by Anita Shreve
Antoine parked his bicycle behind the church. Henri did the same. Antoine knew how to look around and see everything without moving his head. They would go in separately, Antoine first, then a minute later, himself. Smoke a cigarette, lean against the wrought iron railing, stub it out, sigh, curse maybe, as if you were thinking of having to go home to a woman like Antoine's wife. The heavy wooden door squeaked open. The gloom was blinding.
Shivering already. Fear or cold? He didn't know. He swore the stone was set. High stone, a small candle flickering in the distance. He touched the water in the font, crossed himself, genuflected. He moved toward the altar, genuflected again, slipped in next to Antoine, Léon just beyond them.
Base Bail. The words said precisely in English behind him. Emilie Boccart. It was the cigarettes, that voice. He didn't turn, but he wanted to. She was what, forty, forty-live, and still he wanted a look at her. Long, low-slung breasts; her nipples would be erect in the cold. Her coat was open, he had seen her from the back coming up the aisle. If he turned, he could look at the outline of her breasts through the cloth of her blouse. She was Jauquet's lover. Jauquet, who had a wife and five children.
It's a game. An American game, she said. Léon coughed.
Then Léon whispering to Antoine, so that Henri could hear too. And any minute the words could change to a prayer. Emilie would be watching, begin to pray in an audible voice. Hail Mary, Mother of God … A simple signal.
Lehouk found two of the Americans already. One has a wound to the arm. The other's in shock, no memory of anything, not even his name. They've already been taken to Vercheval.
And the wounded man from the plane? Antoine speaking.
With Dinant. She's keeping him. He's too badly hurt.
Antoine angry now. She was told …
Léon raising a hand. There's no persuading her, Chi-may. I tried.
The other?
With Bastien.
Where's Jauquet?
St. Laurent.
Telling the Germans, Henri thought, shifting his weight.
Again the hoarse voice behind him.
He's afraid he'll never play Base Ball.
Who's afraid?
The man with the broken arm. He says he's a Base Ball player.
We don't have much daylight, Antoine said. We've got to cover the woods.
I’ll go. A thin voice from behind and the left. Dussart. The boy with the missing car. An accident in the quarry. Pale and thin and blond, the hair grown long to cover the bad ear. He volunteered for everything. A wild streak in him that bore some watching. If it hadn't been for the war, Henri thought, the boy would have fled Belgium, gone to Marseilles, Amsterdam.
Dussart. Then Henri. Then Dolane, another dairy farmer. Van der Elst, the butcher. Van der Elst hid Jews above the shop. Once he had been raided, but his wife, Elise, had sent the refugees over the roof to Monsieur Gosset.
Any other planes? Antoine again.
No, just the one. The pilot was trying for the Heights.
Antoine considered. Antoine could kneel only on the left knee, the right injured in an accident with explosives. A tiny candle in a red glass. Jesus hanging from the cross, the blood in exaggerated drops on the Saviour's side. As a kid, it made him ill. The smell was mildew, he was sure of it. Even in the summer, the place was damp.
Emilie, tell Duceour and Hainaert. Léon, go back to the hotel.
I can't.
Why not?
I sent Chiméne this morning to say I was sick.
Tell them you're better.
Léon coughing and rising. His breath making small puffs on the frigid air.
Antoine turning now to Henri. Can you take another? He meant in addition to the old woman from Antwerp. Henri nodded. The old woman was going to die anyway. Maybe even today. A scuffle of shoes behind him. Emilie, Dussart, Dolane leaving. He heard the sharp report of high heels on the stone floor; he loved that sound. It was worth the Mass on Sundays.
The candle still flickering. Who had lit it? Emilie for herself? For them all? For the children she never had? For her sins with Jauquet? Would he and Claire have children? Four years and nothing. He didn't understand it. Was there something wrong with his seed? With Claire somewhere deep inside her? There'd been nothing like that with anyone on his side of the family; his mother had reassured him. They waited in the pew. He couldn't pray. If he prayed, it would be not to find an American flyer. To go home and have his noon meal instead. To go to bed.
But probably he should pray he thought. Pray to be relieved of his fear. To want to do the work he was given. To have courage like Antoine did, and not hate this war so much. He blew on his hands to warm them. Antoine farted quietly. Antoine was a pig. And a hero in the Maquis. He had blown up a bridge. Killed two German soldiers with his hands.
Henri waited his turn, the last to go but for Antoine. He wished now he could eat. He would probably not get food until late tonight. Antoine said a word. Henri rose, slipped along the pew. His own boots caused echoes in the sanctuary. Outside, the light, though muted by thick cloud cover, hurt his eyes. He looked all around the square. The members of the Delahaut Maquis had already disappeared into the gray stone.
Sometimes, when his father slaughtered his animals, when his father sold to the Germans not just the grain, but also the meat, Jean saw, in the barn, the odd bits left on the filthy table, odd bits crawling with maggots. A sight as sickening as anything he had ever witnessed, and now, with the barrow, with the dark seemingly sinking through the tall beeches like fog or cloud, that was the image Jean had of the forest. His forest, crawling with maggots, the Germans with their high black boots and revolvers, searching for the Americans.
The route Jean decided to take was an old hunter's route, and he doubted the Germans knew of it, though they could stumble across his path and demand to know what he was doing in the wood with a barrow. And if they went to his father, to query him about his son and the forest, his father would tell them of the hunter's path—not visible from the perimeter, but not so overgrown it couldn't be used to gain access to the interior of the forest without losing one's way. Even so, Jean didn't think anyone knew the wood as well as he—not even his father. It had been, for years, his playground; now it was his home, a place to which he could escape the unhappiness and shame in the farmhouse where his parents lived.
Steering the barrow was sometimes more difficult than he had anticipated, and occasionally Jean left the trail when two straight oaks refused to let him pass. He was not at all sure he would be able to make his way back with the American, but several months ago, in the summer, he had carried a large sow from Hainaert's farm to his own. Could the American possibly weigh more than the sow? he wondered. The man had seemed lean inside the sheepskin, tall but not heavy. Jean remembered clearly the American's face—the eyes still, not afraid, nearly smiling when he and Jean had hit upon the word they shared—and changing just the once, going white from the pain. He didn't want to think about that pain, or the cold of the forest floor, or the odds that when he arrived at the bramble bush the American would still be alive. He didn't know which he feared more—to find the American dead, or to find him gone, taken by the Germans.
He heard a voice, the crack of footsteps on dead wood. He stopped, dared not even set the barrow down. In that position he tried to quiet his breathing, to control the panting from his heavy exertions and his fear. He thought he heard the footsteps move closer, though the voices were still only mumbles, and he could not make them out. The fast settling of night, which before he was cursing, now seemed a gift. In these moments between daylight and evening, the wood, he knew, became an illusory and mystifying landscape, its geography shifting even as you observed it, a tree in the near distance vanishing, then returning, shadows taken for bushes, bats flying faster than the eye could catch them. In his pld gray coat, a worn and oft-patched coat he used to hate to wear to school, he might not be seen in this light, even from only ten meters. He waited until he was certain the foot
steps had moved away. He knew that soon the Germans would return with torches.
He scrambled more quickly now, aware that the temperature was dropping fast. When he arrived at the place where he had left the American, he settled the barrow on the ground and knelt beside the bush. He felt more than saw the flyer's feet, his hand reaching below the mulch cover to find the heel of a boot. When he touched the boot, the man shifted his foot slightly, and Jean let out his first sigh of relief.
“Jean,” he said quickly, not wanting the American to be alarmed.
At first the man did not move, hut then, after a time, Jean saw in the dim light the slow slide from the brambles. The American pulled himself free, tried to make it to a sitting position. Jean reached for his shoulder, held him upright with his weight. Jean pointed immediately to the barrow. The boy had worried about the logistics of this part of his scheme. If the American himself was not able to climb into the barrow, the entire plan would collapse. Alone, Jean couldn't lift a grown man.
Slowly the American turned, dragged himself over to the barrow. On his stomach, with his forearms, he pulled his weight up and over the lip of the bed of the barrow— a fish flopped upon a deck. Jean tried to help by hooking his hands under the man's armpits and pulling. The bouncing of the leg must have been excruciating—the American bit hard on his lower lip. When the flyer had made it as far as his hips, he rolled over. He used his elbows to pull himself back an inch or two and stopped. Jean hopped out of the barrow and with all his strength lifted the long handles. There was the possibility, he knew, that the wooden poles would break free of the barrow, but miraculously the barrow lifted. With the tilt, the American slid, tried to sit up against the barrow's back. Jean, bending his head and shoulders as far to the side as he could, mimed for the American to lie down. Stray branches in the dark could tear across the American's face.
In the dark, the boy trusted to all the years that he had played there, all the times he had come along this path. Once he ran into the thick trunk of a tree, and the American, unable to stop himself, cried out in pain. Apart from that collision, and several agonizing moments when the barrow became wedged between two trees, the trip was easier than Jean had hoped for. At the edge of the forest, Jean set the barrow down. His arms trembled from the strain. He couldn't cross the open field with the American, even in the darkness, until he was certain no one was in the barn.
He didn't stop to explain to the American what he was doing. The flyer would not move or speak, Jean was certain, and would know by now that Jean intended to hide him. Running silently across the frozen field, Jean reached the barn, lifted the heavy beam that fastened the door. He winced at the squeal of the hinges, waited for the sound of footsteps. When there were none, he looked inside the barn, satisfied himself that no one was in there.
Where before in the wood the barrow seemed to make no sound of its own, the thuds across the rutted field were thunderous in the boy's ears. The journey of a hundred meters seemed to take an hour. He set the barrow down outside the barn door. Again he endured the squealing of the hinges, wheeled the American inside.
There was a soft movement and the lowing of cows— not a sound, Jean knew, that would alert anyone in the house. He wheeled the American to a long trough that held mash for pigs in summer, potatoes in winter, and was empty now. Truly frightened by the audacity of his plan, and by the proximity of his own house, not twenty meters away, Jean moved quickly. He reached for the American's arm, tugged him slightly toward him. He took the arm, ran the large hand along the edge of the trough so that the American could feel the shape and perhaps understand the plan. The flyer seemed to, inched himself forward, rolled, hooked his good leg over the side of the trough. Holding the man as best he could, Jean helped guide him out of the barrow and into the trough. When the American finally fell inside it, the thud seemed to Jean the loudest sound he had ever heard.
Earlier in the day, Jean had emptied the trough of potatoes. He knew he would again have to fill the trough with potatoes to cover the American. He reached for the flyer's hand again, made him touch a potato, but he didn't know if the man had any feeling in his hands. He placed a potato near the American's face, on the off chance the man might be able to smell it. But there was no more time for explanations.
Carefully, Jean placed potatoes in the trough, positioning them as gently as he could around the pilot's face and legs. The man made no sound, no protest. Knowing the gaps between the potatoes would allow the man to breathe, and hoping to provide some protection from the cold, the boy filled the trough to its top, hid the sack with the remaining potatoes underneath a pile of hay. He moved toward the door, anxious to be gone from the barn, but hesitated at its threshhold.
Making his way back to the trough, he bent low over the spot where the pilot's head was. Jean's lips brushed the skin of a potato.
Return, he said in English.
His father hit him such a blow he spun, knocked a chair on its back. His world, a shrinking world inside the kitchen, went momentarily black, then spotty with bright lights. His upper lip was split over his teeth, and when he put his hand to his mouth, his fingers came away with blood. He didn't dare to move or speak. He couldn't be exactly sure what the blow was for, and he knew it was always best to wait, to keep silent. Nothing enraged his father more than a protest or a challenge.
“Monsieur Dauvin's been here. Says you weren't at school. Not from noon on,” his father yelled from the sink. Artaud Benoît picked up his lit cigarette from the table, took a quick drag, held it between his thumb and forefinger. How had his father known he would come through the door at that precise moment? Jean wondered. He'd have been waiting, and in the waiting he would have become drunk. Even from across the room, Jean could smell the beer. There were unwashed bottles under the table.
“You weren't at that plane, I’m hoping. No son of mine.”
No son of mine, Jean thought. He put a hand oh the tabletop to steady himself. His legs felt weak. He, desperately did not want to fall. The oilcloth on the table was worn, threadbare in places from his mother's scrubbing. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room, casting harsh shadows on the wallpaper, the stove, the marble mantel with the crucifix and the bottle of holy water. The boy's dinner, which his mother had put out for him, lay congealed on a plate on the table. The thought of his mother, who would have gone up to the bedroom, made his chest tight.
“And your mother, lying to the teacher for your sake, telling him you'd come home sick. Weeping afterwards, not knowing where you'd got to.”
Jean stood as still as he could, despising his father for the show of false sympathy for his mother. He kept his breathing deliberate and measured. He dropped his eyes to the stone floor, a floor his mother swept and washed every day.
“I hope to Christ the Germans didn't catch you at that plane. I got problems enough without having to explain for my son. Next you know, they'll be thinking you're a Partisan. And you know what they do to Partisans.”
It was not a question. His father took a deep pull on his cigarette. It was poorly rolled, and bits of tobacco fell onto the floor. “Don't you stand there like a stone, or I’ll give you another one of these.”
Jean did not look up, but he knew a fist had been made.
“I know you were in the wood. I can see by the sight of you. You see any of the Americans?” Jean shook his head.
“Don't lie to me, or you'll be no son of mine. That's what you were looking for, isn't it? You think this is a game? It's a game that'll get your neck broken, that's what. You see an American, you tell me. You understand?”
Jean nodded. The blood from his lip was in his mouth. He didn't dare to spit. He swallowed it.
His father picked up the plate that contained Jean's meal, threw it at the stove. The crockery broke against the cast iron. The boy flinched. It was a casual, unnecessary gesture on his father's part, meant to frighten the son, hurt the mother when she saw the broken plate in the morning, if she had not already he
ard the noise from her bedroom above. Jean knew that if his father hit him again, he'd go down. He had no strength left in his legs. He wasn't even sure he could make it up the stairs.
“I’m not through with you yet, but I’m sick of looking at you.”
His father made a dismissive gesture with his arm. Gratefully, Jean left the room, not even stopping to remove his coat.
On his bed, in the small room under the eave, Jean lay fully dressed, holding a sock to his lip to stanch the blood. He had not washed because he'd have had to do so at the sink in the barn, and he could not go back into the barn. Jean had imagined he'd be reported missing from the school, but he had not thought Monsieur Dauvin himself would come to the house. He wanted to go into his mother's room, to tell her he was all right, but he wasn't all right, and she would see and be alarmed—and besides there was again the risk of encountering his father.
He lay on his bed and thought about the flyer. He tried to imagine what it must be like to lie in that cramped trough with the potatoes. He thought about the dark, the smell and feel of the potatoes, the low sounds of the cows. But the more he thought about the flyer, the more worried he became. What if the American froze to death in the trough, died before the morning? And if the man didn't freeze to death, what was Jean to do with him then? The boy had not planned beyond getting the flyer into the barn, and perhaps during the night smuggling some food and water to the man. But as Jean lay there, the enormity of what he had done began to close in around him.
Something would have to be done before daylight. There could be no stopping now. What had it all been for, if not to save the flyer? But if he waited until morning, his father would find the American and turn him over to the Germans. Was his father right? Had he, Jean, merely been playing a game? Living out an adventure that this time might end in catastrophe?
