by Cesca Major
But Papa isn’t looking angry and I am not absolutely sure I have done anything wrong. He is talking to me in a different sort of voice, the sort of voice Maman sometimes uses when she’s trying to make us go to sleep or make us swallow medicine. Normally, when he’s angry his voice gets low; Eléonore always claims this is enough to make her start weeping. He is taking his time getting to the point. I remain silent, eyes on him, everything else forgotten.
He smoothes down his thin moustache with a finger. ‘Tristan, do you believe in heaven?’
I don’t understand.
‘Of course,’ I answer, because it is true – of course I believe in heaven. It is where I will go if I am good and say my prayers every night and clean my teeth and look after my brothers and sister. I feel a little bit guilty about the last one and vow to be a little nicer to Eléonore; it would be most annoying not to get into heaven just because I have been horrid to her in the past.
‘I am glad,’ Papa replies. ‘And do you know when you go to heaven?’
I nod, confident he doesn’t want to hear about cleaning my teeth and saying my prayers. ‘When you die.’
‘Exactly, when you die,’ he agrees. ‘Now, Tristan,’ he says, leaning forward a little to look me in the eye. ‘I’m afraid that I have some bad news.’ His eyes don’t leave my face as he takes a deep breath, mouth half-open. ‘Clarisse has been ill and died last week.’
‘Clarisse,’ I repeat.
‘I’m afraid so.’
Clarisse is dead.
I don’t know anyone who has died. Marcus at school told me he saw a dead man, a man in the park near where he lived who died on a bench and had been there for hours. He said that he had his eyes open but they weren’t looking anywhere and his tongue was poking out and he’d been puffy and pale. His nanny got the police but when the police went to move the man from the bench they couldn’t make him go flat on the trolley so they had to cover him with a sheet and wait for the ambulance to drive into the park.
Clarisse is dead.
I look at Papa, who is waiting for me to say something.
‘So then she has gone to heaven,’ I say slowly.
‘Yes, yes, that is where she has gone.’
I can’t imagine Clarisse in heaven, although I imagine she would be pleased as it is probably very, very clean and she always hated cleaning. She used to moan at me when I left mess in our playroom and was always going on about how I trailed mess around me like some kind of wild animal. I would roar at her and scamper off which made her laugh the first time, but hadn’t worked the rest. Clarisse was always full of energy; she didn’t seem the sort that would get ill and die.
I picture her now at the oven in the kitchen in Paris, red-cheeked and sweating a little from the heat of the food. We crowd around her as she spoons out helpings for all of us. ‘Sit at the table,’ she shoos, wiping her hands on her apron and pointing to the places all laid out.
Maman is standing in the corner, a list of instructions for the next day in her gloved hands. ‘Thank you, Clarisse.’
‘Thank you, Madame Soules.’ She ruffles my hair as I reach for the gravy boat.
She’s not in the kitchen any more, she’s in heaven. I suppose it’s good to think of her somewhere but it seems strange that we’ll never see her again, that she is now somewhere else, a place we can’t reach because you can’t visit heaven. That thought makes me feel funny; I have a bit of a lump in my throat. I swallow but it won’t go. I think of Marcus’s dead man again and worry that Clarisse might have died with her tongue poking out, all puffed up and pale with her eyes wide open. I blink a couple of times but the image is still there. I hope Papa will tell me to go now as I suddenly feel afraid that I might cry and I don’t want to show him that I am a drip.
‘Eléonore might be a bit upset by the news so I want you to be extra nice to her over the next few days as she was close to Clarisse. Can you do that for me, Tristan?’
I come out of my daze and then blush. Had Papa read my thoughts earlier? I nod and promise that of course I will look after my sister and then I leave and go upstairs to the playroom wiping the tears from my eyes with my hand. Clarisse is in heaven after all, so there is no real need to be upset.
Eléonore clearly does not agree and spends the afternoon wailing on her bed. I bring her up a cocoa that Maman has made but when I go back later to see her she hasn’t touched it and I have to bite my tongue just in time because I can’t tell her off about that. It does seem a waste though, particularly as I know that is the last of the cocoa and we aren’t allowed another lot until next week.
Clarisse liked cocoa, she used to drink it out of a mug with a rabbit on the outside. I think of Clarisse in heaven with lots of cocoa and her feet up. That cheers me up and I tell Eléonore of my thought. She smiles a little and reaches up to hug me. We don’t talk about Clarisse after that but now, whenever I think of her, I think of her in heaven just like that.
ISABELLE
Darling Paul,
The village has heard some terrible stories now. They arrive, refugees from the north and east. Some of them travelling miles, often on foot. Homes are left for looters, belongings are lost, sold or stolen.
A woman broke down in the shop. Surrounded by a circle of sympathetic shoppers she told us how she was forced to leave her village in the middle of the night. Her husband had urged her to go for days, as the Germans were moving in, but she remained resolute. Her mother was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t leave the house. They had no car, no way of moving her, no neighbours who could take her in. One night shells fell, rattling the windowpanes, and she left. In the madness and fear and noise and panic of others, they seized what they could and fled, leaving her mother behind.
She said her mother might starve to death, alone, wondering why she was abandoned by her daughter. Her letters go unanswered. She doesn’t know if her mother has received them or even if her house is still standing.
Where are you, Paul? Maman misses you, everything she does is in honour of your return. Never has the shop floor been swept more fiercely, every speck of dirt whisked out of every corner, every can standing poker straight, labels all facing outward in a uniform line.
We got the telegram, know you are captured, but we have heard nothing from you for weeks now. Are you safe? Is there anything to be done? We don’t say it aloud and I don’t even think it, but writing this now makes me frightened. Tell me I am being dramatic, tell me I am hopeless and of course you are all right. My brother who seems impossibly strong. I feel the French air throbbing with your life. Write to us.
I have started at the school now, adore seeing the children, their energy, their innocence. I want to be a good teacher, try to encourage them. Then on days off I sit in a café in Limoges, feel the sun on my face … can you imagine? While you are off in this war I am still eating pastries and reading books about nothing. This waiting for news though, so many of us just waiting, is so peculiar. I know I mustn’t complain, I know so many others have been affected so terribly by this dreadful war, but know that we love you and miss you and are always planning for your return.
Isabelle
SEBASTIEN
In the past week Father has refused to discuss the plans to open the new branch in Couzeix. He seems to be shrinking into himself, a ball of knotted worry. Jean-Paul has noticed and finds an excuse to visit the office almost every day. As he goes over the plans with me, his gravelly voice and occasional guffaws of laughter are the only thing that seem to be able to raise a shadow of a smile on my father’s face.
This morning he is not yet downstairs and Maman and I sit in the strained quiet of the dining room, the tick of the carriage clock seeming to fill the space. She tries to talk but finds herself fading away as she catches sight of his chair at the head of the table, the indent in the cushion, the dark oak of the armrests. I pick up my bowl and drain the coffee, dabbing t
he side of my mouth with a napkin.
Excusing myself from the table to escape the depressing atmosphere, I take the stairs two at a time, one hand on the banisters, the other on my thigh, blocking out the pain in my joints with thoughts of what lies ahead. I feel the solid wood underneath my hand, its surface smooth, the smell of wax lingering in the air. My feet don’t make a sound on the runner, its faded middle showing its age, the edges still a clash of reds and orange.
I pass the door to my parents’ bedroom, wonder if my father is padding around inside. The thought doesn’t stay. My mind is jumping ahead, knowing what lies in store for me. Unable to keep a smile forming on my lips – my mother’s sad face already forgotten, any thoughts of Father dissolving into dust – I push open my door and an explosion of images of Isabelle overwhelm me. Today I will be seeing her. Today, today, today. I know I am young, and naïve, and in love, and all the other absurd phrases that are bandied around in songs and poems that mock a man in my position, but I can’t help myself.
I disguise my feelings in front of her – I don’t want to scare her and I know, with certainty, that I don’t yet want to know if she feels the same. Because if she doesn’t I don’t want to face it. I want to enjoy these moments in the sun, bask in the impression that my feelings are reciprocated, that she lies on her bed in idle moments wondering where I am, what I’m doing. That somewhere, out there, she is thinking about me.
I have yet to tell my parents about her. At any other time Father would have noticed and wormed it out of me, but he is so distracted I could wander around the house with a bullhorn announcing my feelings for her and he would probably not look up from his cold café au lait and half-read newspaper. I know I should tell them, as it is not like me to keep these things a secret, and yet I feel the need to keep it to myself a little while longer.
Every girl I’ve ever known seems to move through this life with a chaperone in tow – a glimpse or smile scolded instantly by a disapproving look from the person trailing her. It is always just Isabelle, alone, and that thought makes me grin again.
She assures me she doesn’t need to tell her parents yet. They are worried about their son, have heard nothing for weeks, and she doesn’t want to give them more to worry about. I don’t press her, don’t want to upset things. I know that there will be things about me to make them worry, things I can’t change. I think fleetingly of my Father’s face, know what he might say. I shake off the thought as I pick up my hat.
We don’t plan to meet – it is always seemingly coincidental, no arrangements are made. But since that first meeting at the café all those months ago, and every time since, when I see her she mentions she will be in the book shop on rue Aristide Briand at two o’clock on Thursday or in the Parc Victor Thuillat around one o’clock on Monday. So I am drawn there and she is waiting. She looks up as I arrive, eyes widening a fraction, as if she doesn’t really expect to see me. That look gives me such a jolt – an electric charge surging straight through my eyes to my heart, zap; she has me and I know it is improper, and I know it can’t go on, but the weeks and months go by and we meet and we talk and then she says, ‘I’ll be at the Café Thérèse at three o’clock on Friday,’ and I am incapable of staying away.
Today she will be at the library again on rue Louis Longequeue and I will try to leave the office a little early for lunch as I must talk to her. I will try to muster the courage to move things along in the correct way; it isn’t right to deceive others, or ourselves. Things must be out in the open. I am convincing myself of this as I walk down the street, umbrella up as it starts to rain in a rather half-hearted way, coating the pavement in a light sheen, little droplets clinging to my shoes and the bottom of my trousers. The weather has been as listless as Father’s mood and the overcast skies seem to be storing up more rain to come later. The air is thick and stifling.
As I am shaking out my umbrella on the steps of the library, a tall man with a pencil-thin moustache emerges. I nod at him, mouth twitching, amused by his facial hair, which doesn’t fit his ample frame. He tuts at me, and I wonder if I have spoken my thoughts aloud.
I don’t hear what he says the first time.
He mumbles at me as he adjusts his hat, looking me up and down slowly. He repeats his words to a besuited companion, the mayor of the town I think, as he too emerges from the library. ‘Not fighting. Typical of them.’
I freeze, willing myself to be mistaken.
The other man, all bristles and gut, looks over at me, sneers as he turns up the collar of his coat.
I go to say something, to challenge the man, but I am hopelessly deflated. His words bite into me, make me want to explain to these people that I can’t be a soldier, that I did try. Their sons are probably away fighting, I think, trying to reason with myself.
Them.
Had he really? Was it more than not fighting? Was Father right? Did people really see us in a different way?
‘Sebastien … Sebastien?’
It is a moment before I turn, an expression on my face making the smile die on her lips.
‘Is anything wrong?’
PAUL
Dear Isabelle,
Who knows which of these letters will reach you? You will all be worried, I know, so I write simply to reassure you, I am safe. I have been taken prisoner, we all have. It seems my war is over and I hope news of my capture has reached you all so that you are not left wondering. You must convince Maman that I am well – I know she will worry in that dreadful, quiet way of hers so you must promise. It happened so quickly I’m still not sure how it happened. It was with a whimper rather than a roar and for that I think we now feel ashamed. Lines of bewildered men marched all around me afterwards, flanked by cocky Germans, their rifles hanging across their backs, their broad smiles confident. They are crawling all over our country now and we are unable to stop them.
They say we will be released when this war is over and so we wait knowing that it can’t be long: reports tell us that most of Europe has fallen with us. For now we are processed, held, divided into groups – the officers are sent to separate places. It seems the lads I am with are all from quiet French villages like ours; most are outdoor lads like me, bored of concrete buildings and inaction. Confusion reigns and I almost wonder whether it happened quicker than the Germans expected it to. More arrive each day and there is talk that we will be put to work – some of the boys think we’ll be in the factories or mines. I’ll do whatever I’m told but I’ll pray I can see some sky while I’m doing it.
I’ve stayed alongside Rémi who seems now like a younger brother: I feel hugely protective of him. He got hit in our attack, holding a bridge with some others, but doesn’t tell me what happened to the rest. I haven’t seen any of them. We try to find time to talk and get the news, but it is so hard to find out what is happening beyond wild rumour. His family’s paper mill has closed down. He is determined to get it back up and running when this is all through.
Things are loud and confused. We slept on an athletics track those first few nights; I imagined getting up in the night, doing hurdles against the guards. We have been herded about like animals going to market and now we are being held in an old barracks. It is fine – I have my own bed and we are being fed. Some days are worse than others, I didn’t know how an hour could drag before, how an afternoon could feel like a week, no purpose to anything. Enough of this though. The conditions are fine and the Germans are not mistreating us. The only thing you won’t like is the news that my head has been shaved, all that floppy, sandy hair you said was my best feature: gone. But if that is the worst thing that befalls me I will take that.
Some talk about release as a real possibility so I pray I will return to you all soon. It all moved so quickly. And I thought we were ready.
God bless and love to our parents. I will write again hoping one will get through,
Paul
ADELINE
19
52, St Cecilia nunnery, south-west France
Rain pounds against the windows. The water pours in rivulets down the glass and outside is a blur of greyish greens. The room is so dark it seems like there has been no new day. The rain has set off something outside, an unpredictable rattle of metal – something is loose and blowing carefree in the storm. The wind is making a low moan as it sweeps across the courtyard. There is so much energy and noise outside I wonder whether it will ever be calm again.
The sisters, seemingly oblivious, have continued their usual routine; in fact, Sister Bernadette has been loudly praising the Lord for the good weather because it helps the second love in her life: her courgette plants. Sister Marguerite’s mood mirrors the weather today, sweeping into my room to bring me a tray of food. She barely stays a minute in the stool by the window before she is up, pacing. I follow her movements. She opens her mouth to say something, and then continues to pace to and fro. She is usually so light on her feet, an easy nature, a ready smile. Today I wish she was not in my room.
‘Did I ever tell you about the day we found you?’ she asks, abruptly turning to look at my face.
I slowly shake my head.
‘The look in your eyes when Sister Bernadette brought you in … She had seen you in the village, wanted to help …’ I try to remember my arrival here but my mind washes around, throwing up blurred images and scenes that seem to form one long day, not lighting on a moment.
‘The others were fussing about your injuries,’ she continues. ‘The scrapes down your sides and face. Your leg was a bloodied mess and you’d broken your wrist. I looked at your face for a flinch of pain, a response to the prodding, and there was none. You allowed them to take you in their arms, allowed them to disinfect the scratches, allowed them to push and pull you in each and every direction, and all the while you said nothing, and your eyes …’ Sister Marguerite stops. ‘You didn’t care.’ She is whispering now. ‘I couldn’t understand it – I wanted you to cry out, to whimper, to ask us whether you were going to get better. You nodded at their questions but gave them no answers. That was eight years ago today.’
