An Owl's Whisper (2 page)

Henri cleared his throat.

The nun’s eyes fluttered. “Oh, excuse me,
Monsieur
. You’re here to see Mother Catherine?”

“If that’s possible.”

“But of course,
Monsieur
. For you.” The nun opened the door to a small room off the corridor, and her tiny hand, extending from the broad sleeve of her habit, arced an invitation. “If you and
Mademoiselle
would please make yourselves comfortable in the reception parlor…” She scurried off into the darkness.

They sat on a maroon-striped sofa. Eva stared at the swagger stick in her uncle’s hand. She wanted to memorize its physical details. So that the next time she caught herself admiring his cleverness or his dedication to the cause, she could picture it and recall what he really was.

A glare from Henri brought her back to the moment. Careful not to turn her head, she let her gaze wander the dark paneled walls and ceiling: The walnut desk and chair across the room. The old wall clock with its carved frame and cream-colored face and plodding
tock, tock, tock
. The doe eyes of the sad lady in blue and gold in the age-cracked painting that hung above the desk. The cross over the door.

Eva was reflecting on the face of the crucifix’s Christ-figure, so fatigued, so forlorn, when a stately nun—the antithesis of Sister Mouse—swept into the room. She offered Henri her hand, nodding a genteel bow. “Ah,
Monsieur
, how nice to see you again.” The gesture was more storybook chateau than rustic convent school. Eva imagined a newsboy, hawking papers on a busy corner the day this nun took her vows:
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Princess Trades Crown for Veil. Is Banished to Belgian Backwoods. Extra! Extra!
Eva coughed to suppress a smile.

“Mother Catherine, allow me to introduce my niece, Eva, unfortunately just last month orphaned in her hometown of Reims.”

Eva curtsied. She kept her gaze down as Henri had directed. Until Mother raised her chin with a fingertip.

“Mother,” Henri said, drawing the nun’s focus back, “I require your help.”

“
Monsieur
Messiaen, you’ve been so generous to us this past year, you’ve only to ask.” Mother’s fingertips migrated to Eva’s cheek as she turned back to her. “You have our sympathy, my dear.”

Eva chanced a smiled
Thank-you
.

“You see, Mother,” Henri said, “I promised my dear brother that I would attend to Eva if ever the need arose, and alas, so it has. If you were to take her, she’d be properly schooled and I could visit often. I’d insist on making another contribution to fund your important work. Shall we say six thousand francs?” He took out his checkbook and a thick ivory fountain pen.

The nun’s lips moved silently. “Oh,
Monsieur
, it would be a pleasure to have dear Eva here at St. Sébastien. And such a generous donation would mean so much.”

Henri raised a hand, silencing Mother Catherine. “There is one thing. I hope it shan’t be a problem. Eva loves to walk in the countryside. For her to have these little walks, perhaps before classes in the morning—that wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”

“But of course it wouldn’t. I encourage a healthy regime for every girl.”

Henri bent to write the check. When Eva tugged at his sleeve, he scowled. “Oh yes, there’s Caspar, Eva’s mutt. It’s just outside. Might you keep the dog, too? Apparently it’s quite dear to her. Maybe it could stay in the old stables and be fed with table leavings?”

“Caspar? We’ve never had a male resident at St. Sébastien. But what rule has no exception? Certainly we welcome
Monsieur
Caspar, too, if he matters so to Eva.”

Caspar staying, Henri leaving!
Eva felt like singing it.

“It’s settled then,” Henri said as he handed Mother the check. He turned to Eva. “Now, my little sweet, come walk your uncle back to the motorcar and see me off.”

Stepping from the convent door into the autumn air, Eva and Henri heard the squeals of the dozen girls playing soccer in the grassy area near the stables. Weaving through the mob with the ball was the small nun, Sister Mouse, a whirlwind despite her heavy habit.

Eva paused to watch.

Henri put his hand on her shoulder. “You’d like to join the game, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh uncle, could I? It would be the perfect chance to meet some of…” Eva felt her uncle’s grip tighten. She turned slowly to face him.

“Christ, Eva, here just forty minutes and already you forget everything.” Henri leaned close to her. “You are not to be social. Not to join in. You must be invisible—so dull no one cares to notice you. Can I make it any clearer? Be plain wallpaper, damn it.”

Eva jerked her shoulder from his grasp. “Half the time you tell me I’m special. Selected from hundreds, you say. The other half, it’s ‘Eva play the dolt.’”

“You
are
special,” Henri growled. “You and my other girls. How many times must I explain? Special enough to seem dull as dishwater—” He grinned. “—while secretly seeing and hearing
everything
. You’re so much more than those you deceive. Why can’t that be enough?”

Eva glanced back at the girls. “Should I be proud that I deceive them, uncle?”

He squared his shoulders. “What’s the difference between a lie and the truth? Tell me!
They’re the same
. Both just…sounds. Mere vibrations in the air. What matters is the outcome. Remember this, young lady—deceit in the cause of progress is good. Be proud of what you’re doing.”

“Yes, uncle.” Eva closed her eyes. “But playing…is it a sin?” She shrugged. “Look at them. It’s natural.”

Henri looked incredulous. “Playing…natural? It’s childish! A luxury.” He turned to the side and spat. “A weakness. You don’t need it. Not with so much to do.”

“Perhaps I don’t
need
it—” Eva looked down, then back at Henri. “—but I want it.”

Henri’s face turned scarlet. “You should be ashamed! Selfish worm. You
speak
of the importance of our cause, then you put your own little wants first.” He dabbed his forehead with a silk handkerchief and suddenly looked tender. He gently brushed her cheek. “Eva, commitment is hard, but you’re strong. You can do it.” He wiped her tear with his thumb. “I can depend on you, can’t I?”

Eva opened her mouth to speak but stopped. She swallowed and bowed her head. “I’ll do whatever the cause requires.” She looked squarely at Henri. “Depend on me, uncle.”

Henri nodded sharply. “Good.” He glanced at the soccer players. “We’ll leave playing to our enemies.”

Whispering Owls

For two and a half years, Eva remained true to her pledge to be plain as wallpaper. But by March 1940 her resolve was flagging. Perhaps it was the new decade’s dawn. Perhaps it was the springtime air. Being on Henri’s leash now seemed like parroting Latin declensions—not so much difficult as pointless. And approaching her seventeenth birthday, she’d had enough.

One sunny morning, on her way to the stable to pick up Caspar for a walk, she spied a soccer ball left out from the previous day’s recess. Eva turned her face to the sun and felt its warm caress. She filled her lungs with crisp springtime air. And she decided that today she’d leave her notebook in its hiding place behind the loose stone in the stable wall. She picked up the ball and ran into the building to fetch her dog.

On the walk Eva and Caspar kept the ball moving ahead of them. Until a noisy squirrel in an oak on the edge of the convent grounds snatched the dog’s attention. He dashed to the tree and stood barking with his front paws on its trunk. The fox-red squirrel, keeping just beyond reach, railed back. Eva sat in the sunshine, tossing the ball and watching the stymied duo. She squeezed the ball and felt it pushing back, as if it loathed being flat. In that instant, she knew the contest in her hands reflected the one playing out in her heart since she’d arrived at St. Sébastien.

“
Monsieur Le Ballon
, no one makes a crêpe of you without a fight. I admire that. But you’re lucky. They never call selfish for following your nature by keeping round.” Eva tossed the ball up and caught it. “Uncle’s always prodding me. ‘Be the trudging ant,’ he scolds. Well, I’ve done it his way for two and a half years, and I’ve had it.” She heard a flutter in the trees and looked up to see small birds flitting from limb to limb, their chirps tinkling like tiny bells. Free. “The wren in flight…that’s me!”

Caspar romped back and licked Eva’s cheek. She nestled her dog and said, “I won’t cry for my childhood. What’s lost is lost. But starting today, things change. Before I accepted what uncle said—that next to the greater good, my wants are nothing. But being myself isn’t betrayal. I needn’t be his plain wallpaper. I can serve the cause without being a good little ant. Maybe even do it better.” She smirked. “And what he doesn’t know can’t hurt me.”

Eva was good to her word. Overnight, like a butterfly emerging from her cocoon, she blossomed socially. It started with stories.

At precisely 9:30 each evening Sister Arnaude padded through the dormitories calling, “Lights out.” It had been so at St. Sébastien forever and the nun’s cry marked the day’s end—until the March 1940 night Eva established
Le Cercle de la Chouette Chuchoteuse
, the Club of the Whispering Owl. Each of the twenty-six girls in the upper sleeping dorm was soon a member. On those evenings after she formed
Le Cercle
, it was
lights on
at 9:35, when Eva lit a candle and called the Whispering Owl members to order in its glow. She’d bring the candle flame close to her face and tell a story.

Some of her first tales were prompted by talk Eva heard one night just after lights out. Danielle, the youngest girl there, had just returned from a visit home. “My cousin told me they make nuns out of naughty little
boys
! For punishment, they cut off their pee-pees and send them to a convent. Is it so?”

Giggles and howls erupted through the dormitory. An older girl, Isabelle from Paris, said, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How can you be so dumb, Dani? Everyone knows nuns were homely girls, donkeys who couldn’t catch a husband.”

The girls went along with that, even those who worried they might have a bit of the donkey in them. But not Eva. For her, being popular was enough to make a contention suspect. “Did you say homely, Isabelle? What about Mother Catherine? She’s as far from homely as can be. As for boyfriends, I know of a convent of nuns who
all
had them.” She looked up at the ceiling and tapped her lips with her index finger. “One of the beaus was even a famous artist. Gather around while I light my candle and you’ll hear about the convent school of St. François D’Assisi. It was located in a hollowed-out fir tree in the deepest part of the Ardennes forest. Four nuns taught there: Mother Swan, Sister Mouse, Sister St. Bernard, and Sister Tortoise. And the students were all tiny wrens.

“Mother Swan was the head of the school. She’d grown up in Paris, a Swan-King’s daughter and spent her days swimming serenely on the River Seine. One spring day Monet espied her there and fell in love. Each morning, he’d watch her glissade into the water. Watch her body slip over the surface as if she were weightless. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.”

Camille was licking the tip of her brunette braid. “What was she wearing, Eva?”

“Just the sunlight.”

“Nothing?” Camille’s eyes were wide.

“Ah, everything,” Eva said. “All she needed. You see, Cami, she was content with herself. And that fascinated Monet as much as did her beauty. His fascination compelled him to immortalize her contentment, painting her graceful glide through Notre Dame’s reflection on the water. When she left to join the convent of St. François, the story goes that he was so dejected he took to painting only water lilies for the rest of his days.”

Eva scanned the faces of the blanket-draped girls around her. She took the candlelit sparkle of their eyes as a
go-ahead
.

“In charge of the kitchen was Sister Mouse, a nervous little one, but good with a kettle and a spoon. In her youth, a handsome pigeon named
Monsieur
Jinx was her beau. After a local cat killed him, Sister Mouse wanted revenge. She moved into the kitchen of a famous restaurant on Brussels’
Grand Place
and learned the art of cuisine. She steamed the cat a pot of mussels laced with strychnine. It cured him of pigeon-eating.” Eva winked. “Afterward, guilt drove her to enter St. François. It’s said that everyone there knew her story, and everyone stayed on Sister Mouse’s good side. She slept snuggled in the floppy, furry ear of Sister St. Bernard.”

Clarisse LaCroix, a leggy, freckled redhead from Thieux, had been brushing her hair. Before Eva could begin the story of Sister St. Bernard, she said, “Poisoned food, eh? I had some of that on holiday in Italy one summer.” She grabbed Eva’s candle. “Hey Blondie, you know what animal your fairy tale needs?” Clarisse eyed Mirella, the daughter of an Italian diplomat stationed in Brussels. “
Canis italienis
! Those Wops—they
are
animals. You’d think they never heard of hygiene. You see them pissing right into the gutter. Like the other dogs.”