The Avion My Uncle Flew (22 page)

I only knew of one person who could be that tall and thin, who moved with a kind of series of jerks as if made out of wood. Le maire asked the same question again, nervous and startled. The tall man behind answered in a voice I recognized—a voice I'd never forgotten. In that rusty whine of tone, the man said, “Va voir!”—go see.
It was Monsieur Simonis!
It was Monsieur Simonis in le maire's maison, talking to le maire, telling him to go see what was causing all the commotion from the animals and chickens in the sheds.

I laid flat to the ground, under the cart, Charles next to me. I felt as if I were about to perish. I knew if Monsieur Simonis ever put hands on me I was finished.

Le maire stepped down from the door, hesitating. He turned back. A second man came from the room. This was the worst of all, because, quite calmly Monsieur Simonis ordered this second man, “Albert, va avec le maire!” And when Albert came into the light I saw at first the black-haired fisherman who was staying in the hotel, and as I heard the chuckle, as I remembered Albert's chuckle, it was as though the shape of the fisherman was changing even as I stared. It was Albert—wearing a black wig or dyed hair, his thick eyebrows trimmed and dyed black, and his moustache shaven. No wonder I'd thought I'd seen the fisherman before.

Le maire and Albert started along the path toward the sheds. Le maire saved us. I think he must have been nervous, not liking to be seen even at nuit in company with Albert. About a hundred feet away from the cart under which we were hiding, he suddenly halted. He told Albert, “Non, ne viens pas avec moi. Va à la maison.”

They argued. The donkeys were braying even more loudly. The dog chained next to the duck shed was leaping against his chain, smelling us, wanting to get us.

If we were ever to clear from here, this was our single moment. I nudged Charles and whispered, “Viens!” and took a quick breath and made a leap from under the cart toward the wall. I got about halfway before I heard the men suddenly shouting. I looked behind—saw Charles behind me, running—and, my leg tripped. I went over on my head and shoulders and rolled. Monsieur Simonis' great creaking voice was hollering to le maire, “Ai! Ai! Là! Tu vois! Albert!”

They'd seen us for certain.

Instead of slamming by me, Charles whirled. He stopped and hauled me to my feet and in the moonlight his face had a wild terrible grin on it. The minute I got to my feet, he faced Albert and le maire. He shouted at them, “Traître! Conspirateur! Collaborationiste!” which meant precisely what the words sound like—Traitor! Conspirator! Collaborationist!

After that he did the bravest thing any boy of his age could do. In a flash, he strung up his arrow to the bow. He pulled back. He let fly. That arrow wobbled across the yard. Either this time Charles' aim was lucky, or Albert was so huge nobody possibly could have missed him. Anyway, that arrow hit Albert right in the mouth between the teeth!

Albert fell back, choking, yelling for help, pulling at the arrow that had gone on in his mouth and cut the inside of his cheek. He collided against le maire, and both of them plumped down into the gravel.

Charles ran for the wall. He gave me a hoist and a pousse. Over we went, into the grass. We streaked across the road, as Albert and le maire climbed over the wall. We headed for the cemetery, because that was the darkest place there was to hide in.

12

“L'AVION EST PRET À PARTIR!”

We must have had, maybe, a minute's head start.

We ran straight for the middle of the graveyard and before we reached the middle, we became confused by the darkness and all the branching paths, and found we were lost. Somewhere behind us we could hear the noises the men made following us.

My idea, and I suppose it was Charles' too, was to try to work across the graveyard to le village and arouse the inhabitants there, before we were nabbed. To understand where we were, you'll have to understand that old graveyard was an entire city in itself. St. Chamant wasn't very big, probably not over a thousand people living there, but one way or another it had been in existence since way back during the time of the Romans and the Limovices.

The graveyard was roughly in the shape of a vast square, the southwest corner next to the church. The road to the montagnes ran along the west side, and le maire's place was situated about a quarter of a mile north of the church, on the west side of the graveyard. Consequently, we'd ducked in a good distance north of the church and le village, and something less than a quarter of a mile from the upper or north side of this old cemetery. The brick paths had been laid out in a series of two passing from west to east, and two from south to north, forming checkerboard squares. Branching off from the brick, fenced-in paths, were little lanes, wandering through each of the squares. After so many years, dirt and grass covered the bricks in places and there were great gaps in the iron fences.

Charles and I ran along the upper brick path, crossing the cemetery from west to east, planning to hit one of the north to south paths and go down it to the church and to le village. Now that I'm telling about it, it seems easy. You'd think we couldn't have made a mistake. But we were scared practically to death. Albert was blundering through the brush behind us, having already lost the path. It was black as pitch under the trees. The stone grave-markers stood up all around us in the darkness, nearly invisible until we crashed against them.

I don't know where we got off the brick path. The voices behind us had dropped away. We didn't hear any more noise for several minutes. Charles took my arm and said, “Hsst!” and we stopped, listening, trying to figure where we were. When we peered up through the leaves we could make out a faint whiteness in the sky where the moon was shining. Charles must have decided he knew where we were, because after a moment he said softly, “Viens, Jean,” and I heard him move. Well, I made to follow. I stepped onto something rounded and lifting up a little from the ground, harder than the earth. My foot went on through the soft dirt and I couldn't help from yelling. If my life had depended on me not yelling—and perhaps right then it did, too—I couldn't have stopped myself.

I can't explain how I felt, when I realized I'd wallowed down into an old grave. The crumbly dirt poured in on me. I struggled up in the blackness, finding I'd fallen four or five feet downwards into a hole filled with old leaves and rotted pieces of wood from a coffin, and other articles which weren't old leaves or wood or dirt—more like pieces of cow bones such as I'd picked up in Wyoming. Only these bones didn't feel as bulky as cow bones. It took me about a second to realize what kind of bones they were—and then I nearly went crazy wanting to get out.

“Hsst, Jean!” whispered Charles anxiously from somewhere above me. His hands groped down into the hole and touched mine. I gave a kind of gasping lunge, with Charles pulling on me. Next we heard Albert's shout somewhere off in the darkness among the trees. My yell had given us away. In order not to lose each other, Charles and I grasped hands and we started to run.

Le maire's voice was calling, “Albert? Albert, où es-tu?”

We didn't stop to wait to find out where Albert was. We ducked around a couple of more tombstones and came out on one of the brick paths. We didn't know which one it was. We simply streaked along that path, and it was like running in a dark tunnel. Pretty soon, the trees spread out a little. Moonlight filtered down on us. Charles halted, bringing me up with a jerk. He stood silent, listening. I strained my ears. There were voices and noises, but much fainter now. They came from a distance, somewhere still in the center of the graveyard.

We continued along the path until we came out from under the trees and were bitterly disappointed to find we'd completely mixed up our directions. Instead of being at the south side, the side closest the village, we'd come out way up at the northeast corner, the forest and vineyards and montagnes ahead of us.

We reached the group of stone mausoleums. Here we got our breath. “Ça va?” whispered Charles, asking how everything was going with me. I was still able to move. My bum leg hadn't given up on me. The weeks of exercise and walking had strengthened it more than I realized, now we'd run into a real emergency. “Ça va,” I whispered back.

We crawled behind the mausoleums, heading toward the road. We could see the dim outline of the trees, shaking their whiskered leafy heads in the wind. A cloud rolled across the moon, blotting out most of the light except that which came down from the sprinkle of stars. I shivered. We reached the northeast corner. Now all we had to do was work down, south, toward the church and le village, following the descent of the road. We got over the wall, in the low ditch, between the wall and the road.

We moseyed south, easy and soft, taking our time, keeping our ears pricked for all sounds. We couldn't believe we'd escaped Albert. It didn't seem possible. We were afraid he was stealing behind us, taking
his
time about it, too, planning to surprise us with a quick jump at us the second he got close enough.

Ahead we could distinguish the faint blurred shape of le maire's tower. We heard a cackling of chickens. We knew we were coming closer to le village. We never did get any closer that nuit. It was lucky for us that dog of le maire's wasn't a regular hunting dog and didn't know enough to keep quiet when it smelled our scent. It set up a barking. We risked standing up in the ditch, to make sure it was le maire's dog and not simply a stray dog of le village. Down ahead of us, in the moonlight, we saw the long angular figure of Monsieur Simonis, his shadow falling aslant on the wall, with the dog held by a leash in his hand. The dog lunged toward us. Monsieur Simonis shouted, “Albert! Albert, viens vite! Capedulocque, vite!” and started to run toward where we were hiding.

He took awkward stiff steps, as if something was the matter with his joints or bones. Charles wheeled. “Viens!” he told me, and we cut back, from where we'd come, going around the northeast corner of the graveyard wall and on up through a vineyard. My breath was coming in tearing gasps by the time we'd reached the upper end of the vineyard. We sighted back. We saw Monsieur Simonis and Albert and le maire in the road below us, gathered together, evidently holding a quick meeting about what they should do.

Charles touched me. We crawled over another fence, climbing upwards on the lower ridges of the montagne. He said, “Ton oncle, Jean. Va à ton oncle!” He realized we'd never be able to reach le village tonight, and proposed for us to climb la montagne and awaken mon oncle. It was all we could do. We descended a gully and climbed up again, going toward the forest. As we entered the forest, once more we looked back. We could see the figures of two men coming across the vineyard half a mile below us. One was dumpy and squat and the other figure was big—le maire and Albert. They had the dog with them now and we could hear its bark clearly.

The road wound around a bend, vanishing behind a lower hill, and we couldn't see Monsieur Simonis. We didn't know whether he'd taken the road, to block us, or if he had returned to le maire's house to wait for Albert and le maire to bring us to him after they'd nabbed us.

We plunged into the forest. Here we had a big advantage. Even at nuit, Charles knew this forest, knew his way. All I had to do was keep up with him and follow him. That was enough. The land under the forest was at a slope. We had to climb and the way became steeper every minute. Now and then, Charles would stop for a few seconds to let me catch my breath. My leg was beginning to hurt. More and more, I lagged behind.

Charles came back to me and made me put one arm around his shoulder, and we continued in that fashion. Pretty soon, we came out from the forest and here Charles halted. I hadn't realized where we were. Charles had headed toward the northeast, going at a diagonal away from the graveyard and le village. Now, instead of finding ourselves midway up the montagne, we were directly under the enormous rise of cliff, bare and craggy in the moonlight. High above us, a thousand feet, perhaps two thousand, was the long meadow land of the Langres family and the ruins of the Langres maison. I could imagine mon oncle up there, sleeping peacefully, perhaps dreaming of le jour when he would go volering in his avion.

But how Charles ever expected us to mount that practically perpendicular face of cliff was beyond me. It lifted in front of us like an enormous wall, blocking further progress. I thought he'd become lost. And somewhere behind us, the dog tracking us, were Albert and le maire and maybe Monsieur Simonis, coming along steadily and surely, up and up, until they'd have us. I felt myself waver. I nearly slumped down to the terre—the earth—believing we were beaten.

In the moonlight, Charles had a queer smile. “Ah, non, Jean,” he said, reaching down a hand toward me. “Ton oncle est là—” and with his other hand, he pointed upwards. “Viens.” I shook my head.

I knew I couldn't climb that cliff. He didn't realize how whipped I was. I signified for him to va—to go on. I said, “Laisse moi. Laisse moi!” Leave me. Leave me.

“Non,” he said.

He put his hands under my arms and lifted me. “Viens,” he ordered, his chin shoving out, stubborn and square.

And we didn't go directly up the face of the cliff.

Charles crossed through a creek and I followed, the water wetting us to the skin. We climbed up along a ridge, covered with second growth oak. We turned right, along the side of the cliff, with Charles pausing every now and then, considering the lay of the land, looking for something. It was getting on toward morning. The stars were growing paler and the moon was going down.

Somewhere from below us, in that forest which covered the land like a black cloud, I heard the sudden yelping of a dog. It was le maire's dog. They'd climbed closer to us.

But Charles took his time. Pretty soon he found a kind of path, leading between two rocks each as high as our maison back in Wyoming. “Viens,” he said again, now confident. We took this path, if you can call it a path.