Aurore

by Graham Hurley

She embraced him and asked how things were going. Georges ignored the question.

  ‘He needs a rubdown,’ he said, looking at the stallion. ‘You’re working him too hard.’

  He disappeared into the barn and returned with an old towel. Valmy moved gently against him as he mopped the sweat from his gleaming flanks.

  Hélène wanted to know about the cattle.

  ‘Gone.’ Georges was bent double, working on the stallion’s legs. ‘The Germans don’t even ask anymore. Just help themselves.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Every last animal. Get yourself to Paris and there might be some left. I’m sure you know the right hotels.’

  There was no malice in his voice, simply an acknowledgement that in this matter, as in many others, a man was helpless.

  ‘They took the sheep as well?’

  ‘Not so far. Maybe next week. You want to come in?’

  He tethered the stallion and led the way to the farmhouse. He’d lost his wife recently to a heart condition. His only son, Marc, had helped around the place until the war took him to the eastern frontier. He’d manned the Maginot Line and made it back with minor injuries but since then he’d been shipped to Germany as forced labour, like every other young man in the area.

  ‘He’s still in Essen? Marc?’

  ‘As far as I know. The last letter I got was at Christmas. He said things weren’t too bad.’ He shook his head, looking for the coffee pot. ‘That boy always knew how to lie.’

  Hélène put her bag on the table and watched him grind the coffee beans. Real coffee was as rare as gold these days. If she was looking for a sign of Georges’ respect, then here it was.

  ‘How’s that husband of yours?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s in London. He’s well.’

  ‘You’ve talked to him? You’re in touch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Georges shot her a look. No more questions.

  ‘You’ve come for a reason,’ he said.

  Hélène sat down. The sheepdog under the table nuzzled her ankle. She explained that life had become difficult. She had to get away from the chateau and she had to take people with her.

  ‘How many people?’

  ‘Maybe six, including me. Maybe less.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Paris?’ She shrugged.

  ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can come here. You know that.’

  ‘Thank you, Georges. I appreciate it.’

  ‘No?’ He held her gaze.

  ‘No.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘Probably worse.’

  She reached for her bag. Inside was the package from Klimt. She hadn’t even opened it. She began to tear at the wrapping. One look told her that Klimt had been short-changed. Not American dollars at all but Reichsmarks. From the owner of the mare that had gone to Otto Abetz.

  ‘That ambulance of Marc’s?’ she asked. ‘The one he brought back before the Armistice.’

  ‘The Renault?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s in one of the barns.’

  ‘And it works?’

  ‘Perfectly. Marc did everything before they took him to Germany. I haven’t used it since.’

  Hélène nodded. Marc had driven the ambulance after the collapse of the French Army. Outrun by German armour, he’d ferried casualties to hard-pressed casualty stations along the route. After the surrender, he’d managed to nurse the vehicle all the way back to the Touraine. Hélène remembered the first time she’d laid eyes on it: the neat line of bullet holes through the thin metal skin, the smashed windscreen, the sagging suspension, the rag stuffed in the fuel tank where someone had stolen the cap. At the time Marc’s ambulance, with its fading red cross, had perfectly summed up everything that had happened to France during those terrible weeks and she’d retained the image in her mind ever since. Georges called it le corbillard. The hearse.

  ‘You want to borrow it?’

  ‘I want to buy it.’

  ‘It’s not for sale.’

  ‘Then I’ll hire it. You tell me how much.’

  She extracted a fat handful of notes and began to count them out. They were in denominations of fifty. She’d got to seven hundred Reichsmarks when he told her to stop.

  ‘I don’t want your money. Le corbillard’s yours. Just bring it back when you’ve finished.’

  ‘That might not be possible.’

  ‘Then tant pis. Cattle? Sheep? They matter. No one ever ate an ambulance.’

  Hélène smiled. Instead of money, perhaps he’d take Valmy.

  ‘You want me to look after him? While you’re away?’

  ‘I want you to have him. Forever. And if times get really tough…’ she shrugged, ‘… maybe you can put him in the pot.’

  ‘I don’t want your horse.’ Georges was pouring the coffee. ‘Of course I’ll look after him but he’s yours.’ He looked up. ‘He was a present, wasn’t he? From your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then show the man some respect.’ He nodded at the notes on the table. ‘And don’t insult me again.’

  *

  Hélène was back at the chateau within the hour. She’d left Valmy with Georges, and she’d tucked a couple of thousand Reichsmarks under a plate in his kitchen when he wasn’t watching to help cover feed costs. She’d like to think it was a loan, a favour on the part of Georges, but in truth she’d no idea whether she’d ever see the stallion again.

  Once again, there were no signs of field-grey uniforms on the narrow country roads around the estate. For whatever reason, the threatened patrols must have been withdrawn. She parked the ambulance at the back of the chateau and walked through the courtyard towards the kitchen, doing her best to ignore the sight of Valmy’s empty stable.

  The moment she stepped into the kitchen, she knew something was wrong. Everyone was there: Malin, Agnès, the Spanish couple. And then she caught sight of Billy. His hands had been roped to the back of his chair. Malin sat opposite, eyeing him across the table. Nathan’s shotgun lay on the table within reach.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hélène shut the door.

  No one answered. Hélène picked up the gun, broke the barrel, and extracted the shells. She asked Billy whether he was all right. Billy nodded silently.

  ‘Show her,’ said Agnès, looking at Malin.

  Malin dug into the pocket of his dungarees and extracted a thick wad of Reichsmarks. He laid them carefully on the table in front of Hélène.

  ‘More than seven thousand. I counted every note.’ He nodded towards Billy. ‘And you told us the man’s a flier.’

  ‘Billy?’

  Billy looked up. Hélène had never used his Christian name before.

  ‘I am a flier,’ he said.

  ‘He’s not. He’s a spy.’

  Billy recognised the word espion. He shook his head. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Hélène.

  ‘Ask me anything about the RAF, about what I’ve been doing, about the targets we bombed. You know it’s true. Ask Klimt. He knows.’

  ‘Klimt?’ Malin threw his head back and laughed. ‘Is that man your defence? You’re relying on a German to get you out of the shit? Agnès was right. I should have let her shoot you.’

  ‘Thank God you didn’t.’ Hélène was unpacking her bag. She put Klimt’s package on the table in front of Malin. More Reichsmarks spilled over the table. ‘Count them,’ she told Malin.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ Malin was staring at the money.

  ‘You know where it came from. It came from the mare Valmy covered. It came from a French businessman. And you know why? Because the man wanted a favour from the Germans. The mare is in foal. The mare now belongs to Otto Abetz. And Otto Abetz is Berlin’s man in France.’

  ‘That’s collaboration.’ This from Agnès.

  ‘No it’s not, my child, it’s business.’ Hél
ène rounded on her. Billy couldn’t follow this conversation but he’d never seen her so angry. ‘You think this world we live in is simple? You think killing a couple of Germans outside some bar in Lille is going to solve all our problems? It didn’t, did it? They were still there next day. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. They were looking for you. And the moment they found you, they were going to take you somewhere very dark and make you cry for your mother and betray all those brave friends of yours and when they were done they were going to take you out and shoot you. A single bullet in the back of your pretty head. And that’s if you were lucky. So you ran. You ran and you ran. And in God’s good time you ended up with us. We were a place of safety. We looked after you. You’re still here. You’re still alive. And you know who you have to thank for that? Klimt. Yes, Klimt. My Klimt. The man who looks after me. The man who looks after all of us. And you want to guess what made that possible?’ She was looking at Malin now. ‘The fact that he was well placed. And the fact that he was a German.’

  ‘Our protector.’ Malin rolled his eyes. ‘A fucking German.’

  ‘You knew that, Malin. You’ve known it for years. You’ve taken advantage of it for years. Not because I told you but because you worked it out. Agnès has an excuse, Malin. She’s a child. You’re not. You know how the world works.’

  ‘This world.’

  ‘Of course. You want to try another? You want to see what happens when Klimt’s not around anymore? When there’s no one standing between us and a different kind of German? Be my guest. Because, like it or not, it’s about to happen.’

  The Spanish couple had been listening hard to Hélène’s outburst. The woman’s French wasn’t good. She whispered in her husband’s ear. He said something in Catalan and she looked horrified. Agnès ignored her. She still wanted to know why Billy was carrying German currency.

  Hélène said she didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more except getting away.

  ‘Getting away? You mean from here?’ Malin was staring up at Hélène. ‘Why would we want to do that?’

  ‘Because otherwise the Germans will come for us.’

  ‘And Klimt?’

  ‘There is no more Klimt. He did his best. And now he’s gone.’

  ‘They’ve killed him?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. All I know is that he’s in big trouble, the worst kind of trouble, and so are we. We’re lucky, mes enfants. We still have a choice. Stay here, and life will get extremely difficult. Leave, and there may be some kind of future.’

  ‘We do this thing now? You’re serious?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve bought a vehicle. It’s big enough for all of us. It used to be an ambulance. Maybe that’s what we deserve. Maybe that’s what we need. An ambulance.’ Hélène hadn’t finished. She reached down and pushed the pile of notes towards the old man. ‘Count the money, Malin. Nothing in this world comes cheap.’

  In all, including Billy’s contribution, they had just over 120,000 Reichsmarks. Hélène knew she’d been cheated over the deal with Otto Abetz’s mare but just now she didn’t care. By dawn, they had to be ready to leave. What they had to decide now was where they might go.

  Determined to share the decision, she went slowly round the table. An agreement on the destination might ease the days to come.

  ‘Agnès?’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You want to stay here?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘So where do we go?’

  She was chewing her fingernails again. The fact that Hélène had untied Billy seemed to have deflated her. She lived in a world of blacks and whites. The English spy should have been dead by now.

  ‘Well?’ Hélène still wanted an answer.

  ‘Anywhere. I don’t care.’

  Hélène moved on. Pablo said the Pyrenees. He named a pass he knew in the mountains. If they had to they could dump the ambulance and walk. The path led to Andorra, and then into Spain. There were people he knew on the other side. It would be hard going but this time of year there was no snow. At the mention of Spain, a flicker of a smile appeared on his wife’s face. When Hélène enquired how she felt, she nodded.

  ‘Si,’ she whispered. ‘España.’

  ‘Malin? You agree?’

  The old man had piled the notes into neat blocks. He’d never seen so much money in his life.

  ‘Why not Paris?’ he said. ‘We could lie low. We could buy anywhere we like.’

  ‘Paris is full of listening ears,’ Hélène pointed out. ‘Money attracts attention. And so would we.’

  It was true. She was tempted by Paris herself. Her apartment was still there, and maybe Klimt was, too, if he’d managed to keep his enemies at arm’s length. Had she been alone she’d have gone north without a moment’s hesitation. But she wasn’t alone. She had responsibility for these people. And she knew the moment had come when she had to put their safety above hers. Any other decision, and Agnès would be right. Collabo. Putain. Just another survivor keeping the skin on her back.

  ‘The south? The Pyrenees? Spain?’ She was still looking at Malin.

  ‘It’s a long way. The Germans are everywhere.’

  ‘I know. But it’s going to be the same wherever we go. The south is emptier. We keep to the country roads. We take food, water, bedding. Less than a week and we could be in the mountains. You think you could manage that? The mountains?’

  While this decision was being made, something had changed in Malin. The fire had gone out of him. He had an air of contrition. He was staring at the money. His voice was low. Hélène, he muttered, was the one with a head on her shoulders. She’d never let him down, not once. In his opinion she was woman enough to have any man and if her choice had fallen on Klimt then tant pis.

  He’d been angry, earlier. He admitted it. He hated the Germans and he hated what they were doing to France and if the English flier was part of all that then it was shameful. But Hélène was back now. The quarrel was over. This was her place, her property. She’d kept him safe for three years and he didn’t care to enquire how. Klimt was obviously part of it and without Klimt their door was wide open. At this point, he looked up. His eyes were shiny with tears. He fumbled for a handkerchief and blew his nose. If things were really that bad for Klimt, he growled, then he’d follow her anywhere.

  Malin seldom made speeches. Hélène thanked him for his support. She’d bring the ambulance round to the courtyard. Everyone was allowed a single bag. They’d empty the kitchen of provisions, take plenty of water and wine. A couple of saucepans, matches, all the candles they could find. The money would keep them supplied en route. Bread, milk, cheese and eggs from farmers deep in the country. Fuel wherever they could buy it. They’d live like gypsies and by the time they got to the mountains they’d be a couple of days away from freedom.

  She was about to fetch the ambulance when Malin raised a hand.

  ‘A favour, madame,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My clock, if you please.’

  ‘You want to take it with us?’

  ‘Of course. And it’s still on French time.’

  *

  The loading of the ambulance, to Hélène’s surprise, took less than an hour. The back of the vehicle was empty but Georges had used it to store sacks of wheat and oats and Agnès fetched a broom to sweep the floor clean. Malin stopped his precious long-case clock and disconnected the pendulum before Agnès and Billy carried it out of the house. Agnès, surprisingly strong, avoided Billy’s gaze as they manoeuvred it into the yard. Billy thought she might have put the earlier scene to one side but he couldn’t be sure. The clock was the size of a grown man. It was awkward and heavy and they laid it carefully on a couple of blankets Agnès had found for the back of the ambulance. The Spanish couple had disappeared upstairs and took no part in ferrying supplies out into the darkness.

  Box by box the back of the ambulance began to fill until Hélè
ne called a halt. In her judgement they had enough to get by for a couple of days before the Reichsmarks bought them fresh food. At this point, close to midnight, the Spanish couple reappeared. Pablo was carrying a single suitcase, very old, secured with a length of rope. He offered it to Malin, who stowed it next to the big jars of water. When they’d gone again, Hélène moved it closer to the front where it nestled beside the radio.

  ‘That’s exactly how they arrived,’ she was looking at the suitcase. ‘Three years ago.’

  It was nearly midnight. Exhausted, Hélène said she was going to bed. Billy accompanied Malin back to the kitchen. Of Agnès and the Spanish couple there was no sign.

  ‘You need a drink.’ The old man’s gaze had drifted to the carafe of red wine on the dresser. It was an order rather than an invitation.

  Billy fetched glasses and poured the wine. The evening had become surreal. He’d lost his place in the script and he had no idea what might happen next but his admiration for Hélène was unbounded. Not only had she probably saved his life but in her brisk, unsentimental way she appeared to have found a chink of light in the enveloping darkness.

  ‘To madame…’ Billy raised his glass in a toast.

  Malin didn’t move. His gnarled old hands lay knotted on the table top, skin and bone against the grain of the wood. Billy stared at them, knowing there was something missing in the house. Then he had it. The ticking of the clock.

  ‘You think it’ll work? Leaving?’

  ‘I have no idea, my friend. If anyone can make it work, she can.’ His head came up. ‘She could have left us. You know that? She could have left us all.’

  Billy nodded. The thought had occurred to him, too.

  ‘She’s brave,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You’re right. And she’s unusual, too. I knew her husband. He was the same. A fine couple. Unexpected. He was always laughing but he was steel inside. Madame? She doesn’t laugh so much. Not these days. But she’s maybe even stronger than him.’

  He talked about the ambulance. He’d seen it before, within weeks of Georges’ son bringing it back from the war.

  ‘Marc had a casualty on board, an older man no hospital would take. He’d been badly hurt, badly patched up. Everyone knew he was dying. It was just a question of time. Madame said she’d take him. Insisted. And so Marc drove him here in the ambulance. That man was in an even worse state than the ambulance. We carried him upstairs. Madame had prepared a bed. We stripped him bare and madame washed him and then dressed him in a pair of her husband’s pyjamas. Nathan loved the good things. The pyjamas were silk, blue and gold. She said it was like having her husband back in the house again. She fed him and nursed him and read him stories, like a child. He loved Stendahl most of all. We found a copy of the Le Rouge et le Noir. You know it? A fine book. A long book. A big book. We read to him all summer, taking it in turns. We were on the final chapter when the man died. He was lying there on the bed and it was madame who was reading and she just carried on until the end because we both wanted to find out what happened.’ He paused. ‘Julien Sorel? You know about him?’