The Lavender Keeper

by Fiona McIntosh

  Gitel was giggling. ‘Bourbon,’ she corrected.

  He gave her plait a tug and winked.

  Gitel’s expression changed. ‘Papa’s not happy. We had to make a mad dash from Paris. He’s barely let us pause to sleep and we weren’t allowed to stay in any hotels. We slept in the car, Luc! Mama is exhausted.’

  Luc caught his father’s gaze and immediately saw the tension etched deeply in the set of his mouth, buried beneath a bushy, peppered beard. Jacob Bonet was instructing the housekeeper while amiably continuing a conversation with one of the neighbours. Luc knew him far too well, though, and beneath the jollity he saw the simmering worry in every brisk movement.

  A new chill moved through him. Bad news was coming. He could sense it in the air in the same way that he could sense the moment to begin cutting the lavender, whose message also came to him on the wind through its perfume. His beloved saba insisted the lavender spoke to him and him alone. She invested the precious flowers with magical properties, and while her fanciful notions amused Luc, he hadn’t the heart to do anything but agree with her.

  He watched her now, hobbling out to help with all the possessions that the family had brought south, from his mother’s favourite chair to boxes of books. Saba was muttering beneath her breath at all the disruption, but he knew she must be secretly thrilled to have everyone home. It had been just the two of them for a couple of years now.

  His grandmother’s hands were large for her small, light frame – even tinier now that she was eighty-seven. And those hands had become gnarled and misshapen with arthritis but they were loving, ready to caress her grandson’s cheek or waggle an affectionate but warning finger when he teased her. And despite the pain in her joints, she still loved to dance. Sometimes Luc would gently scoop her up like a bird and twirl her around their parlour to music; they both knew she loved it.

  ‘The waltz was the only way a young couple could touch one another, and even through gloves I could feel the heat of your grandfather’s touch,’ she’d tell Luc, with a wicked glimmer in her eye.

  Her hair, once black, was now steely silver, always tied back in a tight bun. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her hair down.

  He watched the little woman he adored throw her hands apart in silent dismay as Gitel dropped a box.

  ‘Don’t worry, Saba. It’s only more books!’ Luc came up behind the tiny woman and hugged her. ‘More hungry mouths to cook for,’ he said gently, bending low to kiss. ‘Shall I trap some rabbits?’

  She reached up to pat his cheek, her eyes filling with happiness. ‘We have some chickens to pluck. More than enough. But I might want some fresh lavender,’ she whispered and he grinned back. He loved it when Saba flavoured her dishes with his lavender.

  ‘You’ll have it,’ he promised and planted another kiss on the top of her head.

  His elder sisters gave him tight, meaningful hugs. He was shocked at how thin they felt through their summery frocks, and it hurt to watch his mother begin to weep when she saw him. She was all but disappearing – so shrunken and frail.

  ‘My boy, my boy,’ she said, as if in lament.

  It was all terribly grim for a reunion. ‘Why are you crying?’ He smiled at his mother. ‘We’re all safe and together.’

  She waved a hand as if too overcome to speak.

  ‘Go inside, my love,’ Jacob said in that tender voice he reserved for his wife. ‘We can manage this. Girls, help your mother inside. I need to speak with your brother.’

  ‘Let me—’ Luc began, but his father stilled him with a hand on his arm.

  ‘Come. Walk with me.’ Luc had never heard his normally jovial father as solemn.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sarah complained softly. ‘We’ve only just arrived.’

  Luc smiled at his eldest sister, trying his best to ignore the way her shoulders seemed to curve inwards, adding to her hollow look. ‘I’ll be back in a heartbeat,’ Luc whispered to her. ‘I want to know everything about Paris.’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Sarah warned, and the sorrow in her tone pinched Luc’s heart.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Luc fell in step with his father, who now appeared brittle enough to snap. ‘It’s so good to have you all back, but if we’d known, we could have made arrangements.’ He laid a hand across the older man’s shoulders and not even his father’s clothes could conceal the blades, hard and angular, that jutted beneath.

  ‘No time,’ Jacob admitted brusquely. ‘Where’s Wolf? I sent him a message ahead.’

  ‘We were planning a meal together tonight anyway. Saba is cooking his favourite.’

  ‘Good. I need to talk with him.’ His father sighed and looked up. ‘I used to run up this hill.’

  Luc had registered his father’s far slower tread. ‘Are you well, Papa?’

  His father looked down and Luc was astonished to see his lip quiver. ‘I don’t know what I am, son. But I am glad to see you.’ He linked arms with Luc. ‘Now, help me up this wretched hill. I would see my favourite valley from our lookout.’

  They said no more, walking slowly in comfortable silence as Luc guided his father through the tiny alleyways of the village, chased by the smells of cooking and echoes of people’s chatter through open shutters, ascending all the time to the great overhanging cliff. The sun had set by the time they reached the summit, but the evening was still bright enough in the Provence summer. Night wouldn’t claim the village for hours yet. Luc helped his father to sit, making him comfortable on a small outcrop of rock, trying to mask his confusion.

  Jacob Bonet stayed wordless for a long time. He was not quite seventy and had been a businessman for most of his life, even though he’d begun as a lavender farmer. Jacob didn’t have the same affinity for the land that Luc had. Lavender had been the source of his family’s wealth but Jacob had used his inheritance and savings with skill and daring. By the time Jacob had been Luc’s age, he no longer had much to do with his family farms, and had managers supervising them. He could have sold them, but Jacob had been sentimental and kept them going. How glad Luc was that he had. Lavender had become highly profitable as the perfume industry had grown. But Jacob’s work was all about accounting and investment, not hard toil in a field. At seventy he shouldn’t be this frail, Luc thought with despair.

  It was only now, looking at one of the people he most loved, that Luc was able to see how traumatised his father appeared. Jacob’s skin had a ghostly pallor and was stretched too thin over what had become an almost skeletal frame.

  Luc felt guilty that his own body was so strong, muscular – even tanned. ‘Living in Paris has not been kind to our family,’ he remarked.

  ‘I have to educate your sisters, Luc. There’s nothing for your sisters here in Saignon. Can you imagine Sarah or Rachel not being able to use their bright minds? And Gitel? She needs what Paris offers.’ His father looked down. ‘We all do. It’s where my business is done.’ Then he lowered his head. ‘Was done.’ Jacob closed his eyes and inhaled. ‘What do you smell?’

  It was a question he’d asked many times during Luc’s childhood but Luc hadn’t tired of it. He dwelt in the memory of far happier times overlooking this picturesque valley, with its patchwork of fields and orchards, olive groves and the tall stands of cypress deep blue in the dusk.

  He cleared his throat to rid it of the sour taste that had gathered. ‘Lavender, of course,’ he answered. ‘And the thyme is strong this evening. As well as rosemary, mint and just a hint of sage. Oh, and Madame Blanc’s stew is already simmering in her pot.’

  ‘Mmm.’ His father nodded. ‘Heavy on the marjoram this evening.’

  Luc smiled. ‘You didn’t bring me up here to discuss herbs.’

  ‘No. I just wanted to cling for a moment to the illusion that nothing has changed, that life is still simple and secure.’

  ‘Papa, tell me what has brought you here in such haste?’

  The bell of Saint Mary’s tolled gravely in the distance. It was a twelfth-century Romanesque chu
rch that had been greeting pilgrims journeying to Italy and Spain since the Middle Ages, which accounted for its size and grandeur in their tiny village.

  Jacob took a pipe from his pocket and tapped out the spent ash on a nearby rock. It was only now that Luc noticed a piece of yellow fabric, sewn onto his father’s jacket sleeve and shaped as a star. He was astonished to realise that it had the word Juif inked onto it.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Luc asked.

  ‘We’ve been wearing this now for a month or so, son.’ His father shrugged. ‘The decree came into effect in early June. Wherever we Jews are, we have to wear it.’

  Luc stood, anger flaring. ‘They’ve already removed our people from every civil service position, from industry, from trade—’

  His father finished for him. ‘Law, medicine, banking, hotels, property, even education. Benjamin Meyer has never recovered from losing his teaching position at the university. But it’s been steadily getting worse. All the confiscations of goods, all the humiliations add up. I’ve managed to protect our girls from the worst of it, but even I can’t keep them safe now.’

  ‘You have come home for good, then? We shall keep the family safe here.’

  His father smiled sadly. ‘I’m not so sure about that, my son, not with the new Schutzhaft in place.’

  Luc stared at him. It felt like an icy fist had suddenly clenched around his gut. ‘Schutzhaft?’ He knew what the word meant – detention and protection – but it didn’t make sense.

  ‘It’s the Gestapo’s generous way of keeping us Jews safe. Protective custody, it’s called, but it’s simply a front behind which they can hide as they drag us all off for imprisonment.’

  ‘Detention?’

  ‘It’s not just the Nazis. Our own French administrators are to blame too.’

  ‘The General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs was always—’

  His father spat on the ground between where they sat, shocking Luc into silence.

  ‘They’re a corrupt and avaricious mob!’ Jacob snapped. ‘Vichy has embraced anti-Jewish ordinances with glee and is so anxious to prevent everything it confiscates from us from falling into German hands that most of our friends from the Occupied area are now destitute or being carted off to detention camps.’ His father gave a sad laugh. ‘And we’ve made it so easy for them. Like obedient sheep we’ve done everything asked of us, from going to the sub-prefectures and registering our names, the names of our parents, our children, our addresses. They have a complete record of every Jew in Paris. All of France, probably, for all I know.’

  ‘It’s just a list,’ Luc began.

  But Jacob grabbed his shirtsleeve. ‘It’s not just a list, son. It’s information. And information is power! I have run my own business since I was nineteen, and information is the key. It’s why I’ve given you the lavender-growing business. I want you to learn early, understand what it is to be in charge, to learn the very thing I’m telling you now. Money makes you feel invincible, but it is a brittle shield, as you can see; my money is no true protection when you really need it. The real power is information; the authorities have all the might they need because we have meekly given them the means to find us, how many children we have, their names, even their photographs. They have confiscated our properties, our paintings, our silver, the chairs we sit on and tables we eat at. And no one fights them!’

  Luc waited. His breath felt as ragged as his father’s voice sounded as Jacob continued. ‘It is information that kept us alive. I knew it was vital to get out of Paris, that something truly bad was coming, because I listened and paid the right people to inform me. I warned others; they didn’t all believe me and will pay a terrible price. And still they can hunt us. Hunt us like the vermin they believe we are.’ The old man’s voice broke and he put his face in his hands.

  Luc swallowed. It was all so much worse than he’d feared.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ his father asked. ‘Detention camps for honest, god-fearing citizens patriotic to France, who have fought for her and whose sons have died for her. They’re now being interred in shitholes like Drancy!’

  Luc had never heard his father talk like this. But there was no more anger in Jacob’s voice. Luc realised his father was only now allowing his sorrows to surface.

  ‘It began in the eleventh arrondissement; they rounded up thousands of Jews and took them to Drancy … that was its official opening, you could say, last year. But there’s worse coming. Mark my words.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Luc asked, shocked.

  His father shrugged painfully thin shoulders. ‘What could you do? I needed you here, carrying the burden of our farms. A lot of people count on us for their income.’

  The words, though true, felt hollow to Luc. ‘The girls, they …?’

  ‘Sarah just wants to attend university and study the history of art. She wants to lecture.’ He gave a small, strangled sound. ‘They won’t let a Jew near a class any more! Rachel knows what’s happening but won’t discuss it in front of your mother and refuses to play her music. Gitel …’ He gave the saddest of smiles. ‘We need her to remain ignorant for as long as possible. It is only going to get worse.’

  ‘Stop saying that, Papa. We can keep the family safe here, I promise you.’

  Jacob gave a tutting sound of despair. ‘Stop dreaming, Luc!’

  Luc felt the sting of the rebuke. He didn’t know how to respond, but there was no doubting Jacob Bonet’s information. His family’s religious background made everyday life of Occupied Paris now impossibly hard to stay safe.

  His father drew on the pipe and closed his eyes momentarily, enjoying its comfort.

  ‘So the apartment in Saint-Germain is …?’

  ‘Acquired,’ his father replied somberly, not opening his eyes. ‘The Germans love the Left Bank. We’ve been staying with friends for the last few months.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you until we knew more.’

  His father was normally the most optimistic of men but he sounded so beaten that genuine dread crept into Luc’s heart.

  ‘What day is it today?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘A fortnight gone already.’

  Luc frowned. ‘What happened two weeks ago?’

  ‘Well, you’re aware that the Commission for Jewish Affairs has sanctioned all the German initiatives with barely a blink of conscience?’

  Luc nodded, but didn’t say that he had failed to grasp that it was as determined as Hitler in discriminating against Jewish people. As critical as Luc was of the Germans, his loathing had increasingly been directed more at the French milice in the region. They were far more visible, far more demanding of the people of the provinces than any soldiers. The German soldiers he’d seen were mostly lads with pink faces and clean chins and a ready grin. They were as unlikely as he to look forward to killing.

  His father continued. ‘Shops must carry signs stating that they are Jewish-owned; the Reich has been imposing hefty taxes on Jews. We’ve been forbidden from buying our groceries in certain places. Parks are now off limits. It’s no longer safe for Gitel’s friends to be seen playing with her. But until now we’ve been relatively safe so long as we obey rules and keep to ourselves.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now property belonging to Jews is being confiscated as a matter of course. Families are being evicted. It’s unthinkable, although I shouldn’t be so surprised, given the rumours we’re hearing from Poland.’

  Luc frowned. ‘Evicted and then what?’

  ‘They’re being rounded up, Luc.’

  ‘Rounded up?’

  ‘A lot of our men who fought in the Foreign Legion at the beginning of the war have already been deported to build the railway in the Sahara. I suppose we should have paid more attention to last year’s announcement that Jews were no longer able to emigrate.’

  ‘But, Father, to where? Why would you want to leave?’

  Jacob Bonet turned to his
son and smiled gently. ‘I let you all down. I should have got the girls away when I had the chance in 1939. But you were all still so young and your mother would have died of a broken heart if I’d sent her away. But I should have packed them off on a ship to America. Instead now all they have ahead of them are places like Drancy.’

  ‘Drancy isn’t interested in our family,’ Luc growled.

  ‘Do you really think the Gestapo has finished with the Jews? Drancy is surrounded by barbed wire. There are now five of its sub-camps around Paris. Last year they slaughtered forty inmates there in retaliation for an uprising. They despise us, want us gone. And by gone I don’t mean from Paris or even Provence. I mean obliterated.’ Luc’s heart skipped a beat as his father’s voice faltered. ‘They will hunt us down, north or south. There is nowhere for us to flee. I have tried, my boy, believe me. I, Jacob Bonet, cannot even bribe safe passage for my daughters out of Europe. The doors of France are closed and our so-called head of government has happily thrown away the key. Laval’s determination to follow the totalitarian Nazi regime will see every last Jew rounded up and thrown into camps. But there is talk that these camps like Drancy and Austerlitz are simply holding prisons.’

  The hair at the back of Luc’s neck stood on end. He didn’t want to ask but still the question tumbled from his lips. ‘For what?’

  ‘For the master plan,’ his father murmured, clutching his pipe tightly. ‘I have heard that there is to be a concerted series of arrests as early as next week in Paris. No one is safe; no Jew will be spared. At first they only arrested gypsies, then foreigners – but that was a smokescreen. France has begun deporting its Jews east to work camps, but the rumours are that those not of use to the German war machine will simply be killed.’ He looked up and fixed Luc with a fierce gaze. ‘Except you.’

  ‘Me?’ Luc’s voice cracked in surprise. ‘Yes, as a farmer I’m considered part of essential services, but—’