She nodded through her sleep. She does look stronger. Needs a beef-stew though, and they left.
It was half-past midnight.
Jacques and Arbel walked. At the rise to the church square Arbel stopped and took his shoes and socks off, put the shoes back on and hauled the thick woollen socks over them. Jacques copied him, a tightening beginning in his stomach, a drought in the corners of his mouth.
A dog barked.
“Can you pick a lock?” Jacques whispered as they approached the Mairie.
“No. Can you?”
“No.”
“Then we won’t use the door.”
Arbel produced a wrench and wrestled the volet hinges from their concrete setting, laid the shutters silently down and looked at the window.
“Your turn. I’ve done my bit,” he winked.
The village slept like a children’s book, the moon-shadows sharp and beautiful.
The window.
“I don’t know,” said Jacques, “how you break glass silently.”
“You don’t. You take the whole pane out.”
Their pen-knives ripped out the ancient putty, scraped the inset where the glass sat, took out the wee pinning nails and with both knives at once they levered one pane. It moved, resisted, then came complete and fell past their frozen grasping fingers, dancing through acres of air, reflecting for a spinning instant their village at night, and shattered.
They froze, eyes bigger than their mouths, ears wider than both. The silence healed. Nothing.
The window opened and they swung in, lit Arbel’s candle, and found the double doors and Chibret’s padlock.
“Smash the bugger,” Jacques looked at Arbel’s wrench. “Right.”
Jacques wrapped his jacket around the offending article and Arbel venomously left it ruined. They listened. Silence. In the big room there were at least ten muslin-wrapped carcasses.
“Which is his?”
“The biggest.”
Arbel cut the muslin open and lifted the stiff back legs. He put them down and spat on his hands. Looked behind him, where he was going with the beast. Spat again, picked up both hind legs, took the slack the dead muscles allowed him, braced himself, took a good lung-full and pulled.
His back moved. A centimetre.
Breath screeched through his lungs. His hands fell to his knees, his strength wasted in an instant. There was a long silence.
“You know what?”
Arbel’s eyes were locked on the beast. “What?”
“You can’t steal a dead cow.”
Ever so very slowly Arbel began to shake. The shake took a hold. They both shook. Shaking to hold back a tide. They dared one tiniest glance and both surrendered, into helpless laughter.
Arbel fell on the carcass and howled noiseless and neither dared catch the other’s eye again. It began to feel like the nicest possible way to die.
“We should have known,” Arbel said in gulps, “we’re fucking farmers!”
“And,” Jacques tried twice and finally managed, “where did we think we were going with it?”
The laughter slowed and stopped as Crime and Punishment slid into the room. Sobering.
Half a kilometre away sleep was not disturbed by the faint single peal of the church bell. In their candlelit Mairie its boom demolished humour.
“What do we do?” Jacques said, his ears humming.
Arbel looked at the crammed provisions. “Organise a fete.”
“Now?”
“For tomorrow.”
He stood, all action now, and cut muslin from four of the animals, sliced it into large squares and tied each into a make-shift bag. Eggs, cheese, fruit, vegetables, nuts, wine, bread, everything light enough to carry. Pockets stuffed, jackets weighted, hands full they turned to go.
“Who’s this meat for?”
“Germans. Or the black market...”
“Fine.”
Arbel went back into the room and Jacques heard splashing. They clambered back through the window, passed out the booty and clanked down outside.
“Put the volet back?”
“Let him. Wait here,” and he disappeared inside again.
Jacques waited two endless minutes in his village square, surrounded by broken glass and bags of crime. What would he say if someone woke and looked out? And how could something so serious be funny?
“What?” he said, when Arbel finally re-appeared, sweating.
“Insurance.” The mad grin and he’d cut clumps of meat.
They threw every guarding dog a bone as they left food at Sara’s, Jireau’s, Jauliac’s, Feyt, the mushrooms at Louis’, something at the door of everyone they liked.
“I feel like Father Christmas,” said Jacques.
“Hang on – brainwave.” Arbel scooted down to the Gendarmerie and left a dozen eggs for Herrisson.
They had one bottle of wine left. Arbel ripped the cork out with his penknife, drained a throatful, smacked his lips, and looked at Jacques.
“Well?”
“What?”
“Shall we go back? Feed everyone?”
Two of the dogs found them, barked with delight and the boys took one look and fled.
They had half the bottle left and Arbel cheerfully drank it.
The silhouette of Duthileul’s farm set Arbel off laughing again. “No, no. Sh! If they wake they’ll know it was us.”
“It was a great night.”
“Sleep best, friend.”
The church bell struck the half-hour and in the black lane they shook hands, tight, strong. “Jacques. Do you and her...?”
“No.”
“No, that’s what Ardelle said.”
He came in, shushing the dog as he climbed the stairs, jiggled the door, climbed to his bed and laughed himself to sleep.
Next morning the village divided sharply between the outraged and the well-breakfasted. No-one gave a fig about the Mairie, but speculation about those who’d received manna was all-consuming.
In the dawn at Puech Simone knew something for she woke to hear his snoring and she had milked the herd and taken them to pasture before it stopped.
“Sleep well?” She poured coffee.
“I did.”
She smiled. “You did.”
Herrisson ate sumptuously, hid the remaining eggs, pulled his uniform tightly together, promoted himself to Detective, noted the means of entry, scoured the urine scented room for clues, couldn’t find any, and wondered what to do. If it was someone outside the commune they were gone; if it was someone in the commune, then, obviously, fresh omelette for breakfast, it was a friend. And if he arrested anyone they’d be shot. There was no one he particularly wanted shot, so he flannelled Chibret who muttered about the Gestapo from Aurillac arriving to do his job. Herrisson whitened. “Don’t tell them. Get it back.”
“You can come with me.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Exactly.”
And they went to each house, where it was either denied, or had been eaten.
“We thought it was you,” said Jireau’s wife, “I was coming to thank you.”
“You stand for Mayor,” said Chibret, sour.
“You love it,” she laughed and closed her door.
Chibret called Herrisson off and never mentioned the affair again. The following Sunday, in the sun outside the Tabac, Arbel kicked at the two dogs circling his feet and Simone looked sideways at Jacques and thought, ‘Well, he did something.’
His maize ripened.
“What will you do when it’s over?”
“Believe. I don’t know. I’m not thinking about it.” Simone said. Truth was easy here.
“What did you want to do?”
“Teach.”
“Teach?”
“German.” She snorted a wry breath.
August blazed, the lane dusty all month, and two-hour siestas while Russians, English, Americans, Poles, Australians, Italians, German and Japanese died. The cows were besieged by flies, straw hats t
he order of every day and Simone felt repaired, and at last, young again.
“Where can I swim?”
“The Roc. Where I fish.”
She walked with him, the village twitching and nudging and sewing this tit-bit into the patchwork of distraction that was Simone’s saving grace.
She took off her dress and plunged, knickers and vest, in, surfaced, threw her hair away from her face, spat, laughed and called, “It’s horrible, come on!”
“I can’t swim.”
“You don’t have to!” She stood, water just above her waist. He looked at her. Took off his clothes and stepped in. Mud rose between his toes, slugs of earth.
“Ugh!” He fell forward and swallowed half a lung-full.
A yard apart, his chest dripped thin mud and it was firm and strong and her vest clung to her tiny breasts and flat waist and he said, “We’re staring again.”
On baking day, the first Monday of September, she went up to the grenier for flour and saw his blankets. She took one from her bed to make his softer. He lay that night and thought, I have a wish now. For her to see Janatou, and for me to see her there.
Jerome worried Jacques. Drinking with him and Simone on market-day he produced, in broad daylight, a copy of “Le Coq Enchaine”.
“No, no, my friend. Quite safe. My mother-in-law is cousin to some prefect, somewhere.”
And he toasted himself with pastis. Jacques sipped his beer, Simone left her wine.
“And you two?”
They looked at each other and back to him. “We’re friends.” Jacques said.
“Sara and I, we’re friends,” he said, “and we fuck.”
“We don’t,” she said.
“Maybe you should.”
“To be like you?”
“To be what everyone says you are.”
“I don’t want to be what anyone says I am.”
“And Jacques, my old friend?”
“They said Mother and I did. I don’t care what is said.”
“I like you, Vermande. I do.” He raised the thin glass and drained it.
“Why are you drinking, Jerome?”
He leaned right forward, “Because I hear rumours from The War...” he said, waving the paper.
“No, no, Jerome. Not here. I’ll be at home. No more talk here.” Jerome laughed, lurched to his feet and saluted.
“I’ll bring it, shall I? When it’s fact. Eh?”
“Yes. Do.”
The walk home was quiet.
It lay between them. He hated it. He sat on the iron bench and she stood in the lane and looked up at the trees and he looked up at her. “Fuck is a bad word,” he said, slowly.
“For Love, yes. For loving.”
“I don’t want to fuck, Simone.”
“I don’t want to make love, Jacques.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
And she’d said it. “Yes. Of course.”
He smiled. “I was asleep Simone. You’re my wakening.” She said nothing. Then, “And you’re my peace.”
Harvest came early and Mignon’s truck with it. Took the Germans’ giant greedy share of his maize. He and mother shrugged; they had enough and he’d hidden more, but Simone felt anger. When her eyes dripped towards sleep that night she was still angry, only now with herself, because she’d suffered at the hands of this war and she’d been granted a recovery and it must be time to stand again.
5
A Jew was seen eating the brains of a German soldier at nine o’clock. This was wrong on three counts. Jews don’t eat pork, Germans don’t have brains and at nine o’clock everyone is listening to De Gaulle.
Herrisson pinned a poster behind the bar. How To Recognise Vermin. A crude cartoon of a Frenchman and a Jew, the Jew with a huge nose and a rat’s body.
Jerome sat in the Figeac bars for a week, in Bagnac for a week, in Maurs for four days before he recognised a face. Michel the barber. The man left the bar. Jerome followed him, got a time and place for a rendez-vous and met them two nights later.
“I can get a barn, I think.”
“Think?” Bernadie growled.
“At Puech. It’s perfect, isolated.”
“And money?”
“I might be able to get it.”
“Get both. And no more singing.”
“Will you come with me today? To Janatou. To harvest the grass?”
He waited.
“Simone. That’s a lie. Will you come just to see it. Please.”
She steeled herself.
“No. I have somewhere else I have to go.”
She watched his face fall, waited for “Where?” and saw it didn’t occur to him.
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must.”
They sat, egg shells, crusts, cooling coffee and the mother, all ears. “Another day. Next time?” she said, his disappointment blatant. “It’ll be there next year,” he managed.
Her eyes faltered from his.
Surely she could wait one day, after all this time, fulfill his simple pleasure? No, no. Begin. Today.
“I hope,” he added.
“I hope the War is over.”
I’m not sure I do, he thought.
He yoked a cow to the cart, loaded his scythe, string, food for them both and they left his mother in the garden, looking at the Cantal and frightened.
Alone.
Clear sky, sharp heavy weather North. They walked.
“Can’t we ride on the cart?”
He laughed. “I’ve never thought of that.”
The beast took their weight and moved on, down, through the woods. Where was she going? Why? He didn’t have the right to ask. She would tell, or she would not. But he saw a change in her.
She looked straight ahead.
They rode into the village, the curtains gaped and she got down in the church square. Took her food from him.
“Take care, Simone.”
“I will.”
And he took the Maurs road, past Sara, thickening with her child, bending to her vegetables, and Simone took the Sousceyrac road. The village wove these events into the quilt of their imaginings about Simone, Jacques and his mother.
Seven kilometres.
Long walk. Long time since I walked. How long? Months. Of peace. Recovery.
This is right, then.
Arbel was right –Duty is Good.
A rabbit crossed her path, followed by three others. She walked through Senaillac; a school, a shop, a tiny spray of houses, no one. The road rose through a brief wood and there, again, was the endless roll of forested hills. This was surely unconquerable, or impossible to police. Too vast, there can’t be that many Germans. Naive, Simone. Collaborators, remember? And, this was France – some people will sell anything, certainly Patriotism –for Land. The escape route. Had that fat mayor lied? Even if the Curé were not there, the route might still be. I feel it is.
I feel better. I feel good. She walked.
He was scything when, “Vermande!”
“Lacaze.”
Here? Jacques leaned on the long oak handle.
Jerome was alight, galloping down the hillside, and he looked sober.
“Sara’s thrown you out?”
“It’s come.”
“The baby? Jesus, has it lived? I only saw her this morning...”
“The Reléve.”
“The what?”
Jerome paused for effect, Jacques saw, with irritation.
“The Reléve. The War! We have to go. Three of us for one of them.”
“What?”
“Three of us go to Germany to work and they say, they say,” he snorted, “they’ll send one French Prisoner of War home.”
Jacques’ heart iced. Jerome laughed.
“Aha! At last, eh? Oh, Jacques, at last!” He whooped, loud, and hooked a punch into Jacques’ shoulder.
“But... when?”
“It’s voluntary. Now. But they’ll make it law
– they’ll have to.”
“Voluntary? Voluntary? We don’t have to go?”
“We’re not going! Go? To Germany? Are you mad?”
“But if it’s law... we’ll have to.”
“Or?”
The word hung while Jacques thought. “Don’t go?”
“That sounds better. Stay and fight.”
“Fight who?”
“Well, the government for starters! God you’re dim. They’re the bastards who’d send you to Germany!” He laughed, the obvious beautiful.
“Fight the government. Now who’s mad?” He took a breath. “What about mother?”
“How will she be if you go to Germany?”
“What about Simone?”
“She’ll fight.”
“Fight what? Herrisson when he comes to enlist us? The Gestapo he’ll bring with him?”
“We won’t be there when those rats come.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll be in the hills.”
“With mother?”
“Jacques, this is War. Not with Mother, no. Nor with Sara and my son. And definitely not working in an enemy factory feeding his killing machine. We’ll be with friends, comrades. Jacques, we are France now. Me, you, Arbel, maybe. We are France. Not Vichy and Laval and his deals. There is no legitimate government. We are the conscience of all you can see and everything you can imagine.” He swayed a little, the light in his eyes fierce. Jacques looked at the scythe in his hand. The winter feed around him.
“When?”
“Soon, my friend.”
“Oh my God.”
Jerome took a breath. He searched Jacques’ furrowed face. “Will you help?”
“Who? Help who? How?”
Jerome looked round, even here and lowered his voice. “Help France. Your barn. Hide things there.”
“Things, Jerome?”
“Weapons.”
The world heaved. His ears rang. Jerome waited. The silence answered him.
“All right. Will you come and listen to De Gaulle tonight?” Jacques looked at his anxious friend.
“Yes.”
“Good man. A quarter to nine, the Tabac. Bring Simone.”
“I’ll ask her.”
“She’ll come.”
“Will the Germans?”
“Yes. Not while they’re winning. But this Reléve means they need. So, it’s turning. Can’t you feel it?”
The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama Page 8