Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  Collette’s hands freeze on the handlebars, and she pulls down her coat sleeves to serve as gloves. It doesn’t take long to navigate the streets, and they hardly say a word to each other as they aim toward Madame’s home, less than a mile from a road that circles the village. Soon they leave the protection of stone houses and brick walls and make their way into the countryside, barely able to stay upright on their bicycles as the wind pushes against them.

  They pass woodlands on both sides, and try to skirt the frozen ruts of the narrow dirt road.

  “There!” Collette points over to a small stone house with a thatched roof, set way back from the road next to an abandoned olive grove. Smoke puffs from the chimney, but no lights inside the house can be seen. An outhouse stands crookedly behind the house.

  Collette spots the log at the end of the drive—the drop spot. She rides past it, up to the blue wooden door. She props her bike against a stack of firewood that’s covered in snow. Marguerite pulls up beside her as Collette knocks on the door.

  “Madame Monette?” Marguerite calls. “We have some vegetables for you.”

  Collette can smell the sweet smoke of a brushwood fire.

  The door opens a crack, and Madame’s large nose appears before the rest of her lined, droopy face. She’s wearing a blue kerchief around her head, with tiny red flowers. “Ah, Marguerite. Come in.”

  The house is one small room, sparsely furnished with a rough wooden table and a wide hutch that has peeling green paint and a shiny ceramic counter. Rows of glass jars are lined up neatly. When spring finally arrives, they will hold Madame’s famous lilac-and-wild-berry jam.

  A skinny bed, covered with a worn, gray blanket, has been shoved into the corner next to an empty coal bin. Stairs made of tree limbs lead to a narrow loft above their heads. Embroidered hand towels, hung neatly on the backs of the chairs, are the only decoration.

  The room is plain but warm from a fire of burning sticks. Marguerite unbuttons her coat and Collette removes her heavy scarf and hat.

  “My apologies,” Madame fusses with her dirty apron. “I have no light. We’re not allowed candles, and my lantern and flashlight were taken away.”

  Marguerite plunks the basket down on the table. “You can still see what we brought.” She smiles at Madame. “Some carrots and a potato.”

  Madame’s brown eyes soften, but she makes no move to peer under the cloth cover. She doesn’t invite her visitors to sit and glances nervously at Collette, who’s quietly looking around the room, peering into dark corners and stepping back to look up into the loft.

  “I thought you’d like to know,” Marguerite says to Madame, “we’ve talked to the greengrocer. There are no lemons, no pears . . . and the strawberries from Bessan are early.”

  Madame makes no effort to hide her dismay. “The strawberries will be early?!” She paces the room, grabs a whisk broom, and vigorously sweeps the hearth, then busily straightens the glass jars that are already lined up perfectly.

  Marguerite guides Madame over to a chair while Collette takes the potato and carrots out of the basket and places them on the table. Madame adjusts her kerchief and reaches under the table for a tin pot containing a wooden spoon and a sharp knife. “He has to go!” She centers the pot in front of her. “Now!”

  “Who is he?” Marguerite asks.

  Collette is surprised that Marguerite asks her the question. There are strict rules about identifying anyone who might be working with resisters.

  Madame glances at the door and the small, dirty window and whispers, “All I know is that a lieutenant from British Intelligence was dropped near here last night.”

  “A British spy?” Collette knew that British soldiers were not only helping resisters by dropping supplies and weapons, but now they were also joining the resisters on the ground. There were even rumors that American soldiers were also in France, spying against the Germans.

  “He’s coming to teach us a new code. The one we’re using can be broken too easily.”

  “You mean page, paragraph, word?” Marguerite asks. “We’ve been using that for too long. We do need a better code.”

  “But what happened to the lieutenant?” Collette scans the house again, looking for loose floorboards or hidden doors.

  “I haven’t seen him.” Madame fingers the precious carrots and potato. “But I know he’s hiding in the outhouse.” She stands up and begins chopping a carrot and the greens into pieces. “I left an onion and a chunk of bread in a bucket. When I looked this morning, the food was gone.”

  “You mean he’s still in the outhouse?” Most of the village houses have indoor toilets, but many farms still have outhouses. Collette can’t imagine hiding in one. The smell!

  “Ewww!” Marguerite holds her nose. “How long has he been in there?”

  “He spent last night in someone’s barn, but at dawn he was supposed to find his way to my storage bin attached to the back of the outhouse. I kept my flower pots and gardening tools in the bin.” She cuts the potato into chunks.

  “Didn’t you look to see if he’s in there?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to see me lift the lid of the bin. You never know if Germans are around in the woods.”

  “He must be frozen solid.”

  “I covered the bottom with straw and tossed an old quilt in there.” Madame rapidly slices a carrot. “I tried tapping on the wall inside the outhouse. I thought he might tap back. But there was silence. I couldn’t even hear anyone breathing.”

  “Maybe he’s already gone.”

  “He’s supposed to wait for nightfall and go to the next stop in the village.”

  Collette suspects that the next stop will be Hélène’s shed, where Panther meets with spies and resisters.

  Madame pauses in her chopping and rests the knife on the table. She looks at the girls with weary eyes. “‘The strawberries are coming early’ means that the Germans are doing a house-by-house search. We knew it was going to happen, but it’s sooner than expected.”

  Collette’s immediately on her feet. “We need to warn the lieutenant. Get him out of that bin.”

  Marguerite buttons her coat and heads for the door. “Do you know his code name?”

  Madame sweeps pieces of potato into the pot. “All I know is he’s a British Intelligence operative. They call him the lieutenant. He’ll pretend to be French, and he’s supposed to be a genius at codes. That’s more than you should know!” She picks up the last carrot to chop, hesitates, and hands it to Marguerite. “If he’s still there, he’ll be hungry.” Marguerite stuffs it into her pocket as Madame continues. “Use the password or he won’t answer. Tell him ‘Soon the lilacs will be back.’”

  The girls emerge from the dark house to discover that midday sunlight is beginning to appear and the sleet has moved on, but the wind is still brisk. Collette looks up and down the road and scans the overgrown olive grove and the woods.

  The outhouse is made of a few worn boards and leans to the right. There’s one door in the front, with a carved wooden handle and rusty hinges. Collette can now see the extra space extending from the back.

  She opens the crooked door and ducks inside the outhouse, as Marguerite stands guard outside. Collette breathes through her mouth but can still smell the stench. She can barely stand up in the small space but has no desire to sit on the crude wooden seat. She doesn’t look down, for fear of what she might see piled up in the hole below.

  “Hello?” she says to the inner wall that separates the outhouse from the storage bin. “Lieutenant?”

  Silence. Perhaps he’s no longer hiding, she thinks.

  Marguerite peeks in the door. “Use the password.”

  “Soon the lilacs will be back.” Collette slowly enunciates the French words, still speaking to the inner wall. “Can you hear me? Soon the lilacs will be back.”

  She hears a soft rustling on the other side of the wall. A muffled voice says in flawless French, “They will fill the fields.”

  “He’s still
in there!” Collette bolts out of the outhouse and joins Marguerite at the storage bin. She looks around again, remembering Madame’s comment about Germans in the woods. They grab the lid, push it up, and prop it against the outhouse. As Collette leans over to look in the bin, a hand in a brown leather glove grips the side.

  The lieutenant stands up. Both girls gasp.

  “You’re a woman!” Collette steps back as the lieutenant climbs out and reaches down into the bin and pulls out a small canvas rucksack.

  “Bonjour.” The lieutenant brushes her uneven bangs away from her face, runs in place for a few seconds, and swings her arms around. She’s wearing bright red lipstick, a tiny bit smeared at the upper lip, and she has circles of pink rouge on her pale cheeks. Pencil lines run along the arch of her eyebrows. “I don’t think I could take one more minute in there. And I’ve been in a lot of tight spots.”

  Collette knows there are supposed to be very few words exchanged between resisters in the middle of a mission, especially with British agents who parachute into France to deliver supplies and assist with the fight. The wrong word, the wrong expression, can be deadly.

  This time she doesn’t have to try to keep her mouth shut because she can’t think of what to say. She’s certainly seen female spies before—after all, she speaks to Rabbit and Hélène often. But this tall, thin lieutenant with long, wavy brown hair is totally unexpected.

  She realizes that’s probably part of the plan.

  “So you know the password!” The lieutenant straightens the thick navy cable-knit sweater that hangs over a dark turtleneck sweater and khaki overalls. She brushes off bits of straw and adjusts her leather aviator cap so that the flaps fit tightly over her ears. “Who are you?” She squats down to unbuckle the straps on the rucksack. “And why’d you let me come out in the daylight?”

  Her French is rapid, with an extra guttural growl.

  Marguerite is first to find her voice. “Marg . . . I mean, Skylark.” She can’t seem to take her eyes off the lieutenant. “And this is Wallcreeper.”

  “Skylark and Wallcreeper!” The lieutenant pokes around in the rucksack, shoving aside cotton underwear and black wool socks. Collette spots a pink wool beret mixed in with boxes of powdered coffee, women’s black shoes, ration tickets, and a small silver compact.

  The lieutenant pulls out a pencil case. “Well, it seems to me you deserve a reward for releasing me. If you get me to the next drop safely, I’ll give you some more tools of the trade.” She pops open the long case and holds up a pencil.

  Collette almost hands it back. “We’re not little children,” she says.

  “It’s actually a dagger.” The lieutenant points to the sharp metal tip of the pencil. “Don’t stick it in your back pocket. I did that once. Not a good idea.”

  She continues to rummage around in the rucksack and pulls out a wide scarf in green-and-black paisley. She tosses the aviator cap into the rucksack and ties the scarf around her head like Madame Monette’s kerchief. Her shiny brown hair flows out from underneath in all directions.

  She points to one of the flaps of the aviator cap. “Message hidden in the flap. But you probably already figured that out.”

  “Our tutor hides notes in the lining of his hat,” Marguerite volunteers. Collette nods but wonders if the hiding place is a bit obvious. How long has this odd woman been a spy?

  “Don’t worry,” the lieutenant says, giving Collette a sly grin. “The message is written in invisible ink and both flaps are stuffed with crumpled paper. As long as nobody pees on the message, it can’t be seen.”

  She reaches into a pocket on the outside of the rucksack and pulls out a small box. She pops open the lid and reveals a petite bottle of perfume labeled BEAU PARIS. “The Germans use fancy chemicals, but we know how to hide invisible ink in perfume.” She pretends to dab a little behind each ear. “But lemon juice and urine work just as well.”

  She seems awfully silly for an intelligence operative, Collette thinks as she watches the lieutenant pull the compact out of the knapsack and inspect her lipstick in the mirror.

  “We have to get moving,” Collette snaps. The last thing she wants is to be caught with a British agent.

  Suddenly the lieutenant is all business. She chucks the compact into the rucksack and quickly buckles up the straps. She picks it up, ready to go. “Do we have bicycles, or do we cut through the woods over there?”

  Just as she points to the clump of trees across from the house, a faint, high-pitched whine can be heard in the distance. “That’s a car! They’re coming!” Collette grabs the lieutenant’s arm. “We need to go.”

  “Look!” Marguerite points at Madame Monette riding on a bicycle on the path away from her house, pushing down hard on the pedals. Madame turns at the road and races away from the sound of a rapidly moving automobile.

  “They’re not going to drive by!” Collette pulls on the lieutenant’s jacket. “They’re searching houses!”

  The lieutenant shakes off Collette’s grip and reaches into a pocket hidden under the flap of the rucksack. She pulls out a slim brass case about the size of a man’s wallet and holds it gingerly on the palm of her gloved hand. “This is a cigarette case. Don’t ever open it.”

  Collette steps back. She knows the case is probably booby-trapped with explosives.

  “If I have to,” the lieutenant continues, “I’ll offer the Germans a cigarette. If you hear an explosion, run for the olive grove faster than you’ve ever run in your life.” She gently slides the battered case into the pocket of her overall pants. She gives Collette a wink. “I’m a lot smarter than I look.”

  “They’ll surely see us if we try to get away now.” Marguerite’s voice is shaky.

  The lieutenant puts her hands on Marguerite’s shoulders. “I promise you, we’re almost done with this war. Soon you’ll be saying your real name and wearing pretty dresses again. In the future when there’s a knock on the door, you’ll fling it open instead of fearing for your life.”

  The car seems to be getting closer.

  The lieutenant points to a metal button that holds the giant sweater closed. “Don’t worry about what happens to me. This button is also a compass. I’ll head south to Spain.”

  Collette’s not sure the lieutenant will have the chance. When the Germans search a house, they do it thoroughly.

  The lieutenant shoves Collette toward the bin. “But for now we have to hide! You—get in.” Collette doesn’t dare look at Marguerite’s face. They’ve both been in danger before—after all, Marguerite was caught in the middle of Germans, who turned on her. But they’d never been right next to a British spy who might be caught in the middle of a mission. Collette steps over the side of the wooden bin.

  Marguerite climbs in after her, and they wriggle around until their knees are bent and they can fit in the cramped space. Marguerite’s legs start to shake and Collette reaches out and grabs her knees to hold her steady. Marguerite places her hands over Collette’s and grips them tightly. They don’t look at each other.

  The cover is slammed shut, but there are gaps between the warped boards. Some sunlight comes through, along with drafts of winter cold. Marguerite makes a noise that sounds like a cry.

  Collette thinks of her family, sitting by their warm fire, wondering why she never came home. She presses her back against the thin wall of the storage bin. The driver of the car grinds the gears and spins out at the turn, toward Madame’s house.

  Collette drops her head to her knees. She can feel her bowels shift and can’t believe she’s just inches away from an outhouse and can’t use it.

  A watchdog never sleeps. She sucks in her breath as she remembers Hélène’s motto. We wasted time, Marguerite, she thinks. We let our guard down. Her eyes fill with tears.

  The lieutenant speaks clearly to us through the inner wall of the outhouse. “If they come back here, you two stay hidden. I’ll come out of the outhouse and distract them.” Collette taps the wall in response. The lieutenant continues
. “Stay until you hear the car drive away, or . . .”

  “What if they find us?” Marguerite’s voice is trembling.

  “You tell them you were on your bicycles and stopped to use the outhouse. They frightened you, so you hid. That’s all.”

  “But that’s not all!” Collette wants to shout. This lieutenant doesn’t seem to understand what it’s been like to live in Brume. More resisters in Noah’s Ark have gone missing every day. A few come back with tales of torture and labor camps, but mostly they don’t come back.

  She hopes the lieutenant isn’t foolish enough to have radio parts in her knapsack. Getting caught with a radio or replacement parts means certain death. The Germans might even shoot them on the spot.

  Collette closes her eyes to the sun rays streaming through the cracks in the cupboard, and lifts her face to absorb the light. She can hear the Germans pounding on Madame’s door. They don’t wait to see if she opens it. Collette hears the hutch crash to the floor and glass is smashed against the walls. The men shout at each other in German.

  Collette pictures the table with the carrot and potato pieces. She hopes Madame was able to fill her apron pockets before she fled.

  There are more shouts, and the car engine starts up again. But one man calls out, and the engine stops. Collette signals to Marguerite to stay quiet.

  It sounds as if the two men, laughing and talking, are coming toward the outhouse.

  Collette hears shuffling, and the door to the outhouse creaks open. The lieutenant speaks quickly in French, explaining to the soldiers that she was hiding because they frightened her.

  She switches to a few words in halting German. Collette recognizes bitte (please) and meine papiere (my papers). She’s heard those words many times since the Germans moved into Brume.

  The German responses are harsh and impatient. One man keeps yelling out orders, right outside the storage bin. Move away, move away, Collette prays. She presses her lips together to keep from making a sound. She hopes Marguerite is doing the same.

  The lieutenant seems to hear Collette’s thoughts and keeps talking as she moves away toward the house. The soldiers argue with each other briefly, and there’s a scuffle. Their voices fade as they move around to the front of the house. Collette can no longer hear the lieutenant.