Suite Française

by Irene Nemirovsky

  “But wait . . . think . . .” she continued, leaning her forehead against the mirror. She felt as if she were talking to a part of herself she hadn’t known existed until then, who’d been invisible and whom she was seeing now for the first time, a woman with brown eyes, thin, trembling lips, burning cheeks, who was her but not entirely her. “But wait, think . . . be logical . . . listen to the voice of reason . . . you’re a sensible woman . . . you’re French . . . where will all this lead? He’s a soldier, he’s married, he’ll go away; where will it lead? Will it be anything more than a moment of fleeting happiness? Not even happiness, just pleasure? Do you even know what that is?” She was fascinated by her reflection in the mirror; it both pleased her and frightened her.

  She heard the cook’s footsteps in the pantry near the entrance hall; she jumped back in terror and started walking aimlessly through the house. My God, what an enormous empty house! Her mother-in-law, as she had vowed, no longer left her room; her meals were taken up to her. But even though she wasn’t there, Lucile could still sense her. This house was a reflection of her, the truest part of her being, just as the truest part of Lucile was the slender young woman (in love, courageous, happy, in despair) who had just been smiling at herself in the mirror with the black frame. (She had disappeared; all that was left of Lucile Angellier was a lifeless ghost, a woman who wandered aimlessly through the rooms, who leaned her face against the windows, who automatically tidied all the useless, ugly objects that decorated the mantelpiece.)

  What a day! The air was heavy, the sky grey. The blossoming lime trees had been battered by gusts of cold wind. A room, a house of my very own, thought Lucile, a perfect room, almost bare, a beautiful lamp . . . If only I could close these shutters and put on the lights to block out this awful weather. Marthe would ask if I were ill; she’d go and tell my mother-in-law, who would come and open the curtains and turn off the lights because of the cost of electricity. I can’t play the piano: it would be seen as an insult to my absent husband. I’d happily go for a walk in the woods in spite of the rain, but everyone would know about it. “Lucile Angellier’s gone mad,” they’d all say. That’s enough to have a woman locked up around here.

  She laughed as she recalled a young girl she’d heard about whose parents had shut her up in a nursing home because she would slip away and run down to the lake whenever there was a full moon. The lake, the night . . . The lake beneath this torrential rain. Oh, anywhere far away! Somewhere else. These horses, these men, these poor resigned people, hunched over in the rain . . . She tore herself away from the window. “I’m nothing like them,” she told herself, yet she felt bound to them by invisible chains.

  She went into Bruno’s bedroom. Several times she had slipped quietly into his room in the evening, her heart pounding. He would be propped up on his bed, fully dressed, reading or writing, the metallic blond of his hair glistening beneath the lamp. On an armchair in the corner of the room would be his heavy belt with the motto Gott mit uns engraved on the buckle, a black revolver, his cap and almond-green greatcoat; he would take the coat and put it over Lucile’s legs because the nights were cold since the week before with its endless storms.

  They were alone—they felt they were alone—in the great sleeping house. Not a word of their true feelings was spoken; they didn’t kiss. There was simply silence. Silence followed by feverish, passionate conversations about their own countries, their families, music, books . . . They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other—the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders. “Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you, my darling?” But up until now, not a single word of love. What was the point? Words are pointless when your voices falter, when your mouths are trembling, amid such long silences. Slowly, gently, Lucile touched the books on the table. The Gothic lettering looked so bizarre, so ugly. The Germans, the Germans . . . A Frenchman wouldn’t have let me leave with no gesture of love other than kissing my hand and the hem of my dress . . .

  She smiled, shrugging her shoulders slightly; she knew it was neither shyness nor coldness, but that profound, determined German patience—the patience of a wild animal waiting for its hypnotised prey to let itself be taken. “During the war,” Bruno had said, “we spent a number of nights lying in wait in the Moeuvre forest. Waiting is erotic . . .” She had laughed at the word. It seemed less amusing now. What did she do now but wait? She waited for him. She wandered through these lifeless rooms. Another two hours, three hours. Then dinner alone. Then the sound of the key locking her mother-in-law’s door. Then Marthe crossing the garden with a lantern to close the gate. Then more waiting, feverish and strange . . . and finally the sound of his horse neighing on the road, the clanking of weapons, orders given to the groom who walks away with the horse. The sound of spurs on the doorstep. Then the night, the stormy night, with its great gusts of wind in the lime trees and the thunder rumbling in the distance. She would tell him. Oh, she was no hypocrite, she would tell him in clear, simple French—that the prey he so desired was his. “And then what? Then what?” she murmured; a mischievous, bold, sensual smile suddenly transformed her expression, just as the reflection of a flame illuminating a face can alter it. Lit up by fire, the softest features can look demonic; they can both repel and attract. She walked quietly out of the room.

  18

  Someone was knocking at the kitchen door; they knocked shyly, softly; you could hardly hear it through the driving rain. Some kids wanting to get out of the storm, thought the cook. She looked out and saw Madeleine Sabarie standing on the doorstep, holding a dripping-wet umbrella. Marthe looked at her for a moment, astonished; people from the farms hardly ever came into the village except on Sundays for High Mass.

  “What’s going on? Come inside, quickly. Is everything all right at home?”

  “No, something terrible’s happened,” Madeleine whispered. “I need to speak to Madame right away.”

  “Lord Jesus! Something terrible? Do you want to speak to Madame Angellier or Madame Lucile?”

  Madeleine hesitated. “Madame Lucile. But be quiet . . . I don’t want that awful German to know I’m here.”

  “The officer? He’s away at the requisitioning of the horses. Sit down by the fire; you’re soaking wet. I’ll go and get Madame.”

  Lucile was alone, finishing her dinner. She had a book open on the tablecloth in front of her. “Poor dear!” Marthe said to herself in a moment of sudden lucidity. “Is this the kind of life she should have? No husband for two years . . . And as for Madeleine . . . What terrible thing could have happened? Something to do with the Germans, that’s for sure.”

  She told Lucile that someone was asking for her.

  “Madeleine Sabarie, Madame. Something terrible’s happened to her . . . She doesn’t want anyone to see her.”

  “Show her in here. Is the German . . . Lieutenant von Falk home yet?”

  “No, Madame. I’ll hear his horse when he comes back. I’ll warn you.”

  “Yes, good. Go on now.”

  Lucile waited, her heart pounding. Madeleine Sabarie entered the room, deathly pale and out of breath. The modesty and caution innate to country folk battled against her emotional turmoil. She shook Lucile’s hand, mumbled “I’m not disturbing you, am I?” and “How are you?” as was the custom, then said very quietly, making a terrible effort to hold back her tears (because you just didn’t cry in front of anyone, unless it was at someone’s deathbed; the rest of the time you had to control yourself, to hide your pain—and indeed your pleasure—from others), “Oh, Madame Lucile! What should I do? I’ve come to ask your advice because we’re . . . we’re finished. The Germans came to arrest Benoît this morning.”

  “But why?” Lucile exclaimed.

  “They said it was because he had a hunting rifle hidden away. Like everyone else, as you can imagine. But they didn’t search a
nywhere else, just our place. Benoît said, ‘Go ahead and look.’ They did look and they found it. It was hidden in the hay in the cowshed. Our German, the one living with us, the interpreter, he was in the room when the men from Headquarters came back in with the gun and ordered my husband to go with them. ‘Wait a minute,’ Benoît said. ‘That isn’t my gun. It must be someone who lives around here who hid it so they could denounce me. Give it to me and I’ll prove it to you.’ He was talking so naturally that the men weren’t suspicious. My Benoît takes the gun, pretends to be examining it and suddenly . . . Oh, Madame Lucile, the two bullets fired almost at the same time. One killed Bonnet and the other Bubi, the big Alsatian that was with him.”

  “I see,” murmured Lucile, “I see.”

  “Then he jumps out of the window and runs off, the Germans right behind. But he knows the place better than them, as you can imagine. They haven’t found him yet. The storm was so bad they couldn’t see two steps in front of them, thank goodness. Bonnet’s laid out on my bed, where they put him. If they find Benoît, they’ll shoot him. He might have been shot for hiding a gun, but if that was all he’d done we could have hoped he’d get off. Now, well we know what to expect, don’t we?”

  “But why did he kill Bonnet?”

  “He must be the one who denounced him, Madame Lucile. He lives with us. He could have found the gun. These Germans, they’re all traitors. And that one . . . was chasing after me, you see . . . and my husband knew it. Maybe he wanted to punish him, maybe he said to himself, ‘Might as well . . . then he won’t be here to play up to my wife when I’m not around.’ Maybe . . . And he really hated them, Madame Lucile. He was longing to kill one of them.”

  “They’ve been looking for him all day long, you say? You’re absolutely sure they haven’t found him yet?”

  “I’m sure,” said Madeleine after a moment’s silence.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes. This is life or death, Madame Lucile. You . . . you won’t say a word?”

  “Oh, Madeleine . . .”

  “All right, then. He’s hiding at Louise’s place, our neighbour whose husband is a prisoner of war.”

  “They’re going to turn the village upside down, they’re going to look everywhere.”

  “Thank goodness they were requisitioning the horses today. All the officers are away. The soldiers are waiting for orders. Tomorrow they’ll start the search. But Madame Lucile, farms have plenty of hiding places. They’ve had escaped prisoners right there under their noses plenty of times. Louise will hide him good, but it’s just, well, it’s her kids: the kids play with the Germans, they aren’t afraid of them, and they talk, they’re too little to understand. ‘I know the chance I’m taking,’ Louise told me. ‘I’m doing it willingly for your husband, just like you would do it for mine, but nonetheless, it would be better to find another house where he could hide until he can get away from here.’ They’ll be watching all the roads now, won’t they. But the Germans won’t be here for ever. What we need is a big house where there aren’t any children.”

  “Here?” Lucile said, staring at her.

  “Here, yes, I thought . . .”

  “You do know that a German officer lives here?”

  “They’re everywhere. But the officer hardly ever comes out of his room, does he? And I’ve heard . . . forgive me, Madame Lucile, I’ve heard he’s in love with you and that you can do whatever you like. I’m not offending you, am I? They’re men like the rest, I know, and they get bored. So if you said to him, ‘I don’t want your soldiers upsetting everything in the house. It’s ridiculous. You know very well I’m not hiding anyone. First of all, I’d be too scared to . . .’ Things that women can say . . . And in this house that’s so big, so empty, it would be easy to find a hiding place, some little corner. And then there’s a chance he’d be saved, the only chance. You might say that if you get caught, you risk going to prison, perhaps even being killed. With these brutes it’s possible. But if we French don’t help one another, who will? Louise, she has kids, she does, and she wasn’t scared. You’re all alone.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Lucile said slowly.

  She thought about it. The danger for Benoît would be the same whether he was in her house or anywhere else. What about the danger for her? What’s my life worth anyway? she thought with unintentional despair. Really, it had no importance. She suddenly thought of those days in June 1940 (two years, only two years ago). Then, too, amid the chaos, the danger, she hadn’t thought about herself. She had let herself be carried along by a fast-flowing river.

  “There’s my mother-in-law,” she murmured, “but she doesn’t leave her room any more. She wouldn’t see anything. And there’s Marthe.”

  “Marthe’s family, Madame. She’s my husband’s cousin. There’s no danger there. We trust our family. But where could he hide?”

  “I was thinking maybe the blue bedroom near the attic, the old playroom that has a kind of alcove . . . But then, but then, my poor Madeleine, you mustn’t have any illusions. If fate is against us they’ll find him here as well as anywhere, but if it’s God’s will, he’ll escape. After all, German soldiers have been killed in France before and they’ve not always found the ones who did it. We must do everything we can to hide him . . . and . . . just hope, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, Madame, hope . . .” said Madeleine and the tears she could no longer hold back flowed slowly down her cheeks.

  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 Benoît 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 rats and our 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 was killed in a cowardly way by one Benoît 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: