She gave the ladies a respectful nod and a ‘Bonjour Mesdames,’ and whisked herself out of the post office as quickly as possible, pausing to breathe the warm morning air in the shade of the post office awning, taking her time and frankly reluctant to cross the street towards Philippe’s house. Where would she find him, she wondered, at this hour? It was late for his morning coffee at the café, but there was no sign of him among the men playing boules in the square to her left. She could walk past the café and check for him there, and then try his apartment. If she found him in the café she would have to ask to go home with him. This was a conversation which had to be private.
If her stomach had been knotted that first day in Vermeilla, it was doubly so now as she approached the Café de Catalogne. There was no sign of Philippe inside, but Colette was wiping tables by the window, and waved to Madeleine to enter.
‘How are you today, my dear girl?’ she asked as she kissed Madeleine on both cheeks. She was busy and natural, and warm and motherly, and Madeleine felt tortuous guilt for even suspecting her of something so evil as betraying her father. She quickly asked for Philippe, and Colette broke into speech before she had even finished the question.
‘Ah, Philippe. Now I am worried about him. He was here yesterday evening complaining about a sore back, and I know how he suffers from that back, and yet will he go to the doctor? Not him! He says there’s nothing anyone can do, and he just needs to lie down and rest it, but what I say is, no one knows what can be done to help them if they won’t even ask. Quelle tête de cochon – pig head! But it’s like that with men, n’est-ce pas? So today we haven’t seen him and I don’t doubt he is lying on his sofa, and he won’t even have eaten anything. I mean to take him some food, but Marie didn’t turn up today to work, and I am doing the tables on my own, as you can see. He’ll have to wait until lunchtime, when the other staff come in.’
The flow of concern continued almost cheerfully, and Madeleine realised gratefully that with Philippe on her mind, Colette was not going to question her about the evening with Jordi, which had inspired some curiosity yesterday. It also gave her the opportunity she needed to see Philippe at home. She broke into the flow during a moment’s pause, and suggested taking the food herself.
‘I can go now,’ she volunteered, ‘and take him a late breakfast, and make him some coffee. Does he have coffee in the house? And I’ll see whether he feels like he may come out for lunch or if he prefers to stay at home and rest.’
‘Now that,’ Colette replied with pleasure, ‘would be a real help, and would relieve my mind. Thank you, my dear! I’ll put together a good breakfast for him. Have a coffee, and I’ll be just a moment. You had a good breakfast yourself? You’re sure? You’ll take a small piece of tart with your coffee? No? You young girls don’t eat at all these days.’
And Colette bustled off, returning some moments later with a bag of goodies which Madeleine was sure Philippe would never eat, plus coffee and milk and sugar ‘in case he didn’t have any in the apartment’, and fifteen minutes later Madeleine was standing outside his apartment door, armed with her reason for visiting, and feeling marginally more confident than she had an hour ago.
Beckoned in by Philippe in a surprisingly hearty voice, she found him as Colette had predicted, dressed but on his sofa, a cushion behind his back, reading a book with a notebook by his side. He disclaimed any great pain, and laughed at the quantity of croissants and other delicacies sent by Colette, assuring Madeleine that he expected to be up and about by the afternoon. She made coffee for them both, and sat at the table opposite the sofa, wondering how on earth to open up the questions which seemed to be stuck between her stomach and her ribs. At last it was Philippe who came to the subject. Unlike Colette he had not forgotten her meeting with Jordi last night, and wanted to know how she had got on.
‘You two needed some time to talk together,’ he commented. ‘I’ve often wondered how Jordi really feels about the war, and how much Enric shared with him. They were so very close at the end, having no one else, as it were.’
And so in the end it was easy.
‘He had things he wanted to tell me,’ Madeleine agreed. ‘Things that his father told him, and that he has been keeping to himself ever since. I think it has been eating away at him, and since last night it has begun eating at me as well. Uncle Philippe, Jordi told me that it was Jean-Pierre Perrens who betrayed my father’s camp, and sent the Germans there. I don’t know what to think, but I needed to ask you.’
Philippe gazed into his coffee cup, as though seeing some long distant past, and then sighed.
‘How did he learn that, I wonder? How did Enric know? I was sure no one knew outside the family.’ His voice was weary, laden with memory which was quite clearly as painful as it was heavy.
‘The Germans told him when he was being tortured. They taunted him with it to make him speak.’
‘Oh.’ His sigh was long and hung in the air. ‘Poor Enric. He never said a word. Never in all these years.’
There was wonder in the words. Madeleine felt a huge reluctance to continue. She didn’t want to step anywhere near Philippe’s relationship with Colette. But she knew that having started there was more she needed to say.
‘Jordi told me his father respected you, and didn’t want to make trouble for Colette and her family, since they were friends of yours. So he didn’t denounce Jean-Pierre. It’s true, then, that he set the Germans on the camp?’
‘Yes, ma petite, it’s true. Sadly, it’s true. Colette never forgave him, but he was already such a damaged person, withdrawing into his own world, and so she stayed with him, and ran the café, and raised the boys. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do.’
‘But why? Why, Uncle Philippe? What would make Jean-Pierre take such a terrible step? It seems such an incredible thing to do.’
‘Who knows, my dear, what goes on in such a mind as Jean-Pierre’s? You saw him the other day, and his outburst about your father. That, of course, was brought about by your presence, but it’s clear he had all sorts of fears and paranoia associated with Luis.’
‘And Colette knew?’
‘Colette found out, Madeleine, and did everything she could to stop it. She sent a letter to me immediately to give to Luis, to warn him. But the Germans found the camp so quickly, before Luis came again to visit me. He was due to visit that very evening, I remember, and we should have been able to warn him in time.’ His voice was anguished as he remembered. ‘It was so terrible. How could the Germans have found the camp so quickly? I’ve never understood myself how Jean-Pierre could tell the Germans exactly where to go.’
The words burst from Madeleine before she could stop herself. ‘But it was Daniel who showed them the way! Jordi told me it was Daniel. The Germans taunted his father with that as well, saying that even the child was part of the betrayal.’
‘No!’ Philippe’s response whipped at her. ‘No! You’re wrong there! There is no way that Daniel was involved. No way, do you hear? Whatever any German bastards may have said!’
Daniel’s face swam before Madeleine, with its gentle, genuine smile. He had taken her in like a sister, or maybe more. Could he have done so if he had been caught up in her father’s death? And could Jean-Pierre have involved his own son without Colette knowing? And Daniel wasn’t even living at home. Surely he couldn’t have known anything about it. She rushed into speech again, her voice loaded with relief.
‘Daniel was living with you at the time, wasn’t he? So he was close to the camp. But he couldn’t have known what his father had done, could he? He wasn’t here in Vermeilla.’
Philippe’s face closed over, and she felt him withdraw.
‘He couldn’t have known, surely?’ she repeated.
Philippe took his time replying. ‘Daniel was here in Vermeilla for the weekend just before your father died,’ he said at last. ‘He had been living with me and hadn’t seen his mother for months, and suddenly there was a chance to come down here with a man we knew
who had a pass to bring vegetables and fruits down from his farm to the coast, to the German bases in Vermeilla, Collioure and Port Vendres.’
He paused again, before continuing, his voice suddenly hesitant. ‘It was Daniel who brought me the letter from Colette for your father. But he didn’t know what was in the letter. I’d swear he didn’t know anything, and certainly not how to find the camp. And he hated the Germans, like all the kids did then. They were all gung-ho, talking about liberation and how we were going to send the Germans packing. Daniel was even more excited than most.’
A silence hung between them, and Madeleine thought that Philippe was very far away, in Amélie-les-Bains fifteen years ago, surrounded by his schoolchildren, and taking that letter from Daniel, newly back from his visit home. There was nothing she could say. Nothing that he wasn’t already wondering himself. She lifted their coffee cups and went to the sink to wash them, and still Philippe didn’t move. She moved around the little kitchen area as quietly as possible, drying plates and cups and placing them in the same cupboard her mother had used all those years ago.
Behind her she felt rather than heard Philippe moving, straightening himself painfully against the back of the sofa, and as she turned he was shaking his head as if to wake himself up.
‘We need to visit Colette,’ he said. ‘But not now, not when it’s nearly lunchtime at the café, and not after lunch, when Daniel will be at the harbour sorting out nets. There’s a lull in business at the café at around four, and Daniel will be there as well. That’s when we need to go. Madalena, go to the café now and tell Colette I don’t need lunch. I have the remains of her bread and some fine Pyrenean cheese. But tell her I’m feeling better, and will come to see her this afternoon. Will you, my dear?’
He held out his hand and she went to him, her face drawn and troubled. He stroked her cheek and gave a half smile.
‘Daughter of Luis, don’t worry now. We’ll find the truth and the truth will help us all. Your coming here has unleashed a flood of information – unbelievable almost, when all these years we just got on with living and tried not to ask too many questions. But sometimes one individual, one simple person, can be a catalyst which prises open people’s lives. And what you find out can’t be controlled once the flood starts – it’s stronger than us all. But it will be positive in the end. I believed that when I took you to meet Jordi. You needed to learn and he needed to talk, although he didn’t know it. I don’t know all the truth, but I believe we need it now.
‘But we must never be bitter, whatever happened. Your father would not have been bitter. He understood human frailty and only real badness angered him. I put some of his writings in that envelope over there. I thought you might like to read them. It might help you to understand his life.’
Madeleine pounced on the envelope, and held it to her chest.
‘They’re only some old tracts and newspaper articles,’ Philippe smiled.
‘Maybe, but you have no idea what they mean to me! I’ve never read a word he wrote, or seen a single document that could give me even a glimpse of him.’
Philippe looked thoughtful. ‘You mentioned that the other day, and you know, I find it very strange. How could Elise have kept nothing of Luis? It’s hard to believe. Was there nothing even in the jewellery box?’
‘The jewellery box?’
‘Why yes. Didn’t your mother keep the box? A silver one, with curved feet?’
Madeleine looked at him blankly. ‘Yes, I have the box. But I don’t know what you mean. It has her pearls in it, and some earrings, and a couple of rings.’
‘But you checked the chamber underneath?’
He saw her bemusement, and started again. ‘Your mother’s jewellery box had a false bottom, and Elise and Luis kept their most secret documents in it – the stuff which would have betrayed them. I remember Luis challenging me to find it one day, because he wanted to be sure nobody else would ever discover it.’
Madeleine gripped the envelope between tight fingers. ‘How does it open?’
‘There’s a seal on the bottom. I remember if you pressed that down, then at the same time you could twist one of the silver legs. And then you could lift off the bottom.’ He paused. ‘Where is the jewellery box now?’
‘In my hotel room. Oh my God, excuse me Uncle Philippe, but I have to go.’ She rose and moved towards the door, then came back and hugged him gingerly, trying not to put pressure on his sore back. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, a tremble in her voice.
Philippe grinned. ‘Glad to be of service. This may indeed be a day of revelations. You won’t forget to meet me at four o’clock, at the café?’
‘Oh no, I won’t forget! There’s no danger of that!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Back in her hotel room, Madeleine picked up the jewellery box with shaking fingers, and turned it upside down. There was no line anywhere to indicate a flap, no sign at all that this bottom might open, but there was the seal, which stood out as a ridge around an engraved circle. Could it move? She pushed down hard on it, and nothing happened. But Philippe had been sure, so she worked around it with her nail, and when she pressed against the very edge it seemed to give very slightly, almost too little to notice. She held her finger in place, and with her other hand groped around the four silver feet with their ornamental claws. She held her breath when the third one moved a fraction, and then, quite easily, it twisted as she rotated her finger. It was uncanny, and she didn’t dare shift her grip, but slowly she lifted, and as she did so the base of the jewellery box lifted away cleanly from the rest. So no wonder there were no signs of a flap. This was an invisible join around the whole base of the box.
For a long moment she just gazed at the cavity she had exposed. Several faded pieces of paper nestled inside. With hands that shook, she leant forward and with infinite care lifted out the little sheets of paper, one after another. They clung to each other, nestled as they had been so tightly in the shallow space.
‘My God!’ she uttered in wonder to herself. On top there were three thin sheets, each a letter in an unfamiliar handwriting – the letters Philippe had spoken of, which Luis had written to Elise. So they made it to England after all.
She lifted them out carefully, and unfolded them along the fragile crease lines, terrified of tearing the cheap, brittle paper after all these years. Her father’s words scrawled across the pages, in ink which had faded to a dirty brown already.
The first letter was dated March 1943, just four months after Elise and the children had left France. It was carefully reticent about what Luis was doing or how he was living. It could have been a letter from any French civilian to his wife. Madeleine read with a mixture of hunger and diffidence, suddenly timid in the face of this strange script, all Spanish loops and swirls, of a man whose handwriting she had never seen.
I believe that you got home safely, and I hope it hasn’t been too hard, my love. I think about you and the children without cease. It’s like taking a drink of water, or my morning coffee – something I do instinctively, and which is part of living my life. You are always there, and I see you in every mirror. Hold Robert for me, and my lovely Madalena, and tell them both we’ll soon be together again. The news we get from the radio is mixed, but Montgomery seems to be making progress in North Africa, so maybe we really will be relieved from across the Mediterranean. Meanwhile I know you are all safe, and just knowing it keeps me positive. And always your smile lives in my soul.
Madeleine read the letter several times, rushing at first and then slowing down, finding the feel of her father. She didn’t want to put it down, and found herself simply gazing at the text, the image of Luis in his safe house floating elusively before her. Eventually she laid it carefully to one side, and lifted the second flimsy sheet.
This letter was different. It was dated November 1943, a full year after they had left, and Luis seemed to have fallen into a deep trough. The Allies were making inroads, he wrote, but it was all taking so long. When would it all e
nd?
I know I shouldn’t write like this. We need to stay strong, and believe me, my darling Elise, for the most part I do, but the act of writing to you makes me weak. I am in a dark tunnel, and at the end I can see your face, and I am reaching out to touch you, but you are so far away. Can you feel my touch? Dream of me tonight, and I will hold you, and all the rest will fade away.
It felt like an intrusion to be reading these words intended only for her mother. And the dark tunnel had never come to an end for either of them. He had never again touched her mother’s face. Madeleine brushed her hand across her eyes, and picked up the last of the letters.
The third letter had been written in May 1944, and Madeleine realised with a jolt that it was dated less than a month before Luis had died. Luis was buoyant again, with the Allied invasion of France expected imminently.
We are going to be liberated, he wrote, and I too am feeling more liberated than I have for a very long time. By the time you get this letter hopefully this whole region will be free of Germans. And before too long you will all come home. Elise, my love, I know now that I can live by your memory alone until I see you again. You are close by me again now, but there was a while when you were desperately hard to find. What did Voltaire say about folly and the first law of nature? My reading is rusty but you will understand. I have leant on you to climb out of my furrow – leant on the boundless clemency and strength that I know to be in you, and the constancy you have for us both. You are so beautiful and so much more than I deserve. Believe me that I am yours, Elise, and I will always be yours, and soon we will be together again.
Daughter of Catalonia Page 17