Chapter 3
April 1968
One day on an impulse, Ari decided to try and find the Gaillard’s who had taken his family into their warm circle during the war. He hired a car and drove out into the country on a cool spring morning, one not unlike the last time he had come out this way beyond St Germaine en Laye. As he sped through the countryside, he was grateful it hadn’t altered too much with the passing years. He found his way with scarcely a moment’s hesitation and when he parked the car at the familiar gate he was amazed to realise how close to Paris it really was. In his memory they had cycled for hundreds of kilometres on those Sunday morning expeditions.
He sat in the car for a while, vividly remembering the last time he had stood by that gateway, when Madame Gaillard had warned them that something was wrong at Dieu Donné and how sad he had been when they never cycled out that way again.
He opened the gate and walked up the slight rise towards the house. The crunch of the gravel was the only sound breaking the silence of the gentle day.
Around him the land appeared well-cultivated and there were cows out in the fields. The round tower of the brick dovecote a distance away from the house was almost obscured by a flurry of white pigeons, just as he remembered it.
As he walked into the courtyard he was glad to see that the weather-beaten old building, with its many chimneys and rough stone walls, looked well kept. A woman was leaning over the bottom section of the door. He felt a lurch of déjà vu, remembering the first time they’d come to the farm, when two large dogs had come barking at them and were called to heel by a woman at the door. This time there was only one small Jack Russell terrier, that came yapping to meet him and when the woman called the dog obediently returned to her. She came out to greet him and Ari returned to the present with a jolt. She was middle-aged and dressed simply, with a snowy apron over her black dress. She was not Madame Gaillard senior, nor yet an older Adelina. She had thin blond hair scraped back into a small bun at her nape and was very plump. When she smiled her green eyes disappeared into little half-moons over her round pink cheeks.
‘Bonjour monsieur, are you lost? Can I help?’
‘I am looking for the Gaillard family. They lived here during the war.’
‘Well, you have come to the right place, M’sieur, but M’sieur Michel is away from home at the moment. I am Charlotte and my husband is Georges. We look after the place for M. Michel.’
‘Michel lives here still?’ Relief swept over Ari. ‘That is wonderful. One scarcely expects anything in the world to be the same anymore. I knew him when he was a small boy during the war. We used to cycle here from the city with my father.’
‘Oh yes? I lived around here too, in the village. My mother worked for the family then, but things were very different, after M. Michel’s father was killed.
‘Please come in. My husband will be in soon from the fields. M. Michel would be disappointed if I left an old friend standing outside.’ He followed her in to the familiar, cavernous kitchen.
She wanted to take him through to the parlour, but he protested that the kitchen would be very comfortable. The whole place had an air of being well scrubbed and polished. She indicated that he should sit in an armchair by the huge old-fashioned range while she bustled about with coffee cups. Soon they could hear the rumble and clatter of a tractor entering the yard and Charlotte raised her voice to be heard above the noise.
‘M. Michel is often away. He comes home now and again to have a break.’
‘Where does he usually live?’
‘He prefers his apartment in Paris.’ Suddenly the racket stopped and she was still yelling. She rolled her eyes and spoke normally. ‘It makes more sense as he is close to his work. And then he is very often in Venice. He inherited a house there from his mother’s family.’
Just then they heard the sound of footsteps, a shadow fell on the threshold and Charlotte looked around with a smile. A typical country sort stood in the doorway. With a craggy face and faded grey eyes, he was probably younger than he looked. Ari rose to greet the new-comer.
‘Georges, this is Monsieur . . .’
‘Mayer, Aristide Mayer.’
‘Monsieur Mayer knew M. Michel during the war,’ said Charlotte by way of explanation.
‘We, that is, my brother Matthieu and I, used to play with him when we came to visit with my father. Mind you, he may not remember at all. He was much younger than us. We called ourselves Benoit in those days. I remember running wild over the fields, and playing hide and seek upstairs as we chased each other through the rooms and passages. It was a wonderful place for children . . .’ Ari’s voice trailed off as he heard himself rambling on, and realised he felt a bit awkward in the presence of this gruff farmer.
Georges merely nodded, taking off his cap as he came in. He seemed to take Ari’s measure, then mumbled something and put out his hand. Ari shook it vigorously and they sat down at the long scrubbed wooden table. The coffee was poured and they all three tucked into great slices of fresh farm bread and cheese. There was silence for a while as they enjoyed this simple meal.
‘What was it like here during the war? What happened to the family? My father often spoke about them and was afraid that they were in grave danger. The last time we came out here, Madame Agathe sent us away saying there were problems up at the farm. We never came back and I always wondered . . .’
Husband and wife looked at each other for a long moment. Then Charlotte spoke, ‘Those were bad days, Monsieur, one learned to be cautious. And after M. Gaillard died in the early spring of ‘42 and the saboteurs moved in, we were almost as afraid of some of them as we were of the Germans.’
‘That must have been around the time we stopped coming out here. I am so sorry to hear that. How did it happen?’
‘It was the Germans who killed him, or so the men said when they brought his body back. They said it was an ambush although Madame never believed that. To her dying day she blamed those ruffians . . .’
‘And what happened to the women? Madame Gaillard and Adelina?’ Aristide realised that he was gossiping with the servants but he was curious now that he had made the connection with the family again. Once more, there was a look between husband and wife.
‘I was very young at the time, you understand Monsieur, and so was Georges who also grew up in the village. It was years later that my mother told me that when those coquins, those scoundrels, moved in, one of them, Jacques was his name as I recall, took Madame Adelina as his woman. Eventually she fell pregnant and had a child by this man. At the end of the war there was a lot of bad feeling and there was very little tolerance. The man disappeared one night, blown up in an ambush it was said; some believed that he had been a Nazi sympathiser and so they came here one day and shot Madame Adelina because they claimed she had collaborated with the Germans. They buried her in her husband’s grave up there near the dovecote. After that the old Madame looked after Michel and the baby. My mother helped her.’
‘And Madame Agathe?’
‘She had an accident and broke her neck falling down the stairs. That was about 15 years after the war.’ Charlotte stood up abruptly and stirred the fire.
‘I am very sorry to hear that. She was a good woman.’ The room fell silent.
‘Can you remember this man Jacques . . . who . . . euh . . . led the maquis here after Gaillard died? You said it was believed he died in an ambush . . . what happened, can you remember?’
Charlotte seemed not to have heard him and he drained the last of his coffee and stood up. He was shaken and saddened to hear that Mme. Agathe’s prediction in the letter she had given his father had come true in the worst possible way. The illegitimate child and the fact that the gracious, gentle Adelina had died violently for something he was sure she could never have done, was grievous news. She had been so kind to him when he missed his own mother and he knew that Rémy had actively opposed the Nazis.
‘Would Monsieur not like some more coffee?’ She obviously didn’t want to tal
k anymore.
‘No. Thank you for your kindness, but I must be getting back.’
Ari was upset by this stark tale. He wanted to know more, but he suspected that he had already overstepped the bounds of politeness. Georges grunted without rising as Ari greeted him and Charlotte escorted him down the drive to his car.
‘I’m sorry, but I did not want to speak in front of Georges.’ Ari looked sharply at the woman at his side. In a soft voice she continued, ‘It was his father’s family that killed poor, beautiful Madame Adelina. It is something we are not proud of. We don’t ever discuss it but he won’t mind if I tell you. It is just a bit painful to be reminded of it. Monsieur Michel has told him many times that it is not the fault of the children what their parents do.’
‘Can you remember details about that ambush at all? How did they know it was Jacques?’
‘Well, the car exploded on the track down to the river and everyone believed it was caused by Germans. There were lots of them in the village still. My mother said there was nothing left of the two occupants. Jacques always drove that Citroën. So although they couldn’t recognise the corpses, one of them must have been him. There were four men still living here before this, I believe, but the other two disappeared too, along with a moto that they used as well. So maybe his men turned on him in the end and killed him, who knows. I would not have been the first time that happened.’ Ari could only look down speechlessly at the earnest, pink face in front of him. What could he say to this revelation? He murmured his thanks and bowed slightly as he slid into the car.
‘I will tell M. Michel that you came.’
As he drove away he could see the ample figure in his rear-view mirror, still waving as she disappeared from his sight. He was very thoughtful during the drive home. The war had destroyed so many lives, not just his own. The fear and distrust that had been engendered between neighbours and families had been as destructive as the fighting had been. He was deeply moved by the story he had heard. Maybe it is time to leave the past to sleep, he thought idly while he negotiated the increasing traffic as he entered the city limits. That seemed to be that. Anyway, he reasoned, the real enemy had been Hitler and he was dead. He had done his duty to his father and there was nothing more that he could do to find the man. When he got home he put his father’s leather pouch in his safe along with his dossier and put it out of his mind.
He realised that he should have left a contact number or asked for Michel’s address in Paris. No matter, perhaps he could look it up in the telephone directory one day when he had time. He tied a knot in his handkerchief to remind himself to do that, but his work load increased as the term came to an end and soon he had forgotten all about it.