That night they enjoyed a relatively large dinner that Bertrand had insisted they create from the stores left by Rolf.  “Our guest needs to be reminded that France can be a place of charm and good company, else he forgets for what he fights, eh?”

The candlelight and the darkness, combined with the quantity of food in their small, pinched stomachs, relaxed everyone.  Claire Marie reluctantly rose from the table and reached for the very drowsy Bridgette.

“Come, Petite, let Mamma take you to bed.”

Caje pushed his chair away from the table.  “Let me, Claire Marie.”

“It is okay, Paul.  I do it every evening.  You are still recovering.”

“I hardly think carrying that small child will impede my recovery.”

Bridgette finally was tucked in by her mother, and Claire Marie returned to the kitchen and sat back down at the table.  The conversation was stilted at first without the distraction of the child running around.  Caje inquired about the way back to Allied lines, and Bertrand answered to the best of his ability.  The older man did not dwell, though, on the situation.  Rather, he purposefully continued to pour the wine and provide a jovial lubricant to what soon became livelier conversation with his continuous sly observations about everything from Petian’s relationship with the Germans to the town grocer’s wife, who continued to remain obese despite food rations.

Caje noted that the barbs were sharp enough to generate laughs, but always tempered by an added kind word and smile, as though the eccentricities and foibles of others were merely a small part of their persons that did not distort their true worth.  A kind man was Bertrand, much like his own uncle, Caje decided -- the type from whom you could always seek advice, knowing that truths would be given, but with care.

After nearly an hour, Claire Marie stood and started to remove the dishes.  Caje began to gather the utensils.

“Stay still, young man.  Let the mother do it.  I have some fine brandy a patient gave me in appreciation of relieving him of his appendix, and I have been keeping it to celebrate liberation.  I think the first appearance of an Allied soldier -- not to mention another man in the house -- is a good occasion to break it open for a sample, don’t you?”

Caje smiled at the invitation and at the twinkle in the old man’s bright blue eyes.  “I believe the Allies were here several days ago, Msr. Bertrand.”

“And I believe I may have gone ahead and opened that brandy.  Your men had better hurry back, or the rest of it won’t make it to the liberation.  Besides, you will need a little fortitude for some of the exercises I am going to show you for that wound.”

While the men talked over the liqueur, Claire Marie stole upstairs to check on her daughter.  Bridgette was nestled comfortably in her blankets, still dressed.  Claire Marie no longer put her in nightclothes, always ready to flee.

Claire Marie then walked over to the bureau and pulled out a brush.  The moonlight did not provide enough light to discern her reflection in the cracked mirror perched precariously atop the chest as she unpinned the knot in her hair, but she quickly and deftly ran the brush through her loose curls until sparks jumped out into the dark room.  Then she poured a small amount of the water from the glass beside the American’s bed onto a cloth and wiped her face.  She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, trying to bring some color to them.  She debated about slipping on her usual evening attire of pants and shirt, but decided against it.  Not yet -- and then laughed at herself as she picked up the glass to take it downstairs to refill.

She was, she decided, acting like a schoolgirl with a crush.  And on someone who witnessed that embarrassing incident with Rolf this afternoon!  Furthermore, though he had tried to disguise it, Paul had appeared somewhat shocked when Bertrand had casually mentioned her mother’s profession.  For some reason, the fact that Paul now knew that her mother was a courtesan -- albeit a rather famous one -- disturbed her.  It usually did not.  It was just the way things were and did not affect how her mother had loved her.  As she herself loved Bridgette, and would do anything for her.

Well…  Claire Marie recalled the conversation with Rolf.  …almost anything.

Still, her evening spent in Paul’s company at least let her know she was alive and capable of feeling something…even if Paul had made it quite clear after that scene what he thought of her.  His impeccable manners had slid back into place, leaving him with that veneer that was both charming and untouchable.

Nevertheless, her artist’s eye had been drawn to his angular features while her mind reveled in the tales of life in America he spun out for her Uncle.  She learned that Paul had worked in the Texas oilfields right before joining the Army -- a place he made sound both like something out of the movies about the wild American west and her own beloved Left Bank with its cast of characters improbable and amusing.

He was also well educated.  This she had guessed, but he confirmed it in answer to her Uncle’s direct question about his language abilities.  Boarding school in Charleston, and then prep school and college in Quebec -- his family must be wealthy.  But how sad for a child to be sent away, Claire Marie thought and cast a look over at the quiet form on the bed before she went downstairs to rejoin the others.

As she approached the kitchen, it was Paul she heard protesting as Uncle tried to dissuade him from finishing the clean up from dinner.

“I’m used to cleaning up after myself.”

“Sit down, boy.  You need to be resting.  Have some more brandy.”

“No more, Monsieur!  I want to have some of my senses about me, as well as we all should.”

“Yes, yes -- I know.  But occasionally we need to forget, or at least enjoy ourselves.  Though that line hasn’t been working on Louisa, either.”  Bertrand looked up and gave Claire Marie a big wink.

“Oh, don’t tell me you are losing your touch, Uncle!”

“No, but you young people are in danger, I fear, of losing yours in all this nonsense!”

“Well, I have to assume it’s Paul I have to thank for doing this clean up.  Why don’t you both retire like proper men to the parlor while the woman drudges along and puts things away and brings in the water.”

Bertrand smiled and grabbed the bottle of brandy.  “Nothing I love more than a woman who knows her place, Paul LeMay.  Come and let me take a look at that shoulder.”  His voice took on a serious tone.  “It may be painful, but you need to start doing some stretching of that scar tissue before it sets too tight.  I saw many men from the last war who had lingering issues that could have been prevented with a little thought on the part of their doctors.  I’m sure there will be many more such men from this war, but not among those whom I treat.”

Caje looked at Claire Marie who, with a nod of her head, urged him to go down the hallway.  As he turned to follow Bertrand, he decided maybe it was better to remove himself from her presence.  The fact was that being around her disturbed him.

All evening, in the comfortable warmth of the kitchen, he could not stop looking at Claire Marie.  Not that there was much else to look at anyway.  But rather than the polite conversation he had vowed to stick to during the remainder of his stay, he constantly found himself responding to her animated, astute banter and being drawn in by her face in the glow of the candlelight.

She had, he decided, the type of beauty that crept up on you.  Once you were aware of it, it took your breath away, making you anxious to catch the curve of her cheek when she turned her head, or to study her not-quite-right nose set in her otherwise perfectly symmetrical features.  He could not stop staring…

Actually, the prospect of the thought-diffusing pain that Bertrand was promising was not unwelcome.  He didn’t want to continue thinking -- about anything or anyone.  At least that was one good thing about the battlefield -- there wasn’t too much time on his hands for idle thought.

****

From the kitchen, Claire Marie listened but did not hear any complaints from the American as Uncle took him through some exercises in the parlor, explaining all the while the importance of maintaining dexterity and limberness.  She knew from personal experience how painful this type of thing could be, and remembered hearing the same lectures from Uncle as she sat sweating from the exertion of moves she once took for granted.  Of course, she never had the comfort of a considerable amount of wine and brandy to numb the pain…

She heard the men finish up and then go outside.  Paul had asked Uncle earlier for a tour of the compound so he could get a little better lay of the area around the house.  It was a sensible idea, Claire Marie knew, but maybe not optimal at this time of night.

The thought of some fresh air to clear her own head, though, was appealing.  She didn’t relish the idea of going up to bed and taking a chance on spoiling a wonderful evening by having to talk about Rolf when Paul came back in.  If she waited a bit longer, perhaps Paul would be asleep by the time she went upstairs.

As she finished wiping the table -- Louisa would be incensed enough to find out how much food and wine they had consumed this evening; she didn’t need to come home to mess in her kitchen -- Claire Marie listened for their return.  When she heard the front door open and close, she sighed in relief.

Bertrand called softly, “Good night, sweet girl” from down the hallway.  Claire Marie took the water pitchers from the kitchen and slipped out the back door into the wet chill of the autumn night.

****
Out in the darkness, on a fallen timber near the remains of the barn, Caje sat and enjoyed a second cigarette from the pack of Lucky Strikes that Bertrand had produced from a treasured store left behind by the Americans.  Caje had wanted a few moments outside to clear his head since it wouldn’t do to find additional places to hide from the Krauts if he were too wooly-headed this evening to wake.

It was more than that, though, and Caje knew it.  He wanted to wait until Claire Marie was asleep before he went up to the loft they shared.  He didn’t want her to again try to offer an explanation of what he had witnessed this afternoon.  Whatever it was, he could not imagine it not spoiling the first comfortable, almost home-like evening he had experienced since Theo’s death.

Theo...

Caje ground the remains of his cigarette out almost angrily.  He still could not understand why Theo was gone and he was alive.

It was from Theo, indirectly, that he had gained the nickname “Caje,” and it had stuck.  Before that, he had been Paul Alexander Armand LeMay, the only child of Armand and Angelina LeMay, who had been separated since Paul was nine.  His father, Armand, was a very astute and successful New Orleans business man who had pulled himself up from the impoverishment into which his old and revered Creole family had fallen.  By the time Paul was nearly 10, Armand had already amassed a small fortune in the oil business in the swamps of Louisiana, and was starting to expand into east Texas, as well as diverging into real estate in New Orleans and Charleston, where a number of relatives lived.

Paul’s early childhood had been spent in the heart of New Orleans, in a decaying antebellum city house set amidst the small, walled gardens once so popular.  The garden had a front lawn with an iron fountain that never worked but that caught and held rainwater and was a source of hours of amusement for the small boy.  With his mother and Missy during the long hot days of childhood -- his father worked ‘round the clock and arrived home for dinner often after the little boy had gone to bed -- Paul had been perfectly content.

Armand, however, was not.  He had gotten to where he was by hard work, as well as some dubious dealings, yet together they were not enough, in his mind, to return the family to the social status to which it belonged.  So when Paul was nine, Armand paid a princely sum to the Church to have his marriage to the beautiful Angelina annulled, and he married Therese Gould.  He had married Angelina when they were both very young and he believed that her Cajun origins would not matter.  But as they grew older and his ambitions grew greater, he came increasingly to believe that all his efforts to return the family to its former status were thwarted by Angelina, rather than any personal defects of his own.

Cajuns in Louisiana were starting to be singled out by the government for their lack of integration in the rest of white American culture, and various programs were instituted to eliminate the French-originated dialect they spoke among themselves.  The old Creole families around New Orleans began to separate themselves from their Cajun neighbors, ignoring the recent past and the cultural bonding that had taken place since the Civil War.  Instead, they clung tighter to their “pure” French origins, and started reviving some of the social separateness that had been their standard before the war.  Angelina’s low class accent, lack of traceable ancestry and, perhaps, her original vocation -- though they had tried to keep that a secret -- embarrassed Armand in his ascent back up the social ladder.

However, he was rather fond of the boy, and had ambitions, and was determined to raise and educate him as a gentleman, even if Therese produced additional heirs.  Therefore, young Paul was sent in the fall of 1930 from the comfortable, old house that had been home to a strict Catholic boarding school in Charleston that prided itself on both its continuous emphasis on classical French education and discretion.  His childhood was virtually over, and the mother who had rocked him to sleep with the sweet lullabies she had grown up with deep in the bayous neither visited nor wrote.  It was as if she had never existed, and no satisfactory explanation was offered.  After a while, Paul stopped asking his father about her, since Armand at first offered improbable placations, then later answered gruffly, “I told you.” He also stopped asking the household help, who turned away sadly from the small boy.

It was a difficult period for Paul, but to those on the outside, it did not appear to last long.  At school, he was initially teased and bullied -- because of his muddled accent, because he cried quietly in the night, because he was small, and because he was soon at the top of his class.  But he was a well-muscled boy and good at most sports, and after he bloodied the noses of several bullies, he gained a reputation for having a quick temper and doling out swift and effective retaliation that earned him a wide berth and a measure of respect.  By the time he returned to New Orleans for the Christmas holidays with his new, unattractive but well-connected stepmother and his father, he had grown two inches and lost all traces of the Cajun accent he had inherited from his mother.  Missy, who remained with the family despite her personal grief over the loss of a mistress who had treated her more as a friend than an employee -- very unlike the new lady of the house -- also grieved over the loss of the child she had known.  But Armand was delighted, and appeared to have no qualms about proudly presenting the son of the woman he no longer acknowledged as his wife to the social connections he valued so highly.

After finishing boarding school in Charleston, Paul went on to prep school in Quebec, where he earned the reputation of being an all around reliable young man.  A natural skier, good scholar, and a relatively popular student -- despite being too self contained to make close friends -- he was often the recipient of last minute invitations to fill in at holidays and other adventurous outings.

Returning home, though, was invariably difficult.  The truth was that his place in the house remained ambiguous, despite Therese’s inability to produce the socially correct male heir that Armand desired.  The addition of a half sister did ease the visits somewhat, as Paul was fond of the small, pretty young girl.  But he felt sorry for her being brought up in the house with the cold Therese once Missy left.  And Armand’s embarrassing pride and superficial interest were overwhelming.

It was not all terrible, though.  Word spread around the correct circles that the LeMay boy, despite the distinct disadvantage of his birth, was not only good looking and possessed the correct accent that any true Creole mother desired, but was also perfectly presentable given the fact that Armand now seemed determined to make him his heir.  Therefore, if anyone needed a spare date?  The invitations started piling up as soon as he arrived home for term breaks.  Debutante balls, Magnolia balls, sweet sixteen balls -- parties where the family names read off like a “who’s who” of Southern French-descended culture.  Boarding and prep school had stood him in good stead, and he was able to smile, be attentive, and dance until the wee hours, generally acquitting himself to everyone’s satisfaction.

He, himself, took some small satisfaction in conquering a few of the well-chaperoned maidens.

But it all seemed like play-acting.  He was who he was, with no illusions to his background or breeding.  Occasionally, he returned to school early, or left Armand’s home before the term break ended, in order to slip away to the swamps of Louisiana without his father’s knowledge.  With the help of Missy, with whom he had maintained a sporadic correspondence -- her writing skills were minimal -- he had located Angelina. 

She lived near her family on Lake Ponchetrain, not far from the Cane River.  When he visited her, various uncles and cousins -- whose relationships to Paul were always rather obscure to him -- helped him develop a love of the wild, gloomy swamps and forests of his mother’s people.  His innate survival skills blossomed in the primeval land of his forefathers, and he learned to canoe, to hunt, and to find his way through the bracken and shifting earth of the region.  Here he was accepted without reservation, despite his inappropriate clothes, his upper class French, and his education.

However, the time he spent with his mother was always somewhat stilted, though he could sense Angelina’s absolute love for the son she had had to give up.  It was a subject they had not broached directly, since Paul’s natural reticence seemed to have come from his mother’s side, and neither at first had wanted to take a chance on destroying their budding relationship.  But when Paul tired of the occasional whispers he heard during the whirl of New Orleans social activities and he could no longer ignore the sotto voice comments of Therese -- who barely hid her disapproval of Armand’s continuing close relationship with his son -- he finally asked Angelina about herself.  When his mother did not try to deny her son’s embarrassed probes, nor did she apologize, Paul fled back to college without even undertaking his scheduled visit to Armand.

He lasted only another week at the university, feeling that he could not face his classmates when his mother’s secret might somehow have even traveled across the border to Canada.  He ran off to a seminary nearby, run by a Jesuit priest from New Orleans who had befriended him during his first year in Quebec, and remained among the priests for one month, contemplating joining the order.  That is, until his Uncle Bere made his first direct intercession in Paul’s life.

It was Bere who both saved him from his misguided attempt to lose himself in the seminary and then, a year later, from the dissolute life he spun into upon his forced return to college.  Paul had not been in contact with his father in over twelve months, since the disastrous visit to his mother, and was taking minimal courses toward the completion of his degree, spending most of his time on the ski slopes, scraping class fees and room and board together from intermittent work as a ski instructor.  He would accept neither letters nor money from Armand.

Bere showed up unexpected at the boarding house, sitting quietly on Paul’s bed in the semi-gloom of the boy’s room, unseen at first as Paul stumbled in tipsy from an afternoon spent in one of the local establishments with a mixed group of acquaintances from the college and a nearby resort.  Paul, after his initial surprise over seeing Bere, was struck as he always was by the total contrast between his uncle and his father.

Whereas Paul’s father remained trim, nearly austere, as he grew older -- emphasizing his patrician good looks -- Bere gave in to his love of good food and wine, and it showed.  His easy-going demeanor endeared him to all, but his business acumen was not on a par with that of his younger brother.  Luckily, Bere had married into one of the oldest and wealthiest of Charleston families, and still treasured his small, bright wife after nearly thirty years of wedlock.  At this point in his life, having overcome his early impoverishment, survived the Great War, and married his best friend, his only regret was that their one son, five years younger than Paul, continued to create problems due to his dissolute ways and drinking.  Perhaps as a result of this, he was greatly saddened by the estrangement between his brother and his only nephew, and he decided to intervene before the damage became irreparable to Paul.

Bere offered him a job - or rather informed Paul that he would be taking it.  The employment involved managing one of Bere’s new oil concerns in East Texas, and it would be rough since the site, like many in East Texas in the early forties, was a rollicking anarchy.  A large number of Louisiana’s Cajuns had migrated to East Texas, both because of their familiarity with the work -- the bayous had been producing oil since the turn of the century -- and to escape the governmental persecution of their culture.  With their long hours, their unfamiliarity with the terrain, and their separation from their families, the men were living in a community whose social fabric had broken down, leaving towns and settlements that resembled the Wild West of old -- but where the cowboys often punctuated their sentences with bayou patois.

Paul accepted his Uncle’s offer without comment.  He cared for the old gentleman and still remembered fondly the weekend leaves in Charleston that he had spent being pampered and fussed over by Bere and Annabelle.  And the emptiness of his existence was a concern of his own.  It was one thing to punish Armand for, well, for everything, but he really had no desire to lose himself in the process.  Besides, Paul found the idea of Armand being daily tortured by his son’s very proximity to everything he had tried to disavow rather amusing.

So he moved to a small drilling camp near Port Arthur, Texas in the summer of ‘41.  The heat was a startling contrast to the climate of Quebec, and the bordellos and roughnecks were starkly opposite the rarified spires and students of the university town.  His initial adjustment was hampered not only by his position as an assistant to the tough site supervisor, but also by his name.  Unfortunately, his father’s well known turbulent relationship with Governor Long, along with Armand’s service on several advisory boards of the Standard Oil Company, brought the LeMay name and fortune into prominence.  The connection was inescapable.

After six months, Paul had decided that no matter how hard he worked and how much satisfaction he gained from it, his success would never make up for the sense of belonging he felt he lacked.  He was neither Creole, nor Cajun, nor “American”.  The men of the town saw him as the boss’s nephew and, because of his father, one of the gentry with nothing in common with the majority of Louisiana ex-pats.  The few managers of the place, largely Creoles or whites themselves, knew through the rumor mill of his estranged relationship with his parents and some variation on the reason why.  Therefore, they, like their linesmen, kept him at arms length.  Until that fateful day in October, when he met Theo.

He was out on one of the new rigs to watch what the crew hoped was the final push through to a large reserve.  Once the drilling had started, it had been nearly continuous for forty eight hours, and the men were getting tired.  Someone, and it was never ascertained in the aftermath who, forgot to apply the hourly lubricant to the gear housing.  Running full throttle in the heat, which continued to push 95 degrees due to a late westerly front, the drill’s gears swelled dangerously as friction continued to build between them.  In a millisecond, the men’s excitement over the potential breakthrough to a new supply of oil turned to horror as one of the gears jammed and caused a lightening fast reaction in the drill that ended with one of its connecting chains snapping loose due the sudden halt of its driving machinery.  The six inch wide, free swinging chain -- extended to twice its normal length after the break -- decapitated two men standing near the shaft.  A third dove to the grimy floor of the housing. 

Without thinking, Paul grabbed one of the nearby four by sixes left over from the construction of the platform and lunged it forward, nearly tripping because of its weight and his haste.  The chain wrapped itself momentarily around the wood before snapping the timber in two like a toothpick.

Paul felt a searing pain in his side and toppled to the floor.  The man who had been trapped, observing the slowed momentum of the runaway chain, seized the opportunity to slide himself off the edge of the platform and drag Paul to safety with him.  Immediately they were surrounded by the crew who had watched the scene unfold.  Paul was rushed in his own car to the camp medical building, conscious, but in shock.  There, the six inch gash in his side was stitched and his broken ribs bound, and he was placed in one of three sickbeds to allow the ribs to begin to set.

That night, despite the painkillers given by the on site doctor, he experienced the first of the horrible nightmares that would continue to plague him for the rest of his life.  The crewmen’s heads, rolling away from their bodies, danced through senseless dreams over and over again until he awoke late in the morning, covered in a cold sweat.

“Cher, I thought you would never wake.  Makes for the bad night, huh?”

The young man who he had rescued was sitting next to him, smoking a cigarette and drinking chicory coffee.  Paul had seen him around the camp and knew him by name, though he had never had occasion to interact directly with him.  However, from that day forward Theo Gautier adopted Paul, forcing him out to the local saloons as soon as he was able to stand and bear the pain of his grinding ribs.

Theo prefaced his initial introductions of Paul to his friends and coworkers as, “Cher, this is the man who saved my life,” as though no one in the camp or those nearby had ever seen or heard of Paul Alexander Armand LeMay.  He forestalled anyone’s objections to the presence of the owner’s nephew, a Creole, one of the “bosses,” by his own sheer force of will, and soon the two were a constant duo, creating a swath of broken hearts through the eligible -- and some ineligible -- women in the region and participating in a whirl of social activities that Paul had no knowledge of before meeting Theo.

Paul enjoyed Theo’s company, not just for the break in the loneliness he had experienced since leaving Quebec, but also because the young Cajun had a dry sense of humor, an incredible capacity to enjoy the moment, and, surprisingly, a very astute business mind. 

Theo enjoyed hanging around Paul since, even in the crude camp environment, he unwittingly opened up a whole new world to the backwoods Cajun.  Paul subscribed to the New York papers and magazines, liked fine wines, and, when drinking, would occasionally regale Theo with stories of balls, college, and a whole other way of life of which Theo had only dreamed.  Theo also found it incredibly amusing that the quiet Paul had a quick and hot temper which could be triggered in certain ways that Theo quickly learned, so that he could bait his friend whenever he was bored.

With the gathering storm clouds of war in Europe, production quotas at the camps were pushed higher and higher.  Within a year, Theo was camp crew leader and Paul an influential manager, and the business became one of the most profitable concerns in Bere’s East Texas operation.

One of the few sources of friction in the two friends’ business and social relationship reared its head after the men attended a raucous fais do-do over in Port Arthur one Friday night.  Theo, who had been exceptionally well behaved following his promotion, had had more than his usual quota of liquor, and was frustrated by his lack of success with several young ladies.  Dragging a protesting Paul outside -- Paul having been enjoying a waltz with a shy wallflower he had asked to dance out of sympathy, but who proved to be an exceptional dancer -- Theo announced that they were going to go where girls knew what men needed and there was not une cage aux chiens.  He was fifteen yards down the street before he noticed that his friend was not following.

Theo had been through this several times already with Paul, who had made it clear that he did not engage in that sort of activity, though he never elucidated on the reason why.  This time, however, Theo was spoiling for a fight.  He had been argumentative and anxious the entire day, to the point that Paul had almost stayed behind at the camp to catch up on the books.  At the last minute, however, Theo had wheedled him into driving them the two hours into Port Arthur.

Theo turned and walked slowly back toward Paul.  “Cher, you’ll hang out with us, but not go to a Cajun bordello, eh?  With your high-class accent, your fine Creole family in New Orleans, and your too-good-for-us airs.  Go on back to camp and be alone.  See if I care.”  Abruptly, he turned to walk away again and glanced over his shoulder to deliver a final slurred salvo.  “If I were as high and mighty as you, I would do something with that fine education and not waste it here with us Cajuns -- I would be anywhere but here, Cher!”

Paul quickly strode the few feet between them and spun the larger man around.  “You know why I won’t go with you.”  He was breathing deeply, and Theo, usually more sensitive to his friend’s temperament, did not heed the warning signs.

“Ah, it’s not like it’s your mother…”

He did not finish the sentence as Paul’s fist connected with his mouth, sending him sprawling despite their nearly thirty pound weight difference.

“Don’t you ever mention my mother again.”

Theo wiped the blood from his mouth with his shirtsleeve.  His ears were still ringing from the blow, but he felt more sober and looked up ruefully at his friend.  He spoke softly.

“If you want to be ashamed of something, don’t let it be Angelina.”

Paul started at his mother’s name.

“Cher, everyone knows your mother.  Not,” he added hastily as Paul’s eyes glittered, “in the way you think.  The bayous are small in many ways.  If you want to be ashamed of something, be ashamed of what we are doing here…”

“What do you mean?”  Paul grabbed Theo’s arm, both to help him up and to keep him from turning away and not explaining his remark. Then he used it for support as Theo explained what everyone around the camp had been shielding him from for the past several months.

The series of upgrades and then shutdowns as the crews waited for parts and machinery had all been ordered by his father.  Rumors were flying that Armand LeMay and several of his Standard Oil cronies were making a killing from profiteering, both by selling “drip,” or black market crude, and by helping the OPA to hike up the prices it set via an organized slowdown in production.

“But this is not my father’s concern,” Paul protested.  “It’s my uncle’s!”

“Open your eyes, LeMay!  Your uncle acts only as a front for your father.  Read the papers -- the editorials from the home papers you use for starting fires.  If you want to be ashamed of something, be ashamed of someone who uses people.  He used your mother, he uses your uncle, he uses us...”

Theo straightened, shook his head to clear it, and his eyes softened as he looked at his friend of two years.  “Cher, I’m sorry.  This is not about you; it’s about me.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a dusty, dirty camp, a place not fit to bring a real woman and petites to.  I also don’t want to be involved in your father’s dirty business because, despite being a rough, uneducated Cajun, I do know what is right and what is wrong.”

Theo shrugged his shoulders and gave Paul an apologetic look.  “I’m leaving.  I signed up at the recruiting office yesterday.”

Paul was still trying to absorb the information Theo had shared, but drew up at his friend’s last statement.  “What do you mean?  I thought we had talked about this.  Our work is considered vital to the war effort.  If we stay here, we can make our fortune….”  His voice trailed off. 

“You can pretend you aren’t hiding here all you want, Cher.  But I don’t want to play some game with my life.  I have a fortune and name to make, not to hide from.  And I do not want to make it here.”

“You think you’ll make it as cannon fodder in the Army?”

“I think, Paul Alexander Armand LeMay, that the Army will recognize the innate talents of simple Theo Gautier, and that I will be made a general by the end of the year.”

Theo saw that Paul was not yet ready to lighten up, so he tried again.  “I think, Cher, that I do not know what is out there, or what I might be.  I listen to you talk about classes you took, or what some of your classmates’ fathers did, and I’ve never even heard of such things.  I’m twenty four years old, and I don’t even know everything that I could be.  I will never get to college, never have the opportunities that you take for granted -- have thrown away, even!  Maybe, if I leave here,” he gestured vaguely at the darkened street illuminated only by the light that spilled from the dancehall, “if I see more of what is out there…” 

“Theo, it’s only a matter of time until we enter the war and business will be better.  What good will it do you if you end up killed?  You -- we -- could have it all here.  We don’t need to work for my uncle; people know us.  We can take some of the others and go anywhere we want.  We don’t have to stay here.”

Theo looked away.  “It’s all the same -- here or there.  This is no way to live.  It’s not what I want.  I had no choice.”  He paused, then continued, “We all signed up together, yesterday, while you were at the management meeting.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’”

“Matt, Pierre, Buck, the whole team.  All except Austin -- he’s got those three children over in Ascension Parish.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Tonight, Cher.  And I just did…though it was not how I intended.”

Paul continued toward the car, blending into the shadows without breaking stride.

Theo continued feebly, “I’m sorry….”

There was no response.

Paul did not see him again until a week later, as Theo and the gang were waiting at the bus stop.  Paul had been assiduously avoiding everyone.  It was not as though he had created the home he so craved here, but he had gone a long way toward filling the void that he had lived with for the past fourteen years.  He looked over and saw that the group had their few belongings rolled up in a rag tag assortment of duffels, and knew they were headed to Corpus Christi to be sworn in.  He started to drive by, but then stopped the car and leaned out the window.

“Hey, cannon fodder -- keep your head on.”

Theo grinned.  “It’ll be hard without you around.  Where you heading?”

“Dunno.  Just quit.”

Shaking his head in wonder, Theo replied, “Ah, you’re not going to find it if you don’t start looking.”

“Looking for what?”

“Anything, Cher, anything.  You spend all your time running away from your life.”

“Looks to me like you’re the one running.”

Theo looked into Paul’s eyes, certain that this was the last time he would be seeing his friend.  “The difference is, I am looking for something.”


****

One year later, Paul sat with his unit in England.  Rumors were flying through the Quonset huts and bets were being made and lost about the exact date of the company’s departure for France.  Everyone knew the mission; no one knew the time.

Paul had received a chiding letter the day before from Uncle Bere, and he remembered how Bere had supported his decision to enlist, only asking that Paul try to make some overtures toward both Armand and Angelina before he left.  Despite the hurt that he knew it would cause his uncle, Paul had ignored that advice and went straight from Charleston to training.

It had been tougher than he ever imagined -- the heat, the endless days, and, even worse, being forced to live so close to so many people, a situation that robbed him of the solitude he valued so much.  But, on the other hand, it also left him with little time to think or brood, and his standing among his fellow recruits rose daily.  The years in the rough oilfields had given him a toughness that many of them lacked, and he would have probably been given a field promotion to sergeant if it were not for his aloofness and the slight accent that occasionally made it difficult for others to understand him out in the field.

But he didn’t care.  He had no illusions that the Army would provide what he was looking for.  All he knew was that it gave him the opportunity to find out what sort of man he could be outside the shadow of his family.  No one in his unit here in England knew the LeMay’s, or even much about Louisiana, as was apparent by their blank stares when he tersely answered their questions about his accent.  And the sergeant seemed okay -- too busy carousing with a fellow NCO to pay much attention to whether the men were bonding as a group.  Paul chalked it up to the fact that Saunders was a battle-hardened veteran, having survived the invasion of Italy and endured the loss of most of the men from his first unit.  He probably didn’t care to get too close, and Paul couldn’t blame him.

Having free time on his hands now, Paul decided to go ahead and leave early to pick up his uniforms from the sweet old widow living on the outskirts of the town in which the company was garrisoned.  A walk on such a beautiful, sunny May morning would help him think through a response to Bere’s letter.  There were many locals who performed similar services for the Yankees plopped down in their midst, but Paul preferred going to the widow’s home, even though it was a bit more of a hike.  She was French and had wound up in England after marrying a British soldier she had met during the last war.  Her pleasure at having someone to converse with her in her native language caused her to take extra good care of him -- especially since he reminded her of the son she had lost at Dunkirk, leaving her alone in the cold, wet country.

He arrived at her house just after eight.  The widow often encouraged him to sit at her table as she bustled about, chattering to him in French, not expecting an answer, but simply enjoying his company and his occasional polite grunt or nod.  He, in turn, found these visits reminiscent of the long-ago afternoons he’d spent in the kitchen with Missy, and he always departed in a better frame of mind than when he arrived.  So he knocked on the door, looking forward to her smile and a pleasant diversion.

Mrs. Paron greeted him warmly and asked him to come in.  She had tea steeping and he knew she would offer him a cup.  He wasn’t particularly fond of the beverage, but it was part of their little routine.  Mrs. Paron prattled on about not having any butter to make proper brioche, and the other deprivations that cause her to not be able to feed a boy in the manner that she would like, until three soldiers arrived, startling them both.

It was apparent that the newcomers had not yet been to bed from their previous night’s carousing and were all more than a bit drunk.  Looking a little frightened at their loud and obnoxious behavior, the widow quickly hurried about gathering their shirts and pants from the washroom behind the kitchen.  Hesitantly, she explained to them, as she had to Paul, that their undergarments were not quite yet dry, and that they would have to come back later in the day or take them still damp.

The seeming leader of the group, a fat ruddy fellow with a distinctive New England accent, looked nonplussed at having to make the hike back out.  He started to get threatening, and then spied Paul walking toward the door, quietly, but with purpose.

“Hey, why don’t you tell me what unit you’re with,” Paul said, “and I’ll drop your clothes by later on, after I come back to get my own.  You all look like you’ve had a lot of fun; why ruin it now over some shorts, and with a sweet lady?”

The widow looked up gratefully at Paul and then expectantly at the soldiers.

They hesitated, until a small, ferret-faced man behind the heavyset soldier said, “Hey, what have we got here?  Another Frenchie?  Maybe Frenchies do their old ladies and that’s why the broad’s a little too busy to finish the laundry for some good ol’ ‘merican soldiers who’ve come to save her.”  He grinned at his inebriated companions.  “And maybe that’s why the Frenchies lost the war in the first place, huh?”

The concept amused his buddies and they began expounding on the idea.

The widow, at first dismayed that they did not appear to be leaving and then angry when she understood their implications, started to respond, but Paul held up a hand to silence her.  He didn’t want to make the situation any worse, and these fellows were spoiling for a fight.  But when one of the men tried to cross the threshold into the cottage, he shoved him back, his own quick temper getting the better of him.

The situation seemed destined to escalate into serious violence until the cottage’s old gardener suddenly appeared and diffused it.  Though nearly an octogenarian, he used his pitchfork to persuade the drunken men to back out of the front garden.  The widow tossed their laundry over the stone fence into the dirt road with instructions to take it elsewhere from now one.  As the GIs hurled a few more unintelligible epithets in her direction, they stumbled off down the road and disappeared into the otherwise bucolic countryside.

Paul remained another few minutes at the cottage to make sure that the widow was not too put out by the morning’s events, but it was soon apparent that the gardener was using his heroic actions to gain the opening he had been looking for with the venerable Mrs. Paron, and this was an attack Paul felt the widow could handle by herself.  He slipped out with his neatly tied bundle of laundry and headed back toward town.

He had just entered the outskirts of Sheffield, still quiet in the early morning hours, and glanced down at his watch, when something hard smashed into the back of his neck.  Dropping to the ground, he lay there stunned as two of the three goons he’d encountered at the widow’s house slid a knife under the string holding his parcel together and started pulling out pieces of laundry.  The third man put his boot on Paul’s back, pinning him down on the dirt lane.

Paul groaned, both in pain and because he had been stupid not to anticipate the situation.  Truly, he hadn’t thought there would be any retaliation for what had happened at the widow’s house since he’d assumed the men would go somewhere and sleep off their hangovers.  But now he was at their mercy, and this was not how he had planned to spend the day.

His NCOs and a third man suddenly rounded the corner of a nearby building.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Hanley demanded in his most authoritative tone.

“None of your business,” stated one of Paul’s attackers, irritated, until he and his companions looked up and caught sight of Hanley’s and Saunders’ stripes.  Then he added lamely, “We thought he was…a Frenchman.”

Hanley raised his eyebrows.  “A Frenchman?”

Saunders walked over and assisted Paul to his feet.

“Yeah.  We thought….”

“Soldier, I don’t know what you were thinking, but this is one of our men.  And, as you should know before your sorry ass is shipped over the channel, the French ARE our allies.”

“Yeah, but….”

“I don’t know what is going on here, and I don’t want to,” Hanley continued as one of the men started to speak.  “All I know is that I don’t want to see your faces again.  Make yourselves scarce—and stay that way around me!”

The three ran off down the street as Paul stared ruefully at his belongings strewn across the road.

“That fancy accent will get you every time, Cher.”

Paul turned, stunned by the familiar voice, his ruined laundry and aching neck forgotten.  “I thought they had standards for this man’s army!”

Theo laughed.  “That’s what I thought when I signed up, but now that I see that they let anyone in, I’m going to have to reconsider my enlistment.”

Hanley and Saunders stood by listening to the exchange, but not understanding a word of the rapid fire French and bayou patois.

Saunders interrupted after a moment.  “I take it you know each other?”

Theo switched to English, aware that they had been excluding the NCOs.  “Sorry, Sergeant.  All us Cajuns know each other.  Paul and I, we go way back.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from the same place,” Saunders replied.  He had been curious about the quiet, dark-haired private, but it wasn’t in his nature to ask too many personal questions.

Theo flashed a disarming smile.  “You Americans don’t all sound alike to us, either, Cher…er, Sergeant.”

“Well, whatever, help him clean up this mess, and then you, LeMay, take your buddy to the barracks.  Hanley and I have other things to do.”

Saunders and Hanley sauntered back the way they came, happy to be relieved of their charge and leaving Theo and Paul alone in the street.

Over the next several hours, the reunited friends filled each other in on what had occurred in the past six months.  Theo’s unit had suffered a debilitating round of dysentery while training in the moors of Scotland.  “Guess growing up in the bayou left me immune…”  Orphaned from his platoon, he had just been assigned to Paul’s.  He expressed shock, somewhat feigned but somewhat genuine, at finding his former companion an enlisted man like himself.

“I figured for sure that, if you ever joined the Army, your father would get you some safe officer’s commission.”

Paul shook his head.  “It’s so predictable.  He tried.  Some big-wig military friend of his pushed through a request for me to go into OTC since, after I left Bere’s camp, I was subject to the draft.”

“So why didn’t you take it?  Still throwing away every opportunity that comes your way?”

Paul rolled his eyes over his schooner of beer.  He preferred wine, but the pubs in the village were not well stocked and he and Theo were lucky to find even beer on a Sunday afternoon.  “How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through your thick head -- I don’t want anything handed to me!  I want to do things on my own.”

“Cher, no one does things on their own.  Me, I am using Uncle Sam’s dime to get out of the bayou -- to find out what I can be.  You, you’re using it to punish someone or something.”

Several days later, Saunders accepted at face value Theo’s “We don’t know anything about that, Sarge,” and LeMay’s blank stare when he questioned them regarding the assault by several unknown men one night on the three soldiers who had attacked Private LeMay.  However, the sergeant did look at the quiet private in a new light and made a note to watch him and his friend.

They were not hard to watch.  Over the next several weeks, they were as inseparable as they had been in Texas.  Theo was the life of the party, and everyone in their unit and the others stationed nearby learned to yell “Laissez le bon temps rouler!” in the pubs at his and Paul’s entrance.  Theo was known by name by everyone within a week, but the quieter Paul LeMay was just one of those “crazy Cajuns,” which was soon shortened to “Caje.”  Theo would grin at him, that wry, sardonic grin, at first when Paul started to respond to the nickname.  But one day he commented that while Paul’s woods savvy and tracking skills may have come from his Cajun side, the quickness with knife and temper that was displayed during several bar room brawls was pure New Orleans Creole, and he shook his head with disapproval.

They trained hard and played hard, knowing that without warning, everything would change soon.


****
And so it did.

Caje took another draw on his cigarette.  Theo was dead, he was wounded and stuck behind enemy lines, and he didn’t know where his father’s watch or Theo’s beret were.  Hell, he didn’t even know where Theo had gotten it.  Up in Scotland, he guessed, during training.  Paul had kept it as sort of a talisman and a remembrance, like the watch.

But now there was Claire Marie.  Paul could almost hear Theo’s voice…

“Cher, you would throw away every opportunity!”

The recurring dreams of torn and dismembered bodies that had first started plaguing him after the accident in Texas had become more frequent and more intense since Theo’s death in June.  But there was another dream that more rarely crept into his sleep, one that was at once suddenly poignant:  that one day, he would come to a house, to people he had never seen, and he would know instantly, utterly, that he belonged, as though he were finding a missing limb of which he had never been aware.  He had set the dream firmly aside, over and over again when it unexpectedly crept into his musings during lulls at work or at war.  But tonight, common sense had fled out the window and had been replaced by an unexpected sense of fulfillment.

Home…family…

It was peculiar because these ideas had never been thoughts to fill him with much pleasure.

The woman at the table in his dreams had never had a face.  Over the years, every woman in his relationships had, without their knowledge and sometimes without his conscious thought, been placed in this illusory tableau, each failing to fit.  The Creole debutantes, spoiled and often vacuous, never seemed right.  Nor did the women of the camp -- a few older and more interesting than the debutantes, but all too rough and too needy of what they thought he could provide.

He had noticed that when Claire Marie had come back downstairs tonight, her hair was unpinned again and flowing in silvery sheets across her shoulders and back.  And her face was slightly flushed, perhaps with the wine, but maybe, he thought, with the excitement of connection that he had felt…

She was turning to carry the water back into the house.  “Claire Marie!”  His voice floated across the evening air, surprising himself and the woman.  She turned, looking around in the darkness for a moment before spotting the glowing end of his cigarette.  She set down the water pitchers and walked slowly across the yard.

Caje nodded to a spot next to him.  Claire Marie awkwardly sat down, her precarious balance made more so by the tilt of the beam.  Caje put out a hand to steady her, and this time she took it.  Neither one let go, nor did they look at each other.

“Cigarette?” he asked out of politeness and to fill the void, not expecting her to accept.  She released his hand, though, and reached over for the pack next to him.

“Thanks.”

She put a cigarette in her mouth and leaned toward him so he could light it, but his movements were hampered by the bandage on his shoulder and his fatigue after doing the stretches Bertrand had forced upon him.  So she took the lighter out of his hand and lit the cigarette herself with one fluid motion.

“Mmmm…” she said, taking a deep drag on it and exhaling into the night.

He chuckled.

“What is so funny?”

“I just didn’t have you pictured as a smoker.”

She sat quietly for a moment, enjoying her cigarette, before responding, “Are you shocked?”  When Paul didn’t answer, she continued, “I noticed your reaction to what Bertrand said about my mother.”

Caje looked her in the eyes for the first time.  The moonlight was bright enough for her to make out his slight smile.  “My reaction was not what you think.”

She looked at him expectantly and took another puff on her cigarette.  She debated about following up with the obvious question, but did not feel like encountering his considerable defenses again.  So she sat.

“My mother, Angelina,” he emphasized the name, “was a…prostitute, too.”

There, it was out.  Except for that one, horrible argument three years ago, he had never acknowledged it out loud.

For a moment, the night remained silent, and Caje wondered if it had been a mistake to share his secret.  Then Claire Marie spoke quickly and softly.

“That is a horrible thing to say.  I never said that about my mother, and I never will.”  She looked at him fiercely, her small chin tilted up and her eyes flashing.  “And I won’t say some silly things about her doing it because she had to, or she made terrible choices, or any of that, because I don’t know.  All I know is that she loved me very much.   I never apologize for her…and she never asked me to.”

She waited for his walls to come up again.  The impassive face, the eyes that reflected only what they saw and gave away nothing about what was going on behind them.

Instead, he nodded.  “Tell me about her.”

It was more a command than a request, but the tone was apologetic.  A formal apology, for anything, she decided, would never come out of this one.  What the hell, she thought.  It was a cool night, his body was warm next to hers, and the cigarette was a nearly forgotten pleasure.

“She was Russian…at least that’s what she said.  It is hard to know; she spoke many languages.  She always claimed we were from some offshoot Russian nobility, that her parents fled the Bolsheviks, but died soon after reaching Paris.”  She shrugged.  “Russian nobility -- people claiming it -- they were…are…everywhere in Paris.  Her Russian was good -- there were always many…Russians…in and out of the apartment.”  She grinned a little wickedly.  “There were others, too.  Writers, painters, courtesans.  Mother really created quite the salon.  Parties…as a child I thought it was fun…staying up too late, sneaking a sip of champagne from someone’s glass.  Our apartment was in a fabulous location, near the Moulin.  At night, there was the sound of voices and all the hustle and bustle, followed by very quiet mornings, and then afternoons where a feeling of excitement began to build toward another evening…”

“You sound as though you loved it.”  It was a question.

“Yes. I loved the odors, the lights, the sounds -- the stimulation.  And I loved her.  She was so beautiful, and made everyone, even the street cleaners, feel special.  And it was genuine -- everyone just wanted to be around her -- men and women.”

She paused and ground out her cigarette on the beam.  Caje offered her another one, but she motioned it away.

“Oh, yes, everyone loved her.  They loved to hear her sing.  She had stopped performing after I was born, but she would still do little impromptu vignettes during parties.  She was in constant demand.”

“You chose a different path.”

“It wasn’t as though I had much choice.  She was so beautiful, so alive.  Everyone knew when she entered a room.  She was such a presence.”

Caje lit another cigarette.  “You are beautiful, Claire Marie.”

She leaned into him, both for warmth and in appreciation, but laughed.  “That is sweet.  But I have always felt like a pale shadow, a water color next to an oil.”

He started to protest, but she interrupted him.  “Oh, I’ve never minded.  I never even wanted what she had, or wanted to be what she was, and I don’t think she wanted that either.  That’s why when Timone came along…well, it seemed so perfect.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes.  By that point, Bertrand had become Mother’s constant companion, and he was basically taking care of us.  She was starting to not feel well, and he had first come as a doctor, sent by a friend.  Like everyone, he fell under her spell.  As I mentioned before, Timone was his nephew -- his dead brother’s son -- and someone who I had met before at several parties.”

“You fell in love?”  He recognized the senseless jealousy creeping in, but held his tone steady.

“I did…though I think Timone was in love with the whole scene and probably with my mother.  I was young, and my friendship with him stopped my mother from worrying about what would happen to me…though with as kind as Bertrand is, she really didn’t have to fret.”  She stopped and was quiet.  “So, what about you?”

He ignored her question.  “But your marriage was good, yours and Timone’s?”

“What is a good marriage?  Did we each get what we needed?  Yes, sort of.  We provided what each needed at that moment, so it worked.”

“That doesn’t sound so idyllic.”

She looked away, and her tone was very soft.  So soft, that Paul thought he had misheard her.

“What?” he asked.

“Timone was not interested in me, not as a woman anyway,” she explained.  “He wanted so desperately to be a famous writer, and I gave him entrée into the whole ‘artistic world’, through my mother, who had so many connections.  We ran in all the chic circles, and in the social sphere of his parents, I -- given my background -- provided an air of, well, I guess I was risqué…different.  It made me feel exciting, for once.”  She paused.  “I was very young.”

He didn’t try to analyze his feelings.  He just wanted her to keep talking, to continue that rapport he had felt with her since he had awakened and focused on her face two days ago.

“Tell me about Rolf.”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t.  So tell me.”

“He is Timone’s cousin though marriage.  Elise’s sister’s son.  And I believe the boy had a crush on Timone while Rolf was finishing his medical studies at the Sorbonne.”  She shook her head.  “Poor thing, he’s always been a loner.  I really think he thought that uniform would make him belong.  And now he spends all his time being afraid.”

This is not what he expected, not at all.  But he knew she spoke the truth.

“What does he want?  What did he want, then, today from you?”

“The same as Timone -- entrée into another world.  The Reich is not very open to different people, you know.  And he thinks his wife may suspect -- about him.  She would be very surprised, pleasantly I think, if he had a mistress.  But,” she added hastily, “he also wants to take care of us.  He loved Timone very much.”

Caje ground out his third cigarette and put his arm around Claire Marie’s slight shoulders.  When she did not draw away, he pulled her closer to him.  They sat in companionable silence.  It had turned into an evening of exchanges, of openings in the dark, each feeling safe both because of the things in their backgrounds they shared and the knowledge that their paths -- for many reasons --might never cross again.

There was none of that awkwardness of ‘what’s next.’  Only a moment of solace and harmony, in a cacophony of displacement, separations, and death.

“Should we go upstairs?  It’s starting to rain.”

Caje helped Claire Marie to stand, and they crossed the yard and entered the small house.


****

Saunders stepped aside to allow two men to pass.  One wore a relatively clean U.S. Army uniform, the other, the rough peasant clothes typical of the area.  Both were conversing rapidly in French.  After they moved by, he stepped into Hanley’s temporary HQ.

The platoon had been held back a day, allowing the men to rest, while artillery tried to soften up the German lines.  Despite the noise, everyone slept.  But even after the long -- by recent terms -- rest, Saunders could sense the edginess of his squad.  He knew what the issue was.  They all did.  Everyone just avoided saying anything.  And the two new fellows found the silence disconcerting.

Saunders actually looked forward to some action.  Anything Hanley had in store had to be better than what was going on -- or not going on -- back at the old schoolhouse where the squad was now billeted.

“Lieutenant, you wanted to see me?”

Hanley held up his hand, asking for one more moment to rummage through the papers on his desk.  Then he said, “Yeah, Saunders.  Come over here.”  He gestured at a spot beside him and opened the map he had just located.

“Artillery has pushed the Krauts back here.”  He thrust his finger down in the middle of the paper.  “S2 believes that several enemy units are converging over here.”  He slid his finger to the left and continued, “They have an escape route over this bridge in Santenay.  Once they cross, it will be difficult to prevent them from moving north and joining up with these units over here.”  They both squinted at the map, trying to read the small, smeared type.

“Anyway, what I need you to do is to try to get a feel for whether they really are there, and how many have been concentrated near Santenay.  See if they have moved across the bridge yet.  Stay low, don’t engage.  Leave at 0600 and be back in twenty four hours.”

Saunders continued studying the map.  After a moment, his attention was diverted from the mission, and he picked up the map in order to see it better.

“Don’t even think about it.”  The lieutenant pushed the map down and looked Saunders in the face.

“It would be just a couple of miles out of our way.”

“And across the main road we believe the Krauts are using to pull into Santenay.”

“Kirby was there -- he may know of some back ways.”

“We both know Kirby’s sense of direction is…lacking.  I’ve given you just enough time to get there and back.  We don’t have any longer for heroics.”

Saunders was silent.  Then something occurred to him.  “What about the Maquis in the area?  If they know where he is, maybe we could arrange some type of rendezvous.”

Hanley considered for a moment how much he should tell the sergeant.  1st squad was one of the finest, and he knew the men were reeling from the loss of their scout.  Hell, he liked Caje, too.  He had come ashore with him on D-Day just like Saunders, and had also watched him become a soldier with considerable promise -- if there was such a thing.

He also liked Saunders.  Their friendship extended back to England, back to before the invasion, back to before they had to decide how much they could tell each other.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes…sir.  See you in thirty six.”  Saunders started out the door.

“Wait.  I don’t want you to do anything stupid.”

Saunders paused without turning.

“Listen, S2 believes the Maquis in that area are compromised.  There is going to be a drop tonight to try and ascertain to what extent.”

“And you’re telling me this because…”

“Because if the drop isn’t compromised, and if they decide that we can continue communications in the area, I’ve asked them…”

Saunders looked back at Hanley expectantly.

“I’ve asked them to inquire about soldiers being held by the Maquis or by the Krauts in the area.  Then, maybe…when we move forward…”

It was a lot of ‘ifs,’ even if it was the best the lieutenant had been able to do.  Saunders’ face betrayed his skepticism.

Hanley felt himself growing tired and a little angry.  Saunders had no idea of how hard it was to get through the right channels to ask for favors like these.  “I’ll let you know when you get back.  Dismissed.”

Saunders turned away.  “Probably too late by then.”  He walked out into the night.

Hanley added sotto voice, “Probably too late now.”

****

It was difficult undoing the button of the rough woolen shirt, but he took his time getting it open, taking in Claire Marie with his eyes as he did so.  Her own clothes already undone, Claire Marie moved over to help him get the shirt over his bandaged shoulder, and their skin touched, warm and soft.  He held her close to him, drinking in her scent.  She in turn, wrapped her arms around his chest, careful to avoid his shoulder.  They said nothing, as they moved toward his bed.

The bed was narrow.  She let him lay down and began tenderly kissing each of the scars on his chest and arms.  Her hair fell over her face and followed each kiss with a silken absolution.  When their mouths met, it was gentle and exploring, but not tentative.  Without asking himself why, Caje realized he had never before cared so much if it was right.  He brushed her hair away from her face.

“Claire Marie…”

“Shhh…”

“Claire Marie…”

“It is alright.  I want to know.”  Her kissing was becoming more insistent.

“Want to know what?”

“What it…”

A sudden noise broke them apart.  They looked over.  Bridgette lay on the floor.

Claire Marie pushed herself away as Bridgette began to cry, “Mamma!” and she strode across the room purposefully, without looking back.  Caje watched her cradle the child, murmuring soothingly as she struggled to put Bridgette back in the bed.  But the girl would not be comforted and, after a moment, Claire Marie -- with a quick, despairing look back towards Caje -- slid into the covers next to her.

Caje took a deep breath and reached over the side of the bed to grab his shirt.  With a quiet oath, he realized that he could not get it without straining his already tender wound.  He decided to forget it, but could not rest.  With a deep sigh, he ignored his throbbing shoulder, got up, and moved over toward the window.  He opened it a crack, though the effort was more than he had anticipated, as it had not been done in awhile.  Caje pulled the precious pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket, deciding that despite the limited quantity, it was needed.

By the time he finished smoking, the even, harmonized breathing coming from Bridgette’s bed confirmed to him what his body already knew.  He closed the window.  It was time to sleep. 


****

Caje slept well.  He was surprised when he woke at how good he felt.  Chalking it up to the food and the wine meeting the needs of body and soul, he stretched slowly and guardedly, then rolled over to see if Claire Marie and Bridgette were awake.  They were not, and he was thankful.  He sat up, put on and laced up his boots, and then looked around for the shirt he had thrown on the floor last night.  Finding it, he picked it up to take it downstairs, not yet ready to struggle into it.

Before he left the room, he moved quietly over to the cot where Claire Marie and Bridgette were sleeping.  During the night, the blanket had slipped from Claire Marie’s shoulders, and her partially opened blouse exposed one shoulder.  She was painfully thin, but as lovely, he decided, in the daylight as had been promised in the moonlight.

He looked with regret at his own arms and chest, and the scars that covered them.   Among the men in his company, he hadn’t thought of them, except when the wounds that left the marks had affected his performance.  But to a civilian, the scars must appear rather, well, macabre.

Still, Claire Marie’s acknowledgement of each and every one last night had been strangely beautiful and stirred up feelings within him that lingered.  He reached over and pulled the blanket back over her.  She did not move, but a small pair of eyes looked at him suspiciously before Bridgette snuggled deeper into her mother’s arms, silently declaring ownership.  He ceeded victory, and backed away.

Caje wanted a smoke, but decided to try to ration the precious pack.  Coffee, or some approximation of it, would do.  Finally going down the steps, he entered the kitchen to find Bertrand was already there, humming to himself as he threw some wood into the ancient stove.  At first, Caje wasn’t sure the old man wasn’t aware that he had company, but Bertrand soon spoke without stopping what he was doing.

“She is a wonderful girl, no?  Lovely in her own way.  Sweet and kind.  But nothing like her mother.”

He let his statement hang in the air for a moment while he filled a teapot with water.  Caje remembered that Claire Marie had been bringing in the water when he had called to her last night.  Clearly Bertrand had finished the task this morning, and must have put two and two together.

So now he would hear about taking advantage of his host’s hospitality and his niece -- or whatever she was, Caje thought.  He wasn’t going to try to deny what had nearly happened last night, but he wasn’t sure what Bertrand would expect of him this morning.  Should he apologize?  Offer an explanation?  Promise that nothing else would happen between him and Claire Marie?  Caje knew that if he got off with nothing but a lecture, he was lucky.  He was dependent on this family’s largess for at least another couple of days. 

He slipped the shirt over his head, suddenly keenly aware of how he must appear.  It was still difficult to raise his arm in the right position to get the sleeve over the bandage.  Bertrand noticed his struggling and motioned to a chair.

“Let me change the dressing on that shoulder and see what damage we did last night with our exercises.” 

Caje at first thought the double entendre was unintentional, but moving toward the indicated chair, he noticed the twinkle in the old man’s eyes.  Now he was confused.  But he kept his face impassive as Bertrand moved in front of him and pulled back the shirt to examine the dressing. 

Bertrand clucked to himself as he worked. “Very good, very good.  No new bleeding, and looks like some good, healthy tissue there.  May give you some problems later on -- muscle damage like that always will.  That’s why it will be important for you to keep doing those exercises I showed you last night.   Now, do you want some coffee?  Boches, of course -- but we take what we can get around here, eh?”

Again, Caje thought he saw a wicked look in the old man’s eyes, but he dismissed it as impossible.  Surely, Bertrand wouldn’t be saying…

Bertrand continued, “You know, determination and passion can be very similar things -- at least in their outcomes.  I saw the determination in you out in the barn.  True passion -- a lust for life, if you will -- can do things for you that determination cannot.”  He placed a cup of coffee from the kettle on the stove in front of Caje.

Now Caje had no doubt about the real subject of this morning’s one-sided conversation.  He took a drink, glad to have something to occupy his hands.  He felt uncomfortable and was unsure how to handle the situation.  Falling back on his propensity for silence, he wondered where this discourse was going and hoped for an interruption of some sort.

“Claire Marie, she also has determination,” Bertrand went on.  “I recognized that in her even as a young girl and saw it as she studied art.  Passion, though, she has lacked, or perhaps has just been afraid of, given, maybe, her mother.  Or perhaps her marriage.”

Caje started at this, and Bertrand noticed.

“Oh, I know all about it.  She thinks I still have delusions about my nephew, but I know.  And I know about Bridgette.  But, as I was saying, it is in those quiet ones, eh, that when passion is awakened, it can truly create something beautiful.”  Bertrand was standing and gesturing so animatedly that the precious coffee from time to time sloshed out of his cup.

“Take my Louisa -- an uptight English nanny.  That is why I hired her for Claire Marie.  Such a little jewel, though…I am sure she also, buried deep within her, has the passion I’m talking about.  Digging for it has been so…so engrossing while we are stuck in this dreary wasteland."

Startled, Caje now spilled some of his own coffee.

Bertrand appeared not to notice.  “Claire Marie also needs to taste passion, to know that it exists.  She cannot live just for me, or Louisa, or the child.  And for you, passion may make a difference out there.  Perhaps you have it; I do not know.  But somehow I suspect you are still looking.”

Caje stole a look at the door leading into the hallway, both wishing for and dreading Claire Marie’s appearance.   He was curious about Bertrand’s reference a moment ago to Bridgette, but not enough to ask a question and, so, prolong this conversation. 

“What I am trying to say, and listen to me well, young man, is this:  Live and love and never look back.  Allow passion to bring you…and the one you love…to life!”

He looked knowingly at Caje, seeming to wait for a response.  When none was forthcoming, Bertrand sighed and added, “There is more to surviving war, my friend, than simply living through it.”  With that declaration, he bestowed on Caje a slightly sad but benevolent smile, and then looked at the bread left over from the night before.  “Would you like some toast?  This bread is fit only for the fire now, but it is all that we have.”  He spotted what was left of the tin of jam and his eyes lit up.  “Of course, something sweet added to it would make it palatable.”

Caje decided he needed some air.  “Thank you,” he began buttoning his shirt, using his left hand, “but I think I’ll have mine after I go outside and take another look at that barn, in the daylight.”  Getting the final button through its buttonhole was proving difficult, and Caje looked down to finish the job just as he heard Claire Marie’s distinctive tread sounding on the staircase and Bridgette’s voice as she prattled on about something.

Caje had wanted a moment to collect his thoughts after this morning’s unexpected onslaught of advice -- warning?  But it didn’t appear he was going to get it without looking like he was trying to avoid Claire Marie.  So he remained in his seat and hoped his eyes didn’t give away his uncertainty about how to act in her presence.

She looked fresh and vibrant to him.  She had slipped on the same dress he remembered from their very first encounter.  Her hair was down and brushed into a shiny aureole that framed her thin face and then curled around her shoulders.  Her eyes danced when they caught his, without reproach or recrimination.  And she smiled a full bright smile that let Caje know that there would be no awkwardness this morning.  After putting Bridgette down so the girl could toddle over to the table, Claire Marie went over and bussed her uncle on the cheek.

“Good morning!  I can’t believe you made coffee all on your own!”  She sniffed the air in an exaggerated show of appreciation.  “I’m afraid that I have lost my tolerance for wine -- I could have slept all day.  But, of course, someone wouldn’t let me.”  Looking over at Bridgette with a smile, which the child matched, she continued, “Here, Uncle, shoo out the way.  My cooking skills may be minimal, but when it comes to making toast, I do believe they exceed yours.”

Bertrand moved toward the table and drew himself up a chair.  Bridgette, settled in her own chair with her doll tucked behind her, studiously made patterns on the table with a finger she kept wetting in her mouth.  Caje again felt completely at home in this tranquil domesticity and reveled in the sense of belonging that was a balm to his soul.  He drank it in with his coffee as his eyes followed Claire Marie bustling about the kitchen.

It was a beautiful morning.  The room was still chilly due to the night’s autumn temperatures, but the bright sunlight streaming through the kitchen’s windows promised a clear, warm day.  The type of day that armies would be on the march, squads would be on patrols and, if he was on point, he would be extra cautious…

“Will Louisa be back today, Uncle?”

Claire Marie’s question startled Caje out of his reverie.

“I don’t know,” Bertrand answered.  “I was thinking that I would go check on Elise…see what is going on over there.”

Bertrand turned back to Caje and explained, “The Boches are now headquartered in my wife’s house.  It is rather large, and they mostly stay in their own wing.  The house is on the outskirts of the village.  This was the farm manager’s house.  When we came here from Paris…well, I did not want to impose on Elise.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I’m not sure.  It depends.  And I was thinking...” he paused, looking at Caje and then at Claire Marie, to ensure he had their attention, “that I would take Bridgette with me.  It would do Elise some good to see the child.”  He leaned back in his chair, beaming with delight at his own idea, and waited for their reactions.

Claire Marie looked dismayed and then turned back toward the stove to wipe up crumbs.  “I was going to give her a bath.  She’s been covered in jam several times over, and it looks like a nice, warm day to drag out the tub.  Besides, does Elise even know who’s there anymore?”

His voice projecting mild annoyance, Bertrand replied, “Of course she knows who’s there.  Guileau makes it out worse than it is…makes it sound as though she’s…she’s ready to be moved to a sanitarium.”

The old man looked at Caje and tried to clarify the situation.  “Elise’s mind…wanders occasionally.  She has always been delicate -- not like Claire Marie.  I think “befuddled” might be a better layman’s term.  In medical circles, there are a variety of different names for it, none of which I am sure you would have a reason to know.  It has progressed over the past several years, though she can often have long periods of lucidity.  I recognized it soon after we were married and moved her to Paris with me.  I think the noise and hustle and bustle were too much for her, so she returned to her parents’ residence here.  That was nearly twenty years ago.  She has been happy, here, among the people she grew up with and in her family home.”

“I still don’t think you need to be taking Bridgette by yourself,” Claire Marie said, wiping Bridgette’s face a little harder than necessary with a damp cloth.

Bridgette squirmed away and went behind Caje’s chair, her eyes defying her mother to finish the job.  He picked her up and nestled her on his lap.

“Claire Marie, I am a doctor.  I believe I am perfectly capable of keeping the child alive for the next several hours.”

“I still don’t like her being around all the Boches.”

“Rolf should be there.  There will be no problems.  How about if I agree to have her back this afternoon, early, still in time for that bath?  You can wash the Boches off her.”

Claire Marie stared at her uncle in disbelief.

Seeing her expression, Bertrand suddenly looked abashed and spluttered, “Forgive an old man, my dear.  I was just trying to… give you…”

He stopped speaking and looked so dejected that Claire Marie came over and placed an arm around his shoulder.

“It is okay, I think we all know what you were trying to do.  You are such a dear.  Just bring my baby back safe to me, please.  And see when Louisa will be returning.”

Bertrand rose to his feet, returned her hug, and mumbled something about getting his kit together.  Caje watched all this with Bridgette still on his lap, playing with the buttons on his shirt.  He was touched by the obvious love between the members of this makeshift family, but also curious about the child.  He bounced her gently on his knee, and she looked up at him with her large clear eyes.

“Why are you looking at Bridgette like that?” Claire Marie asked.

Caje hesitated, then replied, “I just found out in my last letter from home that my sister is going to be having a child.  I’ve never been around many…”

“Well, surely you were around her.”

“Actually, no.  We’re seven years apart and, as I mentioned last night, I went away to school.”

“She still must be awfully young.”

“Yes, she is.  But she, like everyone else these days, wanted to marry her soldier before he shipped out.  I don't even know him, so I wonder what my niece or nephew will look like.”

Bertrand reappeared and announced that he was ready to leave.  Bridgette was reluctant to be taken from her mother, but when Bertrand promised that Louisa would be waiting at the end of their walk with a treat, she hopped up happily, bumping her head into Caje’s shoulder.

The direct blow caused enough pain to take his breath away, but Caje tried to hide it.  However, Bertrand heard the sharp intake of breath, saw the soldier pale, and started toward him.

Caje waved him off.  “It’s nothing.  Go ahead.  I’m all right.”  He took a deep breath and willed himself to sit up straight.  “Let me ask you a question, though -- do you know how or where to get me a gun?”

Bertrand and Claire Marie suddenly looked concerned, and Caje hastily added, “Before I leave, I’d like to show Claire Marie how to use one.  She should know how to load and aim a weapon so she can defend herself and Bridgette during those times when they’re here by themselves.”

Bertrand thought about it for a moment, then nodded.  “Yes, I should have taught her already.  Come, let me show you…”

Caje followed Bertrand into the small downstairs bedroom, furnished only with a simple bed and an armoire.  The bed, like the one Caje occupied upstairs, was fine, but the windows were covered with the same type of cheery, red-checked curtains that hung in the kitchen.

Bertrand reached under the bed’s mattress and pulled out a pistol that Caje guessed had been the old man’s sidearm in the last war.  It was well taken care of and had recently been cleaned.  Bertrand reached under the mattress again and pulled out some ammunition, and he counted out enough bullets to load the gun.  Then after shoving the rest of the ammunition back under the mattress, he handed the weapon to Caje and watched him check it over before the younger man tucked it in the back of his pants.

The two men returned to the kitchen and, after a flurry of activity to get them ready, Bertrand set off with Bridgette.  Claire Marie and Caje were finally alone.

They were silent for several moments, and then both began to speak at once.

“I thought you should learn…”

“I think you should know…”

They stopped.

Caje nodded toward Claire Marie.

“Bridgette is not Timone’s.”

Caje did not say anything, did not react at all.

Claire Marie stumbled on, “I don’t know whose she is….it was the Boches…”

Caje bit his lip and thought for a moment.  He recognized that his reaction could easily destroy the tenuous connection he had made with this intriguing woman over the past forty eight hours.  And while there was little or no future for them, he wanted to preserve this extraordinary time.  Claire Marie’s comment made sense anyway -- it explained Bernard’s earlier comment about Bridgette.

The silence broadened, and Caje realized that he was staring down at his hands.  He looked up quickly and took in Claire Marie’s small, open face.  Sorry for his hesitation, he pulled out the gun.

“Well, whatever happened, that’s why you should know how to use this.  If another situation arises, you’ll be able to protect yourself.  A gun is a tool that will let you live.  Use it if you have to and don’t look back.”

She looked so vulnerable to him that he could no longer hold himself back, and he leaned forward and kissed her, his lips gentle on hers, her breath sweet in his mouth.  She put her arms around him and felt the cold metal of the gun.  When she drew away, he hesitated.

“Do you want to do this?”

“I’m not sure what I want to do.”

“That’s okay.  Let’s take it slowly.”

“We may not have the time.”

“I think your uncle has given us enough time.”

“Are we talking about the same thing?”

“What are you talking about, Claire Marie?  I’ll be leaving soon—I want you to be alright.”

“I will be alright; I’ve always been fine taking care of myself.”

“I know, but…”  He paused and glanced at the gun in his hand before looking up into her questioning eyes.  “You know, a wise man once told me there’s more to surviving this war than staying alive.”

“And are you taking his advice?”

“I’m thinking about it…”

“My uncle is a wise man.”

He laughed.  “Well, experienced anyway, it seems.  Why don’t we work first, and then see what happens next?”

He pressed the gun into her palm, noting the contrast between the sizes of their hands as he wrapped his around hers.  Then he looked over her shoulder and began teaching her how to sight down the barrel, and how to load and unload the pistol.

Claire Marie, in turn, noted the strange contrast between the cold metal of the gun and the warmth of Paul’s hands gently cupping hers.  It was both disturbing and sensual.  After several tries, and one frustrating jamming, she turned and asked, “Shouldn’t we be doing this outside?”

“Doing what?”

She laughed and drew away from him, giving him a playful smack on the cheek.  “Can’t you get your mind on what we are doing?”

“I thought I had it on what we were doing, M’selle,” he assured her solemnly, but his eyes belied the words.  “It is you who seem to be…hey, where are you going?”

“I was going to see how many of these bullets we have.”

“You know where they are?  You knew your uncle had this?”

“Of course; it is a small house.”

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

“I thought perhaps Uncle had his gun with him.  I know that he takes it when he goes out occasionally with the Resistance.”

“Does he go out with them often?”

“Not lately.  The Boches have been too…overwhelming, I think, lately.”

“Well, Bertrand already showed me his ammunition and there are a dozen rounds left.  Stay here; I want you to practice some more with what we’ve already got.”

Claire Marie almost made a comment, but then decided to change the subject.  “What do you think of Guileau?”

“I don’t know.  I only met him for a few minutes, and his appearance is…a bit of a distraction.  Why do you ask?”

“Well, I told you Uncle goes out with the Résistance occasionally.  With Guileau.  But for some reason, I just don’t trust him.”

“Why not?”  Caje took her hand and led her into the parlor, pulling her down on the divan next to him. He decided the lesson could wait.  Claire Marie seemed very insightful; at least he divined that from her portrait of him.  If there was some issue between her and Guileau, he wanted to know what it was.  His safety -- and more importantly, the safety of this family, given Bertrand’s involvement with the Resistance -- could be compromised.

She laid her head on his left shoulder, the gun resting between them.  “He is Elise’s son.”

“Who?”

“Guileau.  By one of her father’s groomsmen.  Before Uncle married her.”

Caje groaned.  “I need a scorecard,” he muttered in English.

“Pardon me?”

“Never mind.  It’s not important.  Just an American expression.  So he and Rolf and your husband were -- are -- all cousins?”

“Yes, sort of…I guess.  Elise and Rolf’s mothers are sisters.  In fact, I think Rolf’s father arranged for him to be sent here in the hopes that Elise’s holdings would all be given to him -- instead of Elise’s illegitimate son, Guileau -- under the Reich’s ‘new order.’  I wouldn’t be surprised if Rolf arranged to have the Boches headquartered in Elise’s house so he could eventually claim ‘squatter’s rights.’”

“What does any of this have to do with trusting Guileau?”  Caje did not think Claire Marie would be telling him this just to fill the time -- there were other things to be done.

She picked up his hand and studied it for a moment, then turned it over and began absently drawing circles on his palm with her finger.  “I believe that Guileau is well aware that since Elise and Uncle did not have any children, she could give everything to him -- as her only child.”

Caje considered this for a moment.  “Then if he perceived Rolf as a threat to his inheritance, wouldn’t his participation in the Resistance make sense?”  He pulled his hand away and smiled at her.  “Stop that if you want me to concentrate.”

“Sorry.”  She leaned her head back against his shoulder and sighed.  “You’re right.  If he’s not participating in the Resistance because of pure ideological reasons -- which somehow I doubt -- then, yes, it would still make sense from a personal gain perspective.  But…”

“But what?  If his motives make sense, what are you unsure of?”

“But…but…I don’t know.  Before the war he was considered strange -- an outcast.  But now, he seems to revel in the power the war has brought him.  The power and the acceptance.”

“A fortunate, or unfortunate, thing about war is that many men find what they are made of, Claire Marie,” Caje said softly.

“I just feel that Guileau sees Rolf as a threat if the Boches win, and he may see Uncle as a threat if the Allies win.  Yet, we have all become bound together and dependent as we never were before the war.”

“Well, they do say that war makes strange bedfellows.”  Caje knew the stale observation was inadequate before it was out of his mouth.

“I know, I know,” Claire Marie said with some impatience.  “But it is as if we are all playing a game, and I do not know who is making the rules.”

“It all seems to be working, though, for you and the Resistance.”

“Oh,” Claire Marie broke in hastily, “do not get me wrong.  I do believe in the Resistance and doing what we can.  It’s just…with Bridgette…and what happened to Timone…I… ”

“What did happen to your husband?”

Claire Marie was silent.  Caje put his left arm tentatively around her shoulders.  When she didn’t resist, he reached up to run his fingers through the ends of her hair.  It felt cool and silky.

“Claire Marie?”

“Timone had been late at yet another one of his ‘meetings.’  Have you heard of Le Musee d Homme?”

Paul shook his head.

“Well, it’s not important.  Just the name of one of the many resistance groups in Paris that became active soon after the occupation.  It created and distributed a lot of materials.  You know, pamphlets on how to do civil disobedience, how to disrupt German this or that, how to preserve true French culture.  Timone wrote some of these and was really enthralled by the whole thing -- thought it validated his experience as a writer.  He viewed himself as perhaps a…a…Turgenev or some such thing.”

She pulled away from him, needing to draw into herself to continue.  “I spent the evening with Uncle and Louisa at their home.  I was so tired of being alone…” 

Paul denoted just the slightest note of bitterness in her otherwise flat voice.

“When I returned to our apartment, they were waiting outside.  I guess someone had tipped them off that Timone would be returning from a meeting.”

“’They’ who?”

“A group of Boches soldiers.  Gestapo I guess.  I can’t remember… much.”

Caje felt a sudden sick sensation in the pit of his stomach.  The Krauts had attacked Claire Marie.  He didn’t want to hear this.  Enough already.  Enough emotion, enough pain, enough hurt.  He searched desperately for the cold, unemotional veil he drew about himself during battle, but without physical action, he couldn’t seem to conjure it up.  Afraid to hear what she would say next, he quickly asked, “What happened to Timone?”

“He had stopped off at a ‘friend’s’ house.”  Claire Marie’s voice dropped to a near whisper.  “He didn’t arrive home until later, the next day, but they -- the Boches -- got their warning across.  After I found out I was pregnant, he couldn’t deal with the fact that they had done what he had never been able to do…the one thing that may have bound us together.  Anyway, he signed his next essay.  He knew it would not be ignored.”

“He gave them his name?” Caje asked automatically, trying to push the conversation beyond this revelation.

“That is exactly what he did.  The pamphlet wasn’t even out a day when they showed up and took him away.  He got the fleeting glory he was looking for.  Everyone in Paris talked about what happened -- how brave he was, how bold...”

“How do you know he’s dead?  Maybe he’s just being held somewhere.”

“Rolf’s father found out for us.  Uncle had Elise ask for us…it took several months…”  Her voice trailed off, but Caje’s thoughts raced.

“Wouldn’t he have a vested interest in declaring your husband dead?  Rolf’s father?  If he’s trying to move in on…”

Caje quieted.  Someone was approaching the house.

He pulled Claire Marie up and toward the window with him, then dropped her hand and pushed aside the curtain to peer outside, the gun poised in his left hand.  He couldn’t see anything, but he knew he wasn’t wrong.

Someone was out there…

“Paul?” Claire Marie whispered, frightened by his actions.  He was so calm, so cold…so different.  She thought back to the juxtaposition of the gun and his hands just minutes ago…

“Shhhh…”

Caje thought quickly.  Krauts would come directly to the door…unless they knew there was an American in here.  And if they knew he was here, it would be better for Claire Marie to be someplace else.

“Go upstairs and stay there.”  He spoke in a tone that brooked no opposition.  “Stay there unless I call you.  And take this…”

He handed her the gun, but she tried to give it back.

He grabbed her shoulders and looked into her face.  “Claire Marie, trust me.  Go!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her move into the hallway, pause at the staircase, and then run upstairs to get out of sight.

Caje was sure there was someone outside.  He could feel it.  He no longer questioned his intuitions -- just like no one in the squad did.  He wished the other guys were here now.  He didn’t know what he was up against and, as Kirby always liked to point out, you could never have enough firepower.

As he moved from room to room, window to window, looking for whatever – whoever -- was out there, he wondered if he should have given Claire Marie the gun.  Then again, he couldn’t have it if Krauts were here to take him; he couldn’t endanger Claire Marie by resisting.

Maybe he should try to get away.  But how could he leave her behind, in possible danger?  He could take her with him, he knew, but she’d never leave the farm without her child.

He looked out the kitchen windows and could still see nothing.  Prudence dictated that he should stay where he was, but his tendency to act on emotion got the better of him --Claire Marie’s safety was involved.  Arming himself once again with the bread knife, he took a deep breath and hoped his luck held out.  He couldn’t help himself -- he went out the back door. 

****

Claire Marie tried to look out the window to see what was going on.  It was jammed, and she could not get it open.  She strained to force it up, and a button popped from her blouse with the effort.  Still, the window did not move.  Maybe she should hide under the bed, she thought, but she had to know what was happening to Paul.

Or to whoever was out there…

The change in Paul had been almost as frightening to her as whatever triggered the response in him.  She had noticed the same thing happen when her Uncle and Guileau had shown up unexpected yesterday, but quickly dismissed it in light of all that had transpired.  Now, though, she recalled her initial reaction two days ago to Paul’s apparent powers of observation -- he would use it to destroy -- and she shuddered, feeling what she could only categorize as a premonition.


****

The heavyset man squatted near the front corner of the house, looking out over the compound, a bloody package in his hand.  Although he knew the Boches had left several days ago, he had approached Bertrand’s house with caution.  The normal person-to-person village communications had been disrupted during this recent onslaught of fighting, making it impossible to find out if any Germans had returned to the farm.  But he needed to find Bertrand, to tell him about the plans for the evening.  And he owed the doctor for treating his wife’s gallstones again last week.

The question was, where was the man?

He had heard voices speaking inside the house a few moments ago, and he recognized the girl’s, Bertrand’s niece.  But the other one didn’t sound familiar.  He had looked around for a vehicle but, not seeing one, guessed that whoever was in the house with her wasn’t the German doctor she spent so much time with. 

Trying to peek in several of the windows, he had considered his options, but thinking on his feet was not his best trait.  Now he wondered if he should just continue searching elsewhere for Bertrand.  He didn’t want to leave the message with the girl.  And he didn’t relish the idea of meeting the strange man.  Still, he should probably leave the meat…although the girl would then wonder why he came all the way out here…

He did not sense anyone’s presence behind him until it was too late and an arm was tight around his neck, the tip of a knife pricking the underside of his chin.

“What are you doing here?”

Jacques Boulanger’s pale eyes bulged in fear behind his thick spectacles as he tried to turn his head, hoping to see who had him.  He could think of nothing to do except to hold up the package.

After a moment, the arm moved from around his neck and a voice commanded, “Turn around.”

Quaking, afraid that any sudden movement would cause him to loose the tenuous control he had on his bladder, Boulanger turned and looked into two of the coldest eyes he had ever seen.  He felt a need to say something quickly, anything, to lessen the intensity of that stare.  So he stammered, “I am Jacques Boulanger.  I was looking for Bertrand.  I am the butcher.”  He thrust the package forward, to validate his identity.

The man in front of him glanced at the bloody parcel, but he didn’t lower his knife or soften his gaze.  “Why didn’t you knock at the door?”

Boulanger, his face red, his lips tremulous, now wished that he had done that very thing.  Terrified, he answered, “I didn’t think anyone was home.  Then I heard voices, but I did not recognize who was here…”

The stranger sized him up, then spoke in a tone that made it clear he didn’t consider the butcher much of a threat.  “You do not know Claire Marie?”

“Why, yes,” Boulanger spluttered with a sudden measure of defiance.  “Everyone knows her.” 

His momentary boldness left him, though, when the other man seemed to grow colder, more dangerous again.

“If you know her, why did you not come to the door?”

“I was looking for Bertrand,” Boulanger repeated, sounding meek once more.  “I wanted to give him this roast since he helped my wife last week.”

Receiving no response, he added, “I have a message for him too.”

“And you didn’t want to leave it with Claire Marie?”

Boulanger felt that he should answer the question with care.  “As I said, I did not know who was with her.”

The two men looked at one another in silence, Boulanger sensing that the stranger understood what was being implied.  Whoever he was, he wasn’t the girl’s husband -- everyone knew that Bertrand’s nephew was dead.  And why wouldn’t he be another one like the Boche doctor, a ‘friend’ she liked to…entertain?

As if reading Boulanger’s mind, the stranger said smoothly, “I am a friend of the family’s,” he put an emphasis on the last word, “…from Paris.”

He lowered the knife a little, and Boulanger sighed in relief.  Apparently, he was out of immediate danger.  But he knew the man was lying about where he was from.  Not only was he wearing overly large clothes and what appeared to be a bulky bandage wrapped around his right shoulder, but since when did Parisians -- collaborators or Maquis -- start skulking around filthy farmyards?  For food, yes, but this was a long way from Paris…

The stranger, noting Boulanger measuring him, smiled tightly, a smile that
did not reach his eyes.  “Why don't you come inside and leave your package?
I am sure Claire Marie can find some paper for you to leave your message on.”

Boulanger sensed it was more an order than a request, and he stepped toward the door, hoping that his legs would carry him over the threshold.

“Claire Marie,” the stranger called when they entered the house.  “Come down, please.  It is a patient of your Uncle’s.”

He nodded toward the divan, and Boulanger sat, still holding the bloody package.  When Claire Marie came down the stairs from the bedroom, Boulanger glanced up.

Just as I thought, he snorted to himself.  The girl didn’t venture into town much, but everyone knew about her.  And here she was, her hair tousled, her face flushed, and the top of her blouse opened low enough to reveal a glimpse of her cleavage.  Well, she could smile at him all she wanted, but he wasn’t going to be taken in by her charms…

“Msr. Boulanger, what a surprise!  Is your wife okay?”

The butcher pursed his fleshy lips and replied, “Yes, Mademoiselle.  Thanks to your uncle.  Where is he today?”

“He went over to see Elise.  She has not been doing well lately.  You have met…” she paused and looked over at Paul, who shook his head, “…my friend?”

For some reason Paul frowned at this, and she lifted her shoulders in a silent question.

It wasn’t lost on Boulanger, who sneered, “Yes.”

Silence fell over the room, and Claire Marie became uncomfortable.  She looked again at Paul for direction, but now he seemed preoccupied, playing with the knife in his hand.  Deciding she was on her own, she said to Boulanger, “Why don’t I get you a glass of water after your long trip and take that…”

“It is a hind roast.  From one of Langer’s pigs.”

“How wonderful!  Why don’t I take that to the kitchen.  Louisa will know just what to do with it.”

“I do not need your water.  I have to get back to town.”

Caje did not look up, but spoke quietly from the other side of the room.  “I thought you had a message for Bertrand.”

“I prefer to leave it with him—personally.”

“Not even on some paper?”

The old butcher was adamant as he leaned forward to place the package on the floor with exaggerated deliberation.  “No.”  Then he stood, but he didn’t go anywhere.

Caje realized Boulanger was waiting for permission to leave and said, “Go on,” as he tilted his head toward the door.  “I will tell Bertrand that you were here.” 

Boulanger hurried to the door, but just before he reached it Caje moved forward and casually placed his left arm across the opening, blocking it.  He waited for the shorter man’s scared, darting eyes to meet his and then queried in a soft, measured voice, “We don’t need to mention my presence to anyone, do we?”

Flustered, Jacques Boulanger looked at his feet and suddenly noticed the other man’s boots.  Understanding dawned on him, and he raised his eyes.  Looking defiant once more, he shook his head.

Caje glanced down to see what had caused this change in demeanor, and he frowned.  But quickly raising his head, he asked in a friendly, conversational tone, “Your wife, you love her, eh?”

Boulanger started at the unexpected question.  “Wh…why do you ask?”

Caje didn’t say anything, but rubbed the knife against his pants and then stepped aside and signaled Boulanger to leave with the point of the blade.  The old man stumbled out the door as quickly as his pudgy legs could carry him.  He rushed across the farmyard without looking back.

Caje watched him disappear down the road, then became aware of the silence behind him.  He turned and looked at Claire Marie who stood unmoved from her place near the hallway to the kitchen.  She had been staring at him as he watched the ironically named butcher.

“Why did you ask him that?” she said.

“What?”

“If he loved his wife.”

Caje smiled a tired smile, but his eyes lit up with amusement.  “Because, Claire Marie, the imagination can often be….more self-limiting than anything else.”

Claire Marie said nothing, her thoughts unfathomable to him.  But he decided that what had just transpired had caused her to pull away, to look at him in a new light.  He had seen the look before, among the men with whom he fought.  He had become used to it.  But it was not the way he wanted her to look at him.

“Claire Marie…do they have children?”

Her eyes widened.  “Why?”

“Because…that frightens me.”

Claire Marie’s clear laughter filled the room, diffusing the tension.  Caje winked at her and went over and grabbed the butcher’s porcine compensation.  When he straightened up, Claire Marie gasped.

“What?”

“There is blood!”

Caje stared at the package.  It looked the same as it did before.  He looked back up at Claire Marie, not understanding.  She noted his confusion and came over, taking the package from him and putting it back on the floor.  She pushed him unresisting onto the sofa.

“What is it?”

“Your shoulder is bleeding again.  Turn around a little, let me look at it.  Hmm…not too bad, but I should probably change the bandage.  Why don’t you wait right here and let me take this…this offal to the kitchen and get something to clean you up?”

She retrieved the hind roast again and disappeared down the hallway, leaving Caje to look at his shoulder.  The front of the wound looked alright, but it was impossible to twist around and see the back.  It was definitely healing though, he could tell.  And it did not hurt -- much -- unless there was direct pressure on it.

He did, however, feel that overwhelming tiredness of the past several days weighing down on the very edges of his mind, and he knew he still wasn’t up to long periods of physical exertion.  Maybe he’d been a little overly optimistic in his initial assessment of the time it would take him to recover enough to get back to his lines.  But it couldn’t be more than another two days, maximum.  There was too much going on in this little house for him to stay much longer. 

After a few moments, he heard the back door open.  Curious as to just what Claire Marie was up to, he decided to disregard her orders and see what was happening in the kitchen.  When he entered the small room, she was not there, but he could see her through the window, out by the well, buckets in hand.  Looking around for something to do, he spotted Bridgette’s small doll still in her chair from breakfast and…

****

Caje looked away from Saunders and Hanley and back at the floor of the jail cell.  It had been the doll that had first attracted him to the painting in the window.  He had only seen one of Claire Marie’s oils during their brief time together, so at first hadn’t paid the artwork much attention.  But when he looked closer, he recognized Bridgette’s toy and…

“And?” Sarge prompted, trying to help him out.  Just like Kirby and McCall had been trying to help him a few hours before. 

“And…never mind, Sarge.  I just saw one of her paintings last night.  That’s all.”

Sarge recognized Caje’s withdrawal when the soldier finished, “I was just drunk.”

Hanley became impatient.  “Caje…you’ve got to do better than this.  I’m not even sure if I can get you out of here as it is.”  He had a myriad of things to do that came with his newly assumed position.  And he wanted to get them done in time to attend a little soiree that was being put together for him and several of the other new captains.

“That’s it, Captain.  Sorry.” 

“Okay, then I’ll just go down and see how they want to handle this.  You may be in here a few days, and you’ll be lucky if that’s all.  You might have to pay for that damage you did.”  With that, Hanley left.   

Saunders and Caje were alone in the cell, neither saying a word.  It was something that had never been uncomfortable before now.  They had spent a lot of time together in companionable silence, both recognizing in the other no need for idle chit chat.  But something like this had never hung between them before.

Caje could tell that the sarge felt he had let him down, that he had shattered the unspoken understanding they had based on his unvarying sense of responsibility and the sarge’s unwavering loyalty.  Shit, he thought, now he had even lost this relationship.

For his part, Saunders decided there was nothing more he could do for the soldier in front of him.  Caje’s flat, unemotional monologue had not made much sense.  He knew that Caje was trying to tell him something, but without more insight…

Well, he had given Caje every chance he knew how.  If the Cajun wanted to shut down, that was the end of it.  He would respect the man’s privacy, like he always had, and if that meant that this trusted soldier -- a friend -- would sit in this stinking hole for three days, then so be it. 

Caje said nothing as Saunders stood to go.  The sergeant moved toward the door but turned back before heading out.  “If there’s anything…”

Caje started to reply in the negative, but stopped and focused on something behind Saunders.  The sergeant turned around and saw Hanley had returned and brought someone with him.

“Caje, this man owns the shop you busted up,” the captain announced.  “From what the guy at the front desk said -- and the best we can make out -- he’s not going to press charges.  But he did want to talk to you.”

Caje and Saunders looked at the man Hanley thrust forward.  He was small, petite even, and his features delicate.  Looking quite nonplussed at Hanley’s handling of him, he pointedly straightened his expensive but worn jacket.

His name was Vilmont Pineau, and he looked at the two men in front of him, trying to decide to whom to address his message.  Clearly, it must be the one with the bandages, he thought.  The police had told him the perpetrator had been injured.  Pineau wrinkled his nose in disgust, deciding the soldier definitely needed cleaning up.

In English so heavily accented that his listeners thought he sounded like a caricature of a Frenchman, he spluttered, “You!” and took a step toward Caje.  “You should stay in here for what you did to my display.  It is a total mess!”  He moved his hands in quick, small gestures that reminded the soldiers of a spastic music conductor.  “It is not just the cost.  Do you know how many weeks it will take to find someone to replace that front glass?  And the blood…the cleanup…I have to do it all myself now!”  He wrung his small hands, then raised his voice.  “Even the Boches…”

That was enough for Hanley.  The little man was insistent back at the guard desk that he see the perpetrator of “theez ‘orribal crime,” and now he had.  But there was no reason to waste time standing here listening to anything else about last night.  Besides, Saunders looked like he wanted to leave, too.  It was time to end this.

“Okay, that’s enough.   Drop the charges or don’t,” Hanley looked Caje in the eyes and continued with pointed emphasis, “I don’t care.  But we don’t have to listen to this.  C’mon, why don’t you go back and get to cleaning up that mess?”  He pulled the strange man with him as he started to leave.

“I will not press the charges.  But I have been asked to give him…” Pineau dramatically pointed to Caje with his unencumbered hand, “this.”  He reached into his pocket.

Saunders casually stepped between Caje and the Frenchman, ready to act.  One never knew…

Pineau pulled out a small scrap of paper.  Saunders reached for it.  Pineau pulled it back in toward himself and shook Hanley off his arm.

“No, it is only for that one.  I am going to drop the charges.  One of my …er, clients…has said that she will give me a painting I had there on consignment if this man comes to her house.  It will cover the damages.”

Caje was across the room in a flash.  “You know where she is?”

He grabbed the little man by the lapels of his jacket.  Vilmont screamed for the guards, his English deserting him.  Saunders and Hanley both stepped in -- Saunders pulling Caje back and Hanley trying to silence the excited Frenchman.

“Be quiet, I said.”  Hanley resisted the urge to backhand Pineau.  “Give us – him -- whatever you have there and get out.”

Pineau handed the small slip of paper to Caje. “Espèce d’enculé,” he muttered.

Caje looked down at the scribbled address.  He did not recognize the handwriting.  “Who gave you this?”  He did not even realize that he spoke in French.

Pineau, who was brushing imagined dirt off his jacket, looked up, surprised.  Most of these Americans could barely speak their own language, much less la lingua Franca, he thought.  But he answered, “It is none of your business.”  After all, even if this soldier spoke French, he was clearly still a savage after what he had done to the shop.

Saunders could tell that Caje was having a difficult time maintaining control, but he didn’t understand what was going on between the soldier and the annoying man.  “English please.”  It was an order, not a request.

The little man huffed at the tone, but said smugly to Caje, “It is not who you think, American.  I have not seen her.  You can go or not go, I do not care.  Either way I will be compensated for what you have done.”  With that, summoning all the dignity he had left after his handling by Hanley, Pineau pranced out of the cell, his footsteps speeding up as his exit down the hall was followed by catcalls from some of the other detainees.

“Well, Caje, it looks like you will get out of here sooner than we thought.  Saunders, I’ll go see about getting him released.”

Caje did not look up from the scrap of paper as Hanley exited.

“What have you got there?”

“I don’t know, Sarge,” Caje muttered.  The handwriting, to his disappointment, did not match that of the letter folded carefully in his pocket.  Though against regulations, it had never left him since it caught up to him over six months ago.  Nearly illegible at the time of receipt, it was worn almost to the point of disintegration.  He was even afraid to unfold it now, but he had the fragmented contents -- and the handwriting -- memorized.

Hanley poked his head back in the cell.  “C’mon.  Let’s go.”

Saunders helped Caje get his jacket over his bandaged arm.  The three of them walked down the hall in silence.  After Caje’s knife and wallet were returned, they stepped out into the bright mid morning sun.  Caje squinted for a minute, his eyes adjusting to the daylight, then he turned without a word to Hanley and Saunders and started down the street.

“Hold it right there, soldier!  Where do you think you’re going?” 

Caje pulled up at the voice.  He hadn’t been thinking, just acting on his emotions again.  He turned back around to answer Saunders.  But he didn’t know how to respond.

Hanley answered for him.  “He’s not going anywhere.  Not without you, Saunders.  You wanted him out.  He’s released on your recognizance.  Caje, you can consider yourself on parole for the next seventy two hours.  You are to go nowhere without being accompanied by Saunders.”

“Lieutenant…Captain…you must be kidding.”  Saunders pushed his cap back on his head.  This was not what he needed or wanted -- to be designated Caje’s official babysitter.

“No, Saunders, I’m not kidding.  That’s the only way I could get him out.  Otherwise, he’d have to wait until they get all the paperwork cleared up.”  Hanley clapped Saunders on the back, then without a word to Caje, he headed down the street.

The two men stood in the morning sun.  The street bustled around them with people and vehicles.  From some little café nearby there was the smell of coffee and pastries.  Patrons, civilian and GI, sat at small tables crowded into a postage stamp size portion of sidewalk defined by small pots of geraniums.

“Shit,” Saunders muttered.  He looked at Caje.  “C’mon, let’s get back to barracks.  You need sleep and to have Doc take a look at that arm.”

Caje just stood there, wearing the same impassive expression Saunders was used to.  But it did not extend to his eyes.  They flashed with excitement and, to Saunders’ surprise, a small amount of pleading. 

“Uh, uh,” Saunders replied to the unasked question.  “You’re not going anywhere.  Hanley stuck me with you,” he smiled at the irony of being unhappily stuck with Caje now when all through the war he’d been glad to be ‘stuck’ with the guy, “and I can’t trust you right now.”  His smile vanished.  Tilting his head, he said, “Let’s go.”

Caje still did not move.  He stood there in the middle of Paris, on a small side street shadowed by the hulking former ministry building now housing the Military Police.  He felt the morning breeze on his face, already warm, promising another unusually hot day.  He took in the curious glances of a few passers-by and of Saunders.

It was a critical moment.  Somehow, he knew that he would never forget his impression of this place, this time.  Like only a few other times during the war -- Theo’s death, his first close combat kill, Billy’s death, his last glimpse of Claire Marie -- it would remain fresh and vivid, every detail to be easily recalled until he took his last breath. 

“Sarge…I have to talk to you.  I have to explain.”

“I thought you already did that.”

“I didn’t tell you everything…”


                                                                       Part Three
Purple Hearts