‘Ari,’ he murmured, and closed the door behind him.
*
‘I love you,’ she whispered afterwards. He smiled and she thought, I have never seen that smile before. He pulled her close and they lay skin to skin and mouth to mouth with all their limbs entangled.
‘I love you too,’ he whispered back.
He’ll never leave now, thought Arianne.
The light outside mellowed into afternoon. The room grew quiet and they slept.
June 9th, 1944
i
Solange lay in wait for her on the road to school and wheedled out the truth before they even reached the station.
‘You didn’t! Before me! You can’t have!’
‘Shush, Sol, people are watching . . .’
‘But was it nice?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘It was nice.’
Luc and Arianne did not touch that morning on the way to school but stood a foot away from each other in the train carriage, not even speaking. Her cheeks flamed when she met his eye. He smiled, and for a moment she hoped he was going to pull her to him right there, in front of all the commuters; she wanted to feel his arms around her again, his mouth in her hair, his voice telling her over and over that he loved her . . .
‘I can’t wait this afternoon,’ he told her as they parted at the school gate. ‘But I’ll come round this evening. Leave your window open?’
‘Leave your window open . . .’ sighed Solange as he walked off.
‘Shut up,’ hissed Arianne.
All day, she hugged her secret close. Luc Belleville loved her. Luc Belleville was her lover. Luc Belleville was hers, in every way. Lunchtime came and went, afternoon and evening. At last, when Paul and Elodie were asleep, she climbed out of her bedroom window on to the roof.
He was already waiting in the shadows, a bunch of wild carnations in his hand, but his kiss was fleeting.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk.’
He took her by the hand and led her past the cemetery, up the ribbon of road and into the woods to the place they had first kissed. And there, under a moon which tonight was no more than a sliver, he told her he was leaving.
*
‘But you can’t leave! Yesterday . . . You can’t just leave like it doesn’t matter!’
She sat cross-legged on the ground before him, her hands clutching the flowers in her lap.
‘Of course it matters. That’s why I have to go.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense!’
‘I want you to be proud.’
‘Proud?’ A memory came to her, walking out with Luc the morning after their first kiss, down towards the stream, leaning in towards each other, pretending not to see their peers stare, unable not to grin. She clasped his hands and pressed her lips to them.
‘I want you to be proud of me,’ he repeated.
She dropped his hands, feeling defeated.
‘I heard the Maquis were starving,’ she said. ‘And I heard you can expect to last three months in the Résistance.’
‘Father Julien says the war will be over before then.’
‘What does he have to do with it?’
Luc did not answer.
‘Tell me!’ she insisted. ‘You have to tell me! When you’re killed, I want to know, I need to know, why . . .’ Her voice broke. She buried her face in her knees.
‘He’s the leader.’ Luc sighed. ‘All the Résistance activity around here, he coordinates it. He’s been going for years, right under Romy’s father’s nose.’
‘Father Julien?’
‘Who’d have thought, eh? So it’s not true you only last three months. And you’re not supposed to know.’
‘But what do you have to do?’
He would not look at her. ‘Tell me!’ she ordered. He sighed.
‘Two men. I have to meet them tonight and hide them, then lead them to another safe house tomorrow. I’m only telling you because after that I’m not coming back. I’m going with them when they leave. Father Julien doesn’t know that bit.’
‘Who are they?’
‘They’re not from around here.’
‘Where are you meeting them?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! Where are you hiding them, then?’
He looked away.
‘Not Lascande,’ she cried. ‘You can’t!’
‘He’s used it before.’ He still wouldn’t look at her. ‘You know the first time we went and you thought someone had been there?’
‘But you can’t . . .’
‘It’s only for one day. We’ll be off again by nightfall tomorrow.’
‘Off . . .’
‘Think of your father. He went off to fight. He was brave.’
‘But look what happened to him!’
‘Ari, be reasonable! It’s about more than us, now, can’t you see? I love you, of course I do, but some things . . . some things just have to be done.’
‘Father Julien once told me there was nothing more important than love.’
‘I didn’t say love wasn’t important.’
‘You meant it though. Love is less important than running around pretending to be a soldier, pretending you can make a difference.’
‘We will make a difference.’
‘But you’re sixteen. You’re a child.’
‘Ari . . .’ He took her hand. ‘We’re not children,’ he whispered against her mouth.
She pushed him away and scrambled to her feet.
‘Goodbye, Luc. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see you again. Seeing as you’re obviously about to get killed.’
She picked up her cardigan and her bunch of wild carnations. She thought of throwing them in his face then reflected bitterly that these were all she had left of him. They turned for home. She blinked back tears as they passed the cemetery. He tried to take her hand but she shook him off.
‘Come to Lascande tomorrow,’ he begged when they reached the holm oak. ‘Please? We can go together after school.’
‘School?’
‘Father Julien says tomorrow has to be completely normal. I have to be back before dawn. We don’t leave again until after nightfall.’
‘What, so you want me to come with you so you can screw me with your friends watching?’
He looked shocked. Arianne laid out her terms.
‘If you want me,’ she declared, ‘you won’t go. You won’t even hide those men. If you promise not to do any of this and if you promise not to leave, on Sunday I will go with you to Lascande and we will do it again.’
‘Don’t use sex to bargain with me, Ari.’
‘Die, then,’ she retorted. ‘See if I care. I’ll never forgive you.’
She swung herself into the holm oak and when he called goodbye she did not turn around.
*
In the shadow of the lane which marked the corner of the house, Romy began to breathe again.
On these balmy nights of early summer he liked to stand near her window, in the narrow lane where for years he had waited for her on the way to school. She would think him pathetic if she knew. He thought himself pathetic. But there were few enough thrills in Romy Dulac’s life and nothing compared to this, being close to where on moonlit nights Arianne climbed out of her bedroom window into the arms of her waiting lover. They kissed just a few feet away from where he lurked in the gloom of the lane and he imagined it was his lips pressed against hers, his arms holding her. I’ll never forgive you. Ha!
Luc almost brushed his shoulder as he hurried down the lane, but he did not seem to notice. Some agent. Romy smirked, though he could imagine only too well how he would feel in Luc’s place. To have had Arianne and then to lose her . . . He waited a long time in the darkness to make sure Luc would not return, and as he waited his sense of triumph grew. Life would resume as it had before. They would walk together to school, she would press his arm with her small hand, she would listen to him again . . . He sped home as fast as his leg would let him
. The dogs set to barking when he reached his parents’ yard but he didn’t even try to shush them.
ii
Heading north, wrote Alois on the platform at Montauban. The station about him teemed with activity. Railway porters staggering under the weight of metal trunks, hawkers, girls in high heels wearing too much lipstick, all mingled with the sea of grey uniforms, the kit and arsenal being loaded on to the train. Alois Grand had learned a long time ago to do no more than what was expected of him. He did not help but sat on his own kit bag with his writing pad on his knees. Cigarette smoke stung his eyes as he leaned forward to write.
‘A week of rest and decent cooking and we are a different unit, with fresh blood come to swell our ranks. We old-timers look more grizzled than the new recruits, but we are just as fit. The Captain says it will be good to do some real soldiering again, after Russia. We are going to fight the Americans. We will lose – everyone knows we will lose – but we will be close to home and soon I will be with you again.’
The train was ready to leave. Alois’s carriage was overcrowded and dark but he had claimed a seat by the window, and he carried on writing, using the tip of his cigarette to light the page while all around him his fellow soldiers drifted off to sleep.
‘Things I’m looking forward to about coming home,’ wrote Alois. ‘Good coffee. Your schnitzels. Cinnamon rolls on Sunday mornings. Civilian clothes.’
The train ground to a halt. The men in the carriage stirred. Some of them got up to pee. Alois kept on writing.
‘Remember when Wolf had scarlet fever?’ he wrote. ‘And you were nursing him, and one of the things you did was you picked a rose to put by his bed. I asked you what the point was and you said, it won’t cure him but it might make him feel better. And when he woke up he smiled because the first thing he saw was that rose. More and more I think that it is these small gestures that matter most. The things we have done, my darling, that I hope you never know! And yet every morning our Captain shaves in a bowl of hot water. Every day another comrade reads his Bible, and every day I write to you. Small things, but they remind us who we are.
I never looked at the people I killed but when I sleep my dreams give them the faces of my beloved – you, Wolf, my parents. I am coming back to you so tainted, so tainted . . . My love for you both is the only good thing left about me, and yet how can I touch you with these bloody hands? I have made a pact with myself. No more killing between here and home. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I want – ah, impossible! I want to be good.
They were on the move again, and Alois was growing drowsy.
Soon, he wrote. He folded the letter and slipped it into the breast pocket of his uniform. Soon, soon, soon, screeched the train, and he drifted off to sleep.
*
The explosion ripped through the darkness as the train rounded a bend between two hills, in a quiet stretch of countryside some ten kilometres from Samaroux. Sheets of flame reached for the stars, showers of sparks fell down from them. Brakes screamed, metal shrieked. In the copse where he waited, Luc shielded his ears and eyes with his arms.
‘How’s the hunting tonight?’
Two men, hats pulled down over their faces, heavy rucksacks on their backs. One grimacing with his hands pressed against his side, the other alert, his hand clutching a knife.
‘I haven’t seen any wild boar,’ responded Luc.
The man shielded his knife. ‘Picot,’ he said. ‘This is Baptiste. He was still too close when we blew the line. He’s bleeding badly. We’ll have to support him. Let’s go.’
They disappeared into the woods.
Part III
June 10th, 1944
I love it here now more than I ever did before. I love the landscape, the old stones of the houses, the rounded hills and the dark woods, the birdsong and the river. It used to drive me mad but now I love the fact that nothing ever happens.
Spring was beautiful this year, summer long and hot, but the season is on the turn now. The irises in the meadow have faded to brown, thin and dry as paper. Soon there will be nothing left of them but the stems waiting for next year, when it will all begin again. The crop fields are reverting to stubble, brown and bare. The earth is beginning to yield its harvest.
Except that now there is no need for food.
I am the only one left to tell you this story.
Listen to me. This is how it happened.
Morning
i
Elodie had to call Arianne three times to get her out of bed.
‘I’ll wallop you!’ she yelled up the stairs. ‘Don’t think you’re too old for walloping!’
The door to the attic bedroom creaked open and Paul’s tousled head appeared around the frame.
‘She sent me to tell you there’s no school today.’
‘And don’t think that means you can laze around all day!’ shouted Elodie. Arianne rolled her eyes. Paul stepped into the room.
‘You’re dressed,’ she said. ‘Are you going to school?’
He pulled a face. ‘Mine’s not closed. It’s not like it’s a holiday or anything. Apparently there’s been this train crash, so there are loads of soldiers in town and there’s to be “no public meetings”. And school’s like a public meeting. Apparently.’
‘That’s rotten luck for you,’ Arianne fought to keep her voice steady.
‘Don’t you want to know more about the crash?’
‘Tell me.’
*
‘You know where the track comes round the bend, just before the bridge where Papa sometimes took us for picnics? It got blown up last night. Ari, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Only you’ve gone really pale.’
‘I said I’m fine.’
‘Will you write me a note so I can skip school?’
‘What, after last time?’ Arianne managed a smile. ‘Auntie’ll only find out again. And personally I could do without a month of extra chores.’
‘You cut school the other day.’
She flushed. ‘That’s beside the point. And you’re not supposed to know about it.’
She stood up and walked across the bare floorboards to open the window. Behind her, she heard Paul kick the bedroom door, but she felt too weary to reason with him.
‘Just go to school, there’s a dear,’ she said. ‘And let me get dressed.’
‘Will you see Luc today?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I heard you come in last night.’
‘You really should learn to mind your own business.’
‘Paul!’ Elodie was climbing the stairs. Arianne tried to steady her breathing.
‘Paul!’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said Arianne, but her brother had already gone.
*
She picked up her clothes from the floor where she had dumped them last night, struggled into them and ran downstairs, tying a scrap of ribbon around her unbrushed hair as she went.
‘So you’re up.’
Arianne, noting that Paul was not in the kitchen, hesitated before beating a retreat, aware that Elodie’s sharp black eyes had noted every detail of her appearance.
‘I need to find Paul.’
‘I sent him up to wash.’
‘I’ll just go and . . .’
‘Stay!’ Elodie’s feet, when she sat against the backrest of her chair, did not reach the ground. Arianne fixed her gaze upon her great-aunt’s slippers, swinging beneath a pair of fragile ankles.
‘Teresa Belleville came to find me after matins this morning in a terrible state. Luc’s not been home all night.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t suppose you know anything about that?’
‘No,’ mumbled Arianne.
‘I won’t have trouble,’ said Elodie.
The slippers were an abomination against Elodie’s sense of style, an indoor concession to her bunions. They were beginning to come apart at the seams. Arianne dragged her gaze away from her great-aunt’s fee
t to look her in the eye.
‘There’s no trouble,’ she said. Paul stomped into the room, saving her from further comment.
‘I’m clean,’ he announced.
Elodie gave a satisfied nod. Paul sat down to breakfast.
‘Is there any fresh bread?’
‘We’re out of tokens.’ Elodie was scurrying around the kitchen, sweeping an assortment of objects – glasses, keys, comb – into her handbag. ‘Arianne, it’s my day at the presbytery. I want you to clean the house from top to bottom, and I want you to go to the butcher’s and queue for the andouillette he’s been promising me for three weeks.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Arianne.
‘And you can give Paul his lunch.’
Arianne smiled at her brother. ‘I’ll make you some eggy bread with the old crusts if you pick up some milk on your way home.’
‘Milk!’ Elodie snorted. ‘As if milk could just be picked up! As if it flowed from taps!’
‘You know Paul can get hold of anything,’ said Arianne. He finally met her eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched.
‘I won’t have thieving,’ cried Elodie, but her great-niece and nephew had left the kitchen and were in the hall, hunting for his boots.
‘Don’t be cross,’ said Arianne when he was ready. ‘I can’t bear it.’
He threw his arms around her waist. She hugged him back. He smelled of sweat and grass.
‘I’ll see you at lunch,’ she said. ‘Be good.’
*
Paul’s sense of injury got the better of him within minutes of leaving home. He loved Arianne more than anything in the world. More than wandering through the woods on a day like this, more than his new knife, more even than Thierry Legros’s hunting bitch’s recent litter of pups, but a few months ago, when he was still the whole world to her, she would never have spoken to him like she had this morning. Besides, the day really did promise to be a corker, and she didn’t have to go to school. Making sure no one could see him, he slipped off the road to school into a side-street next to the church, emptied the contents of his bag into a hollow wall he liked to use, and melted into the forest.
The Things We Did for Love Page 8