A Girl Called Flotsam

by John Tagholm

  There was late warmth this autumn and Beatrice enjoyed the slow walk across to Buttes Chaumont. The more she walked, the surer she became, replaying her conversations with Marguerite Fourcas, mentally stopping and rewinding, going over her statements as she might in a cutting room. Eventually she had isolated several key statements, a second sifting of history, first as delivered by the old woman and now laid bare for re-examination. Marguerite was waiting, the coffee tray neatly prepared and biscuits on a china plate. What Beatrice was about to do would upset this neat order unless, of course, Marguerite refused to speak at all. The autumn sunlight, low in the sky over the park, was spilling into the room through the shuttered window and dancing on the far wall.

  ‘So, what news do you bring me?’ Marguerite’s voice was bright and expectant and she held her coffee cup in front of her waiting for Beatrice’s response before taking her first sip.

  ‘I know who Joseph’s father is.’

  Without taking her eyes off Beatrice, the older woman raised the cup to her lips.

  ‘I’ve just come back from Germany where I read perhaps the last letter that Odile wrote to him.’

  Again, Marguerite’s response was neutral, which was no more than Beatrice expected.

  ‘She had a loving relationship with this man until the end, it appears. His end, that is. He was killed in action in the Ardennes. But I think you know most of this.’

  The rectangles of light continued to play on the wall, in amongst the small pictures and curios. Marguerite put down her cup and walked over to the window and adjusted the blind.

  ‘I think you knew Odile before the war,’ Beatrice said quietly, pausing to drink her coffee and watch Marguerite return to her seat and settle herself. ‘And you knew full well who Odile was seeing, didn’t you? There was no American journalist, was there?’

  Marguerite took another sip of coffee, wiping her mouth with one of the white linen napkins she had laid carefully on the tray. When she looked up at Beatrice it wasn’t to speak but as a cue for Beatrice to continue.

  ‘It is difficult to open old wounds and what I have to say next…’ Beatrice hesitated, feeling her way forward ‘…will be painful. I am not certain when your son died, whether it was before or after Joseph was born. In a way, though, it makes no difference. I’m sorry about his death, but more sorry about its consequences.’

  Marguerite held up her hand and Beatrice stopped and watched as she unclipped her handbag to take out a handkerchief which she rested against her nose. ‘It was after. Go on.’

  ‘You knew that Odile was seeing Sebastian Traugott, who worked at the German embassy and when Joseph was born I think you helped Odile. I think you admired her, am I right?’

  The old woman, still holding the handkerchief to her face, nodded.

  ‘But then came the loss of your child and the invasion. What happened next is so easy to understand, the atrocities committed by the Germans and yet, downstairs, the product of a liaison between a French Jew and a German. The unfairness was too great for you to take.’

  Marguerite had dropped her head and now both hands held the handkerchief to her mouth. ‘Whether you betrayed Odile directly, or accidentally, I don’t know but the results were the same. She was one of the women you so clearly described to me, shorn and humiliated. You saw it happen, you made it happen. I have seen a picture of Odile, shaved and the object of derision.’ Beatrice stood and walked over to the woman whose shoulders were shaking, even though she was making no sound. She knelt down and put her arm around the crying woman who now seemed to have diminished in front of her and become her age. ‘I’m sorry Marguerite.’ She watched the old woman’s tears drip on to her skirt, the stain spreading across her thighs. ‘What happened next, I don’t know, but I’m going to guess. Odile went to jail, Fresnes perhaps, and you looked after Joseph, a strange period of joy for you. Joseph was nine, old enough to know what was taking place. Odile should never have been imprisoned but her affair with a German embassy official condemned her to an even longer stay. By the time she came out, Joseph was older and, I don’t know, when confronted with the situation found it too much.’

  ‘He fled. Fled. So young.’ She issued these statements between sobs, hardly able to speak. ‘He despised us both. It is all my fault. Odile never forgave me and Joseph never forgave her. My fault. My fault.’

  Beatrice found herself crying, in sympathy, in anger, it was impossible to separate the two emotions. Does history record emotion, the impossible dilemmas faced by women like Marguerite, she asked feeling the bony shoulders of the old woman? They remained silent for several minutes before Marguerite balled up the handkerchief and rose awkwardly to her feet. She walked slowly to the dresser and from a cardboard folder in one of the drawers extracted a photograph, which she handed to Beatrice. It showed a young boy in shorts standing between Odile and Marguerite. They were all smiling and in her arms Marguerite was holding a baby in a white shawl.

  ‘The war had yet to begin. This was the last moment of happiness in my life. I have had a long time to regret what I did. I have wasted half a century. Make your film. I cannot suffer any more.’

  Beatrice let herself out of the apartment, still feeling the tears in her eyes and the weight on her chest of contained emotion. In some ways she wanted to shout at Marguerite and condemn her for destroying the relationship between a mother and son, but what good would it do? She had lost her own son and her judgement had been impaired. Why had the two women carried on living so close together? Was it their terrible shared history that made them inseparable? Marguerite was to die soon and with her would have gone the truth of what had happened. Would it ever have been discovered? Beatrice now carried this vital piece of personal history and she knew that it was her job to hand it on, but not in the way she had first expected.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘You sound exhausted. It was true, wasn’t it?’

  She was lying on her bed, back in the hotel, her body empty and bruised, having decided to stay another night after all and glad to be hearing Harry’s voice for she knew that he would understand the impact of what she had just been through with Marguerite.

  ‘Yes, it’s so sad and in some ways it is hard to blame her. In some ways she can be excused for what she did.’ She had told Harry the day before about her feeling that Marguerite might have known Odile longer than she admitted and that, following the loss of her son, may have become so jealous as to betray her friend.

  ‘Do you think Joseph knows?’

  ‘I’m sure he does. He’s been watching me from the start, almost amused at my vague guessings at his past. I’m glad I can talk to you about this.’

  ‘I’m glad I can help. It must have taken it out of you this morning.’

  Beatrice quickly flipped back through her filing cabinet of relationships remembering the times she had finished a tough day on location or in the edit suite and had come home wearied to receive scant regard for her work. Why had she allowed this to happen? She screwed up her tired eyes and shook her head trying to loosen the reasons for punishing herself.

  ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can I come and see you? Now?’

  Beatrice laughed. ‘Yes, please. I’ll tell you what, come to Marseille. I’m going to have to see Joseph now and I’ll go there in the morning. Can you join me? I’ll try and see Joseph around midday. Can you get down for the afternoon?’

  ‘I could get down for the crack of dawn, if you liked.’

  She laughed again. ‘There’s a bar called La Bouillabaisse just at the end of the old port. I’ll see you there at four. And thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Dropping everything for me.’

  ‘No, no, because of you I’ve picked everything up. You’ll see.’

  She thought she did see, although this equation was yet to finally balance itself, just as the journey around Joseph Troumeg still had to be completed. For the first time in as long as she could r
emember, she felt unburdened, as though she had removed the tension from her body by shaking it down her arms, as a dog might. She opened her laptop and wrote about unpeeling the layers around Joseph Troumeg, finishing by photographing and storing the picture of him between Odile and Marguerite. Later, pleased with herself, armed with a book, she took herself to Jean-Paul’s restaurant where, with unfailing timing, he appeared by her side as she was finishing her dessert, a delicious miniature tarte aux pommes with lavender infused ice-cream.

  ‘A triumph,’ she told him, remembering Joseph’s words.

  ‘You look different,’ he told her. ‘Still beautiful, but different.’

  ‘Perhaps I am,’ she said and wondered if some base male instinct in the chef had been alerted to the presence of a rival.

  ‘You’ve met someone?’ he said, proving the point.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ Jean-Paul’s myopic logic would not allow that she could possibly resist him if she had been free and single.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘Well, let me know if it doesn’t work out.’ He rose from his knees without a backward glance and Beatrice couldn’t help but think of the bouncing hind quarters of a defeated stag retreating into the woods. She took coffee and cognac but it wasn’t just the alcohol that had finally loosened her shoulders so that they had now sunk into their normal position on her body, but her awareness that two decisions had been made even if they had yet to be conveyed. It still left one waiting for attention, but she knew that this would fall into place once she had completed the other two.

  That night she dreamed of a little girl running free, her blonde hair bouncing in the sunlight and it wasn’t until the following morning, when she was leaving the hotel to head for the station yet again, that she realised it was the figure that she had seen on the opposite side of the Thames in what seemed a lifetime ago.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  The river flows in front of her and she knows that it links her past with the future and will never change. She is part of this river which had taken away her grandfather and guided her to and from distant lands. The tide is high and it tugs at the branches of the trees that dip into the clear water. It laps almost to the top of the quays and there is barely clearance for the small boats to shoot under the bridge. The traps are out of sight, beneath the water, waiting to catch the unwary fish. On the opposite bank, where she can see the church at the top of the hill, smoke from the surrounding homes rises in straight lines into the windless air. She sits on a tree stump where the prison would one day be built and the soft day reminds her of the south, except the smells here are of wood smoke and marsh and not the sweet mix from the hills. Would she go there ever again? On the other side of the bridge there are two vessels recently arrived from those shores and earlier she had recognised the language, to the surprise of the men on the quay. The world is open to her and she feels excited and for a brief moment thinks that she catches again the drift of those distant smells, the herbs and grasses that she would squeeze in her hands to release their special aromas. She feels complete and the old woman who wears the misery of her life on her face makes her happiness even more real. She thinks she sees her on the bridge, hunching her cloak around her, head still bent and not wishing to meet the eyes of others, but she is gone before she can be sure. From the tree to her side, she catches the blue flash of a bird diving into the water and sees it emerge with a fish.

  She is lucky. She stands and begins to run back to the bridge, slowly at first but then more quickly so that she creates her own wind and her hair follows in strands. She weaves between the people on the bridge and then up the hill, past where the church of St Clement’s would be built, upwards, enjoying the sensation of climbing without pause, feeling she could run forever, on and on into the future. She stops seeing what is around her and can hear only the sounds of her progress, the beat of her heart, the deep breaths she is taking, the rush of the air. She raises her arms to salute the moment and when she stops her arms are still outstretched, like the cross that she had seen outside the great church on the hill above the river.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Although it was the beginning of November, summer had yet to leave Marseille and Beatrice walked out of the station into strong sunshine and had to shield her eyes. Traffic was unusually heavy around the old port, with drivers hooting and shouting at each other. She began walking up the hill into the old town, passing one or two streets cordoned off with police tape, with cars jammed in the narrow streets. In the distance she saw several figures wearing white protective overalls and face masks and she assumed that a crime of some sort had taken place. She had decided to try Joseph’s place before checking into her hotel and it was only as she was once again swallowed into the dark, narrow alleys and stairways of the old town that she considered the possibility that the restaurateur might not be there. She stood under the cherub and looked up to his puffed cheeks and couldn’t help but smile at the process of events that had led her to this door once more.

  ‘Ah, it’s Flotsam,’ he said the moment he opened the door, once again giving the impression that she was the first and only guest arriving for a lunch party he had specially organised. ‘You’ve washed up here again,’ he added, ‘and I’ve no need to ask why I have the pleasure of your company on this beautiful autumn day. Please, come in.’

  She was still smiling as she followed him into the familiar kitchen, where a camera on a tall tripod loomed over a plate of food on the counter.

  ‘You’ve arrived just in time to help me. I wonder if you would mind pouring, gently mind you, the contents of that small jug just to the side of the fruit.’ He pointed with his finger to the exact spot on the dark green plate he wanted it to take place. ‘No, don’t stand that side, you’ll block the light. Yes, that’s it. Now wait.’ He climbed on to a silver camera case and looked through the lens. ‘OK, my dear.’ She poured and she heard the shutter click several times in rapid succession before he shouted ‘Perfect. It’s for my next book, “Winter in Provence”. Good title, don’t you think? I’m glad you’re amused.’

  ‘And I’m glad I was so useful,’ she said. ‘Is this the strawberry and pink peppercorn dish you made for me last time I was here?’

  ‘It is and it was vital that I caught the cream before it dissolved into the syrup. And, thanks to you, I did. Look.’ He turned the screen on the camera so that she could see the luscious close-up of two strawberries, several pink peppercorns and a neat boundary line where the white of the cream and red of the strawberry juice and reduced lime juice had met but not yet fused.

  ‘Now, coffee, or a glass of wine? You’re looking great, I must say. Let’s go for the wine.’ He flicked back through the images in the camera’s memory and showed her a glass of white wine through which he had shot the corner of a fish and the edge of some ratatouille, so that it looked almost like an abstract painting. He opened the fridge door and handed her the glass. ‘Here’s one I made earlier,’ he laughed. He took the bottle and poured another glass and then switched it with the one he’d given her. ‘Might be tainted and we can’t have that for Flotsam. Although more people than ever come down here in winter,’ he continued happily, ‘it’s still pretty empty and a real delight. Hence “Winter in Provence”. Tourist Board loves it, let me tell you. I’ve had lots of help from them.’

  Beatrice continued to smile, amused that he had immediately swept her back into his life without a hint of being put out.

  ‘Come, tell me why you look so radiant. Is it because you want to direct the television series to go with the book? Wouldn’t that be fun?’

  He was irrepressible and Beatrice realised that she had a choice, just as she had in Germany. She could leave matters like this, with Joseph Troumeg living life in the present, the past just a forgotten toy left at the back of dusty cupboard, or she could upset this careful construction.

  ‘But you’ve got things to tell me, I detect. Of course you have, that’s why you’re here.’


  ‘I’m not going to make the film,’ she said.

  ‘My goodness, was my past that boring?’

  She laughed. ‘Tedious.’

  ‘Well, you surprise me Flotsam. I thought you had your teeth into me good and proper. Did you discover something hideous that you don’t want to tell me?’

  So, here is the fork, Beatrice thought. She could take one route and lie and say that she didn’t think there was enough to make an interesting film, or she could tell him the truth. Once again, he was there before her and pointed her in the right direction.

  ‘You’ll have to try me, Flotsam. Tell me what you discovered and I’ll let you know if you’re right.’

  ‘What if there’s stuff you don’t like?’

  ‘I’m a big boy, Flotsam,’ he said, again laughing and refilling her glass and waited. ‘What intense brown eyes you have,’ he said, ‘especially when you concentrate. C’mon.’

  ‘We should be recording this,’ she said and raised her glass to his. She felt as though she was about to direct a live studio with the clock counting down the seconds to the moment they would be live. She launched straight in.

  ‘Your mother, Odile Levy, Leval, had a relationship with Sebastian Traugott, a high ranking member of the German embassy in Paris. It started in the winter of thirty-four, thirty-five.’ She looked at him, but his face didn’t move. ‘You were born sometime after, in November thirty-five. Difficult days, but not as hard as the ones that would come. Sebastian was sent back to Germany two years later and your mother was left alone with you. She had a friend, Marguerite Fourcas, who lived in the same block, who helped her through those days and during the occupation.’ Still no response and she hesitated before offering the next piece of information. ‘Your father was killed in the Ardennes in 1940.’ Joseph nodded, just one tiny dip of his head and she continued. ‘He’s buried in a German military cemetery near a place called Recogne, in Belgium. His nephew told me this. I went to see him in Germany.’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘Neither he, nor his family, knows about you.’ Again, the single nod. Did he know this already, she wondered?