Guernica

  “Coal dust might do it, but that would wash off in the rain or in the river,” Renée said.

  “The stain I used on furniture was stubborn; that would surely work,” Miguel added.

  “Do you have any?” Renée asked.

  “In Guernica. Sorry.”

  “I’ll sort about and get some dye,” Renée said.

  These irregular tasks, requiring scavenging in town, had become part of Renée’s responsibilities as their small group had developed an efficient division of duties. She could find hair dye without causing suspicion. Dodo could not. She could buy men’s clothes of various sizes as gifts, whereas it would seem strange if Dodo stumbled through it. She could pick up a young man at the station and it would look like the start of a romantic liaison, whereas Dodo meeting him would seem the roots of a conspiracy.

  In his short time in the mountains, Miguel had fit in without a missed step. His experiences logging in the hills above Guernica prepared him for the night work along the border. He could walk all night, keeping his mouth closed and his eyes alert. More important, their small band could have added no one equally trustworthy.

  What ever limitations Miguel’s hands were in his other pursuits, they were not a factor in the guidance of escaping fliers into the Spanish frontier. Dodo noted without comment that he appeared to be walking taller now, too, looking about him rather than at the ground in front of him.

  The exertion and the danger energized Miguel but were not nearly as regenerative of his spirit as was the sense of revenge. Every pilot to make it back to England was one who could drop more bombs on the Nazis. It was not a Christian thought, but he found he could live with that guilt until his next confession. The idea of confession triggered another of the mental connections that took him on a predictable path: from Father Xabier to Xabier’s brother Justo and back to Justo’s daughter, Miren, again. Miren and sadness. Back to work, to find something that wouldn’t lead in that direction. But everything brought him back.

  Renée, Dodo, and Miguel had now successfully relocated more than a dozen fliers since the Nazi occupation of France. It had not been without narrow escapes, a great deal of improvisation, and the adaptation of routes almost literally in midstream. Several times they were forced to reverse course and quick-march up other passes. One night was spent in a cave with a few uneasy fliers. Once they piloted a drifting log across the Bidassoa, with only their heads above water on the dark side of the log as searchlights scanned and several target-practice shots ripped into the wood. Holding on to underwater branches, they waded across more easily than they could have without the stabilizing assistance of the floating log.

  For some time, the Spanish guards took greater interest in the smugglers than in the refugees or fleeing pilots. The Spanish were considered neutral, as far as the war and its participants were concerned, but they had always been watchdogs—if occasionally indolent ones—against the unlawful transportation of goods and illegal entrance into their country.

  Still, the Nazis had leverage on Franco, and the Gestapo had begun training—and intimidating—the guards responsible for manning the borders. An arrangement called for the Spanish to detain anyone caught fleeing France so they could be shipped to Germany for processing. As a consequence, the évadés, as the French called the escapees, were no longer guaranteed freedom once in Spain. And the Spanish, with new orders, were eager not to agitate the imperious Nazis.

  But since the loss of the Polish refugees, there had been no fatalities at the border for their group, an impressive record given the increased presence of the Nazis. The allure of the beaches and the pleasant nature of the towns along the Côte Basque caused the Germans to grow fond of furloughs in places like Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz in France, and San Sebastián in Spain. So Dodo’s little corps had to deal with heightened pressure not only in the woods and mountains but also in the towns, where so many off-duty Nazis were sniffing about for women and pastries.

  And into this difficult circumstance came a British flier with hair that shouted, “Achtung, verboten!”

  “Fine, get some hair dye,” Dodo said to Renée.

  “What do we do about that skin?” she asked.

  “I guess we just have to get him dirty,” Dodo said.

  German officers favored the Labourds’ inn near Sare. At dinner, they frequently ordered several portions of gâteau Basque after dinner, never wondering about the source of the eggs and sugar and other rationed ingredients.

  “I would crap in it,” Santi Labourd joked, “except they’d think it was prune filling and order more than I could supply.”

  For each officer who stayed, a small tariff was charged that did not appear on their final bill. After Mrs. Claudine Labourd ushered them out for housekeeping, she thumbed through the pockets of tunics and satchels for information, loose buttons, extra insignias—anything that might be taken without notice.

  At times, she’d find a pocket holding three cigars, one of which she would take to sell to the same officer the next day after he noticed he was running low. “Ah, you have my favorite brand, what luck,” he would inevitably claim, doubling her tip.

  Although fully arrived at round-hipped matronhood, she still understood the value of flirting with the officers and hinted at the great delights she would share if only she were twenty years younger. Some were brazen enough to say that they didn’t mind her age and asked her to their rooms anyway. She would act astonished by the officer’s manliness as she squeezed his upper arm, toss off an excessively trilled “formidable,” and reject the invitation by citing a “woman’s problem.” The officer would nod knowingly, without a clue in the world what it could be. He also had no notion that her pockets held identity papers that could be reworked into acceptable forgeries, a hundred francs of scrip, a collar insignia, a photo of the Führer, German stamps off his correspondences, and his spare campaign cap.

  Because of the possibility of stumbling onto vacationing Nazis, Dodo’s approach to the small hotel was always tentative. Renée had decided to go as far as Sare this trip, walking ahead with Charley along the path as Dodo and Miguel trailed well behind and off the path. The only two visible were the lovers walking along the valley floor, arm in arm, sharing quiet time. Nothing could be more natural.

  When Renée discovered no Nazis in residence that evening at the Labourds’, the group entered for a large midday meal of lamb and vegetables, along with a vintage Bordeaux.

  “The perfect wine, Papa,” Renée complimented him.

  “Ah, that was going into Spain one night and a few bottles managed to get misplaced along the way,” he explained with mock dismay.

  The plan was to try to nap until well after sunset so they would be rested for the five-to-six-hour hike. As usual, Dodo joined Renée in her old room, a proposition the Labourds found acceptable. The two lived together in the town, worked together, and loved each other; why bother with formalities? Besides, they admired Dodo and deemed him a more than suitable mate for their spirited daughter. “Get it while you’re young,” Santi always said to Claudine. “Every one you pass up is one you don’t get later,” he added before she slapped his shoulder.

  Miguel and the black-haired Charley went to the back of the inn to sample the comfort of the barn loft. Charley’s damaged leg caused no problems during the six-mile walk to Sare. With his “new” hair, cotton trousers, wool shepherd’s vest, rope-soled espadrilles, and beret, he was a plausible Basque, even with the oddly speckled face.

  What more than adequately countered that liability was Charles Swan’s fluency in Spanish. It allowed easy conversation among them all, particularly with Miguel that evening. It also meant that he could understand and respond appropriately if confrontation arose along the border.

  The Labourds’ barn housed a mule, two domesticated pottoks that were veterans of many midnight passages, and more than a dozen sheep. As was the case with the other special guests who had passed through, Miguel and Charley were billeted in the loft where hay
was kept, and the mice were generally accommodating enough to nibble only on visitors’ leather shoelaces and nothing more valuable. With the stacks of dried timothy, the manger of oats, and the sheep, it smelled of Errotabarri to Miguel. Sheep, Errotabarri, Justo, Mariangeles, Miren.

  Although he knew how important a few hours of rest would be to him later, Charley couldn’t relax and constantly stretched and tested his leg. It had been a month and a half since he’d been shot down. The realization that he was now only a few hours away from a neutral country made it feel as if he were almost home.

  Miguel shared little with the fliers. He couldn’t understand most of them, and besides, nobody knew who might end up talking to guards down the line. If anyone were captured, ignorance would be an asset to all. But he was lonely, too. They passed between them a bottle of Bordeaux Santi had given them.

  “The biggest problem,” Charley said as they stretched out in the loft, “is that my wife probably thinks I’m dead. I don’t think there’s any way for her to know that I’ve been taken in and nursed.”

  Miguel shook his head, a gesture of sympathy.

  “We’ve been married less than two years,” Charley explained. “She has red hair, too.”

  “Any little red-haired niños?” Miguel asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “How about you, any family?”

  “Yes. I have family.”

  Charley continued with a few chuckles. “I don’t know about your wife, but mine is silly.” He pulled his photo from a pocket. Talking about her made her feel closer.

  “A bird?” Miguel asked when he saw the photo.

  “His name is Blennie—it’s a budgie, one of those little parrots that talk.”

  “Your bird talks?”

  “They just mimic sounds that they hear,” Charley explained. “Annie is always trying to get it to say ‘pretty bird.’ ”

  “It says ‘pretty bird’?”

  “No, all it says is ‘docka, docka.’ ”

  “Docka, docka?”

  “That’s the silly part; this is the second bird she had that only says ‘docka, docka.’ She keeps repeating ‘pretty bird’ to them, but she always puts the cage on the mantel near a very loud clock. All day long the bird hears that clock ticking. Docka, docka, docka, docka. So that’s what they learn to say, and she hasn’t a clue why.”

  Charley’s explanation warranted a smile and then a chuckle, perhaps. But even that hint of humor broke through some inner wall for them both, and as they remembered how to laugh, it gained momentum until they had to bury their faces in their crossed arms to muffle the noise. The sound alarmed the pottoks, who shifted and stirred below, but Miguel couldn’t stop. Charley’s pink face flushed brighter as he was further amused by Miguel’s response.

  “Why don’t you tell her?” Miguel asked once he regained control.

  “Because I’m afraid it will make her feel foolish.”

  Miguel looked at the picture, at the woman whose eyes were magnified by her glasses and at the vacant eyes of the bird, and he laughed again. “Docka, docka,” he said.

  “Docka, docka,” Charley replied, setting off another cascade of laughter.

  Miguel handed the photo back.

  “What about yours?” Charley asked.

  “She’s a dancer,” he said.

  Miguel pulled from his shirt pocket the photo of his family on Catalina’s first birthday. Justo knew that Miguel’s picture had burned when his house was destroyed. Before Miguel left for the mountains, Justo had given him the copy that he had leaning on the mantel at Errotabarri.

  “Oh, they’re beautiful,” Charley said. He had not seen a more striking family. “Your girls are gorgeous . . . perfect.”

  “Not quite perfect,” Miguel said without thought, caught up in the high spirits.

  “Why not?”

  Miguel, still chuckling, hesitated.

  “Why not?” Charley asked again.

  Yes, why not? Miguel thought. He’d never see this stranger, this flier, again. He explained why Catalina was not looking directly at the camera.

  “We were hiding her ear,” he said. “Four of us tried to hold her still while she got that ear pierced, and she broke loose and ripped out a part of her ear.”

  He laughed at the recollection of the four of them unwilling to restrain the squirming little girl.

  “That’s a pretty earring in the left one, though,” Charley said.

  “That’s the lauburu, the Basque emblem.”

  The Basque emblem? Charley had assumed that Renée, Dodo, and Miguel were French and Spanish and hadn’t had the occasion to think of them as Basques. He’d been with them less than a day and no one had mentioned it, as they’d been busy planning the details of the escape.

  “My wife knows many Basque children,” Charley explained, excited by the connection. “Many, many Basque children.”

  Miguel could not imagine why.

  “There were thousands of children shipped to England during your civil war. My wife loves them and has been helping them out at a home. She’s learning to speak Basque, at least a little. What town are you from?”

  “Guernica,” Miguel said.

  “Guernica?” Good God, Charley thought. Should he tell him he had seen the painting? Would he even know that there is a painting?

  “Were you there . . . then?” Charley asked.

  “Yes, we were there.”

  “Your family?”

  “Yes, they’re gone.”

  Charley closed his eyes. He had noticed the deformity of Miguel’s hands but had made no assumptions; these days, it could have been caused by any of war’s by-products. He thought back to the images in the painting and could remember the screaming woman holding the baby with the empty eyes. He hoped Miguel would never see it.

  The flier focused more deeply on the picture he held and was not sure what to say.

  “They are beautiful,” he said.

  They kept talking in that loft, in the growing darkness, as protection from silence. The pilot told of the feeling of flight and how afraid his wife had been of him going to war. Miguel talked of his failure as a fisherman and how he could only imagine how sick he would get in an airplane if he had so much trouble on a boat.

  He tried to explain what it was like to watch Miren dance, and he told the absurd story of Vanka, which caused Charley to laugh again and to pat him on the shoulder.

  And when it grew dangerously quiet again, Charley added the only words he could: “I’m sorry.”

  Miguel had spoken of things to this stranger that he had not been able to say to Justo or Dodo or his father. They all were too close; they had their own suffering, and he could not expect them to carry his as well. It took this stranger to coax from him the words for such things.

  “I was in the hills . . . I couldn’t reach them,” he said. “I was told that the first bombs killed her mother, and Miren, my wife, was buried by a building that collapsed later.”

  “And the little one?”

  Miguel’s voice caught, but he had to say this now, while he could. “There was nothing . . .”

  “And your hands?”

  “It happened as I tried to find them,” he said.

  Silence.

  Miguel’s wife could have been Annie. The baby could have been theirs. Miguel’s life could have been his. It still could.

  “I have to get back,” Charley said. The statement was unrelated, but Miguel understood.

  The loft darkened and the soft sounds of bedded stock below calmed them, but neither slept. Within a few hours, Charley would be closer to his own family, and he began organizing in his mind all the things he wanted to tell Annie.

  The order came down an unusual chain of command. Sister Terese told the priests at Santa María that when Alaia Aldecoa came to the convent, she looked weak, as if she hadn’t been eating well. A priest at Santa María got word to Father Xabier in Bilbao that Alaia Aldecoa was starving.

  “You should take her in; it is
the charitable thing to do,” Xabier said when Justo visited the basilica that week. “You know how much she meant to everybody. We can’t allow this to happen. We can’t turn our backs.”

  Justo couldn’t deny that she had been like a member of his family, and he cared very much for her well-being. But taking her in at Errotabarri?

  “Can’t I just take food to her? Help her around her house?”

  “It might be that she can get enough food but that she just isn’t taking care of herself. She probably needs someone to look after her.”

  “What about Terese at the convent, or Marie-Luis up in Lumo?”

  “Justo, should that girl be put back in the convent? Or have to go live with someone she doesn’t know?”

  “But it’s just me there, you know,” he said.

  “What? Do you care how it looks?” Xabier challenged.

  Justo thought. He’d heard the whispers in town before the bombing, but nothing since. Should that matter?

  “Since when do you care how anything looks?” Xabier asked.

  “I don’t know, Xabier,” Justo said. “I need to be free to get out. I do missionary work.”

  Xabier could not be certain what that was about but could not see how a blind girl would get in Justo’s way. He’d agreed to raise the topic only partly out of Christian charity for the girl, anyway. He felt that having someone else around Errotabarri, someone Justo liked, someone who knew Mariangeles and Miren, would force him to root at home rather than spending his days and nights wandering about. The connection to his father seemed too obvious to ignore.

  “Justo, look,” Xabier said. “I know you always suspect I’ve got some kind of motive. I’m not saying she needs to come in and replace your daughter, and I’m certainly not saying she needs to come in and replace your wife. I’m just saying she’s been a dear friend who may have nowhere better to go right now. That’s all. She needs help.”

  Justo walked to the closet and removed a broom to start sweeping the rectory. Xabier’s instinct was to stop him, but Justo needed time, and he had decided to sweep as he thought. It would be uncomfortable having her there, perhaps, but that would pass. And no, he didn’t care what anybody in town had to say. In fact, that was almost a good reason to do it, to get the tongues wagging. But at Errotabarri? He had a duty to Errotabarri. It would be better to take her in when Miguel came back. That would make more sense. But would Miguel come back?