Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  Collette quickly passes posters slapped up on the sides of buildings that list new German rules that are often violently enforced. She shivers, not from the cold, but from the thought of arrest for missing curfew.

  She knows to avoid the German soldiers, but she also fears that she may be stopped by the Milice. Some of the men in southern France have joined the fierce Milice, a military police force that supports the German occupation. The Milice prowl the streets and stand proudly next to German officers. They’re sneaky, and she has to stay vigilant.

  She ducks into alleyways and rushes by empty shops that have been abandoned by owners who escaped Brume, or were arrested and dragged away. She thinks about how her family has tried to keep their bakery going, with limited supplies and few customers. Her papa insists on making bread from whatever they can find so that his neighbors won’t starve. “Someday we’ll make pastries again,” he often says, but Collette doesn’t see that day coming anytime soon. She’s seen families pack up whatever they can carry and escape in the night to Spain, across the border from southern France. Other Brume citizens suddenly disappear, taken by the Germans because they’re considered suspicious or resistant.

  She’s well aware that the missing will never be found. She’s heard the gunshots and overhears the whispers of her parents and the customers who come into the shop to use their ration cards and discuss how to survive. She watches with understanding as some townspeople cooperate with the Germans in exchange for milk for their hungry children, or protection from deportation. “We have to keep the peace,” her papa has told her.

  But she watches with dismay as others join forces with the Germans. “Those friends of the German soldiers are despicable collaborators,” her papa spits. “They welcome the Germans so they can be safe and comfortable.” The collaborators invite Germans into their homes and share information about their friends and neighbors. In exchange, they have full tables, fuel for their cars, and freedom to move around France.

  Collette despises the Germans and fears the Milice, but she has special hatred for the French townspeople who are friendly with both. The collaborators seem to have forgotten—or don’t care—that their neighbors are hungry and hiding in the shadows.

  Every day Collette sees her papa living in fear that someone—a German soldier, the Milice, or a collaborating neighbor—will decide that he, too, should be sent to Germany to work in a labor camp. “We’re safe as long as we keep quiet, make the bread, and do as we’re told,” he often repeats to Collette.

  But as she swiftly makes her way to the center of the village, she thinks about her handsome older brother, killed in Belgium fighting the Germans in battle, and her heart cracks. Her brother was so strong and funny, and determined to rescue France. She misses his cocky, crooked smile.

  It pains her to watch her grieving family frightened about what might happen next. “How can we let them do this to us?” she has asked repeatedly. But her papa keeps his head down and presses hard on the dough to make new loaves, and Collette’s mama looks away and says nothing.

  Months ago, Collette turned to her trusted neighbor, Hélène, who listened to Collette’s frustrations. Hélène kept Collette busy with chores as they furtively discussed the German occupation of Brume. “You can’t show them how you feel,” Hélène warned Collette. “You’re angry, and the German soldiers will see that.” She encouraged Collette to help her scrub her dusty floors and tend to the feeble garden behind a small shed in the back of Hélène’s house. They talked of the times before the Germans had taken over the town. They planned for a life with freedom from war.

  One day, after a German soldier stormed into the family’s bakery and smashed the fresh loaves of bread, Collette’s conversation with Hélène changed. “I can’t just watch and not do anything!”

  “You can resist, you know,” Hélène whispered as she huddled with Collette in her sparse garden. “Many people do.” She explained how a growing number of resisters were doing everything they could to sabotage the Germans and drive them out of France. They were people Collette saw every day, secretly spying and reporting on the enemy. As they innocently farmed their land, ran their shops, tended to their children, and foraged for food, they also spied on the German soldiers. They destroyed German equipment and stole their guns and ammunition. They did whatever was necessary to interfere with German victory and the takeover of France.

  “As a Resistance fighter,” Hélène urged Collette, “you can avenge your brother’s death.”

  For several days, as cold weather approached, Collette cleared Hélène’s garden space, dreaming of the peaceful life her family once had in Brume. She pictured her proud brother in his fresh uniform, waving confidently as he joined his friends and marched out of Brume to fight the Germans.

  Her heart soon grew cold. “I want to help,” she said to Hélène, pounding a small patch of dirt. “I want to resist.”

  Hélène knelt down and clutched Collette’s dusty hands. “You’re only twelve years old, but you can help us. It will be hard to do as a girl, but you can cut your hair and dress as a boy. Are you willing to do that?”

  “Pretend to be a boy?”

  “We’ll call you Jean-Pierre. A boy traveling the streets will get little attention, as long as you stick to the dark alleys and look like you have a place to go.”

  Collette immediately thought of her brother’s clothes, still stacked neatly in a wooden chest under her bed. “I can do that.” She nodded earnestly, eager to get started.

  She vigorously trimmed her hair close to her head. With Hélène’s help, she cut and stitched her brother’s old clothes to fit her undernourished body. She laced up the tall boots that her brother wore when he was twelve, and pulled her felt hat low over her ears.

  “I’m tired of Germans whistling at me,” she told her parents. Her mother touched her cheek, nodded, and looked away.

  Disguised as Jean-Pierre, Collette observed German soldiers in Brume and reported back to Hélène. But tonight she has to carry out one of the more dangerous missions. She’s done it before. Many times. Curfew is coming, and she has a package to deliver.

  Chapter 5

  Curfew

  Brume

  Winter 1944

  The German soldiers are starting their evening formation on the Rue Grand, a wide, tree-lined street at the bottom of the hill. Somehow Collette has to move around the soldiers without being seen. A thin, ragged package is stuffed deep into her coat pocket. She has to move fast.

  Tonight’s mission is to deliver the package to an old house at the empty square off Rue d’Azur, where her papa used to sell his sweet calisson at the market. She can picture the tiny, diamond-shaped biscuits lined up on wooden trays, and tries to recall the taste of the sweet almond mixed with lavender honey or candied fruit, coated in sugar. She hasn’t tasted sugar since the war began, and the memory is gone. Her mouth is dry.

  For each mission, Hélène tells Collette where to make deliveries. By now Collette knows every street and alleyway in her town, and she slips down side streets, staying out of sight. Each “customer” answers the door if Collette knocks rapidly three times, then three times again.

  Tonight when the door is opened, Collette is to say sign here and hand over her fountain pen and her little suede-covered notebook so that they can mark an X.

  Collette has to follow Hélène’s instructions, do exactly what she says. “Do not say initial here. Tonight you tell them to sign here.” Either way, they must sign an X to show that they got the message.

  Sign here signals that the plans of the Resistance fighters are to go ahead that night. Every time Hélène has instructed Collete to say sign here, then another German building mysteriously burns, supplies are stolen, or a German train explodes. There’s a night of fire alarms, gunshots, and running, shouting soldiers.

  But if Collette says initial here to the quiet people at the door, they quickly sign their X, glance around, and close their doors. They have been warned that th
eir secret plan of resistance may have been discovered, and they need to wait for further instructions. The next day there may be extra soldiers peering at faces as people pass, stopping anyone, even mothers with babies, to check identification papers. Germans may burst into shops to check behind the counters and up the stairs, looking for hiding places, dragging out the citizens of Brume.

  Collette’s notebook is filled with rows of X X X X X, made by people with firm hands and serious faces. They usually don’t look at each other after the notebook is signed, and she steps back so their doors can be closed quickly.

  The package never leaves her pocket. She’s only there to deliver the message and gather the Xs. She has the package just in case she is stopped and questioned. Then she has a reason for being out on the street, supposedly a young boy delivering a package for her neighbor Hélène.

  The fountain pen, carefully filled with black ink, is slipped into the hem of her worn gray coat.

  During the day, Collette may pass some of the people who have opened their doors to her. She may see them standing in line to collect an onion, or sitting in their shops repairing the boots of a soldier. They don’t even nod to each other. The people of Brume keep their heads down and try to go about their business as if the Germans and the French police are not in charge of their daily lives. The war has made the close-knit neighbors of beautiful Brume even closer, but they don’t reveal to the Germans that they know each other at all.

  Sometimes when the night is freezing and she has a long list of deliveries, Collette is tempted to pull out the pen, sign the Xs, and return home to her warm bed. But the temptation is only for a moment. She knows if she doesn’t deliver the message from Hélène, she could destroy a secret resistance plan that might move France closer to freedom from the Germans.

  She makes sure that everyone marks an X. No names, no record of addresses. The resisters know Hélène will check to confirm that they all signed the notebook—that the secret Resistance fighters have been informed. If Collette misses anyone—if an X is left out—Hélène will have to find out why. Was it too dangerous? Had there been an arrest? A French resister could die if Collette doesn’t knock, speak the words that Hélène has told her to say, and hold out her pen and notebook for a written X.

  Tonight she has six deliveries. All of them have to sign here. The secret plan for tonight is still on.

  The German soldiers are supposed to be in tight rows by this time, lining Rue Grand. They’re ordered to stand at attention to listen to speeches from large box speakers that are wired to the trees.

  The townspeople are supposed to listen, too. But if they’re outside, then they’re risking violation of the curfew and questioning from the Germans. So they rush to get home before dark. But they can still hear the harsh German broadcasts through the shuttered windows of their homes.

  The Germans have grown comfortable in their role as occupiers, so they no longer line up quietly as they used to, standing at attention with tense faces. Tonight the soldiers jostle and joke around the towering Rue Grand fountain that’s decorated with elaborate statues of winged cherubs no longer spewing sprays of water. As Collette gets closer to the fountain, she cuts around the gathering soldiers. She might be able to pull off her disguise as a French boy racing home, but sometimes she’s too far away from home to be able to explain why she’s wandering the streets at the edge of curfew. She dreads the beginning of spring, when she’ll have to remove the layers of shirts and sweaters, and there will be evidence that she’s certainly not a boy.

  The side streets are empty as dusk begins. She avoids the busy Rue Larouque and turns down an alley. She counts on this alley because there are many places to hide, and she’s very good at hiding. She has no pattern of movement in case she’s being watched.

  She’s sure she’s just a shadow passing, but her boots seem to pound loudly on the stone street. Her mama has lined the bottoms with hay and pieces of torn wool cut from the ends of stolen German blankets to keep Collette’s feet warm in the winter. But that doesn’t muffle the sound as she runs and the alley echoes.

  She passes her favorite fountain, where water used to pour from the mouths of stone dolphins into a circular basin sparkling with coins. She glances down a short cross street where a group of soldiers are leaning against the cold stone walls, muttering in German and smoking. They have long, heavy coats and uniform hats or round helmets, but their ears aren’t covered. She can never understand why their ears don’t freeze, but she guesses that they’re listening for someone to give themselves away.

  There are a few lights on in the homes, fuzzy yellow in the growing darkness. She needs to get farther away from the main street. She pulls her hat down around her ears. Hélène has knitted a thick black scarf that Collette has wrapped twice around her neck and tucked into her coat. She wonders where Hélène found wool to spin, since the Germans have taken all the sheep.

  By running down hidden streets and cutting across alleys at the backs of buildings, Collette passes several side streets and makes it to the other side of Rue Grand. There are occasional sentries, but they’re either sleeping or talking to other soldiers in low, lazy voices. It’s a calm night, but she doesn’t even want her breath to be seen.

  The first doorway for delivery is at the top of too many stairs. She can be easily spotted. She squeezes by the side of the building through a dark, tight passageway, feeling her way along the damp walls. The worst thing she can do is get wet in the cold, and she quickly stuffs her frozen hands into her pockets.

  Her heart beats faster, but she can’t be nervous when she’s evading soldiers. She needs to be quick and smart. When she’s alone without light in the canyon between two brick buildings, and she doesn’t know what’s ahead of her, she lets the fear take over because it makes her more alert.

  There’s a small doorway at the back end of the building. Collette hopes her customer isn’t waiting in the front, unable to hear her knocking. She slides the pen out through a hole in the hem of her coat.

  The notebook is always in her pocket. If it’s hidden away, then it might seem important if she’s searched. It’s just pages of Xs so she doesn’t hide it in case she’s questioned. Paper is scarce in France, and the Germans have forbidden anyone to carry letters. A notebook is allowed, but suspicious. She’s prepared to answer their threatening questions if she’s ever stopped. She imagines a German shouting at her, jabbing at the rows of XXXXXX. “What does this mean?”

  She’s thought about what she will say. “Our family shares the bread. I write it down.” Or maybe, “It’s how many turnips we have left to eat.” She’s always ready, but so far she hasn’t been questioned.

  She reaches the back door of the building and knocks three times—then three times again. Within seconds the door is opened and a woman with black hair pulled into a tight swirl at the top of her head is framed by a dim light glowing behind her. “Sign here,” Collette says, and reaches out to hand her the pen and notebook. The woman pulls a shawl tightly around her shoulders as an old man appears behind her. He reaches for a black coat hanging on a wooden peg, and the woman slides her arms into the sleeves. He grabs the pen and notebook, marks an X, and shoves it back into Collette’s hand.

  Collette realizes she knows this woman, from the market near her family’s bakery. The woman doesn’t buy anything at the market, but is always helping to rearrange the display of the few potatoes or carrots that may be available, chatting cheerfully with the people in town.

  The woman briefly touches Collette’s face, and they look straight at each other, eyes locking, both solemn. This never happens, and Collette quickly looks away.

  A sharp voice comes from behind Collette and breaks the silence. “Qui vive?” Who goes there? The French words are garbled, but the shouts cut through the night and Collette spins around. “Couvre-feu!” Curfew!

  A man in a dark double-breasted coat and sloping blue beret is gesturing from the yard behind the building. Milice! A French officer!


  The officer keeps yelling a torrent of French as he rushes forward, and the only word Collette can hear clearly is “Couvre-feu!”

  The man and woman in the doorway shuffle backward and try to shut the door, but the officer is too fast. He pushes Collette aside. “Qu’est-ce qu’il se passe?” What are you doing?

  Collette remembers Hélène’s instructions, repeated many times. “Don’t run unless you know for sure your life is in danger.” Hélène made her repeat it. “Do not run. Especially if it’s the French Milice. You have nothing to hide. You are just delivering packages from my shop to earn food for your family. If you run, the Germans and the Milice will suspect you, and your family may never see you again.”

  Collette forces herself to stand her ground as the officer continues to scream at the couple and wave his arms around. The woman looks at her shoes. The man in the doorway wraps his arms around the woman’s waist and gently pulls her back a few steps. He has not been able to put on his coat. He must be freezing, Collette thinks as she, too, backs away from the irate officer. Maybe fear is keeping him warm.

  She has to do something or the officer will soon pull out his whistle to call for other police.

  “I have your package,” she pulls the thin box out of her coat pocket and waves the package urgently at the old man. The officer abruptly stops his tirade. Collette adjusts her hat to make sure her face is barely visible. I am Jean-Pierre, just delivering a package, she reminds herself.

  The officer loses his balance for a moment, and she realizes that he’s probably drunk. A lot of the soldiers and French police have been drinking whatever bottles of wine they can find, now that they have destroyed the grapevines that used to line the hills around Brume.

  The man steps in front of the woman and smiles at me. He looks as if he’s pleased to get the package, but Collette knows he’s pleased with her quick thinking.