Sins

by Gould, Judith

  'But Marie—' Edmond began.

  'The little one is fine,' a man's voice said from the doorway.

  The children turned and looked across the room at him. He was elderly and white-haired, with deep wrinkles etched into his face. He wore silver-rimmed glasses and a thick wool sweater. 'She's upstairs, asleep.'

  'Is it anything serious?' Edmond asked anxiously.

  The doctor looked at Edmond. 'She is but a baby,' he replied. 'At her age anything is potentially serious. The little ones have very little resistance.' Then he smiled reassuringly. 'But I think she will be all right. What she needs right now is to stay out of the cold. Let's hope the fever breaks soon. If it does, I don't think it should take more than a few days until she can travel again.'

  'A few days!' Edmond exclaimed. 'We don't have that long, doctor. We. . .we've got to be on our way soon.'

  The doctor frowned. 'You're not from anywhere around here, otherwise I'd have recognized you. That means you must still have far to go. Am I right?'

  Silently Edmond nodded.

  The doctor sat at the kitchen table and gestured for them to sit down. 'You can trust me,' he said with compassion. 'Would you like to tell me about it?'

  Edmond looked at him in silence. After a moment's hesitation he nodded. Seated around the table, and over steaming cups of cocoa, he told the doctor everything that had happened, beginning with Maman and Michelle and the Boche banging the canary-yellow door down. . .

  Four days later, Marie was fit to travel. The children were well rested; the stay had done them good. Hélène's cold was gone, and so was Catherine's laryngitis.

  When it was time to say good-bye, tears filled Hélène's eyes. The doctor and his housekeeper had both gone out of their way to be kind, and she hated to leave. They had made them feel welcome and at home, when they had no right to expect it, and now it suddenly felt as if they were saying good-bye to close friends.

  Hélène buried her face in the woman's big soft bosom and gave her an enormous hug. 'I'll miss you,' she whispered.

  'And I will miss you, too,' the woman said quietly, looking down at her. 'Take care of yourself, and may God bless you.'

  Edmond took the doctor aside. He reached into his pocket for Maman's ring. 'We owe you so much,' he said. 'This is all we can pay you with.'

  The doctor shook his head. 'I can accept nothing.'

  'But you saved Marie's life,' Edmond insisted.

  'It was my duty—as a Frenchman and as a doctor.'

  Edmond nodded. 'Thank you,' he said softly. 'And for the new clothes, too.'

  The doctor shook his head. 'No, it is we who must thank you. Although they are a small minority, there are those who collaborate with the invaders of our country and blacken our pride. Yet you—mere children—have the courage to fight the Boche. You are an inspiration. We are grateful to you.'

  Carefully the housekeeper lifted Marie, bundled up in a thick new blanket, into Catherine's arms. 'Take care of the little angel,' she told Catherine.

  Catherine smiled. 'I will.'

  The woman wiped her moist eyes and sniffed. 'Sometime, when all this is over, let us know how your journey went. Even if it is years from now.' She hugged Edmond tightly and then fumbled with the silver chain that hung around her neck. Attached to it was a little religious medallion. Solemnly she fastened it around his neck. 'You have our blessings. We shall pray for you.' Then she reached up to the table and handed Edmond a heavy basket which she had filled with the choicest foods from the larder. 'For your journey,' she said simply.

  Edmond stood on tiptoe and kissed her cheek. 'Thank you,' he whispered.

  Suddenly they heard the ringing of bells coming from outside. 'What's that?' Hélène asked, rushing to the window. Her eyes widened. A big sleigh pulled by two chestnut drays had slid to a halt on the snowy street in front of the house.

  'That will be Claude Sorel,' the doctor said. 'He's a poor farmer who owes me a favor. Last year I saved his wife's life. He couldn't afford to pay me, so now I am letting him work off his debt. I arranged it so that you will spend the night on his farm. Tomorrow he will drive you in his sleigh to Chateaudun. Once there, head south for sixty kilometers. Then you will be at the Loire. Follow the river westward until you reach the sea. There you will find Saint-Nazaire.'

  8

  When they reached his farm, Claude Sorel pulled up in front of the house and turned around in the driver's seat. 'We're here,' he said, his deep-set, penetrating eyes looking down at the children.

  Without another word, he hopped to the ground and waited as they climbed out of the sleigh. They stretched their legs. They had been riding for well over an hour, and they were numb with cold despite the thick old lap blanket that they had pulled up around them. Sorel didn't bother unhitching the horses. He tethered them to a post, where they stood twitching their tails and snorting noisily. Their chestnut bodies heaved from exertion and gleamed with sweat. He had been driving them mercilessly, flaying them when they weren't flying fast enough across the softly powdered fields.

  'Come along,' he said tersely.

  They started toward the front door, and Hélène looked up at the house. It was large and cheerless, a drab rambling blight on the fairytale landscape. Like most of the buildings in the province, it was ancient. Roughly built and picturesque in its very neglect, at each end rickety wooden lean-tos—obvious afterthoughts—sagged against the stone walls for support. The small square windows punctuating the thick walls were few and far between, lending the building the look of a forbidding fortress. Each of the windows had weathered wooden shutters; some of them were pulled closed, a few were loose and banged in the wind. The solitary chimney gave the only evidence of habitation. Out of it trailed a meager wisp of smoke.

  On the doorstep they stopped to stomp the snow off their shoes. Then Sorel grunted, pushed open the door, and they entered.

  Inside the dim hall, the ceilings were so low that Sorel had to duck through the doorways. The walls were whitewashed with chalky paint that rubbed off on your fingers if you touched them.

  They went through another door and found themselves in the kitchen. Like the hall, it was dimly lit. The floor of roughly hewn boards was bleached almost white from decades of scrubbing. Some antlers and stuffed deer heads hung on the walls. The deer were half in shadow, but their eyes caught the light coming in from the window and glinted malevolently. Hélène couldn't understand why people wanted to decorate their walls with such frightful objects.

  'Hey, woman!' Sorel called out in a loud, abrasive voice.

  They heard a door opening and closing. Then a woman shuffled listlessly in from a room in the back. 'Yes?' she mumbled. Her speech sounded slurred; then Hélène saw why. Her lip was swollen.

  Hélène stared at her. She was much shorter than her husband, her face red and tired-looking. Her thick, frizzy hair was plaited. Somberly dressed, she wore a heavy black skirt, a thick black sweater with sleeves that were too long, and a faded blue apron. There was something about the way her shoulders sagged that reminded Hélène of an animal whose spirit had been broken.

  'Can't you see that we've got visitors, you lazy woman?' Sorel shouted. 'Don't just stand there stupidly! Hurry up and put some food on. Then fix them a place to sleep!'

  'Yes, Claude,' she said dutifully. Hélène noticed that the woman's face had reddened. Hers would have too, if she were treated like that in front of strangers.

  The woman glanced at them and gestured that they sit around the rough-hewn table. It was only then that Hélène realized how young the woman really was. Young and worn out.

  'Make sure you put 'em to bed early,' Sorel grumbled. 'Tomorrow I'm supposed to drive them to Chateaudun. We got to get an early start.'

  She looked at him over her shoulder. 'Yes, Claude.'

  He grunted again, lifted an earthenware jug down off a shelf, uncorked it, and took a swig. Hélène could smell the cider as it spilled down his chin. He wiped it off with his sleeve, brought the jug over
to the table, and set it down with a bang. He scraped a chair back and sat down, putting his boots up on the spotless table.

  Hélène could see the disapproval flickering in the woman's eyes, but she kept prudently silent.

  Sorel took another swig of cider and pushed his chair back heavily. He got to his feet. 'I'll be back later,' he growled. 'Make sure they're bedded down early.'

  'Where are you going?' the woman asked. Hélène could recognize the fear in her voice.

  'To the village.'

  She turned to him, nervously twisting a corner of the apron between her fingers. 'Claude, please, no,' she begged. 'You just went there last night and came back. . .' He scowled at her and she fell silent.

  'Shut up, woman!' He waved his arm threateningly. 'You want a shiner to match your lip?'

  'No, Claude,' she said wearily. With a sigh of resignation she turned back to the stove as he stomped out.

  'I don't like these people,' Catherine said.

  Edmond nodded in reply. He was sitting on one of the hard lumpy mattresses. Occasionally he would bounce Marie up and down on the creaky springs. Each time he did, she squealed with delight while thick clouds of dust rose up in the air around them. They all wore their coats. The upstairs of the house was unheated. Once in bed, under the ancient feather quilts and moth-eaten blankets, they'd be nice and warm, but not until then. The room was in shadows, gloomily lit by a solitary oil lamp.

  Hélène got to her feet and went over to the tiny window. It was barely big enough for a pigeon to squeeze through, but it was at one of the gable ends of the house, and when she stood on tiptoe she could look down to the farmyard, two stories below. The moon was out. White and almost full, it bathed the landscape and cast long night shadows across the snow.

  Edmond settled back against the splintery headboard. 'It's the farmer,' he said. 'His wife isn't too bad, but she's terrified of him. Did you see her lip? He must have punched her real good.'

  'I can't understand why the doctor has anything to do with them,' Catherine said with a toss of her head. 'Doesn't he know that the farmer is. . .well, not quite right?'

  'Maybe he feels sorry for the wife. Or maybe the husband doesn't show his real feelings in front of him,' Edmond said thoughtfully. 'Don't you remember how he smiled when we got into the sleigh, and how friendly he was to the doctor?'

  Catherine nodded slowly. 'Yes, it must have been an act.'

  Hélène balanced herself on her toes and looked out the window again. All she could see were dim yellow fields of snow, and then the darkness that stretched beyond. Somewhere out in that darkness was the village where the kind doctor lived. . .and his housekeeper with the warm bosom. And even farther out, somewhere way to the south, was the Loire. The river of kings, they called it, lined with massive castles and majestic white chateaus. All they'd have to do was to follow the meandering riverbed, and eventually they'd end up in Saint-Nazaire, where they would find Tante Janine, an aunt they'd never even met, and wait with her for the Boche to be driven out of France, for Maman and Papa to come and get them and take them back to Paris.

  Suddenly she heard the faint jingling of bells. She peered out in all directions. Far in the distance she could see the sleigh. She watched as it came closer and pulled up out front. This time, instead of jumping, the farmer climbed unsteadily down from the seat. He didn't bother tying the horses to the post. He stumbled, straightened, and then reeled into the house. From the floor below came a sudden deafening crash.

  Catherine jumped. 'What was that?'

  'It's the farmer,' Hélène said, turning away from the window. 'He just came back. He must have fallen over something.' She giggled. 'I think he's drunk.'

  'I sure hope he's sober enough by morning to drive us to Chateaudun,' Edmond mumbled. He cocked his head to one side and listened. The farmer was coming heavily up the rickety stairs. When he reached the landing, he lumbered toward the door. There was a moment's silence before he stumbled on down the narrow corridor, his footsteps fading. Finally a door slammed.

  Then they heard his voice through the walls. 'Woman, are you in bed already!'

  A conversation followed, but it sounded one-sided; only his words were spoken loud enough for the children to catch. There were banging noises, and the sounds of drawers being opened and slammed shut.

  Finally they heard the wife's voice adding to the commotion. 'Claude, don't!' she shrieked in rising hysteria. The door down the hall was flung open, and once again his footsteps echoed out in the hall. Hélène could hear the woman as she ran after him. 'No, Claude, don't! Please, I beg of you!'

  'Get your hands off me!' he snarled. There were the sounds of a scuffle. Hélène winced as a sharp slap rang out. The woman moaned. She must have tumbled to the floor, because it suddenly shook. 'You fool woman!' he spit out. 'What do you want? For us to be poor the rest of our lives?'

  'No, Claude,' she sobbed. 'That's not what I want. But I don't want blood money, either!'

  'Shut your mouth, bitch!'

  There was a short silence, after which he approached the children's door. Hélène held her breath. For a moment she was afraid that he was going to come in and beat on her, too. But instead he inserted a key in the lock.

  She stared at the door in horror. Somehow, this was even more terrifying than if he'd tried to attack. She flinched when she heard the key turn. Then she saw the door handle lowering as it was tested from the outside.

  A sudden dread knowledge came over her. The worst possible thing had happened.

  They had become prisoners.

  'There—they're locked in,' the farmer said with gruff satisfaction. 'They can't go anywhere now.'

  Hélène stared first at Catherine, then at Edmond. 'What are we going to do?' she whispered.

  'Sssssh!' hissed Edmond. 'Be quiet!'

  The farmer grunted. 'Get up, woman! Go and get dressed. I want you to be presentable when the Germans arrive. They'll soon be here.' He paused. When he spoke again, it was with awe in his voice. 'Just imagine—a million and a half francs! Me, Claude Sorel, a millionaire!'

  Hélène shook her head in despair. So the reward for our capture had gone up once again, she thought. At Madame Chang's, it had been half a million francs; in the newspapers six days ago, a million. Now it had been increased by yet another half-million. If, somehow, they did manage to get out of here—and that seemed a remote possibility at best—the reward would soon be so astronomical that anyone, perhaps even Tante Janine, could be induced to turn them over to the Boche.

  'But you don't even know it's them,' the woman wailed.

  Claude Sorel laughed. 'There was a newspaper in the tavern. Sure as hay, the pictures were theirs. Especially the older girl's. The paper claimed that they'd been kidnapped. Isn't that funny?' He laughed again. 'If it hadn't been for the doctor telling us otherwise, I'd have believed that story myself. Anyway, it's a good thing I went out drinking. If I'd listened to you and stayed home, I would never have found out about the reward. That's how fortunes are made, by being in the right place at the right time. Good thing the gendarme was there, too. He let me use his telephone.'

  The woman's voice was barely a whisper. 'Who did you call?'

  'Since I knew who was really searching for them, the Gestapo, of course. Going through the Feldgendarme might take days. I wanted to make sure there'd be no delay with the reward. You know how long paperwork takes to process.'

  The woman was sobbing uncontrollably now. Hélène could imagine her red face getting even redder. 'How could you?' she screamed. 'We're Frenchmen! And the doctor is a friend! He trusted us! And we're in his debt!'

  'You mean you're in his debt. Anyway, he's not about to give us one and a half million francs, is he?' Sorel rationalized. 'Well, it's none of his business, then. So stop worrying and wipe your eyes. I can't stand it when they're all bloodshot and puffy. You're ugly enough as it is!'

  It was with an empty feeling that Hélène heard their footsteps receding. She had hoped the woman would st
ay behind. Perhaps she could have been cajoled into stealing the key from her husband and unlocking the door.

  Edmond put Marie down and rose from the bed. 'We have to get out of here,' he said softly.

  Catherine nodded. 'But how? We're locked in.' She looked over at Hélène. 'Can that window be opened?'

  Hélène nodded. 'Yes, but it's too small. Even Marie couldn't squeeze through it.'

  Edmond picked up the oil lamp and walked around the room, shining the light into the dark corners, feeling along the walls with his fingers, staring in thoughtful silence around the ceiling, down at the floor. But there were no other exits except for the door—no trapdoors to the roof, no forgotten blocked-up doorways behind the moldy wallpaper. Even a mouse would have had a difficult time of it escaping.

  'Well?' Catherine asked. Her large brown eyes were watching Edmond intently.

  He shook his head glumly. 'I'm afraid we'll have to choose between the frying pan and the fire. There's only one way we can get out of here.'

  Catherine raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  He glanced at her and sighed. 'We'll have to set the place on fire.'

  She stared at him. Then she slowly nodded. 'And hope they'll come and unlock the door in time?'

  He didn't answer. 'We'd better get started,' he said. He snapped his fingers. 'Help me drag the mattresses over toward the window.'

  He set the lamp down on a crate and they began to tug at the mattresses. Stuffed with horsehair, they were stiff and heavy. When they were all piled against the wall, Edmond made sure they wouldn't fall as soon as they started to burn. Then he wiped his dusty hands on his trouser legs. Catherine picked up Marie.

  'Cover her face with her blanket,' he said. 'That way, she won't inhale too much smoke.'

  Catherine nodded. She kissed Marie's forehead and gently tucked the soft cover up around her tiny pink head. 'There, baby,' she whispered soothingly. 'Don't be frightened.'

  'Now, back up against the door and stay put,' Edmond ordered.