Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  Jeannot didn’t hesitate; he turned and fled back the way they had come, dragging Hélène behind him. Terror gave wings to their feet and before Gaston reached the corner, Jeannot had darted into a narrow passageway, deep in the shadow of the tall tenements that lined it. Hélène saw warm light from a tabac on the corner and then it was twilight again as they ran. It was an alley Jeannot knew well, he’d lived there during the siege, with Edith and Alphonse Berger; they’d given him shelter and he’d found them food.

  The alleyway ended in a brick wall that encircled a warehouse beyond, but there was nowhere else for them to go. With luck their pursuers would rush past its narrow entrance without seeing it; if not they’d be cornered unless they could somehow scale that wall. They ran to the end and Hélène stopped, trying to catch her breath.

  Jeannot glanced at the steps leading down to the Bergers’ basement. Should he bang on Edith’s door? he wondered. No, he dismissed the idea immediately; if it wasn’t opened at once, they’d lose precious moments trying.

  ‘Over!’ hissed Jeannot, and without warning he caught Hélène round the waist and hoisted her up so she could grasp the top of the wall. ‘On my shoulders,’ he ordered. Wobbling dangerously, Hélène managed to stand on his shoulders, from where she climbed onto the top of the wall.

  ‘Drop down!’ he ordered.

  ‘It’s too high!’ she cried in panic. ‘I can’t get down.’

  ‘You must,’ insisted Jeannot. ‘Turn round and slither.’

  There was a shout from the end of the alley and glancing up Hélène saw the Gaston-man running towards them. With a cry of terror she pushed herself off the wall, tumbling awkwardly and landing in a patch of brambles below. She heard the shouting and yelling from the other side of the wall, and out of the clamour she heard Jeannot’s shriek. ‘Run, Hélène. Run.’

  Hélène ran.

  Gaston had set off after them, determined to recapture Hélène and deal with Jeannot. He was sprinting to the end of the street when he slipped on the slimy cobbles and fell, arms flailing, into the gutter. He hauled himself to his feet, his clothes and hands filthy, his face a mask of rage, and Auguste and Jules, who had greeted his fall with a burst of ill-advised laughter, came abruptly to silence as they saw his fury and continued the chase.

  Rounding the corner they saw that there was no sign of fleeing children in the street ahead. For a moment they paused, then Gaston caught sight of the mouth of the passageway and shouted, ‘Keep going! They can’t be far! I’ll look down here.’

  ‘All right, boss,’ said Jules, and he and Auguste continued along the street, while Gaston branched off down the alley. He caught sight of his quarry at the end and realising it was a dead end and they couldn’t get out, he slowed a little. He had no gun with him, but his knife was tucked into his boot, and he wouldn’t need a gun to cope with the two brats he’d cornered. But Gaston had reckoned without Jeannot. Suddenly he realised that the girl was already on the wall. He heard her cry out as she vanished onto the other side and saw the boy jumping, frantically trying to catch hold of the top of the wall and haul himself up.

  Gaston, walking towards him, said, ‘It’s no good, boy. You can’t reach!’

  Jeannot knew then that he was going to die and with his back to the wall, he turned to face his murderer. He slid his hand into his pocket and grasped the knife he’d stolen from Francine’s kitchen. It was small, but the blade was honed and sharp, and as Gaston approached, Jeannot held it concealed at his side.

  ‘Thought you’d steal my girl, did you, boy?’ Gaston grinned at him. ‘Too bad! For you and for her!’

  As he made a grab for the boy, Jeannot gave a sudden fierce jab upwards with his knife, slicing the unexpected blade through Gaston’s ear lobe. The man gave a bellow of pain and for a moment Jeannot thought he might yet escape, but Gaston, a veteran of all too many fights, wouldn’t allow so trivial a knife-wound to defeat him. His own knife was in his hand and grasping the boy, he slashed downward at Jeannot’s neck. Jeannot jerked and twisted away, and the blade sliced into his shoulder causing a fountain of blood to spray over Gaston’s hands, but avoiding the death thrust intended. He was still held in a vice-like grip, but with one final effort he jabbed again with his small knife, stabbing it into the only part of Gaston he could reach: his groin. Gaston squealed with pain and flung the child from him, clutching himself in agony. Jeannot’s head hit the wall with a crack and he slid to the ground in a motionless heap. Jules and Auguste, racing down the alley, heard the commotion and when they reached the wall they found Gaston with blood running down his neck and bleeding profusely from an injury inside his trousers, the blood soaking through them at an alarming rate.

  Jules rushed to his aid while Auguste went to look at Jeannot.

  ‘Is he dead?’ called Jules, who had ripped off his shirt and was pressing it hard against Gaston’s wound.

  ‘He soon will be.’

  Gaston, suffering the ministrations of his well-meaning mate, gave a curse. ‘Kill the fucker!’ he mumbled, and passed out.

  15

  Hélène ran, stumbling away from the wall, towards the huge building in front of her, her one idea being that she must get as far away from the Gaston-man as possible. She knew from the sounds of fighting that he and his henchmen had caught Jeannot, but there was nothing she could do for him; Jeannot had yelled at her to run and she had.

  She found she was in a walled area stacked with timber and piles of bricks. In its centre was the tall building with a large yard at the front and a cluster of old wooden sheds at the back. She could hear the shouts of men working nearby, the rumble of cartwheels, the whinny of a horse. She scurried across to the old buildings and peering out from their shelter, saw a waggon standing in the yard, the horse waiting patiently as several men shifted its load of crates and barrels into the warehouse. They shouted to each other as they passed the load from man to man, unaware of a young girl crouching among the weeds watching them. On the far side of the yard was a pair of huge gates, open to the street beyond.

  Hélène glanced anxiously behind her. There was no sign of pursuit from the other side of the wall, but she was terrified that at any minute Gaston and his men would clamber over and come after her. She looked back at the workmen in the yard, a human chain between her and the freedom of the street beyond, and made up her mind. She drew a deep breath and erupted from the cover of the old sheds, running headlong across the yard towards the gate.

  ‘Hey! You! Stop!’ The cry came from the foreman who had been standing out of her sight. He ran to cut her off as she made her dash for freedom, but she’d had the element of surprise and though his fingers actually caught hold of her dress, she was able to jerk away, run out into the street and keep running. She had no idea where she was or where she was going, she simply ran, turning left or right as she came to each street corner with the idea of confusing any pursuit, but there was none and when she finally ran into a square with a fountain playing in its centre, she flopped down on its stone balustrade and gulped down cool fresh water from her cupped hands. A woman walked into the square, a small white dog on a lead prancing along beside her. She paused, looking down with distaste at the girl sitting beside the fountain. What was it coming to? Street urchins like that in this area, muddying the drinking water with their filthy hands? The dog saw Hélène and began to bark.

  ‘That’s right, Toto,’ said the woman in a loud voice as she drew her skirts away. ‘You tell this dirty little girl to go away.’ Toto continued to bark his high-pitched officious bark until the pair had disappeared round the corner into the next street.

  Hélène was too tired to get up, but she caught sight of her reflection in the water of the pool and hardly recognised herself. She saw a pale girl, with her hair loose from its usual tidy plait and a face grubby and tear-streaked.

  No wonder that dog barked at me, she thought disconsolately. She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief, but that was long gone and she had to make do with
dipping her hands into the water and scrubbing at her cheeks with her fingers. She brushed her hair away from her face, leaving a long smear of dirt across her forehead, so that she looked no better than she had the moment before.

  A gendarme walked into the square and saw her sitting there, a small dirty figure in a torn dress.

  ‘Hey! You! Move along there. No vagrants allowed here! Off you go… and don’t come back.’

  Wearily, Hélène got to her feet. If she had encountered a gendarme in her previous life as the young daughter of an upper-middle-class family, she would have approached him for help, and he would have responded by taking her home to her parents. As it was, no thought of asking him for help entered her mind. She no longer trusted any man to come near her. She wanted nothing to do with him. She ducked her head in acquiescence and limped away, out of the square, following the road that ran she knew not where. She was hungry and getting cold. It was only late afternoon, but she knew she must find somewhere safe to sleep and then, tomorrow, when she felt better, she would ask someone, an elderly woman, or some servant girl out on an errand, where she was and go home.

  Even that idea frightened her. The Gaston-man knew where she lived. Hadn’t he stolen her from the Avenue Ste Anne in the first place? He might guess she’d go back there and be lying in wait. But where else was she to go? Surely Papa would be waiting there for her return? She thought of the letter she’d had to write. Had Papa received that yet? Was he even now finding the money to buy her back?

  She was so tired that when she came to a church standing at the edge of yet another square, she went to the door and pushed it open, slipping inside. It was warm and smelled of incense. Early evening sun streamed through a stained glass window, casting patterns of glorious colour on the flagstoned floor. Before the high altar hung a sanctuary light, softly gleaming to remind her that Jesus was present in the reserved sacrament. Hélène slipped into one of the pews and for the first time since she and Marie-Jeanne had gone upstairs only two days earlier, she relaxed a little. She attended Mass with her family every Sunday as a matter of course, but she had never felt any particular closeness to God or his Son. Now, as she sat there in the quiet of the peaceful church, she wondered if God would mind if she slept here for the night.

  Almost without noticing, her head drooped and she drifted off into an uneasy doze. Immediately the evil dreams of the previous night pounced again; she saw Gaston coming towards her, grinning, his teeth showing yellow through his black beard, the black hairs on his hands as he pulled at her clothes and she woke with a cry. At that moment Father Thomas, the young curate of the parish, emerged from a carved confessional box in a side aisle of the church. Hélène, halfway between sleeping and waking, saw the man, clad in black, his head fringed with dark curly hair, walking towards her and she gave an anguished cry before she fainted away, sliding down the pew onto the floor.

  The young priest rushed over to her not knowing who was there or why she had cried out, and found to his astonishment a young girl, no more than about eleven, dressed in filthy ragged clothes, unconscious on the church floor.

  For a long moment he didn’t know what to do. Should he try and wake her up? Should he leave her there on the floor and go for help? Should he fetch her a drink of water from the pump in the churchyard? Wine? Unconsecrated communion wine? No! He drew back in horror at that idea, wondering how it could possibly have entered his mind. Father Lenoir, the parish priest, was out. What should he do? For another moment he stood perplexed before deciding that he’d go and fetch Madame Sauze who looked after the two of them in the Clergy House. Surely Madame Sauze would know what to do. He was quite right and minutes later Agathe Sauze came hurrying back with him to discover who it was lying in a heap on the church floor.

  Hélène was just coming round, her eyes unfocused and her head spinning. The young curate stood in the aisle wringing his hands as Madame Sauze slipped into the pew and knelt beside the child on the floor.

  ‘Ah, you poor child,’ she soothed as she gathered the girl into her arms and lifted her up. ‘Don’t be frightened. Father Thomas and I have come here to help you.’

  At the sound of the gentle voice Hélène’s tears started afresh and she wailed, ‘I want Maman.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Madame Sauze, ‘and we shall find her. But first we’ll go back to the house and I’ll find you some bread and milk. We can wash your face and hands and when you feel better, you can tell us who you are and what has happened to you.’ She turned to Father Thomas who still stood at a loss in the aisle, waiting to be told what to do.

  ‘Come along, Father,’ she said. ‘The poor child is exhausted. You must carry her over to the house.’

  Father Thomas looked down at the grubby child now sitting beside the housekeeper, and stepped forward reluctantly. He had no wish to pick up and carry a street urchin, clearly filthy and almost certainly jumping with fleas. What would Father Lenoir say when he got home and found such a child installed in the kitchen? Giving a morsel of bread and cheese at the back door to a passing beggar was one thing, having one sitting at the kitchen table was quite another.

  As he took a reluctant step forward, Hélène looked up and saw him and the matter was decided for him. She gave a cry and cringed away from him, burying her face in the comforting bosom of the housekeeper. Father Thomas jerked backwards, his face a mask of distaste.

  ‘I cannot carry her,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t want me to.’

  Madame Sauze had to agree that it was clear Hélène didn’t, and so she said, ‘Never mind, we will walk to the house.’ Turning her attention back to Hélène, she said, ‘Now then, child, come with me. We’ll walk over to the Clergy House and you can have your bread and milk.’

  With a firm gentleness, Madame Sauze brought Hélène to her feet and with an arm round her shoulders led her up the aisle and out of the church, followed at a safe distance by Father Thomas. Moments later they had crossed the square and entered the big old Clergy House. The housekeeper led Hélène into the large warm kitchen at the back, and sat her down in the rocking chair beside the range.

  ‘Now then, my dear,’ she said, ‘you just sit there while I warm some milk.’ She took a jug of milk from the pantry shelf, poured some into a pan and set it on the stove.

  Father Thomas appeared at the kitchen door and said, rather ominously, ‘I will inform Father Lenoir when he comes in.’

  Without looking up from what she was doing, the housekeeper said, ‘Thank you, Father, and I will come and speak with him myself.’

  Hélène took the cup of warm milk and drained it in one long draught, before tearing at the bread that Madame Sauze had put on a plate in front of her. Seeing how hungry the child was, the housekeeper cut a generous wedge of cheese which vanished equally fast.

  ‘Now then, my child,’ she said, ‘you must tell me your name and what has happened to you.’

  Hélène stared up at her with wide frightened eyes and for a moment Madame Sauze thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she whispered, ‘Hélène.’

  ‘Well, Hélène, I’m going to give you a bath and see if I can find you some clean clothes.’ She looked at the girl speculatively and said, ‘Have you ever had a bath?’

  Hélène stared back at her for a long moment and then nodded.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Madame Sauze encouragingly. ‘You will be more comfortable when you’re nice and clean.’

  She took her hand and led her upstairs to the tiny bathroom that had so recently been contrived out of one of the small box rooms. She still had to carry the hot water up in buckets, but the tub was big enough for a child to lie in. Once she had filled the bath, she helped Hélène to remove her filthy clothes. As she did so she noticed that they were of good quality, not the clothes of a street child. Where did she get these? she wondered, as she drew the liberty bodice over Hélène’s head. But the clothes were immediately forgotten when she gasped in horror as the state of the child’s body was revealed. Black and pur
ple bruises marbled her skin, patches of dull blue, islands of livid colour in its pale whiteness. Fingers had left their shape from the pressure applied to her neck and her thighs were blotched and bruised.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God!’ she whispered. ‘Who did this to you, child?’

  Hélène didn’t answer, but tears started to stream down her cheeks as she began to sob. Madame reached for her, holding her close, feeling the shuddering body against her own.

  ‘Never mind that now,’ she said gently. ‘Let’s get you into the bath so you can get warm.’

  Hélène did as she was told, sinking into the warm water and closing her eyes. Madame Sauze looked again at the abused body and despite her age and her knowledge of the cruel world in which she’d lived for more than fifty years, she found tears in her own eyes. How could anyone do that to a child?

  Realising the girl needed her privacy, she said, ‘Now you get washed and clean. And I’ll go and see what clothes we have.’ She put a bar of soap on the edge of the bath and quietly left the room. On the landing she opened the old wardrobe where they kept oddments of clothing to give to the beggars at the back door. Amongst the various pieces given by some of the parishioners, she found a cotton dress, some rather grey underwear and an old shawl. Not all that suitable, but they’d have to do for now while she attempted to wash and mend Hélène’s own clothes. These she carried back to the bathroom along with a towel, and helped the child to get dry. She had no nightclothes to offer, but she had found an old petticoat and this she put on her before leading her into one of the small disused bedrooms.