by Rumer Godden
‘But you – what will you do?’
‘I have made my arrangements, my arrangements.’
I lay on my back and looked at him. ‘But … us?’ It was the wrong word. There never was an ‘us’ – for me there was only ‘me’.
Emile said, ‘I am taking the young ones.’
‘The young …’
‘Yes. Not you.’
‘Not me.’ I had to whisper it but it was true. I … Vivi … was forty-four. Vivi … la petite pouponne … the favourite.
‘And I brought you all that money!’ I shouted at him. ‘You made a fortune out of me.’
‘You had some too.’
‘I spent it.’
‘Silly you. I have mine tucked away,’ and Emile gave his frog smile.
‘Monsieur Patrice would never have done this. He wouldn’t have let them turn me out, take my things.’ I stormed at him but he only smiled. ‘If Monsieur had lived …”
‘But he didn’t, did he? So get up – and get out.’
In a slave-market you are sold by someone else and for work. That doesn’t shame you, but standing in doorways or at corners you have to sell yourself. Funny, I never thought of it as shameful before but you’re just an animal, for animals and beasts. Beasts! They look you over and pass along. You smile at them and they laugh in your face and you know they are right – you have nothing worth selling. I know now what Madame Lise meant when she talked to me, but I never thought I would be old and why did she talk and not do something – la salope.
At the Rue Duchesne I still looked young; I had a masseuse and Leo to do my hair; it soon had scabs in it and we, us of the streets, sat on the stairs and caught the nits in each other’s hair. Emile used to keep me in trim; he stopped me eating cakes and bonbons. Well, there weren’t any more cakes and bonbons; if there was any food we could beg or buy we brought it back and cooked it on a gas-ring in our room – when there was a room.
At first two of us older ones took a flat, a little apartment, and worked from there or tried to work; we were soon turned out – in any case, we couldn’t pay the rent. Then it was bars. Clubs wouldn’t have me, I was too old and when I told them I was Vivi Ambard, they said, ‘Who’s she?’ I was on the streets when Madame Lise found me but then I was a bony little ragamuffin and it was fun. I was used to being hungry and I didn’t mind how hard I slept or if I slept at all, but now I was soft. One by one my things went – what I had taken from the Rue Duchesne – my fur coat, my earrings, clothes. They were my stock in trade, but …
Sometimes I thought of Luigi; if he knew he might have helped. Luigi was always kind, except that day; but where is he now? I wrote to Italy but the letter came back. Giovanni-Battista Giuliano, my Morpion, must be grown up now. I was his mother but I don’t know where he is either. There was no one and all the time the hate grew in me – until that fat pig of a man.
‘You’re no good,’ he said, ‘but at least there’s a bed. Let me sleep and you needn’t try to take my wallet. I made the precaution of taking all my money out and putting it in my hotel safe – and my watch and cuff-links. Here’s ten francs for you, pute.’ Ten francs, for a whole evening!
‘And a waste of money at that. Let me sleep,’ and the hate burst like a gush of blood in my head, but the blood was on him.
He had a case with his samples of tools, beautiful, shining, all shown against purple satin; they had never been used but they were sharp. There was a little hand axe, the kind used for splitting faggots, and I split him, his head, though I missed, but I got his cheek and his shoulder and the great fat belly he had, the fat pig. He screamed like the pig he was too, screamed and screamed, and they came running in – there was no lock on the door. They took away the axe but they couldn’t put it back against the purple satin; it was bloody and covered with bits of him. I wished it had had more and when they shouted at me, I laughed. I laughed and laughed. I laughed because I didn’t care – even when they took me away.
‘She asked questions about you,’ said Mademoiselle Signoret afterwards, ‘but they were the ones to be expected.’ ‘Who are those frangines? Do they belong to the prison?’ and, ‘When they visit do they come here every day?’
‘Where were they going when we met them?’ asked Vivi.
‘To lunch? The same time every day?’
‘Ah! those questions ought to have put me on my guard,’ said Mademoiselle.
Lise heard them coming. Perhaps they made more noise than usual but she felt a tingle of warning, enough to make her stop and put Soeur Marie Mercédes behind her. The stairs of Le Fouest had never seemed so steep; one could fall a hundred feet down their stone and, ‘Hold to the handrail,’ Lise told Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘Keep your caliper close.’
The three were foremost. Lise immediately recognised Big Jo, her big front, huge forearms, close-cropped hair, and the one with the thin spiteful face must be Zaza; between them was Vivi. The wardress was behind, and the others were peaceably going on up the stairs when Vivi, flanked by her hench-women, stopped on the same step as Lise and this time said, ‘Toi! Toi!’ Vivi’s voice shrilled through the shaft of the stairs. She burst into laughter, but then slapped Lise full in the face.
‘You a nun! Toi! – une frangine! Mes amies, I’ll tell you who she is – Madame Lise, Mère Maquerelle … La Balafrée.’ With a quick twitch she switched back Lise’s veil. ‘See that scar? Look at it. She got it in a fight between two drunks. Ask her. Ask if she isn’t a murderess and a whore. Ask her! Madame Lise – a holy Sister! It was she who kept the bordel where she took me when I was fourteen and, when our patron protected me, she killed him. She, your angel, was in a prison like Le Fouest for fifteen years, just like us, like you, like me, but worse, because she’s a fake. Fake! Get at her!’ screamed Vivi, and before the stunned listeners could move, Vivi, Big Jo and Zaza set to work. They wrenched Lise away from Soeur Marie Mercédes; Zaza tore off her veil, quite off, Big Jo her tunic; one of Jo’s fists pounded her in the eye while Vivi’s nails tore her face and neck.
It was only a moment. ‘Non! Non! Non!’ It was the other prisoners who interfered; perhaps they had divined there might be trouble but not trouble like this. Still, they were quick. Two moved in to protect Soeur Marie Mercédes; two went to Lise; one of them pulled up her tunic; the other, sobbing, had her prison handkerchief out, trying to staunch the blood. The wardress, who had blown her whistle and run up, was still at the back and a fight was in full battle on the staircase. Big Jo had already thrown one girl down the flight; the steps were a horror of flailing arms and kicks. Vivi and Zaza, already seized by the women, were shaken like rats, but Big Jo held her ground until two more wardresses came running down from the floor above; they stayed to lock the doors of their division behind them. ‘We might have had all the prisoners out,’ and Madame Chef was quickly on the scene. All the while, Soeur Marie Mercédes, her caliper held to her side, her hand necessarily clinging to the rail, stood, her lips moving in prayer. ‘It was all I could do,’ she told Lise afterwards. ‘Ah! God forgive me, how I should have liked to join in!’ but, when Vivi and Zaza and Big Jo had been taken away, the others came and kissed her, some were crying and, ‘It was almost worth it,’ Lise told Mademoiselle afterwards, ‘worth it to feel that protection and love, and from some we hadn’t even seen.’
‘Ma Soeur, you are terribly marked,’ said the prison infirmarian, Soeur Justine of Marie Joseph, in distress as she finished cleaning Lise’s face.
‘Worse than before?’ Lise tried to joke through the pain and smarting.
‘Much worse. Those scratches are deep. She really clawed you.’ Indeed, the marks showed for weeks.
‘Somebody has scratched you – hurt you.’ Lucette came running as soon as, back at Belle Source, Lise left chapel after Vespers. ‘I know. It was somebody in that prison.’
‘Lucette, it’s only scratches.’
‘Only!’ Lucette was shaken with emotion and pity. I thought she had learned to be calm, thought Lise. At Belle Sou
rce, Lucette, Soeur Lucie, now in her temporary vows, was invaluable; as under-infirmarian, she seemed to glory in the work no one wanted – if they were honest with themselves – that of looking after the very old nuns, one bedridden. No matter how cantankerous they were, difficult or confused, sometimes incontinent, Soeur Lucie bore it all, did all the sordid things with infinite patience and love; by day or by night, strength seemed to be given to her puniness. ‘They love her and she loves them!’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel said in wonder, but now Lucette was like a tiger. ‘Someone did it. If I knew who she was, I would kill her, and Soeur Marie Mercédes said you went back next day.’
‘Of course I went back.’
There was surprise at Le Fouest when Lise had appeared next morning and with some a backlash: a few of the women came expressly to look at her. ‘So – you were one of us.’ Usually it was said with astonishment, but sometimes with arms akimbo or a toss of the head. ‘One of us!’
‘Yes.’
‘Quel dommage! Pity!’ And the tongue came out.
There was also genuine bewilderment. ‘Why did you pretend?’
‘I didn’t pretend.’
‘If she were pretending she wouldn’t be here now, would she?’ For once Soeur Marie Mercédes’s voice was rough.
‘I – suppose not. I never thought of that.’
‘Well – think.’ Then the voice became as tender as it had been severe and Soeur Marie Mercédes quoted what Père Lataste had said and she had quoted a thousand times before. ‘It’s not what you were, but what you are now and what you want to be, that God beholds with his merciful eyes.’
Only one prisoner asked, ‘Ma Soeur, could I do the same?’
During the week presents were brought, touching in their smallness but each a sacrifice: a bar of chocolate bought at the canteen: a handkerchief made in the workroom: a miniature bouquet of feather flowers fashioned from snippets dropped on the floor. They were put on the table in front of Lise with a shy, ‘Pour vous,’ or left with a note, ‘For Soeur Marie Lise’.
‘Mademoiselle, should I see Vivi?’
‘Certainly not. She’s like a wild cat. She would tear you in pieces if she could.’
Vivi was in the punishment block, as were Big Jo and Zaza. Now, Mademoiselle left her desk and came to sit by the fire, near Lise. ‘Soeur Marie Lise, do you know anything about Vivi’s life before you found her? Where she came from? Who she was?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me anything. She told the others tales.’
‘Which she is still telling,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘The latest is that she was stolen by gipsies.’
‘Now and then, when she wanted to be pathetic,’ said Lise, ‘it used to be an orphanage, which was probably nearest to the truth.’
‘It was worse than an orphanage.’ Mademoiselle looked into the fire. ‘It was the local Maison Dieu, part old people’s home, part lunatic asylum, where she should never have been put, but it was wartime …’
‘Was the Maison Dieu run by Sisters?’ interrupted Lise.
‘No, by the town. Vivi’s father …’ Mademoiselle stopped. ‘What is it, ma Soeur?’
‘I know there are facts,’ said Lise, ‘but what concerns me – I expect it seems beside the point but it isn’t, it really does concern me – is how did she get that rosary?’
If Madame Grebel had held out her hand to me, Vivi, if she had held out her arms that day in the Grande Salle, would everything have been different? I don’t know.
‘What can I give you, ma petite?’ Madame Lachaume used to ask me in despair. It was after they had given me the baby doll and I went into hysterics so dreadfully they had to call the doctor to me and Pom-Pom was so frightened he hid under the beds. ‘What can I give you?’
I said, ‘Beads,’ She had a string too, I had seen them, but they were wooden and ugly. ‘Beads, but pink, like Renée’s.’
Madame smiled at me. ‘One day, when you know what to do with them. Ask Mamaine to teach you,’ and she was pleased and put my hair back as she always did when she was pleased. ‘She has a good disposition, this little one. P’tite bien aimée – poor little love.’ What she didn’t know, poor Madame Lachaume, was that I had had the beads for six months. I stole them from Renée. They were pink, pink pearl on a silver chain, and divided into tens, and at the end of the necklace a few beads hung down and on the end was a tiny cross in silver. When Mamaine was not looking, I used to take them and put them round my neck and loop the end over my ear so that the cross hung down like an earring.
It was a funny thing; when I put the beads on the way I said, Pom-Pom did not like it. He pulled my dress and whimpered. Rico, of course, didn’t notice anything; he had his coloured pencils and was doing his kind of drawing, smiling as if he saw the pictures in the air. Renée went to sleep over her knitting because she ate so much at dinner, Mamaine went down for hers so then I brushed my hair with my brush and put on the beads and the silver cross hung down and caught the light. I looked very very pretty but there was no one to show them to, so I thought, One day I’ll show them to Stefan.
Though Stefan was wrong in the head which was why he was in the men’s wing, he was not as wrong as the others; and, by and by, because there were so few guards, he was let out to get the dinner trolleys; every day he wheeled them from the kitchen and every day he wheeled them back again before we came down to the courtyard – before, because we were not supposed to see Stefan. Mamaine had the key to the staircase door, but sometimes when she went to her dinner she forgot to lock it; if she did forget, I used to open it and go a little way down just to look at Stefan. Mamaine went for an hour so there was plenty of time. I watched him wheel the trolleys away; I watched him come back and sometimes the guards didn’t let him in at once.
Mamaine didn’t know I watched him, but I think he knew.
When I came back from the Grande Salle that day I wouldn’t eat my dinner. Renée laughed. ‘Pauvre petitel Pauvre petite fille.’ It was in imitation of Madame Lachaume and I threw a plate at her. The plate broke and Pom-Pom began to cry. Mamaine scolded and I threw another plate at Mamaine; it had gravy and haricots on it and made a mess all over the table. Pom ran to hide under the beds but I didn’t care. After dinner I unravelled Renée’s knitting and it was I who pinched Rico.
When Mamaine went down to her dinner she was so upset she forgot to lock the door.
Renée was crying over her spoiled knitting and wouldn’t notice me; Rico doesn’t notice anyone and Pom-Pom was under my bed.
I put the beads round my neck. I brushed my hair and looped the end of the chain over my ear so that the cross hung down to catch the light. I looked in the mirror and laughed. It was true what Madame Grebel said – I am too beautiful.
Then I went downstairs in my beads to show them to Stefan.
‘The father, a labourer, Paul Sordeau, got fifteen years for assault and infanticide,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘It wasn’t only Vivi – Viviane is her real name – it seems there was an older girl who had a baby which was smothered under grain sacks. The girl disappeared. When Vivi was found she was sleeping on a heap of old turnips on the farm for fear of her father, but the damage was done. She escaped from the Maison Dieu with one of the inmates, a Russian who was simple; they found them of course, that poor wretched creature and Vivi; it seems they were just in time. Vivi was only eleven but already … She ran away from every place she was put in, and you can imagine how difficult it was to find anywhere in those war years; the last was an experimental school run by the famous Ralph Marise; for a while it seemed successful – Ralph is an attractive person but, like everyone else, he hadn’t enough staff and Vivi, with an older girl, Suzanne … but you know the rest,’ and Mademoiselle looked from the fire directly at Lise. ‘Ma Soeur, why does she hate you?’
‘I think,’ Lise said slowly, ‘what I did, or tried to do, should have been the other way round; the opposite of all they tell you about dealing with delinquents, and I suppose Vivi was delinquent; that you should always show th
em you believe in them and that, given a chance, they have a better side. I think the rosary she loved misled me. I believed Vivi was good under it all, touchingly good – and she wasn’t good, so, of course, she couldn’t be. If I had accepted her just as she was … but I suppose I was as blind as Luigi. Poor Luigi.’
‘Not quite as blind. He couldn’t forgive her, while you …’
‘I always could, and did,’ Lise admitted. ‘Over and over again. But I could never get near her.’
‘Just as well.’ Mademoiselle rose. ‘I am having her transferred to Vesoul – for her sake and for ours. Too many emotions have been stirred up and, in any case, she must be separated from Big Jo and Zaza – and I hope, Soeur Marie Lise, that you need never encounter her again.’
‘No,’ said Lise, ‘and yet … I have a feeling it’s still not completed.’
10
Among all the changes, there was a new innovation for Béthanie: Saint Xavier sent their novices to make a tour of the different French houses and a party was coming to Belle Source. ‘God help us,’ said old Soeur Anne Colombe. ‘They’ll make a nice mess of my clean floors.’
‘I’m sure they won’t,’ said the Prioress. ‘We’ll probably find them most helpful.’
‘In my day, novices were strictly cloistered; we weren’t allowed to go gadding all over the place.’
They certainly went ‘all over the place,’ but not to gad; they not only took courses in Paris; all of them met, mingled with and talked to the groups of men and women, often from overseas, who came to stay at Saint Etienne or the bigger guesthouse newly built at Saint Xavier. ‘Ironically,’ said Lise, ‘they probably meet more people than they did before they entered what is called the “cloistered life”, and certainly more different nationalities. It’s wise because now they may be sent anywhere in the world.’ The light from that tiny ray kindled at Cadillac was spreading like the beam from a lighthouse across the sea, a searchlight; ‘searching.’ That was a great word with the nuns. ‘She is searching.’ ‘Has she a vocation?’ ‘Only time can tell, but she is searching,’ and, ‘It’s not that there are more Sisters of Béthanie; in fact, as we spread, the houses necessarily grow smaller – in all we are still only five hundred, still so few.’
