Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  June 1948

  Dearest Marguerite—

  I hope you have been getting my letters. You sound like you have such a busy life in London! Someday I will meet your Andy. I’m sure he’s very handsome. Does he call you Skylark?

  This time my news is not about cows and olives. I’m going to Montpellier to see the Tour de France in July! In case you haven’t heard, the bicycle race is bigger than ever, now that the war is over. There will be teams from Belgium and Italy, and even a rider from Poland! They will circle the entire country.

  My friends and I are going in a truck so we can stand in the back and watch the race and see the ocean. Who knows—maybe I’ll go to Paris next, and then I’ll find you in London.

  Mama wants me to marry a farm boy and take over the bakery. But Hélène says I was born to explore the world. Besides, there are no handsome boys in Brume.

  Please write to me and tell me about the world. Maybe soon I’ll see your face because I want to travel to you!

  Always Wallcreeper,

  Collette

  “The Tour de France! She never mentioned that!” I’m beginning to think that Granny’s memory may be worse than I thought. Why wouldn’t she tell me about seeing a famous bicycle race? “But she never did find you, did she? I guess the letters stopped in 1950. What happened?”

  “Wait—there are two more postcards. The first one is soon after she went to the race.”

  October 1949

  My M—

  I’m sending another postal card and refuse to give up, even though the mail is terrible. They are now using old German warplanes to deliver the mail, and we still duck and hide when they fly over our heads. Maybe THIS card will make it to London.

  IF YOU ARE THE POSTMAN AND YOU ARE READING THIS CARD, STOP HERE. THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!

  We both laugh. “That sounds like my granny! Keep reading!”

  Skylark, I met a boy! His name is Marcel and he’s from Arles. (He actually looks like Vincent van Gogh!) He’s staying in Brume to repair the bridges. He thinks I’m pretty but wants me to grow my hair longer. I don’t want to do that—I think there’s a little Jean-Pierre still left in me. Besides, he dreams of settling in Brume and opening a tool shop, but I feel that the world is waiting for me.

  I haven’t even seen Italy or Spain, and they’re just a few hours away. No more room on this card! Please write back

  —Wallcreeper

  I’m still giggling at Granny yelling at the postman. “Sounds like Marcel didn’t have a chance.” I try to picture my granny with long hair. “My mom has pictures of my granny in our apartment, and I don’t think her hair was ever very long. It’s short, like mine.”

  Marguerite smooths her hair around her bun and plays with her necklaces. “I had long, beautiful hair during the war. Rabbit saved the fat from cooking, and we made horrible-smelling soap. Once a week, she’d scrub my neck and wash my hair in the kitchen sink.”

  That sounds awful to me, but Marguerite is smiling at the memory. I pick up the photo of Granny and Marguerite grinning in their pixie cuts. “But you have very short hair in this picture.”

  Marguerite’s expression changes instantly. “I cut it off right before that picture was taken, and gave myself a boy’s name, just like Collette.”

  This is startling new information. “A boy’s name?”

  “The only way Collette could wander Brume, especially on a bicycle, was if she pretended to be a boy. It was not acceptable for a girl to explore alone.” She taps the photo. “Your granny was Jean-Pierre, dressed in her brother’s old clothes.”

  I must look confused because she continues to explain. “I was busy entertaining Germans at our home, all dressed up. People in town recognized me when I made deliveries, and I waved at them like an innocent young girl.” She gives me a little finger wave and a phony sweet smile. “But Collette had to be in disguise.”

  I’m struggling to picture my granny wearing her brother’s clothes when she’s so careful about her appearance, even when she’s in her pink bathrobe. “Why did you cut your hair?”

  Marguerite thinks over her answer before she responds. “It was close to the end of the war, and it was important for me to go on missions and not be recognized. I cut my hair and called myself Léo.”

  “So Wallcreeper and Skylark were also Jean-Pierre and Léo?”

  “And also Collette and Marguerite!” She places her finger on her lips, and her eyes seem to light up. “Lots of necessary secrets.”

  I repeat the names. “Jean-Pierre and Léo.” If I had to choose a boy’s name, I wonder what it would be.

  “Léo was a common name at the time. I liked it because it means lion.” She tosses her head and roars, and we laugh when I roar back. “I felt like a lion, even without my mane.”

  “I’ve always kept my hair short, even when my mom has begged me to try it longer.”

  “You look just like Collette. Did she ever get to travel?”

  I tell her all about Granny’s gardens and the drawings on the wall of her room at Rockaway Manor. I wish I’d brought them with us, but we had to leave in such a hurry. I hope they’re still there. “She’s talking about taking a trip to Morocco.” I stop because I know Granny will never get there.

  “North Africa! A few years ago, I took a ferry to Morocco from France, across the Mediterranean Sea. The same sea the Americans crossed to set us free from the Germans.”

  “I wish she could have gone with you.” It’s easy to picture Granny in her pink beret, standing at the bow of the ferry, heading for the coast of Africa.

  Marguerite must be able to tell what I’m imagining because she says, “Collette would have pointed the way for the ferry captain.” She rests her hand on the top of my head. For a moment, I think it’s Granny’s hand. “You’ll have to go instead,” she says quietly. She hands me the last postcard. It has a drawing on one side, filled in with soft colors. “What do you see?”

  “It looks like a picture of a flower shop.” There’s a narrow stone building with a blue door. Les Belles Fleurs is etched in gold in a large display window. Iron benches, wooden ladders, and metal plant stands fill the sidewalk, stacked with pots that overflow with every color of flower. Hundreds of tiny pink blossoms climb a rickety trellis that leans against the building.

  “That’s the flower shop where your granny worked in Paris. Simply called ‘Beautiful Flowers.’”

  “She got to Paris!” I study the window in the drawing to see if I can see my granny inside the store.

  Marguerite takes the card from me and translates:

  May 1950

  My dearest Marguerite—

  I’ve made it to Paris! I saved money from selling flowers and am working for a florist at the Rue des Saints-Pères. I’ve met a wonderful man stationed here, and believe it or not, Wallcreeper is getting married soon!

  Please, please, please write me, Skylark. It’s been so long.

  Your friend, Collette

  P.S. You can send letters to the shop. Everyone knows me here because I deliver flowers on my bicycle.

  “I did send a letter right away.” Marguerite sighs. “But it was returned—the shop had closed. I married and moved here to Stratford, and it looks like Collette married, too, and changed her name. I had no idea that she had also moved to the United States, just a couple of hours away.” She stacks the mail into a neat pile. “So many memories. It seems like yesterday.” She reties the ribbon. “Before you put these letters back in the drawer, I have something else to show you.”

  She reaches into the shoebox, dramatically lifts out a fountain pen, and places it on the table. The red velveteen box is missing, but the pen is the same blue marble, engraved with an F. I slide over to get a closer look. She pulls off the cap to reveal the gold nib with the tiny 4810.

  “That’s the pen!” I blurt out, and without thinking, confess the real reason I took the train to Stratford. I’m worried that Marguerite will be disappointed that I didn’t travel just t
o visit her, and explain that I wanted to retrieve something I’d lost.

  She doesn’t seem at all concerned. “You had a mission,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. She pops the cap back on the pen and hands it to me. “It’s yours to keep, my dear.”

  I stroke the smooth side and inspect the engraving. Even though it was just a missing pen before, now it seems precious and I know I’ll never lose it again.

  Marguerite points to the F. “I stole that pen.”

  She waits for a moment for a reaction, but at this point, nothing surprises me. “You stole it?”

  “From a German officer. He was at our home often, eating all our food, drinking my father’s wine, bragging about how the Germans were going to take over the world. My father would smile and pour more wine. The more drinking, the more information.”

  “How’d you get his pen?”

  “Easy. It was in his coat. Rabbit and I were both responsible for collecting the winter coats and hanging them up when guests arrived. We always checked the pockets for letters, notes, maps—anything that could be shared with Resistance fighters. He had this blue fountain pen, but he never kept it in the same place. Sometimes deep in the side pocket, sometimes in the little pocket inside the lining, sometimes not at all. I figured he would think he lost it, so I lifted it.”

  “But why?”

  “Because he stole so much from us.” Marguerite’s face changes for a moment. Her eyes narrow, and she looks like one of my teachers when they’re annoyed with the class. She stands abruptly and walks to the big windows. The sky is steel gray, and a few sprinkles tap the glass. As she continues, her voice sounds tight and gravelly and her accent is heavy. “These are not adventures I’m telling you, my Lily. We knew we could be killed at any time. There were firing squads always on duty, and they executed so many. We were actors, all of us.”

  Simone appears from the kitchen carrying a glass pitcher of ice water and a plate of baby cream puffs. She watches her mother closely. Marguerite’s voice makes me feel a little bit afraid. She sounds so cold. I crawl back onto the couch and watch her closely, too.

  Simone places the pitcher and plate on the table, then leads her mother over to the wingback chair. Marguerite rearranges her many necklaces, takes a deep breath, and gives me a weak smile. “It wasn’t the notebook, you know.”

  “The notebook?”

  “Collette was supposed to have everyone sign a notebook.” She explains how my granny would say sign here or initial here to let members of Noah’s Ark know if there would be a mission that night. I think about Granny muttering, “sign here,” and picture the notebook filled with XXXXX. I wonder what happened to it. “But,” Marguerite says softly, “it was the pen that really mattered.”

  She pauses as Simone touches her shoulder and then clears the plates, leaving a full plate in front of her mother.

  “You mean this pen? The one you stole from the German officer?”

  “That pen was the signal that Collette could be trusted. Everyone in Noah’s Ark knew that the pen was a Montblanc, a fancy one made in Germany, stolen from a German officer. They knew that if Collette made them sign with that specific pen—she always made sure they could see the F on the side—that she, too, was working for the Resistance.”

  “What did the F mean?”

  “That was the officer’s initial. His name was Franz.” She shudders. “That’s what made it unique, that engraved letter on the side.”

  “What’s the meaning of the number on the nib?”

  Marguerite giggles, back to her exuberant self. “That’s proof that it was made by Montblanc. The mountain Mont Blanc is 4,810 meters high. That’s always engraved on the nib of the finest Montblanc pens. It was another sign for the Resistance fighters that it was the actual stolen pen.”

  “If you stole it, how did my granny get it?” I inspect the nib again and think about how Johnny and I thought the 4810 was a secret code. I want to call Johnny right now and tell him everything. I want to go back to the Pen Emporium and tell Henry about how one of his special pens was used on secret missions.

  “I hadn’t met Collette at the time I stole the pen. Rabbit gave it to Hélène for forging documents, but Hélène wanted Collette to use the pen when she asked for signatures in the notebook. Collette found out later, when we did missions together, that I was the one who stole the pen.”

  “Why do you think my granny’s so worried about getting it back to you now?”

  “I’m not really sure, Lily. But I am so pleased you found me.” She’s quiet for a while as I uncap the pen and write XXX in the air. “Collette had the pen when my family left Brume. Later, when I lost touch with her, I had a strong feeling that if I could find that pen, I would find Collette. That’s why I left instructions with stores that sold fountain pens—all over the world. I just knew that was the way to find out what happened to her even if it was too late and she was gone.” She gazes out the window at the sea.

  I carefully slide the cap back on the pen and weigh it in my hand like Henry would do. “Granny was using this pen to find you, too.”

  “Your grandmother knows what that pen meant to us—to everyone in the Resistance. She took that pen everywhere she went.” Marguerite rips off a chunk of bread and swirls it in the olive oil that Simone has dripped on plates decorated with tiny pictures of fruit. “Even when we crashed the train.”

  She calmly chews on the bread and smirks as I sit up quickly. “You crashed a train?”

  Simone, who had been so quiet up to now, bursts out laughing. “Oh, here she goes again!” She pops a cream puff into her mouth. “Yes, Lily, my mother and your granny were hellions. I’m surprised she lived to tell about it, but they did, indeed, crash a train.”

  Chapter 27

  Le Roi

  Avignon, near Brume

  Late Summer 1944

  Collette and Marguerite bicycle all day in the countryside in the warm sun. Marguerite’s basket is filled with a picnic lunch, wrapped by Rabbit in a white linen cloth. Collette has a fishing pole strapped to her bike. Now that summer has arrived, the people in the village are desperate to eat the trout from the melted streams in the countryside. Collette can practically taste the fish, but today there will be no time to stand by the waters and wait to catch supper.

  The morning fog of Brume burned off long ago. After biking several miles, they find the barn that Panther had described to them, close to the town of Avignon. It’s caved in on one side from years of neglect, but the stone cottage nearby is solid and has scrubbed white window frames and a blue glass vase catching light in the window. Collette points to the vase, and they know they’ve found the right place. They wheel their bicycles behind a rolled bale of rotting hay.

  A farmer is sitting on the porch steps. They’ve been told that he’s a Resistance sympathizer, but he doesn’t want any trouble. “You’re overdressed for this heat,” he growls at them. They don’t respond. They know that their disguise as boys is hardly working anymore. They both have grown over the winter and can no longer cover up with sweaters and coats.

  Marguerite’s new pixie cut has caused her pretty face and full eyelashes to emerge even more than before. A plain navy cap does little to hide who she really is.

  The farmer persists. “They’ll notice if you’re overdressed. They’ll wonder what you’re hiding.”

  Collette looks down at her soiled, torn wool pants and battered boots. Her homespun, long-sleeved shirt is already soaked in sweat.

  Marguerite is wearing raggedy, patched pants and an oversized shirt that Rabbit has given her, since everything Marguerite owns is new and freshly pressed. Marguerite has bicycled just as hard as Collette, yet she somehow manages to look fresh and dry. She flashes a smile at the farmer. He looks away, shaking his head.

  He looks so sad, Collette thinks. Victory is so close, but everyone looks so sad.

  “Get in the cart.” The old man stands up, hikes up his loose pants that are held together by frayed rope, and points a
t the bikes. “No one said anything about those. Throw them in.”

  They haul the bicycles into a small wooden cart pulled by a bony horse covered with scabs. The horse’s breathing is labored as it slowly drags them forward. The farmer speaks gently to the horse, and it picks up the pace. “We will eat you for supper, Le Roi,” he threatens mildly as the girls chuckle.

  It’s unusual to see a horse on a farm in southern France during the war. Horses were one of the first things the Germans requisitioned, along with the chickens and pigs, and even run-down farm equipment. “I have a permit for Le Roi,” the farmer says, as if they had asked.

  For miles they rock along dirt paths off the main roads, the sun beating down. They eat Rabbit’s bread and cheese, and the man shares his portion with the listless horse. They pass another farmer walking along the path carrying an empty bucket, but the only other activity is birds and butterflies flitting around the fields. “Getting too hot for potatoes,” the farmer mutters at one point, waving his hand over a field with dry dirt. “Soil parched,” he says another time.

  They cross wider roads, but none of them are marked. Most of the fields are empty except for scattered weeds and wildflowers. Loose mounds of grass and hay dot some of the open fields, the twine to bind them long confiscated by the Germans. Some wheat fields have abandoned tractors, useless without fuel.

  “There’s where the Germans had rifle and mortar practice.” The farmer points to a wide, pock-marked pasture. Most of the Germans had been called to the northern front recently, but enough soldiers remain, and Collette knows to stay vigilant. She scans the land, ever alert.

  They pass by acres of lavender still cultivated by a handful of farmers working steadfastly in the heat. Twisted trunks of silvery green olive trees are lined up in groves, marked with crumbling low stone walls. Collette concentrates on the directions, making sure she knows how they can get back to Brume. Occasionally, off in the distance, she spots a stone house to serve as a landmark—a sunflower in front of one, a row of rickety sheds behind another. They turn slowly onto a road that meanders through a tunnel of tall evergreens.