We don’t say good-bye to each other. I am glad that this visit is over and done with and that we’ll never meet again.
NOW THAT THE WAR IS OVER IN NORMANDY, I have to decide what to do next. It is green and peaceful here, and I love being able to take long solitary walks in the forest. The truth is, I am tired and need the serenity of the Normandy countryside and have no desire to return to Paris. I am a man and will find a job here. The Leroys are thrilled that I have decided to stay, but I insist on paying rent for my room when I start working. I am no longer a guest but a man who is on his own.
Because of the war, many businesses are short on manpower, and I easily find work as an apprentice in three different antique restoration shops—in Rugles, L’Aigle, and Breteuil. I have been approved by the French government to become an accredited ébéniste, an artisan skilled in rare woods and in design and sculpture, studying under these master craftsmen. I work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week. Each payday, I hand my check to Mathilde for room and board, and she gives me a little spending money. She also makes me a sandwich for lunch to take to work each day.
At first, I travel back and forth on a bicycle—legitimately purchased!—but eventually I upgrade to a recycled German army motorcycle, minus the sidecar with its attached machine gun. I leave that on the battlefield for someone else to find.
For the next three years, beginning in 1944, I work and become skilled with the special tools of this trade, completing my ébéniste degree early. I am a specialist in the Louis XIII, XIV, and XV periods and register with the French government as someone who is authorized to restore antiquities.
Now I can actually begin to make repairs on buildings, such as churches, that were damaged during the war. In my spare time, I begin sketching again and keep studying English. I still plan to find myself a place in the sun in America someday.
Occasionally my restoration work brings me to Paris for research in the Louvre or other art archives. If time permits, I stop and see my parents for a brief visit. These are always at a moment’s notice and last an hour at the most.
One time when I am at the Louvre, I attend an art exhibit featuring paintings and sculptures created by the disabled. I cannot believe my eyes—the Normand woman I had helped pull out of the caved-in house was one of the featured artists. Her face was scarred from the burns, yet she radiated such inner beauty. Even though her arms had been amputated, that didn’t stop her—she painted with a brush held between her teeth. I could not have done any better with my two hands. What an inspiration!
IN 1945, World War II officially ends worldwide. Hitler commits suicide in April, the same month that Mussolini is executed with his lover and strung up in the streets of Milan, and Germany surrenders in May. Cities in Japan are leveled by the atomic bomb in August, and the Japanese surrender on September 2. Civilians all over the world are starving and homeless. Only Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco, continues an iron-fisted control of his country.
Sixty million people (or possibly millions more) have died during this war. Eleven million of these are men, women, and children murdered by the Nazis in their death camps—six million Jews and five million Russians, Gypsies, mentally ill civilians, and prisoners of war. Cities throughout Europe are completely destroyed, bombed beyond recognition. It will take decades to restore the physical damage and lifetimes to recover the rest.
EVENTUALLY, MY GERMAN BOOTS give up completely, just in time for me to join the French army and be issued new ones. Military service is mandatory in France, and young men must be on active duty for two to three years. In December 1947, I am in Paris to tell Maman that I’m joining the army.
“Pierre, the Matisse family has connections,” Maman says. “Grandfather Henri can arrange for you to serve your military obligation here in Paris in the geographic office. Surely you have had enough of war.”
I think for a moment, trying to find words to explain what I’m feeling.
“I don’t want to upset you, Maman, but I don’t want any privileges or favors from anyone.”
Her face is pale, and I feel terrible that I am causing Maman more worry and pain. But I need to do this. She looks down at her hands and then walks to the open balcony that looks out over Paris.
“Promise me you won’t go to Indochina.” We have heard that Ho Chi Minh’s soldiers are butchering the French army there.
“If possible, I will promise. Maman, remember. I am a man, and I want to be treated the same as anyone else. No special privileges.”
I RETURN TO NORMANDY, and the French government offers me a deal. If I volunteer for a real man’s regiment, a commando outfit, I will get to choose the place to sweat it out. The catch? It has to be outside of France, for a period between twelve and eighteen months. The recruiting officer in Rugles makes it sound like a dream come true.
I am rested now and restless for adventure. A vacation would be nice, and travel sounds even better. So I volunteer for a French commando paratrooper outfit in North Africa, keeping my promise to Maman to stay out of Indochina.
I bid the Leroy grandparents good-bye. Though we do not speak of it, I am and will be forever grateful to Mathilde for explaining and confirming the truth about my father as I set off on my new adventure.
ON MY WAY TO MARSEILLE, where the unit will embark for Algeria, I make a short stop at my parents’ home. All of us are together and we have a wonderful dinner.
Papa could not have been kinder to me. We reminisce for the entire evening about my memorable mischievous acts as a child, and we all have a good laugh.
I tell Papa about Désiré, and Papa agrees that he would have liked him. As I entertain my family with my wartime adventures in Normandy, Papa comments over and over, “Those escapades were great!”
“No, Jean, they were not great. It was foolishness!” my mother corrects him.
“And now you are going to be a parachutist. That’s something I would like to try,” Papa says, ignoring Maman’s last remark.
“Men! What fools!” Maman replies.
Papa offers all kinds of advice on how to conduct myself in the army, but one piece especially sticks with me.
“You have to watch out for the women,” he tells me quite seriously. “Women of questionable virtue.”
“I will.”
“Good! Do you have a wristwatch?”
“No.”
“You need a wristwatch to pass the time on long nights of guard duty. Take mine,” he says, handing it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, touched by his parting gift. Then I quietly thank him again, with one additional word, “Thank you, Papa.”
Papa reaches out and hugs me. We linger in silent accord, two souls hungry for each other, clinging to what has been taken away from us.
I have only one father, and I want to bring the whole packet of dirty linen out in the open right here and now. But I can’t, not now. I am not sure quite how to handle it—yet. However, one thing I know for sure—the first dinner we share as a family in four years, just before I leave for possibly another year and a half, is not the time. When I come back. That’s right, I promise myself, when I come back.
Seeing that Papa is proud of me is enough for now.
“I want to accompany you to the railway station,” Maman says as she begins to make her way to the door.
“No, Maman. I want to go alone.”
“Louise, let him go like a man,” Papa says with a smile and a wink at me, and one last big hug.
27
ALGERIAN HOLIDAY
“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only today I happen to have a headache.”
TWEEDLEDUM, IN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS BY LEWIS CARROLL
THE JOURNEY FROM FRANCE TO ALGERIA is a sailor’s nightmare. Not long after we set out—eight hundred men strong and transporting a herd of cows—we are caught in a torrential storm. Rather than being squeezed like a sardine in a can with men and seasick cows, I decide to stay on deck. I wrap myself in a tarp
aulin and rope, tying myself to a handle on the cap of the hold. I will wait out the storm, hoping my adventure doesn’t end before it begins! The voyage takes three days, twice as long as usual.
In 1948, when I arrive in Algeria, France is trying to hold on to a crumbling colonial empire with a handful of soldiers who are underarmed and outnumbered, yet expected to cover a territory twenty times larger than their home country.
It is more like being at the epicenter of a hurricane, where it is calm yet surrounded by menacing clouds of war ready to hit at any moment. This conflict, which will eventually escalate into all-out war, is based on hatred characterized by guerilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, the use and abuse of torture on both sides, and counter-terrorism operations by the French army.
I find myself in the city of Bougie (present-day Béjaïa) in the region of Kabylia where the fighting is the toughest. This small town has two populations: the French colonists, who consider themselves the elite, and the Arabs living in the casbah, who are considered second-class citizens in their own country.
My home for eighteen months is Fort Barral, an imposing hilltop fortress that dominates the entire area. The location is a beautiful place to be stationed, with the city at our feet, sloping down gracefully like an Oriental carpet to the blue Mediterranean. This area used to be a stronghold for Barbary pirates, and I can understand why. There are some fabulous beaches bordering the Mediterranean, and when I can, I love swimming there. In the surrounding countryside, there are also Roman ruins to explore.
From the fort’s parapet, I look south and can see the snow glistening on the tops of the Atlas Mountains, and beyond those peaks is the expansive and mysterious Sahara Desert. The sunsets are stunning here, and the night sky sparkles with what looks like millions of stars.
As a member of the commando unit, I wear a steel helmet on my head that is American, while the small 7.65 mm grease gun in my hands is French. This weapon is not as good as the American made Thompson we had in Antibes during the underground days with Papa. My uniform is a military hodgepodge, with pants courtesy of the English and the rest of my wardrobe American.
We are equipped with the remains of what every army left on the European battlefield, which means everything is outdated, in bad shape, or sometimes plain useless. The parachutes we are using have holes, marked by a circle drawn around them. Small holes don’t matter much, but when the holes get too large, they need to be patched. Our planes are three-motor Junkers from the German Luftwaffe.
Our mission is to keep the lid on this powder keg and make everyone play nice together. France conquered Algeria more than one hundred years ago, and prior to World War II, nearly 700,000 French citizens had settled in the colony. But the Muslim population also increased dramatically during the same time period, and Algerian nationalism has since been on the rise. Now the situation is ready to explode into a nightmare of hatred between the Arabs quarreling with the colonials, who maintain authority, as well as other opposing tribes. France is flexing her muscles, hoping to keep her prized colony under control.
I am relaxing in my quarters with a group of former J3s, each one of us living through our own consequences of war at a tender age. Many of us were active in the French underground during the war. We don’t need extensive training since we already know how to shoot, throw a grenade, and handle explosives. Above all, we know when to hit the dust at the slightest sign of danger.
“This reminds me of the Boches in Lyons,” says my partner, a tall, skinny fellow born in Alsace. We naturally nickname him Alsace. He and I first met at the Don Bosco school, so my moniker of Mister Cran from my time there is mine here, too.
“Except now we are the Boches,” another member of our group says, with a pronounced Parisian accent. In civilian life, he works with his parents, who own a delicatessen shop in Paris. This short fellow with red hair we call Delicatessen.
“I wonder if they have an underground movement fighting against us?” asks another Algerian occupation force member armed with a paratrooper folding rifle. This soldier is just slightly under the maximum weight accepted in this fighting outfit, and we give him a fitting name—Babar, after the famous French elephant of children’s storybooks.
“Right. The Boches did this to us from 1940 until 1944,” I say.
“Yes, but we have been doing it to the Arabs since 1848,” Alsace replies.
I can’t help but bristle at his words. “We are not the French Boches because we are not persecuting anybody like the Nazis did, and we are not putting the ones who oppose our political ideology in concentration camps. Besides, the Muslims have been invading and trying to take over Europe for centuries.”
“Mister Cran is right. We conquered Algeria militarily, but we took them out of their barbaric Middle Ages and gave them access to French culture, education, a superb infrastructure, hospital health care, and much more,” Alsace proclaims, giving me a quick nod.
“However, it seems because of their Islamic teaching, they reject any and all progress on any level,” Babar adds.
“The recipe for social troubles is all here. The French have the best jobs, the best farms, the best of everything. Opportunity galore for the French and none for the Arabs,” Alsace replies.
“They have no options other than to revolt,” Babar deduces logically.
“Also there is this tricky religious problem—Muslims versus Christians to add spice to the whole scenario,” Alsace concludes.
“Muslims versus everyone, including each other,” Delicatessen says. “In France they say, ‘France to the French.’ I wonder what will happen when the Arabs finally say, ‘Algeria to the Algerians’?”
“The same thing that always happens. The Arabs will kill as many of us as they can and eventually kick us out of North Africa,” Alsace replies.
“Then they will return to their barbaric way of life, torturing and killing each other. A real friendly source they are,” Babar says.
“History has a way of repeating itself,” I explain, thinking back to Tata, who taught me this lesson when World War II was just on the horizon.
We are with our sergeant, behind a big machine gun mounted on a heavy tripod, in full view of everyone passing the Bougie street corner.
“I couldn’t shoot an elephant at two meters in a tunnel with this folding piece of junk that you call a gun,” Delicatessen informs the sergeant.
“Wait until you see the holes in the parachutes,” a two-year veteran says, giving us a heads-up.
I realize this is the same setup we had with the Nazis in France. However, this time I am standing on the trigger end of the mean barrel.
I had arrived in North Africa with a little suitcase prepared for a relaxing vacation from my childhood war years. At least, that was what I was led to believe from the recruiter. I have five sketch pads and an assortment of pencils, ready to draw everything of interest in Algeria. I’ve also packed three books to prepare for my baccalaureate exams: an advanced English textbook with grammar lessons and literature selections, a good math textbook, and a philosophical French classic to learn what makes people tick.
Although I do have a good amount of free time over the next year and a half, I find out pretty quickly that a vacation is not exactly what the French army has in mind for me.
TODAY WE ARE on our way to Philippeville, a charming harbor city with one of the best grass-strip airfields in the area, for another parachute jump.
We take off in the German Junker, an aluminum corrugated beast with nonretractable landing gear, a Luftwaffe workhorse that saw Adolf Hitler rise up and go down.
“The main parachute is on your back. And just in case, the safety parachute is on your belly,” our instructor points out.
“The main parachute is for you. The belly one is for your big ego,” Babar wisecracks to Delicatessen.
The plane’s engine fills the space with stinking oil fumes. I am slightly sick, or am I scared? Probably both. Besides, I don’t trust this beat-u
p German bird.
“What if one of those Arabs has done a little personal adjustment of his own to the plane?” Delicatessen asks.
“That’s what you have a para . . . para . . . chute for, clown,” Babar answers with chattering teeth.
“Are you scared?” a cool and collected Alsace asks.
“Me! Sca . . . scared? Are you crazy?”
“They say it isn’t any more dangerous than crossing a street in Paris,” I mention casually.
Privately, I’m debating which is greater—my stupidity for trusting the French army recruiter and buying into the idea that this time of service is not dangerous or my stupidity for not taking Grandfather Henri’s offer to help me get assigned to the geographic service in Paris.
Delicatessen peers out the window. “What are those ambu . . . bu . . . lances with red crosses waiting underneath us for?”
“Just in case,” Alsace shouts.
“Yes, just in case,” I yell in agreement. Although I try to control my fear, it’s the “just in case” that concerns me.
“Go!” the instructor shouts, and one man dives out.
“I’m getting out of this flying outhouse,” Babar screams, jumping out of the plane as if the tin bird is on fire.
I’m next. I clip my static line from the parachute to the cable that runs the length of the plane. As you jump, the static line tears open the parachute to free it. I’ve done this many times, and nothing seems different this time . . . until I jump.
That’s strange. Usually I feel a strong pull when the parachute opens, but this feels different. I look up and can see that my parachute is only partially opened. One set of suspension cords has gotten draped over the back of the chute, and with my weight, the cords are cutting into the fabric. Half a canopy won’t do.
“No time to even curse,” I hear a voice say in my head.
I am going down fast. The safety parachute! I must open the safety parachute—right now!
“Calm down, or you are dead,” the same voice says. “As you were instructed, make a nice little coffee table with your thighs. Don’t panic, and don’t look down.”
The Missing Matisse Page 26