by Maddy Hunter
Irv tipped his head. “Thank you for that, shir.”
“You’re very welcome. And speaking of living forever”—Woody’s eyes twinkled as he addressed his captive audience—“have any of you failed to take advantage of the pre-planning options offered by your local—”
“Dad!” Cal went red-faced. “Will you give it a rest? You’re on holiday. We’re all on holiday.”
“Misfortune can strike at any moment,” Woody fired back. “Even on holiday. Which is why it makes so much sense to make those important end-of-life decisions before the need arises.” He probed our faces like a kindly grandfather, lecturing us in a hushed, almost hypnotic voice. “Advanced funeral planning is a gift that eases the emotional trauma of a loved one’s passing by enabling the grief-stricken family to focus on the more personal aspects of the event. The staff at Jolly’s Funeral Home has treated families with the utmost dignity and respect since my great-grandfather embalmed his first corpse in 1869.”
We stared at him, dumbstruck.
“Oh, I get it,” Bernice piped up. “The cruise company hired its own undertakers because they heard Emily was traveling with us. Someone finally wised up. Now we won’t have to make any unscheduled stops to offload bodies.”
“Bodies?” Virginia Martin’s gaze darted between me and Bernice. “What bodies?”
Tilly shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, yes, I do. Why did the cruise company hire undertakers because of Emily?”
“We prefer to be called ‘funeral directors’,” interrupted Cal, “a term that polls much more favorably with focus groups than undertaker, which ranks a notch below garden slug and three notches above Congress. And no one hired us. We’re just a group of ordinary businessmen who decided to take our annual conference on the road. Or the boat, as the case may be.”
“Would anyone like a business card?” Woody pulled a small leather case out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “It lists our 1-800 phone number, FAX, email, website, Facebook page, Twitter account, blog address, Pinterest accoun—”
“No one needs our business card,” said Cal as he leaned over to swipe the leather case out of his father’s hand.
“Shoo!” Woody knocked his son’s hand away. “Here’s the problem with you, Cal. You’re not willing to market. Everyone in this room is a potential client, but nooo. You don’t even want me to hand out our damn business cards!”
“This is neither the time nor the place, Dad. You can’t meet people for the first time and launch into a spiel about advanced funeral planning.”
“Why not?”
“Because it depresses people!” Cal flung out his hand. “Look at the effect you’ve had on Bernice. Have you ever seen a more miserable face?”
Osmond flicked his hand in an “aw, go on,” gesture. “Don’t blame that on your dad, son. She always looks like that.”
“I don’t care how miserable she looks,” bristled Virginia Martin. “I want to know why Emily is working in collusion with undertakers.”
“Funeral directors,” repeated Cal with a hint of impatience.
Victor Martin cleared his throat with such force, he nearly popped the oxygen tube from his nose. He stabbed his cane in the direction of the coffee table. “While my wife conducts her inquisition, would someone be kind enough to pour me a glass of the Calvados?”
I couldn’t quite figure out Victor’s accent. It was so subtle as to be undetectable to the untrained ear, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t been born and raised in Houston.
Virginia swung her head around in slow motion, pinning her husband with her gaze. “Are you insane?”
“Does it matter?” he wheezed. “I want a drink.”
A spark of temper flared in her eyes. “Really? Well, go right ahead, darling. I’m sure a shot of brandy will work wonders for your balance.”
“Ish worked wonders for mine!” crowed Irv.
“Give that man a business card,” cried Woody as he sailed a card toward him … and Osmond … and Victor … and—
Click-clack click-clack.
Eyes stilled. Heads cocked. Ears listened.
“What was that?” asked Cal.
“Shounds like the noise my knee makes when it pops outta joint,” said Irv.
Click-clack click-clack.
“It’s a cricket!” marveled Osmond.
“THERE’S BUGS IN HERE?” squealed Bernice, jerking her feet off the floor.
“Where’s it coming from?” asked Osmond, hardly able to contain his excitement as he came to attention like a quail-sniffing bird dog.
Smiling precociously, Madeleine waved her hand in the air, revealing a flat, stubby gadget that was shaped like a pack of gum but measured no longer than a child’s whistle. Holding it between her thumb and index finger, she depressed the snapping plate and clicked it again. “You are quite correct, Monsieur Osmond. You have heard of the crickets, yes?”
“I sure have. The army handed them out to the troops who parachuted into Normandy the night before the D-Day invasion. Clicking those things was the only way the landing force could tell if a fella was friend or foe in the dark. That one sure is shiny. What’s it made of ? Brass?”
“Oui. I found it in a meadow when I was a child, but others have found them in forests and apple orchards, graveyards and roadside ditches—anywhere they can use their expensive metal detectors.” She pressed it to her chest. “It is my most prized possession … and a reminder of the sacrifice that so many strangers made for my country. Parisians may be guilty of having short memories, but here in Normandy, where the liberating forces fought such bloody battles, we will never forget.”
“What about the French Resistance?” asked Tilly. “Was your family involved in the Underground efforts to sabotage the Nazi war machine? Or is that too personal a question to ask?”
“Mais oui!” Madeleine enthused. “My family played a crucial role in the liberation effort. My grandmother rode her bicycle through Nazi enclaves to deliver coded messages about the expected Allied invasion to other members of the Resistance. Her brother removed railroad ties, loosened spikes, and planted explosives to derail the trains that carried their munitions and fuel. My family placed itself in grave danger to defeat the Nazis, and for their efforts, they paid a very dear price.”
The room grew so hushed, I could hear the mechanical whirr of individual seconds ticking by on an antique desk clock.
“It was a devastating time for my family,” Madeleine confided in a pained voice. “When the BBC delivered the message that all of France had been waiting for—that the invasion was upon us—the Resistance took action. They blew up bridges, cut telegraph and phone lines, shut down nearly all communications between the occupation army and Berlin. Everyone knew their role. Several members of the Underground from our town made their way to the cliff at Pointe du Hoc, the coastal stronghold that the Germans had fortified with their most powerful artillery guns, which were aimed toward the Channel, ready to open fire on an invasion fleet.”
“I’ll say they were powerful,” Osmond agreed. “They were hundred and fifty-five millimeter cannons.”
Irv let out an off-key whistle. “That’s not a cannon. Ish a Death Shtar.”
“They hoped to create a distraction large enough to draw troops away from their bunkers and gun emplacements. The only way the German guns would be stilled was if no troops remained alive to fire them.”
Virginia Martin clucked her disapproval. “Sounds like a recipe for suicide if you ask me.”
“It was a great test of courage, my pet.” Victor’s tone was harsh with censure. “Something that few people know anything about.”
“I hope enough folks went to get the job done,” said Woody. “The Jerrys had a machine gun called the MG-42 that could mow a whole squad down in half a second.” He punctuated his statement with an emphatic
nod. “I oughta know. I spent a helluva lot of time diving out of their path in Italy.”
“Five people undertook the mission to Pointe du Hoc,” Madeleine continued. “They cut through barbed wire barriers. They booby-trapped potholes. They set off small explosions. At least, that had been their intent. We’ll never know if they enjoyed even a small measure of success because they never returned from their mission.”
Another silence descended, followed by Cal asking in a flat voice, “Were they captured?”
Madeleine shook her head. “Many days after the major battle ceased, the remains of my grandmother’s brother and three others were found clustered in one spot on the cliff, as if they had been lined up and executed. One body was never found. We’ve come to believe that this missing person was a Nazi collaborator. A traitor within the Resistance movement. He warned the Germans of the mission and, for his cooperation was allowed to escape, while the others were killed.”
Uff-da. My perception of World War II had been tempered by distance, time, and reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, but to the local families who had lost loved ones on the front lines, there would never be anything even remotely humorous about it. “Was the family of the man who betrayed the mission ostracized by the people in your town?”
Madeleine hesitated, bitterness and regret darkening her eyes. “We never learned which person was the traitor.”
I frowned. “Not even by process of elimination? If you found the remains of four bodies, wouldn’t the traitor be the person whose body you didn’t find?”
“In normal circumstances, yes. But in this instance, no. My grandmother identified her brother from the fragments of two gold incisors left in his skull. It was the only recognizable part of him. The other three victims were charred beyond recognition from the Allied bombardments on the morning of the invasion. There was nothing left to distinguish one from the other—no clothing, pocket watches, ammunition belts. But we considered it a blessing that their personal effects were incinerated in the bombing rather than end up as trophies of war in the hands of the men who slaughtered them.”
Osmond looked suddenly distracted, as if he’d just recalled leaving a pot of water boiling on his stove before he left for vacation.
“What about the artillery guns?” Cal inquired. “Did the Allied bombing runs destroy them?”
“Pssht. Even I can answer that,” said Bernice in a superior tone. “Didn’t you ever see The Longest Day—that World War II flick starring every leading man in Hollywood? Robert Wagner scales the cliff with Tommy Sands, Paul Anka, and a bunch of unknown stuntmen. They’re a special commando force, and their mission is to destroy the big guns. But after they clean out the Germans, they discover there are no guns. The bunkers are completely empty. I wanna tell you, even Fabian was ticked off to think he’d done all that climbing for nothing.”
Cal looked perplexed. “So … where were the guns?”
“The Germans moved ’em to a safer location,” said Osmond. “About half a mile inland. To an apple orchard. For all the good it did them. A couple of army rangers found ’em and placed incendiary grenades in the firing apparatus. When they detonated ’em, all the metal parts got welded together in a big molten clump. Those guns weren’t worth a lick after that. A pea shooter woulda done more damage.”
I stared at Osmond, thunderstruck at the depth of his knowledge. The guns, the clicker, the tides? How did he know all this stuff ? And then it hit me.
Even though he claimed not to have cable TV, he could be pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes simply to avoid having to host the gang’s weekly get-togethers to watch reruns of Family Feud on the Game Show Channel. I shot him a suspicious look. He was watching the Military History Channel on the sly. He had to be.
“Grandmama!” Madeleine propelled herself out of her chair and hurried across the room to assist an elderly woman who appeared in the doorway. She was small-boned, arrow straight, and wore her white hair in a braid that formed a tidy coil around her head. Her cheekbones were high and angular, her complexion remarkably smooth. Her piercing blue eyes snapped with animation and good humor, and when she smiled, I caught a glimpse of the stunning beauty she must have been decades ago.
Madeleine cradled her arm around the woman’s shoulders and planted a kiss on her head. “Mesdames and messieurs, this is a special treat. Allow me to introduce my grandmother, Solange Ducat.”
Solange hugged her shawl more closely to her body and tipped her head. “Bonjour tout le monde.”
“Bonjour,” we offered in response, all except Osmond, whose breath suddenly caught in his throat like a fish bone. His eyes grew round, his face turned white. He swayed slightly forward, as if he were about to keel over.
Oh, my God! He was having a heart attack!
Propelling myself out of my chair, I clamped a steadying hand on his arm. “Easy does it. Stay calm. I just took a CPR refresher course, so I know exactly what to do. Someone help me get him on the floor!”
Irv swung his cane upward, poised it against Osmund’s shoulder, and gave him a shove.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked.
“Hellllp-ing him to the floor!”
Osmond batted the cane away and gaped at the woman. “Solange?” he choked out. “Solange Spenard?”
“Oui.” She regarded him with her impossibly blue eyes, her face registering surprise, followed by bewilderment. “I was once Madame Spenard.”
Using my arm for support, Osmond boosted himself to his feet and stared across the room at her, his legs so wobbly, I thought they might collapse beneath him. “It’s me.” His voice shook with Richter scale intensity. “The chicken man G.I. with the broken leg.”
A dozen emotions flitted across the woman’s face before she pressed her hand to her mouth. “Mere de Dieu,” she said in a breathless whisper. “Ozmund?”
Irv thumped his cane against the leg of the coffee table. “Hey, if this fella’s not about to croak, could we get shome more Calvados over here?”
four
“I was so frightened when I found an American soldier hiding in our barn, but I could see he was terribly hurt, so I ran back for my papa, and we sneaked him into zee house.”
Solange Spenard Ducat sat on the living room sofa beside Osmond, her thigh touching his pant leg, her shoulder brushing his arm, her fingers intertwined with his in a kind of lovers knot configuration. “The silly boy had parachuted into a tree and broke his leg when he cut himself from his harness.”
“That’s because it was pitch black,” teased Osmond. “I couldn’t tell how tall the tree was.”
Although Tilly and I had dragged our chairs close to the sofa so we wouldn’t miss a word of the unfolding story, most of the other guests had tired of the reminiscing and were meandering around the room, snapping photos, shooting videos, and trying not to look bored. Madeleine was making a concerted effort to play hostess to her guests while being attentive to Osmond and her grandmother, but it was pretty much a lost cause since Bernice had commandeered her as her own personal photographer.
“We had to take evasive action once we hit the Normandy coast because of German flak,” Osmond continued, “so we ended up making our jump miles away from the drop zone.” He bowed his head and lowered his voice. “My whole squad got wiped out in that jump. All except me.”
Solange patted his forearm with a familiar hand, seeming to ease his grief with the simple intimacy of her touch.
I looked from one to the other, then sat up ramrod straight in my chair. Uff-da! Was I bearing witness to more than the casual reunion of two old friends here? Because their body language was suggesting that back in 1944, they might have been a lot closer than mere friends. A whole lot closer.
“Did you get me posing in front of the sideboard yet?” Bernice’s voice. Somewhere behind me. “The light’s pretty good right here.”
“Oui, madame,” droned Ma
deleine. “I have you in front of the sideboard, the china cabinets, the sofa, the—”
“Well, take another one.” The sandpaper rasp that was her voice morphed into a syrupy lilt. “Have I mentioned that I used to be a magazine model?”
Tilly leaned forward on her walking stick, curiosity oozing from every pore as she zeroed in on Osmond. “So you became entangled in a tree and broke your leg when you fell to the ground. However did you manage the hike to Solange’s barn?”
“I rigged a crutch out of a broken tree limb, and then I headed away from the sound of artillery fire. Don’t even know which direction it was because my compass got smashed in the jump. It’s pretty embarrassin’ for an Iowan to admit, but I was lost about as bad as the Israelites in the wilderness.”
On a brighter note, at least it didn’t take him forty years to find his way back to civilization.
He gave his head a disbelieving shake. “Eighteen thousand Allied troops parachuted into Normandy, but I never ran into another living soul that whole night. No Americans. No Germans. No one. Kinda felt like I’d arrived for the war all by myself.”
“Osmond,” I said gently, “does anyone in the gang have the slightest inkling that you participated in the actual D-Day invasion?”
“Nope. If I’d told ’em I’d been to war, the Dicks would’ve asked, ‘Which one? Revolutionary or Civil?’”
“I’m not sure how you’ve kept it to yourself all these years,” marveled Tilly.
Osmund shrugged. “If you’d seen the things I saw, you’da kept it to yourself, too.”
“But you’re a hero,” I insisted.
He shook his head. “The fellas who jumped out of those planes and never lived to tell about it are the real heroes, Emily. Not me.”
“That’s not true, Ozmund. Have you not told your friends what you did for my family?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably. “No need getting into that now. Far as I’m concerned, it’s all water over the dam.”