Remembering You (19 page)

Ava smiled at the woman, who curiously eyed the men in the car and was becoming increasingly wary. Ava was glad they were staying put. The last thing she wanted was to scare this woman away.

Ava explained the whole situation to Tana—how they came upon the house, the battle, and even about the young girl.

“I think I got it. Okay, put the lady on the line. I’ve never spoken French with anyone from Belgium before—I hope we can understand each other. I think their language has a little bit of Dutch worked in.”

Ava handed the woman the phone. She seemed surprised, but she put it up to her ear. “Bonjour?”

For the next few minutes Ava watched the woman talk on the phone. As the woman talked, she pointed to her house, then to the car, then to herself, nodding at Ava as if Ava could also understand it all.

The woman’s face filled with excitement, and then she approached the car, motioning that it was okay for the men to get out. She smiled at Grandpa Jack and Grand-Paul, and then she waved and motioned them to follow her to the bottom story of the house.

“What’s going on?” Dennis approached, placing his hand on Ava’s back.

“I asked Tana to tell the woman the story and to ask if she knows anything.”

They watched the woman, whose head was nodding like the bobblehead dachshund that Ava used to have in her car when she was in high school.

“Well, it looks like she knows something.” Dennis’s jaw dropped and he patted Ava’s back. “Quick thinking. I like that.”

“Yes, I’m excited. I’ll be more excited if we can figure out what she’s saying.” Ava chuckled. Joy over the possibility of getting an answer overwhelmed her.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, the woman approached Ava with a smile and handed her the phone.

Ava chuckled. “I suppose you understood each other…what did she say?”

“I have good news and not so good news. Which do you want first?”

“The good news.”

“The good news is she knows the story. The not-so-good news is that the girl who was shot didn’t live there. The woman’s family had taken them in. I think their own house had been destroyed by the Germans. The mother, of course, didn’t survive, and she doesn’t know how to find the girl,” Tana continued.

“Find her? Does that mean the girl survived?”

Tana’s voice was hesitant. “The woman doesn’t know.”

Ava looked at her grandfather, noticing the hope in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Grandpa. The woman isn’t sure if the girl made it.”

He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t need to. The expression on his face—and the tears—made it clear how much this meant to him.

Ava asked Tana to do one more thing—get the woman’s permission to videotape the house. Then, with an I-owe-you-one, she hung up.

Slipping her phone into the pocket of her jeans, Ava looked at Dennis. “Can you pop the trunk?”

A puzzled expression filled his face. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Dennis, we need to record this. The woman said it was okay. This is going to mean something to my grandfather. I’m sure he’s going to want to look back on this day.”

“Is that what you’re really concerned about, Ava?” he spat, walking to the back of the car.

“Listen, I don’t need you to judge me here. I know what I’m doing. I know what’s important.”

Dennis held the keys in his hand, but he didn’t pop the trunk. “Do you, Ava? Do you really?”

She walked around to the driver’s side door, reaching inside the open door, and pulled the lever for the trunk. But even as she walked back to get her things, the excitement of capturing this moment dissipated. She felt like a traitor.

Dennis placed a hand on her arm. “Ava, now is not the time.” His tone was more gentle, but she could see in his eyes that he was serious. He forced a smile, looking at Grandpa Jack out of the corner of his eye.

With shuffling steps, her grandfather approached. Ava glanced at Dennis and then pulled the rest of her things out of the trunk.

Ava set up the video camera and filmed the woods and fields and then a little of the house. The woman approached and smiled at Ava, and then she pointed toward the ground-level door, which Ava guessed was now used for a basement, rather than a barn area for animals.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

With a smile, the woman took Ava’s hand, leading her to the door. Ava was afraid to look back at her grandfather. Should she follow? Would he be upset if she went in? The woman seemed to have something she wanted to show Ava.

The heavy wooden door opened with a squeak. The woman grabbed a flashlight and motioned for Ava to follow her in. Ava’s heart pounded, and suddenly fear coursed through her. She wondered if they would find something that would break her grandfather’s heart. Or—perhaps worse—find nothing at all. She tentatively stepped in.

The room smelled of wet dirt. Cobwebs covered the lone, dingy window. Various yard tools were stacked in one corner. And even though there was no sign of animals, it smelled of them.

In one corner of the room, there was a wall that looked like it had been painted by a child’s hand. The art was all one color—white—as if someone had given her a pail of paint and a brush. Ava placed a hand over her heart as she looked at simplistic drawings of trees, birds, and something that looked to be a horse. She bit her lip, trying to picture a five-year-old painting with the sound of artillery outside.

Ava pulled her camera out of her pocket and snapped a few shots. She was surprised that no one had followed her—not her grandfather, not Paul, not Dennis. Maybe they worried the memories would be too much.

Ava turned to leave when the woman grabbed her arm and then pointed. Ava could see something painted behind a small metal shelf. She moved it to the side, realizing the shelf hadn’t been there in 1945. The young girl had used that part of the wall as her canvas too. And when the shelf was moved, tears sprang to Ava’s eyes. Like every artist, the girl had signed her name. The letters tilted down to the right and a few were backwards, but Ava could make it out: Angeline Pirard
.

Ava looked at the woman and smiled. Angeline now had a last name. It could be the key to finding her.

Chapter Nineteen

Mud from the farmhouse clung to Ava’s shoes, and she kicked them off, pushing them under the bed with her foot.

Ava set the suitcase on the bed and unzipped it with a flourish. She pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and tossed them on the bed, wrinkling her nose as she glanced around. She didn’t like the hotel one bit. It was part of an American chain, and stepping into the room was like stepping into any hotel in Chicago, Dallas, or LA. There was a brown-and-orange floral bedspread, flower prints on the wall, and brown carpeting that looked like it had been there since the eighties.

“You should have let Dennis help you with those suitcases.” Grandpa Jack sat down on his bed with a weary grunt.

“I’m sure the bellboy liked the tip.”

“Dennis doesn’t mean to be so bossy, you know. He was trying to make it up to you.” Her grandpa removed his baseball cap and placed it on the side table.

Ava bit her lip. She hadn’t said a word to Dennis after she showed him Angeline’s paintings, even though he had tried to start a dozen conversations on the drive into Germany. She had refused to be charmed. She would try to be compassionate as he dealt with the news of his grandfather’s cancer, but she was tired of his charming act only to have him turn into bad cop once more. She plugged in her computer, preparing to download her video—mostly footage she couldn’t use for the show.

Dennis had been so great this morning as he told her about his grandfather and held her in his arms. He’d also talked about his new career path, sharing his dreams. Then, this afternoon it was like he was a different person. Someone who treated her filming on the farm as if she were a Nazi sent from the past to ruin everything her grandfather cared about.

She looked at her grandfather, noticing the weary way he looked down at his boots.

“Here, let me help you get them off.” She kneeled before him, and he lifted his foot slightly. From the grimace on his face, one would think he was lifting a two-hundred-pound weight. She grabbed the boot right above the heel and pulled. The boot slid off, revealing his white sock with a hole in the toe. A soft smile touched her lips, and then she took off the other boot. That sock was gray, and there was a hole in the heel.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She quickly brushed them away. Grammy would never have let him get away with wearing mismatched socks, let alone ones with holes in them.

She pulled back the polyester comforter on the double-sized bed. “There you go. Get some rest before dinner.”

He lay down and was asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Ava finished connecting her camera to the computer as quietly as she could. It was only 4:00 p.m., and she didn’t know if the drive or the emotions of the day had worn him out. Probably both.

As Ava started downloading the day’s videotaping of the town of Bastogne, the clock, and the farmhouse, more tears came on. Maybe it was finally hitting her how frail her grandfather was. While she was in Seattle, she just assumed he was as healthy as he’d always been. He wasn’t. He needed help walking and getting his boots off. Did her mother know? Her uncle? Ava couldn’t imagine taking Grandpa home, dropping him off, and then not worrying every day whether he would be okay walking down his porch steps or carrying wood to his stove.

As Ava looked through her notes, she wondered if the woman at the farmhouse would follow through with trying to get more information about Angeline. The woman had written down Tana’s number. She said she’d ask around and would let Tana know what she found out.

But Ava couldn’t just wait around. Her grandfather wasn’t getting any younger. He’d cared enough to spend his money coming here, and then he and Grand-Paul had organized the side trip. He’d done what he could; now she needed to do her part.

She tried to picture what it would be like for her grandpa to see Angeline again. To know he’d made a difference in one life. Just thinking about a reunion caused her whole body to feel as if it had been inflated with helium. Her grandfather had faced a lot. He’d been injured, and he’d seen friends die. He had painful memories tucked deep inside—things so hard and harsh that he found it difficult to share. He needed this. He needed to see that he’d done a good thing. That he’d made a difference.

Besides, their reunion would make for some great TV
.

Tomorrow the plan was to visit the sites around the city of Darmstadt, where the Eleventh Armored Division fought to get across the Siegfried line—a line of barriers and gun towers that protected Germany and that Hitler deemed impenetrable.

Tomorrow they would talk about more conflicts. Tomorrow she’d videotape the battle stuff, but today she’d let her mind dream about finding Angeline.

Ava logged in to her computer and then started searching for key words in her search engine.

“Angeline Pirard, child saved, World War II…
”

Nothing popped up. She honestly hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but it was worth a shot. At work she sometimes got lucky when the person being sought was also seeking. Those were always nice.

When she searched the first and last name, fewer than fifty websites came up and all of them were in French…or some other language, she really couldn’t tell. Ava did note that one of the Angeline Pirards was in Linz, Austria. Excitement filled her. Linz was one of the places they’d be visiting. It wasn’t far from Mauthausen concentration camp. Ava thought about calling the phone number now, but they spoke German in Austria.

Instead, she wrote down the name, address, and number, determined to find someone in Linz to help her when she got there. Until then, she’d try to get help reading these other websites, just in case one of them mentioned Angeline’s experiences in the war. She tried to call Tana, to ask for more help, but Ava got her voice mail. After today, Tana was probably screening her calls.

Ava glanced at her watch. It wasn’t long until dinner, and after eating she’d get her next segment done. She just hoped that with the footage she’d taken at the museum, she’d have enough. She also had the chiming of the clock in Bastogne. But first she needed help finding Angeline. If she could accomplish only one thing on the trip, she wanted that to be it.

Her first attempt was to call the museum in Bastogne. She found the number on the Internet. The phone rang once and a woman answered in French.

“Camille?” she asked.

The person didn’t respond. Instead the phone beeped once and then voice mail picked up. She recognized Camille’s voice on the message, but she still didn’t understand the words. After the beep, Ava left a message.

“Hello, Camille. This is Ava Ellington. I need information about Angeline from the file you showed me. I was mistaken. Angeline was the young girl. Or at least I think she was the young girl in your file. Her last name is Pirard. If you can find any information please call me.” She rattled off the European cell phone number. “Thank you.”

Next, she searched for almost an hour, scouring Internet sites for any stories about children helped by soldiers in World War II, but she could find nothing that came even remotely close to her grandfather’s story. When her stomach growled, reminding Ava that it was nearly time for dinner, she panicked. She still didn’t have a definite plan for tonight’s video.

Ava looked at the time. It was nearing 5:00 p.m. She had many research friends back home—librarians, friends at the various historical museums. There were many people she could enlist to help her with research. She did the math and realized it was 8:00 a.m. in Seattle. She could get plenty of help, but if she started making calls she’d be on the phone for hours. If she did that she’d never get her video done. Maybe she could get Jill to recruit help for her. She dialed her friend’s cell.

Jill’s phone rang four times, and Ava began to worry. Jill always answered. She was like the mailman who made it through snow, hail, and sleet. Where was she? After six rings, Jill’s voice mail picked up.