The next night, the boy’s mother invited Henry into the farmhouse for dinner. It was a pretty little stone cottage, wrapped in blossoms. By now the roses had erupted into a froth of pink flowers. Purple hollyhocks taller than Henry lined the walls. Each window had a flower box, overflowing with red geraniums. Blue swallows darted in and out of the eaves.
Inside, ancient, exposed log beams held up the low ceilings. The floors were stone. Delicate, hand-crocheted curtains flanked the windows. They were shuttered for the night but were wide and tall and could open like double doors to the outside. Henry could tell that during the day the house filled with cheery sunlight.
He assessed the lamp-lit kitchen. The dark wooden table amazed him. Eight feet long but only two feet wide, it clearly had been hand-lathed out of one piece of a massive tree many years before. Atop it sat a large handpainted vase stuffed with wildflowers. Everything looked spotless, even the copper pots that brightly reflected the light of the fire.
For the first time, Henry felt ashamed of his appearance. He’d only been able to wash his clothes twice during the past few weeks. His straight, blond hair was now long, dirty, and uncombed. He even had a hint of a patchy golden beard and moustache on his chin and upper lip. He looked sheepishly at the boy’s mother. She smiled reassuringly and motioned him over to a ceramic pitcher and bowl where he could wash his hands. He scrubbed his face and neck, too. The soap, though, was little more than lard. It made only a small dent in his grime.
Henry stood awkwardly in a corner and watched the mother cook at the huge open fireplace. A small oven had been built into the side of the hearth, but Henry could tell she did a large portion of her cooking in a black kettle hanging over the fire itself. Must be awfully hot work, he thought. He remembered how thrilled his own mother had been when they finally replaced their wood stove with an electric one. She used to wear herself out feeding the fire of that old thing with shucked corncobs and kindling Henry had picked up around the farm.
Ma. Henry had tried not to think much about home; it always made him go wobbly inside. He’d been so all-fired hot to get out and see the world. All he wanted to see now was that sunny kitchen of white cabinets and sweet smells.
The boy’s mother hummed quietly as she stirred the pot. The sound threw Henry all the way back to Richmond, to the last time he’d been home, on leave right before being shipped across the ocean.
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” had been playing on the radio. Henry had turned it way up, whooping out the bebopping lyrics with the Andrews Sisters: “Come on, Ma, dance with me,” he’d said, grabbing his mother and twirling her around.
Lilly followed his moves, sliding her feet and sashaying quickly.
“This is a pretzel, Ma,” Henry said as he guided her under his arm and tried to twist them out of the resulting knot. “A gal from the USO taught me.”
Lilly kept getting stuck somewhere in the middle of the manoeuvre. The two laughed and laughed. “That’s what you get for trying to dance with an old woman,” Lilly had said, pushing him away playfully.
Henry caught her up in a hug and looked down on her head, her own honey-coloured hair was just beginning to grey. “You’re only forty, Ma. Besides, I’ll always love you, even if you can’t jitterbug.”
Henry’s eyes clouded up at the memory and he rubbed them with embarrassment. He caught the boy’s mother watching him. “Something’s in my eye,” he muttered. He nudged the table leg with his shoe and shoved his hands into his pockets.
Smiling again, the boy’s mother reached out and squeezed Henry’s arm.
“Que fait-il ici?” a voice growled. It was the grandfather, staggering through the door supported by the boy.
The mother let go of Henry and answered the old man, saying something about Henry living with the cows long enough. “Il peut retourner à la grange après.”
Henry edged towards the door. The grandfather was clearly not happy about his being inside the house. The last thing he wanted to do was cause trouble. But the boy reassured him, “Maman a dit okay.”
Henry sat down beside the boy. “Merci beaucoup, Madame. It smells,” Henry paused to close his eyes and sniff appreciatively, “wonderful…merveilleux.”
She smiled, pleased, and set his plate before him. She had cooked the rabbit meat in wine and finished it with cream and its own blood. The plate also held a large fritter of potato and onion.
“La spécialité de Maman,” whispered the boy.
The grandfather humpfed and spoke again in sour terms, “Je te jure, Marie, il va nous apporter de la malchance.”
Henry turned red. He could tell the grandfather had said he was bad luck.
The mother ignored the remark. She took Henry’s and the boy’s hands to say grace. “Bon appétit,” she concluded.
Each bite melted in Henry’s mouth. The food was rich and warm and delicious. He savoured the taste. He basked in the warmth of the kitchen. He smiled and nodded and attempted conversation. He felt like a human being, not a hunted, hiding thing. He was a guest in a household that, for the most part, seemed to like him. Lord, it felt good.
There was even dessert, a tiny rectangular cake strewn with almonds and a drizzle of honey. Each person had an inch-thick, two-inch-long slice. Henry knew how precious all the ingredients had been. He didn’t know how he could ever thank her, for the meal, for his safety, for her kindness this night. He said the first thing that came into his head, “This is heaven, Madame.”
She looked at him quizzically. Henry pointed skyward. “Heaven…mmm… Dieu maison? God’s home?”
“Aaaah,” the boy and his mother murmured. “Le paradis.” They smiled and nodded. The grandfather scowled.
In that moment of peace came a hurried knock-knock-knock…pause…knock-knock. The mother’s smile froze. Her face turned ashen. She put her fingers to her lips, then pointed to Henry, to the boy, and then to the back door. She hurriedly cleared their plates from the table so that it looked as if just she and the old man were there for dinner. She waited until they had exited and pressed themselves to the shadows of the outside wall before she opened the front door.
An urgent male voice sounded through the cottage. “Les Boches nous ont découverts! Partez, vite!” The door slammed shut.
“Nazis,” whispered the boy.
His mother reappeared. She knelt to take her son by his shoulders and spoke hurriedly. The boy was to head for the hills with Henry immediately. She would need to get the horse to carry his grandfather. “Je te verrai à…”
The sound of a distant machine gun stopped her short. The Germans must have found the man who had warned her. “Mon Dieu.” She grabbed Henry’s arm. “Mon fils, s’il vous plaît. La grange.”
The barn. Henry knew what to do.
“Non, non, Maman!” The child clung to her. “Je ne veux pas partir!”
Henry picked him up. The boy struggled to hold on to his mother.
“Je t’aime, mon chéri,” his mother covered the boy’s face with kisses. “Vis pour moi.” Live for me, she told him. She tore herself away and vanished into the house.
Henry raced for the barn, the boy sobbing. He raced as if all the devils of hell were after him.
Henry half carried the boy up the hayloft ladder. He still fought and cried for his mother. “You must be quiet,” Henry urged him, “pour ta maman. If they find you, they will use you to hurt her. Shhhh, now.”
The child quietened.
Henry yanked open the hiding closet and dropped the boy in. He repeated what the boy had first said to him: “I will be back for you. Je reviendrai. Je te promets. Trust me. D’accord?”
The boy nodded.
“No sound. No matter what you see out that hole. Tu comprends?”
Tears streamed down his face, but he nodded.
Henry closed the door. Quietly and quickly, he used his entire body to sweep hay over top it. The pile must be huge and look undisturbed. Within seconds, a golden heaping wall of hay obliterated the child’s hiding place.
Henry heard car doors slam, men shouting, one crackling gunshot. Who had fired? Who was dead? Where could he hide?
Henry frantically slid down the ladder. The cows were wandering into their stalls from the back door. How weird, Henry thought fleetingly, that they’d keep to their routine as their owners’ world came to an end. Wait a minute. The cows! Henry had an idea.
He squeezed in with one of the cows, which was blissfully chewing hay from a manger attached to the wall. There was just enough room for Henry to slide up underneath the manger and nearly disappear.
Careful to not spook the cow and give himself away, Henry crawled into place. He packed fistfuls of hay in with him. He prayed that the cow wouldn’t eat too fast. Then he flattened himself into the dirt and manure.
The door to the barn rolled open loudly. Flashlight beams darted along the walls. “Fouillez-la.”
Henry’s skin crawled when he heard the French command. French Vichy police were leading the arrest. Or maybe it was the Milice, the French version of Hitler’s Gestapo, just as cruel and fanatically anti-Jewish. Maybe someone she knew had turned the boy’s mother in – motivated by jealousy, maybe to collect a reward. If the informant had been someone she knew, the Milice might know to look for the boy. There had been no time to find the Sten gun. All Henry had to protect himself and the boy was the knife the guide had given him weeks ago. It would be of little use.
Please, God. Please, don’t let them find us. Please. Henry squeezed his eyes shut and silently prayed harder than ever.
He heard the sound of a cautious footfall. Henry’s eyes popped open. He could see regulation shiny boots stepping into his stall. This must be a Nazi, a Nazi with a rapid-firing gun and a good reason to kill an American pilot. Henry suppressed the urge to jump up and run. Easy. He locked himself in place. Don’t move, don’t breathe.
The spit-shiny boots came closer, closer. Henry could have reached out and touched their pristine toes.
“Verflucht!” the soldier cursed. He lifted his foot to look at the sole of his boot. “Kuhdung!” He swore again. The boots backed out.
Henry praised God for slimy cow manure.
But his sense of relief was short-lived. He heard men climb up the ladder. The hayloft creaked with their weight. Don’t move, boy, Henry tried to throw his thoughts to the child. Don’t make a sound. Please, God, don’t let him cry out.
Henry heard bayonets stab through the hay, the sound of men kicking it. Had Henry piled it thick enough?
The sounds stopped. Did they find the door? Impulsively, Henry started to squirm out from under. But then he heard a Frenchman shout: “Rien!”
Nothing. They’d found nothing! Thank you, God.
There was more tramping, more light beams skittering along the walls and ceilings. Then silence. The men had left.
For a long time Henry could hear banging, shouting, and things being thrown about in the farmhouse. They must be searching the place for a radio or weapons to incriminate the mother, he thought. Then Henry heard car doors slam again, motors starting. Finally all sounds disappeared. He forced himself to count the seconds by one thousands – one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand – all the way up to sixty, five times over, before he’d budge. Then he slid out from the manger and kissed the cow’s head.