The Beekeeper's Promise

by Fiona Valpy

She brought her fingertips to his face, softly tracing his features in the pitch-darkness. ‘What is your real name?’ she whispered.

  He hesitated for a moment. And then whispered back, ‘Jack Connelly.’ He spoke the words with an English accent, which startled her a little. The French accent of Jacques Lemaître had evaporated, suddenly, and in English he seemed like someone else altogether.

  ‘Jack Connelly,’ she repeated, and then she pressed her finger against his lips, as though sealing in his secret again.

  He kissed her, seeking her lips with his in the darkness. And then he whispered, in that same pure English accent, ‘Jack Connelly loves Eliane Martin.’

  Abi: 2017

  Sara and I are prepping vegetables for tonight’s supper. The guest list for this weekend’s wedding includes two vegetarians, a vegan, one person with a severe nut allergy and three people who don’t eat fish. Sara has consulted her extensive collection of recipe books and managed to come up with her usual creative and delicious menu suggestions and now I am spiralising enough courgettes to feed a small army.

  ‘So are you telling me Eliane and Jacques spent the night hiding right underneath where we’re now standing?’ I ask, amazed.

  Sara grins. ‘Yup. After you’ve finished that I’ll show you if you like.’

  As I take a break from my spiralising to chop the ends off the last few courgettes, she washes her hands and then opens the door to the wine cellar. Picking up a torch from a shelf beside the door and glancing back over her shoulder, she smiles at me. ‘Well, are you coming to see the cavern or not then?’

  It’s all just as she’s described: the three barrels in the corner of the wine cellar; the steep steps cut into the rock leading down to the cave beneath the kitchen; the light from the torch bouncing off the curved rock above us; the dry, dusty floor, which is scuffed with the smudges of footprints – could some of them even belong to Eliane and Jacques, I wonder.

  Sara beckons me over to one side of the cavern and directs the torchlight on to the rock wall. Wordlessly, she points.

  ‘It’s them!’ I gasp.

  A heart is incised into the rock as distinctly as if it was carved only yesterday, protected from the elements in the darkness of the cave. And still clearly legible are the initials within it: E. M. and J. C.

  I run my fingertips over it, tracing the outline and trying to imagine what they must have felt as they hid here with the German soldiers living just a few metres above. Fear, perhaps? But Sara has said that they’d felt safe in this other, underground world, away from the challenging reality of the world above them.

  So maybe, for that one night, they were able simply to feel love.

  Eliane: 1943

  She hadn’t expected to sleep, lying beside Jack on the dusty cavern floor, but awoke to find she’d done so surprisingly well, nestled against the warmth of his body, with his arms wrapped around her. He was already awake and she wondered how many hours he’d spent watching over her in the darkness. He felt for the matches in the basket and lit the lamp.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she asked. Usually, she had no need for a watch as she could sense the time of day from the intensity of the light, the length of the shadows and the songs of the insects and birds all about her, which told the time as accurately as any clock. But in the darkness of the cavern she had no sense at all of the hour.

  Jack tilted his watch towards the light so that he could read it. ‘It’s just gone six. At the bakery, I’d already have been up for hours. One of the advantages of being on the run is being able to lounge in bed with a beautiful woman!’

  Eliane blushed, thankful that the lamplight wasn’t strong enough to give her away. She’d never spent a night alone with a man before – not even Mathieu. At the thought of his name, she felt her cheeks flush even more deeply. She hadn’t heard from him for over a year now, but somehow she still felt she was being unfaithful to his memory.

  Jack had got up and walked a few metres back down the tunnel to relieve himself. Instead of coming to sit back down beside her again, when he returned he wandered across to the water-smoothed wall of the cavern and pulled out his commando knife. She craned her neck to see what he was doing as he scratched something into the rock. Scrambling to her feet, she brought the lamp over to get a closer look. He’d carved a heart into the bedrock and, with the tip of his knife, was now scratching two sets of initials in its centre: E. M. and J. C.

  He turned and kissed her on the top of her head, then stood back to admire his handiwork. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Proof that this wasn’t a dream. Proof that we really were here, you and I. And proof that, in the middle of a war filled with fear and hatred, we found love. Let it be a sign to remind anyone who finds their way into this cave in the future that, come what may, to have known love is the most important thing there is.’

  She hugged him tightly, not wanting to be reminded of the world outside, wishing that this moment could last forever . . .

  But then they both froze. Faint but distinct footsteps could be heard from the cellar overhead.

  Jack gripped his knife more tightly and stepped in front of Eliane to shield her. ‘Get back into the tunnel,’ he whispered, urgently.

  The barrel covering the top of the stone steps rumbled as it was rolled back, and Jack tensed, preparing to strike.

  A pair of stout, blue-veined calves appeared at the top of the steps, accompanied by a wheezing and a muttered grumbling.

  ‘Madame Boin!’ Eliane came forward from the shadows.

  The cook bent down, with some difficulty as her ample girth got in the way, and peered at them in the dim lamplight.

  ‘Oh, mon Dieu,’ she complained. ‘I never thought I’d get down those stairs again, at my age. They were nearly the death of me! The things I have to do . . . Eliane, the count says you mustn’t go back down to the mill. It’s not safe yet. The Milice are there. But you should come up to the kitchen so that you’re at work as usual if they come and check the château. That way no one will suspect that you know anything about the whereabouts of Monsieur Lemaître. Good morning, m’sieur,’ she added as an afterthought, as if she’d only just noticed Jacques – though she was clearly here to talk to them both. ‘The count says you are to stay there until they can send someone up from the mill to get you. It shouldn’t be too long – the miliciens won’t find anything and so they’ll soon get bored and go looking to make trouble elsewhere.’

  Not for the first time, Eliane was struck by the thought of the network of people secretly working together to get vital messages through. She silently marvelled at Madame Boin’s capable manner. She knew, of course, that the cook would likely have been making her own contribution to the covert activities happening around the château, but in three years the two women had never discussed this. As Madame Boin had said, they made an unlikely secret force – but maybe that was what made them so effective. Obediently she began to scramble up the steps out of the cavern towards the wine cellar. As she did so, Madame Boin tutted. ‘You will have to help me get back up the cellar steps again. You’d better go first and give me a hand if I get stuck. Heaven only knows, I’ll squash you flat if I go in front and have one of my dizzy spells . . .’

  Eliane stooped to look back into the cavern. Jack smiled at her and gave her a thumbs-up gesture, then blew her a kiss. She had no idea when she’d see him again, but she fixed her clear-eyed gaze on him for one last, long moment, committing to memory his clean-cut features, his broad shoulders, the strength of his arms, and the way his eyes lit up like the summer sky whenever he looked at her.

  Then she rolled the barrel back into its place and climbed the cellar stairs ahead of Madame Boin.

  The château’s kitchen was bright and warm after the cool darkness of the cavern, and Eliane blinked as she emerged from the cellar. She reached out her hand to Madame Boin to help her up the last few steps.

  ‘Go and give your face a wash if you like, my dear, and I’ll get you some breakfast and a hot cup of coffee. Spen
ding the whole night in that dark cave, whatever next?’

  As she smoothed back her hair and tied the scarf in place, Eliane smiled to herself, remembering Jack’s arms holding her in that other world, beneath their feet; a world where love was something simple, carved in stone; a world so very far removed from the complexities of reality.

  Later that day, as Eliane and Madame Boin were preparing dinner, a black car pulled up at the main door of the château. The general climbed out of the back, followed by Oberleutnant Farber, and two other men got out of the front of the car. Unlike the soldiers, they wore black shirts and long overcoats, in spite of the heat, but their caps were emblazoned with the same insignia as the army uniform – an angular, silver eagle with wings outspread – and around the top of their left sleeves they each wore a bright-red armband displaying a black swastika on a white circle.

  Madame Boin peered at them from the kitchen window, her eyes narrowing, and then turned to Eliane, drying her hands on the skirt of her apron. ‘Looks like the Gestapo are paying us a visit. Keep calm, my girl. Remember, they know nothing. And – more importantly – neither do you and I.’

  For a moment, Eliane was anxious that they might head towards the chapel in search of Monsieur le Comte. But a knock on the kitchen door a few minutes later proved that it was his staff that they’d come to see.

  Oberleutnant Farber stood there, looking more tense than usual. Eliane could see the muscles in his jaw working as he swallowed, before saying, ‘Please, Madame Boin, Mademoiselle Martin, would you be so good as to accompany me to the drawing room? Some gentlemen would like to ask you a few questions.’

  The two women untied their aprons, folding them over the back of a chair, and Eliane pulled off her headscarf, smoothing back her hair as she followed the oberleutnant and Madame Boin along the passageway from the kitchen to the main entrance hall. The drawing-room doors stood open, but once the women were inside the oberleutnant closed them with a soft click that made Eliane jump slightly, her nerves on edge.

  The general and the two men in their black coats were sitting on the sofas, which faced the vast fireplace at one end of the room. Above the solid-stone mantelpiece, the coat of arms of the Comtes de Bellevue was carved from a slab of limestone the same pale-cream colour as the rock of the cavern walls hidden beneath them. Eliane fixed her eyes on it as she and Madame Boin walked forward, taking strength from the Latin motto, which was chiselled into a banner above the pair of heraldic lions that held a shield between them: Amor Vincit Omnia. It was a reminder that love would help her withstand whatever ordeal was ahead: her love for her parents; for Yves out there in the hills somewhere; and for Jack Connelly. Was he still hiding in the cave beneath their feet? Or had someone been able to come up from the mill by that time to spirit him away down the tunnel and off to hide with the Maquis?

  Madame Boin and Eliane stood side by side in front of the men, with their backs to the fireplace now, and Oberleutnant Farber perched on an elegant Louis XV chair – and under other circumstances the contrast of this with his grey uniform and sombre expression would have seemed almost comically frivolous.

  ‘Ladies.’ The shorter of the two Gestapo officers – a weaselly-looking man with no discernible chin – spoke French, although his accent was harsh and guttural in comparison with that of Oberleutnant Farber. ‘It has come to our notice that an enemy agent has been living in the village of Coulliac. Unfortunately, he has disappeared. However, we are sure that all good citizens of the community will wish to do their patriotic duty and help us find him – and indeed any other traitors in our midst, who may have aided and abetted him.’

  He paused, waiting for the women to speak.

  Madame Boin turned to Eliane with a look of convincing astonishment on her face. ‘An enemy agent! Living in Coulliac? Who on earth could that be? Do you have any idea, Eliane?’

  Taking her cue from Madame Boin’s perfectly executed performance, Eliane shook her head slowly, as if trying to rack her brains. ‘I can’t think. What a shock to know such a person has been living in the middle of our community, though.’

  ‘Who is this agent, may we ask, messieurs?’ Madame Boin asked.

  The short officer tutted. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of playing games with us. Either you know already, or you have no business knowing at all. Have you seen or heard anything in the village? Perhaps when you were out shopping there? Or . . .’ He turned his narrow-eyed gaze towards Eliane. ‘When you were at your market stall? We have received information from a concerned citizen who thinks you may have even consorted with this person.’

  Again, Eliane paused, as if considering hard, keeping her expression a blank, trying not to show that his words had unnerved her. Unbidden, a memory of Stéphanie walking past her stall after talking to the miliciens that day flashed into her mind, but she immediately dismissed it: right now, she couldn’t afford to be distracted by the man’s veiled suggestion that someone had denounced her.

  She met the man’s eyes with her own steady, grey gaze. ‘Why no, monsieur. I have fewer and fewer visitors to the stall these days and they are all people I’ve known for years. Apart from Oberleutnant Farber, of course.’ She turned to look straight at him and smiled very slightly. ‘He is one of my best customers.’

  The officers shifted in their seats to look at the oberleutnant and, surprised at having become so suddenly the centre of attention, the translator dropped his gaze, studying the patterns on the Aubusson carpet beneath his well-polished boots.

  The taller Gestapo officer said something in German to the general and his black-coated colleague, in a sneeringly insinuating tone that made them guffaw with laughter. Oberleutnant Farber’s face flushed scarlet and he tugged nervously at his shirt collar. Then he looked up at his superiors and shrugged, giving a rueful smile and spreading his hands, as if to say, Well, what can one do?

  The weaselly-looking officer stared at Eliane, giving her a long, appraising look, which made her feel sick with fear and hatred. ‘I see,’ he said, at last. ‘Well, we are clearly wasting our time here, aren’t we, oberleutnant?’

  Oberleutnant Farber shrugged again. ‘I believe so.’ He carefully avoided meeting Eliane’s eye.

  ‘Very well. In that case, you may go back to your duties, ladies. After all, the general’s dinner must not be delayed.’ He fixed Eliane with his beady eyes again, as if assessing potential prey. ‘But, a word of warning, mademoiselle. No matter who your friends may or may not be, we are watching you.’

  The two Gestapo officers then stood and put their black caps back on, clicking their heels and saluting the general with a brisk ‘Heil Hitler!’

  As she and Madame Boin hurried back to the kitchen, Eliane heard the car’s engine start up and pull away from the château, and only then did she feel able to breathe again.

  ‘That Oberleutnant Farber is a strange one,’ commented Madame Boin, stirring the blanquette as it simmered on the stove. ‘Thanks to him we were let off very lightly that time.’

  Eliane nodded. ‘He isn’t like the others, that’s true. But is he strange, or merely human?’

  Madame Boin paused, putting her hands on her hips, and gave Eliane a shrewd glance, her eyebrows raised. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

  The sudden thought that Madame Boin might be suspecting her of a real liaison with the officer made Eliane’s stomach lurch and an expression of horror flashed across her face.

  ‘Madame, you surely don’t believe that I have a relationship with that man on any terms other than the most superficial of friendships, which is all that could ever be possible between enemies?’

  Madame Boin smiled and shook her head again. ‘Not for one moment, Eliane. I know you. I know what you are prepared to do to protect the people you love – just as I know what you would never be prepared to do. I see your courage and your integrity every day. I’m just surprised at myself, forgetting what it’s like to be civilised. Perhaps you’re right. This blasted war has gone on for so long t
hat we’ve forgotten what it is to be human. If there were more men like Oberleutnant Farber and Monsieur le Comte in this world, maybe there’d be no more wars.’

  Reassured, Eliane tied her apron around her waist again and resumed peeling the potatoes for dinner. But then she remembered the look in the Gestapo officer’s eyes and the spiteful edge to his voice as he’d said that they were watching her. Did he mean that they’d seen her walk around the garden walls? Had they seen her pacing repeatedly backwards and forwards yesterday, issuing the warning to the Maquis that Jacques Lemaître had been discovered and should be intercepted before he returned to his apartment above the bakery in Coulliac? And who was the ‘concerned citizen’ he had mentioned, who had reported Eliane to them? Was it Stéphanie?

  At the thought, her hands trembled and the knife slipped, slicing into her thumb. The water in her bowl turned red – the colour of the silk scarf; the colour of danger – before she was able to staunch the bleeding with the hem of her apron.

  Abi: 2017

  The coat of arms of the Comtes de Bellevue is still there, above the fireplace in the drawing room. As I polish the inlaid oval table that sits at the opposite end of the room, I imagine Eliane and Madame Boin standing there before the Gestapo. What a formidable pair they were, the elderly cook and the slight young girl, facing down the forces of evil together.

  In Sara’s telling of the story, she said that Eliane had thought about the network of people secretly collaborating to get messages through. Something occurs to me as I finish rubbing off the excess beeswax from the table’s surface, which glows with the patina of age. Mireille had disappeared back to Paris and then seemed to have had very little communication with her family, other than the occasional, standardised thirteen-line postcard that was the only correspondence allowed in occupied France. But Sara had said that, when Mireille left the mill, she’d mentioned something about perhaps being able to help other people like Esther and Blanche. For some reason, Eliane’s own thoughts about the covert network have made me think of this.