An Owl's Whisper

An Owl’s Whisper

Michael J. Smith

This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters, other than historical persons, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 Michael James Smith

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Robert J. Grabowski

ISBN:1460976312

ISBN-13: 978-1460976319

E- Book ISBN: 978-1-43928-724-8

For my parents.

Acknowledgments

Most novels are born with the assistance of many midwives, each of whom contributes in unique ways to the final product. That was certainly true for my baby,
An Owl’s Whisper,
and I am pleased to acknowledge their significant contributions. While I gladly share the credit for whatever in the novel works well, I hold my midwives liable for none of its failings.

First and foremost, thanks to my family, Julie, Adam, and Ariel, for unwavering love, support and patience.

My parents, Andrée and Jim Smith, generously shared powerful first person accounts of the occupation and the war in eastern Belgium in the 1940s. Long before that, and more importantly, they imparted an intellectual curiosity and a spark of creativity that unfailingly drove me forward in this writing project and in life.

Ski Grabowski has been particularly devoted to this novel. He did the cover art and tirelessly gave perceptive editorial advice and encouragement, literally from day one.

To members of my writers’ critique group, I owe hearty thanks for their sharp pencils, fine literary sense, and unflagging support. Group members are Venera Di Bella Barles, Sue Bielka, Bill Campbell, Brett Gadbois, Margaret Trent, Harriet Davis, Marcia Rudoff, and Barbara Winther.

My sincere thanks to the kind and perceptive souls who read the novel in varying stages of polish. Each provided helpful, often crucial, feedback. Suzanne Arney, Carole Glickfeld, Jackie Haviland, Robert Potter, Ariel Smith, Julie Smith, Patrice Watson, Trese Williamson, and Kellie Zimmerman.

Finally, I am grateful to people with specific areas of expertise for their generous help. Frank Harding; Hooker County, Nebraska. Danielle Valentiny and Benjamin Stevens; Belgium. Elizabeth Turner and Larry Galpert; child psychology. Norm Hollingshead; opera. Rick Dooling; marketing. Gail Hochman; plot strategy. Sharon Cumberland, Carole Glickfield, David Guterson, Michael Hauge, Priscilla Long, and Bob Mayer; superb Field’s End writing class instructors, all.

Historical context for
An Owl’s Whisper

In September 1939 forces of Hitler’s Third Reich invaded Poland, whose allies Britain and France responded with a declaration of war on Germany. In May 1940 German forces drove through neutral Belgium to strike France. In the following weeks, Belgium, Holland and France surrendered and the continental Occupation began. The United States entered the war in December 1941. In June 1944 the Allies made their D-Day landings in Normandy, and by the following September they had pushed Nazi forces back into Germany. Hitler launched a massive, desperate thrust, the decisive Battle of the Bulge, in December 1944. The war in Europe ended in May 1945 with Germany’s surrender.

On Henri’s Leash

Whispering Owls

Be the Stone

May 10, 1940

Be the Leaf

Filthy and Pristine

Roller Coaster Ride

Red and White

Caspar, Not Marco

Stitches

A Mother

Walks, Together

Poisoned Cheese

Huntress and Prey

Voices in the Vault

Lights in the Night

Prize Fight in Lefebvre

The New Sébastien

The Führer’s Eyes

Smithwycke

Shipped Home in a Coffin

The Changing Tide

Kismet

Henri’s Questions

Crickette and Max

Champagne for Christmas

Geese With Foxes’ Teeth

December 16

and All’s Hell

Ardennes Truck Stop

Tigers in the Woods

Obligations

Across From the Tannery

In Fragrant Water

Picnic

Giovanna’s Sin

Two Hundred Twenty-five Pocahontases

A New Forest

Car No. 1120, Compartment Two

New Home, New Hope

At First Sight

Bluestem Folk

Opera and

A Heroine Surely

Snake

Ghost From the Past

In Sickness

The First Day of My Life

White and Red

White and Black

Who Murders a Dying Woman?

Whiskey in the Afternoon

Wallener

An Owl Whispers

Knowing Heads From Tails

Off the Hook

On Henri’s Leash

Eastern Belgium, October 1937

Walking from the car, fourteen-year-old Eva Messiaen struggled to keep up with the man clutching her wrist, the man she called Uncle Henri. She looked at Caspar, the small gray dog pattering at her side, and smiled at his floppy right ear, smirking there next to its soldier-straight mate on the left. Henri’s tug pitched her gaze back to his hand and doused the sparkle in her eyes. She peeked at her dog.
We’re both on a leash, aren’t we, Caspie?
Then she winked.
But not for long.
She wasn’t surprised when the dog glanced back as if he’d been thinking the same thing.

Eva followed Henri through the green wooden gate of a crumbling wall, to the pathway that led to the Convent School of St. Sébastien. Treading the path’s moss-ringed flagstones, Eva counted them off, alternating French and German in a quiet singsong. “
Une. Zwei. Trois. Vier. Cinq. Sechs. Sept—”

Henri jerked her to a halt. “I warned you!”

Tears welled in Eva’s eyes. “But uncle, I was only playing a game with the numbers.”

“Games are for children. As are tears.” Henri touched his swagger stick to her cheek. “Don’t
ever
forget why you’re here.” As his eyes darted to the convent’s dark windows, he froze. Lips pinched, he slowly lowered the rod. “Oh Eva, don’t cower. Would I strike you over a little slip of the tongue?” He slapped the stick on his leg.

Eva knew better than to answer his question. “It was careless of me.”

Henri tucked the rod under his arm and glanced at the convent. “Just remember—they can’t always be watching.” He smiled like a gambler laying down his winning hand. “You won’t test my patience again, will you?”

She bit her lip. “No, uncle.”

They covered the remaining flagstones briskly and climbed the three slate steps to the convent’s massive, tin-inlaid door. Henri set down Eva’s valise. He put on his
pince-nez
and glanced at his pocket watch, then he pulled the doorbell cord. When Caspar scratched behind his ear, Henri jerked the thin leather leash from Eva’s hand and tied it to the handrail.

Eva caught her reflection in the long window next to the door. She glanced down to the embroidered bottom of her cream-colored dress, showing beneath the hem of her gray wool coat. And up to her slender face, framed by oak-blond tresses that spilled from of her maroon beret and tumbled over the black velvet of her collar.

When Caspar whimpered, Eva stooped to pet him and saw Henri tapping his toe as he did so often. Nothing was ever quick enough for him. Or good enough. The tapping was a physical echo of the impatience she’d seen early that morning as they sat waiting in the car as Pruvot, his driver, changed a flat tire. To fill the time—every minute must be full, according to Uncle—he had quizzed her on minutia of the history and geography that gave their destination, the village of Lefebvre, its centuries-old status as a
carrefour
, its strategic importance. Eva too had been impatient, but just to get a first glimpse of
her
town.

Even with the delay, they had arrived while the village was still sleeping. With Henri as guide, she spent the morning studying Lefebvre’s every nook, even pacing off distances. She sketched it all in her notebook. Henri made a special point of the grand stone bridge, the
Pont de Pierre
, spanning the River Meuse. He repeated what he’d been telling her all along. “Like the Rhine, the Meuse is a wall dividing, dominating the land of northern Europe. The
Pont de Pierre
and the bridges in Liege and Namur are gates in the wall. Who controls these gates, controls Europe.” Before they left Lefebvre, he tested her to be sure she’d committed every detail of the town’s layout to memory.

After finishing in the village, they’d made a stop on the drive to St. Sébastien so Henri could show her a hillside path overlooking the military post and materiel warehouse at a road-rail intersection just outside Lefebvre. They counted the men of the Belgian army garrison lounging there in the yard, smoking and playing cards. Then, as they approached St. Sébastien, Henri gripped her arm and said, “The army post, the bridge, the transport lines. That’s why Lefebvre matters so. We’ve shown much trust, placing you here, Eva. Be worthy of it.”

The sound of the convent door groaning open snapped Eva’s attention back to the moment. A tiny, young nun, panting for breath, stood in the doorway.
Sister Mouse
. Her size, her face, her scuttling way made clear to Eva she could have no other name.

Sister Mouse wiped her hands with a small towel and nodded repeatedly. “Oh,
Monsieur
Messiaen, forgive my tardiness. I was pulling bread from the oven. What a pleasure to see you on such a lovely autumn afternoon. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you, Sister Martine.” Henri removed his gray bowler and eased Eva into the dark corridor before him.

Eva closed her eyes and silently mouthed
Martine, not Mouse
.

After smiling at Eva and glancing at the valise, Sister Martine’s gaze stuck on
Monsieur
Messiaen. She looked honored to have shown him in. Eva had seen it before.
They all fall for him.
She thought about what it was that snared them. Not physical stature—he was slight. Eva glanced at his round face, sandwiched between a shiny, bald pate and a red bowtie and starched collar. Glanced at the carefully-trimmed moustache riding over a mouth tight and gray as a pencil line. At the small ears that looked pinned to the side of his head, and the eyes sparkling like quicksilver behind his
pince-nez
. The gold watch chain decorating the vest of his blue flannel suit, and the red rosebud boutonniere on his lapel. She put it all together—he had the look and bearing of a prime minister.