Sins of the Flesh (46 page)

Now she was leaving him; he could feel her life slipping away. Desperately he clutched her hand tighter, willing her to live. Her fingers slipped from his. “No,” he moaned, “no, Mickey, hold on. Please don't leave me. Mickeeeee!”

He thought he'd whispered her name, but the children scurrying to her bedside told him otherwise. Rage swelled in his heart when the children murmured their love. This last moment was his, he would never have it again! His last good-bye…yet everyone was talking at once. Little Bruno was on the bed on his hands and knees.

“Au revoir, Mademoiselle Mickey,” he sobbed. “I will take care of Philippe's wagon. You can trust me, Madamoiselle.” The little dog bounded onto the bed. He looked around uncertainly at these new soft surroundings. His small head inched closer to Mickey, his pink tongue licking tentatively at her cheek, his tail wagging furiously.

Kort lifted the boy and dog to the floor. “
Auf Wiedersehen,
mademoiselle,” he said quietly. “I am proud to have known you and served alongside of you to guide these little ones to safety.” He saluted smartly, an American salute, before he ushered the weeping children from the room.

Yvette was next. Dropping to her knees, she reached for Mickey's hand as she howled her grief. “Au revoir, old friend, I will never forget you. You have my promise that one day France will be free again.” With infinite tenderness, she pressed Mickey's hand to her lips, then fled from the room, leaving Reuben to say his final good-byes.

“Can you hear me, Mickey?” he asked stroking her hair. She smiled and struggled to speak. “You…mustn't let them grieve…Life is…for the…the living.”

Reuben shook his head. “There is no life without you, my love.”

“Ah,
chéri,
but there is…now…” A fit of coughing racked her body, and still she struggled to speak. “Now you…are…free…to love…Bebe. Free…Reuben…my last…my last…gift to you…”

Reuben raised his eyes, tears blurring his vision. “Why?” He watched as a snowflake fell between the cracks and floated down to caress Mickey's cheek. Tenderly he leaned over and kissed it away. “Good-bye, my love.”

Within the hour Mickey's body was placed on a sled and taken to the bottom of the mountain and into the nearest town for burial the following day.

The children were taken on another sled to a convent school with Reuben's promise that he would come for them the moment the war was over. Bruno looked skeptical as he stared up at the tall man. “How do we know, Monsieur Reuben, that you will keep your promise?”

Reuben scooped the little boy into his arms. “Because I promised Mademoiselle Mickey I would take you to the château. You must trust me. And I want your promise to take care of that four-legged creature and to give him a name.”

Bruno digested this. “Very well, monsieur, I will trust you because Mademoiselle Mickey trusted you. I have one little question. Will I be too big for the red wagon when you come for us?”

Reuben swallowed past the lump in his throat. “A boy is never too big for a red wagon, but if you are, I will make you a new one, bigger and redder than the one in Philippe's room. That's my promise to you.” The boy nodded happily as he climbed onto the sled. The children waved and shouted until they were out of sight.

“I leave you now, too,” Kort said, coming up behind Reuben.

“I suppose you expect a rousing send-off,” Yvette said gruffly. She would never admit it, but she was going to miss the German.

“A simple good-bye will suffice,” he replied.

She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “
Auf Wiedersehen,
Kort. Thank you for helping the children. Don't you dare kiss me, you stinking German!” she cried. Kort laughed as he started off down the mountain.

Yvette's eyes brimmed. “We're all that's left, Reuben. What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to stay here for a few days and write.” He explained about his journal. “I told Mickey about it, but I don't know if she really understood; it was toward…the end. It's what I want to do. When I'm finished, I thought I would join up with the Resistance. If you don't mind waiting, we can travel back down the mountain together. After the war I'm going to stay on.” He showed her the papers from Mickey's backpack. “I made a promise to Mickey and the children that I will honor. I won't be going back to America. France is my home now.”

“Did you happen to notice the deed to our farm among the papers?”

“Yes, I did. Do you want me to do something in particular with it?” Reuben asked, puzzled.

“Keep it for the children. We…both of us promised them cows and chickens and ponies. I know I won't be going back there. I feel it in here,” she said, placing a hand over her heart. “Do not be sad for me, Reuben. I am prepared to meet my Maker, and Henri is getting impatient waiting for me. I'm tired, as tired as Mickey was. But to answer your question—yes, I will wait for you, but only if you promise to carry hot water for me to take a bath.”

Reuben smiled. “I think that's fair. And in return I would appreciate some hot food. Now!”

“Arrogant American!”

“Obedient Frenchwoman!”

“So, we start out even, eh?”

“It's as good a place as any. I'm thinking of it as a new beginning.”

“And the past?” Yvette queried.

“Dead and buried, as it should be. That doesn't mean it's forgotten. It will live in us all for the rest of our lives, but we won't dwell on it. Time will heal all our wounds.”

“Yes, in time.” Yvette smiled.

As the war years passed on, America found itself saying good-bye to its sons and then waiting to say hello…. Life moved on as did the buses and trains that traveled from one end of the country to the other carrying civilians and servicemen on a horde of war missions. And young women who still lived with their parents suddenly moved from home and hearth, some to enlist in the WAVES, WACS, or Coast Guard SPARS, thousands of others to work in defense plants, their way of helping their brothers, cousins, and boyfriends. Store shelves went bare as goods once taken for granted suddenly disappeared. Packaged cigarettes became a memory, and people took to rolling their own. Americans groused and complained, but accepted food rationing, standing in lines for butter, sugar, coffee, and shoes. These same Americans hunkered down, driving less to conserve precious gasoline and willingly turning in their old toothpaste tube when buying a new one. Bond rallies, tin-can drives, and waste-paper drives were a weekly occurrence. Housewives salvaged grease from cooking, collected clothing and anything else that could be used for the war effort on the home front. For once in collective agreement, Americans despised the Japanese, loathed all that the Nazi system stood for and felt only contempt for Mussolini.

War was hell.

Philippe Bouchet agreed. By now he was a full-fledged navy aviator fighting a war in the Pacific. Although certain he'd be sent immediately to the European theater, he had been assigned first to the
Yorktown,
then to the
Lexington,
and finally to the
Enterprise.
With Mike Almeda he'd started out flying F4F Wildcats, later transferring to the F6F Wildcats designed specifically to fight Japanese Zeroes. The F6F was a tougher plane and a better high-altitude fighter than the lighter Japanese Zeke, and Philippe preferred it, as did Mike.

Philippe knew he'd done well these past years and was proud of his contribution to the war—a war that was rapidly coming to an end.

Talk was of a massive invasion.

“Jesus Christ, Phil, do you ever feel homeless?” Mike Almeda demanded. “We should be planted somewhere, piloting the same plane day after day. I don't mind telling you, I'm not real crazy about Corsairs.”

Philippe shook his head. “Don't worry about it, we're back on our Hellcats. A plane is a plane; you either fly it or you don't. We got it off the
Intrepid
and they said it couldn't be done. All I want is to be part of this invasion and get this fucking war over with.” His voice was so vehement, so intense, Mike's eyes widened.

The two young pilots were assigned to Task Force 58 and headed toward the southern Mariana Islands. Theirs was a massive array of sea-air power, the greatest armada ever assembled. As far as the eye could see and beyond, great warlike ships churned through the Pacific. There were seven heavy carriers: the
Hornet, Yorktown, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Enterprise, Lexington,
and
Essex,
along with eight light carriers and seven new battleships, eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and sixty-nine destroyers.

The ward room was buzzing with questions from jittery pilots. The invasion was set for the fifteenth, yet here it was only the eleventh. Philippe's stomach roiled. Three days ahead of schedule. He looked toward Mike, who shrugged as if to say, This is the navy, pal, we just fly 'em, we don't make the decisions.

“Listen up, men,” their flight commander called, rapping sharply on the table in front of him. “Right now we're two hundred miles east of the Marianas. You're doing the first sweep. The way I look at it, the Japs will be expecting a dawn attack or an early evening one. We're gonna fool 'em, you're going up at high noon!”

The date was June 1, 1944, five days before the Normandy landings in Europe.

 

While Philippe flew his Wildcat over Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, destroying all the planes on the ground and in the air, his father, along with other Resistance members, was destroying the submarine pens in Brest that the bombers overhead couldn't seem to target.

Having successfully completed their mission, the Resistance members moved east, into Paris itself, where they took to fighting in the streets, openly and savagely killing German soldiers. They fought valiantly, rejoicing when the skies filled with Allied parachutes, part of the Seventh Army's amphibious assault from the Mediterranean.

On August 25, Paris once again became a free city. Reuben waved wildly as he watched the French Second Armored Division sweep through the city, followed by an American marine division. If only there were someone with him to share his joy. But Mickey was dead, and he'd lost track of Yvette a year before.

It was dusk and the streets were quiet, the German garrison gone forever. The war was almost over. For Reuben, it was completely over. The damn armies could do anything they wanted from this point on. He'd done his share, perhaps more…he was through with war and death and killing.

Reuben found his feet walking down familiar streets, streets he thought he had forgotten. He hungered for the sight of the flower stall where he'd once bought violets for Mickey. Everything was so achingly familiar, so heart-wrenching. It was truly over.

Suddenly he found himself in front of Mickey's Paris town house, a place he'd visited with her, a place where he'd made love to her. It looked the same, but Germans had lived in it over the past few years. How Mickey must have hated that. He walked on; this was one memory he didn't want to tackle now.

Reuben jammed his hands into his pockets and started to whistle as he walked away. He had things to do and places to go. First he would finish his writing and see about getting it mailed off or on a plane with a newsman. Then he was going back up the mountain to a convent school in Spain.

 

Ten days later Reuben strode into the walled yard of the school, whistling and shouting the children's names. He was met with silence. A nun appeared, a frown on her face, her hands tucked inside the long sleeves of her dark habit. “May I help you?” she asked cautiously.

“I've come for the children from the mountain. Where are they, Sister?”

“From the mountain, you say?”

“Yes. Anna, Marie, Marc, Bernard, Sophie, Stephan, Max, Mariette, and Bruno. What's happened to them?” Reuben demanded.

“They are gone, monsieur, for many weeks now. People came for them. I could not stop them.”

“Who? What people?”

“French people, a priest. I could not ask questions of a priest. He said it was necessary for the children to…to be taken. We have prayed daily for the little ones.”

“The dog? Bruno's dog, what happened to it?”

“He took it with him, monsieur. They were happy to go. All of them were happy.”

“And you have no idea, no clue as to where they went?” he asked.

The sister shook her head. “A journey is all I know. I heard the good Father say something about a splendid journey. I am so very sorry, monsieur. Each day they waited for you, at night they prayed for you to come, and now you are too late.”

Reuben's mind grappled for words. “The priest, surely you know where he is from and how I can reach him.”

“He is from Madrid, and I never saw him before. If only you had come sooner.”

“You shouldn't have let them go, they were to stay here and be safe.” Reuben said reproachfully.

“They are with a man of God, they are safe with him,” the Sister replied, and began to turn away. “I'm sorry I cannot help you anymore. It is time for prayers. I will pray for you, monsieur.”

“Wait a minute, what about the other children from the mountain, the ones who came to you first. Where are they?”

“They left also, monsieur. All of them. There are no children here now.” Inclining her head slightly in farewell, the nun turned and walked back into the shadows of the chapel.

This was a hell of a mess. He'd been so eager, so determined, to return for the children, and now he wouldn't be able to honor his last commitment to Mickey. Sixteen children, all gone…. In this war-torn country he knew he would never find them. Most likely he'd never see them again. It was like everything in his life—too much, too little, too late.

“I tried, Mickey,” he whispered. “I kept my promise. Perhaps one day they will find me. As soon as the government starts to function again, I'll write letters, I'll initiate searches. Whatever it takes, I'll do it. I gave you my word, and I'll honor it.”

Reuben's destination now was the château in Marseilles. His job, to repaint the red wagon and blue bicycle and oil the roller bearings on the skates. He'd find the children or die in the attempt.