I laughed. I tousled Ashley’s hair and said, “It’s to help them stay warm. They have veins in their legs and when they tuck one leg against their bellies, they warm the blood.”
“Really?” asked Callie, still frowning.
Danny said, “Really?”
“Yes, really,” I said. We turned and started back along the sandbar. “Now tell me this: how do you tell the male seagulls from the females?” I asked the kids.
“The males are white, and the females are sort of grey-brown,” said Danny.
“Who told you that?”
“Mom.”
“Well, your mother is smart in many, many ways, as a doctor should be. But she happens to be wrong on this one. The difference in plumage only tells you their age. The white gulls are adults; the grey ones are juveniles. I don’t know how you would tell their sex except maybe to hold them upside down.”
“Oh, Papa!” Danny said. He took off running and Ashley chased after him, laughing.
Élodie laughed like that. When she laughed. Pure, child-like, bell-clear.
“You just went all sad again,” said Callie. “Is it something to do with why you called this weekend’s gathering?”
“It’s nothing, I tell you. I just flashed on a war memory.”
“You’re evading,” said Callie.
“No. It’s nothing. Just a war memory, like I said.”
“After seventy years?”
“It never leaves you.” A tiny shudder passed through me.
We walked for several moments in silence, then Callie said, “You know, if it’s something else … well, whatever it is, the family will stand behind you. You know that, don’t you? We’ll have your back. All of us.”
I nodded, flashed a quick smile, and said, “See those two gulls? See how they fly low over the water, even rising and dipping with the contour of the waves? It’s called ground effect. The air between them and the water is more compressed and therefore provides more support. If the sandpipers were out today, you’d see them skimming the waves, too.”
“You’re deflecting again,” she said. “I mean it. We will always have your back.”
I put an arm around her shoulders and drew her to me. “I know, Callie. I know. And to put your mind at rest, I’ll only say it has nothing to do with my dying, as I’m beginning to suspect is what you think. In fact, quite the opposite.”
She let out a breath. “That’s good to hear.”
“Now I only hope you all don’t hate me for not dying,” I said with a mawkish laugh.
“Papa! Don’t be silly. What an awful thing to say.”
“I only mean you might be annoyed by my little subterfuge. Well, maybe not you. But your mother? I’m not so sure about her. Or the others, for that matter.”
Callie gave me a quizzical look but said nothing.
Chapter 6
The Pleasure of Love
It is dark. The moon is a thin cradle in the eastern sky. We arrive at an abandoned barn several kilometers west of Corrèze, and near the rail line between Montauban and Limoges. We hide the car in a copse of trees behind the barn. Now, as midnight approaches, Jean-Baptiste, Marcel and Claude pack explosives into their ruck-sacks and leave on a mission to find a spot to blow up the railroad tracks. Before Jean-Baptiste leaves, he argues that Élodie and “the American”—what he’s taken to calling me—should accompany them. “That way, we can just continue south instead of coming back here,” he says.
“No, idiot!” Élodie replies. “You can’t take the car because of the lights, so you’ll have to come back here anyway. Henry needs to rest.”
“Then he can stay here while you come with us.”
Élodie shakes her head. “His wound needs to be cleaned and re-bandaged. You three go. You don’t need a woman to blow up some tracks. It doesn’t take brains.”
I see the sullen look Jean-Baptiste gives her.
Claude says, “But we may not be back until dawn.”
“Then, you are not back until dawn. Just leave the lantern. And don’t worry, we won’t drink all the wine,” she adds, referring to the wine we confiscated from the adjoining house.
Jean-Baptiste mutters, “Merde!” and stomps out of the barn. The others follow.
Élodie and I sit on two old milking stools we find in a dusty corner of the barn and open one of the bottles of Château de Tiregand from the nearby Begerac region. Somehow it has survived the Nazi occupation when much of France’s wine was shipped east. It is rumored the best wines ended up at Berchtesgaden and in the bellies of Goering and Goebbels.
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Aren’t you afraid of pissing Jean-Baptiste off?”
“You mean getting his dander up?”
I laugh. “Wow! You learn fast!”
She lifts the bottle to her lips. “That’s what makes me good at what I do.” Light from the lone lantern, sitting on the floor between us, flashes along the bottle’s length. She takes a long draught and hands the bottle to me. “We have no glasses. Sorry.”
“I’m not complaining,” I say. I drink and hand the bottle back to her. “And no. I’m not afraid of Jean-Baptiste getting his knickers in a twist. That’s how the British would say it.”
A pair of barn swallows flitter high among the rafters, crying, “Vit, vit.”
A half hour later, the bottle is empty and Élodie sets about cleaning and re-wrapping my wound.
“While you’re doing that,” I say, “tell me how you came to be a resistance fighter.”
“It’s a long story.” Light from the lantern dances in her face, her eyes.
“We have till dawn.”
“But it’s mostly a sad story.”
“It’s wartime. Most stories are sad. Tell me. I want to know.”
“Don’t speak. Let me finish wrapping your wound.”
At last, she is finished with my bandage. “Now will you tell me your story?” I ask.
“I told you it’s a very sad story.”
“Then open another bottle of wine.”
She stares into my eyes for a long time and finally nods. Without speaking, she drives the corkscrew deep into the cork and twists it from the bottle with a pop and spins the cork from the corkscrew and flicks it with a snap of her thumb to a dark corner of the barn and takes a long swig, then another, and hands the bottle to me. “It began in Paris,” she says.
Paris. June 11, 1940.
Élodie is temporarily staying with her parents in their spacious apartments across from the Musée Guimet in the 16th arrondissement because she is scheduled to perform Rodolphe Kreutzer’s 17th Violin Concerto at the Salle Pleyel on the 14th. However, the concert is cancelled because more than half the orchestra’s musicians have already fled Paris in advance of the Germans who are already bombing factories in the suburbs.
Doctor Yves Bedier, Élodie’s father, says, in his impeccable English, “We must do that, too. Soon, maybe, they’ll be bombing in the city itself. The animals!”
“Even if they don’t bomb in the city,” Élodie says, “we must leave. Whilst I was out, I learnt that people are waiting in line five hours for a loaf of bread. There’s no pork, no cauliflower.”
“And I know, for a fact, there’s hardly any petrol,” says her father. “I curse myself for waiting too long. It’s just that I couldn’t believe France would collapse so easily.”
“Somebody told me people are smashing pigeons with bricks to make soup,” Élodie adds. “Even, mon dieu, people are eating their pets,” She shudders, pats her papillon, Arlequin, on the head.
Louise Bedier, Élodie’s mother, makes a hasty sign-of-the-cross. “Au nom du Pere et de Fils et du Saint-Espirit. Ainsi soit-il.”25
“Yes, of course, we must leave,” Dr. Bedier says.
Madame Bedier’s forehead wrinkles with worry. “But where will we go?”
“I saw a large blackboard around the corner on the Rue de Longchamp. It was a list of where people should evacuate to, depending on where they live. For
us, in the sixteenth arrondissement, it is the department of Eure.”
“Then that will be Gare Saint-Lazare,” says Madame Bedier. Like her husband, she’s always practicing her English. They pride themselves in being multilingual, a trait they passed on to their daughter.
Élodie shakes her head. “I was there yesterday. It was like a can of sardines. There were so many people, you could scarcely move. Everyone is trying to escape by train and there’s not nearly enough space.”
“Then what will we do?”
“We take the car,” says Élodie’s father. “As I said, I curse myself I didn’t fill it with petrol when I had the chance!”
“How far will it get us?”
Monsieur Bedier frowns and shrugs.
“We should take only what we absolutely need,” says Élodie’s mother. “There are bound to be people walking who will need a ride. We should save room for them.”
Élodie says, “I only need what I’m wearing, my violin, and Arlequin.”
“Of course, Élodie,” says her mother. “We couldn’t bear to leave Arlequin behind.”
“We must leave now,” says Monsieur Bedier. “I heard down at the café the government has already escaped to Tours. It must mean German tanks will be rolling into the city any time now.”
It is unseasonably hot when they emerge onto the street and climb into Doctor Bedier’s 1938 Delage D8, a commodious luxury car which he justifies because it enhances his standing among his medical colleagues. Élodie helps her father remove the convertible top so they can carry more items. They are soon off. Élodie sits in the back seat with Arlequin in her lap and her violin, in its case, beside her.
As soon as they are outside Paris, they are forced into a huge evacuation column. Thousands upon thousands of refugees extending to the eye’s horizon, a cacophony of sound rising up from them—horns, shouting, crying. The road is choked with cars, vans, trucks, bicycles—even hearses and wheelbarrows—all scarcely moving. Men and women push prams, some with babies in them, and others occupied by elderly people, their legs dangling over the sides in a kind of sad, macabre second childhood. It is so slow, people walking can keep up with the motorized traffic. More shouts, children crying. Curses, as people fight over water. Some of the cars have mattresses on top. Élodie and her parents soon come upon an elderly man and woman who are obviously having difficulties. They are leading an old, broken-down horse who is pulling a two-wheeled cart with milk buckets hanging from its rails. The old couple stagger arm-in-arm like a wounded creature with six legs, their own gimpy legs, plus a cane each. Doctor Bedier stops the car, steps out, and offers them a ride. In French, he says, “We won’t be going much faster than you can walk, but at least you can rest for as long as we have petrol.”
“Mais nous ne pouvons pas laisser notre cheval et notre charrette.”26
Élodie says she and Arlequin will lead the horse for a time.
The old man’s eyes fill with tears and he hugs Élodie, then Doctor Bedier, and kisses them each on the cheeks. “Merci, merci!”
His wife does the same. She, too, is crying in gratitude.
“We have been walking for more than a day,” the man says. “It’s very difficult. I worry for my wife, here.”
The woman puts her hand on the man’s cheek. “But I worry for you, mon chou.”27
Élodie learns their names are Monsieur and Madame Prideaux and they are trying to get to Caen where their son and daughter-in-law live. She notices they smell like they haven’t bathed in a while, but that doesn’t bother her. She offers them one of the baguettes she and her parents threw into the car before they left. Monsieur Prideaux grabs the bread eagerly, breaks off a piece, and hands it to his wife. She takes it and says, “You eat, too. It’s been too long.”
For the next several minutes they tear at the bread. Crumbs fall to the seat and Arlequin eagerly licks them up.
Once she is satisfied Monsieur and Madame Prideaux are comfortable, Élodie leads Arlequin to the horse, takes up the reins, and sets out. She is startled by a small explosion and sees a flash low and to her left. It’s a photographer who has just snapped a picture of her.
Several hours later, they come to a fork in the road. Élodie sees a sign for Giverny pointing to the right, and a sign for Evreux indicating the road to the left.
“Everybody is taking the road to the left,” says Doctor Bedier. “Perhaps we should go towards Giverny, so we can move faster.”
“No, Papa,” says Élodie. “The German armies are in that direction. Just a week or so ago they drove the British across the English Channel at Dunkerque. That’s why everybody is staying to the south.”
“Of course,” he replies. “You are right as always. We’ll stay toward Evreux. Perhaps the traveling will become easier after all.”
In the barn, as Élodie tells me her story, her eyes are sad. Light from the flickering lantern glints in a tear that slides down her cheek. Something startles the swallows. They flitter under the roof and among the rafters, panicked. Have they sensed a predator? A peregrine falcon? An owl? Élodie looks at me and says, “I wish with all my heart I had never said that to Papa. How things might have been different if we had taken the road toward Giverny. The first indication of what was ahead for us were the posters I saw when we passed through Fauville, a tiny commune east of Evreux.” She pauses, takes a deep breath.
I offer the bottle of wine to her.
She reaches for it. Our hands brush. She lifts the bottle to her lips and takes a long draught.
“What about the posters?” I ask.
On the wall of the mairie in Fauville are dozens of hand-scribbled notes and posters looking for missing children, missing parents, relatives. Families trying to re-unite. A breeze flutters the corners of dozens of notes and there is a quiet slapping sound like flies being swatted. In the town square, the boulangerie is shuttered with a sign saying, “Pas de pain.”28
Also closed is the épicerie whose shelves are nearly empty of groceries and canned goods. And, not surprisingly, the boucherie is also closed since meat has been hard to come by recently. At the prefecture, a line of people, seeking petrol coupons, snakes out the door and up the street. People converse with one another in subdued voices.
It is getting increasingly difficult to find something to eat, and tempers are beginning to flare. Élodie is surprised by the sensation of hunger; the pangs are something she’s never experienced in the comfortable life provided by her parents. Even Arlequin whimpers from hunger, and it breaks Élodie’s heart. But she refuses even to consider mercifully killing him the way other pet owners have done. She resolves to give him her own food, if it comes to that. So far, there’s been enough, at least, to keep them alive.
A few kilometers west of Fauville, the vast column comes to a stop. There is the bleating of car horns. Vehicles of every kind are backed up as far as Élodie can see, both before them and behind them. Already, they have passed many cars—some piled high with household items and furniture—that have been abandoned on the side of the road because they have run out of fuel. But now, even the non-motorized vehicles are stopped: the mule carts with cows and horses tethered to them; the wheelbarrows carrying elderly people; the baby carriages filled with prized china; and birdcages with songbirds. Some even with the babies for which they were intended.
“What has caused this stop?” Élodie’s father asks.
“A child has been run over by a truck,” someone near them says.
“Mon dieu!” cries Élodie’s father. “I must see if I can help.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Élodie. She drops the reins to the wagon horse. It’s not going anywhere in this jam, she reasons.
They push their way through the throngs of people, her father shouting repeatedly, “I’m a doctor. Let us pass. I’m a doctor.”
It’s more than a half mile to the front of the column. By the time they arrive, they are panting heavily and sweating profusely. Several people are crouching by a little girl o
f about five who is sprawled motionless on the ground, a trickle of blood issuing from her mouth. Her eyes are closed. Dr. Bedier kneels beside her. “I’m a doctor,” he says, as he reaches to feel for a pulse in the girl’s carotid artery. Nothing. He tries the wrist. Nothing. He lowers his ear to her mouth to see if he can detect any breathing at all. He looks up. “I’m afraid she’s gone,” he manages to say in a strained voice.
“Non!” screams a young woman. She drops to her knees, takes the lifeless body in her arms, and falls back on her haunches, resting the girl’s head in her lap. “Ma fifille! Mon bébé!”29 She rocks the child in her arms, tears streaking her cheeks, humming what sounds to Élodie like a cradle song.
Élodie’s father shakes his head sadly and motions they should return to their car. Élodie nods and they turn to go. But at that moment, the mother glares at Doctor Bedier and says, in French, “I thought you said you were a doctor. You are useless! Useless!”
“There was nothing I could do,” he replies. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
“It’s the Jews,” she shouts. “They have sold us out! They have betrayed us!”
“Yes, the Jews,” a man says.
Doctor Bedier stares at the man, speechless.
Élodie takes her father’s hand and urges him to follow her. They head back to their place in the column.
After a while, the column starts to move again, but long shadows now stretch out behind them. Élodie’s father pulls to the side of the road, west of the little commune of Glissoles. He says, “Soon it will be too dark to go on, and we can’t use our lights because of the possibility of German planes. We’ll rest here for the night.”
The sun is low in the west. The blanched moon is low in the east. He has chosen a spot opposite an open field, at the back of which is a barn. Near the barn, stands a large beech tree, loud with the warbles and whistles of starlings. Élodie hears a faint rumble coming from the north. Thunder? In Paris, they had removed the convertible top from the car. What can they use to cover themselves if it rains? She looks to the north. There is scarcely a cloud in the sky. Then out of the corner of her eye she sees Madame Prideaux walking across the field toward the barn. “Where is your wife going?” she asks Monsieur Prideaux.
The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Page 9
