<< Go Back

Until We Find Home

By Cathy Gohlke

Order Now!

Lightning crackled, splitting the night sky over Paris,
illuminating
letters painted on the bookstore window across
the street: La Maison des Amis des Livres. Driving rain pounded
the loose shutters of Shakespeare and Company, making them
rattle so that Claire Stewart dropped the heavy blackout curtain
into place.
“It sounds like cannon bursting, like the end of the world.”
Thunder boomed again. She tugged the belt of her trench
coat tighter.
“You must go,” Josephine insisted. “The lorry driver won’t
wait. This is his last run to Calais. He’s running on nerves, even
now. Arnaud told you—”
“Arnaud promised he’d be here. I won’t go without him. I
don’t even know our British contact.”
“You know Arnaud. He’ll meet you if he can—
last
minute,
no doubt.” Josephine Ganute—
one
more aspiring writer,
another tumbleweed to make her home amid the burdened
shelves of Sylvia Beach’s American bookstore—
grunted
and
gently, firmly pushed Claire toward the door. “This is the last
group, and the last driver willing to go. He’s insane to try. The
roads must be packed with people fleeing the city. Calais is a
Chapter One
May 1 9 4 0
3
refugee camp—
even
last week it was so. If you don’t leave now,
the children will never—”
“But I don’t know where to go when we get there!” The
pressure in Claire’s heart built. Josephine was French and five
years older. She couldn’t understand how frightened Claire felt.
“The driver knows the fisherman from over the Channel.
Arnaud will surely meet you on the shore, if not in Calais.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if they’ve caught him?” Claire
pleaded and hated her pleading. But the possibility glared.
Arnaud—
her
heroic Arnaud—
took
such chances among those
sympathetic with the Germans. So many Jewish families he’d
smuggled under their noses—
from
Germany into Switzerland
and France. Now, with war declared and German troops on the
doorstep, they were no longer safe in France. Arnaud fancied
himself—
fancied
them—
the
only hope of Jewish children, and
Claire loved him for it. Reconnaissance, smuggling, resistance—
words
so romantic in fiction, impossible and dangerous in life.
Josephine stepped close. Her bony fingers clasped Claire’s
face. “Claire, Arnaud is too smart for that. You read his message.
The Germans will take these children as surely as they
snatched the Jewish children from their own country if you
don’t get them out now, before the troops arrive—
and
they are
coming. That’s what matters now. Everything else comes later.
Vous comprenez, non?”
Claire nodded, swallowing the bile climbing her throat. Of
course she understood. Goose-
stepping
Nazis and their tanks
plowed westward; the best intelligence had verified it. Helping
these children to safety means everything to me, too, but I can’t do
it alone.
Claire stole one last glance at the dimly lit aisles threatened
by crooked and towering stacks of novels. At the tables
and chairs helter-
skelter
from the early evening’s stilted book
UNTIL WE FIND HOME
4
tea. The chair Mr. Hemingway—
her
Mr. Hemingway—
once
insisted on tipping on its hind legs as he smoked. The desk
James Joyce was reputed to have claimed as his own.
She faltered at the door. But it opened, and Josephine pushed
her into the dark, into the pelting rain. The click of the latch
behind rang final in Claire’s ears.
“Vite! Vite!” the lorry driver called from the street, beating
his fist against his door. “Come now, or I leave you!”
Claire stumbled, splashing down the puddled alley. She
scrambled over the tailgate, into the canvas-
covered
truck bed,
pushing rivulets of rain from her eyes and hair and shivering
from the cold water that streamed down the back of her neck.
The lorry jerked forward, bouncing off the curb.
“Pardon, désolée!” Awkwardly, clumsily, Claire climbed over
an assortment of small arms and legs—
children
she couldn’t see
in the dark, children pulling limbs into huddled forms. Panting,
Claire found sanctuary against the wooden wall behind the cab.
She couldn’t see to count the number in the transport,
couldn’t tally the limbs she’d climbed over, but there seemed
more room than there should have been. Even twenty would
be too few among so many desperate to leave Paris. She must
learn their names and those of their parents to write down for
the record. One day these children will return to France and their
families—
when this madness is over. The list of names and addresses
hidden beneath the floorboard of Shakespeare and Company is the
only way we’ll know to reunite them.
Bb
It was still dark inside the lorry bed when the vehicle finally
lurched to a stop. Claire woke, rubbing a crick in her neck.
One of the little ones had climbed onto her lap sometime in
the night; another slumped a sleepy head against her shoulder.
CATHY GOHLKE
5
Do any of them speak English? Ten months in Paris and my French
leaves so much to be desired.
Despite the hammering rain, the scent of sweet Channel air
cleared her nostrils. Claire pressed her head against the wooden
slats. At last. Please, Arnaud, be here. Be here and help me get these
children to safety. She hoped for an easy send-
off
and a speedy
return to Paris, where they’d regale Josephine with tales of their
latest exploit over a warm fire and a fine bottle of wine in the
back room of their dear, familiar bookstore.
Arnaud and I will laugh in the face of the danger we defied
and plot our next adventure, keeping our secret even from Sylvia.
Owning the bookstore, and employing Jews, she runs risk enough.
Claire’s reverie was broken by raised male voices outside
the lorry—
intense,
animated arguments in French so hard and
clipped she couldn’t catch the words. Claire shook the arm
of the child beside her and shifted the little one in her lap.
“Réveillez-vous. Restez silencieux. No talking, but be ready.” She
smiled into the dark, hoping to infuse her voice with comfort
and confidence, hoping they understood something of her
mixed French and English.
She pitied them for being bumped through the night with
barely more than they wore . . . pitied them for leaving parents
and older siblings they loved and who must love them. She swallowed,
trying to imagine such love. Off to a new country where
you’ll understand precious little of the language. Poor souls, fleeing
home and dear Paris in springtime. Poor, brave little soldiers.
Knowing time was of the essence, Claire gently pushed the
child from her lap and crawled toward the tailgate. She peeked
beneath the canvas, eager to glimpse their surroundings and to
encourage their driver to move the mission forward.
The engine roared. Tires spun and the lorry jerked to life
again. The sudden sharp swerve and the squeal of floored brakes
UNTIL WE FIND HOME
6
brought cries from every child. Claire’s head slammed against
the tailgate.
One of the larger children yanked her back into the center
of the bed. “Mademoiselle!”
“All right. I’m all right,” Claire mumbled, reaching for her
forehead. But her fingers came away sticky.
A mile or more the lorry bumped and sped. Finally the brakes
slammed again. Still dazed, Claire didn’t move from the floor.
Five minutes must have passed before the driver lifted the canvas.
“Vite! Come quickly—
now!”
He pulled open the tailgate and
lifted the children down in the pale light of a shaded lantern.
“Get your things—
all
of them. Leave nothing!”
“Arnaud?” Claire whispered into the streaming rain, her
vision blurred and head pounding.
“He is not here.” The driver’s panic seeped through every
word. “The fisherman’s contact said he has not come; neither
has the children’s escort. The tide is turning—
not
a moment to
waste. Run down to the water’s edge now!” He pushed the children
toward the shore, young ones clasping the hands of older,
taller children, all stumbling after a flapping mackintosh–
clad
fisherman with a feeble torch.
“A fishing boat . . . on the Channel . . . on a night like this?”
Claire’s temples throbbed and she couldn’t stop the world from
spinning. “Is it safe?”
“Safer for them than Paris.”
“They must wait for their escort. We can’t send them off
alone.”
“Did you not hear me, mademoiselle? The tide is turning. It
will be daylight before it turns again. The captain cannot wait.
He refuses to come another time.” The stale breath of the driver
nearly overpowered her. “You must go with them, mademoiselle.
Tout de suite! ”
CATHY GOHLKE
7
“Me? No, you don’t understand. I’m staying . . . returning
to Paris. There are more children to help. These will be safe in
England, but I’m needed—”
“They cannot go without an escort. Your English fisherman
won’t take them alone. There is no one else and there will be no
more trips. To wait is madness!”
Claire counted the children’s fuzzy silhouettes against the
fisherman’s torch as they clambered over the side of the boat.
Five. Only five souls from one very small to one nearly as tall
as Claire. She closed her eyes and painfully shook her aching
head. “Surely he can manage five children. I must go back for
Arnaud. I don’t know what’s happened to him.”
“Ha! It seems he has left you, chérie!”
It was the thing she’d feared each day—
that
he would leave
her, that he did not love her as she loved him. Still, she shook
her head, vouching for him. Something warm and liquid seeped
into her eye. “Then you must go with the children, monsieur—
you’re
responsible for them. Arnaud paid you. Please, I must get
back to Paris.”
He slammed the tailgate. “You are crazy, mademoiselle. I
will not take you. And I am not responsible for these young
ones. I’ve done what I was paid to do. I’ll not risk my life or
my family.”
Unbelieving, Claire yanked his arm as he climbed into his
lorry. “Wait! I’ll go with them tomorrow night if the contact
doesn’t come.” She steadied herself against the cab door. “Let
me talk to the fisherman—
ask
him to wait one day—
just
until
tomorrow night. Arnaud will come, I know!”
“I told you: this is his last run. He’s a fool to try even now.”
The driver pushed her away. “You’ll be lucky to get through
the harbor.”
Claire’s head rang and swam. The reversing lorry roared to
UNTIL WE FIND HOME
8
life once more, its spinning tires spraying her with cold rain and
filling her mouth with graveled mud as the darkness closed in
and claimed her.
Bb
“Shh, she’s coming round,” a feminine French face, dancing
in the light of a swaying battery lamp, whispered over Claire’s
pounding head.
“Wipe her forehead now—
quick—
before
she wakens. It
will sting more if you don’t.” A boy, perhaps eight or nine, spit
into his soiled handkerchief and passed it purposefully toward
the feminine face. “Clean out her eye or she’ll go blind from
the blood.”
“Oh, be quiet,” the lovely girl ordered. “You say the stupidest
things, Gaston.”
Claire groaned and closed her eyes again. The crashing in
her head and the rolling in her stomach heaved into one large
inner motion. “Where am I?”
“You’re on the HMS Miss Bonny Blair,” a new voice announced
in perfect English with a very French accent. Claire
opened one eye to see a taller boy, maybe eleven or so, hovering
too close. The boy blushed. “At least that’s what Capitaine
Beardsley said before we left the shore beyond Calais, though I
think it rather more a fishing boat.” He grabbed a bar above his
head to steady himself.
“Captain Beardsley? A fishing boat?” Claire heard herself
moan again.
“Aye, aye.” The youngster called Gaston pushed closer. “And
we’re all his mates. That’s Bertram, my brother. I’m Gaston—
Capitaine
Beardsley’s first mate. And you’re the lively wench
he rescued.”
“Gaston! That is vulgar. Mademoiselle is our rescuer,” the
CATHY GOHLKE
9
feminine voice gasped. “I’m Jeanine.” She leaned closer, confiding,
“We were told never to give our family names, but I will tell
you that Elise, here, is my sister. This littlest one came alone and
is called Aimee. These boys we met through Monsieur Arnaud.”
“Arnaud? He’s here?” Claire’s heaving stomach skipped into
her heart.
“Non, mademoiselle,” Jeanine sympathized. “He is not. He
told us he would come if he could, but . . . You’ve been calling
for him in your sleep.”
Claire pulled herself to one elbow and reached for her forehead.
“Sleep? How long?” I must convince Captain Beardsley to
turn the boat around.
“Hours, I’d say,” Gaston cheerfully volunteered.
“What?” Panic sped through her veins.
“We must be nearing England’s shores,” Bertram offered.
“Rest easy, mademoiselle. Capitaine Beardsley said he will find
you a doctor once we land.”
“It doesn’t take hours to reach England.”
“It does when you’re going the long way round,” Gaston
declared. “Le capitaine said we travel wise as serpents and harmless
as doves.”
What can that mean? But Claire’s head hurt too much to think
about it now. She lay back on the makeshift pallet and closed her
eyes against the swaying walls and the heaving in her stomach.
She hated crossing the Channel in fair weather. She’d never have
dared to cross it in foul, much less on the back of a storm-
tossed
sea. Mad sea captain—he must be kin to Captain Ahab!
The last thing Claire heard was Gaston admonishing Jeanine,
“You needn’t have shushed me. I simply made a mistake with
my English. She’s not ‘lively’ at all, not a bit, even for a grown-
up.
But she is quite a ‘likely’ wench, I’d say—
at
least that’s as
Capitaine Beardsley vowed.”
UNTIL WE FIND HOME
10

Order Now!

<< Go Back