The Lavender Keeper

by Fiona McIntosh

  Catherine began to weep now. She pointed a shaky finger towards the hills, towards his fields.

  Luc was so numb he struggled to speak. ‘What will happen to them?’ he whispered to Fougasse.

  ‘Jews are being rounded up everywhere.’

  ‘Non-French Jews, I was told,’ Luc said.

  The baker shook his head sadly. ‘Any Jew.’

  Luc dropped his shoulders. Let it be a nightmare, he begged. Let me wake! ‘Where will they be taken?’

  ‘Camp des Milles, a transit camp for Jews.’

  ‘Transit to where?’ He grabbed Fougasse’s shirt.

  ‘Drancy, most likely. Outside Paris.’

  ‘So I can get to them, I can petition for my father. He is an important and senior man in—’

  Fougasse made a hissing sound. ‘You do not understand yet, Bonet? No one will see them. No one gets out. There are no privileges, no matter who you are. Monies, property, belongings – everything is confiscated. Bank accounts frozen. They belong to Germany now. And your family? There is nothing you can do for them except pray.’

  ‘There is always a way,’ Luc said beneath his breath. ‘Let me go.’

  Suddenly he had a rope around his neck. Fougasse’s shadowy companion had crawled up behind him and slipped it on.

  ‘He will throttle you before he lets you give us away.’

  Luc could feel his eyes bulging as his breath was constricted. The rope was relaxed slightly and he gasped, sucking air into his heaving chest. He realised there was no choice, and that his future, whether he wanted it to or not, lay with the maquisard and his cause.

  ‘They’ll go down into Apt first,’ Luc groaned in a choked whisper. ‘I want to see them.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Fougasse said, shaking his head.

  ‘Then I will not go quietly with you,’ Luc said. ‘Have your friend choke me now.’

  They stared at each other, neither blinking. After a tense silence, Fougasse finally relented. ‘Let’s get down the mountain before they do,’ he whispered hoarsely.

  Luc laid his cheek down against the warm terracotta roof and could feel the damp of his tears soak into the tiles. Earthy smells assaulted him as he closed his eyes, just for a moment in silent prayer; the tang of bird droppings and the musty aroma of drying leaves added to the decay of a long dead and desiccated rodent. But on the evening breeze he caught a gentle whiff of lavender being drawn down the hills and pushed through the alleys of his village … and that brought him hope.

  He prayed his grandmother could smell it too.

  The sight of his family being taken kept repeating in Luc’s mind. He hated that he could replay it in such exquisitely painful detail. He hoped Catherine was haunted forever by this scene and the darkness of her foul deed.

  Luc almost gagged to recall it, and swallowed the involuntary motion. He had to find them. Had to do something, no matter what Fougasse said. He’d rather die than desert them. What was he doing here? He’d been forced by Fougasse to wait at a tiny café in the back streets of Apt with the silent companion, whose name he had still to learn. He had to content himself with a weak but bitter coffee made from barley. They’d insisted he wear a beret pulled low to cover part of his face while Fougasse dropped in to the local gendarmerie.

  The baker returned just as Luc was sure he was going to explode and start flinging chairs and tables around. He felt so helpless.

  ‘They’re not holding them here even briefly,’ Fougasse said. The words were blunt but spoken softly.

  ‘What?’ Luc said, beginning to push his chair back.

  Both men growled at him. ‘No scenes, Bonet,’ Fougasse warned. ‘I told the gendarmes that your father owed me money and I was chasing him. They could tell me only that the SS officers took control at Apt and they continued on to the internment camp at Aix.’

  Luc stared at him blankly. Aix-en-Provence! It felt as though his family were suddenly beyond his reach.

  ‘There’s more,’ the baker said, looking down. ‘You might as well hear it all.’ Luc couldn’t imagine it could get any worse. He waited and watched Fougasse’s expression darken further. ‘My sincere regrets. Your grandmother died on the way down the mountain.’

  Luc stared uncomprehendingly at Fougasse, who did not look away. He wondered whether he’d heard correctly. He felt breathless, as though a great weight had suddenly pressed onto his chest. The memory of his grandmother being punched flashed again into his mind. A tremble passed through him and then strengthened – it wouldn’t stop; he was shivering in summer. Luc leant his elbows against the table to try to steady himself, and then put his head in his hands.

  His companions shared uneasy glances.

  ‘Breathe, Luc! We must be careful. The town is crawling with soldiers, and there’s Gestapo and SS around too. This is not a clever time for us to be seen at all, let alone together.’ Fougasse touched Luc’s shoulder. Luc shook it away. ‘The gendarmerie knew your family and were as shocked as we were, but they can do nothing.’

  Luc groaned at the thought of his grandmother. No long goodbyes, no tears. Her life stolen from them by a Frenchman’s fist.

  ‘I’m going to be sick.’ He shook off their arms and ran around the corner. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, breathing in deep draughts. Soon he became aware of someone behind him.

  ‘We must go,’ the baker said gently. A wet handkerchief appeared. ‘Here, wipe your mouth. Pull yourself together.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Luc moaned.

  ‘Shhh. You must not draw attention to us.’

  ‘Then go away,’ Luc growled, spitting to clear the sourness.

  ‘I gave your father my word that I would protect you. Our word is all we have to give between patriotic men. Stand up now, and find your courage.’ Fougasse waited.

  Luc’s cheeks were burning with rage. It was all right for Fougasse; he had no one to love and no one loved him.

  ‘It is easy to accuse me of that,’ Fougasse said and Luc realised he had spoken aloud. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that you are not the first to lose someone you love to this war. I am sorry for you, truly, but you can keel over in this gutter or you can find a new courage and fight back, as your father hoped you would.’ Fougasse stopped suddenly, an alarmed look on his face, as Luc heard the sound of boots. Instinctively he straightened. Soldiers. They laughed as they passed and threw some wisecracks at him in poor French.

  Luc stared at the broad, straight backs of the young men walking away, their green uniforms clean and proud, the sound of their polished boots taunting him.

  ‘Is she here?’ he asked.

  ‘She’ll be buried tonight.’

  ‘Can I take her back, bury her in Saignon?’

  ‘Non!’ Fougasse looked angry. ‘Absolutely not.’

  Luc swallowed hard. ‘Then I will see her.’

  ‘You cannot—’

  ‘I will kiss my grandmother goodbye.’ He glowered.

  The baker relented. ‘Follow me.’

  Ida had been left in an old storeroom at the back of Apt. It was empty for the moment, awaiting the autumn when the harvest of apples, pears and plums would tumble in by the cartload. Luc wanted to do so much more for Ida but for the first time in his life he felt totally helpless. His father had been right. All the money, the status, the respect in the world couldn’t help his family in their hour of need – not against this sort of persecution.

  He steeled himself to look upon his grandmother. She was on her back, and the lovely silver hair had come loose from its bun and lay in wisps around her face. He wished he had a comb to neaten it. Fougasse left him alone with her, keeping a tense lookout over the storeroom. He knelt by her side, unaware of the tears that dampened his cheeks or the silent sobs that tightened in his chest. Today he had wept twice in as many hours. Shock, he knew, was helping him; it prevented him from looking beyond the tiny, frail body to the larger pain of the loss of his whole family. He didn’t want to think about where they were, or how frig
htened they must be. He didn’t want to see his father’s desperation, his horror at the treatment of his children, his wife.

  Ida embodied all of that sorrow in her stillness. His tears splashed onto her hand as he took it, clasping her stiffening, arthritic fingers to the unshaven cheek she would never pinch again. Her earrings and necklace had been taken but he noticed her rings were intact, stubborn beneath her swollen knuckles. Her wedding band was her most precious keepsake of her husband and she kissed it each night before bed. Seeing it safe gave Luc relief to think that his grandmother would not be separated from her beloved husband, even in death.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small spray of lavender he had put there earlier.

  ‘Here, Saba. Carry this with you,’ he whispered and tucked it into her palm, folding her fingers around the flowers, squeezing them shut, before he kissed her hand and then bent to kiss her cheek.

  As Luc pulled away, laying her hand gently back on her chest, he felt a bump in her cardigan pocket. He knew what this was: her precious seeds.

  He gently pulled out the familiar silken pouch that she carried around. Inside were lavender heads, drying and dropping seeds that she would, from time to time, cast around her. The old girl would sow lavender wherever she found herself. The pouch was bulging. He pushed it into his pocket and made an oath he would always carry it. He would be her lavender keeper.

  He took one final look at his dead grandmother, smoothing her hair back from her face, and as he did so, all of his anger at the war and its hardships – at his family’s humiliations – seemed to gather tightly in his chest, along with the death and destruction. The numbness at losing his family was the final blow to a pain that had been building. Yesterday, it was the revelation of his birth and the melancholy that it had stirred; today, his family. The swastikas, the Sieg Heils, the arrogant smiles of the Germans, the pandering approach of too many French who had decided that collaboration was the only way to protect France … all of it began to gather and pound in his heart and at his temple in a new, brooding rage.

  Then Luc thought of de Gaulle’s rallying words and how they had affected his grandmother, made her eyes sparkle with mischievous pleasure. That was surely what she wanted now … for Luc to stand up and be counted as a fiercely proud Frenchman who refused to pay homage to Hitler and his swaggering soldiers.

  And finally Luc thought of the lavender and whether his fields of blue would ever flourish again.

  All of these thoughts melded as he looked at Ida’s face in repose. His heart began to harden, filling with dark stones of hatred. Luc knew that when he left this place, he would walk out a different man.

  Outside it was low light, just enough left for them to disappear into the mountains.

  ‘Can you can lead us in the dark?’ Fougasse said.

  ‘I know the way blindfolded,’ Luc said, his voice a monotone. He didn’t move.

  ‘Are you ready, Bonet?’

  ‘Yes, I am ready,’ he said to Fougasse, turning. ‘And I am now Maquis.’

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  London, July 1943

  Lisette Forester usually enjoyed her fifteen-minute walk home from work at Trafalgar Square to her tiny tenement flat, not far from Victoria Station. It was a bonus if she could make it home without having to duck into one of the London Underground stations to avoid the air raids. But even when it was necessary, she didn’t fuss; she took the view that the bombings were so far out of her control it didn’t bear even thinking about. She watched some people panic and scream, fleeing for relative safety, while others froze. She sympathised with the latter – they were usually those with others depending on them, and she could see the anxiety in their faces; the terror not so much for themselves but for their loved ones. Lisette had no one waiting for her at home and few would mourn her passing. Over time this knowledge had turned her inwards, and without her meaning to, it had disconnected her from most to the point where she knew some considered her cold.

  Yet if another could walk in her shoes they’d realise she was a passionate woman, full of drive but lacking a target to aim for. She worked as a waitress, doing one day a week at the French Canteen, frequented by de Gaulle’s followers, but most of her shifts were at the Lyons Corner House at the corner of The Strand and Trafalgar. She had toyed with taking a job at Fortnum & Mason but at Lyons there was the variety of serving everyone from film stars to Whitehall civil servants. And so Lisette became a ‘Nippy’, as the Lyons Corner House waitresses were known, because of the speed at which they wove their way through tables serving customers. She liked her stylish uniform, which began with a loosely pleated black dress. A starched square apron was tied in a neat bow at the back, preventing even a glimpse of thigh, and was completed by a crisp white Peter-Pan collar with matching detachable cuffs and an even stiffer pleated white mitre-style hat. Her dress was studded with thirty pairs of decorative pearl buttons from neck to waist. Unlike some of the girls, who wore kitten heels, Lisette chose comfort with flat, black lace-ups. These days she, like most of the girls, wore short socks, without the access to stockings. She was embarrassed when the management used her in one of its promotional photographs. Lisette couldn’t see the point of smiling while Britain was at war, yet the photographer insisted she look happy and welcoming as she balanced a tray with a pot, tea cup and saucer in one hand and her order notebook in the other. Management was delighted with the result and even gave her a bonus for her help.

  Lisette liked to return home via the Admiralty Buildings, passing the army barracks as she strolled through St James’s Park, around Buckingham Palace and back into Eccleston Bridge Road, where her flat was situated. The position was perfect. She enjoyed the atmosphere around Victoria with its constant movement of people and troops through the busy station, whose forecourt she often cut through. It was sad to see all the railings removed from the flowerbeds and around the parks, even the royal palace, but she knew the metal was needed to make bullets and shell casings.

  And now parts of the great parks were being dug up to grow vegetables to feed Londoners. Kensington Gardens was growing impressive rows of cabbages, while Hyde Park had its own piggery! The distinctive Dig for Victory posters were everywhere and there was even an anthem on the wireless urging people to find new ways to cook with bland provisions.

  People were responding with what Lisette was assured was the traditional British grit, turning their gardens into allotments. She was trying to grow some tomato plants in pots on her wide window ledges, but she wasn’t having much success. In fact, she’d forgotten to water them this morning so perhaps it was a good thing she’d had to come home early today. Nevertheless a fresh frown of irritation creased her face.

  What was this about? Lisette’s boss, Miss Mappleton, had insisted it was all above board. She had waved the gentleman’s card in Lisette’s face and insisted she go straight home to meet him at the appointed time.

  Flat number nine was up in the gods via an open stone staircase but she’d so loved its romantic views across the West End rooftops that she’d moved in the day she saw it. She’d shared with her friend, Harriet, whose father had found the flat for them; he worked for the railways and had access to British Rail accommodation. But since Harriet was now a casualty of Hitler’s bombing raids, Lisette lived by herself, and no one had come to claim the flat back for the railways.

  Lisette’s inheritance had made her more than comfortable but she never spoke about it; she barely touched the money, in fact. She didn’t want to live in the empty house in Sussex that was her inheritance, nor did she want to live with her grandparents in Hampshire. And she had quickly tired of the pity she constantly received at losing her parents. Living in the capital, having to find work and coping alone would make her stronger. She was happy in her own company and was rather enjoying life now that she had some good shifts and a regular income. Plus there was that nice airman, Jack, who had asked her out twice. She hadn’t accepted yet but if
he asked again, she planned to say yes.

  Lisette had only been sharing the flat for nine months when war was declared. She soon found herself daubing the windows she adored with black paint and wondering whether her little home would topple in the Blitz. It hadn’t; she’d been here three years now, and it was the Docklands and East End that had so far borne the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s mass aerial bombings.

  Day and night plucky Londoners had rallied their ‘Blitz spirit’ and defied the terror of those raids without respite. Nearly six thousand dead as a result after a fifty-seven-day period of relentless bombing. The Brits carried on, tightening their belts as food rationing intensified and still believing that a pot of tea solved a lot of sorrows, although most were indignant that the government had forbidden production of ice-cream. When Buckingham Palace was bombed Lisette sighed with relief that the West End now shared the heartache of the destruction. So, it seemed, did the stoic Queen Elizabeth, who remained in London as a show of strength and support to her people.

  Now Lisette smiled faintly as she watched her visitor, who had introduced himself as Mr Collins, seated in the only armchair in the flat. She was perched on a small cherry leather ottoman she’d picked up on the King’s Road. Behind her guest the blacked-out windows looked like two dark eyes but she’d opened the charcoal curtain on the one other window that overlooked the backyard below, allowing daylight to seep into the room. She watched her visitor sip his tea from a heavily gilded Limoges cup with its handle vividly painted with garlands of roses. Perhaps by today’s conservative tastes it was rather garish but she loved the near translucent porcelain. Lisette knew she hadn’t quite mastered the art of tea-making to English standards yet; privately she didn’t understand the attraction. If he’d asked for a coffee, she might have been persuaded to dip into her meagre stocks and show him how a good cup of French boiled coffee would wipe away that grimace.

  He put the porcelain cup back onto its saucer, its contents barely touched. ‘Miss Forestier—’