The Avion My Uncle Flew

by Cyrus Fisher

  Mon oncle continued, “You must tell me the truth, Jean.”

  I said, “I am. Monsieur Simonis is hiding up in the ruins.”

  He became patient and calm. He said, “Jean, I zink that experience you had in Paris has upset you. Monsieur Simonis is not in these hills. You are imagining things. You must not imagine things, s’il vous plaît. This is serious.”

  I said, “I wasn’t imagining anything. Maybe it isn’t Monsieur Simonis, but it is a German.”

  “You did see a knapsack? A German knapsack?” said mon oncle.

  “Oui,” I answered. “It was right behind the door. Why doesn’t somebody look for him? Why doesn’t somebody go up there? They’ll see the knapsack.”

  “And that pistol was a German pistol? Not some old French pistol you happened to find in the mountains?”

  “It was a German pistol,” I said. “It’s up in the clearing now, where I dropped it.”

  Mon oncle asked Charles some questions.

  Charles ceased looking quite as glum. He nodded. He said, “Dans la montagne, oui, Monsieur Langres. Oui.” He was backing me up about where I’d dropped the pistol.

  “Very well,” said mon oncle at last. “I’ll arrange to have the men from the village search the mountain. But once more,” he said, now as solemn as a preacher, “I must tell you that you have to tell me the truth. This cannot be a prank of yours, Jean, to hide the fact you may have picked up a French pistol accidentally dropped by French soldiers last winter when they were searching the mountains for Nazis. The mayor of St. Chamant is not only angry at you for killing his pig, but he is very angry at Charles and Suzanne for what happened. He blames all three of you, right or wrong.”

  I said, “It wasn’t any prank. I am telling the truth. Cross my heart and hope to die!”

  “I hope you are,” said he, still solemn. “Because Charles’ and Suzanne’s mother owes money to the mayor. If he wished, he could take their vineyard away from them this fall if they cannot sell enough grapes to pay him as well as keep themselves from starving through next year. I will arrange with the mayor to send armed men to the mountain. If you have not told the truth, it will be even more difficult for all of us. The mayor has never liked the Langres or the Meilhac families. We were much more important families before the war than he was. Now I am afraid he has become rich and would like to see us come crawling to him.”

  “You find that knapsack,” I said, “and you’ll see a German has been there. The bread is fresh. That ought to be proof.”

  “It will be proof,” said mon oncle.

  Charles and Suzanne gathered around and spoke to me, friendly and cheerful. Mon oncle took a minute longer to explain they were telling me they wanted to see me again and were sorry they had to go now and that they were glad the cochon was dead because it was a bad cochon and proud and conceited and rooted all around the vineyards, destroying many of the vines. The villagers had been afraid to do anything because it was owned by the mayor. I told them I’d get up now and go with them and mon oncle. I started to get off the bed.

  “Non,” said mon oncle, beginning to smile. “Have you forgotten you have a lame leg, mon neveu?”

  “By jiminy!” I said, “I got down this far, didn’t I? I’ll go back up with you if you’ll help me. I’ll show you where I left the pistol and where I found the knapsack. And you tell Charles and Suzanne I can pay for the cochon. We can’t let that mayor take their vineyard, can we?”

  Mon oncle had a way of inspiring everyone with his own cheerfulness. He spoke rapidly to Suzanne and Charles. He stuck his big nose over me, and said, “You are not angry, then, because I left you on the mountain?”

  I’d forgotten all about the trick he’d played on me.…

  And here I was. I had descended la montagne on my own legs, even if you count the lift I received from Charles and Suzanne, and the shoves the mayor had given me with his kicks.

  I didn’t have to reply to mon oncle’s last question. He saw the answer in my face. The only person I was angry at was the mayor.

  Mon oncle winked. He snapped his fingers. “Pouf!” said he. “Have no worries, if you tell the truth. We Langres stick together, hein? We shall search the mountains. For any Nazis found, there is a reward of ten thousand francs. Charles knows the mountains better than any man in the village. I shall pay off that cochon de maire! We Langres stay by our friends, oui?”

  “Oui!” said I, and saw them all go, wishing mightily I could go with them, too. After they’d gone, though, I realized I’d have only been in the way. My leg started hurting more. I tried to go downstairs for dinner and fell.

  Madame Graffoulier had to help me back into my room. She gave me a hand, and we got to the window and looked out. I saw a crowd of about fifteen men in the market place, more coming, all with muskets and guns or pitchforks. Madame Graffoulier said, “Tout le monde quitte le village. Tout le monde court de la ville. Tout le monde va à la montagne.”

  I didn’t know what that “tout le monde” was, but she gestured and signified it was everybody. The whole village. And that was true.

  Everyone was running from (de) the village or la ville—town, as it was sometimes called as well as village. Everyone—that is, all the men—were going to (à) la montagne. Tout le monde except the mayor.

  He was off to one side, looking sour and angry. He wasn’t court-ing de la ville; he wasn’t va-ing à la montagne. No, he was arguing. He kept saying, “Non, non.” He was attempting to persuade the people—everybody—tout le monde—that no Nazi was up there, out of sheer meanness I guess, to prove anybody having anything to do with mon oncle, avec mon oncle, was wrong.

  Probably he’d been responsible for spreading the story I’d simply happened upon a French pistol and first had emptied it into the cochon and next at him, encouraged by the two Meilhac youngsters. But the men marched off, anyway, leaving him in la rue, scowling. Mon oncle already had gone up the montagne, accompanied by le forgeron and Charles and Suzanne. I imagined they’d take Suzanne across the montagne to her mother’s, and after leaving her, go on up into the montagnes, searching for the Nazi who was hiding.

  Madame Graffoulier brought my dinner into the bedroom. Her nephew and niece tagged in after her, standing around. They’d heard the news, and were half scared by it. They tried to ask me questions. Little Philippe stood next to the bed. He asked, “Jean voit un Nazi? Jean voit un Nazi?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t seen a Nazi. I had seen the knapsack and the pistol. I said, “Moi—” remembering that meant “me.” I said, “Moi voit a pistol et a knapsack.”

  That stumped the kids and Madame Graffoulier.

  I tried again, recalling the word Suzanne had used for “I” when she said, “Je viens.” I said, “Je voit a pistol—”

  Philippe clapped his hands. He corrected me. “Je vois un pistolet,” he said.

  By this time it was nuit. Wind moaned. Darkness hid everything in la rue. I thought of those men sur the montagnes, searching. I wondered if Charles and mon oncle had found the tracks of the Nazi yet. I could imagine them up there and I could imagine the Nazi hiding from them, or waiting for them, maybe with another gun. Part of me was glad I hadn’t gone; that was the scared part. Another part of me longed to be up there with them. It would have been a noble adventure, finding a Nazi, something I could write about to Bob Collins, back home. I thought of that reward mon oncle had mentioned. If the French government was offering ten thousand francs for finding any Nazi still holding out, certainly Charles Meilhac as well as mon oncle had a chance of getting it. I hoped they’d get the reward.

  Well, the hours passed. The old clock downstairs knocked off ten o’clock. Next, eleven o’clock. Still none of the men returned. The kids were sent to bed. Along about midnight little Philippe snuck into my bedroom. We lit a candle and waited. It began to rain. By and by we heard some men in the street. They were talking in loud angry voices.

  A little later mon oncle entered my room. Philippe jumped up, knowi
ng he oughtn’t to be in there. He ran out like a scared rabbit. Mon oncle shut the door and sat down—slumped down, I ought to say. He was tired. He was about done for. His pants and shoes were muddy. He was carrying a rifle. He laid that against the plaster wall. He rubbed his hands together as if they were practically frozen. I didn’t ask any questions. From his attitude I could see he hadn’t found the Nazi. I waited for him to do the talking.

  It was worse than I had anticipated.

  Not only had he failed to find the Nazi—he hadn’t found either the knapsack or the pistol! Both were gone. There wasn’t any proof that a German had been using la maison de ma mère as a hiding place. The men in the village considered that Charles and Suzanne Meilhac and me had made up a thumping lie to cover the fact I had, somehow, found a French pistol and had shot the mayor’s cochon and the mayor’s hat.

  Of course, I realized what had happened. That Nazi had been there all the time. He’d taken the knapsack. More than that—he must have followed me. It hadn’t been my imagination at all when I thought someone was tracking after me. He’d followed me. First, the cochon and the mayor, afterwards the two Meilhac twins, had prevented him from coming after me. That much I’d played in luck. But he had picked up his pistol. Now, he was armed again. He was there, hiding, waiting. And no one believed he was there.

  Mon oncle had me go over everything again that had happened. I want to say this for him: When I was through, he believed me.

  Maybe it was because I was part Langres and he’d been brought up to think that people in the same family have to stick by each other no matter what comes. He said, “Jean, I do believe you. But I am afraid—j’ai peur—no one else in le village will believe you unless we manage to find that Nazi. We must take care now, too. I zink he will know you suspect he is hiding. It is not good at all.”

  He got up and walked around the bedroom, the candle flickering, throwing his shadow upon the wall. After a long time he said if I wished he would write my parents in London and suggest perhaps I should leave St. Chamant and go to England. He said it was beyond reason to believe Monsieur Simonis ever had come here to grab me, but it was possible I’d happened upon the hiding place of a Nazi up there in the montagnes. He could understand such a thing was frightening for me and he wouldn’t blame me if I wanted to leave.

  Well, oddly—I didn’t exactly want to leave. I was beginning to find that St. Chamant wasn’t as dull as I’d first imagined. Besides, mon oncle’s avion was almost completed. I looked forward to seeing it voler—fly, that is. And now I’d met Charles Meilhac—Suzanne, too—I’d have someone my age to go around with.

  I’d gotten over imagining someone at nights hung around below my window. I knew by now those noises were caused by the wind and that the shadows I’d seen were merely shadows of trees in the moonlight. So, I said I figured I’d like to stay if mon oncle could stand the trouble I’d caused him.

  At that, he laughed.

  “Pouf!” he said, snapping his fingers. “There is no trouble you can make for me, mon neveu! And shall we admit we Langres have been beaten by a fat stupid mayor? Ah, non. And the promise I have to ta mère that you will walk and write a letter in French and win the bicycle? I will do this,” he decided. “I shall write them at once and explain what has happened before they depart for their trip to Scotland. I shall say neither you nor I zink there is danger, but if they wish, they are to write to tell me to send you to England. How is that?”

  I said, “Bien fait. Je suis content—” as I recalled he would sometimes say to le forgeron when they were working on a piece of the avion. That is: “Well done, I am content.” And I was contented with what mon oncle had decided.

  “Bien,” said he, his eyes twinkling. “Aussi—also,” he continued, “I will do this without informing tout le monde à St. Chamant—without telling everybody in St. Chamant. I will write to my friends in the Paris police and let them know we zink a Nazi is hiding in our montagnes and it is best they send quickly somebody here very secretly. How is that?”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Super. Swell.”

  “Bien,” said he.

  “They’ll send a real detective?”

  He winked. “Tu vas voir—you are going to see.”

  And just as he promised, he wrote that nuit. Next jour he mailed a letter to mon père—my father—and one to Paris. Neither mon père nor ma mère replied. We thought they’d concluded to allow me to remain, but we didn’t know they’d gone on to Scotland and our mail wasn’t reaching them.…

  9

  CHARLES VEUT VOIR L’AVION DE MON ONCLE PAUL

  The following jour it was sunny and warm again after last nuit’s rain. Soon as I had breakfast, I headed for the workshop. I took my crutches, mostly by habit. Halfway there I decided I wasn’t going to depend on crutches any longer. If I could descend a montagne without crutches, I didn’t require them on a level rue—street. Mon père had promised me the bicycle avec the high gear and the low gear on condition I was able to walk two miles as well as any other boy could.

  By now the time I had to meet that condition was almost a third gone. I figured it was more than two miles from the ruins to le village. I’d gone that far—yes. But I hadn’t met the condition mon père had set. I’d fallen. I’d been helped by Charles and Suzanne—as well as by the kicks from Monsieur Capedulocque. Afterwards, I’d been tuckered out, and stiff as a board. Even so, just getting down the montagne proved to me I still had a chance. My leg was getting stronger. The best thing to help it grow stronger was to stop using crutches. So, I made the rest of the way on my own feet.

  Right away, inside the workshop I noticed the workmen were gone. Only mon oncle and le forgeron remained. Sunlight streamed through the windows upon the outstretched wings. By now, the framework to the two wings was nearly completed. If you can imagine a big “V” laid flat on the hard brick floor, the point of the “V” toward the door, you’ll begin to understand how mon oncle’s avion appeared—in French they’d say, I’avion de mon oncle, or—the airplane of my uncle. You can’t beat those French to figure the most awkward way in the world to say something. Same with everything else; the house of my mother, instead of my mother’s house; the pig of the mayor, instead of the mayor’s pig.

  Each side of the “V” was a wing. Each wing was about seventeen feet long and six feet wide. The result was like the framework to the most enormous butterfly you ever saw. According to mon oncle an avion built in this fashion, without a tail, practically flew itself. At nuit I’d heard him say, sometimes, he could plant a baby in his avion and shove the avion off, and that baby would be as safe and comfortable as in its own bed. Mon oncle was dead serious, too, when he claimed that. Naturally, every jour I was in a fever of impatience, hardly able to wait to see the avion done and tried out.

  This morning mon oncle and le forgeron were occupied attaching spruce ribs to the longerons of the right wing. Four ribs were placed within every foot, all cross-braced with spruce battens and piano wire drawn tight by big turnbuckles. In that shaft of sunlight the partially completed wing stretched out from wall to wall of the workshop. Already it looked like a wing, even without the linen cloth covering which went on last.

  “Bon jour, Jean!” called le forgeron in his big booming voice. Mon oncle was holding one of the ribs in his hand while he adjusted a wooden clamp. He gave me a quick smile. I waited until he was finished. He ruffled his black hair. I asked where the other workmen were.

  “Oh, the ouvriers have quit,” he said carelessly. “It is of no importance.”

  Le forgeron shoved his beard up over the left wing and rumbled, “Jean, tu vois? Pas d’ouvriers. Ce sacré Monsieur Capedulocque!”

  The blacksmith had said there weren’t any workers—something I’d already remarked—and blamed the mayor. I asked mon oncle, “You don’t mean the mayor prevented them from coming?”

  Mon oncle shrugged. “It is no matter. The mayor has offered them higher wages to work in the vineyards. I shall save my mo
ney by having them go. We shall not permit that mayor to see that he annoys us, because it would only please him the more.” He picked up another rib, glancing at me over his shoulder. “He shall not beat us, never! That mayor wishes to be clever. He wishes to wait until he zinks we forget about his dead pig, too. Then he will attempt to surprise us with more trouble. You watch. But we will be ready for him.”

  I asked why the mayor had it in for us all the time. Was it simply because he hadn’t been able to buy the Langres property and because I’d accidentally shot his cochon? I didn’t understand. Mon oncle showed his white teeth. He said perhaps it was because the mayor was easily disturbed and enjoyed showing his authority, and I wasn’t to worry—but I did worry.

  Mon oncle showed me how I could help, screwing the wooden clamps. He said I could take the place of one of the workmen; and I did, too. But even though I didn’t speak about it again to mon oncle, I worried and wished I could think of some way to stop the mayor from trying to plague us. It seemed to me if I hadn’t ever seen that confounded Nazi knapsack and pistol and excited the village and stirred up trouble that perhaps the mayor wouldn’t be so angry with mon oncle.

  For the next few jours nothing much happened. The mayor didn’t say anything more about the cochon I’d shot and I hoped he’d forgotten it. Mon oncle received a letter from his friends in Paris, thanking him for the information that a Nazi might be hiding round about St. Chamant. They said it wasn’t anything to be disturbed about. After the war, quite a few Nazis had hidden away in the montagnes of central France, afraid of being captured. The letter assured mon oncle all efforts were being made by the authorities to handle the situation—and that was all that could be done.

  Mon oncle gave a grimace when he finished translating it. “There you are, mon neveu. There is nothing to do but wait.”

  A little shiver passed down through me as if a cold wind had blown up and vanished. I said, “I’d think le village would be worried.”