He stared at the German anti-aircraft gun, his mind filled with flames, remembering.
The starboard wing had snapped off just before he jumped.
Then swimming in ink.
His parachute inhaling the night.
The muddy lights of occupied Paris pulling him down, through the exploding sky.
The boy at his side was pointing and saying something.
His thoughts were pulled into the present.
Today was Sunday, and Paris was sunbathing.
August 13th, 1944. A holiday, Assumption Day.
The City of Light was pretending especially well today.
Pretending they had enough to eat.
Pretending they didn’t mind the Crooked Cross streaming blood-red from every monument top.
Pretending they weren’t hiding an American pilot.
They had drawn him in as a breath.
Quietly holding their secret as Nazis paraded in the street.
His defiant host, Louis Berty, was a local pork butcher.
For 10 weeks he’d kept the gangly American pilot folded away.
Today was different. All of Paris was breathing today.
The German jackboot wasn’t pressing her throat, at least.
A good day to walk the wrinkles out.
“You can’t visit Paris with you not see the sights! Today we tour, Wehrmacht scum or no!”
So Berty the butcher, his seven-year-old boy and the leggy American sought the sights.
The pilot stretched his full frame to six feet and three inches.
The sun and the Seine filled his eyes.
Dressed as a local stone mason, Lieutenant Bob Woodrum almost didn’t fit in.
Gawking at the anti-aircraft gun crews wasn’t helping.
The would-be incognito sightseers sought a less supervised scene.
Near the place du Trucadéro, the French Naval Museum yawned a casual welcome.
Inside, Lieutenant Woodrum shrugged off the gun crew and his blistered memories.
Waves of timeless talent washed the walls here, a good place to loosen your mind.
Then an officer stomped in.
His Iron Crosses glinted angrily in the timid light.
Faces and furniture twisted in reflection.
The German officer took special interest in the American sculpture wrapped as a Parisian mason.
His interrogating eyes prodded the pilot, measuring the blond hair, blue eyes, towering form…
A painting there by Claude Joseph Vernet became frighteningly, critically interesting, to Bob.
Woodrum stared straight, trying the melt the colors with his gaze.
He wanted to wriggle through the oil and join the smiling subjects in the painting.
Then he could stand on the rock and wave, happy as they.
Together they would watch the liquid tricolor follow her ship to sea.
The sun would drop through the sky and all would be well.
The boy at his side brought him back.
Louis Berty’s seven-year-old son was staring at the canvas too, and silently slipped his small hand into the large American one.
Lieutenant Woodrum held the boy’s hand and poured his face into the painting.
The brown uniform barked a sparkling question in German. Then French.
The American stared ahead and breathed with those souls in the image, not at all.
The boy twisted around to look into the German face.
“My father is deaf and dumb.” He said.
—
On August 25th, French and American forces wrested from Nazi control, the City of Love.
On August 26th, Lieutenant Bob Woodrum greeted the champagne sunrise wearing his American uniform and carrying on his shoulders Louis Berty’s seven-year-old boy.
Intrigue for this story provided by a friend.