Violins of Autumn (8 page)

While I’m at it, satisfying my curiosity, there’s plenty I don’t know about the withdrawn pilot.

“If you’re only sixteen, how’d you get to be a pilot?” I ask.

“I lied about my age.”

So, the pilot and I have two things in common. We’re both Americans and we’re both liars.

“Then how’d you learn to fly a plane?”

“Crop dusting.”

No matter his age, his ability to fly impresses the heck out of me. He might not be winning any points with Denise, but he sure is with the girl who grew up admiring Amelia Earhart.

“Ever dream of soaring through the air like a bird? Does flying a plane feel like that? Is it ultimate freedom?”

“Sometimes.”

“Who was Bessie Lou, anyway?” I ask. “You said they killed her.”

“My plane.”

“You named your plane
Bessie Lou
?” I start to laugh. “
Bessie Lou
. It’s an unusual name for a plane, don’t you think? It isn’t very jazzy.”

“It’s my mother’s name.”

“Oh.” I stop laughing.

“You love your mum enough to paint her name on a plane,” Denise says, “but then you left her to run off and play war. Do you have any idea how she would feel if she never saw you again? Do you know how devastated she would be? You’re just a child.”

Trapped between their glares, I slowly wheel my bike forward out of the line of fire.

Denise isn’t much older than I am. I didn’t consider that my age might be an issue with her. If she finds out the truth, will she refuse to work with me? Will she turn me in to SOE headquarters?

I feel bad for the pilot. If not for him, it could be me on the receiving end of Denise’s anger.

Madame LaRoche warned us that her brother’s farm has become run down in the five years since his wife’s death, but that didn’t prepare me for what I see when we reach the end of his stone laneway. Curtains hang askew behind cracked windows, a graveyard of rusted metal litters the property, and a scrawny goat has free range of the yard, which is wildly overgrown in some places, chewed to the nub in others.

Denise says, “My mum would throw a wobbly if she saw the state of this place.”

“Bonjour!” The voice booms out of thin air, like the Wizard’s in Emerald City. I certainly feel as if a twister whisked me out of Kansas and deposited me in Oz.

We glance around, searching for the speaker’s hiding place.

“There he is, in the loft,” I say, with a triumphant smirk.

Denise snaps her fingers in defeat, putting her whole arm into it, the way my friend Sylvie used to, especially when I scored higher than her on a test.

We follow a worn path through the tall grass to the barn.

Madame LaRoche’s brother calls from above, “Who has sent you here?”

I crane my neck and stare straight up at the bulbous belly hanging over his pants. “Your sister, Claire.”

He leans forward to peer down at me, surprisingly steady with all that weight thrust out in front. He and his sister share a code phrase, and I forgot to give it to him.

“She said to tell you that the orchards are beautiful in bloom,” I say.

“That they are.” He reclines against the wooden frame. “I am Louis. I bid you welcome. You must be in need of food and rest.”

Denise and I peek at each other, apparently spooked by the same thought. We’ve heard nearly identical words before, spoken by Dracula in one of the most spine-chilling films of all time. The sun is sinking ever closer to the horizon, and we have to spend the night at the home of this chubby man who speaks like a blood-sucking, undead Count.

“Park those bicycles in the barn. Rat is around somewhere; he will help you with your things.” The rounded belly contracts and Louis bellows, “
Rat, où es-tu?
”

From around the corner of the barn, a wisp of a boy appears, silent and light on his feet, like a feather carried on a breeze. He must have been standing out of sight listening, the little sneak. A boy after my own heart.

“There you are, Rat. All is secure, I take it?”

Rat gives a vigorous little nod.

“Rat is from town,” Louis explains. “I pay him to watch for those German bastards. The boy is a damn fine warning system.”

Rat grins and blinks at us excessively.

“Bring your things up. Rat will help. He’s stronger than he looks.”

We enter the barn and I nearly keel over from the stench of goat droppings.

“
Mmmeeehhhhh!
”

In the hay-strewn stall next to my bike is a large brown-and-white goat with a flowing beard. Standing on his back, as if that’s the most natural place for him to be, is a baby goat. His back end is black, his front is white, and his face is a mix of the two. Just looking at him, I know he’s trouble.

Denise gently scratches him under the chin. “Oh, aren’t you darling.”

“
Mmmeeeehhhh!
”

Even goat kids sound like they’re complaining.

When our bikes are set at the side of the barn, Rat scurries around to take Denise’s suitcase. The pilot takes mine.

“Thank you—” Up to that point, I’ve been content to call him only Pilot.

He takes his time sparing me from further embarrassment. Finally he says, “Robbie.”

“Robbie. Thank you for taking my suitcase.”

“You’re welcome.”

The rickety wooden ladder creaks under his weight. “You should feel right at home here, Denise,” Robbie says. Near the top, he sets my suitcase on the floor of the loft and continues to climb. As his foot clears the last step, he adds, “Judging from your manners, I’d guess you were raised in a barn.”

The interior of Louis’s home looks nothing like the depressing pigsty outside. If not exactly clean, it’s tidy enough. By outward appearances, I would guess the house contains nothing of value. How wrong I’d be. When I bring that up at dinner and point to the gorgeous piano in the sitting room, Louis says, “Hopefully
the Germans will think like you, eh? Nothing to loot here, they will say.”

I think that’s pretty ingenious, but next to me Denise groans and continues to roll peas around her plate with her fork.

After dinner, she mumbles something about goats and then conveniently slips away while the rest of us clean up.

Louis puts water on the woodstove to heat, so I offer to wash the dishes.

“
Merci
, Adele,” he says. “I read people well. I can see you’re a good girl. The one out there, she’s a strange one.
Oui
?”

I smile. “Being strange comes in handy in our line of work. I think it’s a requirement.”

Excusing himself to finish chores for the day, Louis ambles to the front door. Once alone, Robbie and I stare around the kitchen, everywhere but at each other. I press my lips together, glaring at the kettle.

Robbie has a pleasant laugh. “What do you know, my mother was right. A watched pot never boils.” As he leaves the table, he asks, “Do you play the piano, Adele?”

“Yes, but poorly.”

He sits on the wooden piano bench. “Any requests?”

With a shrug, I say, “I don’t know. Play what you like.”

His interlaced fingers crack all at once. “Here’s something pretty.”

The notes fade into the background. I stare out the window. Laundry, dried crisp in the hot sun, sways on the line outside. Wood will have to be brought in. The kitchen needs a good sweeping. It’s the least we can do to repay Louis for his generosity.

On my way outside to find Denise, the piano melody strikes a chord in me.

I run to the parlor, saying, “I know that song. It’s ‘Someone to Care for Me,’ from the movie
Three Smart Girls
.”

Robbie’s fingers pause over the last keys he played. “You’re right, it is. Do you like that movie?”

In
Three Smart Girls
, three sisters living with their mother in Switzerland decide to run away to New York on an exciting and worldly adventure, to stop their father from marrying a scheming gold digger and get their parents back together.

“I love it,” I say. “Deanna Durbin, the girl who plays the youngest sister, she’s Winston Churchill’s favorite movie star. Did you know that?”

With a boyish grin, Robbie says, “You don’t say. She’s my sister Sarah’s favorite.”

Stashed away in a bottom dresser drawer at my aunt’s house is my collection of film memorabilia. Since my aunt knows Deanna Durbin is my favorite actress, topping even Judy Garland, she clipped her profile from a fan magazine for me.

“My aunt took me to a seven-day-long Deanna Durbin movie festival,” I say.

“Gosh, my sister would think she’d died and gone to heaven. She fancies herself Deanna’s long-lost twin. Sarah has a good singing voice and everything, but when she tries to reach high notes”—Robbie cringes through a smile—“dogs cover their ears.”

The thought of a regular girl copying Deanna’s operatic falsetto makes me laughingly cringe along with him. “Then why did you learn to play ‘Someone to Care for Me’?”

“It was my birthday gift to her one year. Let me tell you, people wanted to clobber me for that, but it sure made her happy.”

His thoughtfulness tugs at my heart.

“Robbie, that was very sweet of you.”

I lean against the wall to watch his long fingers trail through the keys. His talented playing seems so effortless, as if he were born to make music.

“Water is boiling, Adele!” Louis calls out from the middle of the kitchen, and I jump, more out of embarrassment than fright.

I ditch my lackadaisical grin and get to work.

Denise’s hand flops onto my face, obscuring my view of the full moon outside the open loft doors. I reposition her arm on her chest as she draws in another rumble. If I can withstand hours of her snoring, I can surely withstand torture and interrogation.

Next to me, Robbie stirs. “Adele. You awake?”

Denise didn’t take kindly to being told she was raised in a barn. She refused to sleep next to Robbie, which forced me to sleep wedged between them. Not that I mind. The warmest spot beneath the parachute is all mine.

“I’m awake,” I say.

For a while, Robbie lies still. Together we watch a hazy cloud cloak the moon.

“Did you want to talk?” I ask. The instant the offer is out of my mouth I make a face at the darkened loft beams.

“I saw Denise with her radio. I know you must be here on a mission of some sort, so I won’t ask you about it.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you American or Canadian? Can I ask that much?”

I like that he expects me to keep certain things about myself private. “I’m from Connecticut. What about you?”

“All over. Birmingham, Alabama, mostly.”

“You don’t sound southern,” I say, glancing at the soft curves of his moonlit profile.

I spot the hint of a smile as he says, “Like I said, I’ve lived all over.”

“Do you have any siblings, other than Sarah?”

He turns to look at me and his face fades into my shadow. “I have five older sisters. I’m the baby.”

The dead weight of Denise’s arm crashes down on my ribs. With a grunt she rolls onto her side, as if her subconscious is wrestling with her sleeping body to give Robbie a snappy comeback. I elbow her until she concedes and rolls the other way.

“Five sisters. That must have been hell.”

“Only when they forced me to dress up like a girl and play Amy whenever they reenacted
Little Women
.”

Giggling as quietly as possible, I say, “You had to play Amy? Why didn’t they let you be Laurie?”

“My sister Beth insisted on playing Laurie. Figure that one out. One of the March sisters had her very own name, but no sir, she had to be a boy. I had to pretend, dressed as a girl, to marry my own sister dressed as a boy.” His laugh is good-natured. “I believe the word that’s coming to your mind is
disturbing
.”

“No, not at all,” I say, and it’s Robbie’s turn to elbow me. “All right, it is a smidgen disturbing, but it was nice of them to include you. Don’t forget, Amy was the prettiest sister. Not many girls would be willing to give that role away.”

“I bet you would. You seem more like Jo.”

If there’s one character I hope to be like, it’s rebellious, outspoken Josephine March.

“I can’t decide.” I become aware of every poke and prick of the straw beneath me. “I might like to play Jo.”

The cloud finishes with the moon and moves on; two ships passing in the night.

“Denise was right.” Robbie’s breathing quickens. The parachute flutters when he turns away from me. A stream of cold air slips between us. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“You shouldn’t have come to France?”

“I shouldn’t have left home at all. My whole life, my sisters were so protective of me. I thought I could prove something to myself. How could I have been so stupid to believe I was brave enough?”

I smile at the back of his head in the hopes he can hear it in my voice. “I bet there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity. I wonder if any of us knew what all this would really be like.”

“Fellows from my squadron have been killed in action,” he says. “The night before my mission I got a real bad case of cold feet, thinking about that. I couldn’t sleep worth a darn. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to go back home. The sergeant came in to talk to me. By the time he left I was raring to go. I don’t know how they do it. They make you think you can do anything. Full steam ahead on the mission and you’d better believe you’re ready for it, even if you’re not.”

I understand completely. And I envy his freedom to talk about feelings I keep hidden.

“My first time out and I got shot down. This was to be an adventure. Meet some girls, get some kills. Go home and settle down with a family. I can’t stop thinking that I got myself into this mess. My birthday’s next month.” He sighs. “I’m not putting this right.”

He was nearly killed today with his seventeenth birthday within arm’s reach. Here I am, practically the same age only he doesn’t know it. The harsh reality he faced today resonates through me too.

“You’re putting it right,” I say.

“They tell you your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. Except after those rounds of flak hit, my first thought was that I should have eaten more of the good breakfast before final briefing. Then the plane went into a steep nosedive. I couldn’t pull up. I saw wheat fields, thick black smoke, and fire. I was in big trouble. And I wasn’t sure how to use my parachute. I prepared myself to die in that plane, Adele. I said good-bye—” He takes time to collect himself. “I said good-bye to my family.”