A Packhorse Called Rachel

by Marcelle Kellermann

  More comings and goings of soldiers on the same errand. Travellers on platform two stare in disgust. A grandmother, holding her granddaughter by the hand says, loud enough for everybody to hear: “It’s scandalous! As if there weren’t any toilets in this place!” whilst another woman shouts: “Don’t take on so!” and a man hollers: “I’m going to fetch the station master, no two ways ‘bout it!” He moves a few paces, then stops. A typical aborted reaction one witnesses these days, a typical reluctance to stick one’s neck out. Beware! “They don’t give a damn! True to form!” says the grand-mother. It doesn’t go further!

  During these unproductive and short lived protests a man approaches me, walks past, comes back, sits down beside me. He’s dressed like a peasant, he’s tall, square-shouldered, I can’t see his head band covers his eyebrows making him look obstinate and sullen. Beneath it, two eyes shine behind spectacles. I cannot guess their colour. Below them, a moustache and a beard, brown or possibly very well because it’s covered by a beret pulled down over his eyes, so low in fact that the leather showed. The shadows make it difficult for me to decide.

  “Rachel? Bonsoir.”

  I stretch out my hand to meet his. “Colonel Gérard”? “They call me Gérard. Have you been waiting long”? “No, I’ve just arrived.”

  “Good. We needn’t hang about…we’ve three quarters of an hour’s walk ahead of us. It’s snowed a good deal today” and he adds: “We’ll talk as we go along.”

  I seize my rucksack. Gérard takes it from me saying: “Let me …” What I feared happens: Nourse growls. I fondle his ear, my way of reassuring him. It’s only then that the colonel takes note of his existence.

  “Yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to get rid of him”. I protest vehemently: “He’s my dog, he stays with me.” He says:

  “It won’t do. You’ll have to find a solution.” Mercy me! I feel myself stiffen. This man’s harshness is unbearable. I try to mollify him. “We’ve never been separated, you know.” I have a burning sensation in my throat.

  “May be so” he replies, “but things are different now”. “I really don’t see…” He interrupts:

  “You will, you will! There’s a war on, have you heard? With this dog you cannot pass unnoticed. You’re putting our comrades in danger”. I’m not a sniveller, I have my pride you know, but my eyes are beginning to smart.

  There. Now the tears run down my frozen cheeks! Gérard takes up my rucksack once more, puts it squarely on his shoulders this time and without a word goes towards the exit. I am rooted to the spot. Nourse wants to charge the bad man who is stealing my belongings. I hold him by the collar. I order: “Stay”. Gérard turns round. “Well, have you decided?”

  Have I decided what? (I can see now that his moustache and beard are red). I choke back my tears and we go out of the station in total silence he with my rucksack, I with my skis criss-crossed on my back, with my dog on the leash and a heavy, heavy heart.

  The station withdraws into itself and we walk away from it unhurriedly. I would like to be able to say to Gérard: I am ready for anything, really, except being separated from my dog… but I can’t. Perhaps I owe you an explanation: at this time of strict rationing, dogs whose owners did not find the courage to put them down but have nevertheless to part with them, are put in kennels where they eat disgusting food. They are given a concoction of grass and straw cooked with a sort of ersatz beef cubes. They die like flies, inevitably. I could have my dog put down.

  We could both be put down. An attractive idea right now.

  The full moon, hanging in the sky like a colourless Chinese lantern, plays tricks with the shadows; hummocks are holes, holes become hummocks, distances stretch out to infinity and it is difficult to walk in the soft, deep snow. You have to concentrate and this makes it hard to hold a conversation. Nourse leaps about like a rabbit in an effort not to sink into the snow, but he does not succeed. He is exhausted. Gérard turns round: “Tired?” he asks.

  “No, it’s my dog. We’re walking too fast for him.”

  Gérard gives his permission: “‘All right, we’ll have a short rest.” He points to a clearing. I thank him and we sit down in the middle of a sea of snow. Nature, so beautiful, enfolds us but for all that does not protect us. They say that in this forest of Les Dores as in more distant times, there were wolves threatening the scattered holdings. In the winter, when the wolves were hungry, they made their way to the farms and ate anything that was not safely shut up. They were hunted with fierce dogs. Amongst the legends of the Auvergne there is a poem about a mortal combat between two dogs and a wolf, a combat which, I tell myself, might have taken place in this very clearing. The image of the torn and wounded animal gives me pain, whether of a dog or a wolf but I can accept the violence of this confrontation; it is without mercy, without sequel, committed in freedom. I cannot accept the inequality of the fighting between men in this war in which the assailant, running no risks himself, captures, subdues and tortures his prey, enjoys the power he has over it and finally finishes it off if it has not succumbed already… all in the name of an inhuman ideology.

  At length Gérard decides to speak: “Maître Sarlange must have told you about the situation at Savignole?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “Good. There are fifteen of us at the bothy, including a Jewish family, father, mother and two kids. They left Clermont just in time, they’d been denounced to the Gestapo, presumably by the people living in the same building and with whose children their own children used to play. It is hard to believe in such inhumanity. But as long as they’re with us they have to be fed. They came to us, starving. No ration cards…too risky using them… “. Gérard draws semi-circles in the snow with one of my ski sticks. His mood is sombre. He explains that the Maquis’ hold-ups he could still organise a while ago have now to be stopped. He says:

  “The Gestapo is everywhere, fanatically rounding up the remaining Jews, those who managed to live in hiding…it’s horrible…worse: they are largely helped by the militia and the gendarmerie, supposedly briefed to arrest black marketeers but in practice to arrest the food shop raiders as well as the Jewish families and deliver them to the Gestapo. If one of our younger lads is taken, it’s very serious. Very serious indeed.

  ‘Has it happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they talk?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t heard of them since. But you see” Gérard goes on: “In a group which is changing all the time, like ours, you are bound to get some young people who are more vulnerable…new recruits ill-prepared to undergo frightening interrogations, not to mention torture…They soon lose their heads…Mind, some of them, don’t. They know how to outwit their interrogators.”

  Gérard has succeeded in prising up lumps of earth with my stick, so much force has he used. Finally he turns his reddened face towards mine, puts the stick down and touches my arm with his gloved hand:

  “Do you think you could fetch and carry food for us? It won’t be much fun, I warn you. Think well before you answer now you know what is at stake.” (I can just hear le prof. (that is, Gérard) putting a question to his pupils at the Lycée Henry IV where he is a history master: ‘Why did Rome overthrow the monarchy in 509 ? (Think well before you answer.)’

  “Maître Sarlange spoke to me about the risks. My decision is made” I say, hearing my own words as if someone else had spoken them. I am trembling. It’s the cold…no, it isn’t, not really. Gérard seems not to have noticed. He squeezes my arm: “I am glad. Thank you” he says, releasing his grip. I suddenly feel all warm inside. Gérard gets up and I do the same (with difficulty). Snow is sticking to the seat of our trousers. Nourse shakes himself, as dogs do, with excellent results whilst Gérard and I dust each other down – a brotherly and reassuring gesture. Then we set off once more.

  Gérard continues:

  “About old Raboullet…Has Maître Sarlange described the man to you…and told you what he�
�s going to give us in the way of food?”

  “Yes” I reply, “but not in great detail. I know I must acquire his bothy, the one nearest to his farmhouse”.

  “Is that all?”

  “No. He told me also that Monsieur Raboullet sells his produce at prices approaching those of the black market.”

  “But still affordable. What else did he tell you?”

  “How a young postman takes him the money, in cash.!”

  The postman in question was a young peasant of twenty who had joined the Maquis and who served as both guide and courier. He took our messages from a box in a well hidden shed. He was shot by the militia on May 18, the day of his birthday said his mother.

  “Maître Sarlange has assured me that we can count on a fairly regular provision of foodstuff from his farm.”

  “Good”, he says, “I see he’s told you the main facts. As for the rest, I’ll come and visit you in your palace (with a short laugh) tomorrow….There is no time to lose. I’ll tell you your routes. You’ll have to vary them. Take this map and learn it by heart. It’s not safe to have it on you, just in case…” He hasn’t finished his sentence. Instead he looks at me, directly, for the first time: “You’re going to have to walk over hill and dale ma pauvre fille.”

  How could I ever forget these spontaneous words of sympathy that night when I was hardly able to hold myself erect, my feet slowly sinking in the soft snow, my soul sinking too?

  I remember exactly how I felt that night; like an employee who has just taken on a job that after the first few minutes promises to be more than he can tackle. The same feeling I had when Professor Vallette engaged me to do some research for him. How can I tell Gérard about my doubts when he needs to believe I shall be up to the task, because his confidence in me is like an imperative…it is granted to me a priori.

  He holds out to me a tattered ordnance survey map mended with sticky paper. I put it in one of my rucksack’s outer pockets. Back at school, this is my homework, I’d better go straight home and learn my future itinerary by heart!

  We set off again. The cold intensifies. A crust of ice has formed over the snow. Our footsteps resound. I count mine in order not to think. Don’t think, Rachel, it’s fatal if you do!

  We go round privet bushes and tree trunks, Gérard walks in front, his back bent, perhaps with tiredness, his head now hidden almost completely by my rucksack. Nourse walks behind me in our tracks, stopping from time to time to lick up the snow; he is tormented by hunger and thirst. I rub his shoulders to let him know that I share his torment but cannot do anything about it.

  Without turning round, Gérard goes on: “Another thing. Did Sarlange tell you what old Raboullet’s like, and so on?”

  “Not really, no”.

  I was remembering Maître’s words: “The colonel is in a better position than I am to tell you about the people with whom he works. I do not know his contacts. When we communicate, we do it cryptically either by telegraph, or by telephone when the lines are free…they rarely are.”

  Gérard has hitched my rucksack higher up on his shoulders. His face darkens:

  “For your information…The old man threw me out the other day! Unceremoniously. He accused me of being a fanatic - he may be right, mind! - but when he started hurling insults at me and telling me that I was getting young men killed to further my political beliefs I saw red, and no mistake!”

  Gérard has a nervous laugh, painful to hear. He adds: “With the handle of his whip (he always carries a whip) he literally drove me outside… mind you, he was dead drunk!”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “What?”

  “That he’s drunk?”

  “Three hundred and sixty-five days of the year!”

  “Oh merde!” came out before I could stop it. Gérard doesn’t seem to mind. He goes on: “He starts early in the morning, ten litres of wine a day, interspersed with glasses of marc. He works efficiently until midday. He’s everywhere, oversees everything. Incredible. He makes his men jump to it, it’s quite a sight! He only stops to have a drink and off he goes again. Back at the farmhouse for his midday meal the alcohol’s already gone to his head. I’ll give you a piece of advice: do your dealings with him early in the morning.”

  Deal with him! A drunkard who threatens you with his whip? How am I going to do that? I say to myself: surely he wouldn’t dare to whip a woman, would he?

  “Tell me about his good points. He must have some, surely!”

  “Yes he has. Plenty. But I don’t feel like talking about them right now. Sorry.”

  We go on walking in silence. The freezing night in white and marine blue, pale, bloodless, takes away a soul’s desire to communicate.

  “Here we are,” says Gérard, pointing with his gloved finger at an expanse surrounded by curving hills, blue beneath a sky of opal. I rub my eyes, which are watering with the cold. I scan the pine forest but I cannot see any sign of life. We stumble down a slope at the foot of which is a flat piece of land where a large roof and chimney appear. The smell of woodsmoke enters our nostrils; they are probably burning wood and branches of dried broom which send up incandescent showers of spark, as transient as fireworks. The tops of hundred year old poplars map out the way to the farm. All around, great walnut trees have been set here and there, by men or by chance, carried by the wind, their gnarled skeletons relieving the bareness of the landscape, providing landmarks for the traveller and shelter for the hibernating animals of the Dores. A rectangular smudge of land shows where a vegetable garden is. A little further away, on slopes which at midday face the sun are rows of dwarf trees revealing the existence of the region’s treasures, now covered with snow. These are vines and dwarf peach trees. At the first sign of warm weather it is a delight to see these trees and bushes of the Lord lovingly intertwining; they share their perfume, mingle their roots, even borrow each other’s colour, golden green, to complete that loving union. To bite into a fresh, ripe peach from the Auvergne is to share this symbiosis. What a lot of peaches and grapes we ate last summer! During the months of August and September the population of central and southern France had become fruit eaters. They’d nothing else to eat. At the beginning of the war housewives could still preserve fruit by increasing the quantities of citric acid and saccharine instead of sugar, but the shortage of glass has put an end to all that and as a result last summer, on the market place at Clermont-Ferrand, mountains of pears, peaches, plums and grapes could be seen rotting in the oppressive heat. The flies and the starving had a field day.

  After an hour’s walking, to discover this vast domain with its wealth hidden under snow makes my blood race again. Gérard stops, turns round, is astonished to see me unbuttoning my coat, throws back his shoulders and announces:

  “This is as far as I go.” I want to know why:

  “Might I know your reasons for sending me to see Monsieur Raboullet alone… at this hour?” I check; “it’s half past nine.” “At this time of night he’s gone to bed. His wife will put you up for the night, and so you’ll be around to see him tomorrow at dawn. There’s no time to lose, Rachel! I’m sorry.”

  I am shaking now. Gérard notices it this time:

  “Scared?”

  “Well…yes. Shouldn’t I be?”

  “Of course you should. We all are, all the time!”

  I put on my skis, Gérard helps me to put on my rucksack. “That thing’s heavy!” he informs me.

  “It’s good practice for my future calling as a packhorse!” Gérard brightens up for the first time. My reference to a packhorse seems to amuse him.

  “I’ll come and see you at your new abode. We’ll go to Savignole together. I’ll introduce you to the others. The day after tomorrow atthe latest.”

  (Another command from Gérard. I expect many more). “As soon as that?” I intone.

  “Yes. As soon as that.” He adds: “Rachel, we’re depending on you.” “And on Monsieur Raboullet! “ I whisper to myself. He’s heard:

  “
And on him, too.”

  Then, coming close to me, he says:

  “You’ll see. The old boy’s no fool, you can get round him if you know how”.

  After a moment’s hesitation he feels bound to inform me: “He likes pretty girls. He paws them whenever he can. Be careful, right?”

  “Is that all?”

  “You’ll find out the rest all in good time.”

  “What do you mean, the rest?”

  “The best and the worst. You’re a woman…your instinct will help you.”

  With these words we shake hands and he is gone.

  You’re on your own now, Rachel. But think of Visachel, how he would like to be alone, like you, in this winter landscape of the Auvergne. So, get on your way, old girl, be prepared to canter along with your load like Diderot’s “Jacques Le Fataliste” did when he was riding on his own donkey, loaded with his master’s luggage; turn into “Rachel la fataliste…with that weight which makes you sink into the snow but with the precious freedom you still have and Visachel and the others have lost!

  Move, Rachel! Move, or you’ll freeze to death on the spot!

  I fix my skis and slide in the direction of the smoking chimney. Nourse bounds towards the farm at full speed to join the human race he can now smell, humans who will give him something to eat, for hasn’t God put them there for that very purpose?

  Yes, but where is God?

  6.

  Encounter with the Bear.

  Like a hungry deer in winter, I hang around outside the house. It breathes out the life-giving odour that emanates from the hearths of country people. I recognize the smell of smoked lard soup which women from the Alsace also know how to make to perfection. Nourse is driven frantic by it. White foam flecks his open jaws, he scratches at the door with his front paws, tearing his claws in a frenzy of hunger. I come to a stop at the front door; it is massive, made of oak and quite plain. I take off my skis, put my rucksack and skis in the porch and allow myself a minute to get my breath back. I can hear voices, coughing, and the sound of laughter. Someone is singing. I know that song; it is La Délaissàdo, a song which tells about a shepherdess waiting up there above the woods for the one she loves, who does not come: