by Anita Shreve
“What is your name?” he asked.
Claire knelt motionless, unable, for a moment, to answer him. Though she had been waiting for this, the clarity of his question shocked her. She thought then that all the time she had sat with this man, she had not really believed that he would recover. She had imagined instead that he would linger for months or possibly years in a suspended state.
“My name is Claire,” she said.
He nodded slowly. “Yes, I remember now.”
“And you are Theodore Aidan.”
He laughed. “No, just Ted.” He looked at the coffee and the bread on the tray as if observing food for the first time.
“Is that coffee?” he asked.
“It's not real.”
She made her way to her usual spot beside the pilot's bedding. She wound her legs under her as she always did, but this morning the gesture seemed awkward, and her legs felt too long and ungainly. Before, she had sat with him with her hair down, in her robe if necessary, giving little thought, no thought, to how she was dressed or how she looked. The pilot, in his transcendent state, had seemed disembodied, not a man actually, but rather a casualty, a patient in the most objective sense, a thing to watch over, a task that defined her days. But now that he had returned to his body? could speak, could ask her questions, he seemed another entity altogether.
For the first time since she had begun tending him, she became acutely aware of how crowded the attic room was, of how difficult it was to sit without somehow touching his bedding—with her knee, with her foot. She drew herself together more tightly. She had dressed hastily after waking and had rolled her hair ineptly, thinking it unlikely that today she would see anyone from the village. She had on a gray wool skirt that stopped at her knees, and rode above them when she sat. She was wearing a white long-sleeved blouse with padded shoulders, and over that her apron. She had white socks on her feet and shoes with leather uppers and wooden soles, ugly shoes, work shoes. Her legs were bare. She had forgotten her lipstick. Loose strands of hair hung at the sides of her face. Impatiently, she pushed them away.
“It's ersatz coffee,” she explained. “We are not having real coffee since before the war.”
She handed him the bowl. She watched as he took it, focused on the task of holding the bowl with both hands, brought it to his lips. He took a small sip.
“It's awful,” he said, smiling at his success.
She gave him the dark bread from the tray. He experimented with his fingers, distant tools that were wayward and seemed not always to obey his command. Several of the fingers were bandaged still, and the skin was shedding itself from the pads of the last three digits of his right hand. He could hold the bread when the roll was large, but fumbled with it when he had only a small piece left. She caught it on the comforter, held it to his mouth.
She watched him chew the bread.
“Is this your house?” he asked.
She nodded.
“What day is it?”
“It is six, January.”
“Then I’ve been here …”
He seemed to be calculating.
“Seven days.”
“And all that time …”
“You have been here, on this bed.”
He sat up sharply. “I have to try-to contact the crew.”
She pushed him gently on his chest. “Is done,” she said. “Your crew is knowing where you are.”
“Some of the men in the plane died,” he said.
She nodded. “Two. One is dead already when your aeroplane crashed. One is … died,” she corrected, In the night of the crash.”
“And the others?”
“Two are taken by the Germans. We think to Breendonk first. This is a prison near Brussels. And then after Breendonk?” She held her hands open as though to say no one could be certain where in Germany they might be sent.
He looked away briefly. “Do you know their names?”
“They are called McNulty and Shulman.”
The pilot closed his eyes and nodded.
“Is story of your friends McNulty and Shulman,” she said. “When they are first captured, the Germans are offering them cigarettes. But the Americans, your friends, they are turning their heads to the side and not taking them.”
The American smiled briefly. “And there was a man called Case. He was shot in the arm. Do you know where he is?”
“All the other men are sent into France, and are now trying to reach Spain. The man you are speaking of, his arm is very badly broken. It is said that he is minding that he will not be able to play base ball. Yes?”
The American smiled again. “That's Case. He signed with the Boston Braves just before the war. Bad break.”
“Yes, the break is bad,” she said, agreeing with him.
“No, I meant, bad luck.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“We were on our way to Germany,” he said.
She nodded.
“To bomb a chemical plant,” he added. “I’ve said this before?”
She nodded. “There is a man here, from the Resistance. He is asking you questions about your plane, to send a missile back to England.”
“Message,” he corrected.
She smiled with embarrassment. “Message. My English is very bad.”
“Your English is very good. And I told him about the mission?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where the bombs fell?” he asked quickly.
She heard the strain in his voice. She hesitated, and he saw her hesitate.
She shook her head. “No,” she said, looking down. She saw that there, was a light dusting of flour on her apron. She tried to brush it away.
“In the mornings, I am baking,” she said.
“Where in Belgium am I?”
His voice had a clarity she had not heard in his incoherent ramblings. Its timbre was different as well—deeper, more resonant than she remembered. “Our village is called Delahaut,” she said. “It is in southern Belgium, thirty kilometers from the French border.”
“And other people live in this house with you.”
“There is only myself and my husband, who is called Henri,” she said.
The American seemed puzzled.
“There have been others. From time to time. To help you. To ask you questions.”
She would not give him Antoine's name, or Thérèse Dinant's. There was no need for him to know.
His eyes had changed as well. The green had grown clearer, more translucent, as if his eyes, too, had taken on life. His nose was large, square at the bottom, like his jaw-line. His face was long, much longer and narrower than the faces of the southern Belgians. She liked his mouth. The bottom lip was straight, the upper curved. He smiled often. A good color had returned to his skin. He needed to have his hair combed.
“How bad is the leg?” he asked.
Briefly, she considered how much she should tell him, and decided this time to tell him the truth.
“Is nearly lost,” she said. “To the infection. But the woman who is here?” She looked at him expectantly to see if he remembered. He nodded slowly.
“She is saving your leg. There is …”
She thought. She was about to say “terrible,” but she did not want to frighten him. “… a bad scar nearly to your ankle. Yes?”
She meant: Was that all right? Could he stand that?
He shrugged.
She answered his next question before he could ask it.
“And when you are standing, we will see how you are walking.”
He nodded.
“But I think, not yet. Not so soon. Not today.” She shook her head quickly.
He seemed about to speak, to protest. She reached into the pocket of her skirt, pulled out a photograph. She held the picture out to him. He could not manage so thin a piece of paper with his fingers, so she put the photograph into the flat of his palm. She studied his face as he looked at the picture.
“It is your friend, yes?” she
asked.
He nodded. “Her name is Stella,” he said quietly. “She's my fiancée. Do you know that word?”
“We have that word.”
He handed her back the picture, but she stopped him.
“No, I think is good for you to keep it nearly to you.” She took the photograph from his hand and laid it on the comforter.
“I would write to her? Or to your mother? But…” Claire shrugged. “It is not safe now. You are understanding me? Perhaps not so long after you have left us, I can do that.”
His eyes were fixed on hers. “Before we landed,” he said slowly, “just before we belly-landed, we had to let the bombs go. I want to know where they fell.”
This time she deliberately did not move her eyes from his. “No one is telling me this,” she said. “Possibly you left them in Germany?”
“I don't think so. I don't see how….”
“Then I will ask someone if this is known.”
“What happened to the plane?” he asked.
“The Maquis, they have removed some of the guns and a machine that…” She struggled. “… finds the place where the bombs are to be dropping—”
“The Norden bombsight,” he said quickly.
“And then the Germans are coming and surrounding the plane, and taking pieces of it, and are very angry because some of the guns are missing. And so they are putting all the villagers in the church and asking them about the guns, but no one is saying anything to the Germans. And now the Germans are watching your plane, but”—she made a dismissive sound—“is only three old soldiers who are watching it, so I think is nothing there of importance.”
“What is the Maquis?”
“Is Resistance. Soldiers of Resistance.”
“Have you seen the plane.”
She shook her head. “No. I have been here always. But I have heard it pictured to me.”
A gust of wind shook the pane of glass in the rectangle, and she looked up at the window. The sky was darker, more oily; the storm would soon begin. Because of the impending storm, the light in the crawl space had taken on a yellowish cast. Oddly, she thought of the Hopkins she had begun before the American came. “For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow …” She wanted to read this difficult poem to the American, to ask him if he knew the English words couple-colour and brindled. Perhaps later, when he was not so weak.
She looked around at the small space in which she sat and he lay. Layers of old wallpaper were peeling from the walls. She wondered if once, years ago, this attic room had been part of the bedroom, or of another room in the attic.
“There was a boy,” the pilot said.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “The boy who is saving you.”
The pilot nodded.
“But you must not tell any person about him. Yes? Is very dangerous for him.”
“I would like to thank him,” Ted said.
She tilted her head as if to say maybe. “Perhaps we are arranging this.”
He was looking closely at her face. She lowered her eyes, unused to such scrutiny. A sudden warmth rose along her throat and lodged behind her ears.
“You've hidden others here as well,” he said.
She nodded.
“Who was here before me?”
Claire looked up at him. “There is a woman who is fleeing Antwerp. The Gestapo, they have taken away her son and her husband. When the Resistance is finding her, they are sending her to me to get well, and then I am sending her to France, as you one day will go to France, but she is very ill, and she is dying here.”
“Dying? Here?”
“Yes. The night you are coming here. She is died already.”
“This is dangerous work that you and your husband do.”
She looked away, arranged the bowl and plate on the small tray. “It is not so dangerous as the work the others are doing. I am safe here unless I am denounced. The work my husband is doing is more dangerous.”
“What does he do?”
“I do not know. He is telling me very little of his work, because is safer for me to know as little as possible. Is true for everyone. Even you.”
“How old are you?”
“I am twenty-four years. Why is it you are asking me this?”
“Just curious. Have you been married long?”
She smoothed her skirt as far as it would go along her legs. “Four years.”
“And you don't have any children?”
She shook her head quickly.
The American lifted the comforter a fraction and looked down at his shirt. “I noticed that these clothes…”
She smiled. “They are the clothes of my husband. They are fitting you—”
“Pretty badly.” He grinned. “I don't suppose you have any cigarettes.”
“Yes,” she answered. From her pocket she produced a crumpled packet. “Forgive,” she said, “but already I am smoking all your cigarettes. These are mine and are not so nice as yours.”
She put the cigarette in her own mouth, lit it, then handed it to him. Gently she helped him hold it by wrapping his index finger around it and pressing it close to his thumb. He took a deep drag, exhaled through his nose. He coughed once. “Strong,” he said.
The smell of the tobacco quickly filled the small space. She wanted to join him, but she knew that the room would soon become too thick with smoke. She watched him enjoy his cigarette. She brushed away an ash that fell on the comforter.
“Your hands are becoming more well,” she said. “Each day I see this. You should not worry about your hands.”
“Frostbite?”
She pondered this English word. “You fingers are freezing in the forest,” she said. “Is the same?”
“Yes.”
“Frost bite,” she repeated. “Frost eats the fingers?”
“Something like that.”
He reached toward her with the cigarette, held it out to her. She hesitated, then took it. She pulled on it quickly, gave it back to him.
She raised herself on her knees a fraction. She brushed her hair behind her ears. “Is too much talking for first time,” she said. “I am thinking now that you should sleep. In one hour, I will bring you soup. You must return your strength, because we have little time to do very many things.”
“What things?” he asked.
She maneuvered her way to the trapdoor.
“I must make you ready to leave,” she said.
JANUARY 16, 17, AND 18, 1944
THE DUSK A CAMOUFLAGE. HIDING IN THE TREES. OAK, beech. Bracken on the forest floor. He stood at the edge of the field and waited for his own eyes, which were sharp, to make out the shape of the fallen plane. The pneumatic jacks that had long since deflated lay discarded under the wings. In the near dark, the broken plane looked tired and sad—already a relic. On the other side of the fuselage, smoke rose.
His own mission, secret, self-ordered. A test of will, and already he was worried he would fail. His body trembled, and in his vision he saw spots at the periphery. He made himself move forward to gain a better view. Two men, one sleeping in a roll of blankets near the fire. Yes, he thought, it might work. A sleeping guard, trapped as he was, would not be able to reach his weapon quickly, even if he awakened. The other guard sat hunched by the fire. The German soldier had wrapped his greatcoat over his head and around his shoulders. To trap the heat. Like an old woman with a shawl bent over her cooking fire. The hunched German moved slightly. A flicker of a knife blade, a long sausage, a movement of the knife blade from the sausage to the mouth. Of course, there would be only the two, he thought, three to rotate at staggered hours. A lonely watch far from town. He saw now a bicycle at the other side of the field, perhaps a second—the light was fading fast. He would have to take the hunched old woman first.
He pulled his own knife from his coat pocket, held it at the ready. His hand shook so badly he was afraid the guards would see a shimmery reflection. Retracing his steps so that he was looking at the plane from behind the guards.
How casual they were, he thought—how lazy, inept. He also thought: Now. It must be now.
He crossed the matted field until he reached the cold metal of the plane. In a shadow he stood, listening for sounds above the rush of blood in his ears. The snoring of the sleeping German, a small shuffle. To reach the squatting guard first, he would have to circle the plane by its nose.
For days now he had been imagining the quick gestures, the snap of the head, the clean cut, so that when the moment finally came he wouldn't falter, wouldn't panic. Only seconds left now. As one man against two, he could not afford to sacrifice the element of surprise.
He cleared the nose of the B-17. He was certain he had not made a sound, but the hunched German turned slightly, cocking his ear, as though he might have sensed a presence. In the firelight, the Belgian saw the wet gray bristles of the guard's mustache, the knifepoint with its morsel of sausage in the open mouth.
In one swift movement, he reached the guard's back. The German turned, and in doing so lowered his knife. The cloak slipped from his head. Before the guard could cry out, the Belgian slapped his hand over the guard's mouth, heard him choke once on the piece of sausage. He jerked the German's head and slit the bare throat above the collar of the hated uniform. The guard in the bedroll opened his eyes, fought in a panic to free himself. Kneeling quickly then over the frightened German, executing the same cut from left to right on bare skin. Blood spurting in an arc. The Belgian reared away and stood.
His body shuddered and his bowels loosened. Stunned, he watched the German in the bedroll drown. The knife and his hand were covered with a blood that seemed black in the firelight. He thought then that he would throw the knife into the fire, burn the blood from its surface, but the fingers of his hand refused to relax their grip. He stood for a moment paralyzed, as if the knife had been welded, grafted, to his body.
And then he heard the small sound of metal chafing metal.
He turned and saw a third German, his face dazed and creased with sleepy a revolver in his hand, emerging from the belly of the plane. Panicky now and flailing wildly, the Belgian knocked the revolver from the old man's hand, twisted the frightened face away from him, and dispatched this guard as he had the others. The German, his feet still pinned inside the fuselage, fell backwards over the lip of the door, toward the ground.
