In This Hospitable Land (8 page)

Neither did he wish to share the conversation he had overheard when he stopped at a café to restore himself with a bite of bread and cheese and with a steaming cup of coffee.

“Soldiers are deserting.”

“Cowards!”

“The army is rapidly losing control.”

“The situation is uncertain, possibly hopeless.”

Suddenly Geneviève gasped.

“What is it?” Denise demanded. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”

Geneviève took an astonished breath. “Lilla has invited us to her château south of Paris!”

“How nice!” Rose exclaimed, brightening.

“Better than nice!” Alex insisted.

“Maybe it’s an answer?” Louis offered tentatively. “To where we should go?”

“To begin with anyway,” André agreed.

Rose got up, moved to the front window and drew back the curtain.

“Look at that,” she said, shaking her head.

Everyone gathered to watch a steady stream of refugees heading toward the French border some forty kilometers west. The throng clogged the road making it difficult for reinforcements to move east to the front.

“Shall we join them?” André asked.

“But we’re still not ready!” Geneviève moaned.

“Maybe we should get ready,” Denise suggested, gently touching her sister’s back.

“Pack?” Geneviève wailed as Alex tried to hurry her along. “I haven’t even unpacked! I thought we’d have plenty of time before we had to consider going away!”

She coughed convulsively. Denise ran to get water. After several sips Geneviève waved a hand in front of her face as if to dispel an unbearable image.

“I don’t even know what to take and what to leave!”

“Remember,
cherie
,” Alex said sternly, “only the absolute necessities.”

“But we’ve already put almost everything into storage!”

“After we leave here, possessions will be the least of our worries.”

“I can think of lots of things we don’t really need,” Denise said comfortingly, “starting with clothes. Wherever we end up we’ll probably have even fewer social occasions than here.”

“Don’t forget warm things for the cold,” André cautioned.

“Cold?” Geneviève jumped as if slapped. “We’re just coming into summer!”

“It may be a long time before we’re able to return,” André said sorrowfully.

“How long?” Geneviève demanded.

“My dear, we’ll be back,” Alex told his wife, showing more forbearance than usual. “You must believe that.”

“How long!”

“Obviously no one can tell,” Alex said sententiously, already losing patience. “Think how long the Great War lasted.”

“Don’t say that!”

Denise tried to appeal to panicked Geneviève’s reason. “We have to accept the possibility, dear.”

“The likelihood,” Alex snapped.

“All the more reason to prepare for all eventualities, to take everything we can!” Geneviève shouted, venting her unfocused rage on those she loved.

André polished his glasses with his handkerchief. “Big as the Buick is, even with the trailer we purchased attached, with six adults and four children there are physical limitations.”

Geneviève sank to the floor whimpering, “I’ll need help, lots of help!”

“We’ll all help,” Denise assured her, falling to her knees to embrace and weep with her.

In the dining room Geneviève ran her hands across the silver chest atop the sideboard as if in a trance. “All your flatware,” she murmured to Denise. “Mine’s in storage.”

“We’ll take this silver service,” Denise said. “We’ll need it wherever we end up.”

“And the linen,” Geneviève pleaded. She opened a sideboard drawer and clutched the fine fabric. “To give us a sense of civilization.”

“Maybe something.” Denise gently removed one of the Sauverins’ oldest heirlooms from Geneviève’s hands: an elegant tablecloth with an elaborate “F” embroidered on it. “This.”

Alex and André came clattering through with two large unwieldy army trunks, leftovers from the Great War they’d had the foresight to acquire.

Everyone agreed they must bring the family Bible, not that anyone but André read it regularly.

“And I’m bringing my homeopathy text,” Alex insisted. “I bet we’ll need it.”

“Please, Alex,” Rose demurred. “You know how I feel about ‘old country’ medicine. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.”

“Then how do you explain the children’s and my quick recovery from scarlet fever?”

“I suppose there could be some wisdom in those old traditions,” Denise said supportively.

Instinctively everyone turned to André for his expert scientific opinion. Ordinarily he would have put up a fight but he had no wish to argue today. Besides, if he sought one kind of faith why couldn’t his brother pursue another?

“I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand,” he finally said diplomatically.

As Monday wore on the main road became increasingly overwhelmed. French army units and British Expeditionary Forces, which had disembarked at Dunkirk, rumbled towards the fighting in the east. The Sauverins continued to pack.

Just before dinnertime the Sauverins gathered around the radio again only to learn that with massive artillery support and bombardment across northern France and Belgium, German Panzer columns had pushed out from the Ardennes, crossing the Yssel and the Meuse at several points. Peering out the front window André could still see hordes of refugees streaming west.

“It’s just as well we didn’t go today,” he said. “We wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere.”

“But if we don’t leave soon and the Germans aren’t held back,” Alex said testily, “we’ll be trapped.”

The following day, the children went back out to the beach while the adults returned to the radio and learned that the Germans had crossed the Scheldt—a nerve-shattering development.

“Well there you have it,” André said. “We leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

Geneviève grew paler and paler and burst into tears. Between sobs she choked out, “I wish we were in England right now. Oh, if only we’d gone when we had the chance!” She appealed to Denise. “It worked so well for us during the last war!”

Denise put a comforting arm around Geneviève’s shoulders and said soothingly, “We’ve been through all this before. We couldn’t go back to England because we would have had to leave André and Alex and Louis and Rose, and we weren’t willing to do that.”

“Come,” Alex said to André. “We still have work to do.”

The brothers hitched the trailer to the Buick. Then they carried out the double mattress Ida and Christel had been sharing and set it alongside the trailer, planning to put it on the car’s roof. One after another they brought out the metal army trunks and lined them up next to the mattress. They needed to think through the best way to arrange everything to have easy access to daily necessities. Even in exile they would have to keep up appearances.

Hours passed and progress was made but Alex found himself increasingly concerned that the gray mattress was too light a color—too easy for German fighter pilots to spot from the sky. He rummaged around the garage until he found an old dark-blue tent to lash over the mattress. Not that in and of itself it would protect against bullets or bombs.

Just before dinner the adults again gathered around the radio. Ida and Katie raced in breathlessly from the beach, greatly agitated.

“Mommy,” Ida blurted, “we saw soldiers on the road along the water’s edge!”

“They had rifles,” Katie added, anxiously fingering her mother’s knee, “just like we used to see in parades near the royal palace!”

“Only the rifles weren’t up on their shoulders!”

“They held them out, pointing!”

Ida climbed up into her mother’s lap and Denise stroked her forehead distractedly. Her child looked far too thoughtful and sad for her age.

“It’s not much fun playing in the sand with soldiers standing there with rifles,” Ida moped. “Sometimes they stared at us. Sometimes they stared out to sea.”

“They seemed nice to me,” Katie, in Geneviève’s lap, disagreed. “Some said hello!”

“I’m sure those soldiers have children of their own at home,” Denise said sweetly. “That’s who they were thinking of while they watched you play.”

After a quiet meal the adult Sauverins put the children to bed and assembled gloomily in the living room. Alex tuned the radio to the BBC. The announcer confirmed that the combined forces of Belgium, England, and France were being pushed back toward Brussels quickly.

“So,” Alex said, “we go.”

The silence spoke eloquently. No one could possibly disagree.

Denise awoke early Wednesday from another troubled sleep uncertain she’d slept at all.

Today was the day. Pale streaks of dawn were just beginning to show in the far sky.

Alex was up too, sitting in an easy chair in his brother’s villa, listening to the radio.

“The Germans have turned west,” he told Denise dolefully, “trying to cut off the Dutch and the Belgians, keep us from escaping into France.”

Denise was startled by a muffled explosion in the distance.

“What’s that?” she asked fearfully.

“A bomb,” Alex answered matter-of-factly. “Hard to say how far away the front is now.”

Soon every Sauverin was racing to get dressed and make final preparations. The children played with the toys they had to leave behind as if telling them good-bye.

When the adults had breakfasted—lightly since they all had nervous stomachs—they cast one last look around. Then André called Juli aside.

“Here’s some money,” he said, handing her a small roll of bills. “It’s not much but perhaps it will help. And thank you for your service.”

“But what am I to do?” she begged, tears welling in her eyes. “You’re going. The Germans are coming. What about me?”

“Go to your family. Families must come together at times like these.”

“But the trains have stopped running!”

“Stay here until they start again. The rent is paid through the month. Perhaps the landlord will keep you on to protect his villa.” André took Juli’s hand. “You must be brave. We all must be brave.”

Outside, Louis called, “Come, little ones! Where’s your sense of adventure?”

The four children raced out of the villa and piled into the car.

“It’s so crowded in here!” Ida complained.

In the back of the Buick she and Katie sat on the two jump seats and Christel and Philippe perched atop two small suitcases wedged into the space between. Denise, Geneviève and Rose shared the backseat to watch, entertain, and quiet the little ones when they got rowdy or cranky. The three men crowded into the front, with Alex driving and Louis in the middle.

They started off slowly as Alex learned to handle the big car with the trailer attached.

“Hard to see around that big thing,” Alex growled.

The quiet two-lane road hugged the curve of the terrain, running parallel to the coast. The short side streets were mostly traffic-free, the sandy shoreline peeping out now and again between undulating dunes green with grasses and dotted with marsh stalks. The salty sea scent pervading the atmosphere added tang but no relief to the anxious air inside the cramped car.

The road became more congested. Every family living along the North Sea seemed headed for the French border.

Stopping at one corner Alex drummed his fingers on the steering wheel then impulsively rolled down his window and signaled to a newsboy. As the traffic began inching along again he handed the newspaper to André.

“‘The Belgian government encourages all who can to go to the south of France,’” André read aloud. “‘Belgian refugees will be reorganized to join the French in repelling the Germans.’”

“You see,” Alex chuckled, glancing at his brother. “You may yet be called on to fight!”

André stared straight ahead. “Let’s see if I answer that call.”

When the shore road gave out, the Sauverins finally turned onto the main route along the coast. Farther on—near Middelkerke—they spotted a grocery store still open for business.

“We need to stop,” Denise called to Alex. “We brought enough food for a meal or two but we need to have more available. I never dreamed it would be so congested or people so desperate.”

Alex let out a heavy sigh, unhappy to be further delayed. He pulled up past a clutch of cars clustered in front of the market. André and Denise climbed out and fought their way through the crowd, pushing and shoving like everyone else to get inside. The shopkeepers sold everything as quickly as they could but not fast enough to satisfy their mostly new customers.

“Hurry!” an older man cried. “Before the Germans overtake this village and all these foodstuffs are destroyed in the fighting!”

“Or looted,” someone else suggested, “by soldiers on either side.”

André filled his basket indiscriminately. Denise struggled for lettuce and cucumbers. When she touched a tomato another, rougher hand grabbed for it too. Denise snatched it away.

It took fifteen minutes to reach the counter where a display of fruit had been pulled down, spreading bruised samples everywhere including underfoot. There was no bread but the Sauverins grabbed some crackers, a hunk of firm Belgian cheese, thick slices of ham, and a portion of the local pâté. Waiting to pay they protected their goods from darting, grasping hands.

Purchases made, André and Denise struggled and stumbled out of the shop. Meantime the road had become more jammed by refugees in and on cars, trucks, bicycles, a couple of buses, and even several tractors pulling farm wagons.

When they got back to the Buick it was surrounded by a half-dozen Belgian soldiers ordering Alex to step out and be questioned.

“Let’s see your papers,” the officer in charge demanded sternly, impatiently.

Alex reached back into the car and handed the family’s passports to the lieutenant. The other Sauverins knew they had done nothing wrong but worried about the response to their mix of nationalities. André and Rose were Belgian. Geneviève and Denise carried British passports. Alex and Louis retained Dutch citizenship.

“Remember how much freer and easier life used to be,” Louis asked Rose nostalgically, “before the Great War, when we could cross borders as we pleased?”

“What’s happening?” André asked approaching his brother closely.

“They think we stole the king’s car,” Alex replied quietly.

“What?”

“King Leopold sent Crown Prince Baudouin and his two other children with a governess to drive down through France to Spain. Now the army fears their car—a big black Buick like ours—has been stolen with all of them in it.”

Despite the soldiers with their rifles at the ready Geneviève opened her door for more air. A soldier slammed it shut, frightening the children. But Geneviève would not be cowed.

“How dare you!” she said, rolling down her window, incensed. “We’re Belgians!”

“So’s the king,” a sergeant replied brusquely.

The lieutenant showed his aide-de-camp the Sauverins’ varicolored passports and car registration then consulted with him hurriedly. After walking around and scrutinizing the car he handed Alex the family’s papers and said, “Thank you, Monsieur. Your passports reveal a complicated heritage but everything’s in order. You may proceed.”

Alex cautiously merged back into the slow-moving traffic. The soldiers who had intercepted the Sauverins stood on either side of the road peering every which way in search of the king’s missing Buick.

“We still need bread,” André said as they crawled along.

“And something to drink,” Denise added, “if we find another market.”

“And if there’s anything left in it,” André sighed. “People have lost all reason. They’re beginning to act like animals.”

“Every man for himself!” Alex sang out mordantly.

In the next town shoppers were more civilized and the Sauverins succeeded in acquiring bread, water, wine, and a further supply of biscuits and cheese. As it was midday they drove up and down the streets repeatedly, seeking and finally spotting an open restaurant in a small hotel.

Only two of the tables were seated. People were in too big a hurry to get away to waste time on a cooked meal.

The Sauverins appreciated the quiet reserved atmosphere as much as the food. At the end of the meal the proprietor agreed to sell them a small quantity of ham—at a premium.

Late in the afternoon—after being stopped and released one more time by soldiers searching for the king’s children—they approached the French border, plainly visible several hundred meters ahead. But the traffic wouldn’t budge. Military police frantically motioned all civilian vehicles off the road. Disgusted, Alex eased the car and trailer onto the shoulder.

“Why are we stopping?” Ida asked, twisting around on her jump seat to get a better view. The children had been good passengers till then but now were running out of patience.

André stepped out of the car to peer about. Vehicles were stopped all along the side of the road, some with their motors running, others stalled. Disgruntled drivers and passengers wandered about aimlessly, dazed.

“The border must be closed,” André leaned back in to report. “The barrier’s down and no one’s going through.”

He walked toward the customs building straddling the border. Frenzied Belgians questioned French authorities to no avail. Rumors spread that German troops had broken into open country and were headed toward the English Channel, which had panicked the people of Paris—not that that explained the border problem.

French and British soldiers were still pouring into Belgium, overwhelming the roads.

“Get out of the way, you fools!” authorities bellowed at the milling, distressed, would-be exiles as a convoy of French army trucks rolled glacially forward.

When André returned to the car, Denise suggested they might all stretch their legs.