One Day in Oradour

by Helen Watts

  ‘Of course,’ said Sylvie, wishing she had gone the other way and avoided bumping into Audrey. The other woman was several years her elder and had lived in Oradour all her life. Nothing happened in the village which Audrey did not know about, and she had an opinion on everything – usually a strong one. Sylvie found her intimidating.

  Not that Audrey had ever been anything but kind to her. In fact, when Sylvie, Leon and the children had first come to live in Oradour, it was Audrey who had paid their first two weeks’ rent on the new cottage until Leon began his job at the bakery. For that Sylvie would always be utterly grateful. But somehow with Audrey, every kindness seemed to come with an obligation.

  When Leon and Sylvie Fournier had first arrived at their little stone cottage in Rue Depaul, they had certainly been in need of some help and kindness. They had fled to Oradour from their home in Charly in north-east France with their three children – Christelle, the eldest, Sabine, now eleven and young Alfred, now seven. The whole region of Lorraine had been annexed by the Nazis. All Jews were being deported and any French residents, like the Fourniers, who refused to live under the authority of the Reich were thrown out of their homes. The Nazis simply gave their houses away, to people they considered to be more deserving – the ‘good’ and the ‘faithful’, they called them.

  When the Germans arrived in Charly, hammering on every door and searching every home in the village, the Fourniers were given just one hour to pack before they were cast out onto the street. No one was allowed to take more than thirty kilograms of possessions. So, in a state of wild panic and while trying to keep the children calm, Leon and Sylvie had to rush about the house making frantic decisions about which items were essential and which had such sentimental value that they couldn’t bear to leave them behind.

  The family was too poor to own a car, so they had made the first part of their journey out of Charly on foot, with the heavily pregnant Sylvie holding little Alfred’s hand, and Christelle and Sabine struggling to help their father carry the hastily-packed bags. Desperate, and with the frightened children in tears, Leon and Sylvie had no idea where to go but they could hear enough shouting, and then gunfire, behind them to know that they had to keep on moving as fast as they could.

  They headed south, out of Lorraine, walking for the rest of the day. As night fell, they reached a railway station on the outskirts of Metz. While Sylvie and the children tried to get some rest, using their luggage as makeshift pillows, Leon went off to find the ticket office, hoping and praying that they could get a train that night which would take them far enough away to find safety.

  A long queue had already formed at the counter – dozens of families, men, women and children, all looking as confused, dishevelled and frantic as Leon. An elderly Jewish couple held onto one another in the queue in front of him.

  ‘Excuse me. Can I ask you where you are going?’ Leon had said, his voice trembling. ‘I feel so useless. I don’t even know what tickets to ask for. I have three children with me and I’m so worried about my wife. She’s pregnant, you see. Where can I take them where they’ll be safe?’

  The old man reached out and touched Leon’s arm.

  ‘It will be all right,’ he said quietly. ‘Have you got money for tickets?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Leon. ‘I mean, I hope it’s enough. It’s all the savings I have.’

  ‘Then come with us,’ whispered the old man, peering at Leon kindly over his spectacles. ‘My name’s Ethan. I have a brother, Joseph. He’s a refugee, too, but he’s found somewhere safe to live, for now at least. A place called Oradour. Not far from Limoges. He says it’s peaceful there… no trouble from the Resistance, and the Germans leave it alone. It’s a long way but we know which route to take. My wife Rachael and I can help you and your family to get there, at least. Besides, it sounds like your family could be good company for us. It’ll be nice to have some young ‘uns to talk to.’ The old man smiled as the relief showed on Leon’s face.

  Three days later, the Fournier family and their two new companions got off the tram that had brought them from Limoges into Oradour. They had travelled over one thousand kilometres, almost to the other side of France. Exhausted, scared and hungry and with hardly a thing to their name, they began the first day of their new life in the village which would become their very last family home.

  3: Alfred Fournier

  Sylvie was a patient woman. She had to be, with five children and a husband to care for. But sometimes even her patience was sorely tested, and this was one of those occasions. She had finished the long day’s work and made the garlands, then cooked the children’s supper and was now about to serve it, yet once again there was no sign of Alfred.

  ‘It’s just typical!’ she snapped, as she took the pot off the stove to stop the fish stew from drying up while she went outside to look for him. ‘After all the rushing about I’ve done today! That boy will never learn to be on time.’

  Sylvie peered over the fence at the bottom of the garden, searching in vain for a glimpse of Alfred’s red hair in the paddock behind the cottage. Squinting, she cast her eye along the edge of the woods on the brow of the hill behind the cemetery. Again, nothing. She wiped her hands on her apron. Bother, she thought, knowing that the dinner was definitely going to be ruined. She would have to send Christelle out to look for him.

  Most of the mothers in Oradour would simply feed their other children and teach Alfred a lesson by serving his meal up cold when he came home – or by sending him to bed without any supper at all. But Sylvie was too anxious about Alfred’s safety to think of punishing him – for now, at least. She couldn’t assume that he was late, sit back and wait. She had to be sure he was alright.

  For Sylvie knew that life could change in an instant; that one moment you could be going about your day without a care and the next moment your world could be turned upside down. There was no getting away from it, bad things could happen to you. So when Sylvie set her children a curfew, she expected them to stick to it. And they usually did… except for Alfred. Sylvie had lost count of the number of times she’d warned him not to wander too far. ‘What if the Germans came,’ she would say, ‘and you were miles away?’

  Alfred was a good boy really. Small for his age, with thick, floppy red hair, he always took it on his small shoulders to look after everyone whenever his father was at work or away on his delivery rounds. Little Louis and Paulette adored him and followed him everywhere around the cottage, while Sabine and Christelle liked to poke fun at him, affectionately calling him ‘petit papa’.

  Sometimes it saddened Sylvie that she never saw Alfred playing the fool or just being silly in the way that seven-year-olds should. It was as if, in the upheaval of the move to Oradour, he had left behind his ability to be light-hearted. Even his smile had changed. Now the joyous dimples in his cheeks were offset by a slight narrowing of his eyes, a questioning dip in the eyebrows. It was as if Alfred couldn’t take anything at face value any more.

  But this inquisitiveness led to an unquenchable thirst for exploration and Alfred took every opportunity he could to head off and investigate. He would spend hours walking the fields and meadows surrounding the village, clambering along the river bank, climbing trees and discovering new routes along the little paths and alleyways between the buildings.

  Although Sylvie worried about him when he was off on one of his adventures, she admired his curiosity and his boldness. Alfred had made so many friends in Oradour that people who Sylvie had never seen before would come up to her in the street and ask, ‘How’s Alfie?’ or ‘What’s that lad of yours been up to lately? He hasn’t been to visit for a while.’

  Yes, he was popular, all right. And Sylvie knew that Alfred was never deliberately late home. He would just get carried away and lose track of time.

  Alfred understood his mother’s anxiety. That last day in Charly was etched in his memory. He could recall clinging on to his mother’s hand and wondering why she was dragging him so roughly down the
street. He had been sobbing, ‘Ruffe, Ruffe, I want to get Ruffe,’ but all his mother kept saying was, ‘It’s too late, darling, we can’t go back. I will have to knit you another Ruffe.’

  Ruffe was Alfred’s little stuffed dog. He was made from the softest red-brown wool and Alfred had had him since he was a baby. He was missing a button eye and had long since lost his tail, but Alfred loved Ruffe dearly and couldn’t get to sleep without him. Sylvie had knitted him a new Ruffe when they settled in Oradour, but it wasn’t the same and, although Alfred kept the new Ruffe on his bed (mainly so as not to hurt his mother’s feelings), he found that looking at him just made him sad. ‘Besides,’ Alfred told himself, ‘I am a big boy now and I don’t need a silly toy dog to get to sleep.’

  No, Alfred didn’t underestimate what could happen if the Germans came into his life again. But he wasn’t afraid. If they ever marched into Oradour, he and his brothers and sisters all knew what to do. Their parents had made sure of that.

  ‘If you see any Germans you must run away, no matter what you are doing, or where you are,’ their father had told them.

  And nearly every time Alfred or his elder sisters went out to play, their mother would remind them of their family pact to meet in the woods behind the cemetery if there were ever any danger. By crossing the paddock at the back of their cottage you could sneak along a wall, hidden from sight, away from all the houses on Rue Depaul and across the field to the cemetery. You didn’t need to go through the village at all. ‘If your father and I are not here,’ she would say, ‘you older ones must make sure that Louis and Paulette aren’t left behind. You know what those Germans are capable of. They won’t care that you’re just children.’

  So Alfred didn’t mean to upset his mother, or intend to be late home that day. However, after school, he decided to visit the barber’s shop. The owner, Jean Neville, was always happy for Alfred to stop by. He let Alfred whip up the soap if a client wanted a shave, and Alfred liked chatting to all the customers while Jean snipped away with his scissors.

  There was Monsieur Babin, the clog-maker, who liked to go fishing on his days off. He could name all the types of fish in the River Glane and the best places to catch them. He liked his hair short at the back and sides.

  Then there was Monsieur Demarais, who owned the wine storehouse and who came every Friday for a shave but never paid. Instead, a bottle wrapped in brown paper would be handed to Jean, accompanied by a wink and a nod. He liked to grow his hair long on one side and have it combed right over the top of his head. Monsieur Demarais was old now, and didn’t often leave Oradour, but in his youth he had travelled far and wide, buying wines from all the different regions of France. He entranced Alfred with his vivid descriptions of all the delicious smells, colours and exquisite flavours he had sampled and the passion with which he talked about some of his favourite vintages.

  And on rare occasions there was Pierre Petit, the farmer, who hated having his hair cut and would let it grow in curly black locks way down over his collar until, threatened by his wife with a pair of shearing scissors, he gave in. While he sat rigidly in the barber’s chair, Pierre would welcome the distraction of Alfred’s endless questions about the plants, birds and insects he had seen in the fields and woodlands around Oradour. Pierre was a fountain of knowledge, a walking encyclopaedia of nature. Alfred wished that Pierre would wear his hair shorter or choose a more complicated style. Pierre refused to let Jean give him anything more than a trim or a ‘quick tidy up’ and there were only so many questions you could fit into the time it took to do that.

  But none of those men were there when Alfred approached Jean’s shop that afternoon. Instead he saw a man he didn’t recognise sitting in the barber’s chair in the window.

  ‘Bonjour Monsieur Neville,’ chirped Alfred, as he hopped up the two stone steps and stood in the doorway.

  ‘Alfred. Good to see you. Sit there for a minute, lad, while I finish with this customer.’ Jean gestured towards a stool in the corner behind the door, then returned to his work, snipping away in silence.

  Alfred did as he was told, and sat crossing and uncrossing his feet as he watched Jean work. He didn’t seem quite himself. He was normally so relaxed and jolly. Alfred wondered who the strange man was to have such an unnerving effect on his friend.

  Not wanting to stare, Alfred pretended to watch the passers-by out in the street, but as he turned his gaze to the window, he stole a glance at the man’s reflection in the mirror. He had to stifle a gasp, for his eyes were drawn instantly to the angry red weal down the side of the man’s face. No, this man was definitely not from Oradour. Even without the scar, Alfred would have remembered that hard, narrow face, with its rather angular nose and tiny, bead-like eyes staring intensely straight ahead into the mirror. The man reminded him of a shrew he had seen the other day in the woods.

  Just then, Jean finished his work and, nodding politely to his client, whipped the towel away from around his neck and took a step back. The man stood and Alfred saw that he was only small, but his wiry frame suggested he was fit and strong, like an athlete. When he had dusted himself off, the man offered his thanks, paid and promptly left, hurrying off up the street where he climbed into the passenger seat of a delivery van. Alfred stood up and peered out of the door but the van pulled away before he could see if there was anything written on the side.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked Jean, who was rapidly sweeping up the hair from around the base of the chair, as if keen to get rid of all traces of the visitor.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jean, with an edge to his voice that Alfred had never heard before. ‘He’s not from round here, and take my advice, son, there are times when it’s best not to ask.’

  ‘Funny, though,’ said Alfred. ‘He must have been in Oradour for some kind of business or another. You wouldn’t just come here for a haircut, would you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, Alfie,’ said Jean and, as if anxious to change the subject, he handed him the soap mug and a brush. ‘Here, whip me up a good lather. I’ve got the Mayor coming in any time now and you know how he likes a clean, close shave.’

  The Mayor of Oradour, Henri Depaul, was well liked and greatly respected in the village. He still lived in the house overlooking the village green – an open space known locally as the Champ de Foire or fairground – in which he had been born seventy-one years ago, and his family’s history in Oradour went back generations. Everyone always knew that Henri would be a leading light in the local community. Bright and keen to learn, he had been top of his class right through school and although he had gone away to university in Paris, he wasn’t able to break his ties with his home village for long and soon returned to make his life – and find a wife – in Oradour.

  Alfred liked Henri Depaul. To him, this well-built, impressive figure of a man, always smartly dressed, with his white hair and frothy white handlebar moustache, represented all that was good about Oradour. He knew everyone in the village and encouraged them all to be good neighbours to one another. He believed in leading by example, and was always polite and well-spoken. Alfred loved the way he walked the entire length and breadth of the village at least once a day, as if checking all was well and to his liking.

  Having said that, Alfred had never crossed Henri Depaul and nor would he like to. Everyone at school said that he had no time for anyone who misbehaved or broke the law. But Alfred quite liked the fact that you knew where you were with him. Alfred couldn’t imagine the Mayor ever being pushed around. He was like the glue which held the village together. He made Alfred feel safe.

  Leaving the barber with a frothy pot of soap for the Mayor’s shave, Alfred bid him farewell. He was sure he was still in good time for supper, so he decided to drop in at the smithy before heading for home. Monsieur Lefevre, the blacksmith, was shoeing a particularly frisky horse belonging to Monsieur Brun, the mill owner. The horse was magnificent – all muscle and power – and Alfred marvelled at the way the blacksmith managed to work so
swiftly and keep a cool head while expertly tapping the nails through the perfectly crafted iron shoes, his sooty face so close to those mighty hooves.

  ‘Time to call it a day,’ said Monsieur Lefevre at last, as he led the Brun horse, complete with four shiny new shoes, out of the smithy and past Alfred, who was sitting on top of the fence.

  Alfred had become entranced by the warmth and the fiery glow of the red-hot embers in the furnace, and hadn’t noticed the passage of time.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ he cried as he jumped down and landed, two feet together, on the straw-covered cobbles. ‘I bet I’m late for supper again. Maman will be so cross. I’d better run. Au revoir, Monsieur Lefevre. Thanks for letting me watch.’

  With one hand holding onto his cap, Alfred flew out of the yard and headed up the lane. His quickest route home was straight up past the Masson barn, past the garage belonging to Patric Depaul, the mayor’s youngest son, and straight on past the tram station. If he ran fast, he could do it in five minutes. But just as he sped past Patric Depaul’s doorway, he heard a scuffle and felt a scampering at his heels. It was Bobby, Patric’s little black and white dog, thrilled to see his favourite playmate running by.

  Without stopping, Alfred looked down into the dog’s hopeful little face. ‘Not today, Bobby. I can’t play with you now. I’m late.’

  On hearing the boy’s voice the dog began to bark happily and, every few feet, jumped up at Alfred’s side, nearly tripping him.

  ‘Oh Bobby,’ sighed Alfred, coming to a halt. ‘You can’t come with me. It’s supper time and you know Maman won’t let you in the house.’

  Looking up at Alfred, Bobby started to wag his tail so furiously that the entire back end of his body wiggled from side to side. Alfred’s heart melted.