now our official emissary.”

  I proudly walk to Captain Vion’s cottage, not caring if I catch a bullet at the last minute. I am in no-man’s-land between the Boches and the British, and this is my heroic moment. Everyone is hiding, except me. Maybe Désiré isn’t the only crazy one! Wait until I brag about this to Papa. Freedom! Perhaps now we can all be a family again.

  The village seems deserted, and when I arrive at Captain Vion’s cottage, I ring the gate bell as hard as I can. “Captain Vion. We are liberated. The English are here. Come out!” There is no answer, but I know he is there. I open the gate and knock on the front door. Silence. This is important, so I enter the house.

  “Monsieur Vion, an English officer wants to talk to you.”

  “Close the door, idiot! Are you trying to get us shot?” Captain Vion emerges from a dark room armed with a huge revolver.

  “The English want to see you—immediately.”

  “How many are there?”

  “A dozen or so!” I reply.

 
He frowns. “That’s only an advance patrol. The Boches can launch a counterattack at any moment. It’s too dangerous,” he says, not liking the odds.

  “It’s not possible. The Boches are too busy running with their tails between their legs,” I declare with the flamboyant attitude of a hero who knows his stuff. “Besides, I walked here in the open without any trouble whatsoever.”

  “Fool! Then why can’t your British officer come here?”

  “The lieutenant told me their orders are not to advance any farther. You were in the last war. Surely a soldier following orders makes perfect sense to you, Monsieur Vion.”

  “I don’t like it,” he mutters. “But let’s go. Heroes die young, so you walk behind me.”

  As he slides his revolver under his belt, Monsieur Vion gives me a friendly tap on the back. The veteran had seen hell in World War I, so he knows the true reality of war. A little while later, we join the English patrol.

  I begin to translate to Captain Vion what the officer is saying, and as we are talking, more small tanks and armed vehicles begin to approach. A Jeep pulls up beside us, and an English captain in the passenger seat has a map unfolded on his knees. After introductions, he says, “Explain to Mister Vion that we want to occupy this field, this one, and this one out there,” pointing to the map.

  I translate the captain’s message and the answer from Monsieur Vion. “That will be fine. I’ll make the arrangements with the farmers to get their cows out,” he promises.

  The captain puts Monsieur Vion’s mind at ease when he adds, “We will not enter nor occupy any house in this village. Our camp will be in the surrounding apple orchards.”

  Now lots of military trucks are coming, and eventually a regiment of 150 men sets up camp. Monsieur Vion and I are invited to ride in the Jeep with the captain for the liberation announcement. Bois-Arnault, with a population of about five hundred French souls, is liberated. We are free! The war will rage on brutally for almost another year, but not in our backyard, not under our noses. For us, the war is over.

  No more shooting.

  No more bombing.

  No more Nazis.

  No more fear for our lives.

  Rapidly, I make friends with the English soldiers, who give me a pair of pants and a shirt, almost making me look like a regular limey soldier. I have a new position as the interpreter for our Allied friends.

  The English soldiers give me tea, biscuits, and canned meat, which I bring home to my grandparents. They rejoice at the news and enjoy the liberation meal.

  IN RUGLES, a few farms away from our village, late-to-the-game French resistants are arresting the women who have slept with the Boches. These disgraceful men, whom I haven’t seen anywhere near danger for the last few months, are now busy shaving the heads of these unfortunate women, painting swastikas on them, and parading them through town. It reminds me of The Scarlet Letter.

  If that isn’t enough, these after-the-fact buffoons wearing armbands arrest anyone suspected of being collaborators or black-market businessmen. I want to tear their armbands off and bend their arms back until they break! The true resistance patriots quietly continue to deal with those who have sold out their country when necessary. These French collaborators had been getting supplies for the French people and were taking great risks doing so. I have only praise for their activities. However, I despise these fools who suddenly appear when the danger is gone and strut around like they are the heroes.

  I am mystified by a man who won’t stand up for his country and family, who is not willing to face an armed enemy invader. Even more mystifying is the one who has the audacity to pop up and place blame on other war victims after his hide has been saved by the real patriots.

  “What fools! Women are for poems, love, and peace,” Désiré declares in disgust.

  “Yes, and the black-market merchants don’t shoot back,” I add.

  (It will be the last time I ever see Désiré. But in my mind I will always hear him playing “Stormy Weather” just for me.)

  I’m not surprised when the after-the-fact fighters ask me to join them.

  “No,” I reply. “But I’ll give you a gift of a German grenade and my Sten gun. The gun will look good on you. With the Boches gone, I don’t have any more use for it.”

  I also politely decline to participate in their hairstyling activities.

  “You disappoint us” is their last word to me. Not as much as they disappoint me.

  AS REGIMENT AFTER REGIMENT arrives every day, the fields surrounding the village of Bois-Arnault become a tent city for thousands of troops, camped for miles in each direction. The traffic on the road is unbelievable. Day and night, nonstop, vehicles are moving soldiers, ammunition, guns, and tanks of all sizes. Huge trucks are carrying pontoons to be used as portable bridges across rivers.

  I travel with the English captain in the immediate area and quickly realize how fortunate our village is—the destruction around us is extensive. Mile after mile, there are burned German convoys destroyed by Allied planes and dead bodies rotting in the summer sun. German prisoners are put to work digging the graves.

  Grandfather Leroy and Mathilde accommodate some of the civilian refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the bombings and the senseless horrors of war. I have not forgotten when I was a refugee and how the Marrots opened their home to Maman, Gérard, and me. However, we had been evacuated in luxury, with a car and a chauffeur.

  As I watch loaded trucks heading east toward the front lines and empty ones returning to the Normandy beaches to reload war supplies, an idea forms.

  “Captain, is there any way that we can fill those empty trucks with refugees?”

  “It’s a good idea. However, I’m not sure that the transport command will approve.”

  “Can I try?” I ask.

  The captain smiles and says, “Here’s a pass and a recommendation from me that you can show the transport command. You can use my Jeep and driver, but I can only spare it once in a while for a morning.”

  I get right to work, contacting the transport command. I didn’t have to persuade them to implement the plan, but they did have one condition: I must get the civilians to a refueling pit stop. With the daily convoy schedule in hand, I am in business . . . except for one small problem. I need a truck, rather than a Jeep, to get the refugees there in time.

  I approach my captain friend again.

  “First, you borrow my Jeep, and now you want a truck! Are you never satisfied, young fellow?” he says, teasingly, but with a smile that says yes.

  The repatriation operation gets under way. On the way to the front, the truck drivers tell me which villages are intact and which ones have been destroyed, and I pass on the information to the refugees. Then I organize transport for the ones who have a home to return to.

  At one pit stop, someone calls my name. A woman ready to board a truck says, “My grandmother wants to kiss you.”

  The grandmother is being carried by two soldiers because she can’t walk. I fight to hold back my tears, for the frail woman reminds me of Tata.

  Helping the refugees makes me feel good about life again. Finally I have a remnant of hope for the future and something to distract me from worrying about the fate of my family in Paris. Are they still alive? It has been weeks since our village has been liberated, and we still have no communications in or out of the area.

  IN LATE AUGUST 1944, with the last refugees safely on their way, I hitch a ride to Paris, which has finally been liberated.

  As we enter the city I see bullet holes in walls and bouquets of flowers or ribbons marking where a French person fell. When I reach the apartment, I anxiously knock on the door.

  “Maman, Maman,” I call out, hoping against hope that she will answer. Immediately, the door flies open, and Maman is standing there with tears in her eyes. We share a long embrace until we are pulled apart by Papa and Gérard, who embrace me too. Everyone is safe.

  I only have a short time to be with them, but what a preci
ous time it is. The four of us can’t stop hugging one another, and we all talk at once. We share stories of how we survived and savor the wonder that we are together after so many close calls. We have no way of knowing what tomorrow will bring, but we are here today. It is a day full of laughter and tears as we reminisce about old times and loved ones who have been saved or lost.

  Late that evening, on the ride back to Normandy, I reflect on how blessed I am to have found my parents and my brother alive and well. Silently, I give thanks to God.

  26

  RITE OF PASSAGE

  I haven't got it yet, but I'm hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh—something with soul in it! Onward, onward.

  VINCENT VAN GOGH

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, the Leroys receive a card from the Red Cross with news about their son, Camille—the person who is supposedly my father, but, according to Mathilde, is not. He is alive and serving somewhere in Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Army.

  Before we know it, this same stranger shows up at the gate, dressed in an American uniform. He knocks at the door, and Grandfather Leroy lets him in. Mathilde is delighted to see her son and introduces Camille to me. I recognize him from photographs I have seen around the house, and although I am respectful, I’m not friendly, and neither is he. Mostly we are embarrassed.

  We have nothing in common, neither looks nor otherwise. His eyes are clear blue, while mine are dark brown like Papa’s. I am much taller than he is, something the grandparents had noticed years ago when I first met them. It is fairly obvious to me that we are not father and son.

  The next day, during a meal, the grandfather quarrels bitterly with his son. Mathilde tries to put water on the fire, but it doesn’t work. I have no idea what the two men are arguing about, and I could not care less. I feel nothing for this man, and his coldness makes it abundantly clear that he has no use for me, either. A few days later, he leaves for Algiers. When the war ends, he plans to resume teaching art there.