A Troubled Peace Page 3

  “But what were you doing in Newcomb’s plane?” Clayton persisted.

  “I…I…I don’t know.”

  Had they been outside, Clayton would have spit on the ground. “Don’t know’ don’t cut it, boy.”

  Henry nodded. For once, Clayton was right. Henry knew if he told Clayton that he’d gotten drunk on whiskey, he and the sheriff might accept his stealing the plane as a high-spirited, flyboy prank. But Lilly would be scandalized. And besides, it wasn’t true. He’d grown up enough in the past year to know lying was the coward’s way out.

  “It’s nuts, Dad. But here it is. I think I thought I could escape it all, find salvation up in the clouds, get myself right again. The sky always brought me such peace, such strength. When I fly, I’m free, just like the hawks over the fields. I wish you knew what it’s like, Dad. I wish you could see past the farm and the chickens and the weeds and the manure and the banknote.”

  The last sentence was the mistake.

  “Well, I can’t see past the banknote, especially with a fool boy who destroys other people’s property out joyriding,” Clayton snarled. “Here’s how I kept you from being arrested. Newcomb says you’ve ruined that plane. But the army’s selling surplus Kaydet trainers for two hundred fifty bucks.” He looked over at Lilly. “That old snake sure grabbed the opportunity.” He looked back to Henry. “I haven’t got two hundred fifty dollars. But you do. How much did that ring cost?”

  Lilly gasped. “Oh, no, Clayton, don’t make the boy give that up. He…”

  Henry interrupted her. “Don’t get into this, Ma.” He knew how often she argued his case with Clayton and how she paid for it in his surliness. And this was justified. He’d screwed up, big-time. He needed to make it right. But Patsy…He turned to her.

  She held up her hand and smiled, stopping his question. Lord, Henry could live for days on that reassuring smile. “Ask me again later, Henry. Mr. Forester’s right.” She kissed him on the cheek and left.

  Clayton’s expression remained grim. “I’ll cinch the deal with Newcomb. He’s out there with the sheriff, claiming he’ll report Henry to everyone, including the war office, if we don’t settle this.” He slammed the door again as he left.

  Henry eased back into the chair, his head spinning. Lilly knelt beside him. “Henry, honey, I’d give anything to be able to fix things for you. When you were little and hurt or afraid, I could take your hands and say trust me, follow me, I can lead you out of this. But I can’t now. You’re all grown. My heart’s been breaking watching you struggle so, hearing you cry out in your sleep and then getting up to walk off the nightmares.”

  Henry stared at her. She knew that?

  “I can fatten you up, son, but you’re the only one who can beat back the demons that have followed you home.” She reached over to the table for a newspaper. “I wasn’t sure I should show you this. But I see you need to know. I understand your regrets more, honey, reading this. It says that France is worse off now than it was under Hitler’s rule in terms of hunger and sickness and lawlessness. It says that Allied bombings destroyed all their railroads and bridges so what food exists can’t be shipped. People are starving.

  “It’s just so awful. And it’s going to get worse. When the Soviets liberated a horrible place called Auschwitz, they found thousands…” She stopped and shook her head. “Dear Lord, how is that possible? Hundreds of thousands of people were exterminated. And those who survived are near dead—skeletons, racked with disease. The Allies say there are more camps like it they haven’t reached yet. They don’t know what to do with the survivors. They have no homes, no families left to return to. Entire villages have been destroyed. Children wander gutted streets not knowing where their parents are.”

  Lilly’s voice grew hoarse and she pushed the paper aside. “Oh, Henry, it is enough to make anyone sick. I understand why you are so worried. Let’s pray President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower are wise enough to figure a way out of this horror for those poor people and quick. It’s beyond my thinking.”

  She gently clasped Henry’s face so he looked right into her green eyes, the same hue as his. “But I do know this much, honey. Sometimes you get back on your feet better when you’re helping someone else stand in the process. The last thing in the world I want is for you to go away again. But I don’t think you’ll rest easy until you know about that little boy. Maybe…maybe you need to go back to France and find Pierre?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Henry walked off the ship’s gangplank in clownish high steps, as if his legs expected the earth to lurch up to meet his feet. He dropped his bag and waited for the wharf to stop rocking. Three weeks at sea had left him unused to steady ground. He’d never really acclimated to the ship’s decks either. He’d hated the Atlantic crossing, the nights when storm winds and sea waves swirled in titanic convulsions, the boat seeming to pitch and roll in three different directions at once. Give him the sky, give him flat land, forget the ocean.

  But he was here—in Marseille, France. His real journey could now begin.

  “Problems, son?” His boat’s captain walked up steady and straight, easily transitioning from ocean to land. When Henry turned to him with a nauseated face, the old seaman chuckled. “It’ll wear off soon. But don’t stand here too long. You’ll attract trouble. Right now this city is like Chicago in Al Capone’s day. When the Allies came through, there was a real bloodletting by the French against people who’d cooperated with the Nazis. Courts are supposed to hear collaboration cases now, but vigilantes still go after people they think cozied up with the Germans. Or seedy types use the rumor that someone was a Nazi-sympathizer to blackmail him. People are pretty desperate for food and clothes. Watch you don’t get mugged.”

  The captain gazed inland to the ragged jigsaws of blown-apart buildings, their hulls left from fires. Here and there a building remained standing. “Look at all that rubble,” he muttered.

  “Here.” He thrust two cartons of Camel cigarettes into Henry’s hand. “A bonus. There are twenty packs of cigarettes in these. If you’re smart, that’ll feed you for a month. Careful who you sell ’em to, though. The cabarets catering to American GIs on leave are your best bet. They’re the safest link to the black market.” He slapped Henry on the back before walking away.

  Clumsily, Henry followed, staggering into the broken city. Marseille shouldn’t be this ruined, he thought. The battle for it had only lasted five days. Then the Allies used the port to set up supply lines to the troops as they fought toward Germany. Did all of France look like this?

  The April sun was bright and warm, and the Mediterranean Sea behind him a dazzling deep sapphire, so unlike the green-muddy rivers of Tidewater Virginia or the gray foam of the Atlantic. Shading his eyes, Henry looked up at the sandy-stone houses climbing the rocky hills. High on a bleached-out cliff rose a white palace or perhaps a church, an elaborate structure with domes that seemed more like something out of the Arabian Nights than Europe. A splash of sunshine reflected off a golden statue on its tallest spire.

  Wish Patsy could see this, Henry thought. Even amid this mess, it was prettier than anything she’d ever experienced. Someday, after all this was cleaned up, he’d bring her back to France.

  If she’ll come with you, a dark voice inside his head jeered.

  Henry was awash in such inner arguments these days. Since deciding to come look for Pierre, his mind had been a typhoon of doubts, self-loathing, and anger. This trip was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he just screw his head back together and get on with life? Who in their right mind would willingly come back to face this manmade hell-on-earth?

  The difficulty of arranging passage alone should have stopped him cold. He’d tried re-upping with the Air Force. The corps didn’t want him on active duty. He was too thin, too battle-fatigued. Unless, of course, he was willing to switch theaters, fight some Japs? asked the Richmond air base commander. Henry had explained he wanted to go back to France. Then no, sorry, Henry had already done his part—go home,
find a nice girl, and raise a family.

  Yeah, right, thought Henry. He bit his tongue from telling the guy how the war had ruined him for that. How his childhood best friend—a girl who’d never been afraid of anything and happily squared off with school bullies and knocked them flat—was spooked by him. That the trip to France was partially sparked by the fact she didn’t want to marry him.

  Well, at least Patsy was supportive of the journey. At the train station when he left, she’d kissed him and whispered, “Come back to me, Henry.”

  I’m trying Pats. I’m trying.

  It was Patsy who’d heard about a way over for Henry. Charity groups and a new international alliance, called the United Nations, were organizing relief—boatloads of food, clothing, medicines, and livestock. Henry had worked his way over on a merchant boat, funded by a church, carrying hundreds of horses and cows. For a salary of $150, he shoveled manure, fed and watered the animals, and helped birth foals. The sailors made fun of him and the other farm boys on ship. But Henry had felt pretty darn good about being a “seagoing cowboy.” These horses and cows were the beginning of new herds, new life—sort of like the cargo of Noah’s ark.

  Clayton, of course, had thrown a fit, especially since Henry was deserting the farm at planting time. He wouldn’t talk to Lilly for days when he learned that she’d suggested Henry go find Pierre. Henry worried over causing Lilly such trouble. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do once I’m there, Ma. What is the point of all this anyway?” he asked as they said good-bye. “Pierre and his mother may be just fine. Or they could both be…They could all be dead. What am I looking for?”

  Lilly answered by buttoning up Henry’s coat and brushing his honey-colored hair back, just as she’d always sent him off to school in the morning. “You’re looking to help, honey, just as that little boy helped you. It’ll be like those quests you were forever telling me about from those King Arthur books you loved. Remember? And in this quest you’ll find yourself. Let your heart lead you.” She patted his chest. “It’s a good heart, sugar.”

  Well, he’d already done a little bit of good on the boat and felt better for it, especially after reading a newspaper description of the liberation of Paris. Citizens had blockaded neighborhood streets and thrown homemade grenades at Germans trying to hold the city. By that point, Parisians were so hungry that when an old thin horse the Resistants were using to cart supplies fell down dead of exhaustion, housewives carrying kitchen knives rushed out of their apartments into the battle’s crossfire to carve the carcass up into steaks.

  France needed new horses. Given the state of Marseille, France obviously needed a lot of things.

  Henry was putting himself into a bad situation, though. He’d have to be careful. He really didn’t have papers to be in France. The livestock ship had docked in Trieste, Italy. It was going straight back to Baltimore for another load and the crew wasn’t allowed shore leave. Henry had jumped ship and lucked into finding work on a boat making the sail into Marseille. He’d have to avoid MPs, the military police, patrolling cities in which Americans maintained bases or were granted leave. Several U.S. transports, supply ships, and a Red Cross boat were anchored in the harbor behind him. He’d need to get out of Marseille quickly and head northeast toward the Vercors, the mountainous plateau leading to the Alps and Switzerland, where he’d left Pierre.

  A gang of boisterous American soldiers in uniform khaki rounded the corner. Henry hurried onto a narrow, cobblestone street, picking his way over heaps of debris from blasted buildings, startled to hear the sound of laughter and a flute from inside one of the scarred houses. He threaded his way toward the city’s center, stepping in and out of blazing sunlight and dank shadows cast down alley-thin streets. The stench of sewage mixed with the smell of garlic and fish. Sewer lines must have been blown, too. Henry held his sleeve to his nose as he walked.

  After a while he came to a square, miraculously unscathed, dotted with thin iron chairs and white-clothed tables the French always put outside their cafés. Radio music drifted out from the restaurants. Almond trees bloomed. Their delicate pink blossoms obliterated the stink of the streets he’d crossed. Suddenly Henry was hungry, starving in a way he hadn’t felt since boarding the rocking boats. The dozen tins of Spam his mother had stuffed in his bag wouldn’t satisfy this hunger. Henry headed to a bistro, crowded with men in baggy corduroys and what looked like GI jackets stripped of their insignia.

  As he approached, one of the men jumped up to grab a waiter by the collar. “Quatre-vingts francs pour cette soupe dégoûtante?” he shouted about the cost and the quality of the soup. “Je ne paie pas!” He shook the waiter.

  Henry stopped. He understood the actions to be like a school punk shaking down a weaker kid for lunch money. The irate customer shoved the waiter and pulled a revolver from his belt.

  People at surrounding tables jumped up, knocking over their chairs to back away. But once out of the gun’s immediate range, they stood, waiting, probably not wanting to abandon their food, clearly used to such confrontations.

  Henry froze and began to tremble.

  “Tu donnes aux boches tes meilleurs saucissons et tes meilleurs gâteaux!”

  The waiter cowered and shook his head, saying, no, he never waited on the Nazis. He didn’t give them cakes and sausages. “Pas moi, monsieur.”

  Hearing the shouts, the owner appeared. He was short, stout, bald, and surprisingly bold, waving them off. “Arrêtez! Criminels!”

  The gunman’s friends turned on him. Laughing, they called him a collabo, a filthy collaborator. They took turns shoving him. They knew he had cash inside, Nazi money, le prix du sang, blood money.

  One of them pushed a gun against the owner’s temple.

  But the owner faced down his robber. He wasn’t about to empty his cash register for him.

  The gunman cocked his pistol. “Ça me va,” he shrugged. “Au revoir, collabo.”

  “Non, non, non!” A woman rushed out and shoved a fistful of bills into the gunman’s hand. He grinned. Slowly, he released the owner, picked up his bowl, and drank its soup down. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he swaggered off with his companions.

  The rest of the café’s patrons resumed their seats. They ate. They talked. Like the scene was nothing more than a brief cloudburst that had passed.

  But Henry remained glued to his spot, sweating, feeling a Lugar pistol pressed against his own forehead, the cold O of its barrel boring into his flesh. Once a thing is no longer of use to me, I rid myself of it. The Gestapo officer’s face—fair, sleek, sharp—appeared, huge, an inch from Henry’s. The thin lips twisted with contempt. Henry felt hot breath in his ear. Your courage is impressive, but ultimately pointless. I will break you.

  Henry closed his eyes and prepared for the blast. Go ahead, you SOB. Shoot. I won’t tell you anything about Madame Gaulloise or Pierre. I won’t.

  KA-BANG!

  Henry clutched his head to hold together the blown-open pieces of his skull. But the Nazi had shot wide. Ha! Shooting you would have ended our games prematurely, American. You will not get off that easily.

  Henry could smell the acrid explosion, could hear the sneering laughter, could feel Nazi hands grab him and drag him to an interrogation room.

  No, no, not there. NO!

  Henry surfaced back to Marseille. He flopped into a chair and was rubbing his hands together to stop their shaking. He caught his breath, horrified. A small girl was standing right in front of him, holding a tulip. She was trying to hand him the flower. Was she real? Henry looked around. All the café diners were staring at him. Conversation had ceased. Had they witnessed his crazy hallucination? Get a grip, boy. Quick. If Henry wasn’t careful, these people might throw him into a French loony bin. Maybe that’s where he belonged.

  “Toutes mes condoléances pour votre perte. C’est surement un moment très difficile.” The child spoke in a sweet, sad voice. She was very sorry for his loss? Could she see into his soul, see how lost he was? />
  Like coming out of a fog, Henry began to hear things around him. The radio’s music had broken into a broadcast—something about FDR. Henry was still too unnerved to follow what was being said.

  The child repeated herself.

  Henry shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  The owner approached. “President Roosevelt has died,” he said in accented and formal English. “We mourn with you. It is a great loss for the world.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The owner invited Henry back to the small kitchen and brought him a bowl of soup. It was half-full, the broth thin, but it was chock-full of fish. The spicy aroma was wonderful. “Had I more butter, tomatoes, salt, the bouillabaisse would be better,” the owner apologized. “But this is my best. I save this for mes amis. Much better than the crow soup I fed that vermin.” He grinned. “Each day that gangster goes to a café to eat free by threats. He deals in stolen American petrol and uniforms. A very bad man. So I give the blackbird dinner to him. Filthy RMA.”

  His wife cut Henry a thick slice of coarse, brown bread and sat down next to him. He nodded his thanks to her. “What’s an ‘RMA,’ monsieur?”

  The owner’s voice filled with disdain. “An RMA is a ‘resistant of the month of August.’ The RMAs collaborated with the Vichy, the puppet government Hitler set in France. Then, when the Allies approached and Paris rose up in rebellion, they suddenly changed their allegiance. They put on the Free French armband and followed General de Gaulle. How you say, ‘turncoat’?”

  Henry hesitated, spoon midair. The man had been so sad over FDR’s death that Henry had followed him to the kitchen without thinking. But hadn’t the gunman accused this man of being a collaborator? Henry lowered his spoon back into the bowl and looked down at the table. His appetite was suddenly gone. What if his host had turned over Resistants, the maquis, to the Gestapo, like whoever betrayed Pierre’s mother?