War Girls

by Adele Geras

  There are twenty-seven Toulouse geese, big greyish-brown birds with dusky orange beaks. We call the gander Napoleon Bonaparte because he’s so fierce. He hisses at me when I open the orchard gate, then waggles his head and cranes his neck until his beak is level with my chest. He could take out my eye with one peck – or so Pascal says.

  Today is Friday, wash day, so after a crust and a cup of milk, I gather our dirty clothes and put them in a basket.

  Mother’s bedroom is empty. Friday is market day too. She has to leave at three a.m. to walk into town and back. I’m surprised she’s gone today, though; I thought she might miss it for once.

  Slipping into Pascal’s room, I open his shutters. Dust tumbles in the sunlight. I take a musty shirt from his cupboard and a pair of breeches, and put them in my basket as well. Then I strap the basket to my back and walk into the village.

  I like wash day. It’s the only time I see my friends now that we’ve all left school. As I hurry across the square, I wave to my best friend, Béatrice Lamy, who’s already standing at the big stone lavoir with her sleeves rolled up.

  Madame Malpas is there too.

  ‘Angélique,’ she cries, ‘have you heard the news? Monsieur Labrette and his youngest have both been killed at Verdun! Poor Madame Labrette has gone quite out of her mind.’

  I make the sign of the cross, then put my basket next to Béatrice’s and take out my scrubbing brush.

  The gossip is all about the War. Monsieur Fournier’s eldest is in hospital, blinded by mustard gas, and Pascal’s friend, Henri Chevalier, is missing-in-action at the Somme. Monsieur Cousin, our old school teacher, has lost two nephews in one week.

  Béatrice leans across to me and whispers, ‘Do you think there’ll be any boys left for us to marry?’

  I go home deep in thought.

  When I arrive Mother is standing at the kitchen window, staring out. I wave as I open the gate, but she doesn’t seem to see me.

  That evening she hardly speaks. And the following morning, when I come downstairs, I find her sitting by the empty grate. She smiles at me sadly as I reach up for Pascal’s bowl and lay him a place at the kitchen table. Then, silently, she walks away.

  For the rest of the week I gather the hay by myself, and lead the cow along the verges to graze. In the cool of the evenings I sharpen Pascal’s scythe or clean his boots. Then I lie in bed and listen to Mother weep.

  I don’t understand it. She can’t have loved Father, not after what he did. I think maybe she’s worried about Pascal but I don’t know how to ask her.

  Finally, one golden morning in early September, as I’m fetching down Pascal’s bowl, Mother lays her hand on my arm.

  ‘Put it away,’ she says quietly. ‘They aren’t going to let him come home.’

  ‘They might,’ I reply.

  ‘No, my angel, they won’t.’

  We sit in silence and eat a crust, then go to the cornfield together.

  The ears of grain look grey. Some are mouldy. We scythe them down, slicing and twisting for hour after hour until my back is almost broken and sweat pours off my skin.

  All the next day Mother rakes the corn into rows, while I bend and stoop, bundling fat armfuls into sheaves. The brittle stems scratch my face and insects crawl up my sleeves.

  On the third day we wake to a heavy stillness. We set to work straight away, but by ten o’clock the air is so hot it’s difficult to breathe. We take off our caps and wipe our faces, glancing up anxiously. The sky is mottled grey and the sun pale and watery.

  We work in a kind of frenzy now, praying that the storm will hold off, but by midday the clouds are low and solid. Thunder rumbles up the valley.

  ‘That’s enough, my angel,’ Mother says. ‘Stop now. We have to get the corn under cover.’

  I nod. This is the moment I’ve dreaded. Before the War we had a horse and cart, but the army took them away, to pull their big guns into battle. So I am our pack animal now.

  I bend over, bracing, as Mother ropes sheaves to my back. I stagger under their weight. Our threshing barn is only a few hundred metres away but it seems further with every load. As I run back past the orchard, Napoleon screams at me and young geese rush in panic along the fence. In the east, the sky darkens and crackles.

  At last a fat raindrop strikes me, then another. Within seconds the storm is lashing my face and strapping my skirts to my legs. The geese splash and flap and screech.

  Mother and I struggle on.

  By dusk the field is a lake and the lane a torrent. Mud sucks off my boots, and I think if I fall I might drown.

  Next morning every bit of me hurts. My shoulders, my back, my legs. As I lie rigid, staring at the ceiling, I wonder if I’ll ever walk again or just hobble for the rest of my life.

  Then I realise how selfish I’m being. What wouldn’t Pascal give to be safe at home in bed? I rest for another moment, listening to a robin sing, and finally ease my feet to the floor.

  Mother’s room is empty. Of course, it’s market day today. I sigh. Why must she always go? She never spends the money she makes from selling our butter and eggs.

  Stiffly, I pick up her muddy skirt and put it in the laundry basket.

  When I get back from the lavoir, smoke is drifting from the chimney. I decide Mother must be feeling better if she’s lit the fire. But when I open the kitchen door I find her crouched over the flames, clutching a shawl around her shoulders.

  ‘Mother! What’s wrong?’

  I run to her. She forces a smile.

  ‘Nothing, my angel. It’s just a chill from getting wet through yesterday. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.’

  But she isn’t. She’s sweating and shaking so hard that she can’t leave her bed.

  ‘I’ll fetch a doctor,’ I say.

  She grabs my hand. ‘No, Angélique! We can’t afford him.’

  So I beg her to rest. I tell her I can manage. I promise her I can. I feed King George and the geese, milk the cow, churn butter, thresh corn, collect eggs, wash and cook and clean.

  The next day is the same, and the next.

  Every night I fall into bed, too exhausted even to dream.

  Then, one damp afternoon in October, I’m up a ladder in the orchard, picking the last of the apples, when Napoleon shrieks underneath me and I drop my basket in fright.

  Out in the lane there’s a soldier, stroking his whiskers. His eyes glint from the shadow of his cap.

  For an instant my heart leaps. Could it be Pascal?

  No. He’s a man, older than Father. He nods at me once, then wanders off as if out for a stroll.

  I scramble down the ladder and run to the orchard gate. What if he’s a deserter come to steal our food? I shoo the geese into the yard. No one breaks into our barns when Napoleon is roaming about.

  That evening, when I bring Mother her supper in bed, she asks me why the geese are honking outside her window. I don’t want to worry her so I say the orchard gate is broken.

  But next wash day the gossip around the lavoir is all about the solitary soldier, and how he’s been spying on the local farms.

  Madame Malpas wrings her hands and says, ‘I knew this would happen. Ever since my sister wrote to me, I just knew it would happen here too.’

  ‘Knew what would happen?’ Béatrice asks.

  ‘You girls won’t remember my sister Adèle, of course. She moved to Ariège thirty years ago and married that awful blacksmith …’

  ‘Madame Malpas,’ I break in. ‘What about the soldier?’

  ‘Well …’ She glances over her shoulder, then lowers her voice. ‘He’s a scout, isn’t he? For the army. It’s the requisition.’

  ‘The requisition?’ Everyone around me gasps. ‘But they’ve already been here! They took our horses and carts!’

  ‘That won’t stop them coming back,’ Madame Malpas replies with a sniff. ‘They’ll be after food this time, cattle especially. Adèle said that in her village they came in trucks in the middle of the night an
d took every last cow. They hanged a farmer, too.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Béatrice, wide-eyed. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He wouldn’t let them take his cow. He only had the one. He told them, “Without that animal my family will starve.”

  ‘But the officer lost his temper. He said the men at the Front needed meat more than a bunch of selfish peasants. So the old boy lost his temper as well. He fetched out his hunting rifle and shot the officer dead.

  ‘They hanged him at the next Assizes.’

  I don’t wait to finish my washing. I pack up my basket and run straight home to Mother. I want to hear her say that everything will be all right, that Madame Malpas is a foolish old woman who doesn’t know anything.

  But when I tumble into her room, she is sleeping peacefully for once.

  I kneel by her bed, aching to take her hand and kiss it. Her cheeks are so thin I could weep. I watch her for the longest time, then creep downstairs, and into our gloomy little back room. I shudder, imagining I can still smell Father’s tobacco. Then I pull myself together and stride across to his desk – the one he bent me and Pascal over – and hunt through the drawers for ink, paper and a pen. Then I write a very long letter to my uncle in Étaples.

  Days of waiting turn into weeks. I almost give up hope. What if my letter got lost? Étaples is hundreds of kilometres away. Or maybe Uncle Gustav won’t realise that, while I don’t say as much, in truth I am begging him to come.

  Between my chores I watch the lane, keeping my fingers crossed.

  Then, in November, King George falls sick. I blame myself for adding mouldy grain to his feed to make it go further. At first it upsets his stomach, but soon he stops eating altogether. I spend my evenings in the little stone barn, tempting him with titbits and mucking out his stall.

  I don’t mind, really. It’s cosy in the flickering candlelight, with the cow quietly chewing the cud and the hens settled in the rafters like plump brown pillows.

  That is where I am one windy night, with hail rattling on the roof and the candle guttering, when I hear the sound I’ve been expecting: Napoleon’s sudden screech in the yard. My heart skips a beat. Is it my uncle or the soldier? I hardly dare open the door.

  ‘Bloody bird! Call the damn thing off!’

  ‘Uncle Gustav!’

  I run to him. Hug him. I bury my face in his coat. He laughs and holds me close, stroking my hair.

  ‘Oh, Uncle,’ I sigh, ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I’ll always come, ma petite. But I had to find someone to help your Aunt Mathilde on our farm first. Didn’t you get my letter?’

  I shake my head. ‘It never came.’

  ‘Poor Angélique.’ He smiles down at me, his dark eyes crinkling above his splendid white moustache. ‘Come on, let’s get inside, out of this weather. And if that ruddy bird pecks my backside one more time, I swear I’ll put him in the pot!’

  Mother scolds me at first for bothering Uncle Gustav with our troubles, but she can’t hide the smile behind her tears.

  ‘We’ll soon put everything to rights,’ he tells her. ‘We can’t have young Pascal coming home to a pickle, can we, ma petite?’

  ‘No, Uncle Gustav,’ I say. ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Now, tell me what delicious thing you’ve prepared for our supper.’

  ‘Er. Potato soup?’

  ‘Perfect! And tomorrow it’s my turn to cook. The only ingredient I’ll need is your father’s hunting gun.’

  I find it for him next morning. He comes back from the woods with five pigeons, two rabbits and a duck. While he tends his bubbling stew, I light the lamps and build up the fire so it’s warm enough for Mother to eat in the kitchen.

  With each meal she grows a little stronger until, a fortnight later, she’s back on her feet. I worry that Uncle Gustav will leave us now, but he seems happy enough, hunting and chopping wood and mending broken fences.

  Late one evening, when Mother has gone to bed, he asks me to sit with him.

  ‘Tell me, ma petite,’ he says, ‘why is your mother so anxious to go to market?’

  ‘I don’t know, Uncle Gustav, but she always went before she fell sick.’

  ‘And have you been going for her while she’s been poorly?’

  ‘Well …’ I sit up a little straighter. ‘She never actually asked me to go. And it’s such a long way and I’ve so many other things to do …’

  He pats my hand. ‘Of course you have, ma petite.’

  Next Friday morning I feel guilty – but not surprised – to find Uncle Gustav’s bed cold. I finish my chores, then pack up the laundry basket. Mother is sewing by the kitchen fire.

  ‘Have a nice time,’ she says, which makes me feel worse. I should have offered to go to market for her; I didn’t have to see my friends every week.

  I’m dragging my feet towards the village when I hear an unusual sound. A steady rhythm. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. I stop and cock my head.

  Tramp. Tramp. Tramp.

  The sound gets louder, closer. I glimpse men in pale blue uniforms.

  Dear God, no!

  My hand flies to my mouth. I can’t breathe. I’m rooted to the spot … Then I scream and drop my basket. I turn and run, leaping puddles or splashing through them. What does it matter? Except that now my skirts are heavier than lead.

  Hitching them up, I race into the yard, shouting, ‘Mother!’

  Napoleon honks at me. I wave my arms to get him really riled up. He rushes about, his big webbed feet slapping against the cobbles. Mother appears at the door, her face pale and frightened.

  ‘What is it, Angélique?’

  ‘The requisition!’

  She staggers against the doorframe. ‘Mon Dieu! What can we do?’

  But I don’t answer her. I tear into the little stone barn and haul the cow from her stall, pulling her into the yard and shoving her towards the back of the house.

  ‘Move,’ I plead as Napoleon pecks my legs.

  Then, from the lane, I hear, ‘Halt!’

  Napoleon knocks me over as he charges the gate, shrieking and beating his wings.

  ‘Call the gander off or I’ll shoot.’ The man’s voice is harder than iron. I whip round. Five soldiers are standing by the fence. One of them has braid on his collar. He shouts, ‘One!’

  ‘No!’ I scrabble to my feet. ‘Don’t hurt him!’

  ‘Two!’

  I dash for the gate.

  ‘Three!’

  BANG!

  ‘Noooooo!’

  I lunge at Napoleon, flinging my body across his. Like a snake, he turns on me, slashing my face with his beak. I grab for his neck. Then I hear, ‘Put the gun down, madame.’

  Terrified, I roll over. Mother is pointing Father’s gun at the sky. The barrel is smoking. I look back at the soldiers. They are lined up beside the fence, their rifles trained on her.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ I scream. ‘Mother! Think of Pascal! You’ve got to be here for him!’

  For a moment my universe hangs in the balance. The soldiers stand stock still. Mother could be a statue. Only Napoleon writhes underneath me. I need both hands to hold him down.

  ‘Please, Mother,’ I beg. ‘Don’t leave me alone.’

  She drops the gun. Then, like a rag doll, she falls weeping to the ground.

  We sit in the kitchen without speaking. Mother holds her head in her hands, crying silently, but I am too bitter for tears. I told the soldiers about Pascal being in the army and how Father died for France. But they wouldn’t listen to me. They just led the cow away.

  When Uncle Gustav gets back from market, I run to him and tell him all about it. He holds me very close, then kisses Mother on the forehead. But she won’t be consoled.

  ‘We’ve still got King George,’ I tell her, trying to sound braver than I feel, ‘and the geese and the hens.’

  ‘And here …’ Uncle Gustav empties a small bag on the table. It is the money he made from selling our butter and eggs. ‘It’s not much but it should help a litt
le.’

  Mother bursts into tears again. ‘You don’t understand. It’s too late.’

  Uncle Gustav and I exchange glances. She’s more upset now than on the day when we learned that Father had died.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask her softly. ‘Please tell us what’s wrong.’

  Slowly, finally, sniffing all the while and wiping her eyes, Mother starts to talk. I can scarcely believe what I’m hearing. Father was a drunk and a gambler. He mortgaged the farm to pay off his debts and now, without the cow, she can’t afford to pay the interest.

  ‘Is that why you always went to market,’ I ask her, ‘and never spent the money?’

  She nods. ‘If I haven’t made enough by next quarter day, the money-lender says he’ll send in the bailiffs. They’ll take the furniture first.’

  I stretch across the table and take her hands in mine. ‘We’ll get by, Mother. We’ll sell King George if we have to.’

  She shakes her head. ‘He’s too weak to walk to market, my angel, and he’s so thin we won’t get much meat from him.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to …’ My eyes fly around the kitchen. What do we own that’s valuable? Nothing much. Nothing at all, in truth. I take a deep breath. ‘Then we’ll just have to sell the geese.’

  How could I say such a thing when Pascal loves those birds? He always has, ever since Father brought the first pair home from the goose fair in Monville. But what choice do we have? None that I can see.

  But Mother shakes her head again. ‘If we sell them now, my angel, we’ll never get out of debt.’

  ‘Why not? I don’t understand.’

  Uncle Gustav leans forward. ‘Because, ma petite, with prices the way they are in Monville, you won’t get enough for them to pay off the mortgage.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So your mother has to pay back everything your father owed. Otherwise the money-lender will take every franc she earns in interest – and then come for the farm.’

  I stare at him in disbelief, fear tightening my chest. I turn to Mother, then back to my uncle, my breath fast and short. ‘But they can’t do that, Uncle Gustav. It’s Pascal’s farm. Tell him, Mother. Tell him no one can take the farm.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my angel.’

  ‘No! Stop it! I don’t want to hear!’