David Robbins - [World War II 04]

by Liberation Road (v1. 0) (epub)

  Before entering the house, Joe Amos dried himself with his tunic and put it on, tucking his tails. He told McGee to do the same, the country boy was about to go inside to sit for dinner with no shirt on. Inside the kitchen, Geneviève flashed past the window carrying a pot, her hands under her apron.

  ‘My daughter is a fantastic cook,’ the Marquis said, buttoning his blouse.

  ‘Where’s Mrs. Marquis?’ Joe Amos asked.

  ‘Ah, il est regrettable.’

  McGee asked, ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Sad, my friend. It is sad. My dear wife passed away two years ago. She had the influenza.’

  Through the window, Joe Amos watched the motherless girl set the table, whirling with confident hands. He imagined her mother, a pretty woman, old like the Marquis but odd like him, too, nice, with long brown hair and hands that were sure like the daughter’s. He liked the Marquis and felt cheated that his wife was not here, a whole French family to be his friends.

  ‘What’d the Germans do? Anything?’

  The Marquis lifted a hand, waving the notion of the Germans aside. ‘What would the Boche do, eh? Help her? The Marquise was a pain in the derriere to them. My wife was a strong woman, she had a tongue, vous comprenez?’

  ‘You miss her?’ McGee asked.

  The Marquis’s joviality vanished.

  ‘McGee, we are new friends. I am going to forgive that.’ The Marquis laid his hand to the doorknob to enter the kitchen. ‘Yes. All the time. Please do not mention her to my daughter. She still...Please do not.’

  Following the Marquis through the door, Joe Amos scowled at McGee. The private looked glum, until they entered the kitchen, where the aromas and warmth lifted all of them. Geneviève turned from the oven. A leg of lamb simmered in a pan. She set the pan on a trivet in the center of a lantern-lit table. Joe Amos forgot that he hadn’t stood inside a home with a roof, a table, chairs, light, food, in almost a month. He ignored that he was AWOL. Looking at Geneviève he did not notice the Marquis had slipped away down a side stairwell. The man emerged holding three dusty, dark bottles.

  ‘Sit,’ he instructed, pointing to the table. McGee grabbed a seat fast. Joe Amos had not once heard the voice of the daughter. He wanted to.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asked her.

  The Marquis intervened.

  ‘She will serve the meal. Sit with McGee. We will eat in one minute.’

  Joe Amos watched the Marquis instruct his daughter in the last phases of the food preparation. She basted the potatoes with the juice of the lamb while he retrieved clean glasses from a cupboard. The Marquis kept her separate, busy, an eye always on her. He seemed stern without being mean. Joe Amos had the pleasant sense Geneviève was purposefully not looking up at him.

  Clatter and flurry filled the kitchen. Joe Amos knew nothing about cooking but could tell these two French folks took pride in the simple meal. The kitchen was clearly an old room. A fireplace rose head-high. The floorboards were worn, cut from the same red wood the small table was. A rough banquet table, large enough to seat a dozen, held the other end of the kitchen. Joe Amos figured this was where the house staff ate in the Marquis’s better days. He envisioned the mother riding herd on the butlers and maids, and then, with her husband and daughter, becoming the staff themselves when the war hit. He imagined German officers seated in these chairs only a month ago. Then, because the room was bright and cheering, he imagined his own mother and sisters sitting here at the big table. The white Marquis and his pretty daughter served them all lamb and taters and French wine. He wished his mama could see this, see the sergeant’s chevron on his sleeve. He opened one of the bottles and poured glasses for himself and McGee. Like two gents, the black boys dinged their glasses and drank an unspoken toast to themselves.

  The mutton was set on the table, nestled in a ring of plums and baked apples. A bowl of steaming red potatoes was laid next to it. The Marquis took his seat. Geneviève pulled away her apron and spread it across the back of her chair. Joe Amos made to rise, to pull the girl’s chair out for her, but the Marquis held out his empty glass.

  ‘Pour the wine, Joe Amos. That is the honor of the guest.’

  Joe Amos relaxed in his chair. He didn’t know French ways, didn’t know if the Marquis recognized the chivalrous Southern thing he intended to do, so he let it go.

  The girl spooned potatoes while the Marquis sliced and handed out portions of the lamb. Joe Amos emptied the first bottle into all four glasses. McGee seemed unaware of anything but the food, he tucked in before all the plates were filled. Backwater manners, Joe Amos thought. When the food was dished out, he raised his glass in a toast. McGee looked up, his mouth full, and sheepishly raised his glass.

  ‘Here’s to new friends. Victory and peace in France and around the world.’

  The Marquis hoisted his glass another notch. ‘Très bien dit.’

  The daughter raised hers, looking Joe Amos straight in the eye.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that was beautiful. Merci.’

  The Marquis cut his eyes at Geneviève and smiled. All drank.

  The girl did speak English. Joe Amos, quietly, was glad.

  The meal tasted better than anything he had put in his mouth in two years. Army cooking, English pub food, none of it matched the flavors these two French coaxed out of lamb, vegetables, and fruit. The wine, he suspected, was extraordinary but he had no way of knowing except to watch how the Marquis and his daughter savored it, with their nostrils and little lip smacks. Joe Amos tried to taste what was keen in the grapes, but the meat and potatoes were the show, the wine just made him tipsy and talkative.

  For that reason, he told them how McGee’s mother named him Adolph, after the town doctor. Joe Amos laughed alone until Geneviève joined, her laugh chirped behind her hand, shy. McGee, still chewing, glared at him; the Marquis knit his brows, indulgent but not amused. Joe Amos took a swallow, aware the wine might be to blame and thinking that he only needed a little more to get it right. He set the glass on the table and announced, ‘I shot down a German fighter.’

  This was the ticket. McGee sat bolt upright, the Marquis donned the face of an interested buyer, and Geneviève left her hand over her open mouth, making a breathless sound.

  Joe Amos spilled the whole tale, from the fight in the bocage to the stripe on his sleeve. McGee, as he always did with this story, added punctuations, reminding that he was there for all of it, at the wheel in the hedgerows, in the ditch under the Jabo. Geneviève raised and lowered her hand to her lips at the exciting parts, murmuring, ‘Mon Dieu.’

  When the story was finished, the meal was done. The Marquis sat back from his empty plate and pushed it to the center of the table.

  ‘That is a wondrous thing,’ he said. ‘Marvelous. Geneviève?’

  Joe Amos thought he was asking for his daughter’s reaction to the story. Instead, she rose and reached for the plates.

  Joe Amos stood fast. He put out both hands toward the dishes. One hand touched the back of her wrist.

  ‘No. No. Me and McGee’ll clear the table.’

  ‘It is alright,’ she said, not meeting his eyes, both standing above the table and close. ‘I will do it.’

  ‘Joe Amos, sit.’ The Marquis took the third bottle, preparing to open the cork.

  ‘No, Marquis. Geneviève.’ He was careful to pronounce her name this first time. ‘We’ll do it. You two done enough. McGee.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Up, dammit.’

  ‘Oh.’ McGee stood and wobbled. He gathered in plates like they were made of tin, mess platters instead of china. Joe Amos grabbed the plates away from the boy.

  ‘Go get some water out of the well.’

  ‘My friends, my friends.’ The Marquis pushed back his chair to stop them from squabbling and helping. Now the dinner was ruined, Joe Amos thought, everyone on their feet and tugging. The daughter moved in, to defuse it. Joe Amos looked down: her hand lay full over his.

  ‘Please. I will do the dishes.
It is my pleasure.’

  In the seconds he spent near her, under her hand, Joe Amos looked for stories in her skin and eyes—the years under the enemy, the death of her mother, her stolen home, her hunger. Joe Amos had never been so close to a woman like this, a life like hers that emerged in this gentle, brave shape.

  ‘Oui?’ she asked.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, releasing the plates to her. He turned, not trusting anything now, the wine especially. ‘McGee, we gotta get back.’

  The Marquis moved behind McGee. ‘I will walk you to your truck, mes amis. Say good night, Geneviève.’

  The girl did not speak to make her farewell to Joe Amos. She gave him only a look that said she was satisfied with him and he should come again. Joe Amos did not believe what he saw on her face. He dropped his eyes and walked to the door.

  ‘Good night,’ he said over his shoulder. The Marquis laid a hand on McGee’s back and the two exited the kitchen. Joe Amos shuffled behind them, downcast that he’d been a fool somehow.

  Her voice startled him.

  ‘Ah, diable. Joe Amos, will you ever come back?’

  He stopped on his toes and turned. The Marquis and McGee were out of earshot.

  ‘You bet.’

  He sealed his words with a glance that felt electric. With one hand she gestured that he should leave now. They had a secret between them.

  Joe Amos tore his eyes off her. He skipped out the door to catch up with the Marquis and McGee.

  ‘I will not make you work so hard if you come this way again,’ the Marquis said to McGee.

  ‘Ah, I don’t mind. Shoot.’

  ‘Joe Amos, mon ami. Thank you again for the gift of the gasoline. It made the meal possible.’

  ‘No problem.’

  They strolled over the lawn to the drive where the truck waited. An hour’s road lay ahead, maybe more if there was dense traffic or a snarl. Joe Amos had to drive, McGee was not sober.

  ‘So,’ the Marquis said when they reached the Jimmy. ‘Perhaps we will see each other again.’

  Joe Amos kept his secret pact with Geneviève.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Then, adieu.’

  The two climbed into the cab. As soon as Joe Amos turned onto the main road, the white gleams of cat’s eyes glittered a mile back, and ruby dots ran far ahead, the tail of another column. The road was busy as always.

  Wind rushed in the open windows when Joe Amos wound up to third gear. McGee snorted. His head reared.

  ‘What gasoline?’

  Joe Amos ignored the boy, who fell back asleep in the next starry minute.

  ~ * ~

  He glided down the steps below the Pont Neuf. There was no need to hurry: he could make an entrance. He chose this spot because it was damp and glittering. Gaslights from above fractured on the loitering Seine. The stones of the quay were large and old, damp always and mossy in spots. Paris was ancient right here, centuries of murder done beneath the lie de la Cite. He imagined mist and overcoats, something from Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon.

  White Dog looked over his six top lieutenants, aligning for his arrival at the bottom of the steps. In the dim light, theirs were desolate-looking faces, like moonscapes. All wore caps except White Dog, who liked to show off his hair combed high.

  White Dog had considered buying them all dinner in Montparnasse before this meeting. It would be a nice touch, generosity with an air of authority. He decided against the meal, preferring the way the Jews buried their dead, fast. Once a man is done, you dig him a grave and put him in it. No waiting. Dinner would come afterward, for those with the stomach.

  ‘Bonsoir,’ he said to them all.

  ‘Chien Blanc.’

  He walked beside the river to spit in and see which way the current was flowing. The water swept west, away from Notre Dame. Good, he thought. This won’t be a church burial.

  ‘My friends,’ he said, walking to the center of their arc, ‘we make money, yes?’

  Restive looks were exchanged. One man—Marcel, the oldest of the lieutenants—kept his dark eyes on the stones.

  ‘In the three weeks since Acier was caught by the Gestapo, we have expanded. We are selling more food, more guns, more everything. We have found more suppliers, more customers, more profits. We have grand plans for Paris when the Amis arrive. Is all this I say true?’

  White Dog knew his French was a little stilted for their thug ears. He didn’t care. His jazzy clothes and hair, his accent, these reminded his gang he was American, not common like them.

  ‘Yes,’ they shrugged.

  ‘Then, why,’ White Dog asked, changing his tone to a lament, ‘why does one of you want to replace me? Why is one of you trying to start up his own operation behind my back?’

  Heads snapped around. Marcel, whippet thin, dandruff dust on his shoulders, held stock-still.

  ‘What have I done but make you all richer? Do you miss Acier that much?’

  ‘No,’ the voices protested. White Dog made a shushing sound to remind them they were criminals in an occupied city. ‘No,’ they repeated, quieter.

  A barge powered past on the Seine. White Dog waited until it was gone beneath the Pont Neuf, Greasy waves from its wake slapped at the quay.

  ‘Marcel,’ White Dog said.

  The skinny lieutenant stepped forward. He held his arms straight out from his sides, head down but his eyes on White Dog, a crucifix posture in a leather coat spilling dandruff flakes. White Dog nodded.

  The sound of a click happened in one of Marcel’s hands. The switchblade came out too fast to see the motion, but there it was, glinting like the spangles on the river.

  Marcel spun on his toes, now like a bullfighter with his arms high, facing the five remaining lieutenants. Nimble and blinding he leaped to his left and drove the blade into the fat neck of Arnaud.

  Marcel tucked his free arm under the traitor to keep him on his feet. The others stepped away, Arnaud spurted blood. Marcel drew the knife under the chin, widening the channel while staring into the red gush that struck him in the face. Arnaud’s thick neck slowed Marcel’s hand. White Dog watched him saw through the jiggling folds. Arnaud grew too heavy to keep standing so Marcel let him sink to his knees. He moved behind Arnaud and gripped his hair, pulling back his head, opening the slice. The pulses of blood sluiced like a toilet overflowing.

  ‘No one leaves,’ White Dog said to his lieutenants as they backed away from the stone steps. ‘We’re going to dinner.’

  ~ * ~

  D+31

  July 7

  Ben stepped carefully. The trail descended at a steep angle, and the moss floor had been rained on since sundown yesterday. In this hour before dawn, the path was trampled, dark and slick.

  His hands ached around wooden stretcher handles. Both shoulders and knees threatened to give way.

  He was surprised when he failed. His boots slipped. In a dozen or more trips up and down the trail, he’d lost his footing several times and always regained it. He expected to catch himself again, but the litter tore from his grip. The soldier holding the downhill end jolted forward with the sudden weight and dropped his handles, too. The wounded GI on the canvas hammock howled. Seated on the path, Ben gaped at the hurt boy, exhausted and shamed.

  ‘Dammit, Chap!’ The litter bearer spun on Ben. ‘Dammit!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Ben got to his knees. In the dim light, he brought his face over the grimacing soldier. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ahhhh,’ the corporal let out through clenched teeth, ‘it’s okay. Just...you know, watch it.’

  ‘Yeah, I will. I will. You alright?’

  ‘What do you think? No.’

  ‘I’m -’

  ‘Can we go?’ The downhill soldier whirled a hand like a spindle, impatient. Small-arms fire crackled around the trail. The 1st and 3rd Battalions fought to keep the path open for the litter bearers and the Ammo and Pioneer Platoons. In an hour, when the Kraut spotters on top of the hill got their eyes back with dawn, the artillery a
nd mortars would resume and this trail, with the rest of Mont Castre, would be very dangerous.

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

  Ben got to his feet without confidence that he might not stumble again. He’d been muling on this rainy trail since dusk, with blistering hands full of wounded going down, medicine going back up. He knew in his bones he was done, but he was not finished. This tough, forgiving boy on the litter had a hole in his guts and needed to reach the collecting station now, not after Ben caught a rest. Ben flexed his hands, then coiled them again around the handles.