Authors: Dave Boling
But aside from holding his comment, Charley Swan also fought against a realization he hadn’t allowed himself to fully consider:
At some point he might be the one dropping the bombs that devastated a village.
Miguel enjoyed the mindless exertion of felling and bucking trees, being lulled by the sound of the crosscut saw as he pushed
and pulled, sometimes becoming so lost in thought that he was surprised when the tree fell in front of him. It all took much
longer than before, but time was not much of a consideration in his life.
The higher elevations of the woods, where he could be alone with the squirrels and doves, provided a less pressured environment
than did the town and even Errotabarri. The trees sought no explanations. They exuded the scent of pitch and sap, and they
spit out the fresh wood chips that flew into his hair and down the front of his shirt. The work consumed the energy that might
otherwise have been exploited by his mind. It was a welcome exhaustion, and on nights after a day’s sawing, he slept through
most of the nightmares and all of the dreams.
Today he had a less cumbersome load on the downhill trip. Alaia Aldecoa had asked him to gather any scented flora he might
find while in the forests. Miguel appreciated the diversion, and he found enough flowers to fill a small basket that he carried
along with his saw, ax, and canteen.
On his way up the edge of the rill, he saw that her cottage was almost indistinct from the trees clutching at it now. Miguel
thought he might come back someday to scale the roof and cut the branches that seemed to embrace her home.
Since the night Alaia had brought soap to Errotabarri, Miguel had seen her only briefly in town. What could he say? What should
he say? Should he tell her how Miren had made excuses for her? How she had been loyal to her without question? That now, more
than two years after her death, Miren still spoke well of her in his dreams?
She expected his knock and turned from her washbasin once he entered. She sensed his location and walked directly to him,
placing a hand on each cheek.
Freshly washed, she smelled of a lilac soap.
“I’m here, Miguel,” she said, putting her arms around him.
He inhaled until his lungs could hold no more; he heard the stream humming outside, and he breathed deeply again of her skin.
He was exhausted from the day of work, diminished by two years of grief, eroded by constant incomprehensible thoughts. And
here were the smells, different but still wonderful, and the sounds, and the forgotten touch. They were four unseeing eyes,
four uneasy hands, and they made love to the same tender memory.
“I haven’t—”
“I know,” Alaia said. “I haven’t . . .”
Miguel closed his eyes again, and Alaia could feel his breathing catch and buck erratically. He cried without sound, as if
he could keep it from her.
“I know, Miguel, I know.” She petted his hair.
This wasn’t Miren and he knew it. There was no confusion. This was different; this was urgency and memory.
“Tell me, say it, you can share it with me,” she said, still stroking his hair.
“Justo and I can’t talk . . . nothing . . . nothing,” he said. “We remind each other of them.”
Alaia held him tighter. “Tell me, tell it to me.”
“We both see that braid hanging on the mantel every day,” Miguel said.
She cried with him, and he buried his head in the pillow of her hair. The stream hummed and the day dimmed into evening before
they could pull apart and speak again. It became easier in the dark. They talked of Miren, and a reservoir of thoughts flooded
the room. Miguel reminded Alaia of his wife’s energy and her grace and exuberance. Alaia spoke of her voice and her warmth
and her caring. They told the stories of how they had met Miren and recounted their favorite times with her. They talked of
Mariangeles and her wisdom. Together, they were able to talk of them without being overwhelmed.
Neither mentioned Catalina. There was a threshold.
They talked through the evening and most of the night, then slept in the cradle of each other’s arms beneath the quilt Mariangeles
had sewn for Alaia. Neither spoke as Miguel readied to leave in the morning, both sifting through the meaning of what they’d
done.
“Miguel,” she said. “Before . . . I should tell you why—”
“No,” he stopped her.
“I—”
“No.” More forcefully the second time.
Another moment passed without words. Alaia pulled open a drawer in the small cabinet at her bedside.
“Miguel, come here, please,” she said. “I have something to show you.”
Alaia placed in his hands a doll made from an old worn sock. She had one more story to tell him.
(1940)
Eduardo Navarro possessed neither the language skills nor the heartlessness to translate the Latin message etched onto the
church’s clock tower. The Polish refugee, referred to only as “Monsieur,” had pointed out the phrase to his wife, who was
spoken of only as “Madame.” The man was well into his sixties and paunchy, with the bearing of a person from whom much had
been taken. What remained of him was a sloping midsection and a proud insistence on protecting his wife, who also had been
reduced by their trials.
Monsieur had shed the haughty residue that sometimes lingers in wealthy men after the money and its power are exhausted. But
he continued to make a show of assisting his struggling wife as he limped along himself, clutching this token of masculine
dignity as if it were the final family heirloom. And when Dodo or Renée offered instructions, Monsieur repeated the signals
to his wife, to signify his approval of the plan.
The walk from Saint-Jean-de-Luz to Ciboure and then Urrugne, through a passage trellised by plane trees, was the simplest
part of the journey. But the couple, already badly faded, needed a rest across from Urrugne’s ancient Church of Saint Vincent.
After long drinks of water from the
bota
and many wheezed inhalations, Monsieur gestured toward the inscription below the clock on the tower.
Vulnerant omnes
Ultima necat
It spoke an unpleasant truth bluntly expressed: Every hour wounds, the last kills. Dodo saw no need to act out the translation.
Left to their own judgment, neither Dodo nor Renée Labourd would have found worthy risk in smuggling this Jewish couple into
nominally neutral Spain, where they could be shuttled further along toward England or America.
Since the Nazi occupation of France, the heavy patrolling of the border with Spain had all but choked off the easier routes
of passage. When the smuggling of refugees was merely a matter of sneaking past the indifferent Spanish or French border guards,
reasonably safe options had been plentiful. They could time their movements between shift changes at a bridge passing from
Béhobie into Irun, or they could load the refugees onto a boat piloted by Dodo’s father and take the short ride from Hendaye
or Saint-Jean-de-Luz into any port in Spain.
But the Nazis viewed the evasion of subversives as a specific insult and operated random patrols at the river, installed unblinking
guards at checkpoints, and planted a network of informers in each border town. Now boats at all harbors faced extensive searches,
and those in open waters were stopped and inspected with greater enthusiasm.
Captured refugees were shipped to concentration camps, often accompanied by those locals who had provided their passage and
protection. If resistance was met? Well, bullets were plentiful, and sometimes paperwork was less demanding when subjects
were shot in the process of “escape.”
When word reached Renée of the Jewish couple’s impending arrival, she and Dodo were doubtful. This would be the frailest cargo
they’d ever handled. But the refugees had migrated through France on a series of local trains, spending as little time as
possible exposed on the platform, trying to tiptoe along the narrow path between effective stealth and conspicuous skulking.
They had shown papers half a dozen times, and their altered documents passed casual inspection. They traveled as a pair with
a shepherd who stayed at a safe distance, ready to step in as a concerned third party if the couple was detained.
For Renée and Dodo, smuggling humans was much easier than smuggling other commodities. Foodstuffs, alcohol, weapons, and munitions
were heavy and obvious. Humans transported themselves to some extent. But they also could talk when it was most dangerous,
they could fall and break bones, and they could drown. If a pallet of rifles was dropped in the river, no life was lost. Refugees?
A different matter.
“What must they have been through already to get this far?” Renée asked Dodo.
“Lost everything . . . they surely have lost everything, family, home . . . everything,” Dodo said as the two inflamed their
strongest bond: mutual indignation.
“I’m not sure they can make it, and where does that leave us?”
“I’m mostly sure they can
not
make it,” Dodo said, adding a playful smirk. “Let’s try.”
When the couple struggled to descend from the train at the Saint-Jean-de-Luz/Ciboure station, Renée released a fatalistic
groan in Dodo’s direction. And now, only hours into a plodding escape, the couple appeared unable to go on. After a year of
living off scraps while hiding in basements and attics, and then being trundled on and off trains and through a succession
of safe houses, they neared collapse.
It was already late evening and their best chance was to get to Béhobie and the edge of the Bidassoa River in the darkest
part of the night. The hope was that they could row them across in a friend’s boat during a gap between patrols. If not, they’d
have to swim and/or wade into Spain, and these two were of questionable buoyancy. The trip across the slippery river rocks
was tricky for Dodo and Renée; for a pair in their sixties, drained of strength, it would border on impossible.
The couple needed a few more minutes’ rest in Urrugne, so Dodo and Renée used the time for final reminders. They had dressed
Monsieur in a sheepskin coat with a beret and espadrilles. He looked authentic but ridiculous. She was in a long black skirt
and wool cap. Uncomfortable and unnatural. They had already instructed the couple to never speak. Dodo and Renée would be
their grandchildren taking them for a walk through the woods, a nonsensical notion at two or three A.M. But if detained, the
old couple was not to speak. If questioned, they were instructed to cup an ear and say one word: “Eh?”
As a refresher, Renée stood in front of Monsieur and officiously acted the part of a guard, holding an invisible rifle at
his chest.
“
Papiers!
” she said.
“Eh?” Monsieur responded, not only bending his ear toward Renée but also squinting hard, as if the failure to see accompanied
his deafness.
Renée repeated the process with Madame, who was slow to understand and issued a resentful flurry of Polish comments. Renée
pulled the trigger on her pretend rifle and, with a percussive lip movement, went “bop.”
Madame understood this and corrected herself. “Eh?”
“
Très bien
,” Renée mumbled, and turned. It was time to press on. The sun eased into the Bay of Biscay and they had another five or six
miles of surreptitious walking to reach the preferred point to ford the river. It took five hours rather than the anticipated
two. Several cars passed on the road below them, perhaps carrying Nazis, although the darkness made identification impossible.
Dodo and Renée had used this route without detection a number of times before the Nazi occupation. The river was slower this
close to the mouth but wider, with less chance of concealment. Across the Bidassoa were a series of safe houses where Basque
connections would feed the couple before shuffling them down the line.
They reached a patch of alder near the riverbank at almost dawn, with the option of rowing now eliminated. Nazis had begun
using a small fleet of shallow-draft skiffs, and they had helped the Spanish guards install floodlights that could be directed
at the most appealing spots for river crossing.
“
Pas bon
,” Renée whispered.
Their hopes for good fortune on this mission, slim as they were initially, had further receded. The best option was to head
back, bivouac in the closest safe house, and reconsider other paths. Perhaps they could try it again the next night, get a
better start on it and hike further upstream.
Renée pantomimed a retreat to the couple.
Monsieur shook his head violently. Madame did not understand the forces at play, but her husband’s anger registered and she
unleashed a series of inhaled sobs. He lifted his wife to her feet and pulled her from the brush toward the rocky shore.
Dodo stepped in more forcefully as lights scanned the river, spreading ribbons of silver crepe across the rippled water. “You’ve
got to stop,” Dodo barked with as much authority as he could without screaming above the river sounds.
“
Arrête!
” Dodo yelled, assuming the Polish man would be more likely to understand French than Spanish or Basque.
Monsieur turned and indignantly wrestled his arm from Dodo’s grasp, wading into the water with Madame in tow. Dodo came at
him again, and in his haste, he tumbled on the slippery river rocks.
“
Arrête!
” he yelled from his back.
Monsieur, now knee-deep and slogging forward with his wife clutching his jacket, turned toward Dodo and cupped his hand to
his ear, miming deafness. “Eh?”
Within two more steps, the woman had wrapped both arms around her husband’s neck, causing them both to lose balance and slip
into the water. The river was shallow enough that they could have easily stood, but they bobbed together on the surface, appearing
almost relaxed as they floated off. Dodo raced after them along the shore. When they crossed a slice of illuminated water,
he saw that they were not even trying to swim, just holding on to each other. They were found next to each other on the shore
near Hon-darribia the next day. They died in Spain.
As friends failed to return from missions and the fire from antiaircraft guns and Messerschmitts stitched vents in his Blenheim,
Charley Swan no longer saw a disconnect between his flying and the results of his bombing. He understood the processes of
war by the time he landed after his first mission. This was no longer about the physics of flying objects. Charley was at
war, and he strongly believed in the British cause. The blitz on London had spared his family, and his wife was unscathed
in the Cambridge region. But through the letters from his family and from Annie, he could feel what it must have been like
to sweat out two months of consecutive nights of ruinous German bombing.
Annie never complained in her letters. She tried to include updates on the family and highlights from her daily life.
. . . Speaking of Blennie, you’re not going to believe it, but after
more than a year of my saying “pretty bird” to him, he has started
speaking.
Does he say “pretty bird”? No, he says, “Docka, docka,” just
like Edgar. Can you believe that? I won’t take him to the children’s
home because I’m afraid he’ll meet the same fate Edgar did. Of
course, if he escaped, Blennie might fl y away and find Edgar somewhere
where they could sit around and say “docka” to each other.
Silly bird.
Silly bird, indeed, Charley thought. At times, he would carry Annie’s letters with him on missions to read again while waiting
to taxi or during the quiet moments of the Channel crossing, but the Blenheim was so cramped he began giving himself the lone
luxury of carrying the one “family” photo of himself and Annie, with Blennie in his cage on her lap. There was not much time
to focus on anything other than business once he strapped in, anyway. He was responsible for two others on the craft, not
to mention the potential devastation of a misplaced bomb load or what might happen if he was a tick slow in sensing the threat
of fighters.
The Blens already were being phased out. They were slow and cumbersome, and susceptible to enemy fighters because they had
no hope of outrunning them. The yoke blocked his view of some of the instruments, and other instruments on the panel were
stacked so high in front of him it was impossible to see the runway as he neared the point of touchdown. But they had good
range, and that allowed Charley to fly deep into the continent.
His crew praised him (cautiously, out of superstition) for his capacity to anticipate the attacks of German fighters. They
had little hope of evading their dives, but he seemed to have a knack for dipping or banking slightly to reduce the bomber’s
profile to enemy pilots. It kept them from absorbing the worst of the attack.
No mission was without damage, and the times were few when Charley landed without a “dent or two,” as he put it, in the wing
or tail or fuselage. But as other ships fell from the sky or returned in pieces, Charley Swan’s ship was always relatively
easy to patch up and make ready for the next mission. His crew called it a gift. Charley didn’t call it anything.
It was Renée’s idea that Dodo should coax his brother into the mountains. Dodo’s invitation forced Miguel to confront his
need to get away from Guernica. He worried that leaving Errotabarri was abandoning Justo. Together, they were a collection
of broken parts that, in most cases, was functional. Miguel had assumed that two damaged hands helped replace one lost arm
in the piecemeal assemblage.
Miguel told Justo of his intention to turn down Dodo’s invitation, as if it were a courtesy, an unspoken payment of a debt.
“Don’t be stupid, go help your brother. I’m fine here.”
To prove his claim, Justo dropped to his knees, leaned forward on his right hand, and did ten press-ups.
“Come, sit on my shoulders and add more weight,” Justo demanded.
Miguel declined. Justo was right. There were now a few sheep and a small patch of vegetables to tend; even a man with one
arm had little trouble managing these chores. He was rarely there anyway.
But what were his responsibilities to Alaia Aldecoa? What did their night together change? She could count on Zubiri to help,
he presumed. Justo could look in on her, too. If Justo knew of her activities he had never commented and had shown no bad
feelings toward her. She was part of the family, Justo always said.
But if forced to assess his reasons for making the move, the distancing from Alaia would be the first. After that night, Miguel
had been careful about his visits, keeping them brief and impersonal. The one evening had surprised them both and seemed somehow
excusable. A second would have been more than happenstance.