The September Garden

by Catherine Law

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘But first, I must tell you something else. Something else very important.’

  ‘Is it Maman and Papa?’ Edmund leapt forward, bright and eager as always.

  Adele ruffled his black hair with the tips of her fingers. ‘No, my dear. No, it’s not.’

  ‘But you still think they are with Madame Orlande?’ said Estella. ‘That’s what you said, didn’t you? They’ve all had to go away to the camps, to work, to help La France through the war. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Adele said quickly.

  ‘I wanted to go too,’ Estella said.

  ‘Nine times one is nine. Two times nine is eighteen,’ quoted her brother.

  As Adele took some clean sheets from the armoire, nausea rose in her throat. She stayed perfectly still while the boy’s confident little voice recited his tables. The sickening worry of the last few months had changed into something even more precarious.

  She glanced around, unable to look them in the eye. ‘We are going to play another game, children. You wanted a story about the horses, Estella?’

  The little girl nodded, her tired, pinched face pitifully eager.

  ‘Well, when it’s darker, when it’s quieter, we’re going to go down to the stable and climb up to the loft. You are going to sleep up there, above where Ullis and Tatillon used to live. And I’ll tell you the story there.’

  Estella was wrapped in innocent rapture. ‘We’re going outside? In the night-time?’

  Edmund, ever studious, asked politely, ‘Can I leave my lessons now, Madame Ricard? Did I do well in my times table test?’

  ‘Yes, Edmund,’ Adele said, not remembering a single sum. She bundled up some bedding inside the sheets and gathered some pillows with trembling hands. Her back was aching, the skin on her pregnant belly taut, her patience sharp. ‘I’m going to make up a nice bed for you in the attic, but you must be very quiet and very still. It’s all part of the game.’

  What a risk she was taking, she thought, what an utter, dreadful risk. But she loved her husband and would do whatever he asked of her. Last night he told her about the rumour: there were whispers about the children in the bistro. The Gestapo had a suspicion they were here. If she could get them out of the house, then Jean and the maquisards could spirit them away overnight and send them down the lines.

  ‘All the way to Spain?’ she asked him, her murmuring hoarse under the bedcovers.

  ‘All the way to Spain,’ he replied.

  Adele had thought, then, of the irony of the sea just below their window, and freedom beyond, just within their grasp. But the dangers of going that way were far worse.

  They would take them from the stable loft, Jean had revealed. They would come for them in a few nights’ time. When, he would not tell her.

  ‘And what about Monsieur?’

  ‘That is the hardest part,’ Jean said. ‘We have to rely on his humanity. We are at his mercy.’

  Dusk was falling rapidly as Adele climbed the steep stone steps between the two stable doors each with its own sign nominating the long-dead horses who fed the children’s imaginations. She made up a bed in the dark on the dusty attic floor. The air smelt musty, of vegetables, of earth and old straw. It was a cold, grim place for her to be, let alone two small children. A keen draught blew through the missing tiles on the roof. She could barely stand under the low sloping ceiling. It would be for just a few nights, she told herself, shivering. They would be fine.

  Hurrying back down the path, she realised she would risk breaking the curfew by returning to the sea wall cottage after dark. But she decided, if she was stopped, she could claim she had been busy making the gendarme’s déjeuner. She, as his housekeeper, had certain privileges, just as he did.

  ‘Now, children,’ she said, opening the bedroom door. ‘This is very important. You must not say a word. You must follow me. And do exactly as I say. In fact, you must do exactly what any French person tells you from now on,’ thinking of when the maquisards would come for them. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Madame Ricard,’ Edmund stood in front of her, his face very solemn. ‘Will the soldiers find us?’

  Estella wondered, ‘Are you going to stay with us in the stables after you’ve told us the story?’

  ‘No, my dear,’ she said. ‘I have to go home.’ She watched her face fall. ‘Are you both ready?’

  ‘Can I take my doll?’

  ‘Yes … yes …’ Tears stung at Adele’s eyes. ‘But that’s all.’

  The little girl held on to the doll, tucking it beneath her chin.

  ‘I want to take my schoolbooks and pencils,’ announced Edmund.

  ‘All right!’ Adele shouted in frustration. ‘Put your hats and coats on, put your thick socks and boots on.’

  She helped the little girl tie the rabbit fur collar she’d made her around her shoulders. She told Edmund to go first; to run along the path. Thank goodness, she thought, that his clothing was dark; he disappeared into the evening. She held Estella’s cold little hand and they hurried after him. By the time they reached the top of the attic steps, Adele was panting with a great stitch ripping at her side; Estella was in tears.

  ‘Don’t leave us here,’ the little girl begged. ‘Please don’t leave us.’

  Adele did not look at her.

  ‘Here is some bread and cheese.’ She showed them a basket in the corner. ‘And some milk. There’s enough for a day …’

  ‘Aren’t you coming back? Stay, please stay.’

  ‘Get into bed and I will tell you the story,’ Adele said, sitting uneasily on the splintered, creaking floorboards over the empty stable below.

  She listened to the profound silence of Montfleur beyond the stone walls; the subjugation, the tedious fear. She whispered her story to the children. She told them of the brave horses – one white, one chestnut – and how they went so eagerly to Flanders to help their masters win the Great War. They triumphed over the shells and the bullets, the mud, the wire and the wasteland. They helped take the wounded soldiers back to the hospital barracks; they helped take the great guns forward to strike at the enemy.

  ‘Our same enemy,’ Edmund whispered in the dark. ‘Even now.’

  Adele looked over at him, but in the pitch-black she could not see his face. She could barely see her own hands in her lap.

  ‘That’s right, Edmund,’ she said. ‘And now, as you settle down to sleep, as you drift off – you too, Estella – if you listen very carefully, you can almost hear Ullis and Tatillon below, snorting and snoring in their straw. They’ll keep you safe,’ she said. ‘They will look after you tonight. Don’t be frightened. And soon, very soon—’

  Adele stopped herself, for she realised she had no promises to make.

  ‘Very soon,’ she told the children, ‘you will fall asleep.’

  Adele woke, alone, in her own bed, to a flat, cold dawn. This was not so unusual, as the Orageux Bleu, when night fishing, often didn’t come back into harbour until six, and then there was the unloading of the fish, the work still to be done. But this morning was different. This morning felt different. For Jean and Simon had not set sail.

  She turned over in the bed. As the chilly depths of the heavy covers shifted around her, she felt the continual yearning in her blood, the craving that had stayed with her ever since that dreadful June last year: a desire for peace, for safety, for a life. How unprepared we all were, she thought, to give up France, to give up our lives. The baby stirred and dealt her a wakeful kick. She thought of the children and whether they had slept; she prayed that they were not as fearful as she was.

  Her mother-in-law was at her door, tapping. ‘Are you awake? Simon’s been here already. You must get up.’

  Adele hauled herself upright against the headboard, feeling a swell of panic in her chest at the tone of the older woman’s voice.

  Madame Ricard walked over to the window. She opened the blackout and stared at the sea.

  ‘There have been explosions, ou
t on the railway line near Cherbourg.’

  ‘So,’ Adele ventured carefully, ‘it was a success?’

  Madame Ricard turned and stared at her. The grey light from outside gave her wrinkled face a ghostly demeanour. Her eyes, blue like her son’s, were like ice. ‘Depends which way you look at it. Switch on the radio.’

  Adele moved swiftly to the wireless in the corner of the bedroom, tying the cords of her dressing gown as she went. She fumbled with the earpiece. Electricity hummed in the wires, an airwave crackled. Static snapped around the room.

  Madame Ricard informed her, ‘Simon came here to tell me, we must send a message. Urgently.’

  ‘Where is Jean?’ Adele asked, as she bent her head to listen deeply into the earpiece, her fingers on the dial. She heard it immediately: V for Victory tapping through the airwaves, a constant covenant; part of her consciousness.

  ‘He is hiding. Somewhere beyond Valognes. In the bocage.’

  Adele looked at her mother-in-law.

  ‘Quickly, quickly … this is what you must send.’ Madame Ricard unrolled a scrap of paper. Adele recognised Simon’s handwriting.

  Pole Star sighted. Moon behind the clouds.

  Adele flexed her fingers against the cold and began to tap out her appeal. Do you read? Over. Do you read? Over. She listened hard for the response. At last, an acknowledgement. She signalled the message slowly, methodically into the airwaves. Over and over again.

  ‘Please tell me what has happened,’ she asked, as she continued to send the message.

  ‘I’m not sure that I should.’

  ‘Is it best that I know nothing about it? Is it that serious?’

  Madame Ricard’s dreadful sigh made Adele look sharply at her.

  ‘I’ll tell you what everyone else in Montfleur will know within the hour,’ she said, her features drooping with unspoken dread. ‘We blew up a troop train near Cherbourg. It did not go as well as expected. The explosives were not the right mix and not enough damage was caused. Not enough damage compared to the risk that we took. Simon just told me he wishes that Androvsky was still here. He knew his dynamite. He knew how to do it properly.’

  Adele shook her head. She didn’t want to waste her time absorbing Simon’s opinions when her husband was not home. When her husband was in danger.

  ‘Is Jean all right?’ she demanded.

  Madame Ricard looked down at her. ‘Yes, but he made a dreadful mistake.’

  Adele hurried along the Montfleur streets, her heavily pregnant stomach and grimacing face rousing the startled interest of passers-by. She was desperate to get to the Orlande house quickly to check on the children, take them some food. They were certainly not going to be the maquisards’ priority today, or anytime soon.

  In the marketplace small groups of people gathered around the stalls, fingering the scanty produce, and in the bistro, drinking dregs of coffee. Caps and hats were pulled down against the cold. Collars were turned up and glances directed over shoulders. There was a murmuring, like the static from the radio in the bedroom. Adele kept her head down and hurried past, not wishing to catch anyone’s eye. She could not risk a single bonjour and give herself away. The news must be filtering through to everyone, as if the shock waves from the bombs on the railway line had infiltrated Montfleur.

  As she stepped down the kerb to the side street that led to the house, she felt, more than heard, a heightening of voices, a rippling through the square. Everyone began to face the same direction, jerking their heads for a better view. She, too, stopped and stared. Around the corner of the mairie, a small company of German soldiers marched into the square. They advanced in perfect formation, faceless under rounded helmets, inhuman behind the grey uniform. Shoulder to shoulder, they carried their weapons with chilling command. Not such an unfamiliar sight, Adele told herself, and yet her panic sharpened as the broken-engine sound of a posse of motorbikes followed them, a motorcade for the Kommandant’s car. It parked outside the mairie. The Kommandant got out. The soldiers stood in their ranks, facing the people of Montfleur.

  Monsieur Orlande in his gendarme uniform appeared at the door of the mairie and hurried down the steps. He saluted the German officer, his demeanour solid and confident.

  A man next to her muttered, ‘Collabo,’ and spat on the ground.

  The Kommandant began to speak to Monsieur, and Adele, hoping the spectacle in the square would prove a distraction, turned to walk towards the Orlande house.

  She paused. The whistling of a megaphone sliced through the cold air. The Kommandant’s hard amplified voice split her ears.

  ‘… for the crime committed last night against the German army, there will be certain retribution. The citizens of Montfleur will pay the penalty for the actions of the rebels, the communists, the criminals who have perpetrated this deed. Fifteen German officers have been injured. I am required to tell you that two have lost limbs.’

  Adele stared. Her employer, Monsieur Gendarme, stood shoulder to shoulder with the German officer as he continued his address: ‘This is inexcusable, and will be punished accordingly. Whoever carried out this crime may or may not be flushed out from among you, but you, the citizens of Montfleur, must and will pay.’

  Villagers collectively gasped in shock, threw violent glances between themselves. A woman cried out. A man shouted. On the steps, the gendarme stepped forward and began to talk earnestly with the Kommandant.

  Adele thought, hopelessly, perhaps he is trying to reason with him. Make him change his mind.

  ‘No soldiers were killed,’ someone behind her said. ‘We should not be the ones to take the blame.’

  ‘The most damage was to the train and the tracks,’ said another. ‘What can he mean, we will pay?’

  ‘It’s obvious. No one is immune from this.’

  ‘Orlande better be persuading him otherwise.’

  ‘About time he protected his own people.’

  Adele turned away, their panicked voices receding into a blur of anxious speculation. Her hand shook as she unlocked the gate but a strange security enveloped her once inside the silent void of the Orlande house. She felt removed, suddenly, from the announcement in the square – and its horrific reality.

  In the basement kitchen she sawed the loaf of bread and found a dab of butter, something to feed the children. Her mind turned its way to Jean. A dreadful mistake, his mother told her. Adele presumed he had become separated from the cell and was hiding out in the cold, misty dampness of the bocage. Was he injured perhaps? She would not let herself imagine the pain, the frustration of the man she loved. She must do her duty here; do what she could for the Resistance, for her comrades, unknown strangers to her, and yet still worthy of her very best.

  The front gate creaked above and Adele jerked her head, her eyes suddenly smarting with confusion. A clump of a footstep overhead; Monsieur must have come home. What can he want? He was on duty until six tonight. Why should he come back now? Surely he’d be busy with the Kommandant? She heard him come quickly down the stairs from the hallway to the kitchen. She rose to greet him, to enquire at his unexpected return. And yet, instead of the kitchen door opening, it was shut fast. From the outside, the key turned in the lock.

  Adele ran to the door, tried the handle. Thumped on it.

  ‘Monsieur? Monsieur? What’s happening?’ she cried.

  Her appeal was met with silence. Monsieur’s footsteps retreated back up the stairs. Adele stepped back, astounded.

  She ran to the kitchen window and squinted up into the garden to see Monsieur walking down the path, past the straggling, overblown lavender plants, past the naked bean frames. He opened the back gate wide and left it ajar. And it was then, through the gateway, that she saw them: three German soldiers, their rifles drawn.

  She stood on tiptoe over the sink, reached up and fumbled with the latch on the window; she hauled down the sash with the stupid idea of climbing out, of running to the children. She wanted to scream, to scream her protest, but stopped. As Monsieur had on
ce said, it might make matters worse.

  All too quickly, she saw Edmund and Estella emerge and stand on the cobbles, which once rang to Ullis and Tatillon’s hooves. They were bedraggled after their night and hungry morning in the stable attic. Edmund’s hair stood on end. Estella was fastening her skirt, trying to tug her long socks up with one finger. Her rabbit fur collar over her shoulders. Monsieur had his hand on Edmund’s shoulder, talking earnestly. The soldiers stood back, awaiting command.

  Monsieur continued to speak to the children. Adele watched his mouth, aghast. A sheet of ice adhered to her insides. She’d told Edmund; she’d told Estella: you must do exactly what any French person tells you. She saw Edmund nod. She saw him breathe deeply and look up at the sky, as if he knew he, at last, would be free.

  The soldiers moved in, towered over them, blocked them from her view. In an instant, they disappeared around the corner and down the alleyway to the street. They’d gone.

  Adele ran again to the kitchen door and hit it madly with the heel of her hand. Tears sprang from her eyes and she covered her mouth. Sheer futility hit her like a heavy wave of cold seawater.

  She sank down onto a kitchen chair and rested her head on the table.

  Why did it take four grown men to round up two small children, she wondered, as she wiped the wetness from her cheeks with the palm of her hand? Didn’t they have anything better to do?

  An hour passed, and the morning moved on. Who knew what had happened beyond the confines of the Orlande house? Who knew what had transpired in the streets of Montfleur? What retribution had been exacted? The key scraping in the lock of the kitchen door woke Adele from her stupor. Footsteps retreated again.

  Slowly, she unpeeled herself from the chair and stood up stiffly. Her baby was quickening, protesting. She went in a daze up the stairs to the vestibule and opened the back door. She didn’t know, didn’t care, where Monsieur was. She was glad that he was hiding his face, somewhere in the house.