“How on earth will we get it onto the bus?” the driver asked incredulously.
“Dismantle it,” Rose replied, having been prepared by her eldest. “André is certain you can manage it.”
Friday was Ida’s sixth birthday. Denise saved the newly arrived carrots and beets—which had taken André several difficult trips to haul up the hill—for that night’s dinner. Throughout the day Ida had had the great pleasure of chasing the chickens and petting the rabbits.
The biggest treat was the small birthday cake Madame Brignand was thoughtful and kind enough to bake and bring uphill with her teenaged daughters, Alice and Yvette—the young women who worked in the café. They were unusually pleasant young people, always smiling if not laughing, bubbling with energy and enthusiasm, remarkably close in age, temperament and thought, each repeating the other’s words almost before they had all come out.
Though the cake was nowhere near as good as those remembered from Brussels, Ida was happy to have it. And having the family’s first social visitors at La Font helped make her birthday seem special indeed. If only her aunt, uncle, and cousins could have been there.
Unfortunately in addition to the cake, Albertine delivered the news that Germany, Italy, and Japan had signed a mutual defense pact.
Outraged and despairing, André—who immediately recalled that Max Maurel had predicted this—declared, “This is a day that will be remembered for its treachery.”
“Hush,” Rose said. “Is that how you want Ida to remember her sixth birthday?”
Ida looked up perplexed. “What’s ‘treachery’?”
As the days and weeks went by, André became anxious for his brother’s helping hands. In addition to the harvesting of apples and chestnuts that would have to begin soon, there was much work to do to winterize the farmland. They had all the old farm equipment necessary but it was very primitive and in need of thorough mending. Yet they would need those tools because the ground was stony and difficult to work.
The primitivism of the place extended to the interior of the farmhouse. The house was often cold despite the great fire they struggled to keep ablaze in the fireplace. Though never before a complainer, Denise complained the straw-filled beds had no springs for support and the straw retained the cold. “It’s fortunate we brought all our own sheets and blankets from Le Coq,” mused Denise to Andre. “It does make the archaic beds a little more accommodating.”
The kitchen was filled with rustic, often ancient items: earthenware pots and big, black, iron cauldrons, old jam jars, glasses and crude china that would likely make Geneviève yearn for her beloved Limoges. Denise hoped her sister would be mollified by the heavy silverware from Belgium marked on every handle with the “SF” monogram that brought the Sauverin and Freedman families to mind, and by the Sauverins’ large heirloom tablecloth embroidered with an ornate letter “F.”
The window curtains which Denise had made were a nice touch. But there was nothing to be done about the plumbing. And everyone had to be careful to dump their “business” below and away from the stream so as not to contaminate the single source of water.
The longer Alex and his family delayed the happier with La Font they would be. Certainly they would be pleased with the wood-burning stove which Alex had purchased and with the bus driver’s help dismantled into three pieces. When it arrived in Soleyrols, André was fortunate that the other principal in the café, Albertine’s husband Louis, owned a horse-drawn cart which he volunteered for the demanding task of getting the large, heavy pieces uphill.
Once the pieces had been maneuvered into the kitchen, André succeeded in reassembling the stove himself. The great iron top was an enormous help in cooking and a water compartment to one side was large enough for three jerry cans of water. This most welcome additional source of warmth made heating up water to fill the tub at least once a week, for washing clothes and cleansing bodies, much more feasible and efficient.
Alex had chosen well. The stove grew hot swiftly, its fire starting quickly with dried sticks from the bush of broom or heather even the children could help gather.
Without doubt maintaining a sufficient supply of firewood for the fireplace and woodstove would be a big ongoing—and necessary—project. Already in October Soleyrols was dauntingly cold. The Sauverins could only imagine how much more bitter the weather would be when the long winter set in.
Shortly after moving into La Font, during the first of the strong rainstorms that swept across the mountains from the west, the Sauverins heard a tick tick tick from leaks in the roof. Once again the Brignands—the Sauverins’ lifesavers in so many ways—stepped in, recommending an “old carpenter” for the repairs. He was able to come up and do the job almost right away. Despite his sixty years he proved adept at negotiating the old roof’s perilous slope.
“Good thing I’m here now,” he said laconically, looking up at the sky and nodding agreement with himself. “Weather’s going to change soon. Snow’s on the way.”
Still no sign of the Bédouès contingent. Instead a huge sack filled with forty-five kilograms of barley arrived—and onions too, lots and lots of onions. Alex also sent along a crate with another dozen chickens and a note explaining that he thought it more important to have more chickens rather than extra rabbits since the pair of rabbits he had sent were male and female. With luck they would fulfill the old expression and multiply.
On her family’s last day in Bédouès, Geneviève was packing. In the last several weeks the friends the Sauverins had made had become exceptionally generous, selling them food and other goods they could ill afford to do without themselves, sometimes offering desirable items as presents. The pair of breeding rabbits the Sauverins had been given was particularly valuable and the owners had refused payment—an astonishing sacrifice in such hard times.
More recently becoming aware of Alex and Geneviève’s impending departure, a number of neighbors had come to say good-bye—including Nichette, the maid from the de Montforts’ château who had been the first local to befriend them. One acquaintance offered to sell them a couple of goats at an impossibly low price to which Alex had agreed without a moment’s hesitation. What a happy surprise discovering one of the goats was pregnant!
Initially Alex and Geneviève had intended to stay through the end of the month. But when they learned that the Germans had ordered all Jews in occupied France to register with the authorities, they felt they should move before things got worse in unoccupied Vichy France.
Late in the day, Camille Mousand, a favorite neighbor who had lived in Bédouès all her life, stopped by. She wore a work apron over a blue dress faded by endlessly repeated washings and bore a farewell gift: a huge slab of pig fat with a little bit of bacon attached.
“Thanks so much,” Geneviève said, glad she had been brought up well enough to make offering thanks reflexive because she was thinking, What on earth am I going to do with this?
Despite their brief acquaintance Camille knew Geneviève fairly well. “You say ‘thank you’ but I don’t think you know the value that fat will have for you.”
“Of course I do. And I’m very grateful on behalf of my family. Besides, I love bacon!”
“Further proof you’re no true Jew,” Camille said with a hearty laugh. Then she grew serious, wished Geneviève the best always, kissed her on both cheeks, and walked away. Geneviève could read her sadness in the slump of her retreating shoulders.
“Isn’t her husband a poacher?” Alex asked, returning from the mayor’s garden plot for the last time.
“I guess that’s why they always have meat that isn’t on the ration list,” Geneviève replied. “But why would they give us all this fat? For a couple so tight with its money…”
“We have been well treated here,” Alex acknowledged somewhat grudgingly.
The next afternoon Alex and Geneviève loaded their belongings and their children onto the old red bus. Handing everything in, Geneviève couldn’t help musing. It’s so dirty and smelly. And it’
s getting to seem normal to me.
At the last moment Lucien Mauriac came to hug Geneviève and shake Alex’s hand.
“Bédouès will never be the same without you,” he said. “It feels as if you belong here now. You will certainly not be forgotten.”
“We’ll be back,” Alex said, though he had no idea whether or not that was so.
“I look forward to it,” Lucien called out, waving as the bus pulled away noisomely.
Only when her nostrils filled with the scent of fatback did Geneviève begin to realize how meaningful the time in Bédouès had been. They had all discovered so much there: their internal resources and their ability to cope with true adversity.
As the kilometers passed by, Geneviève found herself crying.
The bus driver had told the Sauverins when to expect the Bédouès contingent. As the bus rumbled slowly in the distance toward Soleyrols, André could hardly conceal his excitement. Louis and Rose joined him in front of their house. Denise ran down the path from La Font with Ida and Christel.
The lumbering conveyance chugged to a stop in front of the café. Ten adults and children became a joyful blur of hugs and kisses. Then the children led a scramble uphill to the great farmhouse. Toward the rear André marveled that Alex had taken to dressing like the local laborers. He himself had given up ties but still wore a wool jacket and white shirt every day.
Soleyrols was on the southeast face of the mountains but it was higher than Bédouès. Harsh wintry winds—as the old carpenter had warned—were already beginning to bite. Denise and the children had made La Font as cheery and welcoming as possible, but even with the woodstove and fireplace stoked and blazing the farmhouse remained cold.
Ida and Christel acted as tour guides for Katie and Philippe. Geneviève expressed appreciation of the place and all her sister had done but André knew she was disappointed. Alex had a clearheaded, practical response: he wanted André to show him the rest of the grounds.
The sun’s setting brought a bitter tang to the still, chilled air. André hurried Alex through outbuildings, fields, and stands of trees. With a now-practiced eye Alex assessed the property positively, praising his brother for finding and choosing a farm well-suited to their purposes, including keeping them hidden from prying eyes.
The brothers talked briefly of work to be done and improvements to make. Alex was anxious to see about piping water into the kitchen to reduce the time spent out-of-doors in the soon-to-be freezing temperatures.
For dinner Denise served a stew made from the barley, carrots, and onions Alex had sent from Bédouès and the first chicken André had slain, which Denise, with advice from Albertine, had plucked and cut apart. Beets from Bédouès served as the one side dish. André poured wine acquired in Vialas and topped off the meal with fine coffee brewed from grounds from the café.
It took longer than dinner for the family to discuss everything that had happened since the end of August. The tale of Geneviève’s ax accident and the miracle of her healing made André laugh loudly about this “evidence” of the efficacy of homeopathy. He too was stunned when Geneviève lifted her skirt to show no trace of the wound.
The lack of indoor plumbing was something the newcomers had gotten used to at the Porfile place but they did object to the smell caused by the goats kept in one of the spaces under the house and the chickens and rabbits in another. The animals were right below the bedrooms and the floorboards were made out of old, dry wood full of cracks.
“At least the animals’ body heat helps with the cold,” Denise suggested.
“It would be easier to put up with the smell,” Geneviève retorted, “if it came with enough heat. Perhaps if those rabbits hop to it…”
That night all slept soundly and long. They awoke to the season’s first snow.
The four cousins couldn’t wait to go out and play. But André and Alex got out first, afraid the early snow would dash their hopes of installing a water tap.
Rounding the corner of the café the brothers were startled to see their father outside his house chopping wood in the light but persistent snowfall. Despite the cold Louis had removed his coat and laid it carefully aside. Still he perspired.
Alarmed, André cried out, “Father! Be careful! You’re not used to such physical labor!”
“But it helps me keep warm.”
“We can do all the chopping you need,” Alex insisted, gently but firmly taking the ax out of his father’s hands. “There are safer ways to stay warm.”
The brothers finished up for their father then hurried to the café crowded and abuzz with lively chatter about Hitler meeting with Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his plans to meet with Pétain.
The brothers explained to Louis Brignand what they had in mind.
“Baptiste,” Louis called, introducing a compact, balding man with scarred and grimy hands.
“Good thing you got to me when you did,” Baptiste told the Sauverins cheerfully. “By tonight the snow will freeze hard. Then it will be too late.”
The brothers and Baptiste went into Vialas and bought the last piping available: lead. The question of lead poisoning was controversial. André allowed himself to be swayed reluctantly.
“Galvanized iron or stainless steel would be better but there’s none to be had,” Baptiste complained. “Copper would be good too but it was always a luxury up in these mountains and it was all used up in the French defense effort.”
Snow fell throughout the afternoon. Baptiste seemed impervious to it. There was just enough pipe to reach from the spring through the rough hole he laboriously carved into La Font’s thick back wall and then to the spigot, which splashed water into the newly installed basin.
The basin was shallow and the water flowing into it was icy cold. They worried about what would happen in a hard freeze but Baptiste assured them the water would always be there.
In the middle of the night Geneviève was awakened by a moaning sound right beneath her bedroom.
“Alex. Alex!” she whispered, shaking him, hoping not to wake anyone else.
“What? What is it?” Alex grumbled groggily.
The eerie keening unnerved Geneviève, but Alex said, “Must be that pregnant goat. Want me to have a look?”
“No, you sleep,” Geneviève said, slipping into her farm clothes.
She lit a lantern and carefully made her way down the stone steps to the lower level. Alex’s offer to go had been sweet but what did he know about pregnancy and birth? Not that Geneviève had experience with gravid animals. She just hoped there was some similarity between the two-and four-legged kind.
Inside the arched space she immediately realized the goat was in trouble—wheezing and moaning and writhing in the dirt. The goat was well past her prime and probably shouldn’t have gotten pregnant.
The creature looked up at Geneviève with such pitiable pleading in her huge, liquid eyes that Geneviève sat beside her despite the unpleasant smell. She stroked the beast’s brow and softly told her to try to stay calm though she felt foolish talking to a goat.
As the night wore on Geneviève felt hypnotized by the steady stroking and the goat’s stertorous breaths and periodic whines. Then the goat gave a start and a terrible cry and started licking feverishly at her nether region. Peering through the very dim light Geneviève saw the head of the kid had appeared. She was about to participate in an animal’s birth!
The goat’s desperate struggle panicked them both. Didn’t beasts of burden simply and easily drop their newborns in the field? Not now. All progress ceased.
Acting on instinct, Geneviève tenderly took hold of the kid’s head and began to pull gently but steadily. The process was agonizingly slow but at last one shoulder came through and then the other. Soon the slick, sticky body was lying before her. It didn’t move at all.
Inexperienced though she was Geneviève understood the kid had been born dead. But the mother goat didn’t. Instinctively the old goat licked and licked in a frantic futile effort to b
ring the stillborn back to life. It was painful to watch the poor thing keep at it. Then it just stopped.
The miserable creature put her mournful head on Geneviève’s shoulder and moaned a very different moan. Were those tears falling from the heartsick goat’s eyes? Geneviève couldn’t tell because she herself was weeping inconsolably.
The old goat recovered quickly and began producing milk. Denise contrived to relieve the goat’s swollen udders by a process of trial and error. Soon she was an old hand at the twice-daily milking, delighted to be able to supply the children with this excellent source of nutrition. At first the cousins complained about the flavor, so different from cow’s milk. Before long they acquired a taste for it.
That was important because having ration coupons did not guarantee the apportioned foodstuffs would be available when Denise and Geneviève made the six-kilometer roundtrip between La Font and Vialas. Some days the greengrocer and butcher had good items on display. Often there was nothing to buy with or without coupons.
Shopkeepers sometimes held back what they could for favored customers. That included the Sauverins because André was highly regarded as a professor. But when there was simply little or nothing edible at hand, how grateful the family was for the lactating goat!
On the last Tuesday of October, Denise made the trek to Vialas alone. The day was frosty but Denise was bundled up and the exertion helped keep her warm, as she was enjoying her rare solitude. She tried to make her mind blank, the better to take in the lovely pristine landscape and the marvelous bracing air, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what she might find in Vialas.
Basics were all she hoped for. She certainly didn’t expect much meat. Even the farmers the Sauverins met at the café, who always showed them the greatest kindness, could only afford to sell them some lamb occasionally—and even less frequently rabbit since everyone wanted to hold on to a breeding pair till spring.
Meals had acquired a sameness that aggravated everyone—Louis in particular. The Sauverins had no choice but to partake of the traditional local breakfast: bajana, a soup consisting primarily of dried chestnuts from which the husks had been laboriously peeled by hand. The chestnuts would then be left to soak overnight, after which they would be cooked for the better part of three hours along with some goat’s milk, onion, and maybe garlic.
In This Hospitable Land Page 14
