A Packhorse Called Rachel

by Marcelle Kellermann

  Here I must tell you of a short scene which took place recently between Clément and Gérard, alas in my presence! But it also marked the beginning of my passionate relationship with Clément. The date: the third of April. A date I have never forgotten.

  After Clément had insisted I give up running a shuttle service, at least for a time, “loaded comme un âne”, and that I should take a “well earned” rest. (I felt as if I could have crept into a mouse hole). Gérard answered sharply: “This is no time for giving anyone a holiday, and that includes Rachel! Too much is at stake right now, and you know it as well as I do”.

  “I’m not talking about a holiday!” replied Clément, stung. “What I am asking for is a little humanity. After all…”

  Gérard interrupted him, annoyed. You could see his ill-humour rising like an angry tide. He said: “Why? Because Rachel is a woman? I’m sorry…”

  Clément turned pale. In a trembling voice which had roughened, he protested: “Good heavens, man, you’ve lost all sense of proportion!” Upon which Gérard said curtly: “Quite possibly”, then turned on his heel and walked away.

  I was mortified. I who had struggled all along to remain in the background and only to be there when needed, I’d messed everything up! I had become a burden! An unwelcome centre of attention!

  Finding ourselves alone - yes alone!- Clément was the first to speak:

  “I should have kept my mouth shut! You can’t argue with a fanatic.”

  As soon as he had said these words, Clément retracted. He took my hand and lifted it to his trembling lips. “Forgive me”, he said, “I went too far…but I can see that you are in pain. Just now, Gérard does not see it…or rather he doesn’t wish to see it. It is as if he were charging at a goal with his eyes wide shut!”

  Leaning against a tree, lost in thought, Clément seemed to be talking to himself: “I wonder… I wonder if this is at all possible…I mean, to see only what the eyes WANT to see…”

  To be sure, Clément had charged with his eyes wide open when he abruptly left the university, telling no-one, not even his landlady, knowing that the enemy would be at his heels? I put it to him. Yes, he replied, his departure was a long premeditated act and he added, drawing me close in his arms: “One must always have one’s eyes wide open, at least before the act, don’t you agree?” The act? I was suddenly aware that he was talking of something other than political commitment. He was talking about the intimate act. Did they exist side by side, completing and justifying each other? Does each generate pleasure as well as its own desecration?

  That morning, still misty under the sublime hovering pine trees, found us entwined, Clément and me, prisoners of our embrace as of our dilemma. He and I, Gérard and his men, we made up an equation of equal passions, our eyes wide open before the ultimate commitment. Making love. Making war. It was an all-embracing affirmation which we both made that misty morning on that day when there followed the slow descent of our bodies on to the dead pine needles and the frost-covered moss beneath, Clément touching me ever so cautiously because of my boils, the lightness of his touch awakening in me vehement sexual desires never experienced before, never thought possible. Was it me? No! Yes it was, it was an occurrence in the whole of my being so powerful that I became totally overcome by it, bereft of my own identity, of my life before. Wandering into Eros’ territory, drowning weightless in an ocean, then out, then in again, breathless, I yelled and dissolved in a state of pure ecstasy.

  Clément seized my head, his myopic eyes scrutinizing me intently, Have I hurt you, my love? I do not remember what I said but I remember putting my arms around his neck to let him know what I felt so mightily at that instant, a fused sensation of hurt and pleasure. He lifted me off the wet ground on which we had made love and put me gently on my feet again, still holding me tight. He tasted my tears as the final rite of our union. He spoke. His precious words resounded in me, yet so vaporous in the air, so fleeting. Would they ever be retrievable as are words in a song?

  The acid smell of earth not yet awake filled our lungs. He brushed the pine needles from my wet clothes as Gérard wiped the snow off me. Remember? That was in winter when the earth was dormant. Now it is awake. The birds are singing, the young ones are flying low, close to us, in all directions, not yet practiced enough to take flight in the wide-open space above us. From then on Clément and I met as often as our nomadic lives would permit, but on a constant look-out, never certain of being alone, never sure of what could happen when we turned round, always stealing the precious seconds of privacy by getting close, oh! So close to one another because privacy and peace, space and time were not granted us.

  11.

  The Ratcatcher from the Mont-Dore.

  As Raboullet had predicted, I still do not feel at home in my bothy in spite of the life carried by its mysterious subterranean spring. Each time I enter I am assailed by a stale smell of urine; it gets into my nostrils and makes me retch. I shake myself like a dog, try to regain self-control.

  My friend Jean was wrong when he said that rats are afraid of men, meaning humans. Mine, I mean the rats which look like voles, have a special liking for me! Still, they do run away when I walk in. All efforts to render my life sufferable are in vain, they slip between the bits of glass I had hoped would deter them from entering, they cut themselves as they do so - here and there you can see spots of dried blood. I complained bitterly to Jean. He promised he’d do something about it. He did. He built a well-designed garde-manger with his own hands. It is wire-netted, a large drawer completes its rather quaint appearance. I offered to pay. He refused.

  “Oh no, Mademoiselle, I made it for you.”

  Was he offended by my offer? Jean never ceased to surprise me…One afternoon I was coming back from Savignole more exhausted than usual, not only because I had dragged about twenty kilos of food along from the farm and my boils were erupting like hell, but because I’d seen militiamen on the way. There were four of them, I think, and they were in high spirits as they made their way towards the lake Chambon. They hadn’t seen me and my dog, (my dog! Gérard had finally agreed I could keep him with me because, as he was somewhat reluctant to admit, I had trained him well), but it was imperative that we kept totally motionless, both lying flat on the ground.

  Nourse gives a growl but doesn’t bark; one single bark and we are lost. I have only to say “Shshshsh” and his body stiffens like a bow, he becomes threatening and superb. I hold him close to me; we both quiver like the twin prongs of a tuning fork. After some minutes of paralysed waiting, the militiamen disappear.

  As I already mentioned, they collaborated with the Gestapo but through Vichy’s orders. They were allowed to kill. They bore their weapons across their chest, hand on the trigger. They were very young and feeling powerful, always smartly dressed in order to give themselves status and confidence. Led by equally young chiefs, with stripes not gained in battle but in crime, they roamed the countryside like hunters after big game, enjoying the healthy life to the full. They were a far more serious threat to the Resistance than the Gendarmerie with its formidable armoury but, fortunately for us, the sound of their engines reached us before they could see us, giving us time to run for cover.

  When I got to my bothy I collapsed on my straw bed and covered myself with my fur, shaken and very tired (of living).I closed my eyes. Not for long. I felt something gently massaging my belly. I opened my eyes, saw the sleeve of my coat undulate then stop, then start again. I turned my head, feeling sick, calling Nourse to my rescue. Now, would you believe it? He opened his eyes then shut them again! The traffic of rats had become so familiar to him that the sight of a single rat which has chosen to share the straw with me wasn’t going to deprive him of his sleep. His indifference to my cry for help distressed me. My companion! My faithful friend! He didn’t give a damn!

  I decided to move. The rat, as big and as furry as a kitten, slid between my legs as it came out of the padded sleeve, slipped calmly past Nourse: “Sorry to disturb you,
but I’ve been disturbed myself ”, at which Nourse merely opened an eye: “Don’t mention it.”

  Isolation seized me by the throat and stifled me. I fled from the bothy with my dog, now roused, pursued by imaginary rats. I was Der Widerwilliger Rattenfänger von Hamelin, without his bagpipes, naturally. I arrived at the farmhouse, trying to look composed.

  Adèle was alone in the kitchen, getting the evening meal ready while the rest of the family was still in the fields. or in the barn smoking hams. I asked her where Jean was.

  “With his flock”, she said, “I think he’s going to stay with them all night. Do you want to speak to him?”

  “Yes, Adèle, it’s rather important.”

  “Right. You see that hill?” (She pointed it out through the window). “ You go up. You’ll see him from the top. That’s where he sleeps. “I went. The sun, like Jean, would soon go to sleep, too, behind the hill. But now it was high up, blinding me.

  I found Jean sitting on the stump of a tree. He had his dog Fiston with him. I begged him to come and see the boss with me without giving him my reasons. He trusted me, got up and asked me to wait a minute. The sun had become a darker ball of fire, turning the whole sky to flame, darkening the wooded slopes which faced away from it shading the fields. with mauve. Mauve! The colour of peace, they say. I found this peace oppressive; I saw it as the prelude to the Apocalypse.

  Jean put his sheep in a fold with the help of Fiston. During this operation I had to put Nourse on his lead or there would have been a fight Fiston was used to working alone. Nourse wanted to play at chasing sheep, to frighten them, make them run and then chase eagerly after them without ever hurting them. But he was nevertheless a threat to the baby lambs not yet steady on their legs which could break.

  When we reached the farm I fell into an armchair before the fire, too ill to hold a conversation. Jean looked at Adèle. I could see he wanted her desperately to look at him. Instead she ignored him completely. A great pity, I thought.

  Raboullet and the others came in shortly afterwards. He was sober, and pleased to see me. Jean’s presence seemed however to surprise him.

  He planted himself in front of me and said, tranquilly: “You want something…otherwise the lad wouldn’t be here.” It wasn’t a question. I nodded. “Right. Follow me.”

  I got up with difficulty, Raboullet took my arm and dragged me into a room adjoining the kitchen which I’d never seen anyone enter before. There were four genuine Louis XV bergères in pale blue, and a rectangular rosewood table which smelled of wax. I sat down in one of the armchairs, Raboullet sat in another which he drew nearer to me, and nearer still until he could grip my knees in his own.

  “You’re ill,” he said, touching my forehead. “Your colonel! I’d willingly kill him with my own hands! All his doing!”

  Then he said: “You want Jean again, is that it?”

  I nodded, I couldn’t speak because a terrible desire to cry was making a lump in my throat.

  Right,” he went on, “I’ll send my boy Antoine to replace him, don’t worry. Only, understand this, lass; it’s only for you that I’m doing it. You can tell them that, your pals and your colonel. Personal message from me!” And he laughed, with a laugh I had heard before and which reminded me of the bad days.

  To re-establish contact with him I seized his rough face in my trembling hands. The daylight which had filtered in through the narrow panes of the window was softly edging its way out of the room. All I could see were two shining eyes which lusted after me. Estranged from myself, deprived of all willpower, on the edge of consciousness and of nature, plunged into the darkness and the mystery of my condition, I leaned over his head with its wiry grey hair, its deep wrinkles, I put my lips on his, my tongue in the burning mouth which opened.

  12.

  Before The Carnage.

  End of April.

  I have returned to Savignole after a week when Jean took my place with love and devotion. In the whole of this part of my story, what hurts me most is Gérard’s lack of confidence. in this twenty year old shepherd. He thinks he is too simple, too vulnerable were he to be questioned by the militia boys of the neighbourhood, fellows who would be too sure of themselves because they are in uniform and who most certainly knew him. “They would have great sport with him,” says Gérard. I’ve tried in vain to insist that Jean is intelligent and loyal, and that his air of being a simpleton is deceptive, something which in my opinion could even be an advantage under interrogation…It’s no use.

  “If the lad is arrested, he’ll talk. It’s written all over his face. He couldn’t stand up to them, that boy.”

  So Gérard, that incomparable leader of men, was terribly wrong in his judgment of Jean. I wondered; might it be because he could only trust those he could control, who acted under his authority, who had been trained by him and belonged to him in some way? Jean was outside his control. Jean was his own man. Jean was a peaceful shepherd, on no one’s side, with no ambition, with no desire to be a hero. He had only one aim in life: he did not want to lose his freedom, as Arthur had.

  I was maladroit enough to say so to Gérard. “Ha!” he said, “that’s just what I tried to tell you. He’ll do or say anything to keep his freedom. He’s too obsessed by it! It doesn’t go with the spirit of our movement, you must see that.”

  I didn’t.

  Savignole is without its men and their chief.

  Three German convoys came belting along the strategic road. I warned Gérard. He waited for them at the entry to Clermont-Ferrand with his new recruits, volunteers who arrived in plenty, full of self denial, apprentices, former soldiers or students. The former soldiers, all veterans from the Spanish Civil war, had grown impatient at having to wait for victory like employees watching the clock. They had suffered a cruel defeat in Spain, now they wanted to bring things to a head and celebrate victory. As to the younger recruits, you should have seen them before an ambush, stuffing the pockets of their coat or trousers with grenades (recently parachuted in by the Allies), like kids at a party filling their pockets with free sweets.

  Early in the morning I kissed them, each in turn, ordering them to come back. It is every time an order from the heart, urgent, useless, desperate. In my haversack I’ve brought the ingredients for a terrific soup, they have to come back to eat that soup. They promise they would. How could it be otherwise? That’s what I tell myself as I peel the potatoes and the vegetables and chop the bacon up in little pieces.

  Their mess-tins are hanging on a wall. Clément and I are like those mess-tins as we wait, empty, suspended. My fear for the absent comrades is clinging to my skin like leeches. In the end, I know, it will fall off as leeches do, as my poor Moshka’s leeches did, but now full of my own bad blood. I mock my fear as well as I can, sometimes I sing. At other times I recite English poetry especially by Keats which I haven’t recited since I was at school. At such times Clément takes off his headphones, his face lights up as he watches me declaiming while going about my business; the incongruousness of the tasks amuses him.

  * * *

  In my high school in Paris we had a fabulous English master - his name was Monsieur Bénassy - who made us read Marlowe, old English which was funny, Shakespeare - which was difficult, Keats and Blake which was divine. We did this every Wednesday morning for a double period before break. Bénassy succeeded in getting us to love the English language, drawing our attention to the rhythm of the blank verse, to its music, conducting us like a choirmaster, with rehearsals when necessary (by that time we knew our lines by heart), while respecting our flights of lyricism without interrupting us until we reached the end of the poem. He used to read himself, in his warm, deep, trained voice. I can still hear him declaiming the “poem of poems” of Keats: On first looking into Chapman’s Homer.

  Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

  When a new planet swims into his ken;

  Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

  He star’d at the Pacific - and all
his men

  Look’d at each other with a wild surmise

  Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

  Back to reality (that is, to the school bench) we had to translate. “Demolish it for me!” he used to say. We did! With our awful translations. Here is a model, as I remember it vividly to this day:

  Alors je me sentais devenir un guetteur du ciel

  Qui voit tout à coup se glisser une planète nouvelle

  Ou Cortez le magnifque…

  “No! No!” Bénassy would shout. “Not ‘magnifque’ - wrong word.

  Find another for stout”.

  “Le gros Cortez…” a girl suggested, timidly, her dictionary remaining open on her lap, hidden under her desk.

  Laughter. Bénassy, raising his arms to Heaven, would say: “Forget the dictionary! Use your imagination! How do you see him,

  Cortez? Cortez upon a peak in Darien?”

  “Ardent?”

  “Yes, that’s better. Not quite right, though. Too emotional. “Statuesque?”

  “Nearer. Too ponderous”.

  “Gargantuesque?”Uproar. Bénassy looked very angry. “Gargantua’s got nothing to do with Cortez, for heaven’s sake!” “Imposant?”

  “Not bad…not bad…any other suggestions?”

  “Impérieux?”

  “Good,” said Bénassy, relieved, adding “don’t forget…he was a conquistador. ‘impérieux’ fits…for the time being…”

  Leaving our Lycée for home, we carried “Stout Cortez” in our satchels. Cortez the imperious, the silent, his eyes fixed on the infinites of the Pacific Ocean. Can’t you see Clément looking out over a silent and terrifying landscape beyond the walls of Savignole. Gérard the feverish, Cortez the imperious…their men looking at each other ‘with a wild surmise’. Clément gets a grip on himself again. London is sending us its personal messages. Across the crackling and the fading we hear: