“How close is it to Avise?”
“I don’t know the number of kilometers but, as I said, it’s north of here. Close to Paris. You could stay with this man and he would continue to, he would keep trying to reach them. The family. And then, in time, perhaps he could help you to … He’s my father, Amandine. His name is Catulle.”
“And your mother?”
“My mother died when I was a child. I have two brothers.”
“Two brothers? What are their names?”
“One is Pascal. The other is Gilles, but both are … they were taken by the boche at the beginning of the Occupation. They work in Germany now.”
“Are you going home to your father? Could we go together?”
“No. I’m not going home. Not yet. Someday I will, but for now I have—”
“You’re like Lily, aren’t you?”
“Lily?”
“Madame Aubrac’s Lily. She’s a kind of soldier. She carries a pistol. I saw it once.”
“Yes, I suppose I’m a bit like Lily. And that’s why, that’s one of the reasons why I can’t accompany you now, not to the convent or to Madame Aubrac or even to the Val-d’Oise. You must understand that it will not be up to us to decide, not up to you to say where you want to go. Others know more than you and I know, and so it’s they who will say. But no matter where you go, friends will help you.”
“What’s he like? Monsieur Catulle.”
He’s, he’s, I don’t know, he’s a farmer, tall and broad. He speaks softly. I look like him, everyone says that. Our eyes, amber. Sometimes green. He will, he will be pleased, very pleased if you stay with him. I know that. There may be other people staying there. From time to time. He will take good care of you.”
“Is he old? He wouldn’t be going to die while I was there, would he?”
“No, no. And no, he’s not very old. He fought in the Great War.”
“There was a war greater than this one?”
“So they say. He’s past fifty, fifty-three I think. He’s handsome. Madame Isolde, she is our housekeeper but has always been like a mother to me, she is in love with him. And a Polish woman, a widow who is the grande dame of the village, well, she’s rather in love with him as well. Madame de Bazin. Her first name is Kostancja. I love to say her name. When I was a little girl, I would always go to play with the children of her maid. Her maid was Polish, too. You’ll meet Madame Isolde and Madame de Bazin. If you go to stay with Catulle.”
“What’s a Polish woman?”
“A woman who was born in Poland. Poland is a country east of here.”
“Why does she live in France?”
“Because a long time ago she married a Frenchman. And she left her home to be with him. It happens all the time.”
“Do you mean that people don’t stay in the same place always?”
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“To get where?”
“To Monsieur Catulle.”
“It depends. You see, this next journey of yours, no matter to what destination, will be a little different from the ones that brought you, you and Solange, here to me. Once it’s arranged, once I know more, I’ll explain things to you. As best I can. Won’t you drink your tea now, Amandine?”
Dominique’s first thought after the execution had been to take Amandine and leave the village. She’d thought to leave that same morning. No plan, no destination; her instinct was to disappear with the child. She was good at that. At disappearing. But word had come almost immediately that she and the child should stay put. They should wait. Then, last evening, the directions were communicated. A member of a cell not connected to Dominique’s would be waiting for Amandine at a specified time and place the next day.
Today. This person will take Amandine to Catulle, to Dominique’s father, while Dominique herself will proceed to Paris, to work that has been assigned to her there. No complications are anticipated. They will travel together for the first part of the journey and then separate.
Dominique has instructed Amandine. What to say, what not to say should they be stopped by the boche. The single awkward moment of the transfer will be when Dominique must leave Amandine to walk alone over a short expanse of countryside to the place where she will meet her next convoyeur.
“But why can’t you walk with me?”
“Because the person who will come to fetch you and who will take you to Catulle, he or she is part of a different operation than mine. Another group. It’s a rule among our groups that we never see one another. For the sake of safety. A protection for all of us, so that should any one of us be questioned about another by the boche, we’ll be telling the truth when we say we don’t know them. It’s difficult to understand, I know.… I can hardly … too much for a child of ten …”
“How long will I be alone?”
“About as long as it takes to walk from here to the village. A few minutes.”
“How will I know if it’s the right person? What if there’s more than one? Who am I looking for?”
“I don’t know the person. I can’t describe him or her to you. But the person will say this to you, he or she will say, ‘I have the cheese for you.’”
“That’s kind of strange.”
“Perhaps. But that’s what he or she will say. Now let’s get you ready.”
“I am ready.”
“Are you convinced to wear that sweater? You’ve not had it off except to bathe since … for all this time.”
“Please, it’s what I want to wear.”
Solange’s yellow sweater over brown corduroy pants, her high lace-up shoes, the valise packed with the rest of her clothing, Philippe’s straw hat, Solange’s things, her pussy willow wreath. The tin of walnut oil. Over her wrist, the old blue velvet pouch, its only contents a half bar of German ration chocolate which Dominique had tucked into it. Amandine is wearing the necklace under a kerchief that Solange often wore over her hair. Twice protected, she’s told herself. But against what, she is unsure.
“Would you consider wearing this hat?”
Dominique holds up a simple brown wool basque.
“Here, let me put it on for you. Let’s tuck all your hair up inside it.”
“Why?”
“It’s to make you look less, I don’t know, less foreign.”
“What is foreign?”
“Something that is or someone who is a bit different. Insolite. You are insolite. A grand compliment, you know. To be unusual. There, just like that, with only a few curls showing. Would you care to see in the mirror?”
“It’s so I’ll look less like a Jew, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“I heard Solange and Madame Aubrac talking. Madame Aubrac told Solange that I looked like that. Like a—”
“That has occurred to me as well, with your dark eyes and dark hair, and it’s only that, you must understand that the boche are especially—”
“I’ll wear the hat if you like. If someone asks me if I’m a Jew, I will say that I don’t know. Because I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I don’t know anything about myself or about anyone else, and that’s why I keep saying those words to myself. You know, scary, alone. Those words.”
Dominique lifts the kerchief from around Amandine’s neck, touches the amethyst. “This is proof that you are not alone. Try to remember that. Try to remember what Solange told you about this. Will you do that?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t be foolish about the boche. Should you be asked if you are a Jew, you must never answer I don’t know. You see, your papers, since they do not list the names and birth dates and places of birth of your parents, well, someone who is checking your papers, he might consider you suspect.”
“Sus——?”
“Suspect means that someone might not believe you. In this case, might not believe your papers. A controller might think that your papers are false. The truth is that they are false. You had no pape
rs, according to what Solange told me, and so your bishop had papers made for you. Some of the people who will look at your papers will readily accept them. Others may not. Those who don’t will undoubtedly ask you if you are Jewish. They will ask you if you are a Jew. You must always answer that you are not. No sir, I am not a Jew. That’s what you must say. Over and over again, as many times as you are asked that question. Will you promise me that?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Let’s go over this again. What is your full name?”
“Amandine Gilberte Noiret de Crécy.”
“And where were you born?”
“In Montpellier. May third, 1931.”
“Your mother’s name?”
“I am an orphan, sir. I do not know the name of my mother.”
“Your father?”
“Also unknown.”
“Good. Now let’s go.”
It is just after eleven in the morning, less than half an hour after Dominique had helped Amandine to step out from the auto onto a narrow, unpaved road cut through a field of low brush. The upward winding road is all that Amandine sees.
“Are you sure it’s here where I’m supposed to be?”
“Yes, I am.”
Dominique checks to see that all of Amandine’s things are in order, hung from and strapped and clutched to various parts of her.
“Now please wait for me to drive away. Count to one hundred. Count slowly. And then begin walking up that road. At the end of it, you shall meet your convoyeur. Just keep walking until a person appears before you and says … I have—”
“I know what the person will say.”
Dominique holds Amandine close to her, says, “We shall see one another again, my darling. I believe that we shall. And meantime, I ask you to whisper this in my father’s ear. Say, ‘Your little girl loves you.’ Will you do that for me?”
“I’ll tell him. I’ll—”
“I’m going to run off now or else I may forget my duty and take you with me.… Au revoir, Amandine.”
“Au revoir, Dominique.”
“I have cheese for you.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Well, the truth is that not so many lovely young ladies have passed by this way today and so I—”
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
“Bonjour, mademoiselle. Please follow me. Right here, this path to the left. Up the hill a little way. Are you hungry? I really do have cheese for you and bread and … Not such a long trip ahead of us now …”
“There we are. Let me help you to gather up your things. Good. Shall we take a last look? Your purse, your valise.”
“Are you leaving me here, monsieur?”
“Not leaving you but asking you to wait. I must go now. In ten minutes, more or less, you shall be met by … It’s comfortable enough here, and you are quite protected. Out of sight of the road but very close to it.”
“No one told me that I would be alone again, I mean after I walked to where you—”
“I must go now. All will be well. I assure you.”
“But who am I waiting for?”
“Au revoir, mademoiselle.”
Amandine sits on the patch of ground indicated by her convoyeur. Again, yet again, she consents. She settles her belongings about her, positions the valise as a pillow, lies down, her face in the shade of an elm, her legs stretched out to the sun. She breathes deeply, as Baptiste taught her to do long ago. She tries to quiet the words inside. She touches the necklace, the kerchief. She hears something. Someone crunching over the stones of the road. She sits up, wonders, waits—as we all must wait—to see who will appear over the rise.
Amandine thinks, He is tall. And his hair is like hers. Curly like the mane of a carousel horse. That’s what Solange said of Dominique’s hair that night when we were dressing. She said that Dominique had eyes the color of tea in a thin white cup. So does he.
His voice a soft rasp, he is saying, “Bonjour, p’tite ’zelle. I am Catulle.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
DOORS SLAM, PEOPLE CALL TO ONE ANOTHER. COLD AIR FLAPS heavy lace curtains against a windowpane, and she throws back the covers, runs to lift them. To see where she is. Milk cans clatter in a wheelbarrow pushed by a boy in a blue smock and a white basque. Wearing a man’s shabby clothes, a woman with a strident voice is asking Monsieur Catulle if he will barter three banon for a hare “still quivering” and a small jar of its blood. He tells her that he can shoot his own hare, and she says, “Of course you can but not one like this, no, never again one quite as handsome as this—”
“Let me have a look at him, madame. He and a small truffle and I’ll give you four banon.”
All this while it’s still dark, she thinks. Wind shudders the rimed panes, and she wonders if it’s still May. It was May yesterday when I left Dominique and met the man with the cheese and then the other man. Bonjour, p’tite ’zelle. I am Catulle. She looks out to the high stone wall around a garden patched like the one at the convent. A bed of purple cabbages, one of the green crinkly kind. Lettuces, leeks, flowering peas. Apple trees, cherry, apricot. The largest tree is a fig. Wild iris have pushed up here and there; it must still be May. Solange must still be dead. Dominique, where is she? I am here but where is that?
Though her corduroy pants are folded neatly upon a chest of drawers, she has worn her yellow sweater as a nightdress. Her shoes are set near the bed. She dresses quickly, opens the door to a dark corridor and a steep wooden stairway, which she descends with no memory of ever having climbed it. Another dark corridor and soft voices from the other side of a small green door. She knocks.
“Entrez, entrez. Bonjour, Amandine.”
He seems larger than he did yesterday. A fresh white shirt, Dutch blue braces, his small, pointed, curly beard and mustaches—how could I not have noticed his beard and mustaches yesterday?—still glistening from his morning bathe. He is spooning up what looks like wet, purplish bread from a large white bowl. He rises.
She walks to him, offers her hand to greet him formally. He gives her his.
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
“Bonjour, bonjour, petite, et bienvenue.
“Sit, sit, and here is Isolde. Madame Isolde, may I present—”
“Bonjour, chérie.”
Her hair pulled up on top of her head into a small graying brown pastiche, Madame Isolde is thin and tall, with war-sunken cheeks, brown liquid eyes with thick lashes, which she flutters like a fan, and teeth so white they seem blue. Her breath smells of anise seeds, and her hands feel rough as she holds Amandine’s face, looks at her with a wide smile. “You were sleeping so soundly last evening when Monsieur brought you in that I carried you up to bed, made you comfortable as I could, and left you to your dreams. Of course you’re hungry.”
“Not very. I ate quite a lot of cheese yesterday …”
“Bread, some bread, and the milk is warming. This morning’s egg with a few drops of marc. You need to be strengthened, I can see that.”
She sets about cracking a large brown egg into a cup with no handle, beats it furiously with a fork, pours something into the cup from a tall green bottle, beats again. Handing the potion to Amandine, Isolde nods her head, urging her on with it. “All in a gulp. The only way to do it.”
Amandine drinks, begins to choke, but quickly restores her calm. She smiles tentatively at Catulle, who is laughing. “Your initiation into the Val-d’Oise, ma petite. We have very little, as you will see, but we do have a few good hens. A fresh raw egg every day makes up for much of what we don’t have. Well, then …”
Amandine is tearing a piece of bread into small pieces, arranging them on the white embroidered tablecloth. When Isolde puts down a cup of hot milk, she wraps her hands around it. Sips at it. Smiles at Catulle, sips again.
“Tomorrow I shall prepare your breakfast, one that you shall much prefer. Red wine–soaked bread. It’s better with sugar but …”
Wiping her hands on her apron, Isolde sits down at the tab
le. The three are silent, each one looking and nodding at the others, until Catulle says, “Madame Isolde is our housekeeper, Amandine. Our commander, to put it better. But she will see to whatever it is that you—”
“First thing is to find her some clothes. And shoes.”
“Yes, yes, of course. The market—”
“The market has nothing, I’ll take her home with me this afternoon, and we’ll look through what I have in my trunks. Always something.”
“It’s very kind of you, but what I have will do nicely. I expect I’ll be leaving soon and—”
“Leaving?” Catulle asks.
“Yes, monsieur. Dominique told you, didn’t she? That I’m on my way home.”
“I have not spoken to my daughter in more than a year, Amandine. But it was communicated to me that you have some friends up north. Toward the Belgian border.”
“Avise. Near Reims. Their name is Jouffroi.”
“Yes, well I did, I do know that, but you see, listen, why don’t you and Madame Isolde go about the morning together while I get to my work? And after lunch, we shall speak about this.”
“About my going home?”
“About why it’s best for you to stay here with us. For now.”
Madame Isolde heats water in a cauldron over a woodstove in a shed behind the house where a great deep zinc tub sits. Towels, a brush like the ones the convent sisters used to scrub the stairs, Amandine tells her, a cake of blackish soap. Isolde goes to work on Amandine’s slender limbs. Washes her hair, rinses it with water gone cold. Almond oil, purple capsules that make lilac foam. Solange is still dead.
“Pardon, madame?”
“I was saying, ‘There we are, all finished.’ Until we fix up some other things for you, I found these in your valise. I’ve ironed them. They’ll do for now.”
Amandine buttons up her old tartan shirtwaist and pulls her black market sundress, dark blue and white stripes, over it. Both are too small and short for her lengthening body. Their effect raises a gasp from Madame. “I’ll get things ready for Monsieur’s lunch, put that hare to soak, sweep up a bit, and do the beds. Then we’ll be on our way. The queue will be shorter nearer to ten, so there’s no rush. Sit in the sun to dry your hair, won’t you? Such lovely hair, Amandine.”
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