Yet life went on implacably. The adults struggled for sheer survival and the six-year-olds had a new distraction: their education in the one-room schoolhouse in Soleyrols where the single teacher taught twenty lower-school students who would go on to high school in Vialas.
Each weekday Ida and Katie managed the trek—fifteen minutes in the morning mostly downhill and twenty-five minutes back up later in the day—though the journey grew trickier with steadily increasing cold and deepening snow. Remarkably the girls inserted themselves easily into a roomful of strangers who knew each other well and spoke mostly in the Cévenol dialect.
Christel and Philippe—much too young to accompany their sisters—stayed home and played with each other, the farm animals and their grandmother. But Christel kept saying she wanted to go to school like the big girls.
Coping with sorrow was especially difficult as the feeling of isolation multiplied with each day’s fresh blanketing of snow. The Sauverins’ new friends and neighbors were remarkably kind and attentive the first week after the funeral but this was a hard time of year for everyone in the Cévennes. The family quickly found itself left to its own devices.
To alleviate the sense of solitude—and to share their sad news—Denise and Geneviève began writing to almost everyone in the address books they had brought from Belgium.
First they wrote to Anna, Rose’s sister in Brussels. Then they attempted to contact other relatives in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Great Britain and those who had escaped to other countries before the Sauverins entered France.
Focusing on practical matters, André wrote to an agricultural products company in Switzerland. After reading deeply in the great green textbook, he had decided to grow soybeans—a novelty in the area—and hoped the neutral Swiss would send viable seed.
As days went by the Sauverins awaited any response with growing impatience. They understood international mail in wartime could be slow but the wait was difficult. They not only longed to hear from loved ones but also wanted proof their letters were getting through.
Impatient for any communication, Alex pulled his brother aside one afternoon. “Do you think we can purchase a radio so we can get news that isn’t days or weeks old? We need information—on the war, on the Vichy government—to stand a chance of keeping ourselves safe.”
After sunset André made his way downhill to the café.
“A radio?” Albertine spluttered after acceding to André’s half-whispered appeal to step into the back room. “You really are new here. Radios are scarce in the Cévennes and no one has one in Soleyrols. Getting one that works may be impossible. But having access to news could help us all. You have electricity and La Font is high enough on the mountainside to get good reception.”
“And we speak English,” André informed her. “News broadcasts on the BBC are often the most accurate and reliable.”
Albertine agreed. “And here’s a joke for you: one Frenchman says to another, ‘It’s terrible. At nine-twenty a Jew killed a German soldier, cut him open, and ate his heart.’ ‘Impossible,’ the other replies. ‘First a German has no heart. Second a Jew eats no pork. And third at nine-twenty everyone’s listening to the BBC!’”
André promised that were a radio obtained he would never reveal its source.
“I’ll see what we can do,” Albertine said, making André wonder who “we” might be.
The prickly outer husks of the maturing chestnuts started to open. Time to harvest.
“This is worse than picking cherries in Bédouès,” Geneviève complained as she, Denise, Alex, and André struggled through a thick stand of trees, bending repeatedly with clumsily gloved hands to retrieve and sack the precious objects. “Why is reaching down so much harder than reaching up? And these spiny outer shells! Why not wait for the soft nuts to fall out?”
“We’d lose too much to the birds and wild animals,” André explained patiently.
“Move along,” Alex growled, hand pressed to the small of his back in pain. “Each day’s shorter than the last. You want to gather chestnuts in the dark?”
The next day the weather was dreadful but they busily gathered again. A cold wind whipped across the mountain, spiraling around the trees and causing wisps of snow—which had settled onto stones and rocks and compressed dead leaves against the frozen earth—to lift and drift before settling down again. The chestnut gatherers drew scarves up over their ears but still the cold seeped in around their necks. When they took short breaks they jammed their gloved hands tightly into their wool coats seeking warmth in the depths of the lining. Thankfully the landscape was beautiful. The grays and browns of the fields and the oak and chestnut copses heralded the onset of wintertime repose. If only they could finish this.
Suddenly Gustave Chatrey appeared with two women and another man, all elderly.
“I said I’d get you started,” Gustave called cheerfully. “And I’ve brought friends.”
The experienced hands placed themselves and the four Sauverins in a row several feet apart, facing uphill. They began their demonstration by tying canvas sacks around each one’s waist, leaving the sacks to drag behind as they filled up.
“Here,” Gustave called. “Everyone take a wooden rake.”
These curious implements—surprisingly short, with four tines each—were specially adapted to the task.
“As we walk up the hill,” the other man—the women’s brother—explained, “we rake the chestnuts into little piles.”
“For the ones still inside their spiny hulls,” one of the sisters suggested, “just take the side of the rake and hammer them open.”
The old woman leaned down to demonstrate. She was quick and proficient—and so obviously practiced Geneviève doubted she herself would ever do half so well.
“Simple,” the other sister said encouragingly.
Slowly all began walking up the hillside, manipulating their rakes. Though the four old-timers were perpetually stooped their steps were far livelier than those of the decades-younger Sauverins.
Geneviève wasn’t as strong as the others and fell farther behind minute by minute. She found it easier if still painful to remain bent over rather than to stand back up and then bend down again. Exhaustion began to overwhelm her but the work needed to be done and she felt ashamed watching four old peasants keep at it with steady unflagging energy.
Work gloves couldn’t keep painful blisters from developing on their fingers. At the farmhouse for the midday meal, Geneviève wrapped a clean cloth around a rapidly reddening wound.
“That’s bad,” one of the old sisters said. “Infected.”
“Here,” the other spinster said, taking Geneviève’s hand tenderly and applying a home remedy. “A little lemon on that sore and the pus will dry right up. Be sure to care for it like this every day and you’ll see how soon the infection will go away.”
“Homeopathy,” Alex said, nodding significantly at André.
They devoted the afternoon to a lesson in drying to preserve the bulk of the chestnuts through winter. Chestnuts would be the primary staple until the first vegetables ripened in the spring.
Each worker loaded and carried a basket to the drying shed about halfway down the hill. A special two-story structure built of stone apart from the wooden rafters inside, the shed was designed to hold the chestnuts high in a small attic.
The brother and his sisters shoveled chestnuts from baskets into the attic while Gustave started a smoldering fire below. Then all climbed the built-in ladder to the small trapdoor through which the chestnuts had been heaved. There they spread the chestnuts evenly and not too deeply on wood boards positioned to leave small cracks in between, allowing the heat from the smoky fire below to rise and reach the target.
Back downstairs Gustave explained, “We use huge logs for this fire. First get a good blaze going then smother it with old hulls to control the burn and create smoke. You must keep the fire going no matter what, with new logs added and smothered with more dry husks, to ensure co
nstant heat even when rain comes lashing through the mountains. That’s why even the roof is made of stone: stone gains and retains heat despite winter’s chill.”
“Remember,” the older brother cautioned, “turn the chestnuts again and again. You don’t want them to burn but you do want them absolutely dry or they’ll rot.”
“When one batch is done,” a sister said, “replace them with fresh chestnuts. That way the entire crop gets its time in the attic.”
“It takes a month to do a good load,” the other sister added. “So drying goes on through much of the winter.”
Geneviève felt faint. So much work for preservation. And before any nuts could be eaten plain, made into soup or baked into bread, they would need to be boiled more than two hours.
Between this realization and the pain from her throbbing hand, Geneviève wanted to weep. Yet she knew she mustn’t. Like the old peasants, she had to soldier on.
The last Friday of November a Brignand daughter appeared in the field the Sauverins were gleaning and spoke to André. When she left he told the others, “They’ve found us a radio.”
After the sun had set and the moon had begun to creep above the mountains the Sauverin brothers hiked down to the café and entered by the back door.
“Here it is,” Albertine said proudly, shutting the door behind them. “A good one I think.”
“Where did it come from?” André asked admiring the marvel in her hands.
“Over the mountains,” Albertine answered. “The bus driver brought it from Florac.”
So, André thought, the bus driver is one of “us.”
Alex examined the radio—an old model from an unfamiliar French manufacturer.
“But it will pick up the broadcasts you want,” Albertine insisted, unruffled. “That much we were assured. And one more thing,” she said as Alex discreetly paid her from the Sauverins’ dwindling supply of francs. “When the postman comes, give him whatever news you have. He’s reliable and will share the news on his rounds—only with those we trust of course.” Back at the door she cautioned, “Always turn the dial away from the BBC frequency when you finish. Anyone could stop by and that would be a foolish way to betray yourselves.”
In the family room they connected it to the single electric cord that ran through the house. Astoundingly their position on the mountain allowed them to pick up British stations without static. They were immediately rewarded with an address by General de Gaulle urging his countrymen to take heart: Free French forces now numbered thirty-five thousand trained troops and one thousand airmen. He promised operations would begin soon. Soon the true French would once again rule all of France.
Katie and Ida were still awake and listening.
“Now girls,” Alex warned the excited children, although he doubted they understood what they heard, “don’t repeat this or anything else you hear on our radio, especially not at school. Don’t even mention our radio. And don’t touch that dial ever!”
Over the next several nights the Sauverins heard the Germans jam portions of BBC broadcasts. Aware that many listeners were foreigners, the British announced the news first in English and then in French. The Germans almost always jammed both. Within half an hour the same program would be broadcast unimpeded in Flemish by Belgian exiles in London.
Alex grinned. “I guess the Germans know nothing about Belgians. They don’t realize how many of us speak Flemish as well as French.”
“Still,” André said, “the jamming is frustrating.”
After Sunday supper on the first of December the adult Sauverins gathered in the family room to listen to a live report about the Blitz from U.S. correspondent Edward R. Murrow.
“I can’t stand it,” Alex bristled.
“War is so terrible,” Denise agreed. “And sad.”
“I mean these Americans,” Alex scoffed. “Their viewpoint is childish and stupid. And they’re dangerous. Everyone else is careful about what they reveal but the Americans don’t realize they’re giving away important clues about strategic Allied positions.”
The next morning the postman appeared at La Font far earlier than usual not to deliver letters but to gather the news. Thanks to the radio La Font was now the first stop on his rounds.
Alex told him about the latest bombings in Britain and the postman startled him by saying, “I hope your brother-in-law is all right. So brave, flying with the RAF.”
Alex eyed him suspiciously. The family had made no secret of Francis Freedman’s activities but hadn’t spoken freely of them either.
“There’s no privacy here so far as correspondence is concerned,” the postman said amiably. “The Vichy government checks every letter, censoring what it doesn’t like. But there are others who open the mail too”—here he lowered his voice and his eyes—“on our side. Pro-Nazi messages sent to Vichy and Germany don’t reach their destinations intact either.”
So the rumors Alex had heard in Bédouès were true: there was some kind of Resistance—a growing underground. Now it was mostly a conduit for information but it would surely become increasingly active as German abuses and atrocities inevitably mounted. The Brignands, the bus driver, and the postman were all obviously part of this underground.
The Germans understood and continued to jam the BBC. Accurate uncensored information was the yeast that would grow the Resistance. And the Fascists had reason to fear a homegrown opposition for they knew the Vichy government had been weak from its inception.
Someday, Alex thought, with or without André, I will join this Resistance.
On St. Nicholas Day Eve, Denise and Geneviève did their best to recreate the feel of Brussels. They even helped the children put little wooden shoes with their names on them onto the mantel. Hard not to think of Louis at a time like this.
Denise managed to make speculaas too, though she didn’t have the wooden molds for the shapes the children liked best. At least they tasted like home.
By then André had attended services at the Protestant temple in Vialas several times and at Ida’s request had taken her with him. Having tired of her children’s books, Ida read the Bible. She enjoyed the stories and she liked Pastor Burnard’s sermons, as did André. André explained about his search for God and Ida decided she would look for God too.
Then she asked if she could participate in the Christmas pageant at the temple. With Denise’s permission André agreed. Excited, Ida told her sister and cousins and they wanted to be part of the pageant too.
Getting Alex to let his children go to the temple took some doing. Denise was able to convince Geneviève that it would be good for all the children to be better integrated into the community and André made two points that proved telling to Alex: first, participation would help conceal their background; and second, since André would take the children to and from the temple for services and rehearsals, Alex would have some time to himself.
“Without the children underfoot and in my hair you mean?”
Naturally he gave his consent.
After the first batch of chestnuts had been thoroughly dried the Sauverins began spending evening hours with specially adapted little knives to peel the outer husks and scrape the dark brown skin from the rock-hard meat—a difficult, tedious, slightly disfiguring labor: one’s hands took on a chestnut-colored stain. Working at the chestnuts long and hard they desperately needed distraction, which mostly came from the radio, though the news could be distressing, heartbreaking, and—due to the jamming and resultant static—headache-inducing.
There were the usual reports of back-and-forth bombings (the British bombed Düsseldorf, the Germans bombed Sheffield; the RAF bombed Naples, Mannheim, and Berlin, and the Luftwaffe bombed Liverpool, Manchester and London). There were ongoing stories from North Africa and the Mediterranean. America seemed irreconcilably divided, with the public against getting involved in the war even as President Roosevelt initiated actions supportive of Britain’s struggle against Nazi tyranny.
In a very different way France
was more seriously divided. Six months earlier Marshal Pétain had appointed pro-Nazi Pierre Laval foreign minister and then had sacked and imprisoned him only to free him days later thanks to the German ambassador’s intervention. Many pre-war Socialist and Radical-Socialist leaders had been indicted for “war guilt” though they had been among the precious few to stand up for France in the face of the Fascists.
“It amazes me,” Denise stated ruefully one night over a great bowl of shelled chestnuts, “that such heroic figures would be persecuted. Isn’t it the state’s responsibility to foster and maintain the integrity of the individual?”
“I’m afraid,” André countered with an equal measure of rue, “Pétain would say it’s the individual’s responsibility to sacrifice himself for the cohesiveness of the state.”
“That policy works wonders,” Alex said sardonically.
“All the more reason for us to enjoy the freedom we have within the walls of La Font,” André said, “for as long as it might last.”
Startled, Denise pleaded, “Don’t say that. I’m just beginning to feel settled in.”
“Every day the world is less certain and more dangerous,” André replied levelly. “How can we guess what the French will do next? When they laid down their arms they surrendered their souls.”
“Pétain tries to maintain national unity and French pride,” Alex added, “but with half a country at his disposal, subject to German authority, how long will that last?”
“All I want to do is cry,” Geneviève declared.
“Now is the time to look to our own souls,” André counseled, “to stay true to ourselves and all that we cherish of our human dignity.”
“I don’t know about these ‘souls,’” Alex grumped.
“Think of it ethically then,” André insisted, “or politically. It’s too easy to forget oneself, to take comfort in becoming part of the great amorphous mass of the thoughtless, the spineless, the soulless, as I would say. To go along with the wrong instead of standing up for what’s right. To become nothing because so many are nothing and being nothing takes less effort than becoming something worthwhile. Of course we all must die eventually but to die for nothing—as nothing—is too cruel to contemplate. To lose one’s way and remain forever lost. To participate in the dissolution of society and the degradation of all human worth.”
In This Hospitable Land Page 16
