by John Harris
That night, as they listened to the BBC, the older men came again. Urquhart suspected that, like Lionel Dring, they came as much as anything to look at Marie-Claude. Because of the curfew, they sneaked across the fields, leaving their homes by the back doors and slipping over walls.
The radio was an old one, and under the Occupation it was impossible to replace. From time to time the sound disappeared entirely and Madame Lamy had to rise, her Rs rolling thunderously as she complained about the Germans, to give it a thump with her fist to bring it back to life.
It had been behaving particularly badly this night and she was attacking it with vigour when the door clicked. As Marie-Claude went to answer it, Reinach poked his head round the corner into the hall and withdrew it, grinning his toothless grin.
‘It’s Patricia,’ he whispered to Urquhart. ‘Patrice de Frager, the Baron. He likes to think he’s the symbol of the Resistance round here and prowls round at night, sometimes to Rolandpoint to see a girl, sometimes to St Seigneur, sometimes just to prove to himself that he can.’
The boy who entered was no more than nineteen, smoothfaced with fine dark eyes and a high thin nose. He was beautifully dressed in a shooting jacket and velour hat, and everyone stood up respectfully as he appeared. He didn’t waste time.
‘The German colonel’s looking for the pictures,’ he announced. ‘My great-grandmother’s worried.’
‘So she should be,’ Marie-Claude said. ‘So should we all be.’
Father Pol shifted uncomfortably. ‘Me,’ he said, ‘I’m fat, myopic, unfit and lazy.’
‘It makes no difference.’
‘My child, I know that and I’m ashamed. I’m even indifferent to comfort and cleanliness and I’m probably not even a good servant of God. But I’m an ex-soldier and a good hater of the Germans, and sometimes I wish the organ pipes in the church were the barrels of a multiple pompom.’
‘It’s a pity we can’t infiltrate them,’ Marie-Claude said, her voice suddenly thin and bitter. ‘As they infiltrate the Resistance. My fiancé was killed because they had a tip-off and, because I was engaged to him and they thought I might be carrying messages for them, they took me to Gestapo headquarters in Dijon and I was forced to strip while they examined my clothes. They didn’t even give me a blanket to put round me and I had to stand there naked in front of all those grinning men.’ Her face was pink with shame and hatred, and she spoke with an angry desperation, her mind stiff with memories of twisted motor bikes and burned cars and fragments of bone among scorched helmets and broken weapons, and a sickly-sweet smell that was like nothing else on earth.
Reinach’s eyes glinted. ‘We got the man who betrayed them,’ he growled. The St Seigneur and Rolandpoint réseaux caught his car. It stank of women and perfume and he had a tart with him and plenty of money. They were both informers and when he tried to run for it he was shot down. It was Brisson from Rolandpoint who did it. When the woman grabbed Brisson’s clothes, he put his hands behind him so he wouldn’t have to touch her, and she was pleading for her life when someone blew away the back of her head.’
No one said anything for a moment and Neville realised just how savage life had become in France. The Luftwaffe over London, the telegrams that came to the homes of the dead, the nightly losses of bomber command, all seemed strangely impersonal compared with this.
‘There’s one of the Germans who has his eye on Euphrasie Doumic, my mother’s maid,’ de Frager suggested and Reinach smiled his empty smile.
That girl’s eyes have turned a few heads in their time,’ he said.
‘Not half as many as her behind,’ Madame Lamy rapped. ‘Tell her to encourage him.’
Father Pol gestured. ‘There’s one other,’ he said. ‘The Catholic officer, Tamera.’
‘Will he talk?’ Reinach asked. ‘If he will, then you have a duty to France.’
‘After my duty to God. I shall not be bound by what he says outside the Confessional, but what is said inside is between him and me.’
They seemed lost and bewildered, yearning to do something to prove they were men and Frenchmen, but unable to bring themselves to a point of action.
‘They’re born victims,’ Urquhart growled when they’d gone.
Marie-Claude turned on him at once. ‘With good reason! ‘ she flared. There’s hardly a family here that hasn’t lost one of its men. They tried but they had no experience and the Germans ambushed their group and shot twenty-five of them. We put red, white and blue ribbons on the grave, and later, when they were brought down for burial in the village, there were hundreds of mourners and a tricolour on the tomb. A German officer tore it down and said that they were gangsters and pigs, and that we’d abused their generosity.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Generosity! Mother of God!’ She drew a deep shuddering breath, caught by her own inflamed pride. ‘Last year they tried again. A few young men who’d managed to escape from Germany; a few who’d come from North Africa. Another agent came with another radio and again they got weapons. But the Gestapo caught one of their messengers - a boy of seventeen. They castrated him like a young boar to get information. They were all taken up to Mont St Amarin and shot. Every one of them.’
There was a long aching silence that Neville tried to break. ‘And now?’ he asked.
She turned on him sharply. ‘After that do you expect any “now”?’ she snapped, ‘There can’t be. There’s nothing left.’
6
Colonel Klemens was irritated. He was well established now in Néry. The chateau was well run by Unterofficer Schäffer and a staff of four, one of whom. Corporal Goehr, the cook, was making eyes at Euphrasie, the Baronne’s maid; while the young Baron was stiff and polite without being friendly -except when he wanted a little extra petrol. Klemens knew he used it to visit girls and he gave it grudgingly because it was beginning to occur to him that somehow someone had put something across him, and he was beginning to grow annoyed. Sitting at the Baronne’s dining table, flicking at his shining boot toes with his crop, he stared at the Baronne in a chair opposite, with Balmaceda’s ancient frame drooping alongside her, as thin and dried up under his sagging clothes as she was herself, and just as ridiculous with the dark toupee that made a match with her hennaed hair.
I’ve been round this house,’ Klemens was saying angrily. ‘I’ve studied every painting and artifact in it. And I’ve decided that for a family as great and old as this one, there’s remarkably little here of any value.’
The Baronne shrugged. ‘We were never wealthy.’
Klemens frowned. ‘My information’s different,’ he said. ‘My information is that your husband put his wealth into the soil. He bought land in the Jura and property in Dijon and other places.’
‘Which -’ the Baronne sniffed - ‘at the moment brings in nothing. The land in the Jura has been taken over by your army, much of our property has been sequestrated, while our vineyards south of Dijon have had to be sold to raise money.’
Klemens frowned. No one spoke. Standing with Klein-Wuttig, Tarnera hated the baiting of the old woman. He had a feeling that Klemens hated it too. He was a good-natured man under the surface, likeable and harmless and with a weakness for young women; but, like so many other Wehrmacht officers in France, a grabber with one eye on the future.
Klemens nicked at a speck of dust on his trousers and tried again. ‘I also understand that your husband put a lot of money into paintings which, as you know, madame, are always a good investment.’
The Baronne said nothing, staring at Klemens without really seeing him. It was something she’d trained herself to do. The Germans were like the dung on the road through the village. It was there but one didn’t comment on it. Klemens stared back at her with a look of baffled anger. ‘You’re not being very helpful, madame,’ he said bitterly.
She gave a bark of laughter. It sounded like the squawk of an ancient parrot ‘You’re an optimist if you think any good Frenchwoman would ever help you,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t. I’m not the Vicomtesse de la Chatt
el at Bourg.’
Klemens glared. There’s nothing in this place,’ he snorted. ‘Nothing! These “treasures” we see around us are village treasures. Vases from cottages. Paintings from farmhouses and the homes of retired bank managers and ex-officers. Of no value whatsoever, madame, because such people don’t have the sort of money that’s needed to buy real treasures.’ He flicked at his boots again, trying to hang on to his temper. ‘I know this because General Dannhüber, who is now in Dijon, was once billeted here. In 1940, For several nights. He was a colonel then. Perhaps you’ll remember him.’
The Baronne’s eyes flashed. Despite her age, there were deep glowing fires behind them. ‘Since he stayed without an invitation,’ she snapped, ‘I’m not likely to forget him.’
Klemens lost his temper. ‘General Dannhüber’s a gentleman!’
‘He’s a German!’
Klemens managed to control himself. ‘General Dannhüber is a connoisseur and he didn’t see only rustic treasures! He saw things of value! He saw a Corot, a Fragonard, a Troyon and a Vigee Lebrun, to say nothing of several Nattiers and Daubignys and other things!’
The Baronne’s shoulders moved expressively and Klemens slapped the table.
‘Where are these Troyons and Fragonards and Daubignys?’ he snapped.
The Baronne drew a deep breath. ‘There were never Troyons and Fragonards and Daubignys.’
‘There was a Corot!’ Klemens indicated the painting over the fireplace. Round the frame there was an area of faded wall-paper.
‘There was a bigger painting hanging there until recently,’ he said. ‘It’s been taken away and that one put in its place. I’ve looked round this house. There are several places like that. Some are bigger. Some are smaller. You haven’t been clever enough, madame. Those are the places where the Corots and the Daubignys hung, aren’t they?’ He sat bolt upright. ‘Very well, where are they ?’
‘We sent a lot to the house in Nice.’
‘We’ve radioed Nice,’ Klein-Wuttig snapped. ‘We’ve had the house there checked. The paintings are all small. Where are the ones that hung here? The big ones.’
‘They were taken by the Germans,’
‘When?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘By my predecessor?’ Klemens asked. ‘By Colonel Marx?’
‘I can’t recall.’
‘I’ll try to refresh your memory.’ Klemens turned to Tarnera. ‘Send a signal to Colonel Marx, Tarnera. Ask him. He’s only at Nevers.’
May came and Neville began to grow impatient with waiting. Living in the country to Neville had always previously meant shooting, riding, fishing, walking and enjoying the views, while other people did the work. It didn’t include smelling like a stable or using his hands and his muscles to do backbreaking jobs, especially when Urquhart could shame him by doing them with much greater ease. He grew short-tempered, and what little help he gave about the farm was slap-dash and careless. Urquhart worked slowly and stolidly, finding he enjoyed using his hands again, and his efforts made an enormous difference. Things that had been flung down and left, because there’d never been time to pick them up and put them away, suddenly began to disappear; fences that had been broken for years became taut and strong again. To Urquhart, a quiet man, calm in his own self-dependence, the work he did mattered little. He’d always had to work hard.
Hössenfelder, the German orderly, continued to turn up, even occasionally sitting in the kitchen drinking wine with them and being sentimental about his home in Westphalia. They tried to hate him but even Marie-Claude found his simplicity hard to resent.
‘He loves the land,’ she said, puzzled. ‘And in this he’s not so different from my husband - nor from you, Urk’t.’
Urquhart’s foot finally healed and two nights after Dr Mouillet had pronounced him fit, when they returned from the fields to the house, there was a smell of cooking and the tang of garlic, and Marie-Claude was standing at the fireplace, dressed in her starched apron, stirring a shining brass cauldron. There were two bottles of wine on the table, and there seemed to be a new smell of wax and polish about the place. Madame Lamy was chopping large chunks of bread with a guillotine.
‘There is also an omelette,’ Marie-Claude announced with a beaming smile.
Madame Lamy spooned soup into a large dish and slammed it to the table. ‘Onion,’ she announced. ‘Very good for the digestion.’
Marie-Claude sat down as they ate, watching them with excited eyes. ‘Tomorrow we go into Rolandpoint,’ she said.
‘Who do?’
‘I do. And you do. We will take Hercule, the horse. He is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and came here in 1939, having walked all the way from the frontier. He will pull the trap and you will accompany me.’
Urquhart and Neville stared at each other then back at Marie-Claude. ‘Why?’
She sat back, her smile full of pleasure. ‘Because we’ve had a message,’ she said. ‘Arsène’s back and he’s offered to take you on the first leg of your journey.’
Neville beamed. ‘Where to?’
‘The Spanish frontier.’
Neville’s face fell. ‘Why not Switzerland?’ he demanded. ‘It’s nearer.’
‘And twice as dangerous,’ Marie-Claude said. ‘Everyone heads for Switzerland from here. It’s too well watched.’
Neville looked at Urquhart, wondering what he’d have to say, expecting anger. But Urquhart was smiling and he leaned across the table to kiss first Marie-Claude then Madame Lamy on the cheek. They seemed a little startled at this expression of pleasure from someone so undemonstrative and Madame Lamy slapped at him embarrassedly with her apron.
Marie-Claude sat still, watching him, a sudden lost look on her face. Outside, the twilight was descending like a grey veil, and Urquhart seemed to sense the sacrifice she was making for them.
‘There’ll be others,’ he encouraged. ‘Wait until the invasion. There’ll be millions of them. With bulldozers and tractors. They’ll make your farm like new.’
Next morning, accompanied by Elsie, they set off early for Rolandpoint. The trees were in leaf now and the muddy puddles had gone from the drive. Marie-Claude was in a gay mood, light-hearted and enthusiastic. ‘Soon it’ll be summer,’ she said. ‘And then the Free French will come’
Urquhart was wearing a pair of black trousers with a pin stripe in them which had belonged to Marie-Claude’s father, while Neville wore a black and white striped shirt and a black jacket over a pair of blue denim overalls. Both wore flat caps which they had pulled down over their eyes, only to have them pushed to the back of their heads again by Marie-Claude.
‘You look like gangsters,’ she had said sharply. ‘Remember you’re farm workers with nothing to be ashamed of.’
As they drove out of the village, the land, slow-curving and surprisingly warm in the sun, showed patches of young corn on the slopes, and along the road there were oats and young beet. Marie-Claude seemed completely in charge and they were both quite happy to let her run the show.
Rolandpoint was larger than Néry, a grey stone village with its main street winding down to the inevitable Grande Place. The Chemin des Chats, a narrow lane slightly higher, ran parallel to it behind the backs of the houses, and there were several intersecting lanes, all winding between the crooked buildings to link courtyards and alleys. The woods were always close, while the little narrow-gauge railway that brought timber from the forests above Néry ran through the street on its way to join the main line at St Seigneur.
It had a softer, mellower look about it than Néry. Down in the valley away from the higher ground, the stones were less worn, the tiles less faded, the timbers less warped by the weather. Summer was in the air, too, to add an extra benison of colour, with blossom out near the Grande Place and a hint of perfume in the air. Occasionally they passed groups of Germans on bicycles or on foot, and once an infantry platoon on the march. They were marching at ease and several of them smiled and waved. To Neville they didn’t look lik
e murderers or men without pity, but Marie-Claude showed no sign of even having seen them. Though her expression didn’t change, to her they were the enemy and there was no equivocation, no doubt, no half-measures in her hatred as she stared about her at the starved streets, the empty shops and the gazogene cars which ran on charcoal gas and had to be stoked up every few kilometres.
‘Everybody uses bicycles these days,’ she said. ‘They say Paris is like Hong Kong and in the Champs Elysées there are so few cars you can actually smell the fresh air.’
Women clattered past on wooden-soled shoes and, as they approached the Grande Place, they heard the high hooting of a lorry, aggressive and imperious. Two trucks passed them, moving at full speed so that the people in the roadway had to run for safety. They were Wehrmacht vehicles and Elsie immediately placed her paws on the side of the cart and barked furiously at them.
‘One of these days,’ Urquhart said, ‘one of them will shoot her.’
There were pictures everywhere of Pétain, the old man who was in control of France under the Germans, with notices giving instructions on how to send parcels to the Frenchmen who were still prisoners of war. Marie-Claude frowned but continued to chatter cheerfully.
‘You must always remember,’ she advised, ‘that in places like Rolandpoint there is one day with, and one day without.’
‘Without what?’
‘But alcohol, of course! You cannot buy it, and it’s possible for escaping fliers to give themselves away if they’re not aware of this. The people who live here, of course, know exactly whether it’s ‘with’ or ‘without’. They say it’s to conserve the country’s wine stocks but it’s obviously only going into German bellies. Even the collaborators hate it.’
She indicated a notice printed in red and black. ‘An S.S. announcement of the execution of Communists and men of the Maquis,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘They’re everywhere. Both the notices and the S.S. The Miliciens are the worst. They’re French and the scum of the jails, and they know how Frenchmen think and which questions to ask. You’re lucky to be leaving. For you, the hardest thing will be the walking. Just keep away from the cities, that’s all. The Germans are always worse in the cities. Under the surface, I think they’re really afraid of us and this is why they go in for terror and torture. It’s our strongest ally.’