Frontier Passage

by Ann Bridge

  Her thoughts turned to the woman. Poor Raquel! If only Juanito had got back to her, to distract her too. Perhaps he had, by now; she did hope so. Sitting on the boulder, Rosemary opened her bag, pulled out a letter, and read it over. It was from Raquel, sent via the Duquesa, and was about four weeks old. It was almost all about Juanito, and Raquel’s distress that he had not returned: that there was no word of him at Burgos, in the regiment, anywhere. She sounded almost distracted with worry—and as the girl read it, her fine dark brows drew together in a frown of concern. “You well remember, I know, how important it is not to speak of J. to anyone” the Condesa had written; “till he returns, we do not know where he is, and it might be unsafe.” Sez you!—Rosemary grunted to herself. What the dickens could have happened to Juanito, anyway? Had he been too late to return to White Spain through the lines, because of that beastly Arbre de Noël being blocked? He must have cut it pretty fine, anyhow. Oh dear—she wished she knew. And she wondered if she dared talk to Milcom about him. How much did he know? Raquel must have talked about Juanito to him endlessly—she couldn’t help herself!—but did he know about the spying? Here he was, buzzing round all these camps like a blue-bottle, on this Mexico-refugee racket; he would have endless chances to make enquiries. Hadn’t she better tell him? Oh no, she thought, with an impatient sigh—better not. Raquel had said not, and anyhow it was always better not to talk. And it might sort of churn him up about Raquel even to hear of a letter from her. Were they writing to one another? She had no idea. What did one do when one parted from the great love of one’s life-time, who was married to somebody else? (Rosemary had no doubts but that these two were each the great love of the other’s life-time.) And had he sent her back to that miserable Conde, who was by all accounts a prize louse, or had she just gone? No idea, again. Oh dear, oh dear—what a miserable business. She sighed again, more impatiently than ever, stuffed the letter back into her bag, and got up off her boulder; the sun had gone down behind the hills on the far side of the valley, where Spain lay, and it was getting chilly. Anyhow, she thought, strolling back along the barbed wire, he’s here!—and a tiny smile played for a second about her mouth.

  When Milcom at last reappeared they drove back to Amélie, calling round by the Sous-Préfecture, where Milcom arranged for the Spanish artists to come down for drinks that evening, bringing specimens of their work. They came, and sat awkwardly under the lights in one of the horrible sitting-rooms, looking curiously alive, with a sort of savage life, among the old whiskered men and the antimacassared old women; their sculptured faces had that tragic touch which always lies just below the surface of the Spanish expression. Their works were spead out on the table, and Mr. Oldhead was persuaded to commission one or two. Milcom observed with amused admiration Rosemary’s skill in handling her parents, and her delightful ease with the Spaniards; she didn’t speak Spanish very well but she did speak it without hesitation, stumbling out her faulty phrases rather fast, laughing at herself, helping the guests to drinks very nicely, putting everyone at their ease. Ease!—what a precious quality it was, and how rare. Milcom was painfully aware of not having it himself—he could never do anything with an awkward situation but make it more awkward. Raquel had it, though, to a supreme degree—and so had this child. Odd that the two best examples of this delightful quality that he had ever known should be two such diverse types as the wife of a Spanish grandee and a little English schoolgirl.

  Next day he drove up to visit the camp at Prats-de-Mollo, taking Rosemary with him. The road, splendidly engineered, winds up the valley of the Tech through gorges increasingly high and steep, clothed with woods of beech and chestnut, till the mountains fall back to leave the high wide cup in which Prats stands, a little walled town perched on a sloping site above the river, dominated by the fierce outline of its great fortified church, frowned down upon by the Fort de le Garde just above, to which Vauban’s genius, has given his peculiar touch of heavy severity. But they did not visit the town itself, that first time. The camp lay just short of it, on a flattish shelf of pasture down by the river—another collection of wigwams roofed with turf or thatched with box and wild broom, and smoky with camp-fires. This camp was not wired; Gardes Mobiles, patrolling it with rifles on all sides, apparently kept the occupants in sufficient order. While Milcom pursued his business within the camp, Rosemary wandered about the nearer slopes, or gossiped with the Gardes Mobiles who, terribly bored, seized thankfully on the opportunity of a little conversation with a stranger, who was moreover a pretty young lady. Oh, the Spaniards were not so bad, once you had them in a camp; but, out in the open—my God, how they terrorised the farmers! Coming at night, armed; demanding food, menacing the women. And dirty! Ask the people of Preste, up there—they waved on up the valley beyond the walls of Prats—in what state the village school was, after the refugees had been housed in it! A disinfection was necessary. But, les pauvres bougres, they had fought well, that was certain. In the hospital there, by the main gate, many had died, of the wounded brought down from the Cold’ Ares.

  When Milcom returned they took a side road on the north side of the main valley, very steep and narrow, which led up through woods and open pastures till it ended abruptly at the very lip of a cliff which dropped to the next valley of Corsavy. Here they ate their lunch of ham rolls and fruit, sitting on the grass in the sun, and talked with a shepherd who, having beaten his savage dog into silence, told them his experiences with the miliciens in atrocious French, half Catalan. To his house too they had come, but he had his son and his gun; he had locked up his women and loosed his dogs, fed the men, let them sleep, and next day escorted them down to Prats, son, gun, dogs and all. In effect, they were not so much trouble, he said. Milcom and Rosemary laughed, as they drove home, at the peasant’s rough-and-ready methods of defending his mas, while observing the mountain traditions of hospitality.

  Spring in the Pyrénées Occidentales has a certain charm, in spite of the prevailing East wind. In the valley-floors a pink mist of almond and peach blossom spreads over the bare earth; through the evergreen shrubs along the rocky slopes the wild mimosa seems to run like a yellow flame; up on the shoulders of the Canigou the greenish-white of the tall heaths in flower is set against the silvery-white of the rocks, while westward, in the deeper valleys, the running sap in the beech and chestnut woods clothes the slopes in a purplish bloom. Over all is the extraordinary light of that region, at once silvery and fierce, and the tonic exciting dryness of the air, with sudden contrasts of hot sunshine and cold wind. This was the setting for three of the happiest weeks of Rosemary’s life. Mrs. Oldhead liked Milcom, and was delighted that Rosemary had found such a nice trustworthy person to take her about; Milcom, heart-broken, lonely and at a loose end, gladly and rather thoughtlessly accepted this pleasant easy companionship. They spent almost the whole of every day together. They would leave the Thermes Jadis at about eight, and driving to some village, breakfast at the inn, usually with the posse of Gardes Mobiles quartered there; then they would drive further, or walk for hours, returning between two and three to coax a late lunch out of the maître d’hotel, after which Rosemary slept, or amused her parents, while Milcom wrote about Manuel Jereda to the various hospitals of which the amiable Sous-Préfet had furnished him with a list. In the evenings he talked politics with Mr. Oldhead, or entertained the Spanish officers from Arles. He and Rosemary examined the local churches, going down sometimes into the plain; but mostly they explored the side valleys of the Vallespir, and above all those leading up to the Spanish frontier. Armed with the Sous-Préfet’s pass, they were allowed to go almost anywhere; the Gardes Mobiles whom they met at breakfast in the village inns were charmed to accept a lift to the head of the mountain road, and even to have such company on their daily patrols.

  So it came about that Rosemary and Milcom got to know the Spanish frontier at the eastern end as few save the peasants and the Gardes Mobiles themselves knew it. Leaving the hardy little Peugeot at the last possible turning-place on s
ome narrow road, they would plod with their dark-coated friends up a mule-track to the frontier-post, where the Tricolor and Franco’s yellow and gold, tied to sticks, leaned drunkenly from the same cairn of stones; the Franquista guards would emerge from whatever hut sheltered them, and greet the Gardes Mobiles with the utmost warmth, begging for cigarettes. If there was anything in the nature of an inn within reach, as was sometimes the case, the whole party would repair there for a glass of wine; if there was not, they amused themselves in various ways—once by having a shooting competition with the Spaniards’ rifles, firing at an entrenching-tool set up among the rocks at two hundred yards range. In the spring of 1939 that section of the frontier presented an extraordinary spectacle. On the Spanish side the slopes are gradual, and the gradients of the small mountain roads in consequence fairly easy; on the French side, on the contrary, the slopes are steep, and as a matter of policy all French roads s op some kilometres short of the frontier. So the enterprising Spaniards who, avoiding the traffic-blocks on the main roads at Le Perthus and Cerbère, pushed their cars up mountain tracks to the frontier, found on the crest that they could take them no further. They left their machines and whatever luggage they could not carry, and descended into France on foot. As a result the summit ridge at the head of all the smaller Spanish roads was strewn with abandoned cars, typewriters, and luggage—while around them, like shingle on a beach around boulders were thousands of rifle-cartridges, which the French frontier-guards had stripped from the incoming miliciens—one’s feet sank into them as into the stones of the sea-shore. It was a formidable, a desolating sight. These rifle-bullets were the ammunition which they used for their shooting-match, the Spaniards cheerfully knocking them into the breech with stones if they did not fit very well, to Milcorn’s horror and Rosemary’s vast amusement.

  In these circumstances they came, too, to know better than most foreigners ever succeed in doing one of the finest bodies of men in the world, the Gardes Mobiles. These men are the pick of the best and most stable element in France, the substantial peasants and small farmers; they are chosen for character as well as for intelligence and physique, and the majority are married men—Rosemary used to notice how many wore a gold alliance on their wedding finger. They are given a very special training, in the use of arms as well as in police duties, and have a tradition almost as unbreakable as that of the Brigade of Guards; they almost always do their service in districts other than their own. With their large calm country faces under the bluish steel helmets, their smart knee-length overcoats, trimly belted, their black gaiters and glossy boots, they invariably present an appearance as impressive as it is reassuring—and before them and behind them goes the quelling influence of their immense prestige. Anyone who has seen a Paris crowd in an ugly temper begin to waver and melt at the first whisper of “les Gardes Mobiles!” realises how enormous this prestige is.

  But Rosemary and Milcom saw another side of them, which the Paris visitor does not usually see. The men they met had been posted for weeks in remote villages, far from railways or main roads, among a population whose dialect they could hardly understand; and once the excitement and the activities connected with the Spanish influx had died down they were deadly bored, and quite touchingiy homesick. Tramping the frontier ridges, sitting in rough uncouth one-room inns with the English man and the English girl—his daughter, they naively and explicitly supposed—sooner or later they talked about their homes, their own corner of France; lingering over the details of its soil, its climate, its types of poultry and wine, bringing out in slow leisurely sentences their deep nostalgia. Nothing made them so happy as when their new friends chanced to be familiar with their own district. Tenez, Monsieur knows Blois? Ah, what a city! The Loire—how wide, how noble. And the Château!—Monsieur knows the Château? And the fine fish—ah, how good the fish is, all along the Loire. Rosemary and Milcom were sitting drinking cognac and hot water in such an inn, one day, after a peculiarly cold tramp over a section of the frontier with three splendid fallows, two of whom, it appeared, came from Bayonne,—their delight when Rosemary said that she knew Bayonne know no bounds. They discussed the shops, the cinemas, the bus services, mouthed the dear names of streets. The third’ listened in silence to this happy exchange; at last he said hopefully—“Mademoiselle knows Brittany too?” Alas, Mademoiselle did not. The giant sighed, patiently. “Brittany is” a fine place too,” he said. “But it is far away, La Bretagne.” Mademoiselle was almost ready to cry that she could not offer Brittany as well as Bayonne.

  They were blissful days for Rosemary. Her happiness was so great that she could hardly contain it. She loved the country, the fun of exploration, the long hard walks, the excitement of seeing such big stretches of the frontier, meeting the Franco guards, making friends with the Gardes Mobiles—all this would have been wonderful in itself, but shared with Milcom, it was Paradise. She made heroic and conscientious efforts to hold her happiness in; scolded herself, warned herself that it would not last, that she would come a fearful flop when it was over, and so on. And she did manage to make herself the most normal and unexacting of companions to Milcom. But her happiness overflowed in her shining eyes and danced in her light tireless feet, even if she managed to keep it out of her voice. They talked a good deal; not all the time, but at intervals, between companionable silences. Rosemary’s knack of drawing people out did not fail with Milcom. He talked about his work—she learned a lot about that. He talked about the French and the Spaniards, and the idosyncrasies of their national characters. Imperceptibly, too, she got to know him, and tiny things about him; his likes and dislikes; the finicking neatness, for example, which made him unable to endure a cigarette-end left burning on an ash-tray. He must always stub it out, whoever had put it there. They acquired a small stock of common experiences—and adventures shared, jokes shared; at dinner in the evenings—he sat with the Oldhead family now—she poked him up to the recital of special items in the day’s happenings.

  Possibly James was rather careless about this situation. In his excuse it may be said that he knew nothing about young girls, that Rosemary’s self-control was uncommon, and her technique with people unusually good; and that his heart and mind were so embedded in the thought of Raquel, and his devotion to her, that he was really quite myopic about any other relationship. He was still in a state of raw misery over losing her, and in his misery he clung like a drowning man to the relief afforded him, so freely and easily, by Rosemary’s company. He did very occasionally recollect, as he had recollected that first night at the Thermes Jadis, that she had once professed to love him; but her ease and naturalness and gaiety in his company led him to think, gradually, that that had just been an emotional moment, an isolated outburst, which didn’t amount to anything serious or lasting. The most sensitive and sympathetic and humane of men can be, and often are, complete fools in matters of this sort. The arbitray convention which assumes that love is never really destructive, or hurts seriously, under the age of twenty held in Milcom’s case. The convention is false; Milcom was wrong; but it, together with his own absorbing passion, which completely preoccupied his emotional sensory apparatus, prevented him from realising what was happening. If he had, he would have done something about it, for he was both sensitive and humane, and he liked Rosemary very much; he respected her mind, he respected her enormously for the courage she had shown in that emotional moment, and he enjoyed her tireless energy, her readiness for any adventure, her gaiety and her modern gift for absurdity. This last is a quite special quality of the latest generation, and it was a novelty to him. It is new, it is amusing to a degree; it fizzes and exhilarates like champagne. James was intellectually alert enough to recognise the things on which it is based; recognition of each sort of fact, the acceptance of disillusionment, and nevertheless the resulting lively enjoyment of actual things. It startled and pleased him to realise how important sun and wind, and good plain food and natural beauty and clever modern music, were to Rosemary—how simply and rightly she
let her whole being be nourished by these. What he didn’t in the least realise was the effect which the unguarded and affectionate companionship of a man like himself, in conjunction with such things, was bound to have on her. So he accepted all that she gave, laughed at her lively folly, responded to her teasing ease—if his nights knew despair and wretched wakefulness, his days at least were fairly bearable. He was grateful, too, for this; it made all the difference, he freely admitted.

  Actually he learned a certain amount about her, and the generation she represented, too; some of it startled him. He was quite unprepared to find that a girl of her age, educated at a rather mediocre school and by no means coming from an ultra-intellectual home circle should possess so much knowledge about international relations and foreign political personalities as she evidently had, and should be so much interested in them. He asked her once if all the girls at her school knew as much as she did about M. Léon Blum, and M. Reynaud, and M. Daladier, and what they stood for in French public life?

  “Oh yes,” she said carelessly—“Well, perhaps I know more gossip about them now, being out here. But most of us know a goodish bit. We have to read The Times at school, anyhow, and some of us take the Daily Herald as well. It’s important to us, you see.”