Amour Provence (15 page)

“They're looking for you,” he said.

“I don't doubt it,” the pilot replied.

“He's one of several shot down early this morning,” Lapin told Euphémie.

“Yes,” she replied. “I'm taking him to Monsieur Painlevé's old house.”

Lapin stared at her with a serious look on his face. “I'll take him, Euphémie. No need for you to go any farther. You shouldn't be seen up here.”

Then he pulled her aside and whispered, “I don't like the looks of that bloody bandage. He looks worn out.”

But Harry overheard and said,
“Ne vous préoccupez pas,”
in his strangely old-fashioned French. “I'm fine and grateful for your help. But I agree, we should let Euphémie go home now.” He reached forward to softly stroke her hair and gave her a smile that made her cheeks even redder than they already were from the sun and the exertion of the climb. What
a lovely face Harry had, if only . . . but it was absurd to think those things, and she began to back away.

When the pilot staggered, Lapin reached out and put his arm around his waist. “Don't worry,” he said. “You'll soon be safe.” And then, turning to Euphémie, he told her, “I'll try to get you a message. We both know that he can't stay up here indefinitely.”

No, Euphémie thought, the Nazis would go house to house if they knew that anyone had survived the crash. They were good at finding people. They'd recently found two German-Jewish refugees in a root cellar in Beaucastel hiding beneath piles of old newspapers. No one had dared say anything when the couple was hustled away.

That night her father came home late. Euphémie was at her bedroom window watching for any sign of Lapin. She didn't want to burden her father with the news and was back in her bed, eyes closed, when he opened the door to look in on her. Perhaps Lapin had tended to Harry's wound and been able to stop the bleeding. Lapin would know what to do, as most farmers like him were experts in caring for injured or ill farm animals. If Harry could recover his strength, then perhaps they might manage to get him to one of the Resistance groups up near Mont Ventoux. Those people would be experts at hiding an Allied pilot from the enemy.

In the early hours, a commotion began as some of the Germans returned to the house and settled themselves down for the night. She wondered what they'd been doing all day after the morning roust. Searching for downed aviators, no doubt. At first light, her thought was of Lapin. She threw on her clothes
and for a moment thought of binding her chest again, but it would just add to her discomfort during the trek. In the courtyard an empty convoy truck took up most of the space. Sneaking through the barn again, she inadvertently woke the chickens and the flock began to cluck with pleasure. She tried to hush them, but it just made them noisier, so she simply climbed through the back window out into the field and then moved quickly toward the ravine and beyond.

Without the pilot Harry as a burden, she soon traversed the fields and spotted the old man's abandoned house at the edge of a line of sycamore trees that had once marked a road. She circled around, keeping close to the trees. The red roof tiles of the little stone cabin shone mauve in the early light. There was no mistral and the sun already felt hot. The rough wooden door, the only entrance, was shut. Except for a quince bush, there was no cover, so she crouched behind the nearest sycamore and watched. She hesitated in her approach. She didn't know if the young pilot had concealed a weapon. He might fire if she came near without announcing herself. Perhaps it would be prudent to wait. Maybe Lapin would arrive. Or Harry might notice her and reveal himself.

After a few minutes, her legs began to cramp, and when she straightened up, her hands resting against the smooth bark of the tree, something slammed into her side, knocking the breath out of her, and she found herself flat on the earth. A heavy boot flipped her onto her back and the pallid eyes of the soldier who had killed her chicken peered into hers. He bent and jammed his hand over her mouth, pushing her skull into the ground until she felt that her jawbone would snap if he pressed any harder. Then she found herself pulled up and the soldier twisted
her arm behind her. When she gasped, something hard smacked against her head. He pushed her forward, twisting her arm painfully and growling the same brutal-sounding words over and over that must mean,
Shut up, shut up, shut up!

They hadn't yet reached the cabin when the door opened and Harry emerged with his unwounded arm held high in the bright clean rays of the sun. He shouted something to the German, who let go of her. Then the soldier pushed her to the ground again, kicking her to make certain she wouldn't be capable of interfering. Euphémie's eyes streamed tears but stayed wide open as the German shouted and pointed his rifle at Harry, who walked slowly forward. The German got behind and pushed him with the barrel of his gun. At the edge of the clearing, he shoved Harry against a sycamore, abruptly took a step backward, and fired a shot into the pilot's head. Euphémie screamed and the young German threw himself upon her in a frenzy, ripping her clothing, suffocating her, his big hands around her neck. In the sky there were no clouds.

When she felt that she would never take another breath, her persecutor's body suddenly turned into a rock-heavy weight on top of her, but his grip loosened. All at once Euphémie saw Lapin's round head silhouetted against the sky. He grabbed her hand to pull her up, hurling a blood-clotted hoe behind him. The German rolled off her and onto the ground, his neck cloven open, a gush of blood inundating the rough weeds.

“Are you all right?” Lapin asked.

“Yes,” she replied, but she felt her face was wet, and when she rubbed it saw that she was bleeding. Lapin took her face in his hand and examined the cut. “It's not deep. Can you make it home? I have to get rid of the Boche's body. But I'll have to
leave poor Harry to be discovered by the Nazis. They threatened to kill your father and ten other villagers if the pilot wasn't turned in by midnight tonight.”

“Father!”

“Yes, he received an ultimatum yesterday. We heard about it then.”

Euphémie began to cry softly and Lapin took her arm.

“Come on, I'll take you part of the way. But we have to hurry. And you have to make sure you get home without being seen. And never say a word about this! Do you think you can do that?”

Euphémie nodded, but it was hard to focus. She just tried to keep up as best she could with Lapin as he led her back down through the fields.

Euphémie stood stock-still at the window, remembering. Lapin had hidden the German's body so that it was never found, even after the war was over. When the Nazi command came looking, they were pleased to see that the American flier had been shot with a German bullet. They listed their missing soldier as a deserter, not connecting his disappearance with the pilot's death.

Euphémie and Lapin never spoke about what had happened. While the war dragged on, it wouldn't do to have anyone know that the two had been involved in what had gone on up there. And even after the war, on the occasions when they would cross paths at a village fête or simply run across each other on the road, the silence between them had become too solid to break. As with so many, any mention of
the long-kept secrets, the horrors and bad blood that had risen up between people during the war, became a sort of taboo and those things lay forever concealed in people's hearts.

And since then, who had Euphémie been close to? Everyone was gone—her kind and loving father, Agnes, who had raised her, even her few friends in the village had mostly died or moved away. There was only her dear Hamidou and he probably had no idea where she had gone. And even if he was able to find out, what could an Arab man do for an old lady who had been legally committed to an asylum by her own daughter? Euphémie let out a deep sigh. As the sun came up on the other side of the Ouvèze, she had the small but comforting pleasure of watching the white heron whirl down onto his private spot atop the protruding river rock.

T
hroughout the town of Serret, from the vaulted medieval portal beneath which a cobblestoned lane mounted to the village fountain all the way down to the main square shaded by centenary
platane
trees, artisans were setting up stands. It was the
fête du village
, the summer fair, when everyone who had something to sell put out their wares and the little town found itself in full party mode, crammed with visitors for two days of festivities.

Didier Falque came out of his house at the base of the village ramparts early that Saturday morning breathing in air perfumed by a rose-covered trellis that extended over his doorway. At the age of forty-two, fit and muscular from his work in the vineyards, Didier retained all the vitality he'd had as a youth. As he looked around he saw his friend Jeannot Pierrefeu's wife, Mathilde, already setting up a stand near the stone balustrade. Her pale arms adjusted
a red-and-yellow-flowered tablecloth over the table where she would display her faience bowls and plates.

“Is Jeannot coming to sell his things today?” asked Didier. Mathilde and Jeannot were both potters, though Jeannot made monumental sculptures out of clay. He was still the same free spirit he'd been as a boy, an artist who knew how to do just about anything. Still, Didier felt proud that he made a better living as a vintner than his clever friend Jeannot ever would.

“He's up in Geneva,” Mathilde replied. “He and Thierry are showing their work at a gallery there.”

“Good for them. The Swiss have plenty of money to spend!”

Mathilde nodded, pretty in an ethereal way with her translucent skin and white-blond hair that she still wore long. Only her hands were flawed, prematurely aged by the chemicals and glazes that were intrinsic to a potter's work. Still, Didier could see why his old friend Jeannot had remained enthralled by a woman like Mathilde. As a student just arrived in Provence from Brittany nearly twenty years before, she had been a living angel. Didier remembered the first time he'd seen her at the Tuesday market, her pottery arranged in shimmering clusters around her. How his heart had pounded as he'd approached, irresistibly drawn to her. He knew he'd amused her that morning with his resonant voice and wide grin, but he'd been too late. Mathilde had already met Jeannot, Jeannot who had been to university and could speak eloquently about any subject. Poetry rolled easily off his lips and his jokes acted like charms on the laughing girls who seemed to always surround him. Didier hadn't
stood a chance. He could never have come up with the fine phrases that would impress a girl like Mathilde. Still, there were compensations. His own wife, Christine, was attractive too, with her enormous doe eyes and thick chestnut hair, though often she and their two daughters, Mimi and Amélie, seemed to live a separate female existence that had little to do with him. Still, he was lucky to have married Christine, lucky that her wealthy father had given them the village house with a wide terrace overlooking the valley, its unobstructed view dominated by the ever-changing clouds that hovered above the mighty Rhône. Didier could sometimes make out the glinting silver thread of water that traversed the distant valley. In the evening, the clouds turned red-gold, or sometimes to glittering coal, as the sun descended behind them. That morning, when he'd awakened at first light, misty lavender wisps sat like roosting birds in the dawning sky, but Christine was already up and gone.

The sun soaked into the paving stones around him and Didier could feel the streets and houses already radiating their special summer heat. The
canicule
, they called it, the dog days named after the constellation Canis Major that was a bright glow in the night skies during the hottest part of the summer. But Didier didn't mind the heat; after all he'd been born and raised in the Midi. He gazed at Mathilde, dressed in a checkered skirt and a red top, and imagined her long pale body beneath. The intriguing mystery of the female sex was always of particular interest. He wasn't a ladies' man, but he was still curious, especially when he went off to the salons where he presented his vintages up in Lyon,
or at the great convention halls in Paris, where there was always a crush of people buying, tasting, looking. Didier looked too. But seduction didn't come easily to him. He didn't have the subtlety that women appreciated, especially those desirable women who might have been available to him if he'd had Jeannot's way with words. It was a particular type of women who sought him out, the bold, impudent ones, and Didier generally found nothing mysterious or alluring about that sort of person.