Cards in the Cloak

  Chapter 5

  “Traveler in a Strange Land”

  In 1939, Norman had gotten the opportunity to sail back to France. He could’ve actually gone as early as 1934, but he had fought so hard to get the Hat Shoe, his experimental accessory store, on the map after the market crash that he didn’t want to risk another depression ruining his progress on account of his being away, so he stuck around for the next five years trying to keep his business afloat and the demand for his products high. It wasn’t until late August 1939 that he was able to take that trip.

  But his trip was short-lived. He had arrived in Paris and had spent less than a day in the hotel when French authorities warned of an attack on Poland and the inevitability of an incoming war. Even though he was free to travel, security measures had tightened overnight, and his visa was constantly scrutinized from that day forward.

  “Jensen,” the authorities would often say, in their thick French accents, and then look at him with quizzical expressions. “Is German name?”

  “Scandinavian. I think.”

  “Is difference?”

  The scrutiny irritated Norman by the third day. He just wanted to get out to the Argonne Forest to find the root for himself, but travel was restricted, and those willing to transport him anywhere demanded a high price for the risk they were about to take.

  He tried to get on a train to avoid price gouging, but he was stopped at the station. The security officer in charge of boarding looked at him with those judgmental eyes.

  “Jensen,” he said. “Is German name?”

  Norman snatched the passport out of the officer’s hand and left the station. In the end, he chose to hike along the countryside, stopping at farmhouses to eat and sleep. It took him six days to reach the Meuse where he could enter the Argonne Forest.

  The signs of the old war had not at all vanished from the region, though the forest was doing its best to comb some lush green over its bleak ruin. Vegetation had repaired the damage caused by tanks, shells, and soldiers’ marches, but the trenches, the bunkers, and most everything remained—it was all just mossier. The natural order of the forest had returned, but with a different kind of character. It was now a strange brew of plants and concrete, with an ugly mix of barbed wire. Without the fear of bullets dashing his brains out, Norman thought it had an odd kind of beauty to it. Even with the occasional empty bottle desecrating the landscape and the lingering smell of sulfur still engaging his memories.

  But a harsh reality had come with his visitation. The forest was full of green, yes, and the green had sprouted from a wide array of roots, most certainly. As he stood there in a field of tall, wounded trees, he realized that the root he was searching for could’ve belonged to any countless number of plant species in the region. And that was assuming Maxie McWalter had found it somewhere nearby. The Meuse was much larger than the forest alone, however, and as it offered a host of its own varieties of vegetation, it was just as likely that Maxie had found the original dozen of roots there.

  Norman sat in an eroding trench and rubbed his head. Even though he didn’t have a headache, he realized that the absence of Dafodil in his system would’ve meant him getting a vicious one right now. There was no way he could find the time to pluck the roots out of every single tree, plant, or blade of grass in this godforsaken forest. The bag he had brought with him wasn’t that large.

  He started digging up plants with each new species he encountered. Even if he couldn’t get them all, he was determined to come back to the States with some. Worst-case scenario was that he would have to make another trip here and continue wherever he left off, multiple times over the course of the rest of his life. Of course, the more he thought about that, the more he thought that that scenario was pretty awful.