On the pavements people were walking along, rather worried, above all perplexed, as I was, and there were some men in uniform, Frenchmen, among the crowd.
One of them, in the middle of the Rue du Palais, was asking a policeman what he ought to do, and, judging by his gestures, I gathered that the policeman was replying that he didn’t know any more than the soldier did.
I didn’t see any Germans in the vicinity of the town hall. To tell the truth, I don’t remember seeing any walking among the townspeople. I went to consult the lists, as on other days, then on to the post office, where I waited my turn at the poste restante counter while Anna stood pensively by the window.
We had said scarcely anything to each other since the morning. We were both of us equally depressed, and when I was handed a message in my name I wasn’t surprised, I thought that it was inevitable, that it was bound to happen that particular day.
But I went weak at the knees and had some difficulty in walking away from the counter.
I knew already. The form was printed on poor paper, with blanks which had been completed in purple pencil.
NAME OF MISSING PERSON: Jeanne Marie Clementine Feron, née Van Straeten.
PLACE OF ORIGIN: Fumay (Ardennes).
PROFESSION: None.
MISSING SINCE:_________
METHOD OF TRANSPORT: Rail.
ACCOMPANIED BY: Her daughter, aged four.
PRESENT WHEREABOUTS:____________
My heart started beating wildly and I looked around for Anna.
I saw her against the light, still by the window, gazing at me without moving.
PRESENT WHEREABOUTS: Maternity home at Bressuire.
I went over to her and held out the paper without a word. Then, without really knowing what I was doing, I made for the telephone counter.
“Is it possible to telephone to Bressuire?”
I expected to be told that it wasn’t. Contrary to all logic, it seemed to me, the telephone was working normally.
“What number do you want?”
“The maternity home.”
“Don’t you know the number? Or the name of the street?”
“I imagine there’s only one maternity home in the town.”
In my memories of geography lessons at school, Bressuire was somewhere in a region you rarely heard about, between Niort and Poitiers, farther west, toward the Vendée.
“There’s a delay of ten minutes.”
Anna had given me back the message, which I stuffed into my pocket. I said, unnecessarily, since she knew it already:
“I’m waiting for them to put the call through.”
She lit a cigarette. I had bought her a cheap handbag as well as a little suitcase in imitation leather in which to keep her underwear and her toilet things. The floor of the post office was still marked by the drops of water which had been sprinkled on it before it was swept.
Opposite, on the other side of a little square, some men who looked like local notabilities were sitting on a café terrace, arguing and drinking white wine, and the proprietor of the café, in shirt sleeves and a blue apron, was standing near them, holding a napkin.
“Bressuire is on the line in Box 2.”
At the other end of the line a voice was getting impatient.
“Hello! La Rochelle … Speak up.”
“Is that Bressuire?”
“Yes, of course it is. I’m putting you through.”
“Hello. Is that the maternity home?”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Marcel Feron, I’d like to know if my wife is still there.”
“What name did you say?”
“Feron.”
I had to spell it out: F for Fernand, and so on.
“Has she had a baby here?”
“I suppose so. She was pregnant when …”
“Is she in a private room or a public ward?”
“I don’t know. We are refugees from Fumay and I lost her on the way as well as my daughter.”
“Hold the line. I’ll go and see.”
Through the glass pane of the phone booth I saw Anna, who was leaning on the windowsill, and it had a curious effect on me, looking at her black dress, her shoulders, her lips which were becoming unfamiliar to me again.
“Yes, she’s here. She gave birth the day before yesterday.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“There’s no telephone in the wards, but I can give her a message.”
“Tell her …”
I started searching for something to say and suddenly I heard a crackling sound on the line.
“Hello! … Hello! … Don’t cut me off, Mademoiselle …”
“Speak up, then … Hurry up.”
“Tell her that her husband is at La Rochelle, that all’s well, that he’ll come to Bressuire as quickly as he can.… I don’t know yet if I can find any transport but …”
There was nobody on the line anymore and I didn’t know if she had heard the end of my sentence. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask whether it was a boy or a girl, or whether everything had gone well.
I went to pay at the counter. Then I said automatically, as I had said so often in the course of the last few weeks:
“Come along.”
It was unnecessary, seeing that Anna always followed me. In the street she asked:
“How are you going to get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“They probably won’t get the trains running again for several days.”
I didn’t ask myself any questions. I would go to Bressuire on foot if necessary. Seeing that I knew where Jeanne was, I had to join her. It wasn’t a matter of duty. It was so natural that I didn’t hesitate for a moment.
I must have appeared very calm and sure of myself, for Anna was looking at me with a certain astonishment. On the quay I stopped at the shop where I had bought the spirit stove. It had some coarse canvas kit bags for sale and I wanted one to replace the trunk which, even empty, was too heavy to be carted along the roads.
The German soldiers were still not mixing with the passersby. A group which had camped on the outskirts of the town, on the old ramparts, around a field kitchen, had gone off again at dawn.
I went for the last time into the camp, into the green circus tent, where I stuffed the contents of the trunk into the kit bag. Noticing the spirit stove, I handed it to Anna.
“You can have this. I won’t need it anymore, and in any case I haven’t got room for it.”
She took it without protest and put it in her suitcase. I was preoccupied, wondering where and how we were going to say goodbye.
Some women were still asleep, and others, who were busy with their children, looked at us inquisitively.
“I’ll help you.”
Anna hoisted the kit bag onto my shoulder and I bent down to pick up the suitcase. She followed me, holding her case. Outside, between a couple of huts, I started clumsily:
“All my life …”
She gave me a smile which baffled me.
“I’m coming with you.”
“To Bressuire?”
I was worried.
“I want to stay with you as long as possible. Don’t worry. When we get there I’ll disappear.”
I was relieved to see our leave-taking postponed. We didn’t meet Madame Bauche and we left, like so many others, without saying goodbye to her and thanking her. Yet we were the oldest inhabitants of the center, for old Jules had been taken to hospital with an attack of delirium tremens.
We made our way toward the Place d’Armes through increasingly chaotic streets. The terrace of the Café de la Paix was crowded. Civilian cars were driving about, and at the far end of the square, near the park, you could make out the mottled camouflage of the German cars.
I didn’t expect to find a bus. Yet there were several outside the bus station, since nobody had given orders to suspend the service. I asked if there was a bus for Bressuire or for Niort. They told me no, that the road to Niort was jammed wit
h cars and with refugees on foot, and that the Germans were finding it difficult to get through.
“There’s a bus for Fontenay-le-Comte.”
“Is that on the road to Bressuire?”
“It gets you a bit nearer.”
“When does it leave?”
“The driver’s filling up with petrol.”
We installed ourselves in the bus, in the blazing sunshine, and to begin with we were alone among the empty seats. Then a French soldier got in, a man of about forty, from the country, with his jacket over his arm, and later half a dozen people sat down around us.
Sitting side by side, and shaken by the jolting of the bus, Anna and I kept our eyes fixed on the scenery.
“Are you hungry?”
“No. What about you?”
“I’m not hungry either.”
A peasant woman sitting facing us, her eyes red with crying, was eating a slice of pâté which smelled good.
We were following a road which went from village to village, not far from the sea at first, through Nieul, Marsilly, Esnandres, and Charron, and we didn’t see many Germans, just a small group in the square of each little town, in front of the church or the town hall, with the local inhabitants watching them from a distance.
We were off the route taken by the refugees and most of the troops. Somewhere, I thought I recognized the meadow and the stop where we had slept on the last night of our journey. I am not sure, because no landscape looks the same from the railway as it does from the road.
We passed a big dairy where dozens of pails of milk were shining in the sun; then we crossed a bridge over a canal, near an inn with an arbor beside it. There were blue checked tablecloths, flowers on the tables, and a fretwork chef at the roadside, holding out a stenciled menu.
At Fontenay-le-Comte there were more Germans, and more vehicles too, including trucks, but only in the main street leading to the station. At the bus station, in a square, we were told that there was no coach for Bressuire.
The idea of hiring a taxi didn’t occur to me, first because that was something I had never done, and then because I wouldn’t have believed that it was still possible.
We went into a café in the marketplace to have a snack.
“Are you refugees?”
“Yes. From the Ardennes.”
“There are some people from the Ardennes working as woodcutters in the Mervent forest. They look a bit wild, but they’re good sorts, with plenty of guts. Are you going far?”
“To Bressuire.”
“Have you got a car?”
We were the only customers in the place, and an old man in felt slippers came to look at us through the kitchen door.
“No. We’ll walk there if need be.”
“You think you can walk all the way to Bressuire? With this little lady? Wait a minute while I ask if Martin’s truck has gone.”
We were lucky. Martin’s business, on the other side of the trees, was a wholesale ironmonger’s. It had some deliveries to make at Pouzauges and Cholet. We waited, drinking coffee, and looking out at the empty square.
There was room for both of us, squeezed together in the cab, beside the driver, and after a fairly steep hill we drove through an endless forest.
“The Ardennes people are over there,” said our driver, pointing to a clearing and a few huts around which some half-naked children were playing.
“Are there many Germans around here?”
“There was a lot of traffic yesterday evening and last night. It will probably start again. What we’ve seen has been mainly motorbikes and field kitchens. I suppose the tanks are following.”
He stopped to leave a parcel at a smithy where a plow-horse turned toward us, neighing. The day seemed terribly long to me, and in spite of our stroke of luck the journey went on and on.
I felt rather annoyed with Anna now for having come with me. It would have been better for both of us to have done with it at La Rochelle, with my kit bag on my shoulder and my suitcase in my hand.
Knowing that I was annoyed, she made herself as inconspicuous as she could between the driver and me. It suddenly occurred to me that her warm hip was touching the driver’s, and I felt a surge of jealousy.
We took nearly two hours to get to Pouzauges, meeting nobody but a motorized column half a mile long. The soldiers looked at us as they went by, looked at Anna above all, and a few of them waved to her.
“You’re only about fifteen miles from Bressuire. You’d better come into this café with me. I might be able to get you a lift.”
Some surly-looking men were playing cards. Two others, at the back of the room, were arguing over some papers spread out between the glasses.
“Look, is anybody going Bressuire way? This lady and gentleman are refugees who have to get there before tonight.”
One of the men who was arguing and who looked like an estate agent inspected Anna from head to foot before saying:
“I can take them as far as Cerizay.”
I didn’t know where Cerizay was. They explained that it was halfway to Bressuire. I had expected to have to overcome difficulties and show a certain heroism in order to rejoin my wife, to tramp the roads for several days and to be harassed by the Germans.
I was almost disappointed that everything was going so easily. We waited for an hour until the discussion ended. Several times the men stood up and made as if to shake hands, only to sit down again and order another round of drinks.
Our new driver had an apoplectic complexion. With a self-important manner he made Anna sit beside him while I installed myself on the backseat. I suddenly felt the fatigue of my sleepless night; my eyelids were heavy and my lips burning hot, as if I had a fever. Perhaps I had got sunstroke?
After some time I ceased to be able to make out the conversation going on in front. I was vaguely aware of meadows, woods, and one or two sleepy-looking villages. We crossed a bridge over a river which was practically dry, before finally stopping in a square.
I thanked the driver. So did Anna. We walked two or three hundred yards before noticing, outside a baker’s shop, a flour truck on which the name of a miller at Bressuire was painted.
So I didn’t have to do any walking. Nor did Anna. We weren’t alone together once all day.
Night had fallen. We were standing on a pavement, near the terrace of a café, with my kit bag and my suitcase at my feet. I turned aside to take a few bank notes out of my wallet. Anna understood and didn’t protest when I slipped them into her handbag.
The square was empty all around us. I have never had such an impression of emptiness. I stopped a boy who was passing.
“Can you tell me where the maternity home is?”
“Second street on the left, right at the end. You can’t miss it.”
Guessing that I was going to say goodbye there and then, Anna murmured:
“Let me go as far as the door with you.”
She was so humble that I hadn’t the heart to refuse. In one square there were some Germans fussing around a dozen big tanks and some officers shouting orders.
The street with the maternity home was on a slope, lined with middle-class houses. At the far end there was a big brick building.
Once again I put down my kit bag and my suitcase. I didn’t dare to look at Anna. A woman was leaning out of a window, a child sitting on the doorstep, and only the rooftops were still lit by the setting sun.
“Well …” I began.
The sound stopped in my throat and I took hold of her hands.
Despite myself I had to look at her one last time and I saw a face which seemed already blurred and indistinct.
“Goodbye!”
“I hope you’ll be happy, Marcel.”
I pressed her hands. I let go of them. I picked up my kit bag and my suitcase again, almost staggering, and when I had nearly got to the door of the maternity home she ran up behind me to whisper in my ear:
“I’ve been happy with you.”
Through the glass door I caught sig
ht of some nurses in an entrance hall, a trolley, the receptionist talking on the telephone. I went in. I turned around. She was standing there on the pavement.
“Madame Feron, please.”
8
IT WASN’T SIMPLY TO STRAIGHTEN OUT MY ideas, nor in the hope of understanding certain things which have always worried me, that I started writing these recollections, unknown to my wife and everybody else, in a notebook which I lock up every time anybody comes into my office.
For now I have an office, a shop with two display windows in the Rue du Château, and I employ more people than the son of my former employer, Monsieur Ponchot, who hasn’t kept up with the times and whose shop is still as dark and solemn as when I used to work there.
I have three growing children, two girls and a boy. It is the boy, Jean-François, who was born at Bressuire while Sophie was being looked after by some farmers in a nearby village who had taken my wife in when the train had abandoned them.
Sophie seemed pleased to see me, but not surprised, and when, a month later, we took the train to Fumay with her mother and her little brother, she was very upset.
The birth had been easy. Jean-François is the sturdiest of the three. It is his younger sister who has given us a lot of trouble. It is true that I found Jeanne edgier than ever, getting frightened about nothing at all, and convinced that misfortune was lying in wait for her.
Isabelle, our third child, was born at the most dramatic moment in the war, when we were waiting for the Allied landing. Some people said that the landing would produce the same chaos and disorder as the German invasion. The authorities expected that all the able-bodied men would be sent to Germany, and routes were marked with arrows so that we shouldn’t congest the roads needed by the army.
It was also the time of shortages. Food stocks were at their lowest point and I couldn’t afford to buy much on the black market.
The fact remains that Jeanne was delivered prematurely, the baby was put in an incubator, and my wife has never really recovered. I mean morally even more than physically. She is still timid and pessimistic, and when, later on, we moved to the Rue du Château, she was convinced for a long time that we were heading for disaster and that we would end up poorer than ever.
The Train Page 12
