Post 17: The Book

   OK, it seems to me the script works well to get us from the present day into the 1940 action. But somehow, the written story doesn't need that transition, and I want to get directly into the story.
  Plus, I have been beating around the bush long enough, and it's time to give it a go:

                       Part One: "LA DEBACLE"
                     Chapter 1: 'The Bridge"

May 13, 1940

A Country Road South of Paris

     I was in a foul mood. My heavy wool jacket soaked in my own stinking sweat was weighing my 13 year old shoulders down. My blistered feet and hands hurt as hell. My arms felt as if they had been stretched on the rack, taking turns lugging my bulging brown boiled cardboard suitcase down the narrow country road, while clinging desperately to my mother, in an apocalyptic chaos of cars, trucks, carts, bicycles and humans, all loaded to the gills with everything from striped mattresses and rattan armchairs to cuckoo clocks and bird cages still occupied by half dead silent yellow canaries."

    Twice since we had fled Paris at dawn, German "Stukas" had suddenly emerged from the low clouds in a wild dive, frightening us with their loud siren wail, and flown just barely over our heads down a straight section of the road, unleashing the deadly staccato of their machine guns on the terrified trapped crowd crouching and scrambling for cover towards the hedges, or diving head first into the muddy drainage ditches in a futile attempt at salvation. Many would remain in that mud, face down, and the trickle of dirty brown water would slowly turn red. 

    Burning cars, still smoking blown up trucks, mangled dead bodies, sobbing mothers and hysterically crying lost children had been left behind in that visceral panic that overwhelmed all of us and made us run away as fast and as far as we possibly could, extinguishing all feelings of compassion and basic humanity.

  But just ahead, everything stopped. Only a pile of rubble was left of the centuries old stone bridge that crossed the river Alène, the name still visible on the crooked signpost that was all that remained up after the bombing. Two large abandoned trucks almost completely obstructed the road and left only a very narrow passage by the edge of the stream. Rough hewn weathered planks had been torn off the bed of one of the trucks and laid across the water as a makeshift bridge. We had to wait for our turn in line. There was a skinny old man just ahead of us, wearing tattered blue overalls and a brown plaid cap. He was trying to get across pushing an unsteady antique wooden wheelbarrow overloaded with packages and burlap bags, on top of which a small blond boy in soiled yellow bloomers was sitting in tears, calling for his mother.

    Suddenly, a boy about my age carrying an old leather rucksack and pushing the handlebars of a brand new "Hirondelle" came from behind, shoved me aside, and yelled at the old man to get out of his way. Startled, the man shook and wavered, gravity pulled at the top heavy wheelbarrow, he lost his balance, and fell into the river with his precious load.

    I saw red, shoved the bastard aside, and jumped into the river to rescue the boy. I was a good swimmer, having spent several summer vacations with my parents on a small farm with a big pond near Beynes, a small town about 30 miles East of Paris. I caught the screaming boy before he even sunk, and dragged him back to shore. The old man was hanging on to the floating overturned wheelbarrow and somehow paddled back to shore on his own. He grabbed the hand I was holding out, and I pulled him back on the bank near the boy, whom he embraced and hugged, saying over and over: "I am so sorry, please don't cry, we will find your mommy soon...". My mother had dropped her bags to the ground and was patting his back, still stunned by the quick turn of events, not knowing what to do.

   That's when I realized I had pushed the nasty kid back so hard he had fallen into the river too and was struggling to stay afloat, pulled under by his heavy backpack, yelling: "Somebody help me PLEASE, I can't swim!

   I was still so mad at him my first thought was: "Good riddance, Reap what you sow, Asshole"!  But he was totally panicked, swallowing water, drifting slowly downstream, yelling for help, and going under for good. I took pity on him, ran down the bank , jumped in again, and vigorously swam to him. By the time I reached him, only a waiving arm remained out of the water for me to latch onto. My other hand felt his bag underwater, grabbed the straps, and pulled up. It felt heavy as lead. His head came out gasping for air, eyes wild with primal fear, arms flailing. He grabbed me and pulled himself up, pushing me under water in the process, and we both sunk. 

   Luckily, he let go of me and, still holding on to the straps of his heavy backpack, I managed to swim underwater towards the bank. I emerged only a few strokes away, and several helping hands grabbed us and pulled us ashore. He had almost drowned by then, and after taking the bag off his back, we laid him face down and had to sit on him and push hard on his chest to get the water out of his lungs and get him breathing again, amidst a lot of vomiting, coughing and spitting. As we turned him on his back, the sun came out and a ray coming through the trees washed his dark chiseled face and the mess of his long wet straight black hair. He opened his dark eyes, blinked and looked around, puzzled for a few moments. As soon as he was able to think, he quickly looked all around, and breathed a sigh of relief seeing his rucksack nearby. He lunged at it feverishly, grabbed it, and held onto it hard, seemingly satisfied. He didn't ask about the new bike nor about the other bundles, which had either sunk, floated downstream, or found new owners…

     He looked around, still dazed, and asked:  "What happened?"

     A middle aged woman who had helped pound the water out of him pointed at me and said:  "You almost drowned, this young man saved your life."

    He didn't seem to have a clue of what had happened in the last ten minutes. 

    He grabbed both of my hands and squeezed them hard, then looked up to me right in the eyes and said very intensely:  "I OWE YOU!". 

    I protested grudgingly: "You owe me nothing, I just got you out of the water".

    But he insisted: "In MY book, I OWE YOU, BIG TIME, and I will pay you back some day…".

    He then got up, still soaking wet, and picked up his bag. As he was struggling to get the straps over his shoulders, I helped, and it felt like the bag was filled with bricks… I wondered what that could be…Before I could say anything, he turned around and walked away, repeating: "I will pay you back some day!".

   While all this was going on, my mother had picked up the little boy and was doing her best to calm him down. The old man was still kneeling, seemingly wiped out, and was now himself crying quietly and murmuring a litany of: "I have lost everything, I have lost everything, I have lost everything…". His bundles had either floated away or sunk , and the old wheelbarrow was slowly drifting away, useless anyhow.

   

                       Chapter 2: " The Grim Reaper"

                                      Later that Day 

    It was by now around the middle of the day. I couldn't tell exactly, as my wristwatch had stopped, and I could see water inside and a bubble trapped under the big round crystal made it look like a bull's eye level. The sun was high and hot, which felt good and was actually doing a pretty decent job drying my wet Sunday Suit, from which rose smoke like vapor.

   I was quite upset because my prized Swiss wristwatch looked utterly ruined. I fumbled though my wet pockets and found my familiar small bone handled pocket knife. I carefully slid the blade under the edge of the back cover and popped it open. It was full of muddy water. I turned the watch over and let it drain, then held it to the sun and blew on it as hard as I could  in a desperate attempt to save it.

    The thing is, this was no ordinary watch. My father had given it to me as my First Communion present, and I had picked it myself among the seven laid out on a black velvet tray for me to choose at the little Vapillon Jewelry Store down the block. It only took me a split second to pick it, that was the only one I ever wanted, and my Dad knew it very well. The other six were just window dressing… THE WATCH was a Zenith "Special" black dial Pilot watch with luminescent numbers, my dream…That was the same one my heroes Mermoz, Saint Exupéry and other pilots from the Aeropostale wore. It was an expensive watch at the time, especially for a twelve year old, but I had dreamed of it and talked about it so much my wonderful father had understood just how much it meant to me, and gotten friends and family to contribute to the purchase. 

  It was lunchtime, and even in the chaos of "la Débâcle", life goes on…People stopped, found a nice grassy spot to sit, opened a basket, and proceeded to eat what they had packed the night before for the trip, passing around bottles of wine and commenting on the food as the French always do.

  And so we too ate our bread with Paris ham, saucisson, and a piece of Camembert, which we shared with the old man and the little boy. He had stopped crying, and was sucking a slice of saucisson with delight. His name was Petit Jean Baptiste, and he was almost four, having been born on June 21, the day of the Summer Solstice and of the Feast Day of his namesake. He had lived all of his short life with his parents in Soisson, where his father Gilbert worked as a coppersmith for Groebli until the mobilization.The old man was his grandfather Jules, who had a small farm in Fontenay aux Roses, and had taken him in a couple of weeks before with his mother, his daughter Germaine, when they had fled the German "Blitzkrieg" with thousands of Belgium refugiees. They had no news from his father, and had gotten separated from his mother during the last attack of the Stukas. All they had left now were the wet clothes on their backs.

  I had taken my soaked jacket off and laid it on a bush to dry, but kept my linen shirt and wool pants on. They felt very rough and scratchy on my thighs, but Ididn't care, and kept blowing at my watch and shaking the water out throughout the meal. It looked OK now, and lo and behold, after I wound it and gave it the proper rotational impulsion, it started ticking again. I was ecstatic and jumped with joy. Lady Luck was with me after all. 

   Not for long.