He hesitated for a moment, then, with the glass bottle tapping against his hip, Arinius continued on the Roman road towards the green valleys of Couzanium.
‡
Chapter 51
CARCASSONNE
AUGUST 1942
Sandrine stood with her arms resting on the open window of the second-class carriage. She was wearing one of Marianne’s travelling outfits, a green jacket and pleated skirt. With her black curly hair pinned and set back off her face, she looked older. She felt older.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Marianne said.
Sandrine patted her pocket, checking again that she had all the tickets and papers, then looked back to the knot of women standing on the platform waiting to see them off. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her gaze returning to the far end of the platform, where three weeks ago she had witnessed the police herding prisoners like animals on to the train. Max among them, though she’d not realised in time to be able to do anything to help him. Suzanne had been unable to find out where he had been sent or why he had been arrested. César Sanchez and Antoine Déjean were also both still missing. No one had heard anything, no gossip, no rumours. And because they didn’t know why Max had been arrested, they had kept Liesl out of sight, in case the police came for her too.
Every knock at the door had put Sandrine’s nerves on edge. And every morning since Raoul had left, she checked the mat the instant she heard the sharp metal click of the letter box. For a letter, a postcard, anything. She knew he wouldn’t write, he couldn’t risk writing, but hope was stronger than common sense. She had kept busy. At first she tried to identify the words she’d heard at the river, the words that had so frightened Marieta, but that had led nowhere. The municipal library was shut for the summer – in any case, many books that could have been useful had disappeared from the shelves – and Marieta refused to discuss it. The only indication the conversation had ever happened was the fact that Marieta, too, checked for a letter every morning. Sandrine had even visited the cathedral in the hope of speaking to Abbé Gau, but he was nowhere to be found. As July had tipped into August, the days seemed to drag. It had been an uneasy, unnerving few weeks, and Sandrine longed to be gone from Carcassonne.
Even though it was late morning, the station was as quiet as a Sunday night. The lingering consequences of the Bastille Day demonstration and the fierce August heat kept everyone indoors. There were still large numbers of police d’occasion on the streets, and regular checks and roadblocks. And although the broadcasts from London gave news of Nazi setbacks, there had been a flurry of rumours that Hitler was preparing a new offensive. Against whom, no one was certain, but the bobards were widespread and the atmosphere in Carcassonne brittle.
‘I wish you were coming with us,’ Sandrine said, suddenly reluctant to leave now the moment had come.
Marianne smiled. ‘You’ll be fine. Telephone from Couiza to let me know you’ve arrived safely.’
‘I will,’ she said.
The guard’s whistle shrilled. Sandrine blew her sister a kiss, waved to Suzanne and Lucie, then ducked back inside the carriage as the train began to move off.
‘That’s that, then,’ she said.
Liesl sat reading and cradling her precious camera on her lap. Marieta claimed the opposite seat, looking rather grey and breathless. Her hair was neat beneath a black felt hat. She had dressed her light grey summer coat with a spray of red glass beads at the lapel. Her sturdy feet were planted firmly on the floor, outdoor shoes rather than her customary wooden clogs, and she was darning a pair of socks that would not be needed until winter. The strand of grey wool swished and flicked like a kitten’s tail as the thick needle went in and out of the heel.
Sandrine set her eyes on the landscape outside the window, yellow and brown and green, and tried to ignore the fluttering of expectation in the pit of her stomach. She leant her head against the glass. The train rattled its lulling song along the metal tracks, at first running parallel to the river. Beyond the smeared carriage window she caught glimpses of Maquens, Leuc, Verzeille, Roullens. Familiar names, but places she had never visited.
In September, the fields would be alive with farm workers and labourers, children as young as eight or nine helping their parents to bring in the harvest. Wheat and barley in the plains, vines for as far as the eye could see. The air would bristle with tension and expectation as the vendanges tiptoed closer, closer, everyone waiting for the moment when the wine harvest began. Now, the fields were mostly deserted. From time to time, a man in corduroy trousers and checked shirt pushing a bike along a straight, featureless country road. Pairs of women in wide-brimmed straw hats with baskets, making the long walk from the omnibus to farms in the folds of the countryside. In small market gardens beside the line, goats and chickens grazing, scratching. Fields of yellow sunflowers, their faces tilted to the sun. A wooden cart and a white delivery truck, the unchanging pace of the countryside, war or no war.
In the zone occupée, Sandrine knew, soldiers patrolled the trains, particularly those passing close to the demarcation line. At least things here were not that bad.
Not yet. Not quite.
The train stuttered to a halt.
‘Limoux. Limoux. Cinq minutes d’arrêt.’
Marieta’s eyes fluttered half open, woken by the station master’s announcement, then shut again.
‘Do you want to get out and stretch your legs, Liesl?’ Sandrine asked.
The girl shook her head. She seemed composed and her features were calm, but Sandrine knew better. She tried not to pry.
Sandrine stepped down to the platform, looking at the colourful summer dresses and two-pieces, the headscarves and shallow-brimmed straw hats with bright ribbons. All along the platform doors opened, were propped back, then slammed shut. Leave-takings and greetings, the songs of summer.
The guard blew the whistle, Sandrine climbed back in and they were off once more, the train climbing higher, slower, into the hills, the first view of the mountains. The air changed. Even Liesl stopped reading and was looking out of the window.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise.’
As the train pulled out of Alet-les-Bains, Sandrine felt the familiar tug at her heart. They left behind the sunflowers and began the steady climb into the Haute Vallée. The solid grey stone of the railway bridges over which the train jerked, hauled, heaved its carriages. The countryside became steeper, less forgiving. Birch trees and beech, holm oak and hazel. Through the open window slipped the remembered scent of cedar and laurel, the damp air of the deep woods.
The train emerged from the green shadow of the wooded banks of the crystal river, blinking into the light. Sandrine caught her first glimpse of the limestone hills and jagged crests, rock and fir trees on the plateau of the Salz, and the sharp ridges of the foothills of the Pyrenees beyond.
She thought of the times in the past when she had done this same journey to and from Carcassonne, looking out over these fields and skies and rivers, almost sensing the ghosts of fellow travellers heading south into the Corbières. The bustle of the railways, the antique hiss of engine and whistle.
The whispering of generations past.
Chapter 52
TARASCON
Audric Baillard entered Tarascon by way of the Avenue de Foix. Ahead of him, the Tour du Castella sat perched high on its hill, calling the weary traveller home as it had for more than a century and a half.
In the distance, beyond the town, the Pic de Vicdessos. It dominated the valley, the town, the rivers and the woods, a reminder that this was an ancient landscape that had survived without mankind for many hundreds of thousands of years. Timeless, impervious to the follies of men.
Baillard was heading for the Grand Café Oliverot, opposite the bureau de poste, which had occupied the same site on the right bank of the river Ariège since the turn of the century. Indeed, he had been one of its first customers. It was a favourite haunt of Achille Pujol’s in the old days.
&
nbsp; Audric was fond of Tarascon, with its cobbled streets and quiet acceptance of its place in the world. There was a suggestion of old values and time unchanging for generations, which chimed harmoniously with Baillard’s view of the world. If anything, the little mountain town seemed more prosperous, more confident than last time he had visited. The Grand Hôtel de la Poste looked freshly painted. Some, at least, of its rooms might be occupied. He frowned, wondering what that signified. German visitors? Guests of Vichy? He hoped not.
Baillard turned the corner and straight away saw his old friend sitting at his usual spot at the end of the terrace, overlooking the river Ariège and the Pont Vieux. He looked a little heavier and was grey now, but it was the same grizzled profile, the high forehead and tufts of hair that wouldn’t lie flat.
He walked over to the table. ‘Bonjorn, Achille,’ he said.
Pujol frowned at the interruption, then broke into a wide smile. ‘Audric Baillard, I’ll be damned. You got my letter, then?’
Audric nodded. ‘How go things with you, amic?’
‘Could be worse,’ Pujol said, gesturing with his hand. ‘Then again, could be better.’ He reached over and dragged a chair across from the adjacent table. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘Your letter said it was urgent,’ said Baillard, sitting down. He put his hat on the table. ‘Qu’es aquò?’ What is it?
‘Antoine Déjean,’ Pujol said. ‘Do you know him?’
Baillard became still. ‘What have you heard?’
He listened without interrupting as Pujol gave a clear and concise précis of his conversation with Pierre and Célestine.
‘But in over three weeks, nothing,’ Pujol finished. ‘Boy seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. No one knows anything.’
Baillard frowned. ‘And Sénher Déjean said the man looking for Antoine was German?’
Pujol nodded. ‘Time was, Audric, do you remember, when we couldn’t move for Germans down this way. All those expeditions grubbing about, the spring and early summer of 1939.’
‘I do.’
‘There was also that odd lot – the Polaires, they called themselves – claiming to be after evidence of some kind of ancient super race or something. And that French expedition from Chartres, funded by . . .’ He clicked his fingers. ‘What was the man’s name?’
‘François Cécil-Baptiste de l’Oradore.’
‘That’s it. Quite a memory you’ve got.’
Baillard’s eyes darkened. ‘I had some association with the family in the past,’ he said. ‘Though they went by a different name in those days.’
‘De l’Oradore lodged a complaint about the Germans, must have been July 1939, maybe August. Ironic that, now, when you come to think about it. Claimed they were after the Cathar treasure, would you believe it?’
Baillard looked at him, but said nothing.
‘The point is, when Pierre’s neighbour saw Antoine in Carcassonne, she reported the first thing he said, when he heard there had been someone asking after him, was – and I’m quoting here – was he “an old man in a pale suit”?’ He paused. ‘I assumed he was referring to you, Audric. I hoped you might know something.’
Baillard nodded. ‘Antoine was working for me, Achille. He was supposed to leave a package for me in Rennes-les-Bains, but it didn’t arrive. He didn’t arrive.’
‘Oh.’
‘And no word.’
‘What was in this package?’
‘A map.’
‘Of what?’
‘The hiding place of something of enormous importance,’ he replied. ‘Something that might – could – change the course of the war.’
Pujol’s eyebrows shot up, but something in the tenor of Baillard’s voice dissuaded him from asking anything else. He took another mouthful of beer.
‘Do you remember Otto Rahn, Achille?’ Baillard said quietly.
‘I heard he did for himself. Sleeping pills, wasn’t it?’
‘Possibly.’
Pujol’s gaze sharpened. ‘It’s like that, is it?’
‘Benlèu,’ Baillard said. Perhaps.
Pujol took another gulp of beer. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised, a very nervy chap. They were always hanging about together, Rahn and Déjean, thick as thieves the pair of them. Poking about in the caves without any kind of permission, looking for God knows what. Lombrives, Niaux, further over to Lavelanet and Montférrier, all the way up to Montségur. Spouting all sorts of nonsense, calling each other by odd names.’
‘Gottesfreunde,’ said Baillard. ‘The German equivalent of bons homes. What people are now inclined to call Cathars. Rahn put his thoughts down in two rather peculiar books, The Crusade Against the Grail being one. Later, he wrote about the time he spent in Montségur, though he doesn’t mention Antoine by name. It was published in 1936, the same year Rahn was accepted into the SS.’
‘Yes, I heard they got their hooks into him.’
‘Rahn was a naïve young man, easily influenced. He was flattered to be taken seriously. He did not realise what they wanted from him.’
‘Are you telling me all that back then is tied up with Antoine’s disappearance now?’
‘Yes.’
Pujol looked hard at him, his eyes sharp. For a moment, Baillard got a glimpse of the high-ranking police detective he once had been. Astute, principled and determined.
Pujol stood up and threw a note down on the table. ‘I have a bottle of wine at home. We can continue our conversation there. What do you say?’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Get back before the storm hits.’
‘I think it is still some way off,’ Baillard said, ‘but yes. This is a conversation we should have in private.’
Chapter 53
COUIZA
With mixed feelings, Sandrine opened the carriage door and stepped down on to the platform. She felt as if she might see her old self, the girl she had been three summers before, waiting to meet her. Long socks, her hair in plaits still. Her father in his light summer suit and Marianne, fresh from her first term of teaching, their cases piled high for a month of swimming and playing cards and lazy, long summer days and nights.
‘Can you help me with the bags, Liesl?’
Marieta was gathering her things. Sandrine smiled. She, at least, never changed. Then Sandrine saw another familiar face. Ernest, the station master, waving and pushing a rattling luggage trolley fast along the empty platform to greet them. His uniform strained across his broad chest. His black handlebar moustache seemed more impressive.
‘Madomaisèla Sandrine, a pleasure to see you. We got your message saying you were on your way.’ He stood back. ‘And look at you! So tall.’
‘Thank you.’
His face grew solemn. ‘May I say, we were all very sad to hear of your father’s death. He was a fine man.’
She accepted his condolences with a quiet smile. ‘He was.’
‘Will Madomaisèla Marianne be joining you?’
‘Not for the time being.’ Then, aware of a flutter of nerves in her stomach, she turned to Liesl. ‘But this is a cousin of ours, from Paris. In case anyone asks.’
Ernest peered over the top of his spectacles. Sandrine hated lying to him, but over the past couple of weeks it had become clear how precarious Liesl’s situation was. They still had no idea where Max had been taken, and rumours were circulating, terrible stories, unbelievable, that even children were now being arrested in Paris with their parents and sent to camps. Even with the oldest of friends, they could take no risk.
Ernest held her gaze for a long moment, then tipped his hat to Liesl.
‘Nice to meet you, Mademoiselle Vidal.’
Sandrine gave a sigh of relief. It was the first hurdle. If he was prepared to collude with the pretence, then she hoped their neighbours would do the same.
Liesl smiled. ‘Oh, it’s not . . .’ She turned pale, stopped, remembered what she was supposed to say. ‘It’s a pleasure to be here, monsieur. And please, call me Liesl.’
Marieta finally d
escended from the carriage.
‘Bonjorn!’ Ernest cried, lapsing immediately into Occitan. ‘Benvenguda.’ He held out his hand to help her down the steps.
‘Bonjorn,’ she replied, then prodded his corpulent stomach with her finger. ‘I see rationing agrees with you.’
Ernest roared with laughter, and even Liesl smiled. Sandrine felt the knot of tension below her ribs loosen a little more as she listened to the two old friends exchanging news.
‘Will you be staying long, Madomaisèla Sandrine?’ Ernest asked, piling the cases on to the trolley.
‘A week or so at least. Marieta and Liesl will be here for longer.’
‘If you need any help, the new mayor here is not so bad. He can be trusted.’
‘I need to sort out our papers and rations,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better come back to the Mairie later, once I’ve seen Liesl and Marieta settled in the house.’
‘My brother assists at the town hall,’ Ernest said in a low voice. ‘How about I tell him you will be in to see him later in the week, with your cartes d’identités and your ration books.’
‘Could you arrange that?’ she said hopefully. ‘I’d be so grateful.’ Going all the way up the hill, then coming all the way back to stand in another queue was the last thing she felt like.
‘A few days here or there, I can’t see that will be a problem. And if there’s anything extra you need,’ he said, dropping his voice even lower, ‘you just let me know.’
‘I will,’ she said with a broad smile. ‘If we’re stuck, we’ll come to you. Thank you.’ Sandrine looked out to the concourse. ‘Is there likely to be a bus this afternoon?’
Before the war, there had been two buses a day that ran along the valley of the Salz, one from Couiza to Arques, the other from Couiza to Rennes-les-Bains. Since Coustaussa was early on the route, they could catch either one.
‘Not every day, but you’re in luck. And Madame Rousset has arranged for Yves to meet you at the stop below Coustaussa and take you up to the village.’