Dream Small

My daughter cries with me and agrees to come with me for support. Sasha begs in the background but is told it is a school night.

I sit and stare for long hours at that note and remember every stolen moment of love that Renee and I shared. Giggled washing together. Sweaty sex. Fervent adventures through the dark night for our swimming lessons. Simple things like cooking. Her smile flashes a million times in my mind and I can almost hear her voice.

My dog tags, my uniform, my gun, were all to be destroyed or buried. Her possession of them would mean her death. The destroyed farmhouse is now explained. My unborn child gone the way of so many others from that time. I remember the picture I found there and fetch it too from my closet to sit it on the table next to my renewed passport that is probably now a waste. Central to that planned adventure was the remote possibility of Renee.

I toast her long into the night and fall asleep in my favourite chair to dream of bombs and the smell of 100 octane fighter fuel.

~*~

"This place is fucking massive."

"Sasha. This is the Hilton. Watch your language." Renee says nervously as we approach the Maitre D.

"Mr Grace and family. Welcome. This way please."

Nervously I follow, and we thread through lavishly appointed tables and believe that the cosy looking corner with the well-dressed man in his fifties is our destination. This is confirmed when I recognise the young man, Gabriel from the other day, seated alongside him.

"Your Excellency, Master Bisset, may I introduce Mr Grace and family."

The older man rises and smiles warmly extending a firm handshake that I return then offer to the younger Bisset. "Louis Bisset." He announces.

"My daughter Renee." I gesture at her and she bows slightly.

"Renee?" Mr Bisset Snr replies and smiles deeply. "What a beautiful name."

"My granddaughter, Sasha."

"Very pleased." Both Bisset's nod in her direction.

"Please, be seated. Terry, cognac for my son and I please. Whatever our guests would like."

I order a scotch and so do Sasha and Renee. Sasha's not old enough to buy alcohol but I don't think anyone is going to object while we sit with the French Ambassador.

"We're really enjoying Australia. Gabriel has been a bit annoyed at the errands I've had him run. He has much to explore at the fair. Have you visited the grounds?"

"Not myself. Seen a bit on the news." I answer.

"Your Excellency, I've visited the site and the French Pavilion too." Sasha says, "School took us there last week."

"Well, it's remarkable we didn't bump into each other then, darling. And let's save excellency as a description of the food here, my name is Louis." He smiles back. "Oh, my wife."

He looks back behind us and stands to introduce her.

I stand and turn as well and my knees buckle. My breath catches and I grasp at the table to steady myself. Tears come from my eyes without warning and then her hand finds my shoulder and she insists I sit.

"Asseyez-vous s'il vous plait." It cannot be. Renee stands before me. She is as beautiful and youthful as she was when I knew her. But it's not her. The smallpox scar that she hated on her temple is gone. And Renee would be in her seventies not this young beautiful woman.

"Vous ne pouvez être que la fille de Renee Lavigne." 'You can only be Renee Lavigne's daughter', I tell her.

"Mais oui, pere. She said your French was shitty."

"Pere?"

"Yes Papa. My name is Clarice Elodie Bisset. I am so very pleased to meet you and so very sorry for the subterfuge. I have waited all my life for a single hug. Would you stand?"

Many long moments later, I lift a tear-stained face from my chest and kiss her forehead. "I'm very pleased to meet you too, Clarice. I saw the farmhouse. I gave up hope."

"Dream small, Papa. Dream small." She releases me and turns to Renee. "Thank you. I am so very happy. I am not here to take him from you. I just want to share."

"I have a sister. You have no idea how long I've wanted a sister for." Renee laughs and hugs Clarice. "And you have a niece. This is Sasha."

Sasha stands and hugs her new aunt. "You're very tall."

"So are you, my charmante. So beautiful too. How are you all so hmm... attitude accueillante? Erm... Okay with everything?"

Our drinks arrive and Louis involves me and Gabriel in conversation about the expenditure our country has poured into the expo site. I hear Sasha explain her recent school project and the tapes. I hear her also promise to bring some copies to the city for her tomorrow. In no time we are eating and making small talk like family all over the world.

"So, please Papa, if it does not tres hurt. How did your lovely Lorna die?"

"Lung cancer, Clarice. Bloody cigarettes." It was a long and nasty battle.

"Merde... putain de cigarettes... Mother too."

"Is that how she passed?" I ask. "I'm very sorry, mon petite reve."

"Passed, Papa?"

"Died?"

"Oh no..." The Bisset family all seem to look to each other at once. Conversation ceases and cutlery is placed down. "Ma Mère. Ton autre amour. Elle est malade, mais... très vivante." (My mother, your other love. Is very alive.)

"Renee?" I ask and time stops. "Alive?"

"Yes. She has had many surgeries." Louis speaks for his wife who is sobbing. "Lost a lung. Still smokes the old cow. Uses oxygen of an evening, could not travel with us. Planes and everything. Pressure. Something to do with her lung."

Renee is holding my arm. Sasha is busy smiling at Gabriel and looking like she has a problematic crush on her first? third? Some kind of relation. I'm remembering Jeanie. Jeanie in the hospital, cradling my face after I had spilled my story finally about Renee, wanting her to have the truth of things. Jeanie, holding my face and saying, "Well, the bitch has known you, but she sent you back to me. I love her for it and will forever be in her debt."

The rest of the evening passes in an eerie sort of formal cadence. Dishes come and go. Small talk and current affairs are discussed. I guess we're all navigating becalmed waters of new relationships. When we finish dinner, I've learned much but...

"You must have many questions, Papa." She smiles at me with her mother's face and my own signature frowned wrinkle. A line that traverses my forehead in a vertical exclamation mark that is reflected on her own face.

"Fucking hell, I do." Sasha blurts and has Louis and Gabriel laughing. "I'm gonna need the tape machines again."

"We are here for another four months. I would really like to answer some of them for you. If you can stick around."

"If? What?" I'm confused.

Louis chooses that moment to slide an envelope over the table to me. "Do you have a passport? I can pull some strings if not."

I turn it in my hands.

"My position comes with a few err... benific... perk... avantage... Do you have a passport?"

"Yes. Just renewed it."

"In that envelope is an air ticket. Return. And err... A visa. A diplomatic visa. Special. Open ended. Time is your own. It's good to be an ambassador, no? Renee. Mama. Her address in there also. She is acariâtre... pardon, cross and-"

"Stop it, porc..." Clarice laughs, "She wanted to come. As hopeless as it seemed that we might find you."

"Go pops." Sasha tells me.

"Dad? Please go..." Renee insists.

"When?" I ask.

"Whenever you want, Papa. It is Louis' planes. Please stay a little while though. I have many questions."

~*~

In late September, nineteen eighty-eight I stand nervously at the airport. I've not set foot in a plane since forty-seven when I taxied a C-47 Douglas down the runway and left its cargo of medicine, building supplies and workers in Foggia. The same airport I had been wounded in. I'm remembering the sound of that FW190 screaming down at me with its guns blazing and seeing its wings twisting near to coming off as I hear the engines warm on an Airbus A320 and wonder what in the hell I'm doing. Am I going to hit the tarmac as hard as that suiciding Nazi ace?

I'm too old for all this romantic nonsense.

Renee and Sasha kiss my cheek, each in turn and then a glowing Clarice steps forward.

"I love you, Papa. I am worried for Mama. She is... You know how she is. Stubborn like anesse. Tell her I love her. Tell her I found you. Tell her... Hmmph. I love you."

"I love you too mon petit reve."

"Not so little dream." She tells me. "Go."

Then nearly thirty hours later, I pull my coat close around my shoulders and remember the smells and winds of Europe. It was a harsh place compared to the steady climate of home. A harsh place we went to die in numbers. In my little hometown there was not a single family who was not touched by the wars. Everyone lost someone here.

And then I found someone here, waiting in the airport with a sign that says, "Clarence Grace."

"Bonjour Papa."

"Papa?"

"Haha. It is a good joke, no? Twins?"

"Twins?"

"I am Jean Paul Grace. Your son. You are smaller than mother said. She made you sound so big and manly. All those stories about stealing tobacco from German garde and raiding their food stores. I thought you would be much taller."

"My son?"

"Haha. It is a very good joke, then. Come. Mama is very ordinary today. I am very tired of her. Elise is waiting with the children. You have many petits enfants to annoy you now, Papa. Grandchildren." He laughed far more than was probably necessary and rolled his eyes. "You will be their shortest hero. Mama tells the biggest stories. She doesn't know you are here. It is another very good joke. She thinks she has guests, but we don't tell her."

During the car ride, he fills me in on his family, telling me of Elise his wife and his daughters Natalie six, Sophie ten, and youngest son Lucas. They are visiting Renee in her Duclair home from their farm just outside of the city. She had remarried after the war and her second husband had been quite wealthy according to Jean.

"Does he know I'm coming?" That could be awkward.

"Non Papa. He died many years ago. He was much older than Mama."

"I'm sorry. Was he a good man? Were you close?"

"He was a very good man. He loved us like we were his own children."

"I'm glad. I'm glad you were all loved."

"We arrive. Come. This is the best joke." He turns off the Route de Rouen into the driveway of a large riverside home. It is two story and looks quite old but well maintained. He parks and walks me to the door with a warm hand on my shoulder.

"I can't believe Clarice didn't mention you. Not even a hint. Sneaky buggers."

"It was more fun this way. This is more fun still. She spoke of you all through our lives, but she was always sad when she talk of you. She dreams you escaped and got old and fat, but I believe she thinks it is a dream."

"Shh." He puts a finger to his lips and silences the two pretty girls that greet us just inside the door. They point through to the back of the house and the younger one, was it Natalie, hugs my leg and beams up at me.

"Bonjour Papy." She whispers. Her and Sophie follow us down the hall. As we walk, I hear voices raised in bantering French. My heart skips and Jean must feel my nerves.

He rubs my shoulder and smiles. "Ready?"

I nod.

"Bonjour Maman!" He calls out loudly.

I can hear Renee's voice like it was only yesterday she spoke to me, her musical French reply brings tears to my eyes, "In the kitchen stupid boy. Is our guest with you? Who is it?"

"Yes Mama. One moment."

"Go Mama." I hear a woman who must be Elise, "I'll make coffee."

"Elise, life is too short for lazy lovers and shitty coffee. I'll make the coffee."

"Je préfère une tasse de thé, mon ange de miséricorde." My voice falters as I tell her, 'I would rather a cup of tea, my angel of mercy.'

There is a sound of smashing crockery and running footsteps. "Mon épervier?"

Then an instantly recognisable Renee runs crying into my arms and sobs against my chest.

"My sparrowhawk. I had a little dream for you. Just a small one. I dreamed that you grew old. I never dreamed of this." Her speech is broken with sobs and my own tears spill down my cheeks into her hair.

I lift her chin to bring her remembered bright blue eyes to mine and smile, "Our children." I choke and have no more words. A flash reminds me there are others here and I see a beautiful blonde woman smiling and taking photographs.

"Shoo. Shoo." She steps back and waves Jean and his family away. Wiping her face dry on the apron she was wearing she steps back to arm's length and scrutinises me. I return the inspection. She is still my height and willowy. Her blonde hair falls almost to her waist and apart from the grey streaks to it, a smattering of crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and some thin lines at her lips she has aged so much more gracefully than I.

"You haven't changed." I tell her.

"You are older." We both speak at once and laugh and she says, "Isn't it wonderful. To be older. It was not to be expected."

She pulls me to her again and kisses me on the lips. Then she pulls back to look quizzically at me.

"I'm sorry. Perhaps that was inappropriate. I know nothing about you. Have you family?"

"My wife Lorna passed a few years back."

"I'm sorry. It is hard to lose a person. My husband also." I nod in understanding. "But it means I can do this properly, no?" She smirks and pulls me close to kiss me again. This time it is as it always was with her. A place and time apart from the rest of the world, when all that existed was her lips moving on mine, our tongues dancing and our breath blending.

"Ahem." And a giggle interrupts us. Our flushed faces and heaving breaths turn to find a smiling Jean, his wife, and his children. Elise is holding a traditional coffee pot and the children carry mugs and grins. Lucas must be the small person hiding behind his mother's legs.

"Introductions seem to be commencing well." Elise smirks. "Please don't expect quite the same welcome from me, Papa."

"Cheeky child." Renee laughs and without releasing me leads me to a couch and urges me sit. She sits beside me with her head leaning on my shoulder as Elise serves coffee. Little Natalie claims my lap for a seat, and we all sit awkwardly for a moment.

"Haha. We all want to ask questions. I think Mama would be happier if we just went away." Jean laughs.

"Yes, many many questions," she says beside me. "So much I wish to know. For now though, where are you staying and how long have I got you?"

"I'm booked into a hotel in Rouen and I have an open visa. How long I stay depends on how my finance holds out, I'm afraid. My daughter and her husband have gifted me some of their savings and I have some of my own."

"Well. We'll talk time later." She says sadly. "I think when it comes to time, I'll be the problem."

"Yes." I tell the sombre room. "Clarice briefly... Ah. I'm terribly sorry."

"Six to twelve months is not long enough for anyone, but if you cancel your booking and stay with me then maybe we can both stretch our resources. It wouldn't be the first time we had to be careful with things."

"No. No, it wouldn't." I am remembering scratching for food and rationing coffee and how terribly desperate our stolen months together were, when I realise what she has just told me. "Six to twelve months?"

My eyes fill again, and she wipes them dry. "Dream small, mon épervier. We'll celebrate some more small victories together in that time."

It was an odd afternoon. Renee only left my side for brief moments and we summarised our different journeys. I learned about the birth of the twins at her sister's farmhouse where she had moved after retreating German's had taken over hers as a radio post. My sketch of my own life with Jeanie and Lorna was just the barest outline for the sake of information and the ears of the children.

It was all very pleasant and slightly surreal. The whole time Renee clutched my arm and leaned into me. Later, we walked along the river and reminisced about my swimming lessons. The children had many questions about Australia for me to answer. Do we have pet kangaroos? Are koala's cuddly? That sort of thing.

"I will visit through the week, Papa. I have little to do at the farm now that it has turned colder so will visit in the afternoons. Clarice sent me a copy of Sasha's tapes and I have many questions. Many for you too, Mama."

"I'd like that. I'd like to know more about you too, Jean."

Renee and I wave them off from the front door. I am kissed on the cheek by all five of them. Jean made me promise to find out where 'that bloody woman' hides her cigarettes. And soon enough, their Audi is turning left at the gate and Renee and I are truly alone.

"I am sick, Clarence." She smiles sadly and pointedly at me as she closes the door. My heart drops.

"But... I am not yet dead." There is familiar mischief in her eyes. "My body is old. My heart is still young though. Would you take an old woman to bed?"

"So long as you promise to go easy on me. I'm an old man myself these days and remember very well how you are in the bedroom. Very well..."

"Hahaha. Come on then, old man." She giggles and there is almost a skip to her step as she strides through the house pulling me along by the hand. "Life is too short for lazy lovers and shitty coffee."

"My cancer started in my breasts." She explained. "Not the cigarettes. The children always tell me about the cigarettes. But it was my breasts. The breasts where I fed Michel, my first son and then the twins. Then Henry. Where I gave life. Where you spent much time too as I remember."

She is tugging at her buttons and smiling at me. "Please don't be frightened by my body."

I'm shaking my head and tugging at my own buttons.

"The cancer took them from me. Please don't be frightened." She discards her blouse, and I am saddened by the mass of scarring that covers her chest. Where once proud, pert, small breasts sat, now only lines of white pinched scars graffiti her. She sees my sadness.

"They left my nipples..." She smirks. "You do remember how sensitive they were, no?"

I do, and I have them in my mouth before she can reach to stop me. This desecration of those once perfect tiny breasts does not stop my enjoyment of their memory.

"Clarence... Oh mon Dieu..." She forces me back and mounts me. Scrabbling briefly at a bedside drawer, her hand then slips up and down on my erection briefly and wetly, then slides me gently inside her. "Now you are truly home."

She sobs into my shoulder. "I thought you dead. Dead in that cold water. Dead in a field along the way to Calais. Gone. I told our children that you flew. That you flew above us always, keeping us safe and fighting for our home back. But I thought you dead. I thought I showed you silly swimming and if even you made it to Calais, you would drown in that cold ocean. I thought I fed you dreams and killed you."

"Shh... Mon ange."

"English... I can't stand what you do to French."

"Haha."

"Move... Oui... Ca comme ca... Like that."

It had been more than five years since I'd been welcomed into a woman. It was five minutes or less until I was saying her name and holding her neck, pulling her mouth to mine as I finished inside her. I was trying to show off. To show her how I'd learned to delay myself since my youthful enthusiasm that delighted her many years ago. But I was spent the moment her body gripped at me and she announced her own, "La mort, la mort, la petit mort. Mon Dieu! Merde!"

We lay as we lay more than forty-five years ago; sweaty and sated, cocooned in the smell of our love making. She lay in my shoulder with her head on my chest and herself still spasming on me as I softened. She lay as she did the night I said goodbye to her forever and slipped into the night with my French clothes and forged travel passes. She lay there crying quietly and I held her trying not to cry myself.