Becoming Clementine: A Novel

by Jennifer Niven

  I was up before anyone else. I washed the dirt and mud off my skin and out of my hair, and tried to make myself look as clean and tidy as possible, and then I wrote a note to Delphine to tell her my plan. I slipped outside, silent as the dead, shutting the door behind me, careful to not make a noise. I picked up the bicycle and unscrewed one of the handlebars. I rolled the paper tight, thin as a pencil, and slid it inside. I screwed the handlebar back in and set my bag in the basket that was attached to the front. As I was wheeling the bicycle away from the house, I saw Mathilde standing underneath a tree. She held a piece of bread in one hand and was tearing off bits of it with the same hand, throwing the crumbs up into the air and onto the ground for the birds. When she saw me, she stopped, head cocked to one side.

  I said in French, “I was hoping I could borrow your sister’s bicycle.”

  “That one is mine.”

  “Do you mind if I use it? I promise to bring it back.”

  “No. Do they know you are awake?”

  “No.”

  She seemed to consider this. Finally, she said, “Do you like seashells?” I nodded. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and held out her hand. There were three little pink shells, the kind you pick up on the beach by the ocean or the sea. They winked in the early light. She held her hand to her face so that the shells were eye level, studying them. Finally she chose one and handed it to me.

  I wasn’t sure whether she wanted me to keep it or look at it, so I leaned in and said, “It’s very pretty.”

  She said, “For you. It will bring you luck.”

  At the base of the hill, I climbed onto the bicycle. I wobbled off, across the field and down the dirt road. I’d only been on a bicycle twice in my life, back in Texas, and I’d discovered then that riding one was ten times harder than driving a truck. I bobbed and swayed, and even as I bobbed and swayed, I tried my best to look French, dressed in a pair of navy pants and a gray blouse of Delphine’s, brown scarf over my head, wearing old brown boots that belonged to Monsieur Babin.

  It was Thursday, July 20, a warm, cloudy day, and as I steered the bicycle along the dirt road, swerving to miss a stray cow or pothole, I hit a bump and the front tire wobbled and suddenly I found myself on the ground.

  I brushed myself off and climbed back onto the bicycle and pedaled slowly, trying to get my rhythm, as if I were in the middle of a song. I practiced using the brakes, and when I was able to drive straight for a mile or two without wobbling or falling off, I started going faster, happy to be doing something, scared about what might happen, anxious about whether the men were ever coming back, worried about what they would do to me if they did come back and found out I’d gone to Rouen, but feeling useful for the first time since I’d left Scotland.

  A mile or so later I came to the city. As I saw it rising up in front of me, I set one foot on the ground and took it in. Even in the clouds, I thought the church spires looked like jewels, and that even if I tried, I would never be able to write a song with words as lovely as the spires themselves. I stood another minute, and then I set my foot back on the pedal and went on. I passed a man on the road, walking with a loaf of bread under one arm. He didn’t even look at me from under his cap. I passed a woman and a man and their little boy, who was crying. The man stopped to pick the boy up and the woman wiped his wet face with her shawl. I rode by them, concentrating on blending in.

  I wove through the streets of Rouen, picturing the map, getting my bearings. Rouen was set in the middle of low hills with the Seine—where Joan of Arc’s ashes had been scattered—on one side. I couldn’t even count the church spires. As I came up on the Left Bank of the city, I slowed down because suddenly so many of the buildings were gone and there was nothing but rubble and ruin. You couldn’t tell where the buildings had stood.

  Before I knew it, I had stopped in the middle of the street, the blue-gray sky hanging over me and this city—what was left of it—like a great, gloomy tent, the buildings crumpled and scattered across the ground, just hollow shells or piles of wood and stone, some higher than an actual building. Walls, chimneys, stairs, all unattached and sitting by themselves. A tire here, the engine of a truck there, a church pew, a painting, a table, a chair. Up in a tree was a bright bit of red—a scarf or a shirt, some sort of clothing. Suddenly the whole city seemed gray, and not because of the weather. It looked like the earth had exploded underneath Rouen.

  I heard the rumble of an engine, and a car full of German soldiers came flying past. My heart sped up and my throat closed in, and I told myself to keep pedaling, to go on until I reached the professor. Somehow I got my feet working and rode down the cobbled streets until I was beyond the Germans and beyond the part of the city that had been bombed. The professor’s house was just up on my right, I knew, and as I headed toward it, I suddenly came upon the largest building I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just a building—it was a church with at least twenty spires and archways and windows and staircases and doorways and angels, all made out of stone the color of wheat, and black marble.

  At that moment, the car full of Germans turned around and started rolling back down the road toward me, slowly this time. I hopped off my bike and wheeled it up to the front door and placed my hand on the giant gold handle and ducked inside. The ceilings were as high as the sky, curved and vaulted. It had the feel of a giant air hangar or a barn, but fancy—so fancy I wondered if God lived there. I held my breath and listened, and there was nothing but quiet. A long hall led up to the altar, with arches and doorways on either side and a ceiling that looked as if it were made of gold. I wondered who came here on Sunday to pray and talk to Jesus and if Jesus would listen to them more because they were praying from this beautiful place, or if he could hear you just as clearly from the one-room church that we’d built ourselves up on Fair Mountain.

  I heard the clackety-clacking of footsteps then, and they echoed on the stone floor so that it sounded like a thousand men marching. I pushed my bicycle fast toward a hallway, tucked to the side, and down this to another hallway, this one with windows. I opened door after door, looking for a way out, the footsteps growing closer. And then I opened another door that led me outside into the day, this time at the back of the church. I seemed to hear German voices everywhere, from all directions, and instead of climbing onto the bike, I walked alongside it, keeping my head down.

  The professor had a brown beard and wore a brown sweater over a brown button-down shirt, which gave him the look of a rumpled bear. His wife was small and gray and waved her hands when she was speaking. Their house sat at the very end of the street, just as Delphine had said, and was narrow and cramped and filled with books, stacked from floor to ceiling. The smell of something sour and warm came from the kitchen—cabbage soup or potatoes in vinegar.

  When I told them I knew Monsieur Babin, they asked me in, inviting me to sit in the parlor. Every now and then the professor glanced at the window just past my head. He said, “Êtes-vous américain?” Are you American?

  “Oui.”

  “Let us speak English then.”

  “I have a message that needs delivering.” I pulled it out of my sleeve and gave it to him. I watched as he unfurled the paper and read. His wife stood, crossing to the windows on the other side of the room.

  When the professor was done reading, he looked up, his face troubled. “He was taken day before yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  He said, “I will see that your message is delivered.” His wife gestured to him and he stood. “You must forgive our manners. Normally we would serve you tea and biscuits, but it will be best for you if you are on your way. It is a dangerous time for you to come. The Germans are on alert because of an air raid last night on prison Bonne-Nouvelle here in Rouen. I understand that many German guards were killed and that many prisoners escaped. These prisoners are French Resistance, but they are also political prisoners and spies. They say the prison was attacked from both the air and from the ground.”

  “Of course.”
I stood, and at that moment there was a knock at the door, and a man’s hard voice, speaking French with a German accent.

  The professor’s wife whispered, “Go.”

  The professor took my arm and led me down a narrow hall to a bedroom. He opened a closet door and stooped to move shoes and more books. He pushed aside the clothes and felt along the wall and suddenly it seemed to spring open—just a small square door, large enough to crawl through. Inside I could see guns, boxes of ammunition, medical kits, and other gear. I bent over and crept in, knees tucked under my chin. He said, “I will let you out as soon as they are gone.” He closed the door and I was swallowed by the dark. I could hear him moving the shoes and books back into place, and then his footsteps fading away down the hall.

  There was the sound of a door opening and voices. I tried to make out what they were saying. The voices moved away until I could barely hear them. I held on to my knees, reminding myself to breathe. Minutes later, the voices grew louder and then louder as they headed toward me. I could hear two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other. They seemed to be coming through the hallway and then into the bedroom. I was drawn in so tight that I suddenly felt as if I were going to fall over. I reached my hand out and grabbed on to the first solid thing—a box of some sort. I steadied myself and waited.

  The heavier footsteps came closer, and then I could hear the creaking of the closet door as it opened. I held my breath and held on to the case and prayed I wouldn’t fall over. Hangers skimmed back and forth on the clothing rod. I could hear the professor now, and then the German, only a foot or two away on the other side of the wall. In English he said, “You have heard about the raid.”

  “Yes.”

  The closet door slammed. The voices and footsteps moved away. The box was cutting into my hand, or maybe my hand was cutting into the box, but I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. A door opened and closed somewhere. Silence.

  Then footsteps again, lighter and faster than before. The closet door opened. The shoes and books went sliding. The hangers skimmed across the clothing rod. A square of light came pouring in and I could suddenly see the professor’s face. He said, “All clear.”

  He reached for my hand and pulled me out, and the box came dragging along behind me. He had to peel my fingers off it because I couldn’t seem to let go. His wife appeared and he told her, “She is all right. Just frightened.” He rubbed my hands until I could move them again. “You must go now, while you can.”

  He helped me to my feet and I looked down at the box, which wasn’t a box at all. It was a suitcase, small and black and ordinary. I asked him a question then, even though I already knew the answer: “Is that a radio?”

  THIRTEEN

  By the time I reached the Babins’, the men had been back for thirty minutes, faces and hair wet, uniforms spattered with dirt and mud and water. I looked, and they were all there. Ray lay on the sofa, head back, face white, eyes closed. His pants were split from thigh to shin, and Delphine’s mama and daddy were kneeling beside him. I stood over them and could see the blood—on his leg, on the couch, on the floor. His leg was slashed open and bleeding from the middle of his thigh to his knee. Mathilde and Delphine rushed to fetch towels and bandages, and bottles of something—iodine, alcohol.

  I set down the bundle of bread I was carrying, wrapped in white cloth, the one the professor and his wife had packed for me. “What happened?”

  Émile said, “Ambush.” But that was all. He had blood on his hands, and I wondered if it was Ray’s or his own or someone else’s.

  Ray said, “Whiskey?”

  Delphine’s daddy didn’t look up. “In the right-hand cupboard.”

  I went to the cupboard, which held three bottles, all half-full. Two were wine and the other was a rich dark brown. While Émile stood at the sink, washing the blood off his hands, I poured some of the dark brown one into a short, fat glass, and carried it to Ray, trying not to stare at his leg.

  He drank it down straight. Monsieur Babin looked at Ray and Ray nodded, closing his eyes and moving his lips in a silent prayer. Monsieur Babin bent over the leg with what looked like tweezers and dug out the bullet. Ray didn’t flinch. When the older man was finished, he straightened and held up the bullet, pinched between the tweezers, and carried both to the sink. Ray opened his eyes and watched him as Delphine’s mother mopped up the blood and cleaned the wound, and then Delphine handed her a sewing kit.

  Ray and I both stared at the needles and he held his glass out to me. I said, “Another?” He nodded, and then he drank the second glass down like the first.

  Five minutes later, he was all stitched up, and making his way through the bottle of whiskey. Émile sat across the room, off to himself. I poured a glass and took it to him. He looked up at me and said, “Merci.” I could see that he was tired. He pulled out his cigarettes, laying the package on his knee, and then he pulled out the matches. I watched as he lit a cigarette and took a long drag, eyes closed, head tilted back, breathing it in. His fingernails were still stained with blood.

  When I asked how it had gone—even though I didn’t know what “it” was—he said it hadn’t gone as planned, and left it at that. He said, “Where were you?”

  “I delivered your message.”

  The room went still. I picked up the bundle of bread. I set aside the loaves and unwrapped the plain black case they’d been hiding. I walked over to Barzo and held it out. “I brought you a radio.”

  I waited for the men to say something. I waited so long I thought: You’ll never be one of them. No matter what you do, you won’t ever make them think of you as anything but a burden.

  Finally, Delphine got up and poured two glasses of whiskey and handed one to me. She clinked her glass against mine and said, “Santé,” and drank. Then her daddy began to clap, and he jumped up to pour whiskey all around, even a drop or two for Mathilde. He and his wife handed out the glasses.

  Barzo held his up. “Anyone want to join me for a little crow?” He tipped the glass in my direction, and drank it down.

  Émile sat with his arms crossed. I said, “You’re angry with me.” I took little sips of the whiskey and my head began to feel light, as if it could float away on its own.

  He said, “You should not have gone. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “But I delivered the message and got you a radio. Everything worked out fine.”

  “Yes, this time. War is not a place to be impetuous, to be reckless. You come here and you say, ‘I will do this. I will do that. You cannot leave me. You must take me along.’ Why do you think we left you behind? Because you would have gotten in the way. You give us no choice. And then you do what you damn well please.”

  “Are you mad because I could have been killed? Or because I went without you knowing?”

  Barzo poured more whiskey and started singing “Run Rabbit Run,” only he changed the words to “Run Adolph Run”—and one by one the others joined in. I sat watching them, my face hot, my eyes burning.

  Perry raised his glass to me and said, over the singing, “Velva Jean Hart, when this is all over I’m going to buy you a new uniform. One without a rip in the shoulder. I’ll buy you the fanciest gown in Paris, and we’ll celebrate the Liberation with champagne. No more hiding, no more running. We’ll climb the Eiffel Tower and take in the view.” He drank down the whiskey, and as the other song ended he began to sing “Roll Out the Barrel.”

  I could feel Émile staring at me. I turned back to him, meeting his gaze. They were watchful eyes, ones that held secrets, that collected information and stored it away and made judgments without telling you what they were. They were eyes as old as centuries. He said, “Are you this much trouble in America?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  At nine o’clock, Barzo picked up the black case and left the house. He would carry the radio into the woods because this way he could avoid the German vehicles that patrolled the roads, picking up radio signals and tracking them to the agents transmitting messag
es. Barzo was going to send a message to London and see if he couldn’t get one in return.

  By ten o’clock, the Babins had gone to bed. Perry, Ray, Émile, and I sat up, waiting. We read and the men smoked and drank, and no one talked.

  At eleven, Barzo walked back in. He set the radio on the table and said, “Swan’s been moved.”

  Émile said, “Where to?”

  “Fresnes.”

  “Still alive?”

  “As far as they know.”

  I said, “Who’s Swan?”

  Barzo poured himself some whiskey. “A little package we’ve got to pick up and take home with us.”

  I said, “Swan was at the prison in Rouen, the one that was raided. You were trying to break him out.” When they didn’t say anything, I knew this was true. “What about Coleman? You can’t leave him.”

  Barzo said, “We tried, kid. We did all we could.”

  I looked from one to the other of them, and finally Perry said, “He’s gone.”

  The weight of his words filled the room, making the air heavy. I didn’t ask how they knew.

  I said, “And me? Are you going to leave me too?”

  After a moment, Émile said, “No.”

  I said, “Where are we going?” I thought: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  “Paris.”

  “When do we leave?” I am safe, I thought. For now, I’m safe and not alone. They’re taking me with them.

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  The following night, three B-24s dropped three hundred containers filled with fifty tons of arms and supplies in fields or clearings around Rouen. We divided into welcome parties—Perry leading one, Émile another, Barzo another. I went with Émile.

  I stood in the woods, holding my breath as Émile and the other men waved the plane in with their flashlights. I kept my eyes open for Germans. The supplies fell from the sky—canisters that gleamed silver in the moonlight, attached to parachutes that looked like giant mushrooms. The chutes billowed out and then collapsed when the canisters hit the ground. The men rushed forward and emptied them, burying the containers and then dividing up supplies and hauling them away in wheelbarrows or baskets.