As Jean-Guy called out to them from the top of the last hill, they both stood still, rooted to their little plot of earth. Suspicion, a wariness of strangers, the sharp divide between the classes—all these and more ran through my mind.
Georges Morissette was seventy-two; Tante Marie, who knows? Some said sixty-five; she said sixty-one, but that couldn’t be. Some said eighty, and it was those who had felt the acid of her tongue.
Georges lowered the axe and ruffled Jean-Guy’s hair. Marie-Christine clung to me, intuitively understanding that her brother was the favoured even though she bore Tante Marie’s name.
‘Madame, is something the matter?’ he asked.
‘Ah, no. We’re just out for a walk. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? All this?’
I indicated the last of the autumnal colours. He was mystified. Giving a shrug, Georges lifted a hand to scratch the grey stubble of a cheek, then got under the double chin and did the throat. ‘Beautiful … perhaps, but the winter, eh? That’ll be something with all this talk of war. You should be splitting wood like me and not strolling about.’
‘We’ve already done the wood. Today, we took up the last of the onions, didn’t we, Marie? Jean-Guy, he has come home from school at noon to tie them in perfect bunches. Together we have hung them from the beams in the storeroom.’
Georges clucked his tongue and slid his thumbs under the broad straps that held up the baggy, faded bleu de travail yet let his stomach move with ease. Squinting into the sun, he pushed back his black beret and rubbed his forehead until a glint of opportunity came into his dark brown eyes. ‘You mind the mice like I told you. That old place, it needs work, madame. My cousin’s boy, young Louis, the one who lost his foot in the train accident, he’s good with the hammer and saw, you understand. If Monsieur Jules would like the eaves fixed, Louis and me, we could …’
Grâce à Dieu, Tante Marie had gone indoors with Jean-Guy. I hoisted Marie into my arms. ‘There’s no money, Georges. Jules has asked me to tell you this.’
Again, the old man clucked his tongue, but this time he ground the back of his false teeth. ‘No money.’ Sadly, he shook his head. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’
‘Me? What can I do?’
‘Stop squandering it in Fontainebleau.’
Muttering to himself, he led me into the house. ‘You’ll take a glass of marc, I suppose?’ Wine would not be strong enough.
‘Of course. Please … Georges, if there’s some way, I’ll repay you for all you’ve done.’
‘Why? What are we to you? It’s the times, madame.’
By some sort of osmosis, Tante Marie sensed not only that there was no more money but that they wouldn’t be paid what they were owed and that the land their cottage was on and the cottage, too, could well be in jeopardy.
She was taller than her husband and thinner, her plain, flowered housedress clinging to an angular sparseness. Once blonde and blue-eyed, and quite pretty some said, she was now iron-grey, hard-eyed, and tired most of the time, or so she would complain if given the least opportunity. ‘Jules hasn’t said this. It’s you who have done it.’
I shook my head but clung to Marie. ‘It’s simply that he doesn’t make enough money.’
Tante Marie was swift. ‘The taxes?’
They had already heard, of course, but I told them anyway. One couldn’t keep secrets, not from these people, not for long. They’d have factored in the income taxes, too, that Jules had probably not yet paid. Merde, even I hadn’t thought of those until now. What were we to do?
‘Your sister?’ asked the woman, pinning me down so that the marc, that rough wash of the barrel, dribbled over the chipped crystal Jules’s mother had thrown out ages ago. ‘Any fool could have seen that coming. Why didn’t you?’
I shrugged and clung to Marie.
‘Has he been gambling?’ accused the woman. ‘Have the two of them run off to Monte Carlo again?’
Again! I pleaded with them to tell me what they knew, though of course they wouldn’t, but Monte Carlo, the casino this past summer, that loan Jules had taken out at the bank, the taxes, too? ‘I’ll see that you’re paid your back wages. That’s the least I can do, but if you should care to come for a glass of wine or bowl of soup, you’re most welcome.’
The open road beckoned, and I tried to tell myself that the day was still beautiful, the air still clear and cool.
‘Maman, look!’
That dark forest-green Packard was parked in front of the house again, but of its owner there was no sign.
There’s a damp handkerchief crumpled in my fist. Dr. Laurier has stopped the car at the side of the road, but I’ve no recollection of her having done so. The dawn has broken. ‘Forgive me. It’s stupid of me to cry. Tommy …’
‘He was your lover, Lily. You have every right.’
‘He was my comrade-in-arms, damn you. I could have stopped it all, don’t you see? Me, I was to blame for everything.’
After a moment, I hear her say, ‘We can get something to eat in a little while. You’ve a phenomenal memory. Your ability to live in the past is truly remarkable. You make me feel as if I’m right there with you.’
‘I’ve had to use my memory. It’s fed me since the autumn of 1943, since when I was taken.’
‘By Dupuis.’
‘By him and some others, but mostly by the Obersturmführer Schiller of the SS, the lieutenant.’
‘Tell me about Tommy. I’d like to know more about him.’
I hear the car start up. I let my mind drift. I try to tell myself that Schiller’s no longer a problem, that he’s bound to have been killed or put in prison, that I’m finally going home and soon the nightmare will be over.
The last of the embers glowed in the fireplace. Tommy gave a contented sigh and eased a sleeping Marie-Christine off his lap and into my arms. I knew I was at a very dangerous point. I still couldn’t get over his dropping in. He’d been to Switzerland, was on his way to England. As we left the library, I let my mind drift back over the late afternoon. The bulky cable-knit sweater, baggy brown cords, and boots were still fixed in memory. He had been down at the end of the garden, eating an apple and examining the lay of the land with the curiosity and delight of a prospective buyer. In that broken, atrocious accent, he had said he hoped the intrusion wouldn’t inconvenience me, but my delight had all but overwhelmed me, and I had begun to wonder about him.
‘Marie, sleep well, my little one.’ Bending over her, I tucked the covers up, added another blanket, and left the door ajar in case she should waken in the night.
Tommy was in Jean-Guy’s room, standing by the bed, examining the model fighter aeroplane that hung by a length of string from the ceiling. In the half-light from the corridor, we were very close. He had raised two partridges just before we had found him that day. ‘Will you really take him hunting tomorrow?’ I softly asked. ‘He’s so excited, he’ll dream of it all night.’
‘He should. I did when my dad first promised to take me with him.’
‘And the permit? Will you break the law and cause me to lose my husband’s boyhood rifle?’
A single-shot Browning, a lovely gun and just the thing because it was so light and one couldn’t miss with only one shot.
Tommy grinned. I could see that he was just as excited by the prospect as Jean-Guy. ‘If we shoot at all, we’ll do it quietly.’
Softly closing the door, I led him back to the library. ‘Would you like another cognac?’ I asked, my voice uncertain. The embers had all but lost their glow. The need to be held by someone was so very strong in me. The need to feel the warmth of a lover’s arms if only for a night, made me silent and ashamed.
‘Another cognac,’ he said throwing more wood on the fire, and took the bottle from me and replenished our glasses. ‘Tell me about your husband?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ I shook my head and took a quick sip, but had it shown, my wanting to go to bed with him?
‘Is your passport French?’ he as
ked.
I was startled. ‘My passport … ? Ah, no. I’ve never changed it. Being married to Jules, I’ve simply taken things for granted. No one here has asked. Why should they? I’m as French as any of them.’
This time, he sat in one of the chairs but leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees so as to be closer to the fire. ‘I assume you know, of course, why you haven’t been issued gas masks. Only those with French parents are getting them as of now. Surely, Jean-Guy has told you this. The school …’
A scraped knee, a torn shirt. Nothing said by my son, but his pride hurt by something I hadn’t even understood: a British mother.
I told him then that I’d wanted to take the children to England, but that Jules had said they were sending some things from the Louvre to be stored here.
Tommy nodded. ‘That was wise of him. I’m glad to hear of it.’
But would it help? I could see that he was thinking this over but was too conscious of my feelings to have said.
‘What did you do with the earrings?’ he asked.
‘Me? I put them back in the box where they’d come from.’
That led to a discussion of my father-in-law’s mistress, to reminders of the Lautrecs, and finally to my showing him the contents of that box.
For the longest time, he simply sat looking down at that jewellery, the firelight catching the intense interest over which I could have known nothing then.
At last, he fished out the tiara. ‘It’s paste,’ I heard myself saying. ‘A fake but obviously a very good one.’
Tommy set the box aside and ran a thumb over the emeralds—I’d have given anything to have known then what he did for a living, his reason for being here, for showing up at the oddest of times.
He chuckled and said, half in wonder, half in surprise, ‘A fake. Who would have guessed? Well, even if it is one, I’d still like to see it on you.’
What can I say about that gown I went to put on? I had three of them and chose the one I thought would suit best. It was sleeveless, with a V-neck, and of a dark brown, incredibly soft velvet. I parted my hair in the middle at the front and pinned it tightly back, wore those earrings, too, and sandals. Dieu merci, that gown still fit, for I’d not worn it in such a long, long time.
Tommy had switched on the wireless to listen to the news but when he saw me in the doorway, he turned it off and said, ‘It suits. Do you know, I think I like it. Yeah, I really do. It’s fabulous.’
He gave a low whistle, and only then did I realize he’d spoken in English.
The tiara was somewhat heavy, a tight fit, and I wondered, as I self-consciously took it off, why it should weigh so much. The lead, I supposed. All those rhinestones.
Tommy put that thing back on my head. He indicated that I should turn around slowly several times, then took me by the hand. ‘Would you care to dance?’ he asked. ‘You’re incredibly beautiful, but you don’t even know it, do you, and that’s something else I really like.’
It was a silent waltz, and it took us from one end of the library to the other, light as a feather. A superb dancer. Flashing diamonds and emeralds in gilt-framed mirrors, laughter in his eyes.
Again, he held me by the hand and looked steadily at me. Breathless, I smiled back at him, the excitement all too clear in my eyes and as I felt him come closer, he said, ‘I think I’d like to kiss you. May I?’
Hesitantly, lightly, oh, so tenderly. ‘Mm, a little more, monsieur.’ And it was wicked of me. I blame my French half entirely, you understand, for at that moment I wanted him more than anything. How was I to have known he’d lied to me about that tiara? How was I to have known why he had done a thing like that?
There were greenish tints in his warm brown eyes, no laughter now. ‘What is it with you, mon ami?’ I asked. ‘You come, you go, you come back again. Is it that I remind you of someone you lost?’
He didn’t answer. He leaned closer, and closer still, and putting a finger under my chin, lifted it up to give me the sweetest kiss ever, and when I heard my breath escape, I said, ‘Come to bed with me. Let’s have this moment together.’
‘Are you sure?’
Ah, mon Dieu, he was even asking! ‘Oui, mais bien sûr.’
How was either of us to know what the future would hold? Even now, when I think of Tommy, I have to think back to that night, to the start of it all. We danced some more. He held me in front of the mirror that was above the fireplace, stood behind with his arms about my waist. ‘Fix it in memory, Lily. Remember what we look like together. Treasure the moment no matter what.’
‘Always?’
He nodded, looked as if he had just made a commitment himself. ‘We hardly know each other,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter, not with us.’ I was so certain then.
I remember that the gown had fallen to lie on the carpet, crushed velvet with crumpled lingerie carelessly dropped on top of it, the tiara among the folds, the earrings that had been removed one by one. Naked like a fine piece of sculpture, he had such a handsome body—tall, lithe, muscular, the cheeks of his buttocks tight, the cords across the waist taut, the shoulders fantastic, the back straight. Every feature I memorized, even that he had been circumcised, the testicles full and the one hanging a little higher than the other, and I can’t think of him like that for what they must have done to him. Schiller … The Obersturmführer Schiller, the lieutenant. My sister, Jean-Guy, and Marie …
Forgive me. Let me dry my eyes and blow my nose. Let me bow my head in shame because it was all my fault.
While I lay on my stomach in that bed, so warm beneath his hand, the candles glowed on either side of us. Twists of gold, shafts of white with dribbles down them. Tiny, bright flames of softer gold.
Caressing the warm contours of my seat, he ran his hands up from the base of my spine to the nape of my neck, let his fingers slide into my hair which he kissed, then he kissed behind the ears, first the one and then the other lightly. ‘You’re lovely, Lily. You’re absolutely gorgeous.’
I must have murmured something, or was that later on? I simply don’t know. I do remember turning over and spreading my legs a little more and that I felt him holding my breasts, not touching me down there yet. Just kissing my shoulders, again the ears, the lips, the tip of my nose and forehead, those kisses lingering as if he, too, had to fix the memory of them forever.
Ripples of pleasure spread to my middle. I had good breasts, not too big, you understand. Not bruised or burned by cigarettes, not then. I was secretly proud of them even though I knew my sister’s were far more beautiful. He lifted one to his lips, and I felt him kiss it tenderly. As he wrapped his arms around me, a gossamer of candlelight gave shadows to the ceiling where fleurs-de-lis looked down on us. He had such nice shoulders. Lovely kissing lips. The muscles in his back … It’s all mixed up now, for I had begun to explore his body as he explored mine. The tiny, curly hairs at the nape of his neck—I remember caressing them as he kissed the flat of my tummy and began to explore the rest.
Pushing my hips up, I found an ear and breathed, ‘Ah, mon Dieu, that’s lovely. Please don’t stop.’
Later … was it later that I lay on top of him? I do remember pushing myself away so that my middle was pressed more firmly against him and I could feel the base of his erection, the hairs above it, and could rub myself up and down a little and move from side to side, something he encouraged, for he held my breasts again and lifted me up a little to suckle them and trace out the aureoles with his tongue.
Later … was it later that we lay there again facing each other, him saying seriously, ‘Always be straight with me, Lily. If you want out, you must say so. There’s no one else, and there won’t be.’
I remember thinking then that if he and Janine should meet, which they might, Nini would take a fancy to him. Merde, but I knew I couldn’t ever let it happen. ‘Come in me. Let me feel you inside me.’
Had he understood my worry? Had he known then about my little sister, that she’d do it with a man just to
please herself and not care about the consequences?
Holding off, he began again to caress my middle and to rub his fingers gently up and down, exploring, finding, stroking, pushing lightly down, then tracing the tip of a finger around and up, and over and along, the muscles contracting in me, tightening: contact, tighten, release, and again and again, his lips on mine, his cock stiff against my leg, me reaching down to take it in hand, me wanting it and wanting it. Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu.
I began to toss my head from side to side. Ripples of pleasure, waves of it. Contract, tighten, release, and tighten more as I cried out and let myself go, took him in and wasn’t conscious of what I said or did, only wanted him and wanted him.
Tommy drove himself into me. Now out. Now in again and deeper, the muscles contracting fiercely at the last, the pleasure of coming taking over completely as I arched up, found his lips again, and clung to them, kissing him and kissing him as I came and came, each wave of the orgasm topping the one before until he, too, came at last and let me see the ecstasy that had filled his eyes. ‘Lily … Lily …’ How could I ever forget the sound of his voice as he gave a cry and I felt him throbbing within me, felt the hot stickiness of his semen and wanted it so much, I can still remember hoping for a child.
For a long, long time afterwards, I remember lying there, wrapped in his arms, kissing him, telling him how good he had made me feel.
‘Do you think you’re still capable of loving someone like that?’ asked Dr. Laurier.
The windows of the restaurant look out over the valley of the Aure. Mountains are all around us. We’re on the outskirts of Solothurn, heading for Bienne and the turn-off. Everything is so very clean.
‘In what way?’ I ask, not looking at her.
‘Sexually, of course. Lily, have you lost the ability, the desire?’
‘Me? Are you kidding? Hey, listen, my friend, they beat all that sort of thing out of me long ago. I’m so shrivelled up inside, I’m dead.’
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