An Owl's Whisper (21 page)

She thought,
Germans, dashing east, making for the refuge of the Siegfried Line.

When the convoy was close enough to make out individual vehicles, Eva had to laugh—the scene looked like a circus clowns’ parade: Every slapstick conveyance imaginable, military and civilian, sped bumper to bumper. The name “Dessay Poultry” and a dozen ducklings were painted on the side of one van. There was a taxi, a bus, and a fire engine tucked among army trucks. Tree branches and other camouflage were fixed to the tops of each vehicle. Each was packed with troops—some even riding on sideboards and rooftops.

Out of the corner of her eye Eva noticed two dots in the western sky. Within a minute the dots had become sleek aircraft, now close enough for Eva to see the stars on their wings. From the cover of a tree trunk, Eva watched wide-eyed as the warbirds, like trapeze artists, made choreographed swings from on high to pepper the convoy with rockets and cannon. She watched as the vehicles were consumed in clouds of dust, smoke, and flame. Watched breathless as the cloud lifted, leaving only smoking hulks of steel and men, dead in the ditches. When the smoke, laced with the smell of burning fuel and flesh, reached her, Eva fell to her knees and vomited.

On an early August morning, when Eva was out,
Monsieur
Messiaen stopped in unannounced.
Madame
Ducoisie as always was happy for his visit—he was, after all, a charming man who brought gifts. And gifts he brought that morning. Flour, sugar, coffee, a ball-shaped sausage, a fat slab of bacon wrapped in brown waxed paper, and two bottles of Alsatian wine. He also brought cigarettes, American ones, no less. And he brought a young lady. A pleasant, lively girl, about Eva’s age. A girl with brown eyes and brown hair, but one who dressed in nothing so drab. Like a neon sign, her look was intended to catch eyes, with colors as bright as the parrots emblazoned on her scarf.

“Today a student living just outside Liege, the niece of a good friend, accompanies me,” Henri said. “May I present
Mademoiselle
Crickette Gigault?” After Crickette’s curtsy, he leaned in to explain, “The bombing in the city has taken a toll on the poor child’s nerves and I wish to get her away from all that for the few weeks until our saviors arrive. My hope is that she might stay here for the time being. Naturally I would insist on helping with the expense of an additional mouth to feed.” Henri produced a thick wad of food coupons wrapped with an elastic band.

Madame
Ducoisie’s eyes grew large at the size of the coupon stack. “But of course,
Monsieur
, I speak for Eva when I say we would be most pleased to share our small home with Crickette.” She was mentally counting the coupons even as she spoke.

Crickette curtsied again, this time more deeply.

“Then so it shall be,” beamed Henri. “May I remain to introduce Crickette to Eva?”

“It is always our pleasure,
Monsieur
, to have your company for as long as you wish. Please make yourselves comfortable in the parlor. May I offer you a coffee?”

“How nice,
Madame
,” Henri said. “Thank you.” Crickette kept demurely quiet.

It was only moments later that Eva emerged from the orchard and saw her uncle’s automobile with Pruvot leaning on the fender reading a newspaper. She scowled. Eva slunk to the house and entered. Inside, her gaze slipped from
Madame
Ducoisie to her uncle. She said softly, “Hello, Uncle,” and stepped forward and kissed him dutifully. Then her eyes went to the third person in the parlor, to Crickette, and Eva froze.

Eva’s startled look silenced everyone else in the room. Finally she said, “Hille?”

Holding his hand in front of Crickette as if to say,
Let me handle this
, Henri stepped forward. With a laugh he said, “Ah, my dear Eva, how are you? You seem to confuse Crickette with your cousin Hille. Allow me to introduce
Mademoiselle
Crickette Gigault, here from Liege.” He turned to Crickette. “I present my niece, Eva Messiaen.”

Crickette stepped forward and kissed flustered Eva three times on alternating cheeks. She said, “Who knew I had a twin! Eva, dear
Madame
Ducoisie has graciously offered to let me stay here for a time. With the bombing in Liege I keep my wits only with nicotine and alcohol. Your uncle tells me so much about you. I hope we can make a good friendship during my visit.”

Eva looked at Henri with narrowed eyes.
Helping a frightened girl doesn’t sound like you. Especially this girl. You’re up to something.

Twenty minutes later, when
Madame
Ducoisie and Crickette went walking in the orchard, Eva pressed Henri. “What’s this all about, Uncle? Why is
she
here?”

Henri replied, “Eva. Eva, my dear. It’s just as Crickette said—to get her here in the lovely countryside, away from Liege and the bombing. Nothing more.” His smile turned into a scowl. “Anyway, since when is it
your
place to question
me
, young lady?” He took the swagger stick from under his arm and shook it in Eva’s face.

Eva set her jaw and glared at him. Then she turned on her heel and stormed away.

Henri followed a few steps, bellowing, “You come back here, Eva. Now!” She didn’t slow. “Eva, I won’t have it!” He clapped his palm with the stick, for emphasis. She kept going.

Henri tore the derby hat from his head and slapped it on his knee. He howled, “Pruvot, we’re leaving,” and off they went.

Crickette slept in the barn loft with Eva. She was helpful, pleasant, interested. And she was Eva’s shadow. A shadow whose every question seemed scripted, every interest feigned, and every move choreographed. For a couple of weeks Eva’s defense was caution. Finally she’d had enough.

That evening the girls were alone, listening to a BBC radio report on the failed July plot by dissident German army officers to assassinate Hitler with a bomb. Crickette put a hand on Eva’s shoulder. “I believed the Führer was a great man, Eva. Maybe he still is. But so many dead? So many Germans. I hate the war. Perhaps if he were gone, it could end. Can one man and his ideas be worth more than peace?”

Eva’s narrowed eyes went from Crickette’s face to the hand on her shoulder. “Crickette,” she scolded, “a spy who can’t deceive isn’t much of a spy. I know uncle’s put you here to gauge my commitment to the cause. He’d be dismayed at your clumsy work.” She pushed the hand away. “I know about commitment. About being willing to do anything for a cause. Believe me, there’s no one more willing than I am. Tell uncle, when it matters most, he shall see that.”

Two days later, Henri sent Pruvot to fetch Crickette.

The first days of September 1944 were like the hurricane’s eye—islands of relative quiet surrounded by swirling seas. Before had been the Germans’ tumultuous withdrawal under fire from the west. And after, the ferocious fighting in the river country up north, in the Hürtgen Forest below Aachen, and south of Luxembourg, at the fortifications around Metz. But in early September, with the Germans gasping for breath behind the Siegfried Line in Germany and the Allies waiting on the west side of the border for their outrun supply lines to catch up, the tide was slack. Like Eva’s emotions.

Kismet

Eva met U.S. Army Corporal Stanley Chandler on a bright September afternoon.

She’d ridden her bicycle to town for tinned meat and fruit being distributed by the Americans at the
Hôtel de Ville
. Eva picked up a small, olive-drab cardboard box labeled
U. S. Army
containing ten olive-drab cans. She pedaled through the village square, balancing the box on her handlebars. At the square’s edge, she passed the
Café de Pont Romain
and the three GIs sitting there, sipping beer at one of the outdoor tables.

As Eva passed by, the breeze swept her loose blond hair back and flitted her skirt above her knee. One of the GIs let a piercing wolf whistle fly, and she glanced at them.

Stan Chandler growled, “Jeeze, Barnes, didn’t your old lady teach ya manners?” He shoved the table, knocking Barnes and his chair over backward.

Eva giggled at the sight of the soldier, drunk she presumed, careening back in a splash of spilling beer. She pedaled on, past St. Marc and out of town.

Barnes was still on his back when Chandler jumped up. “Hey, did you see that tomato smilin’ at me!” He threw down some crumpled bills. “Beer’s on me, gents. I’m takin’ the jeep.
Adios amigos
.”

A kilometer outside town, as he came up on Eva, Stan was turning chicken.
Dumb clown. Makin’ a total ass of yourself! Well, you’re here now. Might as well give it a shot.

As his combat-pocked jeep slowed to pull even with Eva, Stan tipped his cap and said sheepishly, “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m powerful embarrassed for my partner’s manners back there. I’d feel a whole lot better if I could give you a lift to wherever you’re headed with that box of grub. Besides, you were supposed to get chocolate, too.” Stan took three Hershey Bars from his field jacket pocket and waved them.

Eva kept riding. “Thank you, but I am OK.” She smiled as she said it.
OK is such a sunny word. I like saying her—almost as much as her funny sister, Okey-dokey.

The smile encouraged Stan. “Ma’am, I knew you were OK from the second I laid eyes on ya. You’d be doin’
me
a favor lettin’ me run you wherever it is you’re headed.”

Eva stopped. She looked at the boyish face. The downy moustache. The earnest eyes. It was a good face. She was drawn to it. Then she recalled Uncle Henri’s decree when she’d seen him in July:
If they make it this far, get yourself an American or English boyfriend
. Eva remounted her bicycle and pedaled away. “Thank you for your nice offer, but I
will
be OK.” She looked back at the soldier. His puppy-dog eyes had lost their sparkle.

Stan had a feeling about this girl from the moment she spoke to him. A feeling that fate had decreed she’d be part of the rest of his life. Now it looked like memories of her was about as good as fate could do. He was just being honest when he called to Eva, “I’ll never forget you.”

Eva stopped. Hearing those four words, she felt fate throwing a railway switch in the track of her life. Smithwycke had said the same thing. The words swept her back to the moment he’d left in
Monsieur
Micheaux’s truck—the moment she knew her only chance was to make a new life. She had that chance again. Eva peered into the eyes of the boy. Those good eyes. She imagined a life, a new life, spent looking into eyes that honest, and she turned her bike around. “Can we carry my bicycle in the back of your car?”

It took Stan a moment to appreciate that it was more than a hypothetical question, then he grinned like a kid clutching a root beer float. “Oh, you betcha we can.”

When they got to the Ducoisie place, Stan asked, “Where can I put your bike?”

Eva pointed to the barn door. “Just inside there, if you please.”

She waited while Stan put the bike away. When he returned, she said, “Thank you for the riding.” She touched his arm. “And now I must go inside.”

Stan winced. He shifted his garrison cap from hand to hand.

Eva took a step then said over her shoulder, “If you would like it, you are welcomed to call on me Sunday afternoon.”

Stan lit up like Broadway neon. “Sunday afternoon? Hot doggies, I can do that.” He ran to Eva, took her hand, and shook it. “This Sunday, right?”

Eva had her chance. “Okey-dokey.”

Stan bounded off. He didn’t want to give her time to change her mind. He swung himself into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and spun the vehicle around. He tore out the drive, and Eva heard his “Wahoo!” as he raised his cap high in the air.

When she went inside,
Madame
Ducoisie was frothy as warm beer. “But you were riding with an American! Whatever they touch turns to gold.” It wasn’t clear if she thought that was wonderful or terrible. Then she noticed the box Eva held. “And what food have you brought?”

“Tins of meat and of apples, and King Midas sends these American chocolates for us.” There were three Hershey bars.

Madame
Ducoisie snatched a bar and ate it like a dog wolfs a pilfered pork chop. She called it “waxy,” but had another when Eva left to wash up. Except for Swiss chocolate Henri had brought once, a year earlier, this was the first she’d tasted since May of 1940.

Corporal Chandler came calling on Sunday with English toffees and coffee for
Madame
Ducoisie and a scarf for Eva. He had bought the Parisian silk that morning from another GI for three bucks.

Eva and Stan took a ride on that Golden Tail day. A day when the warmth of the sun makes leaves on the trees seem supple and content, perhaps even drunk, as they shimmer and dance on their arching boughs. A day when breezes lift milkweed seeds, gently floating them off to welcoming new stands. A day when old men say, “Ya know, maybe I’m not quite ready to be planted in that churchyard after all.” For Stan it was a day on which a young girl’s sweetness became an overwhelming intoxicant.