Guernica

  “No, no, no,” he said. “Why would a great man want to talk to me?”

  But he had heard from Aguirre, who had followed a dangerous path across Eu rope, at times barely escaping Gestapo agents on his heels. His sister Encarna was shot to death by Germans while their family was in Belgium.

  When Aguirre needed a sense of the political climate or news on the ground at home, he got word to Xabier. It was not as simple anymore as showing up at the back confessional at the basilica, but such things were still possible.

  Xabier knew without question that Justo would have loved to be involved. But Justo surely was incapable of stealth. He had the bravery to meet a battalion head-on if needed, but to be sneaky? That wasn’t Justo.

  “Justo, it is so thoughtful of you to come and help, but there is really no need,” Xabier said. “I know you have so much to do at home and I hate to take you from your chores.”

  “It is not a problem, Your Excellency,” Justo said. “I get my work done well enough, and our family home is recuperating well.”

  “Of course, of course. Justo, I have to just come out and tell you this, then. It might not be good for you to be seen with me a great deal at this point.”

  “Little brother, I have to tell you that it might not be good for you to be seen with me at this point,” Justo countered.

  In spite of his serious intent, Xabier laughed. “I mean it; I’m considered a political figure now, and other priests all over the country have been imprisoned or killed—you know that. I worry they might try to get to me by attacking you if you become too visible.”

  “Me?” Justo raised his deep voice, holding in the air the broom he had been carrying. “I can be the essence of discretion. I can be a whiff of smoke. I am a thought, a memory. I can come and go unseen.”

  Xabier laughed harder. “You see?”

  “We will discuss this at some other time, Your Eminence,” Justo said, taking the broom to a closet. “I’m going to see Sister Inky now.”

  Justo walked down the hill toward the river to the hospital and spent the afternoon helping the tiny nun with her rehab patients.

  “I enjoy seeing you, Justo,” she said. “You’re one of our success stories. It does the patients good to see how well you have learned to adapt.”

  Justo followed Sister Incarnation’s tone with her patients; those in need of nurturing benefited from his patience and good nature. Those needing to be jolted from their self-pity were frightened into action by the forceful man.

  “Anything I can do to help, sister,” he said.

  “You’re helping enough, Justo,” she said. “You’re spreading a good message and being a good example.”

  Well, this is some progress, Annie Bingham decided: Now I have two jobs that don’t pay. The small stipend for her work with the Basque children had run out. Their numbers had dwindled by half anyway, as some had been repatriated and some adopted. Many of the older ones had just grown up and, in large part as a result of Annie’s teachings, were able to join the community on their own.

  Even without pay, she continued helping those remaining; they felt like family. And now, having joined the Women’s Voluntary Services, Annie Bingham was spending her nights bundled up at her station, manning her searchlight. She thought that her eyesight might be an issue when she volunteered for the job, but the recruiter seemed only too delighted to welcome her in any capacity. Night work would not interfere with the children’s aid, and she didn’t need much income, anyway, as she lived with her parents.

  She wanted to write Charley with the details of her new job and how she was contributing to the war effort, how she practiced by training the light on seagulls and tracked the poor confused birds through the sky with the high-powered beam. But she was warned that her placement was considered a secret and she should tell no one.

  To the children at the home, though, she felt comfortable offering the vague suggestion that she was involved in the antiaircraft defense system. Not quite understanding the concept, they thought the entire enterprise had been named for her and all of England now was being protected by the “Annie Aircraft” system.

  Annie liked the sound of it and let it go uncorrected. The children had gone several years without worrying about death by bombing. When they arrived in England, they had been assured—promised, actually—that they were forever safe. But the Germans had followed these children to Great Britain, and they once again found themselves shuttled off in the night to shelters.

  At least their friend Annie Aircraft would defend them.

  And for her new husband, she physically suffered. She could not believe there was an actual pain of separation. After the marriage, they had decided to live with her parents since Charley would be gone soon anyway. They would start their lives together, in their own home, when he returned. To keep her looking forward and staying optimistic, Charley asked her to start scouting out prospective flats. No one knew how things would be changed by then, but she wanted to be prepared as best she could for his arrival . . . whenever that might be. Would either of them go back to school? Would they have an income? Would they start a family immediately? That would be good. Yes, that would be a fine thing to do. She didn’t need more waiting.

  There wasn’t much time for idle wanderings, though. She slept from dawn until seven A.M., when she headed to the rectory to spend the day with the children. As soon as the skies grew dark, she was in her place on a ridge at the edge of town, waiting for any radio word that enemy bombers were entering the eastern quadrant.

  Pedaling her bike home one morning as the sky became tinted pink, she turned the corner toward her house and saw a black car at her door. Men were there to see her.

  Justo Ansotegui approached. Alaia Aldecoa could smell him; no one else carried that combined scent of farm and sweat and soap.

  “Kaixo, Alaia, it’s Justo Ansotegui,” he said. Yes, she knew. He introduced himself this way every week. It was a courtesy, as he assumed that her blindness kept her from sensing his approach.

  “Would you like more of your soap?”

  “Yes, I would like a bar of the Miren blend,” he said.

  She removed from a sack the two bars that she made and put aside for him every week. He tried to pay and she rejected his coin. Justo moved on to visit other booths, as was his habit these days at the new market, which now was located closer to the river. He tried to act like the Justo from before the bombing more than three years ago, but she could sense the deep sadness that surrounded him, as it did so many others in town. Even when he talked of small things and tried to be light, there was a heaviness in his voice. It was not much, but she heard it.

  As Justo moved on, she could hear the matrons chattering and the men playing mus at the café, and a man squeezing and fingering his button accordion beneath the awning in the corner. She knew that much of the talk in the village was of Justo, speculating whether he, with his soap bubbles sometimes seeping through his pocket and his strange wanderings around the town, had lost his mind as his father had. Still, he seemed otherwise normal. He’d had his sufferings, not unlike everybody else. But he was dealing in his way. He would visit, buy a few potatoes, and then disappear down a side street on his curious rounds.

  He’s doing better than I am, Alaia thought. The making of soaps was far from stimulating. Mostly she did it for Justo. Otherwise she would not have left her cottage and would have had little reason for venturing to town alone. Except for one strange reconnection.

  Sister Terese at the Santa Clara convent contacted her with an invitation. The sisters needed soap. No one had been able to replace Alaia in these years, and many of the nuns had mentioned it. They had not complained, of course, as it would have seemed a frivolous request. But Sister Terese had worried for Alaia. She knew that her cousin, Mariangeles Ansotegui, and Mariangeles’s daughter, Miren, had been important to Alaia. Where was her support now in their absence?

  Alaia found an unexpected comfort in the convent, going back inside the w
alls when she delivered soaps for the devout sisters. They seemed content with their lives, so certain of their direction, so insulated from uncontrollable outside forces. It was sheltered and orderly there, and they cared about her. Except for brief and somewhat uncomfortable moments with Justo at the market, when she tried to lift his spirits, the time spent visiting with the sisters was the only human connection she felt.

  Miguel’s breaking away had been painfully executed. As he had on the occasion of his brief visits, he brought her a fish one afternoon. After placing it on her table, he announced his intention to go to France to live and work with his brother.

  “What about Justo?” she asked, meaning, What about me?

  “He’ll be better without me around as a reminder,” Miguel said, speaking of Justo but meaning Alaia.

  “No, he won’t,” she blurted.

  But Miguel was gone before she could say what she really thought.

  CHAPTER 26

  Intelligence from the continent warned RAF pilots that German patrols sought downed airmen with the energy of kiddies questing after Easter eggs. There was ceremonial joy in the hunt, and they looked in every bush and hollowed tree trunk, and beneath every leaf pile and haystack. After Charley Swan hit the ground and made a brief examination of the source of the blood on his pants, he rolled and buried his parachute and burrowed into a thick hedgerow.

  Throughout the late afternoon and evening, he listened to patrols on the roads stopping to inspect the fields and at times coming so close he could hear their barking dogs. He pulled himself up tightly into the bramble and tried so hard to stay still that his legs cramped and quivered. But the dogs never sniffed him out.

  Several hours after dark, a watchful farmer retrieved Charley and ferried him back to a barn in a wheelbarrow that squeaked under his weight. He sensed the ridiculousness of this, but he asked no questions; the farmer had arrived with water, a piece of bread, and a way out of the thornbushes. That alone made him worthy of trust.

  It took only a moment to see that a piece of metal had gouged out a segment of the meat of his outer thigh on its way through, which would end up being somewhat unattractive in the future but was little more than a nuisance at the moment. His blood loss was not life threatening, and if infection could be avoided, he would be able to fl y again after a period of recuperation.

  A doctor risked his practice and his life to come out to the barn and clean the wound, stitch the jagged edges, and apply a sulfa powder. A Belgian couple in town risked their home and their lives by taking him in, caching him in the attic, and sharing their rations with him until he could regain his strength. After a month of hiding and resting, Charley Swan would be placed in a conduit created by scores of Belgians and French, who would risk their lives to get him back to England.

  The day he arrived in the attic, exhaustion overtook him. Charley slept for most of three days, awakening only for treatment and food, which he consumed with groggy appreciation. Oddly, being shot down had brought him peace, and when he arose, he was rested and ready to prepare for his escape.

  His handlers coached him on the protocol of subtlety. They identified the areas of greatest danger and schooled him on means of avoiding confrontation. But as someone with an active mind and a new reservoir of energy, passing each day quietly in an attic tested Charley’s patience. He had no options, though, as the Gestapo conducted random searches of houses in most towns. And who knew who might be scanning the windows of homes in the neighborhood? So Charley Swan remained prone most of the day, watching the path of the light through the dirty window as it crept around the walls and floor, casting changing patterns across the room like a very slow, colorless kaleidoscope.

  Flies convened on the windowsill to die, and a mouse negotiated the inner wall with sprints and halts. Charley listened to planes overhead, trying to detect their direction (Ours or theirs? he wondered, tempted to look out but too disciplined to risk it). He traced the sound of the trucks that passed on the street, anxious until each passed. From the vents, the scent of boiled cabbage rose.

  He created puzzles in his mind to stay alert. He thought through his daily flight checks and flew mental missions, setting flaps, adjusting the throttles, tilting the rudder bar, pulling back on the yoke. He would be ready to fly again as soon as he returned. To keep his muscles loose, Charley stretched and exercised on the floor for hours, lying on his back, making dust angels on the hardwood, and turning onto his stomach, attempting a dry breaststroke move.

  At night when no moonlight slipped into the attic, he walked laps and did knee bends to strengthen his leg. Anticipating a passage through Gibraltar, he worked at remembering his Spanish, conducting conversations in his mind.

  But mostly he thought of Annie. One of his first questions was whether notification could be sent home to assure her of his well-being. He was told that they would mention it to fliers ready to pass down the line and see if they could get the message to her. But there was already too much on the minds of these evaders, and such information might be more of a liability to the system if it were pressured out of them in the face of the Gestapo. So nothing was said. The wife would just be all the more surprised when he showed up on the doorstep, they reasoned, and she’d not be doubly upset if his escape went awry and she had to hear he’d been killed a second time.

  Healed sufficiently to stand the journey and now able to walk without a limp, Charley learned the plan. Outfitted in cotton pants, a denim shirt, and a light jacket, Charley was to act as if he were a student going south on holiday. His handler, a woman he would meet only on the day of his departure, would keep a safe distance as they traveled to Paris, switched trains for Bordeaux, and transferred again to a smaller line for the southern points of Dax, Bayonne, Biarritz, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

  Charley learned some French in his month of recuperation but was unable to fully express his thanks to those who housed him. He spoke a few words and finally hugged them both. They understood.

  “Bonne chance,” the man said to Charley. “Bombardezles al-lemands.”

  Charley understood. Good luck, and as soon as possible come back and bomb the Nazis.

  Previous escape attempts had taught the operators of the pipeline that the places of greatest vulnerability were train station platforms, where passengers could be funneled through checkpoints and suspicious individuals could be culled randomly as they filed past. Gare de Lyon in Paris, particularly, proved a tricky bottleneck.

  Charley felt so prepared for the journey and confident of its success that he fell asleep on the trip to Paris. But when he stepped down from the train, he understood the problem. A row of German soldiers blocked the passage from this platform to the main concourse as a pair of Gestapo agents sitting at a table examined identity papers. The long backup of passengers implied that this was not a casual search.

  Odd, he thought; he had been fighting Germans for more than a year and these were the first he had actually seen. But now was the time for analyzing the options, and he had to be careful not to scan his surroundings too obviously. He turned to reboard the train for an attempt at exiting the other side, but as he looked in the window, he saw soldiers with automatic weapons making a sweep of the cars. Stay calm, he told himself. The handler would know what to do. He would shuffle along in line and hope his papers withstood inspection. Be calm. Breathe. Relax.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” Charley heard. “Pardon.”

  The cluster of impatient passengers parted to make way for an overloaded baggage cart pulled by a man too old for the task. The teetering load appeared ready to spill as the two-wheeled cart rolled over uneven concrete.

  Charley took a shot at a French word. “Assistez?” he said, pointing to the load.

  “Ah, oui!” the old man said. As the man bent down to set the cart on its uprights, his blue porter’s cap fell off. Charley repositioned the bags, picked up the man’s hat, and placed it on his own head. He winked at the man and nodded at him to proceed. He walked along behind the c
art with his hands steadying the wobbly load.

  The line of soldiers with automatic weapons remained shoulder to shoulder as the baggage cart neared.

  “Pardonnez,” the old man shouted under the strain of a heavy load.

  The soldiers looked him over, up and down, and parted. Charley focused on balancing the bags without looking up as they passed the line.

  “Halt!” one shouted. The old baggage handler and Charley froze in place.

  An officer slid his weapon down off his shoulder and approached. He looked Charley in the face. Charley looked directly into his eyes, focusing on his pupils. The officer moved toward the load and repositioned a few bags to be certain no one was hiding in the pile. Satisfied the cart was clear, he gestured for the old man to move on.

  “Merci, monsieur,” the man said when the two “coworkers” reached the baggage room. He gestured for the return of his hat.

  “Merci beaucoup,” Charley said, handing him the cap. He turned back out onto the concourse, examined the departure list, and strolled like a student on holiday toward the train for Bordeaux.

  Something had to be done about the hair. At a time when inconspicuousness meant survival, nobody wanted to risk that a pilot with hair the color of a warning flare could be passed off as a Basque shepherd in the mountains.

  Renée Labourd met Charley Swan at the Saint-Jean-de-Luz/ Ciboure station as if he were a boyfriend home from school. Past a pair of Nazi soldiers, she cleaved to him, leading him down a side street to the Pub du Corsaire and up the back stairs to Dodo’s apartment.

  As she entered the room with Charley, Renée pointed immediately to the hair. “Meet our newest shepherd,” she said sarcastically.

  “I don’t think we have a beret big enough to cover that,” Dodo said. “We’d have better luck pretending he’s one of the sheep.”