Flamingo Boy

by Michael Morpurgo

  We would often end up side by side, on that sofa you’re sitting on now, Vincent, with me reading him his Arthur stories over and over again. This seemed to transport him to his Camelot, to how it had been during the happy times we had had there together. I was his “Guin Guin” again, and he was “Art Art, roi, moi!” The anger and pain and the panic were forgotten as suddenly as they had appeared, and he would be himself again, leaping to his feet to slay another dragon. “Agon agon!” would be his victory chant, and Nancy, Henri and I would all applaud his knightly courage. But we knew there would be a next time, a new attack of panic that would suddenly overwhelm him, and for that we had always to be prepared.

  Perhaps it was because he felt everything so intensely that Lorenzo understood the feelings of others so well, human or animal. Whenever I was filled up with sadness, and near to despair again – as I often was, thinking that Maman and Papa were lost to me forever – I would find him at my side, humming to me, my hand held tight in his. So, leaning on one another, comforting one another, the weeks passed slowly, ever more slowly, but still there was no news of Maman and Papa.

  But then came a day of great hope, a light in the darkness, a day of joy – and where there is joy there is comfort – c’est vrai, Vincent? And it was Henri who brought me such unexpected joy. For days on end, I hardly ever saw him. He was out in the fields every hour of the day, sometimes with Lorenzo, sometimes with Nancy. Lorenzo, I noticed, often came back from working with him out on the farm, clapping his hands with excitement, and would caper about the room, giggling and laughing.

  Nancy seemed to know what it was all about. She said nothing, neither did Lorenzo, and neither did Henri. Sometimes I saw looks and surreptitious smiles passing between the three of them. There was definitely something they were not telling me, something confidential, a family secret of some kind, I supposed. Henri would come in late, exhausted, say little or nothing during supper, sit in his chair by the fire, and be fast asleep almost at once.

  On this particular evening, Henri came in even later than usual – it was already dark outside – but he didn’t come and sit down as he always did. He stood by the open door in his dirty clogs, and said, “Come, I have something to show you – you too, Kezia, especially you.”

  “No, Henri,” Nancy said. “You heard what the Caporal said. He told us to always keep Kezia inside, to keep her hidden, never to let her go out.” I felt she was play-acting as she was saying this, but had no idea why.

  “Our Caporal has done much for us,” Henri told her, “and I am very grateful to him. But I do not take orders from a German soldier, even him. It’s safe enough in the dark for Kezia. No one will see. Come.” He was play-acting too.

  It was wonderful to be outside again, despite the mosquitoes. Lorenzo was holding my hand tight as we followed Henri across the yard towards the barn. He was skipping up and down, unable to contain himself, pulling at me all the time to come faster.

  “Secret, Zia Zia, secret,” he kept whispering, putting his finger to his lips. I could see lamplight flickering inside as we approached the open doors.

  We walked in. In the centre of the barn there were enough lamps lit for me to be able to see well enough. And what a wonderful sight it was! I could hardly believe my eyes. The carousel had grown, grown into itself, into what it was, into what it was going to be. It was not just a floor any more. The uprights were in place, the roof was on, and, best of all, the frieze of flying pink flamingos was complete. The carousel was wearing its coronet of flamingos once again!

  “Secret secret! Fly, flamingo, fly!” Lorenzo cried, and set off round the carousel, running like a flamingo, then flying, wings beating, honking through his laughter as happy as I’d ever seen him.

  There were no rides on the carousel – none of the animals were in place as yet – so the floor was empty. But what had once been nothing but a wreck and a ruin had been transformed. We had our carousel again, not complete, not yet as it had once been, but it was our carousel. As if to prove it, Lorenzo jumped up on to the floor and beckoned me to join him. Then I saw Henri bending over the cranking handle, and turning it, just as Papa had done. We were moving! We were turning! The carousel was working!

  But better still was to come. From the darker depths of the barn beyond the lamplight, I heard music playing. The tune of “Sur le Pont d’Avignon” was filling the barn. Through my tears, I could just make out Nancy now at the barrel organ. Lorenzo was singing along, shouting along, loud and tuneless as usual. Then we were all singing, and Lorenzo and I were flamingo dancing too, and singing our hearts out at the same time. I sang out loud for Maman and Papa, willing them safe, willing them home to see their carousel again, to see me again.”

  CHAPTER 28

  A Knock at the Door

  “I did not want the carousel to stop when it did – I did not want it to stop ever. When the music stopped also, Henri said: “Well, what do you think? We have all been working on it as hard as we could, Kezia, so that when your maman and papa come back – and they will, soon, you will see – all they will have to do is to finish carving and painting the rest of the rides. We will find the wood we need from somewhere. Your papa made two already, and your maman painted them – you see them, over there in the corner? They are waiting for them to come back and make the others. And then your carousel will be ready.”

  Lorenzo was tugging at Henri’s arm. He was trying to remind him to say something, I was sure of it. “Capo, Papa. Capo Capo.”

  Nancy and Henri were looking at one another, unsure what to say, hesitating. I knew at once then that they had news of Maman and Papa.

  “What about the Caporal?” I asked. “Have you seen him? Has he seen Maman and Papa? Are they well? Where are they?” They did not answer for some time.

  Fear of the unknown, fear of the worst crept through me, and chilled me to the bone. “What?” I said. “What do you know?”

  It was Nancy who told me. “It is mostly good news, Kezia. Don’t worry. The Caporal came to see Henri today. He has found out where your maman and papa are. He has even been to see them. They are in a camp in the Camargue, not too far away, at Saliers. There are many Roma people there, so they are among friends.”

  “Camp?” I said. “What sort of camp? Is Madame Salomon there?”

  Henri answered, but only after a while, and I could see it was because Nancy did not want to. “I don’t think so. It is a kind of prison camp, Kezia,” he said. “But the Caporal said they are well enough. He said they send you all the love they have, and that they will be home to see you soon. They know you are safe with us.”

  “You will see them soon, Kezia, soon,” Nancy said, her arms around me. “All will be well, you will see.” I believed her because I wanted so much to believe her.

  “You believe me?” she said.

  “I do!” I cried. “I do!”

  Then Henri was turning the cranking handle again, jolting the carousel into motion, so that Lorenzo and I lost our balance and fell over. I abandoned myself to hope, to hope of joy to come, and we lay there clutching one another and giggling. It was the best ride I ever had on our carousel. No Elephant, no Dragon, no Horse, just Lorenzo and me rolling about on the floor, Nancy playing the music on the barrel organ, and Henri turning us faster and faster. I lay there with Lorenzo, all my worries forgotten. Maman and Papa were alive and well, the Americans were coming, the war would soon be over, and Maman and Papa would come home again. They would, they would! All would be well.

  As I lay there on the floor of the carousel, I remember I closed my eyes and thanked Saint Sarah, in whom I wanted so much to believe. I prayed to her fervently. I thanked her again and again, out loud this time, with Lorenzo gripping my hand. I prayed to her for the war to end, soon, very soon, because I knew the lives of Maman and Papa and Madame Salomon depended on it. I clung to Nancy’s words, held the image of the icon of Saint Sarah in my head, and spoke Nancy’s words to myself at night over and over again. “You will see them soon,
Kezia, soon. All will be well, you will see.”

  But the war did not end. Instead, Nancy brought back from town on market days stories of resistance fighters –maquisards she called them – blowing up factories and train lines and convoys of German trucks. They were becoming more and more active everywhere. The Germans and the Milice were ever more nervous, ever more vicious and vengeful. I overheard between Nancy and Henri many hushed conversations about reprisals and public executions.

  I remember Henri saying once: “We must be careful. The Germans, the Milice, they are like wounded animals now. They know they have lost. They are cornered, and cornered animals are always at their most dangerous.”

  I dared not ask about all of this, not just because they would know I had been eavesdropping on their private conversations and they would be upset, but because the more I heard the less I wanted to know. Every time they spoke of those things, I felt the threat of danger coming ever closer to us. They were always watchful, reminding me again and again never to show myself, not to look out of the windows at all, upstairs or downstairs. Our greatest fear, an unspoken fear, was to hear the sound of car tyres crunching to a halt outside the house, to hear the dreaded knock at the door.

  So, when the knock at the door did come, I was not surprised. But I was terrified. We were all upstairs in the same bed as usual. I was woken by something. I thought it was the light of dawn at first. The birds were singing, the flamingos joining in the chorus. Then I heard the squeal of brakes outside, the sound of a slamming car door. My heart filled with terror. We were all awake by now and sitting up. Then came the knocking on the door, urgent, insistent, and someone was shouting in German. For just a few moments, I held the hope that this was only a nightmare, my worst nightmare, that I would wake up, and would realise it was not happening, that it would all go away. But the knocking had become a pounding.

  “Open up! Open up!”

  Within moments, I had jumped into the blanket chest, and was lying there in the blackness, the false bottom and the blankets above me. I heard the lid close.

  “I’ll go,” I heard Henri say.

  “No,” Nancy told him firmly. “We go together, Lorenzo too. Stay still, Kezia,” she whispered. “Stay still.” They left the room and I heard them go downstairs. I heard the bolts being drawn back, the door open, then Henri’s voice.

  “Caporal,” he said. “What are you doing here?” The blanket chest was right above the front door. I could hear every word.

  My first thoughts – and I am still ashamed to say this – was that the Caporal had betrayed us, that his friendship had been false all along.

  Papa had warned me, warned all of us. “They all wear the uniform. Never forget that,” he had said.

  “You must get dressed,” the Caporal was saying. “You are leaving. I will escort you, take you somewhere safe.”

  “What is going on, Caporal?” Nancy asked.

  “Capo Capo!” Lorenzo was saying. I could hear the affection in his voice, the trust, and I was ashamed of myself for doubting him then. It was not easy to push up the false bottom above me, but I did. I pulled aside the blankets, opened the top of the chest, climbed out and ran downstairs.

  The Caporal smiled when he saw me. “I wondered where you were,” he said. He looked at his watch then. “I have little time to explain. In less than one hour, we are going to blow up the gun emplacement. There will be a big explosion, a very big explosion, and we do not know what damage will be done to the house, but it is certain the windows will be shattered, and who knows what else. It is too dangerous for you to stay. I will drive you to the end of the farm, as far away as possible.”

  “Why?” Nancy asked. “Why are you blowing it up?”

  “The Americans have landed, sooner than we thought, and further up the coast, not at all where we expected. So the guns are useless. The Americans will be here soon enough. We are destroying all our guns, all our sea defences, everything we cannot take with us, so nothing can be used against us. And, once it is done, we will be moving out, and you will have your peace again. I hope the same for myself and my men one day, but that is less certain, I think.”

  I needed to ask him myself. “My maman and papa?” I said. “You saw them? They are in a camp?”

  “Yes, Kezia,” he said. “I will not pretend to you they are in a pleasant place. I will not pretend they are happy. No one can be happy in such a place; no one is happy behind wire fences. But they looked well and they are strong and determined. I have spoken to the people there, to the Commandant also. The Charbonneau Carousel is well known – the Commandant himself had seen and much admired it. Do not worry about your maman and papa. They will come home to you, Kezia, but when I cannot tell.” He was more formal again suddenly, more the soldier. “Now you must hurry. Get dressed. There is no time to lose.”

  Within minutes, we were all dressed and ready to go, and the Caporal was driving us away, Henri beside him in the front seat, giving him directions as to where to take us. I could hear little of what they were saying over the sound of the engine, over the rattling and bumping as we drove down the farm track alongside the lake. In the early morning light, I could see flamingos out there watching us as we were watching them. Until he saw them, Lorenzo had been quite bewildered and upset by all that had gone on, but not any more. His hands, I remember, were flat against the window as we passed by the flamingos, his face pressed to the glass.

  The Caporal drove us as far as the track went, to the ruined fisherman’s hut at the end of the farm. I had been there once before with Henri on Cheval. Here we all got out. Standing there outside the fisherman’s hut, none of us seemed to know what to say, except Lorenzo. He went up to the Caporal, and they touched foreheads.

  “Capo Capo,” he whispered. “Trust, trust.”

  “Trust,” the Caporal echoed.

  Then Henri said what was in all our hearts to say, “Get home safely, Caporal.”

  “Why?” Nancy asked him then. “Why have you helped us so much?”

  “Before I was a Caporal, before I went to Russia,” the Caporal replied, “before I came to France, before I had white hair, I was Willi Brenner from Tübingen. I am a teacher – I was a teacher. Children were my life. And I had a boy of my own, eleven years old, Hans, but the bombs killed him a year ago. He was a happy boy, the light of our lives. Hans – I know he would have loved your carousel. After I heard he had died, I wanted only to save children. Aufwiedersehen, meine Freunde.”

  He got in his car and was about to leave when he seemed to remember something.

  “I had forgotten this, Kezia,” he said, handing me a small envelope. “I found it that day in the ashes of your caravan. I picked it up, put it in my pocket, then forgot about it. It is yours, I think.”

  I opened the envelope. It was only a fragment of something, and it was scorched, but it was instantly recognisable to me as I turned it over in my hand. It was the icon of Saint Sarah.

  To this day, I was not sure why I did what I did next. I think it was because my heart was so full of gratitude for all this man had done for us. I gave it back to him.

  “You keep it, Capo,” I said. “Saint Sarah and you, you have both looked after us. Now she will look after you. Keep it.”

  He took it, said not a word and drove away. At once, I regretted giving it to him. But then I regretted my regretting. Somehow I knew deep down that he needed it now more than I did. It was the moment I think that my belief became stronger than my hope.

  We sat in the dilapidated fisherman’s hut, wrapped in our blankets, and waited. It was a fragile shelter, but it was at least some shelter from the driving rain, and from whatever was to happen. The waiting seemed to go on forever. We hardly spoke. Lorenzo rocked back and forth, humming, but he was not frantic, not panicking as I feared he might be. He was humming his favourite tune, and ours too. Soon, sitting there, arms linked, we were all humming along to “Sur le Pont d’Avignon”. And waiting, waiting.

  I have never in my lif
e known a sound like it. It may have happened far away, but it was as if it was right above us, all around us. It did not just fill our ears and heads, it shook the ground under our feet. The door of the hut blew open. Every bird for miles around seemed to be airborne at once, filling the sky with their cries, with their honking.

  “Fly, flamingo, fly,” Lorenzo moaned. “Fly, flamingo, fly.” I knew it was a prayer for all his beloved flamingos.

  I held him close to me, forehead to forehead, and repeated his prayer with him. “Fly, flamingo, fly; fly, flamingo, fly,” I whispered.

  Walking home afterwards through the marshes, through the fields of black bulls and white horses, I could see Lorenzo was searching the fields and lakes all around us, but we saw no wounded birds, not one. They were all still up there, soaring above us, the honking of the flamingos singing out in a great and joyous chorus. They had survived. So had we.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Free at Last! Free Again!

  “When we got back to the farmhouse, we discovered that almost every window had been broken; shattered glass lay everywhere. The chimney had been blown off and had fallen down through the roof. How right the Caporal had been to get us out of harm’s way. There were dozens of roof tiles scattered about, like fallen autumn leaves, around the walls of the house. Pieces of shattered concrete littered the farmyard – some as big as rocks – and down the farm track a cloud of smoke and dust still lingered everywhere. It was in the air, in our lungs. Nancy could not stop coughing. She gave me a handkerchief to hold over my mouth.