Marlena de Blasi

by Amandine (v5)

  The bishop settles himself in the chair, reaches for Solange’s hand. His gaze is stern before it’s tender.

  “I see. You have reflected on the fact that disorder mounts every day, have you, child? Everyone from the north is on the road south, here to this so-called Free Zone.”

  “I have reflected, sir.”

  “We French are a race of self-servers, and I can tell you that the shutters will be tight up there even against a Frenchwoman and her child. Let them do without shall be the theme of your northern countrymen except when it comes to themselves. You mustn’t think you can count on anyone, Solange. Not until you reach your mother. I am not trying to dissuade you, only to—”

  “The traffic going north should be light, sir.”

  The wry phrase stops the bishop in midsentence.

  “Yes, the road into enemy territory, yes, very light traffic.… And what if your family is among the exodus?”

  “My family would never leave the farm. They didn’t during the Great War and they won’t now. Boche or not, I would rather that Amandine and I be there with them.”

  “Yes. Of course. And what does Amandine say about—?”

  “I haven’t yet told her. I haven’t yet seen her since—”

  “I see. Well, maybe you’re right after all, Solange. To seek a fresh new hell. You’ve decided, then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I shall help you, Solange.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  “WE DON’T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT NOW. ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED. We don’t, do we?”

  It is nearly eleven on a Wednesday morning, and Amandine and Solange are together in their rooms. Earlier Baptiste had taken Amandine for a walk about the gardens and for a visit to the chapel before accompanying her to Solange. Bidding them both a good day, he tells them that he will be by to check on them in the early evening. Amandine reaches up to embrace him, and he goes quickly, perhaps uncomfortably, on his way.

  Both Amandine and Solange are skittish, each one worried about the other. Thinking it might be ritual they need to bring them back to where they’d been—if indeed anything ever could—they begin the bathing one.

  Amandine turns the taps to fill the tub with warm water and, deft as a spa matron, goes about her business with the almond oil, the purple capsules of lilac foam, shakes open the towels, lays them over the chair. Solange helps her to undress, to step into the tub. Though Amandine remembers to inhale the lilac scent, Solange does not.

  Now, holding hands and propped upright with bed cushions, they sit—side by side in fresh nightdresses—on the sofa before the spent hearth. Marie-Albert has brought them tea and a small bowl of wild strawberries.

  “No. I don’t think we do. Not now. When we’re ready, when we desire to talk about it, then we shall. Jean-Baptiste told you that we’re leaving, didn’t he? He wanted to be the one to tell you, and I agreed. He thought that you would be, you know, more open with him. Tell him your true feelings about that prospect.”

  “He told me, and I said that I would like to go.”

  “Good. Then it’s settled.”

  “And I’m not even worried about my mother, about her not being able to find me. I’ve left her a note.”

  “You’ve left who a note?”

  “My mother.”

  “With la Vierge?”

  “Yes. She’s not very efficient, but still, I trust her.”

  “And what did you say in the note?”

  “I told her that your last name is Jouffroi and that we are going to Avise. And that I was going to learn to milk goats. I am, aren’t I?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I wrote it on a sheet of paper that Jean-Baptiste gave to me. The kind where he writes what pills to take. I know la Vierge doesn’t really deliver mail. Not exactly anyway. But I feel better that I wrote the note and left it with her. I just feel better. I didn’t tell my mother about Josette.”

  “No. No, I wouldn’t think you would. So, you’re ready to go?”

  “Ready. And I’m sort of glad that none of the girls are here. Or are some of them still—?”

  “No. All of them gone to spend the summer in one place or another. At least I think so. Won’t they be surprised to find you gone when they return? But you’ll write to them, they to you.”

  “I suppose. Mostly I’ll miss Marie-Albert and Josephine and the other sisters. And Baptiste. I wish you would marry Baptiste, and then we could take him with us. I told him so, and do you know what he said?”

  “No, and I’m not certain I would like to—”

  “He said: ‘There’ll be time for that.’ What does that mean exactly?”

  “It’s another way to say Maybe someday.”

  “So maybe someday you’ll marry Baptiste?”

  “Enough.”

  “I don’t know if I shall miss Mater. Will you miss her?”

  “Perhaps I will. But I think miss might not be the right term. More she has left me a great deal to think about. More that.”

  “I’m a little scared about going. But not too much.”

  “That’s one of the best things about a journey … being a little scared.”

  “I guess … it’s a good kind of scary, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, the good kind. We’ll be leaving on Saturday morning. The eight-forty-nine from Montpellier to Nîmes. We’ll change trains there. If all goes well, we’ll arrive in Reims sometime on Monday morning. Maybe a little later.”

  “How many trains will we take?”

  “Four. Altogether, four.”

  “I want to take ten, twenty …”

  “I promise you that there will be many train rides in our future. But for now, we’ll begin with four.”

  “Okay.”

  “We have two days to prepare. Two more days plus the remainder of this one. You must rest and—”

  “And you, too. We can rest together.”

  “Together.”

  Amandine lies down, her head on Solange’s thighs, and closes her eyes. Solange caresses Amandine’s hair, sings a quiet song until she hears the even breathing of her sleep.

  “Where is Josette?”

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  With her eyes still closed, Amandine says, “I was pretending. Anyhow, just before I fall asleep I always think of Josette, but Baptiste says that will pass. I told him that I won’t forget what happened and he said that things passing and forgetting them are not the same. He says that, even if I don’t forget, I will soon stop thinking about Josette. Do you think that’s true?”

  “I know it’s true. And to answer your question, Josette has gone away, been taken away, to a kind of hospital. A hospital that’s also a prison.”

  “How long will she stay there?”

  “She’ll stay there always.”

  “Will they be cruel to her there?”

  “No. But probably not loving, either.”

  “Why did she do it?”

  Solange, still caressing Amandine’s hair, stays quiet, then moves her hands to hold Amandine’s face, to turn it up to hers. “I don’t know. No one can. Not even Josette.”

  It is just after one that same day when there is a knock on the door. Solange rises to answer it.

  “I think it’s Marie-Albert with our lunch. She will stay the afternoon with us. Bonjour, Mar——Mater. I was expecting—”

  “Yes, I know, but I asked Marie if I might carry this up to you. Were you napping? I hope I haven’t come too early.”

  Solange hesitates, says, “If anything, Mater, I fear you’re too late.”

  Paul looks at Solange, takes in the quiddity of her words.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure I am. Too late.”

  “Here, Mater, let me take the tray.”

  “It’s all cold food so that whenever you have appetite … Amandine.” Paul holds out her hand to Amandine, who stands now behind Solange.

  “Bonjour, Mater.” Amandine takes Paul’s hand, shakes it very formally.

  “W
ell, you’re both looking well, I must say.”

  “Thank you, Mater. Won’t you sit?” Solange invites.

  The three arrange themselves almost simultaneously in a row upon the sofa, Amandine in the middle. They smile at one another, settle into the cushions. Looking straight ahead then, all of them seem exceedingly fascinated by the spent hearth.

  “I haven’t seen these rooms for a very long time. It feels much like a home, a real one, I mean.”

  “Maybe you could come to live here, Mater, now that we’re going. You could have Solange’s bed because it’s bigger, and then you could have one or another of the sisters come for a sleepover sometimes. The convent girls always talk about sleepovers but I’ve never been to one although Sidò invited me many times and—”

  “Isn’t that a lovely thought. Thank you.”

  Solange pulls Amandine’s hair, grimaces at her.

  “So then it’s true? That you’ll be leaving,” Paul asks.

  “Saturday,” Solange confirms.

  “So many changes.” Paul turns to look at Solange.

  Still sitting between them, sensing their breach growing, Amandine asks Paul, “Would you like to hold hands?”

  She holds out hers to Paul, who takes it, looks down at her old brown hand enclosing Amandine’s tiny white one.

  “I like holding hands better than talking sometimes,” Amandine tells her.

  Amandine takes Solange’s hand with her other one, then begins to swing the arms of her two charges as though they were off to see the fair. Paul begins to laugh, then catches herself, places Amandine’s hand gently on the sofa, rises. “I shall leave you now. To your lunch and your rest.”

  “Thank you, Mater. Thank you for bringing the—”

  “If only I’d thought to bring it sooner.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  IT IS SATURDAY MORNING, JUNE 22. THE SUN JUST RISEN, AMANDINE and Solange are on their way to bid farewell to Philippe. Solange had made a pallet of the old picnic quilt, laid it inside a wheelbarrow, and then set Amandine upon it. Cleopatra on her barge. The way to Philippe’s grave is long, and sometimes Amandine prefers to walk, to gather wildflowers and pretty weeds and to disappear every once in a while down a narrow path between the vines, to lie for a moment on the soft black earth.

  “What are you doing? The ground is still damp. You’ll need to change and all our clothes are packed.”

  “I’m saying good-bye to the vines.”

  “There are tons of vines in Champagne.”

  “I know, but they’re not these vines.”

  When they arrive, they fuss a bit over the stone, Amandine polishing it with the juice from a milkweed and a fistful of leaves. Having brought a small shovel and a pot of basil, they set about planting it in a great lush clump in front of the stone. A jug of water from the barrow then.

  “I hope he still likes basil.”

  “No doubt he does.”

  “Marie-Albert will come to water it. She promised.”

  “Yes, she told me you’d made those arrangements.”

  “Are we ever coming back?”

  “I think we will. Someday. But when we do, we won’t be the same and whoever is still here won’t be the same, not even the house or the land will be the same. It’s okay to go back to a place as long as you understand that.”

  “I do. That’s why he’s coming with us. Philippe.”

  “I know. Let’s start back. In an hour the bishop’s auto will be waiting …”

  The convent sisters have packed bread and cheese, a small crock of duck rillettes, dried sausages, candied fruits stuffed in a jar, honeycomb in another, gingerbread, chocolate, petits beurres, two packs, each thing wrapped in brown kitchen paper or a crisp white napkin and all of it pushed down into a market string bag. Enough for days and nights.

  Amandine’s mise, mildly eccentric, includes the red boots, her tulle skirt—once scorned, now beloved, and recently dismembered from its crocheted bodice, which had become too snug—a tartan shirtwaist, and a rose-colored sweater embroidered with darker rose fleurs-de-lis. Her hair is loose and wild. Solange wears a soft yellow cardigan closed up to the hollow in her neck with satin loops over small pearl buttons. The sweater had belonged to her mother, and when Solange was preparing her valise before departing Avise for Montpellier, Magda had brought it to her. All folded in tissue paper, Magda had laid the sweater on top of the other things in the valise, smiled, almost smiled, then turned and walked away. In all the nine years since, Solange has never worn it. With a narrow dark blue skirt—part of the tallieur that Janka had bought for her in Reims on her sixteenth birthday and that fits the curve of her derriere—the soft yellow sweater is beautiful. She wears the regulation patent ballerina slippers with floppy grosgrain bows at the toes, which are part of the convent girls’ evening uniform since, twice yearly, the teaching sister in charge of such things ordered a pair for her. Solange, too, has left her hair loose, a mass of tight blond ringlets and waves falling beyond her shoulders. A few reddish marks from the fever are scattered on the tawny skin of her cheeks and neck.

  Slung across her chest, Solange wears the purse in which she’s placed the black leather portfolio Fabrice had given her, into which he’d tucked the papers he had had drawn for Amandine, those and an inordinate number of francs and letters of introduction to be presented, upon need, to the curia of any parish of Mother Church in France. Solange had placed her own papers in the portfolio as well and Baptiste’s file with Amandine’s records. She opens and closes the purse to touch the portfolio, the file, closes the purse, opens it again.

  They climb into the backseat of the limousine with the small purple flags mounted on the windscreen while the driver sees to the string bag and their single valise, the same one Solange had carried from the farm. How little there was to pack. Books and toys and winter clothing they left in wrapped, marked boxes for eventual posting. The driver closes the door. Amandine opens it to blow a last kiss to the sisters who huddle under the portico waving, holding their balled-up handkerchiefs to their eyes, their noses.

  At the same time that Fabrice’s driver is delivering Amandine and Solange to the station, an aide knocks on his door. He is still abed.

  “Entrez.”

  “Your Eminence, please forgive the intrusion, but we’ve just learned, just been informed …”

  “What is it? Say it.”

  “France has surrendered, Your Eminence. Total capitulation, sir.”

  “Take the jeep, go to the station, find them. Find Alain. Tell the authorities to use the loudspeaker. Don’t let them board that train. Go.”

  Solange asks Alain, the bishop’s driver, to leave them at the main doors of the station.

  “Thank you very much. No, the valise is light. And Amandine wishes to carry the string bag. We’re fine, really we are. Thank you once again.”

  Solange hears the news as they enter the station. People are shouting in disbelief, weeping, running, screeching. Decorum, civility shut down like metal gates.

  So we French have submitted to the boche. Now it will be French against French here just as Fabrice says it is in the north. Look at them, how they pummel one another to get out, to get in, to be first. Step on Grand-mère’s throat, the French would.

  She holds Amandine tighter. She tells her, “Look at me. No matter what, you must never let go of this hand. Never. Not for a half second. Do you understand?

  “The eight-forty-nine to Nîmes. Track seventeen. Do you see it up there? The fourth one down. Let’s go.” She takes the string bag from Amandine, settles it on her shoulder, pats the valise, the purse, holds up Amandine’s hand as if in victory.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER XXXII

  WE NEVER ARRIVED IN NÎMES THAT DAY. AS IT WAS SCHEDULED TO, our train stopped at the station in Baillargues but, once passengers had descended and others had stepped up into the cars, it was announced that the train would go no farther. To each one who waited in line to speak to the ticket age
nt, his response was as if from a script. “Due to the ‘circumstances,’ schedules are being rearranged. Come back tomorrow, there’s bound to be something. No, no lodgings here, but perhaps in the next village. A few kilometers down the D-3. The A-11. Perhaps there.”

  Along with three others of the stranded, Amandine and I walked to that next village. A cluster of blue-painted houses with swags of blown red roses arching the doors, it hugged the verge of the road. No bar, no hotel, no sign of welcome, or of life for that matter. Shaking their heads, speaking in quiet commiseration, our companions bode us adieu, turned and walked, single file, back toward Baillargues, leaving Amandine and me standing alone in the gold silence of noon. Not a single starched Flemish lace curtain parted.

  “Wait here,” I told Amandine, setting down the valise. I knocked at the first house, waited and walked on to the second, Amandine, pulling the valise along behind her, following my progress. I might well have been knocking on the lids of coffins. The fourth door opened, if only a crack.

  “What is it you want?”

  “The trains, madame, we were on our way to Nîmes but … A place to stay, madame, for my little girl and me. I can pay.”

  “Not nearly enough, I would think. Go away.”

  A road sign a few meters from where we stood pointed to Nîmes. Our lodestone, our north. Several smaller signs were posted under it. Places on the way.

  “Shall we walk a little farther, my love, or shall we look for somewhere to set out a picnic? Or would you …?”

  How thin my voice sounded, even to me. Where had she gone, that arrogant self of a few hours ago? Buttoning up my pretty sweater, brushing out my hair. The bishop’s chauffeur waiting in the drive, shining the fenders of the wide black sedan. I’d thought I was heroic, I’d thought I was grand. The war is somewhere else, the war is something else. We’ll be fine. Two days and we’ll be home. God, make haste to help me.