by Perrat, Liza
‘Oh là, là fancy coat,’ Ghislaine said. ‘Incredible what clothes’ coupons can buy, isn’t it, Céleste?’
Denise sniffed and looked down her nose at us. ‘It was a present from a … from a friend.’
‘The friend who wears a green uniform?’ Ghislaine said.
Denise clutched the coat lapels as if we were about to leap over the desk and tear it from her. ‘It’s none of your business who my friends are.’
‘We should go,’ I said, anxious as always when conversation lurked near the subject of German soldiers.
‘Well, Merry Christmas, Denise,’ Ghislaine said, with a cheeky wink. ‘Or should that be Fröhe Weihnachten?’
Denise glared at us and turned to her next customer.
‘I hope your father’s feeling better,’ I said as Ghislaine and I stood before the still-closed butcher’s shop.
‘I don’t think my father will ever feel better,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you have a nice Christmas.’
My friend disappeared inside and I hurried across to Au Cochon Tué, and into the toilet. I almost bounced with the thrill, as I retrieved the paper stuffed behind the cistern.
Meet me Christmas Eve afternoon if you can.
***
I took the muddied track through the great flattened landscape to Uncle Claude’s farm. Trees dotted the fields like snowmen, the leafless limbs sagging at odd angles under their snowy weights. Sheets of ice plastered the fields and I recalled when Patrick, Olivier and I would break off pieces of ice and marvel, with a child’s wonder, at the fossilised blades of brown grass.
The sweet aroma of Uncle Claude’s pipe hit me as he opened the door, and the shouts and squeals of Justin, Gervais, Paulette and Anne-Sophie, as they bounded about the household clutter.
Uncle Claude immediately frowned, his face creasing like a sun-dried apricot.
I laid a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Olivier is safe, and well.’
The farmer’s wide shoulders relaxed. ‘Thank God. I’ll send word to his parents. They worry so, being far away across the channel.’
He stepped aside and gestured me in. ‘Are you coming inside? The kids would love to see you.’
From the scoops of laughter and the rough-and-tumble din, it seemed Olivier’s cousins were having a good enough time without seeing me. Besides, I was anxious to get to the riverbank.
‘I can’t stay today,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to let you know they’d sent a message; that they’re safe and in good health. They’re sorry they can’t be home for Christmas. Maybe next year.’
Uncle Claude nodded. ‘Let’s hope this war is over by then. I don’t know what’ll become of us if it goes on much longer. I’ve had the Boche here only today, the two who always march around together –– skinny mean-looking one, and the fat one. Seems somebody told them about me slaughtering a couple of pigs and flogging the meat on the black market.’ He sighed. ‘But what choice do we farmers have? My equipment is wearing out and I can only replace it with expensive black market parts. I can only get fodder too on the black market, and you can imagine the prices! It’s no wonder I have to engage in a touch of illegal activity myself.’ He puffed on his pipe. ‘Anyway, they say they’ll denounce me to the authorities if I don’t sell my meat to them, so they can make the profit. And I’m not the only one, Céleste,’ he said, jabbing the pipe at me. ‘It seems someone here in Lucie is informing on many villagers. They’ve got a profitable business going, getting information then blackmailing the people for money, or goods, to send home to their families. Why only the other day they raided the Au Cochon Tué cellar.’
‘They didn’t find our ––?’
He shook his head. ‘The pigs were so happy when they found Robert’s illegal wine, they never bothered looking for another secret partition in his cellar.’
‘Thank God, but poor Monsieur Perrault, what happened to him?’
‘Oh not gaol, or a fine, or anything like that,’ Claude said. ‘No, like myself, and our dear butcher, Robert’s got to sell all the wine to those two thugs now. It’s them who’ll be making the forty-franc resale profit.’
Uncle Claude waved the pipe about. ‘If I get my hands on the filthy collabo who’s feeding them information I’ll thread him through my wheat-cutter.’
***
The wind was about the woods, savage spots of sleet stabbing my face. I paused at the cross with its little heart engraved into the stone, commemorating the children who’d drowned in the Vionne. I felt the familiar jabs of grief for those lost children.
What if they’d not drowned, those young ancestors of mine, and had lived long enough to have children of their own? Everything would be different. I, Céleste Roussel, might not be here today. It struck me then how filled with our own importance we all were; as if we really mattered, when our fragile lives –– our lifelines –– hinged on nothing more than the whim of a river current.
I slithered down the slippery verge and followed the track through the willow trees. Swathed in scraps of ice, the water struggled across the boulders. I never ventured to the river in winter and it seemed odd without the noise of crickets and honeybees, not even the snap of crows’ wings or the rustle of foraging squirrels.
Martin wasn’t at our special place, but I was early. It was too cold to sit on our rock, so I paced about, stamping my feet to keep the blood flowing.
A robin redbreast settled on a branch and began preening itself. I closed my eyes and made the traditional wish for the first sighting of a winter robin. Seconds later the bird spread its wings and flew away –– a drop of blood on cotton wool. I hoped wherever he went he’d keep my wish close to his scarlet breast.
I kept glancing at the bare willows, rubbing the cold from my arms. I spun around at a rustling sound. Only a rabbit, hopping into a clearing. It must’ve caught my scent, as it cocked its ears and bobbed away.
I waited at least half an hour, the cold numbing me so I could barely move my limbs. Martin wasn’t coming. I wouldn’t see him today; wouldn’t get my angel necklace back. Nor would I find out anything about Ravensbrück. Perhaps he’d got a girl back home and had forgotten about me, and was never coming back. I might have known meeting someone so right for me was only a dream; that such luck only belonged to other people.
My feet heavy as lead, I turned to start back along the path. A figure in a greatcoat blocked my way.
‘Martin! You scared me.’ A hand flew over my heart. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘Sorry, I could not come sooner.’
He drew me close and, giddy with anticipation, my hungry lips found his. As he kissed me another face flashed into my mind –– the image of a fearless Maquisard freezing out in the Monts du Lyonnais hills, fighting for our cause. But as Martin’s heat unfurled inside me, I knew my destiny was still with him. Nothing had changed that.
‘How was your leave?’ I said. ‘And your family?’
‘Well my home has not been bombed,’ he said. ‘Like so many others. But the whole of Germany is a grim wasteland.’ He shook his head. ‘Such a different Berlin from the one I remember with wide, clean avenues and ordered buildings. The people are hungry too. No better off than you French, in fact.’
Martin removed a glove and dug into his pocket. ‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ He took my hand and placed the angel necklace in my palm. ‘I replaced the old leather with a chain.’
‘You what? But why?’
‘It was worn almost right through,’ he said, ‘and would have snapped any minute. That’s why I wanted you to leave it with me, so I could surprise you with a new chain.’
I let the fine chain slide between my fingers, which shook a little. ‘It’s real gold?’
‘Of course,’ Martin said. ‘Only the best for my girl.’
‘What did you do with the leather thread? Surely it could’ve been fixed?’
Martin shrugged. ‘Oh I don’t know, probably threw it away. But what is wrong, you prefer silver to gold, perhaps?’
‘It�
�s … it’s different,’ I said, already missing the soft smell of the leather that had lain against the breasts of so many before me. I turned around. ‘Can you fasten the clasp?’
‘I have been back in Lucie a few days now,’ he said, swivelling me back to face him. ‘But I did not see you around the village.’
‘I’m living in Lyon now,’ I said. ‘Working as a Red Cross nurse at Montluc Prison. You were gone and I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing. I need to feel useful. And I’ve decided I’d like to become a proper nurse. You know, study and get my certificate, like we spoke about before.’
‘Ah, I understand.’ Martin gave me a knowing look. ‘Montluc Prison. That must mean your brother and his friend are still alive? I am happy for you, but I am sorry I could not arrange a meeting with SS Obersturmführer Barbie.’
‘I don’t think any meeting with your Obersturmführer Barbie would’ve helped. As you said, they were arrested as terrorists. I have no good reason to plead their cause. I can only hope the war will end soon and they’ll be released.’
What a convincing liar my Resistance training had made me, yet I did feel a shard of guilt about deceiving Martin; the sting of remorse for all the half-truths I would have to continue feeding him. It would be a relief, the day it was all history, and I could tell him everything.
‘You are cold.’ He unbuttoned his greatcoat, wrapped it around my shoulders and hugged me close. I was glad of the warmth but felt odd enveloped in a German coat –– like a reluctant collaborator.
‘What a pity we do not have a warm place to be alone,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I could come into Lyon? We could take a hotel room?’
I thought of Martin with me in the city and how tricky it would be not only to see him, but also to carry out my missions. It was far safer to keep him out here in Lucie, away from all that. But the thought of having him alone, in a warm hotel room, too tempting. Like a scene from a Hollywood romance movie.
‘That would be lovely, Martin.’
‘What is wrong, Céleste? You seem … I don’t know, distant.’
‘I’m worried to death,’ I said. ‘My sister was arrested for … for something or other. She’s been deported to Germany, to a camp at some place called Ravensbrück. Do you know it?’
Martin took a sharp breath, bent over and scraped up a few pebbles. ‘Ravensbrück –– bridge of ravens,’ he said, skimming the stones, one after the other, across the silvery-grey surface of the water.
I brushed the pebbles from his hand, and they scattered on the ground. ‘Let’s not play skimming games anymore, Martin. Tell me about Ravensbrück.’
‘It is about eighty kilometres from Berlin. The camp was built on the edge of a lake, a nice ––’
‘I don’t care about lakes and bridges! Surely you know something about the actual camp?’
‘Well, there are about twelve thousand women being held there.’ The athletic shoulders tightened.
‘You’re still not telling me everything, Martin.’
‘Apparently,’ he began again, ‘this is one of many labour camps for terrorists, resistors, anybody who is working against the Führer. I do not know what happens to French prisoners like your sister, and I do not have a scrap of proof, but in keeping with Hitler’s Aryan ideology, they are supposedly exterminating Jews in these sorts of camps.’
He held a hand up. ‘Not that I agree, or even begin to understand this insane idea of the Führer’s. I mean, how can you hate someone you do not personally know, or claim to know them when they are based only on poisonous propaganda? Man, whatever his appearance, his religion, is the same the world over.’
I was barely listening to Martin, so consumed I was with the searing pain that flared deep inside me, like a great wound exploding. Perhaps how a gunshot would feel. I couldn’t speak. I even stopped shivering, and as I recalled a little soldier in a red coat, I felt something inside me wither and die.
34
In the thin light of the early dusk marching down from the Monts du Lyonnais, I hurried back to L’Auberge des Anges. Maman would be wondering where I was, and my heart beat fast with the cold, and with Martin’s words about Ravensbrück.
I thought of the Wolfs and how Max would have loved to paint that –– snow dripping like tears from the boughs of trees, the silver earth stiff with frost. While I couldn’t bear to think of them, images of the family kept burning into my mind –– desperate, helpless Max, the graceful dark beauty of Sabine, the innocence of Talia and Jacob. Exterminated. What a terrifying word. No, Martin must have got it wrong. It was simply more evil propaganda spread by the Germans to keep their heels firmly stamped upon us. The Wolfs hadn’t committed any crime; they’d never harmed a soul, and whatever did they do with the other prisoners like Félicité?
The courtyard of L’Auberge was silent, the roses beside the well shrivelled and brittle, like dismal ghosts of a bygone happier time. I glanced up to the light slanting from the kitchen window and glimpsed my mother’s face, though she gave no sign or welcoming gesture.
I saw she’d put the hens and the goats inside for winter, and I thought of the hard work raking out their straw beds in the cold and darkness of the short days to come. But however much I tried to think of something else –– anything –– the word Ravensbrück kept hammering at my brain.
As I climbed the steps, I unfastened the angel pendant and slid it into my pocket. I didn’t need Maman asking questions about a new gold chain. I’d already thought of the perfect hiding place, next to Max’s paintings –– the only other precious things in my possession.
The farmhouse was quiet apart from the softly-purring stove, its heat filling the kitchen along with the sweet smell of roasting chestnuts. I caught a snatch of conversation coming from Maman’s herbal room.
I peeked around the doorway. Miette’s mother, one of the few people my mother could call a friend, was perched on a stool, my mother bent over her hand.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing too serious, Céleste,’ Madame Dubois said. ‘A slight Christmas dinner cooking accident. But at least it gave me the excuse to come up to L’Auberge and wish your maman a Merry Christmas, seeing as she’s on her own … Anyway, she’s not now, you’re here.’
Maman frowned. ‘Not such a slight accident,’ she said, applying her poultice to the burn.
‘But as you can see, your mother insisted on fussing over me as usual,’ Madame Dubois said. ‘I don’t know what she puts in these remedies, though they seem to do the trick.’
‘Just a simple mixture of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg,’ my mother said. ‘Soaked in a cloth in white wine. Right,’ she said, as she finished bandaging the injured hand. ‘Don’t disturb the dressing and come back and see me in two days.’
With a grateful smile, Miette’s mother kissed us both and left the farm, hurrying back to her family gathering.
‘That’s nice of Miette’s maman,’ I said. ‘Coming up to see her friend, alone on Christmas Eve. I doubt the injury really needed your care?’
‘Of course it required treatment,’ Maman snapped, but the usual venom was missing from her voice. ‘Now I realise there are only two of us this year,’ she went on, a hand flying to her chignon. ‘Dr. Laforge told me your brother is safe, but wouldn’t be joining us. He also told me about … about where they’ve sent your sister. But Christmas is Christmas, so I’ve set our places in the living room.’
‘The table looks lovely,’ I said. We rarely ate anywhere besides the kitchen, so it was obvious she’d made a special effort. I sank into the sofa, eased my shoes off and snuggled my cold feet into my slippers. I bent close to the fireplace, spreading my palms near the crackling flames and remembering Christmases that seemed so distant they might have existed only in my imagination. I saw the three of us sitting with our father around the hearth, the fire blazing with as much wood as we wanted, our bellies bursting with seasoned turkey, cardoons, roasted chestnuts and my mother’s macaroons. Wood grains clinging like gold
to the hair of his forearms, Papa would wave his glass of vervain liqueur at the andirons supporting the logs in the fireplace and remind us how they came from our ancestors, from the times of Louis XVI. He’d squeeze between us, on that same sofa with its tired floral pattern, and speak of the legends of Lucie –– tales of noble lords with servants and gilt carriages, and the story of the peasant farmers who turned our farm into L’Auberge des Anges. The Inn of Angels.
Patrick especially loved to hear about the witches burned at the stake, or drowned in the Vionne River. He grinned when Papa told us how the birds would peck at rotting corpses left dangling from Lucie’s gallows. Félicité would shudder and turn away and grasp her crucifix.
Once she’d washed up, every last plate sparkling, the bench tops gleaming and the tiles waxed, Maman would join us. She rarely spoke or joined in our conversation; she simply sank into her special Napoléon armchair and attacked her sewing as if it was something she hated.
All those things I’d so longed to escape for the excitement of the city. But amidst the loss and destruction I was seeing every day, I basked in the comfort of that homely place. It seemed empty with only Maman and me, but at the same time I sensed L’Auberge was crowded; filled with all the people who’d ever lived there. Perhaps they were the spirits my sister spoke of –– those angels of the inn.
My hands warm, I slumped back into the sofa, and looked about me at the paintings I’d grown up with; the faded watercolours from which Maman meticulously flicked off the first tendrils of spider web: the grape and wheat harvest, a jade ribbon of the Vionne cleaving the valley, and the village of Lucie-sur-Vionne enclosed in its vingtain –– fourteenth century stone fortification built to keep out the conquering, plundering hordes of a different war. Perhaps Max’s paintings, more life-giving than those faded old scenes, would one day decorate our walls.
‘Sit at the table, Célestine, you must be hungry with all this … this Red Cross work.’
‘I’ve decided I’d like to study nursing,’ I said. ‘Properly I mean. Once the war is over.’
