The Children's War

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The Children's War Page 25

by Monique Charlesworth


  “You know Madame Renée?”

  “Everybody in Marseilles knows her. I’ve been to this house before. Often.” He was smiling. “Some good friends of mine come here a lot.”

  “Oh,” said Ilse. “And this is what you do?”

  “I do lots of things.”

  He was looking around the room, thinking whatever he thought. Then he was once more looking at her.

  “Do you have a photograph of him? Just as an aide-mémoire.”

  Ilse took out the silver frame, turned the little clasp at the back, carefully took out the glass and removed the photograph of the two young strangers. Who would recognise her father from this? She felt a strong urge to keep the little figure of her mother; because her parents stood with their arms entwined, there was no way of keeping one without losing a piece of the other.

  “I’ll return it, I promise,” he said. He studied the photograph. Then she dared to dart glances at him, the beautiful skin, his eyelashes, which were naturally dark.

  “What happened to your hair?”

  He turned and pulled back the fringe. She saw that the rim of hair at his scalp was growing through, half a centimetre that was almost white. He laughed. “I shall ask the girls to help me dye it. I look just like a German otherwise. Much too obvious.” He was already at the door, turning back. “It’s curious, when she told me about a father and daughter, I thought it might be you. You see, Mademoiselle, it was obviously meant to be that we should meet again.”

  The blush returned and did not fade for a long time.

  The commotion in the big room above hers started early. François lounged in the bar with his long legs propped up on a bar stool and flirted with the girls, who, fussing around him, were much nicer than their usual morning selves. There was something almost tender in the way the green eyes of La Petite rested on him. Sitting with a towel round his shoulders, waiting for the girl who knew hairdressing best, he read their fortunes.

  “You have a long life line. You’ll be ‘vieux singe.’57 But terrible trouble with the heart line. See where it splits here? And here? Three great loves or four. What a terrible flirt you are.”

  Ilse refused her hand. Evidently he did not remember. Evidently he said these special things to anyone.

  “What about children?”

  La Grande Louise was serious. For her he predicted six.

  “Oh, la pute,” said La Petite Louise.

  But La Grande was pleased. When the big girl smiled—and it happened so seldom that it was a surprise—she revealed wonderful white teeth, strong and regular. A girl Ilse did not know well, one with round bosoms falling out of her clothes, came in and took charge of the dyeing process. Marielle kept running her hands through François’s hair. She had been a hairdresser, but it did not pay so well. She said that they would use vinegar to set it. His problem was that the white halo encircling his head grew so fast. His skin, the pale colour of toffee, which Ilse could not stop staring at, was very smooth and clean-looking, especially when the dye the girl was putting on splashed and had to be rubbed off. When he talked to the girls and laughed with them, Ilse felt a strong burning sensation in her chest. She leant over and took a cigarette from La Petite, saying “I’m nearly fifteen” to deflect any looks, but then dared not light it for fear of coughing. While the dye took, he drew birds on a piece of paper.

  “Not bad,” said La Petite. The flock wheeled over the page as if at any moment it could leave the edge and fly away. The piece of paper passed from hand to hand. One of the girls dropped it as she grabbed a cigarette and it fluttered behind a sofa. Later Ilse crept back to retrieve it.

  She got out her good dresses, too tiny for her to squeeze into, and took them up to Pauline, who worked for Renée part-time. She was a seamstress by trade with a sewing machine at home. She cut the apple-green velvet to pieces, made a short-sleeved top and wide belt, and attached a black woollen skirt to it. She charged only a few francs. Working in a maison de passe,58 she said she could afford to be generous to her friends. Pauline talked all the time, even while she was kneeling in front of Ilse with a mouthful of pins, pinning up the hem. Her fiancé was a carpenter who came from a village outside Aix-en-Provence. As Ilse hemmed the skirt with tiny herringbone stitches and pressed it carefully, she wondered what the villagers would make of Pauline’s silk stockings and lace blouses. The girls said that the new dress made Ilse look much older, that it was good enough for a party dress. She scoffed, then, because they were right, dared not wear it. Every day she put on an old hand-me-down skirt and blouse of Renée’s that were both much too large.

  The soles of her shoes had separated from the uppers so many times that the cobbler could no longer stitch them together. They were like a tramp’s shoes, disgraceful shapeless things. The girls clattered noisily along the cobblestones in high wooden platforms. Even with coupons they were very expensive and impossible to walk in. In return for the amber silk, which she had taken a fancy to, La Grande Louise was persuaded to give Ilse her low-heeled black pair, which fitted very well. The clever hands of Pauline transformed the silk into a low-cut evening blouse for the big girl.

  Two more weeks passed and still there was no news. Unable to settle to read or think, she paced in her room. It occurred to her that François might visit the brothel at night and see Renée without thinking of her. At eleven o’clock in the evening, when the army boots were coming up the stairs and business would be brisk, she looked through the wardrobe, took out her new dress. Pirouetting slowly in front of the glass in her room, she saw that the girls had been right. Her breasts were prominent when she pulled the belt tight. She had a waist, now, and hips. Though she was still thin, she looked like a woman. She pulled up her hair and caught a sudden oblique view of her mother. She undid her two plaits and brushed her hair hard. It crinkled up across her shoulders, but nothing could be done about that. Red hair was a terrible curse. She gazed at herself critically in the glass and found herself wondering whether some lipstick would improve her appearance. Well, she had none. She pinched her cheeks, to draw a little blood into them. That way, she did not look quite so deathly pale. With a sudden inspiration, she took out her box of treasures and pinned her mother’s brooch to the dress, a talisman to protect her. She drew back the bolt, then pulled the door to behind her.

  The noise was the first thing, the surge of music and voices as a door opened and a man clattered down the stairs, brushing past her. She went up slowly. The bar was dense with smoke and noise. Pauline came out arm in arm with a soldier who was fondling her breasts and neck, a very young man.

  “Are you going to stay all night, my chéri?” she kept repeating to him. She made big round eyes at Ilse as they went on up the stairs. The young man nodded. Halfway up the stairs he stopped, fumbled in his pocket and got a wallet out, then dropped it. Pauline picked it up and started counting his money. There was a picture in it, Ilse saw: a girl, probably his sweetheart. He had not had as much to drink as some of the others. Providing the men were not belligerent, the girls liked them drunk, for then they were more generous, more likely to want to sleep there and that meant that they paid more. They had to pay in advance. La Petite made them wash first and then charged them extra for using her soap.

  Ilse went to the doorway. The bar was very full. German soldiers were sitting on the high stools pulled up to the counter; some were lounging with the girls in groups on the low sofas. One was singing “Lili Marlene” over and over. Some men just sat and drank and looked. They could be persuaded into ordering champagne. It was drink that made Renée most of her money. There were one or two civilians there too in ordinary clothes—“mes petits collabos,”59 as La Petite called them. There was no sign of her, nor of François. The girls looked pretty, she thought, in their slips or décolleté dresses with plenty of makeup on. She noticed that La Grande was wearing “her” blouse; the big girl glanced at her, but made no sign.

  “Liebst du mich? Liebst du mich?”60 one of the drunken soldiers kept saying.
Because she knew the girls and understood German it was simultaneously familiar and strange. Paul, the barman, stood with his muscular back turned, his head lowered. Raymond’s big brother, “the ox,” was not as kind as his little brother, “the calf.” She could see his wrinkled forehead, grimacing, in the ornate mirror behind. A crate of wines from the cellar sat on the bar and he was unloading bottles onto ice. Any minute now he would turn back towards the room; if he saw her, the game would be up.

  Ilse sped up to the floor with the pink roses: standard price. At night, these floors where the girls worked were all forbidden territory to her. She looked down a narrow corridor with four doors; one was open a crack. She heard grunting. It was partitioned inside like a dormitory with four beds separated by walls that did not reach the ceiling. The distant bed was occupied. Ilse took a step forward and peeped warily into the room. The tangled bodies on the bed were all knees and white buttocks. Worried that the man was François, she took one more step, then saw the dark pelt on his back. There was a heavy footfall on the stair; another couple was coming up. She fled up to the next storey where the roses on the paper were yellow, the expensive floor with four separate rooms where some men stayed all night. She saw a toothbrush in a glass on the windowsill; a fire in a grate. The light flickering on the walls made this room look homely. A man came out into the corridor, middle-aged, a moustache, braces on a bare chest, smelling of garlic, holding a bottle. His bald head was shiny and looked as hard as stone. “Hola! Hola!” he kept saying.

  The bartender, Paul, almost filled the corridor. Behind him was Renée, hard-eyed and furious, hissing, “Salope!”61 Ilse hurried down the stairs with the big woman—so nimble—behind her.

  At the next landing, Renée caught onto her arm. “Have you gone mad?”

  She shook her off, plunged down the stairs. At her curtain, fumbling to draw it back, she was not quick enough.

  Renée slammed and bolted the door behind them. She looked her up and down, took in the slight disorder of cotton stockings crumpled where they fell, the cardboard box with its lid askew. “What the hell were you doing up there, all dressed up?”

  She did not know what to say.

  “Were you thinking of offering yourself?” Her manner was icy.

  She shook her head.

  “What would your father say to this?”

  Ilse went over to the table, picked up the cards and sat down. With bravado she started to lay out the pack. She could hardly breathe. “Well,” she said, “it’s a brothel.”

  Renée came forward and leant over the table. Ilse laid a second layer of cards onto the first. Abruptly, Renée lifted a hand and slapped her on one cheek, a slap so stinging and hard that she fell off the chair. She lay on the floor, winded. Determined not to make a sound, she waited for the door to close behind Renée. She got up, then, and bolted it from the inside. As soon as she lay in the bed, in her usual position, a great anguish rose up in her. Her cheek pulsated. She swallowed her upset and fury, forcing them down like some solid substance that stuck in the throat but had to be absorbed.

  In the morning, without makeup, Renée looked old. In the kitchen doorway, hesitating to go in, Ilse realised that she no longer sang in the mornings. She had disliked the sound of her happiness; now she missed it.

  “What did you think you were doing last night?”

  “Looking for François.”

  “Ah,” said Renée.

  “It’s not anything like that,” said Ilse. “How could you think that? It’s because of Vati.”

  The corners of Renée’s mouth turned down in that way she had, which made her seem proud and cruel when really she was neither. She lit another cigarette. She smoked a lot these days. The silence stretched on, was the length of the ash that grew to a centimetre and a half and slipped off, a worm on the floor.

  “François will tell us when he finds Otto. Ilse, sit, what did your father tell you about men?”

  Of all the conversations she might have had with her father, this was the least likely.

  “Did he tell you anything about growing up?”

  “Good girls remain virgins. I know all that. Don’t worry, I know about sex. I’ve learnt a lot from the girls.” It was true. Ilse knew what a capote anglaise62 was; she had long ago asked what the special jug they douched with was for.

  “You poor girl.” Renée shook her head. “I suppose it’s not a father’s job.” She took a lump of sugar, dropped it in the bowl and poured coffee. She added milk. The coffee was real and smelt delicious. There was only saccharine in the cafés and cups of café national, with the terrible burnt-grain taste. Even the girls only had a brown mass of stuff, confiture de sucre de raisin.63 She held the bowl out. Ilse savoured the taste. “I want you to understand what my girls have in common. They’re all naive. A degree of self-deception is required in a whore. You are too knowing for such work.”

  “I know nothing,” Ilse said. “I haven’t been near a school for two years. Not since I was thirteen.”

  “You are ignorant, of course. Very ignorant. But you are not naive.” Ilse found nothing to say. “I’ll get some books for you. I should have done that before. You should study more. It’s what your father wants for you, a better life than this. Ilse, you have to forgive me. We’re stuck with each other, we must get on.”

  “Forgive you? What for?” She pretended not to understand.

  “For falling for your father.”

  “Oh. That.” She was squirming.

  “Look, it surprised me too. Do you mind it so very much?”

  “Why should I?” Of course she minded.

  “Sometimes things happen. That we should even meet—who can explain it?”

  “I knew—I mean, I know that he cares for you,” Ilse said, loathing herself.

  The big woman smiled. “I lost my mother and then you came along, you and your father,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “The good Lord sent you to me. Let me be a kind of mother to you, just for this time.”

  This, as much as anything else that had been said, made her feel sick and angry. Nobody could replace her mother. She would never be a daughter to anyone else. “I’m going to make my first communion soon,” said Ilse abruptly. She was desperate to change the subject.

  Towards evening, Renée placed a box of books in her room: cheap paperbacks, detective stories with lurid covers, Westerns and love stories. Among them was a Bible with a white leather cover and silver book-mark. Where did she get such things? Nothing was ever delivered to the front door; objects just appeared in the house.

  Raymond, sitting in La Petite’s room, laughed and swirled the blanket like a conjuror’s cape until La Petite made him stop. “I’m your conjuror. Appearing by magic. Have you never wondered how I get here?”

  Everyone in Marseilles knew that most houses in the Vieux Port were connected through the cellars. They formed a network of tunnels, a honeycomb of connections smugglers had used for centuries to evade customs. Now they hid black market goods or people.

  “So François could come that way?”

  “Has to. He’s getting too well known around here to risk anything else.” Then he clammed up and would say no more.

  Her private baptism took place in La Sainte Trinité. Ilse found herself thinking intensely and without pain about her mother. She was very sure that her mother would have approved. Four days later she made her first communion. The priest had arranged for her to receive the body and blood of Christ with four other girls. They were all younger than she was, thirteen to her nearly fifteen, but the same height or even taller. She had invited Renée, who staggered her on the morning of the event by presenting her with a white dress and satin shoes. In these clothes she looked exactly like the other girls. It was Renée, too, who understood the importance of getting a photographer to record the occasion. It was a solemn and beautiful moment. All five girls were photographed on the steps of the church. Ilse was intensely happy that the Church had accepted her. Afterwards one of the fat
hers of the girls came up to Ilse and shook her hand and congratulated her on the generosity of her aunt. It seemed that she had offered to pay for the incense, which was a great luxury. Wearing her white dress, Ilse and Renée walked back to the brothel hand in hand. She hid away the precious baptism and communion certificates. When the church photograph came, it filled the silver frame. That in itself was a blessing.

  There was a smell of spring. The old men who sold stumpy winter logs now offered dense bundles of twigs, which made the fire in Renée’s grate flare up brightly. This was the epicormic growth Albert had told her about, the old shoots harvested from the lime trees before the new growth started. He had needed to prune and shape his text in just the same way before more could be grown. Aimlessly, she wandered around town. In Paris, at Saint-Sulpice, a blade of light inched towards the place where the priest would stand to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord. Her feet, following their own devices, circled round the Boulevard Dugommier. New letters kept being chalked on walls. First there had been “V” for Victoire. Then the authorities had started adding on a “P” for Vive Pétain. Madame Dumont tapped the wall outside the bar where “VH” was scrawled in chalk. Beaming, she whispered, “Vive l’honneur.64 The BBC said to write it.”

  The son who worked in the customs house had given her a wonderful radio set made by the American Radio Corporation that picked up every transmission, even those from London. “Come upstairs one evening and listen to Claude Dauphin,” she said.

  “I will, soon.” She had never once heard the famous broadcaster. She decided that she would go next week, on her birthday, which nobody knew about. That would give her something to look forward to.

  The day of her birthday, a chill wind blew. She could hardly expect anyone to know that the day was special when she had not told them, but the sameness of things was depressing nevertheless. Heading for Madame Dumont’s, she was near the tramlines when someone grabbed her from behind. She buckled and nearly fell. François spun her round the other way, back towards the Vieux Port. She struggled to keep up with his long legs.

 

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