“My child, my child,” Claire said, trembling. “From today I’ll be your mother,” she repeated as if it was a lullaby. “My little Elise . . .”
Standing in the doorway, Danielle surveyed the scene uneasily. She couldn’t recall having been ill, or that her mother had ever devoted herself to her day and night the way she was now doing with Elise. Left to her own devices, she roamed the house, sighing.
By day, Elise learned to live in hiding, passing the time reading the tangled stories in a battered Bible in French that she could barely understand. She learned about the forbidden fruit and snakes, kisses and betrayals, angels, virgins, apostles and saints, crowns and crosses. She could recite whole verses from memory, even though they meant little to her. The rhythm and old-fashioned language fascinated her.
For Elise, the past was nothing more than the moment when she had woken in the arms of Father Marcel; the rest was shadows. Further back than that was only a distant trace in her memory, a heartbeat, the confused taste of fear.
She accepted the command to hide from the sun as if she was sick and the sun’s rays could scorch her skin and destroy her. She learned that during the day she was destined to remain in the attic, like a bat relegated to the darkest part of her new home.
After dark, she played outside with Danielle, who protected her with motherly devotion while Claire looked on.
Through that first fall and winter, Elise felt secure, because the others gathered around the warmth of the hearth. But by the following summer she fell prey to dark premonitions. Almost a year had gone by since she had been abandoned in the forest, and she still had to calm her fears, repeating her name over and over: “Elise, Elise, Elise . . . My name is Elise.”
She cherished the time she could spend with Danielle. She became the sentinel of the attic, where she tried to entertain herself by telling herself tales of far-off lands where no one would ever take her. She had nightmares of going to live on a forgotten continent, where the sun’s rays would weaken until they disappeared completely before they came into contact with the surface of objects; the days would be long and dark, the winters frozen.
It was hard to bear being confined to the windowless dungeon of the attic. She dreamed of having a friend she could protect, be it a wounded soldier, an abandoned dog, a threadbare ball, an insect, even a worm—something she could give a name to and talk to, so that her words did not rebound emptily from the rough walls.
What had started out as a kind of game now became torture. Confined, utterly alone, she spent hours praying in silence while Danielle went to Father Marcel’s mass. She began to loathe the searing heat. She had recently turned eight, and felt that time was slipping away. She was growing, and the gloomy attic seemed to her more and more like a cramped prison.
One night she woke up terrified and bathed in sweat. She had had a premonition that led her to cover her ears and sing furiously in an attempt to erase the image that pursued her even now that she was awake. One day they were going to forget her up in the attic, and a hurricane of fire would destroy houses, farms, and even Father Marcel’s church.
Life at night had made the colors fade, and tinged the world around her with a uniform silver sheen. She waited anxiously for the leaves to fall, the roses to wither, and the lavender fields to give way to the dry, icy winds of winter.
One morning she discovered next to her a motionless larva, frozen beside what seemed to be a little ball of solid dung. She wondered if this was a trick of her lonely imagination, but when she bent over to examine the tiny, transparent being, she could see that inside it a shadow was slowly stirring. It was alive.
“Who are you?” she asked quietly, worried that the slightest breath might destroy the creature being born in front of her eyes.
Her prayers had been heard: she wasn’t alone anymore. She went in search of a piece of bread, a grain of sugar, a drop of water to feed to this minuscule worm. She began to fantasize about what this solitary larva might become. She hoped it would be a wingless insect that would not be able to fly away, one that, like her, would remain on the ground.
Within a few days a dark shell became visible. Two enormous eyes started to appear on its head, and four legs with tiny spines on them. Sitting back, she studied it closely.
“A beetle, it’s given birth to a beetle,” she said, astonished at her creation. “Jepri, that’s what I’ll call you, and you’ll be my friend.”
She recalled the words her father would repeat to her in German, resurfacing from a past she preferred to think she had forgotten. A child can crush a beetle, but not even a professor could ever create one.
With Jepri’s arrival, the days became short and the nights long. Elise would lie down next to it and observe it from so close up that to her the insect looked like a giant come to rescue her. She watched it eat and scuttle away into the darkness; she studied its routine and tried every day to modify it, testing how far an insect could be trained and become a real pet.
She knew its life would be short but that, like all beetles, it would be resurrected by recreating itself. She did not want to see it die, and preferred that it lead them together into the land of shadows.
“You’ll live in my heart, Jepri, my love,” she said one night, raising the beetle to her chest, waiting for the mortal bite.
But beetles don’t bite, she told herself.
When she woke up, it was to find her friend’s lifeless corpse next to her. Jepri the beetle had refused to follow its instincts and let itself die rather than attack her. It had saved her.
Overcome with emotion, she hoped against hope that Jepri would recreate himself. Now that her only friend was dead, she decided she must bury alongside him all the misty images of a past she saw only in dreams. A faceless father, a sister vanishing on the deck of a ship, a mother who abandoned her in a forest. Jepri’s death meant the end of her childhood. From now on she would be no one else but Elise.
32
On the morning of June 10, 1944, the sun was beating down on the nearby barns. Thinking that a little bit of light would help her mourn her friend and deciding she didn’t care if she was seen, Elise peered out of her living room window and saw her neighbors running scared in the distance.
Seeing this, Danielle pulled her away from the window, then ran outside to find out what the farmers were so afraid of. Without getting too close, she realized that an alarming number of Germans had poured into the village. She was told that a detachment of soldiers was posted at every entrance; they had closed the bridge, and even blocked the railway line. Their uniforms were unmistakable. Danielle got close enough to recognize the dreaded initials SS. She ran back to the house, out of breath.
“The SS?” Claire wondered. “I don’t know what they can be looking for here. Why didn’t they stay in Limoges?”
She took off her apron and stood for several minutes staring down at the water as she washed her hands. They lived in an insignificant village, whose inhabitants had accepted the German occupation with stoic apathy. Apart from ration books, the war had not changed their daily routines; the Resistance was a fantasy, a myth the men preferred to ignore as they drank coffee on Rue Emile Desourteaux. Claire couldn’t explain this disproportionate military presence. Tales of courageous men blowing up a railway line or abducting German officers happened elsewhere, in places like Saint-Junien or Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, some sixty kilometers from Limoges. Nothing ever happened in their village: they lived at peace, even if this was only an illusion. None of its inhabitants wanted or was willing to defy the occupying forces.
Perhaps the only serious offense they had committed had been to take in refugees from Moselle or Charly who had been evicted from their homes by the SS. There had also been a few German Jews that Cuba had refused entry to several years earlier, although they had been deported shortly afterward in a massive roundup. Who were they looking for now? A defenseless little girl hidden in an attic? Claire wondered anxiously.
They’re coming for me, they�
��re coming for me, Elise told herself fearfully. But Jepri’s spirit will save me. He is immortal.
Claire walked up to the road and stopped one of the neighbors.
“I’m really worried,” the woman moaned. “Something is going to happen. We all have to go to the main square: it’s an order from the Germans.”
Claire rushed back to her house. Without explaining anything, she began to pack a suitcase as carefully as possible.
“We’ll eat something and then go into the village,” she told the girls calmly. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.”
Danielle sat at the table, with Elise next to her. Avoiding their curious gaze, Claire went into their bedroom. Elise got up and followed her furtively. She saw her arranging letters in a wooden chest, and then adding a small red box. She shut the suitcase and went over to the window: she needed fresh air.
“Whatever happens, you two will always be together, do you hear me?” During difficult times like this, Maman Claire’s voice was always heartwarming. The two girls nodded silently.
Claire hugged them and laid her head on top of Elise’s. She glanced one last time at the few family photographs in the room: one of her husband in the colonies; Danielle as a baby in her arms; she herself, wrapped in a thick raincoat, smiling with the Eiffel Tower in the background (the only souvenir from her trip to Paris before she was married). With a little sigh, she moved away from the girls. She brushed her hair in front of the mirror, and smiled. They were ready to leave.
“Combi! We have to take Combi with us!’ cried Elise, running to fetch the old deflated soccer ball from under the bed.
“There’s no need, Elise,” Danielle tried to convince her. “We’ll be back very soon.”
But Elise clung to the ball, which would be her only personal luggage.
As they left the house Claire paused on the threshold, gazing at the lavender fields that would soon be blooming.
They joined the small groups of neighbors hurrying to comply with the occupiers’ commands.
Elise was afraid that although she looked like Claire’s daughter, some of them—the girls from her old school at least—would recognize her. With Danielle holding her hand tight, she inhaled lungfuls of the morning air. I’m just one more in a crowd, nobody’s going to notice. When they reached the first village street, she buried her face in Claire’s skirt. Maman Claire came to a halt and stroked her brow.
“Everything is going to be all right, little one,” she said again. “The important thing is that, no matter what happens, you do not leave Danielle’s side. She’s your sister. Always follow her, okay?”
Claire’s instructions echoed in Elise’s mind. Far from reassuring her, they seemed like the warning of a change she couldn’t quite understand. For her part, once again Danielle felt that her mother was more concerned about Elise than her. She was only twelve years old, but now she had to be responsible for someone else.
I’m only three years older than Elise, Maman. And I’m your real daughter, she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
As they crossed the village, they smiled at everyone they met. They walked past the train station, where a train had left earlier that morning for Limoges. It was just a normal Saturday like any other. The doors and windows of the empty houses were open to the summer breeze. They reached the main street, where in the corner café a few men were still arguing fiercely.
“These aren’t ordinary German soldiers, they’re from the second SS Das Reich division,” said one of them, wiping his mouth on his forearm, proud of his precise knowledge. “They’re the toughest.”
The three of them walked on to the main square, where they found the German soldiers deployed in a circle, like a barricade. The church doors were opened, and the women and children went inside to shelter from the heat.
“Where is Father Marcel?” asked Claire, hoping that someone would be able to answer. “Have you seen Father Marcel . . . ?”
The men were herded together and led off toward a farm south of the village. Nobody said goodbye, why should they? This was simply a routine operation, one of those absurd roll calls they had grown used to in the war.
The soldiers were speaking French to one another, and Danielle and Elise studied their uniforms, trying to distinguish the differences between them. Elise recognized an insignia shaped like a wolf trap on one of the soldier’s chests. He was smiling at her all the time. A local woman interrupted them to explain to an officer that she had left a cake in the oven. She was unable to hear his reply before she was dragged away by the crowd that the soldiers were forcing into the church.
Maman Claire is the only one who brought a suitcase, Elise realized. Just then a huge explosion flung her down onto the cobblestones. Claire threw herself on top of her. Danielle, who had been blown some distance away, could scarcely make them out amid all the turmoil, smoke, and flames coming from the church. Bodies were piled on bodies, with shoes strewn everywhere.
The first explosion deafened Elise. The next one lashed at the soles of her feet. At that moment, she realized that fear was rooted in the body, that it could tear at your skin and hair, smash your teeth. She could feel Maman Claire’s body protecting her on the cobbles, and closed her eyes. In the distance she heard a lullaby: In German? Snatches of sound, disparate words. Maman? A child’s cries broke the silence until they were suddenly cut short by rifle fire.
Pieces of debris were still falling on her, or rather on Maman Claire, who was lying on top of her, her body hot, wet, heavy. The gray dust dissolved in tears that would not dry. The dust turned to stone.
“Maman,” whispered Elise, barely audibly. It was no more than a sigh, but when she got no response, she cried out loud: “Maman Claire!”
The wail of a siren pierced her ears. She remembered she was in the village square, opposite the mayor’s house, near Madame Beauchêne’s corner café, outside Father Marcel’s blazing church. Its bells rang out crazily, until they were drowned out by the loudspeakers. She couldn’t see the cake shop or the cemetery, only the walls of the Hotel Beaubreuil slowly emerging from the clouds of smoke.
She tried to open her mouth, but her parched lips were stuck together by the solid dust.
“Maman!” she mumbled again fearfully, but couldn’t get any other words out.
The third explosion seemed to go off inside her head. The shock wave freed her; she could no longer feel the weight of the body on top of her. She had lost Maman Claire; she had lost her protective shell.
33
She opened her eyes slowly. There was Maman Claire, facedown in the dust, with one shoe missing and her silk stockings torn. Where can the other shoe be? Without stirring, Elise looked all around for it. She had to find it, but couldn’t move, only turn her head.
The paunchy little angel was still standing in the old stone fountain. Water trickled from its mouth into the basin, sending orange and blue glints through the smoke.
When Elise plucked up the courage to move, she felt a stabbing pain in her right shoulder. The square had disappeared: all that remained was dust and a naked angel floating above black waters.
The vision of this inferno took her breath away. She tried to breathe, but felt she was about to choke. She cried out, and immediately was able to inhale once more. She was alive; she had survived yet again.
“Elise, get up!” it was Danielle’s voice, calling to her from somewhere she couldn’t see. She peered through the clouds of smoke, over the dead bodies. Dumbstruck. Danielle managed to reach her and grabbed her hand. “Wait.”
The suitcase was there, next to Claire’s body, under a thick layer of dust and stones. Danielle clambered over to it, pulled it out, and came back toward Elise.
“Let’s go!” was all she said.
“Maman Claire . . .” whispered Elise.
“Maman is dead,” Danielle said curtly.
They had no time. The soldiers would be back, looking for survivors: they were only waiting for the flames to die down. The two girls were a dan
ger now; they were among the few still living in a village buried beneath a thick, dark cloud.
They paused for a moment, trying to get their bearings amid this emptiness, to find a direction in which to flee. Beyond the smoke pouring from the church they could make out the cemetery. They could cross it, or run along the riverbank in the opposite direction toward the abbey, although that would be a huge risk. It would take them several hours, thought Danielle doubtfully. She didn’t understand who they were fleeing from, who exactly the enemy was.
They had lost all sense of time. They couldn’t tell how much daylight was left, if night was about to fall. Clinging to each other’s hands, they trembled with fear and anguish.
“Let’s hide here,” said Danielle. “We have to wait for it to grow dark.”
Hide? Elise couldn’t understand her. There were no nearby trees, street corners, or houses that could shelter them. But Danielle flopped down beside the suitcase and closed her eyes.
Elise’s feet were burning; her eyes were full of sand, her throat parched. She didn’t dare tell Danielle she was thirsty, that she had to find water before they set off for the abbey, she knew it was far too dangerous to budge from their hiding spot. And who knew whether the Germans had also been there and done the same, shutting the women and children inside the building and blowing it up. But Danielle was asleep, or pretending to be. She had no answers to Elise’s questions.
For the first time, Elise shed silent tears, trying not to wake Danielle. She turned her back and sobbed, thinking of how Maman Claire had saved her. They had to reach the abbey to get help, at least to make sure all these torn bodies were given a decent burial.
Or perhaps it was best not to think, to close her eyes, try to sleep and forget. That is what she was trying to do when she felt the first raindrops. Looking up, she saw how low and heavy the clouds were. A fine rain began to settle the dust. The air was filled with sinister smells.
The Daughter's Tale Page 15
