‘Thank you, Major. Should I take a present?’
‘No, no. He will listen to a reasoned argument but a present could be misconstrued. The colonel is beyond bribery. Pierre, you’ll go with your mother, yes?’
‘Of course he will,’ said Lucienne. ‘We’ll go tomorrow, straight after the funeral.’
‘Funeral? The Algerian’s? You know there are notices prohibiting attendance?’
‘Major, I am prepared to listen to all your rules but not when they contradict the rules of God. That poor man is to be buried far from his home without his family present. It is our spiritual duty to pay our respects.’
‘To a Muslim?’
‘To a child of God, whoever that God may be.’
‘Amen,’ said Pierre. His mother and major looked at him. They’d quite forgotten he was there. Pierre had always found his mother’s ‘God first’ approach to life suffocating and often tedious but right now, for the first time, he saw how profound her faith was.
‘One more thing,’ said the major.
‘Yes?’
‘I did not say a word of this. You understand? Not a word.’
‘Yes, we understand. Thank you, Major. I’ll make that tea now.’
Chapter 8
The Germans, as the major had pointed out, had banned the citizens of the town from attending the Algerian’s funeral yet the ubiquitous notices only helped to spread the word. One person after another said they were planning on being there. If his mother was going then of course, thought Pierre, he had to go too. He had a neat shirt and a pair of dark trousers but had to borrow one of his father’s jackets. It looked absurd – far too big. But there was nothing for it, he could not, insisted his mother, attend a funeral without a jacket. She too wore her only black outfit. She even had a hat with a black feather in it. ‘You never know when a funeral hat will come in useful,’ she said.
It felt as if the whole town was there, squeezed into the graveyard. Everyone he had ever recognized seemed to be here. He had noticed this, since the start of the occupation, a greater sense of community. Yes, people still argued over whether Pétain was a saviour or a traitor, but people talked as never before. He saw Claire. He wanted to look upon her and hate her. But in her black blouse with a pretty bow, and her knee-length skirt, and her hair tied back, she looked beautiful. He was too young for her; he knew that. If only he’d been a couple years older. If only he was a man; a part of the action, not, as he so often was, a spectator. But then, if he had been a couple years older, he’d probably be in a prisoner of war camp by now, somewhere deep in Germany. Either that or dead.
And for once, the Germans had been rendered impotent by this show of community togetherness. Not even they had the gall to break up such a large gathering under the eyes of God. Yet, still, they were making their presence felt. Dozens of them watched from the perimeter, making sure the mourners acted accordingly.
They were on the north side of the church. He felt at ease here. It was the southern side that he wanted to avoid. The little cross lost among all the other gravestones. Once a year, his mother dragged him and his father there where they would stand for ages, silently gazing down at the grave that took up so little space, and contemplate.
Father de Beaufort had insisted that the service within the church be limited to invitees only, in other words, the dignitaries of the town. Now, outside, under the intense early afternoon sun, he had to raise his voice in order to be heard.
‘It is a sad gathering I see before me today...’ Father de Beaufort liked to claim he was descended from Pierre Roger de Beaufort who, as Gregory XI, was France’s last pope, back in the fourteenth century. No one ever contradicted the claim.
‘We all know why we find ourselves in this situation; why we have been defeated. It is, without a shadow of doubt, a punishment inflicted on us from God Himself. We, as a nation, have become lazy, swayed by temptation. Too many are content to wallow in sin, materialism and pleasure-seeking. They have turned their backs on God. Liberation will only come when we heed this lesson, when we return to God and beg His forgiveness and seek His protection. Until then, we are not worthy of Him, and we deserve this penance of occupation.’
Many in the congregation shook their heads, disagreeing with the priest’s version of events. If Father de Beaufort noticed their disagreement, he paid no heed. ‘Now, dearest brothers and sisters, let us pray for our beloved brother, Mohammed El Harrachi, from faraway Algeria...’ Pierre wondered what, at this precise moment, Georges would be doing. Pierre had never really thought of his father as an individual, a person with a history. He realized that Georges, while not a bad father, had never been a particularly good one either. He’d been brought up almost by a stranger, a man about whom he knew nothing – not where he was born, what his parents were like, where he had lived as a child. All he knew was that still, after all these years, he felt as if he belonged to an incomplete family; as if there was forever a place at the table, waiting for someone who would never return. And what would Georges be like when they let him out? Would he come home a different man? Perhaps, thought Pierre, he might see his life in a new light; come to treasure what he had around him; come to appreciate that he had a son, a son who loved his father very much.
‘...whom the Lord has called forth from this world and whose body has been given to us this day for burial.’ His mother sniffed next to him, clasping her rosary beads, twisting them around her fingers. He could recall no shows of affection from his father, or a raising of his voice. Perhaps if he had it would have been proof of a man who cared. Instead, he was man who drifted through life, happy to be on the sidelines, content to be left alone. He had no need for anything or anyone, the town, his associates, the church, his only son. So why had he been dragged into Kafka’s net? What hold did Kafka have over him?
‘May the Lord receive him into His peace, and, when the Day of Judgment comes...’ He would go with his mother to see this Colonel Eisler; he would walk into the lion’s den, and demand his father’s release. Well, maybe not demand. Pierre knew well enough already that you could never demand anything of the Nazis. Was the major a Nazi? Was he a believer, like that brutish lieutenant, like Fritz One? Or was he just a man doing his job?
‘... To raise our brother up to be gathered among the elect and numbered with all the saints at God's right hand. Amen.’
Father de Beaufort sprinkled a handful of soil on the coffin. ‘We commit this body to the earth...’
Pierre wondered what Mohammed El Harrachi’s parents were like. Was he their only son; did they shower him with affection; would they grieve for him for the rest of their lives? The word was that they would have been informed by now. That the town hall would have got his details from Paris; that they had written to them. It didn’t seem right, somehow, that they were all attending the poor man’s funeral while his mother and father, back in Algeria, had no idea that today, this day, their son was being buried in a Catholic churchyard, attended to by a Catholic priest. Perhaps, thought Pierre, one day, when all this was over, they might travel across the sea from North Africa and across the length of France to this forgotten spot and kneel down here, in this graveyard and pray for their Muslim son. He hoped, one day, they might.
Chapter 9
Lucienne would have gone to Saint-Romain to see Colonel Eisler straightaway but the funeral meant they had missed the second and last bus for the day. The following day was a Sunday – and there were no buses on a Sunday. They knew no one who had a car, except the cemetery boys and their truck, and Sunday was their one day off. Pierre did wonder how a job in a graveyard could take up six days a week and guessed that, as very old men, they probably worked slowly and drank large quantities of tea throughout the day. Thus two days had past. It was Monday. Lucienne, just back from church, was anxious, watering the garden, washing her hands frequently. Having worn her black dress for the funeral, she’d worn it each day since. ‘I will wear black everyday now until they release your father,’ she’d de
clared. ‘Today we must go see this Colonel Eisler. Each day we leave it is another day Georges has to spend in that place.’
And so, it was at eleven o’clock that Lucienne and Pierre caught the bus the five kilometres to Saint-Romain, his mother carrying a parcel containing a clean shirt. Inside the breast pocket, on a slip of paper, she’d written Georges a note. What it said, she didn’t say but Pierre could guess.
The bus was packed, stuffy and quiet, except for the noise of the engine and, strangely, the sound of turkeys. Every seat was taken, people standing, holding onto the bars, as the bus lurched from one stop to another. A young man with a walking stick offered Lucienne his seat. Politely, she declined. His need was greater than hers, her expression said. Pierre stood. Beneath him, on her mother’s lap, sat a girl of about four sucking on her hair. Her mother, a well-to-do woman, using Lucienne’s phrase, slapped her hand away. Next to them, was an old woman in black, at her feet three wicker baskets. Inside each was a turkey, making a dreadful din, their heads peering out. The smell wasn’t pleasant either. The mother of the girl was clearly agitated by this. At each stop, more people got on but no one alighted. Those standing shuffled closer together. Considering the short distance, the journey was taking an age. Pierre had become separated from his mother, whom he could see, in black, fanning herself with her operatic fan. He heard the mother of the small girl ask the old woman, ‘Can’t you stop those birds from making that dreadful noise?’ ‘And how do you propose I do that?’ snapped back the old woman. The girl began sucking her hair again.
Finally, the bus rolled into Saint-Romain, made its way to the centre and stopped. With a collective sigh of relief, everyone disembarked. Lucienne and Pierre and others were held up behind the old woman, also in black, as she struggled with her baskets and their heavy cargo. Lucienne nudged Pierre in the ribs, telling him to help her.
‘Can I...?’
‘I can manage. I’ve got muscles, you know.’
Lucienne shook her head as they got off the bus. ‘Well, that is not something I would want to do everyday,’ she said. ‘Right, let’s find the dentist’s. The major said the office was next to it.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Oh, Pierre, I’m terrified. I’m trembling all over. Does it show?’
‘No.’
‘That’s good then.’
Saint-Romain was so much larger and busier than their sleepy little town, thought Pierre, with its grander buildings, its shops and stores, the trams, advertising hoardings, ornate lampposts adorned with hanging baskets of flowers. Lucienne entered a tobacconist and bought a postcard of Marshal Pétain. She knew the way and soon they found themselves in a maze of narrower streets, with high buildings either side; balconies, many draped with laundry; little cafés, their outdoor tables brimming with smiling Germans; people on bicycles; a hotel with a swastika hanging above its front door.
‘Do you know what you’re going to say, Maman?’
‘Yes. No. Whenever I try to rehearse it, I become too nervous and I can’t think.’
‘Do you want me to do the talking?’
‘No, Pierre, you’re just a boy.’
‘Yeah. Thanks, Maman, just a boy.’
‘Oh dear. Pierre, don’t be so sensitive; I didn’t mean... But this is serious.’ She stopped. ‘Oh my, here we are.’
They looked at the swastika-adorned building on the corner across the street. Lucienne clutched her handbag to her chest. It was an imposing work of neo-classicism: grey-bricked, three stories high, with a balcony at the top and adorned with large, elaborately decorated windows. A gravelled path surrounded it. A Nazi kept guard at the double doors at the top of a few steps, beside which hung another flag. On either side of the doors was a large pot of rhododendrons – a dash of colour, thought Pierre, in the drab grey.
‘Oh, Pierre,’ said Lucienne, her voice breathless. ‘I don’t think I can do this. It could make things worse. Those rhododendrons could do with a watering.’
‘But it’s what the major told us to do. We have to do it; we don’t have a choice.’
She nodded, her jaw tightening. ‘Come, let’s go.’
The soldier at the door watched them as they crossed the road. As they approached, he slipped his rifle off his shoulder.
‘Hello,’ said Lucienne. ‘We’d like to see Colonel Eisler please.’
‘The Ortskommandantur? Do you have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘But we’re prepared to wait,’ added Pierre.
‘Why do you need to see him?’
‘I – I can’t tell you; it’s very important I see the colonel. Most important.’
The soldier considered them for a moment. ‘Wait here,’ he said.
Pierre watched the cars pass on the street, pedestrians going about their business. He saw the woman from the bus, pulling her daughter by the hand, urging her to hurry up. The girl was sniffling, wiping her eyes.
The soldier returned. ‘Your bag, please.’ He rooted inside Lucienne’s handbag. ‘Arms up.’ He ran his hands up and down both of them, quickly but expertly. ‘Follow me.’
Pierre held the door open for his mother and followed her in, wondering what on earth they were stepping into. The atmosphere inside was not dissimilar to the town hall back at home, thought Pierre – people in uniforms running round, carrying papers, folders, the click-clack of typewriters, muffled conversations, the echo of shoes on marbled floors, pillars painted white, a huge portrait of Hitler. Everything but the floor was white and polished, the floor consisting of black and green squares. A receptionist with pink nail varnish and startlingly bright red lipstick, introduced herself as Mademoiselle Dauphin and took their details. The soldier showed Lucienne and Pierre into a waiting area behind a glass screen, white-walled and high-ceilinged, and told them to wait. Sitting on the wooden bench were three elderly Frenchwomen, each wearing a headscarf. Lucienne asked them if she could take a seat. Reluctantly and wordlessly, they shuffled up and allowed Lucienne to perch on the end. Pierre leant against a pillar. He wished he could smoke. He wondered whether they were all here for the same reason, to plead on behalf of their husbands or sons. Another German kept watch over them. He could have been no older than nineteen, thought Pierre; the same age as the major’s son. An hour passed before Mademoiselle Dauphin appeared to call the first woman through. No one said a word. Lucienne rested her handbag on her lap, playing with its catch. The German guard was relieved by another. Pierre would have sat down, but another woman came in, a dishevelled younger woman, and sat down on the bench. ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked the woman next to her. ‘Hours,’ came the quick reply. ‘Oh.’ She looked like a woman who wanted to talk but, sensing the atmosphere, held her tongue.
Finally, after over two hours, Mademoiselle Dauphin returned. ‘Madame Durand?’
Lucienne and Pierre followed the woman across the hallway, up two flights of red-carpeted stairs and down a long corridor. She stopped to talk to a soldier standing guard outside a door, a strange looking man but for reasons Pierre couldn’t work out. The man was, Pierre realised with a shudder, SS, wearing a black uniform with a swastika armband. The SS man knocked and they waited. A voice came from within. ‘Wait,’ the receptionist said to them, before entering, leaving the door ajar. ‘Madame and Monsieur Durand, sir,’ Pierre heard her say.
‘Show them in.’
‘You can go in,’ said Mademoiselle Dauphin to Lucienne. Pierre nodded at the soldier who stepped in with them and closed the door. It was only then that he realised what was odd about him – his eyes were of different colour.
Pierre and his mother were greeted by the colonel, also wearing the uniform of the SS, sitting behind an expansive mahogany desk, his glasses perched on his head, his grey hair thin but neatly combed. His peaked hat sat on his desk, alongside a telephone, an ashtray, an empty vase, a bottle of water and a couple of glasses, piles of folders and a brass desk lamp with a hexagon-shaped shade. Behind him an opened
window that reached the floor, its turquoise-coloured net curtain fluttering in the draft. The noise of traffic sounded in the distance. Next to the window, another portrait of Hitler. How often he had found pictures of Hitler ridiculous, with his stupid moustache. But here, in this office, behind the colonel, Pierre could feel the man’s power, the intensity of his eyes, the aura of invincibility. He suddenly felt rather small.
‘Take a seat,’ said the colonel.
Lucienne thanked him nervously. There being only the one chair, Pierre stood behind his mother. He wished he could sit down; he was tired of being so long on his feet.
‘Your name is Madame Durand, and you are Pierre Durand. Is that right? How old are you, boy?’
‘Sixteen,’ he croaked.
‘What?’
‘Sixteen, sir.’ He found the unmoving eyes of the Führer staring down at him unnerving.
‘And you’ve come presumably on account of your husband.’ He checked the name against his paper. ‘Georges Durand. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Lucienne. ‘You see, Colonel, Georges, my husband, is a good man.’ She spoke quickly. ‘He fought in the last war. I know that was against you but he fought honourably, like a proper soldier. He wore his uniform with pride, like all good soldiers, whether they are French or German. He was led astray. He is a good husband, a good father, and–’
She stopped midsentence; the colonel had raised his hand.
‘This is all very well, Madame, but it is not his conduct in the last war that concerns me but his conduct now, during this war. Destruction of German property is a grave offence and an affront that I take very seriously. Now, do you really think that by simply telling me that your husband is a good man, as you call him, that I shall just click my fingers and say, “OK, I’ll have him released”? What sort of people do you take us for? I advise you not to answer that.’
'Colonel, we are great supporters of the marshal. I never go anywhere without a picture of him in my handbag.’ She fished out the postcard and held it up for the colonel to see.
The White Venus Page 10