A few minutes later, the two girls saw the cook returning with a heavy roll of cloth on her shoulder. Behind her came the lanky, hungry-looking figure of Henri, dragging another smaller roll. His face was bright red from the effort. Elise’s eyes lit up when she saw the brocade with its silver filigree and glints of magenta. She had never seen anything so beautiful: it was a treasure worthy of a princess in some far-off frozen land, a princess guarded by an army of faithful, brave soldiers whom the Germans wouldn’t dare confront even in dreams.
Marie-Louise gave one of her usual cackles when she saw Elise’s fascinated expression, before the girl slowly returned to the reality of this desolate room that had once no doubt been a bustling store.
After hibernating for heaven knows how many years, more than ten rolls of different textures and colors were brought up into the light. Out of breath and exhausted, Henri collapsed in a corner, but his eyes still had their unquenchable gleam.
Elise thought that these rolls would turn like magic into pounds of butter, lamb joints, bread, eggs, and cheese. She gave thanks to God for having been so lucky as to find such a noble, generous woman to protect her. What need was there for them to disappoint her or worse still, alarm her, with their tangled story of Resistance fighters and dying German officers, plotting priests, magicians, and rabbits?
The cook carefully chose a small roll of yellow silk and went down the street to meet Viviane. The children ran upstairs to watch her from the window and let their imaginations run wild.
The baker’s wife came out of her shop, ready to gossip about this neighbor who had once made the huge mistake of marrying an infidel. Marie-Louise, who at that moment appeared empty-handed out of Viviane’s house, confronted her. She didn’t say a word, merely glared straight at her for several intense moments, until the baker’s wife slunk back into her shop, eyes downcast. Openmouthed, they watched all this from the window, proud at seeing the woman who had taken them in and given them hot chocolate defy the village gossip in this way.
Marie-Louise did not come back to the house at once. First she had to go in search of what she could get with her ration book: that week, it was only tobacco and coffee. In the back room of the store, she caught sight of the baker’s wife’s son. He was wearing his blue jacket unbuttoned, with a brown shirt underneath, and a beret on his knee. He seemed immersed in a copy of Je suis partout, the appalling publication that gave his sympathies away. His mother, a scrawny, bad-tempered woman, was going to find it increasingly hard to hide the fact that her son was a collaborator, a disgrace to all the French people.
“He’s a milicien,” Marie-Louise confirmed to Henri when she finally returned home, out of breath. “He’s a damned milicien! How on earth does that vixen dare look down on Viviane? And accuse her of collaboration horizontale? In wartime it’s easy to lose your way in the shadows. Some won’t be able to emerge, and will have to live the rest of their lives like a weak flame, always about to go out,” she said. Falling silent for a few moments, she added, “Because the end is near.”
She shot them a solemn look and then collapsed into the armchair, near her beloved books. Elise went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water, spilling some as she crossed the room.
“Thank you, my love,” said Marie-Louise, fanning herself with her hand. “We’re falling apart. It’ll be hard to survive when all this is over. What’s to become of the French?”
She could hear a whispered conversation between Danielle and Henri. She peered at them, trying to make out what they were saying.
“What are those two up to now . . . ?”
Elise noticed how Henri looked at Danielle with appreciative eyes, how closely he listened to her. She yearned for him to look at her that way and not like a little girl.
They all came and sat down on the floor in front of her, as if waiting for another of her monologues. But Henri couldn’t contain himself any longer:
“They need us, Marie-Louise!” His way of thinking might be more adult, but his childish voice betrayed him.
They waited for Henri to explain. When he saw they hadn’t understood, he launched into one of his diatribes, like a frustrated combatant.
“Between the Nazis and the communists I don’t know what we’ll do . . .” Marie-Louise interrupted him.
“But Marie-Louise, what we have to do is to get the Boches out of our country!” he said, the frustration straining his voice.
Henri’s convictions made Elise’s heart race, but Marie-Louise’s eyes gleamed tenderly. Listening to him, her pessimism, her disappointment with the French and the rest of humanity evaporated. There was hope, she told herself, and suddenly she turned to remove some of the books from the nearest bookcase.
“So you’d risk your life for all those crappy French, would you?” she said, pinching Henri on the cheek. Then, immediately changing her tone, she told the children to close the shutters. When they’d done so, from behind the books she was still holding they saw an old black radio emerge, with two buttons on each side and a golden grille in its center.
She told them that after she had married an infidel, she and her family were forbidden to listen to the radio or to buy any newspaper. All news was banned for them. But by this stage of the war, and with her husband missing, what did she care? The armchair with the standard lamp beside it were not placed like that to help her reading. Instead, it was a ruse, a piece of domestic theater. In this corner of the room, thanks to the BBC, Marie-Louise kept up-to-date with what was happening in her country.
When the radio was switched on, there was no need to move the dial. The French general in exile in London was speaking to his countrymen, urging them to take to the streets.
“You see? Our time has arrived!” crowed Henri, but the other three told him to be quiet.
Judging from what the general was saying, Germany had already lost the war. The Allies were advancing, and the French army was about to take Paris and raise the French flag on Place de la Concorde. The war, which for a long while had seemed like a hallucination, and which many Parisians had at first called “the phony war” had become all too real.
“What French army?” the cook asked sarcastically.
Elise was listening closely, but was confused by rapid-fire messages she couldn’t fully grasp: “The hour of hope,” “The Resistance,” “Atrocious spectacle,” “Numerous flotillas,” “This year the fields are greener than ever,” “Your children wish you a happy birthday,” “Nothing is lost for France.”
When she heard one of the presenters announce that the German tanks were pulling out of Paris, the color drained from Elise’s lips and cheeks. A cold shiver ran down her spine. She buried her face in her moist hands and burst into tears.
“But the Germans still haven’t surrendered. They haven’t said the Germans have surrendered,” Marie-Louise said to herself.
“Let’s go to Paris!” shouted Henri. He stood up, waving his arms above his head. “What are we doing here? Our brothers need us! Let’s go and cleanse the streets of the Nazi hordes!”
Henri had the spirit of a rebel and a saintly hero; a soldier without an army, a saver of lost souls. Still tearful, Elise was only waiting for the order to get up and go from Marie-Louise, who couldn’t believe what she was hearing on the radio. Their nightmare was coming to an end.
That night, none of them could sleep. Marie-Louise was trying to keep a cool head to analyze the possible implications of this longed-for end to hostilities. She could go back to the apartment in Le Marais, salvage her café, find out where her husband was, if by the grace of God he was alive and safe in one of those terrible, distant German concentration camps, and then live her remaining years between the capital and the village, trying to forget, free of sorrow and remorse. And yet she wasn’t entirely convinced by this scenario. She couldn’t understand why Henri was increasingly sure that his place was on the streets of Paris with his Resistance brothers-in-arms, on the bridges and rooftops, brandishing the French flag.
>
Danielle and Elise were curled up together. They shared their dreams of walking hand in hand at dusk on the banks of the Seine, then resting at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, just like Maman Claire in the photograph taken before her marriage. Always together; and with that thought they fell asleep, comforted by an illusory peace.
42
At sunrise the next morning they met the baker’s wife and her son, who this time wasn’t wearing his milicien uniform. Marie-Louise hurried on ahead of them; most of the village knew that Father Marcel was saying mass that day, and none of them wanted to miss it.
Before the service, the murmur of the congregation echoed through the abbey church. Viviane was seated in the front row. The baker’s wife and her son came in and tried to hide at the back. The children and Marie-Louise were seated on the side where the priest would enter from the sacristy.
The quiet was disturbed by the cries of a baby. His mother was trying to whisper in his ear to soothe him, but the howls went on and on, so that in the end she had to leave, with the entire nervous congregation staring after her. She sat outside in the sun by one of the windows, the baby on her lap.
Father Auguste made his way painfully from one side of the altar to the main aisle, and went to sit in the only place still free, next to Viviane. Once he had done so, Father Marcel appeared and walked wearily toward the altar. Coming to a halt beneath the austere crucifix, he closed his eyes and slowly recovered his breath. There were to be no customary rituals that day.
“We live in a time of darkest night,” he began, then fell silent. Elise felt she was being observed; so did Danielle and the others. “To emerge from the shadows will be a difficult task, but we must find the necessary strength, even if it’s all that we have left. I know we will succeed. We will not perish, drowning in darkness.
“Who among us has not at some time or other been assailed by the darkest thoughts? Believe me, I myself am no exception. I confess I have doubted God. I have doubted his mercy, his compassion.”
A ripple of sound spread through the abbey. Some nodded, others protested angrily; still others crossed themselves at what they considered blasphemy.
“Have none of you been in my situation? I don’t think there is anyone courageous enough to tell me, here in the house of God, in our house, that they have never doubted his mercy. When I arise every morning, after praying and sometimes even during my prayers, I wonder how many more sins we will have to pay for, and for how long?”
By now the silence was overwhelming. One woman was weeping. An old man nodded shamefully.
“God has abandoned us. He has placed all human beings on this earth as meek lambs for the slaughter, and we’ve ended up like wild beasts thirsting for blood. We go from city to city conquering and killing, dominating all those who are not like us, as if we were the chosen people. And we think we have the divine right to decide who is to live and who is to die. It’s time we rose up. No longer will we let ourselves be struck down, allowing others to steal our lands, burn our temples. We can no longer stand by and see our people erased from the face of the earth. It’s time to say no, even if this means we have to stain our hands with blood.”
Another pause. Henri’s chest swelled with patriotic fervor, as if the priest were talking directly to him. The priest’s last words echoed in an anguished silence. He was staring blindly at the stained-glass window above the abbey’s main door. Father Marcel was no longer looking at anyone, as if his soul was somewhere far away. So distant that the empty husk of his body began to tremble in that sacred place.
“I pray for all of you, I pray for myself. I beg God to have mercy on us all.” His deep voice fell to a murmur. “To doubt is human. And if one morning we wake up having lost our faith, let us close our eyes and not open them again until we can see clearly. Better for us to stay asleep if we cannot act lucidly. With you here, in front of me, recognizing all our sorrows and sharing our common pain, I can see the light. I see in you the light of the world! Let us not lose faith, my beloved children, let us not lose it, because in such difficult times is there anything worse that could happen to us? I can see God in each and every one of you. God is within us all.”
Enveloped in the solitude of the sermon, Father Marcel let out a deep sigh and withdrew from the altar. He left, slamming the sacristy door and abandoning the horrified congregation without granting them the final “Amen.”
43
A dust storm swirled through the village streets, up over roofs and around corners, sweeping away everything it encountered. The villagers began to close their windows, trying to avoid the dust filtering inside and weakening their already frail lungs. The abbey’s heavy oak doors had been pulled shut, but the gusts blew into the middle of the courtyard in search of whatever they could take with them. They couldn’t lift the dust-colored rocks, or uproot the only tree that stood stoically in the sun. The unforgiving north winds reached the abbey when least expected. And with the storm came the Germans.
When Elise heard the Germans were approaching, accompanied by the miliciens, her heart seemed to stop. Perhaps it had grown weary, or perhaps fear was no longer an option for her. Taking Danielle’s cold hands in hers, she stood motionless again with her sister, watching the other children running this way and that like a river flooding the abbey’s narrow corridors.
“Into the courtyard! Everyone into the courtyard at once!” they heard somebody shout.
“Wasn’t the war supposed to be coming to an end? What happened to the Allies, the French army?” moaned Elise. “We should have escaped as far as we could to the south, as far away as possible rather than seek shelter in the abbey. But I was very thirsty, do you remember?” She turned to Danielle. “What more can they take from us? We’ve already lost Maman Claire, and now they’ll separate us from Marie-Louise, Henri, and Father Marcel. And we’ll never get to see Paris.”
“We have to go into the yard with the others. They’re going to show us a magic trick. Let’s run,” said Henri. The girls fell in behind him, matching his every step, as though they were all in sync and nothing could force them apart.
When all the children were in the main courtyard, silence descended. Elise’s breathing became shorter. The faces of the scrawny man and the one with dark shadows under his eyes were covered with cracked white paste. Their eyes had been outlined in black, and their mouths were a red line that ran from the corners of the lips to the tips of their chins in an expression of disgust or disdain. They were pretending that an imaginary glass screen separated them from the audience that was eagerly following their movements. With the palms of their hands they fixed the limits of this reinforced space that no one, thought Elise, not even the Germans, could penetrate. But the gestures of the two mimes only made the children feel even sadder. Aren’t they supposed to make us laugh? Elise wondered.
There was the sound of marching footsteps so loud they seemed to shake the foundations of a building that had withstood many past invasions. The audience looked around for a way out, but the mimes demanded their full attention, and they got it.
Sitting in a battered armchair next to Marie-Louise, Father Auguste was the only one laughing at the antics of these improvised actors. Catching the children’s eyes, he winked at them with boyish enthusiasm, then turned back to the mimes, who had now become magicians and were producing an endless stream of colored handkerchiefs out of an enormous black top hat. When one of them tapped the hat with the golden wand, a trembling white rabbit appeared. This was the only trick it had been trained for.
For the first time, everyone applauded. All the same, Elise, who was sitting in the front with Danielle and Henri, thought she could detect a look of terror on the mimes’ faces.
“Don’t turn around. They’re here,” Henri whispered to her. “They can’t do anything to us. They must be lost; the best thing is to ignore them.”
Henri’s words sounded like a distant murmur to Elise. Yet again they were heading for the cliff like docile sheep, one behind the ot
her. Yet again, the whole village was gathered to await the explosions. I ought to run, I ought to confront them. Let’s all join together and walk out toward the village. Then we’ll see if they’re brave enough to shoot us in the back, not locked in a church or an enclosed courtyard. Her face twitched with each of these thoughts, so clearly that both Danielle and Henri noticed. Seated nearby, Marie-Louise was afraid one of them might react foolishly.
Escorted by two miliciens, a German officer stood in the center of the courtyard, on the same spot where only moments before the mimes had been performing.
“We are looking for weapons,” said the officer with icy calm, in perfect French.
The same as always, thought Elise, her face taut.
“And for one of our men,” added the officer.
Henri jumped in his seat. Danielle closed her eyes. Elise gulped. Marie-Louise observed their reactions from afar.
“Can anyone help us? Have you seen anything suspicious in recent days?”
Silence.
“Very well. Then we will talk to the children one by one. They always tell the truth.” Smiling, the German officer stressed every word. He looked straight at Danielle: “Shall we start with you?”
Why did we sit in the front row? Why didn’t we run away? Why didn’t we hide in the cloister? Be strong, nothing’s going to happen, trust me, think of Maman. Elise wanted to convey all this to Danielle by repeatedly squeezing her hand. But Danielle couldn’t feel anything: she was weightless, floating over the courtyard, high above them all.
The two miliciens took Danielle into the sacristy, where the German officer was waiting for her. Elise didn’t react as she watched her disappear, but at that moment into her memory floated the first traces of the stench of death that had always pursued her.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Danielle ran into Elise’s arms. Now it was Henri’s turn. He rushed inside, slamming the door in the face of the miliciens.
The Daughter's Tale Page 20