XXI.
EARLY ON THE MORNING after the German departure from Saint-Léon, Maurice de Beaumont, sitting at the desk in his study, saw an American patrol making its way past his back terrace toward the barns. They looked almost as though they were doing a slow minuet, so deliberate and calculated were their movements. They lifted their legs and put them down with care and precision, and each man turned in a full circle, one after the other, so that one of them was always watching to their rear, and others were facing to the sides. They held their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.
The Beaumont château was on the northern edge of Saint-Léon, so Maurice de Beaumont was the first to see the Americans arrive. He walked to the double doors, opened them wide, and stepped onto the terrace. One of the soldiers saw him and signaled another. That soldier, a sergeant, signaled for Maurice to raise his hands and approach. He saw a tall, erect, and haggard man wearing a sweater despite the heat of the day. “Stop,” he said, and held up his hand. Maurice stopped. Another soldier walked up to Maurice and searched him for weapons.
“The Germans are gone,” said Maurice. It was the first time he had spoken English in years. Doing so gave him an unexpected sense of exhilaration. “The Germans left last night.”
“When?” said the sergeant. “What time?” His young face made Maurice think of Onesime.
“They were busy all night,” said Maurice. “The last ones left maybe three hours ago. They have been loading trucks for most of two days: It was a transportation and ammunition depot. And destroying the things they couldn’t take. I can show you.”
“What else? Did they destroy buildings? Kill anybody?”
“Not that I know of,” said Maurice.
“You’re lucky then,” said the sergeant.
“Lucky?”
“Yeah. Just down the road at Maillé”—he pronounced it male—“somebody attacked the Gerries just as they were leaving, so the bastards destroyed the whole village. Killed everybody in it. A hundred people at least. Men, old ladies, babies, pregnant women. Then they just blew it up. Blew up the whole damn town.”
The sergeant took a radio that was slung over his shoulder. He pressed a button and, after listening for a moment, said, “Cocktail fiver, this is cocktail two niner.… Roger. We’ve got a guy here knows where the Gerries are. He seems to have lots of information, over.… Roger, behind the big house, over.… Roger, and out.”
The lieutenant arrived on foot a few minutes later. “Who are you?” he said.
“Maurice de Beaumont.”
“Do you live here?”
“Yes.”
“Who else lives here?”
“No one.”
The lieutenant turned and looked at the house. “That’s a damn big house for just one person.”
“My wife was killed. My children are staying with their grandparents.”
“Who killed your wife?”
“Collaborators. French Nazis.”
“What do you know about the Germans? Where are they?”
“They left last night going southeast. They were a transportation-and-supply company.…”
“What did they leave behind?”
“They destroyed their inoperable vehicles, whatever else they couldn’t use.…”
“What’s your name again?”
“Maurice de Beaumont.”
“All right, Maurice, listen. The sergeant here is going to pass your name up to our S-1, that’s our intelligence people. They may come by to get more details. We’re going to move on now. But stay put and they’ll find you. Good luck.” He stuck out his hand and Maurice took it.
Maurice walked slowly back to the terrace. He sat down heavily on the steps. He moved like an old man although he wasn’t. It was as though he had been held upright for the last four years by intrigue and machination. Now the Germans were gone, and the Americans had come, and his war was over.
He did not feel joy or relief. But other feelings, the feelings he had kept at bay almost as long as he could remember, rushed in on him like a huge wave. He felt agony and grief. He felt the absence of those he had lost, Alexandre especially. And Yves. Yves Renard had been arrested and sent off to prison in Germany. And Onesime. Dear Onesime. And Anne Marie and all the others, the incalculable, unimaginable pain of what France and the world had lost and would continue to lose.
He could not know the numbers. After all, the war would continue for many more months. The Americans and British and Canadians pushed the Germans from the west, the Russians from the east. Cities had been and would be destroyed; soldiers, civilians would be cut down on all sides, like wheat falling before the sickle bar. He could not even imagine how many millions would perish before it was over. How could anyone conceive of it? Even once the numbers were known. Or estimated. For how could they ever be known?
And what did the numbers matter anyway in the face of the betrayal, the treachery, the brutality? The tens of millions of dead were an abstraction. Scholars might find the numbers useful or telling or significant. But they were—like light-years, like the distance across the Milky Way, like the temperature of the sun—simply beyond imagining.
Anyway, it was not the death of millions or the suffering of other millions, but the loss of one person, Alexandre, that had brought Maurice de Beaumont to the edge of ruin. He dropped his head into his hands and wept.
XXII.
WHEN THE WAR ENDED, a colossal, moral silence settled onto the world. It covered everything like a fine coating of dust. It seemed as though all human experience from now on and forever would have to include the imminent possibility of widespread death and unimaginable destruction as an essential part of itself.
More than sixty million had been killed. Sixty million.
Great swaths of civilization lay in ruins.
The physical world had been damaged and traumatized beyond imagining, in some places almost beyond recognition. The cities, the roads, the forests and oceans and deserts were littered with the detritus of war—corpses, burned vehicles, unexploded bombs—and it would surface unexpectedly for generations to come. And it would surface in people’s minds too.
And yet. As time passed, mankind left the war behind, faster than anyone could ever have imagined we could, faster probably than was good for us. Proper healing didn’t matter. What everyone wanted more than anything else was to forget. Start over. Move on.
* * *
“Look what I have.” Jean Renard put the faded circular Louis Morgon had given him in front of his father.
“What is it?” said Yves. He took his glasses from his shirt pocket. He carried the circular to the window. He studied it for a moment, then laid it aside. “Where did you get this?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“Actually, Louis Morgon found it. The American.”
Yves was silent.
“He found it. Along with some little pistols.”
“In his house,” said Yves.
“How did you know that?”
“It’s from the war.”
“I know that.”
“These things came out all the time.”
“How did you know where he found it?”
“Let’s have a cup of tea.” Yves went to the kitchen, and Renard followed.
The two men sat at the table and looked into the cups cradled between their hands.
“Where’s Stephanie?” said Renard. He had called his mother by name since he was a little boy.
“Shopping,” said Yves. He turned his cup on its saucer. First a full turn in one direction, then a full turn in the opposite direction.
“Do you remember that circular…?”
“There were lots of them.”
“Do you have any?”
“Why would I?”
“Papa…”
“It’s long ago, Jean.”
“Papa…”
“I’ve told you, Jean. It’s over. Drink your tea.”
* * *
Louis found the Renard house easily. Isabelle opened the door. “It is a pleasure to meet you, madame,” he said, and shook her hand.
“The pleasure is mine,” said Isabelle. “I have been curious to meet you.”
“It was generous of you to invite me for dinner,” said Louis.
“Small towns are the same everywhere,” said Renard. “Everyone wants to know all about the newcomer.”
“That is especially useful for the newcomer,” said Louis. “The curiosity of the others helps smooth his way—I should say my way—into village life.”
They sat on the back terrace while the sun went down. The evening turned cool. An owl whistled in the distance.
Isabelle had made a lamb stew with chickpeas and couscous. Renard uncorked the bottle Louis had brought. He poured a little into his glass and sniffed at it suspiciously. He took a bit in his mouth and made chewing motions. “It’s drinkable,” he said.
Isabelle tasted it. “It’s very good,” she said. She looked at Renard and waited.
He took another sip. “All right,” he said. “It’s very good.” He studied the bottle.
The meal seemed to pass quickly, although by the time Renard was mopping up the last of his sauce with a piece of bread, the candles had nearly burned themselves out.
“That was a wonderful dish,” said Louis. “May I ask what gave the stew its sweetness?”
“Prunes,” said Isabelle. “There were a few prunes. That is all.” She set a plate of cheeses on the table. Renard sliced some more bread. He opened another bottle. “Chinon,” he said.
“What are the cheeses?” said Louis.
Renard pointed at each with the bread knife: “Goat, sheep, Roquefort, Mimolette.”
“In the United States they put Roquefort in salad dressing, you know,” said Louis.
“That does not reassure me,” said Renard.
“It was not meant to,” said Louis. Renard and Isabelle laughed, and all three raised their glasses and drank.
“What brought you to Saint-Léon?” said Isabelle. “I mean how on earth did you even find it?”
“I was a pilgrim on my way to Spain,” said Louis. “I stopped here for a night.”
“A pilgrim?”
“I say that. But I was really running away.”
“From what?” said Isabelle.
“Something illegal, I hope,” said Renard.
Later Isabelle and Renard lay in bed. They stared into the darkness. Finally Isabelle spoke. “He is an interesting man.”
“Yes, he is. Interesting,” said Renard. “He seems to tell you about himself. And yet you somehow know less at the end than you did at the beginning.”
“It was surprising that he came right out and asked to meet your father. Just like that.”
“He has this way, Morgon does. I mean, did you hear me, telling him stuff as though we were old friends? He gets you to talk about things without giving himself away.” Renard paused. “I like him.”
XXIII.
“JEAN TELLS ME you like to walk,” said Louis.
“Yes,” said Yves. Yves, Louis, and Renard were walking on a grassy farm road along the Dême northwest out of town. It was a sunny November afternoon. The trees were mostly bare. A gentle breeze stirred and rattled the leaves underfoot. Louis noticed a small château in the distance.
“Is it lived in?” said Louis, pointing.
“It is sometimes,” said Renard. “It belongs to the Beaumonts. They own several properties around France. They come and stay here sometimes. We’re walking in their fields. That’s theirs over there too,” said Renard, pointing.
The fields had been plowed and planted. But the soil was white and stony and looked unsuitable for growing anything. “It’s good soil,” said Yves, as though he knew what Louis was thinking. Then he lapsed back into silence.
The banks of the stream were planted with poplars. The sun flickered through the bare branches. Louis shielded his eyes with his hand. He stopped and studied the hills. He pointed into the distance. “Are those vineyards?”
“Those are Beaumont’s,” said Renard. “There used to be more. But the weather is too undependable for wine. Now it’s mostly wheat and sunflowers and colza. And you see those caves?” He pointed at a row of doors in the hillside. Those are Beaumont’s. They used to store the wine in them. Now they’re mostly empty.”
“And over there,” said Yves, pointing past the chateau, “is where the Americans arrived.”
Again there was a long silence. Then Yves asked, “How did you come to Saint-Léon?”
“I walked,” said Louis. “I was walking across France. It is not a particularly interesting story. My life came off the tracks. Maybe that is why I decided that walking was a safe and reliable mode of transportation. Going slowly, step by step. It seemed the best way to travel. And in the course of walking I started to discover myself. I don’t know whether that makes sense. But walking toward I-don’t-know-what took me back to myself. The more I walked, the more my life seemed to come into focus. I had the feeling I actually knew something about myself for the first time in my life.”
Yves had stopped walking, and Renard stopped too. “Am I making any sense?” said Louis.
“Are you all right, Papa?” said Renard.
Yves had gone pale. He turned slowly to the east and raised his arm in a vague gesture. He removed his cap and passed his hand lightly across his forehead. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I’m fine.” He thought further. With Yves you always waited while he worked out whether he wanted to say something and what it might be. “It’s just what you said about walking and how it brought you back to yourself. Perhaps you know from Jean that I walked to Saint-Léon too. Not the first time, as you did. But still. As you said, walking brought me back to myself. It restored me. To France, to Saint-Léon, to Stephanie—my wife and Jean’s mother.”
“Where were you walking from?” said Louis.
“Russia.”
“Russia?”
“I was a prisoner there.” He paused. “Walking was the only way home. Some time after the war had ended, I was released and I started walking. I was weak and ill. Oddly enough, walking gave me strength. I was under way for half a year. Which is why what you said struck me the way it did.
“A lot of people were on foot then. All over Europe, going in every direction. You walked and passed people, carrying or pulling or pushing their belongings. If they had any. Finding their way … somewhere.
“Sometimes I felt a sort of … it wasn’t happiness, but it was something like it. Purpose maybe. Yes, purpose. There is a kind of happiness that comes with having a purpose. And what greater purpose is there than getting home? Of course when I got home, I found…”
Louis and Renard waited, but Yves did not say any more. Instead he set out walking again, and at a quicker pace than before. At a mill they stopped and sat. They looked into the rushing stream as it emerged from the race where the mill wheel had once turned. Only part of the old wooden axle remained in place. Nettles and errant sunflowers grew tall through the remains of the wheel lying scattered on the banks. A young willow had sent roots into the stone wall. The rays of the afternoon sun slanted through the trees behind them.
Yves stood up. “It’s getting late,” he said, reaching down and massaging his leg. Then he set off, and Renard and Louis followed. The sun had set, and a chill was setting in by the time they dropped Yves at home. It was almost dark by the time Renard got home.
“How was it?” said Isabelle.
“Good,” said Renard.
“It was a beautiful day,” said Isabelle.
“Were you in the garden?” said Renard.
“For an hour. I pulled out the sweet-pea vines. They were really too overgrown.”
“Louis got him talking,” said Renard. He stood at the window looking into the darkness. “It will be better without those vines.”
“Well, of course” said Isabelle. “You’re his son. Fathers don’t confide in
their sons. They can’t.”
“Why does that have to be true?”
“Did you learn something you didn’t know before?” said Isabelle.
“Not really. Yes. I mean, I knew about his walking home from Russia. But I didn’t know about his feelings about it,” said Renard.
She had been setting the table and she stopped. “What feelings?”
“He talked about happiness. Sort of. Not really. More like relief. And purpose.”
“Did he talk about the leaflet or the pistols?”
“No. He won’t talk about that. I’m sure. That gets into what he did, who was on what side. He’ll stay away from that stuff. It’s too dangerous.”
Renard was right; he knew his father. Yves had never spoken about being a policeman under the German regime. He had never mentioned who did what in the war, who fought, who collaborated, who resisted, who did both. All he would say when anyone asked was “That’s history” or “That’s over.” Or he simply remained silent. He was never impatient about being asked. He just didn’t answer.
* * *
The winter was not a hard one. There was no snow and there were few hard freezes. The fields remained green. Louis and Yves began taking walks together. They met on the square. They would shake hands and stomp their feet like horses to keep the cold at bay. Steam came from their mouths and noses. Yves wore a down jacket and a stocking cap, and Louis wore a long navy overcoat, the same one he had worn years earlier in Washington.
“Where shall we walk?” said Louis.
And Yves would say, “I want to show you something,” and off they would go. One time they walked out past abandoned vineyards to an old quarry above the Beaumont family caves. Yves stood for a long time and gazed down into the quarry.
The fields were white with frost, and the smell of wood smoke was in the air. Another time they walked out to the village of Villedieu. They walked past what looked like an abandoned barracks. Villedieu was where Stephanie had lived with her mother when she and Yves first met. The remains of a medieval fortress encircled one side of the village, and, as with the caves, rooms in the old walls had been converted into dwellings. “We French don’t like to throw anything away,” said Yves. “Even ruined buildings. Even caves become something. Everything eventually becomes something else.”
The Resistance Page 24