The Lavender Keeper

by Fiona McIntosh

  Her sentence, full of the naive invincibility of a nine-year-old, burst whatever balloon of hope had begun to lift their spirits.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Luc suddenly announced. He was determined to get his family away from all threats, and nowhere was safer than their lavender fields. ‘We start harvesting on Monday. Everyone has to be involved. Maman, Saba, I hope you’re ready to cook up a storm. We won’t have any extra labour this year. It’s down to us. I’ll spread the word. We’re going to be busy firing up the Cygnet!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Excitement on the first harvest day always spilt throughout the village. The lavender fields needed little tending – the lavender grew wild without watering, and the real work was at harvest time. The pressure to harvest or not was enormous. The local beekeepers always begged for the start date to be delayed, while the perfumers, wartime or not, were desperate for the oil.

  Luc’s childhood friend, Laurent Martin, came from a long line of beekeepers, and his family was essential to Luc’s. Without the bees, the lavender fields would not be pollinated, and without the lavender, the Martin family would not be able to make their living.

  Laurent had a theory that happy bees could improve Luc’s yield by ten per cent, which Luc rolled his eyes at, and yet he always found himself delaying the harvest by a few more days to keep Laurent happy. But not this year.

  Laurent caught up with Luc in the lavender fields before the birds had even begun their morning warm-up.

  ‘Is it true? You’re harvesting today?’

  ‘I’d hardly be joking about something this important.’

  ‘My bees aren’t ready.’

  Luc, towering above his friend, laughed. ‘They never are.’

  They were as different as two men could be. Luc was tall, with thick fair hair he kept neatly trimmed, and a broad white smile that came readily, while his closest friend didn’t stand much taller than Luc’s shoulder. Laurent’s hair was oiled, black and lustrous, and he’d grown a dark moustache because he thought it made him appear more debonair. Laurent had always looked like a boy next to Luc and now in his mid-twenties, despite his strengthening jawline, he had yet to enjoy the popularity he dreamt about with women.

  It was a shame, Luc thought, for Laurent’s dreamy disposition meant he could rattle off a poetic line that would melt most women’s hearts. But despite his passionate nature, Laurent was shy and possessed none of Luc’s dash or presence.

  ‘You’re eleven days earlier than last year,’ Laurent moaned.

  ‘I know, but today’s the day,’ Luc replied.

  Laurent snatched at a stalk of the lavender. ‘Even I can see this isn’t fully in bloom.’

  ‘These are unusual times.’

  ‘More unusual than last year? What’s changed? We’re still at war. France is still occupied. People are still dying.’

  ‘Perhaps all the more reason to get the oil extracted.’

  ‘To save Germans from infection?’

  Luc sighed, his expression troubled. ‘It’s my family, Laurent. When you see my sisters perhaps you’ll understand. The harvest will keep them away from the authorities, and being high up here in the perfumed fields is enough to lift anyone’s spirit.’ His face softened. ‘I’ll help you move your hives to another grower’s field.’

  Laurent gave a low sound of dismay.

  ‘Let it go – just this year, please.’ Luc wanted to tell Laurent what he’d learnt about himself. But now was not the time.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Laurent said, waving a hand at him. ‘On one condition.’

  ‘Name it,’ Luc said, squinting across his field, trying to work out the best spot for the fire to heat the water for the Cygnet.

  ‘Are you going to ask Catherine to marry you?’

  Luc laughed. ‘No. Is that the condition?’

  Laurent scowled. ‘The condition is that you promise to stop seeing her.’ At Luc’s bemused look he added, ‘Until you’re out of the picture she’s not going to hear my proposal.’

  ‘I’m out of the picture,’ Luc assured, raising his hands in defence.

  ‘I need your word now. Stop – you know … being with her?’

  Luc felt a spike of surprise and guilt; he’d not realised that Laurent was so sweet on Catherine. ‘You should have said something before.’

  ‘Would it have stopped you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m not heartless.’

  ‘Catherine may not see it that way. In fact, I could name a number of girls who wouldn’t see it that way.’

  ‘I’m honest. I don’t lie to any of them.’

  ‘Maybe that’s true. But, don’t you think women want to be lied to sometimes?’

  ‘No. Catherine’s angry with me because she’s not getting what she wants.’

  ‘That’s because she’s only had eyes for you. But if you ignore her, perhaps she’ll notice me.’

  Luc rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Listen … I’m sorry. I give you my word. I’ll never lay a finger on her again, other than to give her a congratulatory kiss when she’s your bride.’

  Laurent brightened. ‘I shall pay her a visit this evening. I – I think I might be in love …’

  Luc smiled. ‘I don’t love her like you do. Let me be honest – I don’t love her at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s not Catherine.’ Luc ran a hand through his light hair. ‘I think I’m incapable of it.’

  ‘What … loving someone?’

  ‘No, I love my family. I love you, even! But loving a woman like you do …’ He shook his head. ‘The fact that you’ve waited for her. No, the fact that you’ve waited so long and still love her. It’s so … so selfless,’ he said. ‘I think if I was in love with a woman I couldn’t bear for her to even look at another man.’

  ‘Then I hope your love is never tested in that way.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luc replied and meant it.

  ‘You can be an insensitive, arrogant bastard,’ Laurent said, without any heat. ‘But you’re the only person I completely trust.’

  ‘Trust is everything these days.’

  ‘Do you trust Fougasse?’ Laurent asked suddenly, the change in topic catching Luc unawares.

  ‘The baker? Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’ve found him watching me recently.’

  ‘Watching you. How?’

  ‘Furtively.’

  ‘Do you owe him money? Does your family?’

  ‘No,’ Laurent said, indignantly.

  ‘Perhaps he believes you should have volunteered.’

  Laurent gave a snort. ‘He should understand we need the beehives.’

  ‘Have you said something about him behind his back?’

  ‘I barely know the fellow.’

  ‘Then maybe he too wants Catherine,’ Luc said theatrically.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. Everyone knows Fougasse still visits his wife’s grave every evening.’

  Luc looked down. ‘Yes, and that’s the sort of love I’m talking about. I can’t see myself ever loving someone like that. Look what it’s done to Fougasse. His life revolves around visiting and tending that grave. Don’t become like that, Laurent. Promise me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be frightened of love, Luc. It’s all we have to look forward to in life, especially now. If you have that, you have everything.’

  ‘How do you know it’s everything?’

  ‘I know my heart … and it’s full.’

  Luc grimaced. ‘Aren’t these the worst of times to be in love? While I’m looking at Marcel, with his doe-eyes for Rachel, I’m hearing talk of the conscription. He’ll be called up for sure. Third son. No chance.’

  Laurent looked suddenly miserable. ‘Then I suspect I will too. And my father’s not as old as yours. They’ll deem him fit. It’s all right for you, Bonet. No one’s going to let the French perfume market fail.’

  ‘We can’t grow lavender without your bees, Laurent. But listen, you’ll run aw
ay if they come after you. We make a promise now; neither of us will fight for Hitler.’

  Laurent gave a rueful sigh. ‘I’ll probably be shot. The milice are crawling all over the place just looking for an excuse to flex its muscle. Haven’t you seen Gendarme Landry swaggering around with his new pistol?’

  ‘That bastard Landry. I’m hearing his name too often.’

  ‘Keep out of his way, Luc.’

  ‘You’re the second person to warn me. Perhaps I need to get in his way.’

  Laurent grabbed his shirt. ‘Don’t be a fool. I’ve heard what’s been happening in Paris. If for your family alone, keep your temper and stay out of that piece of dirt’s way.’

  Luc released his friend’s fist. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘You think you’re invincible. But the Germans will shoot you as easily as spit on you.’

  ‘Someone has to stand up to them some time,’ Luc said, turning away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Laurent called.

  ‘To get the Cygnet. Are you helping with the cutting?’

  ‘You know I always do. My family’s coming too. We’ll move the hives.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ve asked Monsieur Fougasse to send up some breakfast for the workers. Everyone should arrive by dawn. Will you wait here for him?’

  ‘Yes. It’s going to be a hot one. The sooner we get going …’

  ‘We should enjoy it after the last winter.’

  ‘I hope to never live through one like that again.’

  ‘I hope it’s worse!’ Luc said, and Laurent looked at him as though he was losing his mind. ‘The harder the winter, the safer we are in Saignon. No one will come up here when it’s snowing … if there are any German soldiers left after the Russian winter.’

  ‘Enough talk of winter! Let me enjoy summer, my bees, your lavender fields, my lovely Catherine.’

  The Bonet’s lavender fields were wild, and although Luc didn’t want to admit it, he knew cultivation was the future. But cultivated lavender meant a drop in quality, and the wild lavender of the alpine region was the only way to maintain the French perfume industry’s reputation. Cultivators had already begun planting fields of hybrid lavender that grew at the lower altitudes and which had an almost double yield – but of a far more astringent oil. They would be producing the antiseptics, soaps, detergents in years to come. But Luc knew that his Lavandula angustifolia – the purest wild lavender that grew from only 800 metres in the Luberon – would always be the magical essence that the perfumers would covet.

  Luc’s early start to the harvest had taken the villagers by surprise but no one was going to knock back Bonet money. Alongside the few local workers came the Bonet family, and it was an emotional sight for Luc to see them being pulled behind the donkey Caesar in a little cart with the food. Gitel skipped alongside, a fresh glow about her. Ida and Golda were deep in conversation, but Sarah and Rachel were not talking, their cheeks so hollow and their shoulders all but poking through their blouses. The girls of the south were so healthy and sun-kissed by comparison.

  That morning Golda had tasted real coffee from their meagre remaining stores for the first time in an age, and had wept, having been reduced to drinking a form using chicory.

  ‘Everything is rationed, but now Jews have reduced rations,’ Jacob had explained to Luc. ‘Gitel hasn’t grown in a year. She’s not getting enough milk or meat. I have to buy everything on the black market.’ He shrugged in his habitual way. ‘Everything is available for a price, even good coffee, but your mother insists we make do like everyone else.’

  Jacob appeared stronger today. His silhouette against the rising sun looked taller, straighter, and Luc felt a rush of nostalgic pleasure to see him wearing his white straw hat with its distinctive red band. Jacob had worn it throughout Luc’s childhood in the fields.

  Now the apprentice was ready to show the teacher how much knowledge he had acquired. Luc welcomed the five male workers – remembering years gone by when the fields would be full of many more. And there were even a handful of women – ready to prove they were as capable as men. The Vichy government had initially asked employers in the provinces to sack female workers so they could remain home and have children, but these women were boldly flouting the directive.

  Luc handed out equipment, including the small sickle used to reap the stalks. The men were also equipped with a trousse; the canvas sack tied to their backs made it easy to toss the cut flowers over their shoulders in a fluid motion.

  A soft, welcome breeze caressed them, but Luc knew that today would be hot and dry and within an hour or two they’d have only the breathless sun for company. For now it was exquisite to enjoy this moment at dawn, as the sky began to lighten rapidly, fingers of luminous blue reaching overhead and slicing through first light. The wind had stirred the lavender and the field was scenting the air. Luc could almost convince himself that all was well in his world. Almost.

  ‘I’m expecting 250 kilograms per man per day,’ Luc began. ‘And I’ll pay double to anyone who reaches 300, with a further bonus if you can achieve that daily.’ His challenge was met with murmurs of approval and slaps on the back. ‘But first, eat! There’s fresh brioche. And I almost forgot, the first man with a full sack gets a bottle of cognac.’

  The workers cheered and the family clapped, laughing. Even Golda was wearing a faint smile as she was helped down from the cart by Sarah.

  He glanced at his father. Had it really been two years since his father had walked these fields? The family had fled south from Paris in the summer of 1940, as the Germans advanced, but they’d returned fairly soon, like most of its inhabitants. What else could they have done, with children to educate, exams to sit, all of his father’s businesses to be administered from the city?

  ‘You look very pretty, all of you,’ Luc said, grinning at his sisters’ cloth bonnets. Their aprons were starched white and their skirts and blouses were kept long for protection from the fierce sun.

  ‘Give me a faucille,’ Sarah said, pointing to the smaller sickles among the many used for harvesting the lavender. ‘It takes a woman to do this job properly.’

  Luc grinned. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It’s the way it was. I bet I can collect more in my apron than you can in a sack.’

  ‘I’d take that bet – but I have to get the fire going.’

  ‘You’re just scared,’ Rachel said, joining in, and Luc felt his spirits lift even higher.

  ‘I’ll give you a head start,’ he said, waving a sickle at them. ‘I’ll busy myself with preparing the still. And when I’m ready I’ll cut and beat what the two of you can achieve in one hour.’

  ‘Off you go then, little brother,’ Sarah teased. ‘And we’ll be waiting for you. See you in the field.’

  And as Luc watched his workers reap his precious blooms, he imagined how one day the people of France would cut away the ties that bound them to the Reich.

  Luc’s father owned the region’s best copper still. The Cygnet, as it had been christened by Jacob twenty years earlier, with its delicate swan neck, would now work non-stop for the Bonet family until their fields were fully harvested. Luc loved its burnished, shining presence in the fields and its portability made it the envy of all the growers.

  As the first vat of water began to simmer in the Cygnet, Luc noticed Gitel watching him closely. ‘Gitel, do you understand how this works?’

  His sister grinned sheepishly before admitting, ‘No. But why don’t you teach me?’

  ‘This clever piece of equipment is an essentier,’ Luc said. ‘As pressure builds in the top half where the flowers are now steaming, they yield their precious oil, which will shortly be carried in the vapour.’

  A few workers nearby began to listen. They all looked hot already.

  ‘The steam will force its way into here,’ Luc said, tapping the barrel, ‘where there is cool water and a coiled tube.

  ‘The steam, arriving into this barrel and passing through the cool water via the coiled tub
, can’t help but turn back into liquid. Any moment now it will drip out of the condenser’s spout into this small pot at its base, as a blend of water and oil.’

  Gitel’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and just at that moment – as if on cue – the first drips of the precious liquid plopped into the pot.

  Amid a cheer, the workers gathered to take a break, sip some much-needed water and watch the first of the season’s essential oil arrive. Luc dipped his fingers into the oil’s surface and rubbed his thumb through the glistening liquid. He closed his eyes and inhaled the fragrance – heady, velvety, powerful.

  At midday Luc called a halt and everyone settled beneath the few trees nearby that acted as a windbreak. They offered welcome shade to enjoy the food laid out – ham, paté, a goats’ cheese omelette and fresh bread, washed down with watered wine or cider. Strawberries from Ida’s garden were a treat. For a while, even Jacob seemed to lose his furrowed brow and Luc allowed himself to believe that Provence, with its bright colours and its plenitude, might just give his father hope for the future.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It had been a long day, more than twelve hours in the field, when Luc finally called a halt. The workers straightened for the last time, wincing as they stretched their spines and massaged tired muscles.

  ‘We’ll do the top field tomorrow,’ he told them as his father entered the final tally in the accounting book against the last man’s name.

  The family watched the workers all drift away down the rocky hillside towards the village.

  His father sucked on his pipe. ‘A very good day. I’m impressed, Luc.’

  Luc nodded. ‘I don’t even need to know the tally to see it. At this rate, we may fill four pots from the fields, and Saba will have enough of her precious aromatic water to daub on all the people and animals of the village.’

  Wolf smiled. ‘I have to admit – and I don’t care what you say, Luc – last winter, Ida’s lavender oil surely helped my rheumatism, and old Philippe’s horse was cured of that strange swelling on his leg.’

  ‘Well, watch out. She’s got fresh supplies now. She’ll be using it for everything from indigestion to lack of energy.’