by Cesca Major
Although I suppose all this is wasted on you – what you really want to know is if he is any good at sport? I shall have to find out. He certainly can’t fish.
Is this trivial? I’m sorry but I don’t know what else you want to hear from here. We miss you as ever and the village seems to be waiting for something to happen. We hear of the fighting in other places but we hardly ever see any Germans and it’s quite unreal still, as if it is happening to other people and we are just hearing about it all second-hand. As I write this I feel so foolish – of course you won’t want to hear it.
How can anyone be falling in love when elsewhere such horrible things are happening? I am sure you are staying strong and making others laugh and being brave. How you must hate the Stalag. Will working for them be better than being idle or will you loathe the fact that you have to help them? I’m glad you’re with the others, grateful you’re not alone – is that awful? Wishing the same fate on others? I think you know what I mean.
I am thinking of you every day: we all are.
We love you.
Isabelle
TRISTAN
Papa’s eyes narrow as he reads Monsieur Garande’s note and then he looks at me, waiting for me to speak. The note felt hot in my hand the whole way back from school.
‘It was Samuel,’ I begin. ‘He’s a liar, he got me into all this, he started it.’
‘He made you fall on him like a savage in the playground in front of everyone, did he?’ Papa asks. It is a hard question to answer and so I pause to think of a clever reply.
‘He’s a liar,’ I repeat, realizing I have failed.
‘Can you enlighten me then, Tristan?’
‘He accused me of cheating on a trick,’ I say, not feeling confident that I am enlightening him to anything, as I don’t really know what that means.
‘What trick?’
‘A card trick.’
‘Well, did you?’
‘What?’
‘Did you cheat in the trick?’
‘Well, it’s a trick …’
‘So you did.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why that boy in particular?’ he asks.
I frown at that. How can I explain why I don’t like Samuel? He just makes me so angry.
My father looks at me. ‘Monsieur Garande tells me what he is and I would expect nothing better from their sort, but I don’t want you to be so out in the open with it. We must always be cleverer than them.’
I don’t understand that bit either, but I don’t want to say anything in case I add to my punishment.
‘Do you really not have anything else to say?’ he asks.
I do not.
Father sighs and starts the lecture about the war and bigger things to worry about and Maman and him under a lot of pressure and all this makes me squirm. But much worse is when he gets a long stick out of the coat stand and I know I am going to have to bend over and receive a punishment. He asks me one more time if I want to tell him exactly what happened but I know he will probably punish me anyway so I think it best to just take the beating.
I try to stay still as it hurts so much more if you tense, and I try to offer him the most plump part of my behind in the hope he might hit me there, but as the first blow falls the familiar sensations flood over me and I don’t feel like staying still and taking it. There will be extra strokes if I move, but each stroke of the cane makes me wiggle even worse.
I don’t know what Papa means about Monsieur Garande telling him what Samuel is – I can say what Samuel is, and that is a know-it-all. Of course I know exactly why the argument began but I don’t want to share it with Papa as I’m not confident he will see things from my point of view.
It was my new trick. Perfected over the weekend. At school break, André chose a card, I did a series of complicated flicks and things, a quick tap, a lot of magic words, a shuffle and – voilà – I pulled his card from out of the pack as he stood there with his mouth open. It was brilliant.
Samuel came and sat down in front of us both and then another boy with a birthmark down one side of his face, who is in the year below, joined too. They were both eating the vitamin biscuits that taste like cardboard. I smiled at the boy with the birthmark but turned my back a little so I was facing away from Samuel. Annoyingly, he didn’t get the hint and stayed right where he was to watch. I didn’t really mind though, as this seemed to others to be quite a crowd as I noticed a few other people looking over at us.
André selected a card again and I did all the flicks and things like I had learnt, before asking him in a low voice, ‘Is this your card?’
He nodded again, clearly impressed.
Samuel piped up, swiping crumbs from his jumper, ‘You didn’t even put the card in the pack.’
André looked at him in surprise, then back at me.
‘Yes, I did,’ I said, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes. How dare he question my trick?
‘No, you didn’t, did he, Pedro?’ he asked the boy with the birthmark, who nodded.
‘I did,’ I repeated, feeling my face get hot.
‘You kept it out of the pack, I saw.’
‘You can’t see clearly from where you are,’ I said, shaking my head at André as I said it. ‘And anyway, no one likes tall stories,’ I added, quoting from something Papa said to me once.
Samuel looked hurt at this, clearly faking, which made André feel sorry for him so then André sided with him in this and claimed that I must have done it as why else would Samuel have said that? I threw the cards on the ground but then, to prove that he was just a liar, I picked them all up and repeated the trick one more time, this time super-fast, with extra-large taps and twists and things and I made sure that the card was out of sight.
Samuel didn’t say a word at the end and I turned to André. ‘See, I told you,’ I said, holding out the four of spades. ‘That is your card.’
‘It was,’ André said, shrugging at Samuel, who nodded then and turned to go.
I hadn’t had enough, though. ‘Ha! See! He is just a liar. A silly, little liar.’
Samuel froze on the spot. Then he slowly turned, looked straight at me and said, ‘It was up your sleeve.’That made me go quiet and André just stood there. ‘You put it up there once André had chosen it,’ he said.
He ruined everything with his showing off.
‘He keeps it up his sleeve whilst he’s shuffling,’ he said to André.
Before he could continue, I launched myself at the stupid know-it all, who ducked out of the way. I caught him again though, and we both fell on the ground. It was at that moment that Monsieur Garande saw us and his booming voice stopped both of us dead still.
As I lie on my Papa’s lap and feel each stroke I blame it all on Samuel. This is not over.
PAUL
Dear Isabelle,
Are all my letters getting through, I wonder? I write to you in the hope they are, I love receiving your news. I am glad you have found a kind man, you deserve someone warm and I promise I won’t tease. It is a brief glimpse at some colour when a lot of my world is grey.
The weeks and months are dragging on and sometimes I find it hard not to despair. The mood is wild and chaos reigns in the Stalag, where officers surrounded by mounds of paper shout one thing, then another in their nonsensical language. All the while we wait on bunks and cots playing endless games of cards until we are shunted to our next Kommando to work for them.
I wish I had some joke or story for you, but it seems at the moment that there is nothing but waiting. We seem to have told each other everything there is to know, and sometimes a little bit of what we didn’t. It is like a family, I suppose. Nerves are being stretched and rumours are always circulating. It is the inaction that brings it on – tempers shortening and at times I crave the quiet of the River Glane. I hope you wander down there oft
en, sit on the bridge and drop a line into the water. I think it is one of life’s simple pleasures and it makes my heart ache at times to be back there.
Some of the lads here go off to lectures and seem to forget there are fences at all. I don’t want to sit through lectures or read books, I want to pound the earth and wrestle with the others. Here we can remember that we are men and when I take the head of a friend and rub at his hair I feel the blood pumping through my arms and legs and I don’t feel so utterly useless.
In some ways I will be relieved to start the next lot of work – hope the Kommando is outdoors. Some of the lads are being sent to nearby farms, others to the factories or mines. They say life can be easier out there and I want to be doing something. Farm work will seem wrong somehow, when the fields around Oradour are to be neglected, but I don’t want to be stuck on a production line. Rémi is nervous about the work, he is about half my size and knows nothing about farming, only paper. He joined an amateur dramatics group in the camp and is playing a woman. He isn’t built for farm work and has bitten his nails right down and asks me constant questions about crops and all sorts. I’ve been telling him about the work we do in the village – what will you all do for another harvest time with no men, I wonder?
Please keep writing, dear Isabelle. Your letters take me out of all of this,
Paul
ADELINE
1952, St Cecilia nunnery, south-west France
We’re in the forest, you and I. The woods I visited as a child. The trees are so tall. We are near the top, where everything thickens and the light fights its way through the cracks around the leaves leaving shadows speckled on the soil under our feet. Vincent and Paul are behind us at a distance but we have decided to set off down a path. We duck under branches, get tangled in cobwebs and walk ahead, talking, forgetting our way. It is so good to hear your voice.
You suddenly draw up short, your breathing laboured. I almost knock into you as I come to a halt.
He is there. A large shadow of an animal, a huge body hunched over strong legs covered in matted fur. His slanted yellow eyes are watching us closely. A wolf.
He lunges at me. My breaths are hard and fast but I’m frozen to the ground. You jump in the way.
‘Run, Maman, run!’ you cry, batting at the wolf with a branch.
The jaws snap and you are grabbed. I can only watch as his jaws close around your jumper, trapping you. You are still trying to swipe at him with the branch. He is too strong though, and drags you by your collar to the ground.
‘Run, run, run, run, run.’ So urgent. That’s all you’re saying, all I’m hearing.
I turn and I run as fast as I can. Branches scratch and tear at my face and clothes as I head back down the path. It gets lighter; I can see the forms of Vincent and Paul as if we were never gone. They are not worried. Vincent asks what is wrong.
I’m crying and I can’t get the words out right but I know I have to be quick. ‘It’s Isabelle, Isabelle’s been taken by a wolf. We have to help her. I have to go back!’
Vincent looks at me calmly. ‘Adeline, there is no one there. Don’t upset yourself.’
‘No. Isabelle, she’s there, and the wolf has her!’ I’m repeating. Why doesn’t he understand? I tug on his arm but he is still.
He cocks his head to one side. ‘Come on, Adeline. There’s no one there and we are going home now.’
‘No, you can’t, the wolf, Isabelle, the wolf, he’s …’
‘There is no one there.’
‘He’s got Isabelle,’ I scream, imploring them to turn around to come with me, to save you.
My words merge into whimpers and I’m bundled down the path away from the forest. Paul and Vincent are taking me home. The woods fade into the distance. I leave you there with the wolf. And somehow, as the journey goes on, I unfurl, my breathing steadies and soon I forget. I walk with them both, enjoying the sun on my skin.
When I’m home I say to Vincent, ‘You were right. There was no one there.’
I open my eyes and stare straight ahead. The moon is bright outside and bluish fingers of light creep through the window, making long patterns on the bedspread; as the minutes tick by, they slowly move up towards my neck as if to strangle me. The nunnery is sleeping, breathing in and out, at peace. There is a slight rustle from the courtyard and then, far away in the distance, an animal cries.
Sister Marguerite has lit a fire and we are both sitting in two chairs by the hearth. The snapping of twigs and the gush of the flames as they are drawn up the chimney are the only sounds in the room.
I am darning, carefully pushing the thread through the holes and tightening the gaps between the wool. It is mundane work that I often do, but I feel grateful to be giving something to the life in the nunnery.
Sister Marguerite has her Bible in her lap but her eyes seem unable to focus on her reading. She takes the poker, prods the coals a little needlessly and the fire glows red. ‘So, what are we going to do today?’ she asks, looking up at me. ‘I would suggest a walk but it’s been raining so hard Sister Bernadette says we might have to start building a second ark.’ She smiles feebly at the joke and returns to pushing and prodding the wood about, pieces breaking off and falling into the glowing mass with a hiss. ‘We could read a little, or we could work on a new tapestry. You could help me pick out colours again – I have nearly finished the last scene.’
Normally Sister Marguerite continues in this way, answering her own questions out loud and maintaining the pretence that I have contributed in some way. She will chime, ‘Right, well, we will begin a new reading from the New Testament,’ or ‘I will mend these cushion covers and you can rest a little.’Today, however, she does not answer her own questions: she simply looks at me expectantly, waiting for my response.
I continue to darn and allow her to make up her mind.
‘What do you think?’ she persists.
My hand wavers a little before I plunge the thread into the material. It is a bold red, the red of Isabelle’s favourite jumper; the red of fresh blood.
‘Sister Constance thinks you are being wilful.’ She says this quietly.
The thread knots itself and I rest the material on my lap, looking down at it as she goes on.
‘Why do you not speak? Why do you choose this silence?’ she continues.
We stare at each other. I can see her doubting, see her incomprehension. She has spent endless days sitting with me, weeks, months, years, in fact, and still I say nothing. Her frustration is obvious, but there is something else in her expression.
Sister Marguerite stands up quickly, brushing her arm across her face. ‘They will tell you soon. They have a place. Sister Constance has spoken to the doctor. He isn’t sure you’re ready but she is making arrangements. If you stay this way, refuse to attend services, refuse to speak, to try, then …’ She chokes and runs out of the room, leaving me in front of the fire that still dances gaily in the gloom.
SEBASTIEN
‘Mother,’ I call out. ‘I’m home.’
Shutting the apartment door I smile to myself, my mood light, another afternoon with Isabelle like a warm, secret stone resting in my stomach. I know the habit of calling out irritates Mother, wishing me to arrive like a gentlemen, greet her at the door in a calm and poised manner. I move through the entrance hall to the sitting room. Mother wouldn’t reply but will most likely be reading or knitting in her armchair in the yellow room, readying herself to admonish me.
The long mullioned window she sits next to throws enough light around the room to make her little side lamp obsolete, even as the day fades. I will catch her as she turns the page of her book. She cannot read without maximum animation, gasping when she is surprised, chuckling a little at unexpected moments. She adores books, consumes stories, has always spoken of her delight in novels and memoirs, diaries. She pretends to like non-fiction the best but I know she would rather
sink her teeth into something far more frivolous.
She used to read to me until I told her I’d grown too old for the habit. I regretted it for weeks afterwards. I would whisper the familiar words under the bedclothes, remembering the feeling of being huddled next to her with our favourite books, the heavy blankets tucked right up around us as she brought those tales to life. I would fall asleep listening to her and dream of journeys to far-off lands: the scented air of Arabia, the heat, the spices in the air, the dust and bustle of the market or trekking across a snowy landscape, a world of white, the sting of the wind, hair whipped up. My dreams were a hundred times more colourful than our simple life in the city, in the little three-bedroomed flat we kept above the main road stretching through Limoges.
Today she is not reading; she is perched awkwardly on the edge of the sofa pouring hot water over herbs into our finest china cups from a silver cafetière with a spout shaped like an eagle, left to her by the imperious Grand-mère a couple of years before. She has dusted down a spindly old tiered cake stand and is offering a guest a selection: miniature éclairs, little triangular sandwiches, the scones she bakes, so delicate they can be popped into the mouth in one go – a move that will cause her to raise an eyebrow and chastise me later. She must have used every ration ticket she had, or called in a favour.
‘You remembered our guests,’ she motions, the smallest frown touching her face because it is clear I have not.
The guests are a youngish girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty, looking awkward holding a china cup, and her elderly chaperone. They both turn to look at me as I enter, and I am struck by the sudden urge to turn on my heel and flee, get away from that room and the absolute knowledge that this poor girl has been invited here in a desperate attempt by my mother to ensure I settle down, and fast. The older woman, with an expression on her face as if she has just consumed a lemon, is sitting, thin lips smeared with grease, dabbing at her face and eyeing me from her vantage spot on Father’s favourite armchair.