“Not so much as this war, Monsieur von Weidenfeld!” “I feel as you do, Mademoiselle Henner. I’ve lost both my sons, you see. Killed in Russia. I was there myself. I lost my leg on the battlefield…and my health, as you can see…”
“I’m very sorry” I whisper, having suddenly no voice left.
“I also lost my wife, just before the outbreak of war. It was better so - at least she died before witnessing the madness of it.”
He goes back to the little cupboard, he must do it often. He fills both our glasses. I don’t touch mine, he drinks his off at one go. I put my glass on his desk, go to the piano and open it. I sit down preparing myself to give this man so deeply scarred by ‘the madness of this war’ the most precious gift I can think of offering him at this moment. I play a Chopin Prelude… for him alone.
He puts his head in his hands and lets the tears flow down his hollow cheeks.
We talked till dusk surprised us both. He told me about his life as a soldier, his setbacks, his lost illusions, his present work - which he hates. Before the war he taught French literature at the University of Tübingen. He had published a book on Mallarmé. With the assistance of cognac, he told me much more. I was amazed to learn that like Gérard, he had met Jean-Paul Sartre before the war. But then, so did many intellectuals at the time. Because of his definitive book on Mallarmé, Sartre wanted to talk with him about the great poet they both loved. Their meeting took place at Sartre’s apartment, rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement. A friendship developed. Weidenfeld used to join Sartre at Le Caveau des Oubliettes, a Jazz club owned by one of Sartre’s many existentialist friends. The musicians, six of them, were natives from the Martinique. Weidenfeld told me of those nights of heavy drinking, of excited, erotic Jazz sessions until the early hours of the morning, of philosophical discourse with Sartre presiding as usual over his admiring women and fervent disciples…the company oblivious to the daylight in the outside world because in the Caveau, daylight never entered.
I listened, won over by the forceful personality of this German scholar. Existentialism, obviously linked to Weidenfeld’s recollections of an exciting intellectual life in Paris on the left bank, took on an existential dimension for me, perhaps, or rather because, he was German and I could sense the deep conflict his military life must have created in his being since the outbreak of the war.
I got up. He couldn’t, although trying to. We shook hands. He said: “Leave Clermont at once…St Pré is out to get you…he can do what he likes in here. When he does so I have no power to intervene!”
When I arrive home I go no further than the entrance hall, a spacious square room where I am waiting for Flora and Nourse. She must have been waiting too at the surgery before the vet could see my dog, and I am beginning to worry. Would Flora risk arrest because of him? A German shepherd?
Can you see the black eagle, its eyrie now threatened, flying over our heads ready to pounce on us, tearing us to pieces with its murderous claws?
The wallpaper which supposedly decorates the wall of the entrance hall is covered with blue and pink flowers, with a border round the ceiling of dancing girls with garlands, holding hands. I notice them for the first time and find them utterly ridiculous. I stare at one of them to indulge in one of my favourite childhood games which consisted of staring, before I went to sleep, at a certain point in the tapestry and repeating my name: Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. I wanted to detach myself from everything I possessed, to forget family, school friends, people who came to the house, the whole of humanity. I wanted to enter an invented existence. As soon as I had achieved this state of isolation, as soon as my name had become “me”, with no ties, no memories, I felt a great dizziness. It was like falling into a deep gulf, dragging my name along with me in the fall. The sexual effect of this descent aroused the whole of my body. It lasted only a fraction of a second and was glorious.
I am no longer eight but twenty. I stare at the dancers on the wall, in vain. The faint light coming from the yard behind my apartment vanishes, in come the characters who have peopled my fervent daily life as a Maquisards. They interact as in a chemical solution to disappear without trace. So, was the whole experiment a failure? A loss without any possible gain?
I am reminded of Professor Baumgartner’s remark in one of his first lecture to first year students; ‘La Chimie est la science du ôte-toi de là que j’ m’y mette’, translated: “Chemistry is the science of: Get out of your patch. Let me in!” and I wonder: have Baumgartner’s torturers precipitated him out of his patch to be then filtered out and thrown away as happens sometimes with unwanted precipitates? Are our Maquisards going to suffer the same fate? Am I? Though, come to think of it, my patch is so small and insignificant that I may be spared. Forgotten in the rush.
19.
The Return.
Flora has come back with Nourse who goes to lie under the table, tail down, tongue hanging out.
“It was your strawberries!” she tells me laconically. It seems to amuse her. She adds: “Do you want to know what the vet said about his mistress?”
“No!” In that case, only a note of warning: if you want to get rid of your dog give him plenty of strawberries!”
Flora my friend, you know I’m not quite myself these days…why torture me? But Flora looks amused, which reassures me somewhat.
“Has the vet given you some medicine?”
Flora puts on an air of mystery and says: “Ah, you just wait…” and she opens a parcel, slowly, and what do I see? Fresh, bright red horsemeat! She must have paid black market prices! I bend down to offer some to Nourse; too ill to get up, he lifts his head, then puts it down on the floor again. His taste for life has gone out of him.
Flora and I go into my room to have some charcoal tea, remember? It has been brewing in my samovar since our arrival. Flora wants to know how I got on at the Kommandantur. I tell her everything. I warn her she is in danger of being arrested as long as she stays with me. I cannot convince her. She leaves, singing rather than saying “I’ll come back in an hour”. I watch till she’s disappeared from sight, then I pack in a hurry and steal out of the apartment like a thief, through the back door which leads to the lock-up-garages. I make my way towards the station with Nourse trailing behind me, panting, looking at me with incomprehension.
When I get to the station I telephone Raboullet:
“I’m coming,” I say.
“Where are you going to sleep?” He sounds nervous. “At Clairefontaine”.
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
“We’re getting visitors. Plenty of them” he says.
“Too bad,” I say, “but please, tell Jean to stay at the bothy. He won’t disturb me. Be sure to tell him!”
“I’ve got a better idea…leave it to me.” And then he says: “I’m pleased, lass. When will you arrive?”
“Ten to eight.”
“Right. I’ll be there.”
I say: “No, please no!” But he has hung up.
At the station I mingle with the crowd until the train is due in case I’ve been followed. I’m holding Nourse on a tight leash, pulling him forward. He is trying to resist.
* * *
20.
A Journey to Hades.
I’m shivering. Hell! I’m running a high temperature. That’s it. I’m ill, my teeth are chattering…if only I can hold out till I get to the Mont Dore! I must sit down or I’ll faint. I make my way to the buffet to get a hot drink. I put my dog on a tight leash, not as much for his sake as for mine.
The train arrives at the platform. I stop in front of the first compartment trying to push Nourse in front of me. He is scared of those high steps which have him falling backwards. Someone behind me pushes us both into the compartment with brute force, swearing. I collapse in an empty seat, have to get up again. It’s taken. The train is overcrowded. Back to standing in the corridor. Nourse lets out a yell; someone stepped on his paw.
It’s a journey to the underworld. I want to d
ie.
Someone helps me to open the large window. I lean out. I want to jump. Nourse holds me back by shifting closer to me.
Help! I walk along a few compartments, begging for a seat. Faces turn the other way. The war has changed humans into animals I tell myself. I try to half sit in the corridor. I am pushed out of the way by ill tempered passengers.
Raboullet is at the station. He helps me down from the train, gets hold of my rucksack. Without him I would have collapsed on the platform. I say: “My dog!”
He says: “He’s here, dont worry. Can you walk? Lean on me… cart’s not far away, I’ll take you home.” I think I said something like “No,don’t…they are after me”.
I am hallucinating. I don’t remember what followed. I had fainted.
I am sleeping in the attic of a building that Raboullet intended to pull down before the war. This attic must have served as a love nest for him. The bed is large and comfortable, there’s a jug and basin, next to the bed a chamber pot of respectable proportion.
I have been delirious for three days. Raboullet has never left me all that time. My temperature has dropped thanks to the large doses of quinine he has administered. He forces me to drink enormous quantities of water. He empties my chamber pot, he applies compresses to me with water he fetches from a well nearby.
He sleeps fully dressed on the large bed beside me, wiping my forehead from time to time. He gets up several times in the night to change my nightshirt. I wear his coarse linen ones which smell of lavender.
On the fourth day,(I think it was), my temperature is down but I am very weak indeed. I ask: “Have you news of Savignole?” He replies: “That can wait.”
I say: “You’re keeping something from me, I know! I can see it on your face.” He says: “Not at all! I haven’t been up to Savignole, so how could I know?”
The liar! Is he trying to spare me? Is the news that bad? I start shouting, I’ve got to know…it’s my right… it’s my people, my comrades, my…
Raboullet calms me down with cold compresses and gentle kisses. I am touched by this man’s happiness. My world has been reduced to the limits of the attic and I’m still too weak to insist with authority on hearing the news from outside it. I can only guess. Raboullet tries to cheer me up; he tells me that his wife is looking after my dog who has recovered and eats like a horse. “Is he missing me?” I ask. “No” is his answer. I don’t believe him.
Is Clément missing me? I dare not ask such a naive question…
Next day Raboullet is away during the daytime. He comes back at dusk, looking serious. He helps me out of bed “to exercise your little paws,” he says. He holds me by the shoulders, then draws me to him. He says softly in my ear: “Gérard is dead. Suicide. The Boche arrested him near Chambon. It seems he slipped something into his mouth and fell dead at their feet. Monsieur Vallette is alone at Savignole with young Francis. The others fled to the south on Monsieur Clément’s orders. He got the personal message he was waiting for. Things work now” he says. “Be strong, lass, it had to end like that!”
Raboullet makes me lie down again, and lies down beside me drying my tears. He waits for me to calm down, holding me tight against him. He wants more. He’s getting it.
I feel a little stronger to-day. I want to join Clément and Francis. Raboullet has gone. When he returns I see he has been drinking. He says: “Monsieur Vallette’s personal message …it says A friend is coming to-night, ten o’clock. Do you know what that means? It means that that friend of his is going to land on my poor sugar beets, just sowed… that ‘s what it means!” He is obviously creating a distraction. I guess something far worse is bothering him. He sits on the edge of the bed, puts his head in his hands, bent double. And here it comes at last: “The militia… they’re everywhere…they’re looking for you…you and your dog… they’ve been to the farmhouse asking questions…with two of the Gestapo…I saw them coming…in the distance…and so…and so…I took my gun…your dog…It’s all over! “ He stumbles against the door and staggers out.
I wish I were dead. But I’ve no cyanide pills.
Raboullet returns in the afternoon. He brings me a vest and a béret which used to belong to Louisette, a poor girl from a hamlet nearby. He explains that she died of tuberculosis about a week ago, that her death has not yet been registered, that she was simple… she used to watch the sheep… she looked something like me. He’s rubbed some oil over the photograph on her identity card. He makes an effort to sound reasonable: “It’s in case tha’s arrested. They are everywhere, like hunters on the watch. Act stupid if they ask questions. Say tha’s lost a sheep, and tha’s looking for it…whimp, don’t talk…she only talked our dialect…”
Raboullet ties a big shawl round my head “to hide thy sweet adorable face”. He is so moving, and I love the softness in him. He takes a flask out of his pocket, looks at me and says “Do you want some to give you heart?”
I shake my head. He drinks, and drinks, solitary as the spectre in Verlaine’s Park, Solitaire et glacé…
It’s nine o’clock.Time for us to part. Raboullet hands me my bundle (I have had to discard my rucksack)…my bundle which carries my story. I look for my dog. He’s gone. Raboullet killed him. Raboullet…he tries to keep pace with me, he cannot quite manage it.”Go!” he says. I make my way to the sugar beet field. I turn round several times…it’s horrible…he staggers…drunk…desperate. He gives up, raises his hand and falls at the foot of a tree. I can’t see him any more. I must go on.
Clément, I am coming to you! I love you!
At the edge of the wood which surrounds the beet field. I wait for Clément and Francis and for the plane which will take us to England. The night is dark, a drizzle falls on Louisette’s rain jacket.
I hear gunshots… coming nearer and nearer …
21.
The Fairground.
The vigour of youth! It is granted… granted by the Almighty, promised… wished for by the mother-to-be in intimate dialogue with her infant not yet born, her infant without as yet a place of his own but with the gifts he already possesses, unknown to her as yet. She will give her infant the strength to bring them forth.
In these dark despairing hours my Mamoshka is beside me, I talk to her. I am sliding back into childishness. I want to live. Yes, I can feel the to-ings and fro-ings of my breath under my ribs, the pulsations of my arteries throbbing under the skin of my wrist, a proof beyond philosophical doubt that I am young and alive. Alive and fighting for my freedom, an abominable freedom willed by me and me alone.
I start to move, expecting to be followed by Clément and Francis. I run, stumble, get up again, turn round, lose sight of Clément - my love - and of Francis. I retrace my steps as best I can in the blackness of the night, rain getting heavy, bullets fired at us incessantly by the militia under their Vichy commander, I can hear him giving orders like a maniac to his men, the lot of them well hidden behind an incline, safe as they’d be at the funfair’s shooting gallery aiming at passing ducks, here shooting at the human ducks made visible by the lugubrious blue light of the flares sent up by young Francis …one …two …three, in succession, changing night into day for a few seconds to indicate our position to a Lysander circling the field. …a fatal mistake!
Clément and Francis fall on the water-logged earth, riddled with bullets. The kids at the funfair miss me - that last damned duck to disappear behind the screen. Meanwhile they reload their rifles. Better luck next time. Ready? Ready! The shooting starts again, ferocious, unremitting. I am condemned to death. I throw myself to the ground, bury my head in the dank earth, breathe into it, swallow some of it. I am desperate to protect my head. I cover it with my hands. The shooting goes on and on till no more ammunition is left. The party’s over. I can hear a voice, joined by others. Orders are given to return to base. I hear the hubbub of excited children slowly receding into the distance, their cries of triumph striking me like poisoned arrows. I lay flat and motionless on the bed of earth.
; For how long I was buried I’ll never know. All I know, however, and remember because of recurring nightmares …is me, crawling back to Clément and Francis, hardly lifting my head to find the direction where they fell, bumping against Francis, his head first then his chest with its holes, blood trickling out of flesh so young as I called “Francis, c’est moi! “… abandoning him now in search of Clément. No point in crawling anymore. I get up, I call “Clément!” Like the blind I rely on sensations, pause a while for signs of life. None. I stumble over rising ground. I stretch my arms in desperation for some kind of recognition. I bend. My hands touch Clément’s boots.
I cover his dead body with mine. A groan coming out of me brings the life of our love to a close.
* * *
Something is moving overhead, I can hear the vrooming noise of an engine. It’s the Lysander! Back again, trying once more to land (now that all is quiet on the sugar-beet front) its beacon darting over the patch on which it has chosen to land. It is picking us up as the omelette flambée personal message promised it would.
Us! Oh, good grief ! Should I apologize on behalf of Clément and Francis who couldn’t quite make it to the rendez-vous?
The plane bounces like a ball over the rough uneven ground, tearing the young shoots of beet and sending them into the air with clumps of the good fertile earth which was to nourish them. Then it skids and stops, engine still running, ready for take- off. The door opens, I see the pilot’s earphones and those of the navigator before I can see their faces.
Only a hundred yards separate me from my rescuers. I fall twice on the way, a third time just in front of that open door. The pilot (Flight Lieutenant Brian Marsh, as he introduced himself later) helps me inside. His navigator shakes hands with me and shows me the bench. I throw myself on it, murmur “Thank you …thank you …sorry about this” (I gesture at the mud on my face and Louisette’s soiled jacket, acting as if it were not me, my vanity still alive. Incredible!). Before shutting the door, Brian Marsh asks:
A Packhorse Called Rachel Page 13