Part 22 (2/2)

Lucile put her arms round Madeleine and hugged her. ”Go and get him. Go through the Maie woods. It's still raining. No one will be out. Listen to me, trust no one, German or French. I'll wait for you at the little garden door. I'll go and warn Marthe.”

”Thank you, Madame,” Madeleine stammered.

”Go quickly. Hurry.”

Madeleine opened the door without making a sound and slipped out into the deserted wet garden where tears seemed to drip from the trees. An hour later Lucile let Benoit in through the little green door that opened on to the Maie woods. The storm was over but an angry wind continued to rage.

19.

From her room, Madame Angellier could hear the local policeman shouting in front of the town hall: ”Public Announcement by Order of German Headquarters . . .” Worried faces appeared at all the windows. ”What is it now?” everyone thought with fear and hatred. Their fear of the Germans was so great that even when German Headquarters ordered the local police to instruct the villagers to destroy rats or have their children vaccinated, they wouldn't relax until long after the final drum roll had ceased and they had asked the educated people in the village-the pharmacist, the notary or the police chief-to repeat what had just been announced.

”Is that all? Are you sure that's all? They're not taking anything else away from us?”

They gradually calmed down.

”Oh, good,” they said, ”good, that's fine then! But I wonder why it's their business . . .”

This would have made everything all right if they hadn't added, ”They're our our rats and rats and our our children. What right have they got to destroy our rats and vaccinate our children? What's it to them?” children. What right have they got to destroy our rats and vaccinate our children? What's it to them?”

The Germans present in the square took it upon themselves to explain the orders.

”We must have everyone in good health now, French and German.”

The villagers quickly conceded, with an air of feigned submission (”Oh, they smile like slaves,” thought the elder Madame Angellier): ”Of course . . . Good idea . . . It's in everybody's best interest . . . We understand.”

And each one of them then went home, threw the rat poison in the fire and hurried to the doctor to ask him not to vaccinate their child because he was ”just getting over the mumps,” or he wasn't strong enough because they didn't have enough food. Others said straight out, ”We'd rather there were one or two sick kids: maybe it'll get rid of the Fritz.” Alone in the square, the Germans looked around them benevolently and thought that, little by little, the ice was breaking between conquered and conqueror.

On this particular day, however, none of the Germans was smiling or talking to the local people. They stood very straight, a hard stare on their pale faces. The policeman had just played a final drum roll. He was a rather handsome man from the Midi, always happy to be surrounded by women; he was obviously enjoying the importance of what he was about to say. He put his drumsticks under his arm and, with the grace and skill of a magician, he began to read. His attractive, rich, masculine voice echoed in the silence:

A member of the German army has been murdered: an officer of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht was killed in a cowardly way by one Benoit Sabarie, residing at . . . in the district of Bussy. was killed in a cowardly way by one Benoit Sabarie, residing at . . . in the district of Bussy. The criminal succeeded in escaping. Any person guilty of providing him with shelter, aid or protection, or who knows his whereabouts, is required to report this information to German Headquarters within forty-eight hours, or will otherwise incur the same punishment as the murderer, that is: The criminal succeeded in escaping. Any person guilty of providing him with shelter, aid or protection, or who knows his whereabouts, is required to report this information to German Headquarters within forty-eight hours, or will otherwise incur the same punishment as the murderer, that is:

IMMEDIATE EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD.

Madame Angellier had opened the window slightly. When the policeman had gone, she leaned out and looked into the village square. People were whispering, in shock. Only the day before they had been discussing the requisitioning of the horses; this new disaster added to the previous one led to a sort of disbelief in the slow minds of the country folk: ”Benoit? Benoit did that? It isn't possible!” The secret had been well kept: the villagers were largely ignorant of what happened in the countryside, on the large, jealously guarded farms.

As for the Germans, well, they were better informed. They now understood what the commotion was about, why there had been whistles in the night, and why, the evening before, they had been forbidden to go out after eight o'clock: ”They must have been moving the body and they didn't want us to see.” In the cafes, the Germans talked quietly among themselves. They too had the impression it was all horrible, unreal. For three months they had lived alongside these Frenchmen; they had mixed with them; they had done them no harm; they had even managed, thanks to their consideration and good behaviour, to establish a humane relations.h.i.+p with them. Now, the act of one madman made them doubt everything. Yet it wasn't so much the crime that affected them as the solidarity, the complicity they could sense all around them (in the end, for a man to elude an entire regiment hot on his heels meant that everyone must be helping him, hiding him, feeding him; unless, of course, he was hiding in the woods-but the soldiers had spent the entire night searching them). ”So, if a Frenchman kills me tomorrow,” each soldier was thinking, ”me they welcome in their house, they welcome in their house, me me they smile at, who has a place at their dinner table and is allowed to sit their children on my knee . . . there won't be a single person who'll feel sorry and speak up for me, and everyone will do their best to hide the murderer!” These peaceful country folk with their impa.s.sive faces, these women who smiled at them, who had chatted to them yesterday but today walked by embarra.s.sed, avoiding their eye, they were nothing but a group of enemies. They could hardly believe it; they were such nice people . . . Lacombe, the shoemaker, who had offered a bottle of white wine to the Germans the week before because his daughter had just received her high school diploma and he didn't know how else to express his joy; Georges, the miller, a veteran of the last war, who had said, ”Peace as soon as possible and everyone in his own country. That's all we Frenchmen want”; the young women, always eager to laugh, to sing, to share a secret kiss, were they now and for ever to be enemies? they smile at, who has a place at their dinner table and is allowed to sit their children on my knee . . . there won't be a single person who'll feel sorry and speak up for me, and everyone will do their best to hide the murderer!” These peaceful country folk with their impa.s.sive faces, these women who smiled at them, who had chatted to them yesterday but today walked by embarra.s.sed, avoiding their eye, they were nothing but a group of enemies. They could hardly believe it; they were such nice people . . . Lacombe, the shoemaker, who had offered a bottle of white wine to the Germans the week before because his daughter had just received her high school diploma and he didn't know how else to express his joy; Georges, the miller, a veteran of the last war, who had said, ”Peace as soon as possible and everyone in his own country. That's all we Frenchmen want”; the young women, always eager to laugh, to sing, to share a secret kiss, were they now and for ever to be enemies?

The Frenchmen, meanwhile, were wondering, ”That w.i.l.l.y who asked permission to kiss my kid, saying he had one the same age in Bavaria, that Fritz who helped me take care of my sick husband, that Erwald who thinks France is such a beautiful country, and that other one I saw standing in front of the portrait of my father who was killed in 1915 . . . if tomorrow he was given the order, he'd arrest me, he'd kill me with his own hands without thinking twice? War . . . yes, everyone knows what war is like. But occupation is more terrible in a way, because people get used to one another. We tell ourselves, 'They're just like us, after all,' but they're not at all the same. We're two different species, irreconcilable, enemies forever.”

Madame Angellier knew them so well, these country people, that she felt she could look at their faces and read their minds. She sn.i.g.g.e.red. She hadn't been taken in, not her! She hadn't let herself be bought. For everyone in the village of Bussy had a price, just like in the rest of France. The Germans gave money to some of them (the wine merchants who charged soldiers of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht a hundred francs for a bottle of Chablis, the farmers who got five francs each for their eggs), to others (the young people, the women) they gave pleasure. The villagers were no longer bored since the Germans arrived. Finally they had someone to talk to. G.o.d, even her own daughter-in-law . . . She half closed her eyes and raised her white, translucent hand to cover her lowered eyelids, as if she were trying not to look at a naked body. Yes, the Germans thought they could buy tolerance and forgetfulness that way. And they had. a hundred francs for a bottle of Chablis, the farmers who got five francs each for their eggs), to others (the young people, the women) they gave pleasure. The villagers were no longer bored since the Germans arrived. Finally they had someone to talk to. G.o.d, even her own daughter-in-law . . . She half closed her eyes and raised her white, translucent hand to cover her lowered eyelids, as if she were trying not to look at a naked body. Yes, the Germans thought they could buy tolerance and forgetfulness that way. And they had.

Bitterly, Madame Angellier made a mental inventory of all the important people in the town. All of them had yielded, all of them had let themselves be seduced: the Montmorts . . . they entertained the Germans in their own home; she'd heard that the Germans were organising a celebration in the Viscount's grounds, by the lake. Madame de Montmort told everyone who would listen that she was outraged, that she would close all the windows so she couldn't hear the music or see the sparklers beneath the trees. But when Lieutenant von Falk and Bonnet, the interpreter, had gone to see her about borrowing chairs, bowls and tablecloths, she'd spent nearly two hours with them. Madame Angellier had heard this from the cook who'd heard it from the groundsman. These aristocrats were part foreigner themselves, after all, if you looked closely enough. Wasn't it true that through their veins ran the foreign blood of Bavaria, Prussia (abomination!) and the Rhineland? Aristocrats intermarried without a thought for national boundaries. But, come to think of it, the upper middle cla.s.ses weren't much better. People whispered the names of collaborators (and their names were broadcast loudly on English radio every night): the Maltetes of Lyon, the Pericands of Paris, the Corbin Bank . . . and others as well . . .

Madame Angellier came to feel that she was a race apart-staunch, as implacable as a fortress. Alas, it was the only fortress that remained standing in France, but nothing could bring it down, for its bastions were made, not of stone, not of flesh, not of blood, but of those most intangible and invincible things in the world: love and hate.

She walked quickly and silently up and down the room. ”There's no point in closing my eyes,” she murmured. ”Lucile is ready to fall into the arms of that German.” There was nothing she could do about it. Men had weapons; they knew how to fight. All she could do was spy on them, watch them, listen to them . . . keep her ears open for the sound of footsteps, a sigh in the silence of the night. So that these things, at least, would be neither forgiven nor forgotten, so that when Gaston got back . . . She quivered with intense joy. G.o.d, how she despised Lucile! When everyone was finally asleep in the house, the old woman did what she called ”her rounds.” Nothing escaped her. She counted the cigarette stubs in the ashtrays that had traces of lipstick on them; she silently picked up a crumpled, perfumed handkerchief, a flower, an open book. She often heard the piano or the German's low, soft voice as he hummed, stressing some musical phrase.

The piano . . . How could anyone like music? Every note seemed to grate on her exposed nerves and made her groan. She preferred the long conversations that she could just about hear by leaning out of the window above the library window they left open on those beautiful summer evenings. She even preferred the silences that fell between them or Lucile's laughter (laughter . . . when her husband was a prisoner of war! Shameless hussy, b.i.t.c.h, heathen!). Anything was better than music, for music alone can abolish differences of language or culture between two people and evoke something indestructible within them. Madame Angellier sometimes walked up to the German's room. She listened to his breathing, his mild smoker's cough. She crossed the hall where the officer's large green cape hung beneath the stuffed stag's head and slipped some sprigs of heather into his pocket. People said it brought bad luck; she didn't actually believe it herself, but it was worth a try . . .

For a few days now, two to be exact, the atmosphere in the house had seemed even more ominous. The piano was silent. Madame Angellier had heard Lucile and the cook whispering to each other for a long time. (Is she now betraying me as well?) The church bells began to ring. (Ah, the funeral of the murdered officer . . .) There were the armed soldiers, the casket, the wreaths of red flowers . . . The church had been requisitioned. No Frenchman was allowed in. They could hear a choir of excellent voices singing a religious hymn; it was coming from the Chapel of the Virgin. That winter the children had broken a pane of gla.s.s during catechism cla.s.s and it hadn't been replaced. The hymn rose up through this ancient little window set above the altar of the Virgin and obscured by the great branches of the lime tree in the village square. How happily the birds were singing! Now and again, their shrill voices almost drowned out the German hymn. Madame Angellier didn't know the name or age of the dead man. All German Headquarters had said was ”an officer of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht.” That was enough. He must have been young. They were all young. ”Well, it's all over for you now. What can you do? That's war.” His mother will eventually understand that, Madame Angellier murmured, nervously fiddling with her black necklace; it was made of jet and ebony, and she'd started wearing it when her husband had died.

She sat motionless until evening, as if riveted to the spot, watching everyone who crossed the street. In the evening . . . not a single sound. ”I haven't heard even the faintest creak from the third step,” thought Madame Angellier, ”the one I hear when Lucile leaves her room and goes out into the garden. The silent, oiled doors are her accomplices, but that faithful old step speaks to me. No, there's not a sound. Are they together already? Maybe they're meeting later?”

The night pa.s.sed. Madame Angellier was overcome with burning curiosity. She slipped out of her bedroom and placed her ear against the officer's door. Nothing. Not a single sound. If she hadn't heard a man's voice somewhere in the house earlier that evening, she might have thought he hadn't come back yet. But nothing got past her. Any man in the house who wasn't her son was an insult to her. There was a smell of foreign tobacco; she went pale and raised her hands to her forehead, like a woman who thinks she's about to faint. Where is he, the German? Closer than usual since the smoke is coming in through the open window. Is he going through the house? Perhaps he's leaving soon and knows it, so he's choosing the furniture he'll take: his share of the spoils. Didn't the Prussians steal the grandfather clocks in 1870? Today's soldiers won't have changed that much. She imagined his sacrilegious hands rifling through the attic, the larder and the wine cellar.

Thinking about it, it was the wine cellar that worried Madame Angellier most. She never drank wine; she recalled having had a sip of champagne for Gaston's First Communion and at her wedding. But wine was somehow part of their heritage and, as such, was sacred, like everything destined to continue after we die. That Chateau-d'Yquem, that . . . she'd been given those wines by her husband to pa.s.s on to her son. They had buried the best bottles in the sand, but that German . . . Who could tell? Instructed by Lucile perhaps . . . Let's go and see . . . Here's the wine cellar with its door and iron locks, like a fortress. Here's the hiding place only she knows about by a cross marked on the wall. No, everything seems in order here as well. Nevertheless, Madame Angellier's heart is pounding furiously. It is clear that Lucile has just been down to the cellar; her perfume lingers in the air. Following its scent, Madame Angellier goes back upstairs, through the kitchen, the dining room and, finally, on the staircase comes face to face with Lucile carrying a plate, a gla.s.s and an empty wine bottle. So that's why she went down into the wine cellar and the larder, where Madame Angellier had thought she heard footsteps.

”A romantic little supper?” said Madame Angellier in a voice as low and stinging as a whip.

”I beg you, please be quiet. If you knew . . .”

”And with a German! Under my own roof! In your husband's house, you miserable . . .”

”Be quiet, won't you! Can't you see the German isn't back yet? He'll be here any minute. Let me go and tidy up. In the meantime, you go upstairs, open the door to the old playroom and see who's in there . . . Then, after you've seen, meet me in the dining room. I was wrong, very wrong to act without telling you; I had no right to put your life in danger . . .”

”You've hidden that farmer here . . . the one accused of the murder?”

At that very moment they heard the regiment. There was the hoa.r.s.e shout of orders being given and immediately afterwards the sound of the German officer coming up the steps to the house. His walk was unmistakable. No Frenchman could produce that hammering of boots, that rattling of spurs. It was a walk that could only belong to a proud conqueror, striding over the enemy's cobblestones, joyfully trampling the defeated land.

Madame Angellier opened the door to her own room, pushed Lucile inside, followed her in and turned the key. She took the plate and gla.s.s from Lucile, rinsed them in her dressing-room washstand, carefully dried them and put away the bottle after checking the label. Table wine? Yes, well done! She's prepared to be shot for hiding a man who killed a German, thought Lucile, but she wouldn't be happy to give him a good bottle of Burgundy. Thank goodness it was dark in the cellar and I was lucky enough to take a bottle of red wine worth only three francs. She remained silent, waiting with intense curiosity to hear what Madame Angellier would say. She couldn't have kept the presence of a stranger hidden from her much longer: this old woman could see through walls.

Finally, Madame Angellier spoke. ”Did you think I would hand that man over to the Germans?” she asked. Her pinched nostrils were trembling; her eyes sparkled. She seemed happy, elated, almost mad, like a former actress who is once again playing the role she starred in long ago and whose nuances and gestures are second nature to her. ”Has he been here long?”

”Three days.”

”Why didn't you say anything to me?”

Lucile didn't reply.

”You're mad to have hidden him in the blue room. He should stay in here. Since all my meals are brought to me upstairs, there is no risk of anyone challenging you: you have your excuse. He can sleep on the sofa in the dressing room.”

”But think about it, Mother! If he's found in our house the risk is terrible. I can take all the blame, say that you didn't know what I was doing, which is actually the truth, but if he's in your room . . .”

Madame Angellier shrugged her shoulders. ”Tell me everything,” she said, with an eagerness in her voice that Lucile hadn't heard for a long time. ”Tell me exactly how it all happened. All I know is what the police said. Whom did he kill? Was it just one German? Did he wound any others? Was it at least a high-ranking officer . . . ?”

She's in her element, thought Lucile. She's so eager to do her duty in the call to arms . . . Mothers and women in love: both ferocious females. I'm not a mother and I'm not in love (Bruno? No. I mustn't think of Bruno now, I mustn't . . .), so I can't see things in the same way. I'm more detached, colder, calmer, more civilised, I still believe that. And also . . . I can't imagine that all three of us are really risking our lives. It seems so melodramatic, so extreme. Yet Bonnet is dead, killed by a farmer whom some would treat as a criminal and others as a hero. And what about me? I have to choose. I've already chosen . . . in spite of myself. And I thought I was free . . .

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