Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  Barbara spared a compassionate thought for the French people round her. Betrayed by their Governments, despised for their surrender to the Germans, their young men still being killed in the war in French Indo-China, and in Algeria, living in a province which was a heap of ruins, how must they feel each time they were called cowardly? Ready to collapse?

  As she finally got up to wash and dress in preparation for going with Michel to Caen, she wondered if, in similar circumstances, without the Channel to protect them, the British would have done any better than the French had.

  Chapter Nine

  Michel found Barbara sitting waiting for him in the foyer of the hotel. She wore a pink woollen dress with the same jacket that she had worn the day before. Despite makeup, carefully applied, her eyes were black-rimmed from lack of sleep; her tears and ruminations of the night had not been conducive to sleep.

  She was not particularly looking forward to the promised expedition; she had been stupid to have even mentioned Caen to the driver. She told herself crossly that she was bound to feel even more depressed after looking at such a place. Still less, however, did she wish to spend the day by herself, wandering round Bayeux. And George’s mam had said, when kissing her goodbye, that she wanted all the information that Barbara could collect about what had happened to her son.

  She felt numb, unable to think clearly. It was as if she were floating in space, afraid to put a foot down on the earth, lest she be roused and burst into tears again, in mourning not only for all that she personally had lost, but also for a sad, sad world.

  As on the day before, she was hatless. Hats were another small thing that had vanished during the war – unless one was in the Services, where a hat was still part of a uniform. Her hair was elaborately swept up on either side of her face, to become curls on the top of her head. Similar curls were, as usual with her, confined at the nape of her neck by a precious tortoiseshell hair slide. This style tended to make her look taller than she was.

  As Michel walked into the foyer, he noted her makeup, and found himself wondering exactly where she had obtained such powder and paint.

  The paint reminded him how foolish he was to get involved with a foreign woman who had access to such luxuries as makeup. What chance had a poor French peasant against the irritatingly rich American soldiers still scattered around Europe – particularly the three who were staying in the same hotel? Then he pulled himself up. ‘I’m not in competition with anybody,’ he told himself firmly; ‘I’m simply taking a woman, for whom I feel sorry, to Caen because her husband died there.’

  In spite of her swollen eyelids and the shabbiness of her dress, however, she looked to him as exotic and interesting as if she had come from some faraway oriental country, instead of from just across the English Channel. It seemed to him a pity that all he could offer her was a taxi ride – no nylons, no chocolates, no makeup, no handsome uniform by her side.

  When he had told his mother and Anatole that he would be busy this Saturday, neither of them had queried it. If Barbara was seen in his taxi, it would be assumed that he was carrying yet another war widow to yet another grave. The most important point, he felt, was that old Duval should not notice a lady in his taxi on a day when the Americans were out of town, and, therefore, not easily available to say that he had their permission to help war widows.

  The old taxi had only one seat in front, for the driver. At his side was a platform on which heavy luggage could be carried. Today, of course, it was empty. Barbara managed to smile quite cheerfully at him as he opened the door for her and saw her comfortably ensconced in the back seat.

  He drove her along a main road which, he said, was newly repaired. There was not much traffic, and, occasionally, he would slow down to show her damage done to villages and farms in the great battle. It amazed her that the famous, huge bocages, dense thickets of bushes and young trees, had, in many places, withstood the onslaught of tanks, artillery and bombing, whereas walls and stone cottages had been pushed down and crushed.

  They passed a quaint, moated farmhouse. With pride, he told her that it had, occasionally, been a meeting place for the Partisans.

  He laughed, and then went on, ‘The owner pull up the drawbridge – difficult for the Boches to get in without noise.’

  From that house, he told her he had, one night, taken a downed British airman and hidden him in one of his chicken coops. He laughed again, as he added, ‘How he complain of the smell! He nice guy. Very grateful to us. His papa big guy in England. I learn much English from him. I write to him sometimes – old friend now.’

  He eased the taxi a little to the side, to allow a van to pass him. He waved to the driver.

  ‘Another old friend,’ he told his passenger. ‘He teach me to drive. He is engineer electrical – very clever fellow.’ Then he went on with his story, ‘Later, we keep the airman in the roof of our cottage for six weeks until my father take him to Port-en-Bessin.’

  ‘What happened when he arrived there?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘Uncle Léon put him in his boat – he is Master of a tramp coastal, you understand. Les Boches watch the fishing fleet very closely – difficult to do anything but fish. It is difficult to put someone on a fishing boat. Tramps not quite so much – Uncle Léon have regular route to Cherbourg and often carry cargo for the Germans. None of his cargo ever lost or stolen. He is very careful – so they trust him a little. However, he wait for the dark of the moon. Airman dress like me and use my seaman’s book, looks like crew. In Cherbourg, he land like the rest of crew going ashore. There he go to safe house. From there the British have system to get him to Britain.’

  ‘Did the British really work from Cherbourg?’

  ‘They come and go in Normandy, sometimes, je crois, by air – parachute. Spies. Information. Guns for the civilian Partisans and for the maquis. Regular service!’ His laugh was grim this time.

  ‘Who were the maquis?’

  ‘Many of them were very brave soldiers of our Army, Madame. They fight on throughout the war – civilians feed them; Germans kill many.’

  ‘Humph. I never heard about them.’ She reverted to his story of the airman. ‘It must have been very dangerous for your uncle – and for you, if it was your seaman’s book which he carried?’

  ‘Certain. Big, big danger that someone betray us. Germans have spies, French ones.’

  She felt it would be indiscreet to comment on his being betrayed by his own people. She had read in British newspapers of the deadly revenge taken on such people, the minute the war was over – and even during the war, where the opportunity arose. ‘I was told the Partisans were in touch with Britain,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘When Germans first come to Normandy, they demand we give them our radios.’ He half turned and grinned at her. ‘Some families have more than one radio. We say we are very poor, say we have no radio. We keep ours. Lots of hiding places for small radio on a chicken farm. We have electric – keep chicks warm. We plug in the radio.

  ‘We listen to the BBC and tell news to our friends. Some Partisans very clever – build good radios themselves. Sometimes, Germans jam British broadcasts.’ He was silent as he negotiated a woman pushing an ancient wheelbarrow full of logs down the road. Then he said very soberly, ‘Sometimes the radio of the Freedom Fighter is traced – not all Germans are fools. Then the SS come – and always some are taken and tortured to say who help them. This cause – how you say? – a run of arrests and executions by the cursed SS. We not always know names of men helping us – difficult for Germans to squeeze names out of us. We are all very afraid – nearly all the time.’

  Barbara shuddered. Hitler’s SS had been dreaded throughout Europe. The very thought of their ever getting into England had, on more than one occasion, made her flesh crawl.

  The taxi was entering Caen, and she was immediately staggered by the vast amount of damage. Like the cemetery, it was overwhelming.

  The road on which they were travelling was clear, but their route w
as lined on either side by huge piles of rubble, or what had once been basements, now filled with rainwater. In one great pile of debris, three young boys were dodging, slipping and sliding amid the wreckage, shouting ‘Bang-bang’ at each other as if they were fighting an imaginary battle.

  Barbara saw here again a picture she had already seen in Liverpool – a duck swam placidly across one of the pools of water, and, from hollows between the broken stones and concrete, long sprays of pink willow, yellow ragwort and coarse grass waved in the breeze.

  At the side of one of the roads there was a series of little stalls. One, she could see, was selling children’s clothing, another small trinkets, whether new or second-hand she could not judge. Two women pedestrians had stopped to examine the goods, and were being attended to by a woman in a black blouse and long black skirt. Other than this little group and the boys playing, the place looked deserted.

  Michel turned the taxi into a side road and went up a slight slope, towards a series of buildings, either churches or monasteries, which appeared to have survived with little or no damage. For a moment, it was as if they had left the war behind them. However, the same uncanny stillness, the sense of lack of human occupation, pervaded the area as it had the ruins. Barbara wondered if these ancient monuments had been abandoned.

  ‘L’Abbaye aux Hommes,’ Michel announced, as he pulled the brake. ‘I take you in the church – Eglise St Etienne. Build by William, the Conqueror of England.’

  He got down and opened the door so that Barbara could descend. He held her hand to steady her, as she made the rather long step down onto a steeply sloping pavement. When she was level with him, he smiled and announced, ‘Afterwards, we see L’Abbaye aux Dames, build by Queen Matilda, also undamaged.’

  Barbara’s Liverpool street sense of humour surfaced. ‘One for Ladies and one for Gents?’ she responded promptly, with a tiny mischievous grin.

  Though he suspected that she was making a little joke, Michel failed to see it. He nodded his head, however, and laughed.

  In the church, he took off his beret and genuflected towards the altar. Barbara stood politely by his side and looked around her – she saw no reason to bow to a God whom she had become convinced could not possibly exist.

  The place was dimly lit, and a red light at the eastern end glowed like some malevolent eye. She wondered, for a second, if George had been in here. Then she remembered that he had died in the confusion of a huge army trying to cross the choked narrow bridges over the River Orne.

  Bitterness overwhelmed her as she realised that he probably never even saw the inside of the city for which he had given his life. And it occurred to her that, when the taxi man had driven her over the bridge, now roughly repaired, he had not pointed it out. With a sigh, she gave him credit for not wanting to remind her of her loss.

  ‘When Caen is shelled, people shelter under the church and the abbey,’ Michel was explaining, and she nodded. It had obviously been a good choice. Except for part of a tower, the buildings did not appear to have been damaged.

  Michel solemnly led her in a circle round the church to admire the choir stalls and the vaulted roof.

  ‘It’s surprisingly like some churches in England,’ she remarked as they came out into the spring sunshine.

  ‘No surprise, Madame. Normans build in England when they live there.’

  He wondered why she had not kneeled in the church to pray for the soul of her dead husband. To give her an opportunity to do this, he had paused in their stroll round the building and had asked her if she would like to sit alone for a few minutes, but she had said simply, ‘No, thank you.’

  He had shrugged slightly and told himself that it was none of his business. She was from England and therefore Protestant; and he had no idea what Protestants did.

  Once outside the building again, she looked idly around her. There were houses nearby which looked as if they had been on fire and then repaired. Some of their walls, particularly above the windows, were stained by soot. They boasted newly painted doors, however, and all the windows were glazed. She asked Michel if there had been much fire in the city as a result of the bombardment.

  ‘Yes, Madame, great fires – especially in the centre of the city. From Bayeux, we see it burn.’ And how sick with worry I was for Suzanne, living in that very house over there, he remembered.

  He sighed heavily, as if he were reminded of something painful.

  Barbara looked at him, a little surprised. The sight of this historical city largely reduced to rubble was enough to depress anyone, she considered. But it wasn’t his home. Yet his face had the closed-off look of someone trying to control unbearable grief; she had seen that look on so many women’s faces, particularly in Liverpool during the war.

  He had spoken of the ruination of his family’s chicken farm, so she had understood that he was a countryman, who, like so many in France, had lost everything in the invasion. But he had not mentioned a loss here in Caen.

  He had made mention of a fiancée. Had he lost her? Barbara was too shy to ask if this were so, but was distressed that such a patient, pleasant man should suddenly look so stricken.

  He had stood politely by her while she looked up at the twin towers of the church. He was overwhelmed by memories of the times he had come up this very road on his way to visit Suzanne, humming to himself as he pushed his bicycle up the hill. It was a long bicycle ride from the farm, and one never knew what fussy Boche would stop you, demand your papers and tell you that you had broken some stupid restriction recently imposed. The bicycle, like his horse, had vanished when the Germans had finally retreated.

  He had always felt that Suzanne was worth any amount of trouble. Childhood playmate and devoted friend, she had accepted him as her future husband, despite his slightly hunched shoulder.

  He jumped when a hand was slowly linked in his. ‘Are you all right?’ Barbara enquired.

  She had been suddenly conscience-stricken that, perhaps, he had not had any breakfast, and now it was afternoon. With rationing and unemployment, one never knew what anyone might be quietly enduring. If one was hungry, one became depressed – having to survive on rations during years of heavy manual work had taught her that. And it was obvious to her that the French had a lot about which to be very depressed; and her gallant little taxi driver had, for a moment, looked absolutely distraught.

  Surprise replaced his pain. He had not realised that, rather than admiring Norman towers, she was watching him. His mind still half on things past, he responded, ‘Madame?’

  If Henri had been alive, he thought, they might have made this Saturday trip, the two of them on Henri’s bicycle – if the Germans had not stolen his bike also – just to see what progress had been made in repairing the city. Henri had also been turned down for recruitment by the French Army, because he was too short. But Henri was dead, murdered by the Gestapo for carrying messages to the Resistance. Michel himself, dutifully driving his little cart with its quota of eggs to a German depot for shipment to Germany, had several times passed unsuspected; in those days, he worried more about whether he would get any payment from the goddamned Boches than whether he could deliver the verbal messages he was carrying to Antoine, a carpenter.

  Antoine had for months, Michel remembered, sheltered a Jewish child, passing the boy off as his own solitary offspring. They had finally managed to send the child to Cherbourg, to be smuggled eventually to Ireland, a neutral country. And there had been more than one downed British airman who owed his life to men like Michel Benion, Henri and Antoine, he thought with faint pride, and who had been safely returned to England.

  It was strange how ordinary people had done such extraordinary things when a need presented itself. At times, he was not even very sure why he himself had done such things.

  Now, suddenly, an Englishwoman was still holding his hand and looking at him uneasily, and was worrying that he might be ill. It struck him suddenly how much Henri would have laughed to see his embarrassment, as he felt his weathe
r-beaten skin go pink because he did not know what to say.

  She broke the silence by saying, ‘It’s dinnertime.’ She squeezed his hand, and added quickly, ‘I’ve brought a picnic from the hotel, since you have so kindly provided the taxi – and your company.’

  Pride again made him stiffen, and she felt it. ‘Since bread’s rationed, I thought it might be difficult to buy anything,’ she went on hastily.

  As he slowly relaxed she let go of his hand and smiled at him. In a way he was thankful that the problem of a midday meal was settled. As a visitor, she could certainly buy a meal for herself – if she had enough money to pay for it. But a poor native might have a problem finding something cheap.

  She is better today, he thought. Her eyes are still swollen, but she is trying hard. ‘Thank you, Madame. A picnic on such a fine day – very good.’

  He took her elbow and turned her round towards the parked taxi. He was thankful to see that it was still there. He knew he had been careless in leaving it while visiting the church.

  She laughed softly, and suggested, ‘And a bottle of wine? Could I buy that, do you think?’

  He cheered up. ‘Mais oui, Madame,’ he responded promptly, with a certain jauntiness. ‘Perhaps Madame would like to try our excellent cidre doux – cider – rather than wine? It is sold by the glass. I know a decent place where Madame could enjoy it – if the building is still standing.’

  She readily agreed. She imagined it to be something like lemonade. Being from the North of England, she had never tasted cider.

  The sun warmed them as they sat on the broken wall of what must have once been a warehouse, the precious taxi safely parked in front of them. There was a pile of rubble at the back of the site, but the remains of the building’s outer wall, alongside the pavement, had been evened out to a level sufficiently high that people would not stumble into the great hole which had been a cellar. It was at a convenient level on which to sit, though Barbara feared her pink dress would be made dirty by it. She did not want to break the more cheerful mood of her companion, however, so she did not mention it.