Arbel went to Mass and the ritual survived German. Outside, the youth of Ludwigsdorf, “Der Jungenfrau”, marched and yelled insults at them all, especially the Ukrainians. The woman who ran the little bar Arbel drank in had lost her husband in the 14-18 war, two sons on the Russian front and her third in Africa. In the bar sat another peasant, a German peasant, and the two men recognised enough of each other to nod. The other men urged Arbel to the whore-house but he wouldn’t waste his money. Alcohol was a faithful Lover, never disappointed, always offered oblivion. No whore could compete.
At the mine his body adjusted to what he did and what he got. Some stole from the Germans and ate a little better and some sold it and made a little money from their country-men. Who were grateful for any break in the torpor of digging a mine by hand.
Ardelle’s first letter arrived after two months. He put it in his little pile of possessions. As she had when his had arrived. The work was the same hell. One day a wagon ran off the line and trapped Landes’ ankle. He was taken to the hospital in Gorlitz, the big town, and stayed there for two days. When he returned, clearly refreshed, other men immediately inflicted similar injuries on themselves and got taken to the hospital. That lasted a week. Then a doctor came every Wednesday, saw the injured, issued pills, but there were no more hospital rests. An Italian had his eye burnt out as a pocket of air in the flowery lime popped. He had to wait four days till the doctor came. Landes, as ‘Vertraussman’ hobbled to the director to complain.
“Weil wir Krig haben,” he was told. It’s the war.
Two Miliciens; one in Latronquiere, the other in Souceyrac, were isolated, accused and assassinated. Phillipe’s men re-gathered at the safe barn in the Black woods and shook hands. They had acted. They had begun. On!
Spring.
Simone lay in bed and behind their thin wall still the man waited. Was he waiting for her? Yes. Was she waiting for him? No, because he won’t come. It’s my wait. I’m waiting. For what?
Would it be vile? Not possible. Would she get pregnant? Possible.
What change would it make? He couldn’t love me more. It couldn’t change this life for the worse. Then why not? Why wait? When tomorrow might not exist.
Yes.
Now?
Yes.
She swung out of her bed and groped in the black to her door, opened it, found the handle to his, turned it and pushed it open. His hard breathing.
Fine. That’s correct. You can’t decide, Simone. Not if it’s not shared.
But the shadow of her action joined the hug and that kiss in the air of their house. Next day they rose and worked and ate and waited for children and none came and the faint spring evening light lingered in the window and the fire twinkled.
She had a book but he sat with his cigarette and said, “You’re not reading.”
“No, I was thinking.”
“Ahh.” He smoked.
‘Ask me what,’ she thought. I want him to recognise this moment. She looked up at him and he did. He had.
He stared. She looked.
He dropped the cigarette into the grey. She lay the book on the floor.
They stood.
In her bed he lay trembling as he listened to her peel off the vest and come towards his heat. He heard and felt the sheet lift. Now her hand was touching his chest and their naked legs were touching. He shook uncontrollably. He took great breaths to calm himself. She lay her head on his chest and his hand touched her back and he grew huge and they lay for a time like that. The hairs on his chest sensed the shape of her breasts, her thighs sensed his heat and moved nearer him. Their hands moved. New. All new. Slowly down his ribs. The bones of her spine. His tight torso. His hand dared lay on her arse. Now. To his balls to hold her breasts as she slid her knee across him and they kissed, they kissed while she placed him in the mouth of her and they were together together together together riding one horse one train one him one her one kiss one sex deeper and deeper into each other till she broke away from his mouth and knelt up and took his hands to her breasts. “What?”
“Milk me, Jacques.”
He teased the breasts forward to her nipples, through his fingers as their bodies crashed into each other –the bed the world the noises as animal as they were animal, one moment in eternity one memory one one one one act of love.
He gasped, astonished, gasped. Gasped.
Gasping.
Tears filled his darkness.
Simone squeezed the him inside her. Locked at the waist they folded together to lie in their beautiful shock. They heard the dog at the door. As their silence grew so did his.
Simone lay on his chest listening to their hearts slowing. And a trickle of her sweat fell luscious into his mouth.
The dog woke them desperate.
The sun two hours past milking. They looked at each other wedded in sweat and sleep and sex.
The night Mussolini fell he walked with her wrapped over and round him naked to the door and stood on the stairs to let the night kiss them. It did.
They farmed and milked and stored and took children to escape and fed the men of the Maquis and Ardelle and summer came in a blaze and one midnight they made love on the grass behind the tomatoes and she knew she was pregnant.
8
The allies, dragging the Communist-fearing Roosevelt with them, finally recognised De Gaulle’s government in exile. The Italians surrendered and the Germans hastened to secure Rome. Laval could see his execution squad ahead and tightened his bond with Hitler. De Gaulle mounted a putsch against his old comrade Giraud, and ousted him. The R.A.F. dropped The Resistance the weapons Churchill judged his Home Guard no longer needed. They dropped money and of course it corrupted. They dropped agents, too. A Scot, in his kilt, joined a Maquis group near Capdenac and Marco’s group in Cahors assimilated an Englishman. A Tommy. His skill was radio and he made them out of anything, it seemed –biscuit tins, old telephones, dead car parts –but they worked and were distributed, bringing the Liberating Army slowly together. Phillipe’s group joined a group from Assier, disconnected a truck from a goods train at Figeac, stole the rice, drove it to Lacapelle and distributed it.
This new war was the sharing of every match, every razor-blade, every cup of water; the endless recruiting, the lists of where food and shelter were available, where traitors lived and lurked – the manna of Information. And raids and executions of known collaborators and Milice. Laval called them “terrorists”; and De Gaulle on their radios promised them that they, and only they –the Resistors, the True French – could re-build the New France. And that a New World was coming to the survivors. For now – a purge. And then – a New France –pur et dur.
Now came rumours the Italians were fighting the Germans! And the retreating Hun executed eighty Italian Policemen and twenty civilians for the death of a single German soldier. Bad Losers was the message and it was heard loud and clear across occupied Europe.
Arbel received one of Ardelle’s precious letters every two months. Telling him to live. He lived. The work ground on, weakening the men’s lungs. The shifts extended by an hour. Lunch became three-quarters of an hour. Sundays he went to Mass and he began to hear the priest’s sermon speak of the fraternity between men of all races, all religions. That was the first Arbel had heard of such a concept for four years. Lothar, the peasant he drank and spoke pidgin German with, like a few of the older Germans, treated him with the respect due an equal. It was the marching, screeching uniformed youth, infected with The Party, who were truly chilling. Lothar told him tales of children ratting on their own grandparents.
Zoe was eight months old when she woke one night to find her father in her mother’s bed, making her a sibling.
Duthileul thought about sending money to the Maquis, decided not yet; but appeared one night so he and Dominique were seen to help at a parachute drop at Labastide Haut Mont.
Jacques looked up from his plough as Chayriguet drove into Puech. Duthileul’s mother? Ardelle? Find out at lunch.
When Simone told him the world span.
Time took a picture of her, standing with one hand on the table and painted it as deep as Janatou’s paradise into the soul of Jacques Vermande.
“Are you happy? Are you sure? To have it? Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh God. Oh God.”
“I thought you might be pleased.”
Roaring laughter and joy swept through him and he burst across the space between them to take her in his arms and froze a pace from her knowing he’d crush her and their child.
She took his hand and said, “We’ve done it now Jacques.”
He felt his whole life behind him and everything, everything had been leading only to this.
“When?”
“April –May.”
“I can’t speak.”
“It does that –doesn’t it?” She reached for their bowls.
“I’ll do that.”
“Cut the bread?”
“I’ll do that.”
They sat and ate. She watched the heaven in him.
“Why has this happened? Why – when others die? I can’t...”
“We may all die – who knows? I don’t. You don’t. You’re a good man and we live in insanity. And now we’ve joined in!”
She laughed and he said, “Does this mean we get married?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I don’t care, Simone.”
“Can we think about that later?”
“Oh, yes.”
Phillipe’s group, the ten, were eating when a voice called through the quiet dark, close.
“Milice. You are surrounded. Completely.” It was over, then. So briefly.
“Give yourselves up. You have thirty seconds,” the voice intoned. “One...”
Phillipe said, surprisingly loud, “Load the bazooka and the stens.”
“Already loaded.” Bernadie called, quickest to re-act.
“Ten seconds to leave, or be destroyed,” Phillipe called, calm. Silence.
“Nine,” said Phillipe. Some motion. “Five...”
A scramble. A rout. Men galloping back the way they had come. As Serge stood, laughing, Phillipe hissed, “Tomorrow at Black Woods. This camp is done.”
He called, “One!” fired a single precious bullet into the night, and they ran.
Jacques started to do Everything and she stopped him saying, “later” –and later, to his astonishment, they made love and it was possible. More Love. He overwhelmed God with thankfulness, as Ardelle did with her dread. And she privately withheld her judgement on God’s mercy till Arbel be delivered home; while her neighbour walked in living proof of His wonder.
Too old for war, Galtier, Valet, Jauliac and Grivault grumbled round the dead bar. Duthileul distanced himself a centimetre more. Sara, pregnant, toiled with Zoe on her back, weeding, sowing, watering. Soon she’d walk. Soon, please. This baby hurt. Chayriguet doctored and Chibret cursed his foolish ambition that six years ago he’d wanted so much to be Mayor he’d walked his wife and her stupid poodle right round the village the Sunday of the Vote. Now no-one much saw his wife, the damned dog was dead and his life was paper. From the Prefect, the canton, the Germans and this damned bloody endless war they were now losing.
“Are we in love?” Jacques turned from his cooking.
“Why?”
“I wanted to know.”
“Don’t you know what you feel?”
“I want to know what you feel.”
“About you? Blessed.”
She was cutting bread when, “It moved. It moved!”
The next child on its way to Spain and survival was six, and Jacques and Simone watched him eat, put him in the mother’s bed, and wanted to keep him by the time Madame Lacaze came and the women took him on. Madame Lacaze noticed a change in the girl, and, like always, said nothing.
Jerome introduced Jacques to Phillipe, while his men dug up the guns.
“Thank you.”
“It’s not enough.”
“You could join us,” said Jerome.
“She’s pregnant. Simone.” Stupidly he pointed to her, sitting there with them.
“Congratulations,” said Phillipe, “you look thrilled.”
“I am. Thank you. But I can’t fight. My place in this is here.”
“You’re right – and we’re grateful.”
Phillipe left them in the kitchen.
“Vermande! What a father you’ll make!” Jerome enveloped them both in his arms. “Better than me.”
“She’ll know. Zoe – she’ll know you. I’ll tell her.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Well then – I’ll tell her the truth.”
“What sort of a friend is that?”
“An old one,” said Simone. “Wine?”
“Wine? Yes!”
They sat, Simone and Jacques on Arbel’s bench, Jerome opposite, shaking his head at them, laughing and wishing Sara was there. “Not long now, you can feel it. You know Badoglio’s ordered The Italians to fight the Kraut?”
“Who’s he?”
“New Italian Premier.”
Jacques asked, “Won’t Hitler surrender?”
“Never. He’s mad. Infected with Hate.”
“Aren’t you, too?” Simone asked gently.
“Yes. I have to be. I don’t know how else to do it.” He drained the glass.
“Sara lost the baby. The brother.”
“Jerome – no – “
“It was a boy...”
“I’m so sorry, Jerome.” There was a silence.
“Sara?”
“She’s Sara,” said Jerome. “I want to live to be a proper father. Here’s to you three.”
He smiled at them.
Arbel dug. Went to Mass. Drank. Played cards with Lothar. Amazed himself with his German. Went back to his bed, slept, woke, dug, ate the thinning rations at lunch and tea-time, played cards with his comrades, slept, woke, dug, ate, worked, ate, slept, woke... He lost Time. He had no need of it.
The September Moon came and Jacques must go to Janatou before the next. He hitched the cart and cow, prepared food, string, scythe, knife and then asked for his wish.
“Will you come?”
“Where?”
“To my paradise.”
Something in his smile alarmed her.
“Don’t make a saint out of me, Vermande. That’s not real.”
“You won’t come?”
A dark cloud. This man-boy, this soul, I will hurt him so bad one day. But, I promised myself a year ago that I would go. She looked at him and said, “You go. I’ll see paradise when all this is over.”
When he left she asked the room, “Why didn’t you go? I don’t get you.”
He passed Sara.
Bending as she had since he was thirteen and had first passed her. Only now a daughter sat behind her, chewing at an apple. “Janatou?”
“Yes.”
“Pff.”
“I should have come to say sorry.”
“I should have come to say congratulations.”
At Poutiac the same old one came to his steps, watched him past, went back inside. Jacques turned the beast at the letter-boxes and led them down into the dry copse. He went to the bottom corner of the field with the scythe and the string. He worked. The cow ate. At lunch he filled a bottle with spring water and sat. This view, this day, September ‘43.
“I love this place, and I love you, Simone.”
When they sat together that evening at Puech he said it again.
“I know. I see. I can feel.”
“And marriage?”
“I don’t want to, Jacques...”
She waited for his face to fall and ask, ‘Why not?’ and she should have known better for his face never faltered; he simply took her hand and said, “Fine.”
“But…”
“Fuck what is thought, Simone. If God can’t see us here, He’s blind.”
There was another call for the
S.T.O. Jacques hid in the birch copse, pointlessly, since he was officially in Germany already and Herrisson looked at Simone, saw the bloom on her, thought, “Well, it’s not me,” and went away and filled in his papers and Chibret stamped them and The Prefect passed them to the German Commandant in Cahors.
Once the meagre harvest was in and stored, or hidden, their needs and priorities changed. Jacques made a tiny cot for their child, Ardelle knitted boots and sleep-suits; Simone bought rough towelling for nappies, Zoe’s old clothes arrived with Sara and a carrying basket, a bottle, a rattle and they assembled for their future as Autumn rushed by and Winter approached.
The German battalions in Cahors, in Aurillac, in Figeac, all over Europe and home in their Fatherland pulled their winter coats and belts tighter and their Fuhrer watched “Gone With The Wind” with his mistress. Christmas 1943.
In Ludwigsdorf Arbel was made ‘Vertraussman’. Landes’ ankle hadn’t healed and he was sent to lighter work. Arbel was given a stamped paper to prove his exalted status. At his pleading one Frenchman, an epileptic, was sent home. Another with kidney failure and collapsing poisoned lungs. He didn’t make it. As Christmas came The Director called Arbel to see him, presented him with an accordion for the men, gave Arbel and Claude an hour off work on Christmas Eve to erect a huge Christmas tree in the canteen building and on Christmas Day the officers and men of the factory sang German Victory songs at their assembled prisoners. Then gave them all ten Marks and twenty cigarettes each and said they could start next morning at 7.30. That night none of them could coax anything but painful discordant wheezing from the accordion. But two men had stolen three chickens from a nearby farm, so there was something to mark The Saviour’s Birth.
On Christmas Day they went to Mass. Their first time since Zoe’s christening, since the S.T.O. The congregation gasped at her bare-faced blooming. To bring their bastard into God’s house and to take communion and no talk of a wedding, it stretched Christianity to breaking-point. Madame Cantagrel snarled as Curé Phillipe shook their hands and waited for them to ask him to come to discuss and announce the banns, but they did neither. The village was filling with fear and dread. The Rumour was the New Year must bring the Allied invasion, and that re-assured no one. France was to be invaded, again. At best it would mean The Hun would retreat. At worst they would come here, pass through. The war would come up their hills. They prayed, gratefully distracted by Simone and her stomach. Jacques felt the fear though. And began to think.
The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama Page 14
